artistic air, though precisely how this expressed itself—colourful scarves, a distrait manner, the humming of opera arias, or all three—I couldn’t at this distance testify.
I was so ill at ease that I spent the entire weekend constipated: this is my principal factual memory. The rest consists of impressions and half-memories which may therefore be self-serving: for instance, how Veronica, despite having invited me down, seemed at first to withdraw into her family and join in their examination of me—though whether this was the cause, or the consequence, of my insecurity, I can’t from here determine. Over supper that Friday there was some questioning of my social and intellectual credentials; I felt as if I were before a court of inquiry. Afterwards we watched the TV news and awkwardly discussed world affairs until bedtime. Had we been in a novel, there might have been some sneaking between floors for a hot cuddle after the paterfamilias had locked up for the night. But we weren’t; Veronica didn’t even kiss me goodnight that first evening, or make some excuse about towels, and seeing I had everything I needed. Perhaps she feared her brother’s mockery. So I undressed, washed, peed aggressively in the basin, got into my pyjamas and lay awake for a long time.
When I came down for breakfast, only Mrs Ford was around. The others had gone for a walk, Veronica having assured everyone that I would want to sleep in. I can’t have disguised my reaction to this very well, as I could sense Mrs Ford examining me while she made bacon and eggs, frying things in a slapdash way and breaking one of the yolks. I wasn’t experienced at talking to girlfriends’ mothers.
‘Have you lived here long?’ I eventually asked, though I already knew the answer.
She paused, poured herself a cup of tea, broke another egg into the pan, leant back against a dresser stacked with plates, and said,
‘Don’t let Veronica get away with too much.’
I didn’t know how to reply. Should I be offended at this interference in our relationship, or fall into confessional mode and ‘discuss’ Veronica? So I said, a little primly,
‘What do you mean, Mrs Ford?’
She looked at me, smiled in an unpatronising way, shook her head slightly, and said, ‘We’ve lived here ten years.’
So in the end I was almost as much at sea with her as with the rest of them, though at least she appeared to like me. She eased another egg on to my plate, despite my not asking for it or wanting it. The remnants of the broken one were still in the pan; she flipped them casually into the swing-bin, then half-threw the hot frying pan into the wet sink. Water fizzed and steam rose at the impact, and she laughed, as if she had enjoyed causing this small havoc.
When Veronica and the menfolk returned, I was expecting further examination, perhaps even some trick or game; instead there were polite enquiries after my sleep and comfort. This ought to have made me feel accepted, but it seemed more as if they had grown tired of me, and the weekend was now just something to be got through. Perhaps this was mere paranoia. But on the plus side, Veronica became more openly affectionate; over tea she was happy to put her hand on my arm and fiddle with my hair. At one point, she turned to her brother and said,
‘He’ll do, won’t he?’
Jack winked at me; I didn’t wink back. Instead, part of me felt like stealing some towels, or walking mud into the carpet.
Still, things were mostly almost normal. That evening, Veronica walked me upstairs and kissed me goodnight properly. For Sunday lunch there was a joint of roast lamb with enormous sprigs of rosemary sticking out of it like bits of Christmas tree. Since my parents had taught me manners, I said how delicious it was. Then I caught Jack winking at his father, as if to say: What a creep. But Mr Ford chortled, ‘Hear, hear, motion seconded,’ while Mrs Ford thanked me.
When I came downstairs to say goodbye, Mr Ford seized my suitcase and said to his wife, ‘I trust you’ve counted the spoons, darling?’ She didn’t bother to answer, just smiled at me, almost as if we had a secret. Brother Jack didn’t show up to say farewell; Veronica and her father got into the front of the car; I sat in the back again. Mrs Ford was leaning against the porch, sunlight falling on a wisteria climbing the house above her head. As Mr Ford put the car into gear and spun the wheels on the gravel, I waved goodbye, and she responded, though not the way people normally do, with a raised palm, but with a sort of horizontal gesture at waist level. I rather wished I’d talked to her more.
To stop Mr Ford pointing out the wonders of Chislehurst a second time, I said to Veronica, ‘I like your mum.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got a rival, Vron,’ said Mr Ford, with a theatrical intake of breath. ‘Come to think of it, sounds like I have too. Pistols at dawn, young feller-me-lad?’
My train was late, slowed by the usual Sunday engineering work. I got home in the early evening. I remember that I had a bloody good long shit.
A week or so later, Veronica came up to town so I could introduce her to my gang from school. It proved an aimless day of which no one wanted to take charge. We went round the Tate, then walked up to Buckingham Palace and into Hyde Park, heading for Speakers’ Corner. But there weren’t any speakers in action, so we wandered along Oxford Street looking at the shops, and ended up in Trafalgar Square among the lions. Anyone would have thought we were tourists.
At first I was watching to see how my friends reacted to Veronica, but soon became more interested in what she thought of them. She laughed at Colin’s jokes more easily than at mine, which annoyed me, and asked Alex how his father made his money (marine insurance, he told her, to my surprise). She seemed happy to keep Adrian for last. I’d told her he was at Cambridge, and she tried out various names on him. At a couple of them he nodded and said,
‘Yes, I know the sort of people they are.’
This sounded pretty rude to me, but Veronica didn’t take offence. Instead, she mentioned colleges and dons and tea shops in a way that made me feel left out.
‘How come you know so much about the place?’ I asked.
‘That’s where Jack is.’
‘Jack?’
‘My brother—you remember?’
‘Let me see… Was he the one who was younger than your father?’
I thought that wasn’t bad, but she didn’t even smile.
‘What’s Jack reading?’ I asked, trying to make up ground.
‘Moral sciences,’ she replied. ‘Like Adrian.’
I know what Adrian’s bloody reading, thank you very much, I wanted to say. Instead I sulked for a while, and talked to Colin about films.
Towards the end of the afternoon we took photos; she asked for ‘one with your friends’. The three of them shuffled politely into line, whereupon she rearranged them: Adrian and Colin, the two tallest, on either side of her, with Alex beyond Colin. The resulting print made her look even slighter than she did in the flesh. Many years later, when I came to examine this photo again, looking for answers, I wondered about the fact that she never wore heels of any height. I’d read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you’re saying, you don’t raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention. Perhaps hers was a similar kind of trick with height. Though whether she went in for tricks is a question I still haven’t resolved. When I was going out with her, it always seemed that her actions were instinctive. But then I was resistant to the whole idea that women were or could be manipulative. This may tell you more about me than it does about her. And even if I were to decide, at this late stage, that she was and always had been calculating, I’m not sure it would help matters. By which I mean: help me.
We walked her to Charing Cross and waved her off to Chislehurst in a mock-heroic way, as if she were travelling to Samarkand. Then we sat in the bar of the station hotel, drinking beer and feeling very grown up.
‘Nice girl,’ said Colin.
‘Very nice,’ added Alex.
‘That’s philosophically self-evident!’ I almost shouted. Well, I was a little overexcited. I turned to Adrian. ‘Any advance on “very nice”?’
‘You don’t actually need me to congratulate you, do you, Anthony?’
‘Yes, why the fuck shouldn’t I?’
