‘Look at you,’ Scott said, ‘look at you. You’ve had something done to your hair, and that’s new.’
‘What’s new?’
‘That dress.’
‘Oh,’ Margaret said airily, ‘this.’ She looked out at the river. ‘Everything I’d got suddenly looked so tired.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why do you say yes as if you know something I don’t know?’
‘Mam,’ Scott said, ‘I don’t know anything you don’t know. The difference between us is just that I admit it.’
‘Admit what? ’
‘That I feel better. That you feel better. That we al feel better.’
‘Al ?’
‘Yes,’ Scott said firmly, ‘Mr Harrison too.’
Margaret took a sip of her drink.
‘What has Bernie Harrison got to do with it?’
‘You tel me,’ Scott said.
Margaret smiled privately down into her gin and tonic.
‘Why’d you ask me here?’ Scott said. ‘Why’re you al tarted up?’
‘Don’t use that word to me—’
‘Why, Mam?’
Margaret looked up.
‘Are you in a hurry, pet?’
‘No,’ Scott said. ‘Wel , yes, actual y. I’m meeting some of the lads from work.’
‘And the lasses, too?’ Margaret said.
Scott said, smiling, ‘There’s always the lasses too.’
‘Ah ’
‘Never mind ah. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know why you asked me here.’
Margaret looked round the bar in a leisurely way, as if she was savouring something. Then she said, ‘Bernie’l be here in ten minutes.’
‘And?
‘I just thought,’ Margaret said, ‘that I’d like to tel you before I told him. That’s al .’
It was late when she got home, but the night sky over the sea was dim rather than dark, and the sea was washing peaceful y up against the shore below Percy Gardens. Margaret liked the sea in its summer mood, when even if it lost its temper it was only briefly, unlike the sustained furious rages of winter when she could stand at her sitting-room window and see the spray flung angrily upwards in great dramatic plumes. But in the summer, there was less sense of frustration, less of a feeling that the sea was outraged to find its wild energies curtailed by a shoreline, by the upsettingly domestic barriers of a coast road and a crescent of houses inhabited by people who thought they had the capacity to control and contain whatever was inconvenient about nature.
Margaret paid off the taxi, and walked, in her new summer shoes, to the edge of the grassy oval of grass in front of Percy Gardens, so that she could see the sea, heaving and gleaming and spil ing itself, over and over, on to the stones below her. Bernie Harrison had wanted to take her somewhere impressive to celebrate, but she’d said no, they could eat there, in the brasserie of the hotel, and when he said wasn’t that meant for much younger people than they were she said speak for yourself, Bernie Harrison, but I feel years younger than I did only a week ago.
Their steaks had come on rectangular wooden platters, like superior bread boards, and Bernie had found a very respectable burgundy on the wine list to drink with them, and Margaret had to hand it to him, he hadn’t crowed over her once, he hadn’t said, ‘What kept you?’ or, ‘About time too,’ he’d just said, over and over, that he was so pleased, so pleased, and, if he was honest, relieved too.
‘Have you told Glenda?’
‘Of course not. Would I tel Glenda before I told you?’
‘I think,’ Bernie said, reflecting on how nice it was to have chips with his steak, how nice it was to be with a woman who didn’t think chips were common, ‘she’l like the plan, don’t you?’
‘She’s been on at me ever since you first suggested it.’
‘Margaret,’ Bernie said, putting down his knife and fork, ‘Margaret. How do
She glanced up at him.
‘If you can’t see that for yourself, Bernie Harrison,’ she said, ‘you need your eyes seeing to.’
He put her into a taxi in a way she found entirely acceptable, no chal enges, no fake gal antry, no showing off. He’d just kissed her cheek, thanked her and said, ‘We’l both sleep happier tonight,’ and then slapped the roof of the taxi as if to wish her Godspeed on the journey home and somehow more than that, on a journey into something that was, of course, more of the same, but with a twist, with a new injection of vitality, a new optimism.
