Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
a moment in which they watched the two couples slowly gyrating he leaned closer to her, with an effective intimacy that closed off the rest of the room. Nina smelled cigars and cologne, and whisky on his breath.
‘Tell me,’ he invited, ‘what do you think of our provincial little world?’
‘What do I think of Grafton? I grew up here, remember.’
‘Yes, I remember that. I meant, do you ever regret ex- changing everything in London for this?’
He nodded at the dancers.
Nina realized that he was trying to set the two of them apart, at a sophisticated, metropolitan distance from the others, even Hannah. He wanted her to conspire with him in noticing the ways that Janice’s furniture and food and even their shared friends fell short of their London counterparts.
Nina felt dislike of Darcy instantly flare up inside her, in defence of Gordon and the evening’s warmth. She tried to resist the impulse, but her eyes slid across the room to where Gordon was sitting with Star. Star’s head was bent and she was shading her eyes with her fingers. She looked as if she was trying not to cry.
‘I don’t regret the exchange at all,’ Nina answered sharply, trying to focus her attention on Darcy. ‘I’m very happy to be here. Besides, the advantages of living in Grafton far outweigh the disadvantages. There is the way I have been made to feel welcome, for instance. I probably wouldn’t have encountered anything like it if I had made the move in the opposite direction.’
Some of her dislike was for herself. She had noticed the details of the Frosts’ hospitality that would have told her immediately, even if she had known nothing else, that these were not London people. She had probably noted them with an eye just as sharp as Darcy Clegg’s. But that did not mean that she wanted to collude with him.
Darcy’s intentions seemed to change at once, with alcoholic unpredictability.
‘I miss it,’ he said. ‘More than I am usually prepared to admit. More than most people would guess, given everything I have here.’
‘I wouldn’t have guessed,’ Nina said. Her dislike of him melted away again. She had drunk her share of the wine too, she remembered.
Darcy added, ‘But we provincials have to find our challenges and diversions where we can.’
She had no idea what he meant. He lifted his hands with his fingers bunched, as if he were holding strings. She had the impression suddenly that he was the puppet master of the group, and the others, tired and more or less drunk as they were at the end of the evening, were the puppets who danced for him. Her skin prickled down the length of her spine. At the same moment she became aware that Jimmy Rose was watching the two of them over Janice’s lolling head.
Across in their corner, Star said softly to Gordon, ‘It isn’t just tonight. It’s every night. I think to myself that I don’t mind, that I don’t care what he does, but I do. I care for myself, for being humiliated in front of my friends. I’m sorry, Gordon. I’ve drunk too much. Not for the first time, eh?’
Gordon was vividly aware that Nina had looked at them, then looked away again. What was Darcy whispering to her about?
Star reached out her hand, and reluctantly he took it.
‘If he makes you unhappy, why don’t you leave him?’ he asked her.
Star raised her head. ‘Will you have me, if I do?’
It was a joke, and not a joke.
‘Star, how could I?’
‘You couldn’t, of course. But you know it’s you I’d have, if I could.’ She smiled at him then, a lopsided smile of self-mockery.
The record ended and Hannah stepped back from Andrew, making an elaborate curtsey of thanks. He put his arm around her waist and steered her back towards Darcy.
Nina saw that Star was on her feet, apparently quite composed. It was clear that the evening was over.
The three women went away with Janice to find their coats, and Gordon and Andrew murmured together about some business that they needed to attend to in the morning. Jimmy and Darcy found themselves standing together by the front door.
‘Well then,’ Jimmy said softly. ‘It’s La Belle Veuve, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’ It pleased Darcy to appear not to catch his meaning.
‘She likes you.’
‘Does she?’ He accepted Jimmy’s tribute without betraying any interest in it, although he felt a flicker of satisfaction that was strengthened by his certainty that he felt no reciprocal liking for Nina Cort. Such aloof, contained women had never attracted him.
Jimmy laughed, and having sown the idea was subtle enough to leave it to germinate alone.
‘What was the matter with Mike Wickham today, do you think?’
Darcy shrugged. ‘How would I know? Time of the month, probably.’
Jimmy laughed again. ‘Just the same, I’d prefer not to be landed with him next week.’
Darcy dropped his heavy arm around Jimmy’s shoulder and patted it reassuringly. ‘Back to the usual set-up on Sunday, then. That way we can be sure of winning.’
The women came in a group down the stairs. Jimmy allowed himself a moment’s luxurious contemplation of their separate possibilities, abundant Hannah and tawny, mys-terious Nina, juicy unobtainable Janice and Star, his own.
He called cheerfully to Nina, ‘We’ll give you a ride home, since we’re the nearest to you.’
‘Thank you. Star kindly offered already,’ Nina said.
They reached the door in a flurry of thanks and good nights. Nina was caught up with the Roses and swept out, away from Gordon, and she was only aware that he watched her going and wanted to hold her back. The evening was finally over.
When everyone had gone Janice leant against the ban- isters.
‘Have I drunk a lot?’
Her eyes were smudged, as if they were melting into the frail surrounding skin, and the rosy pencil line with which she had outlined her lips at the beginning of the evening had turned brown as it faded. When she had been drinking and came to the end of an evening’s high Janice’s confidence sometimes collapsed, leaving her confused and vulnerable, and vividly reminding Andrew of the much more tentative girl he had married.
‘You have,’ he told her. She followed him when he went back into the kitchen.
‘Not badly too much?’
‘No. You were enjoying yourself. It was a good evening.’
Andrew opened the window and a draught of cold air tasting of earth and rain penetrated the smoke and perfume that hung in the room. He peered inside the dishwasher and began to rearrange the dirty plates in the proper sequence. Behind him Janice asked, ‘We do give good evenings, don’t we?’
Andrew straightened up. The dish that had held the beef contained a layer of congealed fat, and the butcher’s string made a greasy curl on the countertop. He wanted to tidy the kitchen and then to spend a few minutes in the dark and silence of the garden before bed. But Janice stumbled towards him, needing reassurance, and he gave it.
‘We do. Thanks to you. You do the arranging and the shopping and the cooking. All I do is open the wine.’ He referred to what was an old joke between them, a joke that had worn thin and shiny with time.
‘No, you do such a lot more than that.’ She reached out and caught his hand. ‘You are a very good husband.’ She groped for the words, mistily now. ‘You are, very good to me. We all love you. I love you.’
Andrew hugged her, feeling her weight in his arms. Her hair smelt of the cooking she had done, the afternoon spent chopping and sautéeing. Without knowing that he did