A Pure Clear Light. Madeleine John St.
felt like, this bolt from the blue. One does. He stood there, feeling weak at the knees and stupid, wanting both to remain and to flee; impaled. ‘Well now!’ said Sarah, ‘what will you drink? Some of this?’ There was a bottle of wine opened on the table; Sarah got him a glass. ‘Why don’t you sit down here for the moment,’ she said. ‘Dave will be back in a tick.’ Simon sat down awkwardly – his knees still weak – on a chair diagonally opposite Gillian Selkirk, and sipped at the wine. It wasn’t awfully nice. Gillian Selkirk caught his eye and smiled very faintly and Simon smiled back and looked down into his glass and sipped again. Sarah was busy at the stove. ‘So, Simon,’ she said, ‘how’s it going?’ They talked shop very briefly and then Sarah brought Gillian Selkirk into the picture.
‘Gillian here’s an accountant,’ she said. ‘She’s been looking into one of these dodgy Lloyd’s syndicates.’
‘Ah,’ said Simon. He was speechless.
‘Naturally, she refuses to tell us anything about it,’ Sarah went on. ‘I dare say it’s over our heads anyway.’
Simon found his voice. ‘Sure to be,’ he said.
‘Oh, I hardly think so,’ said Gillian. She had one of those dark mezzo-soprano voices, the colour of mahogany. ‘There’s no mystery about accounting, it’s perfectly straight-forward.’ She was wearing a little black linen dress with a white collar and a pair of wildly expensive-looking shoes, and she had rather straight flaxen hair, which might have been artificially coloured, because her eyebrows and eyelashes were darker, and her eyes were hazel-brown.
‘Anyway, she’s been giving Dave a few pointers,’ Sarah went on, ‘for this series he’s writing: it’s about the whole Lloyd’s thing. But fictionalised, obviously.’
‘I see,’ said Simon. He looked across at Gillian Selkirk. ‘That’s awfully good of you,’ he said.
‘Oh, well,’ she replied, ‘we City types will grab any chance to mingle with the artistic set. It does such wonders for one’s credibility in the Square Mile.’ Simon wondered how that blighter David Packard had managed to snaffle this particular accountant. His heart was still pounding uncomfortably; looking into his glass he saw that despite the poor quality of the contents it was now empty.
Sarah read his thoughts. ‘Our accountant – Georgie Bligh – he’s yours too, isn’t he, Simon? Dear Georgie looks after us all – put Dave in touch with Gillian.’
‘I owed Georgie a small favour, anyway,’ offered Gillian. ‘He sorted my mother out.’
‘Useful man,’ said Simon.
‘It would take more than an accountant, more even than Georgie, to sort my mother out,’ said Sarah. She picked up the wine bottle, which was now empty. ‘Oh, silly me,’ she said. ‘We’ve been drinking the cooking wine. Well, let’s move on to something better, shall we?’ She took a bottle of something different from the refrigerator and began to open it. ‘I wish Dave would show up,’ she said.
‘Here, let me do that,’ offered Simon; and he drew the cork. Then David came in, and it was time to eat, so the dinner which was to compensate so fully for Simon’s misfortune in having been detained in London while his family were on holiday in France began. Would that it never had.
As far as David Packard was concerned this was a working dinner: this was his best and even last chance to learn everything he needed to know, all the answers to the questions which had arisen after his and Gillian’s first meeting, lunching with Georgie Bligh at a City restaurant where the odour of money made one slightly lightheaded, and the exquisite excellence of the food was a complete irrelevance.
She explained everything rather neatly: David’s questions became more intelligent as time went on, and Simon became interested in the subject in spite of himself. ‘Think you’d like to have a crack at directing this thing, old cock?’ said David.
‘I’ll see when you’ve actually finished writing it,’ said Simon.
‘Work of a moment,’ said David.
Simon thought, in a moment of something near panic, or shame, of his own still inchoate project. He should be in Hammersmith, working on it – or at any rate, towards it – not sitting here in Camden Town opposite a woman called Gillian Selkirk from whom he couldn’t without difficulty take his eyes. It was almost, now, towards the end of the meal, as if she too had become aware of this fact and was holding the other end of a line which he had thrown to her. At moments it might seem slack, at others taut, but never did she seem altogether to let go. Simon began to be afraid.
‘The question is,’ said David, ‘is it a scam, or is it a cock-up? That’s the question.’
‘Yes,’ said Gillian. ‘That is indeed the question.’
‘Or is it,’ said David – after all, he was a writer, he got paid to think these thoughts – ‘is it a hellish hybrid of the two? I say, that’s not bad, is it? Hellish hybrid. What do you think?’
‘Well, there’s the alliteration, there are always marks for that,’ said Sarah. ‘But I’m not really happy about the coupling of the Anglo-Saxon word with the Greek. Not really. That seems to work only when it’s done for comic effect.’ ‘Wonderful woman,’ said David to the others, ‘isn’t she? Read English, you see. Knows all these things.’
Simon looked at Gillian, he dared to look at Gillian. ‘Is he right? Is it – for want of a better phrase! – a hellish hybrid?’ She smiled at him, returning his look. ‘It’s too soon to say,’ she said. ‘And so it may be for a long, long time.’
‘Just like life, really,’ said Sarah cheerfully. ‘Shall we have some coffee?’
‘Could I just ring for a cab?’ said Gillian.
‘Oh, look,’ said Simon, ‘I can give you a lift. Where do you live?’
‘Oh, that would be awfully good of you,’ she replied. ‘Bayswater, actually. But look, not if it’s out of your way, really.’
‘No,’ said Simon, ‘not a bit. Not at all. Truly.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Sarah. ‘Simon lives in Hammersmith.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Gillian. ‘Well, in that case –’
So here they were, getting into the tiny car. ‘My other car’s a Volvo,’ said Simon. ‘Estate.’
‘Naturally,’ said Gillian Selkirk lightly.
They drove in silence all the way to Bayswater, through the streaming Friday night traffic: Simon did not dare to speak, and she seemed not to wish, or to need to. She was painfully close: he could have reached out and put a hand on her knee so easily that it was extremely difficult not to. As they approached Queensway she gave him some directions and after following them he found himself outside a block of mansion flats. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Home sweet home.’ There was something ironical in her tone. Did anyone else live there? Was she expected – with anxiety, with longing? ‘My cat will be starving,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ he replied. ‘Poor puss.’
She unfastened her seat belt. ‘Well, thanks so much,’ she said.
‘My pleasure,’ said Simon. Dear God, was this absolutely all? Suddenly she leaned over and – just perceptibly – kissed his cheek.
‘Why don’t you give me a ring sometime?’ she said.
Simon was stunned. Had this really happened?