A Pure Clear Light. Madeleine John St.
she said. ‘And then, if William still hasn’t come back, you can go to the village.’
The beautiful youths got properly off their bicycles and leaned them against the low wall which half surrounded the swimming pool.
‘Yes, very well,’ said one, ‘we’ll do that – shall we?’ The other nodded and then stepped forward.
‘I’m James Hopetoun,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘And this chap is my brother John.’
Janey had now risen, and stood looking, still astonished, at their two faces. ‘I’m Janey,’ she said meekly. ‘Janey Beaufort.’
‘Janey,’ they said, together. ‘How do you do?’ She shrugged very slightly and then at last managed to smile.
At this moment the disregarded Nell – who had been sitting some distance away and watching the whole scene with gleeful interest – looked up at Flora’s window; catching sight of her mother she sank her head as far down as it could go between her shoulders and grinned deliriously, putting a hand over her mouth for further emphasis. God forbid that she should give Flora’s presence away! Flora put her finger silently to her lips and Nell, comprehending the injunction, ceased her grimacing and turned her gaze back to the group. The twins had by now engaged Janey in suitable chit-chat: was she too staying here – had she been here long – did she like it? ‘Oh, yes,’ said Janey. ‘It’s pukkah.’ The twins both laughed; one now glanced enquiringly across at the wide-eyed Nell, and Janey, following his glance, came a little to her senses. ‘That’s my sister Nell,’ she said. ‘Nell: these are some friends of William’s.’
‘I know,’ said Nell. ‘I’ve been listening.’ The twins laughed again; Nell jumped into the pool and started to swim nonchalantly around, so showing them of how little account they were, and Janey – self-possession evidently growing, if slowly – invited them to sit down, which they did.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked; and they having assented, she made her escape.
Flora met her in the kitchen. ‘I see we have visitors,’ she said. ‘Who are they?’
‘Oh, just some friends of William’s,’ said Janey.
‘Ah,’ said Flora. ‘Schoolfriends, I suppose.’ Janey shot her a look.
‘Oh, hardly,’ she said. But of course, as transpired later, they were. It was while Janey – with some assistance from Flora – was getting their drinks that the Hunters all returned from the village; the twins were invited to stay for lunch, informed the whole party that they had cycled the five kilometres or so from their own gîte (where their parents expected their return before nightfall) on the chance that William might care to come on an excursion with them that afternoon – had he a cycle here? – and, further, informed everyone that their village would be en fête on the following Sunday, and that it might be worth the while of William, and anyone else who cared to, to show up there and see the fun. ‘Yes, I’ll come,’ said William enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely.’
Janey sat, dumbly looking down at her plate; Flora’s heart almost bled for her, while William and his friends began to negotiate the time and place of their meeting, with much topographical data from the twins’ side and much calculation about the length and time of the journey by bicycle from William’s. Flora, glancing at Janey’s hanging head, could have wept, but suddenly John – or was it James? – looked across at the silent girl. ‘What about Janey,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t you like to come?’
Janey’s head lifted, as if on a spring, and she stared at him. ‘I can’t,’ she said tragically. ‘There’s only one bike.’
As Flora sat wondering whether or not it could be opportune to offer to provide transport, Nell entered the fray. She had been listening with some avidity to the twins’ and William’s plans but the inclusion of Janey was signal enough for her. ‘Can we go too, Mum?’ she said. Her plea was echoed with fevered urgency, first by Denzil and then by Thomas: all three, ignorant as they might be of the nature of the entertainment on offer, were now determined to partake of it. The consequence was that the entire household undertook to be present at the fête: but it was clear to Flora that once there Janey would do all that lay in her power to detach herself from the other members and make a fourth with the heretofore despised William and his schoolfellows.
Her behaviour with William now at last became what it ought in Flora’s view always to have been: she was modest, pleasant, obliging and friendly; she had been chastened; such is the power of Eros. Beneath all this modest, pleasant, obliging friendliness, Flora detected as Sunday approached a growing anxiety bordering on panic which issued in the frantic cry that she had nothing to wear: but Flora succeeded after some argument in demonstrating that this was not the case; and after a great deal of trying on and casting off, both of her own wardrobe and of Flora’s, Janey managed at last to put together an ensemble that she felt would pass muster. ‘After all, darling,’ said Flora, lying on the bed watching her, ‘who is going to see you? Only a couple of dorks. Although, I must admit, they’ve got awfully long eyelashes – I don’t know whether you noticed, did you? – for dorks.’
Simon was too busy to go in for extra-marital love affairs, even if he’d believed them to be permissible. He hadn’t in fact considered seriously the question of whether they were, or were not, permissible; there had been no reason to do so, for it had never arisen.
Of course, if Simon had had an ideological bias towards, or a natural proclivity for, extra-marital love affairs, it might have been another matter: he might have found the time, somehow – in the way that a lot of men even busier than he did. (Women, too, come to that.) Simon, if you’d asked him, would probably have said, after all, I have to direct such a lot of it I don’t have any libido left for the real thing, ha ha.
All the same, a lot of men (and women, too, come to that) would have found – did indeed find – that directing sex scenes only increased their libido. But it didn’t take Simon that way. Simon just got on with his work, efficiently, on time and within budget, and then went home to Flora and the kids.
And Flora might be looking a bit seedy, as was to be expected after three children and so on, but he loved her, whatever that might mean – not that Simon could have told you, precisely, what it did in fact mean. Who can? He hadn’t given the question any conscious or prolonged thought; he had not needed to; it had not arisen.
David Packard was a television writer – author, indeed, of more than one of those sex scenes which Simon in his time had directed and it was his partner Sarah Frame, an actress (although not now conceivably in sex scenes) who coming across Simon in the canteen one lunch-time had taken pity on his bachelor state and invited him to dinner at the Packard-Frame establishment in Camden Town. ‘Dave’d love to see you I know,’ she said. ‘He’s working on a new six-part series.’ ‘Oh yes?’ said Simon. ‘Sounds great.’ ‘You haven’t even heard about it yet,’ said Sarah. ‘No, nor have I,’ Simon agreed. ‘But it sounds just great.’ ‘Well, let’s see, how about Friday?’ said Sarah. ‘Great,’ said Simon. He didn’t want to go at all, but how could one refuse these well-meant invitations? So on the Friday night which marked almost exactly the halfway point in his family’s absence from home Simon found himself looking for a parking space in the vicinity of Camden Square. He was driving the little Fiat because Flora had taken, naturally, the big car.
It was Sarah who opened the door to him. ‘Come through,’ she said. ‘We’re in the kitchen.’ So he followed her down the narrow passageway to the back of the house, where there was a big overdressed kitchen, and there, sitting at the wooden table in its centre, was a woman he didn’t know, hadn’t foreseen, couldn’t have expected, here or indeed anywhere else, a woman whom Sarah – as if this were still the mundane world where such things naturally follow – introduced to him as Gillian Selkirk. ‘Gillian,’