Storm Clouds

36

Storm Clouds

    In Marianne’s office Hilary demanded aggrievedly: “What’s wrong with this place?” There’s Hamish been doin’ his Attila the Hun act for the last two weeks—and as for Peter! I thought you said he was the nicest man you knew?”

    Marianne was very pink. She stared hard at her typewriter. Hilary’s voice was so loud... Only of course it was very Scotch, too, so perhaps— Oh, no, how silly of her, of course Hamish wouldn’t have any difficulty in understanding! She was sure he could hear every word, he was right there in his office and the prefab’s walls were so thin. She didn’t like telling the academic staff to shush, it wasn’t the thing, only...

    “He is,” she in a muffled voice. “He’s very nice.”

    “Aye, aboot as nice as ruddy Ivan the Terrible, the bluidy wee Russian fascist!” retorted Hilary loudly.

    Marianne didn’t understand the bit about Ivan the Terrible, but she understood the rest of it, and gasped.

    “All I said was mebbe we ought to think about introducing something aboot the Thurrud Worruld at First-Year level and he bit ma heid off!”

    Marianne had been privileged to hear Hilary on the topic of the Third World by now. So, indeed, had the entire staff. It was, in fact, Hilary’s hobby-horse. “Yes, well...” she muttered. “I think he’s upset about something.”

    “You can say that again!” said Hilary loudly.

    Marianne moved some papers on her desk. “He’s usually very—very understanding.”

    “Oh, aye?” said Hilary in a hard voice. “Tell that to Fred Nakamura, why don’t you!” She gave a nasty laugh.

    Marianne was puce. She opened her mouth to tell Hilary to hush, Hamish must be able to hear every word she was saying, only at that moment Hamish flung his door open. Marianne shrank; so, she was meanly pleased to see, did Hilary.

    “I’m going out,” he said to Marianne in a hard voice. He marched out, ignoring Hilary.

    “Phew!” said Hilary, shaking her hand as if it had been burnt and staring after him.

    Marianne said quite loudly: “He must have heard everything you said just then, these walls are as thin as paper, you know!”

    To her astonishment young Dr McLeod turned puce and vanished precipitately. Marianne didn’t know if that made it worse or better. She began typing very fast, closing her mind to the fact that they were having their worst week ever at the Institute—and it was only Wednesday!

    It shouldn’t have been the worst week ever, it should have been one of the best, because, after holding out for about five days after his run-in with Elspeth on the day she’d been to see John Mackay’s new house, Hamish had decided to ask Mirry to come home. It was all nonsense, he’d thought irritably: Sylvie and John were due to move into the house any day, and Sylvie showed no signs either of wishing for a confrontation with him and Mirry, or of making another attempt to queer his pitch with the university authorities. Nor did she show any signs of desiring a custody battle for Elspeth; in fact Margaret Prior reported that she didn’t seem really interested in Elspeth at all. Margaret also reported that Sylvie was up for Treasurer of the Puriri Golf Club at the AGM at the end of March; since this was far from a popular post her candidacy would be unopposed. Sylvie had also talked Margaret’s Baptist Women’s group into buying a computer and a word-processing program to run on it, and had signed herself and one of the Baptist Women up for a course in April to learn all about it. As far as Margaret could see—though she didn’t report this—Sylvie herself remained firmly atheist, but as Margaret knew that God works in mysterious ways, and as her own Christianity was of the modern variety, she raised no objection to Sylvie’s participation in the group—though one or two of the more fundamentalist Baptist Women did. Sylvie, in fact, as John Mackay and Margaret privily agreed, was coming right at last.

    So everything in the garden should have been rosy. Only it wasn’t.

    Hamish had rung Mirry at Basil and Gary’s place. Basil, who had just got home from the City Markets and was cross because they hadn’t had any artichokes and their aubergines had been extortionate, took the call. “But she isn’t here any more!” he exclaimed.

    “Where the Hell is she, then?” demanded Hamish angrily.

    “I thought you knew,” replied Basil uneasily. “She’s at—uh...” Hamish heard him say: “Lover, where did Mirry say she’d be?” Gary’s voice said, quite clearly: “Is that Ginger?” Hamish flushed. He’d had no idea that that was how Mirry’s gay friends referred to him. Since he himself considerately refrained from calling them “fairies” or “queers”—two appellations which Jake Carrano, in spite of his wife’s frequent admonitions on the subject, didn’t hesitate to apply to them—he felt considerably aggrieved. “I’ll speak to him,” Gary was saying calmly.

    “You will not!” said Basil loudly. Hamish winced, and held the receiver further away from his ear.

    “Well?” he said in a hard voice after Basil had breathily said: “Hamish? Are you there?” a couple of times.

    “She said the travelling was too much for her, now she has to go into town to the varsity,” said Basil cautiously, without his usual over-emphasis.

    “Where IS she?” yelled Hamish, now bright red and in a sweat of combined terror and annoyance.

    “Uh—well, to tell you the truth, dear, she’s staying at Phil’s. –But there’s nothing in it!” he added hastily, as Hamish bellowed “WHAT?”

    “Give me that!” said Gary’s voice crossly. “Hullo, Hamish,” he said. “Look, don’t let that idiot, Baz, give you the wrong impression. Mirry’s just staying in town with a crowd of student friends to be nearer the varsity.”

    “What’s the number?” said Hamish tightly. Gary gave it to him. “Thanks,” he said, and rang off.

    He rang the number at intervals for the rest of the week, getting no reply either during the day—not surprising, they could all have been in at the university—or, ominously, during the evening. His temper, as his subordinates didn’t fail to note, deteriorated visibly during this period. When the number also failed to respond in the weekend, he rang Basil and Gary again, and fortunately got Gary.

    “Uh—yeah,” Gary said. “I think they might’ve all gone off to dig up a pa; Phil’s an archaeology student, you s—”

    “I know that!” cried Hamish angrily. This was the very same Phil with whom Mirry had once spent a precious portion of the August holidays instead of spending it with him. Even the mention of his name could rouse Hamish to a white-lipped fury, so Mirry during the past year had considerately refrained from mentioning it in his presence. Unfortunately this hadn’t stopped Elspeth from reporting happily what had seemed to the jealous Hamish innumerable encounters with and/or references to the damned fellow.

    “Mirry said something about going up North,” Gary said uneasily.

    “Oh, did she just?” retorted Hamish in a steely voice.

    Gary had previously made up his mind that if Hamish rang again he would speak to him on the subject of Mirry. Now he lost his nerve. He gulped. “Uh—yeah,” he said. “Um, I could give you Phil’s address, anyway.”

    “Do that,” said Hamish coldly.

    Gary did. When he’d rung off he said limply to Basil: “Oh, heck. I made a right mess of that.”

    Basil sniffed. “I said you should have let me speak to him.”

    “I got cold feet.”

    “I did notice that, dear!”

    “He can be quite formidable,” said Gary miserably.

    “I noticed that, too!” retorted Basil acidly.

    Not looking at him, Gary brushed his thick fair hair back from his forehead with a hand that shook a little. Remorsefully Basil said quickly: “Never mind, lover; not our business, really. What about a wee drinkie?”

    “Ta,” replied Gary listlessly, even though with dinner to prepare he shouldn’t have been drinking at all at that hour. He allowed Basil to give him a large brandy.

    “I tell you what!” cried Basil, after downing the better part of his own large brandy. “I’ll give Polly a ring! She’ll know how to sort him out!”

    Gary’s eye brightened. “Good idea!”

    Basil rang Polly. They had a lovely confab, fully swapping notes, and although nothing actually got solved, all three of them felt a lot better after it.

    Grimly ignoring the atmosphere at his place of work the following week, which was the sort you could cut with a knife, Hamish had attempted to bury himself in his work, some of which was extremely urgent. It hadn’t worked: he’d been unable to prevent himself from ringing that damned number three times on the Monday, and four on the Tuesday. When it still hadn’t answered on the Wednesday, he abruptly decided to go down there, and at least bloody well see for himself.

    The house that Mirry’s friends were renting was quite near old Violet Macdonald’s: the direct route would have taken Hamish down Aunty Vi’s street, in fact, but he didn’t take the direct route. Though neat enough from the outside, the place was quite obviously in nothing like as good condition as the old lady’s house, but it was a pleasant enough wooden villa. In spite of his emotional turmoil Hamish found himself wondering why the owners didn’t sell it: he knew, for old Miss Violet Macdonald had told him so in far too much detail on a Hellish Sunday visit, that house prices in her desirable Grammar Zone suburb were now quite ridiculous... He gave himself an angry shake, and got out of the car.

    He hammered on the door for quite some time, to no avail. An elderly man came out onto the manicured lawn of the up-market home unit next-door. When Hamish glanced at him he immediately said: “They’re all out.”

    A young woman who’d been gardening next-door on the other side came to her fence, carrying a toddler, and said: “They’ve gone up North somewhere.”

    “With their professor,” added the elderly man.

    “Yes,” said the young woman. She looked doubtfully at Hamish, who was too old to be a fellow-student, and didn’t look old enough to be one of their parents. “Was it anything urgent?”

    “Not exactly,” he said gloomily. “Are you sure they’ve all gone?”

    “Yes,” she said.

    “Yes,” agreed the elderly man. “And that dratted dog of theirs.”

    Hamish said awkwardly to the young woman: “The one I’m looking for hasn’t been here very long—she’s a girl: short, with black hair.

    She smiled, and said to the toddler: “That sounds like Mirry, doesn’t it, Bobby?”

    “That’ll be right,” agreed the elderly man, before Hamish could speak.

    “Yes; Mirry Field,” he said.

    The young woman said: “Mirry baby-sat for us a while back, didn’t she, Bobby? –Yes,” she said to Hamish, “she’s definitely gone with them, because we wanted her to baby-sit this Friday, and she said she couldn’t, because she’d be up North.”

    “Oh; are you sure?” he said weakly.

    The elderly man said: “Yes; I saw them go; she was with them, all right. –And that dog,” he added with satisfaction.

    The young woman said: “Spot’s not that bad; he’s good with little kids.”

    “Barks his head off when they’re out,” said the elderly man grumpily to Hamish.

    “I don’t suppose you know when they’ll be back?” he asked without hope.

    “Next week, I think they said,” said Bobby’s mother.

    “That Phil had better be back by Saturday week, or I’ll do that verge of his myself!” said the elderly man threateningly, looking sourly at the grass verge outside the students’ section. “It really oughta be done this Saturday,” he added to Hamish.

    Possibly this was a continuing grudge—although the strip of lawn between the pavement and the road didn’t look overgrown—for the young woman’s face assumed an uneasy expression and she began to edge away from her fence. “Well—” she said.

    “Aye, well—thank you very much,” said Hamish, impartially addressing the air between them. He returned moodily to his station-waggon.

    The young woman went back to her gardening but the elderly man came down his driveway and crossed over to Phil’s verge. “Volvo,” he ascertained.

    “Aye,” agreed Hamish, opening his door.

    “Heavy to drive, is she?”

    Hamish had never thought about the matter. “Not really,” he said vaguely, getting in. He started the car, stuck his head out the window and, not caring whether the elderly man heard him or not, said: “Thanks again,” and drove rapidly away.

    He got a ticket for speeding on the way back to Puriri, which didn’t improve his temper.

    Back at the Institute things went from bad to worse as the week wore on—or, more accurately, from ghastly to even more ghastly. Peter and Hilary had yet another row over introducing Third World politics into the First-Year curriculum. Hilary tried to involve Charlie and got cut quietly but definitely dead for her pains: Charlie was very much not into either intra-departmental politics or rows. Incautiously Hilary then vented her feelings about Charlie to Julia. Julia, since that memorable lunch at the Blue Heron Restaurant, was Charlie’s greatest fan after Caro and Danny. She stuck up for him—loudly. This happened in the corridor just outside Marianne’s office and was more than noisy enough to reach Hamish’s ears. He rushed out of his office, through Marianne’s, and annihilated both Hilary and Julia with a very cold speech about the conduct expected in a professional environment. Julia went back to the library in a very chastened mood and, with little persuasion, burst into tears all over Caro and told her all about it. Normally Caro would have shared Hamish’s views but of course since Julia had been sticking up for Charlie...

    If an upset like this had happened under normal circumstances of course Peter wouldn’t have been involved—or not in the upset itself; on the contrary, he’d have been right there pouring oil. Only circumstances weren’t normal. For Peter and Veronica, as everyone at the Institute was well aware, had had a flaming row. Since they’d both been perfectly happy the previous Friday it was obvious that this row must have happened over the weekend. And it must have been really frightful: for one thing, they’d arrived at the Institute on the Monday morning at the same time, but in different cars. For another thing, Peter hadn’t smiled at Pam when he went through to his office. And when Veronica had come into the staffroom at morning tea-time and seen her husband there, she’d said “Huh!” and walked out again.

    Everybody expected that it would all blow over in a day or two; only it didn’t. Everybody, except the incautious Hilary, spent the week tiptoeing around the pair of them; and naturally nobody dared to ask them what the row had been about.

    Unfortunately, even apart from Hilary’s sticking her obstinate Scotch neck out, the Riabouchinskys’ rotten mood, not to mention Hamish’s, rubbed off on the rest of the staff. Or Peter’s certainly did; Veronica barely said a word to a soul all week and as nobody below the rank of Reader or Chief Librarian dared to speak to her, she didn’t really affect anybody—or only in the way the presence of a thunderous black cloud on the horizon affects a flock of nervous picnickers, too far from home.

    The first direct result of the Riabouchinskys’ row was that Noelene and the quiet little dark-haired Val, Caro’s Head of Technical Services, had a loud and acrimonious argument over whether it could possibly have been Peter’s fault. Noelene didn’t like Veronica, admittedly, but she wasn’t going to concede that Val had a point when she said that it couldn’t have been Peter’s fault, he was (blushing) too nice. He was a foreigner, wasn’t he? And a Russian! Well, everybody knew about Them, said Noelene darkly. After that Val snapped the temporary typist’s head off for mucking up the Library Accessions List. Then Jo-Beth reproved Val and she burst into tears. The typist retaliated with the temp’s great weapon: she didn’t turn up again. Noelene indignantly told Marianne the whole story and Marianne reproved her for gossiping. Noelene went into a sulk.

    The next uproar involved Fred Nakamura. This one was provoked by Peter himself. He’d given Pam a huge, untidy manuscript report that had to be typed up by five o’clock that evening at the latest—without explanation or apology. Pam, all hot and bothered, was in the middle of it when Fred came in and asked her if she’d finished that typing for him. Pam couldn’t find it. It was the only fair copy of an article he was preparing for an Australian journal; Fred lost his head and berated her. Pam lost her head and rushed in to complain to Peter. Peter told her nastily she shouldn’t have lost the verdammt article in the first place. Pam rushed out and burst into tears. Fred rushed in and complained bitterly to Peter of Pam’s inefficiency. Peter told him he shouldn’t have been such a verdammt fool: why hadn’t he kept a copy of it? Fred rushed out and complained to Hamish. Hamish told him he was a bluidy fool not to have kept a copy of it.

    Noelene, in spite of her manner, was very much in awe of Marianne and was terribly upset at having been reproved by her. She got all her work into an awful muddle and did Hilary’s non-urgent typing before Hamish’s urgent typing. Hamish, of course, was already furious with Hilary. He berated Noelene. Noelene burst into tears.

    On Friday morning Elspeth informed Hamish, when they were already running very late, that she’d lost her raincoat. He had to drive her right in to school and was late for an appointment with Dean Corey, who’d driven all the way up to Puriri in order to meet him at nine o’clock. Passing through Marianne’s office he barked his shin on a bucket. Her explanation that it was there because the roof of the prefab had sprung a leak didn’t really help...

    Up North it poured that Friday. Geoff and Alice decided reluctantly that they’d pack in the dig for the day: the trenches were so full of water that you couldn’t see what you were doing. They got into the Department of Archaeology’s Land Rover and, loading June, Pete, Pete’s wife Mona and their four-year-old into it, drove off to Kaitaia to do some shopping. That left Phil, Alan, Shirley, Bryce, Janet, Sid and Mirry. Janet and Sid got into their beat-up Vee-Dub and drove off to Whangarei, callously leaving it to the others to inform Geoff and Alice that they’d given it away. Shirley and Bryce were having a thing. They went off to their campervan to get on with it. That left Phil, Alan and Mirry. They were all soaked, so there didn’t seem much point in going into their tent. As for the dubious delights of Kaitaia—they’d already been there once, and once was enough. In another hemisphere there might have been potsherds to sort and label; but the Maoris had never discovered pottery. Geoff, who was the Professor, had already sorted and labelled the axe head and the piece of what might have been a mere if you had a lot of imagination. June, who was a Senior Lecturer, had already sorted the broken bits of shell into definite fish hooks, possible fish hooks, and broken bits of shell, and in any case would have slaughtered any student who dared to lay a finger on them. It was Alice, the Department’s Reader, who specialized in bones. She was so far from trusting any student with the bones—provisionally sorted into fish, bird, dog, and human—that she’d locked them in her caravan. So there was really nothing left to do. Alan had a Wilbur Smith that he hadn’t yet read but unfortunately it was in the campervan with Shirley and Bryce.

    Phil said gloomily: “I s’pose we could go down the farm.”

    “Mrs Walters’ll start nattering,” pointed out Alan.

    “Yeah; might give us afternoon tea, though.”

    “Maybe she’d let me use the phone,” said Mirry.

    “What the Hell for?” returned Phil disagreeably.

    Mirry said in a small voice: “To ring Hamish.”

    “Huh!” said Phil.

    “Never rang you all the time you were at our place,” pointed out Alan through the piece of Mars Bar he’d discovered in his parka pocket.

    “No, but... It upsets him,” said Mirry, going very red.

    They’d heard that one before. “Huh!” said Phil again.

    “Shtinker,” said Alan thickly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Phil.

    “He is not!” cried Mirry hotly.

    Alan swallowed Mars Bar. “Why doesn’t he ever phone you, then?”

    “Yeah,” agreed Phil.

    “I’ve told you!” cried Mirry. “It upsets him!”

    Phil scowled. “I’d give ’im ‘upset’.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Alan. “If he really cared about you he’d ring you up every day, like a—a normal human being!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Phil. “He’s a selfish bastard, Mirry; why the Hell can’t you face up to it?”

    “You don’t understand!” cried Mirry despairingly.

    The two young men looked red and cross.

    “You’re letting him walk all over you,” pointed out Alan.

    “I am not! Why don’t you keep out of it; you don’t understand a thing about adult relationships!”

    “Nor do you,” retorted Alan nastily.

    “Nor does he, or he wouldn’t be treating you like dirt,” pointed out Phil nastily.

    “SHUT UP!” roared Mirry. She stomped off in the direction of the farmhouse.

    Her two friends glared at the small retreating figure. In its bright yellow plastic raincoat with the hood up and its red gumboots it looked remarkably like a mobile garden gnome.

    “Come on,” said Alan resignedly. “Might as well bludge some afternoon tea off Ma Walters.”

    “Yeah,” agreed Phil dispiritedly.

    They sloshed in Mirry’s wake.

    Hamish’s phone rang at about four o’clock. Having let Marianne go early he was illogically feeling aggrieved at being still chained to his desk. “Macdonald,” he growled.

    “It’s me,” said a squeaky voice.

    “Mirry!” His heart thudded wildly. “Where are you?”

    The line was crackling madly. “ ...North,” she said. “I meant to tell ... ’fore I went ... mad rush.”

    “What? Darling, I can’t hear you, it’s a very bad line.”

    “...wanted to say,” said Mirry’s voice loudly, “that I won’t be back till Saturday.”

    “That’s tomorrow,” he said.

    “What? No, not tomorrow; next Saturday; Saturday week.”

    “Bugger!” said Hamish loudly. “Mirry—I’ve got to tell you—”

    “What? I can’t hear you!”

    “Darling, where can I ring you?”

    “I—can’t—hear—you!” she said. “Hamish—are you there?”

     The line crackled viciously in his ear. Hamish winced. “MIRRY!” he bellowed. “WHERE—ARE—YOU?”

    “...raining.”

    “WHAT?” he roared.

    “...cats and dogs. Can you hear me?”

    “Aye; it’s raining here, too. Where are you?”

    “...a farm ... the coast,” she said.

    “Mirry, what’s the number? MIRRY! Are you THERE?” But the line had gone dead. He swore, and hung up.

    Mirry went slowly back into the farmhouse kitchen. “Didja get through?” asked Alan.

    “Yes,” she said shortly, sitting down.

    “Oh, good!” said Mrs Walters. “Have a biscuit, dear.” Listlessly Mirry took a biscuit.

    “Well?” demanded Phil.

    “Well, what?” replied Mirry sulkily.

    “What did he say?”

    Mirry scowled. “He said it’s raining there, too.”

    “What?” he cried indignantly.

    “We got cut off,” she muttered sulkily.

    “Oh, dear; I hope the line isn’t down again!” cried Mrs Walters.

    “I think it might be; the phone went dead,” said Mirry dully.

    Mrs Walters made a clucking noise and rushed out to the passage. Phil and Alan glared at Mirry. She looked sulkily down at the table.

    “Is that all he said?” demanded Alan.

    “I told you: we got cut off.”

    “Why the Hell are you letting him muck you about like this, Mirry?” asked Phil furiously. “For God’s sake; it’s been going on for years, now; where’s your self-respect?”

    Mirry went very red and didn’t reply.

    “Dead,” explained Alan. “If she had any left she wouldn’t let him push her around.” He glared at her, and took another biscuit. Mirry’s lower lip quivered.

    “You oughta give him an ultimatum,” said Phil for about the fiftieth time.

    “That wouldn’t do any good; you don’t know him,” she muttered.

    “For God’s sake, Mirry!” he cried.

    Mirry looked at him mutinously.

    “Look,” he said in a kinder tone, leaning over the Waiters’ walnut-finish Formica table: “even if bloody Prince Charming does marry you in the end, what sort of a life do ya reckon you’re going to have with him? If he treats you this badly now?”

    “Yeah,” agreed Alan, taking another biscuit. “You’ll end up being a doormat for the rest of your life; pretty soon you won’t even be able to think for yourself without asking his permission!” On this awful note, he chewed his biscuit viciously.

    They’d had this conversation many times before. Mirry gave them both a sulky glare. She was unable to deny that there was a certain justice in Alan’s remarks; on the other hand, she felt very strongly that it wasn’t quite like that; Hamish wasn’t like that; he was... he was sensitive. Only if she said that, they’d only scoff. Finally she muttered: “He does let me think for myself.”

    “Huh!” said Phil. He slurped tea viciously.

    “And I’m not a doormat!” declared Mirry in a voice that had a suspicious wobble in it.

    Phil and Alan buried their noses in their teacups.

    The Walters’ cat came out from under the table and pawed at Mirry’s leg. She lifted it onto her knee and laid her cheek against its soft fur.

    Alan took another biscuit, not looking at Mirry.

    Not looking at Mirry, Phil said abruptly: “Maybe if you stood up for your rights a bit more you’d find he had a bit more respect for you!”

    “Yeah,” agreed Alan. He slurped tea. “Might surprise the both of ya,” he added.

    Mirry gave the cat a very small piece of biscuit. It ate it neatly off the edge of the table. She thought to herself that Hamish did respect her, and she did stand up for her rights, and anyway it wasn’t a question of her rights, it was—it was... Mrs Walters came in again at this moment, so Mirry couldn’t tell Phil and Alan what it was a question of. Possibly this was just as well, for not only did she not have it clear in her own mind, she would certainly have failed to convince them that she didn’t need to stick up for her rights with Hamish: they were both far too liberated to believe her for a moment.

    Mirry was very unhappy; but this didn’t have anything to do with whether or not Hamish allowed her her rights. Mostly it had to do with the fact that she was terribly afraid he didn’t love her enough to stand up to Sylvie, not to mention to what other people thought, and just live with her, even if horrible Sylvie wouldn’t agree to a divorce. Because he was already taking the line of least resistance, wasn’t he? Saying that they’d better not see each other over the Christmas holidays, when anyone with any sense could see that Sylvie had done her worst, and was getting over it: Mrs Prior had told him she was getting over it, hadn’t she? And even Elspeth had said she was getting over it—well, she’d said she wasn’t cross all the time. And then saying that they’d better wait till the end of March! Men always did take the line of least resistance, didn’t they? It was a well-known fact. Everybody said so. And he did—he was; he always did: look at the furniture! Mirry’s lower lip trembled. She didn’t hear nice Mrs Walters offer her another cup of tea.

    Phil and Alan eyed each other uneasily and did their best to cover up for her, removing her from the concerned and voluble Mrs Walters’s orbit in double quick time.

    She walked meekly between them across one sloshy field, and then took off at a fast trot. They stared after her morosely. “He’s a bastard,” said Alan finally.

    “Tell us about it,” returned Phil sourly.

    Alan was silent. They mooched on through the rain.

    Hamish worked on grimly for about another forty-five minutes, trying to ignore the agonizing mixture of urgent lust and furious annoyance that the brief verbal contact had aroused in him. Then the phone rang again. “Macdonald!” he snapped.

    A gentle female voice said. “Is that the Pacific Institute of Political Studies?”

    “Aye; Macdonald speaking,” he growled.

    “Oh, hullo, Dr Macdonald; this is Belinda Cohen.”

    It took Hamish a moment to work that out. “E-er, good afternoon, Lady Cohen. Veronica’s not here, I’m afraid.”

    “No, I know,” agreed Lady Cohen. “Is Peter there?”

    “Aye: I think he’s still in his office; just a moment, I’ll check.” It was possible to transfer a call from one extension to another, but Hamish was no good with phones. He went and tapped cautiously on Peter’s door.

    “What?” said a very cross voice.

    Hamish’s mouth firmed. Obviously Peter was still in a foul mood. He reflected sourly that this sort of thing was one of the consequences of hiring married couples that he and Maurice Black should have foreseen. And if the pair of them were still like this next week, he’d have to speak to Peter, he supposed gloomily.

    “It’s me,” he said in a very restricted voice. Mirry, he recalled glumly, had once said to him, apropos of Peter, “I bet he’s got an awful temper, underneath,” and he’d scoffed. “Russians usually do,” she’d replied seriously. “Rubbish! That’s a gross generalization; and anyway, if you must indulge in that sort of categorization, he’s hardly a Russian by blood, is he?” Mirry hadn’t replied; but he’d seen she wasn’t ready to agree. Now he thought grimly that she’d been right: some sort of damned female instinct, possibly. He experienced a strong desire to kick Peter’s closed door hard—not to mention Peter himself. What on earth had the row with Veronica been about, anyway, to make the pair of them behave like bears with sore heads for a whole damned week?

    The members of the Institute were quite correct in assuming that the row had occurred the previous weekend; it had, in fact, taken place on the Saturday night. Peter had decided to have a select little dinner party that evening: James was weaned, and term was off to a successful start. Veronica had been more than willing. She seemed to have all her old energy back, and since—reading between the lines, for he refused to ask her directly about it—Peter gathered that she had been accustomed, in her previous existence, to do rather more with her evenings than merely eat dinner, read or study a little, and go to bed with the man of the moment, he was taking pains to give her vigorous system the occupation it needed. This was difficult, in suburban New Zealand; even more so, in isolated Kowhai Bay. He had embarked on a scheme of taking her to a restaurant once a week: more often would not have been sensible, for they would very quickly have run out of restaurants. Although she didn’t know anything about music she would gladly have accompanied him to the opera, but there wasn’t any. Nor was there any ballet. There was a good modern dance company, but they were away on tour. Veronica didn’t much like sub-titled foreign films, and in any case the Film Society had only just started up its monthly screenings for the year. Peter loathed musicals, so he hadn’t taken her to the repertory company’s summer production of South Pacific. They’d been to the University Drama Club’s annual outdoor Shakespeare production: Peter rather liked The Winter’s Tale, but he hadn’t liked that production: it was largely inaudible. Veronica had never read it and was frankly bored. Naturally the Winter Concert season hadn’t started yet. So they had more or less fallen back on visiting his large circle of friends, and entertaining at home. Peter wanted to try out a new recipe this time, so they’d made it a small do: themselves, Erik Nilsson and Pauline Weintraub, Magda von Trotte and partner, and the Carranos.

    Erik and Pauline were early. Pauline hadn’t taken Peter at his word when he’d told her informal dress, she’d rung up Veronica and asked her what they’d be wearing. So Erik was in a brown suit. Pauline had had her hair cut and set and looked very smart in a plain, short-sleeved, square-shouldered burnt orange shantung sheath. Even the sight of Aunty Veronica in lapis lazuli silk pants and a blue gauze tunic over a tight strapless lapis lazuli bodice didn’t spoil her mood. For one thing, that bodice was far too low. For another—

    “Look!” she said, beaming and holding out her left hand.

    “Hey!” cried Veronica, her face lighting up. “You’ve been and done it, then?”

    “More or less,” said Pauline, laughing.

    “Congratulations!” said Veronica heartily. To Pauline’s astonishment she gave her a rough hug. “Thought he’d never bloody get around to it,” she growled.

    “So did I,” admitted Pauline, smiling and blushing. “But his ex finally got remarried, last month, so—”

    In the kitchen Erik was telling Peter the same thing.

    “That is good!” Peter said, embracing him fervently on both cheeks.

    Erik was used to Peter; he grinned, and agreed: “Yeah.”

    “So!” Peter said happily; “now you give Pauline some noice babies quick—da?”

    “Eh?” said Erik, used though he was to him.

    “Da, da; she wants babies; have you not noticed the way she looks at James and Sharon?”

    “I can’t say I have,” said Erik weakly. “I know she’s fond of them, of course...”

    “‘Fond’?” said Peter distastefully. “That is a tepid word; very English. I take you both up to the babies’ room; then you will see if she is ‘fond’.”

    Having embraced Pauline fervently on both cheeks and the mouth, he duly led them all upstairs. Erik watched with a mixture of trepidation and amusement as his brand-new fiancée’s face went bright pink and her mouth went soft and defenceless at the sight of her tiny sleeping cousins.

    “Was I not roight?” said Peter as they went downstairs again.

    “Yes,” Erik admitted, with the ghost of a laugh.

    “Right about what?” asked Veronica suspiciously.

    “Never moind,” replied Peter repressively.

    Veronica made a face at Pauline. “Girl talk,” she said, jerking her head at the two men. “He does it all the time.”

    A snort of laughter was surprised out of Pauline.

    The Carranos were running late because Polly was worried about Johnny, who’d collected some nasty jellyfish stings at the beach yesterday. Jake kept trying to tell her that he’d be fine, Nanny had the Riabouchinskys’ phone number, and anyway he’d be fine, but Polly kept popping in and out to the twins’ room while she was dressing. When she came back from the last of these expeditions she found that her husband had put on a pair of jeans. By the time she’d persuaded him that Peter’s “informal” didn’t mean what Jake meant by informal, and got him into a pair of white linen slacks and a navy silk shirt—in which he booked so sexy that she almost changed her mind about going at all—they were running even later.

    Magda and her escort therefore arrived some time before the Carranos did. Veronica was expecting the escort to be Ken Armitage, Magda’s permanent lover, so she was very surprised to find that it wasn’t him at all, it wasn’t Bruno von Trotte either, it was someone else. Magda, who had impeccable manners, had actually rung and informed Peter of this fact, but he’d been thinking about his sauce and had forgotten to tell Veronica.

    At first Veronica thought that Magda’s escort, a tall, handsome man with silvering blond hair, must be gay, because he was wearing loose, wide, cream silk slacks, a deep emerald satin shirt, and a very pale salmon-pink linen jacket; only then his amber eyes smiled mockingly into her wide forget-me-not ones, and she knew not only that he wasn’t, but that he knew bloody well what she’d been thinking. He seemed to have known Peter practically from the cradle. His name didn’t really sink in when they were introduced because of the look those amber eyes had given her and, after she’d got over that, the indignation she’d started to feel about it. They’d been chatting for about twenty minutes or so, and Peter had fussed off back to his sauce, when Magda addressed the man for perhaps the fourth time as “Leo”, and it began to sink in. Veronica felt a little sick.

    “’Scuse me,” she said. “I’ll just go and see if Peter needs a hand.” She went out quickly, so she didn’t catch Pauline’s look of stupefaction, Erik’s amused incredulity and Magda’s better hidden but still incredulous amusement.

    “Peter,” she said, leaning heavily against his white cupboards, “who the fuck is that man?”

    “What, moy dearest?” he said vaguely, peering at his sauce.

    “That man! With Magda!” said Veronica loudly and angrily. “Who the fuck is he?”

    Peter turned in mild surprise. “Moy old friend Leo; did I not tell you he was coming?”

    “No, you did not!” said Veronica through her teeth.

    “Oh. I’m sorry, moy dear; Magda rang me this afternoon to say—”

    “He is Leo Schmidt, isn’t he?”

    “Yes, of course; what’s the matter?”

    “And you let him come the same night you invited Polly and Jake! You must be mad!”

    “What are you talkink about, Veronica?”

    “Don’t you know what that man tried to do to Polly?” she hissed.

    “Troied to— I know he is very much in love with Polly, once upon a toime—”

    “In love! You bloody birk; he tried to rape her!”

    Peter’s mouth opened but no sound came out of it. He swallowed, and said weakly: “Nonsense, moy dear; where did you hear such a story?”

    “From Polly, of course. Christ, why didn’t you tell me Magda was bringing him? Maybe there’s still time to stop them!” She rushed out to the phone in the front hall.

    Peter followed slowly, rather flushed.

    “What?” she was saying. “Oh; well—thanks.” She hung up. “Too late,” she said. “God, Peter, you bloody fool!”

    “Come back into the kitchen,” he said, taking her by the elbow and glancing nervously at the drawing-room door, which fortunately was closed. In the kitchen he said: “Now: what is this silly story about Leo?”

    Veronica’s eyes flashed blue fire. “It is not a silly story; it’s true! Polly told me herself—back when she was in hospital waiting for Katie Maureen.”

    Peter said unwisely: “She was not in a very stable state then, moy dear; don’t you think—”

    “Balls! She was as sane as you or me—well, me, anyway!” she said angrily. “The bastard tried to rape her; God, what else do you think he was up to with her flat on the floor under him kicking and screaming?”

    “This does not sound at all loike Leo; he is a civiloized man; he would not—”

    “Bloody Hell! Why won’tcha believe me? I’m telling you he attacked her!”

    “Veronica, moy dear, calm down: there may perhaps be some truth in what you say; but I am sure that Leo would never do such a thing; Polly must have—”

    “Polly must have nothing! Why the fuck are you taking his side?”

    “I have known Leo a very long toime, moy dearest; much longer than you have known Polly; and although I can just see him losink control far enough to—eugh—to  embrace a woman who does not want it, I really cannot envisage—”

    “Bloody men!” said Veronica bitterly. “You all stick together, don’t you?”

    “That is not the case at all, moy dear; all I am troyink to say is that you have only heard Polly’s soide of this story, and perhaps the truth may be a little different.”

    “Rubbish!”

    “Come, come, moy dear; surely after meetink Leo you cannot imagine he would need to force himself on any woman? You must see for yourself that he is very attractive. I have known him for at least fifteen years now, and I have never known a toime when he has not had  a train of eager female admoirers.”

    Veronica listened to this speech with flared nostrils and tightened lips. “That has nothing to do with it,” she said in a steely voice.

    “On the contrary, moy darling,” he replied, with a most unwise tiny laugh, “I think it has everything to do with it! You will see, when Polly comes.”

    “No,” said Veronica. “You’ll see.” She stalked out.

    Veronica was right and Peter was wrong. Polly’s peachy colour faded right out and then came back in a rush as Leo, smiling a lazy mocking smile which, what with the amber eyes, made him look rather like an unpleasant member of the cat family, rose to his feet to greet her. “Salut, ma chère; ça va?” he murmured.

    Polly’s hand closed very hard on her husband’s muscular arm. Since she had been nicely brought up by the Macdonald sisters and in any case was a considerate and civilized person who would not have wished to upset her hosts, she would probably have stuck the evening out. Jake was, pace the good nuns, not a civilized person at all and in spite of the fact that it was three years now since the episode in question he could still gladly have killed Leo Schmidt.

    “Why the fuck didn’t ya tell us he’d be here?” he said loudly and angrily to his host. His nostrils flared and the colour came up darkly under his bronze skin.

    Magda, who knew a lot about Leo’s long-time crush on Polly but nothing about his attack on her, and who had always assumed, as Peter had done, that he’d rushed off to France out of pique when she got engaged to Jake, rose slowly to her feet, looking bewildered and embarrassed. Pauline, who hardly knew the Carranos and didn’t know Leo at all, merely gaped. Erik knew Leo slightly from his days with the French Department at the University; and he certainly knew his reputation. He was taken aback, but not exactly astonished.

    “Jake—” said Peter uncertainly.

    Jake’s heavy chest heaved in a deep breath and his upper lip came down tightly over his teeth. His wife was familiar with this grimace: it had been known to precede a smashing right. She looked anxiously at him.

    “Come on, Polly,” he said tightly. “Let’s get out of here before I strangle that bastard.”

    “Yes,” agreed Polly huskily. “I’m sorry, Veronica.”

    “I’ll come out with you,” replied Veronica grimly. Ignoring her other guests, she marched out to the front hall with Jake and Polly, closing the drawing-room door firmly behind her.

    “Jesus, I’m sorry, Polly!” she said. “That idiot, Peter, never told me he was coming.”

    “Thought you said you’d told ’em about that prick,” Jake growled.

    “Yes; at least, I told Veronica.”

    Jake stared at Veronica. “Don’t tell me you never told Peter!”

    Veronica returned in some surprise: “’Course not; Polly never said I could.”

    Disconcerted, Jake looked at his wife. Polly looked very flustered and croaked: “No, maybe I didn’t; I just assumed... I mean, naturally I assumed— I never asked her not to!”

    “Cripes, you’re a funny woman, Veronica,” said Jake mildly to his hostess.

    “That’ll do, Jake,” said Polly in a strangled voice. “I think we’d better go.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed, steering her towards the front door.

    Veronica accompanied them out to the car, explaining that she’d tried to ring them as soon as she’d realized, only they’d already left... She apologized all over again. Polly apologized all over again. Jake didn’t apologize at all.

    Very little had ever phased Leo Schmidt. Back in the drawing-room he shrugged gracefully, smiled ruefully and, waving his hands in a very foreign gesture that Erik, for one, found entirely unappealing, drawled: “An old rivalry, I’m afraid. I thought that all that was long since over; but it seems that ce cher Jacob thinks otherwise!” He shrugged again, and laughed a little.

    Pauline might have been taken in by this, but Erik certainly wasn’t. He glanced sharply at Peter and saw that he was not only very flushed but distinctly crestfallen. Erik had risen to greet the Carranos; now he sat down again, putting his arm casually across Pauline’s shoulders. “These things happen,” he murmured. “Did you say you’d been out of the country for three years, Leo?”

    This wasn’t intended as a veiled request for further information but Leo—deliberately, Erik was sure, thinking it over later—chose to take it as such.

    “D’accord; thrr-ree yearrs,” he agreed, rolling his R’s unnecessarily. “A sufficient enough time, one would have thought; but notre cher Jacob has always been plagued by a demon of jealousy.” He smiled lazily. “Is that not so, ma chère?” he added to Magda.

    Magda was feeling extremely annoyed with herself, but she answered smoothly: “Oh, absolutely; and off course he has the shocking temper to go with it. I remember once—” She told an amusing story about Jake, an under-sized crayfish, and a visiting American businessman, to which no-one listened very much.

    After a certain time it began to dawn on Peter that perhaps maybe his wife did not intend returning to the drawing-room. He excused himself to look after the dinner, and rushed upstairs. Veronica had taken off her party clothes and was lying on their bed in a dressing-gown, reading.

    “Veronica! What are you doink?” he hissed. “You are the hostess! Come down at once!”

    “I’ll come down when you’ve got rid of that Schmidt prick, and not before,” she said calmly.

    “I cannot do that; he is an invoited guest!”

    “No, he isn’t; we never invited him: that von Trotte woman brought him.”

    “Please do not refer to moy very old friend as ‘that von Trotte woman’,” he said in a trembling voice.

    “All right: Magda. Anyway I’m not coming down until you get rid of him.” She picked up a large red apple from the bedside table and took a huge bite out of it.

    Peter looked at it. “That is moy apple that I buoy for may Waldorf salad!” he said in a very high voice.

    “Tough,” said Veronica through the apple.

    “What shall I do, now you have ruined moy dinner!” he wailed.

   “Tough,” said Veronica again. She swallowed. “Are you gonna get rid of that bastard?”

    “You must see that I cannot do that,” he said in an unconvincing voice. Veronica’s nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed. “For one thing, it would be very rude and hurtful to Magda,” he added lamely.

    Veronica put down her apple. “Do you imagine for one minute that your precious friend Magda ’ud go round with that creep if she knew what he’d tried to do to Polly?”

    “No,” said Peter unwillingly. “Only—”

    “Only what?”

    “We do not yet know— I mean, we have no proof. All we see is that Jake is very angry—but he is a jealous man, by nature!”

    “No proof? Didn’t you see Polly’s face?”

    “Da; but—an old lover...”

    “Balls! She’s got old lovers all over the bloody country! Doesn’t go as white as a sheet when she meets them, does she?”

    “No, but—”

    “But nothing! Why won’tcha believe me?” bellowed Veronica, losing her temper.

    “I do believe there is somethink between them, yes; only— Well, Leo was quoite undisturbed; you do not see him; I cannot believe it is as serious as you make out.”

    “Can’t you, just?” retorted Veronica evilly.

    “No; one must take into account Jake’s temper—”

    “Yes, and one must take into account the fact that whatever women say about bloody men, you won’t believe, you fascist chauvinist PIG!” said Veronica at the top of her voice.

    “Do not speak to me loike—”

    “I’ll speak to you how I bloody well like until you’re ready to take MY word over HIS!” yelled Veronica.

    “I am not exactly—”

    “ And I’m NOT coming downstairs unless you get rid of him!” she yelled.

    “Very well!” said Peter, quivering with fury. “If you cannot discuss this matter loike a rational human beink, there is nothink more to say! I h’will go down and attempt to apologoize to our guests!”

    “Apologize NOTHING!” roared Veronica, sitting bolt upright. “You apologize to that bloody rapist, Peter Riabouchinsky, and I’ll never speak to you again!”

    “So be it!” he hissed, going out and shutting the door very firmly.

    Veronica bounced off the bed, dashed over to the door, and wrenched it open. “And what’s more, I’d like to hear you explain what’s bloody rational about RAPE!” she bellowed. She slammed the door with a rending crash.

    Downstairs in the drawing-room Magda repressed a wince. As soon as Peter came in and said lamely that Veronica wasn’t feeling very well she rose to her feet and said smoothly: “In that case we vill not stay. Come, Leo.” She offered her scented cheek to Peter, bade Erik and Pauline goodbye, and sailed out. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the sardonic twist to Leo’s mouth as he strolled after her.

    Peter sat down limply on the nearest sofa.

    “I think we’d better be off, too,” said Erik.

    “Yes; is Aunty Veronica all right?” asked Pauline.

    “I think she has gone mad,” he replied gloomily. “She keeps sayink that Leo is a rapist; that he attacked Polly.”

    “That doesn’t entirely surprise me,” said Erik slowly. Peter glared at him. “Well, you saw the Carranos’ faces, Peter, when they walked in and saw the fellow sitting there.” Peter went on glaring. “And now I come to think of it,” Erik added thoughtfully, “there were all sorts of rumours flying around at varsity round about the time Polly got married.”

    “There are always all sorts of rumours at that place,” said Peter sourly.

    “Yes, but... I seem to remember Rog Browne saying something at one stage about Leo and Polly.”

    “You cannot believe anythink he said; he was in love with her himself: the whole university knows that!” said Peter scornfully.

    Erik flushed a little. “I know Leo’s an old cobber of yours, Peter, but— Well, Rog was a bit pissed at the time—”

    “That does surproize me!” said Peter scathingly.

    “Yeah—but what I mean is, he probably said more than he meant to.”

    “And perhaps maybe you would not moind tellink us just exactly what he did say?”

    “Well, I can’t remember his actual words, at this stage; but it was something about Leo attacking Polly, I’m sure.” Peter glared at him; he added unhappily: “It was more than just making an unwanted pass, I’m positive, Peter. He said that was why Schmidt went off to France—I do remember that bit, because he said that if he hadn’t gone, Jake Carrano would’ve killed him, and if he hadn’t, he would’ve—Browne, I mean.” Peter still glared; he elaborated uncomfortably: “That’s why I remember it, really: because old Rog Browne was such a mild sort of fellow; I’d never have dreamed he could get so worked up.”

    “Huh!” essayed Peter unconvincingly.

    “Yeah, well... I think Veronica may be right about Schmidt, Peter. I’d listen to her if I was you.”

    Peter looked sulky.

    “Come on, darling,” Erik said to Pauline. He put his arm around her and led her out without further ado.

    Peter sat sulkily in the drawing-room for some time. It was very hard to convince himself that someone he’d known for so many years and whose company, in spite of the man’s boundless cynicism—no, rather, because of it—he had always enjoyed, could have... Naturally, Leo had his faults: he was bone idle, almost totally dishonest in small matters, entirely irresponsible... But none of these traits added up to rape. Quite the contrary, Peter would have thought: he just couldn’t see Leo making the effort to— Admittedly he had always been a heavy drinker, and over the last couple of years before he’d left for France he’d been drinking even more heavily; but... Peter tried to think of a specific occasion on which Leo had become drunk and violent, but the only thing that came to mind—doubtless because Erik had just mentioned the man—was an absurd pub-crawl with Roger Browne. Leo had got very drunk, but he hadn’t got at all violent; quite the reverse, he’d become ever more drawlingly mocking as the evening wore on.

    Peter scowled, and tried to think. According to Leo, he’d fallen for Polly the moment he’d laid eyes on her, which was when she enrolled for First-Year French—when she could hardly have been more than seventeen. Leo—again according to Leo—had done his libido considerable damage by nobly refraining from laying a finger on her. Now Peter found himself wondering if, way back then, Leo had tried something, and Polly had knocked him back. But that would have been at least ten years before he left for France: could it have festered for so long? Peter made a face. It would, in fact, have been precisely like Leo: he never forgot a grudge. But during his last year in Auckland, hadn’t Leo been conspicuously involved with a succession of ever-younger lovelies? Yes: Leo himself, Peter now recalled quite sharply and clearly, had referred to it, with his cynical smile, as his nymphet period. Not that that proved anything...

    Peter moved restlessly. He certainly couldn’t recall Leo showing any particular interest in Polly at that period. Admittedly, he’d seen them together in the S.C.R. often enough—but then, Leo was more often in there than in his office, anyway, and they were in the same faculty, after all. Something about the Graduation Ball came vaguely to mind… But so what? This was all far from amounting to rape, or anything like it.

    Frowning, he got up and poured himself a Cognac. Erik had said... Only it was perfectly true that Roger Browne had himself been head over heels in love with Polly Mitchell... As for the thing between Leo and Jake: they’d known each other since their childhood; Leo had always been jealous of Jake—

    “Merde!” he whispered suddenly. Yes, it was Leo who had always been jealous of Jake, not vice versa! How very, very like Leo to turn that situation on its head—and to his own advantage? Da, da! Peter drank Cognac crossly. And while it was true that Jake had a temper, why on earth should he be jealous of Leo Schmidt when it was he, Jake, who was the man in possession?

    Peter swore again. Reluctantly he admitted to himself that perhaps maybe there was something in Veronica’s story: not as much as she thought, of course; but possibly—possibly Jake had discovered Polly and Leo in a compromising situation? Ye-es; naturally Polly wouldn’t have wanted Jake to think... Peter’s eyes narrowed; he began to construct several possible scenarios, none of them particularly flattering to either the integrity or the morals of Polly Mitchell that was. Possibly if he’d been less put out by finding his assumptions about an old friend apparently all wrong, and if Veronica hadn’t yelled and sworn at him, rubbing salt in the wound to his pride in his knowledge of human nature, he might have recognized that these scenarios were extremely unlike Polly. Possibly, too, Peter’s own attitude to Polly was affected by the fact that, back in those days when he’d been a very available bachelor, she’d never shown the slightest interest in him—whilst showing considerable interest in such persons as Mannie Halliday of the Department of Linguistics, Nicky Henson of the History Department, that visiting Danish Fellow, what was his name... Peter told himself sourly that the woman had always had the morals of a cat, why shouldn’t she have encouraged Leo, God knew she’d encouraged most of the rest of the male portion of the faculty—as a kind of side dish to the main banquet of New Zealand’s most eligible—well, richest—bachelor.

    After a further period of scowling and brooding he remembered his sauce. He shot out to the kitchen, where he found the water in the bottom of the double boiler had boiled away and the pot had turned dark brown. The sauce itself was caramelized; it would take hours of effort to clean the top part of his precious double boiler and in any case its sacred surface was probably ruined—even worse than when she had boiled an egg in it! He wrenched the whole apparatus off the stove and hurled it into the sink. Viciously he turned on the cold tap: the pots hissed furiously and the steel sink emitted a loud “clunk!” Too late Peter realized the cold water was probably buckling the pots. He swore loudly and at length in three languages. Then he went upstairs.

    Veronica had locked the bedroom door.

    “Veronica! Open this door at once!”

    Veronica didn’t respond.

    “Veronica! They have gone; open the door,” he said, on a plaintive note.

    “You didn’t make them go; it was Magda’s idea: I was listening,” said Veronica’ voice, very cold, from just behind the door.

    Peter breathed hard. “If you do not open this door, I will kick it in.”

    Veronica was still very annoyed with him, but not enough to want him to hurt himself. She unlocked the door and stood back from it, looking sulky.

    Peter took the key out of the lock, marched over to the window, and hurled it out. “Et voilà!” he hissed, turning and glaring at her, nostrils flared.

    “Are you gonna admit I was right?” said Veronica in a hard voice, pretending to ignore the key business. Underneath, however, she was rather glad: she felt she’d backed herself into a corner by locking the door; though at the same time it would have been impossible not to have locked it: it would have been giving in. Now it couldn’t happen again. She tried not to look hopefully at him.

    “There could well be some truth in what you say,” he admitted sulkily.

    Veronica breathed hard. “Some truth?” She began to feel all hot and bothered all over again. Why couldn’t he just admit—

    “I do not denoy that Leo may have lost control to a certain extent; but as we do not know the circumstances—”

    “What?” said Veronica dangerously.

    Foolishly Peter persisted: “We have, after all, only Polly’s version of the affair; we do not know to what extent she may have led him on—”

    “She may have WHAT?”

    “Led him on,” he said sulkily. “You do not see it, but I know that she was very much a flirt in those days; she has always liked men—”

    “BLAME THE WOMAN!” said Veronica at the top of her voice. Her bosom heaved. “It’s always the woman’s fault, isn’t it?” She glared ferociously at him. She felt perilously near tears and couldn’t for the life of her have said it was him she was wilder with, or herself.

    “No; not always, of course; only in this case—”

    “In this case nothing! She’s making a cup of coffee in the bloody staffroom, he comes in tanked up on vodka and bloody well jumps on her!”

    “You do not know this from personal observation; and in any case, whoy do you not tell me of it before?”

    Veronica was already very red. At his not altogether unjustified accusing tone, she went even redder. “Because it was none of your bloody business! Polly told me, not you!”

    “I am your husband, Veronica! Do you not think I have have a roight—”

    “No, I don’t bloody think you have a right!” yelled Veronica, the echo of Jake’s “Cripes, you’re a funny woman, Veronica,” uncomfortably loud in her mind. “I think I’ve got a right to some sort of privacy, that’s what I think!”

    Peter was flushed and breathing very hard but he said with a supreme effort: “Do you not see that if you had confoided this in me, Veronica, this evenink’s embarrassing scene could have been avoided?”

    “Yes, and if you’d told me that bloody Schmidt was coming with Magda, it could’ve been avoided, too!” she retorted immediately.

    “I had other things on moy moind,” he said sulkily. He wasn’t prepared to climb down well, not precisely. But if only she’d admit that there were perhaps faults on both sides—

    “Oh, didja! The truth is, Peter, that you’re so busy playing cook and nanny and housekeeper—and the perfect host—that you don’t give a fuck about me or my feelings! You barge up here and order me to come down because I’m the bloody hostess, when you haven’t even bothered to tell me who the Goddamned guests are!”

    “That is not so!” he shouted angrily—the more so since he was guiltily aware that  there was a certain amount of justice in her accusations. “It was a mere slip!”

    “Yeah, a Freudian slip!” returned Veronica furiously. “I’m fed up with being treated like a bloody appendage round here! And when you won’t even take my word against a—a creep that comes in here and starts making eyes at me before he’s even been introduced—!”

    “Rubbidge!” he shouted.

    Veronica began searching feverishly in the chest of drawers. “The truth is, Peter, that you despise women! You patronize us unceasingly, you’re convinced you can do everything better than we can; and when I tell you something important about my best friend you come up with the classic male chauvinist response: it must be the woman’s fault!” She swung round, glaring. “And to think I married you! I musta been off my rocker!” she said bitterly. She began to climb into a pair of jeans, seething, quite aware that some of her own insecurities had just surfaced, and furious with herself for letting them do so.

    “What are you doink?” he said, very red.

    She pulled on a pale blue tee-shirt and grabbed her car keys off the dressing-table.

    “Where are you goink?”

    Veronica didn’t know. She had been seized by a blind instinct to escape; only there was nowhere to escape to: this was her home, now. She felt trapped, and lost. She felt as if she was going to choke—or bawl.

    “Where are you GOINK?”

    It was no use going to Mum’s—she’d take his side. And she couldn’t face Helen... Abruptly she decided she’d go to Polly’s, she didn’t care how peculiar Jake thought she— “I’m going to someone I can trust, and who trusts me,” she said grimly.

    Peter sat down suddenly on the bed. “Veronica, do not leave this house,” he said in a trembling voice.

    In her agitation Veronica failed to register the significance of the absence of threats from this command. She marched over to the door.

    “Veronica—”

    She went out, slamming the door. Peter burst into tears.

    About an hour late Jake rang him up and said cautiously: “Peter? Look, I dunno if you know, but Veronica and James are round here.”—Veronica, though she hadn’t revealed this to Polly and Jake, had got halfway down the stairs before remembering that she had a son. She’d sped upstairs and retrieved him, in a terrible turmoil of relief that Peter hadn’t heard her do so and disappointment that he hadn’t heard her and immediately shot out to prevent her.

    “Oh,” Peter said.

    Jake thought he heard an odd gulping noise; he said cautiously: “You all right?”

    “Yes,” said Peter, sniffing and gulping.

    “She—uh—she seems to be upset because she reckons you won’t believe her about bloody Schmidt attacking Polly.”

    “It is true, then?” said Peter dully.

    “Yeah, of course it’s bloody true!” He gave an awkward laugh. “Ya don’t imagine I do me nut and walk out of dinner parties for nothing, do ya?”

    “No. I am sorry, Jake,” said Peter, gulping again.

    “Yeah; I am, too; only I couldn’t’ve let Polly sit through a whole evening with the bastard.”

    “No. Jake, if you would not moind, please would you tell me the whole story?”

    “They’re gonna wonder what I’m up to,” said Jake uneasily. “Well, in a nutshell—”

    Jake told Peter what had happened on that evening just over three years ago. The details matched word-for-word what Veronica had told him—even down to Polly’s making a cup of coffee in the staffroom and Leo’s being drunk on vodka. Jake also added that Polly had been out with Leo a couple of times but that on this particular day she’d told him definitely she didn’t want to do so again.

    “I see; I suppose he saw red?”

    “Yeah; always did have a Helluva temper,” said Jake.

    “I h’yave never seen him lose it,” said Peter in some surprise.

    “You haven’t known him since he was four years old.”

    “No, that is true... You say you hit him very hard?”

    “Knocked ’im cold. Listen, I gotta get back to ’em. Look—I reckon she’ll’ve calmed down by tomorrow.”

    “Da; I will tell her I believe her,” he said dully.

    Veronica had calmed down on the morrow; unfortunately she hadn’t forgiven Peter. She returned home with her son, but in an icy silence. Peter tried in vain to penetrate the cold barrier behind which she’d retired. Threats, ranting, a retaliatory coldness (which he wasn’t very good at), an abject apology, tearful pleading, more threats, more ranting—nothing did any good: the cold barrier remained in place. She barely spoke to him; on the Monday Peter told himself she couldn’t keep this up for long; by the Wednesday he was gloomily convinced she could.

    “Come in, whoy do you stand out there?” he replied loudly and irritably to Hamish’s “It’s me.”

    Hamish sighed. He stuck his head round the door. “There’s a phone call for you.”

    “Oh. What loine?”

    “I don’t know!” said Hamish crossly, retreating.

    Peter sighed. He tried line one. It wasn’t line one. He tried line two.

    “Oh, Peter, dear, thank goodness you’re there!” exclaimed his mother-in-law.

    “Belinda! There is nothink wrong?”

    “No, no; not exactly; I mean, it’s not Jerry. It’s about Carol.”

    “Oh,” said Peter. He suddenly felt rather ill, and intensely depressed.

    “Only I don’t think,” said Belinda anxiously, “that we’d better discuss it over the phone.”

    Not for the first time Peter wished that at least some of his local friends and relations-by-marriage had the civilized European’s attribute of being able to speak more than one language. He gave a tiny sigh. “Shall I come in to town, then, Belinda?”

    “Yes, I really think that would be best; if you could.”

    “Da; I could come straight away.” He hesitated. “If you could perhaps maybe give me some hint, Belinda, as to exactly what is wrong?”

    Belinda swallowed. It had been a great shock when Hamish Macdonald in person answered the Institute’s phone. “Well, she’s—she’s been asking questions about—about her parentage; and Nat thinks... Well, we can’t go on hiding it from the child, can we? I think she does have a right to know, don’t you?”

    Peter was capable of shouting at his wife about his rights as her life-partner when roused, but in fact he seldom saw anything in terms of rights; indeed, he was convinced—insofar as he was convinced of anything—that the whole concept of “rights” was a wholly artificial one which humanity would have been much better off without. He didn’t think for a moment that he could convince Belinda of this. As for Nat—convincing him would be even more impossible, not because Nat saw such matters in terms of rights, or because he was possessed of a stronger rational faculty than Belinda Cohen, but precisely because he wasn’t a reasoning animal at all. If his instincts, or whatever complex composite of his essential nature, his rudimentary socialization and his primitive thought processes it was that charitable persons might have called his instincts, thought Peter uncharitably, told him that telling Carol that Hamish Macdonald had begotten her was a necessary thing to do, then no argument under the sun would move him. Peter sighed.

    “Yes, I suppose... If that is h’what you and Nat think.”

    “Well, that’s what we want to talk over, really, Peter, dear.”

    Peter was aware that they didn’t in the least want to talk it over with a view to possibly not doing it, they merely wanted him to ratify their decision and, if it turned out to be the wrong decision, share their guilt. “I come immediately.”

    If he and Veronica hadn’t had their row he would probably have nipped home and told her all about it. As it was he merely rang her up at home and said stiffly: “I may be very late; I foind I have to go into town unexpectedly.”

    Veronica in her normal state would have demanded suspiciously why he had to go into town, who he had to see there, and how late he was gonna be. The cold, distant, post-row Veronica merely replied: “I see;” and hung up.

    Peter’s eyes filled with tears. He swore viciously, but it didn’t help. He went out without bothering to bid Hamish goodnight. Most unfortunately, it didn’t dawn on him that Veronica could have put their answering-machine on instead of answering the phone in person, so he failed to perceive the huge propitiation gesture that his wife fondly imagined herself to have made.

    When she’d hung up Veronica said angrily to the phone: “All right; be like that!”

    Sharon, who had staggered after her into the front hall, said anxiously: “Vronny: eggy.”

    “Eh? Aw, yeah: eggy,” agreed Veronica. They’d been about to boil Sharon an egg for her tea when the phone had rung. It wasn’t quite Sharon’s teatime, and normally they would have waited to see if Peter was going to come home at his usual time; but— She gave the answering-machine an evil look.

    “EGGY!” roared Sharon. “TEA, Vronny, TEA!”

    “All right; eggy for tea!” growled Veronica, scooping her up.

    “Why the fuck can’t he just admit he’s wrong?” she muttered crossly, as she boiled them both an egg. Peter had already admitted he was wrong. Veronica knew this perfectly well. She glared at the egg pot.

    “Eggy,” replied Sharon, now corralled in her highchair. She looked at James in his carry-cot. “Zhames,” she suggested. “Vronny! Zhames!”

    “James has had his tea,” replied Veronica in a vague voice.

    “Zhames eggy!” insisted Sharon.

    “All right! He can have a taste of mine! Now shut up!”

    Sharon ate all her boiled egg and two platefuls of “dippers”. Veronica ate several dippers and fed James a large portion of the yolk of her egg on a couple of dippers. She ate a spoonful of white unenthusiastically. She laid the spoon down.

    “More!” said Sharon.

    Veronica ignored her.

    “Vronny! MORE!”

    Veronica groaned.

    “More tea. Shallon hung’y,” explained Sharon earnestly.

    This was a tremendous effort, for Sharon rarely bothered to try to explain her motives or feelings: she was still at the stage of conveying most of her meaning through mere noise, though she had a large recognition vocabulary. Veronica merely replied morosely: “Oh, go on: have this.” She gave her the rest of her egg. Sharon ate it hungrily and messily, fending off Veronica’s half-hearted attempts to assist her. Veronica stared moodily at her. Her mind wandered.

    Coming to with a start, she realized she’d been thinking she must tell Peter that Sharon had said “hungry”, she was sure it was a new word, at least she’d never heard her—

    “Bum,” she muttered. Tears sprang to her eyes. “How the fuck did I get myself into this?” she mumbled crossly, dragging the back of her hand across her eyes.

    “Milk!” decided Sharon loudly.

    “All mouth and stomach,” replied Veronica sourly, getting up to retrieve the cup of milk she’d somehow left on the bench.

    “Tommy,” ascertained Sharon, drinking from her Tommy Tippee cup.

    “Tommy Tippee,” corrected Veronica heavily. She shifted the torpid James from under her left arm to her lap.

    “Tommy,” replied Sharon obstinately.

    Veronica sighed deeply. She looked down at her sleeping son and wondered guiltily if she should have given him that egg yolk: he looked kind of bloated... And Peter would definitely say she shouldn’t have given Sharon all the rest of that second egg, it was too much cholesterol or something. Her mouth trembled, as she realized he’d never know, because of course they weren’t speaking...

    “’Nana!”

    “Ya can’t possibly want ’nana on top of all that egg.”

    “Es! I want ’nana!”

    Veronica got up heavily. She peeled a banana and gave Sharon half of it. She sat down again.

    Sharon ate some banana. She looked at the other half of the banana, which Veronica had left on the white Formica table. She stuffed the rest of her piece of banana into her mouth and choked it down. Veronica was staring listlessly into space. Sharon reached for the second half of the banana. She couldn’t reach it. Her little round face turned puce. “’Nana!” she panted.

    Veronica ignored her.

    Sharon strained to reach the banana. She couldn’t. “Merde!” she cried furiously.

    Veronica jumped violently.

    Sharon burst into tears of frustrated greed.

    Veronica burst into tears, too.

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/telling-carol.html