In a Good Light (34 page)

‘There's a coffee shop in the crypt here, I think,' I said, remembering a sign I'd passed, but he shook his head.

‘I've been in a crypt all morning. I need fresh air.' We walked down Ludgate Hill towards Fleet Street until we found a café that had a couple of wobbly aluminium tables outside on the street. Exhaust fumes competed with the smell of garbage and drains rising from the vents in the pavement. It was a relief when Donovan lit up. Over two ‘all-day breakfasts' he told me his working conditions had dramatically improved since he had borrowed a chair from the lobby, and located the Klix coffee machine on the third floor. Now he could lounge around in comfort, reading John Updike between interruptions. I said I'd never come across any of his stuff. (He wasn't on Penny's reading list.)

‘It's probably just as well,' Donovan replied, keeping a very straight face. ‘It's not really suitable for girls as young as you.' I refused to rise: this joke was going to run and run, I could tell.

When it was time to pay, Donovan brushed aside my offers, producing a roll of notes from his jeans pocket. ‘This is the money Mum left me,' he explained. ‘Might as well use it.'

‘I thought it was supposed to be for household expenses,' I reminded him.

‘That's right. Consider yourself a necessary household expense.'

As we walked back up Ludgate Hill Donovan suggested that I come back to the office to check out his tomb.

‘Will I be allowed to walk in off the street?' I asked, doubtfully.

‘No one will even notice,' he promised.

His building was a squat, ugly, concrete and glass block in a side road off Cannon Street. Various other workers were scurrying up the steps to the glass doors as we arrived, trying to make the two o'clock deadline.

Inside the meanly lit lobby, with its zig-zag carpet of competing colours that jumped and receded dizzily before my eyes, Donovan handed his time card to a girl behind a high kidney-shaped desk, and we passed on to the lift, unremarked. In the corner, starved of natural light, stood a flourishing fig tree in a terracotta urn.

‘Plastic,' said Donovan. ‘All plastic. Even the gravel is fake.'

We took the lift to Basement Two, and stepped out into a narrow corridor, partially blocked by cardboard boxes and broken filing cabinet drawers, where the air was subterranean and cool. ‘You need a canary down here,' I said. ‘There might be firedamp.'

Donovan gave me a quick grin. ‘Look at that. Health and Safety,' he said, pointing to the boxes. ‘I could get
this whole place closed down.' Instead, he showed me his quarters: a twenty-foot square bunker lit by a whining neon strip, and furnished with rows of grey filing cabinets. In one corner was a vinyl bucket seat, recently filched from the lobby, and a desk on which sat a phone. To the untrained eye the filing system seemed not to be arranged according to sound alphabetical or numerical principles: drawers would be labelled X0005932-ZA8 or similar, but Donovan had evidently mastered these strange and complex encryptions.

It was a thoroughly depressing place, and I couldn't wait to get away, though I felt almost guilty abandoning him there.

‘What do you think?' he asked, throwing out both arms in fake pride.

I walked to one of the blank, porridge-coloured walls, where a window might have been expected to sit, and tried to peer out. ‘It's got no prospects, Donovan,' I said, making a move to go.

‘You're not going to leave me mouldering down here?' he said, indignantly. ‘I was just going to get us a coffee from the machine. Sit down.' He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me firmly into the chair. ‘Don't answer the phone,' he instructed as he left. A minute later I heard the lift door ping and then there was silence. Not the awe-inspiring hush of St Paul's, but an oppressive, crushing nothingness, maddeningly overlaid by the whine of that overhead light. A few minutes passed. I began to wonder whether Donovan had deliberately abandoned me, just so I'd know how it felt. The phone rang. I ignored it. After a few rings it stopped, then started again, more insistently, it seemed to me. I picked it up.

‘It's me,' said Donovan. ‘I forgot to ask if you take milk and sugar.'

I said I did.

‘Anyway,' he added sternly, ‘I thought I told you not to pick up the phone.'

I think it was at this point that I decided falling in love with Donovan might be as pleasant a way as any to pass the summer.

AFTER THAT DAY
I often met Donovan for lunch, at least twice a week, and always at his invitation. These invitations were casually delivered, as if it was a matter of complete indifference to him whether or not I came, and were accepted in the same vein. In fact I made sure to keep my afternoons free, just in case he should ask, and on one occasion cancelled an outing with Dawn at short notice, using Grandpa as an excuse – a shabby trick, but infatuation can make traitors of us all.

We were supposed to be going to help Pam and Andy decorate their spare room in preparation for the imminent arrival of twins. They had recovered from their falling out and were married now, and living in a two-bedroomed place on the same estate as the Clubbs.

‘Why do you have to stay in with your Grandpa?' Dawn wanted to know when I rang up to cry off. ‘He'll be okay for an hour or two, won't he?'

‘He's a bit doo-lally,' I replied. ‘He wanders off, or lets burglars in. It would be just my luck if I popped out and he chose today to burn the house down.'

‘Can't Christian do it?'

‘He's working.' As Penny had predicted, Christian was too broke to consider travelling, and had taken a job as a plasterer's labourer – just one source of friction between the two of them.

‘I could come to you instead,' Dawn suggested.

‘No, no,' I said, hastily. ‘You go to Pam's. I'll come another day.' I was glad that exchange took place over the telephone because my face was burning by the time I'd finished. I suppose I should have felt ashamed of myself, but Penny had always insisted that fibs were a necessary emollient to relationships and not to be despised.

Generally, after having lunch at our favourite café, I would accompany Donovan back to the tomb, and we would while away the afternoon playing cards: knockout whist, demon patience and box rummy – all the games Christian had taught him during those childhood visits to the Old Schoolhouse. His general mode of address could only be described as affectionate scorn, and I seemed to provide him with endless material. Chief amongst my deficiencies was my dress sense. In spite of Penny's coaching I still suffered occasional lapses when she wasn't on hand to intervene. A pair of smart grey trousers with a belted jacket had seemed fine to me until Donovan said they made me look like a bus conductor, and at the other extreme, a white ruffled skirt, which I had thought pretty and romantic, had elicited a raised eyebrow and the enquiry, ‘Are you off to a barn dance?'

In spite of this mockery he was otherwise very generous, always paying for my lunch (from Aunty Barbara's funds, of
course), and from his first pay packet he bought me an enamel hair slide from a stall in Covent Garden. He had left the price on the box, in case I wanted to take it back, he said, but I think it was to let me know that it was more expensive than it looked. Anyway, it was an unusual and thoughtful gift, and it occurred to me that Donovan had had past experience of buying presents for women.

Penny took great interest in this development. ‘He must be quite keen on you, Esther,' she said.

‘He's never said anything keen,' I replied, pleased all the same. She had come over one Thursday morning so that I could do her hair in dozens of tiny braids. She had a page from
Cosmo
which showed you exactly how to do it with beads and cotton. It was going to take hours, but we had nothing else to do.

‘Ah, but the giving of gifts is a sure sign,' she said. ‘Christian bought me a pair of gold earrings when we started going out. I had to go and get my ears pierced so I could wear them.'

She wasn't wearing them now, I noticed.

‘He was always bringing me little presents. He doesn't any more,' she added. ‘He'd have to borrow the money off me first.'

‘He told me this plastering job pays quite well, so maybe he'll get back into the habit,' I said, making a mental note to take him aside and suggest it. At the same time I couldn't help thinking it typical of Penny to expect the tide of generosity to flow only one way – in her direction.

She rolled her eyes at the mention of the plastering job. ‘Didn't I tell you how it would be back in February? I turned down the America trip so we could go somewhere together, and now he's got to work all summer just to pay off his
debts. I've a good mind to go to France with Wart instead. His parents have got a place in the Loire. A whole group of people are going down there.'

‘I didn't realise you liked Wart,' I said.

‘Oh, he's all right,' she said, blushing slightly. ‘He pays me a lot of attention, and it's hard not to like someone who does that.'

The phone rang, so I left Penny pinching a half-finished braid between finger and thumb while I went to answer it. It was the garage, saying Donovan's car was fixed and ready for collection. As I hung up the ringing began again. I snatched up the receiver.

‘Is Donovan there?' said a female voice. Not Aunty Barbara.

‘No, he's at work.'

‘Oh. Have you got his number?'

I hadn't. I couldn't even remember the name of the office, despite my frequent visits to its vaults. ‘It's got two names – two surnames, you know, like Clayton Fortescue, or Taylor Chadwell, but that's not it.'

‘Oh.' The voice was sounding bothered. ‘Could you tell him to ring me tomorrow evening at home. It's got to be tomorrow. That's very important. He mustn't ring at any other time. He'll understand.' I was taking such care to remember this curious detail that I put down the phone without asking her name. He'll know, I thought, with a slight stirring of jealousy.

Penny was standing at my bedroom window when I went to resume my hairdressing duties. ‘Speak of the devil,' she said putting a finger to the glass. It was Wart. He had driven right up to the house and was now examining the dark green paintwork of his MG for scratches.
The bench seat was occupied by a wooden rocking-horse and a bouquet of flowers.

‘God almighty, it's a bit overgrown here,' he protested, when we had joined him in the driveway. ‘What are you? Sleeping Beauty or something?'

‘It dies back in winter,' I said. I would have to get those shears out again.

‘What brings you here?' Penny asked. ‘You're a long way from home.'

‘I'm going to visit my sister in Sevenoaks. She's just had her first sprog. I thought I'd take a little detour to see Christian. Where is he?'

‘Helping to plaster the Holiday Inn,' said Penny.

‘Oh good, he's got a job, has he? Because he still owes me a few pennies. And I was hoping to get my hands on some of them before I go to France.' He spat a gobbet of chewing gum into the bushes and grinned at me, his mirrored sunglasses obscuring the direction of his gaze, making him look more than usually sinister. I felt the same odd mixture of repulsion and mesmerism that I'd experienced at our first meeting. He was wearing very tight jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off to reveal his muscly shoulders and plenty of underarm hair. There was something belligerent about his masculinity that made me uncomfortable.

Penny seemed unintimidated. ‘What have you been doing with yourself since the end of term?' she asked.

‘Just rattling around at home. I knocked down a couple of outhouses that were about to collapse. I went to see Martina in Clapham one day. She was in a pretty bad way.'

‘What was wrong with her?'

‘Same old stuff. Really low, not eating again. She said you hadn't been returning her calls.'

A guilty blush spread over Penny's cheeks. ‘I did try once, but she was out,' she said defensively. ‘Anyway, it's not me she wants to see. It's Christian. I'm not stupid.'

‘She just needs someone to take her out of herself. Stop her getting all introspective. I'll try and go again before I go to France.'

‘When are you off?' asked Penny, a touch wistfully to my mind.

‘Next week. Why don't you come? I've got room.' He nodded towards the MG.

‘Oh, I don't know. Next week's a bit soon.'

‘I could delay it,' Wart replied, too quickly.

‘We'll see. I don't know about Christian . . .'

‘Do you want a cup of tea?' I asked him, remembering my manners. It occurred to me that if Penny hadn't been here I'd have had to entertain him alone.

‘No. Something stronger. Is there a pub around here?'

‘There's the Fox and Pheasant on the green,' I said, pointing in the direction of the village.

‘Anyone want to come?' he offered, climbing behind the wheel of the MG. All three of us glanced at the one empty seat. Penny won't go, I thought. Not with half her hair done. ‘I can't,' I said. ‘I've got to give Grandpa his lunch.'

‘Oh, well, if you can't I might as well,' said Penny, jumping in beside him.

‘What about your hair?' I reminded her.

Her hand strayed to the half-dozen completed braids that swung like so many fancy bell-pulls on one side of her head. ‘Oh.' There was a moment's hesitation while she weighed this state of asymmetry against other considerations. ‘It doesn't matter what I look like,' she said, laying her hand on Wart's hairy arm. ‘It's only Wart.'

He gave her a sickly smile, before flipping on the ignition and reversing the car back down the driveway, treating its bodywork to a second ordeal by flail.

I WONDERED WHETHER
Donovan might offer to take me for a drive at the weekend now that his car was back in service. I had a hankering to do something civilised, like take a picnic of strawberries to Hever Castle and do some sketching. What Donovan was supposed to do with himself while I sketched hadn't quite emerged from the fog of egotism that tended to shroud the awkward details of my daydreams. In any case, when I got up on Saturday morning I found his room empty and the car gone. I knew it was something to do with that phone message I'd given him, because on Friday evening as I was on my way to the Conways to babysit, I saw him in the call box on the green. He had his back to me and didn't see me approach, so I was able to creep up alongside and rap on the glass, making him jump. He must have been in the middle of an absorbing conversation as he shook his head irritably and waved me off. I slunk away, mortified, feeling more than ever like a silly child.