Seven Dials by Claire Rayner

‘Lee? You do agree that we need some sustenance of some sort to get us over that? Will you join me? We might manage to get something over at the Savoy.’
    ‘Oh,’ Lee said uncertainly and bit her lip. ‘I’m not sure - I thought perhaps I’d see if I could find Harry, and then - well, it’s almost lunchtime and - ’
    Johanna shook her head at her, smiling gently. ‘Don’t, my dear. I used to do things like that. It never made any difference. Made it worse, actually.’
    Lee lifted her chin with a slightly defiant little gesture. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Jo - ’
    ‘Oh, darling, of course you do. This is me, Johanna, remember? Jonty’s wife. If I don’t know what it’s like to be in your shoes, who does? I stood in them so long myself, after all - ’
    Lee couldn’t look at her, keeping her head bent over her hands as she fiddled in her bag. She knew that Johanna was right, of course; it never helped to go after Harry, to seem to show an awareness of what he was doing. Oh, he’d be friendly enough if she tracked him down, charming even, but he’d tell her he couldn’t have lunch,
so
sorry,
much
too busy, and would go off to sit and share his meal in the common room with whoever was young and female on the medical staff, while she went home alone to eat a meagre sandwich in the nursery with Stella, knowing he was snubbing her, and knowing too that
he
knew he need do nothing to comfort her. Because wouldn’t she go on being sweet and good, refusing to make any sort of fuss, refusing to let him know how hurt she was by his silly philandering ways?
    That was the trouble between them of course. Both knew the other so well that they could judge to a nicety whatreaction would follow which action, and neither could bring themselves to talk about what had happened to them. There had been a time, once, when their closeness had warmed them both, but that had all seemed to dissolve into emptiness once Stella had been born. His interest in the children had dwindled as hers had grown and now they were like strangers, remote yet appallingly familiar, sharing a bed, sharing lovemaking too from time to time, but never sharing their real feelings or their real needs. It was a lonely way to be.
    Now she lifted her eyes and caught Johanna’s limpid sympathetic gaze and felt her lips tighten. Johanna looked dreadful, of course, old before her time and quite devastated; everyone knew that and said as much to each other in hushed tones, sympathizing in her widowed state and her obvious grief, but sometimes Lee couldn’t help but wonder if, in a sense, Johanna didn’t glory in her situation. Jonty dead was all her own, unlike Jonty alive, for then she had to share him with any number of women. And how she had hated that, and how she had fussed and wept and fussed again, so that everyone in the family knew of it. But now, she fussed no more, going about in her black clothes looking dreadful and yet somehow contented in her sadness; and Lee took in a sharp little breath through her nose and castigated herself for being so uncharitable. Of course Johanna mourned her Jonty wholeheartedly and of course she wished to have him back, even if he had been so cruel to her and so busy about other women’s skirts. To think otherwise was to be very unkind indeed.
    ‘All right,’ she said impulsively, ‘I’ll come with you. Then we can talk about what this Benefit is to be and make plans. I could try to phone Letty from the Savoy, come to think of it, and perhaps go and see her this afternoon. Nanny is taking Stella to a friend for tea and then meeting Sally after school, and Michael’s playing rugger till six, and I can be home well before that, so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t -’
    ‘Lovely!’ Johanna said. ‘And I’m not meeting Claudia till after she finishes at the showroom, which probably won’t be till after four. We have a cocktail party to go to at her future mother-in-law’s hotel. She’s in town for