where the cars sliced through the park. She couldn’t think about what had happened. She focused on moving away from Stuart, the park, the mess of the evening. Seeing the welcome yellow light of a free taxi, she raised her arm to hail it and slumped into its dark cabin as the streets slid by.
Annie’s drive back to Cranbourne Terrace had been unpleasantly long – slowed by the interminable stream of cars returning from the weekend exodus. As the traffic halted outside Richmond she looked across into the next lane, where a couple sat in an open-topped MG, snatching kisses as the jam stopped and started. Had Jackson called? After all, she’d been away since Friday. But then he couldn’t call,
obviously
, as she hadn’t given him her homenumber. Although, come to think of it, he could have got it from Tania. Maybe. Honestly, telephones could be hell. If only they had one of those answering services. Maybe Sal had been there? She hoped she was in when she got back so she could find out. If you ask someone to dinner like that, send them an amazing present, how long would you wait to call? Maybe he’d changed his mind.
Annie knew the flat was empty as soon as she walked in the front door. She dumped her bags in her bedroom and ran a bath to rid herself of the fumes and stickiness of the drive. In the bath, with her hair piled up, she squeezed water from the natural sponge Sal had brought back from Corfu. The door to the tiny bathroom was open to let in light from the hallway and avoid the necessity of using the light cord attached to the ugly rumble of an extractor fan. She couldn’t be bothered to light the stub of a candle on the narrow bath surround and watched Flick pad in, clawing the floral embroidery of the silk dressing gown lying on the floor.
‘Poor old thing. Have you been lonely? Bet she forgot to feed you.’
The countryside had been a relief from the dusty heat of town. Her mother had cheerfully taken care of the huge bag of laundry she had deposited on the kitchen table and plied her with delicious salads.
‘I hope you’re eating properly, Annie. Not just Pot Noodles. I’m sending you back with supplies – though I don’t suppose Joanna has a freezer in that flat.’ Letty was obviously enjoying slipping on the mantle of motherhood.
‘You look very cheerful,’ Letty remarked, unwilling to risk a more direct probe as they had supper in the garden, assuming Annie had met a man. Letty Brenham firmly believed that a suitable marriage was the wisest course of action for her two daughters. Annie and Beth knew that it was their father who had always intended that his girls go to university; he would have insisted on it had he lived. Left to their mum, things would have been different. She made it clear that she didn’t really see the point.
‘It’s not as if you two are going to be doctors or scientists or anything like that’ was her position, ‘in which case, why not do something more useful? I’ve always regretted I never got a foreign language.’ She made it sound as if you could buy one, like a new handbag. ‘Why not go to live in Paris for a year? Or I gather there’s a very respectable art course in Florence. You’ll make some nice friends. Get a bit of culture, and then there are all kinds of places where you could get a job.’
One day during university holidays Annie had heard her mother standing in the hall talking on the phone to a friend as she fiddled with a flower arrangement:
‘Thank God she doesn’t want to be one of those banker types, not like Freddie and Julia’s youngest, who’s gone on this milk train – or is it the gravy train? Anyway, something like that, where the banks pick out their favourites … Mmm. Yes, terrible hours they have to work.’ Annie knew that implicit in Letty’s critique of banking as a career was her belief that you couldn’t expect a man to want a banker for a wife. He’d surely prefer a girl who worked in something more feminine.
Annie’s drive back to Cranbourne Terrace had been unpleasantly long – slowed by the interminable stream of cars returning from the weekend exodus. As the traffic halted outside Richmond she looked across into the next lane, where a couple sat in an open-topped MG, snatching kisses as the jam stopped and started. Had Jackson called? After all, she’d been away since Friday. But then he couldn’t call,
obviously
, as she hadn’t given him her homenumber. Although, come to think of it, he could have got it from Tania. Maybe. Honestly, telephones could be hell. If only they had one of those answering services. Maybe Sal had been there? She hoped she was in when she got back so she could find out. If you ask someone to dinner like that, send them an amazing present, how long would you wait to call? Maybe he’d changed his mind.
Annie knew the flat was empty as soon as she walked in the front door. She dumped her bags in her bedroom and ran a bath to rid herself of the fumes and stickiness of the drive. In the bath, with her hair piled up, she squeezed water from the natural sponge Sal had brought back from Corfu. The door to the tiny bathroom was open to let in light from the hallway and avoid the necessity of using the light cord attached to the ugly rumble of an extractor fan. She couldn’t be bothered to light the stub of a candle on the narrow bath surround and watched Flick pad in, clawing the floral embroidery of the silk dressing gown lying on the floor.
‘Poor old thing. Have you been lonely? Bet she forgot to feed you.’
The countryside had been a relief from the dusty heat of town. Her mother had cheerfully taken care of the huge bag of laundry she had deposited on the kitchen table and plied her with delicious salads.
‘I hope you’re eating properly, Annie. Not just Pot Noodles. I’m sending you back with supplies – though I don’t suppose Joanna has a freezer in that flat.’ Letty was obviously enjoying slipping on the mantle of motherhood.
‘You look very cheerful,’ Letty remarked, unwilling to risk a more direct probe as they had supper in the garden, assuming Annie had met a man. Letty Brenham firmly believed that a suitable marriage was the wisest course of action for her two daughters. Annie and Beth knew that it was their father who had always intended that his girls go to university; he would have insisted on it had he lived. Left to their mum, things would have been different. She made it clear that she didn’t really see the point.
‘It’s not as if you two are going to be doctors or scientists or anything like that’ was her position, ‘in which case, why not do something more useful? I’ve always regretted I never got a foreign language.’ She made it sound as if you could buy one, like a new handbag. ‘Why not go to live in Paris for a year? Or I gather there’s a very respectable art course in Florence. You’ll make some nice friends. Get a bit of culture, and then there are all kinds of places where you could get a job.’
One day during university holidays Annie had heard her mother standing in the hall talking on the phone to a friend as she fiddled with a flower arrangement:
‘Thank God she doesn’t want to be one of those banker types, not like Freddie and Julia’s youngest, who’s gone on this milk train – or is it the gravy train? Anyway, something like that, where the banks pick out their favourites … Mmm. Yes, terrible hours they have to work.’ Annie knew that implicit in Letty’s critique of banking as a career was her belief that you couldn’t expect a man to want a banker for a wife. He’d surely prefer a girl who worked in something more feminine.
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