Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers Page A

had remarried—a solicitor in a City firm—and she was now buffered by demonstrable prosperity. Nevertheless, she continued to receive Peter—still more Bridget, should Bridget happen to be the one to chauffeur the children home—in the manner of a mendicant, whose impoverishment should be laid at the door of her former husband. Hopeless to try and suggest—as Bridget did—that his children’s mother’s attitude was injurious, not only to relations with their father but also to the children themselves. As Bridget came to see, Peter did not greatly care what his children felt or thought about him. She suspected they irked him; and that he was glad when the regular visits tailed off and he was released from the pressures of family obligation.
    The children, now adults, had appeared at the funeraland the girl had cried, mildly obedient to some atavistic sense of her loss—while the young man, a stockbroker in the City, in his new dark suit had hung his head sheepishly. Bridget had felt sorry for them: they had no language with which to mourn their father.
    Their mother, Peter’s former wife, had sent a massy wreath of ostentatious whiteness, and a card with sentiments on it which had left Bridget particularly cold.
    No, there was little enough love lost between Peter and his children which is why it was mildly surprising to discover his attachment to Zahin.
    Back in London Mickey said to Jean, ‘It doesn’t seem right that boy having a girl round there like that with Bridget not at home. I don’t know if I should say anything.’
    ‘Perhaps she said he could?’ Jean was more phlegmatic than her friend.
    ‘What if she didn’t?’
    ‘Girlfriends aren’t any harm, are they?’ Jean didn’t think Bridget seemed the type to lay down draconian rules.
    ‘She looked a forward little thing if you ask me. All tarted up in them platform heels, with what you could see of her BTM—which wasn’t much of one anyway—stuck out. And plastered all over in make-up. A young girl does better showing off her own skin, in my view.’
    ‘It’s the way with modern girls…’ Jean’s more charitable nature suggested.
    ‘Better say nothing this time,’ Mickey decided. ‘But ifit’s going to keep on happening, I’ll have to. My conscience wouldn’t let me off otherwise,’ she concluded with stark satisfaction.

11
    Bridget had not started back to London as early as she had planned. The chimney had smoked and she had taken time to ring round the Yellow Pages in search of a sweep. A Mr Godwin was found who promised to visit when she returned in a fortnight. And she lingered on after the matter of the chimney had been resolved, dawdling and watching the rooks, reluctant to have to make the effort of the drive.
    Zahin was at the gate when Bridget arrived and took the holdall from her.
    ‘Zahin! How did you know I was back?’
    ‘Instinct, Mrs Hansome.’ She had tried, and failed, to get him to call her ‘Bridget’.
    ‘I didn’t even know myself when I would get here.’
    ‘The traffic was heavy.’ He had a way, she noticed, of making questions statements.
    ‘As life!’
    ‘You are tired. Come in, please, and relax.’
    Sitting with a glass of Jameson, Bridget thought: If only Peter could see this! Chaotic himself, he had theobsessional nature which sees chaos in others’ mess but not his own. Bridget was no housewife and Peter’s fussy comments had been a source of ruffled feelings. Yet now, with Peter gone and unable to appreciate it, the house gleamed with the patina of dedicated care. Upstairs a bath was running and a scent drifted down to her.
    ‘Zahin, what is that you have put in my bath?’ she called upstairs.
    ‘I bought it in the King’s Road, Mrs Hansome. Meadow flowers—it is very you!’
    Flowers had been in the dream of Peter. Or had they? The mind played tricks—she was aware of the human tendency to weave ‘reality’ out of wishes.
    ‘You are too kind,’ she called again. Zahin’s