purpose?"
"No."
"Hmm." That was bad enough—the sound adults made when they didn't want you to be sure whether they believed you—but Charlotte made it worse. Dry-eyed as though she had never lost her composure, which Ian suspected to have been the case, she told him "My mummy says she doesn't know how you can bear to live there."
"Now, both of you try to get on together," his father said as she turned her back on Ian, and that was when he knew he hated her. He was glad he'd found a way to frighten her. He only wished, as long as he'd been accused of it, that he had meant to. Another time he would.
NINE
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN FAMILY HOME;
FIVE MINUTES FROM TRAIN TO WEST END; BREAKFAST AND EVENING MEAL IF REQUIRED
It had been her idea that Ian should stay overnight with his father and the rest of them, Leslie reminded herself. However unforgiving of his father she might be, she didn't want to pass that on to Ian. Her fury of a year ago occasionally flared up out of its ash, but she'd accepted that she would never be sure of the details of Roger's behaviour—whether while Leslie was being soothed by music in the basement of HMV, he'd begun by sympathising with his colleague on the top floor over the disintegration of her marriage and then had made more than his sympathy felt, or whether the cause and effect had been more the opposite—and there was no longer any point in caring. If she herself had turned out to be less or other than he'd thought he was marrying, that was surely part of the experience of marriage, and he should have talked to her about it instead of to Hilene, as Leslie was sure he had. Still, now all that mattered between them was that Ian didn't lose whatever relationship he needed with his father, and that was even worth her spending tonight by herself in the house.
So far that hadn't proved too daunting. Listening to favourite music without its being even slightly overshadowed by her sense of Ian's automatic dislike of it was a treat in itself. The Bach cello suite had emerged from introspection to celebrate with a dance, and then another. The final throaty chord faded, and as the last suite began she tore the page off the message pad and deposited the screwed-up wad on the plate with the remains of her lasagna.
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN FRIENDLY HOUSE
Of course she would have to tell anybody who responded the history of the house, but when she imagined doing that, the advertisement hardly seemed worth writing. The only way of being sure to fail was not to try, and she'd learned never to be satisfied not to. She scrapped the page and started on another.
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN SUBURBAN HOUSE;
FIVE MINUTES' WALK TO DIRECT LINE TO WEST END; CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST AND EVENING MEAL IF REQUIRED
Room with view of sunset, the sight through the dining room window suggested she should have written. A version of the yellow afterglow had appeared in a bedroom over the wall at the end of the garden, and except for the area lit by the small chandelier dangling its tears above the table, her house was growing dark. She gathered her plate and utensils and tall glass printed with white lipstick that was milk and carried them to the sink.
As the fluorescent tube jittered alight the floor appeared to shift, and a shiver sent a tear down each of her cheeks. She was remembering the photograph of Harmony Duke she'd kept from the Advertiser —a school photograph in which the little girl had been even younger than she'd had the chance to be. The small bright-eyed face smiling proudly with a hint of self-consciousness had put Leslie in mind of Ian when he'd started school—Ian bringing home a painting of two big pink lollipops and one sucked small that she and Roger had realised just in time was a picture of the family, Ian helping her to garden by building a Lego scarecrow complete with a sign that said no slugs, Ian reading the squirrel walk sign in a nature reserve and solemnly commenting "Rabbits might know, but not
"No."
"Hmm." That was bad enough—the sound adults made when they didn't want you to be sure whether they believed you—but Charlotte made it worse. Dry-eyed as though she had never lost her composure, which Ian suspected to have been the case, she told him "My mummy says she doesn't know how you can bear to live there."
"Now, both of you try to get on together," his father said as she turned her back on Ian, and that was when he knew he hated her. He was glad he'd found a way to frighten her. He only wished, as long as he'd been accused of it, that he had meant to. Another time he would.
NINE
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN FAMILY HOME;
FIVE MINUTES FROM TRAIN TO WEST END; BREAKFAST AND EVENING MEAL IF REQUIRED
It had been her idea that Ian should stay overnight with his father and the rest of them, Leslie reminded herself. However unforgiving of his father she might be, she didn't want to pass that on to Ian. Her fury of a year ago occasionally flared up out of its ash, but she'd accepted that she would never be sure of the details of Roger's behaviour—whether while Leslie was being soothed by music in the basement of HMV, he'd begun by sympathising with his colleague on the top floor over the disintegration of her marriage and then had made more than his sympathy felt, or whether the cause and effect had been more the opposite—and there was no longer any point in caring. If she herself had turned out to be less or other than he'd thought he was marrying, that was surely part of the experience of marriage, and he should have talked to her about it instead of to Hilene, as Leslie was sure he had. Still, now all that mattered between them was that Ian didn't lose whatever relationship he needed with his father, and that was even worth her spending tonight by herself in the house.
So far that hadn't proved too daunting. Listening to favourite music without its being even slightly overshadowed by her sense of Ian's automatic dislike of it was a treat in itself. The Bach cello suite had emerged from introspection to celebrate with a dance, and then another. The final throaty chord faded, and as the last suite began she tore the page off the message pad and deposited the screwed-up wad on the plate with the remains of her lasagna.
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN FRIENDLY HOUSE
Of course she would have to tell anybody who responded the history of the house, but when she imagined doing that, the advertisement hardly seemed worth writing. The only way of being sure to fail was not to try, and she'd learned never to be satisfied not to. She scrapped the page and started on another.
LARGE SUNNY ROOM IN SUBURBAN HOUSE;
FIVE MINUTES' WALK TO DIRECT LINE TO WEST END; CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST AND EVENING MEAL IF REQUIRED
Room with view of sunset, the sight through the dining room window suggested she should have written. A version of the yellow afterglow had appeared in a bedroom over the wall at the end of the garden, and except for the area lit by the small chandelier dangling its tears above the table, her house was growing dark. She gathered her plate and utensils and tall glass printed with white lipstick that was milk and carried them to the sink.
As the fluorescent tube jittered alight the floor appeared to shift, and a shiver sent a tear down each of her cheeks. She was remembering the photograph of Harmony Duke she'd kept from the Advertiser —a school photograph in which the little girl had been even younger than she'd had the chance to be. The small bright-eyed face smiling proudly with a hint of self-consciousness had put Leslie in mind of Ian when he'd started school—Ian bringing home a painting of two big pink lollipops and one sucked small that she and Roger had realised just in time was a picture of the family, Ian helping her to garden by building a Lego scarecrow complete with a sign that said no slugs, Ian reading the squirrel walk sign in a nature reserve and solemnly commenting "Rabbits might know, but not
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