It had been on our books since before I joined the company. When time for another inspection came round, I found myself volunteering. We had our regular team of appraisers of course but, having just been moved – on gratifying and, I complimented myself, well-deserved promotion – to that department, I’d persuaded the head of section, my immediate superior, that some ‘hands-on’ experience would be useful.
‘Why this hotel?’ I taunted myself, flicking foam across my stomach and watching the tendrils of froth settle over my navel. I brushed them aside to reveal again the curving indentation. Above and below it, the outline of my bikini was still faintly discernible. I considered whether, this year, I might dare to return from some hotspot with only a lower triangle of pallor. Crazy, really, that I’d never as yet summoned up the courage. My flatmates, in the days not so long ago when five of us shared two floors of a house in Maida Vale, returned each summer uniformly brown from their hip-bones upwards. ‘God, you’re so inhibited,’ one of them – Becky, no doubt – had teased me on more than one occasion, rolling her eyes in mock despair. Maybe I was. A bit, anyway. Something to do with being an only child? After all – I looked down now approvingly at my boobs – nothing to be ashamed of there.
I knew I was distracting myself from my own interrogation. Why this hotel? Why here? Why not Carlisle or Aberdeen or Norwich? Reluctantly, I confronted myself.
‘So it’s Flora country. Give or take. So what?’ I sank deeper into the water until my chin rested on its surface, the hair at the nape of my neck instantly saturated. It wasn’t as though I had any intention of going anywhere near her again. Maybe I was just taking the opportunity to prove the point – by ignoring, as I would, the turn-off to Cotterly on my return journey this afternoon. That was it.
Or was it? Just as clearly as I visualised myself driving straight back to London, I saw myself detouring at least as far as the hilltop above the village. Unable to dissolve either image, I hoisted myself impatiently up through the vapour and towelled vigorously.
It was a relief to descend to breakfast and concentrate on the details I needed to note for my report.
I attempted to write it in the garden, settled on a slatted bench with the file on my knee and the sun on my back, out of sight of the wide sweep of the tarmacked entrance. A faint burr of voices and the slam of car doors mingled with intermittent chatter of small birds and the hum of a foraging bee. I did my best to focus on the task in hand, but my mind refused to co-operate. I stared at the tip of a church spire, visible above rhododendrons which formed an effective hedge between me and the long stretches of countryside beyond.
I don’t know why I thought of Mark. Churches? Marriage? A starling flying towards its nest with a full beak? Had I missed the only boat, I wondered. Did I care?
I’d been right to finish the relationship, of course. Mother had been devastated. ‘But he’s so nice. And stockbrokers don’t come two a penny, you know. You’d have been very comfortable.’
‘He never actually asked me to marry him,’ I said.
‘He’d have got round to it … He adored you …’
I couldn’t tell her what had sparked our break-up.
We’d been lazing in bed – his bed – one Sunday morning, debating how to spend the day.
‘Let’s go and visit your parents,’ he’d suggested. ‘Wouldn’t mind doing justice to a traditional Sunday lunch.’
I hesitated. I’d taken him home several times during the fifteen months I’d known him, usually choosing a weekday evening when the Market was quiet and he could get away promptly. We’d reach the Surrey dormitory town at about a quarter to eight, earlier if the A3 traffic was light, and drive back, fortified by my mother’s cooking, in time to fall into bed at around midnight. ‘It suits my parents better,’ I’d explained. ‘They tend to be busy at weekends.’ I’d elaborated this excuse to explain my father’s absence on the one or two occasions I hadn’t been able to avoid our calling in on a Saturday or Sunday.
I stroked the soft hair on Mark’s forearm as he put it round my bare shoulders and pulled me towards him. ‘Or, of course,’ he teased my ear with a flick of his tongue, ‘we could just stay here …’
I snuggled up to him. Then I pulled away.
He reached out for me again. I resisted. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
He grinned up at me.
‘Seriously. It’s about my father,’ I said. ‘And my mother too, I suppose. And –’ I took a breath – ‘someone called Flora.’
I expanded, Mark prompting me with the occasional question; when I’d said as much as there was to say, I drew up my knees and rested my chin on them. ‘I’ve never told anyone before,’ I said.
In the silence, I could hear two people calling to each other in the street below. Suddenly Mark flung back the sheet and leapt out of bed. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said. I turned my head; and giggled. Standing there stark naked, he looked, I decided, like some indignant Greek god straight out of a Renaissance painting.
I waited for the declamation.
It came. But not in the form I was expecting. ‘Why the hell didn’t your mother let him have a divorce?’
I sagged, staring at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What sort of bitch is it that …’
‘You’ve got it all wrong.’
‘The hell I have.’
‘But …’ I felt my tongue on my lips. My mouth was dry as ice. I got up, enfolded myself in a dressing gown and tied the belt. In the kitchen I automatically flicked the switch on the kettle. ‘Coffee?’
‘No! Well, yes. Please.’
He followed me and put his arms round my waist as I reached up into the cupboard. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Milk?’
He loosed his hold and fetched the bottle from the fridge.
We carried the coffee through to the sitting room. I took the big easy chair while Mark fetched a towel and wrapped it round himself, sarong-style. He perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning towards me, his broad bare feet planted squarely on the thick-pile rug.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So that’s not how you see it?’
‘Of course not!’
He raised his arms in mock surrender. ‘All right. All right. Have it your own way.’
‘I should never have told you.’
‘Whyever not! It explains a lot. I mean, why your parents are so … polite with each other.’ He hesitated. ‘Some of your attitudes too, perhaps?’
‘My attitudes! What are you talking about?’
‘Forget it.’
But I wouldn’t. I made him spell it out. Challenged him. Provoked him. I was aware of what I was doing but unable to stop myself. It was a blazing row, with no holds barred on my part. Every last thing I could find to throw at him, real or imaginary, I flung in an oral stream of rage that seemed unstemmable.
On a tide of exultation, I stormed through to the bedroom, threw on my clothes and, gathering up what possessions of mine I could carry, swept out, crashing the door behind me.
Frigid, he’d called me. Distrustful of men. Well – I waved away a fly that had settled on my notepad – I supposed he was right. About being distrustful anyway.
Clare, good old Clare, robust as ever, had scorned the accusation of frigidity when