Her parents were a warm-hearted couple, whose naïveté about the realities of life and the human race were all very well in the context of a small rural village where they had been known all their lives, but the world had changed dramatically since her parents were young, and it frightened her sometimes how little they seemed to realise that fact.
Take the time she had got off the London train in Chester, only to discover that her mother had befriended a solitary and extremely hairy young man who had got off an earlier train, and even worse that she had practically invited him home for the weekend. One only had to pick up a paper to realise the danger of befriending strangers.
Not that Carter was a stranger precisely, but his motives were very suspect, as Peter had wisely pointed out to her. In fact Peter had rather chided her because she herself had not seen that danger immediately.
Truth to tell, she had been inclined to become more indignant about the way Carter seemed to have wormed his way into her parents’ affections and become an established part of their lives—so much so that the last time she had gone home, when mercifully he had been away visiting friends for the weekend, the parrot had shrieked unrelentingly, ‘Where’s Carter? I want Carter. Now there’s a man,’ accompanying this statement with a barrage of wolf-whistles and other equally unsavoury remarks.
It was not Jasper’s fault, her mother had apologised. The parrot had had three homes before being dumped on her parents; one of these being a Manchester pub, no doubt frequented by the kind of men who thought nothing of whistling at women and making fulsome remarks about their physical endowments.
Peter had remarked on their return drive to London that he sincerely hoped the bird would have met its demise by the time their children came along. ‘It’s that kind of thing that exerts the worst possible influence on young children,’ he had informed Elspeth.
Even worse, as she cringingly remembered, had been the reaction of Peter’s mother when he had described the parrot’s excesses to her the following weekend.
Peter was scrupulous about making sure that they never visited one set of parents without visiting the other, and if sometimes she had the unnerving feeling that he was doling out these duty visits with more parsimony than real emotion, she kept these unwanted thoughts firmly subdued.
Peter’s parents were nothing like her own. Peter’s mother was a wonderful housewife. Her furniture gleamed with polish, her kitchen floor could literally be dined off, and if Elspeth sometimes noticed the stiff formality of her visits there, the immaculate tidiness of the small sitting-room with its furniture that was both uncomfortable and almost too tidily arranged, she smothered her feelings and concentrated instead on reminding herself that once they were married Peter would no doubt expect her to maintain the same high standards attained by his mother.
That would be a challenge, but Elspeth reminded herself that the modern career woman thrived on such challenges, skilfully balancing the needs of career, home and family, and in doing so winning the admiration of everyone around her.
Mrs Holmes did not really approve of wives who worked. In her day making a home had been enough to keep any woman contented, but on the other hand she agreed with Peter that the additional income Elspeth earned would contribute welcomely to the family budget. There had even been a moment when Peter’s mother had suggested that when their children came along it might not be unfeasible for her and Mr Holmes to move to London, so that she might be on hand to take charge of her grandchildren’s upbringing.
For no good reason she could understand, Elspeth had experienced a very fierce and surprising shock of dislike for that suggestion. Into her mind had come mental images of her own childhood, of the farmyard and its inhabitants, of her mother’s kitchen with its good smells and its untidy bustle, of laughter and sunshine, of love and warmth, and she had known instinctively that she would never ever allow her prospective mother-in-law to bring up her own children.
Disturbing though these thoughts were she had managed to subdue them, chiding herself for being over-sentimental, reminding herself of how ill-equipped her own childhood had left her for the hard realities of life and people. And yet…
‘Elspeth, you aren’t listening to a word I’m saying. Really, I don’t know what it is about your family, but they do seem to have the most unsettling effect on you. If it weren’t for the fact that someone ought to check up on what this man is planning, I’d have serious doubts about the wisdom of your spending so much time in Cheshire. Both apartments need decorating. You could have made a start on the painting while you were off.’
Elspeth focused on him, wondering why she didn’t feel more enthusiastic about his suggestion, why she felt an almost sneaking sense of relief that she was committed to going home.
For no reason that she could readily discern, over these last six months she had experienced more and more rebellious moments of startling clarity, during which she had had the unnerving sensation that her relationship with Peter, her life here in London, her work, her scrupulous re-tailoring of her personality, her appearance, even her thoughts, were not an escape from the old childish, trusting Elspeth and her naïve country ways, but a trap—a trap which was gradually but inexorably closing around her.
Which was totally ridiculous, and fostered, she was sure, in some odd and indefinable way by her parents. Not that they would be liable to make those oh, so casual, but nevertheless pointed remarks about Peter this time. At least, not after the first three days, and she suspected they would be far too excited about their holiday to even think of remarking on how odd it was that she should choose to marry such a man.
Elspeth had never quite dared ask what they meant. She preferred to assume that they were simply marvelling at her good fortune rather than criticising Peter.
At precisely one-thirty, Peter summoned the waiter and paid the bill. At the end of the month they would scrupulously divide up the total cost of their total outings for that month, to make sure that such costs had been shared equally between them.
And if just occasionally Elspeth wondered what it would be like if Peter suddenly lavished her with expensive flowers or bought her handmade chocolates, she told herself severely that she was not that kind of dependent, childish woman, who needed to be bought such treats by a man; that if she wanted flowers she could buy her own. But something inside her refused to be totally convinced, making her cross with herself for yearning for such outdated, meaningless gestures.
‘Time to go,’ Peter informed her, standing up.
He said exactly the same thing every time they lunched together. Previously she had always found his predictability soothing, reassuring—but for some reason today it grated on her. She wondered what it would feel like if Peter suddenly behaved like her father, and announced that he had booked them both a surprise holiday, that he was taking her away to somewhere she had always wanted to go. She told herself severely that he would never do anything so thoughtless, that he would realise that it would not be possible for her to drop everything to go to the other end of the world with him. No, if—when she and Peter took a holiday together, it would be one that was meticulously planned and organised, which was just what she would want. She could think of nothing worse than being told that she had less than three weeks in which to prepare for a two-month trip abroad.
Of course her mother thrived on such announcements, throwing herself into them with enthusiasm and as much excitement as a small child. But she was not her mother…No. She had recognised, the day when she’d stood in the doorway to the staff-room of the bank listening to Sophy, that for the rest of her life she would have to protect her parents from people like that. That she must never again subject them to the kind of cruel mimicry employed by her supposed friend.
Just before they parted outside the restaurant, acting on some impulse she couldn’t understand, she leaned towards Peter, inviting him to kiss her.
A look of shock crossed his face. He drew back from her immediately, glancing hurriedly over his shoulder