‘And by far the more attractive.’
‘That as well.’
Eunice turned to address him. There was an earnest look on her face. ‘But Neville, you’d never attract a girl like that until you altered your style.’
‘Oh, and I thought she seemed quite taken with me.’
She laughed scornfully. ‘You fool yourself, Neville. Look at your awful beard and your disastrous hair. Do you realise I have never, in all the years I’ve known you, seen you without that damn beard? You had it when we were first introduced, and you’ve had it ever since – all through your Oxford days.’
‘So what? That’s me. That’s how I am.’
‘But you’re only twenty-nine, dammit, and you look forty-nine. Young ladies nowadays go for the smooth, clean-shaven look in men – short, neat haircuts. I mean, look at that Billy fellow she was with…he’s fashionable…typical of the type of young men women go for. I can understand why she finds him appealing.’
‘Surely girls prefer someone more masculine?’
‘On the contrary, girls today prefer a more feminine-looking man…Not that he’s feminine…Not by any stretch of imagination.’
‘And some girls try to look like boys with their flat chests and short haircuts. It’s a strange world we live in.’
Eunice continued peering at her moistened face in the mirror of her dressing table. ‘The point I’m trying to make, my darling Neville, is that if you altered your style I might find you more attractive. What is it that compels you to want to look so…so eccentric?’
‘It’s how I want to look, no more, no less. It pleases me. I dislike shaving. I dislike having my hair cut more than is necessary. And anyway, people remember me all the easier for it. And that’s good for business.’
‘But you look like somebody from the last century. It makes you look so old. Whom are trying to emulate, for God’s sake? Leon Trotsky? It’s not as if you have a poor physique. You have an excellent physique.’
He pulled back the covers of his single bed and slid between the sheets. ‘I’d like to invite Billy and Henzey over to dinner one evening. Can we fix a convenient date?’
‘I…I think not. I have no wish to entertain them here.’
‘You said a minute ago Billy was very appealing. Do make up your mind, Eunice.’
‘What I said was, I could understand why that young girl found him appealing, unlike that other man, that Harvey. He’s an old-fashioned, bigoted, high Tory. Please don’t embarrass me by inviting them here. If you wish to meet them alone at a restaurant that’s up to you. But please don’t involve me.’
Neville lay back and closed his eyes, urgently seeking a mental image of Henzey. ‘As for Harvey and his anonymous wife,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t intended asking them.’
Neither spoke more. Neville sighed unhappily and snuggled down in his bed. He ventured no further conversation, remaining silent, trying to sleep. But sleep eluded him for a long time after Eunice had slid into her own bed and turned out the light. He tried to imagine this young Henzey Kite lying naked in bed with him; the feel of her warm soft skin against his; her silken mouth; his thigh gripped lovingly between hers; her arching back as his tongue drove her wild, probing her secret places; her appreciative vocal sighs as he thrust hungrily into her. His throat went dry just thinking about it.
But eventually the erotic fantasies were eclipsed by more mundane thoughts. Meeting Henzey Kite also focused his mind on the shortcomings of his marriage; shortcomings he regretted, but was unable to change in the short term. His marriage used to be very satisfactory, but now it was a compromise; an arrangement; a result of the marital foolishness he had spoken about to Henzey. He wondered how long it might survive in this hideous state. Eunice was a beautiful woman, and desirable. They lived together without sleeping together, and though there was seldom any open hostility between them, mainly for the sake of their son, neither was there any visible affection. Yet there was a glimmer of hope. Eunice had said that if he chose to shave off his beard and have his hair cut decently she might find him more attractive. She had said that before, but why should his beard and his hair make any difference? She married him with his beard and his hair, why should she despise it now? He would divest himself of it as a last resort; only if absolutely necessary.
For Neville took refuge behind his beard. It was a form of protection; a disguise to prevent recognition. He wore it just in case one particular person were to recognise him first. He knew it was spurious, a notion conceived in his youth that had developed and intensified over the years. He had never confided his thoughts to Eunice about it, hence she saw him merely as somebody completely out of step with fashion, and was unaware of his concern.
It was generated by the knowledge that he once had a twin brother. He could not remember him and did not even know his name, but the odds were that he was still alive, possibly round the next corner, and might even come seeking him. That being so, Neville wanted to be able to recognise his twin first, without being recognised himself. It was irrational on the face of it, he knew, but important to him. In the event, it would offer him the choice of either turning away or making himself known, depending on what he perceived in the man.
Neville only knew what Magdalen Worthington, his adopted mother, had told him: that he was the son of his father, Oswald Worthington, by one of the housemaids of the time, whose name was Bessie Hipkiss. Neville believed that Bessie had died in abject poverty when he and his brother were but two years old and that his twin had been taken into the care of a Christian family of very moderate means in the Black Country, while he was subsequently delivered, as a last resort, to the large, elegant house of his father. The intention, apparently, was that his father should rightfully be made to face all responsibility for him. The trouble was, by that time his father was dead. It was fortunate indeed that Oswald’s young widow, Magdalen, was still grieving, and was more than happy to accept the return of anything that was her husband’s, especially a son, albeit by another woman. She took Neville in as her own and doted on him, ensuring that he had the very best of everything, including the best education money could buy.
As he turned restlessly in his bed, dissatisfied with the state of his marriage, Neville’s thoughts turned to his real mother and he wondered what she was like. He would dearly love to know more about her, to see a photograph of her. But how to go about finding out? Who, twenty-seven years after her death, would remember somebody as insignificant as Bessie Hipkiss? Who would possibly remember a particular housemaid put in the family way by a male member of the family that employed her, out of the hundreds of such beguiled and unfortunate young women who littered society? If only she could have lived a year or two longer so that he might have some memory of her, however vague.
And this brother, the existence of whom Neville was so ambiguous about…He actually hoped he would like him, because he longed to talk to him about their mother, about how he felt now at their being parted. Sometimes he felt as if he was only half a person, that there was another half somewhere, waiting to make the whole. It was a strange feeling. He would love to know whether his brother felt it, too. Someday he might meet him. He would know him immediately; they were identical twins after all, or so he’d been led to believe. If and when that day came, he hoped any differences in their circumstances and upbringing would not render them entirely incompatible.
By the end of July, the government had announced plans to increase unemployment benefit, and forty-eight countries had signed the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Lizzie was even bigger, but at no time did she suffer the things normally associated with pregnancy, such as morning sickness.
From the point of view of business, Billy