The final group approaches; it is rather drunker than the first, perhaps. At any rate, the young gentlemen stand becalmed in front of the dais. Suddenly one of them gasps, looks about in disbelief, and doubles up with a wail of laughter. Soon, of course, everyone joins in. They mill and sway, clutch helplessly at one another, hooting, braying, pointing.
Oh no. Not us, mate. You’ve got to be joking. You’d be lucky. With her? With that?
Rachel smiles, unblinking.
She’s not pretty enough and she wets the bed.
Their laughter is replaced by my own.
‘Charles, Charles, Charles,’ Rachel was saying. ‘Wake up.’
I did.
‘… What sort of dream ?’
I lay on my back. The reality of the ceiling closed in. My voice was hoarse.
‘Walking down a long, tree-lined path. At night. Above my head the stars were arranged in … unfamiliar constellations. Pebbles glistened under my feet. I saw your shape in the distance but… when I tried to move towards you…”
‘Neville Bellamy here. I reng Mrs Tauber yesterday, heard you’ve been unwell. How are you ?’
All right.
‘Yes? I gathered it was a touch of esthma. No? It was … the… ?’
Yes.
‘Ah, the body, the body! One wishes one didn’t hev one, no ? Yug yug yug. Life would be so blissfully simple. Better off without it. Do you not agree? Do you not feel this?’
I do not. (The argument has plenty to recommend it; but then the brain would have nothing to cerebrate about.)
‘No? Perhaps not… mm. Charles! Your papers! How were they?’
Okay.
‘Grend. And your interview?’
Monday.
‘So soon. Well in that case you must certainly come over for a drink, pick up some pointers … hev-a-chet?’
‘Oh. Well.’ I couldn’t help feeling flattered.
‘If you’re fully recovered. Why not tomorrow? Usual time?’
‘Look, ah, let me think. Shall I see how I feel and give you a ring if I’m not coming?’
‘Perfect. You hev my number. Goodbye now.’
As Mr Bellamy put down the telephone and picked up his cock, I hurried into the kitchen.
Then what?’
Jenny placed a stack of handkerchiefs on the table.
There you are.’ She sat down and began to shake her head. ‘Well. He said he’d already booked me into the London Clinic and that it was all fixed up. So then I said…’ She stopped shaking her head in order to stare into space for a while. ‘Well, anyway, there was the most ghastly scene and he seemed to have his mind made up.’
‘Was that the night I asked if Rachel could come and stay?’
‘I … think so. Then, when your friend – Geoffrey ? – came and that little boy had been sick all over the lavatory seat in our bathroom, Norman just came in while I was clearing it up and said that he would cancel the London Clinic and that he wanted more time to think about it.’
Then what?’
‘On Wednesday, when Rachel came upstairs to the drawing-room to say goodbye, he said afterwards that it was all right, he didn’t mind.’ She stretched her arms above her head. ‘And that’s what happened.’
She looked radiantly happy and so on, but I wanted details. (Not that I wasn’t sufficiently embarrassed by what she had told me so far. However, I had made a policy decision about all this and my Jenny pad was not up to date.)
‘Why did he change his mind?’
She seemed delighted. ‘I don’t know!’
‘Why didn’t he want you to in the first place?’ I pressed on. ‘Just didn’t want to get tied down with kids yet, or what?’
‘No. He said straightway that I could adopt one … or two … if I liked.’ Jenny frowned, as if the point were occurring to her for the first time. ‘I think,’ she said, with deliberation, ‘I think he was scared something might happen to me.’
‘Mm.’
(Correct, by the way. But not quite how she meant it.)
‘When’s Rachel coming to stay again?’
‘Oh. Soon.’
I had figured that I would probably have to cry a bit and was in fact reddening my eyes with my knuckles when Rachel came into the room. She looked more spruce than ever, in the doorway holding her cuboid vanity-case, and dark-spectacled to indicate her own grief. But, even as I was planning the initial burying-of-head-in-hands – my tonsils swelled and my tears gathered, unasked for.