Lizzie waited until her mother had finished. Then: “But you’re assuming that I want a husband.”
Sasha stared at her daughter. “Of course you want a husband.”
Lizzie shook her head. “Actually, I don’t have much of a view on that. I’m quite happy as I am. There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
Sasha put down her coffee cup. She would have to choose her words carefully. “All right. You’re single. Where does the money come from? You tell me that. Where does the money come from?”
Lizzie did not respond, and after a few moments Sasha provided the answer herself.
“Money comes from men,” she said.
40. In Nets of Golden Wires
Carried down on the Jenners escalator, mother and daughter, one I
step apart, but separated by a continent of difference.
must be patient with her, thought Sasha; and Lizzie, for her part, thought exactly the same. She’ll come round to our way of thinking –
it’s just a question of time, thought Sasha; and Lizzie said to herself: God help me from ever, ever becoming like her. She actually said it. She said: money comes from men! She felt herself blush at the thought, a warm feeling of shame, mixed with embarrassment, for Sasha. If her mother thought this, then what did her parents’ marriage amount to? An agreement as to property? That would make her the by-product of an arrangement of convenience; no more than that.
They descended from the first floor in silence. Then, halfway down, Lizzie turned to the left and saw, standing on the ascending escalator, a young man, perhaps her age, perhaps a year or two older; a young man who was wearing a dark-olive shirt and a grey windcheater, and whose face reminded her, more than anything else, of one of those youths who stood as models for Renaissance painters. Had he been naked, and pierced by arrows, then he was Saint Sebastian in full martyrdom; but his expression was not one of agony, or even of anxiety; he had something to do in Jenners, and was going about his business calmly. Look at me! willed Lizzie. Look!
But he did not seem to notice her, and his gaze remained fixed ahead.
They passed one another in seconds, and Lizzie, transfixed, turned round to watch him disappear behind her. She noticed the shape of the shoulders, and the neck, so vulnerable, so perfect, and the colour of his hair, and she was filled at that moment with a sudden sense of longing. The vision of male beauty which had been vouchsafed her struck her with sudden and great force, and she knew that she had to see this young man again; she had to speak to him.
She had been standing in front of her mother, and so she got off the escalator first when they reached the bottom and turned to face Sasha.
“We might try some perfumes,” said Sasha. “My bottle of Estée Lauder is almost empty and I thought I might try something else. You could help me choose.”
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In Nets of Golden Wires
Lizzie thought quickly. “You go,” she said. “There’s something I want to look for upstairs. Sorry, I forgot.”
“What is it?” asked Sasha.
Lizzie thought for a moment. She was tempted to reply: a man, but did not, saying instead: “Oh, I just wanted to look around. But don’t you worry about it, you go ahead.”
She moved forward to give Sasha a quick peck on the cheek, and then, without waiting for her mother to protest, she stepped back onto the ascending escalator. Looking up, she saw that the young man had disappeared, but presumably he had taken the next escalator up; there was nothing for men on the mezzanine floor. So she strode up the steps, turning quickly to wave to Sasha, who was still standing, in puzzlement, staring up at her.
She knew that what she was doing was ridiculous. It was ridiculous to see somebody – on an escalator, too – and fall in love with him. People did not do that sort of thing. And yet she had. She had seen this man and she ached to see him again.
Why? Because of the beauty of his expression? Because she knew, just to look at him, that he would be kind to her? How absurd, utterly absurd. And yet that is exactly how she felt. I am caught by love in nets of golden wires.
When she reached the first floor, she looked about her quickly.
There was no sign of the young man, and she decided, again, that he must have gone further up. The food hall; that was it; that was where a young man would be going. He would be planning a dinner party for some friends and needed something special. He was used to Jenners, having been taken there with his mother – one of those matrons in the tea-room – and now he was coming back to do his own shopping.
Lizzie rushed to change escalators and arrived, slightly breathless, on the second floor. She made her way to the food hall and looked down the aisles. There were rows of shortbread tins and traditional oatcakes; lines of marmalade jars; nests of pickles and spices. A be-aproned woman came up to her with a tray and offered her a small piece of cheese on a stick. Lizzie took it, almost automatically, and thanked her.
“I’m looking for a man,” she said.
Your Cupboard or Mine?
105
“Aren’t we all?” said the woman, offering her another piece of cheese.
Lizzie smiled. “He came up the escalator, and he seems to have disappeared. A young man in a grey windcheater. Tall.
Good-looking.”
The woman sighed. “Sounds ideal. He’d suit me fine.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
Lizzie wandered off. The store was too big. The world was empty. She had lost him.
41. Your Cupboard or Mine?
“I’m not sure,” said Pat. “I’m not sure if that’s a very good idea.”
Matthew looked surprised. It seemed obvious to him, but then sometimes he discovered that others found it hard to grasp the self-evident. This had given rise to difficulties during his business career, such as it was. He had assumed that staff would understand the reasons for doing things in a particular way, only to discover that they had no idea. This meant that he had to spell things out to them, and this, in turn, seemed to irritate them. He had wondered whether he was going about it in the right way, and had discussed the issue with his father, but even his father had not seemed to grasp the point that he was trying to make.
“It really is the best thing to do,” he assured her. “We talked about it over coffee. Everybody agreed that it would be better for the Peploe? to be looked after somewhere else. It was Pete’s idea, actually, but Ronnie and Lou liked the idea too.”
“But why? Why can’t you take it back to your place and put it in a cupboard? Why put it in my cupboard?”
They were sitting at Matthew’s desk in the gallery, and Matthew had his feet up on the surface of the desk while he leaned back in his leather captain’s chair. Pat noticed his shoes, which were an elegant pair of brogues, leather-soled. Matthew noticed her 106
Your Cupboard or Mine?
looking at his shoes and smiled. “Church’s,” he said. “They make very good shoes for men. They last. But they’re pricey.”
Pat nodded. “They’re very smart. I don’t like big clumping shoes, like some of the shoes that you see men wearing. I like thin shoes, like those. I always look at men’s shoes.”
“But do you know how much these shoes cost?” Matthew asked. “Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Two hundred and fifty pounds,” he said, adding: “That’s for two.”