‘I’m not that young,’ I objected, ‘Miss Bolsover. In fact I feel a lot more than twenty-one at times, I can tell you.’ In one sharp turn she fell against me, soft arms and apologies, then asked me where I was working now, and I told her I was fixed up at Steke and Scull’s, the biggest agents in the city, but that for the moment I was at their Loughborough branch. This seemed like a rise indeed, and she congratulated me on it ‘How wonderful for you.’
‘It is,’ I said, driving with one hand and taking out a Whiff with the other. I offered her one: ‘Smoke these?’
Her laugh was loud, head thrown back: ‘Oh goodness, no. Not yet, anyway.’
I lit up: ‘You know, Weekley gave me the sack, but it was all due to a misunderstanding. I tried to do the firm a favour, and he thought I was, going it for myself.’
‘All I know,’ she said, ‘is that he thought you had done something that wasn’t ethical.’
‘Whatever that means,’ I said. ‘Maybe he just wanted an excuse to get rid of me.’
‘I don’t think so, Michael. He always spoke highly of you.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘he should have realized I was young enough to make mistakes, and not thrown me out like that.’
‘It was a pity,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize you felt so bad about it.’
‘I did, and do.’ The fact was that if I’d stayed I could have made a lot more money doing exactly what I’d done with Clegg, but I’d have used my brains and not got found out so easily. To be able to do it, however, one had to work for an estate agent as a cover, and so as to get the necessary information. ‘It was a great shock for me to get thrown out, Miss Bolsover,’ I went on, passing Radford station. ‘Mostly, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t admit it, because I hated losing contact with you. It was the greatest treat in my life, waking up every morning and knowing that when I got to the office I’d be able to see you. Don’t ask me why I’m telling you this. It’s all too late now.’ I looked straight ahead at the road: ‘The reason I tried so hard to bring off that little bit of business for the firm was because I might be given more responsibility, and then you’d perhaps have thought a little better of me, because it seemed that in spite of my feelings you hardly knew I existed.’ The words just tumbled out, without me knowing that they would. I was so controlled by them that I was slightly scared, but took a split-second goz at Miss Bolsover to see if there was any effect.
She looked in front, nose and mouth set to some thought that I wasn’t party to, as if engrossed by other things entirely. But she was blushing faintly, so I couldn’t be sure of this. In order to make it worse for her I said I was sorry, that I shouldn’t have spoken, but that my heart was so full I hadn’t had much say in the matter.
‘You’re a strange boy, Michael.’
‘Normal,’ I answered. ‘I can’t imagine anyone not liking you. But it’s more than that with me.’
I said nothing else because no words came. She gave directions to reach her house, a small bungalow off a by-road near Wollaton. I let her get out by herself, and she stood with the door open. Play at being good-mannered too early on and you’ll never get anywhere. ‘Would you like to come in? We’ll have a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘You’ve been so good, to drive me home.’
It was windy, and she was standing in it getting red cheeks, so I had to make up my mind. ‘If it’s a quick one,’ I said, ‘because I promised to take Mother to that symphony concert at the Albert Hall.’ The lie was innocent, but I made it to put Miss Bolsover at her ease, knowing she was partial to that form of entertainment.
‘I tried to get tickets for it, but couldn’t,’ she said as I switched off.
‘You can have mine, if you like.’
‘Oh, no, you can’t let your mother down.’
‘I can’t really,’ I said, slamming the door. ‘She loves Beethoven. She’d never forgive me.’
Everybody loves a liar, I thought, but telling myself to stop it from that point on. I picked up a bottle of milk and followed her into the mock-Tudor pebble-dash matchbox bungalow, met by a smell of stale tea and damp upholstery. She asked me to sit on a deep plush sofa while she fussed in the kitchen, but I feasted my eyes on her from the doorway now that she had her coat off, as I often had in the office. It was marvellous, the way you had to get the sack before people would look at you.
She came back with a large silver tray, loaded with tea and a plate of fancy biscuits. ‘I don’t take milk’ she said, ‘but lemon.’
‘Where’s your family?’
‘I only have my brother, and he went to Austria yesterday for three weeks, by car. He’s a keen skier. Not that I see much of him when he’s here.’
‘A lonely existence,’ I said.
‘It is, Michael, but I’m very fond of it. I go a fair amount to the theatre, or concerts. Or I stay in and read, write letters, watch television. I think life is beautiful and fascinating.’
‘So do I,’ I said. ‘I read a good deal too. Books are my favourite pastime. Girls as well, but my girlfriend packed me in because I lost my job.’
‘Really? Sugar?’
‘Yes, six.’
‘I don’t take it myself. But why? You got a better job. Didn’t that please her?’
‘She didn’t wait for me to get another. She was very headstrong. But it’s no use regretting it.’
‘You’re lucky to be able to take it so lightly.’
‘I didn’t. It broke my heart. But what’s done is done. I can’t live like that for the rest of my life.’
Miss Bolsover laughed: ‘I hardly think you’ll have to. But I know what you mean.’
There was a pause, and I took the opportunity to drink off half my tea. It was too weak, but I let that pass. ‘Has it happened to you, then?’
She broke a biscuit in half and put it into her small mouth: ‘At my age it’s bound to have done. I’m thirty-four.’
‘You talk as if you think that’s old,’ I said. ‘My girlfriend was thirty-eight. She was like you in one way because she only looked about twenty-five. Not that she was like you, she was a bit too common if you know what I mean, and she’d been married before, but she had the same wonderful figure, the sort that I’ve always admired. When I was in London last week on business I had a couple of hours to spare, so I went into a gallery and saw some wonderful paintings with that sort of figure. I don’t think anything else can be called a figure at all.’
She sat in an armchair opposite, blushing and smiling at the same time but not, she said, because she was in any way embarrassed at my frankness, which she thought was attractive in me, but because I took some interest in culture. This was true, and when I went on to talk about a few of the books I’d read she became convinced that there was more to me than had ever been apparent at the office.
Looking across the few feet of plush carpet between us I was swollen with the bile of lechery, and wanted to get her in my arms. She wore a thin woollen jumper, large tits shifting as she talked full of serious concern about the world and how good it was to be alive in spite of its ills and all the bad people in it. I agreed, till it occurred to me that too much agreement might not be a good thing. But I had no control over it, and was carried along by the sweet sin of listening and only opening my lips to say that she spoke the truth. Her eyes glittered, as if half a tear were buried in each of them, telling me that this was what she wanted to hear. Not that I doubted her intelligence, for under that soft exterior with the touch of sentimentality no doubt corroding it, she had a fine streak of rational perception. I leaned across and squeezed one of her hands warmly. She pressed mine, in recognition of the common ground we had found between us. Then she realized that I was pulling, as well as squeezing, and with a sudden shift she came over and sat by me on the sofa. ‘Do I have to tell you that I love you?’ I said wearily. My lips against hers pressed straight through to her teeth, because she opened her mouth as I went forward. Then her arms came around me.