‘Isn’t that what we agreed on?’
She took her hand back and lifted her glass a little higher: ‘Let’s drink, then, to when we are together, properly.’
The wine went into my stomach like sour ice: ‘Not well warmed.’
‘Oh, Michael, I hope you won’t think I’m stupid at what I’m going to say.’ The temperature of my stomach dropped, and met the chill of the wine. ‘What is it, love? I could never think such a thing about you.’ The waiter asked what we wanted to eat. ‘Let me order,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘I like it when you take charge.’ I asked for smoked eels to start with, followed by ravioli, brought up by escalope, then sweetened by zabaglione. The waiter floated away and she took my hand again: ‘You know we’re a close-knit family at home, don’t you, Michael? I couldn’t do anything to make my parents too unhappy.’
‘I’m not asking you to,’ I said, not caring about them one way or another, until after we were married: ‘It’s good that you don’t want to hurt them. I like you even more for it, if that’s possible.’
‘Well,’ she said, and I expected the worst, ‘I’ve told them about us.’
I held myself from keeling over. ‘What did they say?’
‘They took it very well. Father knows you, of course, and Mother remembers you, but they want to meet you again. They’d like you to come to dinner on Friday, if you aren’t working.’
‘Really?’
‘I was very nervous, but I couldn’t help telling them because we’ve never had secrets from each other. Not for long, anyway. And just going off to live with you would upset them terribly. I just wouldn’t have been able to do it when the time came.’
‘That’s all right, love.’ I looked to see if any of Moggerhanger’s hoods were keeping me under watch and key.
‘I said how much in love we were. Father was very kind about it, and told me I wasn’t to worry.’
I regretted ordering such a big meal, but when the food did come I began filling up. I would have liked to trust in God at that moment, except that my optimism had been strangled at birth. I was afraid that Moggerhanger would now get his claws into me, either to do me in without more ado, or make my life so miserable that I’d have to flee even beyond England to keep breath in my body, out of sight and mind both of Polly and my railway station. Yet I ate so much that fear seemed to have a peculiar hunger of its own.
‘It’s a lovely meal,’ she said, noticing my appetite, and stroking my wrist while we waited for the second course. ‘It’ll be all right, Michael. I know Father and Mother will take to you.’
‘I hope so,’ I said bravely. ‘I can be charming when I like, you know that! Being in love stops me being nervous.’
She touched my arm and gave a luminous loving smile: ‘Wait!’
It didn’t get through to me: ‘Most of what you wait for never comes.
‘You waited for me tonight,’ she said. ‘We can call at your flat on the way home.’
I was certainly nervous at going to the Moggerhangers’ for dinner. I felt I had need to be. It was a simple physical fear of being set on, because Moggerhanger was no fool. From his point of view I intended robbing him of a daughter. Of course, at the same time he would gain a son, let us not forget it (I said to myself in town, as I bought a large expensive lot of flowers for the household, knowing that there was nothing he liked more than to see the right thing done), though this seemed unlikely to console a man in Moggerhanger’s shoes who saw sons as being available at ten a penny. So I considered myself a big enough threat to set him into back-handed action. Nevertheless I still saw the position as hopeful, and had a feeling that perhaps after all things would turn out well for Polly and myself. I respected Moggerhanger for the way he’d got on in the world, but I didn’t have much human sympathy for him. It’s no use saying I wanted him to perish, because I did, but I knew also there was no hope of this, and neither did I think the bunch of flowers would do any good, though I carried them just the same.
José opened the door and took my raincoat. Mrs Moggerhanger came into the halclass="underline" ‘I’m so glad you could come, Mr Cullen. My husband and daughter are out strolling in the garden. Do join us. It’s such a pleasant evening.’
We walked through the living-room and made an exit by the french windows. She was taller and thinner than Polly, but dark-haired, and must have been even more good-looking, though at forty-five I still wouldn’t have said no to her. There was a soft pink light over the lawn, meshing with green, and in the distance by the lilac bushes Polly was talking to her father, a hand on his forearm. I should have been happy at meeting my future in-laws, but there was something I didn’t like about this evening.
‘Hello, Michael, I’m glad to meet you again,’ he said, and sounded so friendly that for a moment I thought his remark was genuine. I very much wanted to tell myself that he did mean it, but a protective manifestation of my scurvy spirit prevented me from doing so, and this troublesome nagging caution stayed with me most of the evening. Moggerhanger said he’d like to show me the garden.
‘I’m interested in horticulture,’ I said, ‘because I like flowers, especially roses, but I don’t know much about them, though I suppose I should because Harry Wheatcroft comes from up my way.’ Polly smiled, as if to say I was doing very well indeed.
‘They’re a man’s best friend,’ said Moggerhanger. ‘I only say that because I could never stand dogs.’
‘I’ll have to study a few gardening books,’ I said, ‘since I have a few acres with my country place near Huntingborough. It’ll take a bit of getting in order.’
‘I taught Claud all he knows,’ his wife said, with a touch of homely pride.
He left Polly’s arm, and took hers. ‘She did, Michael, that’s quite true. It’s saved us a few arguments, this garden. Whatever house I buy I always make sure it’s got a good piece of ground that I can turn into a riot of colour. I don’t get much spare time in my sort of work, but I’m never bored when I do. We’ve got a penthouse in Brighton, and there’s a beautiful roof-garden we’ve created there. We are a bit naughty when we go abroad, aren’t we, Agnes?’ he chuckled. ‘We can’t resist smuggling a few plants back into the country. We get them by the customs all right. Not that those chaps bother me. I suppose they know what’s going on, really, but I tip them the wink. A few fivers in the benevolent fund goes a long way.’
Agnes laughed: ‘Now then, Claud, you know you’ve never done such a thing.’
His voice turned a shade sterner. ‘Not as far as you know, Mother.’
‘It’s getting chilly,’ she said, ‘I don’t want Polly to catch cold. Do we, dear?’
‘Oh, don’t fuss,’ she exclaimed, while giving me a wide and loving smile in front of them.
I sank into a deep armchair. It was too low and soft. My feeling was to get up again and stand at my own height by the mantelshelf where I could be seen to greater advantage. But I sat, and accepted a heavy cut glass nearly half filled with whisky. ‘What kind of work do you do now?’ Mrs Moggerhanger asked with a smile.
I told her the same old lie, but it went down well, for I embellished it concerning some upgrading I was in for because the firm was opening new branches in Europe, even as far afield as Turkey, and I was coordinating this new scheme at the moment so that while extending operations I was making it possible for us to economize at the same time. ‘I don’t want to bore you with it, though. I’m likely to talk all night if you don’t stop me.’
In any tight spot about my job I threatened to go on for hours rather than be reticent, so that any listener was only too glad to drop it. Moggerhanger cut in: ‘Well, we don’t want to spoil your inspiration, and that’s a fact. I often find it doesn’t pay to talk too much about your work. It waters down your ideas without your noticing it. If I’m taking a man on, I decide whether he’s much of a talker, and if he is he don’t stand a chance.’