Oh God, he thought, not this, not again, not now. He said, still with his back to her: 'It's ridiculous to say that I forced you. How could I? And I thought you felt as I did, that it was impossible for you to have a child.'
'Oh no, it wasn't. If you're so bloody keen on accuracy, let's be accurate about this. It would have been inconvenient, embarrassing, awkward, expensive. But it wasn't impossible. It still isn't impossible. And, for God's sake, turn around. Look at me. I'm talking to you. What I'm saying is important.'
He turned and walked back to the desk. He said calmly: 'AH right, my phrasing was inaccurate. Have a child by all means if that's what you want. I'll be happy for you as long as you don't expect me to father it. But what we're talking about now is Neil Pascoe and PANUP. We've gone to a lot of trouble here to promote good relations with the local community and I'm not going to have all that good work vitiated by a totally unnecessary legal action, particularly not now when work will soon begin on the new reactor.'
'Then try to prevent it. And since we're talking about public relations, I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Ryan Blaney and Scudder's Cottage. My cottage, in case you've forgotten. What am I expected to do about that? Hand over my property to him and his kids rent-free in the interests of good public relations?'
'That's a different matter. It's not my concern as
Director. But if you want my opinion, I think you're ill-advised to try and force him out simply because you've got a legal case. He's paying the rent regularly, isn't he? And it isn't as if you want the cottage.'
'I do want the cottage. It's mine. I bought it and now I want to sell it.'
She slumped back into the chair and he, too, sat. He made himself stare into the eyes in which, to his discomfort, he saw more pain than anger. He said: 'Presumably he knows that and he'll get out when he can, but it won't be easy. He's recently widowed and he's got four children. There's a certain amount of local feeling about it, I understand.'
'I've no doubt there is, particularly in the Local Hero where Ryan Blaney spends most of his time and money. I'm not prepared to wait. If we're moving to London in the next three months there's not much time to get the question of the cottage settled. I don't want to leave that kind of unfinished business. I want to get it on the market as soon as possible.'
He knew that this was the moment when he should have said firmly: 'I may be moving to London, but not with you.' But he found it impossible. He told himself that it was late, the end of a busy day, the worst possible time for rational argument. She was already overwrought. One thing at a time. He had tackled her about Pascoe and, although she had reacted much as he'd expected, perhaps she would think it over and do what he advised. And she was right about Ryan Blaney; it was none of his business. The interview had left him with two clear intentions more firmly fixed than ever in his mind. She wasn't coming to London with him and nor would he recommend her as Administrative Officer at Larksoken. For all her efficiency, her intelligence, her appropriate education, she wasn't the right person for the job. For a moment it crossed his mind that here was his bargaining card. 'I'm not offering you marriage but I am offering you the most senior job you could possibly aspire to.' But he knew there was no real temptation. He wouldn't leave the administration of Larksoken in her hands. Sooner or later she was going to have to realize that there would be no marriage and no promotion. But now was the wrong moment and he found himself wondering wryly when the right moment might be.
Instead he said: 'Look, we're here to run a power station efficiendy and safely. We're doing a necessary and important job. Of course we're committed to it, we wouldn't be here otherwise. But we're scientists and technicians, not evangelists. We're not running a religious campaign.'
'They are, the other side. He is. You see him as an insignificant twit. He isn't. He's dishonest and he's dangerous. Look how he scrubs around in the records to turn up individual cases of leukaemia which he thinks he can ascribe to nuclear energy. And now he's got the latest Comare report to fuel his spurious concern. And what about last month's newsletter, that emotive nonsense about the midnight trains of death trundling silently through the northern suburbs of London? Anyone would think they were carrying open trucks of radioactive waste. Doesn't he care that nuclear energy has so far saved the world from burning five hundred million tons of coal? Hasn't he heard about the greenhouse effect? I mean, is the fool totally ignorant? Hasn't he any conception of the devastation caused to this planet by burning fossil fuels? Has no one told him about acid rain or the carcinogens in coal waste? And when it comes to danger, what about the fifty-seven miners buried alive in the Borken disaster only this year? Don't their lives matter? Think of the outcry if that had been a nuclear accident.'
He said: 'He's only one voice and a pathetically uneducated and ignorant one.'
'But he's having his effect and you know it. We've got to match passion with passion.'
His mind fastened on the word. We're not, he thought, talking about nuclear energy, we're talking about passion.
Would we be having this conversation if we were still lovers? She's demanding from me a commitment to something more personal than atomic power. Turning to face her, he was visited suddenly, not by desire, but by a memory, inconveniently intense, of the desire he had once felt for her. And with memory came a sudden vivid picture of them together in her cottage, the heavy breasts bent over him, her hair falling across his face, her lips, her hands, her thighs.
He said roughly: 'If you want a religion, if you need a religion, then find one. There are plenty to choose from. All right the abbey is in ruins and I doubt whether that impotent old priest up at the Old Rectory has much on offer. But find something or someone; give up fish on Friday, don't eat meat, count beads, put ashes on your head, meditate four times a day, bow down towards your own personal Mecca. But don't, for God's sake, assuming He exists, ever make science into a religion.'
The telephone on his desk rang. Caroline Amphlett had left and it was switched through to an outside line. As he lifted the receiver he saw that Hilary was standing at the door. She gave him a last long look and went out, shutting it with unnecessary firmness behind her.
The caller was his sister. She said: 'I hoped I'd catch you. I forgot to remind you to call at Bollard's farm for the ducks for Thursday. He'll have them ready. We'll be six, incidentally. I've invited Adam Dalgliesh. He's back on the headland.'
He was able to answer her as calmly as she had spoken.
'Congratulations. He and his aunt have contrived with some skill to avoid their neighbours' cutlets for the last five years. How did you manage it?'
'By the expedient of asking. I imagine he may be thinking of keeping on the mill as a holiday home and feels it's time to acknowledge that he does have neighbours. Or he may be planning to sell, in which case he can risk a dinner party without being trapped into intimacy. But why not give him credit for a simple human weakness; the attraction of eating a good dinner which he hasn't had to cook?'
And it would balance her table, thought Mair, although that was hardly likely to have been a consideration. She despised the Noah's Ark convention which decreed that a superfluous man, however unattractive or stupid, was acceptable; a superfluous woman, however witty and well-informed, a social embarrassment.
He said: 'Am I expected to talk about his poetry?'
'I imagine he's come to Larksoken to get away from people who want to talk about his poetry. But it wouldn't hurt you to take a look at it. I've got the most recent volume. And it is poetry, not prose rearranged on the page.'