Colin brought their drinks, and put them down on the table.
“Not a very good film, was it?”
“We didn’t really need to see a film. But if we just parked the car in a field and made love, you wouldn’t think we had a proper relationship.”
Turning his chin very slightly, Colin looked covertly over his shoulder; and then the other way, out of the tail of his eye.
“Just…having a check round,” he said. “I don’t want to run into anybody.”
“You look shifty, doing that.” She seemed amused. “You won’t risk much, will you?”
“You don’t love me,” Colin said heavily. He sat down and pulled up his chair to the table. “You must be playing some sort of game with me.”
“I don’t know what game that could possibly be.”
“Perhaps you’re using me as a study. To extend your professional range.”
She laughed. “You have a curious idea of my job then.”
“Isabel, before I knew you, what did you do at the end of the day?”
She stared. “Substantially, what I still do now.”
“Did you have a boyfriend?”
“I didn’t give anyone up for you, if that’s what you mean. People with an active love-life aren’t found at evening classes.”
“But there have been people?”
“You didn’t think I was a virgin, did you?”
“I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know how it happened, the other night.”
“I have never understood this point of view, that only after so many meetings, so much money spent, so much conversation…I wanted it to happen, or I would have stopped you.”
“I know that. I wasn’t apologising. I just want to know about you. It’s natural, to want to know about the person you love. So you can picture them, when you’re not together. I’d like to know what you do on the nights you’re not with me.”
“I clean the house. And I put my feet up. My job’s quite tiring.”
“Do you like your job? If you’d just tell me about your job, it would be something. When we’re not together you have a way of seeming…nebulous.”
“You’re possessive, Colin.”
“Because you’re evasive.”
“Evasive?” She laughed without humour. “Do you really want to know about my job? Today I met some people who are very evasive.”
“Yes, go on.”
I shouldn’t talk about it, she thought. It’s confidential; no names, but it’s even possible he could know them. I shouldn’t talk about it—oh, but I must, I must. Spit it out. Get the foul taste out of my mouth.
“These people—I’ve been chasing them for weeks. A mother and daughter. They’ll never let me in. I cornered them today.”
“What’s the matter with them?”
“Oh, the daughter’s mildly retarded. She used to come to a Day Centre we run, but she doesn’t want to come any more.” You handled it badly, said a voice inside her. You were brusque and unprofessional; and then you let the situation completely defeat you. Now tell him about it, set out the facts; so that in setting them out you will become sure of what they are. And only the facts; not some silly product of your imagination. “When I saw the daughter I thought for a moment she must be pregnant. She was wearing the strangest clothes, a sort of blue tent. God knows where she found it.”
“Perhaps she is pregnant.”
“No, that’s not possible. She never goes out, she has no opportunity. She’s revolting, anyway. No one would want her.”
“You’d be surprised. The unlikeliest people find partners, I always think.”
Isabel shivered.
“What is it, are you cold?”
“No. I’d like another drink, maybe.”
He picked up their glasses and took them to the bar. Her eyes followed him. He may not be much, she thought, but he’s sane, he’s clear, he’s outside all this; he has no truck with the filthy speculations I deal in.
“She gave me a shock,” she said, when he sat beside her again.
“Who? Oh, this girl. Sorry, go on.”
“She’s not a girl really. A woman.”
“Are you worried about them?”
“We’re not supposed to worry. Only to display professional concern. It’s different. You mustn’t identify with your client, or let her life touch yours. It’s professional death, to get involved.”
“It must be hard to stay uninvolved, though. If you see people who are unhappy.”
She shrugged. “It’s not my fault that people are unhappy.”
“No, but isn’t it rather your professional responsibility? Or am I pitching it too high?”
“Much too high. That’s the trouble with social work, no one has fixed on what to expect of it. You can’t be with people twenty-four hours of the day. If they’re really going to beat their children to death, they’ll find time to do it. And if you try to take the child away from them it gets into the newspapers, and you are shown to be a do-gooder and a tyrant. And you can’t improve people’s thoughts. You can’t stop them creating private hells for themselves, if that’s what they want to do.”
“Do you see eye-to-eye with your colleagues?”
“Not really. This miserable old woman today asked me how I would like it myself, some strange person coming into the house enquiring into things. I think, my reaction would be that things are bad enough without social workers.”
“I think perhaps you’re in the wrong job, Isabel.”
“Probably.” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “I sometimes think I don’t care much for people. When I was a student I spent some time working with schizophrenic children. They frightened me. I used to think—I kept it to myself, of course—that there wasn’t a lot that was human looking out from behind their eyes. Then I studied the people I met on the street. They had much the same expression.”
“We’ll have to go,” he said. “Where do you want to go to?”
It was a blunt demand, but he could not think of any way to soften it. It was not quite time yet; they might hang on for another ten or fifteen minutes. But that would solve nothing.
“Let me just get my coat.”
He helped her into it. “Shall I take you home?”
“Do you want to get rid of me?”
“That’s the last thing I want.”
“Let’s drive then.”
“All right. Soon get the heater going, when we get out on the road.”
He opened the door and she slipped through it under his arm. The night buffeted past them like an animal avid for the hearth. They left the bright doorway for darkness and raw blue air. He felt her shiver against him, and took her arm. On the safe and public tarmac, splashed by yellow lights from the main road, he felt a fugitive wind on his cheek; the hollow-faced tossed bundles onto carts, eyes piercing for the camera. To be exiled, he had read, you need not leave home. Banishment is to the desert round of the familiar world, where small conversation is made and the weekly groceries are bought in good time. He had accepted this, as an intellectual conceit; now he felt the needles of loss. He tightened his grip above her elbow. “Come on, it’s chilly.” Their breath hung on the air. She slid into the passenger seat. “If that van would move,” he said. They had to stop and wait. He edged gingerly out of the car park and onto the main road. “Which way? Oh, Christ.” He slammed the wheel with his hands. He wanted to weep with frustration. “This is ridiculous. Nowhere to go. Like kids. Kids do this.”
She reached out and put her hand over his. “Colin, it’s all right, calm down. Drive to where we went before, and if you prefer it we can just talk. Or, if you prefer it, take me straight home. Whatever you think best.”