‘Professionally, that must be a good thing… Your salary is still paid in 1978.’
Kaye laughed.
Without any change in tone, Squire said, ‘We’ll have a beer when we get in. But I see Teresa’s car parked outside your front door.’
Kaye shot him a swift glance. ‘She must have driven over from Grantham to see you. Is that a hopeful sign?’
‘It depends what you mean by hope. I want us to be together again but, as time goes by, I inevitably want it less. As you with Eurocommunism, so I with separation: resignation masquerading as wisdom sets in.’
They both laughed.
‘Deirdre and I are sorry you suffer all this trouble, Tom. I just hope you have something by way of consolation.’
‘If you mean Laura, no, I haven’t. We broke it up to satisfy Tess almost a year ago. Perhaps that was a mistake. Tess remains unsatisfied.’ Bitterness crept into his voice.
As Kaye and Squire entered the gate of Marsh House, Teresa appeared at the front door and waved to her husband. Something misplaced inflated the gesture: it was designed for someone considerably more distant than Squire. He went up to Tess, took her hand and kissed her cheek.
They regarded each other with reserve, like military commanders looking for ground cover. Teresa’s gaze held that elusive suggestion of a squint which sometimes lent even her serious moods a touch of mischief.
His nostrils received a warm perfume from her.
She wore a light dress suited to the weather, low-cut and showing the cleft between her breasts. She was tanned as far as the eye could see.
‘Tess, you’re looking well. How are Ann and Jane?’
‘That’s good, because I’m feeling rather terrible, having just been given a good going over by your sister. The girls are fine — at school today. They break up later than Doug and Tom.’
She turned to speak to Kaye, who kissed her. They all moved into the house.
‘You drove over from Grantham just to see me?’ Squire asked.
‘I happened to ring Deirdre and she said you would be here for the weekend.’
As they moved from the hall into the living room, Teresa’s mother appeared, and greeted Squire. Mrs Davies was wearing an uncharacteristic costume, a kaftan in orange and lemon, and dark glasses.
‘Tom, it’s charming to see you. So you’ve managed to tear yourself away from London? I was taking the sun in the back garden — we’ve only been here an hour, not more, have we, Teresa? And the traffic was so thick on the A17, is it?’
‘You’re looking very summery, Madge.’
‘Do you know, I’ve had this old kaftan for years, but haven’t dared to wear it. I hope I don’t look too much like chicken dressed as lamb, or whatever that phrase is. We’re driving over to Norwich to see Willie. He’s coming back with us to Grantham, to stay the weekend, as I expect Teresa told you.’
‘No, I didn’t, Mother,’ Teresa said, in some exasperation. ‘I’ve hardly said a word to Tom.’
‘Well, you mustn’t let your silly old mother interrupt you. You talk nicely to Tom and I’m sure you can get back together again. Tom, your misdeeds are in the past, or so I hope, and I want you and Teresa to kiss and make up. Remember that you’re both my children. Let’s have an end to this silly, pointless quarrel, for the sake of family harmony. Your Uncle Willie would say the same if he were here.’
Deirdre appeared in the archway of the living room. She tucked a thumb under her ample chin. Grace also materialized, still bearing the tabby.
‘This meeting does promise to be a shining example of family harmony, I must say,’ Deirdre remarked. ‘Marsh, you’d do well to get us all a drink — the sooner we’re tanked up, the better. As for you, Grace, I think you’d better make yourself scarce.’
‘Oh, Mummy…’
‘Go on, go and bully your brothers. You know too much already.’
‘You do chase the poor girl,’ Mrs Davies said to Deirdre as Grace disappeared. ‘Of course, I know I’m only an old woman and it’s none of my business.’
‘Quite so,’ agreed Deirdre, blandly. ‘All the same, Grace can look after herself. She told me yesterday that she is going to be an aircraft designer, and I believe her. She has some fantastic ideas about airliner loos and galleys which could revolutionize aviation history.’
Kaye entered through the french doors from the back garden. ‘The drink trolley’s outside. I thought you’d like to take a drink on the terrace while the sun shines.’
As they trooped out, Grace reappeared in a crimson beach robe, and curtsied to them one by one, cat under her left arm. Mrs Davies came last, taking the opportunity to grasp Squire’s wrist.
‘I just wanted to say to you — you’re at a responsible age, Tom. I think that your Tess would come back to you gladly if you gave up that younger woman. She can’t be good for you.’
‘I have given her up, long ago. I believe it if nobody else does.’
‘Don’t be cross. What I mean is, you must understand Teresa. I think it is the idea of — well, of this sex business that scares her off. Your Uncle Willie and I wouldn’t have anything like that. We have discussed the subject, oh yes. At your age, Tom, you’re nearly fifty, it is disgusting. Undignified. Ernest and I gave up all that sort of thing on my fortieth birthday, and neither of us were any the worse for it. Funnily enough, we were talking about it in the spring of last year, just before he was killed — when you were away in California, or wherever it was.’
Abandoning the cat at last, Grace sidled up to them and let out squeals of suppressed laughter. ‘Grannie, that’s awful! I’d have thought that you and Willie would be a bit more swinging. After all, what’s the point of getting married unless… Well, anyhow, I think it’s just terrific that Uncle Tom is the age he is and is still able to mate. Bully for him! It’s wonderful.’
‘But not exactly unique in the annals of medical science, Grace,’ Squire said, laughing.
Mrs Davies looked reproachfully at Grace. ‘My nerves are all to pieces. I’ve had my say, now I’m going to have a cigarette. To hear you talking so brazenly about sex, my girl… We never mentioned it, or thought about it, when I was your age. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’
Kaye poured them all drinks. ‘Your beer at last,’ he told Squire, handing over a full tankard.
He raised his glass cheerfully. ‘Here’s to us all. Good to be back home, good to see Madge and Teresa and Tom here. Let’s hope the family will be a little more stable now.’
‘That’s a bit optimistic,’ Grace said, sotto voce.
‘Quiet, child, it’s only a toast,’ Deirdre said.
‘The country’s been going to the dogs steadily while you’ve been doing your archaeological work in Greece,’ Mrs Davies reported. ‘The unemployment figures are still rising, and the inflation rate. It’s this terrible Labour government of ours.’
‘Don’t despair, Madge,’ Kaye said. ‘Deirdre and I see a different aspect of things, coming from abroad. After Athens, England seems remarkably stable, sensible, and prosperous.’
‘That’s because we’re having a heat wave, Pop, you nit,’ Grace said. ‘People only go on strike in winter, when it’s cold.’
A lull fell over the conversation. Everyone became preoccupied with their drinks, or looked at the sails glittering far across the wilderness of marsh.
‘So how did you enjoy your trip to this Greek island, where exactly was it, Marshall?’ asked Mrs Davies, in a palpable attempt to blanket the difficulties in the room with words. ‘I kept meaning to look it up in my atlas and then I never did so. It seems years since Ernest and I had our Greek cruise. It is years, alas… The weather was lovely but I didn’t care for Athens at all. So noisy, even then.’