Love, Again

'Joyce,' said Sarah, lowering her voice. 'Are you remembering all the things we tell you?'

Joyce's eyes moved about evasively, and she said brightly, 'Oh, Sarah, of course we do; you're right out.'

'What's this about your offering blow-jobs to all and sundry?'

At this the beautiful eyes swivelled desperately. 'Who told you? I didn't… I never… please, Auntie… ' Then, recovering herself, she quoted (who — Betty?), 'But that's what men are like. That's all they care about; give them a good blow-job and they are satisfied.' And she looked proudly at Sarah to see how this bit of worldly wisdom was going down.

Sarah watched those pretty lips struggle to offer her a smile and said, 'Oh Joyce, do have some common sense.'

'Oh we do, I promise. But it's brass, you see. The trouble is, brass.' Then, unable to bear it another minute, she waved her thin and grubby hand not six inches from Sarah's face, saw she was misjudging distances, squinted, and retreated backwards, crying, 'Later on… later on… ' Meaning goodbye, goodbye. She wriggled off into the crowd to rejoin her friends.

At the bar sat Andrew, on a stool, drinking. Feeling that he was being looked at, Andrew turned and stared at her. Then, deliberately, he turned back to the woman on the stool next to his — smart, middle-aged, flattered by him. Then he could not stand it and swung about, steadied himself, for he was tight, and came over to her. 'I don't have a car,' he said. 'If I borrowed one, would you…?' George appeared. 'No, I see you wouldn't,' and Andrew stalked back to the bar.

'A pretty dramatic character, our Andrew,' commented George.

'Yes.'

'I wouldn't like him as an enemy.'

Men, if not women, saw Andrew as dangerous.

'Come on, I'll take you back.'

She sat silent in the car as it sped through moonlit lanes, thinking for the thousandth time that there must be something sensible they could do about Joyce.

'Are you thinking that there must be some solution if only you could think of it?'

'Yes.'

'I thought you were.'

He did not stop the engine when she got out. Off he went, back to the wine bar, leaving her outside the now dark house. It was twelve, late for these parts. On a bench by some shrubs sat a tense and watchful figure. She walked towards Henry. As Susan had seemed earlier with Stephen: Henry was reeling her in on a line. She sat by him. He at once moved over so they touched all the way from shoulders to feet.

'Where have you been?'

She heard herself sigh: it meant, How irrelevant.

'Benjamin was looking for you. He's gone to bed.'

Her mind was spinning out its rhetoric: How often are two people in love with each other at the same time? Hardly ever. Usually, one turns the cheek… What she did say aloud, quite evenly and creditably, though her heart was thudding so he must feel it, was, 'There is always that moment with Americans when one feels thoroughly decadent. You can know someone for years, and then there it is. Good wholesome ethical Americans, tricky and decadent Europeans. Just like a Henry James novel.'

'If I had ever read Henry James.'

'In your heart of hearts you think of me as immoral.'

'I don't want to know what you think of me.'

'Good. And now I'm going to bed.' She got up, and he grabbed her hand. Pulling her hand away from his hand tore out great slabs of her heart. So it felt. He leaped up. He held her, still did not kiss her mouth, but his lips touched her cheek, sending fire all through her (sending what?), and her lips were on his hair. Soft hair…

'Good night,' she said briskly, and went upstairs.

She sat at her window, utterly overthrown. The sky was full of moonlight, so she saw as her sight cleared. Words welled up in her. She found herself sitting (with her eyes shut, for the moonlight was too empty and heartless), feeling the sweet touch of his hair on her mouth, while she muttered, 'God, how I did love you, my little brother, how I did love you.' Astonishment pulled her eyes open. But it was not now she could attend to what the words were telling her. She lay on her bed and wept, most bitterly. Well, that was better than what lay in wait for her. Tears and even bitter tears are not the country of grief.

She woke late, was late at the breakfast table. Stephen had come in to look for his sons, for he wanted them to have a shooting lesson. Benjamin sat over coffee. He had been waiting for her. It was his turn to look ironicaclass="underline" he believed her to have been kept late in town by attractive temptations. Henry came in, just after she did, poured coffee, brought the cup and himself to the chair next to hers. He did not look at her. She did not look at him.

Benjamin said, 'I've got to leave at two, if I'm going to catch my plane.'

Stephen said, 'Then I suggest Sarah shows you around the place a bit.'

Benjamin said, 'If Sarah's got time.'

'Of course I've got time,' said Sarah, but it was after a pause, for she did not immediately hear him.

'And Henry, perhaps you and your wife would have dinner with us? It's not too bad at The Blue Boar. The show'11 be over by ten, and we can be in town by half past.'

'We'd love to,' said Henry. 'It might be a bit late for Joseph, but he'll manage. He's used to late nights.'

Stephen had not thought the child would be at the dinner, and now he remarked, 'I'm sure Norah would keep an eye on him for you.'

'I don't think he'd let me go. He hasn't seen me for a month.'

'Just as you think best. I'll book. And Sarah — you too, of course.'

Here his boys appeared, and he said to them, 'Come on, then, there's good chaps. Run and get the target.'

The four went off.

Sarah found she could not drink her coffee. Her mouth was already bitter with loss. She said to Benjamin, 'Shall we go?' Benjamin stood up, and this tall and solid man, in his immaculate, impeccable, improbably perfect creamy linen, succeeded in making the delightful old room seem shabby. He enquired too politely of Henry, 'Do you want to join us?'

'I've got things to do,' said Henry.

Benjamin and Sarah set off to stroll around the estate. They took paths as they came to them, sat on benches to admire views, found a field with horses in it, a dozen or so lazing under a willow near a stream. The horses watched the two to see if they were bearing titbits, then lost interest. A field yellow with grain and so smooth it seemed to invite them to stroke it slanted to a sheet of blue sky. In an enormous shed, or workshop, a harvester like an infinitely magnified insect stood throbbing while two young men in smart blue overalls leaned over it with cans of oil.

This is the last day, the last day — beat through Sarah. Landscape, sky, horses, and harvester were all Henry, Henry. The shocking egotism of love had emptied her of anything but Henry. She told herself that Benjamin deserved at least politeness, and tried to chat suitably, but she knew that her words kept fading into inattention, and then silence.

Benjamin began to entertain her, remembering how successful this had been in Belles Rivieres, with 'projects'.

'How does this grab you, Sarah? A Kashmiri lake, an exact replica, with houseboats, musicians, the boatmen imported from Kashmir. It'll be in Oregon. Plenty of water — we need the right kind of lake.'

'It certainly grabs me,' said Sarah, knowing she sounded indifferent.

'Good. And what about a development of a machine that emits negative ions? It hangs from a moveable stand so you can push it from room to room. Dust is attracted to it and falls into a flat tray under the machine. After an hour or so there is very little dust in the air.'

'That one certainly grabs me. No housework.'

'It was my wife's idea. She was working for a firm that makes ionizers. She's a physicist. She's developing the machine.'

'You can sell me one any time.'