‘I got confused, I suppose,’ Nina continued presently. She turned away again and busied herself with the coffee cups. Her shaking hands rattled them against the counter-top. ‘I thought I didn’t need people, not really. But I started needing him. I don’t know why.’
‘You loved him,’ Agnes interjected, feeling herself once more to be on known territory.
‘Maybe,’ shrugged Nina. ‘But I didn’t like him. Is that possible? I always thought that sort of talk was for people who didn’t know their own minds, but there you go.’
Agnes found herself on the verge of agreeing wholeheartedly with the former part of this statement, but realised in time that to do so might merely provide evidence as to the truth of the latter.
‘Why didn’t you like him?’ she inquired.
‘Well, to begin with it was little things, I suppose. I found myself having to convince myself that he had reasons for doing this or that. It was as if I was making excuses for him. I just — pretended not to notice things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you ever done that? Wanted something so much that you’ll do anything, tell yourself any kind of lie, just to keep believing in it? It’s like — it’s like some kind of addiction.’
‘But you can’t know everything!’ Agnes cried. ‘People are more — mysterious than that, aren’t they? Perhaps he would have surprised you. How could you know?’
‘That’s the difference between you and me,’ Nina replied. She smiled. ‘You say mysterious, I say shifty. What’s your idea of mystery, anyway? Your heart’s desire ingesting hard drugs on the quiet while you wring your hands in the bedroom and wonder what you’re doing wrong?’
Agnes gasped at the cruelty of this blow.
‘But you knew,’ she said. ‘I may have been stupid, but you knew!’
‘I know,’ said Nina unhappily. ‘All I’m saying is that none of us are innocent. I was looking for a way of holding on to Jack, and that was it. Like we had a secret and we were banding together.’ She laughed strangely. ‘I was in the boys’ club for a while there. The truth is that I didn’t want to admit I was disappointed in him. I convinced myself it was in your best interests not to know — see, there’s your mystery! I thought I was saving you.’ She drew herself up. ‘But I acted disloyally and I apologise.’
‘That’s okay,’ Agnes replied, able to be generous now that her name had been cleared on at least one count. ‘But I shouldn’t be saved from things!’ she added.
‘What do you mean?’ Nina looked rather startled.
‘I don’t really know,’ Agnes confessed. ‘I suppose I meant that I shouldn’t need to be saved from things. It makes me sound so — naïve. But how else am I supposed to learn if I’m never told? How am I supposed to know?’
‘Well—’ Nina looked perplexed. ‘Like I said, it isn’t always a question of being told, is it? I mean, sometimes you just have to find things out for yourself.’
‘But how?’ Agnes cried. ‘By telepathy? I mean, where did everyone else learn how the world works? Sometimes I feel as if I’ve missed something, some vital clue that would make everything clear.’ She gazed out of the kitchen window, where the dark trees waved their long branches in the wind like frantic, keening arms. ‘And then sometimes I think that I do know things, things that no one else knows.’
‘Like what?’ said Nina suspiciously.
‘Oh, nothing useful! Things that aren’t really there, at any rate. Metaphors, I suppose you’d call them. As if everything is actually something else.’
‘Oh.’
‘So really it’s no surprise that I miss the obvious,’ Agnes continued, ‘when nothing is as it seems.’
Nina leaned against a cupboard and looked thoughtful.
‘I’ve always thought it was more a question of your distorting the truth rather than not seeing it,’ she said.
‘Why would I do that?’ said Agnes nervously. She stared at the floor. She was not accustomed to hearing herself so frankly discussed, although it did occur to her that this might simply be because she wasn’t normally present when such discussions were held.
‘How should I know? Maybe you don’t like the way things are. Maybe you want to protect yourself. Everyone selects certain things from what’s around them to conform with their idea of how they want life to be. Like I’ve always gone for outlandish, subversive things because I’m afraid of being normal.’
‘Really?’ Agnes was surprised.
‘So would you,’ said Nina, ‘if you’d grown up in East Sheen.’
‘I’ve always wanted to be normal,’ Agnes confessed.
Nina raised her eyebrows. Agnes felt they were like two old women comparing varicose veins, each secretly marvelling at the other’s worse defect beside their own known one.
‘Like I said,’ Nina continued. ‘Everyone has their own way of dealing with things. Sometimes it’s hard to admit the truth. Like with Jack. I was well on the way to hating myself, because it seemed easier than hating him. Do you see what I’m saying? Sometimes we’ll ruin everything, sacrifice everything, just so that one thing can be perfect.’
‘But nothing is perfect!’ said Agnes. The truth of her words dawned on her only after she had said them. It seemed to her then the saddest thing she had ever known. ‘Nothing is,’ she repeated.
‘No,’ said Nina, putting a friendly arm around her. ‘But some things are pretty good.’
Agnes was in Jean’s office. Beyond the window a low sky darkened, threatening rain. A gust of wind rattled the glass against the stainless steel casing like something trying to get in. Agnes glanced at the clock on the wall and synchronised her watch with it to pass the time. Opposite her, Jean appeared to be recounting the story of her life.
‘In those days I was doing your job, although the company was much smaller then, of course. There was something rather — cosy about it. Things were quite different then. Everyone knew everybody else.’
‘Of course,’ echoed Agnes belatedly. Even in this alien era in the history of Diplomat’s Week, she knew everyone trapped within its portals and had effectively tired of the vast majority. Figures bent against the wind scurried past on the pavement outside.
‘We were almost like a family,’ Jean continued sighingly. ‘That was our philosophy, sort of “keep it in the family”. So when the editor, my boss, finally went — well, it seemed very natural.’
‘Had he been ill for long?’
‘Excuse me? Oh, no! Oh no, you misunderstand me! Goodness no, he didn’t die. He retired.’
‘Oh.’
‘So it seemed natural that I would — you know—’
‘Take over?’
‘Exactly. But I hadn’t expected it, not at all! You could have knocked me over with a feather when they told me. Once the first thrill had passed, of course, I became terribly nervous. What did I know about running a department? I was like you — a young girl with no real ambitions of my own. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up. All the cut and thrust, you know. But then the MD said to me, “Jean,” he said, “what this place needs is the feminine touch.” I felt much better after that.’
Agnes twitched nervously. She longed for Greta, who was taking a few days off. It was hard to laugh at things on one’s own. One got sucked in.
‘So what do you think, dear?’ said Jean.
‘About what?’
‘Well — well, about everything.’ She waved her hands distractedly in the air, a gesture apparently intended to encompass global concerns.
‘What do you mean?’ Agnes persisted.
‘Agnes, dear, haven’t you listened to a word I’ve been saying?’