I drew up at the church, but of course nobody was there. Vita must have waited with the boys, fuming with rage, then begged a lift home from someone, or else found a taxi.
I drove to Kilmarth trying to think of some better excuse than losing my way and my watch having stopped. Petrol. Could I have run out of petrol? A puncture. What about a puncture? Oh, bloody hell, I thought… I rattled down the drive and swerved to a standstill before the house, then walked through the front garden, up the steps and into the hall. The dining-room door was closed. Mrs. Collins, with an anxious face, emerged from the passage to the kitchen.
"I think they've finished," she said apologetically, "but I've kept yours hot. It won't be spoilt. Did you have a breakdown?"
"Yes," I said, with gratitude.
I opened the door of the dining-room. The boys were clearing away, but Vita was still seated at the table, drinking coffee.
"God damn that blasted car…" I began, and the boys turned round, staring, uncertain whether to giggle or slink away. Teddy showed sudden tact, and with a glance at Micky they hurriedly left the room, Teddy bearing out the laden tray.
"Darling," I went on, "I'm most frightfully sorry. I wouldn't have had this happen for the world. You've no idea…"
"I've a very good idea," she said. "I'm afraid we've rather spoilt your Sunday."
Her irony was lost on me. I hesitated, wondering whether to continue or not with my brilliant story of a breakdown on the road.
"The vicar was extremely kind," she went on. "His son drove us back in their car. And when we arrived Mrs. Collins gave me this." She pointed to a telegram beside her plate. "It arrived just after we left for church," she said. "Thinking it must be important, I opened it. From your Professor, naturally." She handed me the telegram. It had been wired from Cambridge. 'Have a good trip this weekend, it read. Hope your girl turns up. Shall be thinking of you. Greetings. Magnus.'
I read it twice, then looked at Vita, but she had already turned towards the library, blowing clouds of cigarette smoke over her shoulder, as Mrs. Collins came into the dining-room bringing me an enormous plate of hot roast beef.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IF MAGNUS HAD wanted to drop a deliberate brick it could not have been better timed, but I absolved him. He believed Vita to be in London and myself alone. Nevertheless, the wording was unfortunate, to say the least. Catastrophic would be more apt. It must have conjured an instant vision to Vita of my sneaking off with shaving-kit and toothbrush to meet some floozie in the Scilly Isles. My innocence would be difficult to prove. I followed her into the library.
"Now, listen," I said, firmly shutting the folding doors between the two rooms in case Mrs. Collins overheard me, "that telegram is a complete joke — a leg-pull on the part of Magnus. Don't make an absolute idiot of yourself by taking it seriously."
She turned round and faced me, her posture the classical one of outraged wife, one hand on hip, the other brandishing her cigarette held at an angle, eyes narrowed in a frozen face.
"I'm not interested in the Professor or his jokes," she said. "You share so many of them, and keep me out, that I'm past caring. If that telegram was a joke good luck to you both. I repeat, I'm sorry I spoilt the weekend. Now you had better go and eat your lunch before it gets cold. She picked up a Sunday paper and pretended to look at it. I snatched it away. "Oh no, you don't," I said, "you just pay attention to me." Taking her cigarette I squashed it in the ash-tray. Then I seized both her wrists and swung her round.
"You know perfectly well that Magnus is my oldest friend," I said. "What's more he's lent us this house rent free, and thrown Mrs. Collins in for good measure. In return for this I've been doing bits and pieces of research for him in connection with his work. The telegram was just his way of wishing me luck."
My words made no impression. Her face was frozen stiff. "You're not a scientist," she said. "What sort of research can you possibly do? And where were you going?"
I dropped her wrists and sighed, as one whose patience is becoming rapidly exhausted by a wilfully misunderstanding child.
"I wasn't going anywhere," I insisted, emphasis on the anywhere. "I had vaguely planned to drive along the coast and visit one or two sites he happens to be interested in."
"How extremely plausible," she said. "I can't think why the Professor doesn't have a teach-in here, with you as his chief assistant. Why don't you suggest it? I'd be in the way, of course, and would make myself scarce. But he'd probably like to keep the boys."
"Oh, for God's sake," I said, opening the door to the dining-room, "you're behaving like every well-worn joke about wives I've ever heard. The simplest thing to do will be to ring up Magnus first thing tomorrow morning and tell him you're filing a divorce suit because you suspect me of wanting to meet-up with some scrubber at Land's End. He'll howl his head off."
I went into the dining-room and sat down at the table. The gravy was beginning to congeal, but no matter. I filled a tankard with beer to wash down the beef and two veg before tackling apple tart. Mrs. Collins, tactfully silent, brought in coffee and stood it on the hot-plate, then disappeared. The boys, at a loose end, were kicking the gravel on the path in front of the house. I got up, and called to them from the window. "I'll take you swimming later," I shouted. They brightened visibly, and came running up the steps to the porch. "Later," I said. "Let me have my coffee first, and see what Vita wants to do." Their faces fell. Mom would be a nonstarter, and possibly throw cold water on the plan. "Don't Worry," I said. "I promise I'll take you."
Then I went into the library. Vita was lying on the sofa, her eyes closed. I knelt beside her, and kissed her. "Stop being bloody-minded," I said. "There's only one girl in this world for me, and you know it. I'm not going to take you upstairs to prove it because I've told the boys I'd take them swimming, and you don't want to spoil their day for them, do you?"
She opened one eye. "You've succeeded in spoiling mine," she said.
"Balls!" I told her. "And what about my lost weekend with that floozie? Shall I tell you what I'd planned to do with her? A strip-tease show at Newquay. Now shut up." I kissed her again with vigour. Response was negligible, but she did not push me away.
"I wish I understood you," she said.
"Thank God you don't," I said. "Husbands loathe wives who understand them. It makes for monotony. Come and swim. There's a perfectly good empty beach below the cliffs. It's blazing hot, and it isn't going to rain."
She opened both eyes. "What were you actually doing this morning while we were in church?" she asked.
"Mooching about in a derelict quarry," I told her, "less than a mile from the village. It has connections with the old Priory, and Magnus and I happen to be interested in the site. Then I couldn't start the car, which I'd parked rather awkwardly in a ditch."
"It's news to me that your Professor is an historian as well as a scientist," she said.
"Good news, don't you think? Makes a change from all those embryos in bottles. I encourage it."
"You encourage him in everything," she said, "that's why he makes use of you."
"I'm adaptable by nature, always have been. Come on, those boys are itching to be off. Go and make yourself beautiful in a bikini, but put something over it, or you'll startle the cows."
"Cows?" she almost shrieked. "I'm not going in any field with cows, thank you very much."