Strained Relations

 23

Strained Relations

    “Is this the way?” asked Hattie uncertainly as, after a long, hot shower and some very strong coffee on Hill’s part, they headed the Range Rover away from Portsmouth.

    “Yes; that was Portsmouth.”

    “I know! Um, but it doesn’t look like the way we came.”

    “No. The map’s in the glove compartment, darling,” said Hill with his eyes on the road.

    Hattie got the map out and peered at it for some time. “Didn’t you say we had to take the Southampton road? That signpost said Worthing: it’s in the opposite direction.”

    “Uh—yeah. We need to head east, darling: the old place is near Brighton.”

    “What place?” said Hattie faintly.

    “Eh? Home, of course! Guillyford! Few miles this side of Brighton: inland a bit.”

    The S. then hit the F. with a roar. But he had told her they’d go straight on down there! And didn’t she want him to speak to Allan about Joanna? And etcetera.

    “You didn’t tell me,” said Hattie finally, very red.

    “I did. I’m sure I did. It was the day Harriet rang to say she and Will were going to move in this week. The flat’s ready, of course, but I got onto Red to make sure his merry men would get that bloody back staircase done—found a bit of woodworm in the risers and they had trouble matching the wood, not easy to get seasoned old oak at the drop of a hat, and of course that’s the very staircase bloody Watanabe told Maurice is an excerrent examper of the Balloca. Luckily one of the chaps knew a chap that specialises in bits of this and that that’ve fallen off the backs of trucks—bit like that Jack Powell chappie of Colin’s—and so we nipped over to… Oh, bugger.”

    “Right: nipped over to see him and got back about two in the morning drunk as a skunk!”

    “Cider apples. ’Mazing what you can do with ’em, that old bastard in Normandy that sold Harriet and Will that dump they used to have didn’t even come cl— Uh, sorry. I was positive I had told you,” he ended lamely.

    Hattie glared at the road.

    “Um, it was in my head that I had: quite a clear picture, I must have thought about it so much that I convinced myself it had actually happened. Well, all right, premature Alzheimer’s, and I’m sorry!” That speech had ended rather loudly. He swallowed and repeated in a lower voice: “I really am sorry, darling.”

    “Pull in,” said Hattie grimly.

    Oh, Lor’. He couldn’t, just here, but he edged over to the side and eventually managed to pull in. One could only hope that in the 21st century the thought that he might be a lurking rapist or carjacker would deter scores of helpful fellow motorists from stopping to ask him if he’d broken down.

    “The thing is,” said Hattie grimly, “you’re putting me last after all the project crap and the chaps crap and the old boy network crap and your family.”

    “I’m not! And—and I thought you enjoyed yourself yesterday,” he added weakly.

    “It wasn’t as bad I as I expected, but that’s got nothing to do with it!”

    He could see it did have but he was damned if he could find the words to explain it to her. Well, without being shouted at. “I’m really not putting you last, Hattie,” he said miserably. “Look, like I said, I must have thought about telling you so much that I really believed I had! Doesn’t that mean that you are important to me—you’re in my thoughts all the time?”

    “Thoughts don’t count unless they’re turned into actions,” said Hattie bleakly.

    Ouch! “Um, I’m sorry, what else can I say? Got a lot on my mind. Um, well, s’pose I was nervous about the wedding, thinking you might really loathe it and Colin’s bloody relatives would be even worse than predicted. Not that they weren’t pretty bad, but, um— You know what I mean,” he ended lamely. “And I know I’m at fault, but I do think you’re letting yesterday prejudice you.”

    “I’m not letting it prejudice me, I’m taking on board its message that we come from different worlds. And you haven’t integrated me into yours! And just by the by, I don’t want to be integrated into it!”

    “No, that’s pretty bloody clear,” he replied bitterly.

    “I came, I made the effort, and I wasn’t rude to anybody, not even those bitches that the old Haworth men are married to!”

    “Y—Uh, old Duff-Ross as well, think you mean. No, you weren’t. Very restrained,” he said glumly. “Wouldn’t have minded if you had been.”

    “Yes, you would, Hill, because it’s not the done ruddy THING!” she shouted.

    “Only because it would have spoiled Colin’s and Penn’s day,” said Hill tightly. He could feel he was about to lose his temper drastically. He didn’t often see red but when he did— Well, that episode with the fucking grenade-launcher in Iraq was typical. Unfortunately there weren’t any Iraqi tanks to blow up, here, were there?

    “Not only because of that!”

    “Balls. Look, get over it, Hattie. I can’t help my background, and I’ve been trying damned hard not to thrust it down your throat. I’ve turned down at least three invitations from Uncle Hubert in the past couple of months, the poor old idiot’s dying to have us both up at Craigie Castle—and the boys, before you start.”

    “I don’t want to go to a stupid castle that belongs to your stupid UNCLE!” she shouted.

    “He bought it with his hard-earned, don’t be so fucking prejudiced!” shouted Hill. “I know you don’t want to, that’s why I never mentioned it, but had it never occurred I might want to?”

    “Go, I’m not stopping you,” said Hattie sourly.

    “You are, Hattie! You’re expecting me to make all the—the sacrifices,”—wrong word, um, shit, um—“all the compromises, I mean!” he added quickly.

    “Expecting you to make the compromises? It’s not you that’s just been dragged to a blimming up-market wedding full of plum-in-the-mouth snobs!” she gasped.

    “One,” he counted sourly. “And it wasn’t a society wedding, it was in the bloody village hall!”

    “Club, if you didn’t notice.”

    “Yes: Workingmen’s Club, how more down-market do you WANT?” he shouted. “Now accuse me of being a snob!”

    Hattie had just been going to. She shut her mouth and glared.

    Hill took a deep breath. “Very well, we’ll go back to Abbot’s Halt, if that’s what you want.”

    “That’s right, put ME in the wrong! It’s YOUR fault, Hill, stop blaming me for everything!”

    “I’ve never blamed you for a thing!” he cried.

    “You do it all the time! You don’t come right out and say it, that’d be too obvious and you might have to face up to yourself, but all the same it’s me that ends up doing the wrong thing and wearing the wrong thing and just BEING wrong, and I’m sick of it!”

    “Look, if this is about that bloody black dinner dress—”

    “So what if a person wears a black dress to a bloody stupid up-market engagement party? What does it MATTER? Your whole life is FEEBLE, Hill!” shouted Hattie.

    “You might not have noticed, but it’s the feeble things that matter in normal people’s lives!” he cried.

    “Okay, I’m not normal and I don’t wanna be normal and you KNEW that! And I’m NOT gonna be blackmailed into visiting your horrible family!”

    “I’m not blackmailing you, it was a genuine oversight!”

    “Oversight! Yeah, too right! Well, I don’t wanna be a flaming oversight in the bloody Tarlington scheme of things any MORE!” she shouted.

    “This is a load of bloody crap, Hattie!” shouted Hill. “You’re a fucking Tarlington yourself, so stop taking your damned hang-ups out on me! And wake up to yourself! I’m not your bloody father!”

    There was a tingling silence in the Range Rover, during which Hill, enraged though he was, had time to reflect he’d gone too bloody far.

    “Who told you that?” said Hattie grimly.

    “If it’s significant—”

    “Don’t you take that snooty tone with me!”

    “Joanna told me when Gordon ran off to Heathrow,” he said flatly. “She only told me because she thought it’d be your legal name on your passport.”

    “You’ve known since then?” she gasped.

    “Yes, and YOU’VE known all your life!” shouted Hill, suddenly turning purple. “If anybody’s not integrating the other person into their bloody life, it’s you, Hattie! You’ve never told me a bloody thing! How do you think that makes me feel? And—and shit! The family had the lawyers looking for you for months on end!”

    “Fuck the bloody FAMILY!” shouted Hattie, bright red.

    “Right! Fine! That’s it, then! You’re not a Tarlington, you don’t want to be a Tarlington, and you’re rejecting me along with all the rest of them, and SO BE IT!” he yelled. “I’ve done my best, but if you’re so bloody rigid and prejudiced you can’t admit that I’m only human like anybody else, let’s fucking well end it! Because it sure as Hell isn’t going anywhere, is it?”

    “Good, I don’t want it to go anywhere, and specially not in the direction of your stupid family’s stupid place, so let me out!” shouted Hattie as he started the car.

    “Right, then it’ll be my fault you end up mugged on the road to Worthing!” shouted Hill, turning the wheel furiously. “Bugger that! You can catch the train from Portsmouth, and I don’t give a damn if you’ve got a two-hour wait for the connection to bloody Ditterminster!” He accomplished the turn and put his foot down.

    “I can’t catch a train, I haven’t got any money, you selfish pig!” Hattie burst into angry sobs.

    Hill fumbled angrily for his wallet. “Take it! It’s tainted Tarlington money, but TAKE IT! Take the bloody lot!”

    She was sobbing, but she sorted through the notes in his wallet and took a couple.

    After that there was dead silence until they got to the Portsmouth railway station.

    “You’re not doing me any favours, I’ll pay you back,” she warned, getting out.

    “Fine! Pay me back, I don’t give a damn whether you do or you don’t!” shouted Hill, driving away.

    “That would explain why her case is in the back of the car,” admitted Allan feebly.

    “Shut up,” warned Hill. His relatives, of course, in the way of relatives, had got the story out of him. Well, with Fliss and Allie expressing loud surprise and disappointment that Hattie wasn’t with him, it hadn’t been possible to say nothing, and Ma and Allan had taken it from there.

    “Hilly, darling, living with someone isn’t like your usual casual things,” said his ma faintly.

    “I realise that, thanks!”

    “Um, but what have you done about it, Hill?” asked Allan on an uneasy note. “Well, um, what changes have you really made in your way of life?”

    “Exactly,” agreed their mother before Hill could speak. “It’s no different from when you were based in that awful flat in London: ninety percent of the time you’re never home.”

    “Ring the mobile number, Ma,” he said heavily.

    “I think her point is that when a chap’s living with a lady, one expects him to be there with her, Hill,” said Allan.

    “Look, the job hasn’t changed! I can’t help that!” he said angrily.

    His relatives looked at him doubtfully, as if they thought he could. Well, Hell! He couldn’t! Nature of the beast!

    “And, um, well, this may sound like a bit of cliché,” said Allan uncomfortably, “but have you actually given up anything for her?”

    “You’re right, it does sound like a bit of a cliché!” he said angrily.

    “Hilly, it does sound as if you’ve expected her to adapt to your way of life rather than trying to adapt to hers,” said their mother.

    “Not that most chaps don’t,” noted Allan drily.

    Hill was very red. “This is balls! We’ve seen a fair bit of her old friends—in fact more than she was seeing of them before, since she didn’t have transport! And—and for God’s sake, nothing could be simpler than life in Abbot’s Halt, what the Hell sort of high life do the pair of you imagine I’ve been living?”

    His relatives looked at him doubtfully again.

    Finally Allan said: “I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve rung you and you were actually at Hattie’s cottage, Hill. As opposed to the times you were out on the site or up in London or off on the other side of the world.”

    “I was where the job sent me, you fool, and if you’d ring at a sensible time you might get me!”

    “Farmers go to bed early,” replied Allan calmly. “But I’d have said eight o’clock was a sensible time to find you at the place you’re ostensibly living in, rather than on the site or in a damned meeting.”

    “Yes, or at the silly Army and Navy: I thought you were giving it up, Hilly?” said his mother.

    “What? Look, that was once! I was only there because I had a meeting with that architect chap Throgmorton and it was convenient!” he said angrily.

    Allan looked at him drily. “Right. Talking of which, Hattie wanted to go to his engagement party, did she?”

    “She had a perfectly nice time and she gets on very well with his fiancée, because she’s a New Zealander!”

    “That wasn’t what I asked.”

    “The point is she enjoyed herself!” he snapped.

    “No, the point is she didn’t want to go in the first place and you made her,” replied his brother.

    “I didn’t MAKE her!” he shouted.

    “Don’t shout, dear,” said his mother calmly. “You persuaded her, then, but it amounts to the same thing.”

    “For God’s SAKE!” he shouted. “There has to be some give and take in any relationship!”

    “Mm, but I think the point we’re making here,” said Allan very drily indeed, “is that you’re the one that’s doing all the taking and Hattie’s the one that’s doing all the giving.”

    “That isn’t tr—”

    “Or,” he said shrewdly, “that you expect her to be the one that does all the giving, which amounts to the same thing.”

    “She’d certainly agree with you!” said Hill bitterly.

    Marina Tarlington bit her lip. “Hilly, darling, we are on your side, but listen to yourself! Aren’t you, um, falling into the trap of turning the other person into the monster so as you can blame her for everything? That’s no way to get a relationship to work.”

     “More like a recipe for disaster,” agreed Allan. “There’s probably some psychological expression for it, but Ma’s put it rather well. ’Tis the sort of thing people do all the time, and I’m not saying it’s not a natural reaction, but it won’t help things.”

    “You know nothing about it! She’s blaming me for everything!”

    “Possibly because most of it’s your fault.”

    “It ISN’T! I can’t help the job!” he shouted.

    “Hilly, don’t shout,” said his mother with a sigh. “That is the sort of excuse men give, but is it true?”

    “Of course it’s bloody well true!”

    “I think you could tell Maurice Bishop where to put it rather more than you do,” said Allan. “And surely they can appoint someone else to check on those sites in Australia and New Zealand? Even if it does cost them cash money. It can’t possibly be in your contract that you have to do it.”

    “It is in my contract that I manage their projects on site, you ass,” he said tiredly.

    “You can still tell Maurice Bishop where to put it, Hill,” said his mother. “But the job isn’t really the point, and it’s typical of men to claim it is; that’s what I was trying to say.”

    Her two sons stared at her, baffled.

    “Oh, dear,” said Marina Tarlington with a weak laugh. “You’re so unalike facially, really, but just then you had the identical expression on your faces! Jolly’s father to the life!”

    Allan rubbed his face ruefully. “Ugh!”

    “He certainly didn’t understand women,” allowed Hill on a sour note.

    “No, but very attractive to them at the same time: funny, isn’t it?” said the late Sir Vernon’s daughter-in-law detachedly.

    Allan eyed his brother drily. “Apparently it’s genetic, then.”

    “Nonsense, dear, this is the twenty-first century!” said his mother briskly. “And you’ve side-tracked me. You’re falling into the standard male trap of making the job an excuse, Hill.”

    “I’m not!”

    “I think you are, to some extent,” allowed Allan.

    “Yes, but it isn’t he job, it’s you,” said Marina Tarlington tranquilly.

    “Thank you very much, Ma!”

    “You have always expected women to fall into your hand like ripe plums—well, and they have, of course, that hasn’t helped. I think attractive men get into a habit of taking women for granted,” she said thoughtfully.

    “I’ll say,” agreed Allan drily.

    “Shut up!” retorted his brother angrily. “You’re the one that let yourself be put off a lovely-natured, attractive girl by her bloody relatives!”

    Allan’s jaw dropped.

    “Never mind that for the moment—though I’m afraid you did, Allan,” said their mother firmly. “You need to stop taking Hattie for granted, Hilly, and really start thinking about her as an individual. And think about how your attitudes might affect her.”

    After a moment Allan asked weakly: “Attitudes to what, Ma?”

    “Everything,” she said calmly.

     “Oh, right!” he agreed. “For example, not assuming she’ll take kindly to being dragged to snooty engagement parties, or bloody weddings infested with Haworths and Duff-Rosses.”

    “Most of the bloody village was there and she ENJOYED herself!” shouted Hill. “It’s not all me, it’s her! The minute I suggest anything she vetoes it without even thinking about it!”

    “Yes, but why?” said his mother swiftly.

    “It’s the fucking class thing, and as that’s the result of a thousand years of English history I don’t see how I can change it,” he said sourly.

    “Now start blaming history. Good one, Hill,” said his brother drily. “And don’t swear in front of Ma, thanks.”

    “Sorry, Ma,” said Hill sourly.

    “That’s all right, dear, you’re upset. But do try not to in front of the children: after that visit to Chipping Abbas with the pair of you Allie told Mrs Hawkins she was a bloody pain in the arse and it took us four months to find nice Mrs Jessop to replace her.”

    “Mind you, she was,” noted Allan fairly.

    “You’re getting as bad as he is,” she warned. “It’s only partly the class thing, I think, Hill. Insecurity, I’d call it.”

    “Guilt, more like,” he said sourly.

    His relatives stared at him.

    Finally Allan said feebly: “Is this The Second Mrs Tanqueray? If so, pots and kettles—”

    “No, you ass! She’s a bloody Tarlington!” he shouted.

    They gaped at him.

    “She’s been hiding it all this time! She’s Henrietta Tarlington, bloody Col’s daughter!” he shouted.

    “Think I’d hide it, too, if Col was my pa,” said Allan in a shaken voice. “What’s given you this idea?”

    “Joanna told me, you cretin,” he said tiredly. “Back when Gordon ran off to Heathrow. She was fussing about the name on Hattie’s passport and let it out to me.”

    “I see,” said Allan limply.

    Then there was a considerable silence, during which Hill’s relatives just looked limply at him.

    “Hilly, why didn’t you tell us before?” said his mother at last.

    “Because in the first place she hadn’t admitted it to me and in the second place I don’t give a toss whose daughter she is!”

    “But we’d have liked to know! Good gracious, I remember the christening! Col’s grandfather wanted it to be a boy, of course, but she was such a pretty baby he couldn’t resist her. Harriet was completely bowled over, bless her! When was it? Um, about 1974, I think. I’ve forgotten the girl’s name, oh, dear… Anyway, she was wearing smart black slacks—the very latest legs, straight, not flared—and a lovely leather jacket, a pale tan with a hint of apricot in it, and of course it was a very chilly day, but no-one else was in slacks and the horrid old man glared at her throughout. –Marilyn, that was it! Glorious golden curls, perfectly natural. You boys must remember it, surely?”

    “Um, no,” admitted Allan.

    “You’d have been eight, dear, that’s old enough to remember!” she urged.

    “Uh—was that the time Pa’s heap broke down?” he said weakly.

    “No, dear—that was a long trip, too. No, that was that frightful trip to Scotland when you were ten, Allan. Your Uncle Gerry had hired a shooting box, goodness knows who he wanted to impress, but the guests had all gone by the time we got there.”

    “Wandering from the point, Ma,” he warned drily.

    “Yes: Chipping Abbas,” she said briskly. “You were ten, Hilly: surely you remember! Harriet said the baby looked like a little rosebud and you maintained she looked like Winston Churchill, though as your cheeks were red as fire we concluded you were as much struck as she was!”

    “No,” he said sourly.

    “Was this before the church fell down?” asked Allan.

    “What? No, dear, of course not! The christening was in Ditterminster Cathedral.”

    “Oh, good God! I do remember! It was like a huge, dark, echoing cave and Hilly claimed it was the inspiration for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and tried to suborn me into going up the bell tower!”

    Hill shrugged, looking sour.

    “We didn’t stay at Chipping Abbas,” added Marina: “the Dean’s wife very kindly had a little reception at the Deanery. It wasn’t very long after poor old Mrs Tarlington died: such a pity she never saw the baby.”

    “That possibly explains why my only early memory of Chipping Abbas is a croquet game with Allan in a pale blue smock sucking his rusk,” said Hill sourly.

    “Oh, good gracious! Fancy you remembering that, dear! You’d only have been…  Four!” she beamed. “Not a smock, a little romper-suit… Oh, dear. That was a lovely day,” she sighed. “One of those perfect days where nothing goes wrong. One has so few of them…”

    Her sons were now both eyeing her in some dismay.

    “Don’t look at me like that, sillies!” she said, smiling. “Of course there are lots of and lots of happy memories, but it’s so rare to have a whole day unmarred by the tiniest thing! Well, having to stop in the middle of nowhere because one of the children needs to go, that sort of thing. Or Jolly losing his keys. Or—or being too hot and wishing one had worn a lighter frock. Just tiny things.”

    “Er—yeah,” said Allan feebly. “I think we have wandered from the point, Ma.”

    Hill got up. “Don’t bother getting back to it, thanks.”

    “Hilly, you need to concentrate on Hattie! Think about her as seriously as if she was a project!” said his mother urgently.

    “I’ve already had that one from Colin, thanks, and as he got his lady blacksmith up the spout about two seconds after meeting her, that advice strikes me as about as useful as the rest of the relationship claptrap!” He walked out, not neglecting to shut the door sharply after him.

    “Damn,” said Allan limply.

    “What relationship claptrap?” asked his mother.

    “Well, uh, just in general, Ma. I don’t think he meant anything specific at all: he’s too upset to think clearly. Though possibly he meant that when one’s upset one doesn’t think clearly. Or not upset, perhaps, so much as, um, emotionally involved?”

    “Mm. –I think it’s going to rain,” she noted wanly.

    “Probably. But he’ll only have gone down to the boatshed. Though as Pa’s not there to ignore anything smacking even faintly of emotions and chat on about his blessed tubs, I dunno what good he imagines it’ll do him,” he said heavily. He got up. “The cows won’t milk themselves. I’d better get on with it.”

    “Yes, of course, dear. –Couldn’t you say something to him, Allan?”

    He made a face. “He’ll throw the divorce in my face if I do, Ma.”

    “Mm. And probably that lovely Black girl again, too,” she admitted.

    Allan went very red. “You never saw her, you can’t possibly know whether she was lovely or not!”

    “Harriet and Will liked her very much.”

    “Drop it, Ma,” he said grimly, walking out.

    Marina waited but as expected he didn’t shut the door sharply as Hill had done, just closed it quietly. “They’re such opposites,” she said dully to herself, “but neither of them seems to be much good at normal life. Oh, dear.”

    Allan did go down to the boatshed, but not until after the milking. Hill was still in there. He wasn’t sitting there sulking, he was hard at it. The shed was pervaded by a lovely smell of hot tar that Allan hadn’t smelled for the best part of two years.

    “What are you doing?”

    “Re-caulking Swallow,” he said grimly.

    Okay, he was re-caulking Swallow. Must be genetic. Allan sat down on an upturned bucket and watched him for a while. Eventually he said: “Does this re-caulking indicate the ignoring of anything smacking even faintly of emotions is genetic as well?”

    Hill straightened with a tarry brush in his hand. “Obviously. Stir that pot, would you?”

    Sighing a little, Allan got up and stirred the tar. “Look, Hilly—”

    “Don’t dare to start! You haven’t so much as mentioned Joanna’s name since the poor girl stuck up for Hattie and told that sickener of a cousin off!”

    He swallowed. “She was more than a sickener, Hill,” he said in a low voice.

    “Very well, let’s call a spade a spade, she was a right little cunt, and while we’re on the subject, as Hattie so rightly pointed out, that’s a word Joanna didn’t use!”

    “What?” he said numbly.

    “You’re an idiot, Allan,” said Hill grimly. “Though I’m not saying I would have realised it for myself, either, especially on top of what I gather was an in-person encounter with the cousin in curlers. Joanna was bawling the cousin out, yes, I’m not arguing with you on that one. But think of this—no, two points, think of them both. Firstly, the language. The accent is an accident of birth and she’s no more to blame for it than you’re to blame for yours.”

    “It wasn’t just the accent,” he said tightly.

    “I’m coming to that. Sure she bawled her out, but did she call her a cunt? No, she was too nice to, and as Hattie pointed out to me, she’s a girl with nice instincts, and she has made a real effort to better herself. And as I’ve had time to find out, what with the fuss over Gordon and the fright over— Uh, never mind,” he said quickly, realising that he’d never mentioned the Gulf Syndrome scare to his family. “I’ve had time to find out that she’s a thoroughly considerate, sweet-natured, kind person! And—and good God, she irons her hankies and stores them in stuff like that muck of Ma’s!” Allan was just gaping at him. “Scented stuff! Uh—pot-pourri!” said Hill impatiently.

    “Pot-pourri,” echoed Allan limply.

    “That’s right. And my second point—”

    “I thought that was your second point?”

    “Shut up! My second point is that all the shouting wasn’t even on her own account, it was because the ghastly cousin had seduced Hattie’s bloody boyfriend! Get it? Before you say that that doesn’t justify the language—I must say I wish I’d heard it, must have been a riot—before you say anything so daft, just ask yourself how many women you know—women of our generation, Allan—who would bother to stick up for a female friend.”

    “I— You’re exaggerating,” he said feebly

    “Go on, count ’em,” replied Hill drily.

    “Well, Harriet, for a start!” said Allan crossly.

    “One. Go on. Not Cynthia Bloody Moreton or any of the tarts I’ve done, that’s for sure! Nor Colin’s—half of them were at the bloody wedding, would you believe? Let’s hope curiosity does what it’s reputed to.”—Allan was just gaping at him.—“Kills the cat!” said Hill impatiently. “Well?”

    “If you’re waiting for me to say ‘Not bloody Iras,’” said his brother tightly, “very well. Not bloody Iras, the vain, self-centred, worthless bitch! Jesus, she didn’t even remember to send Fliss a birthday present this year, the narcissistic cunt that she is!”

    Hill eyed him drily and let the silence in the boatshed lengthen.

    “Oh, fuck,” said Allan limply.

    “Yeah.”

    “You’re so right: poor little Joanna’s no worse than the rest of us and a damn’ sight better than some. I—” He passed his hand across his eyes.

    “Mm,” said Hill, pretending to be very busy with Swallow again.

    After quite some time Allan said: “The tar’s gone caggy.”

    “Uh—oh. The brazier’s out. Never mind. Sit down.”

    Allan sat down on the upturned bucket again. Hill sat down on the old kitchen chair that Pa had always used. They looked at each limply.

    “L’un vaut l’autre,” concluded Allan.

    “Eh?” replied Hill gloomily.

    “Frog for ‘I’m as big a tit as you are.’”

    “Right.”

     A long silence reigned in the Guillyford Place boatshed.

    “What in God’s name did you actually do?” said Allan at last.

    Hill looked at him limply. “I dunno. What I said. Forgot to tell her we were coming on here.”

    “Ma’s right: it must be insecurity, Hilly.”

    “Mm. Well, it was a shock, I suppose,” he said dully.

    “Mm. And she must have been feeling guilty over the Tarlington thing, I think you’re right about that. Probably been weighing on her mind for months, when you think about it,” he said kindly.

    “Mm. Oh—see what you mean. Stretching her nerves to breaking point, eh? I thought it was just… stuff,” he ended lamely.

    “Mm?”

    “Well, stuff. Life. Me. Kept doing the wrong things. Took the boys to the cinema—she knew we were going, mind you—but didn’t ring to say we’d be very late back. Um, had a jolly, chummy male peer group with Kenny’s headmaster and left her out of it.”—Allan was goggling at him in dismay.—“Very well, that was the most unkindest cut of all.”

    “Well, don’t take my word for it, but yes, I think it might have been! Good God, don’t you remember that frightful row when Harriet found out Will had let his father put J.B.’s name down for Rugby?”

    “It’s a perfectly good school. –Uh, yeah, not the point, old man; I get you,” he said dully. “Male peer group lined up against ’em, eh?”

    “And then some!”

    “Oh, bugger: let on my doc in London’s an old school pal, too,” he remembered.

    “Er—”

    “The word ‘dragged’ was used after I’d got him to check her busted ankle out—but good Christ, she’d had it set in a Japanese hospital!”

    “Wogs begin at Calais,” replied Allan drily.

    “Uh—yeah. Well, possibly I did give that impression—and of course Kenny’s father’s a Jap and she’s always thought he was the cat’s whiskers: not tactful. Well, uh, what should I have done?”

    “Told her up-front the chap was at school with you and asked her if she wanted to see him. As in before the dragging took place.”

    “Mm. Well, uh— Oh, Christ. I invited Colin over without thinking about it, too. Um, the first time,” he explained feebly. “Before she’d met him. It went over like a bucket of lead and she shouted at me about, um, colonels with plums in their mouths, I think. –Was that then? Yes, think so.”

    “Mm.” Allan rubbed his chin. “Actually, I’d say the class thing is entirely secondary. You pre-empting her and making decisions for her sounds like the main problem, to me. Makes it worse when it’s with another member of the male Establishment, of course,” he added kindly.

    “Thanks! –No, you’re right. But Jesus, looking before you leap is one thing but—but thinking twice about everything you say and do?”

    Allan thought about it. “Not everything. Mainly decisions, I’d say.”

    “Right.” Hill scowled over it. “When I do ask her she vetoes my suggestions, anyway.”

    “As in?”

    “Um… Damn. Um, um…” Alan just waited. “Buying steak,” Hill finally produced feebly.

    His brother returned smoothly: “Bad for the arteries and the cholesterol level. You know nothing about the modern woman’s preoccupations, do you? No-one’d ever think you were Harriet’s brother.”

    “Shut up, you bugger,” he said feebly, grinning feebly.

    “Tofu?” suggested Allan delicately.

    “Hattie’s Japanese meals are wonderful, you fool, she’s the best cook on earth! And I have told her so!”

    “That’s good.”

    “Um, though I did tend to avoid the Japanese Wednesday lunches because this frightful Libber female that she’s been giving Japanese lessons was always… there,” he finished weakly, having inadvertently met his brother’s eye.

    “You cretin.”

    “Yeah. Anyway, she’s pushed off to Japan for the summer,” said Hill defiantly.

    “Just as well.”

    Another long silence fell.

    “Very well, now what?” said Hill dully.

    “Go home,” replied Allan firmly. “Never mind if she yells at you or tries to chuck you out: go home. Today. Now. Without waiting for dinner.”

    “But I was the one that lost my rag and said it wasn’t going anywhere and let’s end it,” he admitted sourly.

    “So what? Sort of thing millions of misguided chaps yell at their nearest and dearest every day. If you leave it overnight I can promise you it won’t get better.”

    “I thought she might cool down,” he said miserably.

    Allan stood up. “Think about it.”

    Hill must have thought about it because half an hour later he came into the kitchen where Lady Tarlington was preparing dinner and Allan was pinching pieces of sliced carrot and said: “I’m off. Sorry, Ma. It has dawned, though Allan was too kind to put it so crudely, that I don’t live here any more and that I’d better go back to where I do live and tell Hattie I’m an imbecile and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

    “Good. Don’t run away if she rejects you this time, Hilly.”

    “I didn’t— No, well, perhaps I did; I suppose I could have told Maurice I wouldn’t go to the Antipodes if my life depended on it.”

    “Exactly. Just get that packet of sandwiches out of the larder, would you, Allan?”

    Looking numbed, Allan went over to the larder. “Here,” he said numbly, holding the packet out to Hill. “She was a Girl Guide, apparently.”

    “Yes. Thanks, Ma,” he said, pecking her cheek.

    “Talk everything over, Hill. Not just once, dear, but discuss things. And don’t spend the evenings in front of the telly, never mind if it’s what the children want. Chatting and reading is much better for relationships,” said his mother mildly. “Give Hattie my love and tell her of course we don’t mind that she’s a Tarlington, in fact it’ll be lovely to see Col’s daughter! And I’ll be over very soon, but I’ll phone her first.”

    “If you dare,” said Allan faintly.

    “Do you dare to come over?” replied his brother baldly.

    Allan bit his lip. “Where is she?”

    “Home. Told that Portuguese git from the hotel she wouldn’t spend a dirty week in Skye with him after all.”

    “What?”

    “Yeah. Not that you deserve it. –I’m going.”

    He went.