FOUR

       A lovely evening

      Olive’s heart sank at the sight of the dining table. Jill had laid it beautifully, and it was lit by two tall candles in handsome, gleaming candlesticks. The room was quite small, with pale green wallpaper. Smart red curtains covered the French windows that led to the back garden. There were six decanters on the sideboard. She would never match this.

      She caught Arnold’s glance and had an uneasy feeling that he could read her mind.

      She didn’t like the starter, which was a peach stuffed with a mixture of yoghourt and mild spices. She didn’t like peaches or yoghourt, she didn’t like mixtures, and she didn’t like mild spices, although she didn’t dislike them as much as she disliked spices that weren’t mild. It crossed her mind that they would need to find a good doctor pretty quickly. She would miss Dr Renwick. She hoped Harry wouldn’t ask them who their doctor was. They would have to go to him, if he did, and she didn’t want the state of her kidneys to become public knowledge throughout the cul-de-sac.

      ‘This is just something rustled up from the store cupboard,’ said Jill.

      ‘It’s delicious,’ said Olive. ‘How clever of you to be able to rustle things up.’

      Harry gave her his ‘don’t overdo the compliments, it’s a form of running yourself down’ frown, and of course, now that she had said it was delicious, she would have to eat every mouthful.

      ‘I always eat slowly when I love things,’ she said.

      Harry gave her his ‘when you’re in a hole, don’t dig’ frown.

      The others had finished. She could hardly get it down. To help herself get through it she thought back to that brief romance forty-eight years ago. Well, not so brief. A few months. But a few months in which they’d had so much shyness and ignorance to overcome, so many inhibitions to let out, that it had never reached its climax, or any climax. She wondered what her life would have been like if she had married Arnold. She wasn’t attracted to him now. She couldn’t imagine life with him. She felt that she ought to say something, and was on the point of asking him if he’d ever been back to Cheltenham, when she realized that this question would have let the cat well and truly out of the bag.

      In their brief, urgent, almost whispered chat, back in the chandeliered lounge, while Harry had helped Jill fix the drinks, after consideration of the fact that it was a small world, after the horrified realization that they had last seen each other forty-eight years ago, after the lies about how kindly time had treated them, Arnold had made it clear that he didn’t want to tell Jill and Harry about it. She had thought this unwise. There was nothing to hide, so why hide it? She would have been horrified if she had known his reason, which was partly mere laziness and dislike of emotion past, present or future, but also at least a touch of shame. Olive was not now a trophy about whom one would boast.

      At last, in the chandeliered dining room, she had finished her starter. She smiled at the company. It was evident to them that the smile was hard work.

      ‘Delicious,’ she said.

      ‘I’ll get the main course.’

      Harry and Olive both realized that Arnold wouldn’t lift a finger. He’d been Head of History for twenty-nine years, after all. The fact that there had only ever been one other teacher in the department, and he had been either on work experience or a supply teacher, was of no account. Arnold had gone down in history as Head of History. He had thought it a great job in this modern world – to be paid to live in the past.

      Harry waited a few seconds – he was not entirely insensitive, despite what people said – and called out, ‘Can I help?’

      ‘Thank you,’ called out Jill from the kitchen.

      Harry hurried off, and a curious thing happened. Both Arnold and Olive realized that they had nothing whatsoever to say to each other. They couldn’t analyse their months of ‘walking out’ as it had been called in those distant days. It had been enjoyable, they had both felt romantic at times, but nothing worth recalling had happened. Do you remember the day we got the dates mixed up and went to the wrong film? Do you remember that French restaurant where we didn’t know what globe artichokes were and had to be shown how to eat them? Do you remember when I snagged my stockings on the door of the taxi? It was not the stuff of rich reminiscence.

      Nor was ‘So what have you been up to?’ likely to yield a great harvest.

      When I qualified as a teacher I taught history in Hereford and then in Hartlepool, where I met Jill. Shortly after that I was appointed Head of Department here, and remained it till I retired. I’m writing the definitive book on the history of Potherthwaite, which is also the only book on the history of Potherthwaite.

      I was Harry’s secretary. He was fun. He was good-looking. He had hair in those days. We married young, had three children, all of whom have done just about OK. I stayed as Harry’s secretary. He was in and out of things, no one else could understand his affairs. His business affairs, I mean. He’s never had the other kind. Well, as far as I know. No time. We’ve lived in nine houses. Harry has a boat. I hate boats.

      None of that was worth going into, so they didn’t go into it. But the curious part of it was that in not having anything to say they found common ground. They hoped Harry and Jill would take at least a few minutes; they were restful together.

      And Arnold smiled. Olive could have had no idea just how rare his smiles had become – there hadn’t been many in Cheltenham, but lately there had been very, very few. But when she saw that smile, just a little frisson of regret passed through her, and she understood for the first time what Jill had once seen in him.

      The smile emboldened her to ask a question.

      ‘Don’t you think we should tell them? Wouldn’t it be easier? Don’t you think if we don’t we’ll be treading on eggshells?’

      ‘Don’t forget I was a history teacher, Olive,’ he replied.

      Somehow I don’t think there’s any danger of that, thought Olive.

      ‘If we tell them, it becomes part of our shared knowledge, it lives on in all our memories and will become a part of our common experience. If we don’t tell them it will remain a piece of history. It will fade.’

      ‘Do you want it to fade?’ Olive was surprised by her boldness.

      Arnold paused, thinking carefully what to say.

      ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘It was good then, but there’s no point in its being part of our lives now. It has no relevance.’

      ‘I’m not good at secrets. I almost mentioned Cheltenham earlier.’

      ‘It’s fresh in our minds. It’ll fade. The whole thing will be forgotten. Shh. They’re coming.’

      Harry was carrying a huge dish, which he plonked on a mat on the table. Jill brought a smaller bowl.