Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
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proud of Hannah, and that his own wife, his Marcelle, was looking at him for once without disapproval or anxiety. Michael sat up straighter and focused his eyes on the golden nimbus of the candle flames, and on Hannah’s bright hair beyond them.
It was a good evening. The tensions of the first night seemed to have been forgotten, and Andrew and Janice laughed and nodded their relief and approval. The couples sat up later than usual, basking in the unexpected glow of shared happiness.
There was only a moment, when everyone was on the way to bed, when Michael wandered into the kitchen and found Hannah searching for mineral water in the fridge.
He went to her and put his arms around her waist as she stood with her back to him, feeling the breadth of her hips and the roundness of her backside against him.
‘I’m a bit drunk,’ he told her, with his mouth against her neck.
‘I know.’ She eased herself away, but smiling, indulgent with him.
He lifted her hand and turned it so that he kissed the pulse point inside her wrist.
‘There,’ he said tenderly. ‘That’s all.’
He stumbled to the door, and up the stairs to his bedroom and Marcelle’s.
Marcelle was in bed, but with the bedside light on.
Watching him undress she said, ‘You were nice tonight.’
‘I am nice.’
‘I know that.’
He groped his way across to her, and half fell on to the bed. Then he switched off the light before turning to her. He tried, but the buttons of her nightdress defeated him.
‘Take that thing off.’
He heard the whisper of the sheets and flowered cotton and his wife’s skin before she pressed herself into his arms.
He made love to her, feeling the familiar hollows and ridges of her. And all the time, as he did it, he was aware as if he was contemplating some magical photographic negative, guiltily and delightedly, of Hannah’s silvery curves above and beneath and all around him.
Barney Clegg stood back to admire his work, brushing the earth off his large hands on to the legs of his jeans.
‘There. What do you think?’
Nina stood in the doorway to survey her tiny square of back yard. The early March sunshine felt warm on the top of her head, and Barney’s opulent clumps of daffodils and grape hyacinths added to the brightness.
‘I think it’s the best instant garden I have ever seen.’
He had arrived in a van loaded with sacks of compost and pots and tubs of plants, and in the course of the morning had dug over and fed her patch of starved earth and filled it with splashy green shrubs and spring bulbs in full flower.
‘I feel fraudulent, though.’
Barney raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Why’s that?’
‘I haven’t sprinkled the seed or hoed or watered.’
‘Well, neither have I, exactly.’
‘Where did the plants come from?’
He grinned. ‘Don’t ask. But it looks good, doesn’t it?’
‘It does. I shall come and sit out here and admire it, all summer long.’
‘And think of me.’
Nina laughed. ‘Of course. I’m very grateful, Barney. I’m not quite sure why you’ve gone to so much trouble.’
She was not sure, but she was glad to have her garden so deftly transformed. Nor would she have denied to herself that it had been a pleasure to sit on a kitchen stool pretending to be busy, and covertly watching him humming and digging out in the sunshine. Barney was comfortable in the open air.
‘I promised I’d do it for you.’
‘I didn’t really expect you to keep such a rash promise.’
‘I always keep my promises, actually.’
They were standing by the French doors into the kitchen. Barney was leaning on a spade, with his shirt sleeves rolled up. There was a rim of fresh earth around his wrists.
‘Now I’ve offended you.’
‘Not seriously. You could make amends with a cup of tea.’
She had offered one earlier, but Barney had told her he wanted to get the job finished first.
‘Do you really want tea? Wouldn’t you rather have a drink?’ It was the middle of the afternoon, an indeterminate and featureless hour. The idea of a drink seemed appealingly decadent.
‘Yes, I would rather, since you mention it.’
Barney followed her into the kitchen. He stood at the sink washing his hands while Nina foraged in cupboards. She put bread and cheese and fruit on the table, and poured two glasses of wine. The lush greenery outside kept catching her eye. The afternoon had mysteriously become an impromptu celebration.
‘You’ll have to teach me what these plants are, you realize. I only know the Christmas rose.’
The hellebore he had brought her on Boxing Day had been joined by two more. Their new leaves stood up from the earth like eagerly raised hands.
‘Easy. There’s Choisya ternata, Fatsia japonica, Hedera Goldheart and Ravensholst –’
‘Stop. I’m lost already. My husband was the gardener.’
He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s all right.’
It was, she thought. A year, almost, since Richard’s death. Now she was drinking wine in the middle of the afternoon in her house in Dean’s Row with an amiable blond giant of a boy, and she had been pierced by a sudden arrow of happiness.
Barney was thinking that when Nina smiled, when she was caught unawares, she reminded him of a picture. Cathy had had a print of it pinned on her bedroom wall. Botticelli, was it?
‘Go on,’ Nina told him. ‘Have something to eat.’
He began with a fist-sized chunk of bread and cheese.
‘You’ll have to water out there a lot to start with. Even if the weather’s wet. The beds won’t catch much rain, being overhung by the walls.’
‘What do I use? A watering can?’
‘If you’ve got all day. Or I could come back and rig up a hose and a sprinkler for you.’
‘I can’t ask you to do anything more.’
‘I’d like to do it. And we Cleggs always do what we like.’
Barney had reached across and refilled Nina’s glass for her. She could see his father in him, only Barney was so likeable.
‘Do you? All right, then,’ she agreed, knowing that it had not taken much to persuade her and resolving that she would not worry about it. ‘If you can. Come back and fix up some water for me.’
‘I’ll come on Wednesday, then.’
He finished his chunk of bread and began on another.
‘Wednesday?’
‘There’s a lot of college that’s worth bunking on Wednesday.’
‘Am I supposed to agree to you missing college in order to come and fiddle with hosepipes for me?’
He put his head on one side and examined her face. In the strong spring light Nina knew that the fine lines around