A Woman of Our Times. Rosie Thomas
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waiting downstairs.’
Harriet was impatient. The television crew had finished, they were carrying their gear out of her office. ‘Charlie, I’m not going up the Amazon, I’m going to LA. They have telephones there. I can be back here in twelve hours, if I’m needed.’
‘Sure thing. Well, enjoy yourself. Tell the old tosspot I’m rooting for him.’
Charlie had never met Caspar Jensen, but he made a joke of pretending familiarity with the man and his habits.
‘Thanks, Charlie. Thanks for ringing. Give my love to Jen.’
‘Come back soon.’
Charlie rang off. Karen was looking up at Harriet. ‘Problem?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Harriet said. She would not have admitted anxiety to Charlie. The anxiety, in any case, was well within bounds. She could live with it. She wanted to see Caspar more than she wanted anything else. Her luggage, two small neat suitcases, was waiting for her by the door. If she didn’t go now, she would miss her flight.
‘Shall I ask the driver to come up for your suitcases?’
Harriet picked them up. ‘No, I can manage. Travelling light.’ One Bruce Oldfield evening dress for the big night, not much else.
Alison Shaw came out of Harriet’s office. She was wearing a full skirt that bunched over her hips, and a loose jacket. An unnecessary Burberry was folded over her arm.
‘Thanks for the interview,’ she said.
‘I enjoyed it,’ Harriet lied. They looked at each other for a moment. ‘I must go.’
‘Have a good trip,’ Alison and Karen said together.
In the car, as it turned into the westbound traffic, Harriet was thinking again about Simon. Her thoughts embarked on a predictable circuit and, with a touch of weariness, she let them follow the familiar groove. She sat hunched forward in her seat, containing the discomfort that they gave her. Looking out of the car window, from the little height of the Westway, she saw the cold sparkle of the city. A moment later, her spirits lifted. The groove had led her, as it sometimes did, to her mother. Harriet imagined Kath at home, in her kitchen, at Sunderland Avenue. The big, modern house would be humming with Radio One, and with the sound of vacuum cleaning or the buzz of the electric blender. They were the sounds of Harriet’s adolescence, but not her childhood. Harriet loved her mother. She thought that they were alike, for all the differences in their two lives.
Unusually, Kath had not telephoned her to wish her bon voyage, and Harriet had not found the time to call today. If there was no time to do it from the airport, she would ring as soon as she reached Los Angeles.
On the left of the car, a 747 dipped towards its destination. Harriet watched it as it slid through the sky, and wondered if the sun was shining on the West Coast.
She wouldn’t think about what Charlie had said. When she came home, she would find out where the rumour had sprung from.
London, 1981
It was half past five.
The street outside Harriet’s shop was crowded with office workers flooding towards the tube station.
Harriet finished checking the till, and left a float for Karen who was on the staff rota to open the shop in the morning. She bagged the rest of the day’s takings, ready to be dropped into the night safe on her way past the bank. Then she went through the shop turning off the lights, so that the dazzling mirror-walls became blank, dark curtains. She locked the inner doors and set the alarm, then stepped out into the street. The shop was secure for the night. She paused to look up at the façade. It was pristine white, with the shop’s name, Stepping, in black, identical to the other shops in the chain.
All the Stepping shops sold dance- and exercise-wear, and ranges of associated products. Most of them, as Harriet’s was, were owned by franchises. Franchise-holders ordered from a central range of products, but they chose from the range to suit their own shops. Harriet knew her customers, and had the knack of offering them what they wanted to buy. The shop was in a good location, almost prime, and it was turning over well. Harriet was proud of it, and of her foresight in predicting the dance and exercise boom. She knew that she was doing all the business she could hope to do. If I was in Covent Garden, Harriet thought. But she wasn’t, and she wouldn’t be, not with Stepping.
She had been running her business for nearly five years. She had found the shop when she was twenty-five, and her stepfather had bought the lease for her. She was paying back the principal now. She was grateful to Ken for his generosity, but she was aware that it had been a sound investment for him.
She was less sure, now, whether she was satisfied with it herself. She knew that it would never make her rich, but more importantly it no longer gave her the charge of excitement that it once had.
Harriet turned away from the shop, and dropped the keys into her handbag. She checked to make sure that the envelope containing the cinema tickets was there too. It was Leo who wanted to see the film, and she had booked the tickets to surprise him. Afterwards she planned to treat them both to dinner at the new Thai restaurant.
Harriet forgot about the business. She began to walk briskly, looking forward to the evening with her husband. She reached the bank, with the bag of the day’s takings hugged to her chest. She opened the polished slit of the night safe and slid the bag into its mouth. She heard it bumping softly as it passed into the entrails of the bank, and the home-going crowds flowed reassuringly past her. Harriet went on with them, towards the tube station.
A few moments later she reached the street where Leo had his studio. Leo was a photographer, quite a successful one. His studio was on the first floor of a small warehouse building, with a garment manufacturer below him and a design company above. Harriet looked up at his windows. It was an automatic gesture, there was nothing to see, not even a light. It was a summer’s evening, there was no need for lights. She could see a drawing board angled at the window above.
Harriet would have pressed Leo’s entry-phone but the front door opened just as she reached it. Two smiling machinists in saris came out, and held it for her. Harriet slipped inside the building, and ran up the stone stairs to the first floor. She was cheerful with the idea of her surprise, picturing Leo at the light table, his back to her, examining transparencies. It was dark at the top of the stairs, there were no windows here.
Click. Harriet pressed the button of the timed switch beside the door and light washed over her.
She had the impression, in that fleeting second, that the click had sounded a warning. There was a scuffle on the other side of the door.
Harriet was holding the key to the door in her hand. She had hardly ever used her studio key; Leo must have forgotten that she had it. She fitted it deftly into the lock, and the door swung inwards.
Harriet looked straight ahead of her.
Across the studio and through another open door there was a black leather and chrome sofa. Harriet had helped Leo to choose it, from an Italian furniture catalogue. In front of the sofa was Leo, a lock of his dark hair falling boyishly over his eyes as he tried to pull up his 501s. They were too tight and he hopped, off balance and then – ludicrously – snatched up his shirt and held it in front of his collapsing erection. Clearly the girl was more used to exposing her body. She made no coy attempt to cover herself with her hands, and her composure made Leo look even more ridiculous. She simply stood, gracefully, her body composed of dark angles and smooth, colourless planes. She was taller and thinner than Harriet. Perhaps she was one of Leo’s models.
After the first current of shock, Harriet’s reaction was incredulous laughter. Leo saw it, and his embarrassment lit up into fury.
He dropped the shirt, took two strides and slammed the connecting door.
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