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  He made it sound so ludicrous, she had to walk right back again, even smiled to show she hadn’t meant it.

  ‘Have a drink before you go.’

  ‘Thanks. A gin and Italian.’

  ‘Sorry, love, it’s warm beer or Algerian plonk in this hell-hole. But you do get a plastic glass. And they don’t go in for lugworm.’ This time, they grinned together.

  ‘Do you teach?’ asked John. She could see he was trying to be civil, distracting her from the worst of Ned. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be distracted.

  ‘No, I …’ She broke off. It was all so confusing. What did she do, and who was she? She’d no business to be there at all, at this most peculiar party, where everyone was dressed alike in tattered blue jeans. In her and Charles’ set, there were rules for party dressing, and if you were brave enough to resist the regulation dark suit or long skirt, the least you could do was to sport a velvet jacket or a kaftan and be classified as ‘arty’. Of course you owned blue jeans – they were regulation too, but expensive ones, kept clean and pressed, and worn only for a strictly defined period on Saturday mornings, after shopping and before golf.

  This mob looked as if they’d slept in theirs, and their accents were so slovenly. In her day, students wore neat grey flannel trousers and respectable tweed jackets, and didn’t sound like garage mechanics every time they opened their mouths.

  ‘Ned, I simply must get back …’ Charles was phoning early with details of his return flight. She never missed his phone calls.

  ‘What? You’ll have to shout.’

  It was impossible to speak against the din, even more impossible to sneak away. She was interred in a cage of shrieking sound. Every time she tried to squeeze between the bars, the music closed her in tighter and tighter, so that she was trapped between flickering ceiling and vibrating floor.

  ‘Want to dance?’

  ‘No, I …’

  Her voice was dashed to pieces by the drums. She was a tiny pebble pounded by thundering waves of music, waves coloured scarlet by the third glass of plonk which had somehow disappeared down her throat.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  Ned dragged her into the centre of the room and she was suddenly part of the stamping, thumping harmony of blue jeans, hearing the music now from the inside out. Her arms and legs didn’t know what to do with themselves – she was more accustomed to dancing the slow foxtrot at one of Charles’ black-tie affairs. She was stiff like a piece of driftwood, stranded like flotsam thrown up by the tide. She envied the students now. However shabby, they were so much freer than she was. They weren’t worried about ruining their Russell and Bromley patent leather shoes in the spilled beer on the floor, or agonizing because the assistant English lecturer split his infinitives. They just let go and poured themselves into their bodies. She glanced at the girl beside her – eyes closed, head thrown back, torso moving to some wild inner rhythm. Her partner was hurling himself from side to side, hands clapping, feet stamping, no spoilsport mind to tame or censor him. All around her were jostling bodies, setting up vibrations between them, like electric currents. Somehow she had to switch herself into them – turn off the harsh, glaring light in her head, and lose herself in the darkness.

  She moved a little closer to Ned. He wasn’t even touching her, but she could feel him like a hot, wiry animal, a body coloured by the ever-changing lights – a scarlet Ned, a green Ned, blue, silver, spotted, gilded, striped. The music lapped at her skirt and swept her into its insistent rhythm. Slowly, she submitted, shutting out everything except the hall, the sound, the moment. She felt the throb of the guitars surging into her like a blood transfusion, their noise no longer frightening, but reassuring, like the roar of life. She was plugged into some great power machine, with Ned as generator. Her feet didn’t belong to her any more. They were Ned’s feet, doing only what Ned dictated. She was losing all her boundaries. All shapes and colours had run into each other, and she and the room and the rhythm were merging into one warm, wine-red cell, with Ned as the nucleus of it all. Rules were broken, clocks smashed. There was no time, except the beat of the music and the flash and stamp of a thousand dazzling feet.

  Half a lifetime might have passed, for all she knew, or half an hour. It was impossible to know. She couldn’t think, could only submit to the music and let it master her.

  Suddenly, there was a shattering blast of silence. She faltered a moment, almost fell. Her life-support system had been switched off and the harsh fluorescent lights switched on. The band had stopped for a break and a beer. She felt jolted out of a dream. People were pressing all around her, laughing and shouting, surging towards the bar. Ned was joking with a clutch of colleagues.

  ‘Drink, Frances?’ he yelled.

  ‘Yes. No. I …’

  He couldn’t hear her, anyway. He was only one of a hundred sweaty bodies, pinioning her arms, trampling on her feet. Someone handed her a pint of bitter, frothing down the sides. It wasn’t Ned. He was trapped further down the bar, exchanging jokes with the under-age barman, who was wearing a paper hat and looked as if he had slipped away from playschool.

  ‘I don’t drink beer.’ No one heard. Her Young’s Bitter benefactor had already turned his back. She had to drink it, anyway, to stop it slopping down her dress. It tasted sharp, strange – almost good. She gulped a little more.

  ‘Oh, one of the boys now, are we?’ Ned was elbowing his way towards her, a plastic tumbler balanced in either hand. ‘I’ve just broken the bank buying you a glass of Château Southmead 1981, and there you are, knocking back the bitter like a front-row forward! Don’t worry – I’ll drink it myself. This is Les, by the way.’

  ‘Hi!’ said another pair of faded blue jeans, distinguished, this time, by a studded leather jacket and dark glasses. Staff, student, or Hell’s Angel on a heroin charge? There was no way of telling. She smiled nervously at her own distorted reflection in his lenses. She felt foolish, out of place. So long as the band had kept pounding out that deep-ocean rhythm, she had been engulfed in it, safe in it, but now it had stopped, she was a dead fish beached on a dry strand.

  ‘Ned, I really ought to go.’

  ‘Go? Go where? This is the only place it’s at.’ Les’s voice was the scrape of an iron chain on a stone jetty. The accent started North of Manchester and finished East of Liverpool. He was working through a packet of onion-flavoured crisps, spraying Golden Wonder crumbs in her direction. ‘Are you the Principal’s Secretary or sent direct from Rent-a-Bird? We never get tailored skirts and high heels in this dump. Unless perhaps you’re acting President of the Real Female Campaign – the next thing after Real Ale. Pleased to meet you, anyway. I’m Les Davies, Head of Workshop Technology.’

  ‘Oh, I … see.’ She didn’t. She wished Ned would rescue her, but he was too busy with his one-man-band of fruit pie, sausage roll, and double dose of wine. Her own beer had already reached mid-tumbler. Suddenly, she didn’t care. Her stomach was gently swelling and distending like a plump hot water bottle; hops were skipping through her bloodstream, all her limbs turning into froth. If she missed Charles’ phone call, well, he’d simply have to try again. Why should she always rush back home, ready to do obeisance to that prim grey receiver at its very first whimper? Charles was dwindling, anyway, crumbling into a broken crisp. There was only her glass, looming large and insistent in front of her, eighteen-carat gold spun into booze.

  Les was joined by Gareth, Gareth by Dylan, as Manchester and Liverpool gave place to South Wales. She was somehow in the middle of a magic circle, and Ned was transforming her into a deep sea diver, a racing driver, a cat-charmer, a fisherwoman. Everyone was laughing and admiring. Why should she contradict him and turn herself back into a dreary tax consultant’s wife, or a telephone answering machine? It was really rather delightful to hear how she’d caught her second ten-pound turbot, or won Le Mans by a nail-biting front axle. Anyway, the music had started up again, roaring through her head, shattering the glasses, emptying the bar. She had to follow
it. It was like the tide, dragging her in, dashing her down.

  Now, it was easier to dance. She didn’t even have to look at Ned, but could feel him through her feet and through her heartbeat, plunging her under, swirling her round, as rules and Richmond soared out of the window in a white avalanche of sound. The music was no longer pain. The screaming guitars were only fronds of seaweed, the feverish drumbeats only froth and spume. Even the beseeching, shrieking singer had been turned into a stream of silver bubbles. She was drunk, dazed, crazy, and she ought to go straight home. But she didn’t really own herself; the music was in charge. She was only a pounding, syncopated part of it; couldn’t stop the ocean single-handed. If she left, or wavered, the whole reverberating harmony might stumble into discord.

  She was stumbling. Ned’s small, hot hand had snapped across her back and ripped the rhythm into shreds. He was shouting something at her, underneath the drumfire, guiding her through the tangle of dancers, across the beer-swilled floor towards the exit.

  ‘Hot!’ he panted. ‘Need some air.’

  The swing doors clashed behind them, muffling the music to a muted roar. She blinked against the harsher light outside, crash-landed on blundering feet, almost deafened by the quiet. They were in a small, fuggy corridor, with windows all along one side. Ned pushed one open and gulped down air like beer. It was dark now outside, and his pale torso cut into the dead black square of sky and quickened it. His shirt was open almost to the waist. His body shouted at her. With Charles, it was always the clothes you saw first: Savile Row pin-stripes or Christian Dior tie, all style and surface, with nothing real or risky underneath. But Ned was naked flesh and blood – hot hands, live hair, real sweat mixed and shaken in some dangerous, heady cocktail. His clothes were hardly there.

  Frances shivered suddenly. Reality was surging back like a spoilsport wave of nausea. She could feel Young’s Bitter heaving against her stomach, nagging in her head. What in God’s name was she doing, gate-crashing a party, losing track of time, making unfair comparisons with her husband, when she should have been sitting safe at home, waiting for his call. She pulled her dress to order, smoothed her tousled hair.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Time to kiss you.’

  His mouth was hovering dangerously close. She tried to dodge away. He had a large wet patch under each armpit, and she could smell the raw, brutish odour of his sweat.

  ‘My watch has stopped.’ She glanced at its gold face. The hands pointed stupidly at seven.

  ‘Southmead Poly must have overpowered it. It does have that effect on people.’

  ‘Ned, do stop fooling and tell me the time.’

  ‘Only if you call me Ned again. I like the way you say it. Like a very special sergeant major.’

  ‘Ned, I …’

  ‘No, not like that. Nicely, the way you did before. OK, OK, I’ll tell you. Hold on a minute … at the third stroke, it will be 22.02.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Well, that’s only British Summer Time. It’s after midnight in Ethiopia, and more or less siesta time in Las Vegas. Let’s pretend we’re in Las Vegas.’

  ‘Ned, it can’t be after ten!’ How on earth could a whole evening have drained away like that? She had only stopped for one small drink, one short dance. Charles would have phoned her several times by now. She had assured him she’d be home by early evening. She’d missed the sacred formula: Love you. Love you, too. He might even have rung round all her friends to find out where she was.

  ‘Look, Ned, I simply must go home. Now.’

  ‘You said that three hours ago. You can’t leave yet, in any case. There’s the pagan fertility rites at midnight. We all do disgusting things with nymphs and sheep, and the odd science student gets sacrificed. It’s a riot!’

  Why did that wretched word ‘fertility’ worm its way into everything? Every time she heard it, it was like a twinge of pain. It was as if she wore a label round her neck: ‘damaged goods’, ‘substandard’, ‘infertile’. That was another reason to get home – her charts were waiting for her, her own private fertility rite. And Charles’ final phone call.

  ‘No, I’m not arguing, Ned. I’m going.’

  ‘Christ, you’ve got eyes like blue steel knives! How many men have you cut into little pieces? Please, oh please, may I be your next willing victim?’

  He didn’t try to kiss her again. She felt irrationally disappointed. He didn’t even ask for her phone number. If that pushy passenger she’d driven to Uxbridge had the cheek to demand it, after only two miles up the A4, then why shouldn’t Ned? No, that was absurd. She’d told him herself she didn’t mix business with pleasure. She’d already lost her head, lost her boundaries, and it was time to regain control.

  She almost ran downstairs and out into the car park. Ned panted after her and stood by the door of the Citroën, one hot hand clasped over hers on the steering wheel. She didn’t remove it. It would be cold and dark at home.

  ‘How will you get back to Acton?’ she asked.

  ‘Are you offering me a lift?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to walk then, won’t I? Dynamic Southmead lecturer dies of exposure on Hogarth flyover.’

  ‘People don’t die of exposure in July.’

  ‘No, but they die of disappointment.’

  ‘I’ll send you flowers.’

  ‘Will you?’ He looked pleased like a child, stuck his head through the open window. His breath smelt faintly of low-grade Beaujolais. ‘Dandelions. Lots and lots of them.’ His lips were only inches from her right eye. ‘I like you, Frances.’

  ‘Yes … well …’ She turned on the engine, so she needn’t answer.

  ‘Say ‘‘Ned’’ again.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Ned.’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘No!’ She almost ran him over as she drove off. It was asking for trouble, playing romantic moonlight scenes with some casual stranger she’d literally picked up. There’d be no more passengers, in any case. Charles was due home in a mere twenty-four hours, and she couldn’t carry on the job with him around. The evening had been just a mad midsummer fling, a muddle-headed mutiny which mustn’t be repeated.

  The phone was ringing when she walked in. Charles’ voice sounded faint and indistinct, as if he were speaking from the wrong end of a telescope. It was almost one A.M. in Bahrain. He should have been asleep.

  ‘Where on earth have you been, darling? I was getting really worried. I’ve phoned three separate times.’

  ‘I went to a party.’ She never lied to Charles.

  ‘A party? Where? On your own?’

  ‘No, some friends of Viv’s.’

  It wasn’t quite a lie. Viv was bound to have friends at Southmead Polytechnic. They looked her type, bearded and provincial.

  ‘I see.’ He didn’t.

  ‘I’m missing you.’ She wasn’t.

  ‘Well, back tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll meet you, shall I?’ She’d been to the airport five times in the last seven days, knew the journey backwards.

  ‘No, no, please don’t.’ He never wanted her to meet him from his trips, always took a mini-cab. Perhaps it would be Medfield. She could just imagine Reg saying: ‘Put your foot on it, love. There’s a Mr Parry Jones doing his nut at Terminal Three. Raring to get back to his faithful little wife.’ Well, she was faithful, wasn’t she? One perfunctory party and a spurned kiss didn’t count.

  ‘Listen, darling, we’ve had some damned good news on that rubber plantation.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘We’re going to repossess it, almost certainly, plus ten years’ profits and full compensation. The shares are bound to rocket. Oppenheimer’s delighted.’

  ‘Really, Charles?’ She tried to sound equally delighted. Charles’ work was the most fascinating thing in his life, so she always aimed to give it due respect. But, sometimes, she wished he did something humble and simple and
more comprehensible, like running a sweet shop. Or teaching Media Studies, with a sideline in sheep.

  ‘They’re just perfecting a new cross-bred rubber tree, which combines the best of the Malaysian and Indonesian strains. It’s particularly suitable to the soil out there, so the total yield …’

  ‘The line’s awfully bad, darling. I can hardly hear you.’ Odd, when she could still hear the music. It had poured into the telephone exchange and was pounding down the wires – drumbeats and guitars and the deep-sea snort of a tenor saxophone.

  ‘Rubber Futures are low at the moment, I know that. But with so many people turning to commodities as a currency hedge …’

  Unforgivable to be listening to a second-rate rock group when Charles was expounding the mysteries of the commodity market. She tried to concentrate, return to the safe ritual; waited for a pause. ‘Miss you, darling.’

  ‘Miss you, too.’

  If she wasn’t really missing him, it was only because she was tired. She’d be relieved when he was home again – always was. She replaced the receiver and walked slowly up to bed. This time, it would be a most important homecoming, since she’d already reached day eleven. She opened the bedside drawer and spread out her temperature chart. She’d written a small C in black biro for every day she’d taken a Clomid. Five black Cs. Any day now, there would be that little dip in her temperature, followed by a rise. It was essential Charles was in there, when it happened. She mustn’t miss it this time, not with Clomid and the chance of twins. She wouldn’t press it the first day he got home. He was always tired then, anyway, and jet-lag might affect his sperm. But the day after, there must be no excuses. She’d cook him his favourite entrecôte chasseur and drape herself in her Janet Reger nightie. From then on, every other day. ‘Miss no chances, but don’t wear him out’ – that was Mr Rathbone’s little maxim. Sperm needed forty-eight hours, apparently, to recover its strength. She put ticks in her diary for the Tuesday, the Thursday, the Saturday, and the following Monday. Hell! The Monday would be difficult. Charles was doubly pressured on a Monday and often stayed late at work. Whatever happened, she must give up her own job. She’d need all her vitality to lure Charles into bed on the right nights, couldn’t risk his anger over Medfield. Anger might endanger an erection, and erections were far more important in her life than driving Mr Smythes to John O’Groats.