Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Strangers, Bad Girls Good Women, A Woman of Our Times, All My Sins Remembered
cooking pink inside while the puff pastry case turned gold That much was under control, but with the champagne fizzing in her head Annie frowned, trying to pinpoint another anxiety. Perhaps it had been an unnecessary demonstration to cook a meal like this. Perhaps she was trying to prove that nothing had changed, while all along it really had, irrevocably, and dry biscuits would have been, at least, an honest statement.
Am I lying to them all? Annie thought wildly. At her right hand David, the father of Tom’s friend, reached for the champagne bottle that Martin had left and filled her glass. He lifted his own and said, ‘Here’s to you, love. And many more dinners.’
‘Many more dinners,’ Annie echoed him, and drank.
The evening went on, in all its jollity, around her. After a while she found that the wine helped, because it took the sharp edges off her perception. She served the lamb and then sat back in her chair, looking at the faces.
The room was cosy in the candlelight, and full of the scent of food. One of the other women was wearing long, glittery earrings and as she leaned forward across the table, telling a story, the earrings swung and shot points of coloured light. As she delivered the story’s punchline there was a burst of laughter, and Annie joined in.
‘Not like our Annie,’ David said, in answer to someone else’s remark, and squeezed her hand warmly.
Annie’s gaze moved on around the table. They were all pleasant, good-humoured people, she thought, well-fed and lubricated, sitting together in a warm, comfortable place. Through the nimbus of the candles she looked at Martin, and his face meant no more or less to her than the others. Equally familiar, and just as remote from her. Annie was cold, suddenly, so cold that she shivered in her red shirt. They were all strangers, even Martin. Chillingly she knew that the only person who was real was Steve. She felt his closeness to her, and at the nape of her neck the fine hairs prickled as if his hand reached out to stroke her. Very clearly she saw the hospital ward, with the lights already dimmed for the night, and Steve’s face in the defined circle of light over his bed. She knew that he was thinking about her, and the thoughts were like a bridge, linking them. She longed for him so desperately that she clenched her fists in her lap, digging her nails into her palms to contain the pain of it.
The dinner party seemed to be taking place a long way off, and she was seeing it across a cold and empty space.
‘Annie, are you all right?’
She saw the earrings sparkle again and she focused her smile on them, willing herself to sound normal.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Do you think we should have pudding or cheese next?’
She pushed her chair back and went unsteadily to the refrigerator, glad of the chance to turn her back until her face was controllable again. She stared into the white interior, and at the lemon syllabub in its glass bowl amongst the humdrum family provisions. None of this was real. The only real experience she had ever had was in the darkness she had shared with Steve. The only real feeling was this, that she felt for him now.
‘I’ll carry it,’ Martin said. He reached from behind her and lifted the pudding out, and he kissed her cheek as he eased past her. ‘That was a wonderful dinner.’
‘I’m glad,’ Annie whispered. ‘I wanted it to be.’
It was, and miraculously no one had seen or guessed how little she belonged to it. She was sitting in her place again, spooning out the creamy foam, when Gail leaned across the table. With her eyes wide open in fascinated dismay she said, ‘I knew I had something to tell you. Has anyone else heard that the Frobishers are splitting up?’
There was a frisson of shocked surprise, and then of clear relief. Not us. So far, so good.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘It’s true. She told me. He’s moving out as soon as he’s found a flat. She said that they hadn’t really been getting along for years, and it was better now that it had finally happened.’
‘How odd. They always seemed so keen on each other. Holding hands, and dancing together at parties.’
Martin held up another bottle of wine. ‘Anyone for this? Have I told you my theory?’
‘A thousand times, probably.’
‘My theory is that it’s just those people who are at pains to look so wonderfully happy with one another who are, in fact, right on the rocks. Witness the Frobishers.’
‘Whereas people like us …’
‘Forever nagging each other, and arguing about money, and about who promised not to be late home, are the ones who are happy. The ones who couldn’t live without each other.’
He looked through the candles’ glow at Annie. He had begun lightly, but as he spoke he had been reaching out to her, trying to ask the question. Unspoken, it had been growing louder inside him ever since Annie had come home. He couldn’t make himself deliver it when they were alone, and so he had wrapped it up and pushed it delicately across the table to her, under their friends’ eyes.
Do you still love me? It was banal, of course. But you don’t really care about him, do you? Except for what you went through, together …
Annie’s face was a colourless oval, too far away from him, and her eyes were opaque.
In that moment, Martin knew for sure.
Annie had gone away, and he would have to fight to get her back.
He heard his own voice, talking, joking with their friends around the table to hide his fear, and suddenly their whole life was a similar pretence.
Martin emptied his glass, refilled it and then drank again.
No, Annie was thinking, still listening to Martin’s words inside her head. It isn’t like that at all. Not as safe and as comfortable as Martin makes it sound. We were happy, the two of us, weren’t we? And then in a day, in an hour, everything changes. How has it happened, all this, and what can I do now?
The question ran round in her head, unanswerable.
At last, the evening was over.
The last cup of coffee and the last glass of wine had been drained, and their friends followed one another out into the black, icy night.
‘Bye, everybody. It was lovely, Annie. You’re a miracle, you know?’
‘Don’t do too much, though, will you? You look a bit weary, still, to me.’
‘See you on Saturday, then? With the kids, of course.’
Goodbye. Goodnight.
The words rang around Annie, friendly and foreign, emphasizing her isolation.
Martin looked around the kitchen. ‘You go on up. I’ll clear all this.’ He glanced at her, and when she didn’t respond he ordered, ‘Go on, Annie.’
She went, too lonely and too tired to do anything more. She lay down in bed, in the comfortable darkness, and listened to the sounds of the house. She felt like an interloper. At last Martin came up. He turned on the light and sat down heavily on his side of the bed.
‘Still awake?’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t know what to say, now.
Martin stood up again and moved around the room, undressing. He was a little drunk and bumped into the corners of the furniture.
When he was ready, he slid under the bedclothes beside her.
There was a moment when they both lay still. Then, with an awkward, possessive movement, Martin put his arms around her. He fitted her body against the curves of his own, his mouth and tongue against her ear. To Annie he felt very warm and solid, and utterly strange. She closed her eyes. He was her husband. She was suddenly struck by a sense of how random everything had been, all