“Your mother has all sorts of fun while you are out of the way,” said Howard. “As soon as she has waved you off to school, she kicks up her heels and out come the best teapots.”
“You’re just being silly,” said Margaret. “Mummy doesn’t do anything while I’m at school.”
This remark was greeted with splutters of outrage by the two women and guffaws from Howard.
“Well, if I do nothing all day I can’t have made this Sachertorte, so you won’t be wanting a piece of it.” Gretchen cut large slices for Jean and Lizzie and then laid aside the cake slice with a sigh. “Such a pity.”
“I meant you don’t do anything fun,” said Margaret, batting her long eyelashes. “Because you are too busy making the best Sachertorte in the whole of England.”
“That’s more like it,” said Howard, cutting three more pieces.
There was an appreciative silence as they ate.
At last Jean said, “I’ve never tasted anything so delicious.”
She had no time or talent for elaborate baking herself and had to satisfy her sweet tooth with toffees that she hoarded in her room or a spoonful of golden syrup on her morning oatmeal. But this was something special—closer and denser than a sponge, more grainy than a cake, with a delicious nutty sweetness and the bitterness of dark chocolate. As well as the torte there were little meringues filled with coffee cream and crushed hazelnuts, and some slices of dark, dry bread with a thin scraping of butter. The bread was much less to Jean’s taste but she ate it dutifully.
After tea was over, the girls returned to their game of badminton, pleading with the adults to make up a four. The breeze had dropped now and barely a leaf stirred. The garden shimmered in the afternoon heat.
“I’m happy to play,” said Jean, who had a former tomboy’s love of all sports.
She kicked off her shoes to spare the grass, which had already taken some punishment over the course of the season, with worn patches either side of the net.
“Howard, why don’t you and Lizzie take on Jean and Margaret?” Gretchen suggested. “You know how hopeless I am. Nobody ever wants me on their side.”
“Come along then, Lizzie,” Howard said, picking up one of the spare rackets and bouncing the heel of his hand against the strings. “We won’t spare you just because you’re a guest, you know,” he said to Jean before ducking under the net. “In this house winning is everything.”
“We don’t need any favors, do we, Margaret?” Jean replied, and the little girl shook her head gravely.
She felt inexplicably light-hearted. It was years since she had played, but people who are good at racket sports never lose the skill, and it only took her a few rallies to remember the rhythm of the strokes, and the delicate touch needed to tip the shuttlecock just over the net and no farther.
Howard, still in shirt and tie, and looking like no kind of sportsman, was surprisingly deft and agile, retrieving Jean’s best shots effortlessly from the back of the court while Lizzie guarded the net. He played a gentleman’s game, Jean noticed, never crowding his partner or poaching her shots, or winning an easy point by belting the shuttlecock at Margaret, who was the weakest player. But at the same time, he didn’t patronize her by underplaying, making them work instead for every point.
Gretchen had put her feet up on one of the empty chairs and was reading a magazine, occasionally looking up to throw out an encouraging comment, or to adjudicate a disputed line call.
“The vegetable patch is out!”
“What if it lands on a rhubarb leaf that is projecting slightly over the grass?”
“That’s still out.”
“Not fair!”
Every so often Jean would look up, through a mist of sweat, to see Howard laughing at her exertions as he drove her from corner to corner, and she would redouble her determination to win. They took a game each, but before they could play the decider, Lizzie remembered that she was supposed to be home by five, some ten minutes ago, to go and visit her grandparents in Bexleyheath.
“Just one more,” Margaret pleaded with a child’s infinite stamina for pleasure.
“We’ll have to save it for another time,” said Howard as all four shook hands across the net. “But I think a draw the only fair result.” His handshake was brief and businesslike but it sent a jolt through Jean all the same. “You play well,” he said to her. “You must have been practicing.”
“Not since my school days,” she replied. “I’d forgotten how much fun it is. And how exhausting.”