“You didn’t go on. I’m glad you could tell me.”
“My only regret is the baby. She’d be ten now.” Jean blushed. “I don’t know why I say ‘she.’”
The reflective silence that followed this remark lasted the few minutes that remained of the journey.
18
* * *
Pam’s Piece
With orchards and gardens bursting with delicious Kentish apples, now is the time to fetch out those favorite recipes. Spiced Apple Cake is simple to make and a nice change from a pie. It works well served warm with custard, or cold with a cup of tea in place of a traditional fruit cake.
3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tsp golden syrup
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Sponge mix:
4 oz butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
4 oz caster sugar
2 eggs
4 oz self-raising flour
1 tbsp milk
Simmer the apples with the syrup, butter and cinnamon for a few minutes until tender but not mushy. To prepare the topping, soften the butter and golden syrup in a bowl over a basin of hot water. Remove from the heat and beat in the sugar and eggs. Fold in the flour, adding milk to give the consistency of lightly whipped cream. Place the apple chunks in a greased pan or ovenproof dish and pour over the topping. Bake at Gas Mark 4 for 25 to 30 minutes until the sponge is golden brown and springy to touch.
* * *
Jean pulled the sheet of paper from her typewriter and added it to the pile. She now had enough apple recipes to make a page and could personally vouch for every one, having tested them all in her own kitchen over the previous weeknights. On the corner of her desk sat an open cake pan displaying the unclaimed remnant of a batch of turnovers. Even the greediest of her colleagues, the beneficiaries of all this experimentation, could no longer be tempted and passed her desk with averted eyes.
The phone rang. Locating it under a drift of foolscap, Jean heard the clipped voice of the switchboard operator announcing, “Mr. Tilbury for you.” It was not unknown for him to call her at work—at Gretchen’s suggestion this was sometimes the way arrangements were made or confirmed—but it was the first time they had spoken since their visit to Aunt Edie’s nearly over a week ago now.
Remembering the intimate and confessional tone of their last conversation, Jean was suddenly shy and full of regret. Until now she had never told anyone about the abortion. Her mother knew, of course she did, but had chosen not to know and it was never spoken of, not in the hospital, or later when Jean came home to convalesce, or ever since.
Dorrie, who had left for Kitale two months earlier, was no longer available for sisterly confidences and it was hardly the sort of news for a letter. And now, having kept her own counsel for over a decade, she had settled on the one person in the world she wanted to impress. The heat and the apple brandy must have fogged her judgment.
There was no time to subdue the fluttering of panic; the switchboard operator had already connected him.
“Hello, Jean, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” came his familiar diffident voice.
“Not at all,” she replied. “I am typing up apple recipes and very ready to be distracted.”
“Apples?” he said. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I have to take my inspiration where I find it.”
“Well, speaking of the spoils of that afternoon, I have fixed that brooch of Aunt Edie’s and wondered if I could drop it off on my way home.”
“Do you mean here?” She remembered that Thursday was his half-day at the shop.
“Yes, I meant the office—if that’s convenient?”
“That would be fine. It’s very good of you.”
“My pleasure. I’ll be there in about an hour.”
She hung up and fanned herself with her notebook, relieved that she had handled the conversation without betraying any inappropriate pleasure at the prospect of seeing him.
For the last few nights she had been troubled by insomnia. The dark thoughts that woke her at 3 a.m. and chased away all hope of sleep until just before dawn issued from a strange form of guilt. Not the conventional kind, for past wrongs regretted, but anticipatory guilt, for things that might yet be done.
Since Howard had told her that he and Gretchen no longer had a sexual relationship, Jean had allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to make love to him herself. Or rather, to be made love to, since even in her fantasies she was always the pursued, not the pursuer. She was able to square this with her conscience by reasoning that a） the mind cannot be policed—thoughts will roam where they will; b） she had no intention of revealing or acting on her feelings; c） there was no betrayal of Gretchen involved in these fantasies, since she had apparently renounced any sexual interest in Howard.