“I don’t need a rest; I’m fine,” Jean would call as she whisked past, convinced that if she did everything at double speed she could trick time into hurrying to meet her.
On Friday she left work a little early in time to call in at Deborah’s （Ladies’ Fashions of Distinction） and bought herself a claret-colored wool dress with a pleated skirt, which she had seen on a mannequin in the window. Gretchen’s dress, although perhaps more elegant, brought to mind too forcefully its absent creator and was therefore ruled out. Claret was a much bolder choice than her usual safe gray or navy and she wondered if it would provoke raised eyebrows indoors.
The only area in which Jean had failed to triumph was achieving a leave of absence for the afternoon. She had taken a detour past Mrs. Melsom’s on her way to and from work, but they were evidently away. There was no Riley in the driveway, and the curtains upstairs and down were half drawn, and the mail slot taped shut—measures more likely to attract burglars than to repel them, in Jean’s view.
Her hope rested on the fact that it was some while since she had gone “gallivanting” on a Saturday and on her weeklong tour of duty in Lymington, for which she felt some credits were due. Even so, she was not confident enough to bring up the matter much in advance, leaving it to the morning itself to present it as a fait accompli.
“I haven’t seen that before,” her mother observed as Jean appeared at breakfast, a trifle self-conscious in the claret-colored dress. “Is it new?”
“Yes. I bought it at Deborah’s yesterday.” She swished the skirt to and fro to show off the pleats before covering it with an apron to protect it from splashes.
“Very smart. What’s the occasion?”
“Nothing special.” Jean turned her back and began to busy herself at the stove preparing oatmeal. “I’m meeting a friend in town . . . if you can manage without me for a few hours.”
“Oh. I daresay I can. You won’t be out all day, I suppose.”
“No. Just lunch. I’ll be getting the midday train. If there’s anything you need I could pop into Derry & Tom’s afterward.”
This was a tactical move, turning it from a jaunt into an errand. But her mother was not so easily played.
“I don’t think so. Who’s the friend? Anyone I know?”
Jean sighed. She had no appetite for the conversation that would surely follow, but she couldn’t tell the kind of lie that might need elaborate embroidery in the future.
“Howard,” she conceded.
“On his own?”
Here we go, thought Jean. “Yes, on his own.”
“Goodness, how modern. Where’s his wife? Doesn’t she have something to say about this?”
“She’s in no position to, since she has left him,” said Jean in a crisp voice.
“Oh.” Her mother drew out the lone syllable—rich with inference—almost to the snapping point. “Well, be careful. That’s all I’ll say.”
Jean flopped the oatmeal into two bowls and set them down on the kitchen table with some force.
“Quite unnecessary. I’m not in any danger.”
She could feel her cheeks burning. No one else had the power to rile her in quite the same way. When Roy Drake had cautioned her in almost identical terms it had seemed only old-fashioned and endearing. From her mother it was poison.
“He’s still a married man, remember.”
“We are just having lunch. I don’t see why I should have to forfeit his friendship just because his wife has run off.”
“It’s none of my business,” was the wounded rejoinder, and they proceeded to eat their oatmeal in silence.
Before she left for the train, Jean went to Harrington’s to buy a small piece of beef for Sunday, and picked up potatoes and vegetables from the farm shop opposite the church. She couldn’t do any dirty housework in her finery, so she contented herself with ironing and folding the laundered sheets and towels, putting some elderly tea towels to soak in borax, intending to deal with them on her return. Then she made her mother a ham sandwich for lunch, which she left on the side, covered with a linen napkin.
The wintry atmosphere of breakfast had not quite had time to thaw when Jean set off. Their disagreements and subsequent reconciliations always followed a pattern: sharp words; withdrawal for sulking and licking of wounds; silence; frosty civility; concessions on both sides; resumption of friendly relations. On this occasion they had reached the stage of frosty civility and they parted with a cool, “Goodbye then, Mother.”