Jean looked skeptical. The idea that someone could be indifferent to Howard struck her as highly improbable. The woman must have been some kind of imbecile.
“I didn’t think I’d made much of a first impression on you myself,” she said.
“You were rather businesslike and brisk with your notebook,” he smiled. “And then you cut yourself on my coping saw.”
“Yes. I’d forgotten that. You complimented me on my hands.”
“Did I?” He picked one up and turned it over with an appraising glance. “They are rather pretty. I never imagined you’d be putting them to such good use.”
Jean burst out laughing.
“I don’t think I began to notice you properly until that day you came to tea and we played badminton.”
“Now you are making fun of me.”
“Not at all. You were such a good sport.”
“That was a lovely afternoon. And I went home envying your perfect marriage.”
“Ha!”
There was a silence as they separately reflected on the unravelling of that illusion.
“And then I bumped into you at Charing Cross,” Jean went on, “and you insisted on seeing me home. You were so funny; I didn’t want the journey to end, even though we hardly spoke. That was when it started for me.”
“I remember. But it was at Aunt Edie’s that I fell in love with you. I think it was when I saw you sitting in the apple tree. But I couldn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to. I felt it, too.”
“The next day was so gray and empty. I was like a child on Boxing Day—all the magic over.”
For Jean it was pure pleasure to reminisce about the painful separation from the safe haven of rapturous togetherness. The sense of security and confidence was quite new to her. All of her dealings with Frank had been tinged with fear—fully justified, as it turned out—that she bored him; that she would do something to incur his anger; that he would leave her for someone younger or prettier.
Howard let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands.
“You look sad,” she said. “Or worried.”
“Because I’ve so little to offer you.”
“I don’t need anything. I just know that when I’m with you I’m happy, and when I’m not I’m miserable. That’s all.”
“Will you come back again tomorrow?”
“As soon as I’ve been to the hospital. They might send Mother home soon and then I’ll be confined to barracks again.”
“Then we must make the most of the time we have.”
The thought of her mother, alone and bewildered, made Jean’s crowded heart quail within her. The freedom to spend her nights with Howard was entirely provisional upon her mother’s continued absence. Jean now found herself in the invidious position of wishing her ongoing ill health and a slow recovery. When she tried to visualize the future any more than a few days ahead there was no certainty, only fog.
29
The crooked tines of the rake made a tinny rattle as they combed the wet grass, drawing the leaves into a copper mound. Jean, defended against the autumn weather by boots and windbreaker over her oldest outdoor clothes, was spending her Saturday out in the front garden catching up with neglected chores.
In the last week the horse chestnuts and Canadian oaks in Knoll Park had given up the last of their leaves. Great drifts of them had blown into the Swinneys’ driveway and were plastered over the front lawn and banked up against the garage doors. Jean had filled the metal garbage can five times and five times carried it down to the compost heap. She had already taken down the withered runner beans, dismantled their bamboo skeleton, stored the canes in the shed for the winter and dug over the earth. The rhubarb had been mulched and the onions weeded and treated to a dressing of soot.
In the kitchen a cherry cake was cooling on the rack. She would glaze it later and take it with her to Howard’s for tea when he came back from work. She had hardly spent any time at home for over a week now, returning only briefly to collect the mail and clean clothes for work.
Mrs. Bowland had waylaid her on the first of these flying visits, ostensibly for news of Mrs. Swinney; also to query the pints of milk left out on the doorstep overnight.
“Oh, I’ve been staying with a friend,” Jean said, cursing herself for overlooking this detail.
“We wondered if everything was all right,” said Mrs. Bowland, “when you didn’t come home.”
“Yes, quite all right, thank you,” said Jean, refusing to be probed. “Although Mother is still not quite her old self.”