慣hat must have been tough,?says Daniel.
慖t was,?says Ruth. 慉nd mysterious too.?She starts to tell Daniel about the box marked 憄rivate?and the strange photo璯raph but suddenly there抯 a glitter of gold and someone shouts, 慏anny! Darling!?
A woman dives between them, kissing Daniel on both cheeks with an Ab-Fab flourish. She has blonde hair, tanned skin and lots of gold jewellery. Ruth has noticed that, as a general rule, the women present tonight look younger than the men. This is partly because the women have tended to go blonde, rather than grey, with age. This woman seems burnished all over and the effect is quite dazzling.
慘elly, you remember Ruth. From our year??
So this is Kelly Sutherland, the Queen of Eltham Park.
慖 remember you, Ruth,?says Kelly unexpectedly. 慪ou used to go out with Danny.?
慣hat抯 right,?says Ruth, 慺or a few months in the sixth form.?
慒or a year,?says Daniel.
慖 got him next,?says Kelly. 慏id you know??
It turns out that Kelly and Daniel dated for two years. 態ut it didn抰 work out,?says Kelly, 憌e were babies really.?Daniel went on to marry Fiona, by whom he has grown-up daughters, and then the youthful-sounding Ruby. Kelly has been married three times and her current husband is none other than the school-gates-haunting boy on the motorbike.
慚y first love,?says Kelly, laughing rather loudly. 慠omantic, eh??
慥ery,?says Ruth. She is wondering whether she can make her excuses to Alison and go home.
Daniel offers to buy more drinks. Kelly asks for Prosecco but Ruth says no, thank you. She doesn抰 think she could take any more soda water. While Daniel is at the bar, Kelly puts a red-nailed hand on Ruth抯 arm. Ruth pulls away slightly, she抯 getting a headache from the glare of Kelly抯 hair.
慪ou know, Ruth, I used to envy you at school.?
慠eally??This is the biggest surprise of the night.
慪ou always seemed to know what you wanted. You weren抰 bothered about clothes and boys and all the rest of it.?
慖 was bothered about them,?says Ruth. 慖 just wasn抰 very good at them.?
慏anny was mad about you. He was so upset when you finished with him.?
As Ruth remembers it, she and Daniel had drifted apart when she went to university. Although she had only crossed London to go to UCL, she had moved into halls and consciously started a new life.
慦ell, he seems OK now,?says Ruth lightly.
慦e抮e all OK now,?says Kelly. 慔ave you seen Alison? She must have lost five stone.?
Chapter 4
Ruth is keen to leave after breakfast on Sunday. Arthur and Gloria aren抰 due back until the evening but Ruth has explained that she needs to be back in Norfolk by midday in order to prepare for the next day抯 teaching. Although, now she抯 head of department she finds that she spends as much time juggling timetables and listening to complaints from students ?and lecturers ?as she does teaching. Besides, she wants to see her cat, Flint. Both her neighbours are away so she抯 had to rely on Cathbad coming round to feed him. She knows that Cathbad will have discharged his duties faithfully. He gets on well with Flint and claims that they have a psychic bond. It抯 just that she doesn抰 like to think of her cat alone in the cottage with no humans in sight. Ridiculous, she knows; this is probably Flint抯 idea of heaven. She remembers her mother saying, 慖t抯 not natural, living in the middle of nowhere.?But why had Jean kept a picture of the unnatural dwelling place amongst her private papers?
慦hat would Granddad do on Sundays??asks Kate, who is sitting at the kitchen table eating toast and Marmite. Ruth is sure that this room will be high on Gloria抯 redecorating list, the blue Formica cabinets haven抰 changed since she was a child and the lino is threadbare in places. Nevertheless, it抯 the cosiest room in the house. After Jean and pre-Gloria, Arthur used to spend most of his time in here, watching a black-and-white television set balanced on top of the microwave.