she guessed that he would be a valuable friend. Helen wondered if Pansy, in her glancing appraisal, had seen that too. No, she wouldn’t have. Beside Oliver’s glitter, Tom seemed saturnine and acerbic. And it was Oliver, inevitably, who had scooped Pansy up and spirited her away.
Helen sighed, stuck her hands in her duffel coat pockets and began to walk down St Aldate’s towards the river and Follies House.
As she stepped into the hallway and let the massive oak door swing to behind her, Helen knew immediately that there was something different about the old house. The dim, spidery spaces in the hall were deserted and looked just as they always did, but there was light filtering through from somewhere. And then the noise began – unbelievably loud rock music that bounced off the panelling and echoed along the stone floors. When she looked up, Helen saw that the door at the head of the stairs was open. A shaft of bright sunlight shone through it.
Pansy was home.
Helen knocked on the door jamb and, knowing that she wouldn’t be heard above the music, peered inside. Pansy was dancing alone and with her eyes shut. She was smiling a small, happy, secretive smile.
‘Hello.’ Helen had to shout. Pansy opened startled eyes.
‘Hel-lo. Sorry. D’you ever feel so happy that you just have to dance? Wait while I turn it down.’
‘That was a short tutorial,’ Helen said into the new quiet.
‘He didn’t wait, can you believe it? I wasn’t that late.’ Pansy was wide-eyed, genuinely surprised. ‘Anyway, it means I’ve got a lovely free afternoon now. Don’t go. Stay here and talk while I sort some of this junk out.’
Unlike Chloe, Pansy had made no effort to settle into her room. Suitcases and a huge trunk were all open, the tumbled contents showing that their owner had rummaged through in search of the things she needed without bothering to unpack anything. Pansy was standing in the middle of the jumble now, staring round in exasperation.
‘God, what a mess. I hate all this stuff. Wouldn’t life be easy if we were allowed to own only ten things each.’
Pansy, like Chloe, seemed to possess an unbelievable number of clothes.
‘No,’ said Helen a little sadly. ‘It’s nice to have things. I love clothes.’
Pansy glanced across at her and then scrabbled in another suitcase.
‘Do you? Would you like these? Kim bought these for me because she thought they were Oxford-y. I’ll never wear them, and they’d suit you.’
There were two Shetland jerseys, one in soft, sugared almond pinks and one in stronger blues. They had little round collars with picot edgings. She was holding out a skirt too, folds of pale grey fine wool challis.
There was a small, surprised silence.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Helen said stiffly. She would have loved to own such pretty things, but it was impossible. She was not so hard up that she needed to accept Pansy’s casual largesse.
‘What a pity, because I won’t wear them.’ Pansy shrugged dismissively and tossed the clothes back into the suitcase.
The silence was uncomfortable now.
Helen knew that she should go away, but it was unthinkable to leave without having mentioned Oliver. She had the impression that his name hovered in the air between them, waiting to be uttered.
‘Are you pleased about the part?’ she asked at last.
‘Oh, yes. So long as it doesn’t mean too much hard work. Still,’ Pansy was holding an evening frock up against herself, her head on one side to consider it. It was a frothy mass of Zandra Rhodes squiggles and ruffles, ‘… with two lovely men like that about, even rehearsing shouldn’t be too much of a bore.’
Now that the opening was here, Helen shied away from it.
‘Tom Hart’s rather exotic for Oxford,’ she said.
‘Mmmm. I wouldn’t choose him, though. Bit too saturnine and Jewish, if you call that exotic, for my taste.’
Of course, Helen thought, you do only have to choose. Not Oliver, please.
‘But Oliver, that’s different. Bit unfair of him to be so beautiful and a Mortimore, don’t you think? What can a girl do, confronted with that?’ And Pansy laughed, pleased with herself and with the pleasant prospect ahead of her.
Helen felt a slow, dull crimson flush creeping over her face. Her chest and throat felt tight, and her fingers itched with a sudden surge to slap Pansy’s bright face. The violence inside her astonished and frightened her. But this girl would take Oliver away, she knew that now, and in that instant she hated her. She must say something. Not let him go without a struggle.
Helen struggled to make her voice sound cool and light, but when at last it came out it shook and cracked.
‘Yes, Oliver and I …’ she faltered, not knowing how to put it.
Pansy swung round in genuine surprise.
‘You?’
Helen flinched. As she stared back at Pansy, she felt the ugly flush deepening over her face and neck. It was so humiliating, that surprise, the more so because it was completely natural. What could Oliver, it said, with his looks and his charm and his position, see in a little mouse like you?
‘Yes,’ Helen said, finding defiance in the anger that threatened to choke her. ‘Me. Why not?’
Pansy was looking defensive now, her eyebrows pulled into a frown over the chameleon blue eyes, and a trace of hurt lingering about her vulnerable, flower-like mouth.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that … you didn’t look or behave as if you belonged together.’
Belonged together? How Oliver would hate that, Helen realised. She was giving Pansy the wrong impression, making her undefined relationship with Oliver seem too formal, but it was too late to backpedal now.
‘I don’t want to tread on anybody’s toes,’ Pansy added, with such clear sincerity that Helen’s anger faded as quickly as it had come. After all, Pansy had done nothing yet, except exist.
‘It’s all right,’ she said wearily. ‘You aren’t. Nobody belongs to anybody. Forget it.’
‘Forget what?’
Chloe had come up the stairs without either of them hearing her. Now she was standing in the open doorway, almost striking a pose. She had one hand on her hip and the other was raised to coil the dark red hair into a knot on top of her head. The stance emphasised her height and slimness and for a moment as she stood there, it was Chloe who was the beauty and not Pansy.
Pansy’s sharp stare missed nothing.
‘Hello. You were at the audition too, weren’t you?’
‘Pansy,’ said Helen, ‘this is Chloe Campbell. Rose’s third tenant.’
There was a little, wary moment as the two women looked at each other. Then,
