Tom,’ she whispered to him, to cover her unbalance.
He went, with the usual show of reluctance, with the other parents calling out cheerful goodnights. Annie went out with him into the hall and hugged him at the foot of the stairs. The light on the landing was dim and soothing, and Annie looked half-longingly at the darkness beyond the crack of her bedroom door.
When she went back to her seat on the sofa, Martin’s partner Ian was reminiscing about a holiday he and Gail had spent with Martin and Annie in Provence.
‘Ten years ago, can you believe?’
‘Nine,’ Martin said.
It had rained for two weeks, so heavily that when they went to the cottage’s outside lavatory they had had to wear their wellingtons, and shelter under a golf umbrella. They had played bridge, interminable games, unsatisfactory to all of them because Gail and Ian were good players and Annie and Martin weren’t. Annie was a sun-worshipper, and she had sulked at being deprived of her annual sun-tan. They teased her about it good-humouredly now, as they often did, and she did her best to smile back.
‘I’ve got the pictures here, somewhere,’ Martin said. ‘I was looking at them the other day, when Annie was still in hospital.’ He rummaged in a drawer and produced a yellow envelope folder. The photographs passed from hand to hand, bursts of laughter and recollection erupting over each one. When they reached Annie she looked down into her own face, and the others surrounding it, as if she were seeing a group of acquaintances, made long ago and half forgotten.
She gave the photographs back to Martin and went into the kitchen again. She lit the candles in their pewter brackets and watched their reflection in the black glass of the garden windows, little ovals of flame that swayed and spluttered and then burned up bright and clear.
‘It’s ready,’ she called.
They came crowding in and sat down, joking and arguing. Annie decorated the fish mousselines with little feather sprigs of chervil, and handed them round to a chorus of admiration.
‘Annie, you are amazing.’
‘Just look at this, will you? You especially, Gail, my darling.’
Martin walked around the table, pouring more champagne. Annie took her place opposite his, at the foot of the table. The lamb was in the oven, cooking pink inside while the puff pastry case turned gold That much was under control, but with the champagne fizzing in her head Annie frowned, trying to pinpoint another anxiety. Perhaps it had been an unnecessary demonstration to cook a meal like this. Perhaps she was trying to prove that nothing had changed, while all along it really had, irrevocably, and dry biscuits would have been, at least, an honest statement.
Am I lying to them all? Annie thought wildly. At her right hand David, the father of Tom’s friend, reached for the champagne bottle that Martin had left and filled her glass. He lifted his own and said, ‘Here’s to you, love. And many more dinners.’
‘Many more dinners,’ Annie echoed him, and drank.
The evening went on, in all its jollity, around her. After a while she found that the wine helped, because it took the sharp edges off her perception. She served the lamb and then sat back in her chair, looking at the faces.
The room was cosy in the candlelight, and full of the scent of food. One of the other women was wearing long, glittery earrings and as she leaned forward across the table, telling a story, the earrings swung and shot points of coloured light. As she delivered the story’s punchline there was a burst of laughter, and Annie joined in.
‘Not like our Annie,’ David said, in answer to someone else’s remark, and squeezed her hand warmly.
Annie’s gaze moved on around the table. They were all pleasant, good-humoured people, she thought, well-fed and lubricated, sitting together in a warm, comfortable place. Through the nimbus of the candles she looked at Martin, and his face meant no more or less to her than the others. Equally familiar, and just as remote from her. Annie was cold, suddenly, so cold that she shivered in her red shirt. They were all strangers, even Martin. Chillingly she knew that the only person who was real was Steve. She felt his closeness to her, and at the nape of her neck the fine hairs prickled as if his hand reached out to stroke her. Very clearly she saw the hospital ward, with the lights already dimmed for the night, and Steve’s face in the defined circle of light over his bed. She knew that he was thinking about her, and the thoughts were like a bridge, linking them. She longed for him so desperately that she clenched her fists in her lap, digging her nails into her palms to contain the pain of it.
The dinner party seemed to be taking place a long way off, and she was seeing it across a cold and empty space.
‘Annie, are you all right?’
She saw the earrings sparkle again and she focused her smile on them, willing herself to sound normal.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Do you think we should have pudding or cheese next?’
She pushed her chair back and went unsteadily to the refrigerator, glad of the chance to turn her back until her face was controllable again. She stared into the white interior, and at the lemon syllabub in its glass bowl amongst the humdrum family provisions. None of this was real. The only real experience she had ever had was in the darkness she had shared with Steve. The only real feeling was this, that she felt for him now.
‘I’ll carry it,’ Martin said. He reached from behind her and lifted the pudding out, and he kissed her cheek as he eased past her. ‘That was a wonderful dinner.’
‘I’m glad,’ Annie whispered. ‘I wanted it to be.’
It was, and miraculously no one had seen or guessed how little she belonged to it. She was sitting in her place again, spooning out the creamy foam, when Gail leaned across the table. With her eyes wide open in fascinated dismay she said, ‘I knew I had something to tell you. Has anyone else heard that the Frobishers are splitting up?’
There was a frisson of shocked surprise, and then of clear relief. Not us. So far, so good.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘It’s true. She told me. He’s moving out as soon as he’s found a flat. She said that they hadn’t really been getting along for years, and it was better now that it had finally happened.’
‘How odd. They always seemed so keen on each other. Holding hands, and dancing together at parties.’
Martin held up another bottle of wine. ‘Anyone for this? Have I told you my theory?’
‘A thousand times, probably.’
‘My theory is that it’s just those people who are at pains to look so wonderfully happy with one another who are, in fact, right on the rocks. Witness the Frobishers.’
‘Whereas people like us …’
‘Forever nagging each other, and arguing about money, and about who promised not to be late home, are the ones who are happy. The ones who couldn’t live without each other.’
He looked through the candles’ glow at Annie. He had begun lightly, but as he spoke he had been reaching out to her, trying to ask the question. Unspoken, it had been growing louder
