was pushing against her and Nina put her arm up to one of the mirrors to support herself. As he turned his head Gordon saw the reflection of her, and the way the loose sleeve of her blouse fell back to reveal the bluish-white, egg-shaped hollow of her armpit. He was swept by a wave of tenderness that contradicted and intensified his need for her.
‘Nina, Nina. Can I see you again? When can I see you?’
‘Yes. I don’t know when.’
‘Yes is enough for now.’ He kissed her again, wanting to fuse himself to her but she slipped away from him.
‘We must go back downstairs. You first.’
He loved her carefulness and self-control. ‘I wish we didn’t have to. It’s a particularly silly evening.’ He wanted to apologize for its deficiencies.
‘No it isn’t,’ she argued. ‘It’s warm and friendly, like Janice said. You must go now, or they’ll guess what’s happening.’
He kissed her again, his mouth scraping hers. Then he went, and Nina was left staring in the mirror into her own anxious eyes.
Jimmy and Janice were the only ones left in the kitchen. Jimmy cleared the table and Janice haphazardly loaded plates into the dishwasher. He brought a stacked tray round to her and put it to one side while she bent over the wire racks.
‘God, Janice, look at you. You know you’ve got a great arse on you.’
Jimmy said it half-jokingly, as he always did, but there was enough wistful sincerity in his voice. Janice straightened up at once. Her face was damp and flushed and wisps of dark hair stuck to her cheeks. Her hostess manner of the early evening had evaporated.
‘Great’s the word. Half of it would be plenty. Don’t be an idiot, Jimmy.’
He had reached out and with the tips of his fingers lifted one of the strands of hair. She was alarmed and almost eager. Jimmy twisted the coil of hair, his face flat.
‘An eejit, that’s what I am.’ Gently he withdrew his hand.
They contemplated each other for a minute more, their eyes on a level. Then Janice frowned, groping for something through her sudden tiredness and the effects of the wine.
‘Are you and Star all right?’
His smile came back as quickly as it had vanished, with the associated repertoire of eyebrow contortions.
‘As right as rain. As right as ever. Shall I carry through the coffee tray for you, madam?’
When Nina came back to the den she found that someone had put on some slow music, and Janice and Jimmy and Hannah and Andrew were dancing in the space in front of the fire. Hannah rested her head on Andrew’s shoulder. Gordon and Star were sitting apart talking intently together. Nina sat down beside Darcy.
‘Would you care to dance?’
She felt the full weight of his disconcerting charm. He was very handsome although there were pads of flesh almost obliterating the strong bones of his face. Even after the drink he had taken in his eyes remained sharp under the puffy lids.
She smiled. ‘I think I would rather sit.’
Nina was tired now. She wanted to go back to the peace of her own house, but she did not know how to go away from Gordon.
‘Let’s sit, then,’ Darcy said. After a moment in which they watched the two couples slowly gyrating he leaned closer to her, with an effective intimacy that closed off the rest of the room. Nina smelled cigars and cologne, and whisky on his breath.
‘Tell me,’ he invited, ‘what do you think of our provincial little world?’
‘What do I think of Grafton? I grew up here, remember.’
‘Yes, I remember that. I meant, do you ever regret ex- changing everything in London for this?’
He nodded at the dancers.
Nina realized that he was trying to set the two of them apart, at a sophisticated, metropolitan distance from the others, even Hannah. He wanted her to conspire with him in noticing the ways that Janice’s furniture and food and even their shared friends fell short of their London counterparts.
Nina felt dislike of Darcy instantly flare up inside her, in defence of Gordon and the evening’s warmth. She tried to resist the impulse, but her eyes slid across the room to where Gordon was sitting with Star. Star’s head was bent and she was shading her eyes with her fingers. She looked as if she was trying not to cry.
‘I don’t regret the exchange at all,’ Nina answered sharply, trying to focus her attention on Darcy. ‘I’m very happy to be here. Besides, the advantages of living in Grafton far outweigh the disadvantages. There is the way I have been made to feel welcome, for instance. I probably wouldn’t have encountered anything like it if I had made the move in the opposite direction.’
Some of her dislike was for herself. She had noticed the details of the Frosts’ hospitality that would have told her immediately, even if she had known nothing else, that these were not London people. She had probably noted them with an eye just as sharp as Darcy Clegg’s. But that did not mean that she wanted to collude with him.
Darcy’s intentions seemed to change at once, with alcoholic unpredictability.
‘I miss it,’ he said. ‘More than I am usually prepared to admit. More than most people would guess, given everything I have here.’
‘I wouldn’t have guessed,’ Nina said. Her dislike of him melted away again. She had drunk her share of the wine too, she remembered.
Darcy added, ‘But we provincials have to find our challenges and diversions where we can.’
She had no idea what he meant. He lifted his hands with his fingers bunched, as if he were holding strings. She had the impression suddenly that he was the puppet master of the group, and the others, tired and more or less drunk as they were at the end of the evening, were the puppets who danced for him. Her skin prickled down the length of her spine. At the same moment she became aware that Jimmy Rose was watching the two of them over Janice’s lolling head.
Across in their corner, Star said softly to Gordon, ‘It isn’t just tonight. It’s every night. I think to myself that I don’t mind, that I don’t care what he does, but I do. I care for myself, for being humiliated in front of my friends. I’m sorry, Gordon. I’ve drunk too much. Not for the first time, eh?’
Gordon was vividly aware that Nina had looked at them, then looked away again. What was Darcy whispering to her about?
Star reached out her hand, and reluctantly he took it.
‘If he makes you unhappy, why don’t you leave him?’ he asked her.
Star raised her head. ‘Will you have me, if I do?’
It was a joke, and not a joke.
‘Star, how could I?’
‘You couldn’t, of course. But you know it’s you I’d have,
