ended and Hannah stepped back from Andrew, making an elaborate curtsey of thanks. He put his arm around her waist and steered her back towards Darcy.
Nina saw that Star was on her feet, apparently quite composed. It was clear that the evening was over.
The three women went away with Janice to find their coats, and Gordon and Andrew murmured together about some business that they needed to attend to in the morning. Jimmy and Darcy found themselves standing together by the front door.
‘Well then,’ Jimmy said softly. ‘It’s La Belle Veuve, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’ It pleased Darcy to appear not to catch his meaning.
‘She likes you.’
‘Does she?’ He accepted Jimmy’s tribute without betraying any interest in it, although he felt a flicker of satisfaction that was strengthened by his certainty that he felt no reciprocal liking for Nina Cort. Such aloof, contained women had never attracted him.
Jimmy laughed, and having sown the idea was subtle enough to leave it to germinate alone.
‘What was the matter with Mike Wickham today, do you think?’
Darcy shrugged. ‘How would I know? Time of the month, probably.’
Jimmy laughed again. ‘Just the same, I’d prefer not to be landed with him next week.’
Darcy dropped his heavy arm around Jimmy’s shoulder and patted it reassuringly. ‘Back to the usual set-up on Sunday, then. That way we can be sure of winning.’
The women came in a group down the stairs. Jimmy allowed himself a moment’s luxurious contemplation of their separate possibilities, abundant Hannah and tawny, mys-terious Nina, juicy unobtainable Janice and Star, his own.
He called cheerfully to Nina, ‘We’ll give you a ride home, since we’re the nearest to you.’
‘Thank you. Star kindly offered already,’ Nina said.
They reached the door in a flurry of thanks and good nights. Nina was caught up with the Roses and swept out, away from Gordon, and she was only aware that he watched her going and wanted to hold her back. The evening was finally over.
When everyone had gone Janice leant against the ban- isters.
‘Have I drunk a lot?’
Her eyes were smudged, as if they were melting into the frail surrounding skin, and the rosy pencil line with which she had outlined her lips at the beginning of the evening had turned brown as it faded. When she had been drinking and came to the end of an evening’s high Janice’s confidence sometimes collapsed, leaving her confused and vulnerable, and vividly reminding Andrew of the much more tentative girl he had married.
‘You have,’ he told her. She followed him when he went back into the kitchen.
‘Not badly too much?’
‘No. You were enjoying yourself. It was a good evening.’
Andrew opened the window and a draught of cold air tasting of earth and rain penetrated the smoke and perfume that hung in the room. He peered inside the dishwasher and began to rearrange the dirty plates in the proper sequence. Behind him Janice asked, ‘We do give good evenings, don’t we?’
Andrew straightened up. The dish that had held the beef contained a layer of congealed fat, and the butcher’s string made a greasy curl on the countertop. He wanted to tidy the kitchen and then to spend a few minutes in the dark and silence of the garden before bed. But Janice stumbled towards him, needing reassurance, and he gave it.
‘We do. Thanks to you. You do the arranging and the shopping and the cooking. All I do is open the wine.’ He referred to what was an old joke between them, a joke that had worn thin and shiny with time.
‘No, you do such a lot more than that.’ She reached out and caught his hand. ‘You are a very good husband.’ She groped for the words, mistily now. ‘You are, very good to me. We all love you. I love you.’
Andrew hugged her, feeling her weight in his arms. Her hair smelt of the cooking she had done, the afternoon spent chopping and sautéeing. Without knowing that he did it he leaned slightly away from her towards the washing up that still waited to be done. It was the understanding between them on these evenings that Janice prepared and he cleared away.
‘I love you too.’ The formal exchange. It was not an untruth, not exactly, rather a truth that had changed its colouring. Andrew closed off the thought. He did not want to pursue it.
‘Jimmy was very lively tonight,’ Janice began. She wanted to make amends in case her flirtatiousness had disturbed him.
‘Jimmy is Jimmy.’
‘I know that,’ she sighed. Andrew heard a whisper of regret in her admission, but he let this second thought follow the first into limbo.
‘I’ll help you finish here,’ Janice said after a moment. ‘It won’t take a minute.’ She had regained some of her briskness.
They worked side by side, stepping around each other in the familiar space. Janice imagined the pattern of their footsteps on the tiled floor, like the intricate movements of some domestic dance.
The unaccustomed whimsy of the idea made her smile.
Sometimes Andrew’s footsteps would diverge, leaping to work and away from them all, whilst hers would lay down more regular loops, to school and to other houses. But still the centre of the pattern would be printed here on the kitchen tiles. It was a comforting notion.
The kitchen was tidy enough to satisfy them both. Andrew wiped the top of the units with a cloth, sweeping the crumbs and remnants carefully into the cup of his hand. He had always been neater around the house than Janice.
‘I’m going to bed,’ Janice said, giving a little yawn like a cat’s.
‘I’ll be with you in a minute. Five minutes’ fresh air, and then I’ll lock up.’
It had been raining, but now the sky was partially clear. There was a ribbon of thick cloud overhead, marked by a paler rim, and beyond it in the west a few stars were visible.
Andrew made a slow circuit of the garden. It was too dark to see much and he made each step carefully, testing his familiarity with the ground against the confusion of darkness. He ducked his head under the branches of a cherry tree that overhung the path, and then found a bench set back between the bare twigs of dogwoods. He sat down, feeling the damp grainy wood under his fingers. The small noises of the garden were magnified, much greater in importance than the low note of distant traffic on the bypass.
Andrew let his head fall back against the seat. His eyes closed and the damp air sealed them like a compress. He had also drunk a good deal. The voices of the evening sounded briefly within his skull, and then he dismissed them. The silence was sweet.
When he looked again with dark-adjusted eyes he saw the irregular bulk of the house and the loose composition of trees that framed it. One corner of the trellis that supported a wisteria against a wall had come loose, he recalled. He would have to fix it on Saturday, bringing out his toolbox and a ladder from the garage.
With
