could subliminate it.’
‘Man lives to work as well as to love,’ Charlie reminded them. ‘One could point out as much to our friend Geza.’
At night, under the formidable stars, they sat around their driftwood fires and set about changing the world. For all the differences in shades of opinion, they were all certain that when they had drunk enough retsina and when the angle of the sun in the sky had declined enough to suggest autumn instead of high summer, they would return home to inherit systems that could be altered to suit their visions. They were full of innocent optimism and zeal.
One evening, as the talk eddied in circles, someone had asked, ‘What do you want, then, Harriet?’
Someone else had responded, ‘Harriet wants to be rich and famous.’
Defending herself with a quick retort she had answered, ‘Just rich will do.’
It was such an unfashionable response, such a bathetic contrast to the house of high-minded talk that had preceded it, that just as she had intended everyone laughed. In the days afterwards she was teased about her bourgeois ideals and exploitative intentions.
And then not long after that, as if governed by the same impulses as swallows gathering on telephone wires in English villages, the campers began to put on their tattered clothes once more and to talk about the long trek homewards to Munich and Amsterdam and Manchester. Harriet’s remark was forgotten as sleeping bags were rolled up and stored in the camper vans, and the tents were collapsed and folded away. A cold wind had started to blow from the east, whipping the sand up the beach. They slung their guitars from their shoulders and tied on their headbands, then set off in twos and threes down the rutted track that led away from the beach.
Utopia seemed a long way behind them even before they reached Heraklion.
‘Yes, I remember Crete.’ Sun and salt water, retsina and talk, endless talk. Harriet no longer felt young or innocent, and she knew that it was illogical to feel a shiver of regret for ten years ago. But she felt the shiver just the same.
‘I remember that I said I wanted to be rich.’
‘Have you been nursing entrepreneurial ambitions all this time?’
But Charlie had misunderstood her. They were not entrepreneurial ambitions, but ambitions for Simon’s game.
‘I said what I said, all that time ago, as a kind of joke. A joke that was forced on me.’
‘There’s no need to excuse it, then or now. I admire you Harriet. If you want to do it, go ahead. The financial climate is good, as you know, this government approves of enterprise, as you also know. I wish you the best of luck, if that’s what you want to hear. If there’s anything I can do to help you, you know I will.’
Harriet stood up, as if he had given her his blessing. She kissed Charlie’s cheek, finding it solid and warm. At the same moment she felt the blood in her own veins, and the bones under her skin. There was no husband downstairs. There was nothing, except her plan. She felt weightless, intoxicated with excitement all over again.
Charlie looked up. ‘I’m sorry about Leo,’ he said, surprising her.
‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ Harriet answered. ‘We didn’t make each other happy. Someone, or something, else will.’ She didn’t think he heard the qualification. It was for herself, in any case, not for Charlie. ‘Thanks for your advice. I think I’ll take the rest of it, and go and dance with the man in the blouse.’
Harriet was leaning over him. Without thinking, Charlie reached up and slid his hand inside her red shirt. He held one warm, bare breast in the cup of his palm. The weight of it felt nice, comforting.
Harriet smiled and gently removed his hand. She had lived naked for a month on a Greek beach with Charlie Thimbell; it would be prudish to object to his touch. And it gave her a small shock of pleasure that was not particularly sexual. It was more a thrill of novelty, of freedom.
‘Thanks,’ she said again. Charlie watched her as she retreated down the stairs. It was years since he had asked himself whether or not he found Harriet physically attractive. He supposed that at some stage he had decided not, because he preferred women who were pretty, and seemingly pliant, like Jenny. Yet tonight he had felt some charge in Harriet that was definitely stimulating. It was probably a good thing, he reflected, that she had separated from Leo Gold. He was afraid that it would be less of a good thing for her to divert her energies into marketing some game.
Charlie’s thoughts completed a circle and returned to Jenny. He felt a mixture of tenderness, exasperation, and the chafing of his own grief. He wanted to find a way to assuage Jenny’s sorrow, but the extent of it seemed as daunting as the sea. She had retreated into the depths of it. They had not made love since the baby had died. The brief flicker of desire that Charlie had felt for Harriet transferred itself to Jenny, and steadied.
Charlie stood up. It was time to take Jenny away from this party, away home to bed.
Downstairs again, Harriet was drawn into the party. There were other friends to see, some who were close and others she was glad to catch up with. She drank some wine, found herself laughing, and talking over the music as the circles formed and reformed. It was a good party. Harriet caught a glimpse of Jane dancing with a man in a blue shirt, and was pleased that she was enjoying herself too.
Charlie and Jenny looked in at the door, both wearing their coats. Harriet waved, and blew a kiss.
The dancing started seriously. Jane’s teacher colleague found Harriet and drew her into it. He was quite drunk, and he wound his arms around her as if without her support he might fall down. He mumbled hotly in her ear, ‘You’re asking for trouble, coming without your husband.’ Harriet removed his hands, less affectionately than Charlie’s.
As soon as she could she disengaged herself and wandered through to the kitchen. The smock and ponytail man was noisily drinking soup from a Royal Wedding mug. Harriet introduced herself and discovered in quick succession, that his name was Bernard, that he was a vegan and an amateur astrologer, and that he wasn’t the kind of man to whom she wanted to talk for a second longer than was necessary. To her relief, the girl in the embroidered blouse came to claim him.
Harriet turned away and with automatic energy began to clear the empty bottles from Jane’s tiled work-top. When that was done she emptied the sink of dirty plates and glasses, and stacked them neatly on the draining board ready to be washed. As she worked she was reflecting that she had come to the party in search of something, and that she had failed to find it. It wasn’t as a replacement for what she had lost with Leo, not love, of course, and equally certainly not sex.
She picked up a tea-towel and began to dry some plates, wiping carefully and then stopping to stare into the black glass of the window that reflected the room behind her. She saw Jane’s plum-coloured outfit move in a blur of other people. Jane had given up hostessing in favour of having a good time. Harriet smiled. What she had found at the party was the company of friends. The warmth that had greeted her stayed with her, buoying her up.
When she looked into the window again, she saw the reflection of a man behind her. He was wearing a bright blue shirt, the sleeves rolled to the elbows. She had seen the same man earlier, dancing with Jane.
Then from behind her shoulder he asked, ‘Is that more interesting than mingling with your fellow-guests?’
He spoke with an
