A Touch Of Love Part 15

'Thank you.'

'So.' Hugh looked round the room, looked at the two empty chairs, looked at the s.p.a.ce on the bed. 'Do you mind if I sit beside you?'

'Not at all.'

He sat beside her. The bed was against the wall, which permitted him to lean back, although Emma continued to sit forward.

'Don't you think the table looks nice?' he asked, brightly.

From somewhere or other he had produced matching silver cutlery, two Stuart crystal wine gla.s.ses, cotton napkins and table mats depicting hunting scenes. There was also a candle, as yet unlit, and a small vase of flowers.

'It looks lovely,' said Emma. 'I'd no idea I was going to be made such a fuss of.'

'Well, everybody needs cheering up, now and again, don't they?' said Hugh.

'You think I need cheering up?'

'No, I mean it cheered me up, getting it all ready. It's nice to make a bit of an effort.'

'Don't you enjoy cooking for yourself? I do.'

'You haven't had time to get used to it,' said Hugh. 'I found that the novelty started to wear off after the first four and a half years or so.'

'You mean you still haven't found yourself a girlfriend?' said Emma. She had decided that she was in a teasing mood.

'I think it's time for the soup,' said Hugh.

He went into the kitchen. Emma lit the candle and took her place at the table.

'I was sorry to hear about you and Nick,' said Hugh, as he ladled chilled watercress soup into her bowl.

'Mark,' said Emma. 'My husband's name is Mark.'

'Sorry. Of course. Anyway I was sorry to hear about it. You must feel... well, it must all have been a bit of a shock.'

'Not really. I'm surprised by how quickly I've adjusted to it.'

'Where are you living now?'

'I've bought myself a house. Just a little terrace. I've been doing it up for the last couple of months, and that's kept me busy. This is very nice.'

'Not too peppery?'

'No.' She stopped eating, and considered. 'Perhaps it'll really hit me, in a little while.'

Hugh, who did not know whether she was referring to the pepper or her separation, waited for her to elaborate.

'I mean, I was cutting it fine as it was. Having children, I mean.' She sighed. 'I really did want them, too.'

'Did?'

'Well, I'm trying not to think about it just now. There's no point, at the moment.'

'Bread rolls,' said Hugh. 'I forgot the bread rolls.' He went to the kitchen again and was back very quickly, saying as he returned: 'Of course, I've always wanted children. I'm very good with them, you see. It's something that comes quite naturally to me. I've already got a nephew and a niece. Yes, they love to see their Uncle Hugh. It's no subst.i.tute for having your own, though. I don't suppose I'll leave it long before I settle down, now. I don't want to go on like this all my life.'

'You sound very confident,' said Emma, smiling. 'Do you feel you have the means to settle down?'

'Not at the moment, no, obviously. I've got prospects, though.'

'Such as?'

'Well, I was talking to one of the senior lecturers the other day, and it seems pretty clear that Professor Davis he's the head of the department it seems pretty clear that he'll be retiring quite soon.'

'You're suggesting that you're going to be appointed head of the English department?'

'No, obviously that would be unrealistic. But there's going to have to be a bit of a shuffle. There's bound to be a vacancy, somewhere along the line. And my face is pretty well known around that department.'

'You consider that an advantage.'

Hugh held her gaze for a moment and then tapped the side of the bowl with his soup spoon.

'I'll just go and check on the potatoes,' he said.

He had been forced to abandon the Mexican meal, not having allowed enough time to round up the ingredients. The next course consisted of strips of pork, served in a sauce of cream and cider. By the time it was on the table, Emma had steered the conversation around to Robin.

'I really never imagined he'd do anything like that,' she was saying. 'I had no idea. I didn't even think it would cross his mind.'

'Well, you hardly knew him, did you? I thought you only met him once or twice.'

'But that's exactly what's so upsetting: for me, as a lawyer. You spend an hour or more talking to a client and you can find out a lot about a person in an hour, if it's to the point and you come away thinking that you know them: thinking that you've got the basis of an understanding. This is a caring profession, as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise I don't want to be in it. But then you realize it's nothing. Nothing. You've barely scratched the surface. You've found out just enough to get involved, just enough to be upset when the thing goes wrong, but not enough to understand the kind of help that was needed.'

'Robin didn't need help.'

'How can you say that?'

'I mean, there was nothing anyone could do. And as soon as we start thinking that there was, then we're just going to go around spending the rest of our lives feeling guilty about it.'

'And shouldn't we feel guilty?'

'How's your pork?'

Emma hesitated, wondering whether she should let the subject drop so easily.

'It's delicious, quite delicious,' she said. 'But it's getting a bit hot in here.'

'Take your jumper off.'

Emma took her jumper off, and folded it carefully on the bed beside her coat. Hugh turned the gas fire down.

'All these questions you're asking,' he said, 'writing to Ted, visiting me if you're just doing it to stop yourself feeling guilty, forget it. I don't think it had anything to do with why he killed himself. The charge, I mean.'

'What makes you think that?'

'Because after it had happened, after he'd been charged, he seemed perfectly happy. He even seemed to cheer up a bit. If he was really depressed, it was before then. That's what I think, anyway.'

'I don't know,' said Emma sadly. 'I don't know why I'm doing it. It just upset me so much. I didn't even know him. You must have been devastated.'

'It was a bit of a turn-up, I must say,' said Hugh, pouring more wine for both of them. 'You know, the person you should really talk to is Aparna; but she's left, apparently. Fled the country.' He stopped, the bottle in mid-air, pensive, and then resumed pouring, shaking his head. 'No, that's a stupid idea.'

'What is?'

'You never met her, did you?'

'No. What were you thinking?'

'I just wondered... I mean, two people, alone together in a flat on the fourteenth floor of a tower block: n.o.body knows what was going on, do they? She was a volatile woman. Perhaps there was an argument, he did something to offend her, there was a struggle... who knows?'

Emma seemed unconvinced.

'You promised to show me the last story,' she said.

'In a minute,' said Hugh. 'Are you ready for some fruit?'

They had fresh pineapple, satsumas and cheese and biscuits. Hugh made some coffee, and resumed his position on the bed. Emma remained at the table.

'Are you comfortable over there?'

'Fine, thank you.'

'Is it still too warm for you?'

'No, I'm fine.'

He began to wonder if there was any chance of getting her talking about a subject other than Robin. In desperation, he said: 'So what do you think of this flat, then?'

'It's very nice. Don't you like it?'

'No, I'm bored with living here. I'm thinking of moving.' There was a longish silence. 'Is it big, your new house?'

'No, it's just a little house.'

'Just right for one, is it? Or is there room for someone else?'

'Hugh, I didn't realize how late it was getting,' said Emma, looking at her watch. 'It's been a lovely meal, it really has. It's going to take me a while to get home, with the roads and everything. Can I see the story now?'

He got up and pointed to his bedside table.

'There it is,' he said. 'I'll make a start on the washing-up while you're reading it.'

He left the room. Emma carried her cup of coffee over to the bed and sat down. She held the notebook against her open palm for a while. Then she turned the pages carefully and began to read as fast as the untidy handwriting would allow.

After about fifteen minutes Hugh returned and sat on the bed beside her. Emma seemed to have finished reading: she was staring thoughtfully at the last page.

'Well, are you any the wiser?' he asked, leaning back against the wall.

'Yes,' said Emma, 'I think so. These things were obviously on his mind. That moment, when Lawrence says that killing yourself is a good idea, because it shows that you have control over your own life... Isn't that relevant to what Robin did?'

Hugh shook his head.

'He was just playing around. This is the least relevant of the stories to anything that Robin really thought. He'd lost interest by then. If he'd meant it to be serious he would have written it completely differently: which is more or less what he says there.'

He turned a page and pointed to some lines scribbled in pencil.

THIS STORY IS ALL WRONG, Robin had written.

Get rid of Humpage. Find a different device.

Humour inappropriate.

Keep basic plot but sc.r.a.p last two paras and make whole story hinge on final conversation between Lawrence and Harold.

They discuss the merits of suicide in detail and at length. Lawrence begins by quoting Simone Weil, as an ill.u.s.tration of their different approaches to life: 'Two ways of killing ourselves: suicide or detachment.'

'Who's that?' said Emma, indicating the unfamiliar name.

Hugh edged closer and peered at the handwriting.

'Some French woman,' he said. 'Let's have some more wine.'

'I'm driving,' said Emma, too late to stop him filling her gla.s.s.

'You don't have to.'

She did not notice that he had said this. The rest of Robin's notes appeared to have been added much later; they were in biro, and the writing was larger but even more difficult to decipher.

Further quotations from SW. (Is this what has happened?) 'For those whose "I" is dead we can do nothing, absolutely nothing. We never know, however, whether in a particular person the "I" is quite dead or only inanimate. If it is not quite dead, love can reanimate it as though by an injection, but it must be love which is utterly pure without the slightest trace of condescension, for the least shade of contempt drives towards death.'

'Emma,' said Hugh. 'Emma, look at me.'

'When the "I" is wounded from outside it starts by revolting in the most extreme and bitter manner like an animal at bay. But as soon as the "I" is half dead, it wants to be finished off and allows itself to sink into unconsciousness. If it is then awakened by a touch of love, there is sharp pain which results in anger and sometimes hatred for whoever has provoked this pain. Hence the apparently Here the writing ended. And as Emma was trying to understand these words, to think why Robin might have copied them down, she felt the touch of a hand on her shoulder. A hand was stroking her bare shoulder, inside her blouse. Then the weight of Hugh's body was against her and the hand was sliding downwards, down towards her breast. She pushed him away and stumbled to her feet.

'What do you think you're doing?' she asked, trying to quell the tremor in her voice.

Hugh didn't answer. She looked at him sternly, saw the need and the loneliness grained on his face, and could not find it in her to be angry.

'That's not why I came here. You must know that.'

He stood up, but came no closer. 'I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. I didn't think.'