Old Filth - Jane Gardam [61]
Vanessa was brisker. The three-weekly call to Bournemouth was always made at 6 p.m. sharp on a Friday, and she set aside half an hour. She was a Barrister in Shipping Chambers, a prestigious area and rare for a woman. She had had to swim enjoyably hard to keep up with the tide. She was respected in the Chambers and held in awe in Bournemouth where her parents knew nothing of the Bar except what they saw on television. She regaled them, third Fridays, with accounts of her daily round—from the 7 a.m. orange juice in the super-nova kitchen, to her reading Briefs last thing at night. (“A case you’ll be seeing in the papers.”) Her Opinions were not usually complete before midnight.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know how you fit it all in,” her mother said. “How do you do your housework and shopping and cooking? And laundry?” (And where are the children?)
Vanessa ignored her. Work first. No philosophising.
“Whenever do you see your friends?” asked her mother. (Or us?)
“Oliver and I have it all under control. We eat out. Friends at weekends. We probably see more friends than you do.”
“I miss your friends, Vanessa,” said her mother. “Every weekend we saw your friends, all through school and Cambridge, they used to come. I miss your friends.” (And I miss you, too. I don’t know this sharp-faced, black-suited, almost bald-headed, lap-top sprite.)
“I ring you every three weeks.”
“Yes.”
“Last time I couldn’t get through. You were engaged.”
“Yes. We do occasionally have another phone-call.”
“And what about this?” Vanessa said now, marching into the hall as Oliver picked up his sports bag en-route for a work-out. “They’re not going to be there.”
“What? Your parents?”
“My consistent and saintly parents say they’d no idea I was coming down this weekend. They’re going to a Fortieth Wedding Anniversary on the Isle of Wight. They said they told me. They’re going senile. Parents of some of my primary-school friends I’ve not seen for twenty years. They said why don’t I go, too, for goodness sake!”
“Well, why don’t you?” Oliver saw, and his spirits fell, the way things would now develop. “Better come with me and visit my Ma,” he said, not looking at her.
“Half-way to Scotland? On a Saturday morning? And there’s only a single bed. No thanks.”
“We could go to a hotel. Stay in Cambridge if you like.”
She wavered while he kept his balance. He loved her. They would have a nice time. It was just that alone, with his mother, he could slop about with his shoes and socks off. Read the tabloids. Pick his nose.
“And what do I do there to pass the time?”
“In Cambridge?”
“No, fool. In your mother’s house looking out at nothing and nothing looking in. All that silence as she sits and smiles.”
“At least she never asks when we’re getting married.”
“Well, neither does mine.”
“Your father does.”
“Oh—does he? I’m surprised.”
“Because he doesn’t like me? You’re right. He asks in order to smirk when I say not yet. You’re too close to your aged P, dear, it’s unhealthy.”
She frowned and began to bustle about. He thought her tiny waist and neck miraculously beautiful. He’d have liked her in a silk kimono and little silk shoes. They’d been together six years and she was thirty-two and as rich as he was. She could stop work tomorrow and . . .
“Come on,” she said. “We’re at it again. I’m sorry. It’s just the bloody Isle of Wight. They could have said: I’ll come with you.”
“And it’s all right,” she said, “I’ll behave. I won’t sulk. I won’t go and lie down with a headache. I won’t say