The Last Time They Met_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [54]
Thomas thought about, and then decided against, revealing that he was putting Regina through school.
—There’s a Ugandan fellow here runs a magazine might be of use to you, Roland said, making a sour face and leaning conspiratorially toward Thomas. Of course, it’s a grotty little magazine, mind you, and the fellow is a bit of a slime, but, still, I suppose any publication is better than none?
Roland put his back to the railing and surveyed his own party.
—And what were we being so reclusive about all alone on the verandah, if one may ask? Roland asked, giving himself permission. He smiled and took a sip of his drink. The man’s condescension was insufferable. The we put Thomas over the edge.
—Actually, I was thinking about Jane, Thomas said.
* * *
Arab furniture from the coast mixed with English antiques to produce a fussiness that needed editing; though there was a magnificent secretary Thomas had admired once before and did again tonight. He examined the books that lay behind the leaded glass cabinets. Nothing surprising, just the usual: Dickens and Hardy, T. E. Lawrence and Richard Burton. He might ask Roland tonight if he could borrow the Burton. An African in a white uniform took his glass and asked, in melodic Kikuyu accent, if he’d like another Pimm’s. Thomas shook his head, the medication for the migraine mixing with the alcohol, making him both high and groggy. Desperate for sleep.
In the corner, Regina was talking to a boy. She had worn her hair in a twist, a style she knew Thomas liked. Her sleeveless red dress revealed arms tanned from long afternoons spent at outdoor clinics. Her neck was damp from the heat, tiny dots of moisture on her skin. Once he had craved to make love to his wife. When they’d met in a hardware store in Boston — she wearing a yellow T-shirt and overalls, looking for a hoe; he standing at the checkout line with a plunger in his hand — he’d noticed her porcelain-fine skin and her astonishing breasts outlined beneath the bib of the overall and had felt compelled to capture her attention. He’d followed her to her car, feigning an interest in gardening that hadn’t survived the evening. In bed that night at her apartment (wallowing in bed, he thought now), he’d confessed he’d known nothing about gardening, and she’d laughed and told him he’d been as transparent as glass. She’d been flattered, however, she added, which he hadn’t understood until months later when he’d learned how much she hated her large body. And by then, it was too late. He thought the words, too late. A fatal construction he’d never really put together until now. Already the chance meeting with Linda was rearranging his thinking.
Regina bent to the boy, hair whipped blond by constant wind and sun, who had come out to say hello to the guests. Looking shy and miserable, though Regina was good at coaxing a smile and might manage one soon. He seemed a sweet kid, only ten years old. In another year, Roland would send him to England to boarding school. It struck Thomas as an extreme measure to take to give a child an education, Roland’s culture sometimes as foreign to him as the African. Regina beckoned to Thomas to join them.
—You remember Richard, Regina said in a bright voice used by adults in the presence of children.
Thomas put out his hand, and the boy shook it, the delicate bones nearly lost in Thomas’s grip.
—How do you do? the boy asked politely, eyes everywhere but on Thomas.
—Very well. And yourself? Thomas bent slightly to the boy, who shrugged. Manners could take him only so far.
—Richard said he’s racing tomorrow in Karen. He’s invited us to come and watch.
Thomas could scarcely imagine the boy controlling a horse, never mind racing. Though, as Elaine’s son, he’d have grown up with horses. Once, Thomas and Regina had been invited to the Karen Hunt, an anachronism if ever Thomas had seen one: sherry on silver trays, scarlet coats, the immense underbellies of the beasts brushing the tops of the hedges. The hedges of Karen, he thought. They told a story all their own.
—I think we