The Peacock Emporium(19)

She turned to him. “Douglas. Darling. I never ask you for anything. Do I? Really?”

There was little point in contradicting her. Douglas stared at her pale, unreadable face, at the sadness suddenly visible in it. He hated the thought that it might be his failure as a husband that was responsible for it.

“Let’s go. Let’s leave here. Say yes to me, Douglas. Please.”

He had a brief insane impulse to throw their possessions into a single suitcase and roar up the drive in the MG, Athene delighted and wrapped round him, then disappear into a Technicolor future in some exotic foreign land.

Athene’s gaze hadn’t wavered.

“I need a bath,” he said. And, wearily, turned toward the stairs.





5




The Day I Broke Somebody’s Heart


Oh, I know I don’t look the type. You’re probably thinking I’ve never inspired passion in anyone. But I did, a long time ago, before middle age and gray hair covered up what few attributes I ever had. His name was Tom, and he was a dear, sweet lad. Not the best-looking chap, but an absolute brick. He was solid as a rock. Good family. And he adored me.

He wasn’t the type to talk much. Men didn’t in those days. Not in my experience, anyway. But I knew he adored me from the way he used to wait on the corner every evening to walk me home from the office, to the beautiful pieces of ribbon and lace he would save me from the remnants pile at his father’s factory. His family was in haberdashery, and he was learning the business from his father. That’s how we met. He was a big chap, with a broad chest and strong arms. Used to carry bolts of fabric for me, piled three or four on his huge shoulders as easily as if he were tipping his jacket behind him.

He used to come in with trays of buttons and bits of trimming, lovely Victorian lace that he’d rescued from boxes just starting to go damp. He left them for me wordlessly, laid out, as if he were a dog presenting me with a bone. I used to make my own clothes then, and when I was dressed up he could always point out one of his buttons, or a piece of his velvet trim. I think it made him rather proud.

And he never pushed me. He never made any great declarations, or announced his intentions. I had told him that I’d never marry. I was very certain of that, and I thought it only fair to tell him from the beginning. But he just nodded, as if that was a fair decision, and decided to adore me anyway. And, gradually, I found I worried less and less about whether I was leading him on, or being unfair, and I just enjoyed his company.

The sixties were a pretty tricky time to be a single girl. Oh, I know you think it was all Mary Quant and free love and nightclubs and the like, but there were very few of us really living that kind of life. For girls like me, from respectable families, who didn’t have a “fast streak,” the times were pretty confusing. There were girls who did, and girls who didn’t, and I was never sure which of those I should be. (Although I nearly did, with Tom. Several times. He was very good about it, all things considered, even when I told him I’d decided to be a virgin for life.) And there was this pressure for one to be à la mode, to wear the latest fashions, whether they be Biba or the King’s Road, or, like mine, made from Butterick and Vogue patterns. But our parents were all rather scandalized, so one was under this huge pressure to wear a miniskirt or whatever and yet felt rather embarrassed to be doing so.

Perhaps I just wasn’t liberated enough. There were plenty who were. But Tom seemed to understand and like me, whatever I was, or however I tried to be, and we had a rather lovely time for a couple of years.

So it was a bit of a shame that he had to suffer so on the first occasion that he was introduced to my parents.

I had invited them to London to see a show. My mother was excited about it, and Daddy was rather sweet too, although he wouldn’t have said as much, as I had hardly been home in a year. I had booked us tickets for Hello, Dolly! at the Theatre Royal and a light supper afterward at one of the new Golden Egg restaurants, and I was going to treat everybody because Mr. Holstein had just given me a pay raise and a promotion from secretary to office manager, which was terrifically exciting. I had mulled things over for ages and ages, and in the end I thought I would probably invite Tom too, because he was such a sweetheart, and I knew it would mean a lot to him if he was to meet my parents, and I knew they’d like him. They had to. There was nothing to dislike about him. The show was marvelous. Mary Martin was Dolly Levi—I’ll never forget how gorgeous she looked, even though we had all secretly wished to see Eve Arden. And Mummy was so pleased to see me that she kept sneaking her hand into mine and squeezing it, and making meaningful little glances at Tom. I know she was rather relieved to see a man on the scene after such a long time, and he had brought her a box of New Berry Fruits. So it was rather a lovely evening until the dinner. Mummy said, gazing around her, that the Golden Egg was “certainly very . . . ‘colorful’”: the food was fine, and I splashed out on a bottle of wine, even though Daddy said he would not let me spend my new salary on entertaining my “old folks.” And Tom just sat and beamed quietly in that way of his, and talked to Mummy for ages about ribbons and things from before the war and how his father had once met the prime minister’s wife when she ordered some fine Belgian lace.

And then she said it.

“I meant to tell you, darling. Things are not good in the Fairley-Hulme household.”