Joanna Trollope - A Village Affair

'Because, for some reason, I really like being at home just now.'

'Never,' Alice said, on the edge of laughter. She turned her head towards Martin. 'Anthony's coming. On Friday.'

Martin pulled a slight face.

'Oh well. It had to happen. How long for?'

'Don't you like him?' Clodagh said, interested. 'Why don't you?'

Alice began. 'He's-' and Martin, fearing family criticism, said quickly, 'We fought a bit when we were growing up, that's all. He's been in Japan and Hong Kong for almost ten years. He's probably changed a lot.'

'Didn't sound it,' Alice said. 'Sounded exactly the same.'

Clodagh stood up.

'I'm going to read to Tashie. And then you can say what you really think about the Unwins in peace.'

Martin tried not to look priggish.

'I wouldn't say anything behind your back that I wouldn't say to your face.'

'I know,' Clodagh said, and went out of the room, laying a hand lightly on his shoulder, and then on Alice's, as she went.

'I'm so pleased for you,' Alice said to him.

He ducked his head. He looked suddenly as young and vulnerable as James. Alice felt so fond of him. It was only when he wanted to touch her that she...

'Allie-'

'Yes?'

'Allie, sorry to sort of mess up the mood, but there's something that's rather been on my mind-'

She took a slow swallow of champagne.

Tell me.'

'It's, well, it's about us. I mean, we seem to be fine and everything's going really well and-' He stopped. He loathed this kind of conversation, but a necessity was a necessity. 'Look. It's - about bed. I mean, I may be no great shakes but you don't seem to want me anywhere near you at the moment. I can't remember the last time weeks, months, I don't know.' He looked at Alice pleadingly. 'Is it me?'

She sat up and put her glass on the floor and folded her hands on her lap. She looked straight at him.

'No,' she said. 'It isn't your fault. That is, it isn't anything you do. Or don't do.'

'Then-'

'It's me,' Alice said. 'I just don't want you to make love to me. I don't in the least want to hurt you but I must be truthful because it's kinder, really, in the end.'

There was a silence and then he said, looking down at his crossed arms resting on his knees, 'D'you think we should get some help? I mean, Marriage Guidance or something-'

Alice said gently, 'I don't want to do that. I want to say sorry, but I won't because I don't want to patronize you. But I don't want to talk to anyone.'

'But will you change?'

'I don't know. I can't tell.'

'So you just want me to wait. Grin and bear it-'

'Yes please. Just for now. Yes - please.'

He got up and walked about a bit and went over to a window and fingered the stiff gleaming billow of the curtains.

'Allie. I've got to ask you this.'

He stopped.

'Ask me then-'

'Will you give me a truthful answer? However much you think it'll hurt me?'

Alice's voice had a little quaver.

'I promise.'

Martin came back to his chair and put his hands on its back and looked at her.

'Is there another man?'

Alice raised her chin and looked at him squarely.

'No,' she said. 'There isn't another man.'

And then Martin gave a long, escaping sigh, and grinned at her and said he thought they had better finish the champagne, didn't she?

In the Pitcombe Stores, Mr Finch was patiently explaining to his new assistant, Gwen's daughter Michelle, about the arrangement of tinned vegetables on the shelves. It was not that Michelle was stupid, but rather that she wanted to work in Dorothy Perkins, in Salisbury, and they had said she couldn't until she was eighteen, so the village shop was to her no more than a tiresome stopgap at one pound eighty pence an hour. She was elaborately bored, all week, except on Mondays when, this being the show season for Mrs Macaulay and her girls, Mr Finch allowed her to help Mrs Jordan in the travelling shop. Michelle didn't just admire Alice, she really liked her company. When she got home on Mondays, Gwen always wanted to know what Alice had said to Michelle, but Michelle went mulish and wouldn't tell. Her Mrs Jordan, she felt, was different from the one her mother worked for. Her Mrs Jordan talked to her like an equal and lent her books and once gave her a pair of silver earrings like shells so that Michelle had to lock herself in the bathroom and pierce new holes in her ears with a needle stuck into a cork and an ice cube to deaden the lobe.

She said, 'Yeah, OK. Right. OK,' to Mr Finch but she wasn't really listening. Who cared whether carrots went next to butter beans or peas? She stood and bit her nails and thought about the black leather jacket she'd seen on Saturday that she'd set her heart on.

"There now,' Mr Finch said, 'quite clear I think. Now you just load up from these boxes while I go and give Mrs Finch a hand with the freezer delivery.'

Michelle gave the faintest snigger. Everyone knew Mrs Finch and the freezer delivery driver fancied one another, though why the sight of Mrs Finch with her blue eyelids and purple hair didn't make the freezer man want to crack up Michelle couldn't imagine. He came twice a month, and Mr Finch always shot out to the back to give a hand. Michelle imagined a really good punch-up going on among the fish fingers and ice lollies in the glacial van while Mrs Finch sobbed theatrically into the little lace handkerchiefs she favoured.

When Mr Finch had gone, Michelle began, laboriously, to take the tins out of their cartons and bang them on the shelves. After a few minutes, Miss Pimm came in and scuttled about in pursuit of a ball of string and a packet of custard powder. Long ago, Michelle had briefly been in her Sunday School, manifesting, Miss Pimm was mortified to remember, an unwholesome curiosity in Mary Magdalene and the woman taken in adultery.

'Michelle,' Miss Pimm said, displaying her purchases with exaggerated honesty, 'I believe I owe Mr Finch exactly seventy seven pence for these two items.'

'Right,' Michelle said, getting up without a smile.

She took Miss Pimm's proffered eighty pence over to the till and was an age with the change.

Three pence,' said Miss Pimm.

'I know,' said Michelle. 'I'm not daft.'

Miss Pimm, reddening in her characteristic blotches, opened her mouth to object to being spoken to in such a way and managed no more than a hoarse and humiliating caw. Michelle stared at her. Then the shop door twanged open and Michelle's gaze moved beyond Miss Pimm and lit up. A man's voice said, 'I am in Pitcombe. Aren't I?'

Michelle was delighted. She dropped Miss Pimm's change very approximately into her outstretched hand, tossed the whig of hair she liked to let fall into her eyes and said, 'Sorry. This is Las Vegas.'

'Same thing,' Anthony said, coming forward. He looked down at Miss Pimm. She reminded him of a moorhen. He said with great charm to her, 'I'm sure you can help me. I am Martin Jordan's brother. I am looking for The Grey House.'

Frenziedly, Miss Pimm fixed her eyes on his silk paisley tie.

'Yes!' she said. 'Yes!'

Anthony waited. Michelle leaned on the counter and gazed frankly and greedily at him. Miss Pimm raised her troubled eyes to his striped shirt collar. She licked her lips and swallowed.

'Welcome,' she said. 'Welcome to Pitcombe.'

The propriety of her own behaviour encouraged her and her eyes moved to Anthony's chin.

'Up the village street until you pass, on the right, a cottage with an ornamental well in the garden. Turn right there, a very narrow lane, and The Grey House is ahead of you.'

'How very kind,' Anthony said gravely.

His voice was so pleasing, Miss Pimm dared one fleeting glance at his eyes. He was winking at Michelle. Seizing her custard powder and her string, and gobbling to herself faintly in her distress, she scuttled from the shop into the street. Fred Mott watched her unpityingly from his window and then observed that the tall bloke who had just gone in was now coming out and was climbing back into the brand of car the telly ads promised would always get you a sexy bit in a slit skirt. Fred fingered his trousers. Sally had sewn up the slit in his pyjama bottoms. He sniggered. She couldn't sew up the slits in his mind.

Anthony drove up the street slowly, Miss Pimm and Michelle quite forgotten. It all looked very pretty and neat, grey stone and bright gardens. Trust Martin not to dare to live anywhere more adventurous than this. By the ornamental well - it was an immense affair with a fretted wooden roof like a Swiss chalet and had a plaster cat creeping along the ridge - he turned right, and beyond the cottages he saw the stone gateposts and the clipped hornbeams and the grey-gold gravel and he said to himself again, trust Martin.

He stopped the car outside the very pretty facade. The front door was open. A kitten, past the sweet stage of babyhood and fast approaching a gawky adolescence, was sitting just inside in a patch of sunlight, washing nonchalantly. It took no notice of him.

'Alice!' Anthony called.

There was no reply. He walked into the hall and across it into the kitchen. There was no one there but several people had recently had tea and there was a muddle of mugs and crumby plates. Anthony called again.

In the open doorway to the garden, a small, neat girl appeared.

'Are you Anthony?'

'Yes,' he said. 'And you must be James.'

She sighed. That was the sort of joke James liked. She said severely, 'I am Natasha.'