you do, Oliver?”
He too had had a strategy in mind. He had seen what he could do, even as Hammond & Watson was laid to rest. He had taken happily to computers. That was the way to go. Word processing, printing on demand. He had sidestepped Nick’s bustling ideas for future collaboration and slid away. Sometimes he thinks of those years with a touch of nostalgia; mostly he relishes his present certainty and control. Satisfaction lies in an impeccable page, and healthy accounts.
Sandra knows little of Nick, or of Elaine. Least of all does she know anything of Kath. She is aware that Oliver’s previous business venture had to do with mainstream publishing, and that his partner was the inspirational and creative member of the team and ended up if anything a mite too inspirational and creative, which was why the thing folded.
Both Sandra and Oliver are reticent about other times. Sandra is divorced, but Oliver knows little of why or when. “’Nuff said,” says Sandra crisply. “Over and done with.” Equally, she does not press Oliver for information. There is tacit agreement between them that both have lived other lives and that a mutual respect for privacy is appropriate in a late liaison such as theirs. Oliver finds that he is distinctly incurious about Sandra’s past. This fact has occasionally given pause for thought; it seems to indicate a detachment that is perhaps not quite right. He reminds himself of Sandra’s qualities and of the reasons why life with her is so compatible—her unruffled efficiency, her household management. Her compact, nubile body—nicely sexy when you wanted to see it that way but not a daily disturbing provocation. Her panache behind the wheel; he has come to dislike driving. Her bœuf en daube .
Given all that, an obsessive concern with Sandra’s previous life seems superfluous, and indeed childish. Leave that to young lovers.
And Sandra too steers clear of inquiry. Though just occasionally an edge creeps into her voice which perhaps indicates suppressed attention. She comes across an inscription in one of Oliver’s books: “Happy birthday—tons of love, Nell.”
“One of your ladies, I suppose.” Crisp, but a statement, not a question. The matter is not pursued.
Where Nick and Elaine are concerned, she is apparently uninterested. The business was wound up; Oliver went his own way. That will do, it seems, for Sandra.
Nowadays, Oliver does not know nearly so many people. He has lost touch with pretty well all of those acquired during the Hammond & Watson years. His clients of today do not move on to a more intimate plane; many of them he never meets—they remain a voice on the phone, a sender of faxes and e-mails. Occasionally he and Sandra entertain another couple for supper. He has moved into that closed society of coupledom, he realizes, on the fringes of which he hung round for so many years. A member of a couple always has someone with whom to go to the cinema, to take a walk. The unattached are flotsam, eddying about the solid purposeful mass of the coupled. From time to time, he does give a wistful thought to life as flotsam: it had its compensations.
“Kath?” says Sandra.
She speaks so abruptly that Oliver is jolted to attention. He has been cruising happily, fingers tapping out a routine task, thoughts quite elsewhere. He stops tapping, and returns to the office.
“The sister. What did she look like?” Sandra is wearing that intent look that he knows so well, like a dog pointing. This can be applied equally to the choice of a cut of meat or consideration of a page layout.
What did Kath look like? Oliver is stymied. How did you begin to describe Kath? “She was . . .” he begins. “Well, she . . . she had dark hair. Not very tall.”
“There’s a photo I saw once in that envelope you’ve got in your desk at home. I noticed it when you were trying to find an old photo of yourself to show me. A girl sitting beside a pond. Is that her?”
Sandra’s
He too had had a strategy in mind. He had seen what he could do, even as Hammond & Watson was laid to rest. He had taken happily to computers. That was the way to go. Word processing, printing on demand. He had sidestepped Nick’s bustling ideas for future collaboration and slid away. Sometimes he thinks of those years with a touch of nostalgia; mostly he relishes his present certainty and control. Satisfaction lies in an impeccable page, and healthy accounts.
Sandra knows little of Nick, or of Elaine. Least of all does she know anything of Kath. She is aware that Oliver’s previous business venture had to do with mainstream publishing, and that his partner was the inspirational and creative member of the team and ended up if anything a mite too inspirational and creative, which was why the thing folded.
Both Sandra and Oliver are reticent about other times. Sandra is divorced, but Oliver knows little of why or when. “’Nuff said,” says Sandra crisply. “Over and done with.” Equally, she does not press Oliver for information. There is tacit agreement between them that both have lived other lives and that a mutual respect for privacy is appropriate in a late liaison such as theirs. Oliver finds that he is distinctly incurious about Sandra’s past. This fact has occasionally given pause for thought; it seems to indicate a detachment that is perhaps not quite right. He reminds himself of Sandra’s qualities and of the reasons why life with her is so compatible—her unruffled efficiency, her household management. Her compact, nubile body—nicely sexy when you wanted to see it that way but not a daily disturbing provocation. Her panache behind the wheel; he has come to dislike driving. Her bœuf en daube .
Given all that, an obsessive concern with Sandra’s previous life seems superfluous, and indeed childish. Leave that to young lovers.
And Sandra too steers clear of inquiry. Though just occasionally an edge creeps into her voice which perhaps indicates suppressed attention. She comes across an inscription in one of Oliver’s books: “Happy birthday—tons of love, Nell.”
“One of your ladies, I suppose.” Crisp, but a statement, not a question. The matter is not pursued.
Where Nick and Elaine are concerned, she is apparently uninterested. The business was wound up; Oliver went his own way. That will do, it seems, for Sandra.
Nowadays, Oliver does not know nearly so many people. He has lost touch with pretty well all of those acquired during the Hammond & Watson years. His clients of today do not move on to a more intimate plane; many of them he never meets—they remain a voice on the phone, a sender of faxes and e-mails. Occasionally he and Sandra entertain another couple for supper. He has moved into that closed society of coupledom, he realizes, on the fringes of which he hung round for so many years. A member of a couple always has someone with whom to go to the cinema, to take a walk. The unattached are flotsam, eddying about the solid purposeful mass of the coupled. From time to time, he does give a wistful thought to life as flotsam: it had its compensations.
“Kath?” says Sandra.
She speaks so abruptly that Oliver is jolted to attention. He has been cruising happily, fingers tapping out a routine task, thoughts quite elsewhere. He stops tapping, and returns to the office.
“The sister. What did she look like?” Sandra is wearing that intent look that he knows so well, like a dog pointing. This can be applied equally to the choice of a cut of meat or consideration of a page layout.
What did Kath look like? Oliver is stymied. How did you begin to describe Kath? “She was . . .” he begins. “Well, she . . . she had dark hair. Not very tall.”
“There’s a photo I saw once in that envelope you’ve got in your desk at home. I noticed it when you were trying to find an old photo of yourself to show me. A girl sitting beside a pond. Is that her?”
Sandra’s
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