Follies. Rosie Thomas

lay back with her head against the cushions. His fingers encircled her wrist, and, as if to underline her own image of her body, he murmured, ‘So thin and brittle. One false move and it might snap. Poor Helen. You need feeding up.’ And he laughed again, pleased with the idea.

      In the quiet that followed, Helen collected herself. What else did you expect? Or want? You shared those moments of love-making with him, and in those moments he was yours. Nothing can take that away. And now, what point is there in wishing it had happened some other way? Or hadn’t happened at all? You wanted to give yourself to him, because what else could you have offered? And he’s still here beside you. With his fingers around your wrist. Take what you’ve got, and believe in your own convictions.

      The threatened tears were gone now, and the determination was back in Helen’s face again.

      Oliver sat up and reached for a log from the basket. When he threw it on the fire, the embers glowed hotly and sent out a last fierce blush of heat before settling again.

      He let go of her wrist and leaned away from her to fumble in one of his pockets. When he settled himself, Helen saw that he was holding a key ring, with a small, silver propelling pencil dangling among the keys. Quickly, Oliver unscrewed it and Helen saw that it was not a pencil at all, but a hollow tube. Oliver patted his pockets again and then produced a tiny silver-backed mirror. Finally from his wallet he extracted a single, crisp pound-note.

      ‘I can’t stand the ostentation of people who use fifties,’ he told her. Helen watched, bewildered.

      Frowning with concentration now, Oliver shook a tiny drift of white powder from the tube on to the mirror. Then he held it out to her.

      ‘Snort?’ he asked, casually.

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘Cocaine,’ he answered, enunciating the word very carefully. ‘What did you think?’

      ‘No,’ Helen cried out before she could bite back the word behind her teeth. Suddenly, and with startling vividness, she remembered Frances Page being driven away in an unmarked car by a young and pretty policewoman and a creased middle-aged man who bore no resemblance to the drug-squad officers of television serials.

      Oliver shook his head. ‘It’s harmless, you know, unless you’re very stupid. And it is instant sunshine.’ He offered the mirror again, as if it were chocolates.

      ‘No. Thank you.’

      Oliver shook his head again, as if to say please yourself, then rolled the crackling note up into a narrow tube. With a sharp sniff at each nostril the white powder vanished from the mirror.

      This time the tempo of their love-making was languid and dreamy. To Helen each movement seemed slower, as if replayed before her eyes by an unseen camera, but yet more piercingly sweet than she could have believed possible. The world beyond the little circle of firelight, beyond this coupling of tanned skin with her own pale translucent flesh, meant nothing.

      This was Helen’s first experience of living for the moment, of being absorbed in the sensations of the instant, and she was transfixed by it. At last Oliver drifted into sleep with his head heavy against her breast. For a while Helen stared over the crest of blond hair into the greyness of the dead fire. Then she, too, closed her eyes, as if surrendering herself once again, and then slept with him.

      It was very late when the black Jaguar slid alongside the steps leading down to Follies House.

      Oliver switched off the engine and glanced sideways at Helen. Her chin was sunk against the collar of his coat which he had wrapped around her, and she seemed to be lost within her own thoughts.

      ‘Follies,’ he said, to nudge her back into awareness. ‘I told you I’d deliver you back, safe and sound.’

      Helen stared at him, her face drained of colour by the orange street lights. Something in her expression made Oliver uneasy.

      ‘You’re not sorry are you? About today?’ He had meant it lightly, half referring to her missed day’s work, but Helen interpreted it differently.

      ‘No, not sorry. Stunned, perhaps. And bewildered. But happy too.’ She smiled at him, and her small, cold hand reached out for his as it rested on the gearstick. ‘Are you sorry?’

      Her question disconcerted Oliver but he kept the lightness in his voice as he answered. ‘No, why should I be? One only feels sorry if things turn out badly. And this evening wasn’t bad. Not bad at all.’

      There was a small silence before Helen spoke again.

      ‘Will you come back again? Soon?’

      ‘Of course. I’m always in and out of Follies. Rose likes to see me about the place.’

      Helen nodded, accepting that.

      Oliver leaned back to gather up her books from where they lay scattered behind the seats. He glanced at them before handing them over.

      ‘God, serious stuff.’ His voice was teasing. ‘Do you work all the time?’

      ‘No,’ said Helen in a small voice. ‘I didn’t work today, did I?’

      Once again, a little silence hung between them before she took the books from his hands. ‘It’s late,’ she said, as if reminding herself rather than Oliver.

      ‘Mmm. And Hart has decreed that tomorrow work starts on the play in earnest. Something tells me that he’s likely to be a slavedriver.’

      Cheerfully Oliver climbed out of the car and opened Helen’s door. He helped her out and they faced each other in the livid light. As he looked down at Helen’s pale, heart-shaped face framed by black curls, Oliver saw that there was something unfamiliar in the huge eyes that met his. It was something that he didn’t want to confront too closely. Instead he kissed her lightly on the cheek and swung her round to face the steps.

      ‘Safe home,’ he told her.

      ‘Goodnight.’ Her fingers touched the cuff of his jacket for a second before she walked away.

      Oliver leaned on the parapet to watch her go and noticed again how slight she looked. He remembered how light she had felt in his arms, like a small bird, and how the strength of her passion had seemed at odds with that fragile body.

      He frowned and turned abruptly back to his car.

      Before he drove away he glanced up at the square dark shape of Follies House. Lights showed at three long windows on the first floor, and Oliver knew that they were the windows of Pansy Warren’s room. The frown disappeared and Oliver was whistling as he eased the Jaguar away towards Christ Church.

      Slowly Helen climbed through the dark house to her room. She had wanted, as she said goodnight, to seize hold of Oliver and never let him go. Even as she heard his car purr away she felt cold with the loss of him. But she squared her shoulders and, inside her head, tried to laugh away her feelings. Anyway, she reminded herself, he’ll be back soon. He told you so himself. Perhaps tomorrow. Or if not tomorrow, the next day.

       Three

      Stephen Spurring folded The Times into three, vertically, as he always did, and propped it against the coffee pot. The dining room was quiet, with thin autumn sunshine reflecting on the amusing pieces of high Victorian furniture collected by Beatrice and himself years ago, but from the kitchen came the confused babble of bickering children’s voices. Beatrice herself could be heard from time to time, refereeing in the state of constant war that seemed to exist among their children.

      Stephen stirred his coffee very slowly. This moment of privacy, ‘Daddy must have some peace over breakfast, darling, because he needs to think,’ was a legacy from the early days of their marriage, and he still clung tenaciously to it. It was little enough, Stephen thought. In a very few minutes Beatrice and the children would get into one car to do the round of bus stops and school gates, and he would take the other into Oxford. The day would officially have