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‘Of course that’s what I’ve always told him,’ Daphne gushed.
‘But Clifford believes that he owes it to his pupils to stay where he is, even though from my and Edward’s point of view it would be far better if he applied for his own headmastership.’
Watching from the sidelines, Sally could imagine all too well what Joel would have had to say about her sister’s behaviour.
She had known immediately from the look he gave her that the only reason Kenneth was here in Daphne’s house was because of her, and yet even while a part of her thrilled with pride that he should want her so much, another part retreated from the knowledge that he was deliberately using her family… deliberately and quite callously encouraging Daphne to make a complete fool of herself as he played on her susceptibilities. His charm, his friendliness, his quiet and yet somehow too knowing questions which led to her sister’s arrogantly, blithely revealing the poverty and ugliness of her personality, the arrogance, the vanity, the lack of awareness or concern for the feelings of others… this reduction of her sister to all her most base parts was, Sally discovered, somehow hurtful to her.
It was almost, she recognised uncomfortably, as though Kenneth was enjoying not just manipulating her sister and husband, but humiliating them as well. Hastily she dismissed her thoughts; she was letting her imagination run away with her. Kenneth wasn’t like that, he was kind, thoughtful, caring; it was just an unfortunate coincidence that his questions should bring out the worst in Daphne.
Not, of course, that her sister was at all aware of what she was revealing. On the contrary, Daphne was revelling in Kenneth’s attention, patently semi-awestruck by the fact that he as an academic and a university lecturer should seek out her husband to express to him his admiration of him.
That he should actually know her sister as well was something she dismissed as a mere coincidence.
‘Oh, Sally has just come round to help us out getting our dining-room ready for redecoration,’ she had said hastily when Kenneth had commented not just on Sally’s presence but on her appearance as well.
As she glanced down at her feet Sally saw that a couple of stray pieces of once damp wallpaper had now dried on to her shoes. No wonder Kenneth had grimaced a little in distaste when he had first seen her; she probably did look a sight wearing her old jeans and an even older shirt of Joel’s, her hair caught back in a ponytail and her face free of make-up.
‘We wanted a change of style in our dining-room,’ Daphne confided, ‘and our regular decorator could only manage to fit us in if he only had the repapering to do.’
‘Ah… of course,’ was Kenneth’s response. ‘Of course, I should have guessed; naturally you wouldn’t expect your sister to do your redecorating—not when she already has so much to do.’
‘No, of course not,’ Daphne agreed, shooting Sally a fiercely warning look that dared her to contradict what she was saying.
Kenneth and Clifford were discussing a paper Kenneth had apparently recently submitted on economics and Sally’s thoughts wandered, the wallpaper on her shoe catching her eye a second time. Her fingers itched to bend down and remove it but Daphne would be furious with her if she did and it marked the pristine newness of her sitting-room carpet.
There was an itch beneath her left shoulder-blade—another errant piece of paper, she suspected.
Somehow she was always the one who managed to get herself covered with either wallpaper or paint when they were decorating, she acknowledged ruefully, while Joel never did.
She could remember the first decorating job they had ever tackled together after they were first married, stripping the hideous brown-painted wallpaper off the room which was to be their bedroom.
It had been summer, the small room hot and airless, shreds of damp paper sticking themselves persistently to her clothes and face, her body hot and uncomfortable beneath the protective layers of clothes she was wearing.
‘Take them off
,’ Joel had suggested when she had complained for the umpteenth time about her discomfort.
‘I can’t!’ she had protested, half laughing, half shocked, but in the end she had and Joel had too, and somehow she hadn’t noticed any discomfort at all later when they had made love on the floor among the tangle of discarded paper and clothes.
She dipped her head towards the floor, not to examine the paper clinging to her shoe this time but to conceal the hot colour burning her face.
What on earth had made her think of something like that… and so vividly as well that for a moment she had almost been able to smell the hot, aroused scent of Joel’s body, his skin tanned, gleaming like oiled silk, his hands sliding over her body as he marvelled at its softness? Oh, Joel… A feeling of such intense yearning and loss filled her that it actually brought tears to her eyes, burning the dry sockets, making her blink rapidly to disperse them.
‘Oh, but that’s a wonderful idea, we’d love to, wouldn’t we, Sally…?’
Abruptly she lifted her head and stared at her sister. She had been so absorbed in her own thoughts that she had completely lost track of the conversation going on around her.
‘Er—I——’
‘Your sister has just been telling me about her garden and I’ve just invited you all to come round and see mine…’
‘Oh, I don’t think…’ Sally protested, but Daphne was already overruling her, telling her firmly,
‘Of course you can go…’
‘Good; so that’s settled, then.’ Kenneth smiled as he stood up. ‘Shall we say some time next week… Thursday afternoon…?’
Next week, when she was on earlies and would be at home during the afternoon. Sally gave him a brief look and then looked quickly away again, afraid that she might betray what she was thinking.
