Closed at Dusk by Monica Dickens

her coffee mug, and took off her nightdress.
    â€˜Rex?’ He wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the house. She looked out of the front bedroom window and saw him sitting in a car with a woman in it, shamelessly parked at the end of the short drive.
    Rex got out of the car and came up the drive, smirking. As he opened the door and came into the hall, an enraged woman, a virago stark naked on the stairs, threw hot coffee all over him, mug and all.
    The relief had been wonderful, for a very short time. As soon as she had stopped screaming, Marigold was horrified at herself. Rex never talked about it, and nor did she. There was already no point.
    Now, as the door of Tessa’s car opened, Jo turned and walked away. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tessa and a nondescript man with a soft beard cross the pavement, open the glossy gate and go up the short steps into the house. In a minute or two, a fat young baby-sitter with unbrushed hair came out and walked down the road towards the station.
    On a Friday in mid July, William came back from Somerset and told Dottie that the equestrian centre deal was going through. Ralph Stern’s enigmatic friends were putting up a substantial amount of money, with Ralph himself somehow involved.
    Yesterday when he had to ring Ralph at home early in the morning before the final meeting, Angela had answered the telephone.
    â€˜He’s in Newcastle.’ She had given him the number of the hotel, and then said, ‘Will, don’t hang up. Let’s talk.’
    â€˜I’ve wanted to. I couldn’t reach you. Angela, I – I don’t know what to say.’
    â€˜You don’t need to. One of the worst agonies is watching people struggling to say the right thing about Peter.’ She still had a little laugh in her voice, but no joy in it, only strain.
    William said, ‘How are you?’
    â€˜Terrible.’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    â€˜I know.’
    They waited. It was Angela who said, ‘Can we meet again? I think I need to talk to you.’
    â€˜I’d like that. Shall I–?’
    â€˜Wait,’ she said. ‘I’ll see.’
    They could have met quite openly to talk as friends, but she had ended on a paused, secret note that filled him with a flushed emotion he could not identify at first, but which he later recognized as fear. Telling Dottie about the Somerset negotiations, he was gentle and loving with her, to exorcize his unease.
    â€˜Will you mind if I play in the Shiplock match tomorrow?’ He sometimes played cricket for the village team. ‘They want Matthew to play too.’
    â€˜That should terrify Shiplock. Why should I mind?’
    â€˜It’s going to be a busy weekend, with all the family. You’ll have a lot to do.’
    â€˜Tessa will help. Don’t worry, Will. What’s the matter?’
    â€˜Nothing. All’s well. I’m a lucky man.’
    Â 
    It was a good weekend for everyone. Keith, who dreamed of older women and had no girl-friend of his own age, was glad to find Tessa’s new man unthreatening, quiet, good-tempered, and interested in Tessa in an admiring way that was neither doggy nor too lecherous. The last one she brought here had been obtrusively physical, and had not even bothered to go back to his own room before morning, as Keith discovered when he woke feeling kindly and took Tessa a pot of tea in bed.
    The big gift of the weekend was that Matthew, poor, dull, old, dispossessed Uncle Matthew, brought a new friend with him. Lee Foster, a visiting lecturer at his university, was a funny, gutsy American from Boston, who seemed to be as fond of him as he obviously was of her. She was tall and stylish in an unaffected fashion, with a round curly head like a cherub that she turned quickly to take in everything that was going on, adding to it with civilized New England appreciation.
    Keith had been fiddling about with some new music, and playing some of his
Three