Passing On by Penelope Lively Page A

said the woman.
    The room thinned out. Giles returned to her side. He seemed cheerful and stimulated. ‘Oh dear — I kept getting caught by people. Have you had enough to drink? Are you all right? And there hasn’t been a chance to talk … You will come back for a cup of coffee, won’t you? Or the tea — the famous Earl Grey.’
    He took her arm, shepherded her out of the building, into the street. ‘You’ve got your car? Bother — so have I. We shall have to go in a convoy — it’s only five minutes away. Sunderland Road.’
    The house was unexceptional, one of those in Spaxton’s prosperous Edwardian suburb. Within, there was an atmosphere of chintzy comfort. Helen, thinking of the wife, sat almost apologetically on a plump sofa. On the mantelpiece was a photo of a pleasant-looking woman, fair hair, not beautiful, not glamorous, quite ordinary really.
    Giles went to the kitchen to make coffee, refusing offers of help — ‘I should get in a fuss and make a fool of myself if watched.’ Helen inspected the room. Other people’s houses always intrigued her by the contrast they offered to Greystones; she would see suddenly — with detached interest and quite without envy or criticism — the extent to which other people’s preoccupations differed from her own. Here, someone had gone to considerable lengths to get the cushions toning in nicely with the curtains. There was a fireplace with realistically, glowing coals and the cosy flicker of flames around them that was, she soon realised, a gas fire, no bother with cleaning it out, then. The pictures were unprovocative landscapes or flower paintings that neatly fitted the spaces allotted to them. The books were all behind glass. A low table carried some tidily arranged journals and newspapers; letters on the desk top were pinned down by a silver paper knife. She felt again the presence of the wife, looking kindly and securely at her from the photograph; don’t resent me, said Helen, I am really neither here nor there, I very much doubt if I signify, you needn’t mind.
    Giles returned. There was a bottle of brandy on the tray as well as the coffee. ‘You will, won’t you? We need warming up — that hall is arctic, I perish every Monday evening.’ He poured out, sat back at the other end of the sofa, looked at her. ‘Thank you so much for coming, Helen. Did you enjoy it? I kept taking quick glances but you always looked inscrutable. It went quite well, I thought — a bit shaky at points in the Britten. Good fun, anyway — but oh dear, people do nobble one, don’t they? It was wonderful having you as a defence. Provincial life is very demanding, don’t you find? All these nice people wanting you to join things. But of course you’ve known Spaxton for so long.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Helen. ‘I’m generally regarded as a lost cause by now.’
    He laughed. ‘I wish I were! Anyway, you have your village to cope with — that must be quite enough. Except that you’re regarded as eccentric — is that right? You and your brother — I do want to meet your brother, by the way. I think I must cultivate eccentricity — would I make an eccentric?’ He beamed at her.
    Charmingly. Helen gazed at him. The room lurked at the edges of her vision — chintz, pictures of woodlana or roses, that paperknife. No, she thought. Something else brooded, indefinable, padding doggily around; she tried to ignore it.
    They drank the coffee, the brandy. Giles talked of Spaxton acquaintances, of a visit to the opera, of an entertaining incident in his office: bland impersonal discourse, given somehow an edge of intimacy. It seemed to Helen that the room became very warm and enclosed: she basked, as she later thought of it. And then suddenly it was midnight, a clock delicately chiming outside in the hall, and she was getting up, with him protesting — really quite fervently protesting. ‘No, I must,’ she said. ‘Edward will wonder where on earth . .
    ‘Then if you must, you