What Men Say by Joan Smith Page B

retreated into this . . . this
parody
of the nuclear family. She didn’t even—it was
Sam
who told me about her blood pressure being too high.” She looked up, stung by the recollection of this recent injury which she’d hardly had time to think about, and tossed the elastic band onto the table. “It’s as if, all these years, it was all second-best and she really wanted a husband—just like my
sister.
I thought we were different, I thought our generation—” She stopped, horrified by the way in which her feelings had betrayed her into these rash, painful confidences.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Janet said after a moment’s silence. She shifted on the sofa, sitting up straight and crossing one leg over the other. “Have you—you haven’t talked to her about it?”
    â€œTalked to her?” Loretta exclaimed. She felt like two people, one of them struggling unsuccessfully to get the other under control. “That’s the problem,” she said more quietly. “We don’t have conversations like that anymore.”
    â€œYou don’t think—” Janet began cautiously. “Her loyalties must be divided. Perhaps she’s afraid to raise it?”
    Loretta made an impatient gesture. “I’m sorry, Janet, I’m making a complete fool of myself. Can I get you another drink?”
    â€œNo, I’m fine.” Janet gestured to the half-full glass of kir on the table. “Aren’t you being a little harsh? She’s been trying so hard to toe the line this last couple of years, going to Donald’s little dinners for industrialists and his mates from right-wing think tanks.” Janet made a face to show where her sympathy lay. “Then therewas that silly row and Donald, without even asking for her side of the story, accused her of bringing the college into disrepute. She’s thirty-six, thirty-seven, and what’s she got to look forward to as far as Oxford’s concerned? All right, I know she isn’t unemployed and sleeping in a cardboard box—I think you have to be an Oxford person yourself to know what it means. Why, anywhere else would be”—she sat back, distancing herself from Loretta’s unvoiced disapproval—“second-best. I can’t really see her upping sticks and going to work in Reading. That’s if there
are
any jobs in Reading.”
    Loretta shook her head. “Even if it’s true, I thought she’d got over it long ago. She said herself it was political—”
    â€œOf course it was, but that doesn’t help. Well, I could be wrong, you’ve known her a lot longer than I have. On the other hand, maybe she put a brave face on for you—”
    â€œFor me? Why would she do that?”
    â€œWell, your book for a start.”
    â€œMy—that was two years ago, and I haven’t even got a full-time job.” Loretta sometimes joked that she personally was an education cut—forced to go part-time when her college embarked on a money-saving exercise and pruned a quarter of its teaching staff. She had pointed out at the time that the axe was falling disproportionately on female lecturers in all departments, and had even persuaded her union to take up the issue, but the principal replied that it just happened, regrettably, to be the women who did not have tenure. They were, in other words, easier to sack.
    â€œAnd you review all over the place.”
    â€œI need the money.” This was partly true, although it hardly made up for the loss of a third of her salary; Loretta had had a succession of lodgers in the past year,the latest departing the previous week, and she would soon have to advertise for another.
    Janet leaned forward, picked up her glass and sipped from it. “That’s not what people think when they see your byline. To get back to Bridget, I think she was vulnerable and Sam happened to come along at the right