‘Yes, I have an objection, several of them as a matter of fact,’ said Julia, incensed by his literalism, enough to plunge to the heart of the problem. ‘What did you bring her down for?’
‘If by her you mean Ann,’ he said, knowing she did, ‘why shouldn’t I? She’s a close friend of mine … she’s often helped me with my work. Must I now have permission from the household staff before I can invite my friends to visit me?’
‘Hah!’ Julia flung back her head in disbelief. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Hugh. Or are you ashamed to have sunk to the level of seducing servants?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Julia,’ he said at his coldest, attempting to retrieve his mistake.
‘Yes isn’t it,’ she said sweetly. ‘Whatever you are you’re not a snob. So why the sudden coyness? You seduce me and then slink off like a thief in the night, and then come back with Miss Computer in tow. Is this another example of Mr G.B.H. Walton’s infamous morality?’
‘Let’s not debate who did what to whom …’ he began.
‘Who? Whom?’ Julia cut him off, swooping sarcastically. ‘There’s no need to be so careful with your grammar, I’m not the English scholar; I’m just a poor, ignorant cook. I’m not one of your cerebral types who can be fobbed off with fine words. I’m Julia. I’m me, and I don’t give up so easily.’ Her fierceness gave her stature, her determination an almost visible aura around her stiffly-held golden head.
‘There is nothing to give up,’ Hugh pointed out with clipped precision. ‘And you flatter yourself if you think that Ann’s presence has anything to do with you. The world doesn’t revolve around your rather unstable emotions, you know.’
Julia wavered. It sounded nonsensical said out loud. Instinct
came to her aid. She was not a vain person but she knew, deep in her bones, that Hugh was strongly attracted to her. He was bluffing, and with his face he was a master of bluff.
‘I thought you said you came down here to work on your own … to get away from the pressures of your office? If you were so keen on having Miss Farrow’s help, why didn’t you ask her to stay last time she was here?’
‘I didn’t need her then. Frankly, Julia, I don’t see why I should be answerable to you for my actions.’
‘Don’t you just?’ Julia glared at him, baffled. ‘All I want is a straight answer.’ She tried a final dig: if you’re afraid of me, confront it … tell me I scare you to death.’
‘More Freud?’ he asked softly. ‘All right, have it your way, Julia. I’m scared to death of you …’ and, without a pause ‘… I hope you can stretch dinner to two extra.’ Leaving Julia open-mouthed behind him he took the rest of the stairs two at a time.
Julia snapped her mouth shut. Very clever, Hugh Walton. She couldn’t quite grasp how he had eluded her. He had admitted his feat, but with such smooth insincerity that no one in their right mind would believe him. Unfortunately for him, Julia wasn’t in her right mind. She was in love.
Over the next few days her love had to put up with great adversity. Ann fitted herself very neatly into the family circle. She would fit herself neatly into any situation, Julia thought sourly, for all her intelligence she had no real personality of her own, it had been honed almost out of existence.
It was galling, though, to see what a perfect couple she and Hugh made—both tall and handsome, treating each other with the comfortable intimacy of long acquaintanceship. Julia couldn’t hope to compete with Ann on an intellectual level, that much was obvious from the long, obscure conversations that she and Hugh had indulged in over dinner, successfully excluding everyone else. Julia, back between the twins and now treated to a friendly camaraderie tinged, to her chagrin, with sympathy, felt like an ignorant clodhopper in comparison. It made her wonder whether Ann, with her sleek self-satisfaction, her slight air of hardness, might not be a better match for Hugh in the long run.
Yet, watching them, Julia could detect no sign of deep-running passion between them, no silent strands of communication. She knew for a fact herself that Hugh was no stranger to voluptuary—he had proved that more than once. Julia couldn’t imagine Ann ever abandoning herself to feeling. She seemed to be the opposite of sensuous, filtering everything through her brain. Hugh was different. For real fulfilment he would require more from a woman than mere compliance, or intellectual stimulation. He needed a different kind of woman, one who could help cross-pollinate that rigidly departmentalised personality of his. Someone like me, Julia thought.
One afternoon, as Julia rooted around in the weedy vegetable patch, searching for the tender remains of the brussels sprouts, she was caught off guard by the unexpected appearance of her arch rival, who rarely ventured out of the house unless in the passenger seat of the Maserati.
‘You enjoy gardening do you?’ she enquired in tones which equated it on a level with finger-painting.
Julia arched her aching back and managed a thin smile, conscious of her grubby denims and old navy sweater with holes in the elbows. Ann wore one of her wool suits, knife pleats and all. At least her condescension didn’t extend to Julia’s skill in the kitchen. Thumbing her nose at fate she had surpassed herself in the last three days, producing ever more delectable and complicated dishes. Last night she had stunned everyone’s taste buds with her Maigret de Canard—thin slices of very rare duck served with béarnaise and bordelaise sauce—supplemented by a big tureen of green vegetables layered with scallops and hollandaise sauce. While they were still in a state of shock she had followed it up with her killer: pineapple flamed with Tia Maria served with vanilla ice-cream sprinkled with fresh-cracked pepper. The repast had pierced even Ann’s blasé facade. Hugh hadn’t commented, but he had eaten every bite and Julia had been reassured by his evident appreciation of the whole sensual experience.
‘You finish here in a couple of days, don’t you? Going back with everyone else?’ Ann asked, with a casualness belied by the fact she had actually sought Julia out.
‘Yes.’ Julia stabbed savagely at a sprout.
‘I’ll be staying on, of course, with Hugh. Just for a few days, to help with his book. Hugh and I are friends from way back.’
‘So Connie said,’ Julia forced out through numb lips. She should have seen this coming.
‘Did she?’ Julia could practically hear the wheels clicking. Does she think that Connie’s accepted the inevitable, on the strength of a few days’ visit? Does she think she’s in there with a chance? So why slog out here to hold a conversation with one of the educationally sub-normal? Hugh wouldn’t go as far as marrying her, would he? Perhaps he would, not because he couldn’t bear not to, but because it would be a practical way to protect himself from any future threat to his equilibrium. A marriage of convenience.
‘It was very good of you to help Hugh with his typing.’ Now Ann was being kind. The knife twitched in Julia’s hand. ‘He told me how you shut his hand in the door.’ She shuddered delicately. ‘He must have been rather annoyed. It was typical of him to let you work out your apology.’
That puts me in my place. ‘Yes, wasn’t it. Actually he hit the roof when I did it. He yelled and cursed. I thought he was going to kill me.’ She opened her blue eyes to their most fearful wideness. The slight rigidity of the older woman’s expression told her she had struck a nerve. Ann had obviously never seen Hugh in one of his tempers. Only I can rouse him to that, thought Julia with satisfaction. ‘Then he practically twisted my arm to get me to do his typing. He’s so forceful and dominating; I love a man with a bit of fierceness in him.’ The last half of that statement was entirely truthful.
‘He has an extremely fine legal brain,’ Ann said firmly, dismissing this unlikely aspect of Hugh. She watched painfully as Julia clumped off the garden with her bucket and paused to scrape off the mud which clung to her extremely large gumboots. Jean Brabbage’s of course—her husband’s would be several sizes smaller!
‘You must realise that, to a man like Hugh, work is the central pivot to life.’ Did she lecture in this supercilious fashion? Julia wondered. ‘He needs the constant stimulation it provides for him, and he will always put it before everything else. That’s why he needs tranquillity to come home to, not a constant barrage of distractions. Naturally, in his position he also has to maintain a certain standard of responsibility, particularly if he’s planning a political career.’