After Clare Read Free

all.’
    â€˜Big enough.’
    â€˜Archie Elphinstone’s going to be best man. He’ll give us a lift down there, and as for a morning suit . . .’ Calculation sharpened her features as she thought about ways one might be obtained for him at this last minute. She had not told him that she had already sent an acceptance for both of them.
    He chose not to answer, but lifted his eyebrows and squinted at the invitation again:
Diana Margaret (Dee) Markham, daughter of Mr & Mrs Gerald Markham . . . to Hamish Erskine, son of Sir Trumpington and Lady Erskine of Kinmoray, Scotland . . . St Phillip’s church, Netherley, Hertfordshire . . . June seventeenth . . .
    â€˜I wouldn’t have thought Gerald could afford such a do. The Markhams must be as hard up as all the rest of us nowadays.’
    â€˜Maybe, but he can’t let it be seen that he isn’t up to providing the necessary for his daughter’s wedding to old Trump’s son either, darling. Besides, Hugh will be doing most of the paying, I dare say. He’s very fond of his granddaughters.’ She laughed in the tinkling way she had adopted lately, then said, with stubborn intent, ‘I really
want
to go, Val.’
    Green was not a colour she should wear; her eyes, grey like his but paler and cool, had taken on a greenish cast from the dress. They narrowed like a cat’s as she watched him.
    â€˜One of life’s hard-earned lessons, my dear, is that we don’t always get what we want.’
    â€˜I don’t know about that. I generally manage it, don’t I?’
    It wasn’t always as true as she might like to think but, courageous and daring, she’d always had a knack of manoeuvring things her way. Yet how happy was she when she’d achieved her aim? Like all her friends, Poppy projected a relentless brightness and glitter – but happiness?
    He lit a cigarette and leaned his head back on the sofa, more comfortable than the lumpy one in his own seedy bedsit, to which he must presently repair. They each had their own place; there was no room for two in this tiny, one-bedroom flat, and their lifestyles were too dissimilar, anyway, for either of them to want to share. For the moment, however, Val was happy enough to loll back on her sofa, feet up, head back against the cushions.
    Through half-closed eyes he noticed that where the palest of grey walls met the ceiling of the same shade, Poppy, who was clever and artistic, had recently stencilled a geometric border in mauve and purple, with the same motif repeated around the grey-tiled fireplace, the colours echoed in the curtains. The paintwork was smart navy blue and there were touches of canary yellow here and there. She and a woman called Xanthe Tripp ran a little interior decorating shop in Knightsbridge, to Val pretentiously and incomprehensibly named
XP et Cie
(X for Xanthe, P for Poppy and Cie for Company) – ‘so French, so chic!’, said Mrs Tripp.
    They were not, however, making much money. Their clients were mostly friends, or friends of friends, and paying bills was not high on the list of their priorities, especially when they came as high as Mrs Tripp’s bills did. She was a divorcée in her forties with a racy lifestyle, and was consumed by the necessity to get enough money for its upkeep. Valentine had met Xanthe Tripp only once or twice and had no desire whatsoever to meet her again, and although Poppy seemed happy enough with the set-up for the time being, he gave it another six months at the most and was not unduly perturbed at the prospect of its demise. Poppy might be upset at the failure of yet another venture, but not unduly, he hoped. Where once it had all been ‘Xanthe this, Xanthe that’, now when her name was mentioned it was sometimes followed by a slight pause or a frown.
    Although at the moment he devoutly wished her way of life different, Val did not like the idea of Poppy being unhappy. They were alone