Living With Marc

Approaching the roundabout, traffic slowed to a snail’s pace, and she nearly bumped the red car in front. She braked just in time and stared stonily ahead.

Earlier this summer there had been a festival of sound and light in the old airfield—a three-day rave with enough noise and excitement to annoy some of the more conventional locals. And when New Age gatecrashers had turned up, and the police had had to deal with the hassle, there had been enough action to fill several pages in the local weekly.

Robin had gone along that day with friends, for the music. They’d paid for their tickets, danced and enjoyed themselves, and Robin, who was gorgeous to look at and a graceful dancer, had caught the eye of a press photographer. Although she and her group had been well away from the skirmishing her picture was taken and she hadn’t realised that.

There had been no names given in the caption on the front page but there had been Robin Johnson, hair flying, making—in one of Aunt Helen’s favourite phrases—‘a right spectacle’ of herself.

Everyone seemed to have seen it. Marc Hammond obviously had, and probably believed that Robin had been stoned out of her mind, although she had never touched drugs in her life.

She went very slowly round the roundabout. She wasn’t driving well but she was taking special care, and she had enough spirit to enquire tartly, ‘Do you keep my press cuttings?’

There was only that photograph but it sounded blasé, and he said, ‘If I’d known Maybelle was going to take this unaccountable fancy to you I might have done. Or at least followed your progress. It wouldn’t have been difficult. You must stand out wherever you go.’

So do you, she could have told him. I’ve seen you when you haven’t seen me, and got out of the way before you looked round because you always make me want to run.

They were in the high street now and she asked, ‘Shall I drop you at the office?’

She wondered who would remember the few days she’d worked there when she drew into the car park to put Marc Hammond down, but he said, ‘Go onto the motorway.’

‘How far are we going?’

‘I’m not abducting you.’

It was nerves that made her gulp, ‘No danger of that while I’m at the wheel.’

He said drily, ‘No danger any time.’

He made her feel stupid. She couldn’t rid herself of the stress that was turning into creeping paralysis, so that, by now, she was driving like a nerve-racked learner. All through town cars were jostling for position, slowing down as passengers jumped out, then gaining speed again, all in fits and starts, and her hands and feet were clumsy. She could feel sweat on her forehead, and the palms of her hands were slippery, as he sat beside her, saying nothing, not even in body language, when she screeched a gear change.

She had driven through this town and manoeuvred slickly with the rest of them. She had never had an accident. But this morning she was waiting for a crash to happen, and yet she was supposed to be a natural driver.

Uncle Edward had taught her. Not in this town, where they might have been recognised, but waiting for Aunt Helen to be out of the way then driving to other towns, like conspirators, with Robin tucking her hair under a headscarf, giggling while she did it.

Uncle Edward had got her through the test and since then she had driven him sometimes when he was alone, and had driven friends’ cars. She loved driving. Well, she had done until this morning, but this trip was drawn-out torture.

Somehow she managed to get through town and onto the motorway without scraping Mrs Myson’s car. She was going by the book, trying to pretend it was her driving test again, although with Marc Hammond in the seat beside her it felt more like that old Arabian tale—the executioner with you while you carried a brimming chalice through the streets. One drop spilt and you were dead. One wrong move and the chop.

She stayed in the slow lane for just over a mile and she thought, At this rate this could go on for hours. She enjoyed speed and she was safe at the wheel. She pulled out when she could, and she put her foot down, and the engine purred as she took them up to the legal limit.

But she was still jumpy, and when a box shifted on the seat behind she half turned her head. The car swerved slightly and a driver alongside gave a furious honk on the horn.

Marc put a quick, steadying hand over hers on the wheel and said, ‘Let’s live,’ and she jerked as if she had been burned. Then she snatched her hand from his and the words shot out.

‘Oh, God, you make me so nervous.’

‘I wonder why?’ he said, but it was because he crowded her, knocking her off an even keel, and that was something else that was not fair. ‘Turn at the next exit and go back,’ he said, and she was so sure she’d failed the test and had nothing more to lose that there was an immediate improvement in her driving.

It was not up to her usual standard but she was giving an adequate performance and he said nothing. Neither did she, until she was driving into the garage. Then she said, ‘Do I get a little list telling me why I’ve failed?’ as if she didn’t care, although, of course, she did.

‘No,’ he said, ‘but don’t put in for your advanced test.’ That was nearly a joke. ‘I suppose you’re better than she is. Not that that’s saying much.’

He wasn’t sending her packing yet, although he was rating her pass a very near thing. She got out of the car as he climbed into the Mercedes and drove smoothly away up the drive, stopping to check the road. She stepped outside before the garage doors closed and she watched him now, and thought how she would love to hear a good loud thump and crunch when he did turn out of the drive. It didn’t happen, of course, and, shut out of the garage, she went through the side-gate to the back of the house.

It was a big garden—a wilderness tamed and tended, the turf cropped to velvet softness, flowers in irregular beds, trees growing in a copse. She would almsot have worked here for nothing to have had the freedom of this garden, with the old red-brick wall around it and the seat under the horse-chestnut tree.

The back door led into the kitchen, where Elsie was sitting at the table with a man about her own age and a younger woman. The man had a mug of tea, the women had willow-pattern cups in front of them, and Elsie said, ‘This is Robin. She’s going to drive Miss Maybelle around. Morag and Tom.’

Tom looked like a gardener and Robin said, ‘That is a beautiful garden.’

‘Aye,’ said Tom.

‘She’s in the breakfast room,’ said Elsie. ‘She said to tell you as soon as you got back. Been with Marc, have you?’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. If it had been less of an ordeal she would have said he had been checking her out as a driver, but she had made such a mess of that that she didn’t want to talk about it.

‘First door down,’ Elsie said, and as she went out of the kitchen Robin saw them all lean forward, putting their heads together, and she was sure they would all start talking about her.

Mrs Myson was sitting at a table near a window overlooking the garden. She had two opened letters and she looked up, smiling, as Robin walked in. ‘Tea or coffee?’ she said.

‘What have you got?’

‘Tea.’

‘That would be nice.’ The cups and pot were here. There was muesli, toast, marmalade, and that was fine. Anything would have been good with the garden out there and Mrs Myson sitting opposite instead of Aunt Helen.

As she sipped tea Robin said, ‘I’ve just had a driving test. He wanted to be sure I was safe.’

‘I’m sure you passed with flying colours.’

‘I only just passed. I really am quite a good driver but I didn’t do so well this morning. I was nervous.’

Mrs Myson seemed to understand that. ‘Marc can be overpowering and he is a very good driver himself. He’s a rally driver.’ It wouldn’t have surprised Robin if he’d been a racing driver. ‘He pilots a plane too,’ said Mrs Myson.

Robin said gaily, ‘He must take some keeping up with. How do his girlfriends manage?’ She wasn’t really interested, just joking.

Mrs Myson’s eyes danced. ‘Often they don’t, but they try, my dear, they try.’ Her laughter was infectious and Robin laughed with her.

After breakfast, with Mrs Myson in the passenger seat, Robin was an excellent driver. She judged her speeds, foresaw other drivers’ antics, gears slipped in smoothly and she even found parking spaces.

The first stop was the cat rescue centre, home of the woman who ran the accounts, to deliver a box of tinned cat food. Mrs Myson stayed in the car while Robin knocked on the front door and handed in the box to a plump woman with a pussy-cat smile.

‘This will be very welcome,’ said the woman, and waved to Mrs Myson, sitting in the car at the kerbside. ‘Thanks ever so much,’ she called, and said to Robin, ‘She’s a wonderful woman.’

‘I think so,’ said Robin.

After that she drove Mrs Myson around the country lanes until lunchtime, when they stopped at a thatch-roofed pub called the Cottage of Content. Neither had been there before but the name was inviting, and inside there were dark beams and white ceilings and walls, and they had a very good vegetable soup and fluffy omelettes.

When they’d finished their coffee Robin asked, ‘Do you want to go home now?’