Summer Of The Raven

Antonia surveyed it sourly. ‘What have you got there?’

‘Nothing very exciting,’ Rowan said lightly. She ticked the items off on her fingers. ‘Mince, stewing steak, carrots, onions, potatoes, spring greens …’

‘God!’ Antonia shuddered. ‘You should get a job catering for some kind of works canteen. Well, have fun with your nice mince, sweetie, because I shan’t be here for dinner tonight, thank heaven. I’m going out.’

Rowan sighed. ‘You could have told me,’ she observed with resignation.

‘I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know myself until an hour ago,’ Antonia returned. ‘And I shall probably be late, so don’t bother to wait up for me,’ she added with evident satisfaction.

Rowan went into the tiny cramped kitchenette and began stowing the meat away in the ancient refrigerator, and piling the vegetables into the rack that stood beside the sink unit. She would make do with a poached egg later, she decided. She did the odd bits of washing up that had been left for her, then made herself a cup of instant coffee and carried it back into the living room. She set the cup down on the table and took her college file out of the bag, together with the reference books she had brought from the library that day.

‘More work?’ Antonia queried without interest. ‘You know what they say – all work and no play …’

‘Makes Jill a dull girl,’ Rowan concluded for her rather bleakly. She’d heard it all before. And she also knew that if she never lifted another finger as long as she lived, it would make her no less dull to Antonia.

‘You ought to get out more – enjoy yourself a little,’ Antonia declared. ‘You could look quite reasonable if you just took a little trouble with your appearance. As it is, no one would dream that you were nineteen.’

Rowan opened one of her books and studied the index with minute interest.

‘I’m not really concerned about appearing in other people’s dreams at any age,’ she remarked rather shortly. She was used to Antonia’s sniping by now, and didn’t let it disturb her particularly. Besides, she knew quite well that Antonia was quite satisfied that she appeared to be much younger than she actually was. It wouldn’t have suited her book at all to have a grown-up stepdaughter; she would have considered it ageing. When they had first moved to this particular flat, Rowan was quite aware that Antonia had informed some of the neighbours that she was her younger sister, and she had never bothered to correct this impression. If that was what Antonia wished people to think, then it was all right with her.

Antonia got up from the sofa and wandered across to look in the long mirror what was fixed to the wall.

‘I’m putting on weight,’ she complained, turning sideways to study herself. ‘It’s all this starchy food we eat. I shall have to go on a salad diet for a while.’

‘Do you realise what salads cost at this time of year?’ Rowan frowned as she tried to concentrate on her reading. It would be more sensible, she thought, to forget about trying to write an essay until Antonia had gone out, but on the other hand, Antonia was clearly in one of her difficult moods and Rowan wanted to avoid an overt row if possible. She shrank from scenes and raised voices, and always had done. Usually if she buried herself deeply enough in a book at times like this, Antonia contented herself with a few shrewish observations on her intellectual abilities and then relapsed into sulky silence.

‘That’s all you seem to think about – the cost of things!’

‘Well, someone has to,’ Rowan said temperately. ‘If we’re careful, we can manage, but …’

‘I’m sick of being careful – sick of managing!’ Antonia’s face was flushed with temper and her eyes were stormy. ‘Cooped up in this damned hole, day in, day out! At least you have that college of yours to go to.’

Rowan had to smile. ‘Well, you could always enrol for a course yourself if you wanted. And you do get out. You go anywhere you want, and you know it. You play bridge each week with Celia Maxwell and that gang and …’

‘I haven’t played with them for weeks.’ Antonia passed her hands over her hips, smoothing away the non-existent surplus.

‘I didn’t know that.’ Rowan gave her a surprised look. Bridge had always been one of Antonia’s passions.

Her stepmother’s lips tightened sullenly. ‘There’s a lot you don’t know. It’s all very well for Celia. When she loses at bridge, all she has to do is stretch her hand out to good old Tom and he’ll pay up without a murmur. She doesn’t realise it isn’t that simple for all of us.’

Rowan laid her pen down and regarded Antonia with startled eyes and parted lips.

‘Toni, do you owe Celia Maxwell money?’

‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact. Quite a hell of a lot, if you must know. I went on playing because I thought my luck was bound to change, only it didn’t. It just got worse.’ Antonia’s tone was bitter. ‘And if you don’t pay your debts in that circle, you’re soon persona non grata.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘And don’t look like that, for heaven’s sake. You must have known I played for money.’

‘I suppose so.’ Rowan pressed a hand to her head. ‘It just never occurred to me before. What are you going to do – ask Mr Tomlinson to advance you some of next quarter’s allowance?’

‘I asked him already,’ Antonia snapped, ‘and the answer was no. Instead I got a sermon on extravagance. My God, he’d never have dared when your father was alive!’

‘Maybe it would have been better for both of us if he had done,’ Rowan said soberly. ‘Will – will Mrs Maxwell insist on your paying?’

‘I don’t know what she’s planning. We’re not exactly on close terms at the moment.’ Antonia sounded petulant. ‘But I’ll find the money somehow. I’ll have to. Celia could make things damned uncomfortable for me if she wanted to.’

‘I wish you’d told me before,’ Rowan said unhappily.

Antonia’s brows rose. ‘Why? What good would it have done? What good has it done now?’ she asked. ‘Now I have you looking down your nose at me as well as old Tomlinson. Well, just don’t imagine I’ll stand a lecture from you. I’ll manage without any help from you.’

‘Is it this man?’ Rowan bit her lip as she met Antonia’s inimical stare. ‘The one you’re going out with tonight, I mean. Is he the one who advanced the money for the boutique?’

‘Yes, it is – if it’s any affair of yours.’ Antonia flounced back to the sofa and sat down, lighting another cigarette.

Rowan hesitated. ‘Do you think it’s wise – to put yourself so much in his power, I mean?’

‘My God!’ Antonia gave her a look full of derision. ‘You sound like the heroine of some Victorian novelette! Miss Puritan herself. This is the 1980s, sweetie, and the permissive society has been here for quite some time, although I can see it may have escaped your notice,’ she added with a curl of her lip. ‘You should give up writing essays and start on moral tracts. Everything in this world has to be paid for, my dear, even marriage with your estimable father.’

‘That’s a vulgar, hateful thing to say!’ Rowan said passionately.

Antonia was not offended, she appeared instead almost amused. ‘But the truth, sweetie, often is vulgar and hateful, as you’ll probably find out before you’re much older. I was younger than you when I realised what life was all about.’

‘I hope I never do, if that’s the case.’

‘That’s rather a forlorn hope.’ Antonia’s voice was bored. ‘You not only look like a child, Rowan, you are a child. But even you will have to grow up some time. And now I’d better do something about my nails. I wish to God I could afford a decent manicure.’ She got up, flicking ash casually on to the carpet, and wandered off towards her bedroom.

Rowan sat staring down at the table feeling utterly wretched. She supposed that ultimately it was none of her business what Antonia did. Her stepmother had her own life to lead, and her own values to lead it by, and she had not the least right to interfere. But at the same time, she felt that if she had kept silent she would in some strange way be letting her father down.

By the time she was ready to go out Antonia had recovered her good humour. She looked striking in swirling chiffon patterned in jade, peacock, lilac and gold, and she wore long gold ear-rings, and a collection of bracelets on one wrist.

‘Goodbye, sweetie.’ She tapped Rowan carelessly on the shoulder as she went towards the door. ‘Don’t read too much or you’ll get wrinkles and damage your eyesight. See you later.’

Rowan watched her go, and then on an impulse got up and went over to the window. The April sky was fading into twilight, but she could see quite clearly that there was a car parked just outside the front door of the flats. It was long and low and sleek, in some dark colour, but she could not catch a glimpse of the driver. No doubt he would be dark and sleek too, she thought with a grimace of distaste. She moved back as Antonia came into sight, and returned to the table and her studies. Pride forbade that her stepmother should glance up at the window and catch her peering out at them like a gossipy neighbour. But at the same time her ears were pricked for the sound of the car drawing away, even though common sense told her that those kind of engines rarely made any sound.

She found herself wondering where they would go. Out to dinner, of course, as Antonia had said – to some restaurant where the lights were low and the prices correspondingly high. And where did people go after that? Perhaps to some fashionable night-spot like Annabel’s, or even to one of the gaming clubs where Victor Winslow used to take his wife. Antonia had a passion for all games of chance.

Rowan stifled a sigh and pushed her books to one side. She could not concentrate tonight. She got up and walked across the room and stood studying herself in the mirror, much as Antonia had done, but without the same satisfaction. Antonia was right, she thought soberly; she did look like a child. In sudden dissatisfaction, she lifted the long straight fall of hair and piled it on top of her head experimentally. Other girls wore this style and managed to look graceful and careless; she looked merely untidy. She pulled a face at herself and let her hair fall back around her shoulders again.

She was too thin. Her top half was all collarbones and shoulder blades, and her breasts were too small. Her lower half looked good in the denim jeans she usually wore, because her hips were slim and she had long legs. Taken all in all, she thought, she looked totally colourless.

She remembered with painful vividness a remark she had overheard Antonia making to one of her cronies in the early days of her marriage. ‘Oh, the child is no bother. Darling, she’s so quiet, she’s practically non-existent.’

That’s me, Rowan told herself ironically, Miss Nonentity, and she made herself a small mocking bow.

She cooked herself the promised poached egg and ate it without appetite while she watched an old film on television. Then she switched off the single bar of the electric fire that she had been using, emptied the ashtrays, switched off the lights and went to bed with a glass of hot milk.

Their flat occupied the top floor of a large Edwardian house, and had been attics and servants’ rooms. As well as the living room, and the kitchenette which had been divided off from it, there was a large bedroom, occupied by Antonia, and a smaller room which had been divided into a minute bathroom and a boxroom. It was this latter that Rowan slept in. She had barely room to move round, but at least she had privacy. She would have hated having to share a room with Antonia.

She undressed and got into bed, then felt under the pillow, extracting a notebook and a ballpoint pen. This was her own time, and Antonia was not the only one to have a secret. Rowan wrote short stories. She had begun at school, encouraged by her English teacher, and she tried to write a little bit each evening before she went to sleep. She had always kept it from Antonia because she knew she would laugh at her. Of course, she was used to Antonia laughing at her really, but she didn’t think she could bear to have scorn poured on this. She had no idea whether what she wrote was any good. In fact, she rather doubted it. One day she would acquire a secondhand typewriter and send some of her work out to magazines, but not yet. If there was going to be a sad awakening for her, she did not want it to be quite so soon.