Corduroy Mansions Page 0,130
I know that seems an odd word to use here but it’s the word that came to me. Sometimes I think it’s best not to voice doubts about beliefs that mean a great deal to someone else.”
“Yes,” Barbara said. “I agree. I suppose that being kind to one another includes not saying things you think may be true but which threaten to upset other people unduly. People may need their beliefs. For all I know, in their essence, in the heart of what they say, those beliefs may be expressing something that is very true—something that people really need to help them through life.”
“Such as?”
“That we need to love one another. It might be that people need to believe that they are loved by some divine being because they get precious little love on this earth. Would you set out to shatter such a belief?”
Hugh was certain he would not. “It would be like …”
Barbara took over. “Like shooting a dove. Or, as Harper Lee told us, like killing a mockingbird.”
Hugh mulled this over in silence. There was a curious intimacy about the moment, an intimacy that had been promoted by the subject of their discussion. Talking about love, and God, and what people owed to one another had brought them to a point of close spiritual communion that he had never before shared with a lover; it was a stripping away of everything, because one could not conceal anything in such a conversation. It was a conversation about essentials—the sort of conversation that mourners sometimes have after a funeral when for a few moments the reality of death brings people together in mutual appreciation of the simple gift of life.
Hugh looked at his watch. “Dinner …”
“Of course.”
He touched her gently on the shoulder. “You go and sit down. I’ll bring things through from the kitchen.”
She saw that he had laid the table. There were two candles, yet to be lit, and another arrangement of flowers that she thought he must have bought from the florist’s round the corner. There was a small flower, a small blue flower, on her plate, and she touched it, bruising the petals. She wanted to cry—to cry for sheer happiness.
He brought through the first course—slices of duck on a bed of salad, served with a dark red sauce. He lit the candles and took his seat opposite her, from which position he poured them both a glass of wine. He raised his glass in her direction.
“To Father Christmas,” he said.
She smiled. “Even if it’s not Christmas.”
“I know. But he must have such a difficult time. People expect him to give, give, give.”
She tasted the duck. The sauce was slightly tart, which was how she liked it. Suddenly she said without thinking, “Don’t go away, Hugh.”
He gave a start. “Why do you say that? I never said anything about going away.”
Barbara took a sip of her wine to hide her embarrassment. She had spoken aloud, giving expression, as we sometimes do, to thoughts that she had not intended to reveal. “I know you didn’t. Sorry, I wasn’t really thinking.”
Hugh was staring at her. “About going away—of course I won’t. And there’s something that I need to say.”
She looked down at the table, at the small blue flower that she had put to the side of her plate.
“I’d like to marry you,” he said.
91. A Flower in the Air Between Two People
THE NEXT MORNING in Barbara Ragg’s office at the Ragg Porter Literary Agency, she said to her colleague Rupert Porter, “I have some news for you, Rupert.”
“Ah!” said Rupert. “Who’s done a big deal then? Six figures. Dare I say it—seven?”
“It’s nothing to do with advances,” said Barbara. “It’s to do with me.”
“Oh, to do with you, is it? Let me guess then. The author of your yeti book has turned up and he’s covered in hair, as I said all along he would be, and you don’t really know whether you can take him out to lunch or not?”
“Can’t you be serious for two seconds?”
“Oh, little Miss Gravitas! All right, sorry. Some personal news.”
She waited for a few moments before she told him. “I’m engaged.”
He had not expected this, and for a short time he seemed to lose his composure. “You?” he asked in disbelief. And then he realised that that sounded a bit rude, and he followed it with immediate congratulations. “Well, you and Oedipus! An MP’s wife!”
She shook her head. “Not to Oedipus. He and I haven’t got back together. It’s somebody