said quietly, realizing I meant it. His eyes came up immediately to meet mine: we communed silently a moment.
He grinned. ‘Yeah, you too, Poppy.’
I turned and walked away. My heart was pounding a bit, but I wasn’t too out of sorts. Although I wouldn’t mind finding someone to talk to pretty quickly. Jennie seemed to have disappeared, but – oh good, Peggy was standing by the fireplace in her black sequins. She was ostensibly talking to Sylvia, but actually watching this little scene unfold.
‘Sylvia was just telling me,’ she told me softly as I approached, ‘that the piano teacher is perhaps not all he appears.’
‘He said he’d teach my granddaughter, Araminta,’ Sylvia said heatedly. ‘It was my birthday present to her, and of course I didn’t think to pin him down on a price. Well, my dear, I’ve just received a bill for a hundred and fifty pounds for three lessons! Can you believe it!’
‘Yes, I can, actually,’ I murmured.
‘But fifty pounds a lesson! Who does he think he is, Elton John?’
‘Different sexual inclination,’ observed Peggy as Jennie approached, flustered. ‘And nowhere near as talented.’
‘Sorry, Poppy. Got that wrong,’ Jennie muttered.
‘Not to worry,’ I soothed. ‘Just a bit too much grey for my liking.’
‘Grey?’ Sylvia peered over her spectacles. ‘No, he doesn’t look grey. But he’s clearly a bit of a spiv. You stay away from that one, Poppy. We don’t want you getting it disastrously wrong again, do we?’
I was left rather speechless at this. Was I so much public property? My affairs, my life, discussed so minutely, even at the Old Rectory? Over breakfast and the Frank Cooper’s? Suddenly London and all its anonymity appealed. Clapham, perhaps, where I’d spent many happy years. And surely the schools weren’t all a hotbed of underage sex with crack cocaine on every street corner? As I sank into my champagne I found Dad at my elbow.
‘All right, love? Children settled?’
‘Yes, thanks, Dad.’
‘Glad you came, then?’ He puffed out his chest, pleased with himself. ‘And wasn’t our host big about it? Nice man, just had a long chat,’ he turned to nod in Sam’s direction.
The hall was thinning out now as people filed into dinner and I saw him over by a tall window framed by ancient tapestry drapes, talking to Hope. In much the same way as Luke had been talking to Saintly Sue. Intently; leaning over her, but not flirtatiously, protectively. She was looking through her lashes at the floor, beautiful in a long white Grecian dress. She was blushing a bit. He pressed his case gently. The body language of men in love. Which I’d now seen in stereo.
The wave of jealousy that surged through me rocked me. All at once I knew why I’d been so desperate to come here, what clambering into a filthy lorry with wet hair and odd-coloured pop socks under my old dress had been about. Seeing Luke with Sue had made me feel irritated. Seeing Sam with Hope made me feel desolate. And very, very alone. I’d kept Sam Hetherington at bay in my mind; kept him in a little box which I opened only occasionally, when I knew I was in a strong frame of mind. I’d protected myself from falling in love with him. Now he was bursting out like a jack-in-a-box, making himself even more lovable as he exposed his vulnerability, laid bare his soul across the room. Hope looked away as he spoke. I saw her swallow, her white neck lovely. Over by the door into the dining room, I saw Chad, watching the scene. His eyes were haunted, terrible. My breath seemed laboured, but I turned to my father.
‘Really glad, Dad.’
‘What, love?’
He’d forgotten his original question, so long had I been in answering.
‘I’m really glad I came. It’s about time I got a few things sorted out in my head.’
And with that, leaving my father looking slightly bemused, I took his arm, and swept him into the dining room for dinner.
A sea of round tables covered in white cloths and flower arrangements and surrounded by little gilt chairs had been squeezed into the room, which, although large, was not built for feeding two hundred. A seating plan was pinned to a board at the door. With the noise level rising dramatically, I scanned it and found my place. Naturally I was Mary Granger for the night, and naturally I had a deaf octogenarian on one side, and Odd Bob on the other. He looked pleased as punch with