was hiding it beautifully. ‘It certainly does. In fact it looks wonderful,’ she said, turning it over in her hands as he passed it to her. ‘And what did you all make of it?’ She glanced around, smiling.
‘Oh, it’s tremendous!’ boomed Angus. ‘Absolutely first class.’
‘Really? That’s great.’ She smiled at Angus, perhaps waiting to be further illuminated. If she was, she was disappointed. He beamed back. ‘What about you, Pete?’ She turned kindly to her neighbour, having remembered his name. The blood surged up Pete’s neck and into his cheeks.
‘Oh, um … I thought it was very good too.’
‘Good, good.’
This didn’t give us a great deal to build on. And although Hope could have asked someone else, it would have thrust her into a dominant role, so she sensibly refrained. Instead she smiled encouragingly at Pete, hoping for more. Pete eyed the door as if he might make a run for it.
In the deafening silence that followed, Angie shot me a pleading glance. ‘Poppy, what about you?’
Sadly I hadn’t read it. I’d had too much on my plate this week. Although, actually, come to think of it, I was pretty sure I had read it, years ago.
‘I thought it was gripping.’ Angie’s eyes demanded more. Much more. ‘And … and I particularly liked the bit where the guy hangs from the cable car, in the snow,’ I said wildly. ‘Really exciting.’
‘That’s Where Eagles Dare,’ said Jennie, rather disloyally, I thought.
Everyone cast their eyes down to their book. ‘Anyone else got any thoughts?’ Angie said brightly. ‘Who didn’t enjoy it?’
Lots of shocked murmuring, head shaking and pursed lips at this. But no concrete ideas.
‘So … everyone enjoyed it.’
More enthusiastic agreement. But then something of a hiatus again. And don’t forget we were all in a circle, so it was a bit like Show and Tell at Clemmie’s school. A mistake, I felt. Too intimidating. We were also missing Simon, who surely would have had some erudite, eloquent remarks on the matter. Angie, Jennie and I looked despairingly at one another. We hadn’t thought this through. Did this need chairing? In which case, who was going to do it? Were there too many of us? Too few? How did it work? What was a book club?
‘Did anyone have any thoughts on characterization?’ suggested Luke, and I could have kissed him. Angie looked as if she really might clasp his head in her hands and plant a smacker on his lips. Of course. Characterization. We all glanced surreptitiously at the Americans to see if they’d clocked this bon mot. Hope was smiling, nodding. Unfortunately, though, no one did. Why were we all so tongue-tied?
‘I thought the characterization was good,’ said Jennie desperately. ‘Particularly that of Adam Lang, the hero.’
‘I agree,’ said Angus staunchly. ‘Best character in the book.’
‘And I particularly liked the way he was depicted as tough, yet tender,’ broke in Saintly Sue. We all turned to her gratefully. She went very pink. Opened her book to where a piece of notepaper lay within. She cleared her throat and read: ‘It seemed to me he emphatically fulfilled the role of romantic hero in the classical sense, much as Chaucer’s Troilus did in Troilus and Criseyde, adhering to the conventions of courtly love and the literature to which it gave rise in the Middle Ages, which emphatically supplied the first of several historical bases to underlie any adequate interpretation of the principal characters, and any situations in which Troilus – and therefore Adam Lang – emphatically coexist today.’ She slowly closed her book, eyes down, lips pursed.
‘Well,’ said Jennie faintly, after a pause. ‘Yes. Quite. Thank you, Sue.’
‘More wine, anyone?’ said Peggy wearily. ‘That is, if no one’s got anything emphatic to add?’
She got to her feet, and everyone, apart from the Americans, eagerly got to theirs, agreeing that was a jolly good idea.
‘Shall we pass round the food now, Angie?’ someone asked. They did so, anyway.
Bemused, the Armitages stood to join us.
‘A real page-turner,’ Angus assured Chad, pressing the book into his hands. ‘Go on, take mine. You’ll love it. Be up all night.’
‘Thank you,’ Chad said. ‘Although, I should probably read next week’s book, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, next week’s,’ agreed Angie, with a note of panic, looking at me.
But I was miles away. Organizing a plumber to fix Marjorie and Cecilia’s boiler, even though they lived sixty miles away in Ashford. But Phil was the man of the family, you see. Role-playing was important. Men were important. On one occasion, Marjorie