“Jennifer,” Audrey exclaimed, a little embarrassed at how gleeful she sounded. “I would hug you but—”
“But I’d bite your fucking nose off.”
Audrey touched her nose protectively. “I mean, I wasn’t going to say that specifically. But basically yes.”
“I do get it.” Postcoital-Jennifer was definitely the most reasonable Jennifer. “I know there’s a story here and I know you want to follow it. I can’t let you publish it, though.”
This was more than Audrey had ever expected and was beginning to sound almost disturbingly out of character. “Who are you and what have you done with Jennifer Hallet?”
“What can I say, you wore me down. Blame the sex.”
All things considered, Audrey would rathernothave blamed the sex. That—as she and Gavin had discussed at length—went to some bad places integrity-wise. “Can I blame something else instead?” she asked. “Like my infuriating but secretly charming persistence?”
Jennifer Hallet hauled herself out of bed, made rather less effort to tidy herself up than Audrey had made, and went back to her desk. “If you like. Just keep me in the loop.”
Deciding that it was best to quit while she actuallywasahead for once, Audrey left Jennifer to whatever important producer work she had to do and returned to her room for a shower. If she was going to talk to Doris, and since it was actually still pretty early in the evening, there wasn’t really much reasonnotto talk to Doris, it would be polite to do so while not smelling intensely of fuck.
“Is everything all right?” asked Doris when Audrey knocked on her door.
“Yes,” said Audrey, and then feeling at least some need toexplain she added, “it’s Audrey.”
The door creaked open an inch. “Still around then?”
“Yeah. I think Jennifer sees me as some kind of lucky charm.”
“I think it’s simpler than that dear,” replied Doris. “I think she just likes you. Now, what do you want?”
That was probably more of an essay question than it had been intended to be. “Lots of things, but mostly I…I guess I just want to hear more about your life. If there’s any more to tell.”
“I’m nearly a hundred,” Doris pointed out. “There’s always more to tell.”
Which made Audrey feel awful, because as fully-rounded a person as she knew Doris was, there was a very specific more she was interested in. “I was actually wondering…”
“If there was more to tell about Her?” asked Doris, with audible capitalisation.
And Audrey just nodded, a little abashed.
The door closed. And for a moment Audrey worried that she’d blown it. Or perhaps not even blown it, just unnecessarily upset a nice old lady who’d done nothing to really deserve upsetting. Not that anybody deserved upsetting, really.
After a moment, though, it opened again and Doris stood there looking—not quite grave, but serious. “You’d better come in.”
So Audrey came in. Much like in Jennifer’s trailer there was nowhere to sit but the bed, so that’s where Audrey sat, with Doris next to her looking straight ahead. And for a while they remained quiet, Audrey not wanting to speak and Doris looking for words.
“I know how you feel,” said Doris. “Because it gets you like that.Shegets you like that. I’ve not thought about her—no, that’s a lie—I’ve nottalkedabout her in years, but now I have, she’severywhere all over again.”
“I’m sorry,” replied Audrey. And she was. Although not so sorry that she didn’t also want to hear whatever it was Doris was going to tell her next.
“Don’t be. It’s been good in a way, remembering. And as it happens I did see her again, after I left Patchley. Just a couple of times.”
And Audrey sat quietly and listened.
June 1953
I’d known Bobby Rice for years. Grown up together. And when I come back from Patchley and I still weren’t married and he still weren’t married, it got to be what you might call inevitable. I liked him well enough, and he liked me well enough and all, and in them days there come a point where if you wasn’t married folks wanted to know why, especially for a girl.
Happiest day of your life is what they say, isn’t it? Always struck me as funny, that did. Because if your wedding’s the happiest you ever get, then, well, don’t that mean it’s all downhill from there? And maybe that’s how it is for some, but it weren’t like that for me. I was all nerves that morning with my stomach going in knots like I’d ate a bad eel and my mum and aunties telling me it would all be okay and me not really believing them.
It was, of course, in the end. Most things are.
