The Essence of the Thing - Madeleine John St.

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      ‘I’m not quite sure, I’ll have to ask Jonathan.’

      ‘Oh, of course. Could you ask him now so that we can settle it?’

      ‘That’s a bit tricky. He isn’t here.’

      ‘Not there? Well, ask him as soon as he comes in and ring me back.’

      ‘I’m not sure … I’m not quite sure when he’s going to be back, he may be rather late.’

      ‘Goodness, has he gone away without you?’

      ‘More or less.’

      ‘Darling, you do sound odd. Is anything wrong?’

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Darling, you sound as if you might be about to cry. Do tell me what has happened.’

      ‘I can’t.’ She was about to cry. She had thought her tears were all shed. She had assured herself that once the ironing was done, and the evening had fallen, and Jonathan had returned, and she and he had talked, properly talked, to each other, everything would be normal again. Normal and nice. They would be a normal, nice couple again, and could make amicable arrangements again, and accept amicable invitations, as normal, like this one, from Lizzie and Alfred Ainsworth, to spend a weekend at their cottage (their poky little cottage where Jonathan kept banging his head and their little vixen of a daughter woke them up at five in the morning: but still. The scenery was divine).

      She was on the verge of tears, as long as she tried to speak, because underneath her assurance that everything would (in just a few hours’ time) return to niceness and normality was the black dread that it never would, and never could. No matter how beautifully she might iron Jonathan’s shirts.

      ‘Oh, Nicola, I don’t like the sound of this. Listen, I’m going to come round, I have to fetch Henrietta from Battersea later on anyway. So you stay just where you are, I’m going to go straight out and get into the car and whizz straight round. I’ll be with you before you know it.’ And Lizzie hung up, just like that. Nicola flopped down on to the sofa and began to cry. She had a good fifteen minutes to shed her tears and dry them too, because Lizzie was coming all the way from Islington. Lizzie was one of those women who like to be at the scene.

      But her tears did not last so long this time as they had before. If I can manage to finish ironing that shirt that I’d just started, she thought, looking across the room at the ironing board, by the time Lizzie gets here then that will mean that everything is going to be alright: and she went back to the ironing board, and ironed as quickly as she knew how; but it won’t count, she admonished herself, if I don’t do it properly. No skimping. And she was as careful as ever with the sleeves, the really awkward part. She finished a moment before the buzzer sounded, heralding Lizzie. Everything was going to be alright.

       15

      ‘Oh, Lizzie.’

      ‘Oh, Nicola. Now what is all this about?’

      ‘It’s nothing really. You shouldn’t have come.’

      ‘I like that. Shall I go away again then?’

      ‘No, stay and have some tea anyway.’

      ‘Alright. Goodness, how clean and tidy it looks here.’

      ‘Well, there’s the ironing – sorry about that, I’d just started—’

      ‘Goodness. Ironing as well. You are a treasure. I hope Jonathan’s grateful. His shirts, I see.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Lucky Jonathan.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Oh, Nicola, do look at your face – oh – oh dear – oh, you are going to cry. Oh, Lord. Here, have you got a hanky? Oh dear. Poor Nicola. Now for Heaven’s sake, darling, do tell Lizzie. What is the matter?’

      ‘You’re really the last person I should be telling,’ said Nicola, between sobs. ‘Jonathan would kill me.’

      ‘Oh, would he just. Never mind him for the moment. Just tell me.’

      It was dicey, alright. Susannah and Geoffrey were hers, but Alfred and Lizzie were Jonathan’s. Well, Alfred, at any rate: he and Jonathan had known each other since school. On the other hand, Nicola having made their acquaintance had become rather more of an intimate of Lizzie’s than Jonathan was of Alfred’s. But women were like that, as Alfred had remarked to himself – always getting together in corners and bonding: the phenomenon was clearly of evolutionary utility. He was quite content to leave them to it, as long as they weren’t evidently hatching anything significant. Alfred loved women, in their place, and was at all times ready to assert that some of his female colleagues – he being at the bar – were very able indeed: very. Lizzie, of course, was not and never had been a colleague: perish the thought!

      ‘Just let me make this tea first.’ Nicola went into the kitchen and made the tea and brought it into the sitting room. Lizzie was looking at the china dogs. She picked up a pug. ‘Is this Staffordshire?’ she asked. ‘Not exactly,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s a proper eighteenth-century one. Derby. Jonathan gave it to me.’

      ‘Don’t cry again.’

      ‘No, I won’t.’ She poured out the tea. ‘Jonathan,’ she said, ‘wants us to split up. He’s offered to buy me out.’

      ‘How long has this been going on?’

      ‘I’ve no idea. None at all. He just announced it, out of the blue, on Thursday night. Then he went to his parents for the weekend, straight from work on Friday. So I haven’t had a chance to talk to him properly. I mean, he wouldn’t discuss it on Thursday night. He just made his announcement and then clammed up. I was completely gobsmacked. I still am.’

      ‘So am I.’ And she was. They each drank some tea and Nicola began to eat a biscuit. ‘And you really had no warning – no sign – beforehand?’ asked Lizzie. ‘No. Well, for all I know there were signs which I was too thick to see, but—’

      ‘Tell me again exactly what he said and how.’ Nicola obliged. ‘Well,’ said Lizzie, ‘I must say that’s quite the creepiest thing I’ve heard of in a long while. He should be strung up. It’s an absolute outrage. And here you are, ironing his shirts! Nicola! What on earth are you thinking of?’

      ‘Oh,’ cried Nicola rather wildly, ‘don’t – don’t be too hard on him – I don’t know – we don’t know – the whole story; he may be entirely justified – it’s probably my fault completely – I just don’t know, yet.’

      ‘Only because he won’t tell you. The pig, the pig, the absolute pig. Your fault! My God, that creep of a Jonathan should go down on his bended knees to you every day of his life – you should have seen the state he was in before he met you! You’re the best thing that ever happened to him, and he doesn’t deserve you, not for five seconds. You’re well rid of him. He can go right back to where he was, and good riddance. Mournful putrid boring old Jonathan – he’s had his last invitation to my house, if Alf wants to see him he can have lunch with him, I’m not having him about the place. These old bachelors, really! Useless! My God! Men!’

      Nicola had begun to laugh: and then she began to cry, as well: and then she was crying, as if her heart might break, and not laughing at all. ‘Oh, Nicola,’ said Lizzie, patting her shoulder; ‘he isn’t worth it; he can’t be; a man who can behave like that just isn’t worth it. A man who makes you cry so is never worth your tears.’

      ‘But I love him,’ said Nicola. ‘That’s the trouble, you see. I really do love him.’

      ‘You couldn’t have found anyone less deserving,’ said Lizzie.

      ‘I

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