Read September (1990) for Free Online Page B

rosemary. All this was accomplished deftly and with the greatest economy of effort, and it occurred to Noel that, working, she had become quite assured and confident, probably because she wa s e ngaged in doing the one thing she knew that she was really good at.
    He said, "You look very professional."
    "I am."
    "Do you garden as well?"
    "Why do you ask that?"
    "All the clobber by the back door."
    "I see. Yes, I do garden, but it's so tiny that it's not really gardening. At Balnaid, the garden's enormous, and there's always something needing to be done."
    "Balnaid?"
    "That's the name of our house in Scotland."
    "My mother was a manic gardener." Having said this, Noel could not think why he had mentioned the fact. He did not usually talk about his mother unless somebody asked him a direct question. "Perpetually digging, or harrowing great loads of manure."
    "Doesn't she garden any longer?"
    "She's dead. She died four years ago."
    "Oh, I am sorry. Where did she do her gardening?"
    "In Gloucestershire. She bought a house with a couple of acres of wilderness. By the time she died, she'd transformed it into something very special. You know . . . the sort of garden people walk around in after lunch parties."
    Alexa smiled. "She sounds rather like my other grandmother, Vi. She lives in Strathcroy. Her name's Violet Aird, but we all call her Vi." The chops were grilling, the bread put to warm, the plates to heat. "My mother's dead, too. She was killed in a car accident when I was six."
    "It's my turn to be sorry."
    "I remember her, of course, but not really very well. I remember her mostly coming to say good night before she went out for a dinner party. Lovely airy dresses, and furs, and smelling of scent."
    "Six is very young to lose your mother."
    "It wasn't as bad as it might . H ave been. I had a darling Nanny called Edie Findhorn. And after Mummy died we went back to Scotland and lived with Vi at Balnaid. So I was luckier than most."
    "Did your father marry again?"
    "Yes. Ten years ago. She's called Virginia. She's not much older than I am."
    "A wicked stepmother?"
    "No. She's sweet. A bit like a sister. She's terribly pretty. And I've got a half-brother called Henry. He's nearly eight."
    Now she was making the salad. With a sharp knife she chopped and shredded. Tomatoes and celery, tiny fresh mushrooms. Her hands were brown and capable, the nails short and unvarnished. There was something very satisfactory about them. He tried to recall the last time he had sat thus, slightly woozy with hunger and drink, and peacefully watched while a woman prepared a meal for him. He couldn't.
    The trouble was that he had never gone for domesticated females. His girl-friends were usually models, or young aspiring actresses with immense ambition and little brain. All they had in common was their general appearance, for he liked them very young and very thin with tiny breasts and long, attenuated legs. Which was great for his own personal amusement and satisfaction, but not much use when it came to being good about the house. Besides, they were nearly all . . . however skinny ... on some sort of diet, and while able to down enormous and expensive restaurant meals, were disinterested in producing even the simplest of snacks in the privacy of either their own flats, or Noel's.
    "Oh, darling, it's such a bore. Besides, I'm not hungry. Have an apple."
    From time to time there had come into Noel's life a girl so besotted that she wished only to spend the rest of her days with him. Then much effort-perhaps too much-had been made. Intimate dinners by gas-fired logs, and invitations to the country and doggy weekends. But Noel, wary of commitment, had backed away, and the girls in question, after a painful period of abortive telephone calls and tearful accusations, had found other men and married them. So he had reached thirty - four and was still a bachelor. Brooding over his empty whisky glass, Noel could not decide whether this left him feeling