Charlotte stared at her. She couldn't believe what was happening.
'Look, why don't you sleep on it before making any decision?' Sheila counselled. 'He struck me as being very pleasant … and very trustworthy.'
'Well, I'm certainly not worried that he's going to be driven mad with lust for me,' Charlotte told her forthrightly, making Sophy giggle.
'Well, what are you worried about, then?' Sheila asked her.
For someone who was normally so astute, Sheila was being remarkably obtuse. Surely it was obvious why Charlotte didn't want the man living with her? He was her competitor, for one thing, and for another … well, for another … Well, she just would not feel comfortable about sharing her home with such a very male man, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to voice these feelings to her friends.
'Look, think it over, and if you still feel tomorrow that you don't want him as a lodger then I promise I'll tell him,' Sheila suggested.
'Very magnanimous of you,' was Charlotte's sour response. She'd no intention of changing her mind, no matter what Sheila might think, and she'd have preferred her friend to telephone Oliver Tennant and tell him her decision right away, but Sheila was behaving as though the matter was settled, leaving her little option but to grudgingly accept her suggestion or telephone him herself.
She wasn't sure why she should feel it was impossible for her to do that; she only knew that it was.
For the rest of the day she could not concentrate properly on what she was doing. Leaving Sophy in Sheila's charge, she went off to value a pair of semi-detached cottages belonging to a local farm. With so much mechanisation and less need for agricultural workers, the cottages had been empty for some time. Now the farmer wanted to sell them.
They were in a very dilapidated state, nearly a mile off the main road, with no gas and no mains drainage. With planning consent to turn them into one larger house, and an offer from the farmer to supply some land with them, they might just appeal to someone with enough money and enthusiasm to take on the job of remodelling them, but Charlotte doubted that she would be able to sell them as two separate homes.
The farmer proved surly when informed of her misgivings. Typically, he wanted to achieve the most money for the least output, and Charlotte wasn't surprised when he told her that he was going to try 'yon new agent', adding insultingly, 'Women … they don't understand nothing about business.'
Charlotte was furious, but hid her anger, saying smoothly that of course it was his decision. She couldn't regret losing the sale-the farmer would have been an awkward client to deal with-but she couldn't help acknowledging that without Oliver Tennant to turn to the farmer might have been more disposed to consider her suggestions.
Well, good luck to him, and good luck to Oliver Tennant if he told the farmer that he would be able to secure sales as two separate houses. She didn't envy him that task, she thought sourly, and yet the farmer's parting insult about her sex rankled, and for some reason as she drove home it was Oliver Tennant who was the object of her acid thoughts of the male sex and its arrogance, rather than the farmer who had made the comment.
The Volvo was still playing up, and on impulse, instead of returning to the office, she drove to the local country town some twenty miles away where she knew there were several reputable dealers.
She wasn't sure just what sort of car she should get-something reliable … another Volvo perhaps, but a smaller model.
The salesman proved to be very informative and helpful. When she left the showrooms half an hour later, she had several brochures and a fairly clear idea of what she was going to buy.
On the way home she had to pass another car showroom. This one had several immaculate gleaming Jaguar saloons in its window. She sighed a little enviously, looking at them. The Oliver Tennants of this world might be able to afford such unashamed luxury, but she could not.
He must be desperate indeed for somewhere to live if he was prepared to consider lodging with her, but then, she reflected contemptuously, he probably considered that she would make a far better landlady than someone like Vanessa, whose ego would constantly need massaging, and who would expect far more from him than the simple payment of a set sum of money each month. It would be obvious to him that a woman like herself would never dare to imagine that a man like him would consider her in any remote way desirable.
Sheila would describe him rather old-fashionedly as 'eligible'. Charlotte knew that he wasn't married, but he was a man in his mid-thirties, who must surely have had at least one long-standing relationship, and perhaps more. She wondered if there was anyone special in his life right now, and then caught herself up. What possible concern could that be of hers?
Frowning fiercely, she forced herself to confront what was in her mind. All right, so he was a very attractive man, a man to whom she seemed to be far from as immune as she should be, but the matter started and ended right there. She had long ago learned the folly of dreaming impossible dreams, and anyway she was far too sensible these days to imagine that loving someone and being loved by them was enough to guarantee perfect happiness.
Marriage, especially these days, was something that required hard work and complete commitment from both parties. When she had finally abandoned any idea of marrying, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that even the best relationships of her friends were sometimes fraught and difficult. If she did not have the closeness that came from sharing her life with a partner, then neither did she have the trauma and pain that such closeness inevitably brought.
When she eventually left the office an hour after Sheila and Sophy had gone home, it had started to rain. The house, when she turned into the drive, seemed to lift an unprepossessing and austere outline towards the sky. The rhododendron-lined drive, pitted with holes in places, suddenly seemed forbidding and almost frightening. Until this morning, she had never even thought about the house's remoteness, nor the fact that the drive so effectively sheltered it off the road, but this evening for some reason she was acutely conscious of the silence around her-conscious of it and vaguely alarmed by it.
Once she had stopped the car, she didn't linger, but instead hurried to the back door, suddenly anxious to get inside the house. When she was in, although it was something she rarely did, she found herself slipping on the security chain as she closed the door.
Heavens, she wasn't going to turn into one of those timid types expecting the worst to happen at every corner, was she?
While she waited for the coffee to filter, she played back the messages on her answering machine.
The joiner had telephoned to say that he was able to start the kitchen sooner than planned, and there was a message from the decorator Sheila had recommended. She would phone him later and ask if he could obtain the wallpaper she liked.
As she drank her coffee and ate her evening meal, she found herself wondering what Oliver Tennant would think of her new kitchen. Would he find her choice of décor overly feminine or … ?
Abruptly she put down her coffee-mug, revolted by her own weakness. It didn't matter what the man thought. For one thing, he wasn't going to get an opportunity to voice his thoughts, because first thing tomorrow morning she was going to make Sheila telephone him and retract that idiotic suggestion that he become her lodger.
After she had finished her meal, she stared disconsolately out into the rainswept garden. She had planned to do some work in it this evening. Whenever she felt on edge or bad-tempered she found an hour or so spent pulling up weeds excellent therapy. Tonight she was denied that release, and instead she wandered aimlessly around the house.
It was a family home really, with its large high-ceilinged rooms and its funny little passages … a house that should be filled with noise and laughter.
When she walked into the drawing-room that was never used, she sniffed the stale air with distaste and went to open the french windows.
The fresh, clean scent of the rain filled her nostrils as she eyed the dull beige walls and carpet with distaste. Why had she never noticed before how hideous this room was? She looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine the plasterwork picked out in different colours, and then studying the rather attractive period fireplace. This room faced south, and she tried to imagine it decorated in shades of soft yellows and blues …