Jilly Cooper - Harriet

There wasn’t.

Even worse, she went into the kitchen and found that, although she’d turned on the oven, she’d put the moussaka into the cupboard instead, so when Simon came in, shuddering with cold and ill-temper, there was nothing to eat. The row that followed left her reeling. He really let her have it. She had no defences against the savageness of his tongue.

Once more she went and sobbed in the bedroom, and she heard the front door slam. Hours later when he came back she had cried herself to sleep. He woke her up.

‘You’re too sensitive, Harriet baby. You overreact all the time. Poor little baby,’ he said gently, ‘poor, poor little baby. Did you think I wasn’t coming back?’ Never had he made love to her so tenderly.

Harriet woke up feeling absurdly happy. True love could only be forged on rows like that. It was the first of March, her meagre allowance had come through. She got up, leaving Simon asleep. She cashed a cheque at the bank, and bought croissants and orange juice. In spite of a bitter east wind, the snow was melting, dripping off the houses, turning brown and stacked in great piles along the road.

It would be spring soon. She imagined herself and Simon wandering through the parks with the blossom out, or punting under long green willows, and dancing till dawn at a Commem ball. All great love affairs had their teething troubles.

When she got back to Simon’s rooms, she took his mail into his room. He was still half asleep, so she went to the kitchen and made coffee and heated up the croissants. She was worried about a large spot that was swelling up on the side of her nose. However much make-up she put over it, it shone through like a beacon; she must start eating properly.

When she took breakfast into his room, he had woken up and was in excellent form.

‘Buxton Philips’s written me a letter saying he’s sorry, he’s coming down to Oxford to take me out to lunch,’ he said, draining a glass of orange juice.

‘Oh darling, that’s wonderful,’ said Harriet.

Simon drew back the curtains. Harriet sat down on the bed, with the spot side furthest away from him, pouring out coffee.

‘I think you’d better start packing, darling,’ he said, liberally buttering a croissant.

‘Oh God, is your mother coming to stay?’

He shook his head, his face curiously bland. ‘I just think it’s time you moved out.’

She looked at him bewildered, the colour draining from her face.

‘But, why? Was it because I smashed your dog, and let out your bath water, and forgot about your suit, and the moussaka? I’m sorry, I will try to concentrate more.’

‘Darling, it isn’t that,’ he said, thickly spreading marmalade. ‘It’s just that all good things come to an end. You should live a little, learn a bit more about life, play the field.’

‘But I’m not like that. I’m a one-man girl.’

Simon shrugged his shoulders.

‘W-when will I see you,’ she was trembling violently now.

‘You’re making this very difficult for me,’ he said gently.

She sat down.

‘Mind my shirts,’ said Simon hastily, removing the shirts she had ironed from the chair.

She stared at him. ‘What did I do wrong?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, you didn’t do anything wrong.’

It must be a bad dream, it must be. She felt her happiness melting round her like the snow.

‘Why can’t I see you any more?’

‘Darling, for everything there is a reason. You’re a lovely warm crazy girl, and we’ve had a ball together. Now I’ve broken you in nicely, you’ll be a joy for the next guy, but it’s time for us both to move on.’

‘But I love you,’ she stammered.

He sighed. ‘That’s your problem, sweetheart. I never said I loved you. I never pretended this was going to last.’

Her face had a look of pathos and stricken dignity.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she whispered.

Simon was not finding this as easy as he had expected, rather unpleasant in fact. Oh God, why did women get so keen on one? He was nibbling the skin round his thumb nail. He seemed to Harriet to have shrunk in size; there was something about his eyes like an animal at bay.

She licked her dry lips. ‘Will you find someone else?’

‘Of course I’ll find someone else,’ he snapped, anger with himself making him crueller towards her. ‘Borzoi’s coming back. I got a letter from her this morning.’

‘And so I get d-dumped like an unwanted dog on the motorway.’

Slowly it was dawning on her that his future didn’t contain her.

He tried another tack. ‘You’re too good for me, Harriet.’

‘I’m not,’ she said helplessly.

‘Yes, you are, I need a tough cookie like Borzoi.’

The sun, which hadn’t been seen for ages, suddenly appeared at the window, high-lighting the chaos of the room — the unmade bed, Harriet’s clothes strewn over every chair, the brimming ashtrays.

‘Cheer up,’ said Simon. ‘At least it’s a lovely day. Come on, lovie, get your things together; we haven’t got much time.’

As he threw records, scarves, papers, make-up into her suitcase, she felt he was getting out an india rubber and carefully erasing every trace of her from his life. He was hard put to contain his elation. Even his goodbye was absent-minded. He patted her on the bottom and told her to behave herself. She could almost hear his sigh of relief as he shut the door and rushed back to tidy up for Borzoi.

She went straight home and dumped her suitcase. For a minute she lay on her bed and listened to the clocks striking all over Oxford. Only eleven o’clock. A whole day to be got through, a whole lifetime without Simon stretching ahead. She got up, turned on the gas and knelt down beside it; after ten seconds the meter ran out.

Mrs Glass came in and started to shout at her for the rent, then she saw Harriet’s face and stopped. ‘White as a corpse, poor little thing,’ she told her husband afterwards. ‘’Er sins must have catched up with ’er.’

Harriet got up and went out and walked round the town, the slush leaking into her boots. She didn’t notice the cold even in her thin coat. She had nothing of Simon’s. He had written her no letters, given her no presents. How crazy she had been, how presumptuous to think for a moment she could hold him. It was like trying to catch the sun with a fishing net. She walked three times round the same churchyard, then took a bus to Headington, looking at the trees, their branches shiny from the melting snow. She got off the bus and began to walk again, thinking over and over again of the times Simon and she had spent together, illuminated now in the light. Never again would she tremble at his touch, or talk to him or gaze at him. All she would hear was stupid people yapping about his latest exploits, that he’d landed a part in a play, that he was back with Borzoi.

It couldn’t be true. Borzoi would come back, Simon would realize they couldn’t make a go of it, and send for Harriet again. Wading through the cold grey slush, she walked back to her digs and fell shuddering into bed.

Everyone said, ‘I told you so.’ Geoffrey was magnanimous, then irritated that she wouldn’t snap out of it, then furious that Simon had succeeded where he had failed, and made violent attempts to get her into bed. Her girlfriends, who had all been jealous of her and Simon, were secretly pleased it was over. Theo Dutton was vitriolic about the badness of her essay.

The child looked in terrible shape. She was obviously having some kind of crisis.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Who is it?’

‘No-one, nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Simon Villiers.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear. He was the nasty bug all my girl students caught last summer. I thought he’d gone out of fashion now. I must say I’m disappointed in you, Harriet. I thought you had better taste. He was one of the worst students I’ve ever had; his mind is earth-shatteringly banal.’