Tessa Hadley: Clever Girl

— Dull here, he says. — A lot of cloud over the estuary. Rained a couple of times, but nothing much. They’re saying it may brighten up tomorrow.

I can’t believe he never notices my lack of enthusiasm for these reports.

— I’ve no idea, I lie. — I was indoors all day. (Actually I put my face up into a bitter squall of rain, on my way home across the Downs.)

— Give me the car keys, I say. — Let me drive.

Mac doesn’t like driving through the country roads at twilight, but I feel better as soon as I’m behind the steering wheel. We get out of the town and I take the back route, though there’s always a risk of getting stuck behind farm vehicles: the road winds through apple orchards to begin with, then up between the hills. Under a low ceiling of blue-grey cloud a strip of paler light is stretched along the horizon like a ribbon of creamy satin. Birds seem to start up, as I squeeze round the narrow corners between the hedgerows, from under the very wheels of the car. I imagine Valentine reading absorbedly in his room, like a dedicated St Jerome in his cell in a medieval painting. Mac is giving me a detailed report, as he always does, on all the things he’s achieved while I’ve been away — he’s bought straw to put on the shrubs in case it’s a hard winter, he’s cleaned out the shower head, he’s made his special bolognese sauce with chicken livers, to go with the pasta tonight. (I wonder whether Amy will like chicken livers.) The girls are chattering in the back seat: Ester is courting Amy, fussing over her excitedly, holding on to Amy’s hand in her lap.

— I want to show you everything, Ester says. — You can hold the guinea pigs, I’ll show you my secret den. You can read my diary if you want to. You can find out all about me.

Amy is not ready to commit herself.

I know Mac is listening and smiling in the seat beside me, tense with protective love for Ester, fearing in case she gives herself away too easily. Some dark shape — a cat, or a fox — flows across the road for an instant ahead of us, then disappears into the hedge. I switch on the headlights and the car seems to leap forward into the night.

With thanks to Dan Franklin and Jennifer Barth, Caroline Dawnay and Joy Harris. Thanks to Deborah Treisman (versions of three chapters in Clever Girl first appeared as short stories in the New Yorker ). Thanks to Shelagh Weeks and Stephen Gregg, for inspirations.

Tessa Hadley is the author of the four previous novels, including Accidents in the Home , which was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award, and The London Train , which was a New York Times Notable Book along with her short story collections Sunstroke and Married Love . Her stories appear regularly in the New Yorker . She lives in London.

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