Perfectly Correct Read online

  ‘We’ll show ’em,’ Mrs Ford said militantly, earning herself a swift approving smile from the Captain.

  ‘They may try and regroup, of course,’ Captain Frome warned. ‘But I think we’ve got them on the run.’

  One of the women in the shop said, ‘Seems a shame,’ under her breath but Captain Frome was too grand to acknowledge such suppressed heckling.

  ‘Neighbourhood watch meeting, Tuesday night, six thirty sharp,’ he said, handing a poster to Mrs Ford with a commanding nod. ‘Hope you’ll be there, Miss Case?’

  Louise glanced uncomfortably at Miriam. ‘Unfortunately I have a meeting at the university on Tuesday,’ she said.

  ‘Cut it! Send your apologies!’

  ‘You’re reporting on the Science and Industry Sub-dean’s attitude,’ Miriam reminded her sharply.

  ‘I really have to be there,’ Louise said weakly. ‘But I’ll telephone you the next day if I may and see what was decided.’

  Captain Frome nodded but he was dissatisfied. ‘Do you wish to register a proxy vote, or nominate someone to vote for you?’

  ‘What would we be voting on?’ Louise asked.

  ‘Further actions, of course.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Louise said vaguely. ‘Well … would you like to be my proxy, Captain Frome?’

  He nodded. ‘Very well. We do need to stick together, I think.’

  ‘Hounding innocent people from pillar to post,’ a woman murmured quietly behind the rack of groceries. ‘Moved on all the time. Doesn’t seem right. Half of them with kiddies. Where are they supposed to go?’

  Captain Frome raised his voice slightly. ‘I think I speak for the whole village when I say that we’re not some kind of Butlins holiday camp for every ne’er do well who can get his hands on a caravan.’

  ‘Do you know,’ Miriam suddenly interrupted, her voice loud and icy, ‘I’ve never heard anyone say “ne’er do well” before? I thought it was something people only said in books.’

  There was a snort of laughter from behind the groceries. Miriam took the newspapers from Louise and walked past Captain Frome and out of the shop.

  ‘Oh,’ Louise said feebly. ‘Good day, Captain Frome.’

  Miriam was waiting beside Louise’s car in a state of barely repressed rage. ‘What a pompous oaf!’ she spluttered.

  ‘He represents the village’s feelings,’ Louise said, hastily unlocking the car so that Miriam’s noisy disdain could be shut inside and muffled.

  ‘No he doesn’t,’ Miriam said abruptly. ‘He represents the propertied classes. All the working people and the farming people are perfectly happy for the travellers to come. Mr Miles is looking forward to the party.’

  ‘That is absolutely absurd,’ Louise said, starting the car. ‘Mr Miles knows nothing about raves. He’s been conned into providing his land by some sharp operator. He knows nothing about raves or what is going to happen. Everyone in the village is behind Captain Frome, he has organised an enormous protest meeting. I live here, Miriam. I know what’s going on.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Miriam argued, as if she had totally forgotten about female consensus and about women’s natural ability to listen and share information. ‘All you know about is what that pompous old windbag says. You should listen to Andrew. He says everyone at the pub is quite happy about it.’

  Louise drove too fast up the lane towards her house. ‘I’m not that intimate with him actually. We’ve only ever talked about odd jobs.’

  ‘Well, he’s a damn sight more interesting than Colonel Blimp,’ Miriam said. ‘He’s a sensible generous warm-hearted man. Not a stuffed shirt trying to find something to do to fill in his retirement.’

  ‘Oh, really!’ Louise cried in irritation. ‘You hardly know either of them.’

  ‘I know a nice man when I see him,’ Miriam said. ‘And I’d put my faith in Andrew Miles any day.’

  Louise felt herself gripped with a quite unreasonable fury. If she had believed in the existence of jealousy between feminists she would have recognised this savage rage at Miriam’s sudden intimacy with Andrew Miles. Louise’s whole world was abruptly turned upside down if Miriam should find a man such as Andrew Miles attractive. Miriam who had Toby, who had been the pinnacle of Louise’s desires for nine years. It made no sense at all that Miriam, with Toby as her husband, her intellectual companion and her lover, should find Andrew Miles, an uneducated uncouth farm labourer, so extremely attractive.

  Louise drew up in front of her cottage and jerked on the handbrake. ‘I think you go out of your way to be different,’ she said. ‘Andrew Miles has probably never even heard of feminism or activism or the Second Wave. He probably doesn’t have an idea in his head beyond the weather and the price of corn.’

  Miriam laughed. ‘All the better for that,’ she said perversely. ‘I’m sick of feminist men.’

  Miriam and Toby left at midday after a leisurely breakfast reading the newspapers. Miriam, who knew she had been unreasonable with Louise, cooked eggs and bacon for the three of them and made coffee and toast. Toby, who was anxious to avoid question or challenge about his relationship with Rose or the contents of Rose’s big box, laid himself out to be entertaining, reading out snippets from the Sunday newspapers and commenting with insight and sarcasm. He could be very amusing when he wished and Miriam and Louise laughed and prompted him to further irony at the expense of the government. Much of what he mocked was funny, but the decline of the pound against other currencies and the steady downward spiral of the recession could only ever be amusing to people, like Louise and Toby, with small mortgages, guaranteed wages, and a contract of employment. Their amusement was founded on the smugness of being politically correct and financially secure. Miriam laughed with them but knew that her work and her salary was more uncertain, and the projects which she espoused – the safety of women – were not dear to this government’s heart.

  Toby and Louise cleared the breakfast plates away and washed up in quiet harmony while Miriam went upstairs to pack her weekend bag.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ Toby apologised, finally referring to Saturday afternoon when he had limped home after his shopping trip with Rose and locked himself in the bathroom for two hours. ‘Sometimes I really need space. Thank you for having the consideration to give me that space. You’re so aware, Louise, so sensitive.’

  In fact Louise had sulked downstairs while Toby had bathed and sulked upstairs, but this small rewriting of recent history made their mutual irritability appear in a more becoming light.

  ‘What was the matter?’ Louise asked, still being sensitive and aware.

  Toby shrugged. ‘Oh! I don’t know! Having to shop with Rose. She borrowed a hundred pounds off me, you know, and I don’t expect to see it again. I suppose I’m just not used to being around demanding women.’ He gave Louise a sexy small smile. ‘You’ve spoiled me,’ he said.

  Louise flapped at him lightly with the tea towel. ‘I know it. But you are getting on well with her, are you? You will get some material out of her?’

  Toby caught her hand, took the towel from her, and turned her palm upwards and kissed it very gently. Louise felt her whole body warm to his touch. They could hear Miriam moving around upstairs. Louise felt her nine-year habit of clandestine desire rising like a Pavlovian dog’s saliva at the dinner bell. Sexual pleasure for Louise and Toby always meant the fear of being caught.

  Toby bit the fleshy part of her palm. Louise leaned against the sink and dropped her head back, baring the smooth column of her throat. Toby moved closer and kissed down her neck, from her jawline to her collar bone; and where the crew neck of her jumper would hide any mark, he bit her soft warm skin and felt her responsive quiver.

  His hands clasped her breasts and then stroked firmly down her body, but when Louise reached for his groin he stepped back. Toby had enjoyed years of this sort of encounter with Louise and he had trained himself to keep within the comfortable side of arousal. He was not going to drive home with Miriam suffering fr