‘You amaze me.’
‘She amazed me.’
‘But she said .…’
‘Said not a word to me, Mrs Gandell. I asked her how she was, and she said she was quite all right now.’
‘But lunch was arranged .…’
‘The logic of the situation is as follows,’ said Jones. ‘We will eat it all up .…’
‘I can’t understand her,’ Mrs Gandell said.
‘Does it matter?’
‘So extraordinary, Jones.’
‘Nothing is extraordinary, Mrs Gandell. Iesu mawr! I keep telling you that. Do brush the sawdust from your ears,’ and Jones laughed, since for him, Gandell in a predicament was always a sight to see. He got up abruptly and went off to the kitchen.
‘And bring the bottle,’ she called after him.
‘Will do.’
They ate in silence for a whole five minutes.
‘She may indeed have come here because nobody else would have her, Jones.’
Jones was far too involved in his lunch, he didn’t bother with a reply.
‘I was speaking to you.’
‘I heard,’ snappily.
‘Well?’
‘Well what, Mrs Gandell?’ and slowly his head came up.
‘Oh … nothing … it doesn’t matter?’
‘Then stop worrying. Be like me, say nothing and accept everything.’
‘I am not like you, Jones.’
‘Pity,’ Jones said, tittering, then bent to his meal.
A momentary silence, and then Mrs Gandell remarked casually that the town was talking about them.
‘About who?’
‘Us.’
‘There you go again, worrying. The town has a very large mouth, Mrs Gandell.’
‘Give me that bottle,’ and he gave it.
She helped herself to another glass of the fortifying gin.
‘You simply love that stuff, don’t you, Mrs Gandell?’
An observation she refused to confirm, and pushing away her plate she ordered Jones to remove everything to the kitchen. He carried out the loaded tray, and she sat back in her chair and lit another cigarette.
‘Disgusting,’ she thought. ‘What on earth could Miss Vaughan have been thinking of? Ordering lunch, and then walking out on it.’ She could hear Jones threshing his way through the dishes and pans. And then the smile came, as it always did after the third glass.
‘Jones!’
‘Coming.’
‘Sit down, Jones.’
He sat down. She seemed to be looking, not at him, but at his person.
‘What are you staring at, Mrs Gandell?’
‘Your jacket,’ she said. ‘You’d better get another one at Davies’s when you go in this week.’
‘Very well. But I still like it,’ he said.
‘I don’t.’
