Beginning the World by Armstrong Karen

Author:Armstrong, Karen [Armstrong, Karen]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

For Dear Life

JANE STOOD UNDER my window, hands on her hips, head thrown back.

‘Karen!’ she yelled, her clarion tones shattering the peace of that quiet little Oxford backwater. In the pale dusk of the summer evening, her calico cream dress glimmered prettily making her look like an urban milkmaid. ‘Karen!’ she yelled again. There was no reply. Should she go and see Charlotte instead perhaps?

Mark had gone back to London after the weekend. He had a job now in a teacher training college, a job he was lucky to get, and she’d nearly decided to go with him to his smart, bijou house in Greenwich. She loved London, was out of love with her thesis, and her engagement had made her fall in love with Mark with renewed thoroughness. She almost packed an overnight case and went down with him for a few days, just for the hell of it.

Oxford was so dreary during the long, summer vacation; the libraries were empty and there were no real queues for books in the Bodleian, but that only deprived you of an excuse for not getting on with your work. She threw her toothbrush into her bag and then she passed her desk and saw her latest notes and cards neatly lined up there. It was no good.

‘Bloody Baudelaire,’ she muttered forlornly, and Mark laughed and agreed that for her conscience’s sake, she must stick to her original plan and get in a few weeks’ solid work before he began his own holiday.

Her room seemed doubly empty after he’d left and, on a sudden whim, she walked over to the Stanleys’ to see me and have some coffee. But I didn’t seem to be in my room.

Jane went round to the back door, which she knew was always left open. In the kitchen, under the glaring light of the one unshaded bulb, Edwin was concocting his supper. Unlike Judith he was extremely interested in cooking and on the rare occasions when he ate at home he experimented elegantly with the left-overs that Nanny left out.

‘Ah, Jane! Hello!‘Jane was a frequent caller and well known to the household. ‘You’re a cook, aren’t you? What do you think of this?’

Jane looked into the pan where some slices of cooked ham and cold chicken sizzled round in a dark, aromatic sauce.

‘Mmm,’ she sniffed appreciatively, ‘what have you put in it?’

‘Just a spot of red wine and a few herbs.’ Edwin threw the long white mane of hair off his face and grinned his clever-monkey smile. ‘For God’s sake don’t tell Judith, will you? She’ll think it a terrible extravagance.’ He looked furtively down the long corridor that led to the sitting room.

‘What did she have for her supper?’ Jane was still intrigued by the solitary lives the Stanleys led under their communal roof.

A fried egg on toast, of course.’ He gestured towards the frying pan that stood, greasy, beside the sink waiting for Nanny to wash it up in the morning.

‘A shade more oregano, perhaps?’ Edwin dived back to the recipe book, which was propped open on top of the fridge.

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