“They’re bringing out a book of mine on philosophy, yes,” he said. “Too? They’re publishing you?”
“Oh, just a series of guide books to Italy I write,” she said, and was instantly furious with herself for deprecating her work before Mark, of all people.
“You’re P. A. Cowan?” Mark asked. “I wondered if it could be some relation. I didn’t know you knew anything about Italy.”
“I didn’t when I knew you,” Pat said. “What are you doing now?”
“Oh, lecturing. I’m at Keele. Are you still teaching? Or—I see you’ve married.” He gestured vaguely at the obvious bulge under her good wool coat.
“I gave up teaching four years ago when I was having a baby,” Pat said, sidestepping the question. “Fortunately I could carry on with the writing.”
“Yes, very nice,” Mark said. “I have to go, I have a meeting in five minutes. Are you free afterwards? We could have some lunch or something, catch up on old times.”
Pat looked at her watch. “I have to get back to Cambridge,” she said. “I—my—it’s complicated, but I have to get back for my children.”
“Well it was nice to see you, and I’m glad you’ve found happiness.” Mark hesitated for a moment and then leaned forward and kissed her cheek before going in to the lift.
She thought about him all the way back on the train, and when Bee met her at the station she told her about it immediately. They couldn’t talk about it then, because the children were in the back seat and Bee needed to get into college before her class. Pat dropped her off and then took the children home. After they were in bed, stories read and songs sung and the light turned emphatically off, she went down to pour it all out to Bee over a cup of tea.
“Once, my heart turned over whenever I saw him, and there wasn’t a shred of that left. I felt sorry for him. He had a neglected air. He didn’t say, but I’m sure he wasn’t married.”
“Chalk dust,” Bee said. “It must be horrid being at Keele when he wanted to be at Oxford. I’m bending over backwards to be fair to him, when really I hate him for abandoning you and making you sad.”
“It was me who abandoned him. He gave me the choice. And I’m sure I made the right choice. But it was so strange. I wanted to tell him about you, about us, about my life. But on the other hand I was glad I was wearing gloves so he couldn’t see that I wasn’t married even though I’m so very visibly pregnant.”
“Did you give him our address or phone number or anything?”
“No.” Pat put her free arm around Bee and snuggled close. “I didn’t think of it. And even if time hadn’t been so short with getting back before your class, I don’t think I would have had lunch with him. I don’t really want him back in my life. It was just so strange running into him like that.”
Pat’s baby was born in April, again by caesarean section, this time planned in advance. He was a boy, and she called him Philip Marsilio, as they had agreed.
16
Liberation: Tricia 1968–1972
To Tricia’s complete surprise, Doug became a minor but significant figure in the pop world. Goliath released albums and toured, and Doug, Sue and Poley were names people knew. Mark tried to ignore it, and kept saying that Doug would soon have enough of it and go to university. With the proceeds from one of his hit records, Doug bought his mother a car, a green Volkswagen Beetle, for Christmas 1968. Mark said nothing. He had given her a scarf, as usual.
Tricia saw a poster in the library asking for volunteers for adult education. “I think I’ll apply,” she said. “I could teach literature to adults.”
“It’s the most you can do to teach it to children part time,” Mark sneered. “Why do you think adults would want to listen to you? What do you have to bring them?”
She gave up the idea.
Mark was home less and less, leaving for work immediately after breakfast and seldom returning before the late evening. On weekends he was usually on campus. Now that Tricia had her own car she could accept supply teaching further away, and was working almost all the time. It was a good way to get to know the schools and the county. If she was driving past a bus stop with a mother and small child waiting, she would stop and offer them a lift. She sometimes did it when she saw a mother and child walking slowly along. She remembered all too well what it was like being stuck like that. The mothers received her offers with mixed feelings. Some accepted, some refused. Of the ones who accepted, almost all of them asked her why she was doing it, and many seemed skeptical of her answers. She became aware that her voice was a severe disadvantage to her, as it was in the classroom. She sounded Southern, posh, stuck up. She tried to change her voice, but then it just sounded unnatural.
“I sound stuck up,” she lamented to her mother.
“You sound very nice, Patsy,” her mother said. “Refined.”