Free Play to the End by Robert Goddard Page B

favour I'd done her meant she couldn't take such a stance. "You can leave that to me."

    "Yes. Of course. Sorry." I smiled, daring her to smile back. "It's hard to get out of the habit of offering you advice." The same, I could have added, went for several other habits. Touching her, for instance. That's something I badly want to do now I'm not allowed to.

    "I am grateful, Toby."

    "Least I could do."

    "I'm sorry it led to you missing the show. Won't that get you into quite a lot of trouble?"

    "I'll survive."

    "I'm sure you will."

    "Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?"

    "Actually, no." She gave an embarrassed little smile.

    "Roger's coming back earlier than he expected. He suggested ...
    picking me up for lunch."

    I found myself wondering, for no rational reason, whether Roger had somehow got wind of my contact with Jenny and decided he'd better hurry home and spike my guns. It was an absurd idea, of course, but in that instant strangely credible. "We could make up a threesome," I suggested, using sarcasm to shield my disappointment.

    Jenny looked at me for several silent seconds, then said, "I'd better drive you back into Brighton."

    Jenny's bought one of the new fish-eyed Minis. She's always liked Minis. I remember the one she had when we first met. Travelling in the modern souped-up version tonight revived more than a few memories for both of us. But we didn't share them. My mind wrestled with a slippery tangle of things I wanted to say and needed to say but didn't.
    Time was suddenly short. And all I could do was watch it pass.

    Eventually, oppressed by the thought that we may well not meet again before I leave Brighton and spotting the Duke of York's Cinema ahead as we approached Preston Circus, I said, "Derek Oswin lives in Viaduct Road. Number seventy-seven."

    "Do I need to know that?" Jenny countered.

    "You may do."

    "I hope not. If Oswin leaves me alone, I'll be happy to leave him alone."

    "When you mention him to Roger, will you also mention me?"

    "What do you think, Toby?"

    "I think not."

    "Really?"

    "Yes. Really."

    "Well, there you are, then."

    "But am I right?"

    Her answer took so long coming that I began to think it never would.
    She had to say something, though. "I only asked you to approach Oswin because I genuinely believed you were the key to his interest in me.
    I'm grateful to you for proving that isn't the case. But now you have
    ..."

    "You want me to back off."

    Another wordless interval followed. We were past St. Peter's Church by this time, heading south down Grand Parade. I watched Jenny clench and unclench her jaw muscles. Then she said, "That's what separation means, Toby." She glanced round at me. "Let it go."

    Back here at the Sea Air, Eunice had gone to bed, leaving a note for me on the hall table.

    Brian Sallis called. Phone and in person. Seems you've been a naughty boy, Toby. I hope you know what you're doing. Well, there has to be a first time for everything, doesn't there? E. Even in my less than joyous condition, I raised a chuckle at Eunice's characteristically perky perspective on events. I'll have to do some fence-mending tomorrow, no question about it.

    I came up here to my room, broached my emergency whisky supply and pondered Jenny's parting plea to me. "Let it go." Rich, that, I reckon. She came to me for help and I obliged. Now she wants me as well as Derek Oswin off her back. Life isn't quite as simple as that, Jen, however sweet and easy lover boy's made it feel lately. I'm not letting this go. Not just yet. Tomorrow, I'll post The Plastic Men to Moira. Then ... we'll see.

    And what about The Plastic Men! I need something unreadable to lull me off to sleep. Let's take a late-night look at the little man's chef d'oeuvre. Let's get past the title page and the epigraph and see what we find. An Introduction, no less.

    The Oxford English Dictionary defines plastic as 'any of a large and varied class of wholly or partly synthetic substances which are organic