Free English Correspondence by Janet Davey Page B

seeing you on your own. Brooding is so destructive. You need to get out of yourself. What do you need this time alone
for
? What good does it do? You need company.
    She came over.
    She and Gilles lived about forty-five minutes’ drive away; near enough for them never under any circumstances to have to stay. The second half of Yvette’s second glass of wine always remained complacently on the table. They were proprietorial about the restaurant, having put up the money, though not excessively so, as they realised this was bad manners. Apart from casual visits they came for special dinners at Paul’s invitation; anniversaries, birthdays, mothers’ days, name days. The year was full of them and, by a fluke, they were evenly spaced, so that it wasn’t possible for Sylvie to recoup in an off season. Yvette saw it differently. There was always something to look forward to. At the end of these occasions they swept off in their car. Not for them the anonymity of the hotel bedroom that George had had to put up with.
    Sylvie suggested that the two of them went for a walk. Natalie could be in charge for an hour. She knew fromexperience that this would be easier than sitting cosy at home. If the conversation got tricky she could always draw attention to the surroundings; the scene in motion, the smell of the pines. It was less blatant than changing the subject. Yvette picked up on that.
    â€˜Which way shall we go then, darling?’
    â€˜You choose,’ Sylvie said. ‘Forest? If your shoes are all right. It could be muddy.’
    She wasn’t up to shepherding Yvette along the main road. They set off. The track was wide, made of compacted earth and decades of needles, the trees either side densely packed. There was order here, though Sylvie had no key to it. Every felled tree had a number attached to it. When she looked up there was plenty of sky.
    â€˜My feet are fine,’ said Yvette. ‘Where does it go to?’
    â€˜Go to?’
    â€˜The path.’
    â€˜I don’t know really. I’ve brought you here before, haven’t I? It seems to go on. The tracks don’t have signposts. It’s not done up for hikers. The foresters know their way around. I suppose if you keep going you come out at a road or a village. But I’ve never done it. The mist has cleared now. We should be able to see where we’re going.’
    â€˜I thought there might be a view, or a place to sit down. It’s nice to have something to aim for and then you know when to turn round.’
    Sylvie thought, why does that sort of comment annoy me so much? It was the certainty not the triteness that bothered her. She wanted to say, I much prefer going round in wide circles, and, on a good day, I might even get lost. It didn’t need effort. Getting lost just happened. It all looked the same.
    â€˜If we had gone on the other walk there would have been an end point,’ she said.
    â€˜What’s that, darling?’
    â€˜Maude’s house.’
    Yvette blinked and smiled, switched off the smile as soonas it had begun. Sylvie knew she shouldn’t have said it, but sometimes she liked to disconcert her. Perhaps they should have gone that way. Paul’s car parked outside. It probably wasn’t, but it might have been. With Yvette there. Almost worth doing.
    â€˜Are you going back to London?’ Yvette said.
    Sylvie realised that the other subject was now out of bounds. It might not have been. She might have got a pep talk on resentment or rivalry, though probably not named as such. The words were too forceful. Certainly not jealousy; that was too sexual. Yvette considered herself a woman of the world, up for tackling most subjects. But nothing head on and not that one. Because she, Sylvie, had got in first, she had stopped it at source. Perhaps she was a strategist after all, though not a conscious one.
    She replied, ‘I haven’t made plans to.’
    â€˜It would do you