Stolen Summer. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ put in Jennifer eagerly. ‘It’s in Harrogate. Maybe you’d like to come with us one day to see it, Mrs Seton. I know Mummy would appreciate your opinion.’

      Shelley sipped her wine as the conversation ebbed and flowed around her. She took little part in it, and she was glad to withdraw inside herself and assimilate her position. Even so, she couldn’t help but notice that Ben spoke seldom also, and she was half afraid someone else would notice the intentness of his eyes when they rested upon her. She was imagining things, she told herself. She had to be. But the fact remained that he disturbed her in a way she found quite intolerable.

      Sarah’s appearance, to announce that dinner was served, interrupted her troubled speculations, and Ben’s mother was not slow to notice that the maid’s eyes lingered longest on her son. ‘Shall we go in?’ she suggested, touching Shelley’s sleeve and drawing her with her. ‘Really, that girl!’ she added, in an undertone. ‘It doesn’t seem to occur to her that I might object!’

      ‘Object?’ Shelley moistened her lips. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Sarah,’ hissed Marsha impatiently. ‘Haven’t you noticed the covetous glances she keeps directing at Dickon? I keep telling myself she’s only seventeen and doesn’t know any better, but she’s beginning to annoy me.’

      ‘Oh.’ Shelley felt a chill run down her spine. ‘I see.’

      ‘I blame Dickon partly,’ Marsha added, as they entered the dining room. ‘I mean—he teases the girl and she takes him seriously. But he is engaged now, and Sarah should realise he’s not interested in her!’

      ‘Yes.’

      Shelley absorbed what the other woman was saying with a distinctly hollow feeling. She wondered if Marsha would be confiding in her if she suspected Shelley’s own involvement. Unwilling, perhaps, but none the less fundamental because of that.

      Struggling with her conscience, Shelley tried to pay attention to her surroundings. The dining table looked lovely. Mrs Carr had arranged the place settings on Venetian lace mats, and the china and cutlery was reflected in the table’s polished surface. Scarlet napkins tucked into crystal goblets marked every place, and a centrepiece of roses and carnations seemed to oscillate in the glow of two tall candles.

      ‘It’s really not dark enough to need the candles, but I thought they looked pretty,’ remarked Marsha, directing everyone to their seats. ‘Shelley—you sit here beside me, with Charles next to you, and Jennifer, you sit opposite Shelley.’ She smiled up at her son. ‘I’m sure you can find your own place, darling.’

      With Marsha occupying the principal position at the head of the table, Shelley found herself almost opposite Ben as he took his place beside his fiancée. Marsha had arranged it so that as Charles had no one else beside him, he was obliged to talk to Shelley, and throughout the start of the meal, she seemed to spend her time answering his questions.

      ‘It must be very interesting, working in the media,’ he eventually commented predictably, and Shelley, who was used to this kind of query, gave a practised smile.

      ‘I like it,’ she said, though without the enthusiasm she had once possessed. ‘Any kind of communication is important in a society that seems to spend its time withdrawing from human contact.’

      ‘Is that what we do?’ Charles arched his rather heavily marked brows. ‘What makes you think so?’

      ‘Oh——’ Shelley was loath to get involved in dogma. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Every aim of Western civilisation seems designed to discommunicate man from his neighbour. The age of the computer signalled the start of increasing isolation.’

      ‘Do go on.’ Charles was intrigued, but Shelley was reluctant. A gap had occurred in the conversation Marsha had been having with Jennifer, and now everyone’s attention was focused on her.

      ‘I’m sure you don’t want to hear my views,’ she averred, in some embarrassment, endeavouring to swallow a piece of asparagus that seemed to have lodged in her throat. She took a mouthful of her wine, wishing she had made some non-committal comment, and then was immeasurably grateful when Ben intervened.

      ‘I think what Shelley means is that computers are set to make a drastic change in our lifestyle,’ he remarked. ‘Right now, we are barely scraping the surface of what they can do for us. I was reading the other day, that by the turn of the century computers will handle a household budget, re-ordering any commodity as its needed from another computer at a store. They’re even talking of computers that can diagnose simple illnesses, to save doctors making house calls. You’d better watch out, Charles. You could be out of a job.’

      ‘Not me.’ Charles grimaced. ‘By that time, I’ll have retired, thank God!’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a frightening thought though, isn’t it? No need to go shopping; no need to visit your doctor. I guess it all began when the cinemas started to close.’

      ‘For which we can thank television,’ said Ben drily, and Shelley, who had disposed of the asparagus at last and was beginning to relax again, caught her breath. ‘You can’t avoid the fact that television has a lot to answer for,’ he added, holding her gaze with lazy irony. ‘Wasn’t it the medium that started this lack of communication? I seem to remember it being accused of killing the art of conversation.’

      ‘Well, yes. But people are better informed because of it,’ exclaimed Shelley defensively. ‘Do you have any idea how many prospective voters are reached at election time, by the simple formula of networking a politician’s views?’

      ‘And do you think that’s a good thing?’ enquired Ben sardonically. ‘Do you think it’s fair to expose the ordinary man in the street to a stream of fanatics spouting their own particular brand of insanity?’

      ‘People are free to choose,’ protested Shelley. ‘They can always turn the set off. They don’t have to listen.’

      ‘But they do.’ Ben arched one eyebrow. ‘Aren’t you forgetting? Not everyone is mentally capable of deciding what to believe and what not?’

      ‘That’s a very supercilious statement——’

      ‘It’s realistic——’

      ‘It’s intellectual snobbery!’

      ‘So you’d let anyone hear—or see—anything?’

      Shelley flushed. ‘I’m not saying that.’

      ‘What are you saying then?’

      ‘I’ve heard that some entertainers refuse to appear on the box because it kills their material,’ put in Charles soothingly. ‘What kind of programming are you involved in, Shelley? Does light entertainment come into your sphere?’

      ‘Oh, really!’ Jennifer raised her eyes heavenward. ‘I’m sure Shelley didn’t come here to spend her time defending what she does, Ben. She probably finds talking about her work just as boring as I do! This is a dinner party—not a political debate!’

      There was a pregnant silence after this pronouncement, and Shelley wished the floor would open up and swallow her. She had not wanted to talk about her work; she never did. But it was difficult to avoid the inevitable interest it inspired.

      ‘I’m sorry——’ she was beginning awkwardly, when once again Ben СКАЧАТЬ