The Square Read Online Free Page B

single mother from across the road. Harriet has no idea what she’s called. Sophie? Karen? She’s about fifteen years younger than Harriet. Then Patrick and Jane arrive. God, Jane looks good, thinks Harriet with a surge. How does she manage it? It is confusing. She sees Jane at plenty of occasions where there is food, but she must simply never eat. And how does she have time to appear so perfectly coiffed? She always makes Harriet feel messy, and dowdy.
    Two other couples arrive. Harriet is pleased to see Jay dealing with them, handing each a glass of Cava, proffering canapés.
    Jane advances on Harriet, eyes shining, smiling furiously. She has kept on her shoes, a spectacular pair of snakeskin mules with a vertiginous heel. Harriet wishes she was wearing heels, and not her Converse baseball boots, which she thought made her look young, but now she feels like mutton dressed as lamb.
    “Hello Harriet,” smiles Jane, high above her. She nods, as if she is taking a school register.
    “Here we all are.”
    Yes, we are, thinks Harriet. We’ve had this Association now for six years and all that’s actually happened has been an annual Christmas drinks do and the enforced closure of a youth club for young disadvantaged people on the corner, the shutting of which was hailed as a communal triumph.
    People start to perch on the antique chairs.
    “So, what are we talking about today?” asks Harriet, dully, to Jane.
    “Oh, don’t you know? Hasn’t Jay shown you the agenda?”
    “No, has he written one?”
    Jane, momentarily flustered, puts her chin up and looks at Harriet like a small bird.
    “I don’t actually know. I would think so, wouldn’t you?”
    Harriet spots the tall figure of her son in the hall. Respite.
    “Sorry, Jane, just a moment.” She moves away.
    Brian. Her lovely son. How could Harriet have known that by the time he reached maturity, his name would become totally outmoded, a name of yesterday, redolent of football managers and tabloid editors. He tolerates it pretty well, thinks Harriet. Although, maybe it is the reason he spends so much time on that bloody computer. Maybe he has an ovatar, or whatever it’s called. A different name, anyway.
    “Hi, Mum,” says Brian, leaning down to kiss her. “Residents’ meeting tonight, is it? Lucky you. I’ll go out.”
    She raises her hands helplessly. “Sorry, darling.”
    “Ooh, look at Dad, texting,” says Brian, gesturing into the room of people now all sitting bolt upright on the circle of chairs, waiting. “Thought that was rude, Dad!” he calls into the room. “Texting when there are people around. Naughty!”
    Jay leaps back as if he has been kicked by a large horse.
    “Brian! Right, everyone, sorry, ” he says, folding his device, but not turning it off, putting it into his pocket like a pack of cards he might at any time bring out again with a flourish.
    “Shall we? Ahem. Welcome, all,” says Jay, as Brian leaves the house, a wry smile on his face.
    “Now, I have written out an agenda. Don’t worry, it’s very short. It essentially deals with the railings around the Square which are in disrepair. The council won’t pay for them. I think the notion is that we will. And the notion is that we should, because otherwise the Square will become riddled with foxes and other undesirables.”
    “Such as?” says the Single Mother, whose child attends a playgroup in the foyer of the council estate next door.
    “Litter,” says Jay firmly. He knows what the agenda of the Single Mother is.
    Jane stretches her legs, arches her feet in their very high heels, and looks at them. She slides her phone out of her pocket, checks it is on silent, and under the cover of her Prada bag, taps out a brief message.
    Jane is texting Jay. Jane is sitting opposite Jay and texting him. Small snippets of erotica. About what she will do to him when they next meet. It turns her on. It is her fantasy, and she loves the outrageousness of doing it amid the formality of