‘Does it?’ he said.
Binny withdrew her hand and thumped the table. ‘I bet you if the milkman rushed in and grabbed old Helen, she wouldn’t say no.’
‘Perhaps not,’ he said dubiously. He had a mental picture of his wife moving serenely about the kitchen in her housecoat, and the youth from United Diaries running through the door in his striped apron and flinging her to the floor. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There’s always the possibility that she might phone the police instead.’
Outside it had grown dark. The block of flats across the street was transformed into a glittering mass of glass and concrete. Behind net curtains shadowed with the leaves of rubber plants, blurred figures moved across rooms that blazed with light.
‘Six letters,’ said Edward, looking down at his paper. ‘Beginning with T.’
‘Terror,’ said Binny.
‘A hard case,’ said Edward. ‘Turtle.’ And he pencilled it in.
5
Driving in their car across London, the Simpsons exchanged bitter words. Outwardly it was on account of Muriel’s interpretation of the street map of N.W.6. They took a left turning instead of a right and ended up on the wrong side of the park.
‘Well, go through the park then,’ advised Muriel, but in fact the gates were locked. They made a minor detour, during which Simpson hunched his shoulders meanly and swore several times.
‘Why are you behaving like a fool?’ she asked.
‘You never see anything clearly,’ he accused. ‘You haven’t the wit.’
‘I try,’ she murmured, thinking he was referring to her map reading. ‘I don’t have X-ray vision. I did tell you to stop under a lamp.’
‘God knows what we’re getting mixed up in,’ shouted Simpson. ‘We don’t know this woman from Adam.’
Muriel pointed out reasonably that they didn’t know a lot of people. Why, only last week they’d had dinner with a young couple neither of them had met before. It had been an enjoyable occasion, even if he’d complained afterwards that the main course was stone cold. ‘Though I can’t think how you noticed,’ she said. ‘You were so busy ogling the girl.’ Muriel hadn’t been perturbed by his behaviour. She knew her husband acted as if he had a roving eye, but really he was seeking attention, not giving it. To her knowledge he was a puritan and an egotist. She considered him incapable of indulging in more than a wink and a nudge; it might interfere with his golf.
‘Last week,’ Simpson reminded her heatedly, ‘was business. Bloody bread-and-butter business. The sort of thing that pays the bills and puts the clothes on your back.’
He was thinking how unfair it was that the nicer moments of life – a few drinks under the belt, good food, a pretty woman seated opposite – were invariably spent in the company of one’s wife.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I know you don’t give a damn about that, as long as you manage to get out of the house and have another excuse for going to the hairdressers, but there are one or two mundane things that have to be paid for.’ He proceeded to list a few of them – the mortgage, the tax on her car, the red telephones she’d insisted on installing. He ended by telling her that Edward Freeman was in a potentially dangerous situation; didn’t she realise it could lead to blackmail?
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Muriel. ‘He’s not a member of the Cabinet. Besides, what has it to do with my telephones? It’s no good shouting at me. He’s your friend, not mine. I had nothing to do with the arrangements. As for getting out of the house, I’m perfectly capable of opening a door. I have merely to turn the handle.’
‘Go to bloody hell,’ ordered Simpson.
He almost took the wrong turning at the next roundabout. Muriel remained silent but pointed a contemptuous finger, at the last moment, in the correct direction.
It was raining heavily as they drove into Fulton Street. Simpson cruised slowly past a row of terraced houses, a block of flats, a further line of houses in a dilapidated condition, and a garage. Reaching the end of the road he reversed some distance down an alley and drove back the way they had come.
‘Aren’t the trees pretty?’ said Muriel. ‘The raindrops look like flakes of snow.’ She smiled.
Simpson stopped the car. He sat there with his leather gloves resting on the wheel and his plump thighs splayed wide. ‘I’ve forgotten the number,’ he confessed. ‘Freeman said something about a black-and-white cat, and some sort of creeper hanging over the balcony.’
‘Knock on doors,’ suggested Muriel. ‘Look at the names under the bell.’
She watched him sprinting across the road with the rain falling on him. She knew he didn’t remember the name either.
He ran up and down steps, peering at windows and glancing now and then at the car. She waved encouragingly once or twice. After a while he returned and slumped damply into the driving seat.
‘No luck,’ said Muriel. There was a funny smell coming from his suede overcoat.
‘I’ve got it,’ cried Simpson. ‘His car. Freeman’s car. It’s a brown Rover. It’ll be outside the house.’ He turned the key in the ignition.
‘He won’t have come by car,’ said Muriel. ‘Just drive very slowly and we’ll look for vegetation.’
There were three balconies, next to each other, entwined with thin strands of creeper. On Muriel’s instructions Simpson went up the steps of the second house and knocked on the door. Here the vine, coming into bud, hung low and dripped water down his neck. Muriel remained in the warmth of the car. The house was in complete darkness.
Edward plucked Simpson inside with such haste that to Muriel, observing the scene from behind a window distorted by rain, it was as if her husband had simply been swallowed up. She stared curiously at the empty porch.
Simpson’s propulsion into the hall was painful; he was pierced in the ankle by a sharp implement. His small cry of agony went unnoticed amid the enthusiasm of his welcome.
To Edward, the arrival of Simpson was comparable to sighting the cavalry on the brow of the hill when all seemed lost. He hit his friend repeatedly on the shoulder as though they’d not met in years.
‘My wife,’ said Simpson. ‘She’s still out there.’ He tore himself from Edward’s embrace and hobbled down the steps.
‘What on earth happened to you?’ asked Muriel. ‘Why are you being so silly?’
‘I was stabbed,’ said Simpson, gritting his teeth and locking the car.
Muriel took no notice. He was always complaining of aches and pains; he had no stamina. She stood on the pavement in the rain, trying to protect her hair with her arms. The privet hedge, she noted, illuminated by the block of flats across the street, was festooned with egg shells, strewn among the dripping leaves like Christmas baubles on a tree.
‘Aren’t they stopping after all?’ asked Binny, confused by the comings and goings. She stood at the table, rearranging the flowers in the white vase.
‘They’re on their way,’ said Edward. ‘Simpson forgot his wife. He’s gone to fetch her.’ And he ran out again to wait for them behind the door.
Simpson, followed by Muriel, re-entered the house with caution. In the gloom he saw the outline of a bicycle leaning against the wall.
‘Such weather,’ murmured Muriel, peering downwards for somewhere to wipe her feet.
Edward led them into the front room. ‘This is George Simpson,’ he said, speaking to Binny.
Simpson saw a small woman with a pale face, dressed in mourning. She was holding a pink carnation in her hand.
‘And his wife, Miriam—’
‘Muriel,’ corrected Simpson. He bent and rubbed at his ankle. He felt sure he was bleeding.
‘We weren’t certain of the house,’ Muriel said. ‘It was in darkness.’
‘Edward made me draw the shutters,’ explained Binny. ‘He doesn’t like being overlooked.’
‘It’s cosier, don’t you think?’ cried Edward. ‘Keeps the place warm. I felt rather chilly myself, though I did turn up the thermostat.’ He looked anxiously at Muriel, feari
ng he’d sounded too familiar with the central heating system.
Simpson said shutters were splendid. It was just like France. So much better than curtains.
They all gazed at the windows and nodded in agreement. The metal bar that kept the shutters in place, once fixed, was difficult to unclasp. The children, impatient to let in daylight at breakfast-time, were in the habit of jabbing at the bar with a poker to release it; most of the paintwork and portions of the wood panelling were severely damaged.
‘We did have curtains,’ said Binny. ‘But they fell down.’ She knew Edward was observing her critically – watching her face, her movements, noticing the way she spoke. Often, when she felt particularly rested and well, he would tell her she looked tired.
‘I’d better take that upstairs,’ she said, admiring the expensive fur about Muriel’s shoulders. She would have taken Simpson’s coat too, but he kept bending down and fiddling with his sock.
‘Please don’t trouble,’ Muriel said, looking round for somewhere safe to lodge the cape. ‘Any old place will do.’
But Binny insisted. When she held the fur in her arms it felt like some animal drowned in a pond. She ran upstairs stroking it tenderly, and laid it across the ping-pong table.
Simpson remembered he’d left a bottle of wine in the car. He would fetch it at once.
‘Don’t bother, old boy,’ said Edward. ‘We’ve plenty to drink, believe you me.’
‘Nonsense,’ Simpson said. ‘I won’t be a jiffy.’
Limping painfully down the steps, he turned left at the hedge and began to run as fast as his injured ankle would allow, along the street in the direction of the garage. Earlier, when he’d been looking for the house, he’d observed a telephone box through the rear window of the car. Stumbling down the alleyway, he saw a man running from the opposite end of the lane towards him. They reached the kiosk at the same time.
‘Do you mind?’ said the man. ‘I’ve a taxi waiting. The wife’s just had a baby.’ He pulled open the door and went inside.
Simpson fumed. He had tried unsuccessfully all afternoon to make a telephone call. When Muriel was in the bedroom dressing for dinner he’d tried again, but just as he was getting through he’d thought he heard her on the stairs. He strolled up and down, struggling for breath. There was a taxi with its engine running parked in the main street at the end of the alley.
He heard the man say, ‘Yes . . . no complications . . . about half an hour ago.’ When he came out of the box he was smiling.
‘Congratulations,’ Simpson said grudgingly.
‘Ta,’ said the man.
Simpson dialled the number. ‘Hello . . . is that Marcia?’
‘No, it isn’t, I’m afraid,’ said a masculine voice. ‘Hold on, I’ll get her.’
Marcia came to the phone and asked who it was.
‘It’s me . . . George. Was that the candidate fellow I just spoke to?’
‘He’s out,’ she said.
‘Oh. It was Lloyd, was it?’
‘No it wasn’t, sweetie. Just a friend. Why are you ringing?’
‘We were out for dinner and I thought I’d say Hello.’ He’d always impressed on Marcia that he wasn’t the sort of chap to run around behind his wife’s back. That wasn’t his style at all. He and his wife, he had told her, went their own separate ways. Within certain limits, he was a free agent. ‘We’re in a very nice house in the park,’ he said.
‘With a call box?’
‘There’s an office in the house. The fellow’s a merchant banker. I wondered if you’re free tomorrow night?’
‘Oh, sweetie . . . what a shame. I’m not.’
‘Well, what about lunch then?’
He thought he heard someone whispering at the other end of the line.
‘Look here, sweetie,’ Marcia said. ‘Give me a tinkle at the office in the morning. I’ll let you know then.’
‘All right,’ he said.
Hobbling, he scurried back up the road.
Edward gave the guests a little sherry to sip before dinner. He didn’t offer any to Binny. The Simpsons wanted to sit on the sofa, but Edward forestalled them. ‘It’s a shade uncomfortable,’ he said, and laughed. He had made love to Binny many times on the sofa, though it was too short for him to lie full length upon it. His left knee, exposed to constant friction on the hair-cord covering of the floor, was permanently scarred. When he was in the car sometimes, driving to work, or in the office talking to a client, he would gently touch this proof of passion with his fingertips and wince with happiness. He was ready, should Helen notice the wound, to tell her he feared he was becoming increasingly knock-kneed as the years advanced.
‘I do admire those cushions,’ Muriel said. She would have liked to go somewhere and attend to her wet hair.
‘Have one,’ said Binny. ‘Have one.’ And she placed a cushion on a chair at the table and told everybody to sit down. She couldn’t concentrate on the cooking with the Simpsons standing about looking uncomfortable. Edward opened a bottle of wine.
The guests perched on the damaged chairs and put their elbows on the table to steady themselves.
Muriel frowned at her husband. He was bent sideways, dragging the cloth with his stomach, doing something out of sight. ‘The traffic,’ she said. ‘It was simply chaotic. We thought we’d never get here, didn’t we, George?’
‘Don’t tell me,’ protested Edward. He walked backward and forward in front of the mirror, holding a glass in his hand.
‘No trouble with parking though,’ said Simpson. ‘Not here at any rate.’
‘Never any trouble here,’ Edward agreed.
‘You don’t do any parking here,’ said Binny.
6
They began dinner at a quarter past nine. Edward wondered agitatedly how he could possibly manage to eat, help with the washing up, and be out of the house by half past ten at the latest. It would seem fearfully abrupt.
There was grapefruit to start with.
‘Excellent, excellent,’ Simpson said, gouging the fruit from its skin with a spoon that had buckled, without warning, in his hand.
‘The reason the loaf looks funny,’ explained Binny, ‘is because one of my children was hungry.’ Her voice quivered slightly. Recovering, she handed the sugar bowl to Muriel. ‘You’ve got four, haven’t you? All boys. Edward told me.’
‘Two, actually,’ interrupted Simpson.
‘Two girls,’ Muriel said. ‘We’re quite pleased with them. Of course, I never went out to work or anything like that, and I didn’t have a nanny when they were younger. I think it’s important to give them one’s undivided attention, don’t you? And I’m glad now that I had them all to myself.’
‘I’m glad I didn’t have a weapon in the house,’ said Binny. ‘I’d have murdered mine years ago.’
‘My father,’ Edward told them, ‘had a nanny who hanged herself.’
‘No,’ screamed Muriel.
‘Yes, she did. It’s as true as I’m sitting here. My father was grown up of course, but he heard about it. It seemed her mind snapped under the strain. One by one, losing her babies in the mud. Master Charles, Master Guy—’
‘In the mud?’ said Binny. ‘Are you sure?’
‘The trenches,’ explained Simpson. ‘In France.’ He shook his head sombrely from side to side.
Anxious to change the subject, Muriel confided that her daughters were musically inclined; she hinted that they were fairly competent on the recorder.
‘My girls have frightful voices,’ said Binny, thinking of tape machines. ‘And their language—’ Her eyes filled with tears.
She put down her spoon and stared distressed at a segment of grapefruit on her plate. Nobody noticed. Edward was telling the Simpsons that houses like these were a jolly sensible investment. Gilt-edged in fact. With inflation and so forth, and the cutting back of the government building programme, superior properties in London would eventually be unobtainable. ‘We’ve seen the end of the downward spiral in prices,’ he said.
‘The slump is over.’
‘How many floors are there?’ asked Simpson. The house didn’t seem particularly superior, what little he could see of it. He wondered if the place was divided into flats. There was certainly something wrong with the electricity supply; the room was full of shadows. He sought with his foot for the table leg and gently worked at removing his shoe.
‘Three,’ said Edward.
‘Four with the basement,’ Binny said. ‘I’ve let it at the moment.’ She tried not to look at Simpson. Edward had told her that Simpson’s little sortie to the VD clinic was to do with some woman he’d met in the bar at a theatre. She’d written her telephone number on his programme when his wife had slipped off to the Ladies. Edward said Simpson had given good money for getting his leg over, because that way his lapse would be more likely to be understood, should he be caught out. Binny hadn’t been able to understand it. Neither she nor any of her friends had ever been paid for doing it. She’d thought at the time that Simpson had made the whole thing up out of his head; he was boasting. Now she wasn’t so sure.
‘My dear girl,’ cried Edward. He rapped boisterously on his plate with a spoon. ‘Who’s telling a little white lie?’ He turned to Muriel and explained that Binny’s ex-husband had sold off the basement several years ago to meet various business commitments. As he spoke he regretted that he’d addressed Binny as his dear girl; Simpson had warned him about hanky panky. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘the basement isn’t really much of an asset. It’s a little dark and there’s no garden to speak of at the back. No garden at all, actually. We’ve got quite a large garden – fruit trees, roses, one or two vegetables. I do a little potting in the greenhouse . . . take a few cuttings . . . nothing special. Are you a gardener, Miriam?’
‘Muriel,’ said Simpson.
Confused, Edward poured out more wine. He said loudly, ‘Helen’s not too keen on the spade work, but she likes it in summer – tea on the lawn, that sort of caper.’
Binny rose abruptly and took the saucers to the sink.
‘Get up, George,’ ordered Muriel. ‘Take things into the kitchen.’ She herself, seeing Edward was puffing at his pipe, took a cigarette from her handbag and lit it.
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