The Love Department

by William Trevor

  Eve, with an orange-coloured duster in her right hand, stood still. Her hand was raised towards an ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, but the hand was motionless. The orange-coloured duster did not float over the ormolu clock, nor did Eve Bolsover’s eye blink, nor was she aware of any physical feeling. The engine of the vacuum cleaner made the sound that such engines do; a sparrow in the garden chirped once, alighting on a crumb of bread, and the sound of the chirp came in through the open french windows but was not heard in the room because of the buzz of the vacuum cleaner. A postman poked two letters through the Bolsovers’ letter-box and walked away from the house, whistling, not knowing what was happening.

  Eve’s mind worked again. Her hand, arrested in the air for what had seemed an hour but had been in fact seven seconds, pushed the orange-coloured duster over the ormolu clock; she moved her legs and bent to apply the duster to the surface of a small table.

  The noise of the vacuum cleaner ceased, and Septimus Tuam walked to the french windows and said:

  ‘Look, it’s a beautiful day.’

  She saw his head, held at an angle against grass and shrubs and a few flowers. His head was dark and thin, rather long, seeming as delicate as a doll’s. He is a man, she thought, out of a black and white film: there’s no colour in him at all; he’d make a good priest. She imagined herself telling Sybil Thornton about the head and the face, and what he had said about going down to the law courts, and the business about the stockings being size ten when he had explained so exactly on the telephone that he had ordered nine and a half on the advice of the girl in the shop. ‘He tidied up beautifully, twice as well as Mrs Hoop. “Four pounds ten,” he said in the end. “The Acme Domestic Agency.” ’

  ‘It’s a lovely autumn,’ said Septimus Tuam.

  Edward woke to discover new vigour in his body. He breakfasted quickly off an egg and a tomato, requested of his landlady that he might again borrow her bicycle and set off for the outer suburbs of London, for the house of Mrs Poache. Her written words echoed in his mind, for although they had been transmitted to paper almost seven years ago they retained still their urgent call. Help me, Mrs Poache had written simply, to accept again the humdrum of my life with a husband who would buy me all I ask for, but who murmurs no more a word of love. She had written much besides. She had written of the man who had stalked into her marriage and had then stalked out again. She had mentioned the philosophical ease with which her husband had tendered his forgiveness, confessing that he too, in those far-off sea-faring days, had wandered from the hard path of virtue. ‘Take it easy,’ the Captain had advised Mrs Poache, and had not ever again referred to the matter.

  After riding for an hour through the sunny morning Edward arrived at his destination. With his bicycle clips still gripping his ankles, he hastened up a short paved path, rang Mrs Poache’s door-bell, and prepared a smile for his face. Footsteps sounded in the house, and as he heard them it occurred to Edward that he had no idea of what he was going to say when the door opened and Mrs Poache appeared. Embarrassment at once overcame him, confidence fled as his heart beat wildly, the smile on his face felt false and sickly. ‘I am inept,’ he muttered, with red burning on his cheeks and a heaving in his stomach. ‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Poache, the woman who had been dressed in shades of pink and was now attired in a flowered house-coat. ‘I’m afraid I don’t ever buy at the door.’

  ‘What?’ asked Edward. ‘Buy, Mrs Poache?’

  ‘I don’t buy anything at all.’

  ‘Don’t you know me, Mrs Poache?’ said Edward. ‘Don’t I look like your son?’ Edward, afterwards, did not know what had inspired him to say that: he should have gone away as soon as Mrs Poache had made the point that she did not purchase goods at the door. He should have beaten a hasty retreat, down the paved path, waving a hand at her and saying it didn’t matter a bit. But something held him there, something that he took at first to be further evidence of ineptitude but then decided was the hand of Lady Dolores Bourhardie.

  ‘Why, you were at that fracas,’ said Mrs Poache. She felt as embarrassed as Edward himself. She had recognized him straight away as the brother of Septimus Tuam and had spoken as she had in order to give herself time to think.

  ‘We had a talk,’ said Edward, ‘if you remember?’

  ‘I have never in my life been present at such rubbish. I said to the Captain, “The people are nut-cases.” ’

  ‘Poor Mrs Hoop was three-parts under.’ He had told her he was related to Septimus Tuam; he had said he was tracing him, or trying to, because of a fortune. ‘Describe the Septimus Tuam you knew,’ was what he should say now. ‘Describe every detail, show me a snap if you have one, so that we can be sure it’s the same fellow.’ But Edward knew that sort of talk would seem irrational and strange to Mrs Poache. ‘Why?’ she would probably say. ‘What’s the reason for my showing you a snap?’ And all Edward would think of to reply was that all avenues were to be explored. After which, Mrs Poache would send him off with a flea in his ear.

  ‘Well, come in,’ said Mrs Poache. ‘Don’t stand there on the doorstep.’

  She led the way into her house, which was a house that was not unlike the Bolsovers’, though decorated and furnished differently.

  ‘What a dump that was,’ said Mrs Poache. ‘Did you ever see the like, that ridiculous object in the hallway?’

  ‘The armour?’

  ‘What else?’

  Edward smiled, admiring the details of the house he was now in. Perhaps, he thought, he could stand there admiring, and then just go away. He said he liked Mrs Poache’s choice of pictures. She showed him some she had painted herself, adding that she had been guided by numbers.

  ‘Well, bless my boots,’ said Edward, shaking his head, not quite knowing what she meant by being guided by numbers.

  ‘I used to be keen,’ said Mrs Poache. It was Septimus Tuam who had suggested the pastime to her. They had gone together to a shop to buy her the materials. ‘Cheerio,’ he had said on the pavement outside, and had there and then walked out of her life.

  Mrs Poache looked closely at Septimus Tuam’s brother, reflecting that they did not appear to be much alike. There was something mysterious about the behaviour of the young man; she had thought so last night, and she thought so again. She felt awkward in his presence, simply because he was the brother of the man, and because she guessed that he had sought her out with a purpose that was otherwise than his stated one: he had come to her to deliver a message.

  ‘It’s my belief,’ said Mrs Poache, ‘that the drunken female was Mrs Bolsover’s mother or something of that nature. They made her out to be the char when she hit the bottle in public.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Edward, ‘that was Mrs Hoop all right.’

  ‘The Captain gave her alcohol, of course.’ In the car on the way home she had mentioned that to the Captain, questioning him about whether or not it was customary to go into other people’s houses and give drink to their servants. ‘You gave the charwoman brandy,’ she had reminded him. ‘What charwoman?’ said the Captain, peering myopically through the windscreen of his motor-car. ‘Look at the cut of you,’ Mrs Poache had cried. ‘You’re as whistled as a badger.’ There the matter had rested, another reminder for Mrs Poache of the change that had been wrought in her life since the Captain had left his ship.

  ‘He gave her alcohol,’ repeated Mrs Poache. ‘There’s no escaping that.’

  ‘Listen, Mrs Poache,’ said Edward, ‘I’m afraid I’ve been having you on rather. To tell you the truth, I’m not Septimus Tuam’s brother at all.’

  ‘What do you want?’ demanded Mrs Poache. ‘Have you a message?’

  ‘How do you mean, Mrs Poache?’

  ‘Have you come here with a message for me? Is that what you meant? You were talking in riddles last night, you know. Well, I understand that you had to. Naturally.’

  ‘I work for an organization, Mrs Poache. Seeing to people, helping them. We’re interested in rehabilitation, and in love within ma
rriage.’

  ‘Love?’

  ‘Love, Mrs Poache.’

  ‘I don’t understand you. What’s your name?’

  ‘I am a nobody, Mrs Poache. I rode out here on a bicycle. Look here, we’re trying our best to help Septimus Tuam. My job depends on it.’

  ‘I don’t understand this at all. Why have you come to me? Did you follow me to the Bolsovers’ house last night? What do you want of me?’

  ‘A snapshot of Septimus Tuam. I cannot trace him until I know what he looks like. I have stared at the window of his room but a face never comes there. Many people live in that house: how can I tell the one I’m after? I get depressed, Mrs Poache. I have not been well in the past.’

  ‘I don’t think I can help you,’ said Mrs Poache, sick with disappointment. ‘I would have you go away.’

  ‘I’ve never had a job before, Mrs Poache. I’m trying desperately to take a place in this world, and to grow up into an adult. I feel a child, Mrs Poache: inept and suckling, three years old.’

  ‘A suckling?’

  ‘I need all the help I can get. I am brand-new in my department, Mrs Poache. I have been assigned the task of tracking down and killing Septimus Tuam.’

  ‘Killing?’ screamed Mrs Poache, on her feet in an instant, a hand to her lips. ‘Killing?’

  ‘Killing?’ repeated Edward, wondering why Mrs Poache was talking in that violent way. ‘Who said anything about killing?’ He smiled and shook his head.

  ‘You did,’ screamed Mrs Poache. ‘You said it yourself. You’re out to murder Septimus Tuam.’

  16

  As it happened, Eve Bolsover did not ever tell her friend Sybil Thornton that a beautiful man had called at her house with a pair of size ten stockings and had helped with the washing-up and had run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet of her sitting-room.

  ‘A lovely autumn,’ said Septimus Tuam, his dark hair coming to a widow’s peak at the back of his neck, and she had stood with her orange-coloured duster, feeling as though she would in a moment be again transfixed, unable to move or to think, or to feel anything at all in her body.

  The dark head moved farther away from her, out into her garden, among the toys that her children had left there, away towards the sand-pit where the children had played once but where they played no longer, past the swing they never bothered with either. She wanted the man to turn his head so that she could see his face. She wanted him to turn and come back to the room and pick up the hose of the vacuum cleaner and ask her where else there was to clean. But she thought that none of that would happen: she thought that the man in the blue shirt, with the signs of the Zodiac on his tie, would walk away through the garden until she had to screw up her eyes against the autumn sun to see him at all. She would run to the french windows and move her head from left to right, looking all over the garden, and she would remember his corduroy jacket hanging over the back of a kitchen chair and she would run to it and find that it was gone.

  ‘After this most unsettled summer,’ said Septimus Tuam, standing in front of her, looking at her.

  ‘Are you from a domestic agency?’ She heard herself saying that, very clearly, in a voice that didn’t appear to have much to do with her.

  ‘Domestic?’ said Septimus Tuam.

  ‘You’ve washed the dishes. You’ve cleaned the carpet. You’re going to put your jacket on in a moment, Mr Tuam, and say I owe you four pounds ten. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m not going to do any such thing. I do assure you, you don’t owe me any money at all.’

  ‘Then why have you come?’ cried Eve. ‘Why have you come here with the wrong size in stockings? Why have you drunk my coffee and washed my dishes? Why have you cleaned a carpet?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ said Septimus Tuam, and the beautiful face came close to Eve’s own, and the dark hair was there above her. ‘Because I love you,’ said the Celtic voice. ‘Because I love you,’ it said again and then again, and after that again. She imagined that she was dying, and she felt the arms of Septimus Tuam clasping her body. I am going to wake up, she thought.

  ‘No,’ said the voice of Septimus Tuam. ‘We are together at last.’

  17

  Edward moved from the outer suburb at a great pace. He felt the breeze bracing on the skin of his face, but he felt as well a swelling fear. Unable to think clearly in motion, he drew his bicycle to a halt. He placed a chain and padlock on it and proceeded to a café frequented by the drivers of heavy vehicles, where he ordered his favourite beverage, a cup of tea. Desiring above all else to be alone, he took it to a table that was empty of other customers and which contained in the way of comestibles only some pepper in a red container.

  Edward stared ahead of him, beyond the immediate area, through a window. People were walking up and down, occasionally stopping to talk to one another in a friendly way. It was all very well, Edward thought.

  He had denied the statement that Mrs Poache had attributed to him; he had denied it five times, as often as she repeated it. ‘You haven’t got it wrong,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’ve only put in a bit.’ And then he had felt strange, and the smile had oozed from his face. ‘Killing?’ he said, and he remembered, afterwards, the sound of the words as they had come from him, the emphasis he had placed on them and the peculiar sensation that had strayed into his mind.

  ‘You’re not in your right senses,’ Mrs Poache had said, quieter now and showing no fear in his company. ‘I do not love him now,’ she said, ‘but I’ll save Septimus Tuam.’

  Edward felt worse than he had ever felt in his life. From the café window he could see posters on a hoarding, and he laughed ironically that posters on a hoarding should ever have upset him. ‘The Brothers have made a thing of it,’ he heard a voice say. ‘Those Brothers down by the sea. St Gregory’s is right for Edward Blakeston-Smith. Wouldn’t you say so?’ Another voice agreed, and added that the Brothers had done well to turn an honest penny in this way, measuring out tranquillity to those upset by the times they lived in. ‘The hurly-burly of life,’ said this voice, ‘has got this youngster down. He is not at all dangerous.’ Edward’s father returned from the dead to impart a word or two on the subject. ‘You are taking refuge in your childhood,’ said Edward’s father. ‘Honour your Queen, sir. Do your job.’

  Edward knew that he could not return to St Gregory’s. He couldn’t go now and sit in the autumnal sun, playing draughts with Brother Toby, buying quietude. Lady Dolores would winkle him out and draw him away towards his deed: she had made him her instrument and if he wished to escape her he must find himself a long way away, with a new identity. He must go into hiding; he must seem, to Lady Dolores and the Brothers at St Gregory’s, and anyone else who mattered, to be well and truly dead. ‘All this wretched love thing,’ said Edward. ‘Is it the cause of everything?’ He remembered dreams about the poster people and the dream about his father in the love department, when Septimus Tuam had been hanged on Wimbledon Common and then had been hustled on to a hoarding. ‘All this love,’ said Edward again, thinking of Mrs Poache and of Beach loving Mrs Hoop, and the fat man saying he could enter a state of love over Mrs Hoop, and Septimus Tuam, and Mr FitzArthur, and Lady Dolores telling him to look for love in the eyes of all he met, referring to snow-flakes. ‘We all set up a department of a kind,’ Lady Dolores had said. ‘As I have set up mine, though in a different way.’ It would be best, he reckoned, to drink his tea and leave the café in a hurry. It would be best to get on to that borrowed bicycle and never appear in the vicinity of the love department again, to ride that bicycle in a northerly direction, far out of London, through woods and villages and country towns, by humming telegraph poles. It would be best to get away, to stop at some place and eat a cheap meal and buy a battery for the light, and then to ride on, into a cold night. He would offer himself for labour at a farm, and spend a day or two and then move on, and do the same again, until the tyres of the bicycle were shredded to ribbons and the spokes gave way beneath the urgency he was inflicting.r />
  ‘I shall ride away,’ said Edward in a soft voice. ‘I shall ride to the north, and then north after that, and then north again. Why should I kill this Septimus Tuam?’

  He drank his tea and felt a little calmer. He left the café and unlocked the bicycle and put the chain and the padlock in his pocket. ‘I have come from the west,’ he said. ‘The north must be up there to the left.’

  He aimed his bicycle in this adventurous direction, but he soon became confused and tired in a maze of suburban roads and avenues. ‘I couldn’t ride this bicycle up to some farm,’ he said aloud, and then, since he had no money, he turned round and began to ride it into London. Afterwards, telling his story, he said he had been impelled to do that, as he had been impelled to do everything else, but nobody believed him.

  At half past eleven that same morning James Bolsover took his jacket off and frowned at the white substance all over the back of it. ‘You could bake a cake,’ he heard one of the board-men say and he wished to hear the man say more, to say that, speaking for himself, he had had enough. Another man murmured that they were not in the granary business, and did not smile.