The Love Department

by William Trevor

  Septimus Tuam nodded.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Eve, ‘Honestly, it’ll be all right. Something is on our side. I’m sure it is.’

  She had never before met him in a tea-shop like this, in so open a way. Probably the place was full of mothers. Someone might tell Sybil Thornton; and then she remembered that she would have to tell Sybil Thornton herself.

  Septimus Tuam looked at his wrist-watch. He saw that he had ten minutes in which to break the news to this woman. He wished there was some way in which they might be given injections before occasions like this, to brace them for the worst. It was awkward having to do the thing in a tea-shop.

  ‘James has gone away,’ said Eve. ‘He has gone to Gloucestershire to start up a market garden.’

  Septimus Tuam wondered why she was talking suddenly about her husband’s methods of earning a living. What was it to him if the man ran a market garden in Gloucestershire or if he didn’t?

  ‘He resigned his job and walked away. He telephoned this morning, asking me to look after the children for the time being, until the divorce was organized and –’ Eve paused. She saw Septimus Tuam place the end of a coffee éclair into his mouth. She said, ‘I want to keep my children. My dear, I want somehow to be able to live in the same house as we live in now, and have the children continue with Miss Fairy and Miss Crouch. Don’t you think we could make it possible? Or would it be too much?’

  ‘Who on earth,’ said Septimus Tuam, ‘are Miss Fairy and Miss Crouch?’ He tightened the knot of his pale green tie. He prided himself on being punctilious to a fault: he had no wish to be late at the air terminal.

  Eve said that Miss Fairy and Miss Crouch were the women who taught her children.

  ‘What would we do for cash?’ said Septimus Tuam. ‘You’re indulging in a bit of a fantasy, dear.’

  ‘But we’ll be together?’ cried Eve. ‘I mean, no matter what happens?’

  Several people in the tea-shop heard that cry and turned to regard the woman who had uttered it. Edward heard it, and peeped around the edge of his Daily Telegraph.

  ‘Shh,’ said Septimus Tuam.

  ‘James has gone away. He’s miles away, in Gloucestershire. He knows what there is to know: he admits our love, your love and mine. He has felt our love about him, all over the house. My face is different these days; my eyes are different; I am a different woman. James is no fool. Nothing is holding us back, darling. We’ll manage somehow.’

  Septimus Tuam said nothing. He considered the words just spoken and reflected that he was not the one to manage somehow. In three minutes’ time, he knew, she would be weeping, here in a public tea-shop, and he would be obliged to go, utterly without option, because Mrs Blanche FitzArthur would be cooling her heels at the air terminal.

  ‘The children shall not suffer,’ said Eve. ‘I am as keen for that as you are. James could not ever manage the children alone: they are bound to come to me. Can you face two children, darling? If you can’t, I’ll come to you anyway.’

  Septimus Tuam saw the tears come, before he had spoken a word. Children caused tears; he had noticed that before.

  ‘I really must be off,’ said Septimus Tuam.

  ‘I’ll drive you.’

  He shook his head. He said he’d rather she didn’t drive him. His aunt who was just flying in would want to know all about her; his aunt, he said, was a stickler for detail.

  ‘Let me drive you so that we can talk. I’ll drive away again. I won’t even meet the woman.’

  But Septimus Tuam said that he didn’t think that was a good idea. He shook his head slowly from side to side, like a pendulum. For many years afterwards, Eve was to remember that moment in the Bluebird Café, the lean head going from right to left and back again, swaying rhythmically in front of her like the pendulum of an old clock. She thought that in after years this would be the kind of incident with which to regale grandchildren; she looked ahead and caught sight of herself in the future, telling three grandchildren of an incident in the Bluebird Café in Wimbledon, a place long since demolished.

  Eve saw the movement of her lover’s head and thought of everything at once; she heard herself telling James that she was in love with a man called Septimus Tuam and that Septimus Tuam was in love with her too; she heard James’s voice on the telephone telling her that he was in Gloucestershire, about to open up his father’s market garden; she heard the voice of her lover telling her that he must leave the country or else produce three hundred pounds; she heard him saying that he would wash the dishes and run a vacuum cleaner over the carpet in the sitting-room.

  The head of Septimus Tuam continued to move from left to right and back again, in a slow easy movement. Edward, glancing again around the edge of his newspaper, saw the moving head and wondered what Septimus Tuam was up to. The waitress saw it, and looked to see if there were sufficient éclairs on the table.

  For no good reason that he could think of, some words from Hymn 27 came into the head of Septimus Tuam as it moved in the Bluebird Café. They caught there, so that he was obliged to repeat them under his breath in order to get rid of them. ‘Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away.’ He said all that, and could think of nothing to say to Eve Bolsover.

  Edward noted that copper prices were firmer, and that those of shellac were dropping. Jute was steady; coffee was easier. The turnover of E. Wykes of Leicester, manufacturers of elastic yarn, amounted to £1,028,000, which was a record for the company, and an increase of 26 per cent over the corresponding figure for the previous year. The increased profits, he read, had been achieved in spite of increasing costs, constant pressures on profit margins, and the more exacting standards demanded by E. Wykes’s customers.

  ‘Is it the children?’ cried Eve. ‘We talked of my children before, darling: I said you came before them.’ Eve sobbed, hearing herself say that. Her children had often themselves driven her to tears with their wayward ways and intractability. They had refused to eat fish and vegetables and certain kinds of meat, they had coloured in the outlined patterns on wallpaper, they had pushed one another all over the house, off tables and sofas, down steep flights of stairs. ‘I love my children,’ said Eve, ‘but I’ll come to you without them.’

  The head of Septimus Tuam ceased to sway. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it’s all right. It’s nothing whatsoever to do with your children. I’m certain they’re delightful people.’

  For a moment Eve thought that everything was going to go well for them; that her divorce would come through in time, and that they’d marry quietly.

  ‘It’s not real cream,’ said Septimus Tuam, ‘no matter what she says. You’re wrong, you know,’ he said to the waitress. ‘This stuff isn’t real.’

  ‘It certainly is, sir,’ retorted the waitress.

  ‘I must go,’ said Septimus Tuam, finishing his cup of tea and beginning to rise. ‘What they do, you know, is to whip cream up to about ten times its volume. They introduce gas into the stuff: it tastes like nothing on earth.’

  ‘May we meet again soon?’ said Eve.’ ‘Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Shall we shake hands?’ said Septimus Tuam, and Eve looked up at him, standing there gaunt and unsmiling, his thin face seeming more than ever like a sacred thing, his body bent at an angle. ‘Shall we shake hands?’ he repeated. ‘For you know, dear, it’s nobody’s fault in the world if all these weeks we’ve been at cross purposes.’

  Septimus Tuam’s hand was stretched out towards her, coming down from above, on a level with her head. He was thinking as he held it there that perhaps, in fairness, he should have explained that the extreme brevity of their love affair was to do with the part that Mrs FitzArthur played in his life.

  People taking tea in the Bluebird Café heard weeping that afternoon such as many of them had never known could occur. A dark, narrow-jawed young man stood above a table holding out his right hand, while the woman at the table, a beautiful woman who was dark also, sobbed and moaned. She spo
ke some words – a plea, the people afterwards said – but the young man seemed not to be able to distinguish what the meaning was. The woman’s body shook and heaved. A tea-cup was overturned on the tablecloth.

  The people in the Bluebird Café saw the narrow-jawed man leave, looking at his watch, and they assumed that he was running off to fetch aid of some kind. And then they saw another man, a fair-haired person with the pink cheeks of a baby, come and sit beside the woman, and say something to her.

  The woman left soon afterwards, guided by the fair-haired person. The waitress dashed after them, crying that not one of the three had paid a bill.

  Edward led Eve to her car, telling her not to cry and not to worry. He said it was all for the best in the long run. ‘Where has he gone to now?’ he asked quietly, and Eve replied that Septimus Tuam had gone to the air terminal to meet an aunt who was flying in from America. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Just a love tiff.’ She tried to smile, but wept instead. She sat before the steering wheel of her car, her head bent, crying her heart out like a character in a book.

  Edward looked at her and felt the anger that Lady Dolores had said he would feel. He felt anger throbbing in his chest and upsetting his head so much that it caused a pain. He stood by his landlady’s bicycle and felt rain beginning to fall on him. The anger made his hands shake.

  24

  Mrs FitzArthur stepped out of the Pan American DC-8. ‘A lovely trip’ she said to the air hostesses at the door of the aeroplane.

  ‘A lovely trip’ repeated Mrs FitzArthur in the air terminal an hour later. ‘It really was.’

  ‘So here you are,’ said Septimus Tuam.

  ‘Here I am,’ said Mrs FitzArthur.

  ‘I looked in once or twice at your house,’ said Septimus Tuam, ‘to see that all was well. I tidied up a bit.’

  ‘Dear, how kind of you!’

  ‘I enjoy a bit of housework. I like to see things all in order.’

  ‘I remember that,’ said Mrs FitzArthur.

  The two talked for a while of other matters, matters relating to Mrs FitzArthur’s stay in New York, to her two flights over the Atlantic and how one had compared with the other. Eventually, Septimus Tuam said:

  ‘So you’ve come back with a decision, have you?’

  Mrs FitzArthur did not at once reply. She fingered the silver clasp of her handbag, her eyes following the movement of her fingers. She said:

  ‘I’ve brought myself to do it.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Septimus Tuam.

  Mrs FitzArthur glanced around her, and dropped her voice somewhat. ‘I’ve brought myself to do it,’ she said, glancing again. ‘I’m going to return to old Harry FitzArthur and make the statements he wishes of me. That’s what I wanted to tell you immediately.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ said Septimus Tuam. ‘It’s much the wiser course. To have been cut off with a penny by Mr FitzArthur would really have been no joke. You’d have got lonely, my dear, in that big old house of yours.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Mrs FitzArthur. ‘I’m going to get old Harry to do the whole place over.’

  Not far from where they sat, Edward was speaking in a telephone-box. ‘He came straight here from the Bluebird Café,’ reported Edward. ‘He’s sitting talking to Mrs FitzArthur. Mrs Bolsover’s in a terrible state.’

  ‘And how are you, Mr Blakeston-Smith?’

  ‘I am feeling ill. It made me ill to see Mrs Bolsover.’

  In the love department Lady Dolores doodled on her lined pad, drawing another face.

  ‘You’ve done terribly well,’ she said. ‘The entire department is proud of you.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything at all,’ cried Edward. ‘Septimus Tuam is sitting here alive, not ten feet away.’

  ‘I can see you’re in a paddy. I suppose your face is red.’

  ‘My face is hot, certainly it’s red.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘What am I to do next, Lady Dolores? What d’you want me to do for you?’

  ‘Do? In what way?’

  ‘I thought I might move in now –’

  ‘You are a man of action, Mr Blakeston-Smith: you’ve proved it. Leave thought alone.’

  ‘Mrs Bolsover’s heart is broken. Her marriage has gone for a Burton.’

  ‘I know all that, old chap. We’ll never forget you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll be remembered for ever in the department. We’ll talk about you, mentioning you by name.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying, Lady Dolores. Have I done wrong?’

  ‘You have done extremely well. Amn’t I telling you? You have allowed us to fill up a file on Septimus Tuam that is beyond all value. We know the man’s habits and methods, for which all thanks is due to your surveillance. We have noted down the evidence of your Mrs Hoop: how Septimus Tuam lifted three hundred pounds off Mrs Bolsover, how he posed as a shop assistant. We have noted how he uses the house of one woman in which to conduct himself with another. We have noted that he favours buses rather than another form of transport, and how he’s never without an umbrella. We have a fine description of him. We know now that he will leave a woman in distress in a tea-shop and walk out straight out of her life without a by-your-leave. He walked out of the life of Mrs FitzArthur and into the life of Mrs Bolsover, and now he walks back again as Mrs FitzArthur flies in. You have observed from beginning to end Mrs Bolsover’s love affair: you have done your stuff. This kind of information is perfect. There is a pattern of behaviour: I am studying it at this very minute.’

  ‘But what about me?’

  There was a pause before Lady Dolores repeated:

  ‘You have done extremely well. If ever you’re in the area –’

  ‘You are giving me the brush-off, Lady Dolores. Let me tell you my side of things –’

  ‘Pet –’

  ‘No pet about it, Lady Dolores. You’re there in your office insulting people and trying to be as tall as a house. You’re living on your imagination, Lady Dolores, with your nerves and a bottle of old whisky: you’ve no idea what’s going on in the outside world. All you do is read the written word: what good is that, for the sake of heaven? I’m the one that’s seen the enemies of love. All you ever do is draw faces on a pad of paper.’

  ‘You’re in a great old paddy, Mr Blakeston-Smith.’

  ‘Forget about the paddy. You put me in the paddy as well you know. You’ve arranged for the paddy, Lady Dolores, and now you’re saying that if I’m ever in the area … You’re giving me the brush-off because maybe I’d make a bungle of it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘All I asked you for was a desk in the love department.’

  ‘You’re a man of action,’ said Lady Dolores. ‘You’re useless at any desk. Remember Odette Sweeney?’

  ‘That was a mistake. Anyone could make a mistake like that the first day.’

  ‘You threw the letter away. You said it had been written by Irish labourers in a four-ale bar. I remember the sentence you used.’

  Edward felt his anger increase. His anger became a greater thing, spreading from the scene he had witnessed in the Bluebird Café, from the tearful face of Mrs Bolsover and the face, unmoved, of Septimus Tuam. Edward’s anger was directed now against everyone he had met in London except old Beach and Mrs Bolsover. What right, he thought, had that landlady to give him the same breakfast every day, a fried egg and a tomato? What right had Mrs Hoop to tap her forehead in his presence, whispering that he was mentally deprived? What right had Lady Dolores to use him as she had, and then to drop him entirely? Edward could see some other man stepping into his shoes, a hard-handed man of forty years or more, who was used to the work of tracking people down and putting a knife between their ribs. ‘We had another chap on this,’ Lady Dolores would tell this man, ‘but he turned out to be a child. He was afraid of the posters on the hoardings.’

  ‘You have been unkind,’ shouted Edward into the
mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘I’d never have thought it of you.’

  ‘That’s a lovely paddy you’ve got hold of, Mr Blakeston-Smith –’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, give over about the paddy. What about the sins of Septimus Tuam? Isn’t he to go before the face of God, abasing himself in his guiltiness? There’s none can stand up to that, Lady Dolores.’

  ‘He’ll abase himself in his guiltiness, don’t worry about that. And he’ll go before the face. I’ve said it before, Mr Blakeston-Smith, you have a fine turn of phrase. You’re a joy to know.’

  ‘I’m awaiting an instruction.’

  ‘I like the holy way you talk, Mr Blakeston-Smith. I could listen for ever.’

  ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘Go back to St Gregory’s, pet. Go down there, and I’ll send you on what little there’s owing to you, and your card stamped up to the end of next week. You’re a man of the Almighty: you don’t have a place in this wretchedness at all. It is I who take over now, since you have paved the way. I can draw the face of Septimus Tuam. I know what to expect: I know every move he makes. I’m saying a thank-you, Mr Blakeston-Smith.’

  ‘You wanted me to put an end to him. I had an itch in my hands, and it’s stronger than ever.’

  ‘You’re a holy terror,’ cried Lady Dolores.

  ‘I don’t think I can stop myself.’

  ‘Do no such thing,’ shouted Lady Dolores. ‘D’you hear me now? Don’t lay a finger on the fellow. That’s an instruction, Mr Blakeston-Smith. Are you there?’ Edward could hear that Lady Dolores had gone into a panic. He could imagine her gripping the telephone receiver, blowing smoke into it, flints of anger in her eyes. ‘Are you there?’ repeated Lady Dolores.

  ‘I’m here all right. You’ve led me a dance.’

  ‘Give me a promise now.’

  ‘I am totally confused. Someone was on to me to kill Septimus Tuam. Someone was impelling me all over the place.’

  ‘There’s many an injured woman who’s said in her time she’d like to see the blood flow out of Septimus Tuam. Injured unto death,’ said Lady Dolores, and paused. ‘Are you listening to me?’