The Trouble-Makers

by Celia Fremlin

  She laughed again now; and little, fair Esmé laughed, too, nervously. She was too young, too sweet, too newly married for this sort of thing, thought Katharine; the poor child seemed to be trying desperately to find a foothold in this harsh and alien conversation:

  “My husband was ill too, last week,” Esmé ventured bravely; and then, as four pairs of eyes fastened on her with instant greedy expectancy, she sought frantically for a sequel to this rather barren bit of information.

  “The doctor thought at first it was laryngitis,” she battled on: but still the eight eyes demanded some luscious climax, and at last poor Esmé panicked. “But it wasn’t!” she finished helplessly, and hid as much of her confusion as she could behind her cup of tea. Katharine felt terribly sorry for her—and momentarily ashamed for the rest of them—but before she could think of some pleasant, interested remark to make about the girl’s abortive anecdote, Mary broke in rather brusquely:

  “Alan’s not like that at all,” she asserted, speaking to Mrs Forsyth. “In fact, he’s rather the opposite, really. He despises any kind of weakness in anybody, including himself. But the doctor insisted that he should stay in bed. There was the shock, you see, as well.”

  “Of course there was!” agreed Stella enthusiastically. “And of course it’s always much worse with that reserved type, who won’t let themselves go. If only he’d screamed, or snatched the knife back and stabbed the fellow back—but of course Katharine doesn’t know about all this, do you Katharine? Alan was stabbed last night. It wasn’t an accident at all.”

  “Then who——? How——?” exclaimed Katharine, and Stella plunged readily into the story on Mary’s behalf:

  “It was an intruder,” she began importantly “A burglar, presumably, and he walked into the study where Alan was sitting at his desk, and when Alan turned round, the fellow got in a panic, stabbed him, and ran away.”

  Katharine felt dazed.

  “But why on earth should a burglar walk into the study when Alan was there?” she objected. “It sounds quite mad.”

  “Oh, well, you see,” Stella explained—and she seemed as eager to gloss over the discrepancies in the story as if she was herself its author—“you see, Alan always sits there so quietly, I suppose, with that reading lamp with a black shade shining just on to his work…. Why, even Angela didn’t know he was in that evening, and nor did Auntie What’s-her-name. You know, Mrs Thingummyjig. Anyway, however it was, this man walked in—a dark man, Alan says, doesn’t he, Mary? A dark man wearing a raincoat. He walked in, and he stabbed Alan, and then he ran off——What is it, Mary?” For Mary had got hastily to her feet. She was glancing from one to another of her visitors with a curious, trapped look; her hands fumbled nervously with the kettleholder she was clutching as if it was a weapon of defence.

  “I—it’s all right. Do please stay, all of you—and carry on with the tea. I must go up to Alan for a minute…. I think I heard him calling….”

  She backed out of the door, facing them all the time, as if they were royalty; and then she either didn’t go up to Alan or else she went up very, very quietly; for Katharine, straining her ears, did not hear another sound from outside the room.

  But no one else seemed to have noticed anything odd; and Stella was now leaning across the table in an intimate, conspiratorial manner, steering her story into deeper labyrinths than had been possible in Mary’s presence:

  “When I say it was a ‘burglar’ I’m only speaking very generally, you understand. There is a burglar in all of us, after all, isn’t there, just as there is a sadist and a murderer?”

  Sipping their tea, her companions accepted these charges contentedly enough, as people do nowadays. Besides, they guessed that her speech was only a prelude to further exciting revelations, and listened eagerly as she continued:

  “It does make you wonder—doesn’t it?—whether Alan had any enemies. That reserved, silent type of man—his own repressed hostility tends to become externalised in the form of antagonism among those around him.”

  “You mean he annoys people by being so disagreeable?” hazarded Mrs Forsyth, after a few moments’ pondering on the translation. “But you wouldn’t think, would you,” she added, after further thought, “that any friend of Alan’s could be so crude. I mean actually attacking him physically——”

  “Stella said ‘enemy’ actually, not friend,” pointed out Katharine mildly; but Stella did not seem at all grateful for the support.

  “Friend—enemy—it’s all the same,” she declared pugnaciously. “Mrs Forsyth is quite right. A man’s enemies do have to be in keeping with his character, just as much as his friends have to. After all, love is a form of hate, really, isn’t it?”

  Stella always made this sort of statement with such a placid, proprietory air as to make contradiction—or even query—impossible. You felt that, to her, an opinion like this was a valuable possession, like a mink coat. If you didn’t possess one too, well, it was just too bad, but not a matter for argument.

  “And another thing,” Mrs Forsyth broke in, tugging the conversation back within reach as if it was an escaping balloon. “Didn’t you notice that Mary seemed—well—a little odd just now—when Stella was talking about this man with the raincoat. It occurred to me that perhaps she knew—or guessed—who it might be. Didn’t you feel that?”

  “Yes, and another thing,” responded Stella eagerly. “Doesn’t it strike you as queer that she should go off and leave Angela alone in the house like that, knowing that this character with the knife was still around? It only makes sense if—as you say—she did know who he was. Knew that although he had stabbed Alan, he still wouldn’t harm Angela——”

  “Which means she must have known his motive!” squeaked Mrs Forsyth excitedly. “Yes, it all fits in, doesn’t it? For all we know, she may have been his motive! I mean, it’s not so unlikely, is it? Young—well, fairly young—wife: elderly jealous husband…. My goodness! …” Mrs Forsyth began to giggle shrilly as all the interesting implications took hold on her imagination. “My goodness! We’re going to see some fun now, aren’t we, when all the dark husbands with raincoats who were ‘working late’ last night are going to have to produce alibis? My! What a joke!”

  Her laugh was spiteful rather then amused; but all the same, for poor Esmé’s sake, Katharine made an effort to treat the suggestion as really a joke.

  “Goodness, yes,” she said, smiling. “I hope you had your Douglas tied to the kitchen table all evening, for a start!”

  Mrs Forsyth laughed more spitefully than ever.

  “Oh, him! The poor fish can’t even tell the plumber off for bungling the immersion-heater, let alone stab anybody! He’d expect me to do anything like that that needed doing, believe you me! And as to carrying on with Mary—heavens, I’d know soon enough if he was carrying on with another woman; he’d be borrowing the housekeeping money all the time, and getting me to look up the times of week-end trains to Brighton. And she’d always be ringing up asking where he was because of the muddles he’d make about meeting her. I’d have to nurse him through it like an illness, be terribly sympathetic, and at the same time pretend I didn’t know anything about it. In any case, he’d be no damn’ use to another woman. Why——”

  Mr Forsyth’s inadequacies in bed were followed (with equal vehemence) by his inadequacies at finding parking space for the car when he took Mrs Forsyth shopping on Saturday mornings. And Katharine listened, both enjoying it all and gently priding herself on the fact that she wasn’t disloyal enough to expose all her husband’s weaknesses like this. But paradoxically, as well as priding herself on this loyalty, she also felt guilty about it. If you were prepared to take part in and enjoy these husband-belittling sessions, then you really ought to contribute something—some complaint, some grievance—for the others’ delectation. To come merely as a listener like this might be loyal, but it was also mean—like coming empty-handed to a bottle-party.

  It was past eleven when Mary reappeared, and by th
en Katharine was just leaving. Mary said goodbye to her quietly, and with a lack of warmth which yet somehow was not hurtful; on the contrary, it seemed to hold some secret, intimate message which Katharine could not read.

  So she was not really surprised when, a few minutes later, as she set off down the road, she heard quick, awkward footsteps behind her; awkward because Mary’s supple figure was crippled by a tight skirt and high heels, but quick with a despairing, pattering urgency.

  “Wait, Katharine!” panted Mary, like a small child left behind. “Wait! Wait for me!” She drew level; and now Katharine noticed that her face was childishly streaked with tears. “Katharine I must talk to you—now! You’re the only person who will understand.”

  Few people can resist the flattery of this sort of appeal; but all the same, Katharine had to catch her bus.

  “Mary—of course!” she said warmly. “But I’ve got to go to work now. Could I come in this evening, on my way home?”

  “No, I must tell you—now!” insisted Mary with a little gasp. “I’ll walk along with you—I’ll get on the bus wherever you’re going—anything. You see, Katharine, I’ve been telling lies the whole morning. At least—not quite. That is, actually, I haven’t been telling lies at all—Alan did say it was a dark man in a raincoat who stabbed him. He told the doctors—the police—everybody. But it wasn’t, Katharine. It was me.”

  CHAPTER VII

  KATHARINE TOOK HER friend’s arm, and continued to walk at a steady pace.

  “I thought so,” she said, quietly, untruthfully, and with absolute certainty that this was the right thing to say. “You mustn’t be too upset about it, Mary; after all, anybody can lose their self-control for a moment, and it isn’t as if you’d hurt him badly. How did it happen?”

  Mary’s head was bent, as though she fought her way against a great wind. Her high heels clattered painfully along by Katharine’s side; she seemed confused, beaten, unable to find where in her story to begin. Katharine tried to help her.

  “You said you’d had a row yesterday,” she prompted. “You remember—when I caught you up. You were walking slowly so as not to get home while Alan was still there. Was he there after all?”

  Mary’s head lifted a little, gratefully.

  “Yes—yes, he was. That’s how it all started. You see, after you’d gone in, I still waited about—walking around, you know—for quite a long time. But at last I had to go in….” Her steps dragged slower, as if she was reliving all over again her reluctant entry into her home last night. “And then, the moment I came into the hall I knew—I could feel—that Alan was still there, in his study. As I stood there, wondering whether to slip out again and come back later, the study door opened and he came out and looked at me. Just that. Looked at me. And then he looked at the clock—it was ten past six by then—and didn’t say a word. Oh, Katharine, I know this sounds silly, but you don’t know how Alan’s eyes are when he just looks! Everything he is thinking is right there in them, shining, and I can read it, like some awful language that he has forced me to learn. I was reading it then—how I had been out all day, neglecting the house, neglecting him—how I hadn’t lit the sitting-room fire, or got tea ready, or made the beds properly or anything—and I couldn’t explain, or argue, or answer back, because he hadn’t said anything—do you understand, Katharine? You can’t contradict someone who hasn’t said anything, that’s what’s so awful about it. So awful. So awful….

  Her voice trailed into a sort of moan, her foot tripped on the kerb as they crossed into the main road, and Katharine steadied her.

  “So it was then that … that …?” She attempted to prompt Mary again, and Mary raised her drooping head a little and continued:

  “No. Oh no. Not then. I didn’t do anything. I just—sort of muttered something. Not even an apology, because he still hadn’t accused me of anything, had he? It was just a mutter—you know—without any actual consonants or vowels. If you’ve ever had to mutter like that yourself, you’ll know what I mean. And then I slipped off into the kitchen. I thought I’d get dinner ready, and then perhaps it would all blow over, because of course Angela would come down for dinner, and I will say for Alan he’s always careful not to be—awful—in front of Angela. But I’d forgotten to do any shopping that morning, and so when I looked in the fridge there was nothing but the cold joint. So I started slicing it up. I don’t quite know what I was planning to do with it—I mean, you can’t really give your husband just cold meat, can you, even when he’s in a good temper, let alone when he’s like that. But anyway, I thought I’d start by slicing it up, and think afterwards. Don’t you think that’s quite a good way, Katharine, when you’re quite desperate?—do something first, and then decide whether to do it afterwards … if you see what I mean….” Her voice was growing vague again, wandering evasively down tortuous byways of philosophy as the climax of her story loomed nearer. Katharine forced her to the point again.

  “So you sliced up the meat?” she pursued, pulling Mary gently to a halt at the bus stop “And then?”

  “And then I heard the study door open again,” said Mary, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, as if even now she had to listen, nerves alert, for Alan’s soft movements. “And I heard Alan coming down the hall—very softly, the way he does when he’s angry. And then he was standing in the kitchen door, very neat, very calm, and his eyes shining. ‘Cold meat!’ they were screaming at me. ‘Out all day—no fire—no comfort—and now cold meat for dinner!’ They screamed it at me, Katharine—two or three times! My hand shook so that I cut my finger—my own finger, isn’t that funny, when you think what happened afterwards? I really did—look!” With a short laugh, she held up a forefinger encircled with sticking plaster for Katharine’s inspection, and went on: “And then he spoke to me. Actually spoke, with his mouth, I mean—and you can’t think what a relief that was, even though he was still as angry as he could be. ‘I see there’s going to be nothing for dinner,’ he said politely. ‘And as I have to go out in a few minutes, perhaps I could trouble you to bring me a sandwich in the study? I’d ask for some coffee too, but of course that would be too much trouble; and no doubt we have run out of coffee.’ Absolutely quietly he said it, perfectly civil—and oh, Katharine, I’d give anything for a husband who’d stamp, and rage, and throw things at me…. Oh! …” Tears were swelling her features once more, but with a cruel effort she gulped them back and went on:

  “So I began making the sandwiches as quickly as I could—I used the cold lamb for them. Oh, it was such a job, with the bread new, and the butter hard, and my finger bleeding, and trying to make coffee at the same time—and knowing that any minute he’d come back into the kitchen and say in that polite voice: ‘I see I’m expecting too much,’ or some awful sarcastic thing like that, and go off without anything to eat at all. Anyway, I did manage to get it ready, and piled it all on to a tray in a great hurry—the carving knife too, just because it happened to be still on the plate with the sandwiches—I didn’t mean it to be there, of course—I swear I didn’t. And when I put the tray down by Alan as he sat at his desk, the knife was the first thing he saw. He picked it up and handed it to me saying, ‘I think this is surplus to my requirements.’ And so that’s how it happened that I was standing there, with the knife in my hand, when he … when I …”

  “He said something else sarcastic, and it was just the last straw?” suggested Katharine, as Mary’s voice ground to a stop once more. Mary nodded forcefully, blinking back a new spate of tears, and tossing her head with an odd, coltish gesture.

  “Yes—that’s just how it was! Oh, Katharine, I knew you’d understand. You see, as he turned his back to me, and began eating, sitting there at his desk, I felt I ought to say something. So I began apologising about not having any dinner ready, and I said that I’d thought he was going to be out for dinner. Well, I did think so—he’d said he was going out at six—you know that, don’t you, Katharine. I told you so at the time. So I said just that: I said, I’m sorry there
isn’t a proper dinner, but I thought you were going out at six.

  “And then, Katharine, he swivelled round in his chair and looked right at me. And his eyes were, blazing, yelling, bellowing, but this time I didn’t know what they were saying. And I didn’t have to, because again he actually spoke:

  “‘You thought I was going out, did you, Mary? You actually thought about me to that extent? I’m touched beyond words. It’s wonderful to have a thoughtful wife, isn’t it? And what a sweet, loving thought! …’ And at that, Katharine—can you believe me?—he stood up and moved as if to kiss me—a sarcastic, poisonous kiss, like a snake.

  “And that’s when it happened. I simply struck out. I’m not sure I remembered I had the knife in my hand or not, but I struck out…. And the next thing I knew, he was slumped in the chair again, staring at me … and blood was everywhere. And then he didn’t cry out, or snatch the knife from me—nothing. He just sat there, looking at me, holding his sleeve, trying to check the bleeding. ‘You’d better phone the doctor, Mary,’ he said quietly. I was terrified. I rushed to the phone, and when I got back into the study he seemed to have fainted—he was very white, and his eyes shut. And the doctor came at once, he was very kind; he hardly asked me any questions; he said he’d take Alan straight to hospital in his own car. And so we got him into the car, and I went too … and they stitched him up under an anaesthetic, and when he came to, he told everyone this story that I told you—that a dark man in a raincoat had done it. Why does he make up such a story? Oh, Katharine, I’m so frightened!”