Mr. Porter and the Brothers Jones

by Reinhold, Margaret;

  “Yes,” said Mr Porter thoughtfully, “You do, it’s an idea.”

  The prospect of growing his own grapes began to intrigue him. What was needed? He would discuss the matter with Dr Katzenheimer.

  “There are vines in England, of course, Hampton Court, Hambledon …”

  “Were you thinking of wine?” asked Gertrude in surprise. “That seems to me more difficult.”

  “No, no, of course not!” snapped Mr Porter testily. “For the table only.”

  “You could start with Clifton Nurseries,” suggested Dr Katzenheimer, “or there are some places that sell plants near Ascot, I believe.”

  Having finished briskly with Dr Katzenheimer, Mr Porter hurried home on waltzing feet. The idea of growing grapes remained with him a little longer but, having neither basement nor patio, he found himself at a loss. “A skylight,” he thought—but he was not on the top floor. Suddenly he thought he would ask Lilac’s advice. He scuttled to the telephone.

  “Lilac? I need some help. Would you please come around?”

  “Help?” Lilac was flattered. “When shall I come?”

  “Now.”

  She giggled.

  “Yes. Immediately, please. It’s something that can’t wait.”

  “What shall I wear?”

  “Wear?”

  “What sort of occasion is it?”

  “Not jeans. We may go out. Something …” He was about to say “elegant” but Lilac, chic, fashionable, cheeky, was never elegant. “… suitable for lunch.”

  By the time Lilac arrived, he had forgotten about vines. His mind had raced to other matters and he was quite surprised to see her.

  She was looking especially attractive in a cream-coloured jacket and skirt and lots of bits of gold jewellery, he noticed with pleasure.

  “I’ll take you out to lunch,” he said kindly.

  Lilac couldn’t understand this new version of Mr Porter. She giggled again. “You’re in very good form,” she said. “What d’you need help with?”

  He took her arm firmly. “We shall go,” he said, ignoring the matter of help, “to Quaglino’s and after that, we’ll have a walk by the river if the rain stays off and then …”

  Standing so close to her, he suddenly became aware of the warmth of her body, her breasts, the submissive enticement of her slightly open mouth. His own body awoke, terrifyingly, buzzed and vibrated to match his buzzing mind. She swayed towards him.

  “Lilac!” he gasped.

  Lilac had probably never refused any man when she was so desired, so admired. Her cravings for acceptance were momentarily fulfilled—and to be desired by Mr Porter seemed particularly comforting.

  But Mr Porter drew back. With a supreme effort he controlled himself. Gently he smoothed her pale hair, gently kissed her mouth. Gently he held her.

  “Dear Lilac,” he said and began to weep softly.

  Lilac was taken aback. What to do? She’d never come across this kind of thing before. She felt anxious and sorry for Mr Porter.

  Mr Porter took out his large, spotless, linen handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  “Dear Lilac” he said again. He sat down on the sofa. His seething excitement was ebbing. Gentle laughter followed his tears. “I do love you,” he said. “Lilac, I love you. I’m infatuated with you—I’m entranced by you—and I fear for you—but I’m not going to make love—not like this.”

  “Why don’t we make love?” she said.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Lilac giggled again—a little at a loss. Had she been rejected?

  “You’re a child, Lilac,” he said, both severely and tenderly. “I can’t take advantage of your neurosis. And now,”—his mood was rallying, little fragments of ideas were assembling into a coherent whole—“we’re going to invite your husband to lunch!” He looked triumphant.

  “Joshua?” Lilac was staggered—and very disappointed.

  “Joshua,” he repeated, beginning to tingle again. “Telephone him.” He waved her in the direction of the instrument.

  Lilac, still puzzled, got through to Joshua’s secretary, then to Joshua. “Quaglino’s,” Mr Porter heard her say. He approached.

  “Oh for God’s sake, Lilac! It’s the middle of the day. I’m up to my eyes in work. Who is this fellow?”

  “Mr Porter,” said Lilac. She spelled the name “P-O-R-T-E-R.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Just a man I know.”

  Joshua groaned. He supposed Lilac had picked up someone in the street or in a car or somewhere. Heaven knows who she’d got hold of. He supposed he’d better go and rescue her—save her from whatever crook, con-man, queer, possibly even a black … “But not Quaglino’s. It’s too far.”

  “Not Quaglino’s?” Lilac peered at Mr Porter with raised eyebrows.

  “He must,” said Mr Porter sternly—then relented. “Make it the Ritz, that’s near the Tube.”

  “The Ritz, Joshua, at one!”

  “He’s coming.” Lilac put down the receiver and turned to Mr Porter. “I don’t understand you!” she said. “You get me up here pretending you need my help—then you refuse to make love to me—and now you make me ask my husband to lunch.”

  The tempo of Mr Porter’s heartbeat accelerated. He seized Lilac in his arms and hugged her. “I love you, Lilac,” he cried. “Come on, let’s go. We might do some shopping on the way.”

  So it was that Mr Porter came face to face with Joshua Jones. Each inspected the other with a little distaste. Yet Mr Porter felt a reluctant respect for the man—unpleasant as he seemed, he was, on the surface, a highly moral, responsible man, who had, after all, left an overcrowded office desk to be with his wife at an inconvenient time and place. That was chivalrous—and in his nervous, irritable face, it was possible to see that he, too, feared for Lilac, would protect her from harm if he could, and possibly—as far as this man could love—even loved her.

  Lilac, passive, subdued, but intrigued, looked from man to man. Of the two, she thought, she infinitely preferred Mr Porter. Batty as he was—or, perhaps, because he was batty—he seemed human, compassionate and understanding. Joshua was his usual correct cool self. Just, implacable, intent on never putting a foot wrong. Also, she told herself, for mysterious reasons she rather fancied Mr Porter, felt quite excited at the idea of a sexual adventure with him. The luxury of his clothes—cashmere, silk, leather—his excessive cleanness, the splendor of his apartment, his self-sufficiency, the fine tea and porcelain he used at their tea parties—in general, his exaggerations and extravagances she found provocative, stimulating.

  Joshua, for his part, was baffled by the invitation to lunch. Who on earth was this middle-aged man, who seemed so at ease with Lilac, so aggressive with the waiters and so penetratingly inquisitive about him, Joshua? How in Heaven’s name had Lilac got involved with him? He seemed well-to-do. Where could she have met him in the first place? All these questions chased one another through Joshua’s mind as he ordered his lunch. Mr Porter, in a manic mood still, and supernaturally sensitive, was vaguely aware of Joshua’s perplexity and disapproval. He was half irritated, half amused. He said wickedly, “Why not just have one course and a cup of coffee? We won’t keep you after that if you’d rather not stay …”

  Anger stirred softly in Joshua, but he replied, “Thank you. I am very busy, as a matter of fact.”

  Mr Porter was suddenly contrite. “I’m sorry to have dragged you away from your desk,” he said. “I know how it is. Please eat something quickly and leave as soon as you wish. Lilac is quite safe with me,” he added briskly. “You needn’t worry.”

  In spite of the stupefying presumptuousness of the man, Joshua felt a little spurt of affection for Mr Porter. He could trust him, he thought. He could see, or sense, that Mr Porter cared for Lilac, but would not take advantage of her hopeless inadequacy. There was something about Mr Porter—Joshua could not quite define what—that drew one towards him, yearningly hoping for a hand to be extended, an arm to
be placed around the shoulders, and all the more attractive since such gestures of affection, he knew, would not be easily forthcoming.

  Mr Porter, meanwhile, thought he had sufficiently sized up Joshua. A nervous man, he decided, highly intelligent, highly strung, trying to escape from his powerful mother. He had chosen a child wife to whom he acted like a parent. And this wife, who was angry with her absentee father and adored a rejecting mother, justly regarded him as a parent. A man, thought Mr Porter, who loved and hated his brother, who, unconsciously reaching out to his brother, arranged to encounter him through the medium of Lilac. He must verify all this with Dr Katzenheimer, decided Mr Porter. His clinical detachment left him as he turned to look at Lilac. There was a white exhaustion in her pallor and desperation in her eyes. She was finding it all too much, he realised, and was thankful for her sake when Joshua rose to go.

  She revived a little after his departure.

  “What did you think of him?” she asked.

  “Well—hmm—he’s not such a bad chap as I’d imagined.”

  “What had you imagined?”

  “A sort of ogre, I think. I believe you see him as an ogre, Lilac.”

  “Isn’t he?”

  “No. He’s a mixed-up man—but he wants to look after you. Some of what you feel about him has nothing to do with him.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “It’s to do with your father—or mother, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you understand what he’s really like.” She spoke impatiently.

  “No. Perhaps not. Well—are you ready for a walk?”

  Mr Porter’s sparkle reasserted itself. “Bond Street, I think, as we’re so close. We’ll look in all the jewellers. Did I ever tell you I used to take quite an interest in precious stones? I had a friend, a Jew from Morocco, a fascinating fellow who taught me all I know. Come and look.” Arm-in-arm they strolled sunnily along, stopping to stare in shop windows, chattering like old friends.

  Ten

  Beatrice left Mr Porter’s apartment with a strong sense of disturbance. Little messages, signals, picked up now and then over the last few months had fused and integrated as she stood in Mr Porter’s large sitting room. Was it that there seemed to be a trace of the scent that Lilac was in the habit of using? Was it Mr Porter’s refusal to tell her if Lilac had visited him there? Was it, perhaps, the extraordinary, incomprehensible friendship that existed between Jerome and Mr Porter? Whatever the undercurrents she had detected, Beatrice became possessed, as she left the flat, by an unshakeable conviction—or was it only suspicion?—that Jerome and Lilac were having an affair. Conviction or suspicion—she was not really sure—yet at times she was certain.

  By a strange and terrifying coincidence, she bumped into Lilac who had just left her exercise class in Paddington Street.

  Lilac smiled her crooked smile and said caressingly, “Hullo, Beatrice!” She seemed so candid and so pure that Beatrice reproached herself for her suspicions. And yet … Her troubled eyes searched Lilac’s face and met Lilac’s wide grey stare—faintly insolent? Faintly placatory?

  “How are you, Beatrice?” Lilac’s tone was gentle. They talked for a moment. Lilac’s body was trim and taut and the carelessly attractive look of her irritated Beatrice. She ended the conversation abruptly, so that Lilac’s face showed a flicker of hurt.

  “God! She’s bloody sensitive!” Beatrice strode on furiously. When she reached home she telephoned Joshua.

  Mr Porter also felt a tremor of foreboding as Beatrice went down the stairs. Always quick to react to emotional vibrations, he sensed in Beatrice both fear and anger—a dangerous combination, he thought, in someone who expressed herself so spontaneously and directly.

  “What might she do?” he inquired from Dr Katzenheimer. “What do you think she’ll do?”

  “Well,” Dr Katzenheimer hesitated, “I expect she will try to discover the truth.”

  “And if she does? What then?”

  “She might do nothing, if she’s used to such goings-on with her parents. Just make a fuss.”

  Mr Porter shook his head in a troubled fashion. “I’m nervous about her,” he said. “She’s capable of anything. She’ll try to avenge herself! She’s highly destructive.”

  Dr Katzenheimer was, even at this stage, unsure as to what she should believe. Once again, the characters in Mr Porter’s saga were taking on the dimensions of characters in Greek legends.

  Did Mr Porter think Beatrice was capable of murder?

  He considered the question thoughtfully. “Perhaps not actual murder, but there are other ways of destroying people,” he replied.

  On this enigmatic note the session ended.

  A few nights later, Mr Porter had an unexpected visitor.

  After a longish struggle with his bowels, only partly successful, Mr Porter sat, sipping his beer, with somewhat ragged nerves. Suddenly, the street doorbell buzzed. Mr Porter jumped, became agitated, and decided to ignore it. Occasionally people wanting another flat rang the wrong bell—or, as he put it, the bell was rung by passing hooligans, drunks, vandals, riff-raff, no-good young men, maniacs and so on, who pressed the bell for the hell of it—or could it be the police?

  The bell buzzed again, this time more insistently, more urgently. And then, as Mr Porter resolutely sipped his beer, it buzzed once more. He stumbled angrily to the answering telephone. “Who is it?” he growled.

  “It’s Joshua Jones,” said a firm voice. “I would like to see Mr Porter if it’s possible.”

  “This is Mr Porter. What d’you want?”

  “Would you please let me in? I very much want to speak to you.”

  Mr Porter hesitated. He caught sight of his own reflection in the antique hall mirror and the scowling, ungracious, somewhat fractured image he saw of himself made him soften his mood. He decided to allow Joshua as far as his front door and find out what he wanted.

  “I don’t think I can see you now,” he growled into the machine, “but you’d better come up and tell me what it’s all about.”

  He opened, then shut again, his front door while he went in search of his silk dressing gown.

  Now the front doorbell rang, a firm temperate ring, neither too diffident nor too vigorous—the calm, full-toned ring of one who has pressed the button with confidence. Mr Porter peered through his spy glass. Joshua Jones stood on his doorstep—a patient, composed figure, coat neatly folded over his arm, shoes gleaming with polish. Mr Porter half opened the door, roughly sliding it along the chain which he kept fastened.

  “Yes?” he said curtly.

  Joshua blinked at the sudden apparition of a section of Mr Porter and the hearty clunk of the door abruptly reaching the end of its chain.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” he said evenly. “Please forgive me for appearing like this. I wanted to telephone first, but I didn’t have your number. Information told me you are unlisted. I very much need your advice.”

  Mr Porter peered at him through the aperture. “Well?”

  “May I come in please? It’s awkward talking to you like this through the door.”

  Mr Porter hesitated. “I’m not sure it’s convenient,” he began. “I never see anyone without prior arrangement.”

  “Oh, please!” cried Joshua, suddenly losing his calm. “I need advice. It’s important. I’ll stay only a few minutes.”

  Mr Porter closed the door, released the chain, and let Joshua enter. He led the way sulkily to the sitting room where his glass of beer waited by his chair.

  Joshua followed meekly. His mild expression did not change as he glanced fleetingly around at the carefully assembled chaos. Mr Porter indicated the sofa and he himself sat in his own chair.

  There was silence for a moment. Mr Porter leaned forward impatiently.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “It’s about Lilac,” said Joshua, and paused again.

  A gleam of apprehensive interest lit Mr Porter’s eyes and he waited.

  “It’s
because Lilac seems to trust you that I’m here,” said Joshua, searching Mr Porter’s face. “She often talks about you. I gather you know her quite well. I would value your advice.” After another brief pause he continued carefully. “My sister-in-law, Beatrice, wonders if Lilac is having an affair with my brother Jerome—Beatrice’s husband.”

  In the long silence that followed, Mr Porter’s nose twitched rapidly. He had become angry and fearful. “Have you come to ask me what I know about them?” he burst out furiously.

  “No! No!” Joshua was placating. “I need advice. I believe you are … wise. I expect Lilac has talked to you about me. I’ve no idea what she might have said. Probably unflattering things. I possibly seem very unattractive to you. But whatever she says—or thinks—about me, in my way I love Lilac. I believe she depends on me, or perhaps on the structure of our home. Sometimes I think she’s a kind of invalid—an emotional invalid. At present she’s depressed, I don’t know why. What I would like to know from you is—how to handle this matter, this possibility of the affair.”

  Mr Porter stared at him in amazement.

  “I have to admit,” he told Dr Katzenheimer, “that I felt a touch of admiration for him. He seemed so civilised, yet I knew that murder was in his heart and at the same time he had engineered—organised—the ‘affair’ as he called it, sending Lilac and Jerome away together. Unconsciously, he must have expected, hoped, known, that they would sleep together.”

  “I looked at him very carefully,” said Mr Porter earnestly. “I saw on the surface an extremely good-looking man with a sensitive, rather suffering face, very well-dressed, a Savile Row suit, excellent Italian shoes, tasteful tie—a tailor’s dummy of a man—and suddenly I knew he wasn’t a man at all, but a child. He was a confused, unhappy, child—or at least a part of him was—who’d been made to take on the responsibilities of an adult too early in his life.

  Dr Katzenheimer listened in fascinated silence. Was Mr Porter really talking about himself?