She would have moved away but he had put his hand round her leg above the knee. ‘Wilfred …’
‘Yes?’
‘I have to pack your bag.’
‘Pack my bag with five dozen liquor jugs.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s an old saying. One learns it in typing schools.’
‘Wilfred, I never knew why you travelled by night that night that we met. Was it so urgent?’
‘What? Oh, you could call it that. There were reasons.’
She stirred uneasily. ‘What time are you leaving?’
‘Not till noon. I have to make some telephone calls from here first. I may not yet even have to go.’
‘I’ll bid at the auction,’ Pearl said. ‘ When you come back you’ll find the whole place full of new paintings.’
He didn’t appreciate the joke.
‘You might watch the gilt on that chair. It could be brought up. It’s looking faded.’
‘I would if I was as old.’
‘But you’re not, Pearl, you’re not.’
‘I’ll go and pack your bag,’ Pearl said mechanically. ‘I’m not sure how you are off for pyjamas. Can I buy you some new pairs while you are away?’
‘No. Four pairs are ample. And anyway they have to be made. Control your extravagancies, my dear.’
‘Control your hands, Wilfred,’ Pearl said. But by now she knew she was fighting a losing battle.
No word from Vosper, so Angell caught the 11.30 a.m. plane in company with Simon Portugal. The flight was uneventful and Simon had brought paper work to do on the way, so Angell was free to brood.
The adventures of last night had brought on heart flutterings again, and he wondered whether he should have another check-up from Matthewson. But the prospect of those probing eyes and fingers, the expense, the discussion that was bound to follow, which irritatingly would touch on his marriage; his dislike of being thought to have followed Matthewson’s advice – the added annoyance that he also appeared to have heeded Matthewson by reducing his weight, all this together was enough to put him off. He could of course call on his National Health doctor, but the man was always busy and one did not receive the courtesy due to one’s position.
Today he was a little depressed. The heady excitements of last night had been fleeting; Pearl had seemed listless, formal, as if performing a duty. He felt he ought to discipline her by disciplining himself. At the moment satiety enabled him to look forward calmly to several weeks in which he abstained altogether from touching her until she began to miss his caresses and began to look at him with a puzzled air as if to say ‘ what have I done?’ Indeed, there might come a time when she actually did say that, so that he could reply, ‘ My dear, nothing at all, nothing at all,’ but say it in such a way that she was prompted to question him more. So would come the carefully prepared, ineluctable moment when his caresses could be granted her as a favour, the more exciting for the delay and for the mental processes involved.
His limited intake of food was also a depressant factor. Hunger was a ghastly sensation. Three or four times, when he got mild stomach cramps, he had been on the point of abandoning the whole thing. Here too he knew himself to be imposing a strain on his splendid physique. Last night, after leaving Pearl – in the claustrophobia of his own dark bedroom – there had seemed some extra futility, some extra failure to be admitted, as if his marriage were bounded on either side by chasms of loneliness and failure.
Yet from all reasonable points of view his marriage was a success. His loss of weight clearly made him more attractive in her eyes, and it was already advantageous in rendering him less unwieldy in the processes of love. Each morning he carefully examined himself while shaving, and thrice weekly in his baths, and so far there had been no disagreeable wrinkling of the skin or adding of lines. He was a fitter man for it, and younger. Younger for his marriage. Younger for being with the young.
They reached Geneva in time for a light lunch, and Simon, with no regard for expense, hired a car to take him out to the Vosper villa. They had both booked rooms at a hotel overlooking the lake and, since Angell felt tired and had nothing to do here for the present, it seemed a wise precaution to rest. So he went to bed. It was a very rare thing for him to sleep in the afternoon, and perhaps this caused the disordered dreams. They concerned Lady Vosper. Angell found himself in her bedroom and she was sitting stiffly upright in bed, her black hair almost white now and dishevelled, her eyes bloodshot and staring, her face a grey-yellow colour, with blotches of pink that might have been insect bites. She seemed to be staring at him, but he could see that the counterpane which at first he had thought to be grey, was in fact grey with spiders, which seethed and crawled over each other and heaved as if they were feeding on something. She was saying something, whispering something, trying to scream and failing, trying to tell him something. ‘I can’t hear,’ he said. ‘They’re making too much noise; I can’t hear!’ Then she suddenly stopped speaking and began to smile. But it was a hideous smile because she seemed to have neither teeth nor lips, and spiders were clinging to the aperture. She beckoned him to come to her. He said, ‘I won’t, I won’t, I can’t hear! I can’t hear!’ Reluctantly, controlled by muscles which did not do his bidding, he began to edge towards Lady Vosper and the spiders and the bed and all the festering infection there.
So the knocking on his door, which began as a noise in the nightmare sick-room and ended in an empty hygienic hotel bedroom with a brass bedstead and lace curtains caught up about the windows with cords, dragged him back gratefully to the fading daylight of a November day and presently, when he had struggled to the door, Simon Portugal.
Simon Portugal smiling. ‘It’s here. I’ve got it. No trouble at all.’
‘What? What have you got?’
‘The option agreement and the contract duly signed. I came straight back.’
Angell tied the cord of his dressing gown. ‘I’m sorry. I fell asleep. What’s the time? Have you even had time to go?’
Portugal tossed a document on the table. ‘He’d already signed it last week before the necessary witnesses. He said he’d intended to post it but had not had the time. I thought I’d better grab it right away and bring it straight back.’
Angell fumbled on the table for his glasses, put them on, took up the document.
‘Yes. Yes. They’re both in order. That’s splendid.’ His sense of propriety reared its head. ‘But, my dear chap we shouldn’t have these! These should go direct to Hollis. If he had signed them I wonder what the cause was of the delay.’
‘I’d not met him before. Odd chap, isn’t he. Francis had wired him telling him I was coming. After he’d established who I was there was absolutely no trouble. I suspect he’s one of those chaps who will go so far in taking a vital step and then can’t bring themselves to the last one. Also he’d heard Flora Vosper was ill. He looked at me a trifle slyly after he’d given me the agreement and he said, “maybe you’re on a good wicket after all.”’
Angell took off his library spectacles and blinked out at the evening lights beside the lake. ‘Of course we can’t keep them.’
‘What d’you mean? Why ever not?’
‘These should go to his solicitors who would inform us and then we should exchange this contract for the one our Company has signed – a counterpart of this – across a table, and payment of the option money should take place at the same time.’
‘Well, you can do that when you get to London. Take them along to Hollis and go through the ritual just the same.’
‘It’s most irregular. D’you know. Look, we must post these at once, just as if they came direct from Vosper.’
‘I wouldn’t answer for Francis’s reaction if you let these papers out of your possession now! There might be several days’ delay in the post from here.’
‘Did you tell Vosper I was with you?’
‘No. There was no need.’
‘Good. Well, that’s all to the good, then. Altogether Simon, a
happy outcome to our visit.’ Angell was coming round after his sleep. His cautious legal brain was examining the situation. ‘ Where is Francis now? I think we should ring him.’
‘He’s out of town. He’s at this directors’ meeting in Wolverhampton.’
‘When is he due back?’
‘Late tomorrow, I believe.’
‘Well, we’ll have to strike a compromise on this matter of the exchange of contracts. I must have nothing to do with these documents. Nothing at all. I must not even have seen them. But you can take them back to London with you and post them there. There should be absolutely no delay then, and Hollis is not to know Vosper did not give them to some friend to take back.’
Portugal sighed. ‘Anyway we’ve got them. The thing’s settled. Whether you strain at the gnat is your concern. But can I leave the papers temporarily in your charge?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. But why?’
‘Well, there’s nothing more for us to do officially and I’ve a friend I want to call on. I may stay to dinner. You’ll be all right this evening on your own?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll make a reservation for the noon plane tomorrow. We’ll have to have a dinner later in the week to celebrate.’
‘Well, I’ll go and make a telephone call.’
After he had left Angell pulled up a chair and sat at the table and gingerly and rather guiltily read through the option agreement and the contract of sale, looking at them with a detached eye. He decided that between them he and Montagu had done a very good job.
He slipped the documents into their envelope and then into his briefcase. Now that he was on his own he decided to have a quiet little celebration tonight – a celebration of pure self-indulgence at the successful conclusion of this long Vosper affair. He had fasted too long – one meal could not hurt. There was a restaurant he knew where he had dined two years ago. They made the most perfect soufflé au frontage. And then dorade meunière. And the steak – you could have cut it with a fish knife. And pommes bâtonettes which were quite out of this world …
He went into the bathroom and turned the taps on. There was hours of time … Then a thought came to him and he turned off the taps. There was hours of time before one dined. But there was also time to catch a flight back tonight. If he left at nine he could be home long before midnight. It would mean that he could have a good night’s sleep in his own bed, and be out early in the morning. Also, if he was prepared to overcome his ethical scruples, he could have the documents delivered to Hollis & Hollis by special messenger first thing. Until that was done the deal was not irrevocable. Who was to know who had despatched the messenger? Simon Portugal could well have done it. Any friend of Lord Vosper’s. No one in the world that mattered would have any reason to suppose that he, Angell, had ever been to Switzerland.
There was another attraction to this idea. They had flown in today first class at the expense of Land Increments. If he could get a seat on the Tourist Night Flight he would receive a substantial rebate on his ticket, and he would be able to keep this for himself. It could easily make a difference of £10.
For a moment longer he thought lingeringly of the pommes bâtonettes. Then he came out of the bathroom and began to scribble a note to Simon.
Chapter Two
A seat was available and the plane left punctually to the minute; no fog impeded the landing at London Airport.
Resisting the invitations of taxi drivers, Angell took the airport bus and just before midnight collected his bag at West London Air Terminal. There, reluctantly, he used a taxi, and was borne home to Cadogan Mews. Having given the driver six pennies by way of tip and apologized because he said he had no more English money, Angell took out his key and let himself into his house.
Pearl was usually in bed by eleven and there was simply no point in waking her to tell her he was home. It would be amusing when she walked into his bedroom tomorrow morning. Already a good deal of his irritation with her was dying down, and he looked forward to seeing her in the morning. He was still worried about the vital document in his bag. He wished he had not brought it, had refused even to touch it. Yet the urgency of the end on this one occasion just possibly justified the unethical act. Tomorrow he would be rid of it, and no one the wiser. Tomorrow it would be in Hollis’s hands.
Still better, tomorrow morning he would be able to go to Christie’s as arranged and bid for the Canaletto. Life suddenly seemed warm and cosy, just as the house seemed warm and cosy as he tip-toed into the drawing room and switched on the light. All the beautiful things he owned sprang to view. He had recently rearranged his pictures – an infallible recipe for newly appreciating them – and he stared at them one by one. And there would be others he would be able to buy now. Others. Others from the Vosper deal. He was not tired – after all it was only just 12.30 and he was refreshed by his sleep of the afternoon. He thought again of the miracle of the modern jet which put Switzerland within commuting distance.
He was as usual hungry. He had dined at the hotel in Geneva – on the Land Increments bill – and had eaten the sandwiches on the plane. But it was hardly enough, even for his present restricted intake. There had been some good cheese here last night – a sliver of Gorgonzola now on a thin slice of hot buttered toast. And a bottle of beer – cool but not chilled. And the latest number of The Connoisseurwhich he had not yet opened. What could be more agreeably self-indulgent? He was glad he had come home. He switched on the fire, changed into his slippers and padded into the kitchen. He hoped Pearl had not put the cheese in the fridge. She must know better by now. Refrigeration, he often said, was one of the curses of civilization. It preserved things almost indefinitely, thereby helping the lazy housewife to become more lazy, and whatever it preserved it deprived of juice and flavour. He often thought that the joylessness of American life was due to the joylessness of their eating.
He passed the coat a second time before he noticed it. It was of brown leather with a zip up the front and two zip pockets. It was short and quite small and at first he took it for some sort of apron. Then he assumed it must be an old coat of Pearl’s that he had not seen before. Then he concluded it was no such thing.
He picked it up and it did not smell of Pearl. It smelt of masculine things, not quite definable, cigarette smoke, beer, petrol, menthol or something. Not quite any of these but a mixture that might come from all. Angell began to feel a slight stomach cramp and knew it was not hunger. He dropped the coat in the chair and looked round the kitchen. Nothing else.
Two glasses in the sink; knives and forks, plates, too many to be sure. Why had she left them, though? The cheese, rightly, was on the cold slab, covered with a fine muslin cloth. He went back to the coat and unzipped the pockets. The first had a dirty handkerchief in it and a small roll of white gauze, two loose matches and a single stick of chewing gum. The second had two safety-pins and some calculations of money scribbled on the back of a creased envelope. The envelope was empty but had the name Bell & Croydon printed on it and the words The Prescription. Written in the centre of the envelope was ‘Lady Vosper’.
He went back to the cheese and cut himself a corner, ate it on a dry biscuit. It immediately made him feel sick. He opened a bottle of beer and drank about half. He belched but did not bring anything up. Then he went back into the sitting room, drew up a chair to the fire and opened The Connoisseur. After ten minutes, having read nothing, he put it carefully back on the bookcase shelf and switched off the fire and then the light and tip-toed up to bed.
In his bedroom the pyjamas he had had clean on Sunday were folded on the bed, the book he had been reading, Memoirs of an Art Dealer, was on the bedside table with his bridge score, in which he had bid and made a grand slam in diamonds, marking his place. Above his bed was the Miro he had moved from downstairs. Beside it …
He went to the mirror and fumbled with his tie but did not take it off. The door between this room and Pearl’s was closed. This was not unusual, they usually slept isolated from each
other. But as he switched on the light in this room he fancied he had seen a chink of light framing the door to Pearl’s bedroom. Now, with this light on, he could not tell whether he had been right.
He took out his ring of keys and went to the safe, opened it and put away the briefcase containing the Vosper agreement. Something in the back of the safe registered in his mind but he ignored it, shut the safe, locked it, left the keys dangling. He sat on the bed, kicked off his slippers. His heart was fluttering now, far worse than after his adventures in Pearl’s bed. Carefully he leaned back on the pillows, found the light switch, flicked it off. It took about a minute for his eyes to get sufficiently accustomed to the dark to be sure there was a light in Pearl’s room. It could not be some light coming in from outside through undrawn curtains; the light was the wrong colour. It might be that she was still reading in bed or had gone to sleep and forgotten the light.
He got up and moved a step or two towards her door. As he did so he vividly remembered his dream of the afternoon when he had thought himself in Flora Vosper’s room. He had within himself the same utter reluctance to take one step more, the same nightmare necessity to do so.
He reached the door. His hands were trembling so that it was surprising that he was able to turn the handle without rattling it. He pushed open the door.
Pearl had not gone to sleep with the light on. She had gone to sleep with the electric fire on, and this gave a subdued pink glow to the whole room. It was a discreet light, but what was to be seen could be seen very clearly. The blonde hair lay over the pillow and strands of it mingled with the black hair of the young man sleeping beside her. One of her arms was flung wide and her breasts almost exposed. The man lay with his face turned towards her and one arm, it could be guessed, probably lay across her body. Their breathing was quiet. It could have been the sleep of exhaustion.
It seemed to Angell that he would never be able to move his muscles again, that he would be forced to stay there until they woke, frozen into a stalagmite of horror and hatred and shock. But at last after some unspecified time that seemed like the turn of a century, he moved one foot back and drew the door to and carefully released the handle so that it should not click.
Angell, Pearl and Little God Page 24
