by Weldon, Fay
‘It won’t work,’ said Alexandra. ‘You’re not going to lure me into any kind of discussion about anything. Just go away or I’ll call the police.’
‘I’d have a thing or two to tell them,’ said Lucy Lint. ‘Call away.’
Alexandra lifted her hand to strike the other woman, but Diamond growled. Diamond growled at Alexandra. Alexandra’s hand fell.
‘Diamond knows the truth of it,’ said Lucy Lint, smiling a smug little smile, her plump bottom in its dreadful skirt wedged against the Ludds’ kitchen table. ‘Diamond knows what you’re like. Animals always know. When you want to talk to me, Alexandra, in a calm and friendly way, you know where to find me. Ned brought you round to visit me in my studio once. I was rather flustered; I hadn’t expected it. He and I had only been out of bed about twelve hours. Well, twelve hours and twenty minutes. I was still sore. Ned could be quite vigorous, couldn’t he? Perhaps he wasn’t when he was with you: he said I was the only one really turned him on. Don’t believe me ifyou don’t want to. It’s true.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘We’d had this argument: he said you were so insensitive to atmosphere you’d never even guess; I said I didn’t believe that, you were an actress; he said actresses were as thick between the ears as they were between the legs.’
‘Actors,’ said Alexandra, automatically.
‘So he brought you round to my place, took me by surprise, and he was right, you didn’t notice a thing. Not even when we went out together to look at photographs and you stayed behind and stroked Marmalade and looked bored. He was right about that too. You can do a lot in three minutes if you’re really turned on; if it’s dangerous.’
‘My mother had a marmalade cat,’ said Alexandra. It seemed her mind could only react to detail.
‘Marmalade’s one of her kittens,’ said Lucy Lint. ‘Ned gave him to me. Why did you take my photographs away? Ned liked me to have them. It doesn’t make any difference. I’ve got lots more and they’re there in my heart anyway. Sealed in memory. You can’t take that away from me. And Mrs Paddle told me: you made copies of my diary, and address book. I was angry at first; not now. It just keeps you closer tome. Connected, like. We’ll be friends in the end. We’re part of each other, through Ned. I think you ought to try and be nice to me. I can make life a whole lot nastier for you if I choose.’
‘Piss off,’ said Alexandra.
Lucy Lint smiled at Alexandra. This time Alexandra hit her: a hard slap on the cheek. Lucy wailed and ran off, a dumpy little thing pottering on too small feet. Alexandra hoped she would overbalance. Then Alexandra would jump on Lucy Lint and kick her to death. But Lucy kept going. Diamond, suspecting a game, leapt and barked around her legs. Then Hamish was standing before Alexandra, his hand on her arm. He was wearing only pyjama bottoms. His torso was bare, fluffy with blond hair. His shoulders were broader than Ned’s. Perhaps, unlike Ned – at least with Alexandra – Hamish favoured the missionary position, thus strengthening the forearms.
‘Just let Lucy go,’ said Hamish. ‘She’s very upset. The whole thing must have been traumatic. And no understanding at all from you, which is what the poor woman needs. You’re behaving very badly towards her: in your situation it’s not wise.’
‘What situation and what about what I need?’ asked Alexandra.
‘It’s hard for women when their married lovers die,’ said Hamish, piously. ‘Rightly or wrongly, the widow has the sympathy of the world: surely you could afford to spare a little for her?’
16
Everyone who was anyone called that morning, by phone or in person.
Three people got through from the theatre: one to say Daisy Longriff was wonderful, Alexandra shouldn’t worry; two others to say Daisy Longriff was perfectly dreadful, Alexandra shouldn’t worry. She mustn’t come back to work until she was beginning to mend. They were all thinking of her. There was no matinee on Monday, so most would come down to the funeral. But perhaps there’d be a memorial service in London later?
The postman came to the door and wept a little and said he missed Ned’s smiling face. He was a thin young man with cropped red hair and a little red moustache. He usually called before eight and Ned seldom smiled before ten, and least of all did Ned ever smile at the postman, whom he suspected of dropping letters behind hedges if it didn’t suit him to deliver them. But forget that; think the best. Alexandra made the postman a cup of tea. He asked for more sugar than she provided. He said if Ned’s shoes were going spare he could do with them. Alexandra picked a pair out of the cupboard and handed them over. It was true they were expensive shoes and nearly new: but she had to be practical, as did the postman. Not that the postman did much walking: he had a van.
The postman sat in Ned’s chair and took off his own shoes, which were indeed battered, and put on Ned’s. They fitted well. Then he asked Alexandra where the bin was and threw his old shoes in it. He went away in Ned’s shoes, pleased as Punch, having won some kind of final victory. Diamond growled, but did not bite.
The Mail, the Express and the Telegraph called to say they didn’t want to intrude into private grief, at which Alexandra put down the phone.
The Sun called to say they wanted to send flowers to the funeral, when was it? ‘Such a fine critic, such a loss to the theatrical profession.’ Alexandra laughed before she put down the phone.
Dr Moebius left a message to ask Alexandra to call to see him, and please could she put Mrs Lint in touch: Mrs Lint wasn’t answering her phone.
Sheldon Smythe called for Hamish. Hamish took the call in the other room. I’m the wife, thought Alexandra; he’s only the brother. But it seemed men liked to deal with men.
The postman who took Ned’s shoes had left letters: coloured square envelopes, handwritten, instead of the long white ones which usually came. Alexandra glanced through a few of them, letters and cards of condolence. How wonderful Ned was, how charismatic; their hearts went out to Alexandra. They meant it, too. She was grateful, even while beginning to consider their judgements faulty. But then she herself was apparently without judgement and noticed nothing, so what had she to complain about? Insensitive to atmosphere.
The Romanoff of the Golf Course. Ned had never described Irene thus in Alexandra’s hearing. She would have laughed if he had. Would Lucy Lint have the wit to make up such an epithet? It seemed unlikely. But she could have got it from Abbie, or Vilna, or anyone, who got it from Ned. It sounded like Ned. He’d just never said it to her.
‘Marmalade’; a gift from Ned? No. Most likely simple chance: lots of orange cats in the world. And Ned, perhaps, on some innocent professional encounter with Lucy Lint, had happened to say, ‘My wife’s mother has a cat just like that,’ thus enabling Lucy Lint to concoct her story.
Oh, clutching at straws!
17
Theresa called and dusted round a bit, crying. She didn’t like doing housework, feeling she was employed to look after Sascha, but was always prepared to help out in an emergency.
Hamish came out of the study and asked Theresa to clear out the utility room, and put the dog’s blanket through the machine; so Theresa sulked and told Alexandra she could stay only till midday. Alexandra told Theresa that Hamish was from Scotland and was used to telling people what to do, Theresa was not to take it badly.
‘He talked to me as if I was a servant,’ complained Theresa, but agreed to stay: she could do all the house except the utility room.
Alexandra herself put the blanket through the machine. Hamish was right. The blanket was thick with dog hair, and smelt of warm wet dog even when Diamond wasn’t in his basket. Diamond growled at Alexandra when she took the blanket away. Diamond was becoming more and more disaffected. He missed his routine, he missed Sascha, he missed Ned. Alexandra found herself mistrusting and almost disliking Diamond. The fact was, in going for walks with Lucy Lint, Diamond had betrayed her. Perhaps Alexandra wouldn’t keep Diamond, in spite of the fact that everyone obviously expected her to? Perhaps she would g
ive him away? What sort of guard-dog was he, anyway, who wouldn’t bark at a knock at half past seven in the morning, but sleep until he was called? By Lucy Lint.
In the bottom of Diamond’s basket Alexandra found a chewed plastic bracelet – bright red. Not her own. Diamond cringed and looked guilty. Alexandra lifted the bracelet out and called Theresa and asked if it was hers. Theresa said it wasn’t hers though Alexandra was pretty sure it was. But why should Theresa lie?
Diamond took the bracelet under discussion in his mouth and went upstairs and stood outside the closed door of the master bedroom, and when Alexandra opened it went inside and laid the bracelet on the brass bed and stood with his head bowed in shame. It was Diamond’s habit thus to return chewed objects to the place of taking, when his misdemeanours were found out. Of course Diamond might have got it wrong, this time. Who was to say a dog had a perfect memory? Like humans, presumably they could get muddled.
Alexandra aimed a kick at Diamond: she couldn’t help it. Diamond yelped. Alexandra was instantly sorry and guilty. Diamond returned and licked her hand and growled. ‘Diamond’s guilt trip,’ she and Ned would say. Diamond’s self-humbling made Alexandra squirm and Ned laugh. Ned laughed a lot.
‘It isn’t mine, honestly,’ said Theresa. ‘Honestly. Cheap old thing. It might be Mrs Lint’s, from the look of it.’
It didn’t seem in the least Lucy Lint’s style, though, not at all. And the ‘honestly’ seemed wrong.
‘I expect Mrs Lint came here often,’ said Alexandra, as casually as she could. ‘When I was away? She helped Mr Ludd quite a lot with his work.’
Theresa was not deceived. All Alexandra did was to humiliate herself.
‘She’d come to work with Mr Ludd sometimes,’ said Theresa. ’They did those books together. But there wasn’t anything in it. I wouldn’t want you to think there was.’
‘I should think there wasn’t!’ said Alexandra. ‘Good Lord!’
‘He loved you so much,’ said Theresa, bursting into more tears: she was unrestrained in her weeping. ‘And you loved him, and now he’s gone. That poor little innocent boy, orphaned! It makes you think!’
‘It does indeed,’ said Alexandra, and left Theresa to weep alone. Even her tears seemed on a larger scale than the rest of humanity’s.
Hamish came out of the study and put his long thin arms round Theresa’s bulk to comfort her. She lay her giant’s head upon his shoulder, in trust. Ned would never have done that.
Of course guests sometimes used the master bedroom to leave their coats, at parties. The bracelet might have been pulled off with someone’s sleeve. Yes, that was it. Most things had a harmless explanation. The whole world, including Lucy Lint, could believe Ned was having an affair with Lucy Lint, and be wrong. Just as the whole world could believe she and Eric Stenstrom were having an affair, and be wrong.
Lately Alexandra had come to see her mind as a computer. It searched for distant and improbable connections. It took its time: what it was doing was difficult. There were not enough megabytes installed. The egg-timer that meant ‘wait, wait, I’m searching, I’ve got a problem’, was nearly always up on screen these days, thwarting her.
Alexandra found that lately she’d blinked more than usual. The thoughts and ideas that came to her no longer drifted vaguely and easily here and there: each one had to be caught, translated into words, registered. Each registering was indicated by a blink. Information, blink. But she had to use some kind of mind keyboard to type in problems and propositions. Hours, even days later, conclusions were reached. One came to her now.
‘How did Ned come to think I had some kind of sexual relationship going with Eric Stenstrom?’ Why, because Lucy Lint put it into his head that it was so. ‘Why did Ned not confront me with this?’ Because it suited him not to: because he was proud and would not lower himself to enquire. ‘Would I have taken the part of Nora opposite Eric Stenstrom’s Torvald if I thought for one minute Ned believed we had had, were having, or ever would have an affair?’ No. ‘If Ned believed I was betraying him with Eric Stenstrom, would he have fucked the next woman who practically lay down in front of him with her legs open?’ Yes. Probably.
She switched the computer off. Breathed. Rested. Switched it on again.
Click, click, the computer went It made the occasional little bleep. Hard disc in place. Mouse found. Even as Alexandra thought this – and how laboured the thoughts still were: one thing after another, plodding and careful – a real mouse, little, brown and quick, ran out from a cupboard in front of her, out of the kitchen door to where Theresa was blubbing and cleaning out the grate in the living room. The mouse seemed to exist as a demonstration of the way the spirit always tends to become flesh; the way a psychological phenomenon offers itself up in concrete form: the way verbal puns offer themselves for literal interpretation.
The quick and the dead. She was quick and Ned was dead. The egg-timer had vanished. She felt she could just about catch up, match event to word, word to thought, thought to conclusion, and conclusion to action. Theresa saw the mouse, let out a yell, straightened up, banged her head, shook the ammonite off the shelf, and it split. Not perfect any more.
18
During the morning Abbie called on Vilna. Abbie and Arthur had been asked to a Hunt Ball and Abbie needed something to wear. Vilna had said she’d be glad to lend Abbie something from her own extensive wardrobe, and how did it happen that she, Vilna, had not been asked to the Hunt Ball? Was it perhaps because her husband was in prison? Or because she couldn’t help talking about the poor little foxes? Abbie said it was more likely to be the latter.
Abbie stripped down to her sensible white bra and pants, and her non-ladder knee-highs, and stood by Vilna’s built-in cupboards while Vilna handed her garment after garment and Abbie shook her head. Too tight, too bright, not her, whatever.
‘I am the one who should be miserable, not you,’ said Vilna. ‘I am generosity itself. These people come to my dinner parties and eat venison off plates which cost £250 each and drink the best champagne out of Venetian goblets, and they are happy enough to do that; it is all take, take, take, and not give, give, give. They do not know how to behave. They do not invite me in return. Well, I forgive them. I am like that.’
Abbie said she, Abbie, was not particularly like that. She was having a hard time forgiving Alexandra. At first she, Abbie, hadn’t believed Lucy Lint when she said Alexandra was having an affair with Eric Stenstrom. She thought Lucy was looking for excuses because of her relationship with Ned.
‘Why should a woman in love need excuses?’ asked Vilna. ‘If she loves, she fucks.’
Abbie sighed. Vilna’s mother Maria pottered around the room, dressed in peasant black, with wrinkled grey stockings and wide flat brown shoes. She was making sure her daughter gave nothing valuable away to her treacherous friends. Maria fingered the gold tassels on the curtain’s ropes, pretending to be protecting the furniture from the danger of fading in the sun’s glare. She tutted and sighed and clicked with her false teeth. Vilna ignored her. Abbie had learned to do the same.
But if Alexandra had been having an affair with Eric Stenstrom all along, Abbie’s work had been wasted, her sympathy misplaced, complained Abbie.
‘I lugged that body about,’ said Abbie, ‘laundered those disgusting sheets – everything was all over them, everything – I got the doctor, got the ambulance, got Lucy out of there before Alexandra came; I kept Alexandra company, upset Arthur by staying away; and then Alexandra can’t even tell me the truth, can’t even be honest with me, so I feel like a fool when even that ass Hamish seems to know more than I do. What’s he doing, poking around in all those private papers? Alexandra is so hypocritical! Eric Stenstrom all this time. Poor Ned. No wonder he had a heart attack. Alexandra is the real murderer, not Lucy at all.’
‘Eric Stenstrom,’ pondered Vilna. ‘What a dreamboat!’ Much of Vilna’s English, as Abbie observed to Arthur, came from old Hollywood films.
‘What does Alexandra have th
at I do not?’ And Vilna pulled in her flat, well-exercised belly yet further, thrust out her silicone breasts (Alexandra swore) and smiled her big white teeth into the mirror. ‘Pot-bellied; dull little English face; though I must say her bosom isn’t bad, as everyone knows; and now Eric Stenstrom on top of that. And Alexandra will inherit the house and those dull bits of furniture everyone talks about, and not have to put up with Ned. I said yes to Ned once but he couldn’t get it up. No woman can put up with that.’
‘I don’t believe you, Vilna,’ said Abbie. ‘I just don’t. Because you want a thing to have happened doesn’t mean it has. And don’t be too sure Alexandra will inherit the house.’
‘Why should she not?’
‘There may be debts to be paid,’ said Abbie. ‘Who knows? She doesn’t have much head for business. She doesn’t notice much. Is there anything just plain navy blue? I like navy blue.’
‘Dreadfully dull on its own, darling,’ said Vilna. ‘Navy needs white and gold to amount to anything at all.’
‘Alexandra practically threw us out yesterday,’ Abbie complained. ‘If she goes on like this she’ll find herself with nobody.’ Abbie decided that the gold braid and crimson tassel could be removed from a plain navy silk with a high collar and that would do well enough for a Hunt Ball with a lot of lesser gentry and prosperous farmers.
Maria left the room and Vilna took advantage of her absence. ‘Darling,’ said Vilna, ‘there are no men round here, and now even Ned’s gone and Clive’s in prison, and I haven’t for ages. What about you and me –?’ Her bony little hand stole round to squeeze Abbie’s languid breast in its sensible bra.
‘Don’t you do that,’ shrieked Abbie, pushing the hand away.
‘Oh, you English,’ said Vilna. ‘How you narrow your lives! Arthur is a new man. He would not care even if he noticed.’
‘He’s my husband and I love him,’ said Abbie. ‘Thank you for the dress but don’t you ever do anything like that again.’
