by Alec Waugh
‘Was he hungover?’
‘I don’t think he was. I’ve seen him hungover often enough to recognize the sky signs. No, it wasn’t that, it was—well, damned if I know what it was.’
‘A row with Julia do you think?’
‘They have too many quarrels ever to have a row. They enjoy the making up afterwards.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘What is there I can do if he won’t see the doc, and I’m sure he won’t. The kindest thing is to forget all about it. Don’t mention it to anybody, by the way. It’s upset me a lot. I think I’ll have another beer. By the way, you were asking about planes to Kuala Prang. There’ll be one tomorrow and one on Saturday.’
‘May I let you know later which’ll suit me best?’
‘Sure, let me know this evening.’
4
Blanche looked at the telephone with nervousness. She hated calling up Angus from the camp. She did not trust the girl at the switchboard: the wretched creature’s chief amusement was listening to other people’s conversations. She had made a rule, she and Angus, that she would only ring him up from the airport, but that had been before her trip to England, when after each meeting they had roughly planned the date of their next one. He had known when to expect a call, but the rhythm of that programme had been broken. This time was an exception surely. He must be expecting her to call. She had been back five days. His decks must be cleared by now. If she waited any longer he might be offended. She gazed at the receiver of the telephone. It was now a piece of metal, mass produced; one of a million others. Yet in two minutes it would have been transformed, becoming a living presence; echoing a loved one’s voice. She lifted it and called the number.
She did not ask for Angus; she asked for the store. It would involve a delay, but it was better than having an operator making a mental note.
‘Macartney’s? I wanted to inquire about a radio—could I have that department, please.’
It was not till she had got through to that department and could be sure that the operator was listening on another line that she mentioned Angus’s name.
‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault, I’m indistinct, it was to Angus Macartney himself I wanted to speak.’ There was a pause; then the familiar voice, ‘Angus Macartney here.’
She chuckled. The voice was so very formal; how it would be transfigured.
‘Darling, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hello.’
She caught her breath. She could not speak. His voice had become … no, she could find no simile. It was a tone she had never heard before. She knew what that tone revealed. For days now he had been dreading that she would call. She had delayed her call so long that he had started to hope she would never call him: that she had guessed his secret, accepted the situation. If that’s what he thought, he had a lot to learn. She took a long slow breath; inspiration came to her.
‘Darling—’ and what a world of difference there was between that second ‘darling’ and the first. This was the kind of ‘darling’ with which the bright young people of the ‘twenties had peppered their conversation. ‘We’re having a party to celebrate my return. You’re so much the most eligible bachelor around that I wanted it to be a day when you could come. How are you fixed up?’
‘I’m dining at the Residence tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow. I’m thinking about the week after next. What are your dates around then?’
They agreed upon a date.
‘That’ll be fine. Black tie. Seven-thirty. I’ll send you a reminder.’
She was trembling when she hung the receiver back. Had her voice sounded natural? Thank heavens for telephones. How must she have looked when she had heard that ‘Oh, hello’? How had women preserved their dignity sixty years ago? No wonder they made scenes and had hysterics—‘the vapours’, wasn’t that the phrase for it?
She could picture him thirty miles away with a smug, contented smile upon his face, envying himself his own good luck, perhaps flinging her a casual, patronizing tribute. ‘Yes, she had pluck, you’ve got to hand it to her; realized when the game was up without having to be told.’ Her lips curled sourly. She’d bide her time and then she’d show him: and as for that bright young miss who looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She’d show them both. She’d … she checked, no. It couldn’t be true. How could it be true? It had been so perfect, the whole thing; such harmony, such at-oneness; there had been no complications. Wasn’t that the very thing a young man wanted: a romance without responsibilities, without obligations; a woman who didn’t pester him, who couldn’t pester him; who gave him no sense of guilt? What more could a young man want?
It couldn’t be true; how could it be? The whole misunderstanding was her fault. How could she guess how he had been fixed when she rang up? He might have been with his father; he might have been in a conference; that was the worst of the telephone. You could not see the person you were talking to. You could not visualize him; you pictured him as being in the same mood as you yourself were; but how could you be sure; particularly when you called him at his office. How lucky women had been a hundred years ago. She thought of Dora Copperfield writing ‘despairing little three-cornered notes’. How much more satisfactory. How much more exciting, too, the unfolding of the note, and the knowledge as you wrote it that it would be read in the same mood you wrote it in. You had misunderstandings then, but not the ridiculous misunderstandings of that afternoon. At this very moment probably Angus was pacing his room dejectedly, wishing that he could have over again that hurried ninety-second conversation. He must be cursing the telephone as bitterly as she was: poor Angus, how she must have hurt him with that sudden change in her voice. How could she have been so mean to him? How could she make it up to him? She could not call him again. He could not call her. Anyhow, she’d had enough of telephones. For the moment anyhow. She could not run that risk again. No more misunderstandings of that kind. She’d go in tomorrow. She had things to do. It was a Thursday. Angus would be in his office. It might be impossible for them to be alone. But anyhow she’d see him; have a chance of saying to him ‘when?’ He must be as impatient as she was, after all these weeks. Five days had seemed an eternity to him three months ago. She remembered the last time that they had met; after a bare three days’ interval. He had been so impatient that he had not given her time to change into her kimono. ‘I haven’t time for that.’
Of course they would find time to be alone. She would ask to see a radio; then she would ask for Angus. She wouldn’t tell him her name: or should she? yes, perhaps she should; so that he would be on his guard; would have his plans prepared; there’d been enough surprises; give him a moment or two to think, so that as he was explaining to her about the radio, he would whisper, ‘In half an hour. Straight upstairs,’ and then, oh then, oh then.
Chapter Twenty
Next day, shortly after breakfast, Lila rang Angus up. ‘You’re dining tonight here, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’
‘Shelagh’s coming too. You won’t forget to be attentive?’
‘I won’t.’
‘Are you doing anything this afternoon, late, about half past five?’
‘I’d thought of going to the nets.’
‘You’d better go then. I can’t be certain of my plans.’
‘I’ll risk it.’
‘Your funeral then. I’m riding. I can’t promise anything.’
‘But you will try?’
‘Oh, yes, I’ll try. Anyhow, I’ll be seeing you this evening.’
‘That won’t be much use, will it? I never have a chance of talking to you when we meet in public’
‘Then you shall tonight. You shall sit next to me at dinner; mind you prove an entertaining conversationalist.’
Her laugh, mocking, half-contemptuous was ringing in his ears when the receiver hung lifeless on its hook. He felt angry: wounded in his pride. She treated him as an Edwardian male his mistress, keeping her in a small house in St
. John’s Wood, calling on her when he was in the mood for her: not letting her mix in his life, treating her as an inferior. Did Lila ever think of him apart from herself; did she ask herself what kind of a man he was, what he asked of life, what he needed of life: did she ever wonder if she could be of any help to him? Friendship, friendliness, was there one iota of either in her attitude to him? He clenched his fists, rebellious, resentful, impatient to even out the score, to assert himself. Ah, but when he held her in his arms; subdued, subservient to each successive whim; a many-stringed instrument from which he struck chord after chord of music; then he was the master; he had revealed her to himself. He closed his eyes, picturing her as she would be that evening, quivering and responsive, moaning in delight: his, utterly.
The telephone rang again. ‘This is the radio department, there’s a lady who would like your advice. Mrs. Henry Pawling. Could you come down and see her, sir?’
Blanche; today of all days. His instinct was to make some excuse; but that wouldn’t do. He had to face this sometime, he couldn’t run away for ever. It wasn’t fair to Blanche. He’d got to see her, and better take his medicine as soon as possible.
He saw her before she saw him. Her back was turned, she was reflected in a mirror. He felt simultaneously pity, regret and guilt. She had done nothing to deserve this. She had been loyal to him and straight with him. Suppose the positions were reversed. Suppose he had been counting the days to her return and the first thing she had had to tell him was that she had fallen in love with someone else. He’d have felt badly enough, but his position would not have been as bad as hers. A man, on his own, could find consolation; she was a wife and mother, fettered by her routine. I am a cad, he thought. Yet at the same time he did not see where he was to blame. This thing with Lila had begun so quickly, so light-heartedly. He had had no idea that it would go so deep. He felt pity for Blanche but also for himself. He had been much happier three months ago.
He walked down the store. ‘Hi there,’ he called.
‘I’m sorry to bother you. It is very good of you to come. There are one or two points on which I’d like your advice,’ she said.
He listened to her questions; they were genuine ones; she had her alibi worked out. The salesman at their side listened attentively, interjecting an occasional comment. If only the salesman could stay there. ‘Yes,’ Blanche decided, ‘I’ll have this one.’
The salesman moved over to his desk to write down the order. Blanche looked up, expectantly. He half-opened his mouth. He could not think what to say. Her expression changed.
They looked each other in the eyes. This can’t be happening he thought. He had read in novels of how a man, swept off his feet by a new romance, would wonder looking at ‘the one before’ what he could have ever seen in her. This was not like that at all. Blanche was compellingly attractive. He would have given anything to have been able to whisper, ‘In half an hour’s time.’ If only that other battle were not joined, that battle in which he could not yield a single inch.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s …’
She cut him short. ‘Don’t worry. It is not your fault. Good luck.’
She turned towards the salesman. ‘Send it round to the Pearl Office. I’ll have it collected there.’
2
Lila did not arrive till after six.
She was in riding breeches, with high boots: she was wearing a tight-fitting jersey. She flung her cap and riding switch on to the chair. Her cheeks were flushed; below her right ear there was a fleck of dried mud. She was out of breath. He had never seen her so imperiously, so arrogantly attractive. She flung herself into an armchair, stretching out her legs. ‘Darling, be an angel, take off my boots.’ He knelt before her. The right boot came off easily; but the left one stuck. ‘Turn round,’ she said, ‘take it between your legs. I’ll shove.’
He was wearing lightweight shorts. Her socks were thin. She was conscious of his skin against the sole of her foot. She pushed, clenching her toes. She enjoyed the sight of him, abased before her; tugging while she pushed. The boot came off suddenly and he nearly lost his balance, staggering across the floor.
‘My feet ache; wash them for me.’
He brought a basin of warm water; he knelt before her. He was wearing a sports singlet and his arms were bare. He drew off her socks. He bathed her feet and ankles; soaping them, toe by toe, drying them, then massaging them slowly with the cream that he used after shaving; he powdered them, then dusted them, holding them by their heels, against his face. She wriggled her toes and he took them one by one into his mouth, rolling his tongue round them and between them. It gave her a strange, mental pleasure.
‘You’re mine, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Mine to do what I want with. You’re at my beck and call. You’re there when I want you, where I want you. You cancel your cricket for me. You’re my slave. You take off my boots and socks; you wash my feet and kiss them.’ She stretched out her hand towards her riding switch. She drew its tip slowly from his neck down his spine. ‘You’re my slave; if you don’t behave, I’ll whip you. Even if you do behave, I’ll whip you, just to remind you that you’re mine.’
She raised her arm. She struck once, sharply; then flung the whip away. She clutched him by the hair.
‘Come up here,’ she said; her voice was hoarse.
3
Kenneth Studholme tapped on the door of his wife’s bedroom.
‘Come in,’ she called.
She was seated at her dressing-table, pencilling her eyebrows. She looked over her shoulder, inquiringly. He sat beside her.
‘I’m a little worried about tonight,’ he said.
‘I’ve ordered a very special dinner. Bull frogs. If they aren’t a delicacy, what is?’
‘I’m not worrying about that. …’ He paused, his forehead wrinkled.
‘Reynolds is an odd type,’ he said.
‘In what way odd?’
‘If I knew that, I’d not be worried.’
Reynolds, as he saw it, was a post-war type: the outcome of a world jin which there were three kinds of money: capital that you could cut into, salaries that were so highly taxed that it did not pay a man to earn more than a certain sum, and expense accounts that were solid money to the men with access to them. These last were the new aristocrats; the spenders; the men who called head waiters by their Christian names, who got the air-conditioned suite and the river view. Reynolds was one of those; he lived from day to day, in a world of mergers and new issues; he made a profit out of every landslide, since he had that extra sense of guessing half an hour in advance which way the land would slide: he had no share in progress; he did no worse when things were going badly: he had no faith in the future, no reverence for the past: he watched the market. Men like Reynolds had no stake in the country, so they were indifferent to the country’s welfare. They could have no stake in the country because punitive taxation made impossible the saving of money, the acquisition and improvement of property. They were speculators, improvisators, exploiters. Yet they were the sons and grandsons of the members of the old propertied middle classes whom Galsworthy had satirized in The Forsyte Saga; men who, whatever their faults, had been responsible, trustworthy citizens considering themselves, not without justice, as bastions of the country’s welfare, who had been industrious and straightforward, whose word had been their bond, whose natures and methods were transparent. You had known where you were with them; but you did not know where you were with a man like Francis Reynolds, and the disarming thing about him was that he looked exactly like a Galsworthian Englishman. You felt that he was a Forsyte who would live by the Forsyte code, but he was not; he was devious. That was why Studholme was worried about this evening. He felt that something was going to happen, but he did not know what.
‘I’d be grateful if you would keep your eyes and ears on the alert,’ he said. ‘I want you to watch Reynolds. I’ve got a premonition that something I ought to know about may get said tonight.’
It was the fi
rst time she had met Reynolds. She knew very little about him. She had looked him up in Who’s Who and had not found him there.
‘But what has he done to make himself so important?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know. He calls himself a Public Relations Consultant. That could be anything. He gets around a lot. He has influential contacts. Frankly, I’m in the dark.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Dinner was at eight. It was a family party. Studholme had been anxious not to make it official. Shelagh had come in on Lila’s insistence. He had asked young Macartney for Shelagh. It was, in fact, the same party with the addition of Reynolds that had lunched on the day that Annetta had planned to visit Kassaya. It would give him an opportunity of seeing Reynolds off parade. Not that he thought Reynolds was likely to give himself away. He was too adroit, too astute for that. But with the others he might be off his guard. Anyhow, there was the chance.
Reynolds was the first arrival. Studholme received him in terms of their war-time acquaintanceship.
‘So here’s my man of mystery again.’
Reynolds laughed; the easy self-confident laugh of the man who does not need to explain himself. He turned to Lady Studholme.
‘Did you have war-time experience with the ‘funnies’, Broadway or Baker Street?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘My war could not have been less glamorous. A small child to be looked after only allowed me half-time war work. Fire watching, driving cars, you know.’
‘I know.’
He smiled, a warm, understanding, sympathetic smile. Studholme noted it with a sensation of distrust. Very much, too much, the professional Ladies’ Man.
‘Miss Marsh,’ the A.D.C. announced.
Annetta paused in the doorway. She was on her guard. She had wondered how she would feel when she next saw Reynolds. She was resolved not to give herself away. But at the sight of him standing beside his hostess, so suave, so self-assured, a feeling of repulsion struck her. How could anybody be so double-faced? She had found men honest on the whole. If you played straight with them, they were straightforward in return. Reynolds was the first man who had deliberately tried to take a mean advantage of her. It was infuriating that he should look the kind of man whom you could trust. Her lips closed tightly for a second; then she recovered. Studholme, however, had noted that second of unguardedness. That’s funny, what does that mean? he thought.
