Alone that evening, she went over and over the memory of that kiss under the willow. What had it meant to him? Had he tried to deny himself the pleasure that a married man ought not to give or take except with his wife? Had his placid manner covered a ferment of guilt and passion? Or had he kissed her out of sympathy, to save her from embarrassment?
She remembered Trevor Mordaunt, the imperturbable hero of The Rocks of Valpre. He was like Walter, hiding his emotions, exuding strength through his aloofness, but true and dependable and generous. Strangely, Alma had not warmed to Trevor when she had read the book, but he seemed more attractive now.
13
There was no kissing on Tuesday. There was conversation, earnest, serious conversation. And as they talked, Alma realised that this was more binding than a kiss, because Walter was involving her in the crisis of his marriage. He told her that Lydia was still serious about going to America.
'She refuses to discuss it,' Walter said. 'She's making the arrangements hour by hour. She's written to Chaplin to tell him she's coming. She's been showing people over the house — it's already up for sale, you know. She's giving ornaments away to friends and neighbours because she doesn't want to take them with her. And she's buying heaps of clothes for the voyage over.'
'Has she booked the passage yet?'
'It's to be booked as soon as she has a buyer for the house. From what she tells me, there are two offers with the agent.' He paused. 'And what is more, she has told me I must put the practice up for sale.'
Alma turned from the sideboard where she was about to serve the meal. 'Walter, that's ridiculous. Does she still assume that you'll give up all that you have worked for?'
'She does,' said Walter.
Alma thought she had detected a note of resignation in his voice. 'You wouldn't consider the idea — would you?' she asked, unable to disguise the anxiety she felt. She tried to busy herself with the dishes.
He answered bleakly, 'I fear I'm in no position to refuse. Believe me, Alma, I've agonized over this. Without Lydia's money I can't possibly keep up the surgery. The fees I charge wouldn't pay the rent and keep me alive. In a few years, possibly, but not yet.'
'Can't you buy a less expensive practice?'
'I have no capital to speak of. It's out of the question.'
She was stunned. He was going to leave her. She fought back her tears. 'But the whole idea of going to America makes no sense.'
He nodded. 'I know, my dear. It's quixotic. She's risking everything we have.'
And he had capitulated to her! Why wasn't he prepared to fight? He had to be persuaded that something could be done.
'Walter, you told me the other evening that you married Lydia as a business arrangement.'
'That's right.' He added caustically, 'And now I'm going to pay for it.'
'Can't you convince her that it would make better business sense if you kept up the surgery here so that she has something to return to if her hopes don't materialise in America?'
'My dear, when you say it, it sounds eminently reasonable, but Lydia refuses to consider the possibility of failure.'
Alma would not give in. 'Perhaps she would agree to go alone if you offered to join her later. There must be so much to attend to with the selling of the house and your practice.'
Walter said that there was a solicitor who would arrange all that. Alma persisted. They talked so intensely that the Ragout of Duck was eaten and the plates removed before Walter praised Alma's cooking. He was still doubtful of making any impression on Lydia, but he agreed to suggest he should remain in England while she was getting known in Hollywood.
He promised to meet Alma on the Green on Friday at lunchtime to let her know what Lydia had said.
'This is a difficult time,' he said as he put on his hat. 'I really shouldn't burden you with my problems.'
'I want to share them,' said Alma simply.
After he had gone, she found one of his cigar-stubs in an ashtray. That night she put a match to it in her bedroom and imagined he was there.
At some stage of the night there crept into her mind a possible solution. It was extravagant and dangerous, a last resort. Surely in the morning it would seem outrageous. But while she gave it thought, and plotted stage by stage, it seemed to gain in plausibility.
14
The news from Walter on Friday was worse than she had feared. The house was under offer. Lydia had booked a first class passage for two on the Mauretania, sailing from Southampton in fifteen days' time.
'For two?' said Alma. 'She still believes you're going with her?'
He looked away towards the elms on the far side of the Green.
Alma gripped his sleeve. 'Walter, what have you told her?'
He put his left hand gently over hers. It was shaking. 'My dear, you have been very sweet to me.'
'You're going, aren't you?'
He nodded. 'I can't do otherwise. Her solicitors are taking care of everything, even the selling of my practice.'
'But it belongs to you.'
'I may have built it up, but legally it's Lydia's. I signed papers when she paid for my equipment. She owns me.'
'No.' She buried her face in his jacket and hugged him. She sobbed convulsively.
That afternoon Alma did not return to the flower shop, and Walter telephoned the surgery to cancel his appointments. They walked along the towpath to Twickenham. In Marble Hill Park they found a quiet place beside an uprooted tree. Walter sat against the trunk and cradled Alma's head and shoulders. They talked for a long time. He admitted that the trip to America was almost certain to end in fiasco. Lydia would not be wanted by Chaplin or anyone in Hollywood. Her money would not last long there. Walter would find it difficult to set up a dental practice. Lydia would be angry and embittered.
'But she won't listen to reason,' he told Alma. 'She treats everything I say as an attack on her artistry. She says she won't be deprived of her destiny.'
'Then she's going, whether you are with her or not.'
'Yes.'
Alma was fighting for the man she loved. The fight was not with Lydia, who cared only about her career. She was pitted against Walter's fatalism. She had to convince him that he had a choice of his own. 'When you talked about your father committing suicide so soon after you were saved from the Lusitania, you seemed to be saying that it was a waste.'
'So it was. He might as well have drowned.'
'Aren't you throwing your own life away if you go to America?'
'My dear, I couldn't survive here without work, without a place to live.'
'You could live with me.'
'What?' For a moment that look of surprise bordering on panic flitted into his eyes. 'Oh, no -1 couldn't do that.'
She regarded him as steadily as she could considering what she had decided to tell him. 'Walter, I love you.'
His grip on her arm tightened. He closed his eyes. 'I feared that this was so.'
'Feared?'
'My dear, I have been selfish. I took advantage of your kindness to get sympathy. You have helped me to face up to my problems. But it must stop at that. We both know why — don't we?'
Alma had often sighed and shed tears over scenes like this in books, but now that it was happening to her she felt more bullheaded than romantic. She sat up and faced Walter and said, 'I don't expect you to say that you love me. I am twenty-eight years old and I have no experience of men. But I know what I am suggesting. I will not let you be destroyed by that fanatical woman.'
He shook his head. 'It would destroy you, Alma. Believe me, I am overwhelmed by what you say, but I am still a married man nearly twenty years your senior with no money of my own. Imagine the scandal it would create.'
'I have imagined it,' Alma said vehemently, 'and I'm indifferent to it. People who don't know the facts of the matter only betray themselves by gossiping. Please understand that I am serious.'
They started back along the towpath, and she pleaded her case all the way to Richmond Bridge and up the Hill
to her house. Walter gently, but adamantly, refused to be persuaded. At the gate she asked him in.
'No,' he said softly. 'We must part now, with dignity.'
She saw that his eyes had moistened, and she could only guess at the thoughts of this unhappy, undemonstrative man.
She said, hardly believing it, 'Shan't I see you again?'
He shook his head. Then he kissed her.
She pressed her lips against his, trying to hold the kiss for ever. He put his hands on her face and gently pushed her away.
Alma said, 'I believe I could murder that woman.'
Walter frowned slightly and looked at her and the frown receded and was replaced by an expression that to Alma seemed very like enlightenment. The frown returned and he shook his head. He said, i shall never forget you.'
Alma put out her hand, but he had turned and was already walking fast down the Hill.
15
Livingstone Cordell and family arrived at the Savoy Hotel in London on Saturday and Marjorie had a massage from a man who called it friction and said he looked after a football team called the Hotspurs. Her skin had never felt so raw, but that night she was dancing to the Savoy Orpheans until they stopped and then she persuaded Livy to take her to the Silver Slipper club in Regent Street, where she was still one-stepping on the glass floor at 3am. As a consequence Livy missed his full English breakfast on Sunday. To mollify him, Marjorie bought tickets for the newest show in town, called The Co-optimists.
'I got three seats in the front row of the Royal Circle for next Friday evening,' she announced on Monday.
'Are there chorus girls?'
Marjorie winked at her daughter Barbara, i was told there's a tenor called Gideon who has a voice like pure honey.'
'Mommy, I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I'd rather not go, if you don't mind,' said Barbara, twisting the table napkin tightly.
'Is that so? Livy, do you have something to say about that?'
Livy did not look up from the Daily Mail. He quite liked the British papers.
'Well, I do,' said Marjorie. i'd like to say that the way you're going on, young lady, life's going to pass you by. Your head is stuffed so full of logarithms and old pots that you've got no conversation. Maybe The Co-optimists doesn't appeal to you, but if you go and see it at least you can talk about it. I'm sure there are some charming English boys who would like to hear you talk about it, even if you tear it to shreds. I suppose you have something better to do next Friday night.'
'As a matter of fact, I do,' said Barbara.
'And what might that be?'
'A lecture on philosophy by Mr Bertrand Russell.'
'Oh, my God. Have you taken up philosophy now?'
'No. Paul Westerfield has. He invited me along.'
Livy looked over his newspaper and said, 'Nice one, kid.'
16
Lydia reached for a slice of toast and started to butter it. Without looking up, she said, 'By the way, if you're going to the surgery today, you'd better give that nurse a week's notice. I've sold the practice.' She had kept this piece of news for breakfast on Monday morning to avoid a weekend's bickering. Walter was so insufferably possessive about his tooth-pulling.
'You've what?' His voice was shrill with disbelief.
'Sold the practice, darling. We did discuss it, if you remember. It's gone to a Mr Edwards, Simon Edwards, a charming and attractive man who happens to be the brother-in-law of my friend Maggie. The poor darling has been doing nothing but gold crowns for Jewish tailors in the Mile End Road for the last ten years. He's absolutely thrilled.'
Walter pushed his plate aside. His face was purple, i haven't even met this man. He hasn't seen the surgery.'
'Oh, but he has, Walter. I took him there on Friday afternoon. You weren't there. The nurse said you had telephoned to cancel your appointments. Were you feeling ill, or something? Anyway, Simon adores the place and is quite prepared to take it over from next week. The point is that he doesn't need Nurse Tung, or whatever she is called, because he is bringing his own assistant.'
'You don't appear to understand, Lydia. I can't consign my patients to a man I haven't even met.'
'Darling, he's perfectly respectable. He went to Charterhouse, which is more than we can say for you. You'll meet him soon enough. He wants to go through the files with you on Wednesday. He's taking over the lot — the furniture, the dental equipment, even your forceps and things.'
'He can't have my instruments! Damnit, I shall need them in America.'
Lydia chipped at the varnish on one of her fingernails.
'I've used them ever since I trained,' Walter went on, his outrage increasing by the second. 'This won't do, Lydia. It's like depriving a musician of his violin.'
By Walter's standards, this was quite ah eruption. Lydia said evenly, 'Not really, darling. I think you ought to know that I have changed my mind about what you will do in America. You won't need your instruments after all, because there is some- thing much more important to be done. I shall need an agent to negotiate my contracts with the film companies. It's obvious that you should do it. I can't entrust my future as a film star to some American I have never met, so the job is yours.'
He stared at her like a trapped animal. He was speechless. He was shaking his head.
'Come now,' Lydia appealed to him, 'this is important to me. You've had years of pleasure finding holes in people's teeth, and now it's time for a change.'
'I don't propose to change,' Walter said in a voice so low it was almost threatening.
Lydia was not used to being defied. She had been about to tell him that he would earn a good commission if he worked for it. Instead she said, 'You have no choice, Walter. You couldn't set up as a dentist in America without money. They don't pull teeth in the street any more.'
'I'll have the money from the sale of the practice. How much is Edwards paying us?'
'That money belongs to me.'
'I built it up. I'm entitled to something back, for God's sake.'
'Not according to my solicitor, darling. Be sensible, Walter, We both have an interest in my future.'
He stood up and shouted, 'What future?' He stormed out of the room and out of the house. The front door slammed.
For a moment Lydia wondered whether Walter was the right person to be her agent. Then she reflected that it didn't matter because she only wanted him for window-dressing. Everyone in Hollywood had an agent. Walter would be answering the telephone, but she would decide which offers to accept.
She went upstairs to attend to her face. She was seeing the solicitor this morning. And she would be buying more new clothes for the voyage. She needed at least three full changes for each of the six days at sea.
While she was putting up her hair, the telephone rang. She let Sylvia pick it up. In a moment she was at the bedroom door.
'It's for you, ma'am. A lady.'
'Who is it?'
'She didn't say.'
Lydia said over her shoulder as she went downstairs, 'Really, I don't know what I pay you for.' She picked up the earpiece. 'Lydia Baranov speaking.'
There was a slight hesitation at the other end, then: 'I want to speak to you about your husband.'
'Who are you?' said Lydia.
'Someone who cares what happens to him.'
'What do you mean? You'd better tell me who you are.'
'Never mind that, Mrs Baranov. I want to appeal to you as one woman to another to treat him fairly. He doesn't want to go to America with you. He's happy here. You've treated him generously in the past. I wouldn't ask this if you loved each other, but you know that isn't so. Please be generous again and let him remain in England with the one who does love him.'
'What? I don't know who you are, but I think you must be mad. You're not that nurse of his, are you?' Lydia pressed the instrument harder to her ear. Before she hung it up, she wanted to be certain who this woman was. There was something in the voice that sounded familiar.
'I appeal to you, Mrs Baranov.
Let him have his freedom.'
'This is utterly ridiculous.'
'I'm trying to be reasonable, for all our sakes. God knows, I love your husband.'
'He's never mentioned you. Are you claiming to be his lover?'
'If you wish. Would you agree to a divorce?'
Lydia began to laugh. 'My dear, whoever you are, and I've got my suspicions, you've gone a bit too far. I know my husband. He wouldn't know what a mistress is, let alone what to do with one. So own up, and let's both enjoy the joke.'
'It is not a joke. You wouldn't know my name if I told you. You'd better ask Walter. He can decide how much to tell you. But don't under-estimate him, Mrs Baranov. And don't think you've heard the last from me.' The line went dead.
Lydia sat by the telephone for a long interval. She was trembling. She got up and went to the cocktail cabinet and poured herself a brandy. She drank it at a draught.
She said, 'You animal, Walter. You stupid, rampant beast!'
17
Alma said goodnight to Mrs Maxwell and unfastened her umbrella. It was a sudden downpour that might last only a few minutes, but she did not propose to stand in the entrance to the shop a moment longer than was necessary. She wanted to get home and see whether her prayers were answered and a message was waiting on the mat, or the telephone was ringing as she opened the door. Neither was to happen.
She took two steps and her arm was taken and the umbrella snatched from her hand. Without a word, Walter hustled her across the pavement into a taxi and got in beside her. His clothes were saturated. Alma pressed close to him and kissed him on the cheek. It was cold.
She said, 'I thought we wouldn't see each other again.'
'You're getting wet.' He took off his raincoat and hat and let her come close again. This time she kissed him on the lips. She was intensely happy. His hand grasped the back of her neck and loosened her hair. He said, i'm supposed to be reprimanding you for telephoning my wife.'
The False Inspector Dew Page 7
