by Mavis Cheek
'State of the art? Arthur, where do you pick up these phrases?'
'I am not,' he smiled, 'quite ossified yet.' He tucked the envelope beneath a pile of others, 'and you will go to London and effect the purchase.'
'Why London?' she said, incredulous, shaking.
'Because . . .' He reached over and took her hand. It lay limply in his, cool and unmoved, belying her face, which was flushed to rose, and her eyes, which shone. And then she withdrew it, quickly, smoothly, and began picking at the toast again. He thought of a magical experience, he thought of saying, 'Come to bed. Let us make each other happy again.' He said her name, she looked up.
'Because what?' she said shortly, afraid of what she read in his face.
'Because I believe it is in London that your best tea-urn replacement lies.' He put the magic away and got up from his chair. He spoke firmly, business-like.
'When?' she said.
'As soon as you like.'
She closed her eyes in the wonder of a doubtful prayer answered.
*
From behind her, somewhere near the window, Rohanne Bulbecker heard a terrible howl — the kind of howl that would not be out of place in Baskerville territory, but which, in a small room behung with silks and padded with cushions, was distinctly de trop.
'Jeezus,' she sighed. 'What the hell was that?'
'I don't think that your friend' — Erica, awakened, naturally enough, was pointing at Gretchen O'Dowd — 'likes what's in that letter. . .'
Rohanne looked. Gretchen O'Dowd was hopping from foot to foot, her face contorted with dreadful emotion, holding her letter with one hand while punching it with the other.
'I'd say,' said Rohanne Bulbecker, staring in wonder, 'you were right.' She looked at her watch. 'Do you know what I think?'
Erica shook her golden head.
'I think it's time for a celebration lunch. You choose where. You know London much better than me.'
Not the London you mean, thought Erica dryly. But she remembered that she had once had a rather good doorway along Piccadilly, not a stone's throw from its most famous hotel. She had stayed there for a number of nights and it was beginning to feel quite homey until the passers-by complained. After that they sprayed the whole area with water so that she had no choice but to move on. She had not been back since.
'The Rite,' she said. And added truthfully, 'I haven't been there for ages'
*
Janice Gentle crossed the river at Vauxhall and knew that she was passing into the dangerous world of the rich and the sophisticated. An alarming thought. She didn't mind using it in her books, but she did not want to be a part of it. It frightened her, all that class and style. She opened another fudge finger and played the game of making it last by sucking and not biting, a game she never won. Some urge always overtook her and she ended up chewing.
By the third fudge finger she had reached the other side of Vauxhall Bridge. Hitherto she had been as mindful and careful as Chaucer's Prioress, prissy Madame Eglentyne - 'Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe' - and despite the sun had stayed relatively unsullied. She had made every finger of fudge count. But now, as she surveyed the new land of Chelsea and Pimlico, she gave up. She dug into her bag any old how and chewed as she went, angry that she had been foolish enough to set out. She looked back towards dear, familiar, undemanding Battersea and felt certain that its cloistered quiet would never be hers again. She felt distinctly medieval. For so, of course, it had been for the Pilgrims. So, of course, it was for any traveller. Leaving the familiar for the uncertain always meant you were changed irredeemably. That was why she had never sought a journey
beyond the enclosed world of the tube. She wished never to embark anywhere to be changed irredeemably until she was confidently en route for Dermot Poll. That was the only life-change she sought, and for that she had been perfectly prepared to wait. And now this. And on such a hot, uncomfortable day, too.
The Prioress, with her ingestive etiquette, bowed, gave way and finally departed in the heat of the day. She was Janice Gentle once more, afraid of the journey before her and just as afraid of the one she had left behind. She walked on. She ate. There was Millbank, the Tate Gallery, and there was chocolate around her mouth. There was Westminster, there was Churchill, and there was chocolate on the front of her beige cardigan. Her hands were sticky and grimy already with the pollution of London streets. The hot sun had reddened her face and she walked uneasily with chafing thighs. She noticed irritably that there was still scaffolding around the Abbey; it had been there the last time she visited this part of London in a taxi with Sylvia Perth.
If ever, she thought earnestly, a pilgrim was required to travel in grim discomfort, she qualified. Surely, given the sacrificial nature of her effort, she would be rewarded somehow? Something must happen after Dog Street. When she had done her kindly silencing of Sylvia Perth, something had to begin, surely something!’ And for perhaps the thousandth time in her history, she wondered where, at that exact minute, Dermot Poll might be. Her spirits lifted. If they were still mending Westminster Abbey after all this time, then what was time? He might not be so far away, after all. It was with this comfortingly peculiar piece of logic that Janice Gentle journeyed on.
Chapter Fourteen
I
N Skibbereen the Saint's Day bells rang out as Dermot and his lady lay endeavouring to continue asleep. There was a little blood on the pillow, not much, on Deirdre's side. Dermot had swung rather faster than he meant to and caught her a goodly blow to the bridge of the nose.
'Would you look at that?' she said disgustedly, opening one eye and not being able to open the other. 'I shall not share this bed another night. When a woman says no, she means no, pigman, and that's the last you'll get of me.'
So saying, she rolled out of the bed, trailing her pillow behind her, and fell into the empty bed next door, the bed that had once been Declan's. 'Son, son, son,' she moaned as she drifted back to sleep, but she was not despairing. He would do fine for himself in London, Declan - with that pretty face, those crisp, black curls and the voice of a nightingale. And much better off away from here. She might go back herself one day.
Anyway, moving bedrooms was a good first step and as far as she wanted to go for the moment. She'd put a little bicarbonate of soda solution on the eye. The bells ceased and Deirdre slept, content and at peace in her isolation. She should, she thought, have done this years ago . ..
Dermot turned, felt the empty mattress beside him. A brief stab of regret at the space was short-lived. He stretched out his leg and rubbed it across the void. Then he stretched the calf, stretched the toes, and sighed with pleasure. That was better, much better, now he had room. Nice for a while. And she would be back — he knew it. 'I'll walk beside you through the passing years,' he sang to the ceiling and remembered how the ladies had loved him to sing it, how the tears had flowed and how innocent
it had all been then. He would have still been there, singing in London, living well, thinking fondly of Erin's Isle, enjoying the regret with his emigre companions if that girl had not waylaid him the night Declan was born. Women, ah women! They were hell. Would a man have left him lying there in the street like that and gone off on a bus? With a policeman able to come up and find him? First the boot, then the questions. 'What's your name, son?' Son? Son? He'd been no older than himself. 'What are you doing out? Where do you live?' And then the goading, the sarcasm. 'Bog Irish? Crawl back into the peat, scum . . .'
Was it his fault that the bomb happened? Was it his fault that he spoke with the accent of the guilty? And was it his fault that they'd got his address and only for being drunk? 'My son was born,' he told them, but they took him, and it was six days before he got home. The neighbours had broken all the windows, Deirdre's milk had dried away and she had tickets for the ferry. 'Days of joy and laughter, pain and tears . . .'
If that colourful girl had only put him on the bus with her and taken him home he'd have been all right. That's what any man woul
d've done, wasn't it now? Women, ah women! They were all hell. Ever since Eden . ..
Chapter Fifteen
O
N the way to the Ritz Gretchen reread her letter. 'I am asked to stay on for three months in my present capacity as housekeeper and to accept, as a gift from the estate, designated by my former employer, the seascape watercolour that hangs in my room.'
'That's kind,' said Erica. 'Is it a nice picture?'
'No,' said Gretchen miserably. 'I hate the sea. And the painting is all fuzzy and peculiar.'
'What about money?' said Rohanne Bulbecker.
Gretchen O'Dowd peered at the letter. 'My wages and something called an ex gratia payment. . .'
'That's not bad . . .'
'But I was supposed to inherit everything. She said so. There was nobody else in her life so close as me.'
Rohanne took the letter. 'You could go and see these people.'
'I am,' said Gretchen miserably. 'I have an appointment this afternoon.'
'I'll come with you,' said Rohanne Bulbecker. 'I need to do a little investigating, too.'
'And I was going to bury her. Such a lovely funeral it was going to be. Very grand. Guests and everything.'
'It is profoundly to be hoped that they have buried her already,' said Rohanne Bulbecker. 'Ah, here we are. The Ritz!'
*
Square Jaw pulled out the box of Melanie's things. She ought to have them back. Every time he got into bed he stubbed his toe, and he could swear that her scent lingered in the room. He was
right. On closer inspection he found that the bottle had dpped over and leaked. There were all kinds of things in there that she must want. He touched one or two of them, familiar things. He'd ring her, offer to take them over to her, that would show there were no hard feelings, that he could be kind. Anyway, it would be all right - and he would quite like to see her again . . .
He dialled her number confidently this time, without needing a drink first. This time he had a good, solid, respectable reason for doing so - none of this being unsure what to say. She answered.
He said, 'Hi,' cheerfully.
She said, 'Hi, how are you?' With equal cheer.
That was unnerving. He had expected her to be a bit emotional. He was glad that she wasn't - and not glad. Confusing.
'Fine,' he said positively. 'You?'
'OK,' she said. 'How's work?'
'Not bad. Pissed off with the travelling.'
'You always were.'
'I don't like the tube.'
'Go by bus, then.'
'Worse.'
Melanie wondered, with rising irritation, why they were discussing the London transport system. And why he was being his usual negative self again. Why didn't he just say, 'Melanie, I love you. Come back'?
Square Jaw wondered why Melanie could never say anything sympathetic any more. She'd been so caring and thoughtful in the beginning. If she said she was sorry, it would be something.
'Did you ring for anything in particular?'
'I've got your things.'
'Yes?'
'Thought you might want them.' He attempted a joke. 'They're no good to me.'
Melanie felt the tears rise, the lump grow in her throat. 'I don't expect they are. Well, I haven't had time to fetch them. I've been very busy.'
'So have I,' he said quickly. He was not going to ask, he was not. . .
Melanie, on the other hand, tried not to and failed. 'Doing what?' she said.
'This and that,' he said.
She was stung by his hedging. It could mean only one thing, that he had been doing things he didn't want her to know about. That meant he had met somebody else. No wonder he wanted her things out of the way. Well, she bloody well wasn't going to collect them and make it easy for him.
'I've no idea when I'll have time.'
'I could drop them off,' he offered, relieved at last to have got round to what he wished to say.
'Don't bother,' she said icily. 'I'll collect them some time.' 'When?'
'When I've got time.'
'Like when? His voice had risen. She could be infuriatingly obtuse. And he felt angry, put down, that she didn't want to see him.
'I'll let you know.'
'Next week? Next year?'
'Don't shout.'
'It's my bloody flat they're taking up room in.'
She put down the phone. If he wanted her cleared out, he'd have to wait - whoever the she was. Arrogant, bad-tempered, cruel bastard. She rang her closest girlfriend, who agreed.
Selfish, ungrateful, callous bitch. He switched on the video and lost himself in The Naked Gun.
*
Red Gold closed her eyes and dreamt of how it had been in the past. The train rocked and swayed, and it was almost like being held in her lover's arms already.
‘I am coming to London to buy a tea-urn.' She had laughed down the phone.
'When?' he said.
Ah no, she thought, I shall be too clever for that. 'Whenever you are free,' she said.
He had checked his diary and given her a date. And today it was. This beautiful, beautiful train was taking her to him. A liaison with her lover from the past. A liaison of just one night, a night that would count for all eternity. She asked no more. Close the book. Back to Arthur and the reality of for ever with things just the same as they had always been, life going on — only she would have a precious secret to get her through the hungry winter's evenings.
After she had spoken to him, she cradled the receiver to her cheek. Her heart was racing, wanting to sing. But already the distant memory of subterfuge returned to her. She must look no different, sound no different, give no clue to Arthur that she had anything more than a tea-urn and other items to purchase on her mind. Her stomach turned, her head felt light. They would have tea at the Ritz (she would pay, she would pay). And afterwards? Afterwards it did not matter. Afterwards it would be somewhere. Her head rang with the mystery of the feeling inside her for this one man among them all. She was lucky, she told herself, to have experienced it even once. She replaced the receiver and looked through the window at Arthur sitting in the garden with his bridal class. Most people - like him, like those three young women out there - never got close.
In a painting, she thought, the scene would have been delightful. Three young women, pretty and innocent as daisy flowers, sitting at the knee of the man of God as he helped them see the pleasure of purity, the fineness of faith, the joy of married union. In reality it never reached the nursery slopes of the ideal. All the same, Arthur pursued it. He was pursuing it now with the non-painting: three unattractive young women grouped around him in the garden. The scene was perfect, it was the players who were at fault. 'Arthur's little joke with God,' she risibly called these classes, though he knew she did and laughed too. If these girls wanted to be White Queen for the day then they must be instructed in what it meant to the Greatest Husband of Them All, and the home He offered them in the Church of Christ.
Making them pay for their vanities, was her assessment. Arthur was kinder, if rigid for the rule. 'Maybe some of it goes in and remains in,' he said, if she teased him (she could call it teasing now, she had no more need to mock with her flame of joy burning inside her).
'Maybe when I talk to them about Jesus and the family and love, a little shard penetrates and stays. Think of Langland's Piers the Ploughman - how he fought back at the licentiousness of the age with stories and examples. Perhaps a particle remains.'
'Like a splinter? To irritate? To inflame?'
'Nobler than that.'
'Are you not,' she said, 'in danger of perpetrating one of your Ploughman's Deadly Sins?' 'Which?' 'Pride?' 'Tell me?'
'Pride in likening yourself to Langland, whom you call a genius? Comparing yourself with your hero . . .'
'If he was a visionary, he was also an ordinary man,' said Arthur, 'and he believed in speaking plain. That is all I do. I have no pride in that.'
'Do you have pride in anything, or are you pure of it?'
He looked her full in the face so that she had to look away lest he could read her thoughts. He smiled, amused at himself. 'If I have a pride, it is not in my work . . .'
'Then it should be,' she said quickly, 'for you are very good at it. And maybe, as you say, a little shard penetrates.'
Looking around the town, at the pasty, fat children in grubby muck-smeared pushchairs, with their blank-faced parents in Oxfam clothes, as quick to swipe as to kiss, she was not so sure. She went to their houses, she iced buns and gave them tea in the hall, smelled their smells, did their jumbles. She didn't think anything had penetrated them, nor remained. Arthur was dreaming, Arthur was living an ideal that was nothing to do with reality. The lessons on the lawn. Nothing would come of them. After the wedding, the deluge, with the frock put away - never to be dyed and worn to a ball. In Arthur's church there was nobody likely to be asked to a ball, and you couldn't wear such a gown to the disco. And anyway (she thought of how different her own memories of love were), discos stopped with the first baby. Indeed, the first baby was probably conceived at the disco - or shortly afterwards. The best thing a white wedding dress could do was make you net curtains so your neighbours could not see the paucity of your life; or stand you a fiver from the hock shop.
Before the three girls arrived, Arthur said that he thought he might temporarily drop the bit about 'considering the lilies of the field', since few people up here had the opportunity of choosing whether or not to toil or spin. More of the joke? She was unsure. But against all this dreariness, she, at least, had some joy in her life. Something delicious. Like eating cold suet pudding in February and finding a strawberry inside. And if it were worse than that? If it were Sin? Who did it harm? Why should she renounce it? After so long what harm could it do? Not to her, not to him, not to Arthur. None at all. If you desired the deed, it was, very likely, as bad as going ahead and doing it.
