by Helen Harris
But he was just getting into his stride. ‘La vie en rose!’ he declared. ‘Je ne regrette rien!’
‘Stop it Rob!’ I said again. ‘You’re just being silly.’
‘But I thought you liked romantic gestures,’ he teased me. ‘Isn’t that my great failing – I’m too humdrum for you?’
He let go of my wrist and he blew me a joky kiss from the palm of the hand which wasn’t holding his wine-glass. ‘Loosen up for Christ’s sake,’ he joked. ‘We’re in Paris. What else do you want? Moonlight? Roses?’
I went on eating with a reprovingly straight face. Rob shrugged and shook his head. ‘Oh God, I don’t know,’ he sighed, pretending to be despairing. ‘Do I have to go down on bended knee in front of you or something?’
As we were having our dessert – a wedge of runny ripe cheese for Rob and a creamy piece of patisserie for me – a tall underfed-looking African came into the restaurant selling long-stemmed red roses.
Foolishly, I said provocatively to Rob, ‘Go on, here’s your chance. Put your money where your mouth is.’
For a moment, he didn’t even understand what I was talking about.
‘You’re not serious, are you?’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you realize how much one of those roses costs?’
The African worked his way between the tables. With the shrewd instinct of the really needy, he showed signs of heading for our table. Rob became completely sober in an instant. ‘Don’t you dare lead the poor bugger on,’ he said to me. ‘That would be really cruel.’
The African stood over us, hugging his sheaf of roses in one arm, appealingly holding out a single flower with the other.
Rob said firmly, ‘Non, merci,’ but the man stood there, still offering his flower, oscillating it over our plates, until Rob’s set expression convinced him there would be no sale.
Rob exploded when he had gone. ‘You see where all your silliness gets you? I’m sure that guy saw you casting sideways glances at his bloody flowers. Now he’s had to be disappointed.’
I lost my temper too. ‘Why on earth couldn’t you just have bought one?’ I raged at him. ‘For once?’
We walked back to our hotel in a sulky silence. The self-righteous sound of Rob’s crêpe-soled shoes treading surely and squidgily along the Parisian pavements irritated me all the way. We still didn’t speak much in our hotel room. In my irritable mood, the plumbing annoyed me more than ever and the lumps in the mattress seemed especially protruding.
‘Don’t I even get a good-night kiss?’ Rob asked wryly as we lay beside each other, not touching.
I didn’t respond for a moment or two but then, relenting, I turned and gave him a chaste peck on one cheek.
‘Oh wow!’ he exclaimed sarcastically. ‘Big deal!’ And, after a little while, he said in the dark, ‘I really don’t understand what’s got into you these days.’
I bought Mrs Q a headscarf on Tuesday morning, before we caught the boat train. It wasn’t silk, but it was similar. I told Rob it was for my mother’s friend Mrs Dickinson, who has served me as an alibi before, but I don’t think he was fooled for a moment.
Our journey back seemed to take forever, sitting in a still faintly hostile state opposite each other. Rob had bought baguettes for sandwiches and I was unreasonably irritated by the way he stuffed them with strong-smelling cheese and pâté and bit into them noisily, showering himself with flakes of crust.
However worthwhile he felt that his weekend had been, he rang all his friends the moment we got back to London, threw himself on to the newspapers and avidly turned on the television news. I waited until he had slipped out for a quick drink with Andy to telephone Mrs Q.
It is too sad; while I have been gadding about abroad, she is threatened by even further immobility. Her bunion has flared up and she’s hobbling around the house. She took so long to come to the telephone, I was already terrified. I asked her if she’d be all right until Sunday, only then I felt so selfish I said I’d try and pop round one evening after work before then. If only I could take her somewhere for a jaunt one day!
She was wearing an old slipper on her left foot, slit open to give her bunion room to swell, and she limped painfully into the living room ahead of me. I almost hesitated to give her the scarf, in case it rubbed in the fact that she had no nice outing in prospect to wear it. But her sharp eyes had spotted my package as soon as she opened the front door and there was no getting away from it.
‘Beautiful,’ she said, unfolding it and professionally tossing the material to make it shine. ‘Beautiful, Alison!’ And then, absent-mindedly, ‘You shouldn’t have, really.’
She folded it into a triangle, draped it stylishly around her shoulders and struck a pose.
I said, ‘Ooh, it suits you!’
Mrs Q gave a deprecating smile. ‘I’m sure I look a fright, dear. But I used to turn the men’s heads once, you know.’ She took off the scarf and gave it a tender pat. ‘Beautiful,’ she repeated.
I encouraged her. ‘I bet you did.’
I wanted her to talk that day so that I wouldn’t have to tell her about Paris, so that I wouldn’t have to tell her about the seedy hotel and the lumpy bed, about Rob’s infuriating meanness with money and his refusal to buy me so much as one wretched red rose. But that was what she was waiting to hear. She questioned me mercilessly about our trip. I told her about some of the disappointments. I persuaded myself I was only doing it so she shouldn’t feel too wistful. But I didn’t tell her about the crude joke Rob made every night about the horrid bidet, nor my silly unfulfilled wish for a rose. I couldn’t bear to see her look of wise but silent triumph, bunion or no bunion, her unspoken but deafening, ‘I told you so.’ She crooked her little finger as she drank her tea and she patted her scarlet lips with satisfaction. At least, I thought ruefully, I am giving her pleasure, I suppose.
And, on Wednesday morning, Mr Charles had been terribly touched that I should have thought to bring him back the full-colour catalogue.
*
There was no denying it. She had lived to see another spring, although when she thought about it precious little of the spring found its way through to her in Shepherd’s Bush. She had confounded the lot of them: the pitying faces, the prying eyes, the precious lips, Alison, Pearl, Miss Midgley and Mr Patel. They might think she was on her last legs, poor dear, but she would live to show them yet. It occurred to her, as she settled by the window to watch the mild April evening, which was pinkish and smelt of tar, and eased her bad foot out of her constricting slipper, that things had come to a pretty pass when all that kept her going was spiting other people.
Miss Midgley had descended on her that very afternoon, not ashamed to show her face unannounced after a month-long absence. Alicia had spotted her coming from behind the front-room curtains; you couldn’t mistake that silhouette, could you? She had been tempted to play at being out. Except that she realized that at her age, they didn’t think you were out any more, but dead. To save a hullabulloo, she opened the front door at the third ring and greeted Miss Midgley ungraciously: ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Miss Midgley brightly, as though delighted to have her opinion confirmed. ‘And how are we getting on?’
‘I’m doing nicely, and yourself?’ Alicia answered snappishly and didn’t budge. She had tried this technique of keeping Miss Midgley out before, but she knew it didn’t work. Miss Midgley and her bosom simply came nearer and nearer until, unless you didn’t mind risking having an eye put out by one of those boned monstrosities, you simply had to step back, which looked as though you were inviting her in.
When they were seated in the front room, Miss Midgley had dropped her bombshell. ‘Do you know St Luke’s?’ she had asked bluntly, probably thinking this was an infinitely subtle and discreet way of going about her business.
Of course Alicia knew St Luke’s. It stood for all that she dreaded most about these twilight years. It was a tomb-like Victorian old people’s home off the Goldhawk Road. Passing it had give
n her the creeps even years ago, seeing all those old biddies sitting inside in rows, staring stonily out at the free people going by outside.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I can’t say that I do.’
Miss Midgley shifted very slightly on her seat. ‘It’s a residential care centre,’ she said slowly, ‘with very high standards and an excellent reputation. It’s not very far away from here, in fact. Perhaps you know the building?’
‘Ah,’ said Alicia icily. ‘The Home.’
‘We don’t like to call them homes any more,’ Miss Midgley said, bristling. ‘St Luke’s is a residential care centre, and a very fine one.’
Alicia snorted, ‘It looks a dump to me.’ She sat back to see how Miss Midgley would cope with that.
She blushed. ‘I’m sorry you think that, Mrs Queripel,’ she answered in hurt tones. ‘I’m sure you’d feel differently if you saw the inside of it.’ She hesitated. ‘The thing is, a place has come up there and I wondered if you’d be interested?’
‘No,’ Alicia answered, ‘I would not.’
She had been dreading that question for so many years, it wasn’t surprising she had her answer pat. But it took Miss Midgley by surprise.
‘No?’ she wavered. ‘No?’
‘No,’ Alicia retorted. ‘How many times do I have to say it?’
Miss Midgley’s face was a treat to behold. Alicia sat back and savoured her discomfort. Unconsciously, she tapped her foot. Miss Midgley’s eye fell on her slipper. ‘Trouble with your feet?’ she asked faintly.
Alicia stopped tapping hastily. She didn’t want to give Miss Midgley any ammunition. ‘Nothing serious,’ she answered airily.
‘We should get you along to the chiropody clinic,’ Miss Midgley declared, brightening visibly.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Alicia.
‘Well, I do,’ Miss Midgley answered, now quite herself, with her notebook at the ready. ‘It’s up at the hospital every other Wednesday.’
‘I can’t do Wednesdays,’ Alicia said quickly. ‘I have my home help.’
‘Wednesday afternoons,’ Miss Midgley said, with a touch of triumph. ‘You can manage that.’ She scribbled. ‘I’ll fix you an appointment.’
Alicia’s brain worked quickly; the appointment card could be mislaid, the date and time forgotten. When the council minibus came to fetch her for the clinic, she could lie low. If Miss Midgley only knew that Alicia furiously rejected every single thing she had ever provided for her: her large print books were returned to the library disdainfully unread, her ‘meals on wheels’ finished in the dustbin. Except, of course, for Alison, but then Alison had long ago stopped being anything at all to do with Miss Midgley.
She had well and truly come out on top that time, Alicia thought, as Miss Midgley retreated in disarray to the front door. She was giving off a strong smell of embarrassment. Alicia hobbled after her and kept up appearances by stopping dead when Miss Midgley turned round so that she shouldn’t see how painfully she limped.
‘Hopefully you’ll get an appointment card in a week or so,’ Miss Midgley mumbled. Pens and a pill bottle fell from her bag as she scrabbled in it.
Alicia watched her bend down to pick up her bits and pieces, exclaiming, ‘Oh, clumsy me!’ She expected to feel nothing but triumph as Miss Midgley squatted awkwardly in her hairy skirt and she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why she should suddenly feel something almost like pity for that unfortunate blind and well-meaning bottom.
She could sit at her window in comfort much later, now that the evenings were growing longer. It stayed light until after seven. She had her viewing all arranged. Instead of standing watching between the curtains, she drew her armchair over to the window and sat and looked out in comfort. Sometimes she treated herself to a peppermint or a plain biscuit. It was like having her own personal television serial.
‘If you go and see the chiropodist,’ Alison said to her on Sunday, ‘you’ll be able to get about again, won’t you, and perhaps we could go on a day trip somewhere together?’
‘We what?’ exclaimed Alicia.
‘We could go on a day trip. I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot recently. I think it would do you the world of good to have a change of scene when the weather gets a bit warmer. We could go into the country, visit a stately home or something. Or go to the seaside, maybe, if you’d prefer it.’
A monstrous suspicion crossed Alicia’s mind: could Alison be in league with Miss Midgley after all? It hardly seemed possible, yet here they both were, inside of the same week, trying to get her out of her house. She gave Alison a steely stare.
‘Whatever put that idea into your head?’
‘Me going to Paris,’ Alison answered simply. ‘I felt so mean when I got back, telling you all about it while you were cooped up in here.’
Alicia scrutinized her face suspiciously. It looked innocent enough. She played for time. ‘And pigs might fly! How would I get there? It’s bad enough getting up to the corner shop, let alone the back of beyond.’
‘I’d come and pick you up,’ Alison assured her. ‘We could get a taxi to the station and then some sort of transport at the other end. Wouldn’t you like it?’
‘Like it?’ Alicia tried to imagine, just for a moment, what such an extraordinary day would be like. It was so far beyond anything that she had imagined remained for her that she felt quite put out. It was unfair of Alison to taunt her with things that could never be.
‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ she snapped at her. ‘Gracious, Alison, sometimes I wonder what you’ll come up with next!’
*
The mornings smell of spring as I speed to work on my bike. It is not true at all that you do not notice the seasons in the city. The trees on either side are smudged with their first blur of green and the smart front gardens are bright with blossoms and bulbs. But, above all, it is the change of smell that you notice; something sweet and soft, which strokes the angular façades of the houses and the hard closed city faces with a suggestion of surprises in store. Old, old women come out in bright, bright hats.
Rob is immersed in contracts and negotiations. He is simultaneously fixing up a deal for Print-Out and working out the arrangements for the new play which has been commissioned. He talks to me about it all in bed in the mornings. He is always full of energy and hope in the spring, he says. Looking back, he can see that he has always begun on the projects which counted in the spring. He goes out running every morning, as if he had too much energy and hope even for everything he has to do, and needed to expend the extra.
When I got into work yesterday, Mr Charles was in my ‘office’ waiting for me. He was sitting at my desk, in fact, looking around my room. He said he liked what I had done to it. It was a nice touch too having flowers on the desk. While I stood in my coat and worried what I might have done wrong for him to be there, he spent a few more minutes on polite niceties. Then he asked me to have lunch with him.
I spent the whole morning getting worked up. Within ‘living memory’, Mr Charles has never asked anyone out to lunch. I suppose I am his first research assistant, but nevertheless it seemed to me a significant development and by lunch-time I had worked myself into quite a state of nerves.
I went off to the cloakroom far too early to get ready and as I was standing in front of the mirror, combing and recombing my hair, a funny expression came into my head. I don’t know where I picked it up from. ‘No one ever died of nerves.’ I repeated it to calm myself down as I sat at my desk, all perfumed, waiting for him.
Of course we had a very calm, civilized lunch. I cannot imagine a lunch with Mr Charles being anything else. He took me to a plain old-fashioned English place in South Kensington, which looked as if it had been there for years and its clientele as if they had been staunchly ordering the same dishes for as long. Mr Charles said, ‘The lamb is good. Or the steak-and-kidney.’
I suppressed the thought of how Rob would hoot with laughter at the restaurant and I dutifully ordered the lamb. T
he waitress had a sad dropped bosom, which seemed to cast a long shadow as she bent over the table, and I noticed how courteous and gallant Mr Charles was to her.
‘Dear old Vera,’ he said. ‘She’s been here for donkey’s years.’
‘Do you usually come here?’ I asked him. ‘Is this your regular lunch spot?’
Mr Charles laughed. ‘I do. It’s the perfect place for a solitary diner. Look around; almost everyone’s eating on their own, aren’t they?’
I tried to bring the conversation round to his book, out of politeness. I asked him what he thought of the latest batch of pictures I had given him to look through. But he gave an airy wave of his hand and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Alison,’ he said. ‘Our lunch is pleasure, not business.’
We had pudding and coffee. We didn’t get back to the museum until nearly three o’clock, and I didn’t get much done in what remained of the afternoon, because my thoughts kept drifting back to Mr Charles.
I have often tried unsuccessfully to visualize what his home and private life are like. I imagine him taking something frozen from the fridge for a solitary supper, which he eats with a book propped in front of him. I imagine him sitting afterwards under a reading lamp in a living-room which is no different from his office.
Milton dropped in to visit me, which he has taken to doing fairly often now I am no longer available to all comers at the Enquiries Desk. He makes fun of my new status, calls me ‘Teacher’s Pet’ and ‘Egg Head’ and pretends to knock timidly and be scared to come in. He ribs me about the way I have done up my little cubby-hole ‘with everything just so’. But, at the same time he seems almost concerned for me, as though he thought I was getting too cut off in my lightless green aquarium and too immersed in my fuddy-duddy work.
He asked after ‘the writer’. ‘How come we never see him round here any more? You ain’t parted company?’
I said that Rob was very busy working.
Milton snorted. ‘You can have too much of a good thing, you know.’ He giggled and gave a dismissive gesture, which included my green haven.
