The Boarding-House

by William Trevor

  ‘What happened then?’

  Mr Sellwood did not reply. He seemed to have become locked between wedges of deep thought. He was looking into the middle distance, his mouth set, his eyes screwed up.

  My God, thought Miss Clerricot, they are glazing over.

  ‘I did not get a reply to that letter,’ said Mr Sellwood. ‘I did not hear another thing.’

  ‘How curious.’

  ‘I thought it curious. Especially since the man had been courteous in the past. Yes, I found it most curious indeed. Are you hungry? Should we eat. Miss Clerricot?’ She thought he spoke as though it were in doubt whether or not they should eat at all. She felt he might have it in mind to sit in the lounge all evening, until eleven o’clock or so, ordering glasses of sherry and timing the waiter’s alacrity.

  ‘I am hungry,’ said Miss Clerricot. ‘Well, I mean, quite hungry.’

  ‘They do you well here,’ he said, but did not rise. ‘Let’s just try this fellow again. Would you mind ordering while I do the other?’

  She assumed that this must be a regular practice of his. She ordered the drinks while he kept his face bent over his wrist. The barman, noticing everything, seemed to lose composure. She thought she saw him quiver as he stood there with his silver or mock-silver tray, picking up the empty glasses and an ashtray. What is the barman thinking? she wondered; what on earth is there for a man to think in circumstances like this? Yet Mr Sellwood was not being rowdy; he was very quiet in his madness. She watched the barman cross the floor and hurry up a couple of steps to the bar. While he waited for the drinks he spoke to a man standing there. That is the manager, thought Miss Clerricot; he is dressed like a manager; the barman is complaining, he is greatly distressed.

  She watched Mr Sellwood, seeing a face she knew very well. She closed her eyes and played a game: she tried to think whether or not Mr Sellwood had a moustache. There was something on his upper lip, some mark, she was sure of that. She tried to visualize a small grey moustache, but somehow it didn’t seem to fit. She thought then that it must be black, a thin charcoal line of closely cropped bristle. That, somehow, didn’t seem right either. Then fantasy gripped Miss Clerricot and she imagined Mr Sellwood with a huge curling growth, with pointed ends waxed and dangerous-looking. She reflected seriously again, closing her eyes tight: there was something on Mr Sellwood’s upper lip, she knew the lip was not bare; there was something there, something one took for granted like a nose.

  The barman, returning with two glasses of sherry, saw his motion being timed by the man, and the woman sitting with her eyes closed. He thought she seemed to be swaying back and forth, and he wondered if the two were indulging in some ceremony. In silence he placed the glasses and a fresh ashtray on the table between them.

  ‘Two minutes thirty-four,’ said Mr Sellwood. ‘Something has gone wrong with the fellow.’

  Miss Clerricot opened her eyes and saw the familiar moustache, Home Counties grey, with strands of darker fibre in it. She saw the barman standing near by, pretending an interest in another table. Mr Sellwood said:

  ‘An up-and-down performer.’

  In The Boarding-House at that moment Mr Scribbin was turning on the television set. Behind him Rose Cave sat down with her knitting, and Mr Obd, sighing and moaning within himself, hung about by the doorway. In the dining-room Gallelty brushed crumbs from the tables, thinking about nothing at all, intent upon the crumbs. Venables, still in the dining-room, sat sick and pale, his right hand playing with the plastic ring that held his napkin. The pain in his stomach caused sweat to form all over his body. He could not move, but he knew that in a minute or two the pain would cease and he would succeed in rising and would pass some remark about the weather to the maid.

  Mr Sellwood leaned back in his chair and lifted his sherry glass to his lips. ‘What a pleasant way,’ he said, ‘to spend an evening.’

  The Misses Gregory had done wonders with the Jasmine Cafe. They had cut flowers from their own garden and had placed them, pleasantly arranged, on the table reserved for Major Eele and Mrs le Tor. They knew Mrs le Tor of old; she had possibilities as a customer, and it was not often that a request was made for a special dinner for two. Deliciously curious, the Misses Gregory were touched by the romance of it.

  ‘Well, this is quite delightful,’ said Mrs le Tor, looking around her at twelve unoccupied tables set for morning coffee. The tables had checked cloths, red and white, but their own table, in honour of them, had a plain starched cloth of pure linen, left to the Misses Gregory by their mother in 1955.

  ‘Have you brought the wine, Major Eele? I do like this. Look, they have written out a special menu.’

  Two candles burned on their table, two slim red candles that did not at all remind Major Eele of the candles in the cavern restaurant Mrs le Tor, he considered, was looking radiant. Her cheeks seemed more flushed than usual; he thought it suited her and wondered if he should say so. He glanced at her legs, shimmering and making a noise when she moved them. He said:

  ‘Wine?’

  ‘Oh, my dear, didn’t I say? I meant to say. What on earth can I have been thinking of? The Jasmine isn’t licensed. We have to bring our bottle.’

  Major Eele clicked his teeth. ‘Well, we haven’t.’

  ‘Could you not slip out to the place at the corner? Sauterne or Chablis or something. Let me go halves.’

  But the Major refused this offering and made the journey to the corner of the street.

  ‘He has just slipped out for wine,’ said Mrs le Tor to the Miss Gregory who was hovering near. ‘He will be but a minute.’

  ‘A charming man,’ the other replied. ‘How straight and gallant he walks.’

  ‘The old school,’ said Mrs le Tor, looking at the menu. ‘A brigadier.’

  ‘I have a brother,’ said Mr Sellwood, ‘who is in the hotel business. I do not see him often.’

  They walked from the bar towards the dining-room. ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Miss Clerricot said in the hall.

  Mr Sellwood, who had not absorbed the import of Miss Clerricot’s request, turned around a moment later to find her gone. He was by then on his way across the dining-room, led by a waiter.

  ‘Where is she?’ Mr Sellwood asked, stopping in his tracks. ‘Where is the lady?’

  The waiter made a polite gesture of the lips, a waiter’s smile.

  ‘Where?’ repeated Mr Sellwood, looking about him.

  The waiter indicated the table he had reserved. ‘A table for two,’ he said. ‘Your friend will join you, sir?’

  ‘Where is my friend?’

  ‘You came in alone, sir.’

  ‘I came in with Miss Clerricot. Certainly I came in with Miss Clerricot. I had better hunt for her.’ And Mr Sellwood walked away, leaving the waiter with his arm outstretched, pointing to a table for two. Later that night this same waiter was heard to say: ‘There is a lunatic in our midst.’

  ‘I am looking for the lady who was with me just now,’ said Mr Sellwood in the bar. ‘We had arranged, I thought, to go together to the dining-room, yet when I reach there she is no longer by my side. I thought she must still be here.’

  But the barman whom Mr Sellwood had earlier timed shook his head and did not smile as the waiter had smiled. ‘I am not here to be clocked by customers,’ he had already complained, though not to Mr Sellwood.

  Miss Clerricot in turn was led to the table reserved for Mr Sellwood.

  ‘Where is Mr Sellwood?’ she asked, seeing that the table was empty. The man did something in the air with his hand, a skilful movement that suggested that Mr Sellwood was on the way. Miss Clerricot guessed he was in the lavatory.

  ‘Find the gentleman,’ the waiter said to a lesser waiter, speaking in a low voice. ‘He will be mooching about the hall.’

  Mr Sellwood, however, feeling rather cross, was still in the bar, where he had ordered a further glass of sherry. He shot his watch from beneath his cuff and regarded the minute hand.

  ‘Three shillings, sir,’ the bar
man said.

  Mr Sellwood still could not understand how it was that once the time taken had been half a minute and on the other two occasions it had been two minutes and thirty-four seconds and two minutes ninety seconds respectively. It annoyed Mr Sellwood as he sat there, drinking his sherry. For a moment he had forgotten about Miss Clerricot.

  ‘Sir,’ said a youth beside him, and Mr Sellwood looked up and saw a child of twelve or so in elaborate uniform. ‘Mr Sellwood, sir, they are looking for you in the dining-room.’

  ‘I am Sellwood, yes.’

  ‘The waiters are looking for you, sir. Your wife has arrived at your table in the dining-room.’

  ‘My God,’ cried Mr Sellwood, leaping to his feet, standing on them and appearing frightened.

  ‘I do not much care for this,’ said Mr Scribbin in the television lounge. ‘Why are we watching an operation on a stomach ulcer?’

  ‘Nurse Clock wanted it,’ said Rose Cave. ‘She will be angry if you turn to something else.’

  ‘Nurse Clock is not here.’

  ‘No, Nurse Clock is not. She is seeing to what blankets should be laundered. I gave her an offer of help. She has a lot on her hands, now that things have changed.’

  In his room Mr Obd wrote a letter, the longest and most poignant he had ever written to Annabel Tonks. He was not shy on paper: all that was in his heart came out.

  ‘Tell me all about yourself. Major Eele. What life is like in your boarding-house, how you improve the shining hour. What gorgeous fare the girls are treating us to! Let me just run away and say so.’

  Mrs le Tor, flushed with wine, encased in a patterned silk dress, dashed to the back of the café, to a region she seemed familiar with. Major Eele heard voices raised in praise and admiration, of the food on Mrs le Tor’s part, of her dress and accessories on the part of the Misses Gregory. When she returned to the candle-lit table he saw the faces of the ladies smiling around a partition.

  ‘What do you do all day?’ Mrs le Tor asked him. ‘Does time hang heavy? Of course, you’re a great walker. You go to the cinema, you said.’

  ‘I am a cinema-goer, yes. Foreign films mostly. When Mr Bird was alive we used together to attend theatrical productions.’

  ‘How nice. I am always at the theatre, the upper circle. Now that your friend is dead you have no companion? Poor Major, how sad.’

  ‘Now that I think of it I believe Mr Bird only accompanied me once. He gave me a feeling for the thing, you understand. I like to go alone.’

  ‘On your owney-oh? Oh, no. How sad.’

  ‘I find it better so. I do not mind that at all. I am a solitary bird, as Mr Bird would have said.’

  ‘You never married, Major Eele?’

  ‘I have been married.’

  ‘And I, Major Eele,’ cried Mrs le Tor. ‘And I too!’

  Major Eele coughed. He found her red finger-nails fascinating. He thought he might be wrong, that she was maybe a tart after all. A scarlet woman, he thought; how amused they’d be in The Boarding-House to see him sitting here with a scarlet woman in an empty café.

  ‘Major, shall we get some more wine?’ cried Mrs le Tor, full of enthusiasm for the project. ‘Let’s make an evening of it!’

  He rose and bowed to her, and walked again to the public house at the corner of the street.

  The uniformed child, who imagined that Mr Sellwood would press into his palm a many-cornered threepenny piece, blinked his eyes, looking at the stooping man who was hunched in a chair beside him. His instinct was to take this man by the arm, or at least by some portion of his clothes, and lead him to the dining-room, but his training prevented so natural an expression. He stood there, small and enthusiastic, a child who was later to rise to heights in the hotel business, and said nothing further.

  Miss Clerricot read the menu and noticed that there was salmon in a sauce, that there was no choice of soup but that if she did not wish to have soup there was paté or grapefruit or, surprisingly, lasagne. There was cold chicken and cold tongue, and ham and pork and other meats. Potatoes were creamed or fried or new. There were broad beans and French beans, or garden peas, or asparagus, or celery hearts.

  ‘Madam?’ said the head waiter.

  ‘I had better wait,’ she murmured, blushing.

  ‘Where on earth did you get to?’ demanded Mr Sellwood. ‘I hunted for you everywhere.’ He sat down and took the menu from her. She felt quite close to the waiter who had hovered about her, who knew the details of the confusion. She felt that if she looked up now and caught his eye he would smile or cast an upward look.

  ‘Pate and salmon,’ said Mr Sellwood. ‘They do you well here.’

  I shall have soup, she thought, and then salmon with new potatoes and broad beans. Mr Sellwood will order a bottle of wine, and afterwards he will offer a liqueur with my coffee and I shall say cherry brandy because I like the taste.

  ‘Soup,’ she said, ‘please. And salmon, I think, with new potatoes and broad beans. Delicious, Mr Sellwood.’

  She had done no work. So far he had not mentioned work. After dinner in the lounge, over coffee and liqueurs, when Mr Sellwood would smoke a small cigar, he would touch her knee with his hand, as if by accident.

  ‘Do not do that, Mr Sellwood.’ She would stare at him askance; and then perhaps he would beg her and she would explain, shaking her head, saying she could not take the responsibility of doing anything wrong. She thought of his wife at Sevenoaks watching the television as they were watching it in The Boarding-House. She saw his wife laughing over some witty thing in the Dick Van Dyke Show, and drinking gin.

  ‘What did you say?’ Mr Sellwood asked.

  ‘Nothing. I did not say anything.’

  ‘Where on earth did you get to, Miss Clerricot? I could not see you anywhere. One moment we were walking into the dining-room and the next I was all alone being presented with an empty table.’

  ‘I slipped away in the hall. I said I was going.’

  ‘To post a letter? You went out to post a letter?’

  ‘No, no, I did not go out at all. I was still in the hotel. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘But where in heavens did you get to? Did you have a headache? I searched the whole hotel.’

  ‘I went to the lavatory, Mr Sellwood.’

  ‘The lavatory?’

  The waiter reported the conversation in the kitchen. He was a waiter who quite often had little patience with the people he served. Men in the past had offended him. He had been asked to leave employment once because he spat upon a plate of steak. ‘They talked about going to the lavatory,’ he said, ‘while I served the woman with beans. We are getting a rough crowd nowadays.’

  Mr Sellwood was looking at his watch again. ‘Summon the wine waiter,’ he requested, ‘and let me tell you how long it takes the fellow to reach us.’

  Miss Clerricot waved her hand above her head, not knowing which of the waiters was the wine one. The head waiter returned. ‘Something, madam?’ he said, pushing up his eyebrows. ‘Wine,’ she said, and the man snapped his fingers.

  ‘One twenty,’ revealed Mr Sellwood, taking the wine list. ‘What do you recommend, young fellow?’

  Wine was brought and the meal commenced. In the course of it Mr Sellwood spoke of familiar topics: the Pearl Assurance Company and the banks. Miss Clerricot said little. She knew she had made a mistake. She knew by now that nothing could come of this trip to Leeds except perhaps her dismissal from Mr Sellwood’s employ. She did not even know why she had undertaken the journey.

  ‘What is Sevenoaks like?’ she asked.

  ‘Sevenoaks?’

  ‘What kind of a town–’

  ‘Are you interested in Sevenoaks?’

  ‘No, no, I simply wondered since you live there, Mr Sellwood. I only wondered what kind of a place it was to live in.’

  He let a silence fall, looking at her. Then he said it was a good place to live in. He told her part of the history of Seven-oaks and explained about the train service between Sevenoaks
and London. ‘I myself generally catch the eight-five,’ he said. ‘And then the five-forty on the way home. But of course there are many other equally suitable trains I could catch. We are richly served in Sevenoaks.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine it is an excellent service.’

  ‘I have just remembered. Miss Clerricot: a page said my wife was here. I have just realized: he imagined you to be my wife. Ha, ha, ha.’

  She was embarrassed by this. She felt the blood roaring in her face and neck. She bent her head, scooping up a spoon of cream of chicken soup with simulated care. She did not at all know what to say. ‘I wish the floor would open and suck me down’: she remembered saying that as a child, one awful afternoon when there had been a party because it was her birthday. The other children had been interested and intent, loving the food and the occasion, shouting for sardine sandwiches and more tinned fruit. She, in the chair of honour, eight years to a day, had sat there feeling groggy in her spectacles, and had afterwards been sick in the lavatory. ‘Excitement,’ her mother diagnosed; but she knew better. Terror, she thought.

  The waiter lifted her soup-plate away, and Mr Sellwood’s eyes fell again upon his watch. She considered the waiter’s broad back, clad in the conventional garb of his calling. She watched him move between the tables, and it came to her suddenly why she had agreed to come to Leeds.

  ‘Your marriage did not work out, Major Eele,’ said Mrs le Tor. ‘Well, we have both had our share of misfortune in that direction.’

  ‘My marriage was an interlude I rarely consider,’ he said. ‘There is no point in raking over the ashes. Mrs Andrews and I were together only a matter of days, and neither of us wished to prolong the issue. Do you watch the television, Mrs le Tor? I would prefer to talk of something else.’

  ‘I have no television.’ Her voice was high-pitched now. He thought he detected a querulous note breaking into the gaiety. He drank more wine. He said:

  ‘Cheer up, madam. The television is not much. God knows, there is little enough worth seeing except advertisements–’