The Boarding-House

by William Trevor

  ‘That is no excuse to thieve what I have. Three shirts and a suit, all in good condition, and ties, and things belonging to Venables–’

  ‘We have been through it all,’ Nurse Clock reminded him coldly. ‘An error was responsible. Why are you grousing? Your property was returned to you.’

  ‘That is not the point–’

  ‘Change the subject, please, Mr Scribbin. Are we never to hear the end of that wretched occasion?’

  ‘I am only attempting to explain.’

  ‘Naturally, if you leave your clothes lying about they are liable to get picked up and confused with others. In a busy house like this one–’

  ‘I did not leave my clothes lying about. Why dò you say that to me? Nurse Clock, what is the matter? You come to my room trying to evict me, while previously your agents have attempted the purloining of my clothes. You are adding insult to injury. And now you say it was all my fault–’

  ‘Oh, for heavens’ sake, Mr Scribbin dear, give over about all that. You have had your moment of glory and your say as well. Let us try and forget the whole nasty business, though I doubt that Mrs Trine, poor woman, will forget it for many a day to come.’ Nurse Clock smiled. ‘I apologize for the inconvenience,’ she added, thinking it wise to say that, since it cost her little and clearly would please Mr Scribbin. ‘Now, as to this other matter, let us sort that one out as quietly as we may. We do not like scenes in The Boarding-House. It would be nice if you went and left us all in peace. Both Mr Studdy and I are sorry to see you go.’

  ‘But I am not going,’ exclaimed Mr Scribbin, his face woebegone. ‘Why should I go? Why cannot I go upstairs instead, to Mr Bird’s old room?’

  ‘Chatter! Chatter! You are like a little child. You would think this was the Regent Palace Hotel the way you are performing. I tell you, I am tired of listening to complaints. Complaints there were in Mr Bird’s day too. Constantly, he spoke of them to me. Everyone has always gone on about the horrid noise; and how can we trust you not to create further scenes in front of strangers?’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘Whose fault is that, Mr Scribbin? Is it the poor nurse’s fault that you don’t understand a single thing?’

  ‘No one has made a complaint to me. I do not make scenes; only once when my belongings were being passed through the front door. What do you expect, that I should stand idly by?’

  ‘What do you expect, Mr Scribbin? I have a duty to my residents, you know. Can I stand idly by and see them robbed of sleep and then embarrassed by violent scenes?’

  Mr Scribbin again protested, denying the accusations that were being levelled at him and attempting to clarify his position and his point of view. But Nurse Clock appeared to have lost all interest in what he said. Her eyes moved about the walls of the room, along the ridge of the ceiling, into the corners.

  ‘Let us fix a date,’ she said finally, interrupting something Mr Scribbin was saying. She said she didn’t wish to put him to any great trouble: one date was as good as another, provided they could agree on one that wasn’t too far away. ‘There’s a desk sergeant’s wife I know, in Peterloo Road; she’d take you in on a word from me. I saw her through pneumonia.’

  ‘I shall see the other residents. I am being victimized.’

  Greatly incensed, Nurse Clock rose and left Mr Scribbin to himself. Before the night was out he was visited by Studdy, who offered him eleven pounds.

  ‘In the circumstances, you see,’ said Studdy to Major Eele, ‘it would save much embarrassment.’

  ‘I have decided against a move, Mr Studdy. I regret that I cannot oblige you.’

  ‘I think it would be better in the long run, Major.’

  ‘I am nicely fixed here, thank you. No good can come of trapesing about like a gipsy. I have been in The Boarding-House since my first days in London.’

  ‘Well, I have put it to you, Major.’

  ‘You have.’

  ‘Only we have another lady coming. You understand what I mean. Mr Bird’s old room is vacant. I only tried to save you a bit of embarrassment and offered you handsome compensation. Not to worry, Major.’

  ‘I am not worried,’ said Major Eele, who was anxious to be on his way to the West End. ‘I am only sorry I cannot help you.’

  ‘We couldn’t keep that old room empty, not even to oblige a valued resident. You understand that?’

  ‘Someone new is coming?’

  ‘That’s right, Major. A Mrs le Tor.’

  ‘They are trying to get rid of me,’ announced Mr Scribbin in the television lounge. ‘I have been offered money.’

  Rose Cave looked towards him, quizzical in her expression, seeking further information.

  ‘That is Mrs Hammond,’ said Venables, pointing at the television screen. ‘That woman just come on is the Mrs Hammond that Major Eele talked of. She is going to do an act with birds.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Scribbin, interested, remembering Major Eele had said that the birds were trained to storm a castle. ‘So that is the famous Mrs Hammond.’

  ‘They have offered Mr Scribbin money,’ said Rose Cave.

  Miss Clerricot heard that and remarked on it inaudibly, deploring the development by pursing her lips.

  ‘Money?’ said Venables.

  ‘Major Eele was perfectly right,’ said Mr Scribbin. ‘That thing in the background is the castle. In a moment we shall see the feathers fly.’

  ‘This is most unpleasant,’ protested Rose Cave, averting her eyes. Miss Clerricot nodded, crossing to the door and leaving the room.

  ‘By George,’ said Mr Scribbin.

  ‘Why money?’ repeated Venables. ‘Who is offering him money?’

  Rose Cave completed two rows of her grey knitting and then replied in a low voice:

  ‘Nurse Clock and Mr Studdy have offered Mr Scribbin money to vacate his room. The same as with Major Eele.’

  Venables felt awkward and wondered if it showed. He looked at the birds, hoping that Rose Cave hadn’t noticed. He closed his eyes and saw the Flatrups: the snarling face of the father and the vast waddling mother, and Miss Flatrup herself with her hanging lower lip and sexual eyes.

  ‘Eleven pounds,’ explained Mr Scribbin. ‘Heavens, did you see that?’

  ‘You didn’t accept?’ cried Rose Cave, putting down her wool, suddenly struck by the thought that he might have. ‘You didn’t accept?’ she repeated, since he seemed not to have heard.

  ‘They said there had been complaints. Other people had come forward with angry complaints about the noise.’

  There was a pause. Then Rose Cave said:

  ‘In honesty, I am bound to confess that once I mentioned to Mr Bird that I found sleep difficult due to the thundering of railway trains. And Mr Bird–I admit, to my irritation – replied that we must learn to live with one another. I have never spoken of the matter to either Nurse Clock or the other, though if I may say so, Mr Scribbin, the noise is sometimes excessive.’

  Applause broke out. Mrs Hammond bowed, festooned with birds.

  ‘I asked for Mr Bird’s old room. I was told that, too, was excessive. She said I was likening the house to the Regent Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Venables. For years he had pretended to himself that the Flatrups had returned to their native land, but one day in Oxford Street he saw the three of them, all walking abreast, scattering other pedestrians, shoving and hitting out like animals. The memory of that caused him to release the top button of his shirt, beneath his tie. He felt a churning motion in his stomach and the creeping warning of a pain.

  ‘Compensation of eleven pounds,’ said Mr Scribbin, and as he spoke he recalled that Major Eele had been offered twenty guineas. He saw that Rose Cave had remembered that too, though she did not remark upon it.

  ‘We must approach them in a deputation,’ said Rose Cave. ‘We must get Major Eele and Miss Clerricot and on the first opportunity sort this matter out.’

  Hearing this, Venables went away and Mr Scribbin agreed by noddin
g, though his thoughts still dwelt on the invidious fact that Major Eele had seemed to imply a greater sum than he.

  ‘No trouble about Miss Clerricot,’ said Studdy. ‘Would you speak to her yourself? Say Mrs Sellwood has been on to us here.’

  Nurse Clock was thinking that Mrs Maylam had been rude again but soon would be rude no more. There had been a day when Bishop Hode, a man in his time of education and power, had been incontinent in the airing cupboard and she had conveyed him to the bathroom. ‘My love, my love,’ she had cried when she saw him. ‘My poor old love, you are safe with me.’ And she gathered him up in her two strong arms and carried him to the bathroom and wiped away his tears of shame. She had whispered then that there was nothing to cry about, telling him the facts of life beyond the ninetieth year, and stripping him and sponging his worn old body. She would never be able to lift Mrs Maylam because Mrs Maylam weighted fourteen stone, but she could set Mrs Maylam to rights and could make it clear that the obedience she required grew out of love.

  ‘Mrs Sellwood? Who is Mrs Sellwood?’

  ‘I couldn’t sully your hearing, Nurse. I’d never tell you the tale, not in a year. Not you nor any woman. Mention Mrs Sellwood just, and Miss Clerricot will make her tracks.’

  Nurse Clock did not accept this. She said she could not simply repeat another woman’s name and hope that Miss Clerricot would leave The Boarding-House. But Studdy said:

  ‘They must all be gone by the end of the month. There is no use them going in dribs and drabs. I think a fell swoop. A few weeks to set things to rights and we can fill the place up with the old.’

  ‘I realize that, Mr Studdy. It is just a bit difficult about Miss Clerricot–’

  ‘Say Mrs Sellwood has telephoned us. Put it to her that in the circumstances it would be better all round if she evacuated her room. Miss Clerricot’ll understand.’

  But in fact Nurse Clock never said those words to Miss Clerricot, because before she had an opportunity other things happened to occupy her mind.

  21

  Miss Annabel Tonks sat at her dressing table attending to the needs of her eyes. Before her lay tweezers and little brushes, mascara, eye-shadow and a preparation for lashes. It was a lengthy business, as Miss Tonks well knew, but perfection, she felt, paid in the end.

  As she prodded and applied, Annabel Tonks was not thinking of Mr Obd. She was not, in fact, thinking of anything very much except that she was hungry, having eaten only a bar of pressed banana for lunch. So she felt herself empty inside and then began to think of things she would like to eat for dinner: avocado pears filled with prawns, bécasses flambées, salsifis frits, cacciocavallo, strawberries out of season. ‘Darling, I’m starving for the most delicate things.’ She could say that, looking beautiful, when she opened the door to him. And he would be delighted, she hoped, and would make some clever suggestion. He, of course, was not Tome Obd, but a rather different man, a man who belonged to the present and not to the past, a man with whom she had never played ping-pong and with whom she rather imagined she never would.

  A mile or so away Mr Obd was purchasing flowers.

  ‘Such a time of year!’ said the assistant. ‘In between everything. Why not these excellent asters, fresh today?’

  ‘Ah, asters,’ said Mr Obd. He looked at them and said they were beautiful. ‘Have you ever seen the luku? No, you would not know. It only grows in Africa. Two dozen asters,’ he said, and watched the assistant pick them out and then changed his mind, remembering that asters were what she had never really liked. ‘No, no, something else. Not those, I have made a bad mistake.’

  ‘But,’ said the assistant, outraged.

  ‘Anything else,’ said Mr Obd. ‘Carnations, chrysanthemums, sweet peas, lily of the valley–’

  ‘Impossible,’ exclaimed the assistant and offered him twelve rare roses at an exorbitant price.

  In The Boarding-House a deputation called on Nurse Clock and Studdy and found them in the room that had been Mr Bird’s, inspecting the new plaster.

  ‘He has made a good job of that,’ said Studdy, examining the ceiling in an expert way.

  ‘He may charge a lot,’ Nurse Clock remarked. She was thinking that Studdy himself might have repaired the ceiling at no cost at all to The Boarding-House finances. She had hoped to see Studdy aiding the man in the garden, wielding some heavy instrument with his coat off, but so far that had not come about. Studdy had spoken to the man, she had seen him at it, standing in the middle of the back garden, wagging his head. She had seen him roll a cigarette and offer it to the man. She had seen the man refuse it.

  ‘It’ll need a drop of paint,’ Studdy now prescribed. ‘The raw plaster is a bit rough without a coat of paint. What d’you say, Nurse?’

  ‘Of course it must be painted. The whole room must be painted. All this wallpaper is coming adrift,’ She pointed to a corner of the room where a length of paper was bulging away from the wall and was on the point of falling down altogether.

  ‘That might be repaired,’ suggested Studdy. ‘That could be tacked back into place.’

  ‘The walls need to be stripped and painted. That paper has been up for forty years. Isn’t that a job you could do yourself, Mr Studdy?’

  Studdy drew in a sharp breath. He shook his head.

  ‘All hands to the wheel, you know,’ Nurse Clock said snappishly.

  ‘Oh, definitely,’ said Studdy.

  At that moment steps were heard mounting the stairs to the attic room. ‘Listen to that,’ said Studdy. ‘Is that the Army?’ He walked to the half-closed door and pulled it open.

  Rose Cave entered the room, followed by Miss Clerricot and Venables and Mr Scribbin.

  ‘We would like to have a word with you,’ said Rose Cave.

  ‘Well, I’ll be on my way,’ said Studdy. ‘I’ll see a man about that bit of painting.’

  ‘Why are you going, Mr Studdy?’ asked Rose Cave. ‘We wish to speak to you.’

  ‘I thought you said Nurse Clock.’

  ‘We would like to speak to both of you.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ said Nurse Clock. She smiled. ‘What have we done?’

  ‘It is quite simple really–’

  ‘Has Mrs Slape served something you do not care for? Mr Studdy, we must organize a complaints book, so that residents may write down anything that was not quite to their liking. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘It is not Mrs Slape,’ said Rose Cave. ‘It has nothing to do with food.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Nurse Clock.

  ‘We are all concerned with orders given to Major Eele and Mr Scribbin to vacate their rooms.’

  ‘Heavens,’ cried Nurse Clock, ‘what orders?’

  ‘Major Eele was offered twenty guineas to go and Mr Scribbin eleven pounds. That is against the wishes in Mr Bird’s will,’

  ‘We have interpreted the wishes in Mr Bird’s will. This is all very embarrassing. Where is Major Eele? There is no need for anyone to take on so.’

  ‘Why not? Why is there no need?’

  ‘Complaints have come in about the noise in Mr Scribbin’s room. We all know about Mr Scribbin’s fancies. Well, we understand that, but it is hard on others. Mr Scribbin is not himself. We try to keep a happy house.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Scribbin is not himself?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Scribbin, ‘what is meant by that?’

  ‘Mr Scribbin dear, no harm in the world is meant. It is simply that we think you would be happier where the insulation is better. I told you I would look around on your behalf.’

  ‘You are breaking the law,’ said Rose Cave.

  ‘No, no,’ said Nurse Clock, sighing and leaving it at that.

  They had asked Major Eele to join them in this approach to the authorities but he had shaken his head, saying that he no longer wished to argue, thinking of Mrs le Tor.

  ‘Is everyone to go?’ asked Miss Clerricot. ‘You see, we do not know what is happening.’

  �
�What is happening, my dear, is that Mr Bird has died and certain changes are vital if The Boarding-House is to keep its head above water. Major Eele will tell you himself why I was obliged to ask him to leave.’

  ‘No one should be asked to leave, though,’ said Miss Clerricot. ‘That is the point Miss Cave is making.’

  Nurse Clock clicked her teeth. ‘Someone telephoned for you, Miss Clerricot dear. Mr Studdy, what was that person’s name?’

  ‘Sellwood,’ said Studdy, ‘a Mrs Sellwood. She asked for Miss Clerricot and then said a thing or two to myself.’

  ‘We are going off the point,’ Rose Cave interjected. ‘What has some friend of Miss Clerricot’s–’

  ‘Friend?’said Studdy.

  Miss Clerricot’s face had turned a deeper crimson. She did not speak. She wanted the floor to open. Studdy said:

  ‘An agitated lady.’

  Venables, thinking of himself, did not notice the blushing cheeks of Miss Clerricot or her general discomfiture. Any moment now, he thought, it would become clear that he had agreed to leave, even without the incentive of money. And then he thought that he could go back on his word because he had signed nothing; if anyone brought it up he would deny it, or say that Studdy had misunderstood him. He felt safe with the others around him. He cast a surreptitious glance at Studdy and saw that Studdy was watching him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Miss Clerricot and slipped from the room.

  ‘She is taken ill,’ said Studdy, as though she had said this and only he had heard it.

  ‘We shall have to see a solicitor,’ said Rose Cave.

  Nurse Clock sighed, and then was soothing. ‘My dear, none of this affects you at all. Shall I guarantee you your room in writing? I was hoping to have a little chat in any case.’

  ‘We are having a little chat now,’ Rose Cave pointed out.

  ‘Well, in private. I may have a little proposition for you–’

  ‘I am concerned with Major Eele and Mr Scribbin. What is to happen to them? I am concerned with the wishes of a dead man, which are now being flouted.’