Only The Ruthless Can Play

by John Burke

  ‘Or it may get worse,’ said Jessica It was a comment not in the best of taste. Dampier frowned. ‘Just leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with Mr Western in my own way.’

  Six

  On the Thursday evening before the Course set off for Belby, Andrew caught up with Jessica as she walked back from the Intersyn building to the hotel. She had half expected him to do so. Several times in the past few days he had tried to speak to her but she had ignored him. She had wanted to relent but was determined that she must be strong.

  Now, without preamble, he said: ‘Jess — what are you doing this weekend?’

  ‘Getting ready,’ she said, ‘like everyone else for the trip to the barren north.’

  ‘You’re not going to visit that young idiot, are you?’

  She looked straight ahead. ‘What are you going to do, Andrew?’ she parried.

  ‘Look, Jess, you know we agreed ‘

  ‘By agreeing, you mean that you said what you intended to do and expected me to fall in with your wishes. All right. I’m doing just that. You’re going to spend the weekend with your wife, and I am left to my own devices.’

  ‘You know I’ve got to go home.’

  ‘I know. I’m not complaining.’

  ‘As soon as the Course is over — ’

  ‘Let’s wait until we get there, shall we?’ she said. ‘Don’t make any promises. You may not want to keep them.’ Andrew opened his mouth to continue the argument, but at that moment Hornbrook crossed the road ahead of them and stayed a few paces in front. He might be able to overhear them. It was not until they reached a road junction and traffic cut them off from Hornbrook that it was possible to resume. By now they were only a hundred yards from the hotel.

  Andrew said: ‘All I asked was whether you’re going away to stay with young Marsh.’

  It was too much. Sickeningly Jessica knew that he still had her in a firm grasp. She slowed and looked at him. His expression was cross and unloving but she wanted him as much as ever. When she hated it was herself and her undisciplined emotions she hated, not Andrew.

  ‘You know I won’t,’ she said wearily. ‘You know I’ll go to the flat and wait. I’ve waited so often, so long. It’s a habit now. And you won’t come. You won’t, Andrew … will you?’

  She gave him no chance to reply. It would have been humiliating for both of them to go over the same excuses and the same harshly rational explanations.

  They reached the hotel and went in and separated.

  On the Friday evening Andrew went home to his wife and Jessica went to her flat.

  It was cold and unwelcoming, in some way hollow. It felt unlived in, although she had been back each weekend during the Course. It was not just that Andrew was missing: everything had seeped away, leaving the rooms empty and echoing.

  And you won’t come. You won’t, Andrew … Will you?

  Yet still she had that wild, absurd feeling that he might. He and his wife might quarrel as soon as he got home, and at long last he would do what he had always promised to do: he would throw a few things into a bag and come here and stay here.

  No; she knew he wouldn’t come.

  After a sleepless night she telephoned David Marsh on the Saturday morning.

  ‘Is that invitation still open?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ he said with an eagerness that made her feel better. At the same time she felt the urge to retreat as suddenly as she had felt the urge to telephone him. Hurriedly she said: ‘Just for the afternoon, I meant. I’ll only come down for an hour or two. Or tomorrow, if that’s more convenient.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Come for the weekend. We’d love to have you. How long will it take you to get ready? The trains … I’ve got a timetable somewhere here … ’

  She arrived in time for lunch. The house was smaller than she had visualised. The name of Maidenhead had conjured up in her mind a picture of large crenelated mansions with lawns sloping down towards the river. David and his widowed mother lived in a semi-detached villa below the railway embankment. Approaching trains set up a steady thrumming as they came closer and as they passed there was a momentary pulsation right through the house.

  ‘Quite close to the station,’ said David unnecessarily.

  He was wearing grey slacks and a light yellow shirt, with a green and yellow silk cravat. He looked too neat to be informal, and every now and then plucked at his cravat to make sure that it was not sagging away from his throat.

  Mrs Marsh was a small woman, too bent and shrivelled for her years. There seemed to be too much weight on her shoulders. It pushed her down and she had grown tired trying to thrust herself upright. Only her eyes were still bright and lively, like David’s eyes. The house, too, was bright: it was easy to see that she spent all her time dusting and polishing, plumping up cushions, scrubbing and cleaning and tidying up. Or, rather, Jessica corrected herself after a quick appraisal, that was how she spent most of her time; some must be left over for attending to the cacti. There were cacti on every window ledge and most other flat surfaces. They sprouted from pots of all shapes, all sizes. There were pots in little white-painted baskets and in plastic troughs — an Intersyn product — and in miniature gardens. There were knobbly cacti and spiky cacti, some lean and spare, some bulbous and bloated. When invited to sit down and make herself at home, Jessica could hardly resist a swift glance at her chair to make sure that some spiny object was not already in possession.

  ‘Now, I’ll just run along and get on with dinner,’ said Mrs Marsh. ‘It won’t take long. Davy, if Miss Rogers would like a glass of sherry … we’ve got some, I think, haven’t we? … I haven’t looked properly, but I think there’s some in the sideboard. Or would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Can I come and help?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘No, not really. It’s such a tiny kitchen. Of course, if you’d like to look … see round the house … ’

  It did not take long. The kitchen was indeed small and there was not room enough for two people to work comfortably in it. When the cellar door was opened it was impossible to stand at the sink. The two main bedrooms were of a reasonable size but congested with heavy furniture. The small room over the hall, in which Jessica was to sleep, had space for a single bed, a chair, and a diminutive chest of drawers. Everything was clean; and everything was faded. Within a few years the patterns on carpets and curtains and bed covers might all be bleached away to a uniform greyness.

  ‘And now you go and sit down,’ said Mrs Marsh as they came downstairs again. ‘Davy will keep you company. I expect you’ve got a lot to talk about. Your job, I mean,’ she added hastily. ‘It must all be so interesting. You must tell me about it. Davy tells me such a lot, of course. But there must be a lot more to tell.’

  When they were alone together there was a long pause. Jessica wondered if she had been wise to come. It showed every sign of being a stiff, awkward weekend. They would make shy conversation and there would be long gaps; and she noticed now that there were no ashtrays, remembered that she had never seen David smoking, and thought it most likely that Mrs Marsh didn’t like cigarette smoke in her aseptic sitting room.

  David cleared his throat and said: ‘Oh — do you smoke? I’m afraid I haven’t got any cigarettes, but — ’

  ‘It’s quite all right.’

  ‘No, really. Do smoke.’ He looked round the room. She had a vision of tapping ash behind one of the larger cacti. ‘We’ve got an ashtray somewhere. My father used to smoke a pipe.’

  He went out of the room. She supposed that his father was the man whose framed photograph dominated the mantelpiece, framed by two cacti which appeared to be cloaked in cobwebs — an unlikely phenomenon in this house.

  When they sat down to lunch and she was facing in a different direction, she saw another picture of the same man, this time standing beside Mrs Marsh, with a small boy squatting on the ground before them.

  ‘My husband,’ said Mrs Marsh abruptly. ‘He was a great man.’

  David r
eached out and put his hand on hers. Mrs Marsh squeezed it gratefully but went on looking at Jessica as though challenging her.

  Jessica said: ‘He worked for Intersyn too, didn’t he?’

  ‘Jessica knows everything about everybody in the firm,’ said David. ‘It’s frightening.’

  ‘Frightening. Yes, it must be.’ Mrs Marsh seemed to shrink even further, huddled up in her chair so that she looked positively baleful. ‘Dreadful people,’ she burst out.

  ‘Mother — ’

  ‘My husband’s whole life was given to your firm,’ Mrs Marsh went on, her eyes brighter than ever. ‘He never got his just reward. Nor did we. Davy knows that. But Davy will make up for it. Davy’s going to put everything right, aren’t you, dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said David soothingly.

  He started to talk about films and about two recent books he had read. Jessica had seen one of the films and gave the right answers, keeping the flow of conversation moving away from Intersyn. Mrs Marsh looked puzzled, then the light in her eyes faded and she listened apathetically for a while before ceasing to listen altogether.

  After lunch David suggested a run in the car. It was the first time he had mentioned a car. When Jessica looked surprised he said: ‘I don’t bring it up to London. Hopeless driving in Town — and it certainly wouldn’t be any good on the Course.’

  ‘You two go,’ said Mrs Marsh.

  ‘A little trip along the river — ’

  ‘Not today. You don’t want me.’ Before there could be any argument Mrs Marsh headed for the stairs. ‘Go off and enjoy yourselves. I’m going to lie down.’

  They drove out of the town along a road that curled in towards the river and looked down on it for a while before losing itself in the trees. A convoy of swans flickered white; two girls with a crackling transistor radio shrieked at the swans and turned white-masked faces towards the road as David drove past.

  He said: ‘I hope it doesn’t worry you. My mother talking so much about my father, I mean. He still means everything to her.’

  He displayed no resentment. He was stating a simple, comprehensible fact.

  Jessica wanted him to stop and put his arm round her. She wanted something to happen — anything to shake up the pattern of her life. David was young, untarnished; but he had been shut away for too long. Seeing his home and his mother, she was beginning to understand more about him than could ever be gathered from those detailed, soulless dossiers which Intersyn kept so religiously. There was an inner tension in him that, released, could be exciting. He had a lot to learn but he would learn quickly. She wondered if she could be his teacher, drawing him out from the oppression of his father’s shadow.

  As though in answer to her thoughts he said: ‘I wish I’d met you sooner.’

  ‘Sooner?’ she laughed.

  ‘It would have made all the difference.’

  ‘You sound like an old man,’ she said, still laughing uneasily. ‘So disillusioned.’

  ‘I’ve got reason.’

  She did not know whether he was talking of his personal life or of the firm. It was too soon to probe. If he wanted to tell her, he would tell her.

  But she said: ‘It’s never too late.’ A comfortable generalisation, to be taken any way you wanted to take it. ‘Never too late,’ she repeated. ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

  They had reached a lock. The afternoon was cool but the sunshine had lured a number of young people out, chattering at the water’s edge as they waited for a boat to negotiate the lock.

  ‘We’d better turn back,’ said David. ‘Mum will be expecting us in for tea.’

  At tea-time Mrs Marsh made a conscientious effort to play the hostess. She asked what Jessica thought of their town and of the river. She listened politely and made an unexpected joke about the young men in sports cars who drove in on Saturday evenings. Then she said: ‘When Mr Marsh and I first came to live here … ’ And her face darkened, and after that her politeness was only a formality, maintained with difficulty. At every possible opportunity she introduced the name — ‘Mr Marsh’ this, and ‘Mr Marsh’ that. Jessica was aware that David was watching her closely as though afraid that she would go too far.

  It was not until the middle of the evening that a small outburst came.

  ‘The lies they told,’ she said, apropos of nothing that had gone before. ‘All those terrible lies about negligence — not a word of truth in it.’

  ‘Now, Mother, please — ’

  ‘They want to stop us finding out,’ she said. ‘They’ll do anything to stop us finding out. But they won’t, will they, Davy?’

  ‘We’ll sort it all out,’ he said soothingly.

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ said Mrs Marsh to Jessica. It was a fierce statement, almost an order. ‘He’s been a good boy to me. You’ll help him, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jessica uncomfortably.

  When David saw her up to her room he apologised again. ‘I didn’t know she’d carry on like that. I told her not to talk about … about the past.’

  ‘I didn’t quite understand. She seems to have some idea that — ’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. But his eyes were so like his mother’s that the disclaimer did not ring true. ‘I’ll tell you all about it one day.’

  That ‘one day’ introduced a new note. She realised as he spoke how funny it was — funny, and rather sweet — that he should have seen her to her room this way, as though his home were a mansion with long, misleading corridors instead of this compact semi-detached house.

  Again it was funny, and again rather sweet, when he put one hand awkwardly on her shoulder and kissed her.

  ‘Good night, Jessica.’

  His mouth was clean and fresh. This was a pleasant, undemanding good night kiss. When she had gone to bed and the sounds of David and his mother coming to their rooms and going to bed had ceased, she lay awake and tried to decide whether it was the prelude to something more important and whether that was what she wanted it to be. She tried to debate the matter rationally with herself, but found that her eyelids were closing. Her thoughts tripped over one another, leaving behind ragged edges which curled up into new, grotesque shapes. Last night she had not slept. Tonight she was asleep before she knew what had happened, before she had even accustomed herself to being in a strange bed in a strange house. When she awoke it was morning.

  She felt in a strangely carefree mood as though she were on holiday. Somehow things could be simple and delightful from now on — if that was how she wanted them to be.

  David, too, had relaxed. He was not so anxiously polite. He behaved towards her as though she were often here, so that there was no need to make a special effort on her behalf. Mrs Marsh was very quiet; perhaps he had spoken to her. Jessica was conscious of a flicker of disquiet: there was something here that she was sure she ought to know. But she did not want the day spoilt and she put the vague questions out of her mind.

  Only once was the day’s equilibrium disturbed. After lunch Mrs Marsh cleared away and Jessica went out into the kitchen with her. It was now accepted that she could help with the washing-up. As she was drying plates and putting them on the table immediately behind her, squeezing past Mrs Marsh in the confined space, Mrs Marsh asked her the usual obvious questions about where she lived — ‘On your own, in London?’ — and where her parents lived — ‘Fancy being that far away, oh, I wouldn’t like that.’ And then out of the blue she said sharply: ‘Davy’s got a lot to do before he thinks of getting married.’ It was a warning.

  ‘I’m sure he has,’ was all that Jessica could say.

  The remark stayed with her during the early part of the afternoon but gradually David’s unforced cheerfulness washed it away. It only came back with full force when Jessica looked at her watch and said that she would like to go back home reasonably early. To her surprise he said:

  ‘I wouldn’t mind coming back with you.’

  ‘But you don’t have to be in
all that early in the morning.’

  ‘A lot of them will be back in the hotel tonight.’

  ‘Only if they have a long journey.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind. I could see you home.’

  ‘I know the way, thank you, David. Besides’ — she meant there to be laughter in it but it came out oddly hard — ‘it would give your mother quite the wrong ideas.’

  He laughed in reply, and his laugh, too, was unreal. ‘In that case I could come up by a later train.’

  She was taken aback. Suddenly she resented Mrs Marsh’s threat, and she heard herself say, ‘Well, if you’re proposing to follow me, I can always provide you with a divan in the sitting room.’

  He let out a strange little sigh. He might almost have been waiting for this invitation, leading up to it.

  ‘It would be nicer than the hotel,’ he said.

  She was not sure that she had expected to be taken up so promptly. Perhaps it would all go wrong now. She was rushing things without even knowing if she wanted them to happen at all.

  David was disconcertingly calm. When they got back to the house he told his mother without a trace of self-consciousness that Jessica was going back by an early train and that he would go along later to the hotel. ‘Don’t want the long-distance men to put in too much work this evening and get a lead on me,’ he said easily. There was a silence in which Mrs Marsh digested this. Jessica waited apprehensively.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Marsh after a minute of rumination, ‘if you’re going up to London tonight anyway, the least you can do is see Miss Rogers home.’

  Jessica said, ‘I’m quite used to — ’

  ‘Silly for you to go up separately. Doesn’t make sense.’ All at once they were hurrying to get ready. In the dusk they were on their way towards London. They said little in the train.

  David’s shyness returned when he was shown into the flat. He walked carefully as though afraid of tripping over something. When she left him in the sitting room while she went out to make coffee, he remained standing. When she came back and indicated a chair, he lowered himself gingerly into it and kept his hands tightly clenched on his knees.