by Ruth Rendell
“Well, I’m not always absolutely truthful, Tim, you know that. Who is? But I don’t tell pointless lies. Oh, dear, I nearly came a cropper over Annabel, though, didn’t I?” Francesca giggled and her eyes met Tim’s blue eyes and she giggled even more. “Oh, dear. Now we must be serious. What I mean is, I don’t see the point of carrying on with it because it’s not getting us anywhere. All it’ll do is lose me my job. If he takes to coming into the shop after me, I’ll have to leave to get away from him. What did we think we’d, get out of it, Tim? I can’t even remember.”
“Of course you can remember. Money, Prospects, Opportunities.” Tim lit a Gauloise. “And, incidentally, my little revenge.”
“Isn’t it a funny thing? He says he loves me and all that, but he doesn’t exactly confide in me. He’s never said a word about winning the pools, and I don’t believe he has.”
“You don’t believe in your Uncle Tim’s total recall? I tell you, if I died and they opened me up they’d, find the perm on that pools’ coupon written on my heart. Of course, there’s just the weeniest chance Miss Urban didn’t send it in. But if Miss Urban did send it in, then sure as fate is fate, she’s won herself the first dividend, all or part of, the lucky, lucky girl.”
Tim always referred to Martin as Livingstone or, when his camp mood was on him, as Miss Urban. Francesca, for reasons she didn’t understand but thought might be sick reasons, found the camp mood almost unbearably sexy. Tim, when he was that way, made her go weak at the knees and she didn’t want that happening now, she wanted to be serious.
“Well,” she said, “when you sent those awful yellow chrysanths you said to get in his good graces and get him to take me out a bit because he’d, got wads of money and hadn’t got a girl friend. You said he might let me have the money to start my own florist’s, or at least give me some big presents. But nothing like that’s happened. He just fell right in love with me. He’s not even that interested in sex-well, not very I mean, you’d, have raped me if I’d, gone on with you the way I have with him. But he’s in love. It’s not just wanting to screw me, it’s real love. And the only place it’s going to get me is living with him in his flat or some house he wants to buy. And what’s the use of that? What’s the use of going on with it, Tim, if I only get to where I have to run away and hide to avoid living with him?”
“One would think, wouldn’t one,” said Tim thoughtfully, “that Livingstone would have given you something more by now than those very strange decanters or whatever they are. Five grand is nothing, but nothing, to spend on a ring, say, or a bracelet in these inflationary times. What about furs? An’ mah honey chile shiverin’ in her ole coonskin.”
“He did say something about a mink,” said Francesca, giggling, “when we’re married.” She groped about under the fish and chip papers. “He did give me some chocolates tonight only Lindsay’s gobbled most of them. Here you are.”
“She’s a chip off the old block all right, she’s only left the nougats and the coconuts.”
“The latest is he wants to sell his flat and buy a house for him and me and Lindsay, so I suppose he must have money.”
“Now she tells me. Francesca, what d’you think Krishna Bhavnani told me today? That it was Livingstone put up the money for his kid’s operation.”
“Are you going to put something about it in the Post?”
“If you’re quitting, yes. If you’re keeping on, no. Just as untruths have been known to appear in the Post, so have truths sometimes been suppressed.”
Francesca laughed. She came behind Tim and put her arms round his shoulders and stroked the Nureyev face. “Tim, I could keep it up a little bit longer. I could see him on Wednesday, if you really think it’s worth while. Now I know about the Indian boy, I could have a go at getting a fur coat. Or a ring. We could sell a ring.”
Tim rubbed his face against her hands, making purring noises. “Did you switch our blanket on?”
He had bought them an electric blanket for Christmas. “When I took Lindsay to bed,” she said.
“Then why don’t you take me to bed and tell me all about the times you’ve misbehaved yourself with Dr. Livingstone?”
“Miss Urban,” said Francesca somewhat breathlessly.
“Mah honey chile should tak’ shame talking like dat befo her Uncle Tim, Lawd God!”
Francesca and Tim had been living together for three years. Tim had moved into the flat in Samphire Road instead of just spending nights there, when Francesca found she was pregnant with Lindsay. They had never really considered getting married and couldn’t have done anyway since Francesca was still married to Russell Brown. After Tim had met Martin Urban in he wood he had several times invited him to Samphire Road but Martin always refused, Tim hadn’t known why. He had been wounded by it, Francesca thought, though Tim never showed that he could feel pain. Then had come the Saturday in November when Tim checked his pools and found, as usual, that he had won nothing while the formula he had given Martin must have scooped the first dividend.
It had disturbed Francesca to see Tim waiting for Martin to phone. Her placid happy-go-lucky nature was ruffled by Tim’s intense neurotic anxiety. The days had passed and there had been nothing. As taut as a bowstring, Tim had gone to that interview at Urban, Wedmore, Mackenzie and Company, but still Martin hadn’t spoken. The worst thing for Tim had been Martin’s refusing to come to the party. Getting a party organised at Samphire Road was no mean feat. They had cancelled it at the last minute because there was nothing to celebrate and no point in opening the champagne.
“I fear,” Tim had said, camping it up, pretending, “she’s keeping it all the darkest because she doesn’t want to have to give any to poor me. Though what I’ve done I never will know, save be friendly and helpful. Maybe I wasn’t quite friendly enough, which some girls, you know, can resent.”
Francesca couldn’t hazard an opinion on that, but she knew Tim had hoped for something from Martin, even a loan to help them buy a place that would be a cut above Samphire Road. He walked up and down shouting that he would be revenged. He would get hold of some of that money by hook or by crook. After that it was a short step for Francesca to go round with the flowers and-hang on hard.
She was a good-tempered easy-going girl and nothing put her out for long. Tim had once told her that one of the things he liked about her was that she had no morals and no guilt. This made playing the part of Martin’s Francesca, the moral and guilty Francesca, rather difficult at first, but Tim had instructed her and even set her a course of reading, Victorian and early twentieth-century fiction mainly, with suitable heroines. She had worked hard at moulding herself according to these models and sometimes after meetings with Martin she felt quite tired. She spent a lot of the time in his company silent and apparently raptly listening, while in fact she was concentrating on how to escape in a taxi and get out of being driven up to Finchley. Now she was faced with the additional problem of how to make Martin believe she loved him and wanted to live with him while refusing to submit to any plan for their living together he might make.
Accordingly, the next time he phoned she said that she would hate to think of him selling his flat in order to buy a house. She knew how much he loved his flat.
“But I’ll have to sell it one day, darling. When you’re free and we can get married we’ll need a house.”
“I’d, much rather you waited till then, Martin.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t solve the problem of how we’re going to live till then, does it?”
That lunchtime Francesca went across the Archway Road and sold the two cut-glass scent bottles for seventeen pounds fifty. All those taxis were making inroads into her resources and if Martin was taking her to dinner at the Mirabelle, as he had promised, on Wednesday, she ought to have a new dress. She ought to try and rake up enough to buy the burgundy crepe Kate Ross, who owned the flower shop, had for weeks been trying to sell for twenty-five pounds.
Martin had got into the habit of ringing the shop every m
orning at ten. At two minutes to ten on Wednesday he phoned, sounding excited, and said he had had a wonderful idea which he would tell her about that night. Francesca went into the room at the back and tried on the burgundy crepe which Kate had brought in with her and got Kate to agree to take twenty-three pounds fifty for it.
It started to snow at about five, great flakes like goose feathers. Kate always went home at half-past because she didn’t have a day off or Saturday afternoon. Martin gasped at the sight of Francesca in the dark red dress with her hair piled up and a dark red-and-white speckled orchid tucked into a curl. He stared at her adoringly. These transports of his, though she knew they were sincere, always irritated Francesca. She preferred a lecherous reaction, which was what she had had from Russell Brown and those other men who had preceded Tim and which she had, in his own individual way, most satisfactorily from Tim. But she smiled and looked rather shy and said quietly,
“Do I look nice?”
“Francesca, you look so beautiful. I don’t know what to say. I wish I was more articulate; I should like to write poems to you.”
“I just hope I’m going to be warm enough,” said Francesca, her mind on mink coats, but Martin assured her she would be exposed to the open air for no longer than it took to cross the pavement. “So what’s this wonderful idea?” she said when they were in the car. Martin said he wasn’t going to tell her until they were eating their dinner.
Francesca had an enormous appetite and a hearty capacity for alcohol. She and Tim were both the sort of very thin people who can eat as much as they like without putting on weight. But she never ate and drank anywhere near as much as she wanted when with Martin, it didn’t fit the image. Tonight, however, she was going to start off with quenelles of lobster, quenelles of anything being among her favourite food. To precede it, a brandy and soda would have gone down well. Francesca asked for a dry sherry.
Martin’s shyness and awkwardness increased during the meal. He had become almost tonguetied by the time Francesca started on her roast pheasant, and although this suited her well enough, she couldn’t help speculating as to what it might be about the wonderful idea that was so inhibiting. Then, suddenly, like a man confessing a sin that has long been on his conscience, he began. Fascinated, she watched the slow process of the blush spreading across his face.
“I haven’t told anyone this except my parents. In November I won a hundred and four thousand pounds on the football pools. No, don’t say anything, let me finish. I decided I’d, keep half and give half away: You can imagine my reasons for wanting to do that.”
Francesca couldn’t at all, but she said nothing. She felt a curious breathless excitement as if she were on the brink of enormous revelations. Yet he was only confirming what Tim had said all along.
“You see, I felt grateful to-well, to fate or God or something for having had such a fortunate sort of life. I made up my mind to help people who were having housing difficulties, but I haven’t got very far with that. It’s much harder than you’d, suppose to get people to accept money. All I’ve managed to do so far really is pay for a boy to have a heart operation.”
“That’s not housing difficulties,” said Francesca.
“No, that was to be the one exception. Apart from that, I’m considering my cleaner’s sister-in-law who’s having a nervous breakdown because of noise in the place where she lives, and I’ve managed to get a young couple on very low wages to accept a loan.”
He was smiling tentatively at her, leaning forward, waiting for her approval. Francesca looked blankly at him. It occurred to her that he might actually be off his head. But, no, he was just innocent, he didn’t know he was born … Suppose she were to throw herself on his mercy, tell him who she was and that Tim was her lover and Lindsay’s father and that they were doomed to live in worse conditions than maybe any of those people he had talked about? She couldn’t do it. It was impossible. He refilled her wine glass and said,
“So now I’ve told you. I don’t want to have any secrets from you.” As if he’d, just confessed to some weird perversion, thought Francesca. “But the point of telling-well, I’ve been a complete fool. I’ve been worrying about buying homes for other people and worrying about where you were going to live when you left Russell, but it never occurred to me till last night that I don’t have to sell my flat or get a mortgage. Apart from what I’m going to give away, I’ve got fifty thousand of my own. I’ve got my own half-share of the win.”
“So what’s the wonderful idea?” said Francesca carefully.
“To buy a flat for you and Lindsay to live in.” He paused but she said nothing. “I mean, that solves everything, doesn’t it? Lindsay can have her own room, Russell can’t possibly accuse you of corrupting her, and after two years when you’ve got your divorce we can sell both flats and buy a house. How does that suit you? I’m not going to make any conditions, Francesca”-Martin smiled and reached across the table for her hand-“only I hope I can come and stay sometimes, and I’ll be the happiest man on earth if you’ll choose a flat that isn’t far from mine.”
“So we’re going house-hunting on Saturday. He’s out on Cloud Nine already, planning colour schemes and fussing about something called cubic footage.”
“Miss Urban was always house-proud. She’ll make some lucky chap a wonderful wife one of these days. What did you have to eat?”
“Lobster quenelles, roast pheasant, and roast potatoes and calabresse and sauteed mushrooms and asparagus, and a sort of chartreuse souffle with cream.”
“You should have asked for a paper bag and said you wanted to take some home for your aged relative.”
Francesca giggled. She sat on Tim’s lap and took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it in her own. “But, seriously, Tim, what’s the future in letting him buy a flat for me to live in? I shan’t live in it. But I can’t think of any way of getting out of it, short of flatly saying I won’t leave my husband.”
“Suppose I said give it just two weeks more? Just till Monday, the twelfth of Feb.? If he’s going to buy mah honey chile a love nest, he’s got to furnish it, hasn’t he? In these scandalous times five grand is the least, but the leastest, he can expect to spend on furnishings.”
“He said I could have the cane chairs out of his living room.”
“What a miscreant he is!” said Tim. “Still, you won’t stand for that, will you? Not a girl of spirit like you. You’ll ask for five thousand to splash about in Heal’.s”
“Oh dear,” said Francesca with an enormous yawn, “I’ll try, I’ll do my best, but not a minute more after Feb. the twelfth.”
XIV
Francesca didn’t know whether to fix on the first flat they saw so that she could go home early, or pretend to find nothing to please her so that things would have progressed no further by the time her deadline came. In the event, she did neither, for as soon as they were really doing something together, conducting practical business, Martin made clear his belief in man as the master. In this, as in all matters on a higher level than that of deciding what she should wear or perhaps what they should eat, he took it for granted he made the decisions, asking for her approval only as a matter of courtesy.
During the two days since their dinner at the Mirabelle he had been in touch with estate agents, had made himself familiar with the specifications of every flat for sale in the area of Highgate and Crouch End, and had already viewed several. This led to his making of a short list and from it a shorter list which by Saturday afternoon had fined down to one. The flat in question wasn’t quite as near Cromwell Court as he would have liked, but it was in other respects so suitable that he thought they must overlook that small defect.
Francesca hadn’t expected to react with either enthusiasm or dislike to the prospect before her. She had expected to be bored. Her feelings on entering the flat surprised her very much. She had never lived anywhere very spacious or elegant or even ordinarily attractive. There had been her parents’ mansion flat in Chiswick, big and cold and pe
rvadingly dark brown, a furnished room in Pimlico, and a furnished room in Shepherds Bush, the little house she had shared with Russell, the basement squat she had shared with Russell’s supplanter, her three rooms in Stroud Green. Home to Francesca had never been much more than a place to keep out the rain where there was a table to eat meals off and a bed to go to with someone she liked. But this was another thing. The fourth floor, the penthouse, of Swan Place, Stanhope Avenue, Highgate, was a different matter altogether.
The living room was very large and you went into the dining part of it through an arch. One wall was all glass. The heating made it too hot for even her thin coat; she could have gone naked. Looking out of the big plate-glass windows on to hilly streets and patches of green and snowy roofs, being led into the pastel blue kitchen and the pastel apricot bathroom, Francesca found herself thinking that she would like to live here, she would like it very much indeed. It was a crying shame that she couldn’t, or that the price to pay for doing so was too high, because she would like it-oh, wouldn’t she! And Lindsay would like it and probably Tim too, though you could never tell with him. It was just too awful that she could have it only by being stuffy old Martin’s kept woman. She wondered how much it cost.
“What do you think?” said Martin in the car.
“It’s lovely.”
“I’m glad you like it, darling, because although you’ll think me very high-handed and a real male chauvinist pig, I’ve actually already told the agent I’ll have it and I’ve put down a deposit.”
“What would you have done,” asked Francesca curiously, “if I’d hated it?”
“I knew you wouldn’t. I think I know you pretty well by this time.”
