‘Thank you.’
It was a relief when Lawrence left the room. Anna could not bear his discomfiture. Vickie leaned towards her.
‘You know, I hate to see you so unhappy.’
‘But I’m not unhappy.’
‘But you’re alone! No one should be alone. What would happen if you were ill?’
‘I suppose I should send for Lawrence.’
It was the wrong thing to say, although it was innocently meant. Vickie’s gaze hardened.
‘My poor husband is at everybody’s beck and call. I try to shield him from the nuisances.’
They drank their coffee, which was black and bitter. There seemed no way in which the evening could be prolonged. In any event all recognized it as a mistake. Vickie viewed her guest with dislike; Lawrence avoided her eyes. When the telephone rang they all jumped.
‘I’ll come straight away,’ they heard Lawrence say. He came back into the room looking relieved.
‘I’m on call,’ he explained. ‘Beaufort Street. I’ll drop you off, Anna, if you don’t mind a short detour. I shouldn’t be long.’
‘We’ll all go,’ said Vickie merrily.
‘Darling, there’s no need …’
‘I insist.’
There was no mistaking her insistence.
Anna, in her fur coat, overflowed the front seat of the car. Vickie, in the back, was strangely silent. In the face of this silence there seemed little more to say.
‘Thank you so much for this evening,’ said Anna, as the car drew up in Cranley Gardens. ‘You must be my guests next time.’ She doubted if she would ever see them again, although the invitation would be offered in due course. No doubt Vickie would know the right form of words with which to refuse.
Lawrence came round and opened the door.
‘Shan’t be a moment, darling. I’ll just see that Anna gets in safely.’
‘Don’t leave me alone in the car,’ said Vickie obdurately. ‘You know how nervous I am.’
‘It’s only for a moment. Nothing will happen to you.’
‘I don’t want to be left alone,’ she repeated.
Again, there was no mistaking her insistence.
‘Please don’t bother,’ said Anna quietly. ‘Goodnight, Lawrence. Goodnight, Vickie.’
In the blessed silence of her flat she stood for a moment at the window, still in the heavy fur coat. Weak, she thought, weak. Down below, the car had not moved off. She imagined an altercation taking place. Another man would have ordered things differently, but she would not have wanted another man. Without his wife he had seemed stronger, and she had felt that she had got to know him all over again. And he was unhappy, that was all too clear. What she had once suspected was now confirmed.
Strangely, she could not blame Vickie, despite her stunning rudeness. She was defending herself the way she knew best, possibly the only way she had ever learned, with hostility. Anna thought this pitiable from every point of view, not least Vickie’s. And she herself was not exemplary. She should have refused this invitation, as any sensible woman would have done, should have said that she was going away, should in fact have gone away. She saw that now. But to be forced out into the cold, in the cruel days of this late spring, was somehow not to be borne. Puzzled, she wondered how and where she was to go. The difference between fantasy and reality had never seemed so difficult to bridge.
She took off the coat and hung it up, noting absent-mindedly that it suited her quite well. She took off the brown suit and made it into a parcel which she would leave for Mrs Duncan, with a note, on the following Wednesday. She ran a bath, although she had already taken one earlier in the evening. It seemed important to obliterate every trace of recent events. It did not yet occur to her to feel anger. Her most instinctive reaction was one of amazement that two people should willingly form an alliance based on such negative feelings as fear and pity. Lawrence felt pity for his wife who was still the protected child she had always been in her parents’ house, or rather her father’s house, since she had alluded to Daddy more than once in the course of the evening. It was even significant that a woman on the verge of middle age should refer to her father in these terms. Her sharpness, her superficial sophistication, even her terrible cooking, marked her out as one who seemed old in the ways of the world but unprotected against herself, and genuinely unable to read her own unfinished character. She was attractive, Anna freely admitted, but she was attractive principally because she was greedy, and because her greediness was intimately bound up with, even redolent of, sexual appetite. For such a woman the need for a man was obvious, even if the man’s role was thereby reduced.
Anna felt immediate embarrassment on Lawrence’s behalf, although she had been able to overlook his social unease. He had had a sheepish look, for the resources of his own character were unequal to those of his wife. She had even surprised him looking wistful, as if everything he cared for had been taken away from him, leaving him with poor substitutes which saddened him. No wonder he felt so deeply for his patients, those marooned by sickness or disability in their own isolation. No wonder he was such a good doctor. But he would not go far, for sharper minds than Vickie’s would assess his suitability, would observe his wife. There would be dinner parties of greater consequence at the homes of colleagues, where it would be decided that Halliday, in the long run, would not make senior material.
All this was very sad, particularly, Anna thought, because she had offered so little in the way of provocation. Yet she had been treated as a rival. It seemed that she had achieved posthumous status as Lawrence’s girlfriend, yet when she looked back she realized how little had passed between them. It was nevertheless possible, on the evidence of this evening, that Lawrence had felt more deeply for her than she had suspected, that he now regarded their former friendship as one strikingly failed test in what must by now be registered as a disappointing life. With the knowledge that she could have protected him against such disappointments she must now content herself, for it seemed now that she was rather strong herself. This surprised her, for she was not adept at discerning her own advantages, and was accustomed to a rigorous scrutiny of her defects. Yet the sadness induced by the evening and by the spectacle of such emotional disarray was giving way to an odd feeling of comfort, as if she had survived, intact, an ambush for which she had not been prepared.
She drank her tisane. She would not need a pill tonight, perhaps would need fewer of them in the future. Some kind of plateau had been reached. With a feeling of gratitude she arranged herself in the bed and prepared for sleep. Staring into the dimness of the room, momentarily lit by passing late cars, she thought again of the poem which had beguiled her earlier in the day. ‘Après tant d’orgueil, après tant d’étrange oisiveté …’ How clever to put pride and apathy in the same category of misapprehension. How did it go on? The poet was after all speaking of change, of metamorphosis. ‘Après tant d’orgueil, après tant d’étrange oisiveté, mais pleine de pouvoir …’ That was it, the renewed feeling of power, power in the sense of strength, the strength born secretly, mysteriously, out of oisiveté, idleness or inaction. It was the intimation of this strength which presaged change. This message, a voice for her ears only, seemed a surprising coda to the evening she had just endured, and she resolved to subject it to further consideration.
17
APRIL BECAME MAY, and at last the warmth returned. People lifted their heads with amazed gratitude to a blue sky and a gentle softening breeze. After such a harsh winter the lilac and the hawthorn were late but did not appear to have suffered from the punishing recent frosts. The world became green again and tempers improved. A reprieved population smiled as it went about its daily business, and hopes rose for a long and exceptional summer. It was reckoned to have started early; the many months of cold grey weather were forgotten. Talk turned to holidays, a sure sign that a siege had been successfully withstood and that hope had returned. Among the old people there was a latent fear of the winter to come and a determ
ination to enjoy one last summer, if that was what it turned out to be. Heavy clothes were thankfully stored in the cupboards of spare bedrooms. Sticks tapped on pavements as elderly residents took once more to the streets. In the shops news was exchanged about relatives, not seen for some time but now visited at weekends. Children, walking in single file to the swimming baths, longed for release. The young took off on their annual migration, here one moment, gone the next. Restaurants put a cautious table or two on the pavement; pubs overflowed. At dusk joggers pounded through the newly friendly urban jungle. The leisure pages in the newspapers went into full production. Weather men on the radio permitted themselves a cautious optimism, although warning of mist after dark. This was largely ignored: after such shining days the nights were easy to discount.
Halliday’s work decreased: whole evenings went by without a call. He took up running, for various reasons, not all of them to do with his health. It was certainly a relief to be out after a day in the surgery, but it was even more of a relief to be out of his own house and away from his wife. In order to circumvent her cooking he had decreed a regimen of low-fat foods: this, however, was only partially successful. Running, for upwards of two hours every evening, he was able to ignore his life and its disappointments. Sprinting down Sloane Street on his way to the park he attracted admiring glances which he was able to ignore: he had never been vain. He thought, occasionally, of Anna Durrant, whom he would telephone after a decent interval. ‘Sorry you had such a boring evening,’ he would say with a smile, the smile which had always endeared him to women. A decent interval was necessary before they could face each other again. He had no doubt that she would be compassionate and understanding, as she had always been. The beauty of Anna was that she never required explanations. As he entered the park he almost persuaded himself that they could return to their earlier veiled intimacy. He would give it a month, he decided, just in case she was a little annoyed, and then he would contact her. Either that, and it was perhaps a little unorthodox for a doctor to contact a patient, or she would turn up of her own accord. That was the most likely.
This scenario fitted in very well with his own plans. He was taking a month’s holiday from mid-June to mid-July, not, for once, in accordance with his father-in-law’s wishes, although these had been made known, but because his previous locum, a man he trusted, was free at that time, and because a woman was joining the practice later in the summer. The date had been fixed by her, and he had thought it unusual until she explained that she had spent the previous winter travelling in Africa, and that she might want to take her own holiday the following January in order to return there. Her name was Sarah King and she was pretty, a slight cockney accent adding to her charm. She would be pleasant to have about the place, with her short hair and her long eyelashes and her extremely forthright disposition. When he wondered about the advisability of her travelling alone in Africa she had told him shortly that she always went with her friend. There was no clue as to whether this friend was a man or a woman.
She had been to dinner in Tryon Street, and had eaten her way through the menu, although without enthusiasm. Vickie, who had not liked her, had asked all her usual questions, to which Dr King, without any apparent change of expression, had replied factually but with decisive brevity. ‘Oh, dear, are you a feminist?’ Vickie had enquired. ‘Yes,’ was the answer. ‘Does that mean you don’t want to get married? I always think that’s such a shame.’ Sarah King had looked at her inscrutably. ‘Yes,’ she had said. ‘I can see that you would.’ She appeared to be longing for a microscope with which to examine this dangerously ill-adapted species. ‘We’ll see you home,’ Vickie had said. ‘I don’t like to think of any woman out on her own at night, however emancipated.’ Dr King—and she had not invited them to call her Sarah—told her not to bother: she had come on her bike. In Halliday’s eyes she had judged the situation perfectly. He looked forward to working with her.
Before she took up her duties, however, there was the holiday to be endured, and it would be the same as always, he supposed. His father-in-law remained monstrously vigorous and dictatorial, and Halliday was at last able to confide to himself that the man was odious, not only odious but perhaps responsible for all his troubles. He would be subjected to days spent on the boat, with the smell of Gibson’s dead cigar assaulting his nostrils, and return, sunburnt and queasy, to the house, to be asked, ‘And what have you two been up to?’ He did not know what offended him more, the days spent far from the land he longed to explore, or the peculiar staleness of the evenings, when his father-in-law watched television, legs outstretched, and a further cigar clamped between his teeth. Out of politeness they were forced to join him. At least, it was politeness on Halliday’s part: Vickie was, in this, as in all else, an uncritical adherent of her father’s wishes. Occasionally he would wander through the house in search of his mother-in-law. He did not much want to talk to her, but she was minimally more sympathetic than her husband. At least if she was outside, watering the garden, he could enjoy the air and the night sky. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Gibson would shout from the study, to which they would be forced to direct their reluctant steps. ‘I’m going up now, Henry,’ his mother-in-law would remark from the door in her peculiarly uninflected voice. And then he would be stranded again. It always felt as though she had abandoned him: her husband and daughter she appeared to have abandoned long ago, seeing them so well satisfied with each other. She had been beautiful, a vague flower of the upper classes. Now, he noticed, she was becoming increasingly deaf.
This year he would run, he promised himself. He would tell Gibson that he was in training, or some such nonsense. He would get into his shorts and his T-shirt and pound away until he was out of sight. Once past the village he would put on the light anorak which he carried in his rucksack and be a tourist, humble and innocent, like the city boy he had once been and still was at heart. Although he loved the air and the open space he did not really enjoy the countryside; it lacked conviviality, he thought, and conviviality was what he sought. He liked to drink a cup of coffee in the town, linger in newsagents, examine racks of postcards. At last he could satisfy his longing to have a newspaper to himself. Lunch would be taken in a pub, shepherd’s pie and a glass of bitter. Nobody spoke to him, or consulted him about their backs or their ulcers, as they would have done had he not been so carefully anonymous. In such circumstances he was almost happy.
The afternoons would be more of a problem. He could hardly pretend to run all day, and his conscience would begin to nag him. He would make his way back, with as good a grace as he could muster, knowing that Vickie would ask him crossly where he had been, and tax him with rudeness. He did not mind being thought rude, since his father-in-law had been rude for as long as he could remember. He would drink cup after cup of his mother-in-law’s pale frail milkless tea, wishing that it were PG Tips, with plenty of sugar. Then a bath, though for some reason it was thought unfriendly if he locked the bathroom door. This meant that he had to announce his decision in a loud firm voice, although he was terrified that no-one was paying any attention. His nightmare was that his father-in-law might come in and use the lavatory. This had happened on more than one occasion, and he had felt himself shrivel under the water. Henry Gibson had raked him with his eyes and noticed this. ‘Hope you’re managing to keep yourself in good order,’ he had said. His implication was clear. His daughter’s sexuality was as precious to him as his own, which he satisfied elsewhere, with a compliant partner, at an address in Westbourne Grove. He had even let this be known, and had once told Halliday that his wife was good for nothing these days. If he had hoped for a manly exchange he had been disappointed. This disappointment had not been entirely forgotten or forgiven.
His last visit, before leaving London, was to Mrs Marsh, who was feeling under the weather. The sudden warmth had affected her leg slightly, but mainly she complained of fatigue and of difficulty in getting about. ‘I don’t feel steady,’ she said. He examined her and found noth
ing wrong with her, apart from the inevitable damage done by old age. He considered the matter. She was a healthy woman, but he sensed the first misgivings that might turn her into a recluse, if she were not watched. He looked round the room and found it to be clean but gloomy. ‘You’ve been cooped up for far too long,’ he said, in a voice which combined tenderness with authority. ‘It’s time we got you out and about. Have you thought of going away?’
Mrs Marsh smiled, as she could not help smiling when he took a firm line with her.
‘My travelling days are over,’ she said. ‘When my husband was alive we went about a great deal. When he died there didn’t seem to be the same enjoyment.’
She remembered a visit to Venice with Phyllis Martin which she preferred not to think about. Phyllis had changed her clothes three times a day, while Mrs Marsh waited for her in the bar. Both had been disappointed in each other’s company but were too valiant to complain. Besides, their sort of people never complained. Nevertheless, they had never repeated the experiment. They had gone to the Cipriani: such a waste of money, she thought.
But it would be good to get out of this flat, away from the limited friendships she had made, away from her weekly appointment at the hairdresser’s, and the conventional remarks she was forced to exchange with the shopkeepers. ‘Your son better?’ the fishmonger still asked her, although it was weeks since Nick had stayed with her. Besides, he was in New York, and that did not bear too much thinking about either. She thought she knew the reason for these frequent and extended weekends, and could not pretend to be in favour of them. A daughter-in-law was one thing, but a daughter-in-law who had her own model agency in New York and intended to keep things that way was quite another. Mrs Marsh did not know what a model agency was, but it sounded disreputable. She knew that Nick could get a transfer to the American branch, and almost hoped that his old habits of caution and evasiveness would reassert themselves. She decided that it was worry about Nick and his future that was making her feel unwell.
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