They were kind, very kind, turning all their attention to her now they had no need any more to take Max’s pulse or blood pressure or fuss over his bed. It was as though she had become an ill person now to replace him in their lives as they took her to an empty room and coaxed her to undress, take a bath, crawl into the bed and sleep.
‘Day sister will sort the formalities out for you,’ the night staff nurse said, smoothing the sheet as she settled her. ‘Just you rest now. That tablet I gave you will help — you’ll be able to cope better in the morning.’
And somehow she was. She sat with sister in her office dealing with the papers involved, nodding as she explained about death certificates, about the hospital bill, about arrangements that had to be made for funerals, calm and quiet, tearless and grateful for that. To be so cold inside, so empty — it was a sort of comfort. There was pain lurking somewhere outside her, wanting to pounce, to jump inside her skin and make her shriek with the agony of its presence, but now she was empty and that was something for which to feel real gratitude.
The flat, when she let herself in, was orderly and cool. She stood in the kitchen looking at the note Mrs Potter had left on the table, trying to imagine how it had been when she had written it, trying to remember that Max had been alive then. Or seemed to be alive, breathing shallowly in a narrow white bed with his eyes only half closed.
‘I cleaned the spare room,’ Mrs Potter had written in her big effortful loops. ‘The which it needed badly considering it was only one night it had been used the young lady leaving it considerable disturbed and I will collect my money Monday trusting that will be all right on account I have my gas bill waiting and oblige Yrs Edith Potter, Mrs.’
She put the money ready on the table then and there, not knowing where she would be on Monday, filled with a sudden acute anxiety about Mrs Potter and her gas bill, wondering whether she should drive to her home, give her the money right away, and then quailing at the thought of those eager little staring eyes, wanting news of Max, wanting to exclaim and commiserate, and she couldn’t face that. Better to leave it there, till she came as usual on Monday. She could leave the key with the porter downstairs. He’d hold on to it to let Mrs Potter in — and she filled her mind with the minutiae of domestic arrangements as she went to change her clothes, finding herself a fresh cotton dress, putting the shirt and trousers she had lived in ever since the small hours of Thursday morning in the garbage bin. She would never wear those again, not ever, ever, ever —
Call Bessie? Not yet. Not yet, can’t call her yet. I need time. It’s got to be Molly. Oh, God, it’s got to be Molly. And for the first time she let herself think about what she had done. In a fit of jealous pique she had refused to tell Molly where Max was, had refused to allow her to see him and now he was dead and she would never see him again. And surely she would never forgive her for it.
‘Any more than I’d forgive her,’ she said aloud to the mirror as she brushed her hair. ‘Any more than I’d forgive her.’
Being active, moving about, helped. She drove the car through the lunchtime strollers in the warm sunshine towards the West End, concentrating on the traffic, giving way with unusual courtesy to every Sunday driver who dithered on the road in front of her, carefully choosing a place to park, walking the five minutes to the hotel with precise rapid steps, businesslike and purposeful. To be busy helped.
The receptionist bridled with pleasure when he recognized her, and she stared at him, puzzled for a moment, when he greeted her as ‘Miss Asher’, then managed a thin smile of acknowledgement.
‘Is Miss Rowan in her room?’ she asked. ‘Miss Molly Rowan? If you could find her for me, please. It’s — it’s rather important.’
He shook his head. ‘She’s gone, Miss Asher.’
‘Gone?’ She frowned, uncomprehending. ‘You mean she’s out? I’ll have to wait then, I suppose or —’
‘No, I mean she’s gone. Left the hotel. The gentleman as well —’
Again she stared at him, confused and unable to comprehend. ‘Gentleman?’
The receptionist, clearly enjoying himself now, leaned confidentially on the counter. ‘Well, yes, Miss Asher. He arrived on — let me see — it must have been Thursday night, around seven. I was on late turn that night — yes, Thursday, not long after she checked in herself, and she was that surprised to see him — well, I can’t tell you. Really surprised —’ And he looked at her knowingly and grinned. ‘Can’t say she was pleased, so much as, well — very, very surprised. He checked into her room, said he was her husband.’ And though he didn’t smirk, she felt the relish of doubt in him as he said it. ‘And then yesterday it was, she left, together with him. Yesterday morning, very early. I was on again, as it happens, I’m on mixed duties this week, so you could say I was here for all of the time she was. A lovely person, isn’t she? I saw that film of hers, you remember? One Night in Pasadena, it was. She looks lovely. Not unlike yourself, Miss Asher, if I may say so —’ And again she felt the relish in him and smoothed her face, refusing to let him see he had any effect on her.
‘I see. She left no messages?’
‘Messages? Not to my knowledge. And I was on all the time as I said, but I could check, of course —’ He went bustling away behind the partition that enclosed the desk and she heard his voice, high and self-important as he spoke to someone there.
‘Well, there you are then! She did, after all! Left a letter with the chambermaid who brought it down in the afternoon, after I’d gone off duty. For a Mrs Cramer — not for you, I’m afraid —’
‘I’m Mrs Cramer,’ she said, and held out her hand. ‘It’s my married name.’ He looked at her doubtfully and with a sudden spurt of anger she pulled her purse out of her pocket and rifled in it for her driving licence. ‘There,’ she said savagely ‘Identification, all right? Now can I have my letter?’
She went to the car to read it, sitting there in Seymour Place for some minutes gazing out at the people passing by before slitting the envelope with her thumb. She was afraid of the letter and didn’t know why. But it had to be read, and at last she smoothed the scrawled sheets of paper on her knee and took a sharp little breath before starting.
‘I don’t know whether to post this, or what to do,’ it started, without any address, any preamble at all. ‘But then I thought you must contact the hotel, surely, eventually and they’ll tell you I left and give you this and that’ll be quicker than sending it by post. The thing is, I’ve got to leave. Laurence got here last night and if I don’t go back to the Coast with him now there’s no movie, and no marriage either. I happen to want to keep him as much as I want to do the movie, so there it is. And yes, I know I’m a goddammed fool as far as he’s concerned but what’s that got to do with anything? I hope Max is okay — I’d have come to see him if you’d let me, but I can understand why you didn’t. He’s yours and you feel the way about him I do about Laurence, and when that bloody Toby starts trying to muscle in, I do what you do. I keep him out any way I can. Now Laurence says we’ve got to get back or we lose the backing for the movie, so what can I do anyway? I’m sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to be so horrible. I never do, you know that? I really do want to be comfortable with you, I always have ever since I can remember. You were the greatest thing in my life when I was a kid, you know that? You used to come in so beautiful, so cool, and I used to want to die for you. But there was Barbara to make it better when you weren’t there, and so I guess I managed well enough. Until we were packing up the apartment and I found that birth certificate, then I could have killed you. All those years wanting to love you and thinking you couldn’t love me because I wasn’t yours to love, and then finding out — oh, I was one mad kid, I guess I still am, and I know I’m not explaining well, but I’ve only got a little while for this letter and I have to get it done — I’ve still got a lot of packing to do — anyway, listen, I didn’t mean to be so horrible about that script. I mean I did a bit, I guess, I did want to get at you, but it’s true all
the same. I could play Alice marvellously if you were Georgina, because although the way they’ve written her she’s a bad person, she isn’t really, she’s just a bit mixed up, she had it bad too and together we could have worked it, made people understand about us as well as about Alice and Georgina — anyway, they’ll get someone else, and I’ll do my best. He’s a bastard, Toby, but he’s a good director, so you’ll be hearing from me. That movie’ll be a good one, and you’ll be sorry you didn’t do it with me. Give my love to Max. I’ll write him as soon as I get back to LA.’
And that was all. No signature, just those pages of rapid scrawled handwriting. Very slowly Lexie folded them and put them back in their envelope. Everyone’s gone now, she found herself thinking as she stared out of the car window and watched a man walking his small chattering daughter along the street towards an ice cream van at the corner. Everyone’s gone. Max and now Molly. It’s just me again. And Bessie. There’s always Bessie. And she switched on the engine, let in the clutch and set out for Hackney.
49
There were children in the park, shouting unintelligibly at each other, repeating over and over again the same high-pitched sound and, irritated, she moved to the window and closed it, in spite of the heat. She’d have to install air conditioning if this weather was going to go on, she thought, and then grimaced at herself. To spend more money on this tired old terraced house would be ridiculous, and after all, Bessie was happy enough with it as it was. She’d lived here for forty years now. She seemed not to notice what the house was like or what the weather was like; hot or cold, cheerful or miserable, there she would sit in her armchair, happy over her sewing, watching her precious television set and seemingly asking little more.
Lexie sat down, picking up the paper and trying to concentrate on the disapproving article she had been reading about the new rock and roll craze that was dominating the dance floors of Britain, but it was almost impossible to take in more than three words at a time. Over and over again she read the same sentence and still didn’t know what it said, and she threw the paper down and said abruptly, ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’
‘Shall I come with you?’ Bessie peered at her a little mistily over her glasses, and Lexie shook her head.
‘No, it’s all right. You watch your programme. I’ll be back in an hour or so.’
‘It’s only some sort of religious discussion,’ Bessie said, but she turned back to the set, fascinated as ever by its moving shadows. Lexie went and made sure the back door was locked — the days when they could safely leave the house and not worry about intruders were long since gone, and leaving Bessie alone demanded extra care for security. She even checked the windows before leaving. They’d done a good job eventually of making the house attractive, she told herself as she moved from room to room, through the handsome new kitchen with its American-style work units and special oven with the eye-level grill of which Bessie was so inordinately proud, and the neat bathroom complete with shower, a rare treat for a London establishment. It had been perhaps silly to spend so much money gutting the old house, restoring its two flats to a single home, putting in central heating, but Bessie had been adamant about not moving, and anyway it had given Lexie something to occupy her mind during the long painful months after Max had died. Fighting it out with lazy builders and recalcitrant painters and lackadaisical suppliers of furniture and appliances and curtains had drained off her energy, had sent her to bed each night exhausted and therefore able to sleep. So perhaps it had been worth it for that, even if the house did stand out in the middle of what was fast becoming a dilapidated area, like the proverbial peony in a cabbage patch.
Outside the air was hot and exhausted, thick with the smell of diesel and dust and Lexie felt the sweat start to trickle between her breasts and for a moment thought of going back inside, but then, as a child went shrieking past on roller skates, making her dodge, decided she would walk after all. To go back would help nothing.
The park lay before her, dried and brown, the trees drooping sadly in the weary evening air, and as she walked dust spurted up inside her sandals, then into her face, making her nose itch, and she rubbed the back of her hand across it and felt the grittiness. A swim, that’s what I need, she told herself, perhaps a swim. But on Sunday the local pool closed early and it was gone seven in the evening now. She walked on, her head down, aware of her physical discomfort but even more of the emotional turmoil that filled her.
Face it, she thought. Face it. You’ve got to. Next week it’ll be a year, and you’ve known all along that would be the worst time. A year without him, a year of silence from Molly. Not really a year, of course, she told herself then. I’ve been writing to her, haven’t I, even if she hasn’t answered? Not a real silence — but what’s the use of shouting into blankness? If she never answers me isn’t that the same as silence?
But now she has answered, hasn’t she? She’s answered now, just when it’s the anniversary of Max’s death. Almost answered, and she slid her hand into her dress pocket and felt it there, the sheet of paper that had been in the envelope that had arrived last Wednesday. She had shifted it from pocket to pocket, bag to bag, ever since, telling herself it was because she didn’t want to risk leaving it lying around where Bessie might see it, but knowing the truth inside herself; that she didn’t want to be parted from it.
Now she took it from her pocket and read it again, still walking slowly along the dusty path. It had been sent by a public relations company in Los Angeles and it was signed by a name totally strange to her, but the message was clear enough.
‘Dear Mrs Cramer,’ she read. ‘I am instructed by my client Miss Molly Rowan to tell you that she will be in London shortly to deal with preliminary publicity for the film, A Daughter’s Story and that she will be visiting you soon after she reaches London. We cannot at this time say precisely when her visit will take place, since final arrangements have not yet been firmed up, but we would be grateful if you could make yourself available to meet Miss Rowan when she arrives. Her schedule will be an extremely tight one, as we are sure you realize, and there will be little time to spare. Our representative in London will notify you as soon as there is any information on the plans that are being made —’
At first she had been hugely, furiously, angry at the coolness of it, the effrontery of these people. To assume that she would drop everything to be available, that she had no activity of her own, that she would simply open her arms wide and say, ‘Wonderful!’ — how dare they? she had cried to herself as she had put down the letter the first time she read it, but now, re-reading it for the umpteenth time, she could no longer summon up the same fury. All that she could feel was relief, relief that Molly was coming, that she wanted to see her, and the fact that she had chosen this cavalier way to give her the information didn’t matter. All that was important was that Molly was coming, Molly was coming, and if she was lucky, if for once Providence was on her side, she would arrive before the anniversary of Max’s death. If she did, then it would be all right. She’d be able to rest again, would be able to remember Max with pleasure instead of this huge consuming guilt that had been with her for every moment of every day for the past long months.
She had become obsessed with that idea, in spite of telling herself furiously that she was being stupid, that she was falling into a state of mindless superstition. She had developed this notion that if Molly were to come and they could be friends again before the year was up, she could go on living, could find a pattern for passing her days and living the life she had left to her. She could maybe go back to work, take on some new television programme (and she shut her mind tightly against the idea that perhaps, after so long away from the screen, after so many refusals of work, no one would want her again because she was forgotten), start to do more than sit with Bessie, visit old Alex Lazar occasionally, and just rot.
Because that’s what’s happened to me, she told herself as she reached the end of the pathway and turned to make her way back. That’s wh
at’s happened, isn’t it? You’re tired and listless and you do nothing. You behave as though you’re Bessie’s age, rather than twenty years younger, and if you go on like this you might as well be dead.
I wish I were, her little voice whispered at once, but she ignored it. She had to, because it had been saying that to her for far too long. And every time it seemed to be more and more reasonable. Not to be thought of, not to be thought of —
When she got back to the house Bessie was no longer watching her television set, but pottering in the kitchen washing salad for supper, and at once Lexie tried to remonstrate with her, telling her there was no need to do it, she would, but Bessie shook her head at her and went on slowly slicing cucumber with her slightly shaky fingers.
‘So what’s the sense of giving me such a fancy new kitchen if I’m never allowed to do anything in it?’ she said. ‘A salad is no trouble. If I was trying to roast a chicken for you, I’d agree, but a salad —’ She becked her head at Lexie, smiling cheerfully, but there was something worrying her. Lexie could see it at once, for Bessie let her eyes slide away from her gaze, and she sat on the edge of the washing machine and folded her arms and watched her.
‘What is it, Bessie?’ she said after a while. ‘You’re bothered about something —’
‘Me, bothered about something? Nothing at all, what should be bothering me on a nice Sunday evening? Don’t be —’
‘Oh, come on, Bessie. This is me, not Alex. You can tell him any lies you like, but not me. So what is it?’
Family Chorus Page 50
