He recognized, even through his whisky, that she wasn’t quite the type just to stand there listening patiently, a demure and blushing Juliet, enrapt, hands adoringly clasped to breast—stand there for however long a worthwhile serenade should take. But he knew that in spite of this she could always be relied upon to throw herself into the essential spirit of things. Uniquely responsive and rambunctious; any little spot of fun would do! “Oh, every giddy goat must have its day!” she had once declared. “And I hope it knows it can depend on me to unscrumple my bonnet from my handbag and hurl it high over the windmill. Myself along with it, I shouldn’t wonder!”
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Matter?”
“Yes, what’s got into you? Why this of all nights to decide to play Grimaldi? Don’t you know how late it is?”
“All I know is, thank God, it isn’t too late!”
“Are you drunk?”
“No!”
“Well, anyway, I was extremely sick when I got home. Extremely sick! Three times. Thank God, at least I made it to the loo.”
She stated this with relish but—having milked from it whatever resonance she could—quietly withdrew her head.
“Daisy, you mustn’t go! We have to talk! There’s been a crisis!”
The head poked out again. There seemed something a little snail-like about its emergence—and about its earlier retraction.
“Then ring tomorrow,” she said. “Not before twelve, though: you can see I won’t be fit for work!”
“But it’s a crisis and it just can’t wait!”
“It will have to. Right now I feel at death’s door.”
“Oh, so do I,” he replied. “Oh, so do I. I feel at death’s door, too.”
And at that moment, as if on cue, as if between them they had found the proper incantation and unharnessed the age-old secret magic, the door actually did open. But not death’s door; just another door along the way.
“For Pete’s sake! Holy shit! What the devil is going on here?”
“Oh, drat it all! The kraken wakes!” announced Daisy, supposedly sotto voce. “Nothing is going on here: anyway, nothing that need concern you, dear Mr Queechy!” She had raised her voice again. “But thank you for your kind enquiry. This gentleman is just leaving.”
She added: “So sorry if you think you’ve been disturbed. It isn’t all that late, however.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Andrew. “It isn’t all that late at all.” So this was the dreaded Mr Queechy, was it? “And, what’s more, it isn’t too late. No, it isn’t. Not at all.”
And suddenly Romeo and the serenading Latin lover had both removed themselves. Their predecessor the vengeful pugilist had skipped forward in their place.
With clenched fists and squared shoulders.
And flexed biceps.
He even performed a little fancy footwork.
“Added to which, I’ll tell you something else,” he now informed the landlord. “This gentleman is not just leaving. No, not at all! Not one bit of it! This gentleman, Daisy, is coming straight up to tell you something else.” He had a feeling he might have said some of that already; thought he might be experiencing some kind of déjà vu. The night seemed full of echoes.
But just then the landlord stepped out of the shadows of the dimly lit hall to stand beside him on the path.
And Andrew had a shock. He immediately forgot such things as déjà vu or irritating echoes.
For although Daisy had often spoken of the man as being a fat idiot Andrew had always assumed she was speaking figuratively. He was unprepared for the great dressing-gowned lump—representing at least twenty stone’s worth of fat idiot—that now stood next to him.
And from whom he had to back away hastily, to avoid feeling hemmed in and stalk-like and short of air.
He unclenched his fists. He felt sick. He had to terminate his fancy footwork.
“Clear off!” said the man, succinctly. Basso profundo. “Skedaddle!”
It seemed the ultimate humiliation: not only of Andrew’s evening but even his entire existence.
And abjectly he retreated; further retreated.
Yet even as he did so something inside him bade him pause. Perhaps it was the alcohol; perhaps it was the largely dormant quality that would later get him mentioned in dispatches—would get him decorated, too. Whatever it was it provided a brand of defiance which balked hotly at defeat.
And which made him cunning, too.
Cunning. Reckless. Nimble. He dodged around the landlord. Ran into the hallway. Slammed the door. Had even shot the bolts before his enemy could realize what was happening.
And not simply his enemy.
“Where did he go, please?” enquired Daisy—standing on tiptoe and leaning out as far as she was able, to peer earnestly in both directions. The road was neither long nor wide.
Nor was it poorly lit.
“Extraordinary! Surely he can’t just have vanished into thin air! Now you see him, now you don’t.”
She gazed pensively upon her landlord’s balding crown. She sought elucidation.
“Is he in heaven, is he in hell, that demmed elusive pimpernel?”
In a very few seconds, though, she found out—and not merely by means of Mr Queechy’s imprecations. There was a knocking at her own door to counterpoint the battering on the one downstairs. All the bells in the house rang in hideous orchestration. “I’m going to call the police!” the landlord shouted. “I’m going to call the police!”
“Good idea,” said Daisy.
“You’ve got a telephone!” he cried. “You damned well call the police!”
She nodded at him acquiescently; then lowered her window.
His refrain wasn’t silenced on account of this. It still rose, basso profundo, above the rest of the cacophony.
But despite everything—Daisy laughed.
Lights all over the neighbourhood were being switched on, or curtains drawn back. Windows opened everywhere.
“By God, now you’ve done it!” she exclaimed—though in a voice that wasn’t wholly disapproving. This was after she’d unlocked her door.
“I don’t care,” said Andrew. “I don’t care!” He was only a little out of breath. “Daisy, I’m leaving Marsha. It’s you I love!”
As he said this he felt the return of all his ardour. It had been dampened by the events of recent minutes but right now he was back below her balcony.
“And I want to marry you!”
“Then there’s only one explanation,” she said. “You must be off your chump.”
Yet her tone was humorous, even affectionate, and for several seconds she added nothing further; just stood there in the doorway looking at him.
Andrew noticed she hadn’t wiped her makeup off before she’d gone to bed. It was faded and smeary and reminded him of Marsha’s the last time he had seen it. But there was far more excuse for Daisy—obviously. She was wearing striped pyjamas and seemed less sturdy than she usually did, more in need of his protection. Even the sight of her bare feet was somehow rather touching.
“Well, either I’m batty or you are!” she said, finally. “But I suppose you’d better come in.”
The door opened straight into her over-furnished sitting room, every surface cluttered with photographs and bric-a-brac. He realized, with a certain degree of shock, that this was also the room in which she slept. His eye had travelled immediately to her divan, its tossed-back covers rising like a snowy hillside or a peaked meringue.
At the foot of the bed her clothes were thrown carelessly across a chair. He saw—before he quickly looked away—that her brassiere and bloomers were right on top of the pile; that one of her stockings had fallen to the floor.
It wasn’t quite the romantic setting he had visualized. It wasn’t quite the romantic setting of his first proposal.
She had closed the door but hadn’t moved a long way back from it. He still stood practically on the threshold. It didn’t feel as though she’d act
ually invited him in.
“Now then,” she said, “what is all this nonsense?”
“It isn’t nonsense. I’m leaving Marsha.”
“Why?”
“We don’t get on.”
She paused; placed her head on one side, consideringly.
“And the crisis you spoke of?”
He was aware he might not have chosen the word that was in all respects the most precise.
“I meant I’d finally come to a decision. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks of course. For weeks? No, months!”
“So for this you woke me up in the middle of the night; woke up the whole of Belsize Park as well—the bit that might have gone to bed? For something you say you’ve been considering for months?”
He frowned, as though he found some difficulty in following the complexities of her argument.
“And this decision?” she went on. “Has it anything to do with me?”
“Well, naturally it has! Daisy, it has everything to do with you! Didn’t you hear me? I love you.”
Up until this point most of her words had been brisk, even businesslike, delivered against the unceasing staccato of hammerings and rings. But then she hesitated again. Looked pleased. Despite her previously unsmiling face—a face which in truth still wasn’t smiling—he had now seen a definite air of satisfaction.
And this was all he’d needed to be sure of. The rest could easily wait until morning. He’d had his answer and the answer was the one he’d known it would be—well, almost known it would be.
So then…the future would clearly be wonderful. And, in that case, what did it matter about tonight? But even so…? “The couple who live upstairs,” he said. “Are they at home?”
To Daisy this was plainly so irrelevant it dispelled all trace of satisfaction. He was sorry to see it disappear.
“How should I know? I can’t say I faithfully record their every movement—even when I’m up to snuff, which at present,” she reminded him, “I most certainly am not!”
But Andrew’s enquiry had not been without purpose. He’d been waiting to hear footsteps hurrying down the stairs; footsteps informed by either annoyance or trepidation or bemusement.
Daisy added sharply—but fatuously; people in love could sometimes say extremely foolish things—“In any case, you can’t possibly sleep there!”
“No, of course not. I was wondering if anyone was going to unbolt the door to admit the landlord.”
“Well, obviously you were. Who isn’t wondering that?”
“Because if nobody does, couldn’t I slip out at the back while he’s still waiting round the front?”
“And afterwards what do you think is going to happen to me?” Her question took him by surprise; he could only repeat his currently pervasive thought.
“But what does it matter? We’ll soon be getting married.”
“Ha!”
“What do you mean—ha?”
“Have you any idea how long a divorce would take?” Not merely her tone but her whole demeanour had returned to being businesslike. He couldn’t understand it.
Yet he managed to reassure himself. She isn’t well and for the moment she’s confused.
“I shall start proceedings first thing in the morning,” he promised her. He hesitated; he wasn’t sure if the rider he was going to add was altogether decent. “I might be able to find grounds.”
“Really? And have you told Marsha what you intend?”
“Not yet. Not in so many words.”
“Well, now. You don’t take many people into your confidence—do you, Aguecheek?” The nickname brought comfort, even if her tone was still severe. And then, as though it had only needed this little crumb of comfort, he suddenly saw why she was angry with him.
“Of course! You think that my presence here will compromise you? Yes! What a fool I’ve been! I’ll go downstairs at once and open the front door. They’ll see then there wouldn’t have been time… I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Oh, I’ve been a fool!”
“Yes,” said Daisy. “You have.”
His hand was already on the doorknob.
“And I would urgently recommend,” she added, “that when you get home you don’t say anything of all this to Marsha.”
“But I shan’t be going home. Why would you think so? I plan to spend the night at a hotel.”
“I can only hope you haven’t already let something slip? Some reference to me, I mean?”
“No. No! How could you suppose—?”
“What I’m supposing is…the pair of you…you must have had a quarrel.”
“A small one,” he conceded.
“Then go home and patch it up.”
“What!”
“I said go home and patch it up.”
“But you can’t believe that’s why I’ve asked you to marry me: a silly quarrel between Marsha and myself?” And, on the instant, he realized afresh what the problem was. He saw she was being noble.
She confirmed it by her next words.
“I am not—I am not, nor ever will be—a home wrecker!”
“No, you’re not; clearly you’re not! This would have happened anyway. I’ve told you: we’re not suited. You’re my type of woman. You’re the only person I want to be with.” Again that gleam of satisfaction—even of delight—almost, of victory! “Daisy, there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you!”
“Go home, then.”
“Yes. Your reputation.”
He smiled.
“I’ll spend the night in a hotel. Tomorrow I’ll find myself some lodgings.”
“I don’t care what you do tomorrow. Or even what you do tonight. I would advise you, though, to trot off home. Far cheaper!”
“Well, it’s certainly true we’ve got to think sensibly about our future but—”
“Not our future,” she said crisply. “Yours. And, Andrew, you must never return here again. Never. Don’t even try to phone me. I need your promise.”
“What?”
“Besides, I shan’t stay here much longer; it’s intolerable.” She gave one of those special snorts which he had never heard from anybody else and would have found peculiarly unpleasant if he had; in her it had always seemed quite charming. “And after tonight I don’t suppose I’ll really have the choice, anyhow. One week, I’d say, at the outside.”
His hand was still on the doorknob. He glanced at it in some surprise, as though he couldn’t follow the workings of his own body parts any more, never mind the continuing complexities of Daisy’s arguments.
“I know you won’t be here much longer. We must obviously find you somewhere else. But if I’m not going to be allowed even to telephone…” He shook his head, in bewilderment. “You see, Daisy, I wouldn’t want you telephoning me—well, I mean, not too often. Miss Eggling would soon read into it some hint of scandal. And then of course, being a woman, she would gossip.”
Fleetingly he wondered—this hadn’t crossed his mind before—how the Colonel and Mrs Quinn might react when the news of it finally reached them.
“Aguecheek, you still don’t understand.”
She touched him on the arm. This was the first instance of any physical contact since he had got there.
“I am not a home wrecker!” she repeated. “And anyway, Andrew, you’re a nice boy but I’m afraid I don’t love you.”
There was a long silence. On Andrew’s part—a shocked and disbelieving silence. But it didn’t occur to either of them that all the battering at the front door had stopped. That there were no more bells being rung. No further shouts of fury.
“But do you really mean it? It isn’t simply you’ve decided to become a martyr?”
“Me—a martyr! No, heaven forbid!” She gave a shudder.
“I see,” he said slowly.
“But you really are a nice boy. Good companion. We’ve had a lot of fun together; a lot of happy times. Nice dinners and intelligent conversations. And you’re an excellent guide on the racecourse; we mustn�
�t forget that.”
“Yet that’s all? That’s absolutely the sum of it?”
She pursed her lips and nodded.
“I see,” he said again. “What will you do now?”
“Now?”
“I mean, if you can’t stay on here? Or if you don’t want to?” He had a vague tenacious hope that if he only went on talking she might change her mind. Or that somehow he had merely got hold of the wrong end of the stick and things would sort themselves out, reality would return, the fog would lift. In just a minute or so she would suddenly break down or weaken; admit that, no, she couldn’t live without him; explain her silly, well-intentioned motives. All would be well again.
If not—what would he do?
He couldn’t just leave.
He had been so happy in the street.
“Oh,” she said, casually, “there’s some woman I know. I might well move in with her. It’s been on the cards, you see, for years. Literally for years.”
How many, he wondered. He himself had known Daisy for about three. “You’ve never mentioned it,” he said.
“No. I couldn’t make up my mind. Not until now. Yet all this may have helped.” She paused. “She’s older than me—much older. But she’s a good woman…sane and steady and serene. I feel I might even profit by her influence!” Daisy chuckled; tonight her chuckle had scarcely been in evidence. “You may believe that or not,” she allowed.
“It sounds a little dull to me.”
“Yes, but she isn’t dull at all. Despite her age and her serenity. Perhaps that’s the truly incredible thing. The Italians have a word for it,” she said.
“Oh, yes?”
“I can’t think what, though.”
They would never return to that little restaurant. He realized now how terribly much it had meant to him.
“Her name’s Marie.”
Clearly she was being sincere. He must just stop fooling himself. There could be nothing left to say.
No point in hanging on.
He remembered their jubilant, suspense-filled day at Doncaster—it appeared so very long ago: the way they had lunched on the train; had meant to play chess but never quite got round to it; had drunk to the man who’d backed into her car the previous afternoon.
“Well then,” he said.
Unexpectedly she reached up and pulled down his head. She kissed him on the cheek.
When I Was Otherwise Page 21
