The One and Only

by Francis King

  I was sure that Mother had never noticed the vinaigrette; and even if she had, she was unlikely to miss it, so crammed was that display cabinet with knick-knacks, many of them of little artistic or financial value.

  At the Caledonian Market, I knew an elderly Cockney stall-holder, a toff-like character with a huge belly and extremely thin legs, who wore a brown bowler hat, a brown cashmere overcoat with a velveteen collar, and rings on almost all of his purple, stubby fingers. I liked him and he seemed to like me, since he would almost always sell me things for much less than their first quoted price. Another stall-holder, a scrawny woman in a hair-net and tippet, had warned me that he was ‘a terrible old rogue – half the stuff he sells has been nicked’; but that did not worry me.

  He turned the vinaigrette over and over in those swollen, purple, heavily beringed hands. I could see that he was literally salivating. As with me, so with him the appetite for something beautiful and rare was almost physical. ‘Very jolly,’ he fluted in his parody of an upper-class voice, ‘très, très jolly indeed. How much were you thinking of asking for it, squire?’

  ‘Well, what do you think of offering?’ I had yet to learn the art of bargaining.

  He named a ridiculously low sum and half-heartedly I raised it. His eyebrows shot up, he whistled. ‘Cor!’ He had momentarily forgotten to be the toff. Then he said: ‘Tell you what, squire. I’ll meet you half-way. How’s that for generosity?’

  Foolishly I accepted.

  I turned the key in the front door and I knew at once, as one so often knows, that the whole house was empty. Even then, I had a feeling of doom. ‘Mrs Pavlovsky!’ I called, planning to give her the rent. Then I knocked on her door. ‘Mrs Pavlovsky!’ Ah, well, she must be out; and probably at that hour, just before noon, all her lodgers were also out.

  I began to mount the stairs, growing increasingly breathless as I did so. At the landing outside Dad’s room I paused and placed a hand in my trouser pocket. Yes, the grubby, tattered notes were there. I would tell Dad that they were from Ma. After all, in a sense they were, since it was she, not I, who had inherited the vinaigrette from Aunt Bertha; and it would make him happy to think that she had been generous to him, even if she had not been able to find the time for a visit.

  I pushed open the door.

  The first thing that I noticed was a sock rumpled around an ankle. Then I looked upwards to the hideously swollen face above the noose of the Coldstream tie.

  The bulging eyes looked even redder than on my previous visit.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dr Unwin carefully adjusted the blotter on his desk. He had, I had long since observed, a passion for symmetry.

  ‘And did you feel any guilt?’

  ‘For stealing the vinaigrette? No, none at all. She owed him that. And much more,’ I added.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean the vinaigrette. I meant his death.’

  ‘I wasn’t responsible for his death. Why should I have felt guilty about it?’

  He did not answer.

  ‘I did all I could for him. I visited him as often as I could.’

  ‘And your mother? Did she feel any guilt?’

  Did she? I pondered it. No. At first she seemed totally callous, horrifying me by her angry: ‘Oh, God!’ when given the news, followed by her: ‘He would choose the time when we’re just about to leave for Como. Totally thoughtless to the last.’ But then, late that night, I had heard her sobbing in the bedroom next to mine. I had wondered whether to go in to comfort her. Then I had thought: ‘No. Let her bloody well stew in her own juice.’

  ‘Did your mother feel any guilt?’ Dr Unwin repeated. I had been absent from his room for some time, lost in thought, even though my body had been seated across the desk from him.

  ‘I don’t think so. No. I think she felt grief,’ I added. ‘Surprisingly. Her love for him seemed to have died such a long time before.’

  ‘Perhaps she was grieving for what he had been when they first met and married and fell in love?’

  ‘Possibly. Yes.’

  ‘What did you feel about her? After it had happened, I mean?’ I stared at him. ‘ I don’t know,’ I eventually answered. Nor did

  I.

  But he didn’t believe me. ‘Oh, come on! You must have blamed

  her, didn’t you?’

  I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to answer.

  ‘After all, if she had visited him and paid the rent and given him

  an allowance – well, perhaps he would never have done what he

  did?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘In a way, she murdered him. Or, at least, was the cause of his

  death?’

  Was it really Dr Unwin who put those questions to me? Or did

  I put them to myself, as I sat, totally silent, in ‘ my’ armchair by

  the window?

  It is odd that I do not remember. I really do not remember. I

  really do not know.

  Chapter Twenty

  As Ma kept saying, Dad’s death ‘really couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time.’ We had to postpone our journey to Como, our cook and maid had to postpone their visits to their families, and Bob had to spend another week at the Bexhill holiday home. Couldn’t Bob stay with us in London? I pleaded with Ma. I knew how much he hated that home. But she was adamant. ‘ I have far too much to think about without him on my hands,’ she told me emphatically.

  There was an inquest, at which the coroner reached the predictable verdict that Dad had killed himself ‘while the balance of his mind was disturbed’. He wanted to make it clear that no blame attached to anyone; the deceased was one of those unfortunate men who had never fully recovered from his experiences in the War.

  The funeral was out at Putney Vale, to which Tim drove Ma and me in the new MG but which he declined to attend himself – ‘Oh, God, no! I’ll go and look up one of my buddies who lives not far from here,’ There were some half-dozen fellow officers of Dad’s and their wives, the charwoman who had cleaned for us in the days when we lived in Prince of Wales Drive (how, I wondered, had she, obviously not a Times reader, come to hear of the death?), and Mrs Pavlovsky, who arrived breathless and flustered half-way through the service, clutching a bunch of flowers which scattered their petals as she hurried down the aisle.

  Suddenly Ma began once again to cry, raising the black net veil of the pill-box hat which she had worn to Founder’s Day at Gladbury and then pressing a wad of handkerchief first to one eye and then the other. I felt a sudden impulse of tenderness for her and placed my hand over the hand not holding the handkerchief. Then I thought: Oh, this is all just theatre! She’s crying like that because widows are supposed to cry at funerals. I wanted to hiss at her: Do stop it! You’re taking no one in.

  Behind me I could hear someone else crying, not discreetly like Ma, but in windy gulps and gasps. I turned round. It was Mrs Pavlovsky, her wide face cracking apart with what I was sure was genuine grief under that scarf which, outdoors and in, she almost always wore over her head.

  ‘Are you going to have some sort of binge afterwards?’ Tim had asked Ma, for her to reply: ‘ Certainly not! I hate that idea of everyone forgetting all about the dead person in order to swill and guzzle.’ What she really hated, I was sure, was the idea of having to entertain a number of dull people (as she would see them) scarcely known to her.

  In consequence, after we had left the chapel, people hung around for a short, awkward time, in the expectation of some kind of invitation and then, realising that none would be forthcoming, wandered off. Eventually only Mrs Pavlovsky remained, bending over the few bouquets and wreaths in order to decipher the messages and names among them. Her own bunch of wilting flowers was also lying there.

  Having completed this task, she straightened up, looked around her, and then hurried over to me. ‘Mervyn! Dear Mervyn!’ Suddenly her arms were around me, her lips were on my cheek. ‘It is so sad, sad! I feel deeply for you, Mervyn! You were
a good son, good, good, good!’ Although she had met Ma, she said nothing whatever to her. She even avoided looking at her.

  Tim now at our side, we watched Mrs Pavlovsky trudging up the path from the chapel to the main road. Then I said: ‘Couldn’t we give her a lift? it’s such a long way to the station and there aren’t many buses.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Ma replied, no doubt bruised by Mrs Pavlovsky’s refusal to acknowledge her. ‘I could never stand that woman. Always so greedy for money. And so insincere. She didn’t really care a damn about your father. All she wanted was that rent – which was far too high for that scruffy neighbourhood.’

  Tim took up: ‘Anyway she’d never have been able to fit herself into the back of the old MG. It would be like trying to squeeze an elephant into a rabbit hutch.’

  Ma’s laughter rang out across the now deserted cemetery. ‘Oh, Tim, you do have a wonderful way with words! You should have been a writer, not an actor.’

  ‘Now I’ve got an idea,’ Tim said. ‘How about my driving us down to the Waldorf for tea? Mervyn can eat loads and loads of scones and sandwiches and cakes, and you and I can dance.’

  ‘Lovely!’ Ma exclaimed.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Before we left for Italy, Bob spent the night with us.

  I had suggested to Ma that perhaps Tim could drive over to Victoria Station to meet him off the Bexhill train, but she had said: ‘Don’t be silly! He’s far too busy. Surely your friend can find his own way here? He’s not a child after all.’

  I almost asked what it was that Tim was doing that made him so busy. But I knew that such a question would only upset her. Since he had come to live with us, he had done no work at all, other than unsuccessfully attending an audition for a Cochran review and another for an Ivor Novello musical.

  From the farthest end of the long platform I glimpsed Bob striding out towards the ticket barrier. Even before he himself saw me, he looked extraordinarily eager and happy. He was wearing a Harris tweed jacket over an open-necked shirt, flared grey flannel trousers pinched in at the waist by a snake-belt, gymshoes and a battered trilby hat tipped rakishly over an eyebrow. In one hand was a large suitcase, with a rope knotted around it, and in the other a canvas bag. What would Ma say about his appearance?

  Catching sight of me, he dropped both suitcase and bag and sprinted towards me. ‘Mervyn!’ By now, we called each other by our Christian names when not at Gladbury. He gripped my arm while at the same time shaking my hand. ‘Terrific!’ I knew then that, whereas I was dreading the Como holiday, he was overjoyed by the prospect of it.

  We sat opposite to each other on the 52 bus, talking loudly across its gangway. Passengers scowled at us but neither of us cared. For days now I had been feeling isolated; Ma was so much taken up with Tim that she rarely paid any attention to me; Tim himself, though friendly enough, treated me like a child. Now at last I had a companion. As always, this companion could make me feel far cleverer, far more amusing and far more observant than I ever felt without him.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ Bob eventually said. ‘I only met him that once, at Founder’s Day. But he seemed a decent sort of bloke.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘ Thank you.’ I was embarrassed, as I was always embarrassed when anyone commiserated with me about Dad’s death.

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘Let’s talk about it when we’ve got off the bus.’ I had become aware that a woman on the seat beside him was listening to us avidly.

  ‘Okay.’

  As we trudged along the Bayswater Road, I now carrying the canvas bag for him, he repeated his question: ‘What made him do such a thing?’

  ‘He was pretty unhappy. The War. He couldn’t get over it. And then … my mother …’ I broke off. I did not wish to be disloyal to her, however bitter my thoughts.

  ‘What had she to do with it?’

  ‘Well …’ I hesitated. Then the pressure was too strong. I began to tell him about Ma’s lovers – or, rather, ‘ boyfriends’, as she and therefore I always called them; about her expelling Dad from the house; about her refusal to give him money; about her refusal to visit him.

  To my amazement, he then said: ‘I wonder if you’re not being a little too hard on her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you ought to try to see things from her point of view too. All those years of being married to him couldn’t have been much fun. Could they?’

  ‘No … I suppose not …’

  ‘It’s terribly difficult to live with a neurotic. Everyone knows that. Your mother’s so full of fun, so she’d feel it particularly badly – I mean, the long silences, the depressions, the refusal to do anything,’ He turned his head and peered up into my face. ‘Yes, you really must look at things from her point of view as well.’

  We had entered into the square and were nearing the house.

  ‘Do you live here? In this square?’

  ‘Yes. That’s our house.’ I pointed.

  ‘That? But it’s huge!’

  ‘Yes, it is pretty big.’

  His awe delighted me.

  When I came down to dinner, I at once noticed the polo-neck sweater. It was of light blue silk and, with the money which I had intended for Dad, I had bought it the day before in the Burlington Arcade. Tim was wearing it.

  He laughed, a glass of dry martini in his hand, when he saw me staring at it. Then he said: ‘I hope you don’t mind?’ I did not answer. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I’ve never worn it,’ I said. ‘It’s brand new.’

  ‘Oh, gosh! Have I put up a black? Bella said you wouldn’t mind. I was passing your bedroom and the door was open and there it was lying across the bed. It goes perfectly with these fawn trousers and jacket. They’re brand new too. Bella gave them to me.’

  ‘You should have asked me first.’

  ‘Oh, Mervyn, don’t be such a bore! It’s only a sweater. Tim’s not going to harm it, now is he?’

  ‘He should have asked me,’ I repeated

  ‘Sorry, old boy. Do you want me to take it off?’ I did not reply. ‘Do you?’

  ‘No, of course he doesn’t,’ Ma said. ‘It’s just that he’s in a bad mood. He gets these bad moods – just like his father.’

  ‘Well, Mervyn, let me pour you a dry martini in expiation.’ He picked up the cocktail shaker. ‘I make dry martinis better than anyone else this side of the Atlantic. An American friend taught me how to make them.’ Carefully he began to shave a piece off a lemon with the small, sharp knife which he always used for this purpose. Ma had specially bought it for him.

  Was this the American of whom Ma had been so jealous? I looked over to her to see her reaction; but, lighting a cigarette, she had ceased to take any interest in our conversation.

  ‘I’m not supposed to drink,’ I said sulkily.

  ‘Aren’t you? Oh, dear! I used to drink gin with my mother’s milk … Bella – Mervyn can have a cocktail, can’t he? It is the hols, after all.’

  ‘Oh, give him what he wants,’ Ma said in a cross voice. She dragged at her cigarette in its long amber holder. Then she asked: ‘Where’s your little friend?’

  ‘Having a bath, I think.’

  ‘About time too. He’s terribly grubby. Smelly, as well. When I went into his room to get something from the chest of drawers, the stink was awful. And there were all these filthy clothes lying about, some on a chair but most on the floor. Does he expect Isabel to wash them for him here? Or does he expect the maid at the villa to wash them? Isabel wouldn’t have the time. The maid at the villa may well give notice when faced with such a job.’

  I often told Bob that he was dirty, that he stank, that he really should have a bath and change his clothes. But it was one thing for me to say these things, another for her to do so. I scowled at her in fury.

  Tim handed me a misted glass. ‘That’ll put you in a better mood,’ he said. ‘ Mark my words.’

  At last Bob appeared. His hair, still wet from his bath, was s
leeked down, and he was wearing a suit, the arms and legs of which were far too long for him. In his right hand he was carrying something in a paper bag.

  He went over to Ma. ‘Mrs Frost, I brought you a little present.’ He held out the bag.

  ‘Oh, Bob, how sweet of you! What is it?’

  From the paper bag she drew out a half-pound box of milk chocolates. She turned it over, squinting down. ‘Oh, what a surprise! How did you know that I just love milk chocolates? This is a treat!’

  Bob grinned with pleasure. Ma’s sarcasm was totally lost on him.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Ma was happy, as she went from room to room and then, throwing open the french windows, walked out on to the terrace with its shimmering view of the lake. Tim, Bob and I were following after her.

  ‘Wonderful! it’s even better than I had hoped.’

  ‘It ought to be wonderful at that extortionate price,’ Tim said.

  He had already complained that the car, left by the owners for us to use, was ‘a museum piece’, and that his bedroom, next to Ma’s, overlooked not the lake but the main road – ‘You know I’m a terrible insomniac.’

  About the bedroom Bob had at once volunteered: ‘I don’t mind changing with you. I sleep like a top.’

  But Ma had not in the least cared for this idea. Bob’s and my bedrooms were on the top floor, above hers and Tim’s, and of course she wanted Tim to be next to her. ‘No, no!’ she had snapped fretfully. ‘Let’s leave things as they are. In any case, in a place like this, I’m sure there’s virtually no traffic at night.’

  Now Tim peered down at the motor boat chugging across from the next little town to the landing stage of the one, Bellagio, in which we were staying. ‘That boat’s terribly slow,’ he said.

  ‘Does that matter?’ Ma asked. ‘We’re unlikely to want to go anywhere in a hurry. Oh, Tim, do stop finding fault with everything.’ I had heard her and him bickering in their shared first-class sleeper, and now they were at it again.