Easy Silence

by Angela Huth

  Lucien stamped his foot. Nails in the sole of his boot made an ominous clash on the pavement.

  ‘I’ve been here and there. Thought I’d send you a signal, though. You know me–signals. That’s what everything’s about, signals, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Grace, after a while. ‘Were you to ask me about my Christmas - ‘

  ‘–I’m so sorry, I–’

  ‘Were you to ask me about my Christmas … well. Bloody nightmare.’ Lucien searched in the deep pocket of the wolf-like coat, found a loose cigarette, lit it with the last match in a crumpled pack. Inhaling, he tossed the empty pack into someone’s garden. The puff of smoke, paler than the sky, which whistled down through his nostrils, had an evil smell that Grace could not quite distinguish. Sour milk, sweat, gutters. ‘Lobelia was out of her head. Jewels, lace stockings, silver eyelids, prancing a-bloody about. Fridge door kept bursting open, so much stuff. She gave me a poncy scarf, silk one side, cashmere the other. Can you imagine? I’ve just been and flogged it.–I couldn’t stand the whole scene. I left. Went to London.’

  ‘I’m sorry’ said Grace. Standing still, the weather had begun to bite into her. She put her hands in her pockets, shifted her weight. Her feet were so cold she could not feel them.

  ‘So,’ said Lucien, inhaling ostentatiously again, ‘are you not going to ask me back for a cup of tea, this bloody freezing morning?’ He gave her one of his most endearing smiles. But behind the question Grace saw a hint of mockery. An array of alternative replies flared through her mind. One thing was quite sure: she could not answer truthfully. Lucien would have no patience with William’s presence as an excuse.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s the perfect time,’ she said with a small frown to indicate she wished it were–‘I’m on my way to the surgery. Got to get this ankle looked at …’

  This time Lucien’s smile was nakedly mocking. He nodded several times.

  ‘Aren’t you going in the wrong direction?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just going round the block, seeing how I got on. I mean, if it didn’t hurt too much then I wouldn’t have bothered the doctor. As it is, it does …’ She trailed off, wishing now she had told the truth.

  Lucien seemed convinced. His scorn melted fast.

  ‘Sorry I doubted you,’ he said. “S’matter of fact, I was thinking of coming round to pass on an invitation. Seems Lobelia is all psyched up to meet you. Really wants to. Tea and cakes and stuff. What d’you think?’

  Grace swallowed.

  ‘That would be nice, sometime.’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘Why not?’ Lucien’s look challenged her. ‘Get it over with.’

  William never asked where she was going in the afternoons. She had nothing planned. She could, in all truth, get her ankle bandaged at the surgery: Lucien’s house was only a few yards down the road. Besides, she was curious, always had been, about the dreadful Lobelia. She had been looking forward to this invitation, had almost given it up. The idea, though unnerving in its spontaneity, was appealing.

  ‘I think I could manage that,’ she said. ‘About four o’clock, shall we say?’

  Lucien nodded. He ground the half-smoked cigarette into the pavement.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though. She’s off her trolley. She’s a whore, a self-obsessed trollop only after one thing–

  ‘Lucien.’ Grace put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Well, two things. Money comes into it.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge for myself. No need to go on.’

  ‘As for her appearance–you’ll be shocked. Don’t know how you’ll manage to keep a straight face.’

  ‘I expect I’ll manage.’ Grace wanted to be on her way, now. The cold was dreadful, and there were so many things to reflect upon before the visit this afternoon. ‘I must–’

  ‘You be on your way. I’ll tell Lobelia to get out the red carpet. May see you there.’ Another thought occurred to him. ‘Mind you, if you two get together, where does that leave me?’

  He swung round on a heel, hunched his shoulders and strode off down the road. Despite the cold, longing to move to restart her circulation, Grace remained where she was for a few moments, staring at his receding figure. It was hard to know what to make of the meeting. Lucien had done nothing to assure her their friendship had resumed. Rather, he had given the impression that although he was not displeased to see her, and had carried out a duty by asking her to come and meet Lobelia at last, she had become part of the flotsam of his past. Not needed any longer.

  After a while she turned back in the direction of home, heart still battering.

  It came to William, in the blessed silence of his study, that to ring Bonnie and enquire after her Christmas would not be untoward. There would be no reason for her to suppose that his call was spurred from any motive other than friendliness. There was a rehearsal tomorrow morning, but he did not think he could survive another day without hearing her voice. Besides, in the long sleepless hours of the night, the thought returned to him that before he made another attempt to expunge Grace, he should be quite sure that Bonnie would be willing to take her place. It would indeed be foolish to murder a much loved wife and be left with nothing. But in the early days of his obsession with Bonnie, his own crazed desire had blasted all reason. He had been foolish–he now saw–in his blindness. And even as this new uncertainty about Bonnie’s willingness to be part of his plan grew, so did he find that the desire to murder his wife was on the wane. His New Year’s resolution, he decided, was to make assurance double sure. If Bonnie gave any further hint that his feelings were reciprocated, and she fancied spending her life with him, then he would make just one more attempt at the foul deed. But if there was any doubt, then he would let the whole matter rest: continue to want her, from afar, but remain with his dear, good Ace.

  William made a place for himself on the sofa between the piles of music. He put the telephone on his lap. His hands were unsteady–he was beginning to realise that general shakiness of limb was the price of a troubled conscience. He tried to think of things to calm himself: waterfalls, the shade of willows, cucumber sandwiches. He pictured Grace at work downstairs, earnest little head bent over her daisies. Since the dreadful Lucien had ceased his morning visits, she had retained her old serenity over the toast and marmalade. Much less fidgety, thank goodness. Less flicking her eyes towards the window, thinking her anticipation went unobserved. William appreciated that the repellent lout was Grace’s latest good cause, but she’d done more than her bit for him. His sudden disappearance was a merciful relief. If he ever returned … William would be bound to express his opinion very firmly.

  He picked up the telephone, hand still fretting. Dialled Bonnie’s number–engraved more deeply than any other number had ever been in his memory. She sounded breathless: the delicious breath-lessness he knew so well when she dashed in, never quite late, for rehearsals, bosom erupting gently under angora of opal grey, or a childish blue or pink–

  ‘William! Sweet of you to ring. How are you? How was your Christmas?’

  ‘Quiet. I was just ringing to enquire after yours. No trouble in Northumberland?’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘I mean, you had a good time? Family all well?’ Here, he was presuming she had a family. He had no idea what it consisted of, apart from her mother. How pathetically little he knew of her.

  ‘All great, thanks. We had snow. Wonderful. I walked the dogs for miles over the hills. Needed the exercise.’

  ‘Ah.’ He could just see her: bunched up in warm jackets and scarves, storming up the stony hillsides, dimples ablaze, sheep scattering, dogs–Great Danes, Labradors, wolfhounds?–the background barking he so often heard meant nothing to him–bounding about beside her. He wasn’t a dog man, could only guess she was not a lapdog girl. God what he would have done to march beside her holding her cold little hand–or, more likely, not holding it.

  ‘And you?’
/>   William, entangled in his fantasy, floundered for a moment.

  ‘Dorset,’ he said at last. Heavens, he must pull himself together or the girl would think something was amiss.

  ‘Bet you and Grace didn’t do much walking. I can’t imagine you walking.’

  ‘We did a bit … up the cliffs. But, Bonnie …’ He squeezed shut his eyes, fighting to control his voice. ‘I know there’s a rehearsal tomorrow. But it happens I have to come into Aylesbury this afternoon to the dentist.’ He was so shocked by this unexpected, unpremeditated lie that he had to stop. What on earth was he saying? But yet again having entered in so far, he could only continue.

  ‘Poor you. Something bad?’

  ‘Nothing very much. It was just that when it’s over it occurred to me that I should avail myself of the opportunity to be given a tour of your flat …’

  ‘William! Honestly!’ Bonnie laughed. ‘I thought I’d managed to cure you of your verbal flatulence. A few days apart, and back it comes. What you mean is, you want to drop in for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Would that be convenient?’

  ‘Why not?’ Her voice had surely lost a little of its bounce. Should he retract the suggestion.

  ‘I mean it was only a silly idea. I wouldn’t want to impose.’

  ‘It’s a lovely idea. I’ll expect you whenever.’ She gave him the address, said she had to dash, her voice full of warmth and friendliness again. And in just four hours he would be with her, alone.

  The thought left William incapable of any immediate action. He flung himself further back into the sofa, aware that hundreds of sheets of music were falling, slipping over him, scattering on the floor. He shut his eyes, the better to imagine: but not to imagine too far. What would happen? Would there be a chance at last to declare himself? Could he extract from Bonnie some inkling of what she might feel for him? Dear God: it would probably be his only chance. He prayed that the right words would come to him, and that the chance would not be wasted.

  William had merely picked at his fishcakes at lunch. Grace’s pale face signalled her surprise: she was used to appreciation–daily appreciation, he had learnt, brought its rewards–for her cooking. Perhaps, though, he thought, it was her ankle that hurt more than her feelings. But in his hurry to be off he somehow forgot to ask how it was, now tightly bandaged. And Grace said nothing. Dear Grace.

  In his state of nervous excitement his driving suffered. Every few yards he seemed to do something that annoyed other drivers. People hooted and signalled rudely at him–all very puzzling considering his careful keeping to the kerb at a very slow speed. Eventually, partly because he was far too early, and partly to seek a few moments’ respite from taunts of the modern motorist, he drew into a garage There, as always, he had trouble filling the car with petrol. He had written several letters, both to The Times and the Minister of Transport, suggesting that the return of attendants to fill cars for customers would be a step back towards the decent service motorists had been accustomed to a couple of decades ago–but had received scant gratitude for his idea. Hands still unsteady, he did his best. But the eager pump fulfilled its job long before William had expected, gushing wasted petrol not only over the flanks of the small car, but also over both legs of his trousers. There was nothing he could do, he realised, about smelling of petrol–the sort of thing Bonnie would notice and perhaps notch up as incompetence on his part. He would just have to make a joke of it. Self–mockery, lightly put, usually worked in such circumstances.

  To fill more time, William studied flowers in their Cellophane cones, lined up on a bank of green plastic shelves on the forecourt. Daisies, chrysanthemums, and the odd freesia bowed among dull greenery, a couple of bunches of those roses he had never seen growing on any bush–two feet of stalk topped with a hard nipple, no less, of dark, scentless flower that never opened. Where did they come from, such roses? Who on earth found them desirable? Bonnie would know such flowers were garage flowers, but perhaps if he bought her enough she would still be quite pleased. He banged round his pockets for his wallet.

  Moments later he found himself stuffing half a dozen lustreless bunches on to the back shelf of the car. He realised too late that his view was now impaired, and would cause further hazards. But he had not the heart to stop and rearrange them, and continued on his careful way.

  Despite his lingering, William arrived half an hour before the appointed hour. This was a good thing, he thought: he’d have time to calm down. Perhaps to work out his approach–though each time he tried to calculate what that might be, in the last few hours, his mind had turned to an unhelpful blank.

  He parked very skilfully alongside the kerb a few yards from the small fifties block of flats about which Bonnie had enthused on a number of occasions. To the untrained eye it looked pretty ordinary. A narrow strip of grass and just one weeping silver birch divided the communal front door from the road. No view to speak of. But Bonnie must have rented it for its convenience to Grant’s barn and rehearsals, and no doubt it was a great deal cheaper than whatever she had left in London. However unprepossessing inside, she would have made it agreeable, of course. William had complete faith in Bonnie’s taste (based only on her velvet evening dresses and her choice of biscuits when it was her turn to go out for elevenses). He watched the hands of the car clock creep intolerably slowly towards three thirty, and wondered for how long his heart could bash so hard without exploding.

  Bonnie’s flat was on the first floor. There was no lift. William clattered up the lino–tiled stairs, one hand on the wall for steadiness. Then he was there, outside her front door. A cheap, uniform front door, no embellishments, but painted the grey of so many of her jumpers. Trust Bonnie to choose such a colour to distinguish her territory … To while away just one more moment before ringing the bell, William glanced up at the floor above. Its front door was an identical grey … With a pang of melancholy William was forced to assume this was a regulation colour for all front doors in the block. Strange how profound love endows the object with all manner of mistaken attributes, he thought, and rang the bell.

  Bonnie faced him before he had a moment to compose himself. There was a brief flash of her beaming face, then her arms were round his neck, noisy kisses on his cheeks. She smelt of summer flowers–sweet peas, perhaps, though there was also a hint of onion, of garlic.

  ‘A visit at last,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d never come. You and Rufus–you haven’t exactly shown much interest in my new flat. You haven’t exactly been pressing for invitations, have you?’ The dimples flashed, William shook his head, registering the fact that Grant did not come into the category of friends who had shown no interest in her new habitat. But then obviously … it was Grant’s friend who owned the flat, Grant who found it for her. No doubt she had rewarded him with the occasional drink, or supper. William did not like to think how many times–though innocently–Grant had been round. He did not want to calculate the depth of Grant’s acquaintance with Bonnie’s dream flat.

  William followed her into the sitting room, ungrounded by the warmth of her welcome.

  ‘Well, this is it. Nothing very grand, as you can see. Sit yourself down. I’ll make a pot of tea.’

  No, it was nothing very grand, William was bound to admit–indeed nothing very memorable or even particularly agreeable. A very standard room, in William’s opinion–low ceiling, rather grubby white walls, random bits of furniture, uncomfortable–looking chairs, a dying pot plant at the blank little window. Altogether disappointing, surprising. William had been so sure that however fundamentally plain her apartment, Bonnie would have made it into a sort of magic cave of warmth and colour. He had imagined bright cushions, lively pictures, a mass of plants. As it was the room indicated nothing of Bonnie’s life. You could never have guessed she was so good at velvet dresses and delicious biscuits. But then perhaps she just hadn’t had the time to start work on it yet: or perhaps she could not be bothered. In any case, it was of no consequence. The fact was he was
here at last, and he must take his chance.

  Bonnie was pouring boiling water into a teapot in the kitchen end of the room. He saw she had laid a small tin tray with two cups and a plate of ginger biscuits–the especial thin ones that she always managed to find.

  ‘I have to say I’m feeling pretty low,’ she said.

  William’s heart leapt. He was good at ministering to those in a miserable state. There had been many occasions on which his sympathetic listening had apparently been of great help. He knew the best thing was not to enquire why her state of gloom had come about. She would tell him in her own time.

  ‘I had to make the decision to leave the dogs in the north,’ she said after a long moment of sad reflection. ‘It simply wasn’t practical having them here. No time ever to exercise them properly, and there’d been complaints from the neighbours about their barking.’

  As high as William’s heart had leapt at the thought of her predicament, now he knew its cause it plummeted equally low. There was very little he could do to console someone for the absence of a dog–consolation that came from the heart, that was. He hated dogs. Indeed he had often thought that should Bonnie ever agree to his proposal, the problem of the dogs was one he would dread confronting.

  ‘I’m so very sorry,’ he said, ‘but I daresay they’re much happier in Northumberland, all those walks.’ He hoped he sounded suitably dolorous.

  ‘I miss them dreadfully.’

  ‘I bet you do.’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Bonnie nodded towards the low armchair beside the electric fire. Its wicker bones were covered with a colourless rug made pale with white dogs’ hair. Having no wish to add to the mess of his petrol-stained trousers, William chose instead the slightly more buoyant looking sofa, half occupied by Bonnie’s viola. Its springs squawked as he sat, reminding him of the sofa at home. Dog talk now out of the way–with any luck Bonnie would spare him the details of her loss–he felt happier, though uncertain as to how to proceed.

  Bonnie settled in the dog chair, put the tray down on a low table of faux wood and spindly legs, much like one he had once seen in Grant’s barn. She was lit from the silky grey light that came through the high window. Even in its poor wattage her hair shone like a bird’s wing, the fringe so long that as usual it all but hid her eyes. It was all William could do not to leap up and ravish her, clutch her round body to him till she squealed for more. He shifted. Above her, on the shelf above the fire, was a photograph of her and a good–looking man, arms about each other. Bonnie followed his look.