They drove straight to the office, and James, after casting a cursory eye over his desk and presenting his secretary with the small bottle of duty-free scent that was no more than her due, took himself down the passage to call on his chairman.
“James! How splendid. Come along in, old boy. How did it go?”
Sir Osborne Baske was not only James’s chairman, but, as well, an old and valued friend. There was, therefore, no need for formal pleasantries or polite small talk, and within half an hour James had him more or less briefed on what had been happening: which firm had shown interest, which had remained cagey. He kept the best till last—namely, the two valuable accounts that were already in the bag: a Swedish firm that made prefabricated knock-down furniture, quality goods, but in the slightly lower price bracket, and an old-established Danish silversmiths which was expanding cautiously throughout all the market countries of the EEC.
Sir Osborne was gratifyingly delighted and could not wait to pass on the good news to the rest of the directors. “There’s a board meeting on Tuesday. Can you get a complete report out by then? Friday if possible. Monday morning at the latest.”
“If I get a clear day tomorrow, I should be able to get it typed on Friday morning, and circulated on Friday afternoon.”
“Splendid. Then they can peruse it during the weekend when they’re not playing golf. And…” But he paused tactfully while James, suddenly overcome by an agonizing sneeze, fumbled for his handkerchief, exploded enormously into it, and blew his nose. “… got a cold, old boy?”
He sounded nervous, as though James might already have infected him. He did not approve of colds, any more than he approved of large waistlines, heavy business lunches, or heart attacks.
“I seem to have caught one,” James admitted.
“Hmm.” The chairman considered. “Tell you what, why don’t you have a day at home tomorrow? You look fairly washed out, and you’ll have more chance of getting that report done in peace without endless interruptions. Let you see something of Louisa, too, after all this time away. What do you say?”
James said he thought it was a splendid idea, which he did.
“That’s arranged then.” Sir Osborne stood up, ending the interview abruptly before any more germs could be released into the sterile air of his palatial office. “If you start off now, you should be home before the worst of the rush-hour traffic. We’ll see you on Friday morning. And if I were you, I’d take care of that cold. Whiskey and lemon, hot, last thing at night. Nothing better.”
Fourteen years earlier, when James and Louisa had first been married, they had lived in London, in a basement flat in South Kensington, but when Louisa became pregnant with the first of their two children, they had made the decision to move out into the country. With some financial juggling, they had achieved this, and not for a single moment had James regretted it. The twice-daily hour-long journey to and from work seemed to him a small price to pay for the sanctuary of the old red brick house and the ample garden, and the simple joy, each evening, of coming home. Commuting, even on roads swollen with traffic, did not dismay him. On the contrary, the hour in the car by himself became his switching-off time, when he put behind him the problems of the day.
In midwinter, in darkness, he would turn into his own gateway and see, through the trees, the light burning over his own front door. In spring, the garden was awash with daffodils; in summer, there was the long drowsy evening to look forward to. A shower, and changing into an open-necked shirt and espadrilles, drinks on the terrace beneath the smoky-blue blossom of the wistaria, and the sound of wood pigeons coming from the beech wood at the bottom of the garden.
The children rode their bicycles around the lawn and swung on the rope ladder that hung from their treehouse, and at weekends the place was usually invaded by friends, either neighbours or refugees from London, bringing their families and their dogs, and everybody lazed in chairs with the Sunday newspapers, or indulged in friendly putting matches on the lawn.
And at the heart of all this was Louisa. Louisa, who never failed to amaze James, because when he had married her, he had done so without the remotest suspicion of the sort of person she had turned out to be. Gentle and undemanding, she had proved, over the years, to have an almost uncanny instinct for home-making. Asked to lay an exact finger on this, James would have been defeated. He only knew that the house, although frequently strewn with children’s toys, shoes, drawings, had about it an ambience of peace and welcome. There always seemed to be flowers about the place, and laughter, and enough food for the extra guests who decided to stay for supper.
But the real miracle was that all this was achieved so unobtrusively. James had stayed in other houses where the woman of the house spent her day looking care-worn, always cleaning and tidying, shutting herself into her kitchen, only to emerge two minutes before the meal was served, and looking exhausted and cross to boot. It wasn’t that Louisa never went into her kitchen, but people were inclined to drift in there after her, carrying their drinks or their knitting, and not minding when she gave them beans to slice or mayonnaise to stir. Children trailed in and out of the garden, and they too would remain, to help shell peas, or to make small pale biscuits out of the scraps of pastry from the apple pie.
Sometimes it occurred to James that Louisa’s life, when compared to his own, must be very dull. “What have you been doing today?” he would ask when he got home, but “Nothing much” was all she ever told him.
It was still raining, the afternoon sliding into early dark. Now he had reached Henborough, the last small town on the main road before turning to their own village. The traffic lights showed red, and he stopped the car alongside a flower shop. Inside he saw pots of red tulips, freesia, narcissus. He thought of buying Louisa flowers, but then the lights turned green, and he forgot about the flowers and moved forward with the rest of the traffic.
It was still light as he came up the drive between the clumps of rhododendron. He eased the car into the garage, turned off the engine, collected his luggage from the boot, and let himself in through the kitchen door. Rufus, who was a spaniel and getting on in years, let out a warning “woof” from his basket, and James’s wife looked up from her seat at the kitchen table, where she was drinking a mug of tea.
“Darling!”
How wonderful to be so welcomed. “Surprise, surprise.” He put down his case, and she got to her feet and they met in the middle of the floor and lost themselves in an enormous hug. He could feel the fragile bones of her ribs through her old blue pullover. She smelt delicious, vaguely of bonfires.
“You’re early.”
“I escaped before the rush hour.”
“How was Europe?”
“Still there.” He held her off. “Something is wrong.”
“What could be wrong?”
“You tell me. No bicycles abandoned in the middle of the garage, no chatter of highly pitched voices, no little gangs darting around the garden. No children.”
“They’ve gone down to Hamble to stay with Helen.” Helen was Louisa’s sister. “You knew they were going.”
He had known. He had simply forgotten.
“I thought you’d probably murdered them and buried them in the compost heap.”
She was frowning. “Have you got a cold?”
“Yes. I found it lurking somewhere between Oslo and Brussels.”
“Oh, poor old thing.”
“Not poor old thing at all. It means that I’m not going to London tomorrow. I am going to stay here, in the bosom of my wife, and write my EEC report at the dining room table.” He kissed her again. “I missed you. Do you know that? I really missed you. Incredible. What’s for dinner?”
“Steaks.”
Better and better. He said it. “Better and better.” He opened his briefcase and gave her the bottle of scent (a larger size than his secretary’s), received her grateful embrace, and then took himself upstairs to unpack, undress, and soak in a hot bath.
* * *
The next morning James awoke to pale sunshine and a marvelous silence broken only by the faint tweetings of bird song. He opened his eyes and saw that he was alone in his bed, and only the dent in the other pillow bore witness to the presence of Louisa. He realised, with some surprise, that he could not remember when he had ever taken a day off during the week. Revelling in idleness, he felt youthful, like a schoolboy with an unexpected holiday. He groped a hand under his pillow and pulled out his watch and saw that it was eight-thirty. Bliss. The hot whisky and lemon consumed the night before had done their work, and his cold was in retreat, vanquished. He got up, shaved and dressed and went downstairs, and found his wife in the kitchen sipping her coffee.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Like a man reborn. Cold’s all gone.”
She went to the stove. “Bacon and eggs?”
“Perfect.” He reached for the morning paper. Normally he read the morning paper when he got home in the evening. There was something almost obscenely luxurious about reading it at leisure at his own breakfast table. He scanned the stock market, the cricket, finally the headlines. Louisa began to stack the washing-up machine. James looked at her.
“Doesn’t Mrs. Brick stack the dishwasher?”
Mrs. Brick was the plumber’s wife from the village who helped Louisa with the housework. One of the good things about Saturday mornings was that Mrs. Brick came, to race around behind the vacuum cleaner and fill the house with the good smell of floor polish.
“Mrs. Brick doesn’t come on Thursdays. She doesn’t come on Wednesdays or Mondays either.”
“Hasn’t she ever?”
“No. Never.” Louisa put down his bacon and eggs in front of him and poured him a large cup of black coffee. “I’ll turn the heater on in the dining room. It’s icy in there.” She drifted off, presumably to see to this. Presently the sound of the vacuum cleaner disturbed the morning air. Work, it seemed to say. Work, work. James took the hint, collected his briefcase and his calculator, and made his way to the dining room. Morning sunshine streamed through the long windows. He opened his briefcase and spread its contents about him. This, he thought, putting on his spectacles, is what life is all about. No interruptions, no telephone.
Instantly the telephone rang. He raised his head and heard Louisa go to answer it. A long time later, it seemed, there was a single ring as the call was concluded. The vacuum cleaner started up its hum once more. James returned to work.
Presently there came a new sound to obtrude the morning hush. A churning and whirring came from some distant spot, which after consideration James identified as the washing machine. He wrote North of England. Total Coverage.
And then, in close succession, two more telephone calls. Louise dealt with all of them, but the fourth time it rang, she did not answer it. James tried to ignore the insistent bell, but after a little while, exasperated, he pushed his chair back from the table and charged out across the hall to the sitting room.
“Yes?”
A timid voice said, “Oh. Hello.”
“Who is it?” barked James.
“Well, I think perhaps I must have the wrong number. Are you Henborough 384?”
“Yes, that’s right. James Harner here.”
“I wanted Mrs. Harner.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“It’s Miss Bell speaking. It’s about the church flowers for next Sunday. Mrs. Harner and I always do the flowers together, you see, and I thought perhaps that this Sunday she wouldn’t mind if I asked her to do them with Mrs. Sheepfold, and then I could do them next week with the rector’s wife. You see, it’s my sister’s daughter…”
It seemed time to stop the flow. “Look, Miss Bell, if you just hold on I’ll see if I can find Louisa. Don’t ring off. I shan’t be a moment…”
He laid down the receiver and went into the hall. “Louisa!” No reply. Into the kitchen. “Louisa!”
A faint cry came through to him from behind the back door. He went out and ran his wife to earth on the back lawn, pegging out what seemed to be a Chinese laundry-worth of washing. “What is it?”
He said, “Miss Bell is on the telephone.” Then, diverted, he grinned. “Tell me, Mrs. Harner, how do you get your washing so white?”
Louisa was bang on cue. “Oh, I use Sploosh,” she replied in the faintly whining voice of the woman in the television commercial. “It makes even my husband’s undies shining clean, and everything smells so fresh. What does Miss Bell want?”
“Something about her sister’s daughter and the vicar’s wife. That telephone’s never stopped ringing all morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not at all. But I’m mad with curiosity to know why you’re so popular.”
“Well, the first call was Helen to say the children were still alive. And then it was the vet to say it’s time Rufus had another injection. And then it was Elizabeth Thomson wanting us to go to dinner next Tuesday week. Did you tell Miss Bell I’d ring her back?”
“No, I told her to hold on. She’s holding on now.”
“Oh, James.” Louisa dried her hands on her apron. “Why didn’t you say?” She went indoors. James tried his hand at hanging out a sock or two, but it was dull and fiddly work, so he abandoned it and went back to his makeshift desk.
He wrote another heading and underlined it beautifully in red ink. It was nearly half-past ten, and he wondered whether Louisa would remember to bring him a cup of coffee.
* * *
By midday the need for refreshment would no longer be ignored. He laid down his pen, took off his spectacles, and leaned back in his chair. All was quiet. He got to his feet, went out into the hall, and stood at the foot of the stairs with his ear cocked, like a dog expecting to be taken for a walk. “Louisa!”
“I’m here.”
“Where’s here?”
“In the nursery bathroom.”
James trod up the stairs in search of her. The nursery bathroom door was shut, and when he opened it her voice warned, “Do be careful,” so he was, cautiously peering around the edge of the door. There were dust sheets on the floor and the step ladder had been set up, and on the top of it was his wife, engaged in painting the wooden pelmet at the top of the window. The window was open, but still the smell of paint was very strong. It was also extremely cold.
James shivered. “What on earth are you doing now?”
“Painting the pelmet.”
“I can see that. But why? Wasn’t it all right before?”
“You never saw it before because it was covered with a sort of frill with bobbles on.”
He remembered the sort of frill. He said, “What’s happened to it?”
“Well, with the children away, I decided it was a good time to wash the bathroom curtains, so I did, and I washed the pelmet too, but it had a sort of backing, and it went all gluey, and all the bobbles began to come off, so I’ve thrown it in the dustbin and now I’m painting the pelmet underneath to match the rest of the paintwork and then it won’t show.”
James thought about this and then he said, “I see.”
“Did you want something?” She was obviously longing to get on with the job.
“No, not really. I just thought a cup of coffee would be nice.”
“Oh, sorry. I never thought. I never make any for myself unless Mrs. Brick is here.”
“Oh. Well, never mind. Anyway,” he added hopefully, “it’ll soon be lunchtime.” He was getting hungry. He went back to his report, helping himself to an apple from the bowl on the sideboard. Settling down once more to his slide rule and his calculator, he hoped that lunch would be something hot and meaty.
* * *
Soon Louisa could be heard coming back downstairs, cautiously, which meant that she was carrying the stepladder and the paint can, which, in turn, meant that she had finished painting the pelmet. He heard kitchen drawers open and shut, saucepans clatter, a mixer drone. Presently a delicious smell permeated through to where James laboured: fr
ying onions, the tang of green peppers, enough to make any man’s juices run. He finished his paragraph, drew another neat line, and decided that he had earned himself a drink.
In the kitchen, he came up behind Louisa as she stood at the stove, put his arms around her waist, and peered over her shoulder at the delicious casserole she was stirring.
He said, “That looks like an awful lot for two people.”
“Who said it was for two people? It’s for twenty people.”
“You mean we’re expecting eighteen guests for lunch?”
“No. I mean that we have twenty for Sunday lunch the weekend after next.”
“But you’re cooking it now.”
“Yes, I know. It’s a moussaka. And when I’ve finished it, I put it in the deep freeze, and then the day before the lunch party I take it out, and hey presto.”
“But what are we going to eat for lunch today?”
“You can have anything you like. Soup. Bread. Cheese. A boiled egg.”
“A boiled egg?”
“What did you expect?”
“Roast lamb. Chops. Apple pie.”
“James, we never have great big lunches like that.”
“Yes, we do. At weekends we do.”
“Weekends are different. At weekends we eat scrambled eggs for supper. On weekdays it’s the other way around.”
“Why?”
“Why? So that you can have a good meal at night when you come struggling home from the office, careworn and fatigued. That’s why.”
She had a point there. James sighed and watched while she seasoned the moussaka. Salt, pepper, a pinch of mixed herbs. His juices started to run again. He said, “Couldn’t I have a little of that for my lunch?”
Louisa said, “No.” He thought she was being very mean. To cheer himself up he got ice out of the refrigerator and poured himself a restoring gin and tonic. With this in his hand he made his way to the sitting room, intending to sit by the fire and finish the morning paper until such time as his lunch should be ready.
But no fire burned in the sitting-room grate and the atmosphere was chill and cheerless.
“Louisa!”
“Yes?” Was it his imagination, or was she beginning to sound just the slightest bit impatient?
The Blue Bedroom: & Other Stories Page 3
