MAVIS’ LAST WORDS pricked horribly into Claudia’s elation, and she felt suddenly depressed and uneasy. Was it fear for her loved ones? Oddly, it felt more like anger—as if Mavis was deliberately, spitefully, trying to deprive her of something. Well, not deliberately, Claudia corrected herself hastily; poor Mavis’ spitefulness was unconscious, of course. But it was there, all the same—Claudia saw it clearly now. With subconscious malice, Mavis was hinting that all the courage, all the resourcefulness, might, in the event, have to be displayed by someone else, not Claudia at all.
“Nonsense!” she said sharply. “Of course I shall be there when he comes! He’ll phone, naturally. I’m the one he wants to see, after all. And as for Mother (somehow the picture of Mother being the brave one, the heroine of the drama, rankled most of all), if Mother’s scared, why, she needn’t come down and meet him at all! She can just stay up in her own room until he’s gone!”
By now they were indoors, in the hall, which, rather surprisingly, was pitch dark. Claudia felt her way across to the light and switched it on. Blinking in the sudden glare, she peered at her watch. “Only a quarter past eleven,” she said to Mavis, in a somewhat lowered voice. “I suppose everyone must have gone to bed early for once. I’m rather glad, really, I was afraid we were going to walk back into a right row with Mother about Helen’s not being in yet. Mother makes such a fuss always. It’s crazy, really, the girl’s fifteen already—she’s almost grown up. Let’s make some coffee. I feel like some proper, strong coffee to wash away the taste of that dishwater tea of Daphne’s!”
“And is she in?” Mavis was following Claudia into the bright, well-equipped kitchen, which had been left scrubbed and tidy as always, and smelling faintly of Vim. Mother was certainly a blessing in a kitchen, in spite of her tempers and her fusses.
“Is who in?” asked Claudia absently, rummaging in the glass wall-cupboard for coffee. “Real or Ness?”
“Real—if it’s not too much trouble,” answered Mavis deprecatingly, and then resumed, with timid perseverance: “Helen, I mean. You were saying Mrs Newman would make a fuss about her—is she in?”
“Oh. Helen. Yes.” Claudia emerged from the cupboard, clutching the required tin. “Oh, yes, I feel sure she is. She must be. Mother would never have switched out all the lights if Helen wasn’t in. In fact, she wouldn’t have gone to bed at all, she’d be right here, this minute, in her slippers and her dressing-gown, nagging me about it. It’s always like that—you’re usually in bed yourself, Mavis, by then, so you don’t notice it; but honestly, I sometimes wonder if I can put up with it much longer. It’s getting me down—it really is!”
To both of them, there was a lovely cosy sound to the words—the prospect of a real, long, heart-to-heart talk about how difficult Mother was getting. This was a subject on which Mavis was always at her very, very best—a marvellous companion. But by tacit agreement, they did not pursue the subject immediately; wait till the coffee was ready, the cups set out, the chairs drawn up to the table—… Now, now at last, full, total enjoyment could be derived from Mother’s shortcomings.
“You see,” Claudia began, stirring her coffee slowly, almost voluptuously, “I do try to understand Mother’s point of view in this. I really do. I tell myself that she’s old; that she’s out of touch with the modern generation. That she herself had such a narrow, repressed girlhood that she’s been—in a way—crippled for life. Mentally crippled. It’s not her fault at all. I tell myself all this, and I try to feel sorry for her—I do feel sorry for her. But all the same, however little it’s really her fault, it still comes rather hard on me. Sometimes I just don’t know where to turn—nobody understands the burden it lays on me—”
“Oh, but I do understand—of course I understand!” Mavis’ words seemed almost to fall over each other in her eagerness to show herself on Claudia’s side, an understanding friend. “I’ve watched you sometimes, Claudia, and I could cry for you, I really could. When your mother is being so unreasonable, and you so patient all the time, and so understanding. As you say, you do understand her point of view, such as it is. But, of course, you mustn’t give in to her about this sort of thing. It wouldn’t be right. After all, it’s Helen’s life and happiness that must be considered. Your mother’s had her life!”
“Of course! That’s just it!” cried Claudia, enchanted by the sound of all her own sentiments pouring forth so accurately from Mavis’ lips. “It’s Helen. If it was just me who suffered I might give in, just for the sake of family peace. But it isn’t. It’s Helen. She must be allowed the freedom suitable for a girl of her age, she must! When I remember what I suffered from these restrictions of Mother’s! Only, I was different, you see, I had the strength to break away. I don’t think Helen has. She’s more like Derek that way. But anyway, that makes it all the more important for me to stick to my guns—fight her battles for her, you might say, until she’s strong enough to fight them for herself. And so that’s what I do. Well, you’ve watched me, Mavis, haven’t you, a hundred times. But then, sometimes, I get quite furious, I can’t help it, and I think, well, hang it all, she’s my child, why should there have to be any battles? Why can’t I say what she can or can’t do, like any other mother? It seems outrageous that her grandmother should have any say in the matter at all! Don’t you think so?”
“Well, of course it is!” agreed Mavis vehemently. “And I can see just how it happens! Just because your mother does most of the housework, and looked after Helen so much when she was little, she thinks she can interfere with everything! And it’s not only Helen, either, that she thinks she knows best about. She’d like to tell me to get out of the house. That I do know!”
Mavis took another sip of her coffee: aggrieved and exultant, she peeped under her eyelashes, awaiting confidently Claudia’s response.
“No! But the cheek of it!” cried Claudia. “How dare she—a friend of mine—whom I’ve specially invited! Do you mean—has she said anything?”
“No. Oh no.” Mavis seemed to bask in Claudia’s indignation like a lizard in the sun. “She doesn’t say anything—she wouldn’t you know. It might be better if she did, really, then we could have a flaming row, and it would clear the air—” Although Mavis had never been known to venture so much as an argument with the laundry about a lost pillow slip, she had nevertheless adopted wholesale Claudia’s belief in the salutary nature of flaming rows, and now quoted it—most flatteringly—as if it was her own. “But of course, your mother would never speak out plainly,” she finished, confident of Claudia’s approval, “She’s too repressed.”
“I know—that’s part of the trouble,” agreed Claudia. “And since she can’t be honest and direct, she has to be spiteful. There’s not much you can tell me about Mother’s devious methods! But what has she been doing, exactly? Hinting? Being beastly?”
“Well—I suppose it’s silly of me” began Mavis, assured that Claudia would think it nothing of the kind—“But I did think, this afternoon—well—I don’t quite know how to put it, but she did make me feel awfully unwelcome at lunch today. And it’s not as if she’d had to cook it for me. I kept telling her I hadn’t expected it—I was as nice as I could be about it. I don’t know, I suppose I must have upset her in some way. I suppose it must have been my fault somehow.”
Again a safe supposition: smugly expectant, Mavis sipped her coffee and waited for Claudia’s denial.
“Of course it wasn’t your fault, Mavis! I know just what she’s like! And I think I know what started her off, too—it was a row she had with me in the morning. No, nothing to do with you or Eddie, Mavis, nothing at all. She wouldn’t dare start that again, after what I told her last time. No, it was just this business about selling the field. She knew really that she was in the wrong, of course, and naturally that made her feel all the more frustrated, and determined to take it out on somebody! And I’m afraid that the somebody was you, this time, my poor Mavis. I’m so sorry! What did she do, exactly?”
“Oh—it’s hard to explain, really—you know how she can be. Sort of cold. Scornful. Nothing I could do or say was right. She even bit my head off when I remarked what a fine day it was! Of course, I know you warned me when I first came that she was bound to be a bit prejudiced against a woman in my position—but I’d never have believed it could go on like this! For months and months! It’s—it’s …”
“Obsessional!” Claudia supplied the word eagerly. “Of course it is. She is obsessional. And that’s why you mustn’t ever let yourself be hurt by it, Mavis, because you see—”
“Oh, I know, Claudia. I’m not hurt! Not a bit. I understand absolutely. I’m like you—when she attacks me in that unreasonable way, I just feel terribly sorry for her. Just the way you do.”
She paused to sip her coffee, and the ensuing silence was electric with them both feeling terribly sorry for Mother, with tiny, satisfied smiles on their faces. It was like a moment of religious communion, so complete was their spiritual accord.
“Well. Anyway.” Claudia yawned, tired suddenly, but with a pleasant, satisfying tiredness. Her day had been well spent. “I suppose we should be going to bed, really. Work tomorrow! For me, anyway!”
“Yes, oh yes. I mustn’t keep you up!” Mavis scrambled apologetically to her feet, and began conveying the cups, the milk jug, the coffee pot, one at a time, across to the sink. Claudia meantime moved briskly from room to room, plumping up cushions, emptying ashtrays, closing windows.
“Aren’t you going to bolt the front door?” enquired Mavis anxiously, just as Claudia set off up the stairs.
“Why—no,” said Claudia, “I think I’ll leave it tonight—just in case Helen still isn’t in.”
“But I thought you said she was?” objected Mavis, a little stupidly, Claudia thought.
“Well—yes. I do think she is really. I’m almost sure she is. But she just mightn’t be, you know, and it would be an awful pest to have to get up and let her in, now wouldn’t it? Apart from the fact that if she has to ring the bell, Mother will wake up, and note the time on her watch, and spend the rest of the night in prurient speculation! She knows Helen has been out with Clive, you see, and you can just imagine what her repressed old mind is going to make of that if she hears her coming in after midnight. I’d never hear the last of it—and nor would poor Helen. So I propose to leave well alone, and just pray that Helen will remember to come in quietly. I expect she will—she’s got the measure of her grandma, has our Helen, for all her pretty ways with the old dear!” Claudia laughed, softly, and turned to continue her way up the stairs; but again Mavis called her back.
“But Claudia,” she urged, still hovering uneasily in the hall. “Couldn’t you go to Helen’s room and see if she’s in or not? Then we could bolt the door as usual. I wish you would. Please!”
“What, and have Helen think I’m spying on her comings and goings, just like her grandmother? No, thank you, Mavis, dear, not even for you! Besides, Mother would be bound to hear me going to Helen’s room and she’d jump to the conclusion that I’m secretly just as anxious about Helen as she is! I’m not going to give her a feather like that to wear in her cap for the rest of our lives! So do come on and go to bed, and stop hovering there like that. What are you worrying about, anyway? It’s often been left unbolted before.”
Mavis looked up at her, hesitating. If there were such a thing as a colourless blush, then that was what you would have said was suffusing her white, exhausted face.
“But tonight, Claudia! Just tonight. I mean—that peculiar young man this evening, now that he knows our address …”
“Oh, Mavis! I don’t know how you can be so stupid! What would he come for? Even criminals have to have a motive, you know; so unless you’ve got the Crown Jewels hidden away in that hatbox of yours, and have told him so into the bargain …! I mean—honestly!”
Mavis positively shrank down there in the shadowy midnight spaces of the hall. You could see that she was appalled at the way her ill-timed timidity had broken the rapport that had been flowing so pleasantly between her and Claudia over coffee this evening. Serve her right; she must learn to be a little bit tougher thought Claudia, and then relented.
“Never mind. Cheer up, Mavis,” she called softly over the banisters. “I promise you nothing will happen.”
It was more than half an hour later, and Claudia was just on the point of dropping off to sleep, when the faintest of faint sounds impinged upon her consciousness. Something was going on downstairs; a faint scratching; a scraping; the squeak of metal; and the faint pad-pad of footsteps on the stairs.
Bother! That fool of a Mavis must have crept down and bolted the front door after all! And now, supposing Helen wasn’t in—now what? Sleepily, irritably, Claudia fumbled with the problem in her mind. She would have to go down, of course, and unbolt the door again … what a pest … what a bore … why must Mavis be such a fool? … the thoughts churned over in her brain, over and over, jumbled together, appearing and reappearing like garments through the window of a washing-machine … and in less than five minutes Claudia was asleep, her last, muddled thought being: I do hope Helen will remember not to disturb anyone!