The reason that the colonel had ‘stormed off’, as May had put it to Oliver, was that he had mistakenly thought all day that it was Tuesday. The naked, incontrovertible truth had dawned only when – long after dark – there was still no sign of the dogs’ weekly (and inadequate) consignment of horse-meat. The moment he started to complain about this – which of course he did to May, there being no one else to complain to – she told him that it had come yesterday. ‘It always comes on Tuesdays,’ she had added.
‘I know it does. And it hasn’t come today. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.’
‘It’s in the fridge.’
‘Why didn’t you simply say it had come then? No need to make a damned mystery of it.’
‘Herbert, don’t be absurd! Of course I’m not making a mystery. It came yesterday, like it always does, and naturally I didn’t rush to tell you. I couldn’t have; you were out.’
‘How do you mean ‘like it always does’? You said just now it always came on Tuesdays.’
‘I did! It does!’
‘You don’t mean to tell me it’s Wednesday!’
‘Of course it’s Wednesday.’
He would not believe her until he had looked up a radio programme for Wednesday and tested that it was actually in progress. And even then he didn’t seem pleased: rather more furious than ever, in fact. He became suddenly panicky about the time and wouldn’t believe her about that, either: just snapped at her.
‘Are you going out?’
‘Of course I’m going out. Why on earth do you think it matters what blasted day it is?’
She said nothing to this, but eventually tracked him down – or up – to his dressing-room where she found him fumbling irritably with his ties. It was half past seven: fear – now familiar – at being left alone in the house with her evening pains coming on induced her to make one of those gestures which are vaguely in a self-preserving direction but none the less more often cause damage. ‘Herbert, I really think you might tell me more what you are doing. I really think it’s a bit much to be left suddenly at this time of night. Just because you’ve forgotten something.’
‘You do, do you?’
‘Well, yes. I mean – you didn’t even believe me just now about what day it was. And then you sound as though it was all my fault.’
‘I never said it was your blasted fault –’
But she had fatally interrupted, ‘Couldn’t I come with you?’
Of course she couldn’t. And not only could she not come, but why on earth had she asked? Was he to have no vestige of privacy – have every little thing he did – or wanted to do – or, as in most cases had to do – interfered with, probed into? It was time she realized that he gave up far more of his life to her than most husbands did to most wives, but it was his personal and bitter experience that if you gave any woman an inch she asked for an ell. By now he had changed his tie, brushed his hair, arranged a new pocket-handkerchief and apparently whipped himself into a state of such general indignation that it would have been hopeless for her to attempt an answer to any specific charge. He decided that he wanted to see how much money there was in his wallet but not, of course, in front of her, so he sent her off to his den to look for his car keys. But she had hardly got down the stairs before he called out that he had found them (nine pounds ten and his cheque book). Then, because he really couldn’t face her again, he shouted, ‘Off now: shan’t be late,’ and scarpered down the back stairs. He was almost smiling as he let himself out. A bit of an old devil, that’s what he was . . .
May found it very difficult to be angry. She was not an unemotional woman, she simply found anger difficult; perhaps confused would be a better word for her feelings round about being angry. To begin with she so often felt that any unfortunate state of affairs was the result of something she had done (and since Dr Sedum, been): to go on with, she could far too often see the other person’s point of view. It was therefore almost impossible for her to fix upon the reason for an object of anger. Being told to find Herbert’s keys at once made her forget why he wanted them, and not finding them before he did made her feel (very faintly) guilty and inferior. As she heard one of the many back doors slam behind Herbert, her main feeling was of desolation. ‘It was too bad of him’ was as far as she could get about her husband leaving her without warning and for no reason at the beginning of yet another long winter evening. She decided to bolt the back door after Herbert before she began thinking about any of it. But by the time she had done this (the back door was at the farthest possible point from Herbert’s study) her mind was too full of the emptiness of the house to sustain what had seemed like a straightforward state of indignation with her husband.
Her feet seemed to make too much noise on the uncarpeted passages, and the varnished pine floors had an institutional and discomfortingly unfurnished air that in turn gave the house the feeling of being barely, even uncertainly inhabited. She paused in the kitchen, but the thought of supper made her feel queasy and tired. This was not what Claude felt about it: and he rammed her thoroughly with all his firm and furry bulk until it was clear what his requirements must be. She fed him and heated herself some milk while he ate. When the milk was hot, she longed for a little whisky to put in it: the chances were that Herbert would have locked up the drink but perhaps it was worth going to look. Claude accompanied her as he never slept in the kitchen in winter if he could help it. She was glad of his company through the creaking baize doors that swung and creaked so long after one had passed them and decided that if there was any whisky she would shut them both in Herbert’s study with as many electric fires as possible.
There was a small drop: it was so small that he hadn’t bothered to lock it up. Unexpectedly, there being some, and it being so little, started to make her feel angry with Herbert again. It really was monstrous that he should go off as he had done, without warning, to goodness knows where leaving her entirely alone in this awful house that she had really come to hate. And if she hated it so much, why on earth had she let Herbert bludgeon her into buying it? Why wasn’t she living in Lincoln Street with Oliver – leading entirely his own life, of course, but there? The whisky wouldn’t be locked up there. She had got used to far too much: had been taking bad things for granted which must surely be even worse than taking good ones . . .
Claude, who had been sitting on her lap, tried once more to like milk with whisky in it, but the filthy taste was too much for him. He shook his head violently, and beads of hot whisky-milk flew from his chin and whiskers and landed all over the place. He was going to have to wash his face to get rid of the smell, and as he could never manage this unless he was on a really firm base, he jumped heavily off May’s lap to the floor where he found that her legs were taking up all the hot room in front of the fire. ‘How affectionate he is,’ she thought as he butted impotently against her until she made room for him. She wasn’t entirely alone while Claude was about. It didn’t seem to make much difference moving her feet from the fire to make room for him, as she couldn’t feel them anyway. It must be a very cold night. This made her remember that the fire was not on in the bedroom, which would be icy, and then she began thinking of the awful trek upstairs, feeling for and turning on the half-a-dozen light switches – and then, without warning, she began to feel frightened. She was almost at once too much afraid to consider what she was frightened of: she simply knew that she did not want to have to make the journey upstairs and down again; did not even really want to have to leave the comparatively small and bright room. This was when she telephoned Oliver. While talking to him she managed to discover and thence to explain that in fact Herbert going off in this sudden manner had frightened her; she couldn’t very well just say that it was the house, but Oliver sounded very busy and there were some other people talking so she wasn’t sure whether he heard properly or not. Then he said he had ’flu and then something else he said made it clear to her that he didn’t really want her. She knew she was going to cry, so she said something pointless and sensible to put an end to the conversation in time. Crying left her feeling rather sick, but, she told herself, relieved in her mind. The whole thing showed what a beginner she must be about the League, because she tried several times to think of higher and better things and didn’t in the least succeed. But she did remember afterwards that something had been said about making use of what material was to hand, and clearly Herbert came under that heading. She had married him, after all. Why? She had to think very hard about him to recall the first impression he made upon her . . . Chelsea Flower Show – the last day. Marvellous weather, too hot, in fact, to march about in one’s best clothes; but they had met wearing them, both in search of a good shrub rose to buy when the show closed. The circumstances weren’t the point: what had he been like? Very frank and straightforward: simple, in a way, but chivalrous: obviously, she had thought, a man who liked women: he had a keen way of looking at you as though he was interested because he immediately understood you so well. He had been modestly reticent about himself – he didn’t want to bore her etc. – but he had been an awfully good listener and it happened that at that time she particularly needed one. Oliver had just come down from Oxford; not, as she had fondly hoped, with a brilliant degree and a dedicated determination about his mission in life, but with a Second, the general reputation for not having done a stroke of work and the expressed intention of enjoying himself. This was when he needed a father, when even uncles, she had felt, might have stiffened up his moral fibre, but alas, there were no uncles. Clifford had had a sister but she had never married: she herself simply did not know a single man of approximately her own age except her lawyer and her dentist, neither of whom she had felt would be really right for dealing with Oliver. So this large, military-looking, interested and courteous stranger was an open blessing. They had had dinner together, at the end of which she felt better about Oliver than she had for months (they had spent most of the dinner over him, neither Alice nor Elizabeth proving to have the sheer staying power as a topic of conversation that Oliver seemed to have).
In the end (when they had got to Grand Marnier and coffee) the colonel – as she already thought of him – had leaned forward and said how much he admired the gallant way in which she had for years shouldered burdens clearly meant for men. When she explained how much easier everything had become since Aunt Edith in Canada had died, he said money be damned, excuse his French, it in no way lessened her moral responsibilities. And May, who had never really thought of relations with her children in those terms, instantly began to worry about why she hadn’t, since this kind and upright gentleman seemed to do so. What she now should do was stop worrying about her son, realize that he was – to all intents and purposes – grown-up, and start to live her own life a bit more. Get out, make new friends – enjoy herself. At the time she had simply agreed with this agreeable advice: afterwards she had interpreted it. What he had really meant – only he was far too kind to say so – was that in spite of all her secret vows about it, she had imperceptibly become a possessive and stultifying mother: living her life vicariously through her wretched children. This was wrong and at all costs must stop at once. With her new friend, the costs did not seem to be at all high. They started to spend every Saturday together: Kew, Richmond, the river-boats to Greenwich, Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park, Hampstead Heath, and then invariably home to tea or drinks and supper at Lincoln Street. Quite soon, she had realized that Herbert was not a monied man and she had used the utmost delicacy to avoid his having to pay for things . . .
One thing she realized about her life was that through some initial piece of cowardice (masked, at the time as not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings), she kept on landing herself in awkward situations. The present predicament was really due to her having given in over buying Monks’ Close in the first place. Now, having got it, she wanted to leave it to the League in her will and Herbert wanted her to leave it to him. Really, the fairest thing to do would be to sell the place and leave or give them half each of the money. In the case of the League she would give it to them: in the case of Herbert they could buy some small but comfortable place to live in that would suit whoever outlived the other. Darling Elizabeth seemed to have married someone with almost too many houses, and Oliver, of course, should have Lincoln Street. It all seemed so simple when she thought of it by herself. In one way this solution got easier as time went by, because, as Herbert had predicted it would, the house was steadily increasing in value. Agents wrote to her – not often, but regularly – asking whether she would consider putting the house on the market, and the last sum quoted by them (Herbert always made them do that) was the astronomical one of twenty-two thousand pounds. Surely enough to go round? Yes, but plans of this sort, or indeed any sort, did not take into account the possibility of her dying before she had accomplished them. Herbert was also right about making a will. She must not dally any longer, and whatever he might feel she could not now go back on her promise to Dr Sedum. If she died, the League would get everything: otherwise, she would share it out. Tomorrow morning she would ring Mr Hardcastle and get him to post her the will to sign.
A sound outside – a car in the drive? – and some of her fears returned; it was horrible to feel nervous in one’s own house. She decided to pull herself yet further together; to go and make her bed-time Horlicks and take it straight up with her. Claude could easily be got to come too as he adored Horlicks and benefited from her hot-water bottle.
Upstairs – Herbert insisted on the windows always being open – the bedroom was as dankly cold as a railway station in an east wind, and loneliness overcame her. Elizabeth, in Jamaica, was unspeakably far away. She decided to ring Alice, who after all would be far the most likely to explain that her father often rushed out in the evenings (whenever Herbert had seemed to do anything eccentric, Alice had been in the habit of saying that he was often, or even always, like that). But Leslie answered the telephone: sounding, May thought, as though he was a little drunk. Alice was in the nursing home, he said; she’d got pneumonia and lost the baby, but she was perfectly all right. May sent shocked and affectionate messages, but she wasn’t sure if Leslie took them in: he kept saying, ‘Well, I’ll tell her you phoned,’ in a sort of heavy, final way and then not putting down the receiver so she said good-bye firmly, to stop the conversation. Poor Alice! She was the only person May had ever met about whom she felt continuously protective. She would write to her tomorrow morning. Claude had drunk the first half inch of Horlicks, but hating cold rooms even more than he liked hot milky drinks he had got right into bed in order to be next to the hot-water bottle. She got into bed with him and composed herself for sleep by remembering Herbert as he was when she first met him. His frank kindness: his simplicty: many people with these old-fashioned virtues were sometimes the weeniest bit boring . . .
‘. . . look at me like that, I feel as though you’ve known me for years.’
‘I wish I had.’
‘That’s a nice thing to say.’
‘Not nice, m’dear: true.’
‘Some trifle? Or would you prefer the cheese board?’
‘Which are you going to have?’
‘Well – I shouldn’t really, but tonight I’m going to spoil myself. A little trifle. I ought to watch my figure really.’
‘Nonsense! A little of what you fancy, eh?’
‘That’s what my husband always said! I’ll watch your figure, Myrtle, he said, you enjoy yourself. What about you? Two trifles, please, Ramon.’
They were the last in the dining-room, and their table, if not the best, was the most secluded. The tables round them had already been laid for breakfast; the Muzak, like the Tyrolean sconces, had been turned low: they sat before the unearthly cheeriness of a Magicoal which cast endless speedy reflections upon the horse-brasses each side of the huge brick fireplace. Myrtle Hanger-Davies owned the hotel: at least, she had inherited it from her husband, Dennis, who had clearly died from obvious forms of over-indulgence at the early age of fifty-six. Myrtle had been much younger than he when she married him and although they had been married for some time before he died (last September) there was no reason to suppose that she had caught him up. She had spent dinner telling the colonel these and other salient facts, and, frankly, she had not enjoyed herself so much for years. The great question was whether she should continue to run the hotel, or whether she should sell up and go abroad – possibly to run something or possibly just to retire. What she had felt was that on the one hand, she did not want to feel lonely, as she might in somewhere like Majorca with nothing to do, but on the other hand, she’d seen a lot of human nature. She sighed. The colonel expected that she had and agreed that it was something of the devil and the deep blue sea. The trifles arrived, and Ramon, who was certainly trained in some things, had brought a jug of Bird’s custard and a jug of cream. Myrtle had quite a lot of both, and so did the colonel.
‘When in doubt always do nothing, Dennis used to say. What do you think of that? As a maxim?’
‘Lot of old-fashioned truth there –’
‘Excuse me one moment – what will you have? With your coffee, I mean.’
He decided on Drambuie and she a Tia Maria. The conversation came to a halt while Ramon was getting these things. The colonel gazed at her. She was blonde and very well covered, both of which he liked: tonight she wore a tight electric-blue woollen dress with a high neck, so she was well covered in that way too. At her shoulder she wore a poodle brooch that was made of real diamonds with ruby eyes. Her hair had been done that day and so had her nails – it was a damn good thing he hadn’t gone on thinking it was Tuesday . . .
‘. . . look at me like that, what are you thinking?’
He laughed challengingly and said, ‘You’d be surprised.’
‘Would I really?’ she asked, hoping not.
‘I was wondering if you’d ever been to Portugal.’
‘Never!’ she said. He certainly wasn’t predictable – you never knew what he would say next.
He gazed at her a moment in silence, ‘Ah well,’ he said in the end. A little blazing shiver began at the bottom of her spine and travelled right up to the back of her neck. At this moment, Ramon returned with the liqueurs and coffee. When he had gone, she raised her Tia Maria and said, ‘What shall we drink to – a Merry Christmas, or a Happy New Year?’
He picked up his glass,
‘Let’s start with a Merry Christmas.’
John had been watching Elizabeth watching a humming bird. The bird was feeding from a bottle of honey and water. It was so small, and so amazing in colour, that even when it poised itself to siphon up the nectar she could hardly believe that it was really there. The expression on her face was serious: she was almost frowning with attention and pleasure. It was Christmas Eve; the sun was beginning to drop like a huge, round, red-hot stone into the sea, palm trees were turning darker than shadows and the mosquitoes had not yet started their night assault. The humming bird left; Elizabeth, who had been sitting on her heels, linked her hands behind her neck and stretched – in the middle of which she became aware of John.
‘Did you see?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only feathers are that colour – or those colours, I suppose you’d have to say. Flowers aren’t; jewels aren’t.’
‘Silk?’ he suggested.
‘It tries to be. Doesn’t work, though, because there’s always too much of it.’
‘Butterflies,’ he said, sitting beside her.
‘Of course.’
‘And tropical fish.’
‘That’s one of the things I like best about you.’
He waited.
‘How you go into things. There are far too many things that a good many men don’t think it worth talking about.’
‘Is that so?’ One of the things he noted with amusement was the way in which her generalizations about men proliferated as her confidence grew about their marriage.
‘Yes. A lot of men would think it was silly to discuss humming birds at all. A lot of men –’ she stopped as she saw his face.
‘I married you for your experience, Mrs Cole. It was a woman of the world I was after –’
Here the telephone rang, which it all too often did. The only way in which John could leave England for so long was by letting people telephone him whenever they felt like it. He had explained this at the beginning, and she was very good and always read a book while he was talking which meant that she neither fidgeted nor listened. When he was finished he saw that she was starting Bleak House which he knew she had read.
‘It’s the fog,’ she said looking up as he bent to kiss her. ‘The contrast to here is so terrific.’
‘It must be. Now. What would you like to do this evening? A terrifically vulgar man has asked us to a party –’
‘What kind of party?’
‘The kind that starts off very pompous with too much of everything and ends with people getting thrown into the swimming pool.’
‘What else might we do?’
‘We might go to Negril and have a hot-fish beach picnic.’
‘Can’t we do both things?’
‘We’ll do anything you like, my darling.’
‘Don’t you care at all what you do?’
‘Not if I’m with you.’
The sun was almost touching the sea: the palm trees, relaxing against the sky, were black and silhouettes.
‘I can’t ever have been in love before,’ he said, ‘because I know I’ve never felt like this. And I’m pretty sure it’s what people always do when they’re in love. I wouldn’t have known before; but I do now.’
She waited, wanting to see if it was the same.
‘You know. My God, I hope you know. It’s finding that you’re very simple: that you don’t need anything at all except the presence of the person. That scrambled eggs, or going to bed early, or it raining the whole day, are all enhancements: anything at all can make you think you are happier than you were before. It’s feeling that everybody else must be better than you thought, and that whatever they are you mustn’t be against them because perhaps somehow, they’ve missed it –’
‘It is the same for everybody,’ she said. ‘I mean – you couldn’t stop thinking of enhancements, but basically it’s the same.’
The sun was sliding down out of sight. ‘It looks as though there was a sort of slot for it – just beyond the sea and before the sky begins.’
In the end, they didn’t go anywhere, but stayed by their own pool, and drank Daiquiris and swam and had supper and talked, as John later remarked, as though they had known each other all their lives but hadn’t met for a year.
‘We might as well be in a basement in Fulham Road.’
‘Oh no we mightn’t. There’d be no oxygen and you’d have too many clothes on.’
She was wearing one of his shirts over her bathing dress.
‘God, money, sex, how to bring up children, birth control, democracy, education, socialism, looking after animals and things, boarding schools, homosexuality, good names for boys, how much we agree about things – oh dear, I’ve just thought –’
‘What?’
‘We’ve never had a serious quarrel! Do you realize that?’
‘Nor we have. Do you want one, particularly?’
‘Oh no! Of course I don’t! I was just thinking how awful it would be when we do.’
He was bending down to lift her off the sofa.
‘Perhaps we shall just not find the time,’ he said.