Company in the Evening

by Ursula Orange

  Fortune favoured me in that I was lucky enough, to have my case come on without the long delay that so often occurs, and consequently very few people had the opportunity of urging me to abandon it. I never disclosed the fact that I was going to have a child to my solicitors, and certainly Raymond never had an inkling. I made things as safe as I could for myself during the early months by burying myself in the country and seeing none of my London friends. I stayed with Betty Attenborough, the married friend with whom I had so often stayed during my Oxford vacations. She had a house in Berkshire as well as a London flat. She and her husband knew, of course, but they also knew it was useless to argue with me.

  Antonia was five months on the way when I got my decree nisi, and I do not think anyone in court suspected anything. Raymond would have guessed in an instant I am sure, but the case was undefended, and he was not present.

  It was not until after I had got my decree nisi that I did what I had secretly been longing to do—ran home to Mother and burst into tears on her shoulder. The news of the baby was of course a terrible shock to her, but nevertheless she behaved (as I knew she would) like the proper mother she is—by which I mean that she was utterly horrified and not entirely comprehending, but resolved at all costs to stand by me. She said that she and I would go right away somewhere into the country and she would stay with me until after the baby was born. When I protested that I didn’t want her to put herself out for me, that I had got myself into this mess and would see it through myself, she said she’d never heard such nonsense in her life. It wasn’t I who’d got myself into a mess; it was Raymond who had let me down, and in any case (she hurried on, as she saw I was making a gesture of protest), in any case there was nothing she’d like better than to go away with me for a bit. She’d been so lonely and miserable in the house since Daddy died and had been beginning to feel that nobody really needed her any more. Now (in a brisker tone) that was enough crying, Vicky darling. Crying wasn’t good for the baby, was it now?

  I believe she even produced her handkerchief to wipe my eyes. I felt about two years old.

  I accepted Mother’s offer on one condition. (Poor mothers! We neglect them when we’re happy and successful, we collapse on their shoulders when we’re miserable, we accept their help and solace and then have the nerve to make ‘conditions’ about accepting it. I expect I shall go through the same old hoops with Antonia in my turn.) I said very well, provided that Mother wouldn’t ever try to persuade me, even at this late stage, to approach Raymond. I didn’t even want him to hear about the baby until the latest possible moment. The baby was my affair, my responsibility. Did she understand?

  “Darling,” said mother uneasily, “you do realize what this attitude of yours about the baby will lead malicious people to say, don’t you?”

  “That the child isn’t Raymond’s? I daresay they will, but I can’t help that. The baby’s my fault, I tell you. I wouldn’t have one when Raymond wanted one, and it isn’t his fault that I’m having one now. I won’t blackmail him back with a baby. I just won’t . . . Actually, it is Raymond’s child, Mother.”

  “Darling!” Mother looked utterly horrified. “As if you needed to tell me that!”

  “Well, it does look fishy, I’ll admit—how fishy you don’t know, Mother, because I never told you Raymond wasn’t living at home then, did I? Things between us had got so bad that he’d taken a room somewhere else.”

  “Oh Vicky! Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “Oh Mother, I couldn’t bother you with my troubles so soon after Daddy’s death. I thought if it did all come right again you might never need to know. Only then it obviously wasn’t going to come right and I asked Raymond to come and see me about a divorce, and he did and—I believe it’s called ‘condoning’ or something, but honestly I was in such a state at the time that I was absolutely reckless, and—oh, I can’t really explain how it happened, because I don’t understand myself.”

  “Vicky, darling!” Mother got up. “Don’t tell me any more. That sort of thing” (she blushed slightly) “isn’t meant to be told—not to anyone. I doubt if I should understand if you did tell me.”

  I looked up, faintly surprised.

  “Oh, of course I know what you mean, Vicky. You mean that it was you who was . . . was careless about possibly having a baby on that occasion?”

  I nodded. “Raymond always left all that to me. I had no business not to be careful. We’d agreed to divorce.”

  “Yes, well—exactly, Vicky. However much you explained all that to me, I doubt if I’d ever really understand. You know babies, children—to your father and myself—they’re not, they never could be merely ‘somebody’s fault.’ ”

  “You mean they’re ‘gifts from God’ or something of the sort?” I hazarded.

  “I expect that phrase sounds ridiculous to you, Vicky? You say it as if you thought it was ridiculous.”

  “Well—frankly yes, it does, Mother.”

  “Very well. Now to me your way of talking about marriage as merely a sort of contract sounds just as ridiculous. I’m not preaching to you, darling. I’m just telling you there are some things I’d just never understand. And”—with a change of tone—“of course I don’t mean for a moment, darling, that it’s not Raymond who’s really to blame. You can’t prevent me thinking that, although if you don’t want to talk about it, I promise I won’t.”

  “Yes. Let’s leave it at that,” I said thankfully.

  We did.

  All that (thank God) took place more than four years ago.

  * * * * *

  In the end the subject cropped up fairly naturally between Rene and myself.

  Rene’s baby was due any day, indeed it was slightly overdue. She seemed upset and astonished about this, and I comforted her by telling her that I knew of heaps of babies who had been a fortnight late and, I added heartily and with no scientific justification whatever, all the better for it.

  “Really, Vicky?” said Rene trustingly. “Oh well, if it’s better for the baby, I’ll stop worrying. Only I am so longing to see him.”

  “Or her,” I said unnecessarily.

  “Of course, or her,” said Rene hastily (but there was not the same capital letter effect in her tone). “Oh Vicky, I can’t help hoping and hoping it’s a boy, you know. I think the suspense just at the end when I know he’s actually coming will be awful.”

  “Don’t worry.” I said with an unkind grin, “you’ll find you’ll quite quickly reach a point when you won’t care if you’re giving birth to a boy or girl or a grand piano as long as you get it over.”

  “Oh Vicky!” Rene looked appalled. “Is it so very awful?”

  “No, no,” I said hastily. “Or rather, yes, yes, possibly, but what does that matter once it’s over? Physical pain—particularly that sort of natural physical pain—can’t really hurt you, you know. I mean” (for Rene was looking bewildered and I don’t wonder), “I mean it can’t get at your mind and hurt that and so leave any sort of mental scar behind. You’ll forget all about it the moment it’s over, like everybody else. And then” (for Rene was looking as if this was rather tough consolation, as indeed it was), “and then when it is over and you’ve got your baby, well then, you will get your thrill and no mistake.”

  “I keep on wondering and wondering what he’ll look like,” said Rene.

  “You think of him as a real person already, don’t you, Rene?” I said, interested.

  “Oh yes,” said Rene, and then added a little shyly: “Didn’t you when Antonia was coming?”

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t,” I said.

  “I expect it’s silly of me,” said Rene, instantly a little wistful and deprecating.

  That was the worst of Rene. One couldn’t disagree with her without her immediately becoming apologetic. Or at least, I couldn’t. I remembered Mother’s hint about her being a little frightened of me, and then it suddenly occurred to me that now was a good opportunity to take her just a very little way into my confidence.<
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  “Not a bit silly, Rene,” I said. “Natural and right, I’m sure, and as it’s meant to be. I was the silly one, but then you see the circumstances of Antonia’s birth weren’t very happy for me. I couldn’t help feeling that she was sort of illegitimate.”

  “But she wasn’t, was she?” cried Rene, looking so utterly scandalized, so thoroughly jolted out of all wistfulness and sentimentality, and, at the same time so avidly interested, that I nearly giggled.

  “No, no, of course not. Look Rene, this was how it was—there’s no real mystery or skeleton-in-the-cupboard business about it—it was like this . . .”

  I told her, very briefly, of course, and in dry unemotional language. Her eyes never left my face, but I could see very little glimmer of comprehension in them—which was not to be wondered at, considering I left out of the story not only all sentiment, but all feeling whatsoever. It made a very bald and distinctly sordid little tale.

  “So you see,” I ended up, “I never worried at all about it being a pity Antonia shouldn’t have a father. That point of view didn’t even occur to me until well after she was born. As I said just now, I didn’t think of her as a real person at that time. Funny, when you think how now I’d do almost anything for her sake,” I added, more to myself than to Rene.

  “My baby won’t ever know his father either,” said Rene.

  I felt convicted of slight tactlessness.

  “No, Rene, but, sad as that is, that’s through no fault of your own, is it? However, don’t let’s brood on the past. Antonia seems to have got along all right with only a mother, so far. The mother is the most important, I don’t think anyone could deny that.”

  “Oh no, I’m sure they couldn’t—and besides, Vicky . . .”

  “Yes. What?”

  “Well—if, if Ray—if your husband was really so—so unkind—perhaps it’s better—better for Antonia, I mean—that she should be brought tip without him. I mean—”

  I suppose she saw me glaring at her. Anyway, her stumbling attempt at consolation trailed off.

  “Who told you Raymond was unkind to me?” I shot out accusingly.

  “Nobody . . . I mean, I just got the impression that—that—”

  “You didn’t get that impression from anything I said just now, did you?” I demanded.

  “Oh no, no,” said poor Rene hastily. “Vicky, I thought you spoke about him most frightfully sort of unvindictively.”

  “Unvindictive! I should hope so. What I want to know is, who’s given you the idea that I had anything to be vindictive about? Was it Mother?”

  I see now that it was unpardonable of me to cross-examine Rene in this way. My only excuse is that I was really annoyed. Rene had evidently already got the one idea in her head that I was determined to keep out.

  “Mother? Oh no! She hardly said anything to me about it.”

  “Well, who on earth was it then? Philip?”

  “No, oh no. He never said much, either. Oh Vicky, if you must know, it was simply something Blakey let drop once, and I’m terribly sorry if—if you’re upset about it. I oughtn’t to have listened, I see I oughtn’t now.”

  I suddenly woke up to the fact that poor Rene was almost in tears.

  “That’s all right, Rene,” I said. “It was very naughty of Blakey to say anything, but I’m sure it wasn’t your fault she did.”

  Even as I spoke I wondered for an instant whether this was true. What was Mother’s phrase—Rene trying to ‘pump her’ about my divorce, wasn’t it? Had Rene encouraged Blakey to talk? Well, if she had, probably it was my fault for not telling Rene myself sooner.

  I think it flashed across my mind then that you cannot really live with someone in circumstances of intimacy and continue to avoid being really intimate with them. The conclusion was so unpalatable that I pushed it hastily from my mind.

  “Only I must tell you, Rene,” I said, “that Blakey never in her life laid eyes on Raymond, let alone ever seeing us together, and so anything that she lets drop isn’t, even gossip or hearsay—it’s pure imagination. And absolutely none of her business.”

  The telephone rang in the hall. I opened the door to answer it. There, on the mat, was Blakey with Rene’s evening cup of Ovaltine.

  I carried off the situation better than Rene, but then I had something to do. I simply swept past Blakey and answered the telephone. Rene, as I saw out of the corner of my eye, looked horribly guilty. Blakey wore her automaton look.

  “Do you suppose she heard?” asked Rene nervously, when I came back.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” I answered grandly.

  “I hope she won’t think I’ve been telling tales about her and getting her into trouble with you,” said Rene.

  “She can think what she likes. I certainly shan’t ever make any reference to it,” I retorted sharply.

  I honestly did not see at the time that it was poor Rene who was going to reap a whole harvest of minor unpleasantnesses from this unfortunate contretemps. Very unfair, considering that, it was my voice that was injudiciously loud, and I who had anyway forced the information out of Rene. Later on, when I could not help noticing how nasty Blakey was making herself to Rene, I dated back the trouble to that evening. Rene’s guess was right: Blakey evidently had heard the tail-end of our conversation and had therefore jumped to the conclusion that Rene had been ‘telling tales about her.’

  So ended my first attempt to make Rene stop being a ‘little bit frightened’ of me and to take her more into my confidence.

  Chapter 4

  *

  Sometimes, during the first year after my divorce from Raymond, when I was still subject to waves of bitterness about him—moods which descended on me with no warning and passed for no reason, for all the world as though they had been physical attacks of some disorder to which I was prone—I had imagined to myself circumstances in which we might possibly accidentally meet again. Needless to say, I preferred to picture a setting in which I appeared in a slightly glamorous light—say, in evening dress in the foyer of a theatre, perhaps, on a first night. Escorted, of course, by somebody very distinguished-looking and possibly even well known in some world or other. (Famous writer? Politician? Doctor?) Myself looking my best and talking my wittiest. (Perhaps I was even the author of the play being performed? No, just a little too incredible, that.) A touch on my shoulder, a diffident touch.

  “Vicky?”

  “Raymond! Why, how lovely to see you again!” (Very gracious, very gay, very self-composed.)

  How this promising conversation developed I never quite bothered to arrange. Artistic feeling would seem to demand that if I was gracious, gay and self-composed, Raymond should be deferential, wistful and nervous, and, as a matter of fact, I could not possibly imagine him being any of those things in any circumstances whatever. Slurring over all this, therefore, I passed on to the final fade-out.

  The Other Man: “Vicky, excuse me, but we ought to . . . The others are waiting for us at the Savoy.”

  Me: “Yes, I’m afraid so. Well, Raymond . . .” (An afterthought.) “But won’t you come along too? We’re only going to the grill-room. It doesn’t really matter about you not being dressed.”

  Raymond: “Thank you, Vicky, but I don’t think I can. I promised my—er—Sandra, I’d be back and she doesn’t like . . .” (looking henpecked), “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  Highly satisfactory fade-out with me being reverentially handed into a taxi, and Raymond standing looking after me with a look of deep yearning and regret on his face.

  At that time, of course, I still thought Raymond would probably marry Sandra, in due course, and therefore, since I refused to flinch away from that fact, I was obliged to imagine him married and regretting it. As I only knew Sandra very slightly, I was fairly free to imagine her offensive in any way I liked. I suppose I chose to imagine her domineering and pettily possessive because, whatever I had been like while I was married to Raymond, I had never been either of those things.

 
Raymond, however, did not marry Sandra; and when I did accidentally meet him again, it was in circumstances distinctly unusual, but totally free from glamour.

  I was putting Antonia to bed one Sunday evening about a week after the conversation with Rene about my divorce. Blakey was out, and Rene had retired to her room after tea. The baby was now about ten days overdue, and the doctor had assured Rene that she would not have much longer to wait.

  I could hear Rene moving about in her room, and all the time I was bathing Antonia it was at the back of my mind that I must go and fuss after Rene a little, when Antonia was in bed. I had hardly seen Rene all day, and, judging by the sounds from her room, she was dragging suitcases up and down.

  “You’re not very good at thinking of things this evening, are you, Mummy?” said Antonia eventually.

  We were playing—or rather, Antonia was trying to make me play—the game called ‘Horrid Mummies.’ I do not really approve of this game, which was invented by Antonia and consists of thinking out unkind jokes to play on an imaginary child. “When I have a little girl, Mummy, I’ll tell her it’s Christmas the next day and she’ll hang up her stocking and the next morning she’ll think it’s going to be full of toys and it won’t have anything in it at all.” Peals of rapturous heartless laughter. “Now you think of something, Mummy.”

  And, although, as I have said, I do not really approve of the game at all, I cannot resist thinking out some rather more subtle and intricate form of disappointment and embellishing it with appropriate details, if only for the pleasure of watching Antonia’s face as I come to my dénouement.

  I was just drying behind Antonia’s ears and saying, “No, let’s play Nice Mummies for a change, and think of treats to give your little girl instead,” when Rene put her head round the door and said, “Oh . . . Vicky, I think I’d better . . . what about that taxi . . . can you?”

  “Yes certainly, Rene,” I said briskly, reaching out meanwhile for Antonia’s toothbrush.

  I was matter-of-fact both for Rene’s sake and for Antonia’s.