So why did I have to be different? wondered Kate, hanging out of the window. They’re planting those dahlias too close together. If it hadn’t been for those two next door, my life might have been … Freddie and Edith. Poor things! What’s become of them? It’s years since I … Edith’s eyes when she heard me tell a lie! … Of course one had to lie to Mama or life wouldn’t have been worth … I felt so base. So vulgar … not morals exactly … aristocratic. There was something aristocratic about Edith. Some things she couldn’t do. Not wouldn’t Couldn’t. So, ever since, I’ve felt uncomfortable about lying to people I love, yes, and I threw that croquet mallet at Fanny for laughing. My own sister! My awful temper! Thank goodness I never seem to lose it with children. I might have killed her and been hanged. I should hate to be hanged. But otherwise … I loathe Fanny. Yes I do. My daughters don’t loathe each other. I’ve brought them up not to. We are all very fond … Ha! Ha! Ha! Fanny’s laugh. Like a donkey braying. She still laughs like that. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Edith Challoner’s been presented. It’s in the paper. Mustn’t she have looked killing in a train and feathers?’ So I threw …
Hazel reappeared in tapered slacks and a cotton jacket.
‘We’d better go down and get that machine,’ said Kate, reluctantly returning to the smell of Opal 5.
‘Oh, you mustn’t. I’ll get Bob to bring it up. He’s down there gardening.’
‘Bob who?’
‘I don’t know. He and Simon share the ground-floor flat. Do have some …’ Hazel dived into the kitchen, ‘… I got some tomato juice, for you specially, because you don’t like gin.’
Tepid tomato juice in a smeary glass was produced. Kate, sipping it, decided to divulge her plans. Hazel at least would not scold or criticize.
‘I,’ she said, ‘am off on a cruise in ten days’ time. What do you think of that?’
‘Oh? How simply fabulous!’
‘I thought I might treat myself to a little holiday.’
‘Oh, I am glad. Mummie went on a cruise once. To Bermuda. It was fabulous. They had everything. An orchestra and everything. And the food was absolutely fabulous. And then, in Greece, there’s all the history and the ruins. You’ll love that. Excuse me, I’ll get Bob to bring up the machine while he’s still out there. Can I have your car key?’
Kate finished the tomato juice and wondered why nobody had surnames any more. Bermuda was just the sort of place to which Hazel’s Mummie would take a cruise. A boring woman.
All the history and the ruins … but had she mentioned Greece? She did not think so. How did Hazel know? Had she known of it already? Who could have told her? Douglas? She believed that he had not seen Andrew and Hazel lately.
‘How did you know I was going to Greece?’ she demanded, when Hazel returned with the sewing machine. ‘I never said so. I merely said I was taking a cruise.’
The girl stared at her in manifest consternation.
‘Has anybody …’ began Kate.
Then she remembered one of her anti-Mortimer maxims: Never catechize. She put the question less aggressively.
‘Perhaps somebody mentioned it already?’
‘Ye-es,’ said Hazel miserably. ‘It must be that. I must have heard something …’
Go on, you fool! Find out who it was.
Opal 5?
No, no, no! Impossible. She mustn’t come here. She sits inside that house of hers, in a flattering light, with a chiffon scarf to hide the wrinkles round her neck and a black lace mantilla to hide the bald spot on top. She and Douglas sit there talking rubbish. They don’t talk about me. They can’t. And she doesn’t come here. She mustn’t. Douglas is one thing. Andrew is quite another. If she came here I should … I should throw something. I won’t ask any more, in case she does. Better talk about the sewing machine. Better explain it to her.
A demonstration followed which Hazel did not appear to follow very well, although she frequently declared the sewing machine to be fabulous.
‘You can get all your curtain material for the new house in the July sales,’ suggested Kate, ‘and have them run up by September.’
‘Yes. I could do.’
‘Though we’ve got some curtains put away at Edwardes Square which might do for some of your windows. That would save you a certain amount of trouble. You must come and look at them and see if you like them.’
‘That’s … that’s sweet of you.’
‘We’d better go up to the new house and measure the windows first. I could drive you up any time.’
‘Absolutely sweet …’
‘I’m off in ten days. We’d better do it as soon as possible. Would Thursday or Friday …’
‘Sweet simply. Only … only … we’re not buying that house after all.’
‘What? I thought it was all settled.’
‘No. Andrew hadn’t signed anything … and he’s changed his mind.’
‘I never knew that.’
‘It was only last night. He decided last night.’
She might have told me before, thought Kate. If she wasn’t so hen-witted she’d have told me at once.
‘I’m not sorry, in a way,’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, I never much liked that house. Such an awkward kitchen. But you’ve got to turn out of here haven’t you?’
‘Oh yes. At the end of August.’
‘Then you’ve got to find another house. I believe that one I wanted you to look at, the one in Chiswick, is still … I’ll ring up and find out.’
‘Oh …. oh … sweet of you! But I think … Andrew has found another flat, actually.’
‘Another flat? Where?’
‘I … I’m not quite sure. It isn’t settled yet.’
‘Hazel dear! You must know where it is!’
‘In … in … in Bruton Street. I think it’s in Bruton Street.’
‘Off Berkeley Square? That Bruton Street? Oh no! You must be mistaken. He’d never look for a flat there.’
‘A … a friend is arranging it … on special terms.’
‘But nobody lives in Bruton Street. I mean not the sort of … What friend? Who suggested it?’
Hazel did not answer. She gazed at her mother-in-law in terrified supplication.
Any true Mortimer would have turned the silly little creature inside out forthwith. She had clearly been instructed to say nothing about this change of plan, which was evidence that Andrew expected his mother to oppose it. Nor was Douglas likely to approve. Bruton Street! The cousin of the head of Andrew’s firm had been, at one time, a little inclined to suggest that the boy gave himself airs which must be dropped if he wanted to join Mortimer and Tyndale. Douglas had been disposed to agree and had been impatient over Andrew’s reluctance to seize this solid opportunity. Of course the work would be small beer, demanding little inspiration and involving a great deal of drudgery. The same might be said of any profession. Douglas himself had never found a solicitor’s life particularly inspiring. No firm on earth was likely to offer Andrew a cathedral or so to design, whatever opinion Kate might hold of her precious son’s capacities.
It was common sense to interfere promptly before so silly a scheme could go any farther. Hazel might have promised Andrew to say nothing, but she must be bullied into breaking that promise. A mother, when her children’s interest is at stake, is justified in any action, however shady.
Kate sighed and said:
‘Well, I won’t ask any more. I quite see … when one’s plans are unsettled it doesn’t do to tell everybody. People get worked up and implore one not to do things one isn’t going to do anyway. So I’ll bottle up my curiosity. I’m sure Andrew will decide sensibly. No, I won’t have any more tomato juice, thanks. I really ought to be getting back.’
Hazel, trembling with relief, made no effort to detain her. As they went towards the stairs the telephone rang. On perceiving that the caller was Hazel’s Mummie, Kate blew the child a kiss and went downstairs by herself. Telephone conversations with Hazel’s Mummie were liable to outlast a night in Russia.
Wh
en she had got into her car she sat for a while, motionless, too much perturbed to drive away. She was far from sure that she had acted wisely and half ashamed of herself for not having extracted more details from Hazel. Douglas might think that she ought to have interfered.
Voices came to her from beyond the privet hedge. The gardeners must have thought that she had driven off long ago.
‘Mums’ day upstairs. Her Mum to tea in a Bentley. And his Mum in a Vauxhall with a sewing machine.’
‘Oh, the Bentley wasn’t her Mum. That was a Mrs Shelmerdine. She’s fixing them up with a super flat in the West End. I heard them talking about it on the stairs.’
2
She should have had it out with Douglas forthwith, if only to protect herself from the virus of unresolved suspicion. Yet she dared not take the risk of discovering that he had been a party to such an underhand transaction. She preferred to believe that he could not possibly have known anything about it and that he would be very angry when it came to light. Even so she was furious with him. Her nose had not deceived her in the matter of Opal 5. Pamela had been to Swiss Cottage and had told Hazel about the cruise to Greece. Douglas must have told Pamela. They were all going round and discussing it behind her back.
Her fury was such that she relished the thought of the storm breaking after she had departed on her cruise. Douglas would have to deal with it unsupported. Since he had never attempted to deal with any domestic crisis he would be obliged to send a telegram begging for her return. That would give her an excellent excuse for cutting short a trip which no longer greatly attracted her, but which was now being forced upon her by family criticism and opposition. As the news spread their protests poured in.
Bridie considered that she should have taken a regular Hellenic Cruise; anything else was sheer waste of money. Nor might she bathe; at her age such diversions, even in the Aegean, were likely to bring on rheumatism.
The Wanderers, according to Judith, were notoriously inefficient. Brian’s parents knew somebody who had sailed on the Latona and contracted diphtheria. Brian’s parents wondered why Kate did not visit the Norwegian Fiords.
Fanny rang up from Sussex. She was the only one of Kate’s sisters now living in England. Stephanie and Moira were dead, and Georgina was in New Zealand. What, demanded Fanny, lay behind this caper? Why should Kate want to spend three weeks on a ship, shut up with people who did not belong to her?
‘Why does anybody take a holiday?’ parried Kate.
‘If you want a change, why not come to us? We’re always asking you and you never will. The garden just now …’
‘I want to get farther afield. Right away.’
‘Right away? What from?’
Kate made no reply. She could picture Fanny down in Sussex, with her eyes popping out of her head.
‘Has there been,’ demanded Fanny, ‘an upset?’
‘No,’ said Kate, picking up the telephone directory. ‘No!’
If Fanny had not been fifty miles away the directory might have gone at her head, as the croquet mallet had gone, on that memorable occasion.
An upset was the Mortimer term for husband trouble. It could mean anything: a husband who took to drink, wrote poetry in secret, lent too much money to a friend, sang in his bath, suffered from impotence, failed to cut his toe nails, was frightened of thunder, or threatened to become a Roman Catholic. No detail, however squalid and humiliating, was withheld from the clan symposium by anybody save Kate.
‘Is it,’ hissed Fanny, ‘anything to do with that Mrs …?’
‘NOTHING WHATEVER!’
‘Don’t shout. You’re breaking my ear drums.’
Kate hung up. A few seconds later Fanny rang again complaining that they had been cut off.
‘Have you been to see a doctor?’ she demanded.
‘No. Why should I?’
‘It’s so utterly unlike you, this cruise. Either you’re ill or else you’re unhappy. I want to know which so I can write and tell Georgina.’
‘Oh, I see. Oh, very well. Tell Georgina that Douglas has been embezzling clients’ money. I’m going because I don’t want to be in the house when the police come for him.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’
‘I’m not trying to be funny. I am funny. Ever so funny. You and Georgina have said so often enough. I’m going on this cruise because I want to see the Cyclades and the Sporades.’
‘The what?’
‘The Cyclades and the Sporades.’
‘They sound like skin diseases. I don’t believe it for a minute. You’re terribly upset about something. I can tell that from your voice. You’re going to do something silly.’
Kate hung up again and rushed out of the house to buy a needlessly expensive bathing suit.
The fatal day arrived. Since Bridie had borrowed the car for the week-end Douglas had to escort Kate to the station in a taxi. He failed, as usual, to secure it at the very early hour which she deemed prudent. Telephone calls to neighbouring ranks proved fruitless. Eventually he was forced to go out on a search in Kensington High Street. When he returned with a taxi Kate was fuming on the doorstep.
They set off, a little on the late side, but not as late as she felt they were. The Wanderers, when they reached the station, were not yet entrained. A glum group, standing in front of a barrier, seemed to consist entirely of wives scolding husbands for a late start and husbands maintaining that an earlier start would merely have meant a longer wait in this mob.
Kate giggled a little as she listened to these familiar exchanges. Douglas did not. He stood patiently beside her, carrying her over-night bag. Two large suitcases had been registered and would, so she believed, reappear in her cabin on the Latona. She herself carried a bucket bag which she would entrust to nobody since it contained her spectacles, her money, her tickets, her travellers’ cheques, and her passport.
At last the barrier was removed. The crowd surged forward, stringing along the train in search of reserved seats. A moth-eaten-looking person, with Wanderers Ltd on his cap, stood at a distance, cynically watching them. He offered neither help nor advice. Kate, after running up and down a little with her bucket bag, found her seat in a compartment full of bickering couples. They all smiled at one another briefly, in acknowledgement of the fact that they were to be cooped up together on the Latona for three weeks. They then ignored one another, aware that it is never wise to become intimate with fellow travellers too soon. There might be people on the Latona whose looks they liked better. Wives told husbands where to put train cases. Kate stood at the window smiling down at Douglas on the platform.
How old he looks! she thought. He didn’t always look as old as this.
Which was a ridiculous reflection although it was impossible to decide how he had always looked. The tall, dark, romantic young man who had, for a short time, swept her off her feet and had once eagerly awaited her at the altar was now a stooping, grizzled person who waited composedly for her to go away. The transformation had taken place by imperceptible degrees.
She poked her head out of the window to say:
‘The chemist has the prescription for your pills.’
‘Oh? Good!’
‘All the addresses, for my letters, are on the hall table.’
‘I know. You told me.’
With a visible effort he, too, smiled. ‘Mind you don’t get left behind by mistake on Naxos,’ he told her. ‘Stick to tomato juice.’
For a moment she did not perceive the allusion. His smile took her aback. It was an upshot beam on the clouds after sunset. It belonged to the days when he did not always agree with her.
‘Oh yes …’ she said, pulling herself together. ‘Strong drink … Bacchus … Ariadne. Yes. I’ll be careful.’
Keeping her head out of the window gave her a crick in the neck. She drew it in, wishing that the train would start. So soon as she was gone he would probably ring up Pamela.
‘No, no. Not on top of my hat!’ said one of the wives behind her, to a hu
sband who was still fussing about with luggage.
The train slid forward so suddenly that Kate had no time to wave.
3
Brian’s parents had been quite right. The Wanderers were remarkably inefficient and the cruise was an exasperating failure from the start. The Latona, reached after a chaotic journey to Trieste, turned out to be scarcely sea-worthy. Ten per cent of the registered luggage never reappeared. The remainder was flung at random into dirty cabins. The food was uneatable. Very seldom did any water, hot or cold, come out of the taps. After a week of it Kate was not the only passenger who thought wistfully of those Hellenic Cruises, once dismissed as too conventional.
Primitive places, little known and off the map, seldom offer landing opportunities for craft of any size, nor can transport from ship to shore be taken as a matter of course. On more than one occasion the Latona lay for hours, dismally hooting for men and boats miles away, fishing mullet.
‘They seem to have left everything to chance,’ complained Kate to Miss Shepheard, with whom she shared a cabin. ‘They should have sent someone round in advance to make arrangements.’
‘I think they did,’ said Miss Shepheard. ‘But the Greeks are terribly unreliable. They let everybody down.’
‘They don’t let Eagle Tours down. We saw that at Delos.’
An Eagle Tour had arrived at Delos, in a spick-and-span-looking ship, one morning when the Latona was forlornly hooting. The poor Wanderers never set foot upon that glittering island. They had been obliged to watch, in helpless fury, while boats, assembled in readiness, took the Eagles off.
‘I shouldn’t have cared to land on Delos,’ said Miss Shepheard. ‘Those Eagles made it look like an ant heap, all milling round and listening to guides.’
‘We make any place look like an ant heap, whenever we do manage to land. And we mill round more than the Eagles did, because we don’t know where to go. And we’re behind on our itinerary. We ought to be at Skiathos by now. It’s one of the places where we’re supposed to pick up mail.’
‘Not me,’ said Miss Shepheard. ‘I shan’t get any mail.’
The Forgotten Smile Page 5