by Barbara Pym
There was hardly enough to occupy her for ten minutes in the road; perhaps she would have to arrive too early after all. Then she noticed that there was a telephone box ahead. She could spend the time making a telephone call, though to whom she could not think, even when she had shut herself into the box. An anonymous call of a scurrilous nature? Were calls of this kind made by people who had an odd ten minutes to fill in before arriving somewhere? Dulcie could think of nobody to telephone at this moment, when most people would be preparing or eating the evening meal, but she might do a little research in the directories. Why, for instance, had she not thought of looking up Aylwin Forbes’s mother-in-law? Williton was an unusual name: indeed, as she ran her finger down the columns, Dulcie saw that there were no more than half a dozen, and out of these it was not difficult to pick out ‘Williton, Mrs Grace, 37 Deodar Grove, S.W.13’ as being the right one. The discovery excited her, for the address was so near where she herself hved, and she left the box quickly, unable to fill in time any longer. A song was ringing in her head, something that began ‘Under the deodar tree’. She wondered if Viola knew.
‘I know I’m too early,’ she said breathlessly, as Viola came to the door, ‘but I thought I could probably help in some way.’ She saw herself preparing vegetables (though they might be frozen) scraping potatoes, grinding coffee beans, beating egg whites, opening a difficult tin, laying the table … ‘There must be something I can do.’
‘Yes, there might be,’ said Viola vaguely. ‘I’m afraid we still have another flight of stairs to climb.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Dulcie gallantly. ‘I always think it’s nice to be high up.’
Her first impression of the house, with its peeling paint and dingy stair carpet of a colour that could only be described as ‘fawn’, had not been particularly reassuring. The neighbourhood had obviously ‘gone down’ and she was surprised that Viola should be content to live in it.
The room was a little better than she had expected, because it was on a corner with two large windows and an impression of greenness from the paint of the woodwork and the glimpse of trees beyond. Inside, she was struck by two things: the room was indescribably untidy, and there was no sign whatever that any kind of meal was being prepared. It was difficult to imagine oneself eating among the confusion of books, clothes, papers and cosmetics that seemed to occupy every flat surface. On one wall hung a large ornate crucifix, of the kind that is put up for artistic effect rather than as a sign of devotion. Dulcie remembered Viola saying that she was an Anglo-Catholic, and now wondered if she were one of the non-practising kind, who had been driven to it by boredom with the more ordinary church services.
‘I’ve been sorting out a few things,’ said Viola. ‘I can’t bring all my junk to you, can I?’
‘Well, I have an attic,’ said Dulcie doubtfully.
‘But I feel I must make a clean break with the past,’ said Viola, taking up a fringed Spanish shawl and draping it untidily over one end of the divan bed.
The past? thought Dulcie, wondering about the Spanish shawl which did not seem to fit in with the kind of past that people had nowadays.
‘My father got it in Seville for my mother,’ Viola explained.
‘Oh, yes, in Holy Week,’ said Dulcie. ‘That’s a great thing about Seville, isn’t it — all those processions.’ Then, thinking of the pictures ‘Prosperity’ and ‘Adversity’, she went on, ‘Family things are rather difficult to dispose of. One never knows …’
Were they not to have a meal of any kind? she wondered. That cupboard over by the door — was it possible that it contained food? There was a gas-ring in the hearth, and a kettle, but no sign of any other kind of cooking utensils. Perhaps it was not surprising that Viola had said ‘It won’t be much,’ when it was apparently to be nothing.
‘I suppose we ought to be thinking about supper,’ Viola said unpromisingly. ‘I got some things when I was out, and there’s a tin of soup we could heat up.’
‘Oh, let me open it,’ said Dulcie eagerly.
Viola handed her a tin-opener and began to unpack a shopping basket which had been lying in a corner. Dulcie saw cartons of exotic salads, cold meats wrapped in greaseproof paper, and a bag of croissants. How extravagant, she thought warmly, feeling that it was typical of Viola.
When they were sitting down to eat, Dulcie said, ‘Did you know that Aylwin Forbes’s mother-in-law lives quite near me?’
‘Really?’ Viola seemed uninterested. ‘I didn’t know, but it seems so remote.’
‘Oh, it’s not far — Deodar Grove.’
‘I meant the connection — his wife’s mother. Not even a blood relation. There could be nothing of him in Deodar Grove.’ She pronounced the last words distastefully.
‘No, perhaps not. But you never know.’ Dulcie was a little damped. It had seemed exciting, finding the right name in the telephone directory; now perhaps it was nothing after all.
Hoping to start a conversation that Viola might find more interesting, she asked, ‘Did you have a quarrel with your landlady here? Is that why you want to leave?’
‘Yes, in a way. She said the daily woman found it impossible to clean my room because it was so untidy.’
Dulcie imagined the untidiness transferred to her own house, and tried not to look around her.
‘And I had friends here late at night — even a man, once.’
Was it Aylwin Forbes? Dulcie wondered, unable to see him in such surroundings. ‘A man,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, some landladies do seem to object to men; on principle, I suppose — leaning their brilliantined heads against the backs of chairs, knocking out their pipes on the furniture, clumping heavily up and down the stairs — it’s for things like that, isn’t it, rather than for fear of a woman’s reputation. Well, you can certainly have men to see you when you’re living in my house — as many as you like,’ she added in a jovial tone, thus somehow spoiling the whole picture of Viola as a femme fatale. ‘My niece is staying with me now, so we shall be quite a houseful of women. Like some dreadful novel,’ she said quickly, fearing that it really might be like that. ‘Shall I help you to wash up?’
‘No, thank you, I’ll do it when you’ve gone. We might have some coffee now.’
The coffee was very good, and they sat talking for some time.
‘It will be a relief to get away from here,’ Viola said. ‘I find it painful being so near him.’
Dulcie suddenly wished that she had brought her knitting. There was that look about Viola that presaged the outpouring of confidences. It would have added a cosiness to the occasion — hot coffee, purring gas-fire, women knitting and talking. Or, rather, one talking while the other knitted in a kind of wildness and despera-tion, yet with the satisfaction of seeing a sleeve grow. And now, when it came, there was really nothing to tell. Viola had seen no more of Aylwin Forbes than had Dulcie herself. It was the pain of his nearness that she wanted to enlarge upon — only four or five minutes’ brisk walk away in Quince Square, and yet so utterly remote.
‘Perhaps I could walk past the house on my way back,’ said Dulcie.
‘I’ll come with you to the bus stop,’ said Viola eagerly, getting up from her chair.
‘Yes, it’s nearly ten o’clock,’ said Dulcie, feeling that she was being pushed away rather early. ‘Perhaps I should be going.’
‘The buses may stop running,’ said Viola, ‘and you’ve a long journey.’
‘You knew, of course, that his brother is a clergyman?’ said Dulcie as they walked out of the house.
‘Yes, I did. A rather dreary vicar somewhere in North London,’ said Viola.
‘He doesn’t sound dreary — Neville Arthur Brandreth Forbes. I plan to take a look at him some time. It should be possible to go to a service at his church.’
‘Hush — this is Quince Square. He might be …’
‘You mean Aylwin might be taking the dog for a walk?’
‘I don’t think he has a dog.’
‘Well, not l
iterally, perhaps. But going for some sort of evening stroll — smoking a last pipe or something like that.’
‘This is the house — this next one,’ said Viola, almost in a whisper.
It was solid and richly creamy, with new paint glistening in the lamplight. There was a brass dolphin knocker on the gleaming black door. A sound of braying laughter, somewhat out of keeping with the dignified appearance of the house, could be heard coming from the basement.
‘The servants listening to a television programme,’ said Viola distastefully.
‘Servants?’ echoed Dulcie incredulously. ‘Do people have servants nowadays — I mean, ordinary people like Aylwin Forbes?’
‘He seems to be quite well-off, but actually the “servants” go with the house, I think. He has a maisonnette on the two top floors,’ Viola explained.
‘His parentage isn’t mentioned in Who’s Who,’ said Dulcie. ‘I suppose there could be money in his family.’
The concentration of one’s thoughts on a particular person can sometimes have the effect of making him appear in the flesh, and so it was on this occasion. The front door of the house opened, and Aylwin Forbes came out. He looked older than Dulcie had remembered, and was informally dressed in a blue cardigan, old grey trousers, and red slippers.
It would have been better, Dulcie thought, as so often on these occasions, if they had not seen him or he had not seen them — if they could have slipped quietly away without having to say anything. As it was, she felt herself cringing with embarrassment at Viola’s false-sounding exclamations of surprise, and at Aylwin’s response which seemed almost to be — and perhaps was — one of dismay.
‘Why, Viola and Miss — er …’
‘Mainwaring,’ said Dulcie quickly.
‘Of course! We met at the conference, didn’t we? I had no idea you lived round here.’
‘I don’t, as a matter of fact,’ said Dulcie unhelpfully.
‘Oh, I see.’
The little party walked on in silence.
‘Miss Mainwaring has been dining with me. I have a flat in Carew Gardens,’ said Viola.
‘Dining’ was perhaps not quite the word, thought Dulcie, and neither was ‘flat’. And why did she have to say Miss Mainwaring, making her sound like a worthy elderly female?
‘I was on my way to post a letter,’ he said, though no letter was in his hand.
‘Miss Mainwaring has to catch a bus,’ said Viola.
‘Yes, I live miles away beyond Hammersmith,’ said Dulcie, making a joke of it, as suburban dwellers sometimes must.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Aylwin, with a thoughtful air, as if he might be remembering the house in Deodar Grove where his wife now was. ‘Here is the pillar-box,’ he said, for there was no getting away from it. He fumbled in his pockets. ‘But I seem to have forgotten my letter. How stupid ofme!’
The women made no comment, and after saying good-night he left them and went back to his house, presumably to fetch, or even to write, the letter.
‘Somehow he reminds me of Rupert Brooke,’ said Dulcie enthusiastically, when he was out of earshot.
‘Rupert Brooke, good heavens!’ There was contempt in Viola’s tone. That handsome vieux-jeu kind of face, and the slender volume of poems that so many schoolgirls bought in the nineteen-twenties. ‘My mother’s favourite poet. Do you really think so?’
‘I thought he had a look of him. And yet,’ said Dulcie thoughtfully, ‘Aylwin just misses perfection — there’s the Greek-statue look, something blunted or marred about the features… Look, here’s my bus. I think I’d better get it.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Viola. Til see you on Friday.’
She turned away from the bus stop and hurried back past the house in Quince Square. But the door was shut and now from the basement came an unknown man’s voice, saying unctuously, ‘The tea is delicious and the packet is val-u-able!’ Then there was a snatch of song, like a little Elizabethan catch adapted to television advertis-ing.
He had been gravely lacking in hospitality, not to have asked them to come in, thought Aylwin, hurrying up to his study and picking up the letter from the table. But Miss Mainwaring had a bus to catch — she would not have wanted to be delayed. She lived far away, in the same direction as his wife’s mother, in that depressing house facing the common. He had not always found it so.
Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better,
he thought. Once it had seemed the height of romanticism, on a January day shortly after their first meeting, with the stone squirrel in the next-door garden, and Marjorie’s pretty little face peeping through the net curtains that her mother had put up at every win-dow, waiting for him to come to tea on a Sunday afternoon. He would have done anything for her in those days, have snatched even the stone squirrel from its hard earthy bed and pressed it into her hands as a ridiculous romantic present, meeting unembarrassed the surprised stare of his future mother-in-law as he waited with it on the doorstep.
He wished now that he could have asked the two women — Viola and Miss Mainwaring (had she no Christian name?) — in for a drink. A whisky, perhaps, or tea out of the big blue dragon cups. That would have been safe and cosy. And there would have been no danger of an embarrassing scene with poor Vi if Miss Mainwaring had been there.
As it was, he put down the letter again and turned to the material which his assistant editor had sent him for the January issue of his journal. ‘Some problems of an editor’, he thought, as various difficulties presented themselves. Then, bringing his fist down on the table, he heard himself saying aloud words that normally one only sees written.
‘The Editor’s decision is final,’ he declared. ‘No review shall exceed a thousand words.’
Chapter Eight
LAUREL was not sure exactly where the flower shop was, but she had been reluctant to ask Dulcie as she did not want her to know that she was going to call there. She must thank Paul for having got her bracelet mended and for the roses, and it would be much more interesting to* call and see him than to write a stiff little note, or to go to his house and perhaps have to meet his terrify-ing blue-haired mother with her spoilt little poodle.
She hoped it would not turn out to be one of those big smart shops with chic flower arrangements, where inquiries as to the price of bunches that looked within one’s means would be met with contempt — for she would have to buy something and was rather short of money. But when she found the street she saw to her relief that the shops in it were small, almost mean, and the flower shop itself reassuringly modest. She approached it cautiously, noticing the name ‘Mirabelle’, and looked in through the window. There was nobody visible inside, so she went on looking, studying the rows of plants and cacti arranged in the front, the fancy pot-holders and hideous vases, and at the back the green tins of gladioli, dahlias and chrysanthemums. In one corner, with the sacks of com-post and fertilizer, there were some garden objects, rabbits and gnomes and little animals of indeterminate species, looking peculiarly sad in the dusk. And Paul, who now emerged from somewhere behind the rabbits and gnomes, also looked sad.
His face brightened a little when he saw Laurel, but it was a moment before either of them spoke.
‘Good evening,’ said Laurel at last, a little stiffly.
Paul returned her greeting.
‘I came to thank you for getting my bracelet mended so quickly, and for the lovely roses.’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’
‘I suppose you’ll be closing soon? I wasn’t sure if you’d still be open.’
‘Yes, I usually close at six or sometimes half past. People seem to buy flowers on their way home.’
‘Guilty husbands, I suppose’ said Laurel frivolously, then, seeing his puzzled look, regretted her remark.
‘It seems to be mostly women’ he said seriously.
Women like Aunt Dulcie, Laurel thought, going back to dull and lonely rooms which they hoped to brighten with a bunch of cheap zinnias.
&nbs
p; ‘Well, I must buy something’ she said.
‘You don’t have to.’ A faint smile came on to his face. ‘I expect Miss Mainwaring has plenty of flowers in her garden still.’
‘Yes, of course, but I might get a plant for my room. A cactus, perhaps.’ She peered rather desperately at the rows of plants, with their harsh spiky leaves. ‘Or something trailing,’ she went on more hopefully, fingering a variegated ivy. ‘That might be better.’ She wished he would help her to choose instead of standing silently, almost deferentially, at her side. She wondered if it was going to be embarrassing to pay, slipping the money into his hand with a little joke if she could think of one. At last she decided on a trade-scantia with striped mauve leaves, and he took it away to wrap it up for her. In the back of the shop she now noticed a half-finished wreath — white carnations were being stuck into a heart-shaped base,
‘Are you making a wreath?’ she asked in a bright social tone, thinking as she did so what a very odd remark it was to make to anyone.
‘Yes, it’s a bleeding heart,’ he said solemnly. ‘There will be a spray of red carnations coming out of the side here.’
‘What a strange idea. Rather horrible, in a way.’
‘They’re very popular round here. You see, this isn’t really the grandest part of Kensington.’
Laurel smiled. ‘No, I suppose there the wreaths might be more conventional or they might say “cut flowers only”, or even no flowers at all. I wonder why poorer people make more of death? Are the upper and middle classes afraid of showing their feelings in such an obvious way?’
Paul smiled a little nervously, but seemed unable to add anything to the discussion.