‘Forgive you?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘All right: for the sake of the argument, I forgive you.’
‘That aside—if you’d like to stay, and talk, or have some dinner, or both—there is some food here if you don’t feel like going out, if you’re hungry—I don’t know what you feel like doing—’
‘We’ll go out, don’t you think? I like being seen in a restaurant with a beautiful woman, it makes me feel rich and successful.’
He’d never seen her really smile before—not that smile, that very wide, enchanted smile, which made his description of her unexceptionably exact.
She looked at him, the smile fading; there was a faint note of melancholy in her voice. ‘You’re awfully nice, Andrew,’ she said. ‘Really you are.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you noticed. But I was sure you would, sooner or later—I knew you weren’t completely stupid.’
‘I’m just going to have a shower and change,’ she said. ‘I’m rather sticky, I only got back here just before you came. I won’t be a moment. Then we can go. Have another drink if you like.’ And she left the room.
27
When she came back, all dressed up and smelling nice, he was looking at a framed photograph on the wall. ‘Who is this?’ he said.
She went and stood beside him. Andrew had masses of self-control.
‘That’s my mother at the age of five,’ she said, ‘with her ayah.’
‘Not really!’ he exclaimed. ‘Snap! ’
She smiled at him. ‘Not you too?’ she said, wonderingly.
‘Yes, me too,’ he replied.
They both laughed with astonishment.
‘Were both your parents—’ he said.
‘Yes, both. What about yours?’
‘Only my father’s lot. My mother was merely Anglo–English. And still is, come to that.’
‘So—of course you couldn’t have been born there, could you?’
‘No, not even I, old as I am!’
‘But the memory lingers on,’ she said. ‘Or the melody, or whatever it is.’
They were both looking rather grave now.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How it does.’
‘Shall we go?’ she said. ‘We might compare notes over a plate of—er—curry, or something.’
He laughed. ‘Something French, I thought,’ he said. ‘Someone told me about a place up in Hampstead—shall we see if we can get a table there? We might be lucky—it’s fairly late now. I mean, you do like French food, do you? Or would you rather somewhere else? Do say.’
‘Yes, I like French,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it funny how we all like French?’
‘No, it’s not funny,’ he said. ‘It’s only natural. After all, we’re English.’
She laughed.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m ravenous.’ He took her by the hand, but it felt perfectly natural, as if they were companions, and led her out to the car.
28
They were eating duckling and drinking white burgundy, and somewhere a tape machine was playing a just-audible stream of the animadversions of George Shearing.
‘Who are these people you work for?’
‘Two lawyers, name of Hopetoun. And their two sons, aged thirteen. Twins, they are. Identical twins.’
‘Are they nice, these Hopetouns?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘That’s all right, then. What exactly do you do for them?’
‘I get their dinner ready every night, from Monday to Thursday, inclusive. And I do a bit of cleaning—nothing much; not the heavy stuff. Someone else comes in to do that. And in return I get the flat, plus fuel.’
‘No actual money, then?’
‘I earn some outside: I do dinner parties at the weekends for people, and the odd lunch, and things like that. You see…’ and so she gave him an account of her career to date.
Barbara’s widowed mother had become ill with cancer some months before Barbara’s finals, after sitting which she had gone home to look after her: her rather older sister, who was married to a Yorkshire GP, was fully occupied with their three children, plus assorted animals. After her mother’s death, which had occurred some eighteen months later, Barbara had gone to stay with this sister for a month or two. ‘I was feeling pretty useless, you see,’ she told him. ‘Quite helpless, actually. Couldn’t get going on that career thing.’ She paused, and then shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘we were into another recession by then. So I just felt I’d altogether missed the boat.’ She paused again. ‘I suppose I didn’t even want to have caught it,’ she added.
‘Yes,’ said Andrew. ‘I see.’
‘So then,’ she sat up, smiling brightly, ‘I saw this ad in the Lady for a mother’s helper, in Kensington.’
‘Ah, the Lady.’
‘Yes, absolutely. And so I came to London.’
‘And?’
‘Oh, one thing led to another; you know. I just sort of faffed around—I just did odd jobs; and sometimes in between I signed on. And then, well—then fate brought me together with Fergus Carrington. Via Claire Maclise, as a matter of fact.’
‘Ah.’
‘You may well say so.’
She sat back and looked pensive. She had finished eating; she minutely adjusted the knife and fork on her plate. ‘That was one of the things I taught Fergus,’ she said, half to herself.
‘Oh?’
‘Table manners. I was very strict, you know.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Yes. I mean, he knew what to do; it was just that I was the first person who’d had the time and the energy to insist absolutely on his doing it.’
‘I suppose one has to do that.’
‘I’m sorry—I’d forgotten—you—’
‘It’s quite all right. I’ll have my chance next summer. And every summer.’
‘So you will.’
Now they were both pensive, even sad.
‘I was living in a room in Camden Town in those days,’ said Barbara, trying to change the subject.
‘Was that nice?’
‘I wasn’t awfully happy at the time. Fergus was a diversion, really; I don’t know what I should have done without him. Anyway, then—’ she broke off, inhibited by miserable recollection.
‘Yes?’
‘Then—well—my sister’s in-laws had some friends living near Bath, who were going on a cruise, and wanted a house-sitter. So I went down there in the spring—when—yes, eighteen months ago, or so. And stayed in this glorious house. And when the people came back, I moved into a shared house in Bath and worked in a healthfood restaurant. And then when I got bored with that, I came here. I mean, to the job I’ve got now. Another Lady ad. That was almost a year ago. So now you know the whole. Sorry it’s so uninteresting.’
‘Not uninteresting,’ said Andrew. ‘Not in the least degree.’
‘Well,’ said Barbara, ‘then lacking—lacking in structure, you could say. Not to say, purpose. Couldn’t you?’
29
Andrew poured out more wine and sat back in his chair, looking at her. It was just such a tale as an angel, precipitated into the terrible world, might have related. He felt almost defeated by the pity of it all. ‘Tell me about the future, then,’ he said. ‘What happens next?’
She thought for a moment and her face broke into an almost reckless smile. ‘Well, there’s always teacher-training,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
Andrew was all but overwhelmed by her predicament; there seemed nothing useful he could say. ‘I suppose it’s been pretty hard on your generation,’ he said. ‘Going out into the world in the nasty 1980s.’
‘Not wonderful, I suppose. Brilliant for some, of course.’
‘And then, one mightn’t want, after all, to be exactly the sort of person for whom it’s been brilliant.’
‘Still, you could argue that I’ve slightly overdone it.’
‘Mitigating circumstances.’
; ‘Actually, I do know someone who dropped out entirely on purpose. Conscientiously, so to speak. In fact he calls himself a conscientious objector, or did.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘A chap in Bath. I met him because he was the gardener at the house I was minding. He lived by doing odd gardening work, and things like that, but once upon a time he’d been headed for the City.’
‘Slight change of plan, then.’
‘Actually, I think he did even put in some time in the City before ideology overcame avarice. He said one had to take a stand against them, and all that pertained thereto. He told me I was doing exactly the right thing, after all.’
‘Ye-e-es,’ said Andrew. ‘Well, it can be problematical, trying to do the right thing. Knowing what the right thing is, for a start.’
‘In this case,’ said Barbara, ‘I did the right thing—if I did—only by accident, as it were. So it hardly counts.’
‘Perhaps that’s the only way of really doing it.’
‘Although one has to go on trying to do it, as occasion arises, doesn’t one? Nevertheless?’
‘I suppose one does. Nevertheless. Anyway—look—what about some pudding?’
30
Barbara, waiting for her coffee to cool, carefully unpleated the gold foil from a chocolate mint.
‘Tell me exactly how your mother came to be born in India,’ said Andrew at last.
‘My grandfather was in the Indian Army. Both my grandfathers, actually. What about your people?’
‘My father’s father was ICS. And his father, and so on. My mother, however, was an unreconstructed English girl from the Home Counties; she actually met my father when she went out to India with the fishing fleet—in what was probably its very last incarnation, I dare say—just before the war. She had some relations out there. The way people so often did, one way or another.’
They exchanged an almost conspiratorial look. ‘Anyway,’ said Andrew cheerfully, ‘it’s jolly nice to meet someone who understands these matters, I must say.’
‘A fellow initiate?’
‘It’s not a connection one dare mention before the laity.’
‘God forbid.’
‘Convinced as the laity is that the Raj was all exactly as portrayed by E. M. Forster in that wretched book.’
‘To say nothing of the film of!’
‘Good God, yes—there isn’t a layman anywhere now who can’t tell you precisely how it all was—fantastic, isn’t it?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Barbara with a remorseful smile, ‘it was once my modest ambition to be a historian of the Raj. I never really imagined doing anything else.’
‘Why don’t you do it, then?’
‘Well, you know how it is—I rather lost my grip, not getting a good degree, and so on.’
‘Mitigating circumstances?’
‘That was my excuse. But now I’ll never really know.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about that: just get on with it. Do an MA. Get to work!’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps I will, next year.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’ He would, too. ‘I’ll be your moral tutor,’ he said.
‘That’s truly kind of you,’ she replied; and in this moment, remembering their anterior meeting, they both half-sadly, half-ruefully smiled.
He took her hand for a moment. He was ready at this moment for the long haul; for whatever time and effort might be necessary. He frowned very slightly. ‘It’s funny being back,’ he said. ‘In England.’
‘It’s a fairly funny place, I suppose.’
‘All things considered, quite possibly the very funniest there is.’
‘Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised. When you consider.’
‘Have you ever been to India?’
‘No—but actually—do you remember the con scientious objector? His name is Gideon, by the way. Gideon Ainsworth. Well, Gideon had this plan—he was due to come into a trust fund of some kind this year—’
‘Oh, is he now?’
‘Just a very tiny one. Or so he said. Anyway, he always said that as soon as he did, he was going to organise an overland trip to India. You know, that thing. People are doing it again now, you see.’
‘Oh, are they? That’s good.’
‘Yes. So, he used to say that I should come too, and a few other people he knows. He’d thought about it all quite thoroughly.’
‘Was he planning to pay for you all, then?’
‘Oh, no. But actually I’ve got a few things I could sell—furniture and things. My sister’s got them in her attic.’
Andrew thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. He was quite emphatic. ‘You really should go if you possibly can. Sell up and go.’
‘Have you been?’
‘Yes, I’ve been. No, but you really should, you know.’ This was moral tutoring, as he lived and breathed.
Barbara smiled at him, swept along by his certainty, which she did not yet share. ‘Will I find God?’ she said.
And although she’d never before seriously imagined that she really could go off to India like this, she suddenly understood, now that she quite possibly would: that it really was a thing one could do: and the awful, insupportable grief which had lain in her heart like a stone for the past several days (a grief reborn, redoubled) seemed to lie by just one degree less heavily. Andrew smiled at her.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ she said lightly. ‘Gideon’s probably forgotten by now, anyway. Or he might have changed his mind altogether. We’ll see.’
And now she even hoped that Gideon Ainsworth had not changed his mind, and had remembered: for what else, after all, could she reasonably do, now, but go far, far away?
‘Gideon isn’t, after all, essential,’ said Andrew. ‘You could find another companion. Or even go by yourself.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Even this seemed possible. ‘I could, at that.’
‘There you go, then,’ said Andrew; and they sat smiling at each other, like two people in a state of perfect agreement.
31
At first there was only a long silence while they stared at each other, standing quite still on either side of the thres hold, weak with shock and a sort of dread—he, truly, as unprepared as she for the awful actuality of being in the other’s presence—mute and helpless; terrified.
Alex at last spoke. ‘Well—’ he said; he looked down at the ground, at the stone flagging with which the area was paved; he looked up again at Barbara’s expressionless face. ‘Can I come in?’
Still silent, she stood aside to let him enter and pushed the door to behind him. ‘This way,’ she murmured and he followed her down the corridor and into the large room. They stood in its midst, looking at each other, helpless, terrified.
‘Why have you come here?’ she said.
She had folded her arms; she stood there, staring at him, waiting. He could not explain himself to this maenad. He looked around the room: ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ he said; she shrugged slightly and he sat down in the wicker armchair. He was almost trembling. He crossed his legs and then gestured slightly towards the other chair, as if inviting her to occupy it, and after a slight hesitation she did so, but with a sort of impatience, as if she were saying, What the hell. Her arms were still folded.
He felt suddenly exhausted, almost as if he might cry. Nothing that he was feeling, had felt, in the past few minutes, in the time since he had rung her doorbell, had been foreseen, or foreseeable.
It had all begun quite differently, it had begun with that morning’s awakening out of and into a wonderful clarity: a conviction that he would (he should, he must) of course go and see her this evening: that there was no question left to ponder: that he would quite certainly, as a matter even of propriety, simply drive over to Belsize Park, get there around five o’clock, if she were not there find a pub to wait around in, and go on trying her doorbell, every hour on the hour, until it was too late to hope that she would return that night.
So there had only remained the day
to be lived through—the long, long day, whose final hours had suddenly strangely rushed past him at an almost-too-dizzy speed: and then he’d arrived here; of course he remembered clearly which white stucco-fronted house it was, the flight of steps to the front door, the urns with the geraniums either side, the number: 51. The barred front window of the basement flat, the yellow-painted door next to it. Five o’clock. He’d found her first time. No pub, no waiting: just this unforeseen, unforeseeable terror.
He looked across at her: the chair she sat on was drawn up almost to the table; on this, on her left, stood a vase full of roses— dozens of them, lipstick-pink, half-opened, some even beginning to hang their heads. An even-less-foreseeable unease was added to his terror. Roses…dozens of them…and he had brought her nothing, nothing but himself, with his terror, his dread, the extremity of his desire to be with her. He’d spent half the day wandering around Camden Passage, trying to find the one thing, the one magical jewel or gewgaw which would have been right, which would have been at once rare and splendid enough and yet free of all hint of presumption: it didn’t, it couldn’t, exist. Every other idea had been futile, even flowers, in the circumstances, had seemed futile.
‘I’m still waiting,’ she said.
‘Waiting?’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ she said. ‘Why have you come here?’
She had unfolded her arms; she sat, still looking at him, one hand against the side of the vase full of pink roses. He looked at her, full as he was still of terror, dread, unease and a creeping hopelessness.
‘I wanted to see you,’ he said.
32
She made an effort; it was very difficult. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, as if reflecting. She was examining the roses, touching one, holding up its hanging head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Suddenly, out of the blue, you wanted to see me. I don’t understand.’
He took a packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket and shook one out and offered it to her. She shook her head. ‘Do you mind—?’ he said.
A Stairway to Paradise Page 7