The Colour of Murder

by Julian Symons

  “Another two hundred a year, I should think. Less tax.”

  “Do you know what I should like to have after you’ve got the job, what we ought to save up for?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A car. After all, as a department manager in Palings you’ll have a certain position to keep up. Quite a lot of our friends have got cars, and I’ve really felt quite ashamed sometimes of the way we’re always getting lifts.”

  At that I really couldn’t restrain myself, I burst out laughing. “A car, oh yes, a car’s just what we need. We must get a car on order straight away. If you knew how much I wished I had a car tonight.” Tears came out of my eyes, tears of laughter, while May stared at me without understanding.

  Chapter Eight

  I’ve mentioned already that Uncle Dan had asked whether I was joining the tennis club. This was a local club in Clapham named Evesdale. Uncle Dan had been a member there for several years, and had been on at me to join for quite some time, but May always said there was too much backbiting and petty jealousy in tennis clubs, quite apart from the expense. After the evening with Sheila I finally made up my mind that I wanted to join Evesdale, and told May so. Naturally I suggested that she should join as well.

  May listened to me with the considering kind of look on her face that she has when she’s pricing something in a shop and discovers that it’s more expensive than she had expected. At the same time there was something else in her manner, a sort of respect you might call it, which I couldn’t understand until I suddenly realised that it was my story about Lacey that had done it.

  “Your Uncle Dan’s a member at Evesdale, isn’t he?” She always called him your Uncle Dan, to make it clear that she had no rights in him. “That’s nothing in its favour. All the same I will say it’s a good class club.”

  “That’s very important.” I spoke sarcastically, but sarcasm was wasted on May.

  “Naturally, especially for you now.”

  “I was just joining to get a game of tennis.”

  She said as if I were a child, “Yes, but who you play tennis with is important too. How many of the members at Evesdale could you introduce to Mr Lacey? From what I know I should say that quite a number of them have good social standing. How much is the subscription?”

  “Four guineas each for the summer.” I didn’t go on to say that what May knew about the members at Evesdale was very little indeed – perhaps she had met half a dozen of them and knew the backgrounds of half a dozen more. When I tried to pull May up in that way I only got involved in a long argument which somehow I always seemed to lose. In the same way I knew it was no good simply saying that I meant to join Evesdale, or I should never have heard the end of it. The whole thing had to be discussed with May.

  She winced at mention of the money. “And I suppose you’ll need some new clothes. Rackets. Balls.” I felt that an invisible accounting was taking place in her mind. “I think it’s worth your joining,” she said at last.

  I was surprised. “But you’ll join too.”

  “No.” The considering mood was over, balances had been totted up and agreed. “I don’t think it’s worth while. I don’t play very well, and when you meet people who seem worth cultivating you can always ask them back here. You know I’m not all that keen on tennis.”

  Remembering those days at the sports club, which now seemed so long ago, I said, “You put up a good pretence at one time.”

  She actually laughed. “That was when I first knew you. You were very raw then, but I always thought you were the one for me. I want you to know that I’m proud of you, John. I always thought you’d get a good position.”

  I had to think a moment before I realised she was referring again to my imaginary conversation with Mr Lacey. I said truthfully, “There’s nothing to be proud of.”

  “You like playing tennis, all right, you go ahead and play.” She was like a schoolmistress awarding an unexpected prize. “But don’t forget, John, that there’s another side to Evesdale. You can say what you like, knowing nice people is important.”

  That was how I joined Evesdale, and went down there one Saturday afternoon at the end of May for my first game. I had belonged to a suburban tennis club before, and I knew that they have a set of invisible rules, much more important than those posted up on the notice-board. New members may play with other new members, otherwise they should wait until they are asked if they would like a game. They should not go up to long-established members and invite them to play a single, they should not offer themselves eagerly for a game of doubles or mixed doubles that is just being arranged, and above all they should not make a direct approach for a game to a member of the club team. If they commit all or any of these social errors they are likely to have an uncomfortable time, and even if their behaviour is perfect it will probably be several weeks before they are thoroughly accepted.

  My own way in to Evesdale was smoothed by Uncle Dan. It was an average kind of tennis club, with four hard courts and six grass, and a clubroom where you could get drinks and snacks. When I got there Uncle Dan introduced me to the club secretary and then fixed up a men’s doubles, in which he and I just managed to beat a big blond man and a small dark one. Uncle Dan was not really good but he played a cunning, economical game which was especially useful in doubles, and I played pretty well for somebody out of practice. I noticed that the big blond man was not very pleased, and when the game was over Uncle Dan told me that his name was Jackson, and that he was in the team.

  Uncle Dan went off to get a shower and I was sitting in the bar drinking iced orange squash when I heard voices behind me talking about getting a fourth for mixed doubles. A voice I recognised as Jackson’s called out to someone outside the clubhouse if he would like to play. The answer came: “Sorry, Jacko, fixed up already.”

  Another voice said, “That’s a pity, Bill, I’m feeling in good form.” This was a voice I knew, Sheila’s voice, yet I could not believe it was hers. I turned round slowly and saw her, standing in the doorway with another girl.

  She held a racket loosely in her hand, and she was smiling at Jackson.

  Slowly I said, “I’m not fixed up. I’d like a game – very much, I’d like one very much – that is, if I’m not butting in.”

  There was silence while they looked at me, Jackson and Sheila and the other girl. They looked at me as they stood in the door of the clubhouse, and it seemed to me that they were a hostile group banded together there against me. Then Sheila smiled and spoke, and the impression was gone.

  “Why John, I didn’t know you were a member here, you’re new, aren’t you?” There was something so warm and welcoming in her voice, even though it was very much the voice she used to people taking out books at the library, that I could have cried.

  Jackson had been frowning at me. Now he uncreased his eyebrows. “You know Wilkins, do you, Sheila?”

  “Of course. And we need a fourth, don’t we, Les?”

  Rather grudgingly Jackson agreed that they did, and we went out into the sunshine. When we spun rackets for partners, Sheila’s and mine came down rough so that we were together. It all seemed to me like a dream as we moved to our side of the court, like that dream of the runner and the prize that I’d had in bed, and I knew that I was going to play well, better than I’d ever played in my life before, I could see myself driving and smashing and cutting off shots at the net while Sheila just stood by watching in amazement. When she turned to me now and said, with her warm smile, “I hope you’re in practice. Les is pretty good,” I answered confidently, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be all right.” I picked up the balls and walked to the baseline to serve.

  And it was all right. I have a really hard first service when it goes in, and this afternoon it went in all the time. I hit my drives for the corners and that was where they went, I came in to volley, dashed up to the net, ran back to retrieve lobs and came up again. Sheila was quite a useful player but she hardly touched the ball except when she was serving. I pla
yed the other two on my own.

  It wasn’t until we’d played a couple of games in the second set, after winning the first one six-two, that I noticed the strange atmosphere which had come into the game. I realised it when I ran and ran for a drive of Jackson’s and just managed to lob it back, falling over as I did so. To my surprise he gathered the ball and when I asked whether there had been anything wrong with my return he simply said “Your point.” After that he served a double fault, to give us the game.

  Sheila said, “Don’t try so hard.”

  I wiped my forehead, which was sweaty. “What?”

  “Don’t try so hard. This isn’t the Davis Cup. And you might let me see the ball sometimes.”

  She said it nicely, with her usual smile, but that broke my dream. I knew that I’d been doing the wrong thing, had known it really, I suppose, all the time. I tried to tone my game down, but that’s something I’ve never been able to do and I just went to pieces and was glad when, after we lost the second set, we didn’t play a decider. After we’d finished Sheila thanked me quite sweetly, but Jackson just gave me a nod. Then I went and had a shower and joined Uncle Dan at the bar. I asked him what he was having.

  “I’ll take the Pope’s telephone number.” He pointed to a bottle of Vat 69.

  “One day you’re going to say that to a Catholic and he won’t like it,” said Jackson, who was standing beside him.

  “All the Catholics I’ve ever met are men who can take a joke,” said Uncle Dan, putting his narrow head on one side. “But if I ever met one who took offence at what I’d said, I’d certainly apologise to him and say I was deeply sorry he was so narrow-minded. Here’s all the best to you, John my boy. I hear you electrified them on the court just now.”

  “He’s a real dynamo.” Jackson didn’t say it in a friendly way. I asked him to have a drink, but he said he wasn’t drinking. Beyond him I could see Sheila’s profile, and I asked her.

  “No, thank you.” She turned towards me. “You didn’t tell me you were married.”

  I should have been prepared for that, of course, as soon as I saw her in the club, but I wasn’t. I could think of nothing to say.

  “You might have mentioned it. There was no need to invent an invalid sister. But I suppose you had to think of some reason for taking out books by Moira Mauleverer.”

  Chapter Nine

  I can’t express how I felt after that afternoon at the tennis club. I don’t believe anybody can have any idea of it. I relived every moment of the afternoon, recounted over and over again the humiliation and the shame, the foolish eagerness that had made me too keen to win, the unnecessary lie in which I had been caught out. I tried to reconstruct these scenes so that they would be more acceptable, to imagine what might have happened had I restrained myself, but the reality was too strong. Turning in endless anguish on the bed, I relived the afternoon, and thought how Sheila’s warm smile of welcome had been so quickly turned to the cold rejecting look which was the last thing I remembered of her. The hour hand of the clock showed two, three, four. Beside me May slept peacefully, unmoving, a statue in the bed. I slept for three hours then, sleep invaded by bad dreams of something coming towards me, pulling me and then letting go so that I whirled about in space.

  At Palings next day things were no better. I dealt with the work mechanically, in a kind of dream. The letters I dictated were coherent, but they seemed to be produced by an outer shell whose doings left untouched my own warm, sensitive inner being. I saw Miss Murchison looking at me once or twice rather curiously, but there was nothing I could do about that. At four o’clock I could endure it no longer. I put on my hat and coat and told her that I felt unwell and was going home.

  Instead I wandered down Regent Street and into Soho, where I went to a little club to which Uncle Dan had once taken me, and drank several glasses of whisky. With the second glass it was as though a weight pressing on my mind had been removed, or as though the inner being, the one who hadn’t been able to make contact with what was going on outside Palings, had been blended with the outer one. This sounds a ridiculous way to put it, no doubt, but it’s what I felt.

  I must have stayed drinking longer than I intended, because when I looked at my watch it was seven o’clock. The time meant something to me. I remembered suddenly that today was Wednesday, our day for going to see mother, and that seven o’clock was the time we were due to arrive. I bought a packet of those tablets that are supposed to take away the smell from your breath, and then jumped on to a bus. I got to Baynard Road just after half past seven, and mother opened the door.

  “I’m sorry, Mother, extremely sorry, but I had to work late. All to do with the reorganisation of the department and then Mr Lacey invited me in to have a drink with him. At his club. He’s an important man in the firm, you know, not the kind of invitation you can refuse. Is May here?”

  “Oh.” My mother sounded uncommonly grim. I reflected that if I had decided in advance to tell this tale I need not have worried about taking the tablets, which had left in my mouth a taste both dry and bitter. “Yes, May is here. Would you like to go upstairs and wash?”

  “What’s that?” This was a very unusual thing for mother to say, she was not usually pernickety about that kind of thing.

  “Go upstairs and wash.” In her voice there was the ring of authority I remembered from childhood. I went obediently up the stairs, turned on the hot-water tap in the tiny bathroom and confronted myself in the glass. There I saw the visible reason for my mother’s grimness. On my left cheek, smudged but still plainly to be seen for what it was, showed the mark of a pair of lips. I washed it off and went downstairs, much shaken. Of the occasion when those lips had stamped themselves upon my face I could remember nothing.

  That evening passed uneasily. I revoked at sevens, kissed May savagely and against her will as we crossed the Common, and when we reached the flat collapsed on to the bed with my clothes still on, and fell asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Extract from letter written by Mrs Wilkins to Nora Vincent, Rose Cottage, Little Pelling, Wiltshire

  …the cost of living goes up and up, and the really poor people nowadays are the ones like me who have a fixed income. I see in the papers today the engineers, or is it the railwaymen, are asking for more money. No doubt about it who are well off now, do you know it was in the Clapham Observer that Billy Nichols – you remember him, the little man who kept the draper’s on the Hill and then branched out and bought up two or three other firms – he’s living in one of those houses in Larkspur Road that have rents controlled by the Council, twenty-five shillings a week and the ratepayers make up the difference, and Billy Nichols must make forty pounds a week. I don’t know what things are coming to.

  Polly Paget at number sixty has had her baby. Just seven months married. Premature they call it.

  I am worried about John, he has been acting most strangely. He came to dinner last Wednesday with the strangest look in his eye and lipstick over his face. I sent him upstairs to wash and fortunately May knew nothing about it, but his manner was odd all the evening, as though he were somewhere else, not with us at all. I know John better than anybody, I should do being his mother, and I can tell that there is something wrong. He is building up for something, as I used to put it. I know the signs. Do you remember when we were all on holiday at Teignmouth when John was eleven, and there was a man named Bellerby who teased John about not being able to swim and finally, after days and days of bottling up what he felt, John attacked Bellerby with a cricket bat and broke his nose? He is rather like that now, like he was in the days before he attacked Bellerby, I mean. At the same time, although I hold no brief for May, as you know, putting on airs when she is Barney Colter’s daughter, after all she is his wife and has a right to some consideration.

  Last week I saw Mrs Piddock at the Joneses’ and she told me that she had seen John at the theatre with a girl. The girl would not give her name, but admitted that she worked at the library and of course Mrs Pidd
ock soon found who it was. Do you remember Morton, the timber merchant who had a big yard in Grayling Road? This is his daughter and from all I hear she is no better than she should be…

  Extract from letter written by Sheila Morton to Mary Dansett, 17 Rangely Road, Manchester

  …So life at the library is pretty humdrum, although I like it in a way. It’s quite fun really choosing books for spinsters who want something that’s a little bit exciting but perfectly respectable. I have to resist the temptation to give them Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I always do resist it, too. You know me, always did see lame dogs across the road.

  Just that very thing, feeling sorry for lame dogs, I mean, has landed me in a mess lately. A young man came into the library and asked for books by Moira Mauleverer for his invalid sister. You know the sort, doggy brown eyes, pinky face, very puppyish though not so young as all that. Not my type a bit, but I felt so sorry for him I hadn’t the heart to brush him off even when he hung about waiting to ask me questions to which he already knew the answers. Went on feeling sorry to the point where I simply had to go to the theatre with him, he’d asked me so often and said he had a lot of complimentary tickets. That turned out not to be true, he’d really bought the tickets all the time. Pathetic, isn’t it? But really, he sends shivers up my spine a little bit, I don’t know why.

  Then what does he do but turn up at Evesdale, push his way into a four, poach all my shots and bound about as if he thought he were playing in the Davis Cup or something. You should have seen him after the game, looking so upset because I hadn’t appreciated his efforts. I might have started feeling sorry for him all over again, except that I learned he’s married and the invalid sister is an invention. So I hardened my heart and said a few sharp words, though whether I shall be able to keep that up I don’t know. He’s really a very pathetic creature, and you know I’m as soft as soap.