The Love Department

by William Trevor

  He went away, saying not to blame myself, saying he was more to blame than I. Yet I cannot see that I ever did anything to warrant any blame at all where he was concerned. Only blame in my husband’s eyes, if you understand. What can I do now? How can I go on as if nothing in the world has happened? How can I cook food and see to my husband’s needs? This has made a mockery of a marriage.

  Lady Dolores shrugged, not remembering what she had recommended that this woman should do. What was there to do? She read further familiar words, on mauve paper that was slightly scented:

  I looked at him, standing beside me in a shop, and I thought I had never seen so beautiful a creature. He did not seem a man at all, but some angel or saint, some being that had visited heaven and hell and brought back the best of both. He spoke to me and said that in shops nowadays service was poor.

  Lady Dolores closed the file on Septimus Tuam, and recited from memory:

  ‘I cannot forget his voice; his voice comes back. At night I awake with his voice murmuring in my ear and turn and see my husband, a much larger man, deeply asleep. I get up then and walk about the house that he and I walked about on those stolen afternoons, and then I cry, standing in the rooms he stood in. He was the most sympathetic person God ever made, if God did make him.’

  God had not made him, Lady Dolores thought: the devil had made him when God’s back was turned, fashioning him out of a scowling rain-cloud.

  ‘He was like another woman,’ said Lady Dolores. ‘He was not rough. He did not cough and splutter. He didn’t say he couldn’t walk on the streets with unpolished shoes. He would listen and kindly reply. He wasn’t always coarse, putting his hands on you. He wasn’t like that at all; he wasn’t out for what he could get. He was a perfect companion.’

  ‘I worry now,’ said Lady Dolores, walking about, taking another part. ‘I worry now because he may be dead. I can never forget his eyes. I sit in the afternoons for a special twenty minutes and think of him and wonder if he’s still alive. He was delicate, he told me once; he nearly died in birth. There is nothing left of my marriage since I knew him; he has shown my marriage up for what it was, a hollow thing.’

  Lady Dolores returned to the file and held the letters again in her hands, trying to imagine Septimus Tuam. She drew on a sheet of paper a face that might be his, with staring eyes, as of a beast with a soul. But the face looked ridiculous, and Lady Dolores crumpled it up.

  At nine o’clock on that same evening, September 1st, Edward returned to the house that he had earlier watched for five hours. A policeman took him to task for being mounted on a bicycle without a light, saying that that was an offence and ordering Edward to walk beside the bicycle, pushing it. This stern reprimand, combined with the fact that his heart was still heavy after his experiences of the day and with the further fact that his landlady had prepared for him a repast that was inedible, rendered Edward low, more so than previously he had been. He stood on the street in Putney and examined the house at the corner, but saw there no sign of life. ‘How come you’re on a female’s cycle?’ the policeman had asked him, and had been dubious when Edward offered his explanation. ‘Excuse me,’ Edward had said when the policeman was well out of the way, speaking to a man who had just left the house in which Septimus Tuam was said to reside. ‘Excuse me, sir, but do you know a Septimus Tuam in that house?’ The man had shaken his head and had said that there were many people in the house, all the rooms being let. It was a rooming-house, he pointed out, in which he himself had resided for fifteen years without knowing, or caring to know, the names of his neighbours. It was none of his business, the man said, implying that it was none of Edward’s either. ‘Are you a foreigner?’ he inquired, examining Edward’s profile, and added, ‘We get them here.’ Edward said that he was English, and the man said that people from the Scandinavian countries spoke English so well these days that they could pass for natives. ‘You cannot trust a soul,’ he added. ‘The Irish brought an empire down.’

  Edward looked at a distant church clock and saw that he had spent a further seventy minutes watching the house, and realized that the task might be endless. Earlier he had walked up to the rooming-house and had examined the door, and had even been so bold as to glance through the letter-box. All this told him nothing, though: a few cards with curled edges were stuck to the door by means of drawing-pins, but none bore the name he sought, and few in fact bore a name that was still legible. He thought it was likely that he would be still loitering on this street in a year’s time, on the lookout for a beautiful lover, repeating still the name to strangers. He remembered the good food of St Gregory’s, and sighed. ‘Be a man,’ his father seemed to say. ‘Let no one down.’ Edward sighed again, and agreed to do his best.

  Pushing his landlady’s bicycle, he noticed a public house called the Hand and Plough and decided to have a glass of beer to cheer himself up. It is not working out as nicely as it seemed to be at first, he wrote in his mind, in a letter to Brother Edmund. I am finding it hard to hold up my head, but I intend to persevere. He placed his landlady’s bicycle against the wall of the public house, put a lock on its front wheel, and entered a glass door marked Snug.

  ‘ “Help yourself to biscuits,” ’ Mrs Hoop was saying within. ‘ “Help yourself to biscuits,” she says. And back she comes before her time. I’d just reached out for a Crosse and Blackwell’s Cream of Celery.’

  Her friend Beach drank his beer. He declared it was scandalous, the way these women treated Mrs Hoop. He said she was worthy of better things, and proposed a few.

  ‘Get on with you,’ said Mrs Hoop.

  ‘Half a pint of bitter,’ said Edward to the barman, ‘please.’

  Beach wiped the foam from the bristles near his mouth. Although he was old – almost eighty, he thought – he still worked, employed as a weeder of flower-beds. With considerable ceremony Beach would place wire-rimmed spectacles before his eyes, unfold a small carpet mat for his knees, and set to with a will, clearing away minor convolvulus, ragwort, dock and other growths. Beach claimed to be professionally renowned. Astute and businesslike, meticulous to a fault, he said he was known to be a clean worker and was still in demand in the parks of London by those who valued a craftsmanlike attention to detail.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Beach. ‘I mean that, Emily.’

  ‘They are that unsuited,’ declared Mrs Hoop. ‘What do they have in common? You should see their wedding portrait.’

  ‘We know they are not suited,’ shrilled Beach, excited. ‘We know it because Emily says it. We know what we know, and maybe they will part.’

  Mrs Hoop drew breath through her nose and abruptly released it.

  ‘It is better so,’ opined Beach. ‘It be better that the husband finds happiness in another place. Married to another lass.’

  ‘I would see him happy. I would rest then.’

  ‘It shall come to pass. We shall watch and we shall see.’

  ‘It is my heart’s desire,’ said Mrs Hoop simply.

  ‘She shall have it,’ cried Beach. ‘Emily shall have her heart’s desire. That is written in God’s will.’

  ‘Well, that is nice,’ said Mrs Hoop, and added, ‘My old dear.’

  Edward heard this conversation and considered it singular. He sat on a stool by the counter, looking at the bottles arrayed on shelves, attempting to appear preoccupied. He was well aware that he had had enough trouble with strangers for one day, and dreaded the old man and the woman turning on him and accusing him of eavesdropping on their conversation. Yet he could not avoid eavesdropping, since the snug was small and contained only the three of them.

  ‘How about that will, my dear?’ said Mrs Hoop to Beach. ‘Look here, I’ve bought you a form from Smith’s.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Your will, old Beach. It’s all agreed on now; you’ll write it out tonight. That’s what we’ve settled on.’

  ‘I don’t remember settling that, Emily.’

  ‘We settled it Friday. “Get me a will-
form,” you said, and now I’ve gone to the trouble of getting you one. I’ve been into the shop, and that embarrassing it is, a purchase like that. Wasn’t you wanting it now?’

  ‘By jingo!’ said Beach.

  ‘It’ll have to be witnessed up,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘It’ll have to be made legal and proper in every department. D’you follow me?’

  ‘You’ll witness it yourself, Emily. What better woman? Give it here to me.’

  ‘I couldn’t witness it, old Beach, if you had it in mind to leave me a little bit. Benefactors are not in a position to witness anything. That’s the law.’

  ‘I’m going to leave you the sum of five hundred and seventy pounds,’ said Beach, ‘which is the sum I have. How’s that, then?’

  Mrs Hoop rose and carried their two glasses to the counter and ordered further refreshment. She handed the barman two shillings that Beach a moment before had handed to her. ‘Would you witness a will, Harold?’ she said, as the barman drew the beer. ‘Only Mr Beach is keen as mustard to draw up his papers tonight.’

  Harold nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘It’s a good move, to make a will. I’d put nothing in your way.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Mrs Hoop to Edward. ‘Would you ever mind if we was to ask you witness an elderly person’s signature on a document?’

  ‘The gentleman’s making his will?’ said Edward.

  ‘He is doing that,’ said Mrs Hoop.

  But when Mrs Hoop, Harold and Edward arrived at the table at which Beach was sitting they discovered that he had already filled in the will-form, doing so incorrectly. Mrs Hoop made a small, angry noise.

  ‘That’ll require a fresh form,’ said Harold, ‘to be on the safe side. He has put his name where the name of the witness should be.’

  ‘He has not made the right sign for pounds,’ said Mrs Hoop, ‘which is more important legally.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ said Beach.

  Harold returned to his position behind the bar, but Edward, in need of the solace of company, hung around Mrs Hoop, wagging his head and saying he was sorry.

  ‘Look here,’ he said at last, ‘why don’t you let me get hold of another will-form and I’ll come in with it tomorrow night? My work keeps me out on the streets all day: I can easily pop into a Smith’s. And I live myself not too far away from here.’

  ‘Well, there’s kindness,’ cried Mrs Hoop. ‘Did you hear that, old Beach? This young fellow’s going to get another will-form for you. Is it a trouble, sir?’

  ‘No trouble at all,’ said Edward. ‘Honestly. I’m out on my bike all over the place.’

  ‘Will you take a beer, son?’ said Beach. ‘Harold, draw that man a glass of ale.’

  ‘Join us,’ said Mrs Hoop.

  ‘I have faith in you, Mr Blakeston-Smith,’ said Lady Dolores speaking to herself in the love department. ‘I have faith in your Godsent innocence. Come on now, pet.’

  She drank some whisky, soaking it into the icing of her chocolate cake. Her eyes fell again on the letters about Septimus Tuam.

  I told my husband, she read. I waited for him one day, unable to bear it a minute more. I said I needed a divorce. ‘A divorce?’ he cried. ‘A divorce? What on earth would you do with a divorce?’ So I told him how I had had a love affair, and that the love affair was over but that the love lingered on, and with such pain that I couldn’t bear to look on my husband’s face. He took it well enough, after he had pushed over a chair and broken it. And then, somehow, when he had done that it seemed to clear the air. I agreed not to have a divorce, because as he said, what was the use? I would be alone. So we have stuck together, making do as we can.

  Again, Lady Dolores attempted to imagine the man’s face. She drew on her lined pad, but again she gave up the attempt. She wrote instead a list of questions. What is his height? The colour of these eyes they talk about? How does he talk to a woman? Does he stand close? Does he lean over her? What are his hands like? What clothes does he wear? What kind of ears has he?

  She would give that list to Edward Blakeston-Smith and request the answers at once. Septimus Tuam entered the lives of women with an abruptness. Forearmed is forewarned, Lady Dolores opined: the devil you know has his work cut out. She half-closed her eyes, looking out through her lashes. She saw what she wished to see. ‘I believe you breed bulldogs,’ said Lady Dolores, speaking privately and in an esoteric way.

  ‘I’ve never known the like of it,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘Hiding in doorways they was, two and three of them at a time, standing with their hands out, clicking their teeth. “Got a fag, love?” they’d say, and before you’d know where you were they’d be offering you a packet of Craven A tipped. “You won’t always be on the railways,” they’d call out after you. You wouldn’t know what to say.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ said Edward. ‘It’s interesting to hear about the past.’

  ‘They couldn’t get men on the railways, see,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘Right after the war. A lot of them fellas was killed in their prime.’

  ‘Will you have another drink at all? How about Mr Beach?’

  ‘Old Beach is asleep. He drops off like a babe. I’ll tell you what I’d like, mister, if you’ve the money on you: a glass of crème de menthe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crème de menthe, son. A peppermint drink.’

  ‘Ah, crème de menthe. Of course.’

  Edward approached the bar and bought Mrs Hoop a glass of crème de menthe and himself a half pint of beer.

  ‘Hoop the name is,’ said Mrs Hoop when he returned. ‘Widowed these days.’

  ‘My name is Edward Blakeston-Smith.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ said Beach, jerking in his chair. ‘I’ve run out of beer.’

  ‘Let me get you something,’ said Edward.

  ‘Don’t bother yourself,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘What happened was that Hoop got caught up with a throat infection. It cost me twenty-two shillings, Edward, to get him brought back from where they conducted what they call a post-mortem of the throat. Nineteen fifty-five; they cut the poor devil up.’

  ‘I’m dry as old parchment,’ said Beach, ‘sitting here.’

  ‘He didn’t say a word for four years. It was that eerie, Edward, in a house with the speechless. Have you ever done it?’

  Edward shook his head. He explained that he had had but a small experience of life. ‘I often feel a child,’ he confided.

  ‘Draw me a pint, Harold,’ shouted Beach to the barman. ‘Isn’t it this fellow’s round?’

  ‘Twenty-two bob,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘I never heard the like of it.’

  ‘Emily Hoop works for Mrs Bolsover,’ said Beach. ‘They don’t get on.’

  ‘I was talking about my late hubby,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘Not that woman at all, old Beach. I have the misfortune, Edward, to be in the employ of a woman out Wimbledon way. I’m on the point of leaving.’

  Harold placed a pint of beer on the table, and Edward paid for it. ‘Wimbledon?’ he said.

  ‘Emily has a terrible time of it,’ said Beach. ‘A Mrs Bolsover out Wimbledon way.’

  ‘A painted Jezebel,’ said Mrs Hoop in a low voice, ‘if ever you’ve heard the expression.’

  ‘Jezebel of the Bible,’ said Beach, ‘an old-time tart.’

  ‘I’ve heard the expression,’ said Edward, ‘and I’m against all immorality. I work for an organization that’s against anything like that. We’re cleaning up the south-western areas of London.’

  ‘She’s married to a decent man,’ said Mrs Hoop. ‘The whole thing should be pulled asunder.’

  ‘I’m a Sunday church-goer, sir,’ said Beach.

  ‘She needs her face smashed in,’ said Mrs Hoop.

  In such circumstances did Edward meet the woman who hated Eve Bolsover and hear her say, at twenty-five minutes past ten on this Wednesday evening, that Eve Bolsover should have her face broken. In the moment that she said it, Septimus Tuam was fast asleep in the house that Edward had watched, dreaming of the ringed da
tes on his calendar: September 8th and October 12th. Eve Bolsover herself was reading a book.

  Edward felt more cheerful. He didn’t know that in a roundabout way he had come closer to Septimus Tuam; he had tried while in the company of Mrs Hoop and Beach to forget about Septimus Tuam altogether. It was good, he thought quite simply, to have someone ordinary to talk to.

  Edward walked from the Hand and Plough with Mrs Hoop and Beach, and parted from them at the end of the street. ‘I must make my way homewards, Brownie,’ Lake said at that moment in the bed-sitting-room of Miss Brown. He rose from Miss Brown’s bed, where he had been lying in a respectable way, digesting the potatoes and the sausage meat and the green pea soup. ‘Bolsover is suitable for simpler work,’ he said, and went away.

  Edward saw a bald-headed man leave a house and noted only the shining dome of his head. He did not know that the man was the enemy of the husband, as Mrs Hoop was the enemy of the wife. He did not know that here in Putney, within a stone’s throw of the Hand and Plough, lived the people who were destined to cause confusion in the two worlds of the Bolsovers. He knew that Mrs Hoop and Beach lived not far away, and he suspected that Septimus Tuam did, but Lake and his habitat were mysterious to Edward, as were Miss Brown and hers.

  Lake noticed a blond-haired youth wheeling a woman’s bicycle and did not pause to envy the youth his hair, as in the circumstances he might have. He spoke to himself in his mind, mapping the same future. ‘I am a young blood,’ he was saying to the eight fat board-men. ‘I have come to give you the benefit of it.’ They listened to him with their heads on one side, while James Bolsover reported at a labour exchange.

  In his conscientious way, Edward considered returning to the house of Septimus Tuam and watching it for a while longer, but decided that little good would come of it at this hour of the night. He wondered again if Septimus Tuam could not be a figment of the women’s imagination: perhaps they had all read the name in a romance, or had come across it in a film. He thought of mentioning the theory to Lady Dolores, but decided against that too, imagining her hard reply. Slowly, he pushed his landlady’s bicycle through a night that was coloured orange because the street-lights dictated that colour. He had an urge to ride the bicycle because of his fatigued condition, but he did not do so, being of a lawful disposition.