Who Calls the Tune

by Nina Bawden

  There were little drops of sweat on his forehead. He wasn’t looking at me now, but at the far corner of the room, and his mouth was twitching. I wondered if the policeman was outside the door, and I looked at it, but it was shut. Henry said, “I think she thought that if Sebastian died, it would make things worse for us. I don’t know whether she thought that if he died someone might be suspected. I suppose she must have thought that the police might think it was Biddy or me. That seemed pretty absurd to me at the time, though then”—he gave a shame-faced grin—“I didn’t know how the police went to work. Still, at the time, I thought that the idea was that the boy’s death would put a kind of barrier between us. We wouldn’t ever have been lovers, you see, because of the child, but if he was dead it would have been ten times worse. Biddy would think that his death was a sort of judgment on her; I think it might have made her hate me.” He paused and looked at me. “And I think that would have killed me,” he said.

  I knew that he was speaking the truth. And somehow, their love, his and Brigid’s, didn’t seem ridiculous any more.

  Henry said, “Have I been talking poppycock, old man? Do you think I’ve gone mad? I’ve been thinking that I have.”

  I felt very sick. I said, “I think it would sound crazy to anyone else in the world. You mustn’t tell anyone else. If you did, you wouldn’t have a dog’s chance of being found not guilty. They wouldn’t hang you, but you’d have a reasonable chance of spending the rest of your life in Broadmoor.”

  He made a funny little sound that was almost a laugh. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “I’d just thought that it would have sounded a damn’silly idea for a chap like me to have thought of.”

  “You would think like that,” I said. I wanted a drink at that moment, more than anything else in the world.

  He looked at me curiously. “Do you really think I shall get away with it?” he said.

  “Get away with what?” I must have shouted, because he winced a little, and put up one hand as if to tell me to be quiet.

  He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I meant … did you think they would find me guilty at my trial?”

  His voice was calm and steady. I thought of the boy on the burning deck, and almost laughed.

  I said, “Of course they won’t. They couldn’t, could they?”

  He gave a half smile. “I thought like that, once. I think I said something like it to that poor kid, Rella. That they didn’t arrest innocent men in this country.”

  The tone of his voice was bitter. I felt that what he had just said was the nearest to sarcasm that he would ever get.

  I said, “Don’t worry. They couldn’t find you guilty. I don’t think they have the evidence. Walker said as much, last night.”

  He smiled again, rather sadly. “There isn’t much evidence either way,” he said. “Except that when a woman is killed, it’s usually her husband who has killed her.” He looked at me attentively for a moment, and then he said, “You know, I used to be awfully jealous of you.”

  I felt my face grow hot. “Did you? Why?” I said.

  “Because of Venetia. She was always talking about you. She was always holding you up as a model of all the virtues. Almost as though she was in love with you.”

  I said lightly, “Perhaps she was.” Henry went scarlet and looked away from me. When he caught my eye again there was a wondering incredulity in his face, and a kind of shame-faced excitement … the look you see in the face of a small boy who has seen something he knows he shouldn’t have seen.

  I tried to laugh. “I don’t think it is very likely,” I said, and he breathed deeply with relief.

  “Sorry, old man,” he muttered. “Stupid of me. Never was much good at that sort of joke.”

  “Bless you, Henry,” I said. “You are the salt of the earth.” He looked puzzled at that, and I think he was going to speak again, but the policeman came in. He said, “Sorry, sir, but time’s up now.”

  Henry said, “What? Oh, thank you, constable.” He held out his hand to me. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Hope I didn’t talk too much. I’m getting too much of my own company.” He gave me a quick grin, and then he went out of the door in front of the policeman and his back was as straight as a ruled line. I wondered how long it would be before I saw him again.

  When they had gone, I stayed, sitting in my chair, and thought about Venetia. I hadn’t thought about her for days, not in a way that made her seem alive and in the room. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, except that what Henry had told me must have been in my mind, but after a bit I could almost see her in front of me. Only for a moment, but she was there. She was half-turned away from me, and all that was really clear was her face looking back over her shoulder with her hair lying along the line of it and her mouth smiling, so that you could see the lovely shape of her lips. It was the way I always saw her when I thought about her, and seeing her that way, I felt I could never be angry with her any more. I had the odd feeling that if I kept quite still she might be really there, and not just in my mind, but then there was the policeman coughing in the doorway.

  He said, “I think the lady is ready to go, sir.” I thought he looked at me strangely as we went back to the waiting-room, but I may have imagined it.

  Brigid didn’t ask me what we had talked about; I think she was too preoccupied with her own feelings. Someone had brought her some tea, because there was an empty cup standing on the table, among the magazines. She looked as if she had been crying; she was crumpling her handkerchief in her hands, and her face looked shiny and hot, and much more middle-aged than it had a right to look. When we got back into the car, her lips were quivering gently. I didn’t want her in floods of tears all the way home because I wanted to go into a pub, and I couldn’t do that if I had to leave her crying in the car. So I started to talk very fast about what I intended to do. I told her that I was going back to town in the morning and asked her advice about trains, and said that I hoped she would pack for me as I was so bad at that sort of thing. That pulled her together as I’d thought it would; she didn’t seem to be at all surprised that I was leaving, and went into a long and complicated rigmarole about the best trains to catch. By the time we reached a likely looking pub, she was quite in control of herself and almost cheerful; she had regained sufficient self-respect to powder her nose before we left the car.

  We had several drinks. We stayed in the pub until it was closing time, and I think we both felt better for it. I felt light-headed as I always do when I have been drinking without having any lunch.

  I thought Brigid had gone to sleep, but she can’t have done because she said suddenly, in a very wide-awake voice:

  “Paul, stop for a moment, will you?”

  I stopped the car. She was very bright-eyed, and looking quite pretty. She said, “Paul, do you think … really, I mean … that Henry killed Venetia?”

  I said “No,” but I don’t think she was listening.

  She said, “You know, I can’t make up my mind. He had so many reasons. And I’ve been so afraid, all this time, that he did do it. But now, do you know, I don’t care? Just so long as he gets off I don’t care whether he did it or not.”

  And she settled her head against the back of the seat, and went off to sleep with the suddenness of a woman who wasn’t used to

  drinking, and she slept the rest of the way home, her face flushed,

  and her mouth a little open, snoring softly like a nice little pig.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I suppose I must have slept a little during the night because I had bad dreams, the kind of dreams that wake you up, clammy and shivering, but without any recollection of what happened to make you feel like that. I would have read a bit, but there was no lamp by my bed and I couldn’t face having to get out to switch on the light.

  I remember seeing the morning start to lighten the square of the window, and then I think I slept, because the next thing was Brigid calling me from the doorway, and
waking up to find a cup of tea stone cold on the table by the bed. I had the world’s worst headache, and the rain was coming down outside as though it would never stop. I wished like hell I hadn’t said I was going to town that morning. There wasn’t any way I could get out of it, except by pretending to be ill, or proving myself to be a liar, because I had made a substantial case for myself the evening before by saying it was quite essential that I should get back as soon as I possibly could.

  I thought for a bit that I would pretend I was ill, and then I thought of how Brigid would fuss, and that she would try and stop me going to-morrow, so there didn’t seem anything for it. I cut myself twice shaving, and went down to breakfast with two tufts of cotton wool sticking to my chin.

  I said at breakfast, hoping for a last minute reprieve, “How can I get to the station? Can I get a car from the village?”

  “Don’t be silly, Paul,” said Brigid. “Rella can drive you in and she can bring the car back. She has to see someone about a job.”

  I caught Rella’s eye across the table. She was looking at me in a hungry sort of way, and I felt very sorry for myself. I wasn’t in the mood for a heart-to-heart with a girl who was out to get another man at all costs. And then I felt mean. She was looking unhappy and tired, not at all like that sort of girl.

  She said quickly, “I saw a job in the paper. I thought I might go and see about it. I have to get a job, you know.”

  Her voice was defiant, and I said “Of course,” and smiled at her in case she had thought that I hadn’t believed her.

  Brigid said kindly, “You mustn’t worry about it. You can stay here as long as you like.”

  Rella got up from the table, and said, rather churlishly, “I like to earn my living,” and she went out of the room.

  Brigid went red, and when Rella had shut the door behind her, she leant across the table and said, “I do hope she’ll be all right, Paul. I’ve tried to find out exactly what sort of job it is, and she wouldn’t tell me. She didn’t refuse outright, she just made me feel awkward about asking.”

  I knew what was on her mind, and somehow I resented it. I said, “Perhaps there isn’t a job. She may be going to the Labour Exchange, or something.”

  Brigid wriggled her shoulders, and said, “Oh, Paul,” in an exasperated sort of way. It irritated me, so I said, “Being a kept woman doesn’t mean you are a professional, you know.”

  She said indignantly, “Oh, I didn’t mean that,” but her eyes filled with tears, and I knew she had been thinking just that, and was now despising, herself for not being more generous.

  I said, “Don’t worry, Brigid. I’ll try to ferret out what she means to do on the way to the station,” and she smiled at me gratefully.

  We talked for a bit, and then I said I would have to get my things together. Brigid jumped up awkwardly and ran around me like a St. Bernard puppy until I had assembled my suitcases. Rella brought the car round, and Brigid came to the door with me. She looked at me for a moment, her eyes swimming, and then she put her arms round my neck and hugged me like a schoolgirl. She started to say something, and then choked on it, and I felt, suddenly, rather touched, and squeezed her hand and said, “Don’t worry too much, old thing,” in quite a Henry-ish manner. That finished her, of course, and as we drove off she was standing in the doorway howling as though I were her best friend in the whole world, and she was never going to see me again.

  Rella drove well, and with an easy confidence that surprised me. When I had thought of her during the last few days, she had seemed pathetic, certainly weak and very feminine. Now she was wearing a hat and high-heeled shoes, and there was colour on her cheeks and lips, I began to see her rather differently. She must have felt me looking at her, because she turned to me and her long, brown eyes rested briefly on me before she turned back to the road. It wasn’t at all a timid look.

  She said, “I hope you don’t mind my driving you. Only I wanted to speak to you.”

  I said, “I thought you were going to Shrewsbury to see about a job.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “But it was more important to speak to you.” She was silent for a moment, and then she said, rather quickly, “You don’t have to say yes, unless you want to. It is just that, if you would like it, I will come and live with you in London.”

  It took the wind out of my sails. So that was what she was after. Brigid had been right, and I had been wrong.

  I said, “You’d be more likely to get that sort of job if you were a bit more subtle about it. If you want some poor sap to put you up, you should pretend to give value.”

  I felt bitter, and a bit hurt, and it didn’t help to see the funny, almost sad smile on her mouth. She said, “Don’t be silly, Paul. You mean, don’t you, that I must pretend to be in love? How could I pretend to you, like that, when you know that Tom has just died?”

  I said, “Women usually manage to get round a little thing like that.”

  That flicked her on the raw. I saw the smile go from her face, and her mouth tightened up. She said, in a small voice, “I do not like to tell lies, Paul.”

  I felt as though I’d had the worst of it, and neither of us said anything for the next couple of miles. It was a dreary road, and the sodden trees and the rain didn’t make it any cheerier. I kept wanting to say something, and not being able to bring it out. At last I said, “I wish you’d tell me why you asked me what you did?”

  She said slowly, “Do you really want to know?”

  I nodded, and she went on. “All right. I did love Tom. I loved him very much. I left my husband for him. I wouldn’t have left Tom ever, if he hadn’t died. At first, I had thought he was different and exciting, and afterwards, when I came to England, I loved him because he was weak and frightened, and if I hadn’t looked after him no one else would have done. Besides, there was nothing else for me to do. If I say, that when you made love to me, that it was something quite different from what I was feeling for Tom, you will laugh at me because you think that is what all women say. I do not know. But it is true.”

  She was speaking very quietly, and I had the feeling that she was trying to be honest about it.

  I said, “Are you trying to say you are in love with me?”

  She took a corner rather too fast and swerved on to the wrong side of the road. She recovered herself and drove steadily for a little way before she answered. “I don’t know, Paul. But I think I would like to be.”

  I said, “Thank you,” and then I felt foolish. She glanced at me, and I thought for a moment that she was going to laugh. She said, “But you do not want me to come to London?”

  I said, “No, my dear. I’m sorry,” almost automatically, and then I wondered why I had said no. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to the flat alone; it was an arrangement that would upset no one. And she attracted me quite a lot.

  We had coffee at a lorry stop just outside Shrewsbury. It was a bleak place, heated by a smelly oil stove, and there were a few cold-looking drivers in caps and mufflers. We got our coffee from the counter in two large china mugs, and we took it to a rickety table in the corner. We didn’t talk very much, until she said suddenly:

  “Paul, are you still in love with your wife?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “She divorced me. She said it wasn’t much fun living with someone who would much rather have been living with someone else.” I think I smiled then, because remembering Betty always made me smile.

  Rella said, “What was she like? Was she pretty?” “Oh, yes,” I said. “She was pretty all right. She was beautiful, I think.” There had never really been any doubt about that. Betty was one of those women whose beauty has nothing subtle about it. She was big built and blonde, with a skin like a peach and long, lovely legs. She had a classical, almost heavy face, like something on a Roman coin, and a deep, fruity laugh, like a barmaid. She liked people to think she was stupid, because she said it went with her kind of body to be dumb, and she hated people to be disappointed. She hated them to be unhap
py, too, and I think that was why I never really knew what she felt like when she found out how it was between me and Venetia. I had always wanted her very much when I wasn’t thinking about Venetia, and after she had left me I went on thinking about her for a long time. Largely, I think, because she was warm and uncomplicated and comforting. Thinking of her made the café seem grimier and even more unpleasant. It wasn’t the sort of place we would have ever been in together.

  I said, “Let’s get out of here,” and I saw Rella look at me in surprise. But she drank up her coffee quickly, gave me a grave smile, and stood up to go. We went out into the rain and got into the car. She said, “What time is your train, Paul?”

  I said, “There isn’t any hurry. I can catch the next one.” Suddenly I wanted someone to be with. It didn’t really matter who it was, but Rella seemed a good sort of person.

  She started the car. We drove into Shrewsbury across the Severn, a wide, sunless, chilly river, and into the narrow streets. I expected her to stop at the car park; there was quite a reasonable restaurant in the main street, but she drove on and stopped outside the station.