As Time Goes By

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘I can’t understand you.’

  ‘That’s another way of making me all empty,’ she said. ‘You can’t hear me.’

  ‘I think you’ve gone mad, Poll,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Over his shoulder, as he went out, he said, ‘The contract for the album’s signed.’

  Once he had gone Polly began to feel desperate. He wanted to come back. He’d pull out all the stops, use all the tricks he’d used to persuade her in the past. And she was very tired.

  He poured her some tea, he put her feet up on the couch, he said, ‘I’m sorry if I make you feel as if you’re nothing. You know I don’t think that. You know that, Polly. I love you.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, knowing he would let her talk about herself until he’d softened her up.

  He turned on the electric fire, moved it closer to her. In spite of everything she felt very cold. She knew quite well now that the Victorian house, the Victorian painting, the World War II film had saved her bacon. Now here was Clancy, her own personal bit of the past. She said, ‘I know what you’re trying to say, Clancy, but I can’t make up my mind.’

  ‘Let’s go out for a drink,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a lot of money – take you anywhere you like.’ He paused, admiringly. ‘Got to give it to you, Poll,’ he said. ‘You’re a survivor – come on – anywhere you like, whatever you like.’

  ‘No, I’m too tired,’ she said.

  I was aching out the days until I could go for the pregnancy test, although by now I thought I must really be pregnant. I’d decided to forget about the stupid quarrel about Pauline’s money. One way or another it would have to be stopped if I was pregnant. One way or another Geoffrey would have to provide for me and, if he didn’t, Daddy would just have to settle some money on me. He’d see it was much more sensible for me to have it now, when I needed it, than after he died.

  We went out to dinner in Hampstead with Bob and Teresa Montague. They had an enormous house overlooking the Heath. Geoffrey said Teresa had money of her own. It certainly looked it. The only other person there was Teresa’s brother Jeremy, who was some kind of international banker, just back from Sumatra, about to dash off to Mexico, taking his wife, he said. I wondered what it would be like. Did they have a proper relationship, or try to, or were they too busy changing hotels, meeting strangers, packing and unpacking and getting on planes, just like bits of each other’s luggage? Maybe it would be better to fall into bed in a strange place and spend the last ten minutes of the day talking about why the fan wasn’t working, or how they’d be getting to the next stop on the schedule, than trying for a full relationship. Geoffrey and I were talking about our Easter break in Egypt, which I’d insisted on, otherwise we’d only find ourselves in Roger’s house again. It was so nice at the Montagues, the good food, the candles in silver sconces – I’d noticed Teresa was looking a bit drawn, she said she’d had ‘flu, there were one or two lines on her neck under the fantastic pearls she nearly always wore – but all I felt was that Geoffrey and I had stopped communicating and I wondered if anyone else noticed. I remembered how people used to say how much better he looked, after meeting me. Could they tell now he was less happy? I went mad and ate two helpings of Teresa’s chocolate mousse. I was so certain by now I was pregnant it didn’t seem worth trying to control it.

  Next morning I was sick and blamed it on the mousse and went off to Dr Robertson’s who told me not to take any medication in case I was pregnant, and to give him a urine sample, next day.

  ‘I hope I’ll be able to congratulate you and Geoffrey soon,’ he said when I left.

  ‘Don’t tell him,’ I said, quite frightened.

  ‘As if I would – that’s for you to do,’ he told me, but I could see he suddenly thought there might be something wrong.

  I said, ‘I’m looking forward to it so much.’

  When I went out I got a shock. The receptionist handed me a repeat prescription for Geoffrey, saying it would save him a journey. I didn’t know Geoffrey had seen the doctor, let alone got a prescription, but I took it, not knowing what it was. ‘What’s it for?’ I asked her, making it sound casual. She peered at it and said, ‘It’s a mild sedative; it looks like,’ then looked up at me, a bit surprised, but by that time I was on my way out of the surgery, leaving the prescription, saying something about being late for a lecture I had to give. I had no choice, I certainly didn’t want to pick up the prescription from the chemist and have to tell Geoffrey I’d seen the doctor. And I needed to think about why he hadn’t told me he was on sedatives, no wonder we didn’t make love much at night, he was too zonked. On the other hand, when he went in for the prescription himself they were quite likely to tell him I’d been in. I went home and lay down, trying to think, with that bloody woman Julie yelling at her kids in the garden, ‘Put it down, Kevin. It’s dirty –’ I could have killed her. She never spoke to me these days. If we met outside the house she just looked through me. If a hundred judges had declared I’d never told the DHSS about her, she’d still have believed I had. Well, I say I tried to think, but it wasn’t any use. The old fabric had fallen to pieces, Geoffrey hadn’t told me about the extra money for Pauline, now he’d seen the doctor and not told me. Sedatives? Why sedatives? Hadn’t I produced a calm home, a relaxing atmosphere? Look at this room, the bedroom, the old gold of the mirror, the lovely blues, the soft greens, look at the flowers – I could hardly believe it, and there was no one to ask, only Geoffrey, and how could I ask him, the way things were?

  Part III

  Dusk came down at midday that February day, earlier than usual. Polly sat in the semi-darkness. Hardly worth the sun coming up, at all, she thought, at this time of year. Only doing it, she supposed, to keep in practice. With Clancy gone, or probably upstairs seeing if Margaret had any new computer games, she felt a weight off her mind. In any case, she thought resentfully, how could Clancy dare to ask her to make decisions – she’d never made any decisions, nor had he. Anyway, what was this, a Mills and Boon novel? Not for the first time she decided his brain must have been rotted by drugs. It wasn’t supposed to happen, except to heroin and speed addicts who were going to die, but she was part of the first generation to have been on substances for over twenty years and, if it didn’t hurt you, she, Polly, wondered just why half the old heavy drug users she knew were like zombies. It could just have been the general effects of entrepreneurial life, she supposed, alcohol and divorce, heavy competition, tax problems, agents and managers and collapsing deals, abandoned children, women screaming, suing and taking overdoses, the general end of youth, the romantic imagination and the love affair between themselves and themselves. Still, it looked as if the drugs hadn’t helped. Then she remembered she was due at the Hyde Park Hotel for lunch with Jay Honeycutt and began a search for a decent suit, skirt, trousers, sweater, dress, for decent tights, socks, boots, shoes, ending in a call to Kate Mulvaney, who dashed round with a black dress, too long, a green one, too baggy, a pale one, just right, but, like the middle bear’s porridge, which it resembled in colour, too depressing. Polly said ‘Sod it,’ put on her warm trousers and sweater and boots and finally departed, dressed something like a postman.

  ‘What about Dermot?’ she had said, as she took off the porridge dress and got into the trousers.

  ‘It’s his last day – he’s getting the plane tomorrow,’ said Kate. ‘And his wife’s offered to join him.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Polly. ‘Whatever for? Dog in the manger, I suppose.’ She had been too busy with the clothes to see how pale Kate looked. ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘Dermot’s duty is to accept her and try to restore the marriage,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ groaned Polly. ‘Is he going to do it?’

  ‘Yes. She’s going out in a fortnight.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ declared Polly. ‘What’s the point? She’s only doing it to stop him from seeing you. And the rules say he’s got to go along with it? It almost
makes you see the point of the Joe Coverdales. Law of the jungle – no principles involved. So I suppose this leaves you sitting here chewing your nails, wondering what’s happening in Africa?’

  ‘I know,’ said Kate. ‘Of course, if I’d been free to go back I don’t think she’d have done it. But that would have meant leaving the children –’

  ‘Oh my God,’ moaned Polly again. ‘No wonder no one’s having children any more, or hardly any.’

  ‘They are in Africa,’ said Kate. ‘Still, there’s nothing I can do. Dermot’s plain duty is to try to restore his marriage to Rosalie.’

  ‘By that logic, yours is to restore yours to Julian,’ Polly said, tipping her money out on to the bed and counting it.

  Margaret came in, saying the familiar words, ‘Is there any bread?’

  Polly gave her a pound. ‘Get some. I’d better rush, I’ll have to get the bus.’

  ‘I’ll lend you a fiver for a taxi,’ Kate said. ‘Only you’ll have to come back for it. I haven’t got my purse.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Polly. ‘I’ll risk it, and take the van. Is Clancy still here?’ she asked Margaret. Margaret shook her head. ‘He came in to see if there were any new games, but there weren’t.’

  ‘I’ll get you some tomorrow,’ declared Polly. ‘If this Honeycutt, or whatever, gives me a cheque.’

  ‘Think he will?’ asked Kate.

  ‘I don’t know. I should’ve rung Arnold to find out what’s supposed to happen. Only he would’ve come with me, and I didn’t want him to.’

  The meeting in the smart but uncosy restaurant was a surprise to Polly, for it emerged that she had contrived a talented script, which people she had never heard of wanted to be in, and that Jay Honeycutt, a broad, sensible, tanned man with blue eyes, who looked like the preacher in the western who is just conducting a thanksgiving service by the river when the wagon train congregation is attacked by Apaches, now owed her 50,000 dollars and would owe her more when she made certain changes to the script, and might sign her up for another project. Most of the time Polly stared at him, trying to conceal her ignorance.

  ‘I think you’d better find an agent, Polly,’ he advised her. He gave her a name. She suggested an idea for another rewrite, this time, Brief Encounter. He asked her for a few pages outlining it.

  Stunned, and trying to convert $50,000 into sterling, she got back into her van and drove away. Maybe she should give up her unsteady job on the stall, perhaps it was all a hoax, perhaps all this money was just a way of laundering cash for the Mafia. Back in the familiar network of snowy streets the situation seemed even more improbable. She spotted Anna Lombard’s Citroën coming up behind and as she edged into her parking space outside the house she felt a knock from behind, which jogged her half-way towards her grimy windscreen. She put the brake on and realised Anna’s Citroën had nudged into the back of the van. She climbed out and locked the door and turned to see Anna, who was getting out of the Citroën on the road side of the vehicle. Polly waited, expecting the normal search for damage, the ‘my fault entirely’ and ‘no problem’ remarks. Instead, Anna Lombard, without glancing at her or the van, walked round the back of her car, opened the nearside door and began to pull plastic bags off the seat. Polly stared at her. She looked very pale, somewhat dazed, and evidently didn’t know she’d banged into the back of the van while parking the Citroën – not her usual neat, one-foot-from-the-pavement parking either, but nose into Polly’s van and back end slewed out. As Polly, opening her own door, vaguely watched the hauling out of the bags, Anna slid on the pavement, and lay between her two bags, oranges rolling in the snow. Thinking she had slipped, Polly moved forward, but as she hauled Anna up she realised she was unconscious. There was no one about. Polly, unable to support the dead weight safely on slippery ground, had to lower her down again, and was wondering what to do when Anna’s eyes opened. She looked bewildered. ‘You fainted,’ explained Polly. ‘Can you stand up – I’ll help you into your house.’ She was worried. She had felt every bone of Anna’s waist, hip and ribs as she had tried to help her up. She was very light. Her arms were like matchsticks. The aggravatingly beautiful and elegant neighbour had become a young sick creature. She helped her up the steps, murmuring, ‘You were only out for a few seconds. I saw you collapse and I thought you’d slipped over.’

  Anna, still supported by Polly, found her keys. ‘I’ll come in with you,’ Polly said, refusing to go away. ‘I’m all right,’ said Anna. ‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I must make sure you’re all right. If it happened again while you were by yourself you could fall and hit your head. Would you like me to ring your husband?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Anna Lombard, separating herself from Polly in the hall, in front of the open door. ‘No – I don’t want to worry him.’

  This struck a false note with Polly, who had always seen Anna Lombard as deliberately frail and dependent on Geoffrey Lombard. If Anna’s game was, as Polly believed, acting like a Victorian heroine to reassure her husband, who might otherwise detect her steeliness, it seemed out of character for her not to take advantage of the situation. Polly, who had seen her operate with Harriet and Julie Thompson, had little sympathy with Anna Lombard. However, she followed Anna upstairs, watching her with an unfriendly but careful eye as she went up slowly, holding the banisters. She made Anna sit down and went off to make her a cup of tea. She buttered some bread and put it on a plate, put it on a tray. While the tea brewed, and Anna lay in a chair, she said, ‘I’ve done a slice of bread and butter. You should try and eat something. You’re quite thin. Perhaps you should be a bit fatter, especially in the winter.’

  ‘I was dieting. Now I can’t eat much anyway,’ was Anna’s answer.

  She poured the tea, watched Anna drink it, and eat the bread and butter. ‘I still think I ought to ring Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘When’s he due home?’

  ‘About six – he said he’d be early.’

  Someone should be in the house until then, Polly thought, but she wasn’t planning to watch loyally at the bedside of Anna Lombard. There was no point in asking Julie, who disliked Anna, and instinct told her that if she suggested ringing a friend of Anna’s it would turn out that there was no one she was on those kind of terms with. She said, ‘Well, you’d better go to bed and I’ll ring him just so he isn’t late. What about that?’

  ‘I’ll ring him,’ Anna said.

  ‘Drink your tea then. Then get into bed. Where’s your mother?’

  ‘Scarborough,’ said Anna.

  Polly went down to the beautiful and immaculate sitting-room with the tray. She stared round, then took the tray into the kitchen, thinking Anna was concealing something and, if she was, she wouldn’t ring her husband, would get out of bed before he arrived and pretend nothing had happened, might even harm herself before he came back. Anyone, after all, could faint twice, especially if they’d been dieting and exercising to the point of suicide during a cold winter. She couldn’t walk out leaving Anna alone; nor, on the other hand, did she want to get involved in any of the Lombards’ family secrets. She took a jug of water and a glass upstairs and found the bedroom, where Anna lay in her gold and blue bedroom, under the tapestry bed cover, like a dying medieval lady.

  ‘I wish you’d let me ask Geoffrey to come home, or ring your doctor,’ she said.

  ‘I’m all right. I am really,’ Anna said.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Polly told her. ‘Kate Mulvaney has a friend staying with her who’s a doctor. He might be able to come.’ She added, tentatively, for the suggestion implied she suspected a crack in the carapace of the perfect life which Anna Lombard was always polishing to a high gleam, ‘He needn’t tell anyone. He’s going to Africa tomorrow.’

  Then she noticed Anna staring at the ceiling, looking perfectly blank. A second later she looked and, as if recalling what she had just heard, said, ‘I don’t know.’ It sounded like a general admission.

  ‘You’re in pain,’ Polly stated. Anna didn’t deny it. On territory now far mor
e familiar to her than to Anna, the world of secrets, bodily collapses for one reason and another, danger, concealment and illicit arrivals and departures, she said, ‘This can’t go on. Let’s get Dermot if he’s there.’ And she rang Kate who got Dermot, who came round readily.

  Polly sat on the dressing-table chair and told Anna who Dermot was. She talked, in fact, over the now evident fact that Anna was in pain, although she did not twitch, grimace or mention it. She drew her own conclusions, that Anna was miscarrying a child, but said nothing, thinking she wasn’t a midwife and didn’t want to be.

  Dermot, at the door, said ‘Upstairs?’ in a doctorly voice. Polly nodded. She said: ‘She’s going to feel awful about me being here, and finding out what’s wrong. I think she might be losing a baby. She doesn’t want to ring her husband, but I think she’s going to have to. I can always come back if you need me.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Dermot. ‘Show me where she is.’

  Polly led him upstairs, then said in the doorway she was going home. She left her telephone number under the bedside phone, though she knew it must be somewhere in the house, or how could Anna have badgered her so often about the roof? Anna thanked her, abstractedly. Polly, calling on a lifetime’s experience, said, ‘I won’t be mentioning this to anybody.’

  Anna said faintly, ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  Glad to be out of the house, Polly went home.

  That evening Geoffrey Lombard sat alone with his misery in Elgin Crescent. Misery was no stranger to him, but up to now it had been dull and fairly undefined. Not an introspective man, he had always been able to blame himself for it, considering vaguely it was subjective, the result of a mild depression he was going through for no reason. Now he was beginning to see more precisely why for some time he had been looking so bleakly at the world, his world, and seeing no good anywhere.

  Anna was in hospital, lying limp in a private room at St Mary’s. She was suffering an early miscarriage and would be having an operation at ten next morning. At five that afternoon he had been called from a meeting to go to the telephone. When he picked it up, Anna was sobbing. ‘What is it, Anna, what?’ he had said urgently, imagining there had been a break-in, or was her father dead? Then he’d heard a strange voice, an Irishman’s, saying, ‘I’m very sorry, Lombard. This is Dr O’Brien. Your wife is trying to tell you she’s losing the child she was expecting. A neighbour called me – I’m a doctor, a friend of Mrs Mulvaney’s. I thought it better to get an ambulance straight away. It hasn’t arrived yet.’