The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

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  The Weather in the Streets

  A Novel

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Part One

  I

  Turning over in bed, she was aware of a summons: Rouse yourself. Float up, up from the submerging element … But it’s still night, surely … She opened one eye. Everything was in darkness; a dun glimmer mourned in the crack between the curtains. Fog stung faintly in nose, eyelids. So that was it: the fog had come down again: it might be morning. But I haven’t been called yet. What was it woke me? Listen: yes: the telephone, ringing downstairs in Etty’s sitting-room; ringing goodness knows how long, nobody to answer it. Oh, damn, oh, hell … Mrs. Banks! Mrs. Banks arrive! Click, key in the door; brown mac, black felt, rabbit stole, be on your peg at once behind the door. Answer it, answer it, let me not have to get up … Etty, you maddening futile lazy cow, get up, go on, answer it at once … Pole-axed with early morning sleep of course, unconscious among her eiderdowns and pillows.

  Olivia huddled on her dressing-gown and tumbled down the narrow steep stairs. Etty’s crammed dolls’-house sitting-room, unfamiliar in this twilight, dense with the fog’s penetration, with yesterday’s cigarettes; strangled with cherry-coloured curtains, with parrot-green and silver cushions, with Etty’s little chairs, tables, stools, glass and shagreen and cloisonné boxes, bowls, ornaments, shrilled a peevish reproach over and over again from the darkest corner: withdrew into a sinister listening and waiting as she slumped down at the littered miniature writing-table, lifted the receiver and croaked: “Yes?”

  Kate perhaps, fresh-faced, alert in the country, starting the children off for school, about to say briskly, “Did I get you out of bed?—Sorry, but I’ve got to go out …” Kate knows I never could wake up, she condemns me and is pitiless. One day I’ll be disagreeable, not apologetic.

  “Yes?”

  “Is that Olivia?”

  “Oh … Mother …” Mother’s voice, cheerful, tired, soothing—her emergency voice. “Yes?”

  “Good-morning, dear. I’ve been trying to get an answer … I thought perhaps the line was out of order …?”

  “No, the line’s all right. Sorry, I’ve only just What time is it?”

  “Past eight.” Mild, unreproachful: your mother.

  “Oh, Lord! There’s an awful fog here, it’s quite dark. Mrs. Banks must have got held up.”

  “Dear me, how nasty. I do hope she hasn’t been careless at a crossing. There’s not a sign of fog here. It’s dull, just a wee bit misty, but it looks like a nice day later … Listen, dear …” Her voice, which had begun to trail, renewed its special quality of soothing vigour, proclaiming, before the fatal tidings: All is well. “Dad’s in bed.”

  “Dad? What’s the matter?”

  “Well, it’s his chest. Poor Dad, isn’t it a shame?”

  “Bronchitis?”

  “Well, dear, pneumonia. He’s being so good and patient. Dr. Martin says he’s got quite a good chance—if his heart holds out, you know, dear,—so there’s no need to worry too much just at present. He’s making such a splendid fight.”

  “Is he in pain?”

  “Well, his cough’s tiresome, but he doesn’t complain. He gets some rest off and on. Dr. Martin’s so kind—he comes three or four times a day. You know what trouble he takes. I’m sure no doctor in England could take more trouble. And I’ve got such a nice cheerful sensible little nurse—just for night duty. Of course, I do the day.”

  “When did it start?”

  “When did it start, did you say, dear? Oh, just a few days ago. He would go out in that bitter east wind, and he caught cold, and then his temperature went up so very suddenly.”

  “I’ll come at once. Is Kate there?”

  “Yes. Kate’s here.”

  “Oh, she is!” Summoned sooner than me: more of a comfort. “I’ll catch the next train.”

  “That’ll be very nice, dear. But don’t go dashing off without your breakfast. There’s no need. Give Etty my love.”

  “I will. Have you had any sleep?”

  “Oh, plenty. I can always do without sleep.” Scornful, obstinate, rather annoyed in the familiar way … Others may have human weaknesses—not I …

  “I’ll catch the nine-ten and take the bus out.”

  “Very well, dear, we’ll expect you. But do take care in this fog. Don’t breathe it in through your mouth more than you can help, and if you take a taxi, do tell the man to crawl.”

  “Nine minutes,” said an impersonal voice.

  “Remember your breakfast. Good-bye, dear.”

  She’s hung up hastily, she’s on her way upstairs without a moment’s hesitation. Nine minutes have been lost. Forward, forward. Too much can sneak past, can be unsupervised in nine minutes.

  Between stages of dressing and washing she packed a hasty suitcase. Pack the red dress, wear the dark brown tweed, Kate’s cast-off, well-cut, with my nice jumper, lime-green, becoming, pack the other old brown jumper—That’s about all. Dress carefully—hair, lipstick, powder—look your best. Don’t go haggard, dishevelled, hot-foot to the bedside—don’t arrive like a bad omen. No need to worry too much just at present. Not too much just at present: ominous words. He’s fighting—means he’s holding his own?—means, always—he’s defeated … Is it his death-bed? Must I dye the red, the green, must I go into Tulverton, looking pale, and buy some mourning, must I buy black gloves? Wouldn’t he manage to say, if he was still just ahead of the thing that was trying to overtake him, still able to preserve his own mixture, his particular one, sealed away from the universal ending, the lapse into the general death of people—wouldn’t he be sure to say: If I catch you having a funeral … Surely he must have said it some time or other. If not, if he hadn’t bothered, if he hadn’t had time, if Aunt Edith were to come flowing with all her veils and chains and overthrow him, if the Widow lurking in Mother were to triumph, or the cheerfulness of the nurse dishearten him beyond the remedy of malice and cynical resilience—then black and elderly women would prevail, black armlet for James, black-edged notepaper, and weeds and wreaths and Aunt Edith’s smelling-salts; and there’d be nothing left of the important thing he knew, that he hadn’t attempted to impart except as a kind of spiritual wink of an eyelid, barely perceptible, caught once or twice and returned without a word: something, some sense he had of life and death; the lifelong private integrity of his disillusionment.

  She ran down to the next floor, telephoned for a taxi, then opened the door of Etty’s bedroom, adjoining the sitting-room. Silence and obscurity greeted her; and a smell compounded of powder, scent, toilet creams and chocolate truffles.

  “Etty …!”

  At the second call, Etty turned on her pillows and groaned “darling …” in mingled protest and greeting.

  “Etty, I don’t want to wake you up, but I’ve got to go home. Mother’s just telephoned. Dad’s very ill. I’m just off.”

  “Oh, darling …” She switched on her lamp, lay back again with a heavy sigh. “What did you say?” She sat up suddenly in her pink shingle cap, pale, extinct, ludicrously diminished without her make-up and the frame of her hair.

  “He’s got pneumonia.”

  “Oh, no! The poor sweet. Oh, darling, have you got to go? How devastating. Oh, and I do so adore him—give him my love—and Aunt Ethel. Wait a minute no
w, darling, let me think, let me think. Half-past eight—oh dear! Where’s Mrs. Banks? Not here, I suppose. Wait a minute, darling, and I’ll help you.” She whisked off the bedclothes; her brittle white legs and bony little knees slipped shrinkingly over the edge of the mattress.

  “There’s nothing to help about. I’m all ready. I’ve packed and all. Get back into bed at once.”

  She stood up feebly for a moment in a wisp of flowered chiffon, then subsided deprecatingly on the edge of the bed.

  “Oh, darling, you must have some tea or something. Let me think—Yes, some tea. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “I don’t want any. I’ll have breakfast on the train. It’ll be something to do.”

  “Will you really, darling? It might be best. Now mind you do. It’s no good not eating on these occasions, one’s simply useless to everybody. Oh, is there a fog again? How vile. It’s simply—It’s almost more than can be borne.”

  She huddled back into bed and shivered.

  “Just one thing. Later on, about ten, if you’d ring up Anna at the studio and explain I can’t come.”

  “I will, darling, of course. I won’t forget. Isn’t there anything else I can do?”

  “No, go to sleep again, Etty.”

  “Oh, darling, I feel too concerned.” She lay back, looking stricken. “So miserable for you.”

  “It may be all right, you know. He’s stronger than people think. He’s quite tough.”

  “Oh, he is, isn’t he? I’ve always thought he’s very strong really, invalids so often are. I do think he’ll be all right. Promise to ring me up, darling. Let me see, I’m dining out to-night, oh dear, what a nuisance … but I’ll be in between six and seven for certain. I tell you what, I’ll ring you up.”

  “All right, do, Ett. Good-bye, duck.”

  “Can you manage your suitcase? Oh! … good-bye, my sweet.”

  Pressing all her cardinal-red fingertips to her mouth, she kissed then extended them wistfully, passionately. Above them her frail temples and cheekbones, her hollowed eyes stared with their morning look of pathos and exhaustion. Like an egg she looked, without her hair, so pale, smooth, oval, the features painted on with a stare and a droop.

  “Lie down again and go to sleep.”

  She will too.

  Olivia slammed the canary-yellow door of the dolls’-house after her, swallowed a smarting draught of fog, said “Paddington” towards a waiting bulk, a peak immobile, an inexpressive disc of muffled crimson stuck with a dew-rough sprout of hoary, savage whisker—and plunged into the taxi.

  Out of the station, through gradually thinning fog-banks, away from London. Lentil, saffron, fawn were left behind. A grubby jaeger shroud lay over the first suburbs; but then the woollen day clarified, and hoardings, factory buildings, the canal with its barges, the white-boled orchards, the cattle and willows and flat green fields loomed secretively, enclosed within a transparency like drenched indigo muslin. The sky’s amorphous material began to quilt, then to split, to shred away; here and there a ghost of blue breathed in the vaporous upper rifts, and the air stood flushed with a luminous essence, a soft indirect suffusion from the yet undeclared sun. It would be fine. My favourite weather.

  An image of the garden rose in her mind—soaked lawn, strewn leaves, yellowing elm-tops, last white roses on the pergola, last old draggled chrysanthemums in the border; all blurred with damp, with a subdued incandescence, still, mournful and contented. And him pacing the path with his plaid scarf on, his eye equivocal beneath the antique raffish slant of a Tyrolese hat, his lips mild, pressed together, patient and ironic between the asthma grooves. He can’t die … She rummaged in her bag for mirror, powder, handkerchief, and attended minutely to her face. A speck or two of fog-black, and my eyes look a trifle weak, but not too bad. Various nondescript wearers of bowler hats sat behind newspapers all down the breakfast car: travelling to Tulverton on business probably; or through, on to the north … Here came something in a different style—a tall prosperous-looking male figure in a tweed overcoat, carrying a dog under his arm, stooping broad shoulders in at the entrance. With a beam and a flourish the fat steward conducted him to the seat opposite Olivia. He hesitated, then took off his coat, folded it, put the dog on it, patted it, sat down beside it, picked up the card, ordered sausages, scrambled eggs, coffee, toast and marmalade, and opened The Times.

  Rollo Spencer.

  A deep wave of colour swept over her face : the usual uncontrollable reaction at sight of a face from the old days. At once her mind started to scurry and scramble, looking for footholds, for crannies to hide in: because my position is ambiguous, because I’m anonymous … On Tulverton platform, in the Little Compton bus, walking down to the post office, the eye of flint, the snuffing nostrils, the false mouths narrowly shaping words of greeting, saying underneath their tongues: “Now, what’s your situation? Eh? Where’s your husband?”—whispering with relish behind their hands: “Poor Mrs. Curtis: it’s hard she didn’t get that younger daughter settled. Bad blood somewhere: I always said …”

  I won’t go outside the garden, I’ll wear a disguise, I’ll have a shell like James’s tortoise …

  Carry it off now, carry it off—What do I care? Snap my fingers at the whole bloody lot. Who’s Rollo Spencer? He won’t recognise me. I’ll smile and say: “You don’t recognise me …” Dad’s on his death-bed maybe … I shan’t say that.

  The dog stirred about on the coat, and Rollo said something to it, then glanced across and smiled the faint general smile with which people in railway carriages accompany such demonstrations. The smile sharpened suddenly into a kind of wary prelude to recognition; and then he said in quite a pleased, friendly way:

  “Good-morning.”

  “Good-morning.”

  “Revolting in London, wasn’t it? It’s a relief to get out.”

  “Yes. It’s going to be heavenly in the country.”

  Soon, an attendant brought steaming pots, dishes, plates, set them before him. He helped himself with leisurely liberality.

  “Terrific breakfasts railway companies do give one. I always overeat distressingly in trains. There’s something in the words scrambled eggs, rolls, sausages, when you see them written down … One look at the card and my self-control snaps. I must have everything.”

  “I know. I feel the same about ice-cream lists … mixed fruit sundae … cupid’s kiss … banana split … oh! … banana split!”

  He laughed.

  “I see what you mean, but you know, the sound of it doesn’t absolutely fire me—not like the word sausage. I’m afraid I’m more earthy than you. I’m afraid you’re not with me really?” He eyed her solitary cup of coffee. “I hope I’m not turning you up …”

  “Not a bit. I’m just not a breakfaster.” And only got one and sixpence left in my purse.

  “Hi, Lucy.” The last mouthful went into the dog’s pink and white, delicately hesitating jaws.

  “What a pronounced female.”

  “What, this one?” He looked dubiously down. “Well, I don’t know. Are you, Lucy?”

  The dog quivered madly and blinked towards him. She had a coat like a toy dog and her eyes were weak with pink rims. Her nose also was patched with pink, and she wore a pinched smirking expression, slightly dotty, virginal, and extremely self-conscious.

  “She’s horribly sentimental,” he said.

  “I see it’s one of those cases …”

  “How d’you mean?”

  “She thinks you and she were made for one another.”

  “Oh! …” He considered. “I believe she does. It’s awful, isn’t it? She’s shockingly touchy.”

  “Can you wonder? Look at the position she has to keep up. Being a gentleman’s lady friend”

  He burst out laughing; and she was struck afresh by what she remembered about him years ago: the physical ease and richness flow
ing out through voice and gestures, a bountifulness of nature that drew one, irrespective of what he had to offer.

  “I used to see you—quite a long time ago—didn’t I?” he said shyly. “At home or somewhere?”

  “Yes. I used to come to tea with Marigold. Ages ago. I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

  “Well, I do. At least I wasn’t absolutely sure for the first moment … I’ve got an awful memory for names …” He paused; but she said nothing. I won’t tell him my name. “And you’ve changed,” he added.

  “Have I?”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Got thin,” he suggested, a little shyly.

  “Oh, well! … Last time we met properly I was a great big bouncing flapper. I hadn’t fined down, as the saying goes.”

  “Well, you’ve done that all right now.” He looked her over with a warm blue eye, and she saw an image of herself in his mind—fined down almost to the bone, thin through the hips and shoulders, with thin well-shaped cream-coloured hands, with a face of pronounced planes, slightly crooked, and a pale smoothly-hollowed cheek, and a long full mouth going to points, made vermilion. No hat, hair dark brown, silky, curling up at the ends. Safely dressed in these tweeds. Not uninteresting: even perhaps …? “All those charming plump girls I used to know,” he said, “they’ve all dwindled shockingly.”

  “Has Marigold dwindled?”

  “Mm—not exactly. You couldn’t quite say that. But she’s sort of different …”

  “How?”

  He reflected, swallowing the last of his toast and marmalade.

  “Oh, I don’t know … Got a bit older and all that, you know.”

  “More beautiful?”

  “Well, if you can call it— Haven’t you seen her lately then?”

  “Not for years. In fact, not since her wedding.”

  She glanced at him. “I think that was the last time I saw you too …”

  “I remember.”

  “Do you? We didn’t speak.”

  “No, we didn’t.”