She took up her glass. The chunk of ice from the frigidaire clinked temptingly, but the fumes of gin came up, overpowering. This is a test now: if I can swallow this … She sipped, and her mouth twisted. Sticky, sickening, unclean … Her jaw muscles tightened, fighting down nausea, hard-pressed … Thank God for the ice. She fished it out and sucked at it, said smiling:
“This is what I was longing for.”
“Darling—you don’t feel sick, do you?”
“Good lord, no. Just thirsty and sort of unfresh—you know how a journey makes you feel. I’ll have a bath unless you want the bathroom, and sip this later in bed to cheer my solitary evening.”
“It’s rather a melancholy little programme.” Etty looked distressed.
“Far from it. Bed, book, drink—perfect.”
Etty sighed.
“It’s a comfort to think if the worst comes to the worst there is always bed and the bottle. I often feel I shall end my days in a stupor of debauchery.”
She took her drink in little nips, throwing her head up between each, like a canary.
“Now have a bath, darling, and I’ll tuck you into bed. I’m not dining till nine. I felt so wilted I wanted to do my packing quietly and have plenty of time for collapse.”
Protesting against protest, she helped Olivia to carry up the heavy suitcase, straining her puny arm and shoulder with ineffectual stubbornness; then tripped down again and turned on the bath.
She got into bed and lay flat. That’s better. The room was almost cool, the sun had left it hours ago. The picture looked back at her from above the mantelpiece—cool people sitting at peace in chequered shade. Rollo’s cigarette burn on the table beside her … Oh, be abolished, all signs and reminders of him, till I’m out of this mess. Rollo, I’ve started a baby, what shall we do …? No, I won’t. Not yet, anyway.
She dozed for a few moments, lapped immediately in confused and violent half-dreams; was roused by Etty coming in with a plate of vita-wheat biscuits.
“Darling, but for these the cupboard is bone bare. I just had these and some orange juice for breakfast and I’ve been out all the rest of the day. I feel so mortified. Do let me run out and get you some fruit or eggs or something.”
“No, my dear, thank you.” (Eggs—fearful thought.) “This is just what I want.”
She nibbled eagerly: good taste, dry, crisp, slightly salt.
“Ett … I’ve had a letter from a friend … Where is it? … Oh, I put it in my bag, never mind. She’s in the most awful hole.”
Etty, sitting on the end of the bed, presented a face of expectant sympathy.
“She’s been having an affair with some man or other, married, I believe, and to her horror she finds she’s started a baby.”
“Oh, my dear, how shattering …”
Was it imagination—one rapid, questioning glance from Etty?
“She wants to know if I can help her.”
Etty reflected, serious.
“Has she tried pills?”
“She doesn’t say. There are pills, are there? That really work? She’d try anything, I’m sure. Do chemists sell them?”
“I know of one who does. But I’ve never heard of them working if it’s really the worst … They may, of course.” Etty fell silent, adding, “They give you the most stupefying diarrhea, that I do know … Still, she might try.”
“She sounds pretty desperate. You see, she’s an actress, on tour. It would simply do in her career.”
“Where is she?”
“Weymouth or somewhere—touring along the south coast.” If Etty’d had suspicions they must surely be allayed: the story comes so pat, so plausible. “She says she could get up to London if she had to.”
“Has she got any money?”
“No … But I think … she says she could get some—a little—I don’t know how—from the man perhaps.”
“I do know someone …” said Etty uncertainly.
“In London?”
“Yes. Let me think … His name … It’s ages since I …Tredeaven—that’s it.”
“Is he in the telephone-book?”
“Oh, yes. He’s a what d’you call it—manipulator or something … He’s got a more or less respectable practice. This is a side-line.”
“How could I get hold of him? Could I ring up and make an appointment for her? Or take her to see him?”
Etty was silent.
“He won’t take any one unless he knows who’s sent them,” she said at last. “You see, it’s fearfully dangerous for him. If you’re caught it means prison … In spite of his being, of course, a public benefactor really. I suppose he’s saved regiments of unfortunate erring women from ruin …”
“You mean,” said Olivia, “he might refuse to do it—if she just went out of the blue?”
Silence again.
“You could give my name, I suppose …” Etty stirred. Her slightly protruding eyes between curly doll’s lashes became fixed with a certain wild blankness on her cousin. “Only it was so long ago …”
“Did you go to him, Ett?”
“My dear, once. Wasn’t it shattering?” The colour came up in her fragile egg-face, painfully, from neck to brow. She laughed, rather shakily. “The wages of sin, darling.”
“Poor Ett.”
Amazing. A shock, definitely. That narrow miniature body, that, too, trapped, subjected to the common risks and consequences of female humanity. It only showed, for the hundredth time, how little one knew about anybody, particularly one’s nearest … Seeing only Etty’s marionette surface, allowing one’s intuition and mere circumstantial evidence to decide that never—however much she might dally with preliminaries—would she have brought herself to face ultimate physical issues.
“I’ve never told a soul,” said Etty, wiping her eyes. “I nearly died of it. Never breathe it, will you?”
“Of course I won’t. When was it?”
“About five years ago. Oh dear! And he was married too …”
“Were you awfully in love?”
“Well no, darling—low be it spoken—that was the crowning shame. It was just once. He was so importunate … I never dreamed … Oh, how sordid! … I couldn’t tell him. I simply loathed him the moment after. I never wanted to see him again.”
“Yes, I can imagine …” But, of course, not the same with me and Rollo: not sordid. I love him so much. I always wanted to have his child.
“Really,” sighed Etty, examining her face in Olivia’s hand-mirror, “these physical processes are too treacherous. Why should wretched females be so beleaguered? …” She dabbed on a little powder, came back and perched herself on the bed again; sitting there with her look of pathos, as if the sudden emotion had exhausted her. “I swore never again would I stray from the path of virtue.” She glanced at Olivia, arch, faintly sly. “But one does forget, doesn’t one?”
“One does.”
“I must say it’s a comfort to feel he exists … Not that I ever intend to require his services again …”
“Was it awful?”
“Not really—not too shattering. He was divine to me. He’s a lamb. But of course I did feel too squalid.”
“Did you go alone?”
“Well, no. Mona was a saint—she simply arranged everything. You see, she’d been to him just before, poor darling.”
“Oh, had she?”
Mona tool Well, well … She began to feel fatally cosy and consoled, the seals of arduous secrecy, of solitary endurance melting, melting … Not such a catastrophe after all: quite a common little predicament, distressing, of course, but soon over and no one the wiser …
The fact is, Ett, it’s me—I’m properly in the soup. I’ve been having an affair with Rollo Spencer … Darling, how distraught you must have been feeling. But don’t worry any more. You`ll get put right in two tw
os … Enter into the feminine conspiracy, be received with tact, sympathy, pills and hot-water bottles, we’re all in the same boat, all unfortunate women caught out after a little indiscretion. Give up the big stuff. Betray him, yourself, what love conceived. What’s love? You’re not a servant girl, bound to produce illegitimately, apply for a paternity order, carry a lifelong stigma … You can scrape up the money and go scot-free. Go on, go on … She bit into her thumb. I won’t. I can lie and lie; I can be alone.
“Do you know what he asks for doing it?”
“I’m not sure. He’s not cheap, I’m afraid … but then he’s safe. And I believe he varies according to what he thinks you can afford. I’m sure if your friend told him she was hard up he’d be kind.”
“Could I really ring up and ask for an appointment for her, and say you sent me? … I’ll have to see her through.”
Etty considered.
“I know what. Give Mona’s name. It ’ud sound better, as she’s married. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. It’s at secondhand, so to speak, but I suppose you can vouch for your friend being mum. I’ll look up his number before I go to-morrow, if you remind me. He’s in one of those little streets off Welbeck Street—I forget which.” She listened to a clock striking. “Nine. I must go and do one or two last things. Good-night, my pet. Bless you, sleep well. Drink up your drink. I’ll be back early, I’ve got a barbarously early start to-morrow. See you in the morning. Ma Banks will be in, of course. Don’t stir unless you feel like it.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine to-morrow. I’ll go home by the midday train, I expect. Good-night, Ett, bless you. Have a nice time. Give Jack a break.”
Perhaps she will too … Nobody thinks of anything else in this beastly world.
She smiled at Etty, smiling in the doorway, kissing all her carmine finger-tips … Dear pretty Etty, familiar, mysterious creature, unfailing girl-friend: ready to keep a secret, or console by giving one away; amiable feather-pated rattle—yet saying, knowing what?—to herself only, alone at night or sitting by herself? Cool, brittle Etty, untouched by heat, fresh to one’s sick, contaminated eye and nose; comfortably detached, yet known from the beginning. Saviour Etty.
Chemist’s outfit first: probably work, I’m always lucky. If not, Tredeaven, divine to one, a lamb, special terms if you’re hard up …
When bell, voices, slam of the front door, departing car successively had died away, she got up, poured the cocktail down the wash-basin, went to the telephone. Giddy, bemused, the motion of train and boat still swinging and spinning through her, she lifted the receiver and gave the number of Rollo’s house; for the second time … She heard the bell cawing over and over again at the other end … Not in, then. Wait a little longer, just a little … At last a voice … “Ull-oah!” By no means the bland male voice of last time: female, hot, cross, offended … “Could I speak to Mr. Spencer?”
“E’s not in.” Under-housemaid or such, reluctant from the back door or the upper regions: Rollo living in a small way with depleted August staff.
“I suppose you don’t know when he’s likely to be in?”
“’E didn’t say. ’E called back for ’is dog before dinner and went straight out again.”
“I see. It doesn’t matter. Thank you so much.”
Down clapped the receiver at the other end. That settles that one, and D.V. no more of ’em to-night.
It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter … Just as well. Somewhere, a mile or so away, Rollo’s walking with Lucy.
She went back to bed, sank through another sharp trembling fit into heavy sleep.
She dreamed of green waves that never broke. Swinging, swinging, from one cool glassy bell of silence to the next, up and down, up … down … In her dream she cried to someone shadowy beside her, “Oh, this is bliss! I’m in bliss! … bliss …”
II
The bath-chair bowled briskly over the lawn. Grandpa sat in it with his eyes shut, carefully dressed in his old-fashioned light grey summer suit, his Panama hat placed by Grandma on top. Grandma was at the helm. Jane, aged six, Christopher, three and a half, dragged at the handle, steering a jerky erratic course from rose-bed to shrubbery, from shrubbery to walnut tree; over and across, up and down, as fast as possible, giving Grandpa a little airing in the cool of late afternoon. Grandma was tireless. In a blue linen frock, trimly belted, a little tight behind, she swung along at a girl’s jaunty pace. She beamed and marched, occasionally shouting directions, warning or encouragement. The bath-chair amused the children. All was well. Kate and Olivia sat under the walnut tree in deck-chairs. Now and then Kate said, “Where’s that child?”—got up, extracted the lurking baby from some nook, brought her back, sat down again.
“How old is she, Kate?”
“Nearly sixteen months.”
“Surely she’s very forward?”
“I don’t think so.” Kate let out a long sigh: almost one of mother’s old sighs: certainly of the same genus. “They were all much of a muchness. They could all walk at a year—except Christopher, he was slow … But he was the first to talk. In fact I never remember him not talking.” She looked across the lawn at her son, narrowing her eyes, frowning faintly. “He’s enough to drive anyone dotty.”
“His style seems rather eccentric.”
“Oh, he’s a freak.” Kate rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know where he came from.”
“I expect he takes after some of our side-lines.”
“Yet he looks more like Rob than any of them.”
“Only on the surface. There’s something pretty tricky looking out from beneath: nothing Rob’s responsible for, I’m sure.”
Kate’s frown relaxed: her nostrils dilated in half-apologetic amusement. It was nice talking to Olivia about the children. She was sensible. She treated them as curious specimens, was delighted when they quarrelled or were rude; and this caused a sense of lightening of one’s responsibilities. One did forget to be scientific enough …
“He really is rather extraordinary,” she admitted, succumbing to pride.
“He reminds me of James,” said Olivia, “though he couldn’t be more unlike.”
“I hope he won’t go sour on us like James,” said Kate, depressed by the comparison.
The likeness was generic, the unlikeness partly a period one. Little girls were women in embryo; little boys frequently seemed not fathers of themselves but some totally separate, unaccountable, disconcerting kind of animal. She attempted to explain this.
“Perhaps,” said Kate. “I suppose what you really mean is boys don’t play to the gallery. They don’t care about making a good impression.” She followed the bath-chair with her eyes. “His brain’s too active,” she said, worried again, abandoning theory. “It’s quite a relief to see him gambolling and squawking round that bath-chair.”
“He’s all right,” said Olivia.
“There’s one thing,” said Kate. “He’s never been afraid of the dark. They’re all quite tough in those ways. Jane’s the only one who ever had to have a night light—after being frightened by some animal masks at some idiotic party Rob’s mother took her to. It was only for a short time though.”
“I think you manage very well.”
It was one’s role as childless aunt to replenish Kate’s maternal confidence.
“As for the period question,” said Kate, leaning back, “if you mean they don’t know the meaning of the words filial respect, they don’t. They cheek Rob and criticise me—at least not Priscilla so much, she’s always been soppy about me—but Christopher even goes on about my clothes—can you imagine? . … He can’t bear me in brown and he can’t bear me in a taffeta frock I’ve got, and I’m not allowed to wear stockinette bloomers and I don’t know what. Rob says he’s bound to be one of those cissy dressmaking young men. He won’t have a speck of dirt on his hands and the fuss that goes on about what he’s to wear! I wish Jane and he
would swap a bit of each other, she might be a tramp’s child What’s that you’ve got in your hand, Polly?” She broke off sharply, seizing the baby’s paw in a firm and gentle grip. An unripe greenish-pink half-squashed mulberry lay revealed. “You haven’t eaten any, have you?” She prized her jaws apart and investigated. “No, I don’t think so. Polly not eat, good girl. Nasty, Polly, ugh!”
The baby attentively examined the mulberry upon her cushioned palm. After a moment of trance she cried, Away!” and as a bowler towards the wicket, plunged immediately into a gallop, swept her arm up and back, and hurled it from her. “Gone!” she announced. She began forthwith to search over the grass, croaking “Where? Where? Where?” in urgent reiteration.
“There it is,” said Kate languidly, pointing with her toe.
“Dere tis,” she cried rapturously. Knees flexed, she bent forward from the hips to examine it once more, then fell on it, stamped it to pulp, her face contorted with disgust, an eye on Kate. “Ach! Ach! Ach!” She was hoarse with loathing.
“She’s very good about not putting things in her mouth,” said Kate.
“She’s terribly engaging.” Olivia watched the legs, a couple of burstingly stuffed pegs, start off once more towards the mulberry tree.
“She’s a bit overweight,” said Kate, also watching. “I’m sure my clinic would condemn her. I can’t see that it matters. Those weight charts are all bunk.”
“She’ll be the most attractive,” said Olivia. “The crooked smile.”
“That’s like you!” cried Kate in triumph. “I told you she was like you. And the eyes too. Everybody says so—except Mother for some reason.”
“I see what you mean.” Deprecatory, flattered …
One could go on for ever. It was a drug, a substitute for thinking. I can have a child too. I’ll take a cottage somewhere near Kate and have it without any fuss and bring it up with hers. I’ll look after it myself, and plant sunflowers and hollyhocks in my garden, and have a wooden cradle on rockers, and sing it to sleep. Kate and I’ll sit under the trees when they’re all in bed and talk about them … She’s going to light a cigarette. Don’t do it, you brute, don’t do it, why must you, you don’t want it; who wants to smoke in this heat? … She turned her head away, receiving the first penetrating nauseous whiff, closed her eyes. The blood began to push up thick and scorching in her cheeks and neck, behind her ears. Getting on for the bad time of day; have to crawl upstairs soon and surreptitiously be sick: continue the interminable slow-motion struggle with Laocoön.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 25