The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

“I know you can. There’s Etty’s bed. I suppose you could have that. Only it isn’t made up or anything.”

  “I don’t mind sleeping in blankets. I’ll hop off back to the flat if you’d rather, but I think I’d better stay in case you want anything.”

  “I shan’t—but all right.”

  Impossible not to be ungracious. He was so jaunty, so unaware of undercurrents. He’s lit on a free lodging, he’ll dig himself in, I know he will … He’ll hog away in Etty’s bed all to-morrow unless I kick him out … Remembering his capacity for leaden sleep stirred up an old wave of exasperation.

  “You can stay just to-night,” she said, turning over, composing herself for sleep. “The maid’ll be back to-morrow or the day after to clean up against Etty’s return, and I don’t want her to find me harbouring you. She’s a tigress about Etty’s belongings—she’d send for the police. Mind you take your shoes off and don’t knock your pipe out on the electric fire or anything.”

  He said amiably:

  “I won’t. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.”

  Contrary to expectations, he appeared by her bedside before ten—just as she began to wake up. He must have made a terrific effort: must have had me on his mind.

  “How are you?”

  “Very well.” Exhausted, peaceful, clear-headed.

  In the light of the morning, he looked a trifle squalid—unshaven, pale, swollen-lidded.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  She gave him money and sent him out to buy coffee, rolls, eggs, marmalade, butter.

  About eleven he brought up a delicious meal on two trays. They ate it, in silence, concentrating on food.

  He went out for a walk and she slept again.

  The day trickled by, languid, animal—sleeping, eating.

  It was evening again.

  “I’ve been trying all day to find Brian,” he said, sitting in the oak arm-chair, lighting a pipe. “He more or less promised he’d run me down to see Halkin.”

  “Who’s Brian?”

  “Carruthers. You remember …”

  “Oh, him … D’you still see that lot?”

  “What lot?” His voice was stubborn. She made no answer, and, deciding not to press the point, he went on placidly. “I thought he might be in the old Café. He often is. I looked in about lunch-time and again about six, but I couldn’t spot him.”

  “Perhaps you ought to look in again.”

  “I might … a bit later perhaps. He often turns up about midnight.”

  He sat and smoked his pipe.

  “Do you ever write poetry now?” she said presently.

  “Now and then.” He sounded evasive. “I did a thing last year—a sort of satire. Marda liked it. I showed the beginning of it to Beckett Adye—he liked it very much. He said when I finished it he’d publish it, but you know he’s left the Clarion. It was rather bad luck. I’ve been meaning to polish it off and send it to New Poetry … Don’t know if they’d take it.”

  “Do try. I’d like to read it.” He might write quite a good small-scale satire. He had some wit, and a shrewd detached turn of his own.

  “I’ll send it along to you to look at when I’ve finished it,” he said, looking pleased. “I wouldn’t mind having your opinion.”

  He unfolded his Evening Standard.

  “This is a curious situation,” she said, after a long silence.

  “What?” he said, looking over the top of his paper. “You mean us being here?”

  “M’m.”

  “Rather amusing, isn’t it? Still, I don’t see why not, do you? I mean—we never quarrelled or anything, did we?”

  “No, we never quarrelled.”

  “I don’t really see any reason why we shouldn’t occasionally see each other, do you? As a matter of fact, I’ve often felt I’d like to ring you up, or drop in. … I didn’t quite like to.”

  His manner was wary, tentative, waiting for a lead.

  “Well—it’s a bit squalid, the whole thing, really.” She whistled a few vague rather dreary bars. “It would be best as a satire …”

  Everything seemed to be on a knavish, rotten level. The seamy side … Reaction, I suppose. Him turning up again, cool, unperturbed, to cap it all … As if the past we shared wasn’t worth, to either of us, even one moment’s tremulous-ness, tenderness, remorse … There is no health in us. Ignoring or missing any implication, he added:

  “I presumed, of course, you were perfectly friendly disposed—”

  “Of course, Ivor.”

  “Still, one feels a bit chary of butting in.”

  A marvel he hadn’t done so on one of Rollo’s nights … He puffed away at his pipe. Presently he said, looking at her obliquely, a funny look:

  “Marda’s always asking me why I don’t get a divorce.”

  “Has she asked you lately?”

  “Well, not very lately. Last year she was always on about it. I remained non-committal. It didn’t appear to me to be really her business.”

  Still the edge of cautious propitiatory inquiry … combined now with a most peculiar hollow pomposity: like a parliamentary candidate attempting a declaration of policy upon a subject insufficiently studied and of no interest to him: yet upon which a strong opinion is obviously expected of him.

  “I suppose she wants to make it her business.”

  “She seems to think I ought to be free …” he said dubiously.

  “Oh, she does, does she? Does she propose to marry you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you want to marry her?”

  His mouth dropped slightly open. He looked perfectly blank.

  “I don’t altogether think I do,” he said at last.

  “I wouldn’t. It’s not my business in the slightest degree, but honestly I wouldn’t.”

  “No, I don’t think I will.” She detected relief; though his manner continued lofty and judicial.

  “She’s too old, Ivor. I don’t mean that’s necessarily fatal, but I think in this case it might be. Besides, that black varnished fringe would get on your nerves. I don’t mean to be rude …”

  “No, no, I know.” He brooded. “She’s an intelligent woman, you know. Got a mind like a man’s … Sympathetic too. She was awfully kind after—”

  “After what?”

  “Well, the bereavement,” he said, embarrassed, jocular. “You know—Mamma …”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes. She died nearly a year ago. November last to be precise. You didn’t know then?”

  “Good God! I’d no idea.” She broke out into a sweat. I can’t stand shocks in my weak state …

  “Well, I thought if it had happened to catch your eye you’d probably have written me a line … As a matter of fact, I nearly wrote to you—just to let you know—but then I thought I wouldn’t bother you.”

  “I’d like to have known.”

  Might have been spared some bad, guilty dreams … Or would the dreams go on just the same, till I die too? … Last November: about the time it started with Rollo … She remembered the conversation at Meldon about mothers-in-law: “Has yours passed away?” “Far from it …”

  “I’m so sorry, Ivor.”

  “It was pretty bloody,” he admitted, sheepish. “She didn’t have too pleasant a time. Cancer.”

  “You were living with her, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said in the familiar defensive-aggressive way. “She took a little flat in Knightsbridge after—after we separated. I had my own room—quite independent, but of course it wasn’t an ideal arrangement from my point of view. Still, it seemed the easiest thing to do for the moment … I’m afraid she didn’t particularly like living in London. She was lonely … though I tried …” His voice trailed off, flat, deject
ed …

  All at once Ivor’s mother lost her power, her venom; appeared as one of hundreds of harmless elderly middle-class widows dying with resignation of cancer … In a minute I shall boo-hoo because I was a beast to her and she hated me and we weren’t reconciled on her deathbed.

  “She loathed me,” she said shakily. An enemy’s death is simply awful.

  Troubled, at a loss, he drummed on the arms of his chair, looking blank.

  “She never mentioned you afterwards,” he finally ventured, uncertain. “She knew I wouldn’t stand for any—well—you know what she was—attacks.” He added resolutely: “I made her understand that once and for all, the first time she started.”

  “That was nice of you.” More than I did for him …

  “She wasn’t an outstandingly rational woman.” He relit his pipe. “As you know, I was the only person who counted. I dare say that didn’t do me much good. Still …”

  “I’m glad you had Marda.”

  “Yes, it was something,” he said meditatively.

  Ivor an orphan … It wasn’t quite suitable. Somebody ought to be responsible. But somebody, would be; he’d be all right; if not Marda, another mother. The world was packed with them. He was tenacious and he still had some looks; and that charm, with its curious, cold, somehow diminutive, somehow abstract flavour.

  After a silence he said cautiously:

  “What about you—as regards divorce?”

  “Oh … I don’t really mind one way or the other. It seems perhaps a pointless extravagance—unless one were proposing to remarry.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “No, not at the moment. Had you heard I was?”

  “Oh no”

  Had he or not? You could never be sure with Ivor. Might he be up to some funny business on the sly?—as Kate had once suggested. He was tricky. A dark horse. If Marda decided on detectives, and put up the money—would he need much persuading? She said, her voice rising a semitone:

  “I’m afraid I can’t oblige with any evidence just at present.” As she said this, she suddenly saw light. “Besides, even if I could, it would be no go now, would it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you see, we’ve just spent a night under the same roof. That’s what’s known as condoning, I believe. You’ve condoned anything I might have done up till now.”

  “Oh, have I?” he said simply. “I see.”

  “With Dr. Fell as witness.”

  “That’s torn it, then,” he said … humorously? … His face was totally expressionless, as it frequently was. You couldn’t quite put anything past Ivor.

  “I don’t wish to stand in your way,” she said.

  “You don’t,” he said. “Not in the least.”

  He took his pipe out of his mouth and examined the bowl.

  “I’d very much rather you didn’t tell Marda about last night,” she said.

  “No, no, I won’t.”

  “Is she jealous?”

  “Apt to be … I’d certainly better not mention it.”

  He could be relied on there, anyway.

  He eyed her, looked away again, straight ahead of him. She was conscious of his turning some scheme or other over in his mind. Presently he said:

  “I don’t know about you, but it seems to me remarkably natural being together again.”

  “Everything seems to me remarkably natural,” she said. “My eye’s right out.”

  “We never got on too badly, did we?”

  “Not badly enough, really.”

  He hesitated: passed that over.

  “When two more or less civilised people have roughly the same point of view they ought logically speaking to be able to hit it off.”

  “The hypothesis seems sound …” She sighed. “But I feel there’s a flaw.”

  Puffing away, looking perfectly blankly towards the opposite wall, he said:

  “What would you say to another shot?”

  “What, you and me?”

  “Yes.” She was silent, and he went on, warming to the proposition, “I take it you’re more or less a free agent … We might try it out, anyway. Of course, it would cause a certain amount of back-chat and gossip, but I don’t suppose either of us minds that. I’ll get this job—at least I see no reason why I shouldn’t … I ought to get quite a decent screw—these film people are rolling. And I suppose you’ve got just a bit. It wouldn’t be penury like the last time—that’s what got us down, to my mind … What about it?”

  She said painfully, apologetic but vehement:

  “I couldn’t, Ivor. Not possibly. You see, I’ve made my own life. I don’t want to change.”

  “Right,” he said immediately, in a hearty voice, not a flicker on his face.

  She lay still, feeling upset. Just what I expected …

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He said equably:

  “It was merely a suggestion.”

  What does he see, know, feel? Anything? … Impenetrable as agate …

  “You’d better go now, Ivor,” she said. “I’m afraid you truly can’t stay to-night. Mrs. Banks turns up to-morrow at eight. We don’t want to be compromised any further, do we?”

  “No, rather not.” He got up briskly, folded the paper and rammed it into his pocket. “Mind if I take this? I haven’t quite finished it.”

  “No, take it.”

  He set his hair with careful touches.

  “I couldn’t touch you for ten bob, I suppose? Just till I get this fixed up. I’m rather low.”

  “How much do you want?” He saw the notes in my bag.

  “Well, if you could make it a couple of quid … I’ll pay you back.”

  “Take them,” she said. “Leave me the rest. I may have to live on it for a considerable time.”

  “There’s over two pounds left,” he said after inspection, closing the bag.

  “I had a little windfall.”

  “Lucky.”

  “It was.”

  “Well, so long. I might look in to-morrow to see how you are.”

  “I’ll be all right. I shall get up to-morrow. Good-night, Ivor. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “Not at all.” He paused by the door. “We might have a meal together occasionally … if you’re going to be in London.”

  “I expect I’ll be going back to the country soon. Still, we might.”

  “Good-night.”

  “Good-night.”

  When she heard the front door close, she got up and went down to the floor below to remove all traces of his occupation. The kitchen was beautifully tidy. He’d washed up, hung up the cups, the jug, ranged the plates, put away the food in the cupboard. On Etty’s bed the uncovered pillows looked faintly dented and disordered … Oh, the queer little man, he’d lain there all last night, bounded in his stone nutshell … We fell in love, we told ourselves to each other, kissed, shared a narrower bed than this … Unimaginable. What did we tell each other? … Surely he wasn’t agate then? … Have I done something to him? …

  She plumped up the pillows, smoothed out the blankets and bedspread, went upstairs again and got into bed.

  Depressed.

  Soon I’ll be out of this slough, I’ll live again.

  The slow blood goes on passing away … cleansing me. I shall look at Rollo with clear-washed eyes, I shall see truth.

  I shall be washed whiter than snow.

  Not next morning, but the one after, just before twelve, he came round. She was packing a suitcase to go down to Kate: Kate surprised, excited, on the telephone, almost emotional in her pleasure … The door bell pinged. Mrs. Banks called huskily up the stairs:

  “Expectin’ any one?”

  “No.”

  “Well, are you in, or aren’t you?”

&n
bsp; She slipped down to Etty’s room and peeped out through the gold net curtains. There he was on the doorstep, looking down the street, his hands in his coat pockets. She could see his blunt, pale, puppyish profile.

  She called down softly:

  “Say I’ve gone away to the country. If he asks for how long, say you don’t know.”

  She heard the front door open, voices, the latch clicking shut again. Now he’d be going away down the street, disappointed, jaunty, feeling snubbed perhaps … Oh, bother!

  Presently Mrs. Banks came creaking up.

  “’E’s gorn,” she said. “I don’t know what ’e came after. ’E arsked when you’d be back so I told ’im what you told me to. I said would ’e leave his name, but ’e said no, it wasn’t of no consequence, ’e’d call again.”

  “I wonder who it was …”

  “Not a bad-lookin’ young chap. Long ’air. Ar-tis-tic lookin’—you know. Un’ealthy. I should say ’e suffered from ’is stomach. Or it might be drink.” She gave a flick to the lamp with her duster. “Anyway, if ’e does come again ’e does, I suppose.” Hoping he will … More inquisitive than usual. Concerned about him. And she’s no sentimentalist.

  Oh, he’ll be all right.

  Part Four

  I

  They motored down from London in the early afternoon, called at the Dog and Duck for the keys, and drove on to Simon’s house.

  The moment she opened the door, the new smell met her; not the familiar one of Simon’s house—penetrating, exciting somehow, earthy, like ferns or mushrooms—something different—damp, sour, pervasive; something that had taken possession; a threatening smell She threw back the shutters in the sitting-room, opened the windows. Standing behind her shoulder, Rollo was silent. They looked out at the stretch of lawn, the elms, dry looking, shrivelling up, the pear-tree already shedding pale brown and grey leaves. The weather was dull, gusty, with clouds and wind coming up.

  “What’s the date?” she said.

  “The twenty-fifth of September.”

  “It’s autumn.”

  “M’m. Depressing idea.” He gave a rapid start and shiver, as if suddenly chilled.

  “The grass needs mowing. I wonder if I ought to get somebody to see to it.”

  Extraordinary how neglect could encroach in less than two months. It seemed abnormal. Simon’s house had become an empty house … It doesn’t feel as if anybody would ever live here again.