“A terminus,” muttered Virginia, as if savouring the unfamiliar word. Why could one not simply say an end? Terminus sounded rather like a bus-stop. “Yes, I suppose there will be a terminus. And I suppose we must be grateful that children grow up, much as we like them the way they are.” She was grateful to Miss White for making it so easy.
“Well,” Miss White continued, “I suppose it will be easier for her if she goes a few weeks early. That will mean she can settle in with her aunt before the school term begins. That would be better all round.”
Virginia swallowed. “Actually, we were thinking of sending her much earlier than that. We thought that . . .”
Miss White’s eyes had widened, and Virginia shifted uneasily under her gaze.
“Yes?”
Virginia struggled. “We thought that she might go next month – as long as we can get the passages booked.”
“Next month?” Miss White exclaimed. She frowned, as if she found it hard to comprehend what had been said. “You mean in a few weeks’ time?”
Virginia tried to keep her composure. “Yes. More or less. I mean, yes, I suppose.”
Miss White lapsed into silence. Now she looked out towards the Pavilion, avoiding the glance that Virginia sent in her direction. Then she turned to Virginia and asked, “What about me?”
“Well, of course, Henry . . .”
She did not finish. “Am I to be sent home early too?” The tone of the question was icily polite.
Virginia tried to smile. “Heavens, no. Nobody’s sending anybody home. But there’s no point . . .” She made a helpless gesture. “There’s no point in your occupying a position that’s . . .” She searched for a tactful expression but there was none.
“That’s ceased to exist?” offered Miss White.
“You could put it that way,” said Virginia, weakly.
“I do put it that way. In fact, there are various ways in which you could put it, one of which is to use the term to fire . . . verb, transitive, meaning to dispose of the services of somebody.”
“Oh, really,” Virginia protested. “We certainly would not fire you.”
“But isn’t that what you’re doing? If you’re saying that there’s no point in my being in my current position, doesn’t that amount to a firing?”
Virginia’s mouth was dry. A gin and tonic would have given her the courage she needed, she thought, but it was the wrong time of day. Even a glass of water would have helped.
She looked at Miss White. “Could you possibly give me a glass of water?”
Miss White was staring at her. It took her a few moments to answer. “Yes, I can get you a glass of water. I can certainly get you a glass of water.”
“Fridge water?” Virginia asked.
Miss White was already standing up. She smiled, although the smile was far from warm. “Of course. Fridge water.”
She went into the bungalow. Virginia sat back in her chair. She felt hot around the neck – she always felt that in moments of stress. The encounter had started off so easily, but that had been misleading. At that early point, Miss White was under the impression that her stay might be curtailed by a couple of weeks; her equanimity had disappeared very quickly when she discovered what was really entailed. The discomfort that she had expected before she came was now very real.
She waited. It was taking Miss White some time to fetch the glass of water. Virginia looked at her watch. It had stopped; she had forgotten to wind it, for the second time in three days. She looked at the shadows. There was a four o’clock feel to the day.
Miss White emerged holding a glass of water, which she passed to Virginia. “A warm day,” she said. “I get thirsty in this weather.”
She did not sound unfriendly. Virginia wondered whether the earlier frostiness – understandable, of course, in the circumstances – was simply a reflection of shock at the suddenness with which the information about Bella’s impending departure had been conveyed. Momentous news might very quickly cease to seem momentous, once considered, even for a rather short time: for all she knew, it may even have occurred to Miss White that the situation had certain advantages for her. She had assumed that Miss White was content enough in her bungalow, with its views of distant hills and its cool breezes, but it was quite possible that she was bored. Who was there to talk to? She had that woman at the mission school whom she went off to see from time to time, and there were a few people at the club with whom she appeared to be on good terms – that man from one of the other big estates whose wife was always trying to organise talks at the club on obscure topics – most of them given by herself. They were friendly with Miss White, she had noticed, and there were one or two others – most of them on the periphery, and none in the social circles that really counted – she sometimes saw them with Miss White. But apart from that? She had made it clear enough that she regarded the ladies of the reading circle as being beneath her notice, and they had, understandably enough, reciprocated. That attitude of superiority had been shown in an early comment Miss White had made – a very hurtful one, Virginia thought – when she said, “Trollope, Trollope, Trollope – your reading circle certainly could not be accused of ignoring Mr Trollope.” What was wrong with Trollope? And it was not true that they read too much Trollope. What about the Lawrence they had read, or the Sylvia Townsend Warner?
Virginia took hold of the glass. It was not cold; it was not fridge water. She hesitated. She looked at the water. She turned to Miss White and blurted out, “Your salary. Your salary’s important.”
She had intended to distract Miss White, and she did.
“Of course it’s important,” said the governess. “I work for my living.”
“No, I mean it’s important that your salary should be paid right up to the end of the original contractual period – the period we agreed when you came to us in the first place.”
As she spoke, Virginia lowered the glass of water to the floor beside her chair. She lifted her hand. Miss White was watching her. She saw Miss White’s gaze drop, but the other woman was incapable of seeing what was happening on the floor.
Virginia blurted out, “And of course you’ll get your fare home – or wherever it is you want to go.”
Miss White said nothing.
“I’m keen,” Virginia continued, “that is to say, we’re keen – both Henry and I – that you should be as little inconvenienced as possible, and that you shouldn’t lose anything through this change.”
Miss White absorbed this. “Thank you,” she said. It was a mechanical thank you – not one that sprang from real gratitude. She’s furious, thought Virginia. And then she thought, She hates me, and after that she went on to think, I shall not drink that water. There was water that you drank – safe water – and water that you never drank, although the locals could survive it. She knew what it was like to suffer the stomach upset that went with drinking unclean tap water. In an extreme case you could even die. More likely, of course, would be days of pain as your stomach wrestled with the teeming malignant fauna that made their home in such water – the tiny organisms that could bring you to your knees, retching in agony. There was a man in the club who had been sick for months with a parasite he had ingested from an incautious draught of untreated water. She had seen him, standing by the tennis court, too emaciated and weak to play. “Water,” he said, when she enquired after his health. And rolled his eyes. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”
Nor would she.
10
At the Club, on the Lawn
S he had to see Heather, although her friend’s departure for Colombo was now less than a week away. She sent a note with Michael, who rode up to the Macmillan bungalow and came back with the reply that although Heather would be unable to have lunch at the club, she was to be playing tennis there the following afternoon and they could have tea together afterwards. “I shall be ravenous,” she wrote. “I always am after playing tennis, and we can get them to make us some sandwiches. Leave some room for sandwich
es. 4 p.m. Voilà!”
When she arrived at the club, Heather was still playing a doubles match with three women whom Virginia knew, but not very well. They invited her to join them for tea, but Heather declined the invitation on her behalf. “We have to talk,” she said, igniting their interest in gossip. One of the other players, wiping her brow with a small white towel, looked with interest at Virginia: a tête-à-tête in the club meant only one thing – matrimonial difficulties. There were so few opportunities for affairs in such a sparse population that when one arose how could others not take an interest?
They sat on the lawn, on wicker chairs under a large rain tree. A club servant, clad in a steward’s jacket of starched white duck, brought the tray of tea and a jug of sweetened lime juice. The sandwiches to which Heather had referred arrived on a large plate, covered with thin muslin cloth to deter the flies. They were triangles of white bread, their fillings a mixture of cucumber and egg and cress. The bread was not yet stale but was on the cusp, curling slightly at the very edge, cut thin. “That, at least, is something,” said Heather. “So many sandwiches are great lumps of bread.”
“Is everything all right?” asked Heather, after her first sip of tea.
Virginia hesitated. Then, “No, not really. Well, perhaps.” And finished with, “I’m not sure.”
“Which means that it isn’t,” said Heather, putting down her teacup.
“No, probably not,” agreed Virginia.
Heather shook her head ruefully. “I feared it would get messy.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. Every time – every single time – these things start, they end up as a complete train crash. The only way out is radical surgery. Get rid of the troublemaker – see her off.” She paused, and fixed Virginia with an almost accusing stare. “Did you do as I suggested?”
Virginia assured her that she had done so. “I spoke to Henry. I told him that I felt uncomfortable about having her in the house, so to speak.”
“And how did he react?”
“He seemed to take it in his stride.”
Heather frowned. “Guilt,” she said. “He feels guilty. He can’t show his displeasure because guilt is stopping him from doing that, and also, if he does, he’ll be as good as confessing.”
“I agree,” said Virginia.
“And then?”
“We both took the view that she should get her salary for the full period of our original understanding. There was no argument about that.”
“Fair enough.”
“I suggested that he should tell her – that didn’t go down at all well.”
Heather managed a smile. “It wouldn’t, would it? So you . . .”
“I said I’d do it. I went to see her. I didn’t beat about the bush. I told her that we were sending Bella back earlier than we’d planned. She became quite distant. Cold, I’d say.”
“Anger,” said Heather, reaching for an egg and cress sandwich.
“I suppose so. And I’m not sure that I blame her. I’d probably feel the same if I were in her shoes.”
“But you aren’t in her shoes. And you have to remember that. You are a wife, Virginia. You are in the right here. This is your husband we’re talking about. You have everything – and I mean everything – on your side. The law, the Governor, God even – if He has the time to take an interest in these petty matters . . .” She smiled at the thought. “After all, we ask God to do all sorts of things, don’t we? To help us conduct our wars, defeat our enemies – even to win our tennis matches – which Molly and I didn’t, by the way – my game was awful.”
“It’s because you’ve been so busy packing up. It must be so stressful.”
“That’s kind of you to say that. No, my game is just getting worse. I don’t seem to see the ball coming. If the other side has a strong service, I’m done for. It whizzes past, and that’s it.”
Heather finished her sandwich and reached for another one. “Where are things now? Has she accepted the fait accompli?”
Virginia looked away. She felt foolish, because what she was about to say seemed so improbable, when thought about here, in the open, on the lawn of the club, with the whitejacketed steward moving about on the periphery and the sweeper brushing away so energetically on the path that led to the flagpole. It was a scene that was implicitly endorsed by the law, the Governor, and, dared one presume, by God Himself. And yet the thoughts that had kept her awake the previous night were insidious and insistent, and she knew that she would have to share them with Heather if she were to regain her peace of mind.
“I spoke to her on her veranda,” she began.
Heather nodded. “The best place for a conversation.”
“Yes. We were sitting there, and I told her. But I was very thirsty for some reason – possibly because I was so anxious about the conversation we were due to have. Anyway, I asked her if she could give me a glass of water.”
Heather waited.
“She went inside and then came back out with a glass.”
Heather nibbled at her sandwich. “Yes?”
Virginia found herself lowering her voice. “You’re probably going to think I’m being . . . what’s the word? Imaginative? Over-nervous?”
Heather shrugged. “Highly strung?”
“No, not that. Suspicious . . . Yes, suspicious. You probably think I’m being too suspicious.”
Heather held her gaze. It was exactly what she thought. But she said, “No, of course I don’t.” She hesitated. Virginia was a close friend – in so far as it was possible to have close friends in this lonely place, where everybody with whom one might develop a friendship was hours away. The winding roads that led up the hillsides made every journey a long one, not to say dangerous at times, when storms might wash part of the road away. Tantalizingly, you might survey from your veranda a bungalow across a valley, and know that there were people sitting there looking right back – and yet a painfully slow car journey lay between you and them. It was a hard disease, this separation of friends. Virginia was a friend, and you should not say to friends the opposite of what one was thinking. And so now she said, “Actually, I do – just a bit. I’m not suggesting that you have no grounds for suspicion – I’m not saying that – but I think you may need to control your imagination a bit. Just a bit . . .”
Virginia was quick to respond. “I thought you might say that. And I don’t blame you, I suppose. But anyway, I’m going to tell you what happened and what I think about it. Then, if you think I’m being ridiculous, please just tell me. It’s far better that way. Just say, You’re being stupid. I’ll understand. No offence taken.”
Heather reached for a cucumber sandwich. “I could eat these things all day,” she said.
Virginia declined the plate that Heather offered her. “I’m not hungry,” she said.
“Neither am I,” said Heather, “but that won’t stop me.” And with a quick voilà, she started to nibble at a small triangular sandwich.
Between bites she said, “You were telling me about Lavender White giving you . . .”
“Yes, a glass of water. I asked her, you see, for a glass of water, and I reminded her that it should be from the fridge. She has a fridge in her bungalow. The treated water is kept there, just as in the main house.”
“Of course.”
“But the glass that she gave me was warm. It was definitely not cold. It was not fridge water. That means she took it from the tap – the same source as bathwater, which is not treated.”
Heather was halfway through her sandwich. She stopped eating. “From the tap? Are you sure?”
“Well, if it had been drinking water it would have been cold.”
Heather finished her sandwich. She licked the tips of her fingers and then reached for her teacup. “We take it on trust that the club boils this water properly,” she said. “You have to get it up to boiling point to make it safe.”
“The club is good about these things,” said Virginia.
“They’re meticul
ous. Mr Vandersan is very particular about hygiene.” Mr Vandersan was the club administrator, the assistant to the secretary, a tall, imposing man, a member of a Burgher family. He invariably wore an aged panama with a green and red hat-band, symbol of some ancient club or school association. He was as firm with the staff as he was with the members, and any infringement of the club rules would be noted and solemnly raised with the guilty member. “There are always limits,” he said. “The day we cease to recognise those limits is the day that everything comes crashing down.”
Heather agreed. “The kitchens are spotless. I went in there once and was pretty impressed. And you’re right about Mr Vandersan. He’s wonderful.” She remembered something. “You know the most extraordinary thing happened the other day – right here in the club. Joe Ellis was playing tennis with Bobby Phillips, and Bobby took his watch off and put it down beside the net – you know, on the ground near the post where you tighten the tension. He didn’t want to damage it – apparently he broke a watch once with his powerful serve – actually broke the spring or whatever. Anyway, he put the watch down, and they played a pretty strenuous set. Halfway through they nipped off to have a quick glass of lime juice. They were only away for a couple of minutes. They took up where they left off and in due course finished. Bobby went for his watch and . . . yes, no watch.”
“Somebody had pinched it?”
Thefts in the club were rare. Mr Vandersan was careful in his choice of staff and would not tolerate any form of dishonesty.
“Yes,” replied Heather. “Stolen. And of course who were the obvious suspects? The ball-boys. There were four of them – that cheeky little waif with the pointy head – you know him? – and his little pals. I rather like the fat one, but I haven’t seen him recently. He was rather slow in running after the ball, but he had a lovely smile. His father cuts the grass – a nice man.”
“Bobby asked the boys about it,” Heather continued, “and there was a lot of head shaking. And then one of them said that there had been a man who had came onto the court saying that he was looking for a goat. I ask you: looking for a goat on a tennis court! Obviously this was complete invention, and Bobby was pretty sure that one of the boys had taken the watch. He called the groundsman over, and he searched the boys. Made them strip. No sign of the watch.”
The Pavilion in the Clouds Page 11