by Sarah Waters
At this time of day the sun fell rather obliquely, but the bricks and metal it had been striking all morning still held its heat. The air was pearly with petrol fumes. From Oxford Street there came the steady grumble of traffic, and the tap-tap of workmen fixing roofs.
Viv and Helen sat down and carefully eased off their shoes, stretching out their legs—tucking in their skirts, in case the men from the wig-maker’s should happen to come out and glance upwards—and working and turning their stockinged feet. Their stockings were darned at the toes and the heels. Their shoes were scuffed; everybody’s were. Helen got out a packet of cigarettes and Viv said, ‘It’s my turn.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’ll owe you, then.’
They shared a match. Viv put back her head and sighed out smoke. Then she looked at her watch.
‘God! There’s ten minutes gone already. Why does time never go so quickly when we’ve got the clients in?’
‘They must work on the clocks,’ said Helen. ‘Like magnets.’
‘I think they must. Just as they suck away at the life of you and me—suck, suck, suck, like great big fleas…Honestly, if you’d told me, when I was sixteen, that I should end up working in a place like this—well, I don’t know what I would have thought. It wasn’t what I had in mind at all. I wanted to be a solicitor’s secretary…’
The words dissolved into another yawn—as if Viv hadn’t the energy, even, to be bitter. She patted at her mouth with one of her slim, pale, pretty, ringless hands.
She was five or six years younger than Helen, who was thirty-two. Her features were dark, and still vivid with youth; her hair was a rich brownish-black. Right now it lay bunched behind her head against the warm brick wall, like a velvet cushion.
Helen envied Viv her hair. Her own hair was light—or, as she thought of it, colourless; and it did that unforgivable thing—grew absolutely straight. She wore it waved, and the constant perming dried it out and made it brittle. She’d had it waved very recently: she could catch the faint stink of the chemicals every time she turned her head.
She thought over what Viv had said, about wanting to be a solicitor’s secretary. She said, ‘When I was young, I wanted to be a stable-girl.’
‘A stable-girl?’
‘You know, with horses, ponies. I’d never ridden a horse in my life. But I’d read something or other, I suppose, in a girl’s annual or somewhere. I used to go trotting up and down the street, making clopping noises with my tongue.’ She remembered the thrill of it, very clearly, and had an urge to get up, now, and try cantering up and down the fire-escape. ‘My horse was called Fleet. He was very fast and very muscular.’ She drew on her cigarette, then added in a lower tone, ‘God knows what Freud would say about it.’
She and Viv laughed, flushing slightly.
Viv said, ‘When I was really young, I wanted to be a nurse. Seeing my mother in the hospital put me off that, though…My brother wanted to be a magician.’ Her gaze grew distant; she started to smile. ‘I always remember. My sister and I made him a cloak, from an old curtain. We dyed it black—but of course, we didn’t know what we were doing, we were only kids; it came out looking terrible. We told him it was a specially magic one. And then my father got him one of those boxes of magic tricks, for his birthday. I bet it cost a fortune, too! He got everything he wanted, my brother; he was absolutely ruined. He was the sort of kid who, every time you took him into a shop, he’d want something. My auntie used to say, “You could take Duncan into a wool shop, and he’d come out wanting a ball of wool.”’
She sipped her tea, laughing again. ‘He was a lovely kid, really. My dad gave him that box, and he couldn’t believe it. He spent hours reading the book, trying to work the tricks out; but in the end, you know, he put it all away. So we said, “What’s the matter? Didn’t you like the box after all?” And he said, “Well, it was all right”; but he’d thought it was going to show him how to do real magic, and it was just tricks.’ She bit her lip, and shook her head. ‘Just tricks! Poor little thing. He was only about eight.’
Helen smiled. ‘It must have been nice, having a baby brother. My brother and I were too close in age; we just used to quarrel. Once he tied one of my plaits to the handle of a door, and slammed it.’ She touched her scalp. ‘It hurt like hell. I wanted to kill him! I believe I would have, if I’d known how. I do think children would make the most perfect little murderers, don’t you?’
Viv nodded—but a little vaguely, this time. She smoked her cigarette; and they sat together, for a minute or two, in silence.
There’s that curtain come down, thought Helen; for she was used to Viv doing this: giving little confidences, sharing memories—then drawing back suddenly, as though she had given away too much. They had worked together for almost a year, but what Helen knew about Viv’s home life she’d had to put together from bits and pieces, scraps that Viv had let drop. She knew, for example, that her background was a very ordinary one; that her mother had died, ages ago; that she lived with her father in South London, cooking his dinners when she went home from work at night, and doing his laundry. She wasn’t married or engaged—which seemed odd to Helen, for such a good-looking girl. She never spoke of having lost a lover to the war, but there was something—something disappointed about her, Helen thought. A sort of greyness. A layer of grief, as fine as ash, just beneath the surface.
But it was her brother, this Duncan, who was the biggest mystery. He had some queerness or scandal attached to him—Helen had never been able to work out what. He didn’t live at home, with Viv and their father; he lived with an uncle or something like that. And though he was apparently quite healthy, he worked—she’d gathered—in an odd kind of factory, for invalids and charity cases. Viv always spoke about him in a very particular way; she often said, for example, ‘Poor Duncan,’ just as she had a minute ago. But the tone could have an edge of annoyance to it, too, depending on her mood: ‘Oh, he’s all right.’ ‘He hasn’t got a clue.’ ‘He’s in a world of his own, he is.’ And then, down would come that curtain.
Helen had a respect for curtains like that, however, having one or two things in her own life that she preferred to keep in darkness…
She drank more of her tea, then opened up her handbag and brought out a piece of knitting. She’d got into the habit, during the war, of knitting socks and scarves for soldiers; now, every month, she sent off a parcel of various lumpy, muddy-coloured items to the Red Cross. Currently she was working on a child’s balaclava. The wool was second-hand, with strange kinks; it was hot work for summer; but the turns in the pattern were absorbing. She moved her finger and thumb rapidly along the needle, counting stitches under her breath.
Viv opened her own bag. She got out a magazine and began to leaf through it.
‘Want your Stars?’ she asked Helen, after a while. And, when Helen nodded: ‘Here we are, then. Pisces, the Fish: Caution is the best course today. Others may not be sympathetic to your plans. That’s your gentleman from Harrow, earlier on. Where’s mine? Virgo, the Maiden: Look out for unexpected visitors. That makes it sound like I’m going to get nits! Scarlet brings luck.’ She made a face. ‘It’s only a woman in some office somewhere, isn’t it? I’d like her job.’ She turned another couple of pages, then held the magazine over. ‘How about that for a hair-do?’
Helen was counting stitches again. ‘Sixteen, seventeen,’ she said, and glanced at the picture. ‘Not bad. I shouldn’t like to have to set and reset it every time, though.’
Viv yawned again. ‘Well, that’s one thing I do have: time.’
They spent a few more minutes looking over the fashions, then glanced at their watches and sighed. Helen made a mark on her paper pattern, and rolled her knitting up. They pulled on their shoes, dusted down their skirts, climbed back over the window-sill. Viv rinsed out the cups. She got out her powder and lipstick and moved to the mirror.
‘Better freshen up the old war-paint, I suppose,’ she said.
Helen brie
fly tidied her own face, then went slowly back up into the waiting-room. She straightened the pile of Lilliputs, put away the tea things and the kettle. She looked through the diary on Viv’s desk—turning the pages, reading the names. Mr Symes, Mr Blake, Miss Taylor, Miss Heap…She could guess already at the various disappointments that had prompted them to call: the jilts, the betrayals, the rankling suspicions, the deadnesses of heart.
The thought made her restless. How horrible work was, really! Even with Viv to make it bearable, how awful it was to be here, while everything that was important to you, everything that was real, had meaning, was somewhere else, out of reach…
She went into her office and looked at the telephone on her desk. She oughtn’t to call at this sort of time in the day, for Julia hated to be interrupted when she was working. But now that she’d thought of it, the idea took hold: a little thrill of impatience ran through her, she found herself physically almost twitching, wanting to pick the receiver up.
Oh, bugger it, she thought. She snatched up the telephone and dialled her own number. It rang once, twice—and then came Julia’s voice.
‘Hello?’
‘Julia,’ said Helen quietly. ‘It’s only me.’
‘Helen! I thought you were my mother. She’s already called twice today. Before her I had the Exchange, some sort of problem with the line. Before that there was a man at the door, selling meat!’
‘What sort of meat?’
‘I didn’t enquire. Cat meat, probably.’
‘Poor Julia. Have you managed any writing at all?’
‘Well, a little.’
‘Killed anybody off?’
‘I have, as it happens.’
‘Have you?’ Helen settled the receiver more comfortably against her ear. ‘Who? Mrs Rattigan?’
‘No, Mrs Rattigan’s had a reprieve. It was Nurse Malone. A spear through the heart.’
‘A spear? In Hampshire?’
‘One of the Colonel’s African trophies.’
‘Ha! That will teach him. Was it awfully grisly?’
‘Awfully.’
‘Lots of blood?’
‘Buckets of it. And what about you? Been putting out the banns?’
Helen yawned. ‘Not much, no.’
She had nothing to say, really. She had just wanted to hear Julia’s voice. There was one of those noisy telephone silences, full of the tinny electric muddle of other people’s conversations in the wire. Then Julia spoke again, more briskly.
‘Look here, Helen. I’m afraid I’ll have to ring off. Ursula said she’d call.’
‘Oh,’ said Helen, suddenly cautious. ‘Ursula Waring? Did she?’
‘Just some tiresome thing about the broadcast, I expect.’
‘Yes. Well, all right.’
‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Yes, of course. Goodbye, Julia.’
‘Goodbye.’
Puffs of air; and then the line went dead as Julia put the telephone down. Helen spent a moment with the receiver still at her ear, listening to the faint, gusty echo that was all that remained of the severed connection.
Then she heard Viv coming out of the lavatory, and quickly and softly set the receiver back in its cradle.
How’s Julia?’ Viv thought to ask, as she and Helen were going around the office at the end of that day, emptying the ashtrays, gathering their things. ‘Has she finished her book?’
‘Not quite,’ said Helen, without looking up.
‘I saw her last book the other day. What’s it called? The Dark Eyes of—?’
‘The Bright Eyes,’ said Helen, ‘of Danger.’
‘That’s right. The Bright Eyes of Danger. I saw it in a shop on Saturday, and moved it right to the front of the shelf. A woman started looking at it, too, after that.’
Helen smiled. ‘You ought to get a commission. I’ll make sure to tell Julia.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ The idea was embarrassing. ‘She’s doing ever so well, though, isn’t she?’
‘She is,’ said Helen. She was shrugging on her coat. She seemed to hesitate, and then went on, ‘You know, there’s a write-up on her in the Radio Times this week. Her book’s going to be on Armchair Detective.’
‘Is it?’ said Viv. ‘You ought to have told me. The Radio Times! I shall have to buy one on my way home.’
‘It’s only a brief thing,’ said Helen. ‘There’s—There’s a nice little photo, though.’
She didn’t seem as excited about it, somehow, as she ought to have been. Perhaps she was just used to the idea. It seemed an incredible thing to Viv, to have a friend who wrote books, had her picture in a paper like the Radio Times, where so many people would see it.
They switched off the lights and went downstairs, and Helen locked the door. They stood for a minute, as they usually did, looking in at the wigs in the wig-maker’s window, deciding which wigs they would buy if they had to, and laughing at the rest. Then they walked together as far as the corner of Oxford Street—yawning as they said goodbye, and making comical faces at the thought of having to come back tomorrow and do another day, all over again.
Viv went slowly after that, almost dawdling: gazing into the windows of shops; wanting the worst of the going-home rush to be over before she tried to catch a train. Usually she took a bus for the long journey home to Streatham. Tonight, however, was a Tuesday night; and on Tuesdays she took the Tube and went to White City, to have tea with her brother. But she hated the Underground: hated the press of people, the smells, the smuts, the sudden warm gusts of air. At Marble Arch, instead of going down into the station, she went into the park, and walked along the path beside the pavement. The park looked lovely with the late, low sun above it, the shadows long, cool-seeming, bluish. She stood at the fountains and watched the play of the water; she even sat on a bench for a minute.
A girl with a baby came and sat beside her—sighing as she sat, glad of the rest. She had on a headscarf left over from the war, decorated with faded tanks and spitfires. The baby was asleep, but must have been dreaming: he was moving his face—now frowning, now amazed—as if he were trying out all the expressions he would need, Viv thought, when he was grown up.
She finally went down into the Underground at Lancaster Gate; she only had five stops, then, to Wood Lane. Mr Mundy’s house was a ten-minute walk from the station, round the back of the dog-track. When races were on you could hear the crowds—a funny sound: loud, almost frightening, it seemed to surge after you down the streets like great waves of invisible water. Tonight the track was quiet. The streets had children in them—three of them balanced on one old bicycle, weaving about, raising dust.
Mr Mundy’s gate was fastened with a fussy little latch, which somehow reminded Viv of Mr Mundy himself. His front door had panels of glass in it. She stood at them now, and lightly tapped, and, after a moment, a figure appeared in the hall beyond. It came slowly, with a limp. Viv put on a smile—and imagined Mr Mundy, on his side, doing the same.
‘Hello, Vivien. How are you, dear?’
‘Hello, Mr Mundy. I’m all right. How are you?’
She moved forward, wiping her feet on the bit of coconut-matting on the floor.
‘Can’t complain,’ said Mr Mundy.
The hall was narrow, and there was a moment’s awkwardness, every time, as he made room for her to pass him. She went to the bottom of the stairs and stood beside the umbrella-stand, unbuttoning her coat. It always took her a minute or two to get used to the dimness. She looked around, blinking. ‘My brother about, is he?’
Mr Mundy closed the door. ‘He’s in the parlour. Go on in, dear.’
But Duncan had already heard them talking. He called out, ‘Is that Vivien? V, come and see me in here! I can’t get up.’
‘He’s pinned to the floor,’ said Mr Mundy, smiling.
‘Come and see!’ called Duncan again.
She pushed at the parlour door and went inside. Duncan was lying on his stomach on the hearth-rug with an open book before him, and in the
small of his back sat Mr Mundy’s little tabby cat. The cat was working its two front legs as if kneading dough, flexing and retracting its toes and claws, purring ecstatically. Catching sight of Viv, it narrowed its eyes and worked faster.
Duncan laughed. ‘What do you think? She’s giving me a massage.’
Viv felt Mr Mundy at her shoulder. He had come to watch, and to laugh along with Duncan. His laugh was light, and dry—an old man’s chuckle. There was nothing to do but laugh, too. She said, ‘You’re barmy.’
Duncan began to lift himself up, as if about to start physical jerks. ‘I’m training her.’
‘What for?’
‘The circus.’
‘She’ll snag your shirt.’
‘I don’t mind. Watch.’
The cat worked on as if demented while Duncan raised himself higher. He began to straighten up. He tried to do it in such a way that the cat could keep her place on his back—even, could walk right up his body. All the time he tried it, he kept laughing. Mr Mundy called encouragement. At last, though, the cat had had enough, and sprang to the floor. Duncan brushed at his trousers.
‘Sometimes,’ he said to Viv, ‘she gets on my shoulders. I walk about—don’t I, Uncle Horace?—with her draped around my neck. Quite like your collar, in fact.’
Viv had a little false-fur collar on her coat. He came and touched it. She said, ‘She’s snagged your shirt after all.’
He twisted to look. ‘It’s only a shirt. I don’t have to be smart like you. Doesn’t Viv look smart, Uncle Horace? A smart lady secretary.’
He gave her one of his charming smiles, then let her hug him and kiss his cheek. His clothes had a faintly perfumed smell—that, she knew, was from the candle factory—but beneath the scent he smelt like a boy; and when she lifted her hands to him his shoulders seemed ridiculously narrow and full of slender bones. She thought of the story she’d told Helen that afternoon, about the box of magic tricks; and remembered him vividly, again, when he was little—how he would come into her and Pamela’s bed, and lie between them. She could still feel his thin arms and legs, and his forehead, which would get hot, the dark hair sticking to it, fine as silk…She wished for a moment that they were all children again. It still seemed extraordinary to her, that everything had turned out the way it had.