Late Call

by Angus Wilson

  However, Harold cared a lot about this Meadow business; so— Muriel Bartley apart, and bother Muriel Bartley if it came to that, she wasn’t flesh and blood—she must try to do her best to understand. As she read of belts of ploughed land or of pasture preserved in this or that New Town “to help the children grow up in familiarity with the natural rotation of the seasons” she forced herself to bring it all alive by recalling exactly how Goodchild’s meadow looked; but if you’d been brought up in thé country you couldn’t take fields seen from the top of a bus seriously. She found it far worse anyway to think of the alternative of Carshall houses like Harold’s and Muriel’s eating further into that vast dark stretch of country that she looked out upon from her window each night. As she visualised the scene her pulse beat more quickly, and giddiness or shortness of breath intervened to save her from contemplating the struggle—the digging up of those gloomy fields, the bricks and mortar, the workmen with their transistors sprawling across the clayey land. Black desolate thoughts would creep in at such times that only made her more hungry for the penned-up safety of “The Sycamores”. She would hurry the job on so that she could bring this new régime to an end, for she had made up her mind to challenge Muriel’s bluff if a third task should be forthcoming when this one was done. But the work in fact could not be easily hurried along like envelope addressing.

  So it was that one Wednesday when she got home she realised that in her haste she had filed away a report on compulsory purchase at Crawley in the ‘Multi-Living’ folder. The knowledge came to her as she was taking off her shoes to lie down on her bed, and despite the two aspirins which she now regularly swallowed after her snack lunch she couldn’t banish her anxiety with sleep. All through the afternoon and evening’s tele she fretted about it, so that a programme on the old Yorkshire sheep bells quite failed to engage her attention, although she liked that sort of thing as a rule, and even old Harry Worth fussing about his hot-water bottle couldn’t make her smile.

  The next morning when she arrived at “Sorbetts” she discovered that Muriel had taken most of the extracts down to the committee room for the chairman, Mr. Raven, who was soon to address the first public meeting. She passed a miserable morning divided between working with painfully slow concentration and summoning up enough courage to admit her silly mistake.

  But when the tipple time came Muriel, ready in a pillar-box red moiré silk costume to accompany Geoff for a rare dinner and show in town, was in no mood for talk of work. She was bursting with the latest reports of the Priest case.

  “It looks as though he’ll swing,” she said, “or whatever happens to them in Spain. Not that I don’t feel sorry for him. The poor devil probably hadn’t eaten for days. I know I said to Geoff when we were in Malaga, ‘I don’t believe these sods have had a proper meal for months.’ And then a lot of these rich women flash their jewellery around. I’m surprised more of them don’t get bumped off. Mind you, I expect there was a bit of sex in it somewhere, don’t you?”

  “I haven’t been reading the details really. You see I used to know Miss Priest, the aunt, years ago, and somehow . . .”

  “Did you? Well, I don’t want to criticise, but I think she’s a lot to blame. I mean that woman ought to have been married, not tied to an old aunt. What was she? Forty-three? There you are, it’s not surprising if there was a bit of hanky panky with this waiter. They get desperate, you know, at that age. You wouldn’t believe the stories that the Cook’s chap was telling me . . .”

  “I’m sure Miss Priest wouldn’t have tied anyone to her. She was far too independent. Certainly in the days when I knew her . . .”

  “Well, you know best, of course. But people change, don’t they? I mean especially when they get old. You see, this old girl had got all the lolly. They’re bound to get selfish. Look at the facts of the case. I mean, all she’d got to do was to give her niece a bit of dough and tell her to push off on her own. But no, money’s power with these old girls. Nobody wants them, and they know it, so they take it out on people round them. Mind you, I don’t say it was like that with your old girl. But that’s the way it goes.”

  Sylvia put her glass of gin and it down on the bar unfinished, heaved herself off her stool, and collected her bag and gloves.

  “I’m quite sure it wasn’t like that with Miss Priest, Mrs. Bartley. I really don’t think you should say such things.”

  Muriel’s protruberant eyes seemed to leap even further out of their heavy green-shaded lids.

  “Oh, when will I learn to shut my big mouth? I’d no idea you felt so strongly about it, I am sorry. I’ve offended you, I can see.”

  “No, you haven’t. It isn’t that. Please don’t worry.”

  It was with the greatest difficulty that she shook off Muriel’s distressed apologies. It was only when she got home that she remembered again the mistake in the filing. She couldn’t bring herself to telephone about it.

  The next morning she didn’t come down to breakfast.

  Harold called, “It’s getting late, Mother. Are you nearly ready?”

  “I don’t feel very well, dear. Will you tell Mrs. Bartley I shan’t be coming in?”

  Once or twice during the day the telephone rang, but she did not answer it for fear Muriel might be at the other end. Sure enough that evening Harold said, “I saw Muriel Bartley on the way home. She said she’s been ringing you all day, Mother. She seems to be afraid that she’s offended you in some way. Something to do with some murder. You women!”

  Sylvia laughed and luckily Harold took this as a dismissal of the subject.

  When Monday came round, she said quite deliberately, after breakfast, “I shan’t be going to Mrs. Bartley’s, dear. So don’t wait for me.”

  “Are you feeling ill again, Mother?”

  “No, dear. But there’s no point in my doing that job.”

  “What do you mean? I hear you’re the world’s most efficient secretary!”

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Bartley’s exaggerating. As a matter of fact I made a very silly mistake.”

  When Harold learned the facts he laughed. “Good heavens, Mother! Why ever didn’t you tell Muriel about it straight away? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. As a matter of fact, you’re obviously far too conscientious. And why hasn’t Muriel paid you for all this work?”

  “I’m very glad she hasn’t, dear, because now I needn’t go on with it.”

  “But, my dear Mother, the committee’s depending on you.”

  “I don’t think so, dear. They can get any typist to do it.”

  “Nonsense. In any case, I’m relying on you, Mother.”

  “It’s very kind of you, Harold. But you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll make my own life. I can’t have little jobs invented for me at my age. That’s silly.”

  “Even if that were true, which it isn’t, it’s much sillier to sit about letting yourself get old.”

  “I am old, dear. Oh, don’t worry! I’ll find plenty to do as I go along. It’s just taking me a little time to settle down, that’s all.” She laughed, “I’m not used to doing nothing, like Dad.”

  Harold pointed the stem of his pipe at her. “Mother, I’m going to say something you may not like. Dad’s been hopeless over the years as we all know. But you’ve let yourself get into the habit of nagging about him. I sometimes wonder if you really know what he’s like by now.”

  Sylvia looked at him in surprise. “Oh yes, dear, after all these years, I think I know Arthur very well. But we musn’t let all these trivialities make you late for work.”

  “Mother! I’m a headmaster now, not a junior clerk. In any case the point is, are you going to help the committee or not? If not, you might at least let Muriel know.”

  “Of course I shall, dear. I shall write to her this morning. I’ll just say I’m not well enough. That’s the trouble with muddles like this, they always lead to white lies.”

  Harold knocked his pipe out angrily on an ashtray.

  “Very well, I wash my hands of it en
tirely.” He banged the door as he went out.

  During the day Sylvia did in fact write a short note of apology to Muriel Bartley. Immediately afterwards she wrote a long letter to Miss Priest. She didn’t say much about how awful all the murder business must have been, instead she recalled some of the excursions they had taken together around Ilfracombe and some of the things that Miss Priest had said. “I just wanted you to know,” she wrote, “what pleasure it all gave me.”

  None of the grandchildren was in to supper that evening. Had it not been for Arthur’s talk, Sylvia would have had to acknowledge openly that Harold was sending her to Coventry. As soon as Arthur went out—to the Hartleys’, apparently they’d started up a poker game—she made her way upstairs, although she had particularly looked forward to Maigret. She did not want to embarrass Harold by forcing him into ostentatious silence. She had not long been absorbed in Mrs. Masham’s intrigues against the Duchess of Marlborough when the click of the study door told her that Harold too had isolated himself; but Maigret was half over by then.

  Later she was woken as usual by Arthur’s return. But this night he did not allow her to go to sleep again. “Christ Almighty! What have you been doing upsetting Harold like this?”

  “There wasn’t any job there really, Arthur. It was silly . . .”

  “What the hell do you mean silly? Harold wanted you to do it, didn’t he? I’ve never heard such damned Selfishness. After all he’s been doing for us.”

  He swore for a bit and then got into bed. Sylvia couldn’t stop a kind of compulsive sobbing that had seized her. She had almost to stifle herself in the pillow so that he should not hear her. At last his snoring made her feel able to turn once more on her back. But she lay awake in empty desperation until after she heard the clock strike five.

  During the last week in March the weather suddenly turned quite warm. Little artfully planted rings of daffodils brought spring to most of the gardens in Melling. Pink and white blossoms spurted here and there upon the trees that lined Higgleton. In Mardyke the Japanese quince covered one white house with masses of Knapp’s scarlet blooms. With the start of the Easter holidays the children were kings of the streets—roller skating, kicking footballs, cycling, skipping, even the very smallest bowl-ing hoops. Sylvia’s almost daily outing to the shops at Melling now became more hazardous, more fearful, more challenging than the longer weekly expedition to Town Centre to change her library book, for the longer journey meant only a short walk through the shouting alien children to the bus. Sometimes in despair she tried to reach the shops by side streets, but they all proved to be alive with this strange, happy, independent, absorbed young life, and, worse, some proved to be cycle-jostled, noise-filled cul-de-sacs. However, once the gauntlet had been run and she was home again, with “The Sycamores” saxe-blue front door closed upon the springtime, she gave herself up to shut-in safety. Some days she would sit still all day curled up with a book or in front of the tele like a dormouse in a cage. On other days she would hop from one book or programme to another. Now in her own room, now downstairs, now cutting herself a sandwich or making a pot of tea at the oddest hours when the schools Quiz Time happened to end or a chapter brought Melisa York from Natchez to her uncle’s Charleston home for the first romande meeting with the fascina-ting young Yankee officer—these were Sylvia’s canary or budgeri-gar days. But whether torpid days or twittering ones, she always took her half hour rest each afternoon—a half hour that got longer, sometimes lasting on from two until half past three or four. She also ate a lot, in part so that she would not need supper, for when she was not cook for the evening, she often stayed up-stairs in her room. Even the grandchildren noticed.

  Judy said, “You ought to eat, Gran. I know how frightfully difficult it is sometimes. Mrs. Ogilvie says that she has long spells when food simply revolts her.”

  Mark asked if there were some supper dishes she especially hated.

  “I know my macaroni pongs a bit, but we can easily ...”

  What they could easily do, Sylvia, as usual with Mark’s mumbling, never heard.

  Ray sat down in a chair and said, “Now, lovey, the family dials round the table are enough to make you bring it all up again, I know. But you must be a good girl and eat.”

  She tried to respond to their kind anxiety, but the family talk at supper so jarred upon her thoughts, so interrupted the many stories she was busy following, that she feared to make matters worse by screaming. It was not long before they accepted her absence at the table.

  Once or twice she woke in the night voraciously hungry and had to pad downstairs in dressing-gown and slippers to the kitchen, a more ghastly white cemetery than ever in the silent moonlight. On one such occasion she met Harold as he came out of his study after a late session of writing reports. They passed each other in silence. She felt impelled to look back at him as he went upstairs; and, turning, she found that he too had stopped to look back at her. For almost a minute she stared right into his eyes that seemed quite blank. After that she kept a tin of biscuits and some chocolate in her room.

  That’ll be quite enough of that, thank you, Wardress Webb. No, I don’t want to hear any excuses. The rules about make-up for prisoners are perfectly clear. But Wiggin swore blue that she’d been out of the store room when this month’s make-up packs were distributed. My dear wardress Webb, if you’re going to believe everything that women like Wiggin tell you! They don’t happen to be very honest, you know. That’s why they’re here. Yes, I realise that, and I’m not half as trusting as I used to be, Chief Wardress. But Wiggin does seem a bit different to the rest; she’s only a girl and . . . Only a girl who happened to think that she had a right to other people’s property and who went on thinking it so many times that she landed up in prison. These women are criminals, Wardress Webb. But surely we’re here to help them. We’re here to see that discipline’s kept. We wardresses are ordinary women doing a job of work. If you want all that high-falutin talk, Wardress Webb, you’d better go and have a nice long chat with our dear new Governor about the poor harmless, ill-treated convicts and penal reform or whatever she’s always spouting about. But don’t come to me with excuses of that kind again. . . . Oh, I say, Miss Webb, what’s up? Chief Wardress doing her strong woman stuff again? It’s nothing, Mr. Varley, honestly. Look here, Miss Webb, I’ve not been a prison Chaplain for the last three years without knowing when people are unhappy; that old battle-axe has got a down on you. All right, if you’d rather not tell me. But I say, Miss Webb . . . Janet, have you ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant? Would you like to? Bird’s-nest soup and all that! I’d love to take you to one if you’d care to come.

  It was no good; whoever it was refused to stop ringing, although Sylvia had disregarded the noise for more than three minutes. She went to the front door. Sally Bulmer loomed large in the doorway, less gipsy-like but almost more enveloping in her daytime clothes, all bosom and lace blouse and huge uncut amethyst brooch.

  As the noise of the voices came from the sitting room, she cried, “Tele!” in a tone of proud discovery.

  Sylvia ignored the cry. “Everybody’s out, I’m afraid.”

  “Except you. Now, what am I interrupting?”

  “It’s ‘Wardress Webb’.”

  “Ah, the new serial. Can new viewers join in along the line? You’d better put me in the picture.”

  Sylvia led the way back to the sitting room. “The Chief Wardress has ticked Wardress Webb off again. And the Chaplain’s asked her out to supper. He’s quite young. And, oh yes, now that’s Wardress Appelby. She’s engaged to Jimmie. He’s a student. And last time Mollie Green, one of the convicts, made it clear that she knew Jimmie. So . . .”

  “Ssh! Ssh!” Sally Bulmer put her finger to her lips in pantomime solemnity. “We must take our tele more seriously.” They sat and listened to Wardress Appelby fencing with Mollie Green about Jimmie for a few minutes, until a low bubbling sound from Sally Bulmer drew Sylvia’s attention away from the screen. Sally’s eyes were ali
ght with fun, and, when Sylvia looked at her, she burst into a peal of laughter.

  “Isn’t it the most wonderful rubbish?” she cried.

  Sylvia got up and turned it off. “I’m afraid I rather enjoy it.”

  “Then you shouldn’t. Oh, for a lark now and again! There’s no harm to it in mild doses. But night after night! Good Lord, woman, you’ve got more to do than that.”

  Sylvia would have liked to slip out of the room, but her figure was not made for slipping, and Miss Bulmer’s equally large form seemed to fill all escape routes. She was leaning back in her chair, blowing a smoke ring and looking at Sylvia with an amused quizzical challenge.

  “It’s very kind of you, Miss Bulmer, I know. But I’m not at all a clever person and what appeals to me wouldn’t appeal to you.”

  “You can’t be a half wit. You’ve run a good number of hotels for a good number of years. That isn’t idiot’s work. Get out and do things again, Mrs. Calvert.”

  “I’ve not been very well, you know. With this high blood pressure, I’m a bit of an invalid.”

  “You’ll be more than an invalid if you go on in this way. You’ll be a nut case. Tele-itis. It’s the scourge of our time.”

  “It’s very kind of you, Miss Bulmer. I know it’s your job.”

  “Job! I haven’t come here as Welfare Officer, bless you. I’ve come here as woman to woman.”

  “Well then, it’s even kinder of you to want to help me, but...”

  “No, not you! Lay not that flattering unction to your soul! It’s not you, I care about. Or not principally. It’s our Harold. As Welfare Officer of Carshall I know how valuable our Harold is to us. He’s taken far too much on already without having mum trouble.”

  “I see. Don’t you think he’ll get used to me? He’s my son, you know, and I believe I understand him after all these years.”

  Miss Bulmer threw herself back on the couch and loosened her cloth coat from her shoulders so that she almost seemed to be jn décolletée evening dress again. Her big, dark eyes gazed at Sylvia measuringly. “Do you? Do you?”