A Sight for Sore Eyes

by Ruth Rendell

  He rang the bell. The first thing he noticed when she opened the door was the two suitcases standing in the hall, a blue one and a black one, each with an airline’s label attached to its handle.

  She frowned at him. “I thought you were someone else. What do you want?”

  “My drawings,” he said. “I left them here.”

  She was dressed, in his grandmother’s phrase, “up to the nines.” The long silvery gray skirt and fine silver knitted top would have looked good on Francine. It had been designed for someone under twenty-five and the low boat-shaped neckline, which would have shown off the tops of Francine’s smooth white breasts, showed her brown, scrawny, freckled chest. Her fingernails were painted silver and there was some kind of sparkling greasy substance on her mouth. Teddy looked a little away and repeated what he had said. “I left my drawings here. Can I come in?”

  “What drawings?” she said.

  “The designs for the cupboard you said you wanted.”

  “My God, you don’t suppose I kept them?”

  He said hoarsely, “You burnt my drawings?”

  “Of course I didn’t burn them. What century are you living in? I put them out for recycling.”

  He had counted on getting into the house and on doing what he had done before, departing by the back way and leaving the back gate unbolted. That was impossible now. And she had destroyed his drawings! He would have liked to kill her. But his eye fell once more on the two suitcases. She was going away. And soon, by the look of it. He said no more, but turned away, refusing to look back even though he could tell she was still there, she hadn’t closed the door.

  A van had drawn up outside. On the side of it was lettered: G. Short, Water Softener Maintenance. A man of about Teddy’s age, tall, dark-skinned, got out of the driver’s cab. Teddy ignored him. He made his way around to the mews at the back and tried the gate. Of course it was bolted on the inside.

  But she was going away. If not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, soon.

  Rooting among Keith’s papers, he found on a brochure the name, address and phone number of a dealer in Balham from whom Keith had bought the Edsel. The company was called Miracle Motors. It was probably too much to hope that they would buy it back for the same sort of money. But would they buy it at all?

  He phoned them. Rather to his surprise they said that they would like to see the car and when could he bring it. Not today, he thought, and not tomorrow. How about the next day? They said that would be fine and he managed to tell them the Edsel was in excellent condition just as they rang off.

  Before he drove it to Miracle Motors he ought to clean it, wash, wax and polish it, and buff up the chrome. He walked out into the garden and examined the Edsel for possible scars and scratches, but there was none. It was in as perfect condition, its bodywork as glossy and unmarked, as on that day in 1957 when it had come off the Ford assembly line, a ton and a half of pristine metal and glass that, though forty years old, seemed to have been endowed with the secret of eternal youth. He thought it strange that something so sleek and cared-for, so carefully designed and lovingly made, should also be so ugly.

  Bending over the boot, his hands resting on those gull’s-wing taillights, he tried to detect if there was any smell. And when he brought his face close to the rim of the boot lid where it met the bodywork a slight whiff of something distantly horrible came to his nostrils. He thought “distantly” because it seemed far away, no more than a hint of horror, yet it wasn’t distant, it was only inches from him. He sniffed again and there was nothing, he had imagined it.

  The idea of Francine in the car’s vicinity disgusted him. He had even suggested they meet somewhere near where she lived, go to a park, go to the cinema, have a meal. But she had wanted to come to him, be alone with him. And as for him, he could hardly bear the prospect of being with her yet unable to touch her. She must come and this time he must succeed in making love to her, this time there must be no ignominious failure. It was the presence of the Edsel that enfeebled his flesh, he was sure of it, for nothing else could account for failure when desire was so great.

  All he could do was keep her out of his room where the Edsel’s rear end filled the lower half of the windows. It reminded him of something he had once seen on television, in a wildlife program: a huge ape turning its back on an enemy and rearing up its rump in a gesture of derisive contempt.

  Sometimes he felt that about the Edsel, that because of its size and its color, and its dreadful contents, it was mocking him.

  Even Megsie, looking at it one day from the bottom of her garden, had commented with a giggle, “That Elgin’s got a sort of face, hasn’t it?”

  “Edsel,” said Teddy.

  A pursed mouth, wide-set eyes, sideburns.… He shut his own eyes and turned his back on the car before opening them again. She probably wondered why he didn’t use the Edsel, come to Neasden tube station in it to meet her for instance, instead of going down there on foot. There was no explanation he could think of. She would have to wonder, very likely she wouldn’t ask. The Edsel would soon be gone, out of the way, forgotten, and maybe he’d get enough money to buy a small modern car, something with elegant lines in a quiet, dark color …

  He saw her before she saw him. She came out of the station rather tentatively, almost shyly, looking for him. Jeans today and a blue shirt. He was disappointed. Not deeply disappointed, but simply taken aback because he thought of her always in dresses, totally feminine, delicate, a princess.

  Concealed in a doorway, he watched her. She stopped still and waited for him. His eyes took in the exquisite modeling of her head, its shape enhanced rather than hidden by water-straight fine black hair that lay on it like a veil, the slight angularity of her shoulders, the narrow span of her waist, the slender length of her legs and the arch of her insteps. The idea came to him that he would like to keep her with him always to look at, never let her out of his sight, touch her but not speak to her, undress her and dress her again in fine linen or a Fortuny dress that was not red like Harriet Oxenholme’s but pure white.

  She had been looking, with a touch of bewilderment, in his direction. When she turned aside he came out from his hiding place and called her name. “Francine!”

  Her smile and the flush that came to her cheeks transformed her face. Briefly, he thought that he liked her better snow-pale and grave. He put his arms around her and kissed her mouth, the kiss beginning lightly but becoming intense, deep, searching.

  She broke away first, but unwillingly and only to say, “Can we go to your house?”

  “Where else?”

  “It was just that you said something about the cinema or having a meal.”

  “I’ve got food in,” he said, “and I’ve got wine for you. Let’s go.”

  Dilip Rao stayed so long at Orcadia Cottage that Harriet became apprehensive. Franklin had signified his intention to come home early. He had a few last-minute tasks to perform before driving himself to the airport. Dilip was virile and ardent and only twenty, and seemed to see no reason why he and Harriet shouldn’t remain in the four-poster till the following morning. He didn’t listen while she explained and eventually she had to get up, pull the covers off him and dump his clothes on his naked body. He left at twenty past four and Franklin came home at half-past.

  While he made those phone calls that were apparently essential before he could leave the country, hurling cushions on to the floor before perching on the sofa arm, Harriet sat in the kitchen. She brought herself around from a sex and alcohol daze with a strong cup of tea. Dozing earlier, she had fallen into a premonitory dream, not rare with her but still upsetting. These omens were nearly always fruitless, the events they forecast, death, disaster, loss of income, crippling or fatal disease, seldom if ever came to pass, but still they left behind them a feeling of disquiet. She couldn’t get out of her head the whispering voice that had uttered “Last time, last time,” though whether it had referred to some previous occasion or to a final instance she couldn�
��t tell.

  But it left her wondering if it could have meant she had entertained a young lover for the last time or had sex for the last time or would shortly be seeing—saying good-bye to—Franklin for the last time. There was always the possibility of his not coming back from one of these holidays of his, of his remaining with the woman who had been his companion. If there was a woman—how was she to know?

  She was suddenly stricken with a sense of loneliness. Once Franklin came back she would be taking her own holiday, her second of the year, they always took two holidays each, but still the fortnight ahead stretched very emptily. Dilip would come back, of course, would probably not even wait to be invited, but Harriet was not at all sure she wanted to see Dilip again.

  Franklin came into the kitchen to ask her if she had seen his luggage strap.

  “It’s in your wardrobe. On the top shelf. Frankie, why don’t I come with you?”

  “Because we take separate holidays,” he said. “Always have, always will.”

  “You mean you don’t want me.”

  “Go up and get that luggage strap for me, will you?” Harriet went.

  After he had brought the car around, put his suitcases into the boot and driven away, she picked up the cushions and started phoning people, acquaintances, the few they called their friends. For a long time now she had noticed that in a marriage or a partnership, when the woman goes away offers flood in to entertain the man and have him to dinner. Things are very different when the one left behind is the woman. No one invites her anywhere and she is lucky not to be ignored completely.

  Although she had long ago lost touch with Storm and Anther and Zither, she knew where to find them. They had reverted to their true names, become respectable and set up a company doing market research. Storm had married Zither and Anther had the top flat in their house in Brondesbury. Fourteen Manvantaras and one Krita make one Kalpa, Harriet thought to herself as she listened to the dial tone. Then Zither’s voice came on, saying they had all gone to Hanoi, which Harriet guessed was their idea of a joke, meaning merely that they were down at the pub or possibly in Bournemouth.

  Simon Alpheton came into her head. She had looked up and her eye alighted on his painting, the still life which that little bugger Teddy Brex had admired. The oranges and the cheese, and the white mouse looking at it so longingly. Simon lived in Fulham and probably alone. Harriet had read about his divorce in the papers. It was an 0181 number she had for him in her book. If you lived in London you had to have an 0171 number, Harriet had long decided, anything else meant you lived in the sticks, an 0181 number was as bad as not having a W in your postcode. But Simon was different, Simon was the exception.

  A certain amount of courage had to be plucked up before she phoned him. I am his Jewish Bride, she told herself, his red-headed lady in Orcadia Place, rich and loved. “Maybe I’ll buy it,” she had said while he was painting, and Marc had said, “What with?” She took a deep breath and dialed the number.

  Simon Alpheton sounded genuinely pleased to hear from her. She reminded herself that he was something she hadn’t often come across in her life, a nice guy. He asked her to have dinner with him on the following night.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Teddy said.

  “You’ve already given me something,” said Francine.

  “You’ve given me the mirror.”

  “You sit there and look in the mirror and I’ll go and fetch it and put it on you.”

  It was several weeks since he had looked at the ring. Now he saw that it was even more beautiful than he remembered. It was beautiful enough for her. He held it in his left hand, in his fist, and went downstairs to her.

  It was past dusk and he had the lights on, but only a single lamp in the front room. She wasn’t facing the mirror, as he had instructed her, but had her back to it. He felt a little spark of irritation, a feeling similar to what he had had when he saw those jeans and that shirt. At least she wasn’t wearing them now but was wrapped, as he had wrapped her, in the dozen meters of stone-colored silk he had bought to make curtains out of.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  She obeyed him, but smiling. He didn’t want her to smile.

  “Gaze at yourself,” he said. “There isn’t anything in the world better worth looking at. No, don’t smile!”

  He stood behind her, put his arms over her shoulders, took her hand and set the ring on it. Her third finger was too little for its circumference. She would have to wear it on the middle finger.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “I can’t take it.”

  “Yes, you can. You must. I’ve been saving it for you. I’ve been saving it for years.”

  “But you haven’t known me for years!”

  “I’ve known you were somewhere, my perfect woman, waiting for my ring.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders, tucking in his damaged little finger so as not to spoil the image. She looked at the ring, then at herself in the glass, then up at him. He kissed her.

  “I can’t take it.”

  “Then I won’t let you go. I’ll keep you here.”

  “But it’s an engagement ring.”

  “It’s a lover’s ring,” he said, and then she said she would take it and wear it.

  It was time for her to go home. He unwrapped the silk and let it fall in a pale shining heap on the floor. The awful clothes she intended to wear offended him. He would have liked to keep her naked, a living statue, for him to adore. But she put on the jeans and the shirt and a wool cardigan, the same one that she had worn when he folded back the sleeve and wrote his phone number on her wrist. He lifted her hand and admired the ring.

  It was dark now, after nine, and he wouldn’t let her go on the tube alone.

  “Couldn’t you take me in your car?”

  “I hate it,” he said. “I never use it. I’m going to get rid of it and buy a small one.”

  So he went with her on the tube down to Bond Street and changed with her on to the Central Line and left her only when they were under the trees near her house. All the way, in the trains, he kept his arm around her, holding her close, and holding too the hand that wore the ring.

  24

  Midnight was past by the time he got back. He tidied up the house, washed her wineglass and the plates and cups they had used, put the rest of the wine back into the fridge. It was careless of him to have left that silk lying in a heap on the front-room floor. The result would be creases he might have difficulty in eradicating. He folded the silk once and then once again and hung it over the banisters.

  Lying in bed he thought about Francine as she had been, seated in front of his mirror, swathed in stiff silk, her reflected face looking gravely back at her real face. She must easily be the most beautiful girl in the world. A sight for sore eyes. Alfred Chance had once used that expression and it had stuck in his mind. About an object, though, not a person. It meant that looking at beauty took away pain and hurt, and made you better. Francine made him better and his eyes were sore when they couldn’t feast on her.

  He had never seen anyone to touch her. But there must be changes made, in his life and hers and the way they were together, and in the places they lived in. For one thing, he wanted her with him all the time. And dressed the way he wanted her to be, not in that hideous denim, that blue cotton, those boots. He began to think, not of Alpheton now and the Joyden School, but of Gustav Klimt and the women he painted in glittering gowns of lamé and sequins or velvet and fur, the jewels that hung in heavy ropes around their necks or supported swathes of their hair. He would like to dress Francine like a Klimt woman and decorate her with necklaces and bracelets and collars of pearls. And live with her somewhere beautiful, a fit setting for her.

  On that thought he fell asleep and slept late next morning. He was up and counting what remained of the advance payment he had had from Mrs. Trent before he remembered that today was the day. Today, or this evening, was when he was going to do it. But still he counted the money and foun
d that he had something under a hundred pounds left.

  There had been no more replies to his advertisement and he had decided not to re-insert it. He couldn’t afford to advertise—or, for that matter, not to advertise. The Edsel, what he got for the Edsel, was his only hope. Surely prices must have risen in all the years since Keith had bought the car. Might it now be worth as much as ten thousand pounds?

  He filled a bucket with hot water, got his sponges and cloths and brushes, and went outside to clean it. Nige, who never went out to work these days but did it all from home on a computer and a modem and E-mail and things like that, put his head over the fence. Megsie had told him she’d seen Teddy’s girlfriend and she was a real looker and next time she came around would Teddy like to bring her in for a drink? Teddy said, maybe. He thought Nige would go indoors again, but he didn’t. A white cane garden chair was brought out of Mr. Chance’s workshop that they called the “pavilion” and Nige sat down in it, enjoying the Indian summer.

  Teddy was polishing the windscreen when a tap on the French window made him jump. His grandmother was standing in his room, looking out, wearing her red sugarloaf hat and with a heavy bag of shopping on either side of her. He hated her having a key, but she had had one since his mother died. For all he knew she had taken it off his mother’s body, she was capable of that. He knew no way to get it from her. She opened the French window and came out. “Keith not back yet, then?” she said.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  “You’d think he’d want his car. What does he get about in? Relies on that motorbike, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” came Nige’s voice. “He got Teddy here to sell that to one of our chums.”

  “Who asked you to put your spoke in,” said Agnes under her breath. But Teddy thought she gave him a funny look. They went into the house together and Agnes insisted on going all over it, admiring the decorating he’d done since she was last there. She looked at the stone-colored silk hanging over the banisters and said there was a good chance her pal Gladys would run up a pair of curtains for him in exchange for him painting her outside toilet.