‘That will do.’ The change in Miss Bohun’s voice was impressive. Frau Leszno said nothing more, but the door slammed as she went. Felix turned the corner diffidently. Miss Bohun was sitting at the tea-table, her eyes hidden behind her hand. She sighed deeply as she heard Felix’s step and began to busy herself with the tea-cups. A single yellowish bulb of light hung over her head. He had felt sorry for her as she sat there, a little, worried old lady with her hand to her brow; he thought how silly he had been to distrust her, but now he could see her face, he was disturbed again. Her face was so narrow there seemed scarcely room between the cheeks for the long, bone-thin nose and the compressed mouth. It looked to Felix like the face of some sort of large insect. Her hair, fairish and greyish, was bound in thin plaits round her head. Her eyelids, thick and pale, hid her eyes. She did not look up or smile as Felix sat down.
She said: ‘I’m afraid Frau Leszno is being rather difficult – not for the first time, I may say; but she’ll get over it. It’s the war coming to an end. The Lesznos had some money and a house in Eastern Germany – actually they’re Polish Jews but they fled to Germany during some pogrom or other – and now she thinks the Allies are going to send her back to spend the rest of her days in luxury. Dear me, if all . . .’ Miss Bohun broke off abruptly as Frau Leszno pushed the front door open and came in, her black coat tight and damp-looking on her stout, little body, her boots trailing water, her round, red, commonplace face set in a brooding look of grievance. She wore black mittens, but her fingers stuck out cracked and red like a row of beef sausages. She pushed a plate of bread on to the table.
Felix moved uncomfortably under her stare. When the door slammed again, he said: ‘Is she cross with me?’
‘Take no notice of her.’ Miss Bohun suddenly gave a decided movement of her shoulders that seemed to throw off Frau Leszno and everything to do with her. She lifted the bread-plate: ‘Have a slice. I’m afraid there’s nothing to put on to it but margarine. No doubt you fed very well in Baghdad. You’ll find a difference here; none of the best people live much above starvation level here to-day. They have the satisfaction of knowing they are doing the right thing. I buy what I can afford and we always have something nourishing, even if it’s plain, but I won’t buy on the black market. That brings us to the question of your keep.’ For the first time her eyelids rose and she fixed Felix with small, critical, reddish-brown eyes, then her glance fell again. She continued: ‘I do not wish to make a profit on you, Felix, but I’m a working-woman and, of course, running this house takes valuable time. I can’t be expected to do it for nothing: but there! after tea we’ll try and worry it out. Do you feel cold? You can put the fire on for a bit.’
Felix, who felt very cold, bent and snapped on the switch of a small electric fire.
Miss Bohun said: ‘I know no one can take the place of your mother, Felix, but I’m a sort of relative – the only relative of any sort that you have out here – and I want to do what I can for you. It’s my duty, anyway.’
Felix said: ‘Thank you,’ and tried out of gratitude to feel responsive, but the space between them seemed to echo with emptiness. Miss Bohun was so unlike his mother, and, for some reason, he felt sure that when she had raised her eyes and looked at him she had somehow expressed disappointment in him. Perhaps she had imagined he would be older, or younger, or better-looking, or a more unusual sort of boy. Anyway, she retired now into her own thoughts, eyes hidden, and he gave his attention to the meal of grey, gritty bread and tasteless tea. Then he heard a slight movement beside him. He looked down and cried out involuntarily in delight. As the bars of the fire had grown red, a Siamese cat had come out from somewhere and was moving towards the warmth. It looked a sad little cat, as lost as himself, and his heart seemed to swell with relief at the sight of something – something he could love.
Miss Bohun looked up, startled by his cry, then, seeing the cat, she sniffed and said: ‘Oh, Faro. She was given to me. An army officer and his wife going back to England. The thoughtless way people take on animals here! They know they’ve got to leave them behind. I didn’t want a fancy cat. I just wanted an ordinary backyard animal to catch rats.’
‘Doesn’t he catch rats?’ asked Felix.
‘“She”,’ Miss Bohun corrected him, ‘it’s a “she”. That’s another nuisance. Yes, she catches them – I’ll say that for her – but she won’t eat them. I have to go to the Old City and buy camel meat for her.’
‘She’s very quiet.’
‘She’s learnt to be quiet. When she first came she was a spoilt thing. The Peppers had spoilt her. They had no children, you know. She wanted to sit on my knee and get into my bed at night. “Oh, no, young woman,” I said, “you’re here to catch rats. Out into the garden you go, the wood-shed’s full of them.” Then she tried to make up to the Lesznos. Well, they’d no time for her, either, so she stopped asking to be made a fuss of, but she still screams when she’s hungry. They’re selfish creatures.’
‘I could get her camel meat if it would help,’ said Felix.
Miss Bohun reflected a moment, as though about to accept this offer, then she shook her head: ‘They’d cheat you. I know how to deal with them. I’ve been in this country twenty years.’
When tea was finished Felix knelt down beside Faro and stroked her. She scarcely looked at him. He whispered: ‘Dear little cat, dear little cat,’ and as though stirred by the affection in his voice, she looked up, her eyes intelligent, and blue as flowers. She let Felix lift her and take her on to his knee while Miss Bohun went into the question of his keep.
‘Now,’ said Miss Bohun, ‘my idea is that we should share everything equally. I’ve made a list of household expenses.’ She sat down at her writing-desk and found among the muddle in her drawer a piece of paper on which she had written things like: Rent, Light, Heating, Telephone, Wages, Kerosene, Food, Upkeep of Garden, Wear and Tear of Furniture &c. She did not hand him the paper but, peering at it over her arm, he noticed she had put Telephone and Kerosene down twice. He did not like to mention this. He noticed that the rent was only £5 a month and the wages of Frau Leszno, her son Nikky and the gardener together only £9 – but somehow, with one thing and another, the total in large figures at the bottom was £35. Miss Bohun ticked through the items quickly, read the total aloud, wrote it again and halved it: ‘There! Now, shall we call your share £21 – that’s £21 a month, of course. Actually, that’s the controlled price here, and it makes a nice round figure and helps me to cover expenses.’
Felix nodded, a little stunned. He had not dreamt that life with Miss Bohun would cost so much. His mother’s pension had died with her: obviously the Shiptons were right when they told him the lump sum left for his education and keep would not last long.
Miss Bohun smiled briefly and put the paper way. Then, hearing Faro’s purring rising like a dynamo, she said quickly and brightly: ‘Dear me, listen to that cat. I’ve never heard her purr like that before.’
‘She only wants to be loved,’ said Felix.
Miss Bohun frowned slightly, something odd in her expression: then, raising her eyelids again, she glanced at the boy and the cat and said: ‘Oh, well, if you’ve got the time to waste. I’m afraid I’ve a pupil coming, so, if you wouldn’t mind going up to your room, Felix. . . .’
‘Can I take Faro?’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose so.’
He wanted to add: ‘And can I have an oil-stove?’ but Miss Bohun seemed so occupied by the papers on her desk that he hesitated too long to be able to speak. He went upstairs, holding Faro to his throat for warmth. At the top he noticed another flight, no more than a ladder between walls, that led up to what must be an attic; a curtain hung at the top in place of a door and through the holes in the fabric sparkled stars of light. So there was already someone else in the house! Well, perhaps things were not as bad as he had feared. Anyway, he had Faro. He went to his room and began to put up his mother’s favourite things. She had been a great collector of bazaar objects and had
often said to people: ‘I ought to have been an interior decorator. It’s a gift, you know; I’d make a fortune if I were in Mayfair.’ He had brought the little hammer and packet of nails which she always carried in her luggage, and now he hung over his bed a large Turkish embroidery, a repeating pattern of birds in gold thread on rose-pink silk. Over the desk he put a Persian painting of a gazelle-eyed girl holding a rose and, opposite it, a late Phanariot ikon almost entirely covered with brass. He went round hammering happily, imitating in his mind his mother’s pleasure in these things, until, suddenly, his door burst open and Miss Bohun stood there looking very sour. Even so, she kept her eyelids down. This made her look strange, as though she were blind, when she raised her face to speak:
‘What is this noise? Where did you get that hammer?’
‘It’s mine,’ Felix breathed nervously.
‘You should have asked me before doing this sort of thing. I don’t want the walls spoilt.’ That was all she said before she lifted her eye-lids and saw Faro curled on the thin Arab carpet that formed a bed-cover. She crossed the room and slapped her off indignantly, saying: ‘I won’t have cats on beds,’ and went out, closing the door on Felix’s apology.
When the dinner-bell rang and Felix went downstairs again, he saw with a lift of his spirits that three places were laid at the table.
‘Does someone else live here?’ he asked.
Miss Bohun glanced at the third place as though unable to account for it herself, then she said: ‘Oh yes, old Mr Jewel. He’s up in the attic.’ Her tone implied that there was something rather unpleasant about Mr Jewel. She clicked her tongue and murmured: ‘Really, he’s late again for dinner. I suppose one must excuse him, he knows no better.’ She picked up the dinner-bell that stood at her right hand, gave it a sharp ring, then went on murmuring: ‘. . . and when he uses the bathroom! People have to grow old, of course, I’m not denying it, but . . . oh dear, I don’t know!’ As she ladled out the soup, she sighed, making Felix feel uneasy as though with guilt.
Slow and very careful footsteps began descending from the top of the house, but Miss Bohun appeared to hear nothing. She sighed again and said: ‘I’m tired. You must not be surprised, Felix, if you sometimes find me thoughtful or tired. You see, I’m a pastor. I have my own little church, my own little flock, and I have to give so much to them. So much. Also, as you will have noticed, I have my troubles here as well – all the result of giving a home to those unwanted elsewhere. I have only tried to be kind, only tried to be good.’
Felix felt embarrassed, but he was also much moved. Miss Bohun had been kind to him, too; she had given him a home when he was unwanted elsewhere. She glanced up to find him gazing at her, his cheeks pink, his eyes round with gratitude, and a slight smile and warmth of colour touched her own face. ‘One day, perhaps,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you about my religion,’ then she broke off as Mr Jewel at last reached the lower stairs.
He was a little, old man, with a square, snub face that even now, grey and worn with old age as it was, looked more like the face of a school-boy than of a man. He grinned at Felix and gave a sort of salute by lifting a knotted hand to the grey stubble over his ears. Miss Bohun did not look at him or introduce him. Felix, smiling back at him, said: ‘How do you do?’ as though there had been no omission. Mr Jewel nodded in reply. He lowered himself slowly into his chair but, once in it, he set about his soup without a pause, making a lot of noise as it went down. Miss Bohun’s mouth turned down. As soon as the soup was finished, Mr Jewel waited for the next course, holding to the sides of his chair and giving quick glances at the door through which Frau Leszno would enter. Felix watched him happily, feeling that Mr Jewel’s presence had taken a weight from the air. It was evident, however, that Miss Bohun did not feel like that. Once or twice she sighed deeply and she had nothing to say. Frau Leszno came in with a plate of greenish mash.
‘I hope you like beans done in this way,’ Miss Bohun said to Felix, ‘they’re so good for you. When I was at school we used to be shown how beans burnt with a blue flame, just the same as meat. That means they’re full of carbohydrates.’
Mr Jewel did not speak throughout the meal. After a long silence had followed Miss Bohun’s remark about the beans, Felix managed to ask: ‘Could I have a plug put in for a reading-lamp, Miss Bohun?’
She frowned down at her beans: ‘You don’t need two lights in that room.’
‘I’d rather have a reading-lamp. I brought my mother’s. It’s a Venetian glass bottle, ruby glass with gold on it, and she made the shade herself. I’d like to have it. I’ll pay for the plug, of course.’
‘Oh dear!’ said Miss Bohun as though beset on all sides. ‘Well, if you mean to pay for it, I suppose I can’t refuse; but only one light burning at a time, mind you.’
Felix promised.
When he had finished the last course, of bread pudding, Mr Jewel at once started the ascent to the attic. Miss Bohun said in very bright tones to Felix: ‘Well, I must be off to my “Ever-Readies”. Wet or fine, the “Ever-Readies” shine. Perhaps you’d like a hot bath after your journey? Just ask Frau Leszno to light the boiler. I’m afraid there’s no electric light in the bathroom. You’ll have to take this little lamp.’ She put on a raincoat, bound her head in a ginger-coloured scarf, and went with a light step from the house.
The thought of the hot bath cheered Felix. When Frau Leszno came in to clear the table he asked her politely if she would be kind enough to light the boiler. She gave him a bleak stare from her pale, globular eyes, then seemed abruptly to shut off her expression. Hiding all she thought and felt beneath the humble whine of her voice, she said: ‘I shall see.’
Felix wandered round the living-room that contained Frau Leszno’s table and six chairs of cheap, varnished wood; her horse-hair sofa – he sat down on this and found it very hard; Miss Bohun’s desk; a dresser to take the household china; and, placed on either side of the electric fire, two chairs with wooden arms. Hanging up on the coat-hooks beside the front door was a sheep-skin coat that filled half the room with a heavy odour of mortality.
He found nothing to hold his attention except, on the desk, six shabby little books with titles like Handbook of Rumanian, Russian in Twenty-five Easy Lessons and Hungarian Without Tears. He wondered if Miss Bohun could possibly be learning all these languages. Later he discovered she collected these old grammars in order to use the phrases for her own dictation to pupils; now, impressed and curious, he took them to the table and studied them for want of anything better to do.
Half an hour later, when he supposed the water must be hot, he lit the lamp, got his dressing-gown, towel and soap, and crossed the wet yard to the bathroom that was opposite the kitchen. The rain had stopped but a damp, icy wind was blowing. The bathroom was a large, draughty, whitewashed room in which a small bath and a boiler stood lost in one corner. The air was so cold he knew before he touched the boiler it had not been lit. He stood for some moments not knowing what to do, then he returned to the yard.
There was a light in the kitchen; his disappointment gave him courage to go over and open the door. Inside there was a dark, dirty-looking room smelling of stale grease and lit only by an oil-lamp, but it was warm. A young man sat on a back-tilted kitchen chair, his feet on the table. As the door opened, he looked up from his book.
‘Is Frau Leszno about?’ asked Felix.
‘She has gone to bed.’
‘She promised to light the boiler for the bath.’ As he said this, Felix realised she had not promised; she had merely said: ‘I shall see.’
The young man said: ‘Did she?’ with cold disbelief, and added casually: ‘Speak to her yourself. She’s in her room.’
The warmth of the kitchen held Felix in spite of the young man’s dark, discouraging stare. He asked: ‘Are you Nikky Leszno?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think perhaps you could light it? Or could you show me how?’
‘I don’t know how.’ Nikky returned to his book and Felix had
no choice but to go.
Out in the yard again, he saw that what he had thought was the second window of the kitchen was a separate small room. He knocked on the door.
‘Bitte?’ came from Frau Leszno.
‘Oh, Frau Leszno, you did not light the boiler.’
There was a pause, then Frau Leszno agreed complacently: ‘No, I did not light it.’
‘Would you light it now?’
‘No,’ said Frau Leszno. She sounded pleased with her own decision, but could not resist adding in her usual whine: ‘Why should I myself trouble with such a thing? No, I do not light it.’
Felix went back to the bathroom and examined the boiler. Under the tank there was a small stove to take fuel – probably wood. If he could find the wood-shed, he might be able to light it himself. He went outside and looked round. The sky was black but by the glimmer that came from the surrounding windows, he could see there was a passage running into darkness at one side of the house. That might lead to a shed. He followed it, touching with his finger-tips the wet, stone house-side, and came out to the garden at the back. There was nothing to be seen but a great black space. The rain had washed the snow away; the wind poured in from the blackness, steady and cold as a wind from the sea. He stood on the path, peering into the dark but unable to distinguish anything. He knew he would not be able to find where the wood was kept. . . . Somehow this seemed at that moment worse than anything else that had happened to him since his mother’s death. He had thought himself lonely at the Shiptons’, but now it was as though he had never known real loneliness before.
As he stood he remembered a story he had read once about a peasant who, after his wife’s funeral, had gone alone at midnight into the fields and called to her: ‘Come back to me,’ but when her voice from the remote distance answered: ‘I come,’ he had fled in panic back to his hut and barricaded the door. Felix knew if he could now call to his mother and hear her voice in reply, he would not flee from her. No, he would run, run into the black sea and fling himself into her arms. He opened his mouth and whispered shyly: ‘Come back to me.’ The wind swept his whisper into silence. Suddenly he shouted: ‘Come back, come back, come back,’ but there was no reply. There was no movement, no sound but the roaring wind.
School for Love Page 2