The Man Whose Dream Came True

by Julian Symons

  ‘I’m doing some work here. For Mr Foster.’

  The dragon sniffed disapproval, but now he heard Jenny’s voice. She appeared, as cool as ever.

  ‘Sarah, this is Mr Bain-Truscott, who is doing some secretarial work.’ To him she said, ‘Eversley’s up in London, but he’s left some work for you.’ Her manner was brisk, but that was natural in front of the dragon. She led the way to the study, pointed to the work arranged there, and said she had to go out. He saw nothing more of her that morning. At eleven o’clock the dragon brought in a cup of coffee and a biscuit. When he left she was still there, and Jenny had not returned.

  In the afternoon the wind dropped, the rain died away, and he went for a long walk beside the sea. He had put ointment on his hand but the mark, an intrusion on the natural health of his body, was a constant reminder that his problems were real and urgent. He shivered at the thought of the knife marking his cheek, the boot in his ribs. Could Fiona, as he still thought of her, help? The problem of how she had got to know Cotton might have absorbed him at another time, but it did not seem likely that she could be of use to him and he put her out of mind. The obvious thing to do – and he had done it before, although never in quite such difficult circumstances – was to run, to take a train and bury himself in London, where it is so easy to hide. He found that he could not do this. He was frightened by the effect that Jenny had on him. He had never taken drugs, but he felt that he could understand why those who did found it impossible to give them up. The emotion that he experienced in Jenny’s presence was something he had never felt before in his life.

  There was one approach he could make to his immediate problem, and he made it late that evening when he and Widgey sat companionably drinking tea in the parlour, after a visit from Conway, the grey-haired man suspected of sleeping with his niece, who said that their room was too noisy and asked if he could move to the back of the house. Before Widgey’s meaningful question, ‘Does your wife find it too noisy then?’ Conway faltered, and then said that the room would do and that he was sorry to have bothered her. After he had gone Widgey drank her tea noisily.

  ‘It’s none of my affair,’ she said as she had done before. ‘But I don’t like that man. He fawns. I like people to have a bit of nerve. If you’re going to sleep with your niece do it, but don’t look as if you’re apologising for it all the time.’

  Somehow it seemed to be his cue. ‘Widgey, can you lend me a hundred pounds?’

  She swallowed tea and sniffed. ‘Yes.’ Before he could express gratitude she expanded on the monosyllable. ‘But I won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She pointed the teaspoon at him. Drops fell off it on to the carpet. ‘First, I’d never see it back. And if I never saw the money I’d never see you again. You’re not so much unlike old hot pants yourself, you’d feel too guilty to come and see me. And then I can’t afford to lose a hundred pounds.’

  ‘Widgey, I’d pay it back.’

  She ignored this. ‘But the main thing is I don’t like the smell of fish. There’s something fishy about it.’

  He stood up and looked at himself in the fly-spotted glass over the mantelpiece. ‘I owe somebody money and they want it back.’

  ‘Tell ’em to wait.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  She lighted a cigarette. ‘Then do a flit. Don’t tell me you’ve never done one before.’

  ‘I can’t. Not this time.’

  She puffed smoke and looked at him. ‘What have you done to your hand?’

  ‘Grazed it. On a wall by the sea.’

  ‘It’s to do with that woman, isn’t it? I told you not to get mixed up with her.’

  ‘You’ve never met her.’ He laughed rather shakily.

  ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘Did you read her character in the cards? If I don’t find the money I shall get beaten up.’

  ‘Then clear out. It isn’t her character I read in the cards, it’s yours.’

  ‘Oh, go to hell,’ he said, and slammed out of the room.

  On the next morning, as he turned into the drive that had become so familiar, he felt his heart thudding like a machine that operated quite independently of him. He knew that he was engaged in an affair which was essentially similar to others in the past, but the thudding machine said something different and passed on the message to his nerve ends so that every area of his body seemed unusually sensitive. When she opened the door he could have cried out with pleasure at sight of her pale face and dark hair, her eyes that in their very incommunicativeness seemed to conceal a depth of meaning that must be discovered. The questions he had meant to ask were forgotten when she led him upstairs into the bedroom where, with the beds unmade and the blue medallion eye hidden by the folded counterpane, they made love with feverish anxiety. Again he was conscious of the subordination of his passion to her own, again the feeling was pleasurable. Later he began to ask questions.

  ‘Sarah? She usually comes in the afternoons but yesterday she couldn’t, so it had to be the morning. You don’t think I wanted that, do you?’ She sunk her nails into his arm. ‘Eversley’s up in London. He needn’t have gone today, at least I don’t think so, but I told him I should be here to look after you.’

  ‘And doesn’t he–’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Suspect something?’

  ‘I told you he was no good. He’s a fool.’

  ‘He’s a fool,’ he echoed happily. As they laughed together she pressed her mouth forcibly on his. The feeling of subjection overwhelmed him, he let her do what she wished.

  Later he did some work and left it piled ready for Foster to see. He was aware of her presence while he typed, it seemed to him that his body reeked of her. Below the layers of clothes were spots touched by her fingers and lips, and these spots were sensitive as bruises. She did not cease to surprise him. At a quarter to one she put her head round the door and asked if he would like a glass of sherry. When they drank together she was as coolly impersonal as she had been on that first day. How could she do it? As though in answer to his question she said, ‘He would expect us to have a glass of sherry. I shall leave the glasses for him to see.’

  ‘You’ve done this before.’ He was aware of jealousy, and astonished by it. ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t like being questioned.’ She spoke calmly. He could not tell whether or not she was annoyed.

  ‘What did you mean about him going away? You said something the other day.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But I want to know.’

  ‘I said it doesn’t matter.’ Her voice was not raised, but the tone was such that he said nothing more. He knew that in any conflict of wills he was not equal to her. As she looked at him now he thought he saw in her eyes something hard and implacable, but it seemed that he must have been mistaken for in the next moment she gave one of her rare smiles. ‘Turn round.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘And close your eyes.’ He closed them and felt paper pressed into his hand, paper with something hard inside it. ‘Open them now. It’s a present.’

  Slowly, carefully, he unwrapped tissue paper. He kept his head down because he felt the smarting pricking sensation behind his eyes that was a prelude to tears, and he did not want her to see them. That she should have given him a present made him feel loving and grateful in a way that had nothing directly to do with sex. He remembered one year when he thought that his birthday had been forgotten and then it proved that his present, a bicycle, had been in the garden shed all day waiting for him to find it. The sensation he had felt when his father took him by the hand, led him outside and opened the door had been, like his feeling now, one of pure gratitude for being remembered.

  ‘Open it.’

  The last wrapping came off to reveal black cufflinks with what looked like single diamonds set in them, and a matching tie pin.

  ‘Do you like them?’

  He made sure that there would be no tears, looked up. ‘They’re
wonderful.’ He was speaking of the act of giving not of the gift.

  ‘I wanted to get you something, and I thought they were pretty. I have a little money of my own.’

  He moved forward to take her in his arms, but she evaded him. ‘It’s a present, that’s all, I wanted to give you something. Now I’ve done it. It’s after one, you’d better go.’

  She was an extraordinary woman, and part of the fascination she held for him was these sudden changes from love to something like hostility. It was almost as though she wished she had not given him the present, or at least that she wanted little attention paid to it. On the way back to the Seven Seas he put the links into his cuffs. Back in his room he took them out, turned them over and looked at them. The truth, which he came to unwillingly, was that he did not like them very much. This stone that looked like a diamond set in something like an opal produced a rather vulgar effect, and when you added the tie-pin it was far too flamboyant for his taste. They looked as if they might be quite old, and probably she had paid a fiver for them in some antique shop, perhaps twice that. Anyway, it was the idea of giving something that mattered.

  He put them on to the painted chest of drawers and stared at them. Not for some minutes did it occur to him that the stones might be real. Once he had thought of the possibility it became important to be sure.

  He was half-way to the jeweller from whom Violet had bought her diamond and ruby pendant when his conscious mind linked the possible value of the links and pin with the money he owed to Cotton. It was absurd to think that they could possibly be worth ninety pounds, but suppose they could be sold for fifty? He rejected the idea vehemently, but once contemplated it refused to be ignored, raising its head again in the form of pictures flicking through his mind like shots from old gangster films, pictures that showed him cowering at one end of a cul-de-sac while two men advanced on him with open razors, or tied up in a room at Pete’s Place while lighted cigarettes were pressed into his palms, his cheeks, his testicles.

  He had hardly noticed the jeweller on his previous visit. Now the man emerged as a distinct personality. He was small, with a big wart on one side of his nose which gave him an expression of cunning. He remembered Tony.

  ‘The diamond and ruby pendant, a nice piece. Your aunt, was it?’

  ‘A relative, yes.’

  ‘She knew what she was looking at.’ Tony suddenly noticed a larger wart, dark brown and sprouting hairs, on the man’s neck just below his ear. He took the links and pin, looked at them casually, got out his glass for a closer examination, nodded. ‘So what do you want, a valuation?’

  ‘They’re a kind of family heirloom. I might consider selling them.’

  It was uncomfortably warm in the shop. A bird’s call startled him, and then he saw that it came from a cuckoo clock on the wall. He was aware that the man had said something. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What figure did you have in mind?’

  ‘A hundred pounds.’

  With horny thumb and forefinger the jeweller pulled at his lower lip, revealing crooked and discoloured teeth. ‘I could go to eighty.’

  He heard this offer disbelievingly. ‘They’re real, then? I was never sure about it.’

  ‘Black opals, very nice. And the diamonds, one of them has a flaw in the cutting, but still.’ He looked at them again with the glass. ‘I won’t try to fool you, Mr–’

  ‘Bain-Truscott.’

  ‘You’ve been fair with me, I’ll be fair with you. It’s a nice set. If I sell it I make a profit. But how many times do I get asked for black opals, people don’t like them, think they’re unlucky. I could make it eighty-five.’

  ‘No. I couldn’t possibly – anything less than a hundred would be no use.’ The thought of the money made him almost frantic. ‘As a matter of fact it’s a temporary embarrassment. If you hadn’t sold them I could buy them back in a few weeks.’

  ‘I don’t do business that way. You sell them, I buy them.’ He pulled again at his lip. ‘All right.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I take a chance, I give you a hundred.’

  The jeweller’s face across the counter was only a few inches distant, his breath smelled of cheese and beer. On the side of his neck three grey hairs grew like monstrous plants in the fertile dung-coloured ground of the mole. Tony swallowed violently.

  ‘No. I’ve changed my mind.’ He gathered up the things into their tissue, pushed them into his pocket and backed away. The jeweller rounded the counter, advanced on him with menacing crab-like slowness. Tony turned, opened the door, hurried out of the shop.

  Later he felt an extreme exhilaration. He had been tested, tested as severely as possible, and he had come through. He could have taken the money and given it to Cotton. It was a kind of proof for him that his love for Jenny was something real. And hers for him was sufficiently proved by the value of her gift. Not until the evening did it occur to him that since the man had offered a hundred pounds the links and pin must be worth much more than that.

  Chapter Nine

  Wednesday morning. He had known that Jenny would not be there, because she had said that she was going shopping, but it was still a disappointment when Foster opened the door. They went into the study and started dictation as usual. After an hour Foster said abruptly, ‘I shan’t be here tomorrow. I may be going away.’

  It would be better not to reveal that he knew of this possibility. ‘And Mrs Foster too?’

  ‘I shall be going alone. I find it necessary sometimes to get away, there are too many pressures.’

  What a fool the man was, wanting to get away from Jenny. Contemplating Foster’s feebly handsome face and nervously twisting hands Tony felt both sorry for and contemptuous of him. ‘Does that mean you won’t want me any more?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I may be able to leave sufficient–’ His voice died away.

  ‘If you could show me what you wanted perhaps I could do some research.’

  ‘Perhaps, yes.’ His hands coiled and uncoiled. ‘I haven’t made up my mind. I only know I must get away.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘What’s that to do with you?’ Foster said angrily, then recovered himself. ‘I don’t know. I think I shall go to South America. Peru, Chile. I should like to spend some time in the Andes.’

  At midday Tony heard the front door close, and at half past twelve Jenny came in. Her usual calm was ruffled. ‘Eversley, you never do a thing I ask you.’

  Foster smiled nervously. ‘What is it?’

  She ignored him, spoke to Tony. ‘Can you knock a nail in a piece of wood?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He looked uncertainly at Foster, who rose slowly from his chair.

  Jenny still ignored him. ‘Then I’d be grateful for your help.’ He followed her out into the kitchen, where she pointed to a shelf that lay on the floor and handed him a hammer and some nails. The job was simply that of nailing the shelf to wooden wall brackets, and it took no more than five minutes. She stood watching, hands on hips.

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been trying to get him to do it for a couple of days.’ There was something almost flirtatious and out of character in the way that she whispered, ‘I told you he was useless, didn’t I? Even for knocking in a nail.’

  Later they went through the sherry ritual in the drawing-room. Jenny had recovered her usual coolness. Foster was moodily silent. Tony, feeling the silence awkward, admired the little Battersea enamel snuff and trinket boxes that said in ornamental copperplate, ‘A gift to tell you of my love, O pray do not forget me,’ with other similar sentiments. More to maintain the conversation than because he was really interested he picked up one of the photographs on the piano. Jenny joined him.

  ‘Family group, my family that is. There I am.’ She pointed to a pig-tailed girl standing meekly beside a large man with flourishing moustaches and a thin elegant woman. ‘With mother and father.’

  ‘I’d never have recognised you.’

  Foster got up and poured himself anothe
r glass of sherry. She handed him another photograph, showing a mild old gentleman with an angry-looking woman beside him who wore a large floppy hat. ‘Uncle William and Aunt Hilda.’

  He looked at the other pictures. ‘No wedding groups.’

  ‘Eversley and I did it all as quietly as possible. No photographers, no family, no friends even.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ He pointed to a portrait of an elderly erect figure with a small moustache.

  ‘A cousin of mine. His name’s Mortimer Lands.’

  When he turned round a moment later to put down his sherry glass Foster was staring straight in front of him, his face white as milk. What was the matter with the man?

  Chapter Ten

  That night he went to the theatre with Widgey and O’Grady. ‘Murder in the Cathedral,’ Widgey said. ‘Should be good.’

  ‘I like a thriller.’ O’Grady had close cropped grey hair and although not tall gave an impression of bulging strength.

  ‘I believe it’s poetry. A play in verse.’

  ‘If it’s got a murder in it, that’s good enough for me.’ O’Grady glared at Tony as though inviting him to make an issue out of this. His eyes had the slightly unfocused look of the heavy drinker.

  When they got to the theatre the posters showed naked girls prancing with their legs up. ‘Fine goings on in a cathedral.’ O’Grady crossed himself. Murder in the Cathedral had been playing the previous week, and the current show was called Guts and Garters. There were as many almost naked girls on the stage as there had been on the posters, but the principal performers were a couple of comics who told jokes all of which ended in rude noises made by a pair of clapper boards. Widgey, wrapped in an old fur coat, watched intently. O’Grady muttered unintelligibly under his breath. Tony thought about Jenny and about the future. He felt that he ought to ask for an explanation, but what exactly did he want her to explain? ‘Do you love me, did you buy those links, would you have kept a present from me which had cost a lot of money as I have kept this one from you?’ It was not merely that he wanted to be reassured about her feelings for him. When he was away from her he found it difficult to believe in her existence.