‘No.’ Stephen frowned. ‘I had no desire to do that.’
There was a long pause and Pink said:
‘D’you want me to go? Old Pinkie boy to knock along?’ But she shook her head. She did not listen to what he said. She put her fingers on the rail by the cooker and talked to Stephen without looking at him.
‘If you weren’t here I was going to put it in a letter. If you were here I was going to say it all. Lots of things about you, not nasty at all. I don’t want to say these things now.’
Stephen sat stone still and Pink, his weight awkwardly on one foot, did not dare to move as she sailed in, with the breeze firmly behind her, and destroyed.
‘You’ve done me no harm, Stephen, and I’ve harmed you. I’m sure you’ve never said anything wrong about me and at the end I despise you.’
There was a click as Pink put the half bottle down on the table. Then he lifted up his head and listened, looking at nothing, much as if he were attending a funeral service in a private parlour or listening to the Queen at Christmas time. Mary continued:
‘I don’t feel sorry for you, because I see you, Stephen. Really see you. I feel repelled by you and not just in the way that you’ve evidently found me repellent. I feel it very suddenly, very strongly, yes I do, I do. And you’ll say to yourself, it’s because I’ve slept with David, which I have: yes, as you know perfectly well, although you haven’t said so. But it’s got nothing to do with that. One day you’ll realise that you can’t blame everything on that. Bed is only the smallest bit of it and if you go on telling yourself that I left you because of bed, you’ll be lying to yourself. I’m leaving you for all the other reasons – the ones that made you stay behind: that made you stroke my hair when you knew: for all the cowardice and self-pity – for the whole “no”. For the whole bloody great boulder that I’ve had to try and shove up the hill. And in ten hours altogether I’ve been alone with him, never mind the new bridge, in ten hours with him, because I’ve counted, I’ve felt – I’ve felt like a girl and it is a strange and wonderful feeling.’
Her eyes were glistening with tears. Pink held his head low now. Stephen stood up and turned away, at which Mary took a step forward.
For a moment Pink thought she was going to try to undo some of the harm. Her voice had changed. It was pitched a little higher, and the words came even faster. It rose as she spoke, but she was not offering mercy or apology.
She cried, ‘I suppose you’re going to say nothing? That’s it!’ as Stephen walked steadily to the door. She shouted after him as he moved away, ‘You might say something you’d regret, even something that might hurt me so you won’t risk it. You won’t. It’s just negative.’
Stephen had already disappeared into the house and the door swung closed behind him. She stood shaking, her head very low.
Very quietly, Pink said, ‘It’s all right, my love, he’s gone—’
‘No,’ she said, quickly turning away from him, walking back to the rail which she held on to, tightly. ‘Don’t comfort me. I don’t need it. But I feel sick. I don’t know which makes me sick, him or me.’
‘P-p-punishment,’ Pink suggested, in one of his enlightened moments. ‘It’s got its own stink.’
A few moments later she held out one hand and said:
‘Pink, darling, may I have a swig?’
‘Of course, old girl.’
‘Old girl, old girl. I suppose you hate me now.’ She took the bottle from him, and he put the glass which Stephen had used back on the table. ‘I know you’re fond of Stephen.’
‘No, no, no,’ Pink protested.
She said, ‘Even now I lie. Oh Christ, I lie. Even now. Isn’t that awful? I had to do something. I had to change. I had to look like a woman has to look – am I woman? Aren’t I a girl?’
‘Steady – steady, love.’
‘I had to do all that. I really did.’ She suddenly covered her face with her hands and laughed. ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ, oh Christ. You hate me, don’t you?’
‘You’re certainly slashing about.’
‘Oh darling, Pink. I couldn’t bear it if you were nasty. What are you thinking?’
Pink steadied considerably. He poured some whisky into the glass.
‘Self observation,’ he said. ‘The curse of the Fergusons. Thinking, “interesting situation, by God, little woman done by dark stranger, now, what next?” That’s the sort of thought. But little woman’s certainly rather rough on poor old Stiffy.’
‘You don’t care about Stiffy,’ she said, almost casually, suddenly hitting very true. ‘Nor anybody else,’ and before he had time to answer she went on:
‘Of course it’s not true, what I said to him. Of course I don’t really feel like that. Not really, really. I just rather wish I did, I suppose. I must have a drink, a cigarette or five packets of chewing gum, I don’t know – something to put in the mouth … Pink cares about Pink. A little about me too. Yes, I know that’s true. I bet you’ve been sulking?’
‘No.’
‘Oh yes, you have. D’you want me to tell about David? I want to tell.’
‘Old corruption,’ he said kindly. ‘Old, old snake.’
‘Well of course I was fibbing really, but I wouldn’t fib to you.’
Pink tapped the bottle in the palm of his hand and tried to remember; ‘You said to me, “Off you go, and take old Pobbles home. I’ll walk myself.”’
‘No.’
‘You said, “I’ll see him off.”’
Again, she shook her head. ‘I never did. Pink, don’t be cruel. You know exactly what I said.’
‘But Stephen’s nice.’ Pink stretched out his arms.
‘Shsh!’ she said, and went right to him and sorted out his tie. ‘Pink darling, don’t huff on me now.’
‘I’m falling over myself—’
She interrupted. ‘Yes, I know you are. Tell me, though, tell me what I really said.’
‘“You hoof it,” you said.’
‘Yes.’
‘“You hoof it and I’ll swear I’ll be good.”’
‘No, I didn’t say that.’
‘You did.’ He frowned and spoke again. ‘I’m sure you did.’
‘No, I can prove it, I didn’t. I promise I can. I didn’t say that at all.’
‘Stephen’s nice. He is,’ Pink said, almost sang, again.
‘I can prove it if you looked. Did you look when you got into the car?’
‘No.’
‘Then what did you see?’
‘I had the hound and old Pobbles—’
‘No,’ she said, clenching her fists. ‘No, no, no, no! What did you see of me – even if you didn’t look?’
Pink tried to remember. ‘You walked up the bank.’
‘Yes.’
‘Up the kind of track – footpath, whatever you call it, through the nettles and the grass and that.’
‘Yes—’
Pink shrugged.
He said, ‘That must have been out of the very corner of the old peepers.’
‘What else?’ she asked.
‘After that, we’d gone.’
‘What did I look like?’
‘Lady with a mission. Head down. All that.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Go on.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Can’t, old thing. Big blind blank. Big blank blind.’
‘Quite unnecessary blind, I promise,’ she said, then she held on to his coat. ‘Darling, I promise I was only like that with Stephen because – because, because, because. Oh, I don’t know, that special thing annoyed me, at the table. You didn’t see, you were with old Fish-face in the Gents, but it was all rather foul. Everybody kind of knew, at once; David, Steve and me. Everybody obviously knew and it wasn’t forme or David to say. I nearly did say. But honestly if you work it out Steve should have said something. “Veto.” “I object.” I don’t quite know what, but he should have said something. Just as a girl. Just as this shape and no beard and all that; I promise I know. Deep, deep, deep down, I k
now he should have said something. There was plenty of time.’
‘Glands?’ Pink asked. ‘That’s really it.’
She shook her head.
‘Not directly – promise,’ she replied. ‘Maybe connected but not just that. I knew even then, when we all three knew at that miserable table and when nobody was saying anything. That’s the one thing I did know: I was going to lam into poor old Stevie. He asks for it, I promise he does. Be me and you’d know. He really does ask for it.’
Pink pouted.
‘All this boulder stuff,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
‘Well, I have to push a boulder. I honestly have.’ She looked up at him and corrected herself. ‘You’ve been all right but the rest of it – honestly, think of it. Pink, you do look huffy and constipated.’
‘Old girl. I’m being most awfully good.’
‘Are you?’ she asked.
‘Yep. Really am.’
‘Are you angry?’
‘Touchy,’ Pink said.
‘No need. That’s what’s so silly. You’ve absolutely no need to be. I didn’t lie to you. I wasn’t so wrong with the boulder, I promise—’
Pink could read her like a book.
‘You thought it out before,’ he said.
She stopped for a moment and he moved to the bottle again.
‘A welcome pause,’ he said, and nodded. A phrase which he always applied, when she was getting over excited, and speaking so quickly that even he could hardly understand. ‘Bang, bang, bang on the lug-hole.’
She said, ‘I’ll be good. I’ll be eminently what’sable. Reasonable and calm.’ And she swallowed. ‘The boulder. Yes. Complete confession. I did rather think that one up. It sounded awfully good outside. Little me hauling you all up the slope.’ She laughed, hopelessly, looked at Pink and then turned away again. She went on:
‘It’s me that’s foul, I know. That only makes me hate him more. And I do hate him. I promise you that.’
‘It’s not awfully fair,’ Pink said.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think it is. And I know what you think. I know, because you said so. You said “glands”. And that’s such a horrible idea. It’s all wrong too, I promise. I’ll tell you if you want.’
‘If you don’t rush—’
‘I’ll take it terribly calmly, I swear.’
‘Tell then. Slowly. In words of one syllable. Not in code.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we don’t love each other after all. You’re huffing really.’
‘I’ve been surprised.’
‘So have I,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’
‘You don’t have to tell, actually,’ Pink said.
‘Oh yes I do – I have to tell somebody. Now I think of it there’s nothing in my life that I haven’t had to tell—’
‘Absolutely,’ Pink said. ‘Matter of fact there seems to be quite a few things that never happened in your life that you feel you have to tell, too.’
‘Not now,’ she said. ‘I really mean that. I mean I’ve always known if I really did live I wouldn’t have to think up things. Now life’s really going to go, I think I shall find I’ve absolutely no imagination. I won’t need it, you see, not any more. It’s sort of Lourdes, isn’t it? I mean I’m flinging away crutches right and left?’
‘You’re sure about David?’
‘No, not a bit. I’m sure about Steve. That’s what’s wrong. One can’t be sure about David.’
‘But you love him?’ he asked, again extraordinarily responsibly and seriously.
‘I’m not even sure about that.’
‘I’d have thought that was rather important.’
‘I love Pink as the uncle,’ she said. ‘“I-should-have-thought” from Uncle Pink! You must be huffing really, because you wouldn’t be so sane … Mind you, it wasn’t awfully true what I said to Steve, about the boulders and that: about the breath of fresh wind or whatever I said. Or did I stop myself before I said that? I confess that’s the sort of thing I thought I’d say if ever – well if ever I did find somebody else and yell and scream and that. But it does give rather a false picture.’
‘You were a bit careless to leave the car there.’
‘Oh no, not careless,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wouldn’t have done it unless I thought I was going to be found out and I’ll tell you something very peculiar. Something rather reassuring, maybe, except if you think about it too hard, perhaps it’s rather ominous. He didn’t mind about that either. He didn’t suggest we took the car up on to the Wade road or in the woods or somewhere like that. I thought he’d insist. But not at all. He’s terribly open about things in some ways. I mean first ringing me after that party in London. He knew I was staying with terribly respectable people. He knew I was married. He didn’t even bother to give a false name. Then following me up here, like that, I mean actually on the same train. He told the sleeping compartment man, you know, he wanted the berth next door. And the sleeping-car man knows perfectly well who I am. It wasn’t graft either. Not a very big tip; I saw. He just persists. Then at the academy. All the others were there but that didn’t put him off a bit. He was going to do those decorations with me. Then you saw him at the dance. Extraordinary he is, really. I suppose he’s just very bright. But he’s an awful lot of people, isn’t he, all at once? Kind of clumsy turning up like that in a stuffed shirt. But very smooth in not caring a damn. Sometimes he talks in that kind of language these big intellectual wolves do and the next minute I feel after he’s paid for a drink I’d better count the change because I’m sure he’s incapable really. Anybody who really knew how to cope couldn’t be so idiotically scandalous as he really is. But I thought it was rather nice. He didn’t even suggest “in the car” which I’d rather dreaded – I don’t know if you’ve tried? He didn’t actually suggest anything. We just crossed the road and went down through the long grass the other side.’
‘Dialogue?’
She shook her head.
‘Not much from him, I mean. Just telling me to shut up, I talked a bit about Captain Gordon and that, you know. I felt it rather a reflection, that; not being able to cope with death. I’m sure that’s something to do with not really living. Anyway I was a bit upset and you obviously disapproved so maybe that’s what made me go on. We never know quite what does. Anyway I said how foul I’d always been to old Fish-face who was really quite harmless and obviously jolly brave. He just said “Shut up” to all that. Rather rudely, you know, so I followed him down the bank. Then we passed that barking dog and that’s when I said everybody would soon be awake and I mentioned about the car being there for everybody to see. He said he didn’t care a damn. I thought that was good. But let’s not talk about it too hard.’ She frowned.
‘He’s just a bloke who knows his mind,’ Pink said.
‘Well, yes,’ she replied, but she was still quite clearly troubled. ‘That’s what it would seem.’
‘You’re doubtful?’
‘I suppose there are people who kind of like people to know they’re having a great bomb of an affair. Really the affair’s not quite all what it should be for them unless they’re certain other people know about it. They drop clues all over the place.’
‘Who, for instance?’
‘Nobody,’ she said, thoughtfully, even gravely. ‘But there are people, I know, because I absolutely understand. At least I absolutely don’t understand, but I can see myself doing it very well. I can see myself making a lover leave a note at my hairdresser and then when she gives it to me I make her swear, get a Bible, or a Koran or whatever it is hairdressers use and say “Swear you won’t tell anybody he left this note. Swear!” Lovely,’ she said, with a sudden little smile. ‘I should almost like to live in London just for that. But I’m sure he’s not really like that. It was just a horrible cloud over the moon. I think he’s the opposite, after all he’s terribly old. He must have done all this a hundred times before. He’ll probably sack me, but it’ll be living. In a kind of way I think we’ll be all right. I
can see myself having a row with him in every capital in Europe. Late at the Uffizi, I shall be, and tactless at the Vatican or somewhere like that. I can see his impatience with me. He can lecture, you know.
‘But I wasn’t lying about the main thing. No. We went down to the river, actually holding hands, but a little kind of cold. I mean “prose” really. “Prose” is the word. We weren’t at all daisy chain and wild duck, you know. None of your Edinburgh Festival films. I mean, actually, I suppose if you look at it with the grass and the brambles and the two bridges, the flooded river and the dawn, we might be expected to have felt a bit that way. Otherwise I suppose it’s a wonderful setting for a jolly old murder. Can you see me floating down the river, nymph in thy orisons, or whatever it is? But we were cold and prose.
‘Actually, in the end what was rather odd about it, really, was that it was me that said it. I wasn’t very flirtatious or anything like that. I just said, “There’s one place, I know”, and he nodded. We didn’t even hold hands then.’
Pink had sat down at the table again. He was playing with the tea leaves in his cup and now she sat at the table with him. She continued to talk as quickly as ever, regardless of contradictions, constantly almost losing direction yet somehow in the end pulling the story back. After a moment’s description of her leading the way along the bank to the cart track and then to the place under the new bridge, she settled for, ‘Cattle, really.’
She said, ‘That’s what we were like. I’m sure it does me good to tell you. It’s like an old war song or something. If he was an Aberdeen Angus, then I was a Jersey cow. Oh God, isn’t that awful? I only meant that to give you the picture of us walking along, but it really says rather too much.’
She began to giggle. She said, ‘Do do that cow look.’
He shook his head firmly.
She ran on, ‘You know that awful look, over the shoulder, rather bored and yet decided. A kind of look of distaste. You’d think it would put the poor bull off for life. But it doesn’t actually,’ she said. She drew breath and continued more steadily:
‘Anyway eventually we got ourselves sorted out towards the top of one of the big concrete support things – the widest beam. But there’s not an awful lot of room. We were right up at the top of it, hidden from the track by the uprights, the lorries lumbering along the road above us – cars, for all I know – and the river underneath. All the pigeons flapped away, madly, as we settled down. One couldn’t really move to right or left very much, but it was all right, you know. Quite quick. I closed my eyes most of the time and I didn’t have to pretend I was somebody else. I was somebody else. God knows who. I felt rather like a pink-cheeked, dark-haired dairy maid, rather soft and fat and seventeenish, I suppose. I don’t mean I had to think her up. I enjoyed it rather a lot. Or she did. I’m not explaining myself very well. I shouldn’t think boys understand. Do you?’
Household Ghosts Page 27