by A. J. Cronin
She took a sharp breath between her teeth and continued:
‘But for her, that woman, with all her pretending to goodness and the husbant so soon dead, it is a great sin, a crime, a falseness.’
‘But surely, Matron …’
‘Do not speak. Now I see clearly. She tries from the beginning to make me against you, while at the same time to get you to bed. And to steal the cognac from my stores. All drei bottles is gone.’
‘She needs a drink. At night, Matron. To make her sleep.’
‘Ach, it is not that she needs for sleep! No, it is not forgivable. Especially since in her haste to snatch I think she break the vacuum Flasche.’
Put like that, the picture looked black. Undeniably there was some justification for this point of view. One way or another, with all these complex motives, Davigan had tied herself up in a nasty tangle. I put down the tray and studied the chrysanthemums, wondering how, or if, I could unravel it.
‘All was in order with us before that woman came. I managed you well. And it will return when she is gone, which must be at once. Yes, she must go, and with the boy – now especially that, for your thanks, he is besser.’
‘But what’s going to happen to her? She hasn’t got a bean.’
‘At the beginning, to show she is good Hausfrau, she tells me she has the offer to keep the home of some doctor.’
‘Dr Ennis?’
‘That is the name.’
So in every way I was off the hook. I ought to feel relieved.
‘I appreciate your … your kindness to me, Matron,’ I said. ‘Still … don’t you think you should be equally generous to her?’
‘Why do you ask? For weeks you try to send her home.’
‘I was thinking of the hospital … treatment, for Daniel,’ I said weakly.
‘Then he shall be at home there to have it, at the Spital you already recommended, which is goot. As for her, no matter, since all the blame is for her. She must go.’
What could I say? I was getting exactly what I wanted. I was in the clear. At one stroke I was rid of that nasty blot on my copybook. Somehow it did not feel so good. But I was in the hole, over the barrel, there was no way out.
‘You must tell her,’ I said finally. That I couldn’t face.
‘I go to her directly. And you will telephone the Flughafen for places. For the same day that we are sending Higgins and the Jamieson girl. It makes one journey for all.’
She stood up and came towards me with an almost maternal yet somehow patronizing smile.
‘So now, Herr Doktor, we shall have good conduct. If so, I wish to keep you. You have skill and are clever. So?’
God help me, she actually patted me on the back. She was beginning to mother me.
I had to do it. I went into my office and rang the airport, having first thoroughly shut myself in. I wanted no part of what might take place in the chalet although, as it turned out, there was no shindy, everything passed off in a dead calm. Zurich came through at once, and presently I was on to Schwartz, the Swissair clerk who usually handled the Maybelle. He knew me well, and after I’d made the reservations for the 2.10 DC-6 flight on Friday, four to Heathrow and two on to Winton by the Vanguard 4.30 connection, he held on for the usual chat.
‘How is your weather?’
‘Bad,’ I said. That’s the standard opening. The Swiss enjoy themselves as the world’s weather pessimists, they couldn’t do without the Foehn in summer or the bise in winter.
‘It will be worse. More snow coming.’
‘You’re probably right,’ I said.
‘By the way, doctor,’ his voice took on the sissy giggle of Swiss masculine confidences. ‘A friend of yours keeps inquiring for you with us.’
‘Oh?’ I said warily.
‘Yes, always asking when next you are coming to Zurich.’ He gave his neighing laugh. ‘I think she misses you, that very pretty Frauleine Andersen of the Aktiebolaget Svenska Örnflyg.’
Lotte, asking for and missing me. It brightened me somewhat, gave me a lift, put some salve upon my ego.
‘Tell her I’ll be down soon. Don’t say actually when. Just say in the next few days.’
‘Ah!’ He neighed again. ‘You wish, natürlich, to surprise her.’
I replaced the receiver. Lotte would take my mind off things. She would do me good. Carroll, I told myself, you’ll soon be yourself again. You are, and always will be, a no-good heel. It suits you, and you’re dead out of character when you try to tread the straight and narrow path that leads uphill all the way.
Chapter Eighteen
We were in the train, passing through Kilchberg, and rapidly approaching Zurich Central. Schwartz’s forecast on the weather had been amply justified. Heavy and persistent snow had blocked the valley road above Coire, making it impossible to use the station wagon. It had been a fortunate impasse. Not only had the journey been accomplished with that ease, speed and warm comfort which marks the best railway service in the world, the SBB; beyond all this, by judicious arrangement of our seats, I had escaped the embarrassing intimacies of the small closed car. Here, Davigan occupied one of the three seaters in front with Jamieson and Higgins, while Daniel and I faced each other on single seats at the other end of the long coach. What a relief to be spared the forced formality of those last two days – the strained attempt to put a normal face on a situation that might well have gone off like a land mine. I had to hand it to Davigan. If she had feelings she had clamped down on them hard. No signs of distress, never a word or a look that might give her away. She even had a brightly polished smile for Matron when she thanked her for all her kindness and said goodbye. Yes, she was tough, for the past forty-eight hours she had saved the Maybelle from exploding in a battlefield of recriminations, accusations and abuse.
My headache had been the brains trust, who hung on to me like a leech. Without the faintest suspicion as to why they were leaving, he still seemed to have something on his mind. Even now, crouched in his seat, he kept stealing glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking at him, and when caught at this game he sat up like a startled rabbit. His conversation, too, lacked all its usual zip. During the trip he had piped out a series of platitudes, obvious cover for some inner turmoil.
‘I must say I have enjoyed my visit to Switzerland, Laurence. It’s such a lovely country. The snow is wonderful.’ And, twice repeated: ‘Perhaps I’ll have the chance to see it again, and you, one of these days?’
It bothered me finding appropriate answers to his various speculations without stretching reality too far. But my difficulties would soon be over. You can bring yourself to a sensible state of mind if you look hard at the basic facts, among which I rated highly the acknowledged truth that you cannot relive the past. Yet what mainly buttressed me was the certainty that the late unhappy Davigan had been the victim of a wifely shove. Yes, she had certainly done him in. What could you make of such a woman? Sympathize with her? Feel sorry for her? The answer was a double negative that really hardened me. Admittedly she had her good points. She had guts and in bedworthiness she was the ultimate. But who was to know whether one of these mornings you’d wake up, full of dreamy love, and find arsenic in your coffee?
We were slowing down, sliding gently into the station. I stood up and took our coats off the hooks above the seats. Davigan was helping the other two. There had been no need for me to exchange a word with her during the entire journey. I lowered the window and signalled a porter to take the suitcases, then we were out on the platform following the trolley down Quai 7 to the Swissair terminal, which stands conveniently in the station. Another ten minutes of efficient service and we were in the airport bus, rolling along Stampfenbach-Strasse towards Kloten. I had checked on flying conditions: the airport was swept clear of snow and flights were on schedule. Everything was going smoothly, everyone behaving according to the book. In less than an hour I would be rid of them. And free.
While I was on the way to congratulating myself I had, more and more, the
strange and worrying suspicion that something queer seemed to be working to a head in Daniel. Still hanging on to me, though now less talkative, he was shifting restlessly on his seat, wiping the damp palms of his hands on his knees, looking up at me inquiringly from time to time. These signs of increased agitation began to worry me. Impossible for him to start another haemorrhage so soon. He was full of my platelets. Yet if that odd chance came up, it would kill my whole programme.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked him sharply.
‘Yes, thank you … Are we nearly at the airport?’
The bus was now on the new bypass beyond Glattbrugg.
‘Only another ten minutes. Why?’
‘I was just hoping we still had a little time together.’
This silenced me. So far, although we seemed to get along on good terms, I had made no attempt to analyse his feelings towards me, beyond the fact that he apparently did not dislike me. I hoped he would not get emotional and make an exhibition of himself at this late stage. A quick glance across the aisle reassured me that Davigan at least was in full control of herself.
We made a circular sweep, drew up at the airport. While the others went ahead I waited to check the baggage. The head porter took our lot.
‘Small party, this time, Herr Carroll.’
‘We’ll have a larger one coming in before Christmas. At least thirty.’
‘That’s good. I like always these Maybelle children.’
I gave him a two-franc piece. You are not supposed to tip but they like you a lot better if you do.
I went in through the automatic glass doors. The main hall of the airport stretches a good fifty metres towards a glass frontage overlooking the runways. On the right, a row of Swissair counters, on the left a bank, shops, coffee bar and the offices of foreign airways. Large as it is, this section is always crowded and I seemed to have lost my party. Then, as I pushed forward I half stopped and gave out a rude word. They were standing at the Swedish counter with Lotte.
‘Well, here is our good friend, the doctor. How are you, dear Laurence?’
‘Still living … I think.’
She laughed, yet studying me closely.
‘Always he makes a bad joke. Did he make them with you, Mrs Davigan, when you were together at the Maybelle?’
‘Not so you’d notice.’ She had to answer and she was bearing up, but with a struggle.
‘At least I warned you against him. I hope he did not spoil your nice holiday. I know him so well, don’t I, Laurence? Well, never mind. He will tell me all when you are gone.’
Damn it, even in her bad English, she was hitting at me. And she was looking stunning, smart, better than ever, a regular Dior model, putting five years on Davigan’s age. And knowing it. Davigan knew it too, in her baggy old suit, with that forced expression stuck on her face. And, so help me, I hadn’t noticed before, she had on the snow boots. Suddenly I felt sorry for her.
‘And now, would you like coffee?’ Lotte had assumed full charge of the party. ‘No. Then if I may have your passports and boarding cards I will show you specially to the plane.’
At least she was taking them off my hands.
‘You see,’ she went on, ‘since I was here to welcome your arrival I think it is only polite to send you away.’
They had begun to move towards passport control when I felt the tug on my arm. I bent down, he was pulling hard.
‘I want you to take me to the wash room.’
It shook me. At the last gasp, was he going to have another haemorrhage?
‘Come quickly then.’
I took him down the short flight of stairs beyond the coffee bar into the Men’s Room.
‘In there.’
He still had my arm and he pulled me into one of the cabinets with him and shut the door. He was trembling all over.
‘Hurry,’ I said. ‘ Get your shorts down.’
‘I don’t need to go, Laurence. But I had to tell you. I couldn’t bear to leave you and perhaps never see you again and have you feel that I didn’t like you enough to tell you my secret.’
In sheer surprise I sat down on the pedestal. He came close to me, his quick breath on my cheek.
‘This is exactly how it happened with my father. For weeks, as the big building was being finished, he became very upset. He always took some whisky but now he drank much more, and at home he would get angry, even shouting, that by rights the building and all the new development should have belonged to him.’
He took a quick sobbing breath.
‘On the Saturday afternoon when he took us up to show us, Mother didn’t want to go. He’d had a lot to drink at dinner time. But we went. At the top he began again, about how it had all been lost. Then he shouted “I can’t stand it, and I won’t. I’ll show them.” Mother saw what was coming and tried to hold him, but he broke away, that’s how her dress was torn, and jumped. Oh, it was horrible to see him turning over in the air.’
Again that sharp, pained sob. Riveted, I could scarcely breathe myself.
‘Of course everyone thought he had slipped, at least at first. Canon Dingwall has always been our friend, we went to him at once, to ask if we should speak. He heard it all, and said the best thing was to be silent, not to make Father a suicide, which would be a big scandal in the church, but to give him what he called the benefit of the doubt. And for another reason too. There was no money left, absolutely nothing. But there was an insurance policy taken in his name by Grandfather Davigan for two thousand pounds, and meant for my education …’ he faltered, ‘and with a suicide it would have been no good at all.’
A prohibitive suicide clause in the insurance policy and Davigan, absolutely blameless, had taken all that suspicion and blame to get the money for Daniel’s education. He would never need it now. How did I feel? It is worth a guess.
He was crying now as he put out his hand. I took it and held it. I think he wanted to kiss me but that I couldn’t bear. I would have felt like Judas in reverse. Suddenly from the grille in the ceiling the loud-speaker of the public address system screamed at us:
‘All passengers for Swissair Flight 419 to London will now leave by Gate 8.’
‘Hurry,’ I said.
He was still holding on to me as I rushed him upstairs. Lotte had left his passport at the Control. I picked it up, hurried him down, and through the lower lounge. They were waiting for us at Gate 8.
‘You want to miss the flight?’ Lotte said.
I shook hands with Higgins and Jamieson, then I had to face up to Davigan. Now that expression had become terribly thin, I was afraid she couldn’t hold it. Yet she did; the effort, though, was wearing her out, yes, it was killing her. God, she did look old, pale, drawn and sick. We shook hands, just for the look of it. She had it all ready for me.
‘Thank you for all you’ve done for Daniel, Dr Carroll.’ She fumbled in her Swissair overnight bag. ‘It’s been quite an experience knowing you. As we’ll not be meeting again I’ll give you this. I’ve been keeping it for you for quite a long time.’ She handed me a brown-paper-wrapped package. ‘ That morning you left me to go to your ship, you left this in my room as well.’
I accepted it, stupidly, having no idea what it might be. Then they went through the Gate. I stood there watching them go.
‘Wait for me,’ Lotte called over her shoulder.
I sat down in the lounge and looked at the parcel. What was it? A time bomb? It didn’t tick. I was not ticking too well myself. Anyway, what did I care? I opened it. Anticlimax. It was a book, the book Dingwall had pressed on me the day of Frank’s ordination. I had walked off without it early that morning when I took off for the boat. I put it in my pocket, Lotte was coming back through the Gate.
‘Now, Laurence, what have you to say for yourself? You’ve been up to some tricks. I want big explanations before we come together again.’
‘I’ve nothing to explain …’
‘That poor woman is breaking her heart to leave you. The moment she was in the plan
e the tears began. And terrible tears …’
‘Not for me. The little boy is ill.’
‘Still?’
‘Yes.’
‘There is more. I think you sleep with her.’
‘I told you, that’s ancient history. You think I sleep with anybody. And what about you?’
‘Could you blame me if I do? When you leave me so long. But I do not. That is the difference between us. Well, never mind. I still like you much and now we are together for a nice cosy time. I must be on duty till six o’clock – a charter coming in from Helsingfors. But here, take the key of the flat, go there and wait for me.’
I took the key.
‘Mix the cocktails for six-thirty.’ She gave me that wide seductive smile.
When she had gone I had a sudden feverish longing to go out on the open terrace to watch the plane take off, to see the last of them, but I shoved it down to that strange pain under my ribs and stifled it, swung round, made fot the exit, cadged a lift from one of the Swissair bus drivers, and in twenty minutes was set down at Lotte’s flat.
Chapter Nineteen
For five minutes I hesitated, although I cannot explain why, walking up and down outside the entrance, then I let myself in and switched on the lights. It was at least a relief to be off the cold damp street with the dirty banked snow on either side. The apartment was as neat, warm, and hygienic as ever. She had said to mix cocktails at six-thirty. I needed one now. I went to the trolley where a handful of left-over ice cubes were still stuck together in the Thermos container, broke them up and put the gin and vermouth in. If I try to describe my state of mind you may not believe me for now that my troubles were over and I was free as air, I was sunk in the worst depression that had ever blighted me. The way I had built up the case against Davigan, totally misjudged her, and packed her off like a crate of damaged goods, would be hard to live down. For the first time in many a year I felt compunction, made worse by the thought that here, straight away, I had come up to go to bed with that honey-eyed Swedish troll. No, no, that was pushing remorse too far. Pull yourself together, Carroll, you need relaxation, a bit of fun, a taste of good living. No point in worrying over what has now slid away into past history. You are well out of a particularly nasty situation. And what could you do? You want to charter one of Lotte’s jets and overtake them in mid-air, to say, please, I’m sorry, let’s kiss and be friends? Forget it.