The Radiant Way

by Margaret Drabble

  ‘I mean,’ said Alix, her eyes bright, ‘this is the kind of thing I believe in. I believe in it. So why does it, when printed like that, on that nice expensive shiny paper, so well produced, so plausible – why does it make me want to weep?’

  He reached out his hand for hers. They held hands, on the pink tablecloth.

  ‘It’s despair, that’s what I feel,’ said Alix, sniffing, as a tear brimmed. ‘Despair. It’s all hopeless, hopeless. Sandbags against the tidal wave. Patching up holes in the dyke before the deluge. Little boys, with their thumbs frozen. And drowning, drowning.

  She wept, for a moment, then wiped her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry. And anyway, I’m not so sure that I want to go and live in Northam. That’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. I’d rather have gone to Gloseley. I could have sat on Gloseley Heath and picketed the air base. Crouching by a fire. With the Gloseley women. I could have been a real outcast, in Gloseley!’

  ‘You don’t believe in all that,’ said Otto.

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t believe in anything. I believe it’s all hopeless. Hopeless. It’s all over. There’s no way back, and no way forward that we can go. We’re washed up. You know quite well what I mean, Otto, you feel the same yourself.’

  ‘Alix,’ said Otto, reaching again for her hand, ‘I don’t know that I could bear it if you went to Northam. I know I don’t see you all that often, but I need to know you are there. It means more than I can say, to know you’re there. Only four miles away. There.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Alix.

  ‘But I must,’ said Otto. ‘And I must also tell you what I haven’t even told Brian. I’ve been offered this job in Washington. Yes, Washington. Not for this year, for 1986. I don’t know what to do. I ought to accept. I can’t afford not to accept. The money – well, you can imagine what the money is like. Think of a figure and double it, that’s what the money is like. So how can I know what to say to Brian?’

  They gazed at one another, in this parody of an adulterous lunch. The waiters took advantage of the lull to offer dessert. Otto absent-mindedly said he would have trifle. He spooned at it, thoughtfully, as Alix attempted to reply.

  ‘You should go,’ she said, predictably. ‘There’s no point in your staying here. When even I say things are finished here, then they must be well and truly finished.’ She paused, pursued. ‘What does Caroline think?’

  ‘She’s not keen to go. She doesn’t really like America. But she would. If I wished.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Alix, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Of course you don’t.’

  The waiters brought the coffee.

  ‘And I don’t know what to say to Brian,’ said Otto.

  ‘No, of course you don’t.’

  They drank their coffee in silence, holding hands.

  Alix, sitting on the bus on the way home, stared blankly through the streaming pane at the wet shoppers of Oxford Street. Despite terrorists, despite unemployment, despite the horror of Oxford Street itself, still they thronged. Perhaps anywhere, thought Alix, would be better than London. The traffic crawled, halted, crawled again. Alix cleared a little round space in the misting window, and there, on the corner of Bond Street, standing by the florist, was her husband, Brian Bowen, and two of his chums. Brian was holding a yellow plastic bucket, and a handwritten placard which said ‘HELP THE WIVES AND FAMILIES OF THE MINERS’. The rain fell steadily on the hood of his anorak as Brian jangled the coins in his bucket. He stood stolidly, cheerfully, smiling when anyone threw in a coin. The brotherhood of man. Most people smiled at Brian, even the hardbitten shoppers of Bond Street and Oxford Street smiled. But Alix did not smile. Brian and his bucket were more than she could bear. She bowed her head and took out her handkerchief, and all the way to Wandsworth Bridge she wept.

  Stephen Cox was of the opinion that Brian and Alix should go to Northam. He could not see anything wrong with the job on offer in Northam. He was working on a play about Pol Pot, and was of the opinion that the extremism of Northam City Council had been much exaggerated. Nor did he think Northam was very far away from London. It was a damn sight nearer than Tokyo or Seoul or Singapore, he pointed out reasonably, as he rolled a little cigarette.

  Esther, Liz and Alix had supper at Esther’s place. It had been months since they had seen each other all at once, as it were. They exchanged news, and there seemed to be a lot of it.

  Esther spoke first, of her dalliance with Robert Oxenholme, which had flourished in the months since Claudio’s death. He took her out to dinner, invited her to the opera, asked her to go with him to functions. Esther, grinding pepper into her zuppa di verdura, confessed herself flattered. Quite disgracefully charming, she proclaimed him: sinisterly charming. I am, kind of, fascinated, said Esther, watching him at work, in a crowded room. And what does he want out of me? Oh, I don’t know, I think he sees in me his own lost promise, his lost opportunities. He’s very bright, is Robert, and I suppose he feels he’s wasted his talents in all this sponsorship nonsense, and that I’ve wasted mine in a quite different way, and so he’s trying to corrupt me.

  Perhaps he thinks you haven’t wasted yours at all, suggested Alix.

  Well, I don’t know, said Esther. I don’t know about that myself, so I don’t suppose he does either.

  And are you being corrupted, enquired Liz?

  I quite like the dinners, said Esther, cautiously. But I’m not so keen on the receptions. The opera, I can take or leave. Although Boris Godunov was rather wonderful. He has this box, and you can drink all the way through, if you want.

  And what happened to his wife?

  His wife, Esther explained, had gone off with a racehorse trainer.

  Esther collected the soup plates, started to dish up the next course.

  Charles and Lady Henrietta were to be divorced, Liz informed them, as Esther handed round the fish stew. Amiably? No, not very. Expensively, more like. My money-earning capacity is more prized now than once it was, said Liz. Rumour, or rather Ivan Warner, claimed that Henrietta was having an affair with an elderly actor: but really, at her age, I think that’s a bit unlikely, said Liz. Charles had started a new enterprise, with his one-time partner: they were both full of enthusiasm, almost like the old days, starting from scratch again, making their own coffee in the office. Rejuvenated. Charles’s old enemy Dirk Davis was still being held hostage, which seemed to be worrying Charles disproportionately. How many months was it now? Three, four? Of course, he might be dead by now, said Liz, fishing a bone out of her plate. I don’t know, I think in some way Charles feels if Dirk gets out, he’ll survive himself. It must be five months, because I remember hearing about it on the news when I was up in Northam seeing my mother in June. And how was her mother? God knows, said Liz, as you both know quite well, I wish she’d die. But Shirley says she can make herself understood, a bit. She can’t speak, but she can spell things out with these cards Shirley made for her. It’s ghastly. I wish she were dead.

  Alix could not be so frank about her own feelings, being still a married woman. She could not tell Esther and Liz that she was in love with one of her husband’s closest friends, Otto Werner. As she could not tell Otto or Brian this either, she had to keep it to herself. Instead, slicing a piece of Cheddar, taking a biscuit, accepting another glass of wine, she told them that she had started house-hunting in Northam, and described the kinds of houses she had already seen. Property prices were considerably lower than in London, of course, and some of the Victorian houses were very charming. There was one on that rustic little lane down by the Botanical Gardens. . . .

  Perry Blinkhorn, Alix had to admit, was making himself very pleasant. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad lot after all.

  I think it’s awful that you’re going, said Liz. And Esther keeps threatening to go and live in Bologna. What shall I do, if you leave me on my own?

  You could marry Charles again, suggested Esther. Or Ivan Warner.

  Funny you should say that, said Liz. D
o you know, I actually think Ivan has thought of proposing to me. And I’ll tell you something even funnier. I’ve got quite fond of Ivan. I’ve even found myself wondering what it would be like, being married to Ivan.

  Liz, really, remonstrated Alix.

  Well, of course I wouldn’t, I’m much happier on my own than I’ve ever been, but it’s interesting that I even thought of it, isn’t it? Well, perhaps it’s not very interesting. Perhaps I only thought of it because he was thinking of it. And anyway, he decided not to ask.

  A silence fell, as Liz lit herself a cigarette. Alix was wondering about Stephen Cox. There had once been a feeling, a sense of possibility, that Liz and Stephen might marry, but it seemed to have faded although they still saw each other. Too well matched, perhaps.

  The candles flickered, the gas fire flickered, the room was warm and intimate. It had heard many confidences. The red wallpaper had absorbed them. Alix remembered running here, for safety, from Lykewake Gardens. Nearly a year ago, now. She supposed one could still come to London, have supper, stay the night at Liz’s. But would it be the same? Should she be in the way at Liz’s? Alix did not like to be in the way.

  The silence prolonged itself, peaceably. Liz mentioned, briefly, her cat. The traffic hummed quietly along Ladbroke Grove. Alix spoke of Ilse and Nicholas, of the strangeness of seeing them at home, adult, in so serious a house. Esther offered dried apricots. A police siren wailed in the distance. A dog barked. And gradually, stealthily, as they sat there, they became aware of a change in the quality of the street noises – a change, was it possible, in the quality of the light? Esther, going to the kitchen to put the kettle on for coffee, glancing out of the first-floor window down the side street, noticed a strange grouping of cars: a knot of policemen. She returned to the front room, could see that both Liz and Alix were listening, though to what they did not know.

  The curtains were drawn, the room glowed, comfortably. The little figurines marched along the bookcases, as they had always marched. The little mosaic fountain of Cambridge days was in its rightful place. The palm was gone, but Esther had purchased a new plant, an umbrella tree with big deep broad-fingered leaves and new delicate little opening pale-green uplifted hands at its crown: a more friendly plant, a less bristly plant. Lilies stood in a deep red vase: a present from Robert, Esther had said. So Robert sat in the red room, where Claudio had once sat before him?

  Esther cleared her throat. ‘I think something’s going on in the street outside,’ she said. ‘Shall I look?’

  They were reluctant to look, reluctant to allow the street to impinge on their evening. They were safe in there, they had created their own safety. They could read one another’s reactions: they saw the same images.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Liz.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Alix.

  So for a little while they sat there, becalmed, enisled. Outside the tension mounted, Esther went through to her bedroom at the back of the house, and, without turning on the light, looked out into the October night. At the back, there was a small narrow London garden, one of a row, the end of a row, a corner garden. It seemed to be full of people. Esther went back into the front room, the first-floor front room and very slightly twitched the heavy curtain to peer out.

  She looked back into the room, at Liz sitting curled up in a chair, at Alix lying back on the couch with her feet on a low table.

  ‘The house is surrounded,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘What on earth can be happening?’ asked Alix, at last, in a tone of mild and indulgent curiosity.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Esther. ‘Should I go out and see?’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Liz. ‘If it’s the police, they’ll shoot you.’ They all laughed.

  There was only the one front door to the house, Esther explained, and a garden door from the basement-garden flat, where old Mrs Finchley had lived for decades. ‘They can’t be after Mrs Finchley,’ said Alix.

  ‘Perhaps the top floor is an IRA bomb manufacturing hideout,’ suggested Liz, helpfully.

  ‘I don’t think he’s Irish, that quiet young man,’ said Esther. ‘I don’t know what he is, or who he is, but I don’t think he’s Irish.’

  ‘Well, we’d better just sit here and have our coffee,’ said Alix. ‘I agree with Liz, if we try to be helpful they’ll only shoot us. Much better to keep a low profile, if you ask me.’

  So Esther made the coffee, and they waited, not entirely in silence: they chatted in a desultory fashion. Alix looked at her watch. ‘Will they shoot me for trying to go home?’ she asked. ‘I really ought to be thinking about leaving.’

  And then the telephone rang. They all jumped, guiltily. Esther answered it. Yes, she agreed, cautiously, she was Dr Breuer. Yes, she was at home. With friends. Then she listened for a short while. Then she said yes, I see, and put the phone down.

  ‘They’re trying to arrest that silent young man upstairs,’ she said. ‘How very odd. They didn’t say what for.’

  ‘He’s probably the Harrow Road murderer,’ suggested Alix, belatedly, for this was what they had all been thinking.

  ‘Yes, probably,’ agreed Liz.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Esther.

  ‘Well, what are we meant to do about it? Is he up there?’

  ‘They think so.’

  ‘And what do they want us to do?’

  ‘They weren’t very clear about it. They don’t know if he’s armed, but they do say he’s dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous? Surely not?’ said Esther. And I am sorry to say that they all laughed.

  ‘Well, there’s an awful lot of them and if we’ve noticed them by now I imagine he has too. Why don’t they just knock on the door and ask for him?’ said Alix, who had peeped through the curtain.

  ‘Too simple,’ said Liz. ‘They like to make a big deal out of this kind of thing. Perhaps they’re hoping he’ll take all three of us hostage and they can have a big shoot-out. They like that kind of thing.’

  ‘That’s the kind of irresponsible talk that Brian’s friends go in for,’ said Alix, with interest rather than censoriousness.

  ‘Well, quite right too, the police are a bloody disgrace,’ said Liz robustly. ‘And you’ll be the first to agree when they shoot you dead through that window. Move away, Alix, move away.’

  Alix moved, obediently, but continued to argue the cause of the police: it wasn’t their fault if they’d learned confrontation, their position in urban society was increasingly untenable. . . . ‘Alix,’ said Esther, ‘is this you I hear? What has happened to your political outlook? How will all that go down in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire? That’s the kind of line I take, not you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Alix feebly, ‘I suppose it’s to do with my father, and my respect for authority, or rather my desire that authority should be respected and respect-worthy, which my father was – well, he was respect-worthy but not respected, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I suppose it would be unwise to have another bottle of wine,’ said Esther.

  ‘Yes,’ said Liz, ‘it would.’

  ‘Did they tell us not to leave?’ asked Alix.

  ‘Yes, apparently they’re negotiating with him on the telephone. From their radio car.’

  ‘Did they give you their number? So we could ring them? If anything happened in here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Incompetent fools, I told you,’ said Liz with satisfaction.

  ‘Liz, you surprise me,’ said Esther. ‘This anti-police line. Where does it come from?’

  ‘I suppose I learned it from the kids,’ said Liz. ‘Aaron got into a bit of trouble the other day. He was stopped – okay, it was four in the morning, but that’s not a crime – and searched, and because he gave them a bit of lip they turned him in for the night.’

  ‘He probably enjoyed it,’ said Esther.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Liz. ‘He was furious. Okay, it reinforced his prejudices, which is always gratifying, but he was quite properly
outraged.’

  ‘Was he drunk?’ enquired Alix.

  ‘I suppose so, but what’s that got to do with it? He was on his feet, not in a car, and he was walking along minding his own business. Reciting poetry, according to him.’

  ‘That probably is an offence,’ said Esther.

  ‘Cinna the poet,’ said Alix. ‘No, no, I am Cinna the poet.’

  ‘I wonder if he’s threatening to commit suicide?’ said Liz. Her face suddenly brightened with expertise. ‘Did they really not give you a number to ring? If they had, we could have told them that one of your guests is a fully qualified psychiatrist and willing to intervene – for a fee of course – in her professional capacity.’

  What a wasted opportunity, they all agreed.

  ‘We could dial 999,’ said Alix. ‘Or the local police station.’

  ‘No, they’ve missed their opportunity,’ said Liz. ‘But tell us about him, Esther. Who is he, this monster under your roof?’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth,’ said Esther, ‘I know absolutely nothing about him. He’s lived here years – eight, nine? – more even – and he’s called Whitmore. P. Whitmore. I don’t know what the P. stands for. He never gets any post, only circulars. I don’t know where he works. We never speak. He never makes a sound. He never has anyone in, or not that I’ve noticed. The only time we’ve spoken in the last few months is when he told me I was being cruel to the palm when I left it out on the front steps to die.’

  ‘Not much to go on,’ said Liz.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Esther, ‘there’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t be a criminal psychopath. But then there’s no reason that I know of to suggest that he is one. Or that he’s committed any kind of offence of any sort.’