At 25 past 2 he found a vacant meter in Mount Row. He expunged the excess penalty with two five-pence pieces.
A uniformed porter he hadn’t remembered seeing before opened the outer door of the flats and pressed the button for him to summon the lift.
“Dr Burns, isn’t it?”
He earned his money, this one. Must have been the red sweater. He hoped he wasn’t going to accompany him to the seventh floor. He held the door open for Oscar to get in. “Not so nice today.”
“No.”
He pressed ‘penthouse’ and wondered, since he was early, if he would be taken all the way up. He was aware of a distinct increase in pulse rate as the lift ascended. The doors sighed gently, then slid open revealing the hallway of Marie-Céleste’s flat. It was quiet. He didn’t want to frighten her. “Hallo!” he called.
There was no sound for a moment, then: “I’m in the bath.”
He made for the bedroom. Her white satin gown was slung over the bed. In the bathroom she lay back comfortably in the bath, her red hair contrasting prettily with the green.
“Anybody could have walked in!”
“But they didn’t, did they? Sit down.”
He looked around and sat on the closed lavatory seat, his chin on his fist.
She trickled water from her sponge onto her navel. “Rodin,” she said. “Have I told you how good-looking you are?”
“Not since the day before yesterday.”
“I missed you. The afternoon seemed a hundred years long.”
“You got my message?”
She smiled. “Oh, yes. Mr Lumley! I must say it took me a while because Ernest was rattling on about your name before he even mentioned the rug. When he did I knew straight away. It’s rather nice to have an affair with someone with a bit of imagination. Ernest has none. Not even a sense of humour.”
“Are we having ‘an affair’? I thought they went out with Noel Coward and thés dansants.”
“What do they call it in your books?”
He thought. “I don’t think they call it anything. They just get on with it.”
“Very sensible. In France it is a cinque-à-sept but we’re a bit on the early side.”
“I suppose now I shall have to take the rug!”
“Oh no. Ernest doesn’t want it cleaned. It doesn’t need it, he says. Besides, he doesn’t trust you! Do you know, when we got married Ernest chose every single thing in this flat! I didn’t mind at the time because I was working, trying to build up my practice, but there is nothing, not the tiniest thing that you could say is really ‘me’. He consulted me about everything; we spent afternoons in Mallett’s or Frank Partridge but only after he’d chosen or they’d got it in specially so I couldn’t really argue. I don’t think I wanted to at the time. Ernest has very good taste.” She turned on the hot tap with her toe.
Oscar looked at her. “I couldn’t agree more!”
“The only trouble is that he’s a bore, bore, bore. He’s kind, generous, considerate…at first I thought it was fantastic; exotic holidays; clothes, jewels, every birthday, anniversary remembered and celebrated appropriately just like it says in the magazines…”
Oscar thought of Rosy with her Woman’s Own.
“…but the more generous, kind and considerate he was the more uptight I became. He’s always so polite, you see, and there’s nothing in the world more inhibiting… I freeze like a defensive animal… I can understand why women stand by their alcoholics, their bullies, their philanderers…”
“Masochist.”
“Perhaps. I don’t care much for labels, they always come off. Take last night; I mean it needn’t be last night – it could be one of any of a thousand nights. I came home from surgery full of Mrs Pickard and her positive cervical smear, and Jennie Jones with a translucent sequin in the ear, and young Peter from Nigeria whom they never stopped laughing at at school because they thought he was an idiot until I discovered he couldn’t even see the blackboard and…oh countless others. Ernest doesn’t like it. Me having a National Health practice in what he calls a slum. My God, he wouldn’t know a slum if he saw one. They’re just people. Ordinary people. He’s always wanted – if I insist on working which I do – to have rooms in Harley Street which he is convinced is a qualification rather than an address, and see only private patients. It would be furnished ‘in style’ of course, thus attracting the right ‘type’ and I would have a fleet of ancillaries to help me. I think he honestly believes that because they can afford to pay for their consultations their body orifices are aseptic and lined with gold. It has been one bone of contention on which I have absolutely refused to give in.
“Anyway I come home and dinner is of course ready. Ernest has a thing about servants hanging around the place so Rosa, who housekeeps and cooks, gets everything ready and is off at eight. We leave the dishes for Conchita in the morning, Ernest insists. I know millions of women who’d be green with envy. Perhaps I’m perverse, but Ernest refuses to allow me into the kitchen after dinner, to potter and wash up. There’s only the coffee to make and he does that anyway. He says I’ve done quite enough for one day and no wife of his is going to put her hands in water etc etc…while he can provide me with staff to do it for me. He doesn’t understand about women and kitchens. I can’t say I’d like to be in it all day and I’m very grateful that I haven’t got to, but sometimes it’s therapeutic…”
“What would happen if you took no notice?” Oscar said. “I mean if you just did.”
“Not worth it. I gave up long ago. I get the ‘little boy’ act. Marie-Céleste doesn’t love me; wants to spend her time in the kitchen rather than with Ernest; come and sit on Ernest’s lap…”
“And last night?”
“I came in. He hung my coat up for me; my drink was ready; he told me how tired I must be. Over drinks he gave me the message about the rug, punctilious you see, and while he was carrying on about the preciousness of it I was thinking about you and me on it and you and Karen at home with Rosy and Daisy and all that lovely chaos and he had to tell me twice I was not to let Mr Lumley take it away as I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway after the rug we had the stockmarket, bad, and the shortage of raw materials, worse, then he took the glasses into the kitchen and tidied the nuts away and we went into the dining-room to have dinner, one each end of the table. He had to get up to pour my wine. I didn’t tell him about the patients because he doesn’t like it so we discussed the weekend, whether it was to be our own place or someone else’s, and where would I like to go for Easter.
“After dinner – which we don’t have until almost nine, because of evening surgery, and he insists that I relax before eating although sometimes I’m so ravenous I buy a Wimpy on the way home – we sit in front of the television like stuffed dummies or I read, until after the eleven o’clock news when we go to bed. We dine out two or three times a week which improves things slightly.”
Oscar said: “Why do you stand it?”
“Habit, I suppose: like the women with the drunkards and the bullies.”
“You could assert yourself. Hasn’t he heard of Women’s Lib and all that?”
“I don’t want to make him unhappy. He’s very good to me. I’ve probably made it sound much much worse than it actually is. Anyway I’m sure you didn’t come round here to talk about Ernest.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so. But strangely enough just being with you, listening to you, looking at you, is very satisfying.”
“You are easily satisfied.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m not sure. I hope I didn’t mean what I think I mean.”
“Too devious.” She threw the sponge at him.
“You’ve soaked me!”
“Too bad. You’ll have to take your clothes off and Mummy will dry you!”
With her head on one side she watched his every move. When he was undressed he stood on the scales.
He turned to face her.
“I made a mistake,” she sai
d. “Not Rodin. Michelangelo; David. With one outstanding difference!”
“Cheeky!” Oscar looked into the bath. “I suppose you think you’re safe in there.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said as Oscar stepped into the water between her legs, “that there’ll be a message tomorrow that Mr Lumley is coming to take away the bath!”
It wasn’t until it was time to leave her bed where they eventually ended up that Oscar realized he had forgotten to phone home to see whether Mrs Hubble had arrived to look after Rosy and Daisy.
Eight
“I’d like to go to Nice for a few days,” Oscar told Karen. “Come with me?” He hoped she didn’t realize that he was holding his breath.
“You know I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Rosy. Daisy. Mr Boyd – I would have to find a replacement…”
“Mrs Hubble would sleep in. Boyd – would have to manage.”
“I can’t, just like that.”
“I’m stuck with Riviera. Need some local colour.”
“No notes?”
“Not enough.”
“You go then. We’ll survive.”
“Don’t like to leave you.”
“Rubbish.”
“Couldn’t we take them with us? Rosy and Daisy.”
“School!”
“I won’t go then. Just an idea. I can manage. Look out some old notes. Daresay no one will notice.”
“Oscar, don’t fuss or I shall begin to suspect…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. If you were in business you’d be off every five minutes; Australia, the Far East, I’d have to lump it like Joanna.”
“I’d take you with me. My ‘overnight bag’! Only three or four days.”
“It will make a change for all of us.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Why should I? You’ve been tired lately…” he watched her carefully in the mirror, “…probably do you good to get some sunshine.”
“It usually rains in February. I’ll take my mac,” he said stoically. “You’re sure you can manage?”
He froze while she absently picked pieces of white fluff from his red sweater.
“I’m a big girl.”
There were beads of sweat on his face.
“Yes.”
“I’m exhausted!” Marie-Céleste said, watching Ernest from the corner of her eye. “The waiting-room was still crowded at 7.30. I had to send some of them home.”
He took her coat.
“I made you a daiquiri.”
“You must have known.”
“Don’t talk until you’ve drunk it.”
She sat in the deep armchair with her stockinged feet up on the matching stool. He served it with short straws and a cherry as in the Caribbean.
“You need a break. You do too much.”
“It’s the time of the year. It’s always the same around now. After Christmas and the children back at school. People have time to be ill.”
“Why not go and see your aunt?”
“Marie-Claire?”
“It’s warm in Cannes now.”
She looked into the daiquiri. “Can you take the time off?”
“I meant just you.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t you think I can manage?”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“I won’t have you exhausted. Marie-Céleste adores you.”
She yawned ostentatiously. “It does sound tempting.”
“We’ll ring tonight. She’s lonely. She’ll be beside herself with joy –”
“You’re too good to me.”
“Impossible.” He took her glass. “Another?”
She shook her head. “That was beautiful.” She waited, fists clenched.
“Just what the doctor ordered!”
“I don’t like it,” Oscar said the following afternoon as they lay in bed. “It was all too easy. Do you think they really don’t know?”
“I can’t speak for Karen but Ernest hasn’t a clue.”
“There was white fluff on my sweater. She picked off the pieces. I thought I would die.”
“Marabou,” Marie-Céleste said. “That reminds me.” She got out of bed and opened a cupboard. From the back she was narrow as a boy. Despite the fact that they had made love only five minutes ago he was ready for more. She came back with a paper carrier from the Burlington Arcade.
“For you.”
He opened it. It was a yellow alpaca cardigan.
“I should be buying you things. I never thought… In all the best books…”
“We’re not a book. Try it on.”
He sat up and buttoned it.
“Perfect.”
Secretly he preferred his scarlet one. “Thank you darling. I’d better not take it home.”
“Why not?”
“Karen would wonder where it came from.”
“Burlington Arcade. I can change the colour if you don’t like it.”
“I never buy things, you see. Karen gets them from M & S.”
“There has to be a first time.”
“She’ll think it most odd. It must have been frightfully expensive. Look, keep it here, we’ll take it to France.”
“You’ll take it home,” there was the devil in her eye, “or I shall be offended!”
“You,” he said, “are a vache. How are you going to fix this with your aunt?”
“Marie-Claire? No problem. She knows about you anyway.”
He sat bolt upright in the yellow cardigan. “What the hell do you mean?”
“We write to each other. She’s the one who brought me up. You’ll like her.”
“You must be crazy. Doesn’t Ernest see the letters?”
“Ernest is a gentleman. Besides, they’re written in French and her writing is atrocious.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Don’t worry. There’s not a thing about you Marie-Claire doesn’t know.”
“I like that even less.”
“From the time we met at Laura’s.”
“I have my doubts about Laura. I wonder if she did it on purpose. She is the most intuitive female I have ever met.”
“You and me, you mean?”
“Yes. Sometimes before she brings on that ridiculous cheese board she says, ‘Ashley and I often do it the French Way.’ She has her guests absolutely paralysed until they realize she means cheese before the sweet. Why have we both been asked to join her table for the handicapped children’s ball?”
“Coincidence?”
“I wonder. Are you going?”
“Ernest insists.”
“Karen too. She’s making a dress. Do you think we can cope?”
“Are you afraid I shall remove my pants in the middle of the Dorchester?”
“You are exceedingly vulgar. It doesn’t become you. You know very well what I mean.”
“We shall have to see.”
“You are being extremely provocative. I don’t know what’s got into you today. I shall probably have to smack your bottom.”
“Yes, please.” She turned over.
“God, I love you!” He froze suddenly at the enormity of what he had said.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in a department store nor why he had chosen Liberty’s. He felt like a criminal and hoped he wasn’t going to be mistaken for a shoplifter. The street door took him into menswear where an assortment of homosexual assistants gazed at him speculatively. He pretended to look at ties, then sidled hopefully towards the sign which read ‘china and gifts’. As he expected, gifts turned out to be desk sets, glass with bubbles in and Florentine tooled wastepaper baskets. Not at all what he had in mind. He looked shiftily around, determined to find his way without having to utter ‘ladies’ underwear’. He lost himself in stairs and fire escapes and hats and inexpensive dresses and grew increasingly hot as he encountered the same assistants again and again. He walked mile upon carpet
ed mile, seeming always to end up in ‘separates’. Whoever designed the shop must have been drunk; drunk or crazy if not both. He gave in. “I’m looking for ladies’ underwear.”
“Round the gallery, through blouses and on your left, sir.”
He must have passed it a hundred times.
A lady with grey hair in a chignon looked at him severely.
“I’m looking for a nightdress.” It never occurred to him to buy her anything else. Lovers always bought their mistresses nightdresses.
“Any particular colour?”
He hadn’t thought that far. “Blue.”
“If you’d like to come this way, sir, I’ll show you what we have. Of course we’re rather low at present after Christmas and in the middle of stocktaking. There’s not a great selection.”
There wasn’t. There was peach with beige lace and lemon yellow with bows and a mauvy-pink. They all seemed to have been welded together. He wanted to explain that it was to be diaphanous, transparent, floaty…
“The only blue we have comes in a set with camiknicks…”
He thought they’d gone out with Myrna Loy. He must have chosen the wrong shop; should have asked Karen.
“What about black, then?” He was getting braver.
He thought he saw the lips purse ever so slightly. “There’s very little call these days, sir.”
He backed away, looking at his watch. “Rather a hurry. Have to leave it.”
“Try again after stocktaking.”
Not on your nelly!
He about-turned into blouses, and on a truncated torso saw a short-sleeved, pintucked blouse in blue satin. There was a young girl in black twinset and pearls. “I’ll take that,” he said wildly.
She looked in the back of the neck. “What size was it you wanted, sir?”
“That one will do.”
“That’s a thirty-eight. I’ll see if we have one in stock.”
“But you’ve got one – there.”
“Oh, we’re not allowed to take them off the models. Not without asking the buyer. I shan’t keep you a moment, sir.”
He was sweating profusely, wanting only to get out of the shop. For a moment he wished he was Ernest. There was obviously an art to these things.
The Life Situation Page 12