by Ruth Rendell
The man gave a severe, almost reproving, laugh. “I think you must mean you are the other Johnson. I have been here for twenty years.”
Anthony could think of no answer to make to that one. He went into Room 2 and closed the door behind him. On this mild, still summery day the room with its pipe-hung brick ramparts was already growing dark at six. He switched on the jellyfish lamp and saw how the light radiated the whole of that small courtyard. Leaning out of the window, he looked upwards. In the towering expanse of brick above him there was only one other window, and that on the top floor. The frilly net curtains behind its panes twitched. Someone had looked down at him and at the light, but Anthony’s knowledge of the geography of the house was as yet insufficient to tell him who that someone might be.
Every morning for the rest of that week, Arthur listened carefully for Anthony Johnson to go off to work. But Jonathan Dean and the Kotowskys always made so much noise over their own departures that it was difficult to tell. Certain it was, though, that Anthony Johnson remained at home in the evenings. Peering downwards out of his bedroom window, Arthur saw the light in Room 2 come on each evening at about six, and could tell by the pattern of two yellow rectangles divided by a dark bar, which the light made on the concrete, that Anthony Johnson didn’t draw his curtains. It was a little early for him to feel an urge to visit the cellar again, and yet he was already growing restless. He thought this restlessness had something to do with frustration, with knowing that he couldn’t go down there however much he might want to.
On the Friday morning, while fetching in the post, he saw Anthony Johnson come out of Room 2 and go into the bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Didn’t the man go to work? Was he going to stop in there all day and all night?
Among that particular batch of letters was the first one to come for Anthony Johnson. Arthur knew it was for him as it was postmarked York and written on the flap was the sender’s name and address: Mrs. R. L. Johnson, 22 West Highamgate, York. But the front of the envelope was addressed, quite ambiguously, to A. Johnson Esq., 2/142 Trinity Road, London W15 6HD. Arthur sucked in his lips with an expression of exasperation. And when, a minute or so later, Anthony Johnson re-emerged, smelling of toothpaste, Arthur pointed out to him the possible consequences of such impreciseness.
The young man took it very casually. “It’s from my mother. I’ll tell her to put Room 2, if I think of it.”
“I hope you will think of it, Mr. Johnson. This sort of thing could lead to a great deal of awkwardness and embarrassment.”
Anthony Johnson smiled, showing beautiful teeth. He radiated health and vigour and a kind of modest virility to an extent that made Arthur uncomfortable. Besides, he didn’t want to look at bare brown chests at ten past nine in the morning, thank you very much.
“A great deal of awkwardness,” he repeated.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Let’s not meet trouble half-way. I don’t suppose I’ll get many letters, and the ones I do get will either be postmarked York or Bristol.”
“Very well. I thought I should mention it and I have. Now you can’t blame me if there is a Mix Up.”
“I shan’t blame you.”
Arthur said no more. The man’s manner floored him. It was so casual, so calm, so poised. He could have coped with defensiveness or a proper apology. This cool acceptance—no, it wasn’t really cool, but warm and pleasant—of his reproach was like nothing he had ever come across. It was almost as if Anthony Johnson were the older, wiser man, who could afford to treat such small local difficulties with indulgence.
Arthur was more than a little irritated by it. It would have served Anthony Johnson right if, when Arthur took the post in on the following Tuesday, he had torn open the letter from Bristol without a second thought. Of course he didn’t do so, although the postmark was so faint as to be almost illegible and there was no sender’s name on the flap. But this one, too, was addressed to A. Johnson Esq., 2/142 Trinity Road, London W15 6HD. The envelope was made of thick mauve-grey paper with a rough, expensive-looking surface.
Arthur set it on the table on the extreme right-hand side, the position he had allotted to Anthony Johnson’s correspondence, and then he went into the front garden to tidy up the mess inside, on top of, and around the dustbin. The dustmen had now been on strike for two weeks. In the close, sunless air the rubbish smelt sour and fetid. When he went back into the house the mauve-grey envelope had gone.
He didn’t speculate about its contents or the identity of its sender. His concern with Anthony Johnson was simply to get some idea of the man’s movements. But on the following evening, the last Wednesday of the month, he was to learn simultaneously partial answers to all these questions.
It was eight o’clock and dusk. Arthur had long finished his evening meal, washed the dishes, and was about to settle in front of his television. But he remembered leaving his bedroom window open. Auntie Gracie had always been most eloquent on the subject of night air and its evil effects. As he was pulling down the sash, taking care not to catch up the fragile border of the net curtain, he saw the light, shed on the court below, go out. Quickly he went to his front door, opened it and listened. But instead of leaving the house, Anthony Johnson was coming upstairs.
Arthur heard quite clearly the sound of the phone dial being spun. A lot of digits, not just the seven for London. And presently a lot of coins inserted …
Anthony Johnson’s voice: “I’m taking it that the coast is clear, he’s not listening on the extension and he won’t come up here and shoot me in the morning.” A pause. Then, “Of course I’m teasing you, my love. The whole business is sick.” Arthur listened intently. “I had your letter. Darling, I need footnotes. You must be the only married lady who’s ever quoted The Pilgrim’s Progress in a letter to her lover. It was Grace Abounding? Then I do need footnotes.” A long, long pause. Anthony Johnson cursed, obviously because he had to put more money in.
“Shall I transfer the charges? No, of course I won’t. Roger would see it on the bill and so on and so on.” Silence. Laughter. Another silence. Then: “Term starts a week today, but I’ll only be going to a few lectures that touch on my subject. I’m here most of the time, working and—well, thinking, I suppose. Go out in the evenings? Lovey, where would I go and who would I go with?”
Arthur closed his door, doing this in the totally silent way he had cultivated by long practice.
5
————
The air of West Kenbourne, never sweet, stank of rubbish. Sacks and bags and crates of rubbish made a wall along the pavement edge between the Waterlily and Kemal’s Kebab House. Factory refuse and kitchen waste, leaking from broken cardboard boxes, cluttered Oriel Mews, and in Trinity Road the household garbage simmered, reeking, in the sultry sunlight.
“And we’ve only got one little dustbin,” Arthur said peevishly to Stanley Caspian.
“Wouldn’t make any difference if we’d got ten, they’d be full up now. Can’t you put your muck in one of those black bags the council sent round?”
Arthur changed his tack. “It’s the principle of the thing. If these men insist on striking, other arrangements should be made. I pay my rates, I’ve got a right to have my waste disposed of. I shall write to the local authority. They might take notice of a strongly worded letter from a ratepayer.”
“Pigs might fly if they’d got wings and then we shouldn’t have any more pork.” Stanley roared with laughter. “Which reminds me, I’m starving. Put the kettle on, me old Arthur.” He opened a bag of peanuts and another of hamburger-flavoured potato crisps. “How’s the new chap settling in?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Arthur. “You know I keep myself to myself.”
He made Stanley’s coffee, asked for his envelope, and went back upstairs. The idea of discussing Anthony Johnson was distasteful to him, and this was partly because any conversation in the hall might easily be overheard in Room 2. Stanley Caspian, of course, would be indifferent to that. Arthur wished he too could be
indifferent, but there had crept upon him in the past few days a feeling that he must ingratiate himself with Anthony Johnson, not on any account offend him or win his displeasure. He now rather regretted his sharp words about the imprecise addressing of letters. Vague notions of having to become friendly—the very word distressed him—with Anthony Johnson were forming in his mind. For in this way he might perhaps persuade Anthony Johnson to draw his curtains when his light was on, or provide himself with a Venetian blind as an ostensible heat-retaining measure (Stanley Caspian would never provide one) or even succeed—and this would take much subtle and weary work—in convincing him that he, Arthur, had some legitimate occupation in the cellar, developing photographs, for instance, or doing carpentry.
But as he gathered up his laundry and stuffed it into the orange plastic carrier, he felt a fretful dismay. He didn’t want to get involved with the man, he didn’t want to get involved with anyone. How upsetting it was to have to know people, and how unnecessary it had been for twenty years!
The psychopath is asocial—more than that, he is in positive conflict with society. Atavistic desires and a craving for excitement drive him. Self-centred, impulsive, he disregards society’s taboos.… Anthony had been making notes all the morning, but now as he heard Stanley Caspian leave the house, he laid down his pen. Was there any point in beginning on his thesis before he had attended that particular lecture on criminology? On the other hand, there was so little else to do. The music from upstairs, which had been hindering his concentration for the past half-hour, now ceased and two doors slammed. So far he had met none of the other tenants but Arthur Johnson and, as fresh sound broke out, he went into the hall.
Two men were sitting on the stairs, presumably so that one of them, smallish with wild black hair, could do up his shoelaces. The other was chanting:
“Then trust me, there’s nothing like drinking,
So pleasant on this side the grave.
It keeps the unhappy from thinking,
And makes e’en the valiant more brave!”
Anthony said hallo.
His shoelaces tied, the small dark man came down the stairs, extended his hand and said in a facetious way, “Mr. Johnson, I presume?”
“That’s right. Anthony. The ‘other’ Johnson.”
This remark provoked laughter out of all proportion to its wit. “Put that on your doorbell, why don’t you? Brian Kotowsky at your service, and this is Jonathan Dean, the best pal a man ever had.”
Another hand, large, red and hairy, was thrust out. “We are about to give our right arms some exercise in a hostelry known to its habituates as the Lily, and were you to …”
“He means, come and have a drink.”
Anthony grinned and accepted, although he was already wondering if he would regret this encounter. Jonathan Dean slammed the front door behind them and remarked that this would shake old Caspian’s ceilings up a bit. They crossed Trinity Road and entered Oriel Mews, a cobbled passage whose cottages had all been converted into small factories and warehouses. The cobbles were coated with a smelly patina of potato peelings and coffee grounds, spilt from piled rubbish bags.
Anthony wrinkled his nose. “Have you lived here long?”
“For ever and a day, but I’m soon to depart.”
“Leaving me alone with that she-devil,” said Brian. “Without your moderating influence she’ll kill me, she’ll tear me to pieces.”
“Very right and proper. All the best marriages are like that. Not beds of roses but fields of battle. Look at Tolstoy, look at Lawrence.”
They were still looking at, and hotly discussing, Tolstoy and Lawrence, when they entered the Waterlily. It was crowded, smoky, and hot. Anthony bought the first round, the wisest measure if one wants to make an early escape. His tentative question had been intended as a preamble to another and now, in the first brief pause, he asked it.
“What is there to do in this place?”
“Drink,” said Jonathan simply.
“I don’t mean in here. I mean Kenbourne Vale.”
“Drink, dispute, make love.”
“There’s the Taj Mahal,” said Brian. “It used to be called the Odeon but now it only shows Indian films. Or there’s Radclyffe Park. They have concerts in Radclyffe Hall.”
“Christ,” said Jonathan. “Better make up your mind to it, Tony, there’s nothing to do but drink. This place, the Dalmatian, the Hospital Arms, the Grand Duke. What more do you want?”
But before Anthony could answer him, a woman had flung into the pub and was leaning over them, her fingers, whose nails were very dirty, pressed on the table top. She addressed Brian.
“What the hell are you doing, coming here without me?”
“You were asleep,” said Brian. “You were dead to the world.”
“In the rank sweat,” remarked Jonathan, “of an enseamed bed.”
“Shut up and don’t be so disgusting.” She levelled at him a look of scorn, such as women often reserve for those friends of their husbands who may be thought to exercise a corrupting influence. For that Brian was her husband Anthony was sure even before he waved a feeble hand and said, “My wife, Vesta.”
She sat down. “Your wife, Vesta, wants a drink. G. and T., a big one.” She took a cigarette from her own packet and Dean one from his, but instead of holding out his lighter to her, he lit his own cigarette and put the lighter away. Turning her back on him, she struck a match and inhaled noisily. Anthony regarded her with interest. She seemed to be in her mid-thirties and she looked as if she had come out without attempting to remove the “rank sweat” of Jonathan Dean’s too graphic description. Her naturally dark hair was hennaed, and strands of the Medusa locks—it was as wild and unkempt as her husband’s but much longer—had a vermilion metallic glint. A greasy-skinned, rather battered-looking face. Thin lips. Large, red-brown, angry eyes. A smell of patchouli oil. Her dress was long and of dark dirty Indian cotton, hung with beads and chains and partly obscured by a fringed red shawl. When Brian brought her gin she clasped both hands round the glass and stared intensely into the liquid like a clairvoyant looking into a crystal.
Three more beers had also arrived. Jonathan, having directed several more insulting but this time ineffectual remarks at Vesta—remarks which seemed to gratify rather than annoy her husband—began to talk of Li-li Chan. What a “dish” she was. How he could understand those Empire builders who had deserted their pallid, dehydrated wives for oriental mistresses. Like little flowers they were. He hoped Anthony appreciated his luck in sharing a bathroom with Li-li. And so on. Anthony decided he had had enough of it for the time being. Years of living in hall and rooming houses and hostels had taught him the folly of making friends for the sake of making friends. Sooner or later the one or two you really want for your friends will turn up, and then you have the problem of ridding yourself of these stopgaps.
So when Brian began making plans for the evening, a mammoth pub crawl, he declined firmly. To his surprise, Jonathan also declined, he had some mysterious engagement, and Vesta too, suddenly becoming less zombie-like, said she was going out. Brian needn’t start asking why or who with and all that. She was free, wasn’t she? She hadn’t got married to be harassed all the time and in public.
Anthony felt a little sorry for Brian, whose spaniel face easily became forlorn. “Some other time,” he said, and he meant it.
The sun was shining and the whole afternoon lay ahead of him. Radclyffe Park, he thought, and when the K.12 bus came along he got on it. The park was large and hardly any of it was formally laid out. In a green space where the grass was dappled with the shadows of plane leaves, he sat down and reread Helen’s letter.
Darling Tony, I knew I’d miss you but I didn’t know how bad it would be. I feel like asking, whose idea was this? But I know we both came to it simultaneously and it’s the only way. Besides, neither of us is the sort of person who can be happy in a clandestine thing, an intrigue. Being discreet seems pointless to you, doesn’t it, a squal
id bore, and as for me, I always hated lying to Roger. When you said—or was it I who said it?—that it must be all or nothing, I, you, we, were right.
But I can’t be very good at lying because I know Roger has sensed my defection. He has always been causelessly jealous but he never actually did things about it. Now he’s started phoning me at work two or three times a day and last week he opened two letters that came for me. One of them was from mother and the other was an invitation to a dress show, but I couldn’t get all upstage and affronted virtue with him. How could I? After all, I do have a lover, I have deceived him….
A child, playing some distance off, gave his ball a massive kick so that it landed at Anthony’s feet. He bowled it back. Funny, how people thought it was only women who wanted to marry and have children of their own.
I remember all the things you taught me, principles on which to conduct one’s life. Applied Existentialism. I tell myself I am not responsible for any other adult person and that I am not in this world to live up to Roger’s expectations. But I married him, Tony. Didn’t I, in marrying him, go a long way towards promising to be responsible for his happiness? Didn’t I more or less say that he had a right to expect much from me? And he has had so little, poor Roger. I never even pretended to love him. I haven’t slept with him for six months. I only married him because he pressed me and pressed me and wouldn’t take my no….
Anthony frowned when he came to that bit. He hated her weakness, her vacillations. There were whole areas of her soft, sensitive personality he didn’t begin to understand. But here was the Bunyan passage—that made sense.
So why don’t I just tell him and walk out?—Leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell … Fear, I suppose, and compassion. But sense that was too short-lived. It’s because at the moment compassion is stronger than passion that I’m here and you’re alone in London.… He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket. He wasn’t downcast, only rather lonely, more than rather bored. In the end she would come to him, her own feelings for him were too strong to be denied. There had been things between them she would remember in his absence, and that memory, that hope of renewal, would be stronger than any pity. In the meantime? He threw back the child’s ball once more, rolled over on his side on the warm dry grass and slept.