But it was Katherine who broke the ice, speaking with jerky conviction. ‘Sorry I was so silly at the Holmes’s party,’ she said, breaking bread with delicate fingers. ‘Time of the month, I expect. I do get so het up over little things sometimes, David says. Hope you didn’t mind. Where’s Monica?’
There was an edge Jenny chose to ignore. Katherine had been practising this speech, determined on self-control.
‘Monica can’t make it, sends apologies.’
‘Oh what a shame,’ said Katherine. ‘Only I’ve brought a couple of rugs from the shop, surplus to requirements, actually far too cheap for his usual stock.’ She was ferreting around in a bag, finally flourishing two small rugs, recognized by Jenny as Indian numdahs, but exquisite examples of their kind, pinks, greens and blues against a warm but impractical cream background, looking more like embroidered material than covering for a floor. Katherine relaxed slightly as she produced the colours. Colours soothed her. So did the survival of Jenny’s scrutiny. That was another thing she had read somewhere in a magazine. About how if you show people you need them, they run away.
‘Do they wash?’ Jenny asked, knowing they did not, but looking temptation in the face. Numdah rugs were relatively cheap, but never so cheap they would go free and she had a dreadful suspicion they were not surplus to requirements. ‘If they don’t wash, they won’t be much good in our house.’ Katherine’s face fell, and Jenny was aware of sounding brusque. ‘But Katherine,’ she said more gently, ‘they’re far too nice to give away. Couldn’t you use them?’ She stroked the rough wool; very superior numdah rugs. Katherine was still one step behind, listening to the previous response. ‘Put them some place where the children don’t go,’ she suggested blithely. Jenny was reflecting how in her whole, large house, there was no such place, thinking also of how much she always wanted these offerings of Katherine’s, seeing the pastel colours in her bedroom, one each side of the bed, two for herself and none for Monica. Serve Monica right. ‘Thank you very much,’ was all she said, remembered to establish the fact that she would be paying for lunch, knowing it was cheap at the price, thinking how this, too, had become a ritual, and without further thought, settled to talk of nothing.
If I say something, Katherine thought: if I tell her what happened, she won’t believe me. She’ll think it was me: she’ll stop smiling and stop liking me. I can’t. She let Jenny set the pace.
Mary Allendale had chosen to lunch in the same place, or at least the same street. Latterly she had decided to extend the number of treats she allowed herself, increasing the range from expensive teas to the occasional frugal lunch in expensive surroundings. The fact that she approached most of these venues by bicycle somehow made all indulgences perfectly OK, even after careful examination of her bank account had given her several moments of shame. She was actually very much better off than she cared to admit: the discovery of this fact coincided with the need for treats. While she had kept her expenditure constant for the last few years, her salary had bounded and a nest-egg accumulated. Wonderful to contemplate over a solitary lunch. Katherine and I, she thought, how we hated being poor, but I must not grow like my little sister, never quite, if I can help it, such an addict of the opposite, but the money excited her, made her understand a little of the sense of power it could bring, at a time when she was desperately in need of some distraction.
A strange kind of panic had begun to take hold, a creeping paralysis which was affecting all her efforts to be useful. Those who worked with her, seeing a person always determined to maintain control, analysed the condition as loneliness, a sense of isolation which had increased ever since she had lost Katherine. Didn’t have anyone else, poor soul: probably wanted a baby at her age, but Mary would have defied any such accurate guesses as rubbish; stated that all she needed was good food and fresh air. And maybe, just maybe, the reassurance of a lover. Claud was under her skin more than she had ever known, and Claud had disappeared. She pretended not to mind, but she did mind, very much, moving about in a state of hurting which was unbelievably acute, taking to Bond Street for today’s cure. Bond Street always brought about some kind of recovery because the sheer extravagance of the place made her so furious. As well as self-indulgently jealous.
Modus Shoes, Fenwick’s Designer Range, New Bond Street silversmiths, galleries replete with Old Master paintings entirely free of price indications; she paused before each display without really looking at the goods, only considering the monumental waste implicit in all these things. She also looked with the eye of a Robin Hood. Perhaps Bond Street was a place for collecting tins; maybe she could persuade these effete establishments to canvass their customers for charity. No, they wouldn’t do that, nothing so obvious, but how beautiful it was. Small windows, perfectly dressed, a series of exquisite still-lifes. This was the sort of place where Katherine often came in her spare afternoons. She felt a stab of envy for Katherine’s security and a surge of grief in the realization that her sister had not telephoned in ages. Mary could see why that wayward child would like to linger here. Looking at silver, gold, silk and paintings was like looking at stars.
Mary was standing enthralled, admiring a window rich with Persian carpets, when she spotted him across the street. The dark background of the display made the window a perfect mirror, his pale-blond head catching her eye as he sauntered past on the opposite pavement, pausing himself in front of a similar display, obscured for a minute by a car in the narrow road, revealed again in all his glory, Claud, the lover of Saturday afternoons or some early evening in the week, a regular tryst in her flat, one of Katherine’s souvenirs, the last of the many partners. Mary’s lover, still resorting to the same flat, Mary’s flat, same place for the same exercise as he had done for years, but not for the last two weeks, so the shock of seeing him was so palpable Mary began to tremble. Holidays, she had been told: no alibi from family and wife in the South of France; see you when I get back, but here, untanned, large as life unless this still handsome vision was a ghost, the same gambling man. Mary kept her eyes fixed on the window until he passed, then looked after him, recognizing the contours of his shoulders, the all too substantial flesh, and in confirming her own identification, confirmed the fact of his lies. A man sauntering through a familiar route, rubbing more salt into her own wounds with each step.
Mary shook herself, moved down the pavement, walked into Modus Shoes and purchased one pair of frivolous red sandals she was most unlikely to wear, paying by credit card and wanting nothing more than to sit for a minute, rationalize, put away that great gulp of emotion which afflicted her. Don’t lie to me, she had said: I am not my sister: I know my limitations, but don’t lie to me. I’m not asking anything but that. When the shoes were brought back to her in brilliant green paper the colour of envy, she accepted them dumbly, and moved towards lunch. Food was her own first aid for hurt.
Anywhere would suffice although sheer hunger had faded, anything accompanied by a drink to restore the equilibrium of the day. The wine bar she had earmarked earlier was twenty yards north: she walked briskly in the same direction he had taken, scolding herself, dazzled by the sunshine, slightly restored. Then sidled between the tables, blinded by the contrast of the half-dark interior, and with eyes still refocusing, saw Katherine at the back of the room. Outstanding little sister who had lain with the man in the street who never failed to ask after her with such carefully disguised feeling, the same girl in luminous white blouse, the eyes surrounded by kohl, the hair swept back off the forehead like a horse’s mane, her long hands flicking through a magazine and the legs below the short skirt elegantly, but tightly crossed. An attitude of nervous waiting, tense body below over-made-up face, was all Mary comprehended as she turned on her heel and moved deftly back to the door before her sister could see her. Katherine just had to be waiting for Claud, early as usual for every appointment, he just as consistently late. From beyond the grave, the huge good fortune of marriage, Katherine was reclaiming her territory. The presence of them both in
the same twenty yards had no other explanation, nor did his lies. After all, it was they who were at home in this kind of world, familiar with this incessant trade in luxuries, while it was Mary who was an interloper: who felt as if her face had been held, and carefully scraped with sandpaper.
‘Of course,’ Jenny said, returning from the loo, pointing to the magazine Katherine had been showing to her and still held, ‘of course I see what you mean. That’s the kind of conservatory David builds, like he’s going to do for Monica? No good for us, though. We need a loft extension, something to use as a playroom for the kids,’ she added wistfully. ‘So we can keep the place tidier.’ Katherine beamed. ‘Oh David’ll do that for you,’ she said. ‘He knows all about those because he’s just done some plans for his.’
Not ours, Jenny noticed; His. She stirred uncomfortably. ‘Going to make it into a flat,’ Katherine explained. ‘For what?’ Jenny asked, anxious to keep the conversation neutral. ‘For Granny, I hope. She’s sweet, David’s mother.’ Jenny laughed, gathering up her rugs. ‘There’s probably room up there for both your mothers.’ Katherine’s face assumed that bleak look Jenny recognized from the ladies’ lavatory at the Kenwood party, the look which presaged self-revelation and imminent need.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she began with a deep breath, her voice wobbling ominously.
‘Goodness!’ Jenny said. ‘Look at the time. I really must fly.’
‘I should go back to work,’ Monica murmured, the reluctance poorly concealed in the businesslike words. ‘But this has been lovely, delicious, in fact. Excellent, for a man.’ The attempt at teasing was out of place, Monica out of her depth. David was equally delectable, she found, her body lazy in the summer light of the sunny Allendale kitchen, and all of her warm towards him. So lacking in self-pity he was for such an awkward life, revealed piecemeal in two hours of hints and stories indicative less of the desire for attention than the desire to amuse, but all the same there were telling jokes about a terrible childhood, a history which turned him into something courageous. He had made all this, he explained, together with one small fortune, with his own bare hands, his own inventive genius and no assistance from his peers, no nepotism, no silver spoon; quite the opposite. And not about to let any of it go, she imagined, seeing in all his words a fierce possessiveness. But his marriage, dear God, his marriage: he was treating the fiasco of that, all Katherine’s understated irresponsibility, with the nobility of a saint, mentioned difficulties and impossible behaviour without elaborating. ‘I’m so pleased you’re all friends,’ David had said, referring to herself, Katherine and Jenny, but Monica herself was no longer so sure about that, not in Katherine’s case at least, now she had some idea of what he had to tolerate. Oh, poor, brave man. Monica knew no more powerful aphrodisiacs than pity or wine and she was well supplied with both.
‘Don’t go yet, please,’ David said. He came and stood at the back of her chair, touched her lightly on the shoulder, inviting no response. She had half expected the touch, slightly disappointed to find anything of the kind so absent from the other two meetings, her conscience dying now. ‘Katherine won’t be back before five,’ he added inconsequentially. ‘Come and see my studio.’
She walked upstairs to the studio as if this was no more than the guided tour she had been given on other, public visits to this house, content to be led, making remarks about how beautiful it was while admiring his back and pretending herself as serene as these surroundings, never stopping to pause or examine as she would had she been that kind of tourist. His unlocking of the door of his studio puzzled her since she could not see why it should be locked, but she forgot to ask for reasons, dazed by the colours of the room, light from both windows dimmed by the blinds making the whole interior richer, like landscapes seen through tinted sunglasses, more luxurious than anyone could ever require for the discipline of work.
‘We could take a post-prandial here,’ David suggested. Monica sat obediently on one of the chesterfields, watching him open doors in the small kitchenette at the far end, thought of the squealing of children, the total lack of privacy of her own house, sighed with pleasure. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I would like to live here. Just in this little bit. I wish I could work at home and be left alone . . .’ aware she was gabbling slightly, a sudden sweat of nerves like blood to the head, the waist of her skirt tight, her hands sticky as she pushed back her hair, acutely conscious, as she was for every minute with him, of her own appearance, pulling down her skirt, crossing her legs, adjusting her low-necked cerise blouse where the top button seemed to have come undone of its own volition, aware of being watched in her own self-betrayal, flattered by his appreciation, but more by his confidences and the sheer physical power of a large, dark man. Her own was small and fair, streamlined Colin whom she saw in her mind’s eye fluttering among the women at parties like a butterfly, all golden, and oh what was she doing here, the faithful wife taking revenge, wallowing in it. David sat next to her, his weight as heavy as her own wanting, so when he kissed her, she could not resist, did not even object as the next kiss drew the wine-laden breath out of her mouth and his fingers slid beneath the buttons of the blouse. ‘Katherine,’ she muttered, ‘what about Katherine?’ her mind full of questions and late-starting guilt. ‘Out,’ he murmured back. ‘Out for hours, I told you. Plenty of time. Darling Monica, how strong, how lovely you are.’ They were sliding from the chesterfield towards the thick carpet of the floor, and her cerise blouse began to slip down from one shoulder. He cradled her head in one arm, very tenderly, pushed back the material and freed one large breast from the confines of a lacy brassière, bent and took the nipple into his mouth. One hand of hers fluttered the merest protest, then came to rest on the back of his head, fingers lost in the thickness of soft hair, pulling him towards her. The pupils of his eyes were as black as ink. ‘Plenty of time,’ he murmured, ‘plenty of time.’ Somewhere from another corner of the room, a radio was playing softly, some innocent concerto. Monica heard snatched, harmonic sound between her own breathing and the sensation of his tongue.
Katherine knew she would have to go home. The lingering bruises around her neck and eyes had lost the power to hurt, but somehow added to the lassitude of heat already made worse by her one glass of wine to Jenny’s three. She peered at herself in the mirror of Selfridge’s ladies’ conveniences, hating the quantity of eye make-up the psychedelic yellow of her eyelids made so necessary. She could only remember blows to one eye from the muggers, but the emergence of two small sets of bruises had seemed somehow just while granting a kind of symmetry to an attack which she knew now was entirely her own fault. Retiring to hidden corners like this became more frequent as the days went on, her steps taking her in the direction of the nearest privacy whenever she saw dark faces in the street, the sight of them gripping her with waking nightmares and a trembling she could not control. ‘You brought it all on yourself,’ David had said, sadly. ‘You must learn to be responsible, but we won’t tell anyone. You know what? They’d laugh at you, darling, laugh themselves sick. Go out and prove you’ve grown up. Be normal.’ She was trying to be what she perceived as normal, the illusion slipping, every action one of will.
The crowds had lost their power to embrace. Go home, go home, then. There was no energy whatever today for the gym and absolutely no money in her purse. If only Jenny had offered her five pounds for the rugs, she might have stayed out longer, but it had not been offered and she could not have asked, not even to relieve the penury which was her daily affliction. All these ploys to get money: changing the dresses David bought, bargaining for lunches with pieces of material, cheating the customer who would never notice, combing the shops for bargains when sent out on one of David’s errands, whilst he, with systematic thoroughness, searched her pockets, her handbags, found every other little cache in the house where she hid her pathetic savings, all except for Jeanetta’s room where there were several one-pound coins remaining secreted in an old rattle. She never discovered him in any of the sea
rches, never realized for a long time what he did, and because she was still not entirely sure, never challenged the practice any more than she could have challenged the constant changing of the rooms, the alterations in the kitchen and bathroom which so disorientated her, or the arbitrary removal of disliked garments from her wardrobe which she might so well have thrown away herself. All for your own good, darling: I must have order in this house. Perhaps he never did any of these things: when she pictured herself explaining she could see how ridiculous it was.
The Playroom Page 16