The vagrant had nowhere to go and nowhere he wanted to go. His knowledge of the geography of even this part of London was fairly scant, the ignorance his downfall. Weeks since, he had been swept up like municipal rubbish, moved on when his bedding-place in the West End, down by Charing Cross, had turned overnight into a quagmire of a building site. Seeking its familiarity, he had blundered back one night, hit his head on a piece of scaffold, spied none of his quarrelsome fellows, but a security man with a dog, both of them barking. So he had walked away from the restaurants and the copious cardboard boxes and the downtown hostels he had always despised. But the effort was a dislocation with all known memories, the alteration in habits merely a shift but in practice a monumental change. This was not home: the quotient of pity so much less in these richer, quieter streets.
So. His activities had not always been honest and honesty had become irrelevant: he loved pretty things to the extent that he was often tempted to take them, but somehow forgiveness was forthcoming, although he feared the police and most others he encountered. Taking things was not natural, but inevitable to bargain for the billet at the end of the road where one surly acquaintance slept by day in order to wander by night; from ten in the evening the vagrant man took over the bed. The other occupant occasionally shared dyspeptic food gleaned from a restaurant he would not reveal in return for whatever the other had brought. Only these days the vagrant could not always find his way back to the billet, the sense of direction, like his command of speech, disintegrating.
The sun warmed his stomach as he sat in the park and watched the women, leering without any real intent, beyond all that, none of it even real any more. But the fair woman had been nice, baby nice. The thought of the little child in the pushchair made his palms sweat. Dimly he realized that he had been very nimble that afternoon, might never be as lucky again, especially his hands, but stepping inside that house had been suicidal. Thank God for the child in the carriage. He raised one grubby wrist and slapped at it with the other hand. Naughty. Hungry.
Katherine was preparing a meal. She had cooked salt beef at the weekend, a long slow broiling left to cool, for consumption now with warm potato salad. Mayonnaise to be blended, chives taken from a corner of the rose garden to be chopped, new Jersey potatoes little bigger than marbles, boiling merrily. Before all this there would be a delicate cocktail, pink grapefruit segments combined with prawns and a dash of single cream, the remainder of the cream, minimal amounts to be used thereafter for strawberries, frozen but luscious. Concentrating hard to block thoughts, she had checked the supplies of high-baked water biscuits and cheese, for David, not herself, but found supplies low. He must have eaten at lunch, in quantity, and she did not want to contemplate that.
Jeanetta was dressed for bed but claiming hunger which her mother conceded as genuine. Katherine set a place at the table – oh let her eat after such a tiring day – and besides, even with all the ineptitude of her clumsy maternal instinct, Katherine wanted her daughter to stay where she was, wanted with her in this kitchen something of her own. David’s mood had been so benign he would make an exception to the usual impatience and Jeanetta seemed disposed to be good. Not my child, he had said so often: not mine; ugly and ungainly . . . Look at her. And while Katherine had been reassured by Mary saying nonsense, comforted by infinitesimal David-like resemblances she imagined she had seen, she was, in her very heart of hearts, wretchedly unsure. There had been Claud, and Claud had been very persistent; she could never say no to Claud: confrontation made her sick. But latterly David’s stabbing remarks on the subject had eased a little, his kindness following the Americans’ party had been prevalent and when he was gentle, she was optimistic. She remembered that and deliberately tidied away all the images of the afternoon, bent over the food with deft but nervous fingers translating to the ingredients her own aesthetic passion for the finished result. Everything was going to be all right provided she kept control. Jeanetta played on the floor, singing broken rhymes to a large doll which was placed in Jeremy’s pushchair like a throne. Katherine could not guess where the doll had come from since neither she nor David had provided it.
‘Mummy, Mummy, look!’
‘What, darling?’ She could not look immediately since the state of the mayonnaise was crucial. She kept her eyes fixed for the next few seconds, then looked. Jeanetta had been holding aloft a necklace and then in the face of her mother’s indifference, rammed it over the head of the doll which had belonged to a Harrison child, a battered doll with an old-fashioned face, blue eyes and thin blonde hair. The necklace hung across one of the eyes, heavy gold links, every third link decorated with sparkle in an understated brilliance which twinkled for the eye rather than blinded. A non-garish, beautiful necklace.
Katherine dropped her spoon and went to look. ‘Mine,’ said Jeanetta, trying to snatch the gold out of her mother’s hands. ‘Mine, I found it.’
‘Where?’
‘In Jeremy’s chair. Down the side.’
‘Did you put it there?’
‘Course not. Why?’
The necklace shone heavily in the palm of her hand and she held the heaviness of it to the light. As a voyeur of pretty things, devotee of jewellers’ windows, her instinct had her looking immediately for the hallmarks, surmising how the diamonds, in all their careful lack of ostentation, were perfectly real. ‘Where?’ she repeated to Jeanetta. ‘Where?’
‘Pushychair,’ Jeanetta bellowed. ‘I said.’
Katherine sank to the floor beside her daughter. ‘Did you take it?’
‘No, no, no.’ She was puzzled, affected by the rising note of alarm in her mother’s voice. ‘Don’t really like it, much,’ she offered by way of further proof. Katherine panicked, some great tide of guilt rising up in her throat, still holding the thing in fingers which burned. Worse than all the toys Jeanetta had ‘found’, far worse.
‘We’d better hide it,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Daddy . . .’
‘Don’t tell Daddy what?’
She jumped at the sound of his voice from behind her neck, began to stuff the necklace into the pocket of her slacks, but he held her wrist gently, withdrew the gold, examining it carefully.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘our esteemed neighbour, Mrs Susan Pearson Thorpe, is going to miss this. In due course. She wore it, remember, last time she was here. Nice little bauble.’
‘It was in the pushchair,’ Katherine gabbled, ‘Jeremy’s chair. Down the side, I think, Jeanetta just found it. Someone must have put it there.’
‘Yes, I expect someone did.’ David looked at her sorrowfully. ‘Oh, darling, what shall I do with you both? Like mother, like daughter.’ He had heard, recited by them all, the outline narrative of the vagrant intruder, also heard Katherine’s rendition of Mrs Harrison’s story of the Pearson departure, and the wife’s affection for the solace of alcohol, absorbed all this information giving licence for exaggeration, but only seemed to remember Katherine going into the house for tea.
‘Don’t be silly, saying someone must have put it there. Either you or this little monster took it. You’ve both been in the house with Susan Pearson out. Perfectly obvious to me. First time you’ve been right inside there for a fortnight and that has to be the day a necklace walks out with you.’
‘But I only went into the basement . . .’
‘Not a single trip to the loo? Nothing of the kind?’
‘I don’t remember,’ she said, faltering. Memory was something she could never trust. She did not know, could not remember any more what she had done.
‘Probably not, darling. You can’t help it, can you? Or Jeanetta can’t, not fussy about whose dolls or whose pyjamas. What do you want me to do, call the police? Or take this round next door without delay and see who’ll believe you there?’
There was silence. Katherine remembered the icy displeasure of her departure, Mrs Harrison’s look of acute disappointment. David placed the necklace on the chopping board where it glittered with subdued richness against t
he vivid green of the chives. ‘Is she . . .’ he nodded in Jeanetta’s direction, ‘. . . staying up?’
‘She hasn’t eaten.’
After all the accusations against him which had passed through her mind Katherine was now completely defensive, almost whining. ‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Shall I finish this?’ He chopped the chives with the efficiency of a chef, the knife flashing next to the golden links. As an afterthought, he placed the necklace in his own pocket with an absent gesture, and continued chopping. Katherine drained the potatoes, added a dash of cream and a smaller dash of alcohol to the prawns. Jeanetta hauled herself up to the table, adjusted her cushions and waited in mulish silence.
‘I think it will be better if the children don’t go next door any more,’ David said, stirring mayonnaise and chives into the potatoes. ‘Not after this. And not if the mistress of the house is on the bottle, living without a man. Anyway, the dog makes Jeremy sneeze.’
‘But he loves it so,’ Katherine protested, echoing Mrs Harrison.
‘That has nothing to do with anything.’
She was defeated: her hands were slowing to a standstill over the food, watching him do everything so much faster than herself. The hunger which had dogged her day through a half-eaten lunch when she had been trying all the time to speak, was sunk to a hollow ache. Guilt about Jeanetta, confusion and guilt about everything else, filled her bones.
‘Who’ll look after them, then?’ she managed to question through the lump in her throat and rising anger which she knew she was not going to be able to express.
‘You for Jeanetta, me for Jeremy. Very democratic. Oh and nursery school. All fixed. I’ll tell Susan Pearson tomorrow, after they come home. Mr Isaacs phoned, by the way.’
‘Who?’ Katherine’s reactions had reached an all-time low as they sat at the table. A small portion of prawns sat on Jeanetta’s Peter Rabbit plate accompanied by brown bread and butter. She looked unconvinced by the spectacle.
‘Mr Isaacs. Katherine, are you listening? He phoned about certain things missing from the shop, darling. Rugs, pieces of fabric, you know, a few things like that.’ David spoke in the same even tone, no accusation whatever. ‘Don’t worry, darling. We won’t talk about it now. I managed to calm him down so he won’t go rushing to the police, but he doesn’t want you back. So everything’s worked out very nicely, after a fashion. I never liked you at work anyway: I like you here. Do eat, darling: you’ve been getting rather thin and these are quite delicious.’
Jeanetta collected the food on to her spoon, put it all into her mouth and chewed slowly until the bitter taste of grapefruit hit the back of her throat. David was on her left, Mummy opposite. She leant over the plate and without much delicacy, inclining slightly towards her father, let the whole mixture drop back out of her mouth and on to Peter Rabbit. Occasional fragments of pink prawn and yellow grapefruit hit the cloth placed carefully to protect the table. ‘Yuk,’ said Jeanetta, ‘yukkie, yukkie, yukkie.’
‘Eat it, Jeanetta,’ David ordered. ‘Just eat. Good for you.’
‘She doesn’t like this sort of food, I shouldn’t have . . . I never know what to give her,’ Katherine watched, words trailing away. ‘. . . Eat the bread, darling.’
‘No, eat the grapefruit,’ David repeated. Jeanetta’s blue eyes went from one to the other, looking for support, finding none. Slowly she picked up two fragments of prawn, then put her fingers into the plate, pushed three segments of fruit into her mouth. Katherine relaxed a fraction and began to eat her own. Then Jeanetta spat the new mouthful in David’s direction, showering the table, settled back with a grin of triumph. ‘Can I have a bikky, Mummy? Can I, can I, want bikky.’ Then seeing the faces, added, ‘Please.’
David took a sip of his wine, pushed back his chair without a word, came round to Jeanetta and from behind her stiff back, wiped her dirty chin roughly with his napkin. She cried out in pain. ‘You eat what we eat, you little bastard, or you eat nothing.’ She bit at his hand and he flicked the napkin across her face. Then he plucked her from the chair, scattering the cushions, carried her the length of the room, her legs still curled in the position she had sat in, dumped her on the floor of the playroom alcove, throwing after her the necklace from his pocket and her sweater grabbed from the back of the pushchair. Astonishment prevented screams until he closed the door. As she came alive and began to shriek, he fished in the other pocket, pulled out a key and turned it in the lock, returning the key to his trousers. By the time Jeanetta began to scream and hammer on the inside of the door, David was back at the table, finishing the appetizer with quick, controlled mouthfuls. Katherine was frozen. ‘Let’s have some music on, shall we?’ he suggested. ‘I really can’t stand that noise.’
Monica sat with Colin at the kitchen table. They rarely occupied the splendour of the dining room unless they were entertaining, which was frequent but not as often as Colin would have liked. He was never bored with Monica: that was not the point, but he loved her diluted in company rather better. Alone together, she had the tendency to cross-examine and although he practised deceit like an art form, the repetition of half-truth being second nature, he blushed in the stating of fully formed lies. Today he found her surprisingly serene, remembered some mumble of the morning about lunch with the girls, risked a casual inquiry.
‘How’s our Jenny then? Did you meet?’
‘Nope. I had to cancel. I’ll see her tomorrow.’ Monica’s intellect was quicker than Colin’s and she had learned sooner, by his reverse example, how much easier to lie if the bulk of what one said happened to be the truth. ‘Poor you,’ Colin sympathized. ‘No lunch then?’ ‘Oh you know me,’ Monica said airily. ‘I always manage to eat. Want some more?’
She pointed to the dish of haddock mornay, fresh from freezer to microwave and thence to table. ‘No thanks,’ he said, ‘I’m not very keen on fish.’ Normally she would have snorted, said something faintly feminist along the lines of well you do the shopping since we don’t seem able to find anyone who will, but this evening she grinned, positively devilish towards him, smiling sweet and smelling sweeter. ‘You should eat it. Fish is good for you. Stiffens the sinews.’
‘Stiffens what sinews?’ He grinned back, forgetting questions about lunch since there would clearly be no mention of Katherine. ‘All of them,’ she said lightly, ‘I hope.’
The telephone rang, an Edwardian reproduction perched on the stand of the reproduction Edwardian table in the hall. Monica moved from table to receiver with speed, remembering in time to slow down a little and thinking as she lifted the mouthpiece, how much David would have hated the thing.
‘Hiya, Monica, how did it go?’
Monica’s heart leapt into her mouth.
‘What do you mean, how did what go?’
‘Your business lunch, whatever it was so important for you to cancel me, again, remember?’ said Jenny, puzzled on the other end of the line.
‘Oh, that? Fine, perfectly fine. Tell you tomorrow.’ She turned her back to the kitchen to prevent Colin seeing her smiling. ‘Usual place?’
‘Surely. Look, I must talk to you a bit about Katherine, not now, tomorrow, I mean. On the phone if you don’t get there,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’ve been slightly worried, a bit guilty really . . .’ The mention of Katherine’s name, alongside the word ‘guilt’, brought another lurch, subsiding this time within a breath. ‘Worried? Why should you be worried? Or me, for that matter, or any of us? What did she say to make you worried?’
‘Nothing really,’ Monica slumped. ‘Only I think she’s got some problems and I couldn’t bring myself to listen. She brought me some rugs, you missed out there, but she’s on my conscience a bit . . . I don’t know, think we ought to do something, only I don’t know what . . .’
Monica thought fast and hard of Katherine flirting with Colin, of all the anecdotes she had heard over her own lunch, and all the horrors. She could not afford too close an acquaintance with this particular life.
‘Katherine Allendale,
’ she said firmly, ‘is quite capable of looking after herself.’
Colin pretended not to hear this last remark as he busied himself with the removal of the dishes, domesticated to that degree, but looking for the port to go with the cheese, fetching a glass for his wife in the hope of extending the existing mellowness. But the mood needed no massage, continued sublime without any assistance. The house was quiet, late evening, children asleep, no interruptions. He passed her chair and deposited a kiss on her neck. ‘Early night?’ he asked, the lightest suggestion in his voice. She nodded vigorously.
‘Leave the dishes; the pans are done. Tomorrow will do, don’t fuss so, darling, I’ll do them.’ David sat back and lit a small cigar.
‘How can you be so calm,’ Katherine whispered, ‘with all that racket?’
‘All what, oh that.’ He did not turn his head in the direction of the playroom door, which vibrated very slightly in the increasing hysteria of Jeanetta’s kicks. ‘Only temper. She’ll have to learn, Katherine: we all have to learn. Her manners are dreadful. Listen, even her noises are ugly. You know I loathe anything ugly. She just has to learn, that’s all, if she wants to live here.’
The Playroom Page 18