by Anne Piper
“I thought you might be going on a long time,” she remarked sweetly as she settled down again. I could have told him that attrition tactics were no good with Prue. I lay back and closed my eyes.
About an hour later Prue was still sitting and Tom still talking, but Prue had had enough.
“I think it’s time you went now, Tom,” she said. “Claire looks very tired.”
“Tom —” I pleaded feebly.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Prue opened the door for him, and held it till he was safely in the passage. As soon as he was out of the flat, she shut herself in her room for a nice long practice. The first time she had touched the piano for ten days. She began softly and lovingly, but in a very few minutes the flat trembled to her arpeggios.
CHAPTER III
Now it is May. Now the Park is green and inviting, now shining ducks bounce on the Round Pond, now the walls of the Orangery welcome the sun. Why in heaven’s name doesn’t Prue go out more? Good for her spots, good for her figure, good for her general outlook.
“But I must practise, Claire, with the end of term so soon. Of course I’d love to go out.”
So I chose a drive in Allan’s car rather than a Sunday alone with the piano. Tom can never leave his family at the week-ends. We are going all the way to Wimbledon Common with our lunch.
“Are you sure you won’t come, Prue?”
“Quite, thank you, Claire. I think Allan would rather have you to himself anyway.”
“Oh no, he wouldn’t mind at all.”
It took a long time to find a suitable place to picnic. At first Allan worried about parking. When he finally consented to stop and get out, he had to go back twice to the car, once to take out some plug or other, and the second time to put up all the windows in case of rain. He looked suspiciously at a cloudless sky, would not believe that the ground could be dry enough to sit on without mackintoshes, fussed continuously about the best time to attempt the dangerous journey back.
“Oh do try and enjoy yourself, Allan. After all it is a fine day.”
“Can’t last.”
“All the more reason to be happy while it does.”
“You’re always so sensible, Claire.”
“Not the best compliment to choose — in any case I’m urging you to stop being sensible and careworn for a moment in order to consider these new birch leaves, this clear sky, the expression and the yellow cotton dress of the girl coming up the path on the arm of the scrubbed young man. In fact, let’s have a little eating and drinking and being merry for tomorrow we may have to go to the psychologist.”
“Claire, you know I can’t be merry when you won’t let me love you. I’ve been trying to get you alone for weeks, but there’s always Prue, or that man Tom or both of them. I never seem to see you nowadays. What’s happened? Have I done anything wrong?”
“Don’t be silly, Allan. It isn’t anything you’ve done
“Well — did I say something to offend you? You know I’d do anything to please you.”
“Oh don’t let’s talk about it now. Shall we have lunch? I’m ravenous.”
“Claire, Claire, please don’t put me off now. God knows when I’ll get another chance like this to talk to you alone. I simply must know what’s the matter.”
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“But you’ve changed so.”
“Have I? I didn’t mean to. I expect we’ve just been seeing too much of each other.”
“But, Claire, how can you say that? We’ve hardly seen each other at all for months. Not since Christmas, you don’t realise how unhappy I am.”
“I’m so sorry, Allan. But there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
“You could try and love me again.”
“Trying to love people never works. You must know that by now.”
“I suppose it’s Tom?”
“No, of course not. How could it be? Tom’s a friend, that’s all. Why, I never see him alone either, Prue’s a most effective chaperone for me.”
“I suppose I must believe you. But if it isn’t Tom, I don’t see why it can’t be me.”
“Oh Allan, please. I don’t love you and I’m terribly sorry about it, but I really can’t turn it on just to oblige. Shall we pretend to enjoy today while we’ve got it?”
“I suppose you’re wishing all the time you were with somebody else?”
“I shall be in a minute, if you say that sort of thing, but I’m trying very hard to keep my mind on egg-sandwiches.”
“How you must despise me. I don’t mean to talk like this, only the words somehow get forced out of me. I want to be an amusing companion for you, but all I seem able to do is whine about my bad luck.”
He looked as if he might cry. I opened the picnic basket hurriedly.
“Now then, Allan — just think about having lunch in an early summer wood with a friend. Think about stocks and shares, and tons of coal and the strawberry season coming.”
“Shan’t be able to afford them.” But he smiled a little all the same.
*
We reached home about seven, and I asked him in to supper.
“Hullo,” said Prue from the sitting-room window seat. “You’ve just missed Tom. He was here all the afternoon. Mary’s away for the weekend. I gave him tea, but he couldn’t stay any longer.”
“Oh,” I said. There didn’t seem anything else to say. I went into my room to change, and shut the door firmly on Allan.
When I came back Prue was still sitting on the window seat. Strangely enough, I’d had some vague hope that she might have started cooking the supper.
“Oh, Claire,” she said. “Tom said he might look in again tomorrow evening. Mary’s away until Tuesday.”
“Thank you,” I said.
So I came home on Monday feeling good. I was not prepared for the visitors I found. The front door stood open to admit another balmy evening, even from the bottom of the stairs I knew something was going on. Surely Prue wouldn’t give a large party without asking me? I could hear several voices and snatches of song. Perhaps Tom had come early and brought friends. I hurried into the sitting-room to find it empty — untidy, devastated, but empty, and at that moment an enormous burst of sound greeted me from Prue’s room next door. I sat down to gather strength, and the sound resolved itself into Mozart’s Clarinet quintet adequately rendered. The piano seemed to be chiming in too, or perhaps they were short of an instrument. Well better that than Rubbra, but even so she might have asked. I should be forced to stay in the whole evening listening to them. I daren’t go out if there was a chance that Tom might come.
In sadness and in resignation I made myself a sandwich and coffee, and returned to the window seat. Sitting there I could hear with my outside ear the cheering grind of buses from the end of the street. The people next door wheeled their baby down to the pub. The ugly little ginger boy from opposite practised figures of eight on his bicycle in the middle of the road, swoop, — and then just righting himself to miss Minou, who shot up the thickly flowering red may-tree in our front garden — a well known trysting place for cats.
Light was fading before I saw Tom. He walks fast but with his head down. I ran out into the road to meet him.
“Darling, Prue’s brought the whole college back tonight. They are playing away like lunatics. The flat’s quite uninhabitable.”
He stood looking at me, smiling, “Poor Claire, what you do suffer from that child. Where shall we go then — pub or park?”
“Park, please.”
The Round Pond ducks were flying home to roost. The air moved with their stirring and fussing before they settled on the water. The elegant little band-stand stood inked against a soft pink sky.
We were only another pair of lovers under the trees.
“Oh Tom, I should so like to be able to love you openly.”
“My dear, love is never open, always a secret thing.”
“Yes — but you know what I mean. If
you were run over, no one would tell me.”
“Prue would I’m sure — Claire darling, listen. I’ve had almost enough of this Prue business. For four months now she’s got in the way for one reason or another. Shall we take a holiday together?”
“But what about Mary?”
“I’ll manage Mary. I could push off for a week or so without upsetting her.”
“You mean you’d tell her?”
“Probably. She’d be glad of the chance to see her lover.”
“I’m glad I never married. I don’t see the point, if it’s like that.”
“You haven’t answered me, darling. Shall we?”
“Tom, I don’t know. It seems so cold-blooded.”
“Well, I’ve done my best by hot-blooded methods. Prue’s a match for me.”
“I must admit I’ve never loved anyone platonically for four months on end before. It’s a strain.”
“My God, Claire, if it’s a strain for you.what do you think it is for me?”
“A strain, I expect.”
It was difficult to speak lightly in his arms. I freed myself gently, I don’t want to go away with him because I don’t want it to end. I know him well enough to be sure that he’s not a long-term Romeo. If I give in, which goodness knows I’m longing to do, I shall just be another of those poor kids who write to Auntie Jane with a sweetly puzzled frown saying, “I only did it because he loved me so, and now he doesn’t.” I smiled, thinking of my letter.
“Claire — can’t you take anything seriously?”
“Tom darling, don’t worry. I take you very seriously. I’m simply eating my heart out for you.” But because I was laughing, he didn’t believe me, which was perhaps just as well. He is altogether too pleased with himself. I don’t think I like him at all. Unfortunately, I continue to love him like hell, so it doesn’t help.
“Well, you’d better make up your mind soon. The family holiday starts next month.”
“But you’ll be back, Tom, surely, you’re not emigrating?”
“Not quite, but a colleague of mine has lent us a villa in Switzerland.”
“Goodness me. How long do you expect to be away?”
“While the money lasts.”
I tried to see his face, but it was only a grey blur by now, and all expressions are sinister in the gloaming when the flesh falls away from the bones.
“Let’s go in,” I said, suddenly fearful of old age. This love would not be one to chafe the cockles of a sinking heart.
At the foot of the stairs I hesitated. “They can’t still be playing.”
“They certainly are,” said Tom. “And rather well too by the sound of it.”
In the sitting-room he took me in his arms again.
“The folly of it,” I murmured, “with all those young things only a wall away.”
He pulled me down on the sofa saying, “As long as they blow, we’re safe. That clarinet isn’t at all bad. Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her. I love the way your hair springs up off your head.”
“I ought to use Brylcream, I expect.”
“Don’t you dare, Tom.”
“How many bottles of scent have you got? You always smell deliciously different. I love this one tonight.”
“That’s ‘My sin.’”
“How unsuitable for our chaste affair. Don’t you think chastity is somehow degrading at our age?”
“I don’t know, Tom. I can’t say I ever considered it. I’ve never thought chastity degrading, only difficult.”
“Three cheers for chastity, but raise the roof for lust.”
He kissed me ferociously through several pages of the last movement of the quintet. I shall always hear it with pleasure.
A clanking of music stands announced the end of the party next door. I surfaced from seas of delight, withdrew myself from Tom’s too-sensitive hands, and went to get out the drinks.
“Prue,” I called, “bring your friends in for some gin.” Prue loped to the door her hair wilder than mine, her cotton frock crumpled, a triangular tear in the elbow of her cardigan.
“Claire — I didn’t know you were here. Hullo, Tom. I do hope you didn’t mind. We had nowhere else to practise tonight. I was going to ask you, but I never heard you come in.”
“That’s all right. Where are the other nigger minstrels?” Poor Prue winced, but she went to fetch them.
“Lena, you’ve met Claire already, and Liz of course you know, she was only listening — Jerry, Robin, and Brian.”
“Come in, come in. What’ll you have? Beer or gin? This is Liz’s brother-in-law Tom, in case any of you didn’t know.”
“Was the shepherd’s-pie all right, Tom,” Liz asked anxiously, “that I left for you?”
“Exquisite, a point at 7 p.m., when I ate it.”
“Oh good. I turned the oven down low before I went out. Was it enough? Are you hungry now?”
“Not at all, thank you, Liz. I’ll give you full marks to Mary.”
The big, bony, indistinguishable boys all chose beer. “Who’s the clarinet?” asked Tom.
“I am,” said the biggest of them, going pink to the edges of his sandy hair.
“Jolly good,” said Tom. “Are you at the College too?”
“No. The Academy. I know the Williamses at home, I’ve seen you about sometimes. But I usually go abroad in my holidays since I came out of the Army.”
I cast a professional aunt’s eye over the three of them and decided that Brian looked the most hopeful escort for Prue. He at least was talking. The other two still huddled by the door casting wild glances at my books. I therefore redisposed my forces, leaving Prue Tom and Brian at one end of the room, and drawing Jerry Robin Lena and Liz nearer to the drinks. I passed Tom a very stiff gin before I left him.
“Have you known Brian long?” I asked Prue when we were washing up the glasses later.
“About five years, I suppose,” she said. “He’s Liz’s friend really.”
“How old is he?”
“He must be twenty-two now.”
“He doesn’t look it — but he seemed nice. Why don’t you ask him again some time?”
“Oh Claire, don’t be so scheming.”
“I’m not scheming. I just thought it would be a change for you to have some other friends beside Liz.”
“I’ve got Lena.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Well, I don’t know what you did when you were young, Claire, but nowadays girls wait till the man asks them out.”
With which stunning shot she sailed off to bed.
*
But during the next week Brian came round four nights out of seven on some pretext or other. Instead of sharing my sitting-room in silence with Prue, I now shared it in silence with Prue and Brian. Prue seemed to make no concessions to him. As far as I could see, she never even ran a comb through her hair, but she did play the gramophone with surprising energy for very long stretches. The general silence was not then so noticeable.
“Why don’t you go out for a walk with him some evening?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” she replied.
“But surely Brian might think of something to say to you?”
“I don’t think so. He never did talk much. He only likes music.”
“Well, couldn’t you play duets?”
“We do that in the afternoons.”
I concealed my surprise. I hadn’t realised how much time they spent together.
“What about the flicks then?”
“Brian’s broke at the moment. We’re going to the theatre in June when his allowance comes in.”
Till then I supposed I must resign myself to even less privacy than before.
In this mood of frustrated resignation I met Mary one Saturday morning in a 73 in Oxford Street. Dear little Mary, the heart warms to her against all reason. I should, I’m sure, dislike Tom’s wife, but whenever I see that joyful, tubby figure I’m pleased and wish
we met more often.
“Claire, my dear, how nice to see you. How far are you going?”
“Only to Lewis’s. But let’s get off now and have coffee somewhere. I’m sure you have no time to spare, but it seems ages since —”
“Of course I have no time to spare, but I’d be delighted to waste some.”
We settled behind two cups of nasty grey coffee.
“Tell me all, Claire — what’s Prue up to?”
“I suppose she’s no worse than usual. How’s Liz?”
“I really think Liz has a boy friend at last, which should mean she gets out and about more.”
“Splendid. Who is he?”
“A boy we’ve known at home for years called Brian. Quite good-looking in an overgrown way, with pleasant manners he uses on the rest of the family as well.”
“Brian? Are you sure?”
“Oh yes. He came in to spend three evenings with us last week. We like him very much. I hope he’ll take Liz out soon, but at the moment he’s broke.”
“Mary — how awful. He spent four nights last week with us —”
“With you?”
“Well, sharing a silence with Prue.”
“Oh dear. Do you think he prefers Prue then? Liz is really rather fond of him.”
“He couldn’t possibly prefer Prue. No one in their senses but wouldn’t rather have a little golden-haired sunbeam like Liz. It must be because he can’t afford to go anywhere and doesn’t like to come to you every night of the week.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Claire. Except that you say he spent four nights with you — and it was only three with us.”
“Prue is really getting too much for me, it’s worse than having a daughter. At least one might be fond of a daughter, now I just have all the worry without any affection to leaven the anguish.”
“We ought to swop teenagers, because I don’t find Prue nearly as much trouble as you do. When she comes to us she’s quiet and charming as a rule.”
“How lovely that would be, Mary. But I hardly think Liz would approve.”
“As a matter of fact, I shan’t see Liz for at least three months this summer. We’re going abroad.”
“How will you manage to be away all that time?”