by Anne Piper
“A colleague of Tom’s is lending us a house near Geneva. Liz says she’d rather be in Sussex. Mainly because of Brian, I think, so I do hope you are right and he doesn’t fancy Prue all the time.”
“How wonderful it would be to have the flat to myself even for a month. I must force Prue to go to the sea. I expect you’ll be glad to get away, Mary.”
“Well, I’m most glad for Tom because he has been working so hard lately. Do you know, Claire, he sometimes doesn’t come back from the lab till eleven o’clock at night? — and he even went in on Sunday not long ago.”
Looking at her little, guileless face and distressed blue eyes across the table, I had no difficulty in believing that Tom had palmed off all the old chestnuts on her. And what’s more, I thought to myself, I’d stake the Albert Memorial to a pound of tea that Mary is the soul of fidelity to her horrible husband. My blood quite boiled at the way her horrible husband was treating her and the hideous things he said about her.
Lovers indeed — poor Mary. I whirled home in a high state of righteous indignation to find Tom sitting on the top stair outside the flat.
“Door’s locked,” he remarked.
“It would stay locked,” I said in a rage, “if it weren’t that what I have to say to you can’t be shouted all over the stairs.”
“Now what’s up?” Tom walked into the sitting-room and turned to face me with the charm turned on full blast. I knew I’d have to get it over pretty quick before my rage ran out.
“Everything’s up, we’re up. I don’t want to see you any more.” I banged about a bit to keep myself near boiling.
“My darling Claire, why ever not? Of all the harmless pastimes I indulge in, seeing you is certainly one of the most innocuous.”
“It may seem innocuous to you, but I’m perfectly certain that it wouldn’t be to Mary if she knew.”
“Knew what? What is there to know?”
“Well, knew how often you came round here.”
“To spend a quiet evening playing whist with you and Prue?”
“Oh don’t twist out of it — you know what I mean, you misrepresented Mary and the whole of your married life to me. I’ve always sworn I wouldn’t get mixed up with married men. I wish to God I’d never met you.”
“Darling — I wish we were mixed up. That’s what’s the matter. Shall we go away, and soon?”
“No, no, and no. Now go away before I start throwing things.”
“You mustn’t love me so much, Claire, you’ll upset yourself.”
“I hate you, and I wouldn’t dream of upsetting myself — nothing I like better than chucking the furniture about. I used to be quite good at cricket at school. The jolly, outdoor, sports girl, who doesn’t give a damn, that’s me. Now go.”
But of course by that time I was crying in an excited, hysterical way, not having meant to at all, so he had me in his arms again, rocking me gently, making soothing noises to my hair.
“Oh darling — don’t. It’s not as bad as that. When is Prue coming back?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She never told me she was going out. She might be five minutes or five hours.”
I sat up and blew my nose. At my age one can’t afford the luxury of crying too long. I went to the bathroom in search of a cold sponge, and there was the click of Prue’s key in the front door. I heard her walk into the sitting-room and greet Tom. I turned quickly away from my despairing eyes in the looking-glass. Despair is not a becoming emotion.
“Been shopping?” I asked Prue brightly. She lolled on the arm of a chair, a full string bag bumping against her long legs.
“Oh no, Claire, roller-skating.”
She rose and stretched, slightly widening the tear at the waist of her frock — a little clever adjustment under her belt and it hardly showed.
“I must go and practise — I suppose lunch won’t be for another hour, Claire?”
“No, I suppose not.”
She wandered off, bumping from wall to wall of the narrow passage on her way to her room. It is one of her favourite and most irritating games. I winced with each bounce until her door banged.
“That’s that,” said Tom. “I’d better be getting home.”
I felt too tired to start the scene over again.
“Yes — you go home,” I said mildly, “and don’t come here any more.”
“You mean that, darling?”
“Yes. I mean it.”
“I’ll be waiting for you to ring, and say you’ve changed your mind about our little holiday.”
“I shan’t change my mind. This is the end.”
“If you really want it that way?”
“Yes please.”
He walked out and downstairs without another word.
I picked up Minou and held him very close to my face. His purrs made a comfortable roaring in my ears.
“It’s over,” I told him. “It’s all over now. The last and most devastating, and most abortive of my affairs. Now I shall settle to being a proper spinster and you’ll get very fat and smelly, and old and dribbly, and leave your black and white hairs all over me.”
I leant against the front door and grew melancholy, and resolved to avoid feeling anything ever again.
The bell rang and I opened the door cautiously. “Hullo,” said Allan. “May I come to lunch?”
“I suppose so,” I said, holding the door wider.
CHAPTER IV
Mary wrote at the beginning of June to suggest that Prue spend her holidays with them in Geneva.
“She would be such a help with the children and we could use her foreign allowance, and pay her in English money when we get back. Do you think she would agree to this ‘wage freeze’? I should so like to have her with us and would gladly give her £2 a week for the pleasure of being free from time to time.”
“Would you like it, Prue?” I asked, trying to conceal my own elation.
“Oh Claire — it would be heaven. Six whole weeks in Switzerland — think of it.”
“I didn’t know you were so fond of children.”
“Not all children, but Mary’s are nice on the whole, and Mary herself is a dear. I’m sure she’d be easy to work for. I’d thought of taking a job in England for a few weeks anyway but this would be far more fun. Nice Mary — shall I write, Claire, or will you?”
“I think it would be polite if we both wrote.”
“I shall now,” and she rushed out of the room. I hadn’t seen her look so pleased or ordinary for months. Funny child, but the joy to be without her. I began to plan a trip to France myself. Perhaps I could even take my holiday in September when she was due back, and thus avoid her for at least two months.
I tried so hard not to think about Tom. I tried too hard. I kept myself busy enough at the office all day, even working late into the hot light evenings, but when the others had gone, and I sat at my desk in an odd stillness uncrackled with typewriters, my eyes strayed again and again to the trees outside.
Those are no-good trees I told myself. They look green and cool from this height, but if I came close to them they’d be too black to touch. But not too black to stand under. Then I leaned on the window-sill, looking down, and longing for the feel of Tom’s fingers under the trees. It was a bad time. Three weeks, four weeks, and I was hopping mad to see him. Perhaps if I just have a drink with him before he goes abroad. Just to say goodbye. After all he may be away three months. If it’s like this after three weeks, what about three months? Round and round ticked my brain, and round and round rushed my blood after it.
One morning I knew for certain that I’d go away with him. I’d ring him at once and tell him. Then it would be all over, and I could start living again.
“Tom? Claire here. — Yes, it is a long time. I’ve been busy — oh various things. It’s a hot summer isn’t it? — Well, it makes a change after the cold winter anyway. How are you all? When are you off to Switzerland? Oh — as soon as that? Nothing — no it doesn’t matter. Bring me back a pair of
nylons if you’ve any money over — that’s all I rang up about — What tonight? Nothing particular, why? To say goodbye? All right, why not — a friendly gesture. I expect you have some last-minute messages for your future lady-help too — Prue you know, or didn’t Mary tell you? I hope she won’t spoil your holiday for you. See you around eight.”
There I was then. Back where I started. Thank goodness I didn’t say it before he got in his bit about leaving this week. My secretary gave me a queer look. What an anticlimax. Start all over again now pulling myself together, not minding, not feeling. Taking the power out of Tom’s arrogant hands. To hell with him. But not till tomorrow. Tonight I could let myself enjoy looking at him once more. Prue or no Prue, I could use my eyes anyway.
I went home at three o’clock, lay down on my bed and slept as I had not slept for nights. Not one single dream.
I woke at six and stretched, thinking maybe Prue’ll go out tonight, maybe Tom and I will get just one evening to ourselves?
When she came in I didn’t dare to ask her if she had any plans. I lay in the bath with the door open trying to work out from her movements what she was up to. She pushed and pulled a lot of drawers, and finally shouted to ask if she could borrow a red belt of mine, so I began to hope.
“All right. Are you in to supper?”
“No thanks, Brian’s fetching me to go to the flicks in — oh gosh in about three minutes — I’ll simply never be ready.”
She plunged into the bathroom and gave her face a good scrub. The ends of her hair fell into the basin too, and she stood up with long wet side-whiskers.
“I’ll dry off outside,” she said, seeing my look of horror. “Don’t fuss so, Claire.” She twisted her heavy auburn plaits clumsily round her head.
“My dear Prue, I never said one single word.”
“You don’t have to say, you have a terrible way of opening your eyes.”
“Oh dear — I’m sorry. Take my red belt anyway — and try a dash of Chanel.”
“May I? Thank you.”
A few more slams and bangs and Brian’s ring, and they had gone.
I dressed slowly and with delicate care, enjoying every movement. I had nearly an hour to savour my solitude, and how deliciously it would soon be interrupted. At seven fifty-five I was in Tom’s arms.
“Oh darling, it’s been too long.”
“What a fool I was, Tom.”
“And me too. I was on the point of coming round again and again, but I’d decided you must make the first move.”
“Oh Tom, and now I’ve made it too late.”
“Where’s Prue?”
“Out for the evening with Brian.”
“No? It can’t be true. She knew I was coming and she’s actually gone out?”
“She didn’t know. I never told her.”
“How long does that give us?”
“Two or three hours, with any luck.”
“Claire my sweet, my love — God, you’re so beautiful. Come over to the sun and let me look at you properly. I don’t feel I’ve ever seen you before.”
We stood there by the window in shattering sunlight, holding hands and staring at each other.
“I think we’d better have a drink,” I said shakily, not taking my eyes off his face. I don’t want to be made to feel seventeen again. I like to know what I’m at.
Tom was turning me into a knife-thrower’s moll. It was as if I stood naked and quivering against a door waiting for the next knife to miss or hit. He touched me with daggers and silk and glory.
“Kiss me first,” he said.
I backed away from the window, afraid to begin the exquisite agony.
“I’m not sure if I can bear it,” I whispered, with my whole body aching towards him.
“We’ll soon see about that,” he said, in the hearty voice of the doctor whose patient is feebly refusing bracing medicine. He carried me over to the divan and laid me among the scarlet cushions.
“You great ox of a man.”
“Hardly an ox in the circumstances, darling.”
“Well, bull then — I adore your ears.”
As we kissed for the first time for weeks, and the last time for months, we heard Prue’s laughter on the stairs.
“Damn and blast that ruddy girl to eternity,” said Tom under his breath. He stood up, put on his coat, straightened his tie, smoothed his hair, and got out the bottle of whisky. For a few seconds I lay unable to recapture all my senses. I wondered if I had the strength to move. I managed to swing my legs round as Prue and Brian crashed into the room, and even to pick up my gros-point. But I gazed at the high-spirited, young things in a cloud of unknowing.
“Evening, Prue, hullo, Brian — what a pleasant surprise,” said Tom. “I was afraid I was going to miss you. I dropped round to say goodbye and give Prue some final information about the journey. Whisky, Brian?”
“What happened to the film?” I bleated like a dying duck.
“Oh, they’d changed the programme. We’d looked in an old paper, so we just had supper instead.”
Prue was in fine form. Jolly as a swagman, biffing Brian amiably, sitting sideways with her legs, too much leg, swinging over the arm of her chair.
“I expect you’d like some coffee,” I said, swaying to my feet.
“Hease,” said Prue.
“And after that another nice hand of whist?” suggested Tom.
“Oh yes, let’s,” said Prue. “How lucky we came in. You couldn’t have played anything with only two.”
“Old maid can be a hilarious game.”
“But you want three for that,” Prue looked puzzled.
“Ah well, there’s always patience,” Tom said, counting out the cards.
Part IV
THE EMPLOYER
Chapter I
“We’ve arrived, dear,” Tom said as the last suit-case came to rest at my feet. I sat on the one chair in the hall holding Nicholas, the girls had run shrieking straight out into the garden. The taxi-driver grinned at us,
“C’est loin l’Angleterre, Madame est fatiguée?”
“Un peu,” said I, knowing the language. “Tom, are the girls drowning?”
“Not yet. Don’t worry, I can see them from here through the french windows — or should it be swiss windows?”
“Au revoir, Madame, bonnes vacances.”
Tom tipped him well, and he drove away still smiling. Now we must begin to live in this strange-smelling house. “How long has it been shut up, Tom?”
“Whitaker hasn’t stayed here himself since last summer, but the old crone is supposed to light the stove occasionally in the winter. She’s certainly put a high polish on now.”
“Do go round and open every window, Tom, and let in the sun.”
I carried Nicholas into the nearest room and sat down again on another hard chair to feed him. This must be the living-room. It contained three hard chairs, one hard sofa, and a rug. I looked distastefully at the wide area of parquet flooring.
“Tom,” I called, “is the crone coming to do the floors?” But he didn’t hear me.
Nicholas settled in, busy and contented, I looked over his furry head out of the window and saw the garden for the first time. I caught my breath at the roses, they tumbled pink, white, wild, red and yellow, over everything. The grass stood as high as Caro’s waist sloping away downhill, and the rose-bushes soared through it in fountains. Behind the roses the smooth postcard blue of the lake. Now I saw the top of Susan’s fair head struggling slowly back towards the house through the undergrowth.
“Boat, Mummy, boat,” she cried, not for the white flick of a turning sail, but the important passage of the steamer to Geneva.
“Yes, darling, would you like a sandwich? Bring me the picnic basket from the hall. Take one down for Caro too.”
She paused on the step, a sandwich in each hand, — “Where’s bed?” she asked.
“It’s not bedtime yet. You and Caro will sleep upstairs.”
“Allbody upstairs?”<
br />
“Yes.”
“Now see sea.” She rushed away again, too fast over the gravel terrace and disappeared into the grass. How happy we shall all be here, I thought, now the nightmare of last winter is over. Now Tom will forget that slinky, secretive woman. Surely he will, — he can’t ever have meant to make me so miserable. When you are pregnant you have no weapons and no spirit for the fight. Or perhaps Nicholas is my weapon and I have won with a boy? I dared not ask Tom if it was all over. I dared not ask if it had ever begun. I could only go on as before pretending to notice nothing — not his absent-mindedness, his late nights at the lab, the Chanel in his hair. All the old obvious things — did they think I was blind, half-witted or what, to treat me so?
“Where shall I put this ridiculous hat?”
“Oh, darling Tom, you look like a silly horse. Take it off anyway. It was kind of you to stop and let me buy it.” A great cartwheel of a straw hat for so few francs hanging outside a shop.
“It’ll keep Nicholas cool as well as me,” I said. “It’s as good as a tree.”
“That’s a fine cherry-tree we have on the terrace. All over-ripe too. I shall pick some for supper, what the birds have left. Do you think you’ll like it here, my dear?”
“I’m sure I shall.” I turned Nicholas on to my shoulder and we walked out together into the sun.
“Isn’t it too hot for him, Tom?”
“Come and sit on this bench in the shade.”
“It seems much hotter here than it was at home.”
“Lovely — the hotter the better. I’ll go for a swim in the lake when we’ve done a bit of unpacking.”
L’Oasis, the house was called, it was grey with pink shutters. Tom had pulled out a green sunblind upstairs.
“Is that our bedroom, Tom, with the balcony?”
“There are two beds there, and in the room next door.”
“Single beds?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh well. After all your Mr. Whitaker is a bachelor.”
“Are the beds high? Will the children fall out?”
“I doubt it. There’s a third room with one bed facing on to the road. We can put Nicholas in there till Prue comes.”