by Tim Jeal
Derek forced himself to sit down again. He might go home in the evening to hear that she had put off her morning appointment and gone in the afternoon. He couldn’t be sure yet. Had she really told him that she was going in the morning or had he just assumed it? The return of uncertainty calmed him at once; it was like a reprieve. Nothing would be definite until after five in the afternoon. He would have to wait on. No point in thinking about what to do until then.
It started shortly before two o’clock but, because he hadn’t drunk much at breakfast and had sweated a lot during the morning, Derek at first decided that his desire to pee stemmed from his nerves rather than his bladder. Twenty minutes later this pretence was no longer tenable; he wanted to go and would have to go. His first thought was the privet hedge but that was dangerous not only because of Major Smythe; he might bump into Diana in the entrance. The nearest lavatory was at the tube station three hundred yards down the road. An athletic man would be able to run that distance in roughly forty seconds; eighty seconds there and back and forty seconds to pee. Two minutes away from his post. Well, a little over two minutes since he wasn’t an athletic man. Three minutes. Not long at all. He would have to be particularly luckless for her to come out at this precise time; even more luckless if she caught a bus or a taxi at once.
Four minutes later Derek was back at his bench and feeling reasonably confident that he hadn’t missed her. To make certain he decided to phone her. Naturally he would not say anything, just to check whether she answered. Back in the now familiar phone box Derek dialled the number and heard the phone ringing. Two minutes later it was still ringing. Derek rang the operator who had the line checked and confirmed that there was no fault on it. She could be in the bath, under her hair dryer, asleep; if she was going to pretend to have kept her appointment, she might be ignoring the phone deliberately. There was however another possibility; she had gone out while he was in the lavatory. Nothing to be done though.
At three o’clock Derek concluded that his persisting feeling of sickness might be hunger. One of the shops opposite Abercorn Mansions was a delicatessen. He went in and bought a couple of slices of salami, a quarter of a pound of cheddar, a carton of milk and a packet of biscuits. Having returned to the bench, Derek ate his lunch slowly and without enjoyment. He had eaten the salami, finished the milk and started on the cheese, when he saw, on the other side of the road, either Charles Lamont or his double. Lamont walked briskly past Alfriston House, past Tunstall House, past Derek’s privet hedge and then, after a momentary pause, into Abercorn Mansions. Charles had never mentioned knowing anybody else in the block apart from the Cushings. The time of his visit made it equally clear that he intended to see Mrs Cushing rather than her husband.
Derek nibbled at his cheese mechanically. The idea of Lamont being Diana’s lover seemed at first too grotesque to be true. Diana was certainly an unusual woman but nobody could have done what she had done. Derek recalled the way she had so convincingly attempted to force him to come to Cornwall, and how she had finally allowed him to persuade her to go without him. He remembered something else: she had told him, shortly after Charles’s invitation, that Giles wanted to go with his school Scouts to the Peak District, instead of spending the first week of the Cornish holiday with her; he would come down to Cornwall for the last few days. At the time, Derek had thought nothing of this, but now it appeared in a very different light. Everything fitted, there was no doubt about that, and yet he could not quite face the final conclusion. Had he been so thoroughly fooled and manipulated? Had she really come to view him with such contempt that she had been happy to make him almost a conniver at her infidelity? She had never forgotten the dates of his projected trip to Scotland. She had merely used her knowledge and gambled on his natural reluctance to abandon his research.
Derek put the rest of the cheese into his mouth and chewed vigorously. From where he was sitting, he could see the front rooms of the Cushing flat, including the window of the principal bedroom. Perhaps they were in there already. Maybe Charles had hardly gone through the door before ripping off his trousers. Derek tried to whip up feelings of rage and jealousy but all he felt was chilling bitterness laced with self-pity. If he ever chose to race into the flat at the end of a day’s work and suggest instant intercourse, she’d tell him to stop pawing her, or plead the supper to be cooked, or clothes to be ironed. But Lamont, with his charm, affluence and, above all, his novelty, was another matter. The sudden production of his appendage would be enthralling, the same old blood and gristle as the archivist’s apparatus, but novel nonetheless. An old play, but a new actor. So easy with an income like Charles’s to be gregarious and spontaneous, since spontaneity could be manufactured with a meal in a different restaurant, an unexpected present, an invitation to a country house. Should have taken up hot-air ballooning, Derek told himself, or formed a collection of Patagonian erotica, if such things existed, or at least made a study of unusual liturgical objects. Even an archivist could have competed with conventional success and conspicuous wealth, given a burst of sudden eccentricity. Could have ridden to work on a penny-farthing, sat for hours on end with a fungus in his mouth, opened bottles with his teeth, had himself tattooed in improbable places, and been gratuitously rude to fellow-passengers in buses.
After all, what originality had Lamont ever shown? He had made his money in property and then transferred to art the safe way. Bought several Rouaults at auctions, the odd Picasso drawing, kept them a year or two, and then sold them at a profit. Like property all over again. Then he’d branched out, taken on a few youngish artists who’d already started to make it, lured them away from other galleries with larger payments and thus spared himself the trouble of helping them through the more difficult early years of their painting lives. Charles had always been good with people, expert with contacts, alive to the way critical opinion was moving; a man without taste or conviction, but with a good nose for future buying patterns. A good nose for bored wives too; flattering it must be to inject new lust into tired loins, to raise the sexual dead, so that they murmured about miracles.
By now they would be certain to be at it. Should he surprise them? Burst in and catch them moist-handed in the act, their trousers down, in flagrante delicto? All right, Lamont, get your pants on and get the hell out of here. I’ll give you ten seconds. And Charles, stammering and frightened, would thrust his projection into his made-to-measure underwear, and dash for the doors, which he would promise never again to darken. Like hell. The boots were on other feet. Deceived husbands had no magic cards to play.
Derek’s first instinct had been to avoid telling her what he knew; to avoid it at all costs. Yet in such circumstances it would surely be lunacy to remain silent. After all, would telling her be so fatal? It was possible that she would feel guilty enough to promise never to see the man again; not likely but possible. Of course she might promise to give him up and then go on seeing him, taking more care not to be found out. Derek’s initial assumption, that, if he told her what he knew she might feel obliged to come to a final decision, had obviously been too hasty. Other possibilities occured to him. If confronted with her affair, she might say that she had no intention of breaking up their marriage but simply needed another man as a diversion. She could feel forced to leave him but that was just as likely to happen if he said nothing. A long and honest talk might bring them together again, persuade her that for too long she had underestimated him.
Only when he started to think seriously about what their long and honest talk might involve, did Derek’s resolve begin to weaken. In the past Diana had made it abundantly clear that she found his work pointless and dull and considered him to be personally vacillating and ineffectual. The start of their talk might very well centre round what she would get out of staying with him. Such a discussion might pin-point and clarify dissatisfactions of which she had previously been only dimly aware. This would increase rather than diminish any desire to leave him. One question would be inevitable: What did he get
out of their marriage? What did it mean to him? This would force him to go into a detailed and far from romantic explanation of his dependence and the panic he had recently experienced. It wasn’t utterly inconceivable that she would listen with sympathy and tender concern but she was far more likely to be frightened and irritated. Had she really obliterated his character to that extent? Why the hell hadn’t he said anything about it before? Just two of the questions she would be certain to ask. She would also accuse him of attempting to blackmail her into staying with him by threatening to go to pieces if she went off. Could she really take seriously the notion that he was unable to organize a life of his own on his own? He might have no intuition about choosing clothes or wallpaper, but that surely extended no further than a few other similarly mundane examples? If he then admitted that it extended a great deal further, he would become still more pathetic and despicable in her eyes. In fact the long and honest talk seemed pretty well guaranteed to force her out of the flat and his life.
Left to itself, the affair might die a natural death. In time Diana would find art exhibitions and private views just as boring as colonial history. Charles’s anecdotes would soon be exhausted and the novel pleasures of expensive restaurants and fast cars would likewise begin to wane. She would discover that he liked certain kinds of food, disliked other kinds, changed his underwear so many times a week and picked his nose at traffic lights. With the exhaustion of novelty, boredom would get to work; boredom, acceptable in marriage but not in affairs. But if it didn’t work out that way, if she left him and he had done nothing, how would he feel then?
Derek got up and started walking with no sense of purpose. He passed the phone box and stopped. He imagined the phone ringing as she reached her climax and went in with a sneaking desire to spoil pleasure, to cause anxiety. He dialled the first few digits and then put down the receiver. His eye had caught the obscenities written above the directories: ‘For a suck and a fuck ring …’ Farther down the street he stopped outside a florist’s. A placard in the window posed the question: ‘When did you last say it with flowers?’ He went in and bought an azalea, imagining as he paid for the plant how mean and guilty she would feel as he presented it. He would follow up by telling her that he had bought tickets for the opera and had booked a table at an excellent restaurant nearby. Confronted by a new Derek, she would relent.
Back on his bench, Derek placed the plant beside him and prepared for the long wait till Charles left the flat. Occasionally his old panic distressed him with a sudden flutter, but he felt calmer than he had done at any time during the day. A decision had been made: he would attempt to keep his wife by ignoring her affair and by renewed attention to her, which would in the end convince her that she had been blind to his very real but retiring merits. He might fail, but at least he had a plan, and that was a considerable advance from his previous indecision. Derek shut his eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his closed lids. When he opened them again, he leapt to his feet.
Giles was going into Abercorn Mansions. It was the afternoon he usually went swimming, and Diana had obviously not reckoned with any change of routine. Derek was torn for a moment between racing after the boy, and phoning Diana to warn her. But warning her was impossible, for then he would have to admit that he knew. Instead he started in pursuit of his son, hoping to overtake him on the stairs. Unfortunately Giles had a start of a hundred yards, and, because of the traffic, Derek had to wait almost a minute before he could cross the road. He did not catch up with Giles, and arrived breathless and sweating at his front door. He started fumbling in his pockets and then stopped. In his excitement he had forgotten about having no key; it had been lost the week before, and, although Diana had promised to have another cut, she had not done so. Nothing for it but to ring. He took a deep breath and pressed the bell.
Giles answered the door, and, to Derek’s relief and amazement, did not look shocked or grieved. Instead he said in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Charles is here,’ and then walked away towards the sitting-room.
Derek followed him. Instead of the horrifying scene which Derek had imagined, all was calm when he entered the room. Charles’s trousers were on, and although Diana was in her dressing-gown, she did not seem at all uneasy about it. Charles rose to greet Derek with a fine expansive smile that emphasized the whiteness of his teeth.
‘And how’s the Empire?’ asked the genial gallery owner.
With some difficulty Derek twisted his face into an affable smile. ‘Dismembered and discredited,’ he replied briskly. Dear Charles, ever ready with a joke about the Institute. Derek inclined his head pedantically. ‘You know George V never said that on his death bed.’
Charles looked puzzled for a moment but then realized what Derek meant.
‘I know. He said: “What’s on at the Empire?” or “Bugger Bognor”; humorous old goat. You must have told me.’
Derek looked at him impassively. ‘I don’t suppose you know William Pitt’s last words. Archivists are always good on last words.’
‘The suspense is killing us,’ put in Diana.
‘“I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies,” that’s what he said.’
‘So he died of food poisoning,’ said Charles with a wink at Giles. ‘Bet they never told you that at school. Your father ought to bring out a dictionary of last words with lots of scholarly notes. Call it “Having the Last Word”. Ought to do very well.’
Diana laughed, Giles laughed, Derek laughed. A good-humoured little group of people all laughing happily while Charles’s semen trickled down the legs of the archivist’s wife.
‘I don’t like your title,’ Derek said. ‘“Death Sentence” would be better.’ More laughter, mostly from Giles. Derek was always touched by his son’s loyalty.
Derek looked at Diana. That dressing-gown … not to mention it seemed stranger than to make a pointed remark. ‘Just had a bath?’ he asked casually.
‘My God, you’ve noticed. No, I’ve been in bed. I had a headache this morning, so I didn’t get up. Charles probably thinks it’s just an excuse and that I normally slouch around in my dressing-gown till after lunch.’
Derek waited patiently. Diana had done her bit and now Charles would do his.
‘Of course I don’t think anything of the sort,’ chuckled the gallant art dealer. ‘My fault for dropping in unannounced. But what are friends for if one can’t drop in on them? Especially when one passes their welcoming door twice a week.’
‘I didn’t know you had connections in Maida Vale,’ chipped in Derek, choosing his words with care.
‘In Maida Vale? No connections here, and more’s the pity. No, the truth is, I have business farther north in a warehouse near Burnt Oak—heard of it?’ He smiled humorously at the thought that anybody should have done so. Diana grinned back.
‘I have,’ cut in Derek.
‘Trust you,’ went on Charles, in no way put out. ‘Well then, knowing it as you do, you will know that it is past Colindale and past Cricklewood and frankly past redemption.’ Diana laughed delightedly.
‘Aren’t we all,’ sighed Derek, but nobody heard. Charles was explaining the new trend for vast paintings, and how, even if he sold out every show, he would still become bankrupt if he showed such large work in the West End.
‘So what could I do?’ he went on, raising his arms, displaying spotless cuffs and a fine pair of platinum cuff-links. ‘I could hardly disown the rising generation of British and American painters. So I bought this warehouse, filled it with outsize canvases and run a couple of chauffeur-driven cars up and down bulging with clients. None of them agree to go unless they’re serious, or deranged, or both.’ Another chortle from Diana. ‘The long and the short of it is, that I’ve got round West End overheads and turned financial disaster into quite a profitable little sideline.’
Derek coughed drily: ‘And on your way to Burnt Oak you pass through Maida Vale.’
‘In a nutshell,’ cried Charles, with a manly laugh. ‘Wish I had your gift fo
r precision and brevity.’
‘No criticism intended,’ replied Derek. Could jovial Derek even be suspected of being critical? A man stupid enough to listen to and believe such apparent excuses could hardly have the wit to know his way round his own flat. He smiled at Charles. ‘Every word you uttered confirmed your exceptional business acumen.’
‘You mean you’ve rarely heard a more blatant piece of self-advertisement. You really ought to be more direct, Derek. I almost took it as a compliment.’
‘So instead you bluntly suggested that I was being rude,’ replied Derek. Why spoil Charles’s fun? The man liked verbal masturbation. Let him have what he wanted.
‘You rude? Nothing so vulgar as that. What an idea.’ Charles laughed heartily. ‘You’re far too subtle for that sort of crudity. That’s why I like talking to you. You’re so unlike the dreary people I normally deal with.’
Derek smiled. He suspected that Charles was getting considerable pleasure out of flattering him. Steal a man’s wife, destroy his peace of mind and then get him to love you; like a doctor winning a patient’s trust and then slowly poisoning him with arsenic.
‘After the gaiety and exuberance of the art world you spend an hour or two in some stagnant backwater and find it diverting by way of a change.’
Charles shrugged his shoulders and gave Diana an apologetic look.
‘Invert everything I say, twist my innocent praise. I don’t know, Derek. You must think I’m incredibly dull to have to misconstrue every word I utter. In fact, come to think of it, that’s probably why you prefer those letters in Scotland to coming to stay with me.’
‘You’d have to buy a library to get him to change his mind,’ put in Diana.