‘Where’s Effie?’
‘Gone for the day. I gave her a holiday.’
‘Isn’t that rather extraordinary? I might need her. There’s the ironing.’
‘Well, we don’t need her today. I don’t even like her, but we certainly can get by one day without her. We deserve one day to ourselves.’
‘But it’s Wednesday.’
‘What does that matter?’
She looked pleased. ‘What are you going to do with those onions?’
‘Put them in with powdered eggs, I guess. That’s all we have.’
She went to the fridge and reached into the back, withdrawing two eggs. ‘I was saving them to ask Effie to make a cake.’
‘A cake made by Effie is a waste of two eggs. Go on, take the paper and the teapot into the dining room, I’ll bring breakfast in. The eggs will cook quickly.’
‘What’s come over you, Quentin? Are you—’
‘I am excellent. That is the absolute truth.’
‘I have to ask, Quentin. It’s crossed my mind. You seem strange. You’ve been rather, well, different, ever since you got back from California, and I hate to ask, but I suppose I should. Was there a girl in California?’
‘Linda St John. Love at first sight.’ He chided himself for his high spirits and humour, knowing what he was about to inflict. He ought to be gloomy but he was jubilant. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Something Mummy said. She said you seemed quite unlike yourself at lunch on Sunday.’
‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought Fair Rosamund would pay me any mind at all.’
Florence frowned, unsure what he might mean. She went on, ‘Mummy says you might have had a driver while you were in California, and it might have been a girl, someone to chauffeur you about. She always had a driver when she went to garden shows in America.’
‘And did she have affairs with her drivers?’
‘Quentin! What a terrible thing to say.’
‘Your mother should stick to her herbaceous borders. Now, go on. Off with you. I’m about to make you the Louisa Partridge special.’
‘More figs?’ She looked at him flirtatiously.
He gave a small compliant laugh, though he knew he was about to break his wife’s heart. He was a cur. A total cur.
At breakfast Florence talked about Some of These Days, how she wanted to like it, but couldn’t really. Elsie Rose, throwing herself into that love affair when she knew it was wrong. ‘I haven’t finished the book, but I’m certain there’s no happy ending. And the writing is so … so …’
‘Lyrical and full of emotion. Yes, all that’s out of favour now.’ Quentin bolted his eggs and onions, enjoying both the appetite and sustenance. ‘But it could come back. It probably will. We can’t always live like this.’
‘Like what?’
He gazed out the window where the rain streaking down rendered the rubble across the street into a sort of impressionist study in grey, highlighted by the pale aspidistra and the African violet. ‘In such austerity.’
‘Are you talking about rationing, Quentin?’
‘No. Finish your eggs and onions. What do you think of them?’
‘Interesting, but a bit weird, don’t you think? Are you done? Shall I wash up?’
‘No, you stay here and have a cigarette.’
‘Not just now, thanks.’
He took the dishes into the kitchen, threw them in the sink, cursed himself again for being a dog. His heart was thumping; he could feel it in his throat. If he spent one more night in this house with this woman, he would crumble into dust, implode, explode. Something dire.
When he went back into the dining room, she was leafing through the paper, but she seemed to sense his urgency and folded it. She smiled. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes. Thanks. I mean no. No, thank you. Florence, dear.’ He sat across from her. ‘There are important things, important days that are ahead of us, our whole lives, really, and what I’m trying to say …’ He knew very well what he was trying to say, but the look of rapt affection on her face stole his words. Damn! He should have said yes to the girl in California. It would have been so much easier. Perhaps Florence would accuse him again of having slept with another woman when he was in California, then he could say yes. Yes, he had been unfaithful. There would be a scene, of some sort, tears, unpleasant things said, but it would all be over in, say, half an hour. Hour at most. He wasn’t really sure how long scenes like that lasted. He had only read about them in novels. ‘Florence, it’s change that we all have to make, of some sort. Nothing stays static, does it?’
‘I suppose not.’
Be a man about this, he regaled himself. You are a whole man at last. The eagle and the mole. Act like the eagle. ‘I’m trying to say that everything’s about to change. Everything. My whole life. And yours.’ How could he explain to Florence that Claire had touched his life, his soul from the very beginning? If he had never seen Claire Carson again after that first time, he would never forget her until the day he died. How could he explain that one woman’s blue eyes had changed him forever, and now that he knew she loved him, his life was forever altered? He could not do that. Too complex. But he could admit to Gigi and Mexico. He could admit to being a faithless cad in California. Admit to infidelity. Florence would have an accusatory fit, and expect him to beg her forgiveness. Then he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t ask for anything at all, except a divorce.
‘What is it, Quentin?’
He gulped. ‘It’s hard to say.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She nodded, bit her lip and she seemed to tear up.
‘It’s something we should have spoken of when I came back from California. The truth is—’
‘You’re right, dear. Of course it’s life-changing and exciting. Oh, Quentin.’
‘Don’t cry. I mean, of course you must cry if you feel like. You must do just exactly as you like,’ he said as she picked up her napkin and wept into it. ‘I will take care of you. You mustn’t doubt that. It’s true, Florence—’
‘Oh yes, it is true! Quentin, dear, dear Quentin,’ Florence choked with emotion. ‘You’ve guessed, haven’t you?’
His lips parted, but no words came out. Could it be? Could he be so fortunate that Florence had fallen in love with someone else? That she too was willing to admit their marriage last June had been a foolish, youthful mistake, that they had more or less fallen into marriage, ignorant of love or life, that divorce was very modern, lots of people did it, lots of people, and moved on with their lives? He studied her more intently. He read her eyes, her expectant expression. No. He was not that fortunate.
‘You see, I’ve known, well, I guessed,’ she added. ‘And then … I’ve just been waiting for the perfect moment, and here, you knew all along, didn’t you?’
‘Not all along, no …’
‘I haven’t felt well, but that will pass. That’s what the doctor said.’
‘You’ve been to a doctor?’
‘Yes, dear; you see, I wanted to be absolutely certain before I told you, but you’re so sweet, you guessed. And you couldn’t wait for me. And I was so silly to think there had to be a right moment. But you chose it, Quentin, and I’m so so happy. So happy. And so happy you’re happy.’ She rose and walked to him, placed her arms around his shoulders, and her cheek to his.
Other lips than Quentin’s formed words. These other lips seemed to be working in some sort of happy, happy unison, ringing with her voice to create the impression that Quentin Castle was happy, that he was responding, replying to his wife’s chatting about the baby due in November and perhaps they ought to move, to a proper house, perhaps nearer to their parents, not right away, of course, but think about it, and her having told Rosamund and Margaret and her dear schoolfriend Amelia, who was the bridesmaid at their wedding – he remembered Amelia, didn’t he? – and swearing all of them to the most solemn secrecy until she told her husband… .
Whatever these other lips were doing, Quentin Castle watched the rain shimmer down the wi
ndow. He watched the African violets pucker and pale, and go grey before his eyes. He watched the aspidistra turn, really rotate so that it faced him and regarded him with the pity he had so lately bestowed upon the rest of the human race.
‘So I’m grateful to Louisa Partridge.’
Other lips forsook him and she said it twice and he finally croaked out, ‘What’s Louisa got to do with it?’
‘It was those figs, so luscious, so earthy. I forgot to check the calendar that night. The night that Francis Carson died. How can you forget that night?’
‘I shall never be able to forget that night.’
‘Nor I. We’ll name it Robert if it’s a boy. Would you like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can Margaret tell Albert now? She’s been beside herself. Can I go ring her, and tell her to tell Albert?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll be right back and we’ll have the whole day to ourselves, won’t we? A holiday.’
‘No. Sorry. Can’t. The old family firm, you know. Off I go. Cheerio.’ He rose and allowed himself to be kissed. He patted her back. Then she went to make her telephone call.
Quentin somehow propelled himself up the stairs, listening to her voice echoing from the phone alcove. He took his glasses off. Mechanically he brushed his teeth and smoothed his hair and washed the smell of onions from his hands. After he had turned away from the mirror, he put his glasses back on. When he went downstairs, Florence was in the front hall by the door.
‘Must you go in right now?’ She kissed him, and fondled his tie. Her peach-coloured dressing gown slightly open, the arc of her white breast bright in the grey morning light falling from the transom. ‘What about our holiday?’ she added coyly. ‘You did let Effie go for the day.’
The thought of Effie was somehow intolerable, though he forbade himself to say so. Instead he burbled and bobbled about things he had forgotten at the office. A mistake. He should never have …
‘Well, stay for a bit, dear, anyway. I want to hear all about yesterday. Margaret says your father is not feeling well – overindulged, I expect. She has called Miss Marr, and cancelled his morning appointments. She said the memorial at Woodlands was vulgar beyond belief.’
‘Yes. Vulgar beyond belief.’ He took his hat and slid his arms into the Burberry. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘When you come home this evening.’ She gave him a light connubial kiss on the cheek and said he had made her the happiest little wife in the world. She handed him the second-best umbrella, explaining she would need the best one later when she went to type for her mother.
He took his leather case, and opened the door to the pounding rain, stepped into the street, opened the umbrella and bent under it, bobbing like the rest of the black-clad populace, men making their way to the Russell Square tube station to go down, down, down into the bowels of the city that had ingested many little lives like his.
PART IV
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SONS AND LOVERS
Quentin jumped out of the cab in Greek Street in the midst of a summer downpour.
She had invited him, no, summoned him to The Gay Hussar in Soho, the small, chic restaurant much frequented by the literary and political trades. The note, written on her personal letterhead, offered no gentle could we meet, or please RSVP, simply the date and time, one o’clock, Monday 8 August, 1960, yes, just as if he might show up a year late. He was fifteen minutes late; in her eyes, no doubt, a breach of courtesy.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Castle. We gave Madame your favourite table when she told us she was meeting you,’ said Anton, whipping out a clean white napkin.
Quentin took the hint, pressing it gently over his face, the water dripping from his dark hair and quickly cleaning off his glasses. He was no longer a gaunt young man; his height and broad shoulders carried his weight well, though his face was more memorable than handsome, the high thin nose like a mountain ridge, a man in the prime of life, at the top of his profession, respected, even feared by his peers, prosperous, confident, secure, no longer the sort of person who let others finish his sentences. All true, but the very sight of Enid Sherrill reduced him to feeling like the juvenile lead in a bad play, wheezy, adenoidal and gauche. ‘Please bring me a double martini,’ he said to the waiter as he handed back the napkin.
He assumed that Enid Sherrill had planned to put him ill at ease even if he had been on time. Enid already had her menu face down, her cocktail before her and her first cigarette lit. She was hatless, her hair dull and cut short, and she wore a navy-blue suit enlivened by brass buttons. Her eyebrows were finely arched and pencilled in with a firm hand, dark against her pale skin. Her lipstick looked like a tiny red seam between her sharp nose and her sharp chin. She was thinner than ever. She removed her cat’s eye glasses.
‘How good to see you again,’ he offered after his flustered, mumbled apologies and excuses, and took his seat. ‘You only used to drink sherry.’
‘That was when I had your father to look after. Someone had to stay sober.’
‘Ah.’ He opened the menu.
Though it was August, both he and Miss Sherrill nodded to a few of their passing compatriots and competitors, publishers, editors, other agents in The Gay Hussar, some of whom regarded them quizzically. As well they might, thought Quentin. Enid’s leaving Castle Literary and opening her own firm had provided the insular world of London publishing with a good deal of gossip in 1956, including the rumour that Quentin had evicted her. This never happened. She left of her own accord after Quentin moved into his father’s office. The transition was rocky, their parting acrimonious, but Quentin was satisfied. Enid left Castle Literary to start her own firm, which had not exactly prospered. Their paths had seldom crossed, save for Albert’s funeral the last year, where Enid had been kind to Margaret and Florence and Rosamund, but only civil to Quentin.
‘I hope all goes well with you, Miss Sherrill.’
‘It does, but that’s not why I’m here. The usual,’ she said to the waiter who brought Quentin’s martini.
‘Yes, madam,’ the waiter replied without a blink, ‘and that would be the …’
‘The asparagus and bacon salad for a starter, and the duck.’
The waiter made a great ado that he had not remembered, and Quentin knew she did not eat here often enough to know the waiter, or to have a usual. She was grandstanding, but why? The waiter did in fact know Quentin’s usual. He left them, and Quentin made some remark about the food at The Gay Hussar, paprika and so on. Past that, it was her show and he was prepared to sit in silence and drink till she led.
‘Miss Marr tells me Castle Literary prospers,’ she offered, billowing out a plume of smoke.
This surprised him. Did she often see Miss Marr? ‘Yes. Everyone in the building is doing quite well. Last year Number 11 collectively hired a day porter.’
‘Collectively is a rather suspect expression in these Cold War days.’
Had the old girl gone anti-Commie bats? ‘He is a sergeant who fought with my brother at El Alamein. Poor Mrs Rackwell died last March and we now have a Jamaican charlady who sings at night.’
‘I suppose Rackwell finally killed her.’
‘Actually, they found her on the floor at the foot of the stairwell one morning when the first people came to work. Her heart just gave out.’ Of all the tenants at Number 11, Quentin alone had gone to her shabby funeral, stunned, disgusted, really, to see old Rackwell sobbing, supported on either side by young women, daughters, presumably. Quentin sat through the service, but left without offering Rackwell any morsel of sympathy for his loss. He regretted going at all. Quentin polished off his martini while Miss Sherrill nattered on-and-dreary-dull-on, professional gossip mostly. He was annoyed with her tone of carping superiority, remembering it all too well from his early days with the firm. In the guise of a sparrow, Enid Sherrill clothed the instincts of a hawk.
‘And I see Louisa Partridge is her own little publishing factory,’ said Enid, stubbing out h
er cigarette energetically. ‘She alone must be filling your firm’s coffers.’
‘Yes.’ Might she be hinting she’d like to quit her own foundering firm and return to Castle? Preposterous. He had crammed three young agents into what was once Enid’s office. The thought of having her nearby gave him heartburn just to think of it. ‘Louisa’s bought a house, a villa, in the hills above Fiesole.’
‘I’m surprised you’re not with her. On holiday. I mean, it is August and you and she are such great friends.’
‘I bought a country place in St Ives. The family is there now. I’ve only just returned to London.’
‘I remember your mother loved St Ives. Years ago—’ She lit another cigarette with a small silver lighter ‘—when Robert was a boy. How is dear Margaret? Still mourning Albert?’ She nodded to the waiter who placed their dishes before them.
‘It’s only been a year. She’s used to mourning.’
‘And Florence and the children?’
‘Fine. You saw them at my father’s funeral last summer.’
Using her fork she poked about in her Spargelsalat as though looking for bugs. ‘I fear I was rather rude to you at Albert’s funeral, Quentin. I felt his loss terribly, and I was more upset than I should have expected to be. We were together for a very long time, you know. Thirty years.’
‘I know.’
‘I was angry. I thought if Albert had gone on working, he might have lived longer. He ought not to have retired.’
‘If this is an apology, Miss Sherrill, please consider it accepted.’
‘Yes, well …’ She finished her cocktail, leaving the cherry to loll in the glass. ‘Albert ought to have been pleased with what you’ve brought to the firm. His taste was not unerring, but I doubt he would have had the vision to take on those colonial writers whose work you are championing.’
‘You do my father a disservice, Miss Sherrill. In his day he was equally daring. Sydney Thaxton might have been a genius, but his work was difficult to place, and he was constantly changing, and that alone cost him the loyalty of publishers. My father protected Thaxton, and advanced his work even after his death.’
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