For Love or Money

by Tim Jeal

  Quite suddenly Steven did not care. He went over to his mother and said softly:

  ‘You’ll never believe me, but I didn’t do this entirely for myself. When the money goes, you see if he doesn’t too.’

  George had put his arms round her. Her bosom was still shaking with grief and anger. Her head pressed against George’s chest, she whispered:

  ‘I never want to see you again.’

  Steven walked to the door and beckoned Sarah.

  ‘We’re going now.’ He turned to his mother and said: ‘I’ll go as soon as the taxi comes. I’m going to telephone now.’

  As he picked up the receiver, he heard her say to David:

  ‘Come here, darling; it’s all been awful, I know, but now everything’s going to be all right. You see if Mummy isn’t right.’

  *

  Only when they were in the taxi did Steven notice that Sarah was crying.

  ‘Why did you have to bring me?’

  ‘I thought I could win,’ Steven said simply.

  ‘You were so cruel, so horrible.’

  ‘I was so brave and he was so cowardly. The little coward, the silly little coward.’

  Sarah was surprised to see that his expression was not one of scorn but of bewilderment.

  ‘He used to get up at six o’clock in the morning to scare the rabbits away so that we couldn’t shoot them, yet he defended that man. He found him in that flat with another woman and he still loves him. I don’t understand. I simply don’t understand any more.’

  He seemed to be talking to himself. Sarah put an arm round him.

  ‘So it was true. It wasn’t all for yourself. You didn’t bring me just because you wanted money … Poor Steven.’

  ‘Poor Steven,’ he said, burying his face in the fur of her collar.

  Part Two: 1965

  ONE

  IT was such a lovely walk to the church through the fields. At the next gate she would be able to look down across the valley and see the simple square tower peeping through a gap in the trees of the woods below. Ruth hurried on eagerly.

  She paused at the gate. There was the tower with the sun shining on its lichened walls. She could hear the sound of the bells rising in waves through the morning haze. Quite a long way to go yet. She took off her coat. So warm already … it was going to be another marvellous hot day. She breathed in deeply and stretched out her arms.

  In a few minutes she was coming down from the corn fields into the woods. The bells were louder now.

  *

  George lazed in a deck-chair on the front lawn. He was still in his silk dressing-gown. A large straw hat sheltered him from the rays of the still-climbing sun. Putting down the papers for a moment, he leant out and lifted his glass of iced coffee from the small table beside him. David was away for a couple of days with an old school friend from Edgecombe days. Ruth would be at church for the next hour and a half or so. He gazed across the well-mown lawn towards the herbaceous border. He listened to the enveloping humming of the bees.

  At length he got up and walked over to the bench by the sundial, so that he could look back at the house. He looked down at his stomach and beneath it his slippered feet swinging across the grass. Fatter and balder, he thought without emotion. There would have been a time when he cared; but now there was little point. Now there was little to disturb his peace of mind.

  *

  There had been one narrow escape. Sally had telephoned shortly after his deliverance from Steven. George had left for London the following day, ostensibly to see his mother. He had calmed himself with the thought that a glance at his bank statement would mark the ending of Sally’s infatuation. In the event this had proved unnecessary. He had stayed at the flat for a couple of days awaiting her arrival. Her letter had been short. She hated to have to tell him that there had been others and that, well, an offer, as generous as one that she had just received, should not be idly cast aside. Even after five years George remembered his joy with undiminished pleasure. He’d been a fool to have supposed she just sat at home demurely waiting for his monthly appearances. And a girl like her … He nodded his head self-critically at the thought of his stupidity. But all that was so long ago. Over and done with, he reflected. At last the future was as clear as the neatly trimmed hedges in the rose garden. In October David was going to Cambridge and would take with him for the major part of the year the less pleasant features of an earlier landscape. He would make new friends who might ask him to stay; he would go abroad with them. In fact there was every possibility that he would spend little time at Trelawn. Of course there was no need to be uncharitable. The boy had been remarkably little trouble. He’d spent most of his time working in his room. The old twinges of guilt were intermittent almost to the point of non-existence.

  The day Steven’s old room had been turned into a junk room had been the turning-point. Now his name was hardly ever mentioned.

  Ruth had changed for the better too. She was less excitable, and her church-going not only gave her an outside interest but also often kept her occupied during the evenings. She was embroidering hassocks.

  When George reached the bench he realised that the sun would be in his eyes if he sat there. Slowly he ambled back to his old chair.

  As soon as he sat down he saw a small black car almost half a mile away slowly coming up the drive. It disappeared momentarily behind the group of beech-trees and then emerged in front of the dark-leaved rhododendrons. He wondered whether it might be David coming back earlier than expected. To be caught by anybody else in his dressing-gown at this hour would be annoying. Nobody from the village ever came unless invited. The sun caught on the car’s windscreen as it rounded the bend into the final sweep up to the house. George hastily removed his straw hat and drew his dressing-gown more closely round him.

  *

  Ruth sat listening to the First Lesson. She pursed her lips slightly as Canon Jenner read out:

  ‘… Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego …’

  Really it was too bad that he should have chosen to read about the ‘fiery furnace’ on such a lovely day. It was definitely more a winter piece. She would have to talk to him about it afterwards. The hymn before had been a notable contrast though. She smiled at her realisation of the joke … ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’ to the fiery furnace. Even George would be bound to laugh at that.

  ‘… Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt …’

  Ruth stared up at the patterns on the walls made by the sun shining through the stained glass of the east window. On days like these it was so easy to believe.

  *

  George raised his paper in front of him and sat back in his chair with apparent unconcern. No reason to be put out by uninvited visitors. He did not look up as he heard the muted sound of footsteps on the grass, and the faint swish of a dress.

  ‘George?’ questioned a voice on the other side of the newspaper.

  He lowered his defence and saw a woman wearing a tight-fitting coat and skirt in front of him. Must have been the lilac coat on her arm that he had heard. Her eyes were hidden behind a large pair of dark glasses.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘Not for five years anyway, George. Remember now?’ She jerked off her dark glasses and smiled at him.

  George felt sick. The green lawn might have been a sea of corpses, the sun a monstrous skull for all they pleasure they promised now.

  ‘Sally,’ he groaned.

  *

  It was ten minutes later; they were in the drawing-room. George was fumbling around over by the writing-desk. If only he could find it. A consecutive run of bank statements ought to be enough to convince her that she had wasted her time. They used to be in a large buff-coloured envelope. Damn the weather for being so
hot. He felt the sweat trickling down his back.

  ‘What are you up to over there?’ he heard her ask.

  ‘I’m just trying to prove to you that I’ve got no money. That I lied to you, that I’m nothing more than a blood-sucking parasite.’

  ‘What makes you so sure that I’ve come for money?’ she asked pleasantly.

  ‘You’d hardly have made the journey for old time’s sake on a stifling day like this.’

  ‘I haven’t come for your money, George, I’ve come for you.’

  ‘Look, you simply don’t understand … I can’t leave … I’ve got responsibilities,’ he ended lamely.

  ‘Anyway you can’t fool me about the money. You don’t suppose I’m going to believe that she paid for that flat of yours?’

  George went on looking, even when he knew that he was not going to find the envelope. He turned round and saw that she had brought his straw hat in from the garden.

  ‘I’d never thought of you wearing funny hats here. More hunting-clothes and dinner-jackets was how I imagined it.’ She held out the hat towards him. ‘Won’t you put it on?’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Be like that then.’ She laughed loudly.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to go now,’ he said firmly. ‘You had your chance, but you turned me down. I suppose you’ve forgotten that. I’m not going to let myself in for that sort of thing again.’ He looked at her with more confidence. Should have taken the firm line earlier on.

  ‘If it comes to forgetting, I don’t suppose you remember what you promised. It’s all square now. A perfect basis for further negotiations. Being a soldier I expect you know all about that.’ She smiled.

  ‘It takes two to come to an agreement,’ said George with decision. ‘It’s too late now.’

  ‘Five years isn’t a lifetime you know. I’m prepared to forgive you for shutting me out in the snow. After all, you started the distrust. You can’t blame me for taking revenge. But I’ve realised now that I was wrong. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. I was silly, but I’ve learned a bit since then.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. How many has it been? How do I know there haven’t been five or six? So you’ve been chucked out once too often and have come crawling here. Well, you can crawl straight out again.’

  ‘Not crawling, George. I’ve come back to the only person who ever mattered.’

  ‘You’ve taken your time about it. Why did the last one throw you out? Or should I ask why did he ever have you in the first place? Five years may not be a lifetime but twenty years is a good deal closer. I’ve been with her too long to just get up and leave. There comes a time when it really is too late.’

  ‘Would it still be too late if I decided to stay for a few hours more?’

  George looked at her with disgust.

  ‘You’ve got too much make-up on your eyes,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe because I haven’t had you to keep me young and chaste.’

  She seemed fatter now; he noticed the curving creases in her skirt just below the stomach. There was a hint of too much flesh beneath the jaw.

  ‘There’s another train at twelve-twenty. I’ll drive you there.’

  ‘You’ll be driving a bit further. And, what’s more you’ll be taking me too. It’s going to be just the two of us now. She’s had her go, now it’s my turn.’ She stood legs apart with her hands on her hips.

  ‘If you told Ruth, she wouldn’t believe you. You’d better come now. Steven told her and she didn’t believe him and he’s a lot cleverer than you and knew her rather better.’

  ‘You don’t suppose she’d believe me if I told her the dates you went to see your mother? Or would it be more convincing if I threw in a description of her son as well?’

  George watched her as she paced up and down in front of the sunlit window. The incongruity of her presence made him dry up inside. What did she understand about beautiful things? About the table that he and Ruth had bought, about real candles that one lit? About art and poetry? George tried to think of some of the beautiful lines he knew by heart, but couldn’t. How could she ever understand the tranquillity of life in the country: the simple round of rural pleasures? She probably didn’t even like the room they were in. To have survived so long and then to lose all this for a little slattern would be too hard to endure.

  Sally coughed loudly. George looked at his watch. The Second Lesson would have just started and she would be staying for Communion after the Sermon. He said:

  ‘I don’t suppose that she would be so impressed if you described David. There’s a photograph over there.’ He pointed to a silver-framed photograph on a small table by the door. ‘She would think you just met me in a pub and saw my address on a letter to me and thought that you’d try a bit of cheap blackmail.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be impressed if I told her the date David was in London? You say Steven told her. If I told her the same tale you still think that she wouldn’t smell a rat?’

  ‘She doesn’t remember dates. She’d think you were making them up.’

  Or did she? George thought of her diary. If he could get his hands on it … he rushed across to the writing-desk. She kept it in the top drawer. He pulled. It was locked. Could probably break it open. He wrenched again but it wouldn’t give.

  ‘I should think that’s quite an expensive piece of furniture; it would be a pity to spoil it.’

  Of course the thing mightn’t be there anyway. There wasn’t time to search the house. Only one thing to be done. He’d have to go with her now. Make her believe that he was going for good. Pack a few cases and get out. He could phone Ruth and tell her that his mother had been suddenly taken ill. He could leave a note. Better still. If it was money she was after, his mother could be made to have an operation in a private hospital. Ruth would be sure to send a cheque.

  While they were packing, George looked at his watch. Ruth might be back in twenty minutes. Hastily he pulled down two large suitcases from the top of his wardrobe. To convince Sally it would be necessary to take a lot of clothes. He dropped several pairs of shoes into the bottom of one of the cases and then ripped a couple of suits off their hangers before thrusting them in too.

  Sally said:

  ‘How about some shirts?’

  They were all in the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Perfect, this was the chance to leave a note.

  ‘Won’t be a moment.’

  *

  In the bedroom, George tore the fly-leaf out of a book on the bedside table and wrote: ‘Mother sinking. Operation imminent. Sorry mess. Will ring you. George.’ He read it through and hastily inserted ‘All love’. It would save time if he took the whole drawer to the dressing-room. He lifted it out.

  *

  When he got back Sally was thrusting a pair of pyjamas into the second case. He looked down and saw his bedroom slippers. No time to change. He pulled some trousers on top of his pyjama bottoms and then jerking off his dressing-gown he reached for a jersey and slipped it on. He snatched the jacket, he had worn the day before, from the back of a chair.

  Sally sat on the suitcases while he fastened them up. She was as eager as he to get away before Ruth arrived. A last final appeal and generous offers of forgiveness were highly undesirable.

  *

  George led the way down the stairs. The cases thudded against the banisters. Should have made her go first, he thought uneasily. Still they were nearly at the bottom now. He could hear her behind him.

  ‘I’ve got to go somewhere before I go,’ Sally suddenly announced.

  An argument would take too long.

  ‘All right. But hurry.’

  *

  Sally ran up to the landing again. George had left the bedroom door open. Softly she stole inside. On the bed the note was where George had left it.

  ‘Cunning bastard,’ she said under her breath.

  Still holding the note tightly she ran into the lavatory.

  George heard the noise of it flushing from the
hall. She was certainly being quick.

  *

  Sally was not satisfied though. Just like at the pictures, she thought as she dropped a lipstick and a bottle of scent outside the bedroom. Hadn’t she read about something like this in some old book?

  ‘Come on,’ yelled George from below.

  ‘Ready now.’

  As they walked out through the hall door, George looked at his watch again. Definitely no time to check upstairs. Have to get the cases in and turn the car. The distant sound of church bells decided him. The suitcases bumped painfully against his thighs as he ran towards the car.

  TWO

  RUTH walked slowly across the lawn humming softly. She saw George’s chair with the coloured squares of the cushions resting on it. There was his glass of coffee that she had made him. The Sunday papers were lying crumpled on the ground. She smiled; dear George, he was always so untidy. But men always are.

  As she went through the front door, she patted her brow with a small handkerchief. So hot … how lucky that they were going to have salad. In the drawing-room the writing-desk was open. She crossed the room and closed it. What a mess he made; but it was useless trying to change people. One learnt that with age.

  *

  ‘George,’ she called. Getting no answer, she started to climb the stairs. He would probably be dressing. She opened the door of their bedroom and let out a small cry. Drawers were open, articles of clothing lay scattered on the floor. She ran out on to the landing and threw open the door of George’s dressing-room. There were no cases on top of the wardrobe. She thrust aside the curtains and looked down the drive. The car had gone. She stood there for some moments completely still, apparently incapable of movement. Her body shook violently several times before she let herself slip to the ground. Crumpled in a kneeling position, with her chin resting on the window ledge, her sobbing grew more rapid. At first the spasms hurt but gradually each rhythmic and slowly swelling bubble of grief grew and broke easily from the one before. It was some minutes before she moved. A sudden glimmer of hope gave her the strength to rise. He might have left a note in the hall.