by Francis King
‘I can understand how people can become communists. Life is so unjust. But of course, even in a communist state, the injustices continue. In the Soviet Union, Bob would be privileged because he’s so clever. And your mother would be privileged because she’s so beautiful – some commissar or other would see to that.’
‘And you would be privileged because you’re so good-looking – some female commissar or other would see to that too. I’m the only one of us who would not be privileged.’
He did not laugh. With a sombre, brooding expression, he stared down towards the glittering lake below us.
‘I try not to be resentful. But you and even Bob have had it so easy. Prep school, public school, university to follow. Good job after that. You’re still a schoolboy and yet you were able to buy that blue silk sweater.’
Bob appeared, a glass in either hand. ‘Are these the right ones?’ he asked.
‘No, not really,’ Tim said. ‘Those are for champagne. But it doesn’t really matter.’ He took the glasses from Bob, placed them on the table, and then began to pour out two martinis from the art deco cocktail shaker. Still pouring, he said: ‘I’ve just been telling your chum here what lucky buggers both of you are.’
‘Are we?’ Bob said, extending a hand to take the glass offered to him.
‘I was born in Brixton,’ Tim said. ‘ I left school – the local grammar school – when I was sixteen. I was already trying to better myself, and so all the boys – bless their envious little hearts – made fun of me because of what they called my ‘‘posh’’ accent. My first job was as a sales assistant at Barker’s. I may even – who knows? – have served that aunt of yours. Groceries, that was my department – the cheese counter. I used to travel to Kensington and back by bus and Inner Circle. I couldn’t afford even a room of my own. I lived with the family.’
‘Why are you telling us all this?’ Bob asked.
‘Why? Oh, I’ve no idea. Perhaps because I want to make you both feel guilty.’
‘Well, I don’t think you’ll succeed,’ Bob said.
‘No. I daresay not.’
For a while all three of us sat in silence. Then Ma, in a flowered cotton dress but still barefoot and not wearing stockings, appeared in the doorway. ‘Lunch is ready,’ she said. She looked at us in turn. Then she exclaimed: ‘ How glum you all look!’
Chapter Twenty Seven
This morning, Noreen was gardening. She was not gardening strenuously but, looking out of the back window of the shop, I was amazed that she should be gardening at all. For a while, secateurs in knobbly hand, she dead-headed the roses. Then, kneeling on the mat which she always brings out for this task, she set about weeding the herbaceous border which she herself created three – or was it four? – summers ago. Could a solitary gold injection have had so rapid and so potent an effect? Or was this a case of what Dr Lewes calls ‘the placebo factor’ working a miracle? She has always been suggestible.
Eventually I threw open the window and called out to her: ‘Don’t overdo it! Don’t tire yourself!’
‘Oh, I feel marvellous. Terrific.’
Someone had entered the shop. I closed the window and turned to deal with him. He was a young man in jeans, a sweat-shirt and Doc Martens, with a coloured cloth bound, pirate-wise, round his head, who asked if I stocked any military insignia, I told him that I didn’t. He walked out of the shop without another word.
When I have closed up the shop and go through the door which leads from it to the sitting-room, in order to join Noreen for luncheon, I am surprised that the table is unlaid and that there is no sign of her. She is usually so punctilious.
‘Noreen!’ I call. ‘Darling! Where are you?’
‘Upstairs!’ Her voice is oddly muffled.
‘Are you all right?’ I begin to climb the narrow, steep stairs. When we bought this Elizabethan cottage, we never thought that one day Noreen would be an invalid.
‘Noreen!’
She is lying on the double bed, which we no longer share, since she has become so restless a sleeper. She is on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
‘I think I rather overdid things,’ she tells me, turning her head to give me a weak, apologetic smile. ‘ I felt wonderful. Now I feel awful,’ She struggles to get off the bed. ‘I’ll get the lunch.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. You just rest here and I’ll get it. I can bring a tray up.’
‘No, darling …’ Her protest is feeble. She looks extraordinarily, worryingly pale.
It is not much trouble to prepare the luncheon. We never eat anything other than a bowl of soup each, some salad and some French bread and cheese. There is always wine but we drink sparingly. I carry up the tray and place it on the bedside table. Then I draw up a chair for myself.
Suddenly, I do not know why, I am certain that what has made this change in Noreen has not been only the gardening, perhaps has not been the gardening at all. I gaze at her and briefly she gazes back at me, her glass of Muscadet almost touching her lips. Then she says: ‘Darling, I have a confession to make.’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t be cross. Promise not to be cross.’
‘Of course I won’t be cross.’
‘I looked in your desk. I found it. Read it. I mean, read what concerned you and me.’
I am astounded. It is, as far as I know, the first time that she has ever violated my privacy in such a way. I have never violated hers. ‘But Noreen, how – how could you?’
‘Yes, I know. It was terrible of me. But I knew that something was on your mind, something was worrying you. There was that time – do you remember? – when I came into the room and you threw something, in such a guilty way, into the drawer of your desk and then pushed it shut … That, well, alerted me.’ She gulps from the glass. ‘ So I came to feel that I – I had to know, just had to know.’ She looks over to me, her eyes apprehensive and wary. ‘Do you forgive me?’
‘Of course I do. Of course! But, oh, I do wish … I didn’t want you to know what was happening. I wanted to keep it from you.’
‘He’s going to destroy us,’ she says. ‘That’s what he always wanted to do and now, after all these years …’ She has never liked Bob. Just as he has always been jealous of her, so perhaps she has been jealous of him.
‘I have to appeal to him,’ I say. ‘I must go and see him. That’s what I’m planning.’
‘He won’t listen to any appeals,’ she says bitterly.
‘I don’t see why not.’ But, with a feeling of despair, I wonder if she may not be right. ‘After all, those chapters could easily be removed from his book. The book won’t suffer all that much … It’s rather a good book,’ I add.
‘Well, he’s always been clever – so that’s not surprising.’
‘I don’t want you to worry about it. Worry is the worst thing for you.’
She laughs. ‘I can hardly not worry. I just can’t go through the whole business again. And you can’t. Even more, you can’t.’
I shrug. ‘ Let’s see how he responds.’
Now it is past eleven o’clock and she has long since gone up to bed. I sit down here, the typescript on my knees. I wonder if there is any chance of getting him to do what Noreen and I want. I think of all the consequences if the press discovers where I am and what has happened to me and if, once again, we have to move on and remake ourselves.
Our two desks are side by side, hers and mine. As I replace the typescript in my desk, I turn, on an impulse, to hers and lift its lid. There, among a jumble of papers, is the glitterwax rose, as it used once to lie among a jumble of papers, tubes of paint, brushes and pens and pencils in her desk in the Black Box.
I pick up the glitterwax rose and weigh it in my palm. Then I raise it to my nostrils and again breathe in that faint smell of paraffin after all these years. It is the smell – yes, I am convinced of it – which establishes the link for me. The glitterwax rose is in my hand; and there, in my memory, are the scorched roses lying on the top of the incine
rator. The glitterwax rose is the symbol of the love which has somehow survived all these long, often troubled years which Noreen and I have spent together. The burnt roses are the symbol of Bob’s lovelessness, in Ma’s rejection of him.
I place the glitterwax rose back where it was. With strange persistence, that faint smell of paraffin still lingers on my hand and even in my nostrils.
Chapter Twenty Eight
I think that I can remember the day when, like a spore of dry rot or like the virus of some deadly disease, the idea of It first entered not so much my mind or my heart but my bloodstream.
The four of us had driven into Milan, the constant swerving round the hairpin bends at the southern end of the lake making Bob’s face go yellow and sweaty with car-sickness. ‘ Do you think you could drive a little slower, Tim?’ I eventually suggested. ‘ Bob’s not feeling all that well.’
Ma snapped: ‘The faster we go, the sooner it’ll be over for him. In any case,’ she added, ‘I don’t want to be late for my hair appointment.’ She looked at her watch. ‘ Oh, God! We’re only just going to make it.’
When we had parked the car by the hairdresser’s, Ma turned to Bob and me. ‘You two had better go off on your own. You’ll be far happier like that and we’ll also be far happier. Let’s meet here at about five thirty. All right?’
‘That’s fine,’ I said.
When Tim and Ma had disappeared into the hairdresser’s, Bob said: ‘The first thing I must do is revive myself with a drink. Let’s go into that café over there.’
He ordered a brandy, in the Italian which, to my shame, he was already beginning to acquire with such ease, and I a coffee. Having gulped at the brandy, he said: ‘What a bitch!’
There was no reason to ask to whom he was referring. For the first time, when he spoke disparagingly of Ma, I felt no impulse to argue with him, much less to show any indignation or anger.
‘Do you think The One and Only’s going to sit in the hairdresser’s while her hair’s being done?’
‘Quite possibly,’ I answered. ‘That way she can be sure he doesn’t get into any mischief.’
‘Does he ever pay for anything for himself, let alone for her?’
‘Can’t afford to. He’s broke. I told you how Dad used to call him a scrounger. And a gigolo. And a lounge lizard.’ I could hear the contemptuous tone with which Dad would say all three of these things.
‘She must be spending a fortune on him. Is she that rich?’
‘I don’t really know how rich she is. She’s always complaining that Aunt Bertha left her only the house, not any money. But I don’t believe that. She’s terribly extravagant. The villa is costing her a fortune.’
‘It was typical that she and he had a first-class sleeper, while you and I had to sit up hard class. I’m amazed you didn’t complain.’
I didn’t give him the true answer: I’ve got used to not complaining. Instead I merely shrugged, drained my coffee and said: ‘Let’s go.’
As we wandered through the streets of Milan, peering into shop windows, I suddenly, against my will, began to think of the night of the storm and of his body heaving and thrusting close to mine. I could even feel the oppressive heat, and smell the rain. The unbidden memory made me feel slightly nauseated; and yet, at the same time, I longed to be away from Milan, back in the villa, once more on the bed, with our arms around each other.
‘You’re very silent.’
‘Am I?’
‘A lira for your thoughts.’
‘Oh, they’re not worth that. My mind was really blank.’
He lowered his head, then turned it, to look up at me. There was a mischievous, provocative expression on his face. Could he have guessed those thoughts?
Eventually we wandered into the cathedral and climbed, breathing more and more strenuously, up on to its roof. Suddenly, forsaking the walkway, Bob clambered over a low wall, scampered, almost on all fours, up a steep, slithery incline and then embraced a small, elaborately decorated finial. All the other tourists halted and gazed at him in apprehension. Then a custodian appeared and, frantically waving his arms, began to shout in a yelping falsetto. When Bob had returned to the walkway, the custodian told us to descend at once – immediatamente, subito! He had a small, pointed, reddish beard, which wagged in fury. As we started down the spiral staircase, he shouted after us: ‘Cretini! Scemi!’ Why the plural? I had done nothing amiss.
When we eventually met up with them, Ma and Tim were loaded with shopping. ‘Everything’s wildly expensive,’ Ma said. ‘ But the Italians have such wonderful taste – even better than the French. There were so many things I just couldn’t resist. And I felt that it wasn’t fair to buy things only for myself, and so Tim got the benefit. Lucky boy! Oh, and I got something for you too,’ she added, diving into one of her many shopping bags and handing me a small packet. When I opened it, I found that it contained six handkerchiefs. ‘Linen,’ she said. ‘With an M on each. You seem to lose all your handkerchiefs, I can’t imagine how.’
I mumbled my thanks.
‘And here’s a little something for you.’
Bob’s present was a pair of boxer shorts. She must have noticed that he had brought only those two pairs with him.
‘What did Mrs Frost buy you?’ Bob asked Tim, when the car, having repeatedly refused to respond to the self-starter, eventually lurched off.
‘What did she buy me?’ Tim put up a hand and adjusted the mirror. I could now see the smirk on his handsome, vacant face. ‘Well, first and foremost, there’s this watch.’ He held up his wrist. ‘It’s actually French, not Italian. Longines. Isn’t it elegant?’
‘I suppose it’s gold,’ Bob said, nudging my knee with his.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, yes it is. Then she bought me a cigarette case because she complains that, whenever I offer her a fag, it’s from a crushed packet.’
‘Also gold?’ Bob asked.
‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’
‘What else?’ Bob prompted.
‘Oh, some shirts. And – let me see – a sports jacket. And a polo-neck sweater. Like Mervyn’s,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘Silk. But a wonderful shade of burgundy and not that insipid blue … So I won’t have to borrow his any more. Does that relieve you, Mervyn?’ He laughed.
I, too, managed to laugh. ‘Yes, it does.’
After our return, I had a shower. Then, since there was at least an hour before dinner would be served, I lay out on my bed, in only my underpants, and listened to a performance of Respighi’s ‘The Pines of Rome’ on the wireless which stood on a table by the window.
The door opened. For minutes now I had been willing and yet dreading its opening.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Listening to some music. Respighi.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He’s very popular in Italy.’ Suddenly it had become an effort to breathe.
‘Don’t you want to go down for a drink?’
‘Not very much. I feel angry with them.’
‘With both of them?’
‘Well, more with Ma. What a fool she’s making of herself. One can’t really blame The One and Only. If she wants to give him all those things, it’s natural he should take them from her.’
He laughed. Then he sat down on the end of my bed. ‘ Perhaps one day I’ll be able to find some older woman to keep me in the state to which I’m not accustomed.’
‘I doubt it. Let’s face it, you’re not really the type.’
He clambered on to the bed and then, on all fours, crept up it towards me. He might have been a huge cat. He clasped both my wrists, one in each hand, and then lowered his mouth to mine. ‘This time I’m really going to kiss you.’
I shook my head from side to side. ‘No. No!’ Somehow kissing me seemed a greater violation than anything else that he might do to me.
He pressed his mouth on to mine. I thought I would gag. Then he raised his head, looked down at me, laughed, ‘Why do you pretend y
ou don’t like this?’
‘I’m not pretending.’
‘Of course you are.’
Still gripping my right wrist, he released the left in order to tug my underpants downwards.
‘Oh, stop it! Stop! Ma might come in.’
‘Let her! Do her good.’
So, once again, it happened.
After it was over, I sat moodily on the window sill, in my underpants and nothing else, while he lay out on the bed. His hair was tousled, his face flushed. There was a red crease down the left side of his chest.
‘I wonder how much money she spent.’
I shrugged.
‘She must have spent a fortune. A gold watch and a gold cigarette case. And what did we get? Some handkerchiefs for you, some underpants for me. What romantic presents! What generous presents!’
I brooded on it. Then I muttered: ‘It makes me sick.’
‘I’m not surprised. If she goes on this way, there’ll be nothing left for you.’
‘Nothing of what?’
‘Of cash, idiot! Have you any money of your own?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, did that aunt, or great-aunt, or whatever she was, leave you anything? Has anyone left you anything?’
‘No. Of course not.’ It was the first time that I had given it any thought.
‘Why of course not? Yours seems to be a family in which a lot of money keeps circulating.’
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ I said wearily. ‘Mine is a family in which people spend money. That’s not the same as having it.’
‘Your mother stinks of money.’ He swung his legs off the bed. ‘But how long do you think she can go on in this way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘ ‘‘What do you mean?’’ ’ Cruelly he mimicked me. ‘What I mean is that, by the time you really need some money, there’ll just be none left. So far from your mother being able to help you out, you’ll be slaving in some putrid job to help her out.’
Gloomily, I stared down at the lake. A faint mist was rising, as it often did at that hour of dusk, and with it, as always, came a smell of decay, why I never knew.