by Tim Jeal
‘I prefer the pearls in her hair.’
‘Would you come and bid for it?’
‘For myself or for you?’
‘For yourself of course.’
‘I’m not a collector,’ I said fatuously.
‘Nor am I‚’ came the inevitable answer. ‘I just like it. Look at the gold fringe on the shawl.’ Dutifully I looked. Very exacting work. Well done, James Hone.
‘When is the auction?’ I asked.
‘It tells you on the front of the catalogue. Next Friday.’
‘Can I give it to you?’
‘I wouldn’t like to have to return something I like as much as this.’
I felt like ripping the thing from its case and stamping on it. I looked more carefully at the woman’s face. The artist had certainly caught her effortless arrogance. The spaniel stared up sadly.
Over by the door I caught sight of a marble Venus, her finger pointing towards the door. Art and love so delicately and eternally entwined. Dinah followed the direction of my gaze. She said:
‘There used to be a statue like that in the garden of Mark’s father’s place.’
There had. I saw the stump of that crudely maimed arm pointing senselessly into the rhododendrons, exhorting me to search for another tennis ball. The plinth had been chipped. She wobbled if you pushed. I had tried to kiss Dinah beside her one sunset. I had wobbled too and almost fallen as she stepped back. Did she remember that?
‘Can we go now?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t seen much yet.’
So we looked at a gold and hardstone vinaigrette, a French bronze watch stand in the shape of a lyre, a miniature of an officer wearing a blue uniform with red facings, a miniature of a divine with powdered wig, black robes and white linen collar. I pretended not to be looking at the same as her. She indicated a miniature of another military gentleman described in the catalogue as of the ‘9th Regiment S.E.L.L.V.’.
‘What on earth do they all stand for?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
‘I don’t suppose it really matters,’ she said seriously.
Venus beckoned me to the door a second time.
‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have some tea or coffee?’
‘I’ve only just had lunch.’ She looked at my sullenly resentful face. ‘Oh, all right then.’ This in a ‘There, there, everything will be all right’ voice.
*
In the street Dinah said:
‘So you’ve seen me again.’ I couldn’t calculate whether this remark was made with some serious intent or whether she was still mocking me.
‘I hope I’m going to be able to see you for tea as well.’
‘I thought that was the general intention when we left the showrooms.’
I wondered whether I had ever really seen Dinah as an individual before. Her present behaviour was a not altogether pleasant assertion of her separate identity. Gone were those silent days. This was more the Dinah of the tennis court, the Dinah whose forehand drive I had shivered to receive. How easily she had seen through my tactics, and yet she had been vulnerable once. She had hated me leaving after my nights at her flat. She was like the skilful fighter who fights to defeat herself. Or this was what I hoped. She had told me where to come. She had wanted to see me again. Was that enough? Did I have to know her reasons? Was she to be the proud heroine of some movie? After the clever conversations, the rejections of the man she had always loved, would pride after the statutory time melt away with the final clinch?
The tea room we chose was crowded and peopled almost entirely by old women, their ankles swollen after the shops. Ten shillings for tea and cakes. Oh yes, real cream. Since she had decided to take the initiative I decided to let her go on doing so. We neither of us spoke for some minutes. We would be there for over twenty minutes. It would probably take that long to be served and get the bill. One of the women at the next-door table said:
‘I’d rather take a grubby little room in Soho than go and stay with them.’
The waitress came. We chose from her laden trolley. Carefully she lifted out our chosen sticky morsels. I insisted that we did not want toast. I did realise I would pay for it? Yes, yes.
Behind me I heard:
‘So because Jack was learning to fly Tom also had to have a try. It had been just the same with sailing; he was quite useless at that too.’
A smile from Dinah, who had also heard.
‘Am I going to pour the tea?’ she asked in a surprised voice. As though she had expected it to pour itself.
‘I’ll do it.’ The water jug was too hot to move. ‘Like that? Bit more?’
In a way I enjoyed it. The delightfully nervous self-consciousness of the whole performance. Like writing a play, or a book. What line comes next? I knew where I was trying to get to. Only a matter of getting there. But so many alternatives. And this play alas, could not be a monologue.
‘How did you get on with Mark when you met him in the street?’ she asked, emphasising the last three words.
I guessed that he had not confirmed her suspicion that I had followed him.
‘I don’t think I was with him long enough to form an opinion.’
‘Well that’s lucky.’
‘I don’t quite see that.’
‘It would have been awkward if you’d disliked him.’
My face quite blank as she looked at me with amused eyes.
‘Awkward for him, for me, for you?’ My bewilderment seemed to delight her.
‘For all of us.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Do you?’ A look of cunning.
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘You shouldn’t try to mislead me then.’ The irony of her words did not escape her. She went on: ‘I was thinking that as you want to know so much about me, I might try to show you me in my natural habitat. A sort of cosy evening, just the three of us at home.’
‘Would Mark enjoy that?’
‘I don’t see why not. He doesn’t get about a lot. New faces, don’tcha know.’
Again I was sweating. This was worse than our dinner. So was she thinking: if he actually comes he must really love me? Was she trying to embarrass me or her husband? Was she suggesting it because she didn’t care what she did?
‘It wouldn’t be quite fair to keep you all to myself.’
‘I’m honoured,’ I choked out. Then: ‘Do you enjoy trying to make a fool of me?’
‘Didn’t you enjoy it once?’ My stomach seemed to have been seized by a cold and bony hand. I put down my cake and breathed deeply. She looked at me with slight alarm.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
The feeling passed. I said slowly:
‘You know that if you ask me I’ll come?’
‘Yes‚’ she replied without hesitation or surprise.
All her levity had gone. She looked at me closely. Those eyes, Dinah, those eyes that burn out my mind. I thought of her in that coffee bar in Notting Hill after I had first slept with her. ‘Some people are afraid of me.’ But now she said quietly:
‘You really don’t see why, do you?’ Her tone was almost exasperation. ‘Can’t you see that I can’t lie to Mark. That if I see you, he must see you? Do you have any idea how ill he was? And that isn’t right either. I don’t mean that I can’t bear to lie to a cripple. I can’t lie to Mark.’
I remembered my own confession of embarrassment to him.
‘I see.’ She did not challenge my comprehension this time. She said abruptly:
‘You’d better get the bill.’
I did so, and we walked out into the street together.
‘I’m going to get Andrew some vests and pants.’ As she left me she said:
‘I’ll let you know when our dinner is.’
Fourteen
Each morning I waited for the post with a mixture of eagerness and dread. At work Tim was gloomy. I did little to help him. ‘We ought to get out of the haulage side altogether,�
�� he would often say. Some bright boys in road research had discovered that one fully loaded lorry had the same wearing effect on a road as five thousand cars. Added to this was the huge annual loss made by British Railways. Also with road congestion getting worse it was easy and not altogether unfair to blame lorries for still slower traffic flow. If we sold out we’d lose. Nevertheless the process was started. The property market did not look much better either. There was little or no buying and selling.
Each day that I did not hear seemed infinitely empty. I had taken to spending some of my lunch hour in Hyde Park. One afternoon I was watching a child playing while his father dozed on a bench. The child’s eye was caught by a piece of coloured paper that was being blown past. He started to follow. The father dozed on. A hundred yards away the child turned, looked about and let out a terrible scream of grief. Suddenly nothing, the reason for running forgotten, and Daddy gone. I thought I remembered the same feeling of utter isolation and sudden deprivation. And then more recently the hall and my unread postcards. With a twinge of fear I saw my empty post-box. Would it be tomorrow?
It was not the following day or even the one after that. I waited over two weeks. Even my two outings with Dinah had made me long just to see her again. Only that. I did not forget the auction either. She didn’t come. I bought the miniature for seventy-five pounds. I kept it in a drawer and looked at it often. One day I would give it to her. She would thank me with tears of gratitude in her eyes. The expression on the seated woman’s face still caused me anger. What right had anybody got to look so certain? Perhaps if we ever quarrelled and parted I could give it to her then. Instead of going she would take me in her arms. I still had little to help me but my dreams. The letter when it came was short and to the point:
Dear Harry,
Mark and I would love to see you at seven o’clock next Tuesday. Don’t bother about what you wear. It’ll be pretty informal.
Yours,
Dinah Simpson.
Not even signed with her Christian name. No, I’m self-dramatising. I didn’t expect that. The ‘pretty informal’ caused me a wry smile. Doubtless it had given her one as she wrote it. I had thought fairly carefully about the coming meeting. She too might have cause for unease. I was sure that she had been truthful about her incapacity to lie to Simpson. This being the case he must realise the extent of my former involvement with Dinah. I wondered if he was going to tell her that I had followed him. I felt he would probably not wish to bring up the stick incident. In some ways there was considerable comfort to be gained from her decision to make this invitation. I now felt certain that this was not some ghastly joke at my expense. It might well be a token of a desire to take me seriously. Yet how much more they knew than I. They had been together for ten years. Tennis again. I can’t get it out of my head. Two against one. The three of us had played together two. against one.
Did they have many friends? Was she lonely? What did she feel about the Bible Bookshop?
I had some comfort in the knowledge that she had not been to the auction. The excursion to Sotheby’s seemed to have been solely to see me. I was still most uncertain of a lot. If there was to be a future, how much would she still have to tell Mark? How long would these dinners go on? On the other hand would there even be one more? If Mark hated the sight of me or said that he did, would she then not see me again? Perhaps she wanted me to challenge him in some way. I had moments of hope and elation, often swiftly followed by misery in case I should do the wrong thing.
Fifteen
On the day I decided to wear the suit I had been to work in, rather than attempt anything ‘pretty informal’.
*
The tiled floor, the heavy doors of the lift, the marquetry elephants and palm trees on the sides of the lift. This time no Andrew to meet me. I walked along the corridor to the door of the flat.
Simpson opened the door and gave me a smile that was almost confidential, as if to say: ‘I wish I knew what all this is about.’ I noticed that the laundry basket and the folded wheelchair had been removed. The long table was not cluttered with papers, the doors of the bathroom and study were closed. Simpson took my coat in the hand not occupied with holding his stick. I looked around to see if there was any sign of Andrew. His presence would have made me feel more at ease. He must have guessed what I was thinking.
‘Dinah’s in the kitchen getting supper ready.’
‘And Andrew?’ I asked.
‘Staying with a friend. Now what’ll you have? I’m afraid it’s just gin or sherry.’
I chose gin. I saw him move a small table slightly to the right.
‘One only starts to realise the full advantages of furniture when one’s lame,’ he said smiling. ‘I can get round this room without using a stick just by leaning on the furniture.’
He saw me hesitating before sitting down.
‘I never sit in any of the arm-chairs so take your pick. I have to sit a bit higher off the ground.’
He demonstrated this by sitting on an uncomfortable-looking upright-backed chair.
‘I can get off this one quite easily. It’s sad really — everybody used to admire my achievements and now they don’t notice. I used to be able to yell: “I’ve done up one of my shoe laces,” and everybody in the flat would come running.’
I wondered how long he’d go on talking. I was already feeling quite grateful. He said looking at the floor:
‘Of course one advantage of having the furniture strategically placed in here is that I don’t have to use a stick with all these pocket handkerchief rugs about.’
‘I think they’re attractive nevertheless,’ I cut in amiably. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘Dinah picked them up at various auctions.’ He paused. ‘I gather you bumped into her at Sotheby’s. Do you collect anything?’
‘No, I was just wandering around,’ I said foolishly.
‘I think she was keen to buy a particular miniature, but then she couldn’t get to the auction at the last moment.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Well I don’t know that you can say that,’ his smile assuming a new significance. ‘After all it would have been embarrassing to have to bid against her. I went instead but arrived too late. They gave me the name of the person who bought it.’
‘If you really are keen to have it I’m sure I’d let you have it for the price I gave.’
‘You’d better tell Dinah that.’
‘Why was she so keen to have that one?’
‘Some ancestor of her father I think.’
Worse and worse. I looked around the room; there were no miniatures about. Simpson said:
‘Anyway it’s nice to know where it’s gone.’
I cast around for some way to change the subject. My eye lighted on the upright piano.
‘I don’t remember you playing.’
‘I took it up in hospital. Occupational therapy. Better than making teddy bears. I never got very good.’
‘Did you do anything else?’ I thought he looked uneasy for a moment. Had he noticed the loss of those pages?
‘I read a lot about plant life. Got quite absorbed.’
‘You should see all the books in his bedroom,’ Dinah said, coming into the room.
His bedroom. So they slept apart. I remembered his observation in the typescript that polio did not lessen sexual desire. Dinah said to me:
‘I expect he’s been boring you about how clever he’s been with the placing of the tables and chairs.’
I shuddered. The old married couple chaffing each other about their pet topics. Then I noticed the curling smile at the corner of her lips.
‘Come in to dinner now anyway.’
The dining room was small. Like Simpson’s study it looked out on to the well. The table could at a pinch have seated six. The walls were almost bare. A flower piece over the sideboard. We went in first. Dinah followed with a tray.
‘I hope nobody objects to chicken chasseur?’
I assured
her that I was sure it would taste as good as it looked. Simpson did not comment. I was sitting between them. I wondered whether Dinah enjoyed cooking. Was there usually a bowl of flowers in the middle of the table? Dinah asked me if I’d open the wine and pour out. I remembered a time in Africa when I had taken a job as a wine-steward. Wiping the glasses ostentatiously and cupping a napkin under the neck of the bottle to avoid any drips had always ensured a decent tip. This time I contented myself with a slight twist of the bottle and the use of my napkin. Dinah smiled as I filled her glass.
‘Goodness, you are experienced.’
‘I was once a wine-waiter,’ I said, not without a touch of pride at the breadth of my experience. Without you I would never have been one, I thought. They did not take me up on my revelation, so my fund of amusing anecdotes on this subject remained untapped. As we ate, to begin with the whirring of the fan heater was the only noise. Neither Dinah nor Simpson seemed worried by the silence. Dinah was wearing a faded pair of blue slacks and a white sweater that emphasised her breasts. Her youthful clothes and graceful neatness contrasted with her husband’s balding head and sagging cardigan. He looked fatter. I wondered how much was due to atrophied muscles. What could I say? If I asked Simpson what he was doing for a living, he would be able to point out that I had already found out for myself. Impossible to say: how strange it is to be sitting here so soon after meeting them both by chance. I imagined Dinah’s inward laughter greeting everything I could possibly say. Since the subject of the miniature had to be broached sooner or later and since it would be better not to allow Mark to introduce it, I said:
‘I expect you’ve been told by Mark that I bought the miniature you wanted. If he’d given me time I’d have explained that I got it so that nobody else would stop you having it.’
Simpson looked at me with what I suspected might be admiration.
‘That was very sweet of you, Harry. Did you think I wasn’t going to make it?’
‘He wanted it for himself and wasn’t going to let on either,’ said Simpson jovially. ‘I just happened to find out who’d bought it.’