by Mary Wesley
‘Do they at your age?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I go at once and find out, then come back if successful and pay for the dress?’
‘Of course, Madam.’
‘Will you take a cheque?’
‘Of course.’
Successful with the dancing shoes, Matilda left Harrods carrying the dress and shoes, light in heart and lighter by one cheque for several hundred pounds. She walked through Montpelier Square to the park on her way to Anne in Mayfair.
Strolling along by the Serpentine she passed the spot where long ago she had biffed Felicity out onto the ice to her death without even the vaguest recollection of the event. She was filled with the euphoria of spending money she had not got. She enjoyed the crowds of young people walking, sitting, lying on the grass, in one case openly copulating. She liked the boats, ducks, prams, small children running. She enjoyed the shouting and screaming from the Lido, the flying of kites, orange, blue, red and green kites soaring and swooping in the late summer sky, reminding her for a moment of the blue sail she had seen on the sea during her abortive picnic. Next time she would surely be alone.
Anne lived in Mayfair; not for her Chelsea or Kensington. It was known that if she had consented to move to one of these areas her husband would have taken her on more holidays, given her a cottage in the country.
‘I can only live in Mayfair, nowhere else,’ had been her cry. ‘It’s so near the shops.’ It was said she could be seen shopping in street markets as far away as Lambeth, wearing black glasses and a headscarf – a rumour unconfirmed.
‘Lovely to see you, darling.’ Anne kissed Matilda. ‘What have you got on your feet, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Espadrilles.’
‘Darling, you can’t be seen like that, people will laugh.’
‘Suppose they do?’
‘Oh, you’ve been shopping! Let’s have a peep.’ Anne’s voice was the tone of a daily communicant who has caught a lapsed friend coming out of Mass. It combined surprise with forgiveness. Matilda showed her the dress and dancing slippers.
‘It’s not you, you know, is it the new mode? Those baby shoes?’
‘Yes. I lunched with Lalage yesterday.’
‘Darling, she mostly talks about her face you know.’
‘I noticed. How is the family?’
‘All right. Peter’s in Greece, Humphrey is sailing. So boring, and death to one’s hair. He always asks me to go too but it’s not on, is it?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, one feels sick, one gets bored, one’s hair goes the most dreadful carrot, you know, and it’s difficult to get back to normal, you know.’
‘How would I know?’
‘Well, love, you can wear it white but at this moment in time one can’t, you know.’
‘How is Vanessa?’
‘Vanessa has some dreadful man in your part of the world. You probably know him, Bobby something. She’s been on the bed thing with him, someone said she even does it on the beach. She wants to marry him. You know what girls are like, you’ve got two.’
‘Oh yes, the penny’s dropped. I saw her on the beach. They were going to have a barbecue. She swam naked and kept saying everything was super, super.’ Matilda accepted an offered sherry.
‘“Super” is her latest word. How one hates these expressions! At this moment in time its “super”. One never had these verbal tricks oneself, one was prevented by one’s parents.’
‘Have you been seeing a lot of Princess Anne?’
‘Why should I? We don’t move in those circles, though one’s not far off you know. How is Claud?’
‘I thought you might ask after Louise.’
‘Why? One’s more interested in Claud. So like Tom isn’t he – his manners, habits, you know.’
‘What habits?’
‘One supposes it’s the genes, you know. Claud has inherited Tom’s – you must have noticed – it’s all genes.’ Matilda listened for an unspoken ‘you know’ hovering at the end of the unspoken sentence. What am I doing here? Who is this dreadful woman? Where is the Anne who was once young, pretty, full of life. Who is this bore?
‘Claud lives in the States. I never see him.’
‘One couldn’t very well go and see him, could one? One sees that.’
‘Sees what?’
‘One sees in Claud what you never seemed to notice in Tom. You carried it off marvellously. We all thought so, you know.’
‘Are you implying Tom was a bugger?’
‘Matilda!’
‘Well, Claud is, “one” knows that. You seem to imply Tom was too.’
‘Didn’t you know?’
Matilda grinned. ‘No, and nor did you. I bet you tried to get Tom into bed and he refused, so now you say he was a bugger.’
‘If you weren’t one of one’s oldest friends –’
‘How old are you, Annie?’
‘Well –’
‘Same age as me.’
‘A good deal younger. I married when I was sixteen.’
‘Anne don’t! Not with me. Please. We are old, nearer death than birth, time to get ready. You can’t go on dyeing your hair, using silly expressions like “one” instead of “I” or “we” and mischief making.’
‘I should think,’ said Anne, her face clashing with her hair, ‘that living as you do has softened your brain. You should come up to London oftener and keep up.’
‘Keep up with what?’
‘Life, of course. Life you know.’
‘I am more interested in death, so should you be. You haven’t much time left to be nice to poor old Humphrey. Why don’t you tie up your hair and go sailing with him? Why don’t you go to bed with him now and again? Have a good romp.’
‘At this moment in time I don’t want to.’
‘Not during lunch but when he comes back from the Solent? Why not be like Vanessa? She has fun, I’ve seen her. Sexy.’
‘You always had a vulgar streak, even at school.’
‘That’s like the old Anne. I’m going now. I can’t take any more. I’m sorry. I don’t belong any more. I’m off –’
‘Leaving London?’ Suddenly aware of Matilda, Anne caught her hand.
‘London and life. Give my love to Humphrey.’ Matilda picked up the dress in its Harrods bag.
‘Don’t get uptight, Matilda. You know you –’
Matilda kissed her quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I must go, really sorry.’
Her lunch unfinished, Matilda got into the lift and down into the street conscious of behaving badly in her need to get away. Fool, I didn’t go to the lavatory, she thought, walking quickly along the hot pavements to Piccadilly, into the Ritz where in the calm of the cloakroom she assuaged her need, washed her hands which were trembling and combed her hair. He may have slept with Lalage but he was not a bugger.
Matilda stood at a basin letting the cold tap run over her hands, wondering how to fill the afternoon until she could go back for dinner with John. The running water made her want to pee again. Sitting on the lavatory seat she remembered periods at parties when nobody had wanted to talk or dance with her and she had spent much time in cloakrooms. There had been one party which was different. She tried to remember why, in what way it had been different. Where was the party? When? What year? The memory escaped. I can’t sit here the whole afternoon. This is ridiculous. She left the lavatory, washed her hands again then sat in the hall to collect herself. She felt angry that yesterday Lalage had sniped and hit and today Anne. They had attacked like birds when a member of the flock is wounded. They wanted to kill me, thought Matilda. How shocked they would be if they knew I mean to kill myself. I am already extinct, a Polish Fowl, a Tufted Hamburg. She smiled and caught the eye of an old man who was sitting near by. He winked infinitesimally. He was listening to his daughter. She must be his daughter since she addressed him as ‘Papa’, speaking French. Papa was to sit here and rest while she did her shopping at Fortnum’s and Elizabeth Arden and Liberty’
s. He could rest, order tea, she would be back in an hour. Meanwhile he must rest. She went off with a cheerful wave, high heels trotting.
‘Is being old very boring?’ said Matilda in French.
‘Je m’emmerde, madame.’
Matilda moved to the chair beside him.
‘May I tell you what I am going to do about it for myself?’
‘Je vous en prie,’ politely.
‘I am not going to get old,’ said Matilda. ‘I am going to kill myself.’
‘You have cancer, perhaps?’
‘No, no. I just refuse to suffer the horrors of age. I have had all I want. I have decided to stop.’
‘How will you stop?’
Matilda outlined her picnic.
‘I wish I could accompany you,’ said the old man, ‘but I have waited too long. I cannot walk without help, I can do nothing without help. It is undignified. Only my cat understands. I have a cat in Paris.’
Matilda told him about Gus.
‘That presents a problem.’
Matilda agreed, thinking of Gus, his honking and his feet slapping on the path. She had forgotten Folly as she had forgotten Hugh.
‘My daughter has gone to the shops. I must sit here and wait. I can no longer go myself. I am a prisoner of age.’
To amuse him Matilda told him about her shopping, her choice of presents for her children, of the dress she had bought that morning for the girls to quarrel over.
‘That does not sound like a death wish.’
‘All my cheques will bounce.’
‘And you will be gone when they do?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘Quelle revanche.’
‘It is my eldest son, he is such a respectable man –’
‘Like his father, perhaps?’
‘No, not a bit.’
‘What is called “a sport”?’
‘Yes, just that. Here comes your daughter. Thank you for listening to me. I should have liked to tell you about my two women friends.’
‘The one who said she had slept with your husband, the other that he was homosexual?’
‘How did you know?’
‘That is an old trick. Have a happy death.’
‘Goodbye.’
Matilda left him and, feeling cheered, took a taxi to the Hayward Gallery and thence, on her way back to John’s house, to the Tate. She would have liked Claud to meet that old man. She made a quick little prayer for Claud, ejecting it from her mind like a cartoon bubble. If there was ‘anybody’ about to hear it, perhaps he would do something for Claud?
As she waited on the pavement outside John’s house for the taxi driver to give her change she began to hum,
‘There’s a small hotel
By a wishing well
I wish that we were there, together.’
‘My Mum and Dad used to sing that song.’ The taxi driver counted the change into Matilda’s palm. ‘Said they danced to it.’
‘I did too.’ Matilda separated the change for the tip.
‘Stood up hugging?’
‘Yes, we hugged as we danced. We hung on to one another.’
‘Shocking, you does that –’
‘In bed?’ Matilda laughed. ‘We did a lot of hugging upright. I don’t see the point of dancing separate from your partner.’ She gave him her tip. He drove off laughing. ‘Funny old girl.’
20
IF MATILDA HAD known that Hugh was spending the nights walking the countryside and swimming in the reservoir she might have worried.
He came in before dawn, slept until lunch when Mr Jones came to feed Gus, a task he had taken upon himself, and to chat. What Mr Jones wanted to chat about was Matilda.
‘I love the woman.’ Huw Jones sat at the kitchen table, resting his beard in his hands.
‘Does she reciprocate?’ Hugh was making a pot of tea.
‘She does not. She was in love with Tom, that is what she thinks.’
‘She wanted to die because she can no longer live without him.’
‘That is the uppermost version.’
‘Oh, what’s underneath?’
‘Who knows? Does my Matilda know herself?’ Mr Jones threw out a dramatic enquiring hand. ‘She has a great talent for putting matters out of her mind.’
‘Your Matilda?’
‘Alas not. There was an attempt, a brief scuffle it was but –’
‘But what?’
‘She pushed me downstairs. I might have broken a bone. I tried to clasp her in my arms but she pushed.’
‘What were you doing upstairs?’
‘It was the ballcock of the loo. She had asked me to mend it. I saw her great bed in her room, the bed you slept in, desecration that. I thought it would be lovely to roll on the bed with Matilda so I – but she pushed and down I went. She laughed! Laughed,’ he groaned.
‘When was this?’
‘Several years ago. Since then I keep my place.’
‘But you love her?’
‘Yes. Silly, isn’t it?’
‘Depends.’
‘Of course it’s silly. She is mad. She wants to die. She does not want to grow old and clutter the earth. I love her. I would look after her.’
‘You would be old too.’
‘Ach! We would be old together but she hates old age, refuses it. She wants to push off. It is arrogant!’
‘What about her children? Can’t they stop her?’
‘Her children!’ Mr Jones held up a finger. ‘Louise, beautiful, married, two pretty tots, husband with money, lives in Paris. Louise, she is grand, she is the cat’s whiskers. She has a lover, all very discreet. Then there is Mark.’ Mr Jones held up a second finger. ‘A right bastard, a pompous pillar of the establishment, always at conferences. I read his name in the paper. Then there is Anabel. She is flighty, a tart, hard, beautiful of course.’ He lifted a third finger. ‘Ah, Anabel!’ A fourth finger went up. ‘Claud. The youngest, a cissy, a pouf. And none of them,’ Mr Jones thumped the table so that Folly barked and Gus honked, ‘none of them bothers to visit their mother.’
‘Perhaps she does not encourage them.’
‘True, but they should try. I visit my mother in Tooting and very boring it is too.’ Huw Jones laughed, tears leaping from his black eyes to flow into his beard. ‘She is so boring,’ he cried joyously, ‘but I go. She whines, she cries, she is lonely.’
Hugh laughed with him, pouring the water into the teapot, putting the pot on the table.
‘I constantly visited my mother.’
‘But you murdered her.’
‘I know, but she wasn’t boring.’
‘Tell old Jones about it.’ The black eyes stopped twinkling, the laughter died.
‘No thanks.’
‘Okay. So now we have an embarrassed pause while we think of something else to talk about.’ Mr Jones was huffed.
Making toast, Hugh asked, ‘And Tom, what was he really like?’
‘Matilda’s Tom?’
‘No, yours.’
‘Mine? An amusing man. Loved Matilda as well as he was able. I only knew the UFO side of him.’
‘And what was that?’
‘He had experience in the war, see? Brought people over from France in boats to the estuary here and in a little seaplane. So later he started smuggling, not very often, just now and then. He was a mysterious man. I think he did some work for that chap Matilda is staying with, but I’m not sure.’
‘Does she know?’
‘Oh no, no, no. Tom also brought in pot. He liked to smoke it just as I do. But just before he died he was cheated. Whoever sent the pot sent heroin too. Tom said he’d been double-crossed, that someone wanted to incriminate him –’
‘Why did he not destroy it?’
‘He did, he destroyed it, flushed it down the loo just as you did. But he told me he was keeping one packet to confront –’
‘Confront who?’
‘I don’t know, do I? Tom went off to Paris and never came back. There have be
en no more little boats or little seaplanes, nothing.’
‘But you go on reporting UFOs?’
‘Yes I do. The police think I am harmless, so I am safe.’
‘Did Matilda know of this?’
‘Nothing. I think she knows nothing.’
‘So she is bored.’
‘Matilda is lonely, she has cranky ideas. She is middle aged, has nothing to live for so she falls in love with death. There you are,’ Huw Jones exclaimed. ‘I am brilliant! Talking to you has discovered for me what Matilda wants. She wants death because she wants something she has never had, a splendid deduction.’ Mr Jones looked enchanted.
‘But we all get it. Death is the one certainty.’
‘But we don’t all love it, do we? It is love she wants.’
‘I thought she’d had love.’
‘I think,’ Huw Jones said sadly, ‘that she has discovered she never really had it.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘She could love me but she won’t even try. I love her. I look after Gus when she goes away. I would die for her. I have never betrayed Tom to her. I lie at her feet and I don’t get a sausage.’
Hugh gathered up the tea things, took them to the sink.
‘That woman loves Gus, she does not love poor Jones.’
‘Shall we play chess?’ Hugh hoped that playing chess would distract his visitor. He found this talk of Matilda painful.
‘Okay.’ Mr Jones set up the board. ‘We will play chess, stop talking about Matilda who thinks old people should not be encouraged to live, that weak babies should not be put into incubators. I think she secretly thinks it’s a good thing when a lot of old people are suffocated in a fire in an old people’s home, when faulty brakes fail on the buses on old people’s outings, when they catch the ‘flu and die by the score. She is a horrible woman, just like Hitler, and I love her and I hate her and her Death. I want to hold her in my arms and roll about in that bed.’ With tears coursing down his cheeks Huw Jones set up the board. ‘Your move.’ His voice was desolate.
Hugh moved his Queen’s pawn. I could not comfort this man, he thought, he loves his grief.
When the telephone pealed, which it did occasionally, they watched one another, counting the rings then waiting for it to stop.