Jumping the Queue

by Mary Wesley

  ‘The machine is broken.’

  ‘I taped it up for her. Stub knocked it over, he hated its noise, poor old dog.’

  ‘She could have a new one. It looks untidy.’

  Ruminating over his next move Huw Jones muttered, ‘She is not a tidy woman. The house is usually a mess. She feels a mess, so death is logical, tidy.’

  Thinking of his mother, Hugh exclaimed harshly, ‘I don’t find it tidy.’

  Aware of Hugh’s thought, Huw moved a threatening Bishop.

  They did not hear the lorry roll to a stop in the lane, though Folly pricked her ears and Gus honked.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Claud. ‘Where’s Mama?’

  ‘In London.’ Hugh looked up.

  ‘I telephoned.’ Claud looked from one man to the other. ‘An hour ago. I thought she must be out. She never goes away.’

  ‘She is.’ Hugh took in the full beauty of Claud in tattered jeans, worn suede jacket, Gucci shoes, dark brown eyes in sunburned face, improbable yellow hair, Matilda’s mouth.

  ‘She is away, she’s staying –’ began Mr Jones.

  ‘With loverboy Sir Piers to be.’

  ‘He’s not her lover.’ Mr Jones spoke crossly, jealously.

  ‘No? Why didn’t you answer the phone? Were you here?’ Claud looked from one to the other. ‘Oh, I see!’ he exclaimed. ‘The Matricide. Is Mama hiding you? Rather brave of her, sporting, jolly sporting. When will she be back?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’ Mr Jones’s voice did not disguise dislike. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I wanted to show her my find. I’ve a lorry of the most exquisite Delabole and Serpentine headstones. She’d like them. They were in a place I heard of in Cornwall.’

  ‘Pinched?’

  ‘No, Jonesy, not pinched. They were being – er – moved, lined up. Car parks now not graveyards. We move with the times, move to the New World.’

  ‘She’ll be back.’

  ‘I can’t wait, have to get them packed in the container. Pity. She would have liked them. She never goes away this time of year. Sorry to miss her. Must get them shipped.’

  ‘She –’

  ‘She hung up on me when I phoned, cut me off. I was about to say I might be around, couldn’t be sure.’ He looked Hugh over, grinning slightly, Matilda’s mouth, Claud’s expression. ‘Well then, another time. Give her my love. This her new dog? She can’t live without animals.’ He stroked Folly’s head as she stood on her hind legs, feet braced against his thigh, tail wagging. ‘Taken old Stub’s place, then?’ Patting the dog, he looked from one man to the other, the question ‘taking my father’s place?’ in his eyes. ‘How’s her terminal illness?’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘How’s her life? Bet you’ve cheered her up.’ He looked at Hugh. ‘I shan’t tell. A good lech is what she needs; a lot better for her than her infatuation with –’

  ‘Who with?’ Mr Jones’s voice betrayed fear.

  ‘Death, chap with a scythe. That one – speels it D-E-A-T-H. ‘Bye then.’

  They listened to his quick step, the slam of the lorry door, the engine starting up, dying away.

  ‘Bastard! He might have told her he was coming.’

  ‘He expected her to be here.’

  ‘Took it for granted.’

  ‘He did telephone. We didn’t answer.’

  Mr Jones was furious. ‘Young sod!’

  ‘It will be better not to tell Matilda,’ Hugh said quietly, putting the chessmen away.

  ‘Oh, much better,’ Mr Jones agreed, ‘much better, if better’s the word.’

  ‘Worse would be her disappointment. I’ve done the same –’

  ‘Your mother wasn’t like Matilda, you killed her.’

  ‘Oh shut up about my mother you improbable fool.’

  ‘One thinks another time will do, you are right, I do it too. But my mother’s so boring, so lonely, she whines at me.’

  ‘Sod your mother.’ Hugh tipped the chess board onto the floor.

  21

  JOHN LIKED THE new dress, Matilda saw at once. He seldom commented on her clothes. Walking to The Connaught from Berkeley Square where he had parked the car, she noticed too that wearing flat shoes not only allowed her to walk comfortably but made John look taller, more distinguished. Tonight he wore a dark grey flannel suit, a cream shirt and black tie. He held her arm lightly, steering her towards the restaurant.

  They sat at a corner table and had a drink before ordering. Matilda told John about her day. He laughed.

  ‘You should not take Anne and Lalage seriously.’

  ‘But I do. They make me suffer. It is a fine art with them.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘They have perfected the detection of the weak point.’

  ‘You should be safe against pinpricks.’

  ‘I am not. I used to be better at it when Tom was alive, better in London. Now it exhausts me. I have lost my vitality.’

  ‘I would hardly say that.’ John had been amazed by her itinerary. ‘You never crammed so much into two days. You would have used up two weeks in the old days.’

  ‘Old age is creeping in.’

  This irritated John, who picked up the menu. ‘What will you eat?’

  Sensing his irritation, Matilda obediently studied her menu, flushing slightly at his tone. Immediately John was sorry. ‘You look ten years younger than our age.’ There was so little between them he could safely say this.

  ‘Our age. Yes.’ Matilda flashed him a grateful smile. ‘I have always envied you your assurance.’

  ‘I always thought Tom a very lucky man.’

  Matilda stifled a yawn behind the menu. Why must they talk such balls? After a lifetime knowing each other, she thought, we might have at least one absorbing topic in common. She looked at the menu and longed to be home with Gus, eating a bowl of onion soup, reading a book propped up against the teapot.

  ‘I shall eat mussels, then salmon. I never get decent fish living so near the sea.’

  ‘Shall you be glad to get home? Aren’t you lonely?’

  ‘No.’ Matilda looked John straight in the eye. ‘Not a bit.’ It occurred to her that John thought she had a lover. ‘I like living alone, I am used to it now. You know what it’s like. Of course I’m not lonely.’

  John ordered grouse. ‘Why don’t you change your mind and have grouse? There are no grouse in your part of the world. Oysters first.’

  ‘All right. I gather you want to drink red wine. All right, oysters first.’

  ‘That’s about it, you read my mind.’

  They ordered grouse with matchstick potatoes. John ordered a second bottle of wine. Matilda drank more than she used to, he thought, watching the way she drank, not one mouthful at a time, but two, even three, emptying the glass frequently. The wine enhanced her looks. He told her about a very beautiful villa where he had stayed that spring.

  ‘In France?’

  ‘No, Italy. Marvellous wild flowers in April, one can still find so many different kinds of orchids.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t come to my funeral, John, Piers I mean.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I’d rather you didn’t come to my funeral.’

  ‘I was telling you about Italy. Weren’t you listening?’

  ‘Only half. I’m obsessed by death.’

  ‘All right, we’ll talk about it. Why don’t you want me to come?’

  ‘You get too close. You think I have a lover.’

  ‘It occurred to me.’

  ‘Mr Jones made an advance.’

  ‘That fellow with a beard, that fat bald chap? What cheek.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. He isn’t fat, he is square. He can’t help being bald. It was very sweet of him really.’

  ‘Sweet!’

  ‘You talk as though –’ Matilda stopped, realizing the unwisdom of what she was about to say. I do not belong to John, she thought. He mustn’t get that idea in his head. She drank more wine.

  ‘I’m verging
on tipsy.’ But John was looking towards the entrance. Matilda followed his glance.

  ‘Oh Christ!’

  Strolling in, cool, young, exquisite, came Anabel, followed by a very tall black man with quite extraordinarily beautiful features. Anabel was laughing up at him, her teeth, larger than Matilda’s, flashing, her face alight with the joy of conquest.

  ‘What a wonderful young man. Who is he?’ Matilda had jerked into sobriety.

  ‘Quite a sizeable fish at the U.N.’

  ‘Is his wife beautiful?’

  ‘Yes, a very brilliant woman.’

  ‘Poor Anabel.’

  But Anabel had seen them. She came forward in a rush.

  ‘Ma! How super to see you! No wonder I couldn’t get you on the phone, you were up here with your beau all the time. How are you, Piers darling? This is Aron, Ma, isn’t he exquisite?’ Matilda shook a firm hand. ‘Oh, Ma, what a dress! You do look wonderful, doesn’t she look wonderful?’ Her great eyes swivelled from John to her escort. ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘Won’t you join us?’

  ‘Oh, no, darling, we can’t. We only came in for a drink. How is home? How is Stub? How is Prissy?’

  ‘They have both been dead for a long time.’ Matilda felt no anger.

  ‘And Gus?’

  ‘He’s alive.’

  ‘He’ll be next then, won’t he?’ Anabel let out the words with a yelp of laughter.

  When Anabel and her man had gone Matilda began to laugh. ‘It’s the surprise! The surprise I have every time I meet her that I in my belly created that girl.’

  John grinned.

  ‘How long has she been in London? You always know everything.’

  ‘About three months.’

  ‘Little bitch. Couldn’t get me on the phone. I suppose the others have been over too?’

  ‘Not Claud, I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘His teeth are better than Anabel’s and he doesn’t go about with his mouth open. He telephoned me, you needn’t cover for him.’

  ‘Don’t be a cat, Matty. Anabel probably has adenoids. You’re her mother, you should have seen to them. How long is he here for?’

  ‘Girls with protruding teeth always get men, it makes them look amiable. Oh, Claud – he went to Yorkshire.’

  ‘Have another drink.’

  ‘I see why people become alcoholics. They learn to accept. No thank you, no more.’

  ‘You must learn to accept your children.’

  ‘Why should I?’ Matilda was suddenly extremely angry. ‘Why? I don’t like any of them except Claud. Let them come to my funeral. I don’t want you but I do want them. How dare she not know about Stub and Prissy?’

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t tell her.’

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘Well nothing. I want to go home.’

  ‘We will.’ John waved to the waiter. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Not yours, mine. I must get back. It’s nothing but stab, stab, stab in London.’ In an unconscious gesture Matilda cupped her breasts in her hands, then folded them in front of her on the table.

  ‘D’you know that someone somewhere put his hands over my breasts and said, “Chimborazo Catapaxi has stolen my heart –”’

  ‘I should think lots of chaps did.’ John was signing the bill and counting money for the tip. ‘That was one of the poems our generation quoted like A Shropshire Lad and one or two particular sonnets we’d done at school.’

  ‘How bracing you are.’ Matilda stood up. John followed her out thinking that after all that wine she was wonderfully steady on her pins.

  Arriving back in Chelsea, Matilda’s mood changed. She hummed and sang snatches of Cole Porter. John joined in.

  ‘A lovely evening, so educational.’ She watched him lock the car, standing in her flat shoes on the pavement, still warm from the long hot summer. John opened the door and they went in.

  ‘A nightcap?’

  ‘An Alka-Seltzer more like.’

  ‘I’ll get you one.’

  Matilda kicked off her shoes and spread her toes.

  ‘You and your feet.’ John stood in the doorway, holding the Alka-Seltzer, smiling indulgently.

  ‘My country feet.’ She pulled at the toes of her tights, easing the constriction.

  ‘Have you seen my bedroom?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are wonderfully incurious, Matty. Come and look.’ Matilda followed him across the landing.

  ‘New curtains.’

  ‘Very pretty. Where did you get that stuff?’

  ‘Paris.’

  ‘They are not like you somehow –’ She was puzzled. ‘More Tom’s sort of thing.’

  ‘He got it for me.’

  Just one more prick in the heart, thought Matilda, keeping her face blank. Trust John.

  Pulling the pink dress over her head she was dazzled by the momentary darkness. Whoops! I’m tipsy! Carefully she put the dress on a hanger, turning it this way and that to see whether she had spilled food on it. She took off her knickers and bra. Her head was singing, it was difficult to focus. In the bathroom she mixed Alka-Seltzer and drank the noxious mixture, sitting naked on the edge of the bath, expecting to throw up.

  After a few minutes she put on her nightdress and got into bed. She kept the bedside light on. If she turned it off her head would whirl.

  She said a little prayer asking for sleep.

  No sleep.

  She lay thinking about Anabel. So beautiful. A horrid girl on the whole. She had never been able to communicate with her, nor with Louise or Mark, only Claud, and even then only on occasion. It is my fault, she reproached herself. I cannot reach them any more than my mother could reach me. I am not wanted. What could I have said to Anabel? Something warm, loving, maternal. I felt none of those things. I felt resentful. She never comes near me. I should have made friends with that man, he would then be kinder to Anabel, dispose of her less lightly. I don’t mind her going about with a black man. Why should I? Stub was black.

  That’s it. Matilda drunkenly saw her nature revealed. I can only get on with animals. I only trust animals. Stub, Prissy, Gus, all the animals in her past, as demanding as children but never nasty. Wow! Black, brown, multicoloured animals. Ah! She loved them.

  Gosh, she thought, I’m never going to sleep. She put on her dressing-gown, put out the light, opened the window and leant out. Somewhere in London lovely Anabel lay in that man’s arms. I envy her. I hope he will not hurt her. It will make her take it out on someone else, some white dolt. Anabel, so self-assured, no great animal lover she. Matilda remembered Anabel drowning a rabbit in a bucket. Bloody child. In a way she was like Tom. This unforeseen thought caused Matilda to weep. She walked up and down the room weeping. ‘Tom, Tom, oh poor Tom, did I love you?’

  Matilda felt so uncertain she became distraught. I must walk, she thought, putting on her slippers. She wrapped the dressing-gown round her, took her latchkey, tiptoed downstairs, letting herself out into the street.

  Roused by the slight sound, John looked out onto the landing, wondering what the hell Matilda was doing now.

  ‘What on earth is going on? he called querulously.

  ‘I’m going for a fucking walk.’ Matilda slammed the street door.

  ‘If anyone behaved like that to me.’ Matilda said aloud in the empty street, ‘I’d never have them in my house again.’ She walked weeping along the pavements, composing nice things she should have said to Anabel, clever intelligent things she could have said to the beautiful black man. Aron – a splendid name – balanced, biblical, dignified. My word, she thought, he was sexy, no wonder Anabel – do hope she enjoys it, lucky girl.

  She walked briskly, passing the Royal Hospital, far from John’s house. The Alka-Seltzer was working. She turned left through Burton Court, into Smith Street, along the King’s Road. A middle-aged widow, she saw herself walking down the King’s Road in her dressing-gown, sober now. It was a pity that she liked animals
best, but there it was. At some moment, she could not remember when, she had nearly loved human beings. It must have been a moment of passion. Passion was something so tremendously rare. Animals were better, safer, Now she was nearly back at the cul-de-sac. The latchkey? She had it in her hand. I couldn’t bear to wake him again, she thought, letting herself in quietly. He may have owned Tom but he doesn’t own me. She shut the door and crept up to bed.

  22

  IN THE TRAIN Matilda leafed through Harper’s, a luxury bought for her by John with The Times and the Guardian. He had found her a seat, kissed her goodbye and left before the train started, putting her out of his mind before he reached his car.

  Matilda, too, had forgotten John, it dawning on her that for four days in London she had not listened to the news or read a paper. This had happened to her before. Usually she found she had missed nothing and what news there was was fresh and interesting.

  She had hardly thought of Hugh since visiting his flat. Now, skipping through the Guardian, it seemed silly to have bothered to snatch him a pair of shoes. Any man in his senses would have long since left and be far away. He had no real need of the money. A man ingenious enough to keep a cache under the communal carpet of a house full of flats would be clever enough to have moved on. The probability was there and as the train moved out into open country she hoped it was a certainty.

  Matilda laid Harper’s down. Its contents were a catalogue of the shops she had visited. The train, gathering speed, rocked along by the Kennet and Avon canal. Harrods, Fortnum’s, Habitat and Liberty’s seemed to her more like museums than places where persons like herself shopped. She was glad she had sent her children presents and that from a flower shop in Knightsbridge she had arranged for an exotic fern to be delivered to John with a note of thanks. She would write an apology too. A group of geese crossing a farmyard seen from the train made her feel intensely anxious. If Hugh had left would Gus be starving when she got back? Normally if she went away she would ask Mr Jones to keep an eye on Gus, but Hugh did not know Mr Jones and would have left Gus to his own devices. Nervously, as though the action would make the train go faster, she felt in her bag for the keys of her car. For the rest of the journey she held them in her hand.