‘Lucky for you, love; you’ve got pleasures to come. Look, put your face under the tap; sluice it with cold water.’ She led me to the basins, and I sluiced my face; then said, regretfully, ‘All my make-up will be off now.’
‘Well, here’s a bit more.’ She opened a drawer, full of cosmetics. ‘Take your pick.’
Through slightly blurred vision I made up my lids, dabbed some powder on my cheeks, combed my hair, and put on my hat again; then turning, I thanked the lady of the ladies, as I thought of her afterwards, and after putting fifty pence on the plate, which seemed to me an extraordinary large tip but well worth it, I said goodbye to her and walked out a little steadier but still not right.
Mr Leviston was waiting for me in the foyer. He looked at me closely, took my arm and led me outside; and there I gulped strongly at the air and immediately felt worse. Turning, I looked at him fully and said, ‘I’m not used to it. I’ve…I’ve had too much to drink. I’m…I’m not used to it.’
His soft smile looked to me the sweetest thing I’d ever seen on a face, and he said, ‘Miss Carter, how refreshing to hear you say that. You know’—his face came closer to mine, but seemed to melt to either side of me—‘you are a refreshing person altogether.’
‘I am?’
‘Yes, yes, you are. And now I know why you wrote Hamilton.’
‘No, you don’t.’ My voice sounded just like Gran’s, and I saw the surprise on his face. I turned and walked somewhat unsteadily up the street, and he walked by my side, his hand through my arm. ‘I’ve got to get the train,’ I said now.
‘What time does it go?’
‘There’s one something after five.’
‘Oh. Oh, well, it isn’t three yet. We’ve got the afternoon for sightseeing.’
I stopped and looked at him. ‘We have?’
‘We have.’ He was laughing all over his face, and now I started to laugh. I opened my mouth wide and I laughed and passers-by turned and looked at me and they, too, started to laugh. And while I was laughing Mr Leviston hailed a taxi and we got in. And then we got out, and there was the river with boats on it, and Mr Leviston said, ‘A walk along the Embankment and a cup of strong tea and you’ll be fine.’
We walked and walked, and he talked. I cannot really remember all he said, but mostly I know he was describing London. Then he took me to a tea stall and ordered two cups of strong tea. I didn’t like strong tea, but having drunk it I felt much steadier. Then we went back the road we had come, that was, through a churchyard, and we sat there.
There was silence between us for a time, and in it I grew ashamed. I had spoilt the day, made an ass of myself, I should have never taken that wine. I said as much. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘What on earth for?’ He had screwed round on the seat and was looking at me gently. ‘You’re sorry because the wine went to your head? If you only knew how pleasant this outing has been, this lunch has been, for me. I mostly dine with people so pickled in wine that it hasn’t touched their heads for years.’ He laughed now and added, ‘Oh, Miss Carter, don’t be sorry for anything you do or say. It’s so nice to meet someone who isn’t putting on any literary side.’
‘Literary side?’ I repeated.
‘Just that, literary side. You meet all types in this business, and naturally they are all literary, but some…I’m going to whisper this—’ he leant towards my ear and now he said, ‘I find some writers unbearable, arrogant, big-headed, and egotistical. Some think that their first book is the only book that’s ever been written, a worthwhile one that is; and God help us if it’s successful, because then they imagine themselves little gods…and goddesses.’ He straightened up now and emphasised his last remark again with a deep obeisance of his head as he repeated, ‘Goddesses? Most of them are fakes.’
I looked at him sadly as I said, ‘I’m a fake.’
‘You are?’
‘Yes, I’ve…I’ve got to tell you this because it’ll be about the cheque.’
‘The cheque?’
‘Yes, the money that is going to be paid to me for the…the advanced royalties.’
‘Well, what about them?’
‘Well, it’ll be sent to me by cheque, won’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I thought about this back in the office but I didn’t know how to put it to Mr Houseman. I can put it to you though. Do you think I could have it paid in cash?’
‘All in cash?’ His expression didn’t alter, although his tone showed that he was a little surprised by the suggestion.
‘Yes, you see, Carter isn’t my right name, nor is Miriam. It is my mother’s name…well, by her second marriage to George Carter, who by the way is Dickie in the book, and his mother who is Mary in the book is my Gran, Hannah Carter. Do you follow?’
He blinked his eyelids rapidly, pursed his lips, then said, ‘Go on; I’m trying.’
‘Well, you see, I—’ I turned away and looked across the flat headstones for a moment before bending my head and muttering, ‘I’m Rosie in the book.’ He was quiet for so long that I turned slowly and looked at him, and I’ll always remember the expression that was on his face and what he said. ‘Oh, my dear,’ he murmured; ‘and to think that I said those things about her…’
‘You were right. I was gullible. I still am, I suppose, but not so much. You see, looking as I did, as I do’—I pointed to my face—‘I’ve just been made up for the occasion today. And…and with this’—I touched my short arm which I must say not one of the three men had seemed to notice, which proved them to be gentlemen indeed—‘I thought he was my only chance and that nobody else would ever want to marry me. And I was lonely. But as I said in the story, it was the house he was after. He had a sister, but I haven’t brought in May, because she died of leukemia in my house, and towards the end she knew and admitted she had done wrong because it was she who manoeuvred us both into the marriage.’
‘Is he as nasty as you make him out in the book?’
I looked away over the headstones again before I answered, ‘Much worse.’
‘And…and you’ve put up with this for years just because of your house?’
I turned and faced him again, saying now, ‘It isn’t just a house, it’s all I’ve got, and I was born there. And…and another thing, I hate the idea of him achieving his aim.’
‘And you really think it’s worth it? He…he could have driven you mad. The horse business, was that through him?’
‘Not really, no.’ I gave a small smile now. ‘I think he began first as a dog, when I was very young, then later on as a little girlfriend, at least that’s what I like to fancy, because I had the habit of talking to myself. There didn’t seem to be anyone else to talk to. Then when I lost George, Dickie in the story, things were bad at home with my mother and I had to have someone…something, and so, Hamilton. But he really came into being through the doctor, when he told me I had horse sense. Anyway, now you know. Will you have to tell the others? Will it make any difference?’
‘Well, I’ll have to tell Bernard…Mr Houseman, and Tom too, and perhaps our financial director. But Bernard could explain to him that it was just a fad of yours, not wanting the money to go into the bank. But I think that Bernard, being the chairman of the company, should know. I’m sure we can work out something to meet your wishes. It will not make the slightest difference, though, your going under the name of Miriam Carter. There’s one point, however. Would your husband recognise himself if he read it?’
‘No, I don’t think he would. But the doctor might. Yes, I’m sure he would.’
‘Anyway, you have set the story in the south country. Do you know that part at all about which you have written?’
‘No, not a thing. I looked at a map and altered the names a bit. But I imagine one town is as much like another: there’s a high end and a low end and a struggling middle.’
He sat looking at me in silence for quite some time, and I had no words with which to break it. Then he said, ‘You know, I’ll re
member this day for a very long time as a day on which I met for the first time a remarkable young woman.’
I gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘You know, in some way, Mr Leviston,’ I said, ‘you’re like George, or Dickie. You’re kind.’
‘Kind? Nonsense. I’m stating a fact, and from now on—’ He suddenly leant forward and caught my hand and gripped it tightly as he shook it up and down, saying, ‘You must look upon yourself as a personality. Forget Rosie, forget Miriam. What is your real name by the way?’
‘Mrs Stickle…It’s an awful name. I was Maisie Rochester.’
‘Oh, that’s a good name, Rochester. Got a ring about it, Maisie Rochester. Well from now on, I shall think of you as Maisie Rochester, a novelist who’s going places.’
‘Oh, Mr Leviston.’ I was shaking his hand up and down as I said, ‘You know something? This has been the most wonderful day of my life. No matter what happens in the future, nothing will ever be able to surpass it or dim it. There’s only one other desire I want in life and I doubt if I’ll ever accomplish it. I have neither the strength nor the courage, but it doesn’t matter.’
‘May I ask what your other desire is?’
For the first time in weeks I saw Hamilton. He came galloping across the headstones to stand right behind Mr Leviston, and I watched him place his right front hoof on his shoulder and rest his chin on the top of his head. I closed my eyes and muttered, ‘Oh, Hamilton.’
‘You want to achieve something with Hamilton?’
‘No, no.’ I shook my head. Then, my eyes wide and tears of laughter dimming them now, I said, ‘Would you believe it if I told you Hamilton was standing right behind you with his right front…hoof on your shoulder, signifying to me that he considers you a very worthy man? Would you believe it?’
‘Miss Rochester—’ He was laughing now, too, his own eyes bright with moisture as he replied, ‘I’ll believe anything you say. If Hamilton is embracing me, then please tell him I am honoured. But now, satisfy my curiosity and tell me of this other thing, this other desire you have to make your life complete.’
‘I want to hit my husband.’
He looked at me. I looked at him. And Hamilton looked from one to the other. And then our laughter joined. We laughed so loudly that the noise seemed to re-echo from one headstone to another. And when two ladies, taking a stroll, stopped in front of us, and one of them admonished us with, ‘I would have thought you would have found some other place where you could express your hilarity,’ before walking on, like two children, we slunk up from the bench and Mr Leviston took my arm and, to quote a term, we went on our way rejoicing.
Four
During the months that followed, my life became so full of concealed excitement that I failed to notice yet another change in Howard’s lifestyle. I didn’t seem to think it very strange that, having gone out practically every night during the past years, he now seemed to spend more evenings at home in his bottle room. After I had gone to bed I often heard him downstairs, but I was so full of my own affairs that it didn’t seem to matter. For instance, I was corresponding regularly with Mr Leviston. He had done some editing on my book which, I understood, meant deleting bits here and there where I had repeated myself and tightening up, as he put it, loose threads.
I was to go up next week for a meeting with him, as he again so tactfully put it, to discuss whether I was in agreement or not with the alterations he had made. The next step would be the proofs.
They hoped the book would come out in the following spring. It seemed a long time to wait, but I understood that this was the usual procedure: the publishing of a book didn’t come about overnight. I was also, at this time, well into another story of Hamilton; but most of this story, I must say, was wishful thinking. In it, Rosie had, on the grounds of cruelty, managed to get a divorce from her husband and was now doing a weekly column all about Hamilton in a national paper. I had found plenty of new escapades to lay at Hamilton’s door; I took some of the characters from our terrace and a number from Gran’s neighbours. I again brought in the doctor, and the priest, and, too, my kindly solicitor who, in this second edition, was fighting the case against the husband who was claiming damages for libel.
And so it was with some surprise and return of the never-far-submerged feeling of fear that I viewed Howard as he thrust open the study door and approached my little desk.
There, he stood looking down at me in silence for a full minute before, leaning over my typewriter, he said, ‘Carry on, Maisie. Carry on. I’ve nearly got you where I want you. It’s taken time, but everything comes to him who waits.’ And on this he turned about and walked out, and I found that I was trembling from head to foot and that my good hand was clutching my throat.
When there penetrated my mind the sound of a little whirr to the side of me, I put out my short arm and switched off the small tape recorder I had acquired some time ago. I’d found this instrument very handy, especially when I was along at Gram’s and she came out with something that would set me laughing. So that I shouldn’t forget exactly what she had said, or the tales she related to me, I had bought this little pocket tape recorder. She didn’t know for some long time that I was using it. Of course, when she moved a distance away into the kitchen, the voice on the tape almost disappeared.
When she eventually found out about it and I played her own voice back to her, she wouldn’t believe it, and it was sometime after this before I could persuade her to talk naturally, and forget about the machine.
But now I ran the tape back some way, and there his voice came over to me, repeating the words, ‘I’ve nearly got you where I want you. It’s taken time, but everything comes to him who waits.’ The words sounded as ominous on the tape as they had done when he voiced them.
But as I sat staring ahead of me, wondering what new scheme he had in his evil mind for me, it gradually came to me that I had a witness. At last I had a witness, a witness that couldn’t lie.
I was shaking with excitement when I picked up the little recorder. Yes. Yes, I could put it in my blouse. I could stick it down the bib of my fancy house apron. I grabbed the little instrument and held it to my chest. It could be a life-saver, my life-saver. If this machine could register the things he said to me, and the way he said them, then I too might have the means of divorce in my hands. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful.
Then something happened the following day that seemed to make the use of the tape recorder quite unnecessary.
When I went round to Gran’s I found another letter from Mr Leviston. The contents were intriguing. It started:
Dear Miss Carter—he continued to call me Miss Carter—I have great news for you, but unfortunately I may not divulge it. This pleasure, I’m afraid, must be left to Mr Houseman; but I can say, you’re on your way.
When I showed it to Gran, she said, ‘And what does all that mean, d’you think?’
‘You’ve got as much idea as I have.’
‘He seems a nice man, that Mr Leviston.’
‘Yes, he is.’ And now I leant towards her as I said, ‘You’ve said that before and I’ve given you the same answer before: He seems a nice man, that Mr Leviston, and, Yes, he is. And that’s that, Gran. He’s a publisher. He’s on the wrong side of forty, he’s going grey, and I don’t even know if he’s married or not. I don’t know anything about him only that he is, as I said, a nice man. What’s the matter?’
She had turned from me and gone to the fireplace and, with one foot on the fender and her elbow on the low mantelpiece, she turned her head towards me and said, ‘I heard something in the club yesterday that I think’s very fishy. You know Sarah Talbot? Well, you’ve heard me talk of her, the one that’s had nine and they’re all married and scattered round and hardly any of them want to know her now except the one that lives out Durham way. Remember?’
‘Yes, yes, I remember.’
‘She’s the one whose husband went to the races when she was in labour with her first bairn. He won a good bit an’ he went on the spree, an
’ she didn’t see him for days.’
‘That’s the one?’
‘Aye, that’s her. Well now, Sarah’s youngest lass Maggie was put to the trade in Hempies’ down in the sewing-room, and she didn’t like it. But anyway, she’s married now and that’s the one that Sarah visits, an’ she tells me, Sarah does, that Bob, that’s her son-in-law, took them all out, kids an’ all, for a run. Well, apparently the car started to steam up, needed water, so Maggie said,.”I thought cars ran on petrol”.’ She grinned now, then went on, ‘Anyway, Bob said to Maggie, “Go and ask at that cottage for a can of water,” and off Maggie went. And Sarah said she followed her just to stretch her legs, and she reached Maggie just as the door opened, and who should open it in his shirtsleeves?’ She now stared at me, and I waited, and then she said, ‘Your husband.’
‘Howard?’ I hardly heard my own whisper.
‘Aye, Howard. Now our Maggie worked for him, so she wasn’t mistaken. And as for Sarah, it was him who she had to see to get Maggie the job. Sarah said he lost his colour for a bit and he seemed unable to speak until Maggie said, “Hello, Mr Stickle. We…we’ve run out of water, the car’s boiling. Do you think you could oblige?”
‘Sarah said he grabbed the can from her, shut the door an’ left them standing on the path; but he was back in a minute and he thrust the can at Maggie an’ said, “I’m visitin’ a friend.”
‘‘‘Oh,” Maggie said, “It’s nice to get away from the town a bit.” And he said, “Yes, it is. I always take the opportunity when I can.”
‘Sarah said they had just got out of the gate and into the road when round the corner from a narrow side road came two young lads, about nine or ten, she would say. They come pedalling up an’, jumpin’ off their bikes, they propped them against the railings afore running through the gate, calling, “Dad. Dad.” Now whether there was another man inside or whether your dear Howard has a family on the side, and has had all these years, I don’t know, but it’s up to you, lass, to find out.’
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