Ice in the Bedroom (3 page)

It was Sally. She looked up from her magazine as the train started, and her eyes met his.

They were, he noted, as blue as ever, and the nose, the one that twitched like a rabbit's, still tilted slightly at the tip. The mouth was as of yore a little wide. Of the teeth he could not judge, for she was not smiling, but what of her hair he could see remained that attractive copper colour he had always admired so much. Her face, in short, taking it by and large, was exactly as he remembered it from, it sometimes seemed to him, a previous existence, and at the sight of it he was conscious of an elation so pronounced that if the three farmers, the three farmers' wives and the undertaker had not been present, he would have snorted like the warhorse which, we are told, though it seems odd, used to say 'Ha, ha!' among the trumpets.

3

’LOOSE CHIPPING’ chanted the porter as the train sauntered into the little country station, and Sally pushed her way through the sea of legs between her and the door and stepped down on to the platform.

She was furious, and, she considered, justly. At the cost of much mental distress she had cast this man out of her life because prudence told her he was irresponsible and not to be trusted, and it was monstrous that he should come sneaking back into it like this, reminding her that she still loved him and reviving all the old emotions which she had hoped she had killed long ago.

She fortified herself for the coming encounter by the simple process of thinking of that fatal cocktail party when the scales had fallen from her eyes and she had seen him for what he was.

She had been warned. There was a group of young men near the door at that cocktail party, and as she was passing them she heard one of them utter these frightful words:

‘I suppose if all the girls Freddie Widgeon has been in love with were placed end to end - not that one could do it, of course - they would reach from Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner. Further than that, probably, because some of them were pretty tall.'

And it was as she passed through the door, not wishing to sully her ears any longer, that she had come upon the Widgeon-Bunting combination linked in a close embrace on the top landing.

The recollection made her strong again. She looked at him as he stood beaming by the penny-in-the-slot machine, and an imperious desire swept over her to wipe that silly smile off his face.

'Freddie,' she said, speaking from between clenched teeth, 'go home!'

'Eh?'

'I told you I never wanted to see you again. Didn't you understand?'

'Well, yes, I more or less grasped that.'

'Then why have you followed me here?'

Freddie stiffened. He ceased to beam. It pained him to find that he had overestimated the potentialities of Time, the great healer, and that the platform of Loose Chippings station was not to be the scene of a tender reconciliation, but righteous wrath overcame pain. He was deeply offended at being accused for once in his life of something of which he was not guilty. The apologetic lover became the man of ice, and he, too, spoke from between clenched teeth.

'Who's followed who where?' he said haughtily. 'I'm here on business.'

‘You?’

'Yes, me. I've come to see Miss Leila Yorke. I understand she hangs out at a joint called Claines Hall. Perhaps you would be good enough to direct me there.'

'I'll take you there.'

'You won't object to being seen in public with one of our leading underworld characters?'

'There's no need to be so pompous.'

'Yes, there is. Every need. I feel pompous. Followed you here, forsooth! You could have knocked me down with a banana skin when I saw you on that train. What were you doing in London, anyway?'

'I had to see Miss Yorke's agent about something.'

"Oh, was that it? Do you often get up to London?'

'Very seldom.'

'You're lucky. Lousy place. Ruddy sink of a place. No good to man or beast. Not a soul in it except blighters with briefcases and blisters in bowler hats.'

'What's happened to the girls? Have they all emigrated?'

'Girls! They mean nothing in my life.'

'Says you!'

'Yes, says me. Don't you believe me?' 'No, I don't. You're like the leopard.'

 'I'm not in the least like a leopard. What particular leopard had you in mind?'

'The one that couldn't change its spots.'

'I call that a most distasteful crack.'

'I'm sorry. Shall we be starting for the Hall?'

'Just as you like.'

They came out into the High Street of Loose Chippings. The town's Pop, as the guide book curtly terms it, is four thousand nine hundred and sixteen, and at perhaps two hundred and four of these Freddie glared bleakly as they passed on their way. He would have glared with equal bleakness at the other four thousand seven hundred and twelve, had they been there, for he was in sullen mood. Here he was, with Sally at his side, and for all the good it was doing him she might have been miles away. Aloof, that was the word he was groping for. She was distant and aloof. Not a trace of the old Sally who in happier days had been such a stupendously good egg. For all the kick she appeared to be getting out of his society, she might have been walking with an elderly uncle. Since entering the High Street she had not spoken except to direct his attention to the statue erected in the Market square to the memory of the late Anthony Briggs, J.P., for many years parliamentary representative for the local division, and if ever in Freddie's jaundiced opinion there was a ghastly statue of a potbellied baggy-trousered Gawd-help-us, this statue was that statue.

Conversation was still flagging when after leaving Loose Chippings and its Pop behind and passing down a leafy lane they arrived at massive iron gates opening on a vista of shady drive, at the end of which could be seen glimpses of a Tudor mansion bathed in the afternoon sunlight.

'This is it,' said Sally. 'Nice place, don't you think?'

'It'll do,' said Freddie, who was still in the grip of dudgeon.

'It has a moat.'

'Oh, yes?'

'And a wonderful park.'

'Really? La Yorke does herself well. And can afford to, of course. Oofy Prosser tells me she makes a packet with her pen. He's got a lot of money in the firm that publishes her stuff.'

‘I know. He was down here seeing Miss Yorke the other day. Have you met him lately?'

'Oh, yes, he's generally in at the Drones for lunch. His wife had her jewels pinched not long ago.'

'So I read in the paper. Were they very valuable?'

'Worth thousands, I should think. They looked that way to me.'

'You've seen them?'

'I've been to dinner once or twice with the Oofys, and she had them all on. She glittered like a chandelier.'

'And they haven't got them back?'

'No.'

'Too bad.'

'It must have upset her.'

 'I suppose so.'

Sally's heart was aching. All this formality and stiffness, as if they were strangers meeting for the first time and making conversation. Her own fault, of course, but a girl had to be sensible. If she were not, what ensued? She found herself fetching up at the end of that long line stretching from Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park Corner. On the stage on which Frederick Widgeon strutted, she told herself, there were no female stars, just a mob of extras doing crowd work.

She forced herself to resume the conversation as they walked up the drive.

'Where are you living now, Freddie? At the old flat?'

His face, already dark, darkened still further.

'No, I couldn't afford it. My uncle stopped my allowance, and I had to move to the suburbs. I'm sharing a house with my cousin George. You remember George?'

'Dimly.'

'Beefy chap with red hair. Boxed for Oxford as a heavyweight. He's one of the local cops.'

'He went into the police?'

'That's right. Said it was a darned sight better than being cooped up in an office all day, like me.'

'Like you? You aren't in an office?'

'I am. A solicitor's. Shortly after we…soon after I last saw you my foul Uncle Rodney bunged me into the firm of Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith of Lincoln's Inn Fields.'

Sally, firm in her resolve to be sensible, had not planned to betray any human feeling during this painful encounter, but at these words she was unable to repress a cry of pity.

'Oh, Freddie! Not really?'

'That's what he did. He placed me in the hands of his solicitor.'

'But you must hate it.'

'I loathe it.'

'What do you do there?'

'I'm a sort of "Hey, you" or dogsbody like the chap in "Old Man River".'

'Lift that trunk?'

'Shift that bale. Exactly. Today, for instance, old Shoesmith gave me some documents to take to Leila Yorke to sign. Why he couldn't just have popped them in the post is a matter between him and his God, if any. Tomorrow I shall probably be running down the street to fetch someone a cup of coffee and the day after that sweeping out the office. I tell you, when I see George coming in off his beat with a face all bright and rosy from a health-giving day in the fresh air, while I'm pale and wan after eight hours in a fuggy office, I envy him and wish I'd had the sense to become a copper.'

'How do you two manage, living ail alone with nobody to look after you? Or have you a cook?'

Freddie laughed hackingly.

'You mean a chef? On our starvation wages? No, we have no chef, no butler, no first and second footmen, no head and under housemaids, and no groom of the chambers. George does the cooking, and pretty ghastly it is. But I mustn't bore you with my troubles.'

'Oh, Freddie, you aren't.'

'Well, I shall if I go on any longer. Change the subject, what? How do you get along with Leila Yorke?'

'Oh, splendidly. She's the top.'

'In what respect?'

'In every respect.'

'Not in her literary output. You must admit that she writes the most awful bilge.'

'No longer.'

'How do you mean, no longer?'

'She's giving up doing that sentimental stuff of hers.'

'You're kidding. No more slush?'

'So she says.'

'But it sells like hot cakes.'

'I know.'

'Then why? What's she going to do? Retire?' 'No, she's planning to write one of those stark, strong novels…you know, about the grey underworld.’

'Lord love a duck! This'll be a blow to Cornelius.'

'Who's he?'

'Fellow I know. He reads everything she writes.'

‘I wonder if he'll read her next one.'

'How's it coming?'

'It hasn't started yet. She feels the surroundings at Claines Hall aren't right. She says she can't get into the mood. She wants to move somewhere where she can soak in the grey atmosphere and really get going. What's the matter?'

'Nothing.'

'You sort of jumped.'

'Oh, that? Touch of cramp. Has she found a place to go to yet?'

'No, she's still thinking it over.'

'Ah!'

'Ah what?'

'Just Ah. Weil, here we are at the old front door. What's the procedure? Do I charge in?'

'You'd better wait. I'll tell her you're here.'

Sally crossed the hall, knocked on a door, went in and came out again.

'She wants you to go in.'

There was a pause.

'Well, Freddie,' said Sally.

'Well, Sally,' said Freddie.

‘I suppose this is the last time we shall meet.'

'You never know.'

‘I think it is.'

'You wouldn't care to dash in and have lunch with me one of these days?'

'Oh, Freddie, what's the use?'

‘I see what you mean. Well, in that case Bung-ho about sums it up, what?'

'Yes. Goodbye, Freddie.'

'Goodbye.'

'Better not keep Miss Yorke waiting. She's been a little edgy since she made her great decision,' said Sally, and went off to the potting shed by the kitchen garden to have a good cry. She knew she had done the sensible thing, but that did not prevent her feeling that her heart was being torn in small pieces by a platoon of muscular wild cats, than which few experiences are less agreeable.

4

FREDDIE”S first sight of Mr. Cornelius's favourite novelist, author of For True Love Only, Heather of the Hills, Sweet Jennie Dean and other works, had something of the effect on him of a blow between the eyes with a wet fish, causing him to rock back on his heels and blink. Going by the form book, he had expected to see a frail little spectacled wisp of a thing with a shy smile and a general suggestion of lavender and old lace. From this picture Leila Yorke in the flesh deviated quite a good deal. She was a large, hearty-looking woman in the early forties, built on the lines of Catherine of Russia, and her eyes, which were blue and bright and piercing, were obviously in no need of glasses.

'Hullo there,' she said in a voice which recalled to him that of the drill sergeant at his preparatory school, a man who could crack windows with a single ' 'Shun!'. 'You Widgeon?'

'That's right.'

'Shoesmith phoned me that you were bringing those papers. I'll bet you left them in the train.'

'No, I have them here.'

'Then let's sign the things and get it over.'

She scribbled her signature with the flowing pen of a woman accustomed to recording her name in autograph albums, and disposed herself for conversation.

'Widgeon?' she said. 'That's odd. I used to know a Rodney Widgeon once. Know him still, as a matter of fact, only he goes around under an alias these days. Calls himself Lord Blicester. Any relation?'

'My uncle.'

'You don't say? You don't look like him.'

'No,' said Freddie, who would have hated to. There was nothing in the appearance of his uncle Rodney that appealed to his aesthetic sense.

'Do you brim over with a nephew's love for him?'

'I wouldn't say "brim over" exactly.'

'No objection, then, to my calling him an old poop?'

'None whatever,' said Freddie, warming to the woman as he seldom warmed to one of the opposite sex over the age of twenty-five. There was no question in his mind that he and Leila Yorke were twin souls. 'As a matter of fact, your words are music to my ears. "Old poop" sums him up to a nicety.'