Loving, Living, Party Going (59 page)

This surprised her into saying, 'Oh, I don't think I'd allow you to do that.' Her pretence was wearing rather thin he thought and
decided to drive her further into a corner. He asked why on earth not and was enormously touched when she explained that she would never let him lock the door because of course she would not mind being caught with him. He suspected she was only playing him up and he knew it was fatuous but he could not help being flattered. He tried to appear cross in order to hide this and so as to lead her on.

'You mean it would not matter if you were caught with me, either to you or anyone else,' he said. Robert Hignam interrupted:

'Don't let that worry you. I'll stand on guard and if I whistle three times, what, you'll know someone is coming.'

Mr Adams walked to the window and wondered, as he tried not to hear, if he was going to be sick.

'But I don't mind,' she said, 'you old silly,' using one of Claire's expressions to her husband, 'don't you understand I don't mind if anyone did find us? Has no one ever made a proposal to you?'

This word proposal seemed to him to have a fatal ring and rather in desperation he said well, all right, come on then. 'Well, all right, come on then,' she echoed, 'that's a fine way to put it. Well, hold the door open for me.'

'Where on earth is Max?' said Mr Adams, turning round from his window. Alex and Robert Hignam were disgusted to see his face had gone white.

'Now, look here, Angela,' Alex said, determined now to escape, 'what about that hotel detective?'

Robert Hignam led Mr Adams away to have a drink in the other corner.

'I must say you don't seem very gallant,' she said and thought poor Robin had looked awful, but he must learn his lesson and it was too late to turn back now, she would look silly if she did.

'Alex,' she said, 'Alex,' and jerked her head towards that other room she stood outside by the open door. He saw now those others were not watching, that she only wanted to say something in private and he felt proportionately foolish for ever having imagined she meant a rough and tumble. He hurried in and she shut them in and said:

'Now you must go straight out into the corridor by that other door over there and don't come back.'

'You aren't going to do something awful, are you?' he said,
because after all he did not know her well enough to say he would stand for no further baiting of Mr Adams.

'Now, Alex, run along now at once,' and he did go, feeling outraged at having been so used. The moment he had shut the door she clapped her hands twice. Mr Adams, of course, was in her room at once, slamming the door behind him so Robert Hignam could not follow. He found her sitting in front of the glass, powdering her face, and apparently calm as calm.

'What?' he said, 'what?'

'What do you mean?' she said.

'Was that you slapping someone's face?' he said and he was panting hard.

'Who slapped whose face? I didn't hear anyone,' she said.

'I heard it twice,' he said and his knees were trembling.

She burst into tears, her face screwed up and got red and she held her handkerchief to her nose and sniffled as if that was where her tears were coming from.

'Oh, my God,' he said and then his knees went so that he thought he would sink to the floor, where he had been standing.

Speaking through her handkerchief, her voice going up and down and interrupted by sobs, grunts and once she choked, she was saying:

'You've been so beastly to me. Going away when you did. As if I was nothing to you. And all these beastly people being beastly to me. How do you expect me to love you? How could you go like that? Oh, I do feel so miserable.' At this point she got hiccups. 'How could you? I feel I could die. I feel so miserable.'

He began moving towards her, saying darling, darling. By this time they neither of them knew what they were doing.

When Alex came back through the corridor into this sitting room where they had all been, Robert Hignam became facetious which was his way of hiding curiosity.

'I say, old boy, that was a bit sudden, wasn't it, what did you do to the girl?'

Alex hated him for it. He said if he could only strangle her now he would, 'and you too,' he thought of saying.

'But come on, what did you do to the poor girl to make her fetch you one like that?'

'Nothing, you poor fool, nothing at all. Oh, all right, laugh, yes, but can't you see all she was doing was playing me up to make her boy friend.'

Robert felt somehow he had been put in the wrong, but he was not going to stop for that, he wanted to get down to it. 'Right,' he said, 'right, I'd spotted that. As a matter of fact, if I'd been you I doubt if I'd have gone in the first place.'

'Afraid of Claire coming in I suppose.'

'Here, lay off. But all's well that ends well I expect, isn't it?' he said, nodding to the bedroom door and getting to it.

'You silly idiot, Bob, she's probably putting him through a hoop in some fabulous way.'

'I don't know, he's probably got all he wanted by now, but I wouldn't stand for her slapping me for it.' He waited till he saw there was no more to come and then he said he wondered what the others were doing.

Claire was sitting telephoning in the room outside Miss Fellowes' bedroom with Evelyn Henderson telephoning too; for some reason this room had two telephones. The door between had been cruelly left open so that her aunt, if her condition was so she could hear, could do so. Both Claire and Evelyn then were speaking at one and the same time and Claire was saying:

'Yes, Mrs Knight, she is sleeping now.' Mrs Knight was maid to Miss Fellowes. 'I don't think you need worry too much about her. No, you would never be able to get here, I shouldn't come along if I were you. No, Mrs Knight, you mustn't. For one thing the traffic simply isn't running, you would never get here, and then if you did you would never be able to get in, we are simply in a state of siege you know, yes, no one's allowed in or out. Yes, nanny and her friend are with us, they have been angels. Of course, I had a terrible time getting her up here, she had to be carried.'

Miss Henderson was telephoning to a female friend.

'My dear,' she said, 'you would hardly believe it but you remember I told you I was going to the South of France, I'd been looking forward to it so much for such a long time. The fact is that with this fog no trains are running and I've a very good idea, though I've said nothing to the others about it, that we shan't get away at all. Well, the difficult part of it is that I've closed my little flat up you see and sent the woman who looks after me away on her own
holiday. Mrs Jukes, yes. What's that? My dear, do you really mean it, that would be kind of you. May I really? It would only be for one night at the most. You will put me up, you're sure it won't be too much of a bother? My dear, that is too kind of you. Several extraordinary things have happened I can't tell you about now. What's that?'

Claire was saying:

'Now, Mrs Knight, you're not to worry like this. Of course I don't know what would have become of her if I hadn't been here. No, we don't know what the matter with her is yet. The doctor said a rest would put everything right and after all we must take what the doctors say, mustn't we? Of course, I have given her a hot water bottle. Well, it's her breathing, so short you know. Has she ever had anything of this kind before?'

Evelyna was still talking:

'I can't tell you the name now,' she said, almost whispering into the receiver, 'but the doctor says she is drunk. No, don't laugh because I think she is very ill indeed. It's not extremely nice. My dear, she had a pigeon, all wet, done up in brown paper. Well, yes wet. I think it's some sort of a sexual fit, don't you agree? With women of her age, yes, she is just that age, it so often is, don't you think? What I am so concerned about is whether it won't come out in another and more violent form, do you see what I mean?'

'No, Mrs Knight,' Claire was saying, 'of course it's all very unpleasant for me you know, there have been certain things that really have been – well I won't go on, no, I won't tell you now they would only bother you, but I've made arrangements to get an ambulance directly they can bring one round to send her back to you. Oh, not at all. Poor Auntie May. Good-bye.'

Her Auntie May was going over her row with that girl in the bar. Very white she lay still as death on her back and her lips moved, only she had no voice to speak with. Well, she was saying, if there's no one to serve me I might just as well not be here at all. And a voice spoke soundless in answer through her lips. It said everyone must wait their turn. She replied she had waited her turn and that people who had come after had been served first.

It might have been an argument with death. And so it went on, reproaches, insults, threats to report and curiously enough it was mixed up in her mind with thoughts of dying and she asked herself
whom she could report death to. And another voice asked her why had she brought a pigeon, was it right to order whisky, did she think, when she was carrying such a parcel? And she did feel frightfully ill and weighed down, so under water, so gasping. It was coming on her again. And she argued why shouldn't she order whisky if they always had it when they were children, and as for the pigeon it was saving the street-cleaner trouble, when they died they were never left out to rot in the streets nowadays. But the voice asked why she had washed it and she felt like when she was very small and had a dirty dress. She said out loud so that she frightened those nannies. 'Oh, why can't you leave me alone?' She struggled to turn over on her side but when they both laid their hands to soothe her then she felt them to be angels' hands and had some rest.

But there was nothing of that kind for Mr Adams. As Alex had guessed, he was being put through the hoop. It was a malign comedy Miss Crevy was creating as she acted.

'But how could I tell,' he was saying and he was by her side now while she watched his back in a mirror behind him, 'how could I tell how much you minded?'

'If you had cared for me you would,' she said.

'You know I do.'

'But how do you show it, by going off just when I need you most?'

'Yes, but darling, you told me to go.'

'My dear,' she said, 'that was only because you had been so beastly to me.'

'I thought you wanted to go with these people and that you didn't want me.'

For one moment she thought she felt so she might burst into tears again and admit she did not want to go, but then it struck her that he would insist on her coming away if she said it. What she wanted to do was to make him properly sorry that she was going, so she said:

'How do you expect me to love you if you don't respect my feelings?'

He felt as though he was gazing into a prism, and he could see no end to it.

'But, my darling, I do, you must believe me, I do.'

'And how do you show it?' she asked. 'As soon as I'm a little bit
upset you go off as if I was being difficult or something.'

'But you told me to go.'

'You'd been so rude about Claire Hignam's aunt.'

'I'm afraid I was very rude about her and I hope you will believe me when I say how very sorry I am if anything I said was rude about her.'

'I never wanted you to go, you see,' she said.

'Oh, God,' he said, reaching depths he had never known about before, 'I wish I was more worthy of you. When I think how wonderful you are from the top of your wonderful golden head to your toes.'

'Is it gold?' she said, putting her hands up to it.

'It is,' he said and coming to sit by her on the stool in front of that looking glass he lightly kissed the hair above her ear. As he did this he looked into the glass to see himself doing it because he was in that state when he thought it incredible that he should be so lucky to be kissing someone so marvellous. Unluckily for him she saw this in the mirror she had been watching his back in. She did not like it. She got up. She said:

'I won't have you watching yourself in the mirror when you're kissing me. It proves you don't love me and anyway no nice person does that.'

'Darling,' he said, 'are you being reasonable?'

'It's not a question of being reasonable. The fact is you despise me. You think I'm too easy, you treat me like a tart.'

He lost his temper. 'I won't have you say things like that,' he said, 'you torture me, I'm in such a condition now I don't know what I'm doing. And I've been like that for the past year.' Then it seemed monstrous to him that he should speak to her in anger. 'I don't mean it,' he said. 'I don't know what I'm saying.'

'Will you promise never to leave me again like that?'

'I promise.'

'Well then,' she said smiling directly at him, 'I expect I have been unreasonable as you call it.'

'You haven't,' he said stoutly.

'Yes, I expect I have. But you see it's different with women. I expect I have been being tiresome, but in some ways it was too much.'

He said: 'Do you know what I think is the matter with us, at all events I know it is with me?'

She thought now he is going to talk about getting engaged again.

'No,' she said, 'what is it?'

'You won't be angry with me.'

She knew then it must be what he was going to say.

'No,' she said, moving further away from him for safety's sake.

'I don't know how to say it. I bet you know what's coming too.'

She thought why couldn't he get on with it and then, looking at him, saw that fatuous smile on his face he always wore on these occasions.

'No,' she said.

'Well, really it's that I think we are in an unnatural relationship to each other. You know that I'm in love for ever with you. I know that you don't see this as I do but don't you think that if we could do away with this sort of being at a distance from each other, if we could only tell the world that we were in love by publishing our engagement, don't you feel that it would make things easier for us? I'm not saying this from my point of view. I can't help believing, even if I make you angry with me again, that you do care something for me or else,' and he hesitated here, 'well here goes, you would not have been as put out as you were when I went off.' He went on rather quickly, 'I must ask you to believe that I'd never have gone off when I did if I hadn't sincerely thought you wanted me to.' In his embarrassment he became even more formal again, 'I must ask you to believe that I wouldn't for anything in the world give you a second's unhappiness,' and he was going to add because I love you so, but he realized in time he was in such a state he might burst into tears if he said it, so, having lost his thread he wound up by saying, 'you must believe that.'

There was complete silence. He picked up his argument again.

'I do feel this, I know that if only we were married I could make you feel differently about me.'

'My dear,' she said, 'you've told me that before and I know who said it to you, it was your grandmother, wasn't it? In her generation everybody's marriages were arranged for them and as they were never allowed to be alone with a man for more than three minutes, of course the poor darlings fell for the first man they were left alone with.'

He said nothing at all.

'My dear, it is perfectly sweet of you and I think you are sweet
too, but you must give me time. You know what you and I both think about marriage, that it's the most serious thing one can do. Well, it's just simply that I can't be sure.'

He still said nothing. He was looking at the carpet. From her having to go on talking she became palpably insincere. She was also looking at the carpet. She said:

'You see, I might make you unhappy and you are much too sweet for anyone to risk doing that to. I believe if I saw anyone making you unhappy I would go and scratch their eyes out, yes I would. And so don't you see I can't, I mustn't be in a hurry; you do see, don't you?'

He got up and walked up and down once or twice and then he stopped and asked her did she know how Miss Fellowes was now. He still would not look at any more of her than her toes. She supposed she had been beastly to him again but why, she asked herself, must he choose this hotel room of all places to propose in, with beds slept in by hundreds of fat, middle-aged husbands and wives. And this particular time.

'They are being frightfully mysterious about her,' she said.

Almost paralysed by his misery he said:

'Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?'

'Well, we can't very well, can we?' she said, 'Max isn't here. I got some for those two old nannies when I found them crying their eyes out outside about Miss Fellowes, but that was different Do you know I'm inclined to agree with you that she is being a thorough old nuisance. And then Alex, as I thought, very rudely sent for the drinks there were in that other room, but that's his affair. I don't see very well how we can order tea, do you, without Max?'

'But I'll pay for it on a separate bill.'

'You don't know what he's like, he'd never let you and all these others trade on that, I think it's too disgusting.'

There was another silence.

'Darling,' she said, 'don't take all this too tragically. After all I'm only going away for three weeks, and I'm hoping by that time I'll have been able to make up my mind. You do understand?' And as he stood still with his back turned to her she came up and, rather awkwardly, took him by one finger of his sweating hand.

Amabel's flat had been decorated by the same people Max had his
flat done by, her furniture was like his, his walls like hers, their chair coverings were alike and even their ash trays were the same. There were in London at this time more than one hundred rooms identical with these. Even what few books there were bore the same titles and these were dummies. But if one said here are two rooms alike in every way so their two owners must have similar tastes like twins, one stood no greater chance of being right than if one were to argue their two minds, their hearts even must beat as one when their books, even if they were only bindings, bore identical titles.

In this way Max and Amabel and their friends baffled that class of person who will judge people by what they read or by the colour of their walls. One had to see that other gross of rooms and know who lived in them to realize how fashionable this style of decoration was, how right for those who were so fashionable, and rich of course, themselves.

If people then who see much of each other come to do their rooms up the same, all one can say is they are like household servants in a prince's service, all in Ms livery. But in the same way that some footmen will prefer to wear livery because there can then be no question of their having to provide clothes so, by going to the same decorator, these people avoided any sort of trouble over what might bother them, such as doing up their rooms themselves, and by so doing they proclaimed their service to the kind of way they lived or rather to the kind of way they passed their time.