No Laughing Matter (59 page)

The thought of Lena levered him out of his bed, gave him the energy to dress and to make himself a cup of tea on the gas ring. As he gulped it down he made a note to repeat all that he was determined to write for Towneley, but to disguise it all in the form of his own Spanish journal. He was determined to make the man sorry that he ever composed that little softening up, sob stuff addendum to his rejection – ‘the old Matthews magic’ – the bastard made you retch. Well, he’d force them to publish the truth if it took a year. A year! He began to pull his week’s dirty linen out of the dressing table’s ill-fitting bottom drawer and to tie it up in a pair of soiled pyjama trousers. Lena would wash a shirt for him, with which he could shame the bastards in their offices. He believed in fighting but first in
softening
up.

A whisky and a sandwich at The Antelope, then. And after a nice bit of fucky-fuck with Lena in her studio, then let her talk about her ‘art’ while she dressed, then a drink and a meal at the French Pub, and back to the studio for another slice of the cake. The prospect quickened his powers of thought and he sat down to type the notes he had made, when there floated towards him, cloud borne like the oleographed Sacred Heart, three double whiskies, a double portion of pâté, two rolls, the wing and breast of a chicken dressed with roast potatoes and cauliflower, a hunk of bread, butter and a piece of Camembert cheese. Lena would consume the lot that evening at the French pub – if he was lucky that is and she didn’t ask for more. If he was going to poke up, she said, then she had to stoke up. But he just couldn’t provide, he knew it quite suddenly. He could fight this battle and win if he were only
one
– he was used to living rough, to scrounging a bit here, borrowing a bit there, hocking anything marketable except his typewriter. Yes, with one only to keep, he could get through. But two, no. For all he saved on Lena was his laundry – she’d do that, for some esoteric aesthetic reason, but
cooking
was an interference in the anarchic life necessary for her art. For her good humour, her absolute readiness in bed, her wonderful figure, her miraculous powers of availability, there was, therefore, to pay, not only the price of her zany drivel about art (that, somehow made her seem more ready, more available to him, or at any rate, took away
from any guilt) but also this sheer need to consume. Facing the future quite squarely, he eliminated her. He had to. He couldn’t afford her. He’d never from the first moment allowed sex to get in the way of what had to be done, and he wouldn’t now. He’d have to cut out the Fitzroy and her other usual stamping grounds for a bit. It was a
deprivation
, almost a sadness; but when he’d beaten the bastards, forced them to print the truth, he could pick up again with her or with another. He’d had long periods of one night stands before, even of chastity, though it drove him up the wall. All the same, when he stuffed his laundry back into the drawer, his elation had gone. The room was intolerable. He took himself off to a pub in Gray’s Inn Road.

He was eating a soggy pie filled with nuggets of gut and drinking a lukewarm pint, when Towneley came in. He saw him start and turn back. He amused himself by letting him get to the door before he called:

‘Dodo, what in the hell?’

So Dodo pretended to be surprised, and out it all poured – the rare Sunday office duty, the need to check an interview with a chap who lived in Bloomsbury, otherwise Sunday always saw him down at Merstham, if not the wife cried blue murder (the skinny and
sour-faced
variety she’d be). Anyway, as if he cared. He listened, however, as though the boring rigmarole were a stop press confession of Bukharin.

‘Well, so you’re here, anyway,’ he said at the end of it – he almost added ‘my dear old pal’. ‘I’m turning you in some of my diary since you liked it, Dodo.’ But perhaps because he smarmed in letters, Dodo Towneley turned out to be one of those chaps who could be rude to your face.

‘Not if it’s your usual bellyache about the Communists done up in another form, you’re not, Q. J.’

‘I resent that, Dodo.’

‘Then you’ll just have to resent. Have the other half?’

To control his rising fury Quentin merely nodded, and drank silently for some minutes. Then Towneley in a voice full of old friendship, old sweats together and a lot more hypocritical muck: ‘But tell us about the war itself, Q. J. Good Lord, you’re one of the few that’s been there who knew what war was like when he went. All these other chaps were conchies in ’14.’

That a so-called radical editor could talk against conscientious objectors in that sneering hearty way made Quentin clench his fists until the knuckles were livid. For a moment he retreated into
blackness
, telling himself he mustn’t hit the man. Then suddenly – it must be too little food, tiredness or what – he was alone, miles from anyone, the darkness hadn’t left him, he was cut off into night, he would never be two again. He fought his way back to hear Towneley say:

‘You all right, old boy?’

And, yes, he was; but he knew he mustn’t let Towneley go, must find something to touch, to amuse him, to stop him saying ‘no’.

‘Yes, how right you are. The extraordinary innocents that one met on the Teruel front! Observers they often called themselves. I think they gave the Spanish more laughs than annoyance. I hope so. A Danish Red Cross Liberal! Have you ever met a Danish Red Cross Liberal?’ He’d got Towneley laughing already. ‘Well this specimen was called Mogens Mohn. Oh, that’s nothing unusual in Denmark. It’s just Bill Smith. But the things he said. I think the best was, ‘Mr Matthews, do you think we shall meet with a genuine atrocity?’

He concentrated on getting a funny Scandinavian accent and let the words build up for themselves. Anyhow it had Towneley
laughing
in the aisles.

‘Oh, marvellous! For God’s sake, write
that
up for us. Have another pie? Or better still, Q. J., a spot of lunch. What about Soho?’

No, not Soho, but a spot of lunch would be very nice. Just the two of them.

*

Watching P. S. on top of a ladder, placing a sprig of holly over the John Nash downscape, her breath caught suddenly with love for him. At first she hadn’t found it easy to allow him the long-trousered suit that he had worn this holidays, but now it seemed only to
underline
his boyish figure, his fresh, healthy, smooth boy’s skin. Senior had a strange pattern of his own now – daily life at the office, regular hours – something that belonged to a world she knew nothing of, for Hugh had always been popping backwards and forwards from class, and even old Billy Pop had worked (if you could call it that) at home. And this hols Middleman spent all his time organizing the Peace Pledge group at Ramsgate – he actually liked strangers really. So that she’d been closer in this last ten days to P. S. than for years – long walks, afternoons shopping, cinemas, a trip up to Town, a
wonderful time. He’d, told her how terrific he thought it was of her to follow Frau L. that evening when they’d all sat by, manlike and not known how to cope; he’d said that, all things considered, the Frau would have a happier Weihnacht in the boarding house she’d gone to until the Quakers were ready for her.

‘You old hypocrite! What you mean is that we shall have a jolly sight better Christmas without strangers.’

He’d blushed and then squeezed her arm. Now, as she saw him self-consciously hitch his long trousers with a man’s, almost a sailor’s, gesture before coming down the ladder, she thought let the whole thing blow up so long as I don’t lose
him.
Then with a shudder of her straight shoulders, she knew that she must make an act of contrition, get this straight with God.

‘Look, darling, just put some over each of the pictures here. But be careful of the ladder. I’ll be back in a mo. I’m just going to have a word with Daddy.’

She always knocked on the door of Hugh’s den; it gave him time to look busy. As a matter of fact he was. He insisted on getting the reports off before Christmas, although for some poor mothers of little idiots it would be better, she always said, to wait until after the New Year – but, then, look at beastly income tax!

‘Can you spare me a few moments, darling?’

And with his usual courtesy –
that
he had handed on to the boys – he said: ‘My dear, my time is always yours!’

Yet she must hope that the day would never come when this was true.

She sat down: ‘I’ve been thinking …’ she said, then she shut up, for if contrition was to be made it must be complete – God always knew.

Taking his pipe from his mouth, ‘Whatever you think is worth hearing.’

‘Before that woman … before Frau Liebermann left she told me a few home truths. She said that there must be a war – if we were to survive that is. And if that happens, of course, the boys – Senior and Middleman will have to go, won’t they? And they may be killed.’

He sucked in his teeth in disapproval. ‘My dear.’

‘No, Hugh, don’t let’s pretend. It’s true isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There could very well still be peace. And with honour.’

‘Precious little, I should think. Anyway, if it comes …’

‘Oh,
if
it
comes, we might
all
be blown sky high.’

She frowned perplexed, for a second or two. ‘That’s all rather newspaper talk, isn’t it? But for the two boys there is real danger.’

He lit his pipe again. ‘No more than for any others.’

But she ignored this. ‘And the Frau implied that I make it all much more difficult for them if I try to hold them. It’s true, isn’t it? isn’t it?’

‘My dear….’

‘Oh, of course, it is. The Frau was perfectly right.’ She got up and, bending over his table, took up some reports. ‘Aitcheson, J. M. Purkiss, Rodney, Boyle, Keith: I only faintly know who they are.’ She stood over him. ‘That house near Exeter hasn’t gone, has it? Let’s go down in the New Year and see it. We can take P. S. before term starts.’

He looked up at her, puzzling. ‘Daisy’s decided that if we move, they’ll retire.’

‘She’s right. But don’t let that worry you, Hugh. If we go there and I think we should – war here near Dover would be courting suicide – then I want to be the Headmaster’s wife. To get to know, to look after,’ she let the reports fall from her hands on to the table, ‘Aitcheson, Purkiss, Boyle. P. S. will introduce me.’

He took her hand. ‘You’re sure? Purkiss has enormous red ears with chilblains.’ He laughed.

‘Chilblains! How disgraceful! They’re quite unnecessary these days! Oh, dear! What a lot of work there’ll be.’ She squeezed his hand, and left him.

Down in the hall, P. S. with cheeks swollen like a holy cherub, was blowing up balloons. She came and put her arm round his waist.

‘Mrs Pascoe,’ she said, ‘You must let them go. There must be war or God help you.’ She laughed. He frowned in bewilderment above his bulging cheeks, but then she added, ‘Arnold, come here, du wicked kleiner.’

He burst into laughter and the balloon sank.

‘Oh, really, Mummy. You’ve got the Frau completely.’ And they both laughed. She mussed up his hair with her hand.

‘But not you, darling, not der
kleinster
Pascoe. You’ll be safe in our lovely combes, you’ll like that won’t you?’ She smiled at her son’s perplexed face. But she wasn’t really talking to him. God knew what the bargain was.

Bright and early, before the alarm, before seven thirty, Alfred rang.

‘Oh, thank God,’ he said. Had she not known him, she would have thought fresh tragedy was upon them. ‘I was frightened to death you’d have gone out.’

‘Well, I haven’t.’ She felt snappish.

‘I just wanted to hear your voice before I go. And to tell you that it’s all right, Glad. Not a moment’s more worry. The cheque’s in the post for you. Five weeks to the dot as I said. So perhaps you’ll have a bit more faith in your old financial wizard in future.’

To hear his gaiety and certainty flooded her with a relief she had not known for what now seemed centuries.

‘There have got to be risks, you know.’

It didn’t seem worth contradicting.

‘Where on earth are you off to this time?’

‘I’ve got to run over to Holland. Bloody nuisance! And Doris is a bit seedy. But there’s a man I must see there. And if he comes up with what I hope he does, there’ll be no more selling of antiques for you, my darling. Caviare off golden dishes, that’s what you’ll have and like it.’ She didn’t answer, so he said, ‘Well, there it is, your Christmas present. God bless.’

She bathed luxuriously, dressed with lingering indulgence. She was agile again, hundreds of pounds of worried, anxious stifling fat seemed to have gone from her. She put her brown tweed skirt and coat and her beaver fur away at the back of the wardrobe, they were a no longer needed disguise, as the daily racing for which she had worn them in the last fortnight had been a disguise to keep his name out if the worst…. But now it wouldn’t. She had known him long enough, with all his tricky ways, to know when he was speaking the truth. That was what partnership meant. She should have known it. Hearing Alf’s voice today – confident, youthful again, cocky old
Alf-made
her ashamed for her fears. Well, now, with Sylvia gone and Christmas here, for some hard work; unless the ‘Closed’ notice had put people off.

If not that, something had done so, for all the morning there was no sale, but for two fire screens to an old buffer for his daughter;
however
, the more time, relaxed time at last, for the neglected account books. And then, just before lunch hour – Herr Ahrendt. She knew at once from the shifting glance of his sloping goat’s eyes that
something
was wrong.

‘But what does it mean, Miss Matthews? What does it mean? No Mrs Heathway, no Miss Matthews. Closed. What does it mean? My wife tells me they have stolen our picture. You must forgive her, please, she is quite ill and not young and then, you know, she does not like to leave Germany, she is not like me, a Jew.’

‘Oh, poor Mrs Ahrendt. No, it’s just that we’ve had illness.’

To her horror Mr Ahrendt struck a little inlaid table with his clenched fist.