Nuns and Soldiers (34 page)

A ghost scene from the past breathed upon her. The two men were Guy and Stanley, the woman Janet. That was the last time she had looked out in just this way through the arch.

 

 

‘Good-bye!’

‘Good-bye!’

‘Have a nice paint!’

‘Bon voyage!’

‘Good-bye, Tim!’

They had gone. After an argument, Gertrude had insisted on getting into the back of the car. He saw her tousled hair and bright smile.

He returned to the empty terrace. Manfred had stepped on the line of journeying ants.

Tim carried the plates to the kitchen and washed them up. He had already decided to leave at once. He did not want to spend the night with any ghosts which might have been enlivened by recent events. There was also the very physical ghost of Gertrude to be reckoned with.

He went upstairs and packed his bag. He locked the bicycles up in the garage. He ran round the house closing the windows and fastening the shutters and turning off all the things he had turned on when he arrived. That was nine days ago. My God!

He was now in a frenzy to leave. Manfred and Mrs Mount had been maddeningly unhurried and it was now late in the afternoon. Tim decided he would spend the night at the village hotel and leave for England early in the morning. Lunch had been torture, although Tim had been amazed to find how well he and Gertrude managed. Given a background of habit, the human capacity to dissemble is almost limitless. It had been unnervingly easy to pretend to be strangers. The merry discussion had ranged easily over the local landscape, French and Italian politics, motor cars, the weather at home, whether a stop in Paris was feasible, what Balintoy was up to in Colorado, what Rosalind Openshaw would study at the university. It occurred to Tim that he had never seen Gertrude in just this sort of social scene before. How young and attractive she was, how much she laughed at Manfred’s stories. Tim laughed too.

He secured the sitting-room door and then in the shuttered dark found his rucksack and suitcase and went out by the archway door, closing and locking it behind him. In his hasty tidying up he had noticed the cracked window pane in Guy’s study. Neither he nor Gertrude had got around to having it mended. Now without looking back he walked along the terrace, down the gravel path to the garage, past the ditch from which he had observed Mrs Mount powdering her face, down the little bumpy driveway to the road, and then on towards the village. The afternoon heat was already over and the coolness and vivid light of evening was rising as if from the earth.

Something beside the road caught his attention. It was the brown paper bag and scattered remains of the dozen eggs, which had tilted out of Gertrude’s basket that morning as they were hastily bundling the bicycle over the bank. Tim paused to contemplate the viscous mess already much explored by insects. It looked strange and in an odd way exciting, wet and slimy and iridescent, a kind of alien emergence from the dry land. He thought, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Then he thought, well, here are broken eggs, but no omelette! He went on to the village.

Here he was surprised to find, on arriving at the little hotel to book his room, that he was already a well-known, even a popular figure. Who was it who had said to him, long long ago, that ‘everybody loves a painter’? Why, it was Gertrude! Although he had seen no one, it appeared that many people had seen him, as he set up his stool here and there upon the rocks or among the olives, and
le peintre anglais
had been voted quite a picturesque addition to the local scene. The welcome at the hotel, the pretty bedroom with the view of the
château
, the glasses of
Kir
which he consumed in the café before dinner, the money in his pocket: all these things ought to have been ingredients of happiness, and he distractedly apprehended them as such without feeling happy. What an idiotic wretched parting. He and Gertrude had scarcely looked at each other during lunch. He had not managed to see her alone, had not dared to try to. Seeing her in Manfred’s big car was like seeing her abducted, kidnapped, lost. What would Gertrude think when after a journey with Manfred and Mrs Mount (they might even stay in Paris) she got back to Ebury Street? What could she think but that she had been temporarily mad?

Tim had dinner in the hotel. The dinner was
extremely good.
The excellent wine assisted Tim’s ability to hope. Perhaps all would be well. Gertrude would save him, as good women have always saved sinful men in stories. He thought again about the ‘open and honourable life’, and the ‘new innocence and the fresh start’. And even when he considered the question of whether these things were not, in the last analysis, a function of
money
, he was not, for that evening at any rate, depressed.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WELL, AND HOW IS YEZ?’ said Daisy. ‘You’ve come back to your old Daisy. I thought that French caper was too good to be true.’

‘So did I,’ said Tim.

‘I didn’t manage to let my flat after all, it fell through.’

‘So did mine.’

‘Just as well, as things have turned out. So big Gertie’s installed for the summer with manly Manfred and the Snake of Pimlico. No wonder you sneaked off. Rather mean of her, though, after she promised you.’

‘She may come back soon, I don’t know-I just - thought I would - come back, I mean.’

Tim’s hopefulness had disappeared with the effects of the hotel dinner. The next morning he had woken to misery and frenzy. He got himself back to London by the quickest way, by train and ’plane, and rang the Ebury Street number from Heathrow. There was no answer. Of course Gertrude had not yet arrived. Tim went back to his garage studio. The studio was damp and cold. The London skies were grey. He sat on his bed on the floor and moaned with anxiety. He ran out and telephoned. He telephoned again and again. No answer. Was Gertrude sitting there and listening to the ’phone ring?

The next morning (still no answer) he decided to go and see Daisy. Neither of them had telephones, so he just turned up about noon and found Daisy still in bed, drinking wine.

Daisy’s flatlet consisted of one room, with a sink and a gas stove behind a lattice partition. The bathroom next door was shared with other tenants. The room was quite large, with a dirty window looking out onto a tree and a wall and a narrow strip of sky. The walls were painted pale blue and Daisy had at different times stuck posters on them with sellotape. Some of the posters regularly came unstuck and hung out like flags. On the mantelpiece and on the window ledge, surrounded by dirty glasses and cosmetics and dust, stood Daisy’s potted plants, donated mostly by friends who were leaving London. No nameless sprout (which had flowered once and never would again) was ever turned away. Tim, usually an ally of green things, disliked these ailing growths. He felt a spot of euthanasia would do them a lot of good. The room was let ‘furnished’ but there was not much furniture. Some open shelves contained Daisy’s books, mostly novels but some on occult or mystical subjects. She had once read, but did so no longer. There was also a mahogany chest of drawers, quite handsome but extremely marked and battered, a cheap deal wardrobe, some crippled kitchen chairs, a monstrous armchair, a solid table covered by a cloth beside the window where Daisy wrote her novel (she used a typewriter) and the divan bed where Daisy now lay propped up, the two-litre bottle of wine and a glass upon the floor beside her. She had pinned a gay pattern of beer mats onto the lattice partition.

As soon as he came in Tim had started, as he always did, to tidy up. He picked up Daisy’s clothes off the floor and folded them and put some in the armchair, others into drawers. He picked up plates and glasses from various surfaces and took them through to the sink and put them in a basin to soak. The sink smelt of sour milk. The room smelt of alcohol and dirty clothes. There was no hot water.

Daisy was dressed in a shirt and a housecoat. She had, before Tim’s unheralded arrival, made up her face, accentuating her dark brows and reddening her drooping mouth and making blue rings and black lines round her eyes. She looked, though grotesque, rather pretty. She had combed her short shiny dark hair, there was not much grey in it. Her eyes sparkled. She was glad to see Tim.

And in spite of everything, in spite of heaven and hell, Tim was glad to see her. A habit of speech is a deep matter. Years and years and years of talking to Daisy lay behind him. He could not help feeling, separately in the midst of everything else, a familiar reassuring sense of return. He had come back to tell Daisy his adventures, as he had always done after an absence. But oh
Christ
he thought, whatever shall I do! He had made no plan. He had intended to put off seeing Daisy until after he had seen Gertrude. Supposing Gertrude sacked him? Then he need never tell Daisy anything. Everything would be as before. Or would it be, could it be? In any case it would be wise not to tell Daisy anything now. Who knew what the future held? He had come to Daisy stupidly, weakly, just out of misery, just to have a drink with her, just because he was in London and London meant Daisy. Just because the way to her door was a known magnetic way.

‘You’re fatter,’ said Daisy, ‘it suits you. I mean, you’re still like a little bean pole but you’ve lost that gaunt undernourished look. And, my, you’re brown, I’ve never seen so many freckles, you’re like a spotty dog! What was the weather like?’

‘Pretty good.’

‘It’s been foul here, fucking awful as usual. Can’t stop raining and it looks as if it’s doing it again, God’s blood! Oh shit, I’ve knocked the blasted glass over. Fill me up again, there’s a dear boy, and give yourself another. I’ve missed you. Have you missed me?’

‘Yes -’

‘I wish it had worked out. Fuck France, but all the same, I could do with a bit of sunshine and we could have had some fun, bit of a change from trudging along to the Prince of Denmark.’

‘Any news of Barkiss?’

‘No. Your feline friend is lording it. Well, it’s back to the mogs, isn’t it? Jesus, how are we going to last the summer on no money? Back to square one. Seems like we live at square one!’

‘Seen Jimmy Roland?’

‘No. He’s in America, according to that blithering idiot Piglet. Or Australia. Could we get an assisted passage to Australia? After all we’re white. Trouble is I suppose we’re hooked on London.’

‘Yes -’

‘Oh do stop tidying, don’t bother with all that stuff, what a fusspot you are!’

‘What did you get up to when I was away? Were you OK?’

‘What did I get up to? Nothing. Was I OK? No. What damn silly questions you ask. It was so bloody cold I had to stay in bed.’

‘How’s the novel?’

‘Stuck. Writing’s harder than painting, I can tell you.’

‘I expect it is.’

‘Painters can just look. They don’t need minds. A writer has to have a mind.’

‘I’ll never be a writer.’

‘What’s the matter with you, Blue Eyes? You seem awfully in the dumps. Not that I blame you, coming back to this sodding island. ’

‘Daisy -’

‘Wait a mo, just pass me my slippers, I must go to the loo, then we can go down to the old Prince.’

Tim passed the slippers and Daisy got out of bed and flip-flopped out of the room. Was he going to tell her?

When she came back and was reaching for her jeans, he said, ‘Daisy, I must tell you something.’

‘What? Dear old thing, don’t look like that!’

‘I’m going to marry Gertrude.’

‘Gertrude who?’

‘Gertrude Openshaw.’

‘Sorry, I’m making a joke. You made a joke, so I thought I must too. Two bad jokes. Christ, these jeans are splitting.’

‘But I am. Daisy, I am going to marry her.’

Tim thought, I can’t lie to Daisy, so why did I come here? Perhaps for that reason. I’ve got to tell her. It’s something I’ve got to do for Gertrude, or
to
Gertrude. I’m making Gertrude true by telling Daisy. Oh let it be true. But oh Christ, how
awful
all this is. And how real and true Daisy is somehow.

‘Get along wid ya. Is it raining outside?’

‘No.’

‘Why are you saying this about Gertrude, is it part of some game? Jesus fucking Christ, haven’t I enough troubles? Don’t irritate me with your nonsense.’

‘I am going to marry her. I proposed. She accepted. At least she sort of accepted, because it’s too soon. No one knows yet, it’s a secret, and -’

‘Sit down, Tim.’

He sat on one of the upright chairs. Daisy, in shirt and jeans, sat on another.

‘Now just what is this bloody rubbish, are you drunk already?’

‘Daisy, it’s
real
, it’s
happened
, please
believe
me -’

‘Tim, you must have gone off your chump, or else you’ve been taking drugs or something. Just stop it, will you? I know we said that one or other of us must make a rich marriage but that wasn’t serious, at least I thought it wasn’t. Dear boy, I know you haven’t much in the upper storey, but if you’re developing this fantasy for my sake -’

‘I’m not -’

‘If you want to ditch me, dear fellow, you don’t have to make a funny story about it.’

‘I don’t-I mean -’

‘I should just think not! But you mustn’t get all mixed up about Gertrude. Gertrude’s a fiction, she’s nothing to do with us at all. Being in France must have disturbed your mind! Do you really imagine we can live on Gertrude’s money? What would she think? Or have you told her?’

‘No -’

‘Look, you’re sillier than I thought, and that’s saying a lot. I know we
said
that one of us must make a rich marriage and support the other, OK? But that was just being funny, OK? It was a joke, you know what a joke is, for God’s sake. If dear old Gertrude would give you the money for your birthday or obligingly die and leave you a fortune, that’s great. But you can’t get it for me by marrying the old cow, though I must say I’m touched by the lengths you suggest going to, would you really do this for me? I know it’s all in your mind, but really - look, are you drunk or am I?’