Quartet in Autumn (6 page)

'You waiting to see Dr Wintergreen?' Marcia's neighbour persisted.

'No,' said Marcia.

'Oh, then you must be for Mr Strong. Nobody's gone into
that
room for the last half hour, ever since I've been here. I'm waiting for Dr Wintergreen. He's a lovely doctor, foreign. I think he might be Polish. He's got ever such kind eyes, lovely. He always wore a carnation in his buttonhole when he came round the ward. He grows them himself, he's got a big house in Hendon. Digestive disorders, stomach, you know, that's his speciality and of course he's in Harley Street, too. Is Mr Strong in Harley Street?'

'Yes,' said Marcia coldly. She did not want to talk about Mr Strong, to discuss sacred matters with this person.

'Sometimes they get the Registrar to do the operation,' the woman went on. 'Still, they've got to learn haven't they, how to do it.'

At that moment the nurse called out Marcia's name and she knew that her turn had come. She was not so naive as to imagine that Mr Strong's name on the door was a guarantee of his presence in the room, so she was not unduly cast down when, having half undressed and lain down on a couch, she was examined by a golden-haired boy, a houseman doing his training in surgery. He prodded her in a highly professional manner, took her blood pressure and listened with his stethoscope. Of course he did not notice her new pink underwear but did comment admiringly on the neatness of her operation scar — Mr Strong's work, of course — and told her that she was too thin and ought to eat more. Yet he, just coming up to his twenty-fifth birthday, hardly knew what to expect of a woman in her sixties. Were they always as thin as this? Certainly his great aunt, the nearest equivalent he could think of, was not at all like Miss Ivory, though he had never seen her without clothes.

'I think perhaps somebody should keep an eye on you,' he said kindly, and Marcia was not at all offended or irritated as she was when the social workers and the church people implied the same thing, for hospital was different She was quietly triumphant when she handed her card in at the appointments desk to arrange for a further check-up at some future date.

Marcia's second holiday treat was a visit to Mr Strong's house, or rather to view at a safe distance the house where he lived. She knew from the telephone directory that he functioned not only in Harley Street but also at an address in Dulwich, a district easily reached by her on a 37 bus.

She let a week elapse after her visit to the hospital — spacing out the treats — before setting out on a fine afternoon to see Mr Strong's house. The bus was nearly empty and the conductress kind and helpful. She knew the best stop for the road Marcia asked for, but when she had punched the ticket she seemed, like the woman at the hospital, to want to chat. They were lovely houses in that road — did Marcia know somebody who lived there or — for this seemed unlikely — was she perhaps going after a job there? It was dreadful, Marcia felt, the way so many people wanted to know one's business and, when she did not respond, to tell one about their own. She had to listen to quite a long story about husband and kiddies, categories she knew nothing about, but at last the stop was reached and she got out and walked along the road in the sunshine.

The house was imposing, as were its neighbours, just the kind of house that looked worthy of Mr Strong. There were shrubs in the front garden. Marcia imagined the laburnum trees and the lilacs in May, but now in early August there wasn't much to admire. Perhaps there were roses at the back, for the garden behind the house seemed extensive, but all she could see was a swing hanging from a massive old tree. Of course Mr Strong was a family man; he had children, and now they were all away at the seaside. The house seemed completely deserted which meant that Marcia could stand in the road gazing, noticing discreetly drawn curtains in a William Morris design. It went through her mind that there were no net curtains here, they did not seem to go with Mr Strong. Her thoughts were unformulated, it was enough just to stand. Afterwards she waited for over half an hour at the bus stop, unconscious of the delay, time passing and no bus. Eventually she reached home and made a cup of tea and boiled an egg. The young doctor at the hospital had told her she ought to eat more and she was sure Mr Strong would agree with that.

Next day she returned to the office, but when they asked her how she had spent her leave she was evasive, only saying that the weather had been good and she'd had a nice break, which was what people always said.

The first day of Norman's leave was brilliantly sunny, the kind of day for going to the country or the seaside or for walking hand in hand with a lover in Kew Gardens.

None of these ideas occurred to Norman when he woke up and realized that he did not have to go to the office that day. As there was plenty of time, he decided to have a cooked breakfast — bacon and eggs with all the trimmings, which for him meant tomatoes and fried bread — far more than his usual plate of cornflakes or All-Bran. And he would have it in his pyjamas and dressing gown, just like somebody in a Noel Coward play. If they could see me now! he thought, meaning Edwin, Letty and Marcia.

The dressing gown was a jazzy rayon satin, patterned with a design of maroon and 'old gold' geometrical shapes. Norman had bought it at a sale, thinking he might look good in it, that it might in some unspecified way 'do' something for him. He was willing to bet that Edwin had nothing like this, probably just an old plaid woollen thing that he'd had since school days. He was pretty sure that Letty would have something smart, frilly and all the rest of it, like the ladies he had seen when he'd visited Ken in hospital, but on Marcia's dressing gown he did not like to speculate. In a curious way he found himself sheering away from her and turning his thoughts to something else. In any case a shout from his landlady — some complaint about the smell of frying — soon brought him back to earth again.

Most of Norman's holiday was spent in this idle and profitless way. The truth was that he didn't really know what to do with himself when he wasn't working. In the last week he had to visit the dentist, to adjust his new plate and to practise eating with it. The dentist was a Yorkshireman and rather too jolly for Norman's liking, and although he was National Health Norman had to fork out quite a lot of money for a considerable amount of discomfort. Thank you for nothing! he thought bitterly. When he was reasonably confident of being able to attempt something more than soup or macaroni cheese, Norman went back to work. He had a few days leave still in hand. "You never know when they might come in useful,' he said, but he felt that those extra days would never be needed, but would accumulate like a pile of dead leaves drifting on to the pavement in autumn.

Six

L
ETTY
WAS
NOT
altogether surprised to get the letter from Marjorie saying that she was going to marry David Lydell. So much can change in such a short time especially, it would appear, if one is living in a village, though Letty didn't quite see why this should be so.

'David and I found that we were just two lonely people with so much to give each other,' Marjorie wrote.

Letty had not realized that her friend might have been lonely. Her life as a widow living in the country had always seemed so enviable, so full of trivial but absorbing doings.

'The vicarage is so uncomfortable,' the letter went on. There is a
great
deal to be done there. And would you believe it, the estate agent tells me that I can ask (and get!) £20,000 for the cottage! Of course you will realize that there is only one slight worry and that is you, dear old Letty. It will hardly be possible (and I don't for a moment suppose you would wish it) for you to come and live with us at the vicarage when you retire. So it's occurred to me that you might like to take a room at Holmhurst where I
think
there may well be a vacancy shortly (due to
death
, of course!), only you must let me know soon because...' Here the letter went into further tedious detail, the upshot of it being that Marjorie could 'get Letty in' because she knew the woman who ran it. It was not by any means an old people's home because of course only selected applicants would be accepted, on a
personal
recommendation
...

Letty did not bother to read the last part of the letter very carefully. Marjorie went on with what seemed like girlish enthusiasm, but no doubt a woman in love, even if she is over sixty, feels no less rapturous than a girl of nineteen. Skimming over the final page, Letty learned that David was such a fine person; he had been so lonely and misunderstood in his last parish and some people in the village hadn't been too kind. Finally, they were so much in love that the difference in their ages ('I am of course some ten years older than he is') didn't make the slightest difference. Letty reflected that the difference must be nearer twenty years than ten but she was prepared to accept the fact of their love even if she could not understand it. Love was a mystery she had never experienced. As a young woman she had wanted to love, had felt that she ought to, but it had not come about. This lack in her was something she had grown used to and no longer thought about, but it was disconcerting, even a little shocking, to find that Marjorie was by no means beyond it.

Of course there was no question of her living at Holmhurst, a large red-brick mansion standing in wide lawns which she had often passed when she went to see Marjorie. She had once noticed an old woman with a lost expression peering through one of the surrounding hedges and that impression had remained with her. When her retirement day came, and it was not far off now, she would no doubt stay in her bed-sitting room for the time being. One could lead a very pleasant life in London — museums and art galleries, concerts and theatres — all those things that cultured people in the country were said to miss and crave for would be at Letty's disposal Of course she would have to answer Marjories letter, to offer her congratulations (for surely that was the word) and to ease her conscience about the upsetting of the retirement plans, but not necessarily by return of post.

On her way home Letty noticed a barrow selling flowers near the Underground station. It occurred to her that she might buy a bunch for her landlady who had invited all the tenants to coffee that evening — not all-the-year-round chrysanthemums, but something small and unobtrusive like anemones or violets; but nothing of that sort was available and one could not buy the daisy-like flowers, dyed turquoise blue or red-ink pink, which were being offered as a bargain, so Letty walked on without buying anything. As she approached the house she was overtaken by Marya, the Hungarian who also lived there, carrying a bunch of the turquoise
-
dyed flowers that Letty had rejected.

'So pretty,' she said enthusiastically, 'and only 10p. You remember, Miss Embrey has asked us to coffee, so I thought, one takes flowers.'

Letty now realized that Marya had got the better of her, as she often did, filling the bathroom with her dripping clothes and taking Letty's
Daily Telegraph
in pretended mistake for her own lesser paper.

Miss Embrey lived on the ground floor and her three tenants — Letty, Marya and Miss Alice Spurgeon — came out of their rooms like animals emerging from burrows and descended the stairs at half past eight.

How aggressively nice and good her 'things' were, Letty thought, as she accepted a cup of coffee in Miss Embrey's Crown Derby. And now, it appeared, she was taking herself and these nice things to a home for gentlewomen in the country, perhaps the very home that Letty had decided to reject.

'My brother has arranged it all for me.' Miss Embrey smiled as she gave them this information, perhaps because she realized that none of her tenants had a man to arrange things for her. They were all unmarried women and no man had ever been known to visit them, not even a relative.

'Arthur has dealt with
everything,'
Miss Embrey stressed, and this included the house which was to be — indeed had already been — sold, with the tenants in it, quite a usual practice.

'And who is to be our new landlord?' Miss Spurgeon was the first to put their thoughts into words.

'A very nice gentleman,' said Miss Embrey in her mildest manner. 'He and his family will occupy the ground floor and basement
.
'

'It is a large family?' Marya asked.

'I understand a near relative may be sharing the accommodation with him
.
It is good to know that the ties of blood and kinship are still respected in some parts of the world.'

This led Letty to ask tentatively whether their new landlord was perhaps not English — a foreigner, if one could put it like that, and Miss Embrey was equally circumspect in her answer, implying that, in a manner of speaking, he was.

'What is his name?' Marya asked.

'Mr Jacob Olatunde.' Miss Embrey pronounced the syllables carefully, as if she had been practising them.

'He is black, then?' Again it was Marya, the Hungarian, who dared to ask the blunt question.

'Certainly his skin is not what is usually regarded as white, but which of us, for example, could say that we were white?' Miss Embrey looked round at her three tenants — Letty, with a pinkish skin, Marya, a sallow olive, Miss Spurgeon, parchment — all quite different. 'As you know, I have lived in China, so these distinctions of skin colour mean very little to me. Mr Olatunde comes from Nigeria,' she declared.

Miss Embrey sat back and folded her hands one over the other, those pale, useless hands exceptionally spotted with brown, and offered more coffee.

Only Marya, toadyish with her murmurs of 'such delicious coffee', accepted the offer. Miss Embrey smiled and poured her another cup. It was not the expensive blend of freshly ground beans that she would have offered to guests of her own choosing. Nor were the peculiar dyed flowers that Marya had pressed upon her the sort of decoration she would choose for her drawing room, so in a sense it was tit for tat.