Something in Disguise (10 page)

May woke first, as she always did (the alarm-clock was beside her bed as Herbert was a light sleeper until, he said, about six-thirty in the morning: it was most important to
him to get those vital two hours of real rest). For this reason, May never slept very well for the hour or so before the alarm went off, as she had to quell it at its first buzz, or, as Herbert
pointed out, it defeated its object. He liked to sleep until the strong Indian tea was actually steaming in a huge cup at his bedside. Usually she stopped the clock before it had a chance, but on
this particular morning she woke with such a feeling of excitement that she forgot. Today was probably going to be one that she would remember all her life. Herbert was going to London, to see his
stockbroker, lunch at his club and look in at Lords, and
she
, nefariously – she hadn’t dared tell him – was having a very interesting man to lunch; possibly, she thought,
one of the most interesting men in England – if not the world. He was not coming alone; dear, kind Lavinia was bringing him; but then, without Lavinia she would never have heard about, let
alone met Dr Sedum. Lavinia was a second cousin – somebody she had vaguely known as a child, and then met again when they were grown-up and going to parties together. They had never
seemed
to have much in common and after Lavinia had married a Texan millionaire and she had married Clifford their ways had entirely and naturally parted. Lavinia’s husband was now
dead and so she had returned to England, an older and richer woman . . .

The alarm went off, and May clutched at it, and then turned fearfully to see whether it had woken Herbert. It didn’t seem to have done.

She put on an old cardigan and then her dressing-gown. The house was always its coldest early in the morning, and anyway, she was a cold person. The floors of the wide, dark passages were
polished oak, which, as Herbert had pointed out, obviated the need for carpets. The staircase was also oak – no carpet there, either, which made it slippery and a nightmare to negotiate with
heavy trays. The hall, with its huge, heavily-leaded window – too large to curtain – was somehow always freezing, even in summer, and dark, too, because here the oak had crept up the
walls to a height of about nine feet, making any ordinary furniture look ridiculous. There was also a tremendous stone fireplace in which one could have roasted an ox; and, as Oliver had pointed
out, nothing less would have done either to warm the place or to defeat the joyless odour of furniture polish. ‘It really is a monstrous house,’ she thought, and recognized this to be
what Dr Sedum had described in one of his ‘talks’ as a mechanical pattern reaction – something to be avoided if one was to evolve. But later on in the same talk he had said that
we were all liars because we were incapable of responding consistently to our environment, and then she didn’t know what to think. When she had asked Lavinia after the Time, as meetings were
called in the League, Lavinia had said that one could not start at all, until one had perceived the Paradox. She had only been to one Time, and when Lavinia had said that she must not try to walk
before she could fly, she realized that she had a long way to go.

The moment she got into the kitchen, Claude hoisted himself wearily out of the vegetable trug by the Aga and set about his usual process of tripping her up until she had provided him with his
early morning milk. This morning, she gave in to him at once; she wanted nothing to interfere with the clockwork routine which was to conclude with Herbert catching his train to London. She had
told him she was having a cousin to lunch several days ago, but he had been deep in some gardening manual, and she had not been sure whether he had heard.

Two hours later she waved to Herbert as he lurched down the drive in the old Wolseley. Alice had washed the car once a week before she had married, but it was one more of those things which May
simply didn’t seem to get time to do. A final wave – he would not have seen her, but he liked all his expeditions to be taken seriously – and she heaved at the huge iron-studded
front door until it shut with a prison-like click. There was a terrific amount to do before Dr Sedum and Lavinia arrived, but she was so exhausted with anxiety and the feeling that she was doing
something exciting and momentous behind Herbert’s back that she fled to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and a cigarette (Herbert did not like her to smoke in the mornings). ‘I’ll
make a list,’ she thought. She always resorted to lists: they proved that she had a great deal to do, and to some extent, as she crossed things off, they proved that she was doing them. Mrs
Green was coming this morning: she began with a list for Mrs Green. She had decided to entertain her guests entirely in what was called the morning room: by dint of transporting most of the
electric fires (the ones that were in working order, anyway) she could manage to get it tolerably cosy by one o’clock. There was a reasonable round table there; it wobbled rather on its
pedestal if one cut bread or made any other emphatic movements of that nature, but was otherwise suitable for lunch. The room was sternly bare: Herbert had not put much furniture there as he did
not use it, but she could collect bits and pieces from other rooms. Anyway, Dr Sedum probably appreciated austerity as long as it did not make him
too
uncomfortable. Lunch was to consist of
roast spring chicken, new potatoes and peas (safe food, surely, for such an occasion) and crème caramel, which she had got very good at as Herbert had been used to it in India. Mrs Green
could do the vegetables and clean the room; she would prepare the chicken, make the room as warm and nice as possible and put on her blue suit. She wrote ‘half past twelve’ at the
bottom of the lists and set about everything.

By twelve she thought she had done everything, but the list had mysteriously disappeared, so it was impossible to be sure. The room looked much better, and was noticeably warmer than the rest of
the house, although she had only been able to plug in two heaters because that was all the plugs there were. Mrs Green had polished the food trolley and altogether entered into the spirit of the
occasion; they had lugged two heavy armchairs in and laid the round table. She had picked some lilac from the garden and arranged it in the scullery while Mrs Green kindly did the dogs’ food.
A lot of earwigs fell out of the lilac, but Claude was at hand to dispatch them which, with a good deal of unnecessary strategy, he did. It was a lovely day, cold but sunny, no sign of rain which
was an excellent thing, because rain sometimes stopped Herbert going to Lord’s, and then he came home earlier rather grumpy.

Her blue suit had been her best for so long now that even putting it on induced a mechanical sense of festivity. With it she wore a jersey made by Alice in a paler blue which toned very nicely.
It was awful to feel pleased that Alice was not here, but really, it was a blessing; with Elizabeth she could have been quite frank – simply told her to beat it, she wanted a private lunch
– but with Alice this would have been pretty well impossible. Alice would have been hurt, would have had to be included in lunch, and then the whole thing would have been spoiled, since
people in the League were not allowed to talk about it to people outside. Of course,
she
wasn’t actually in it yet, but she knew that they were considering her; the lunch was probably
a kind of
test
. . .

She saw them arriving from her bedroom window in Lavinia’s Bentley, and it was such a long way down to the front door that she was a bit breathless by the time she succeeded in getting it
open.

‘May! How nice!’ Her cousin managed to make this sound like some graceful coincidence. Dr Sedum – an enormously tall man – loomed gently behind her: he was smiling in a
temperate sort of way.

‘It’s lovely to see you. Do come in.’

‘Of course, you’ve met Dr Sedum.’

‘Yes.’ May found she was getting breathless again. ‘It’s most awfully good of you to come.’ She wasn’t quite sure whether to shake hands, but Dr Sedum spread
his out in a gesture denying all goodness, so she thought probably better not. She led the way to the far end of the hall, through the oak door, down the wide passage (she’d put the lights
on) and through a baize door, after which a narrower passage culminated in the morning room.

‘You certainly have room to turn round here,’ exclaimed Lavinia, walking to the bay window where the round table was set. ‘Isn’t it frightfully difficult to get enough
staff?’

‘I expect it would be, but we don’t try. Wouldn’t you like to take off your coats?’

‘And have some sherry?’ she added, moments later. She felt tentative about this, not knowing whether the kind of person Dr Sedum was drank.

‘That would be delightful.’ She had forgotten how very quietly he spoke; so quietly, that it was impossible to hear, unless one gave him one’s whole attention and watched his
face. She had bought a bottle of Bristol Cream in case drink was the thing. Dr Sedum now produced a gold cigarette case and offered her a cigarette.

‘You look surprised,’ said Lavinia as she accepted her sherry. ‘We are not supposed to deny ourselves the good things in life.’ She sat in one of the armchairs and turned
expectantly to Dr Sedum, who shook his head benevolently.

‘That would be too easy. There would be an entirely false sense of achievement. The interest begins when one can say to oneself: I am smoking a cigarette, I am drinking sherry, and have a
clear understanding of the
senses
that those activities bring.’

May, who had taken a sip of sherry and a puff of her cigarette and thought ‘how nice’ on each occasion put down her glass with the small thrill of humility and excitement that she
had so often felt before when she did not understand something that seemed crystal clear to other people. ‘Oh please explain to me,’ she said.

Dr Sedum shook his head again: his large, round, pale blue eyes were fixed upon her face. ‘On our way here, we stopped to ask the way. A man, wheeling a bicycle – an ordinary man
– replied, “I’m a stranger here myself.” ’

May waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. Instead he drank some sherry, still watching her as she gazed at him. Even sitting down, he seemed to tower above her, but his smile made her
feel that if anyone could help her understand anything it would be he. It was rather difficult to drink her sherry after that, so she was glad when Lavinia said:

‘I think it’s so brave of you to embark on a house this size these days.’

‘Oh – it wasn’t me who was brave. It was Herbert: my husband. He simply insisted that I – that we buy it. It’s ridiculous really; Alice, my stepdaughter, is
married, and my two are in London leading their own lives so we rattle about here like two peas in a pod, I don’t mean a pod – you know what I mean.’

She stopped. Lavinia had a fringe – just like when she was small, she noticed; only then the rest of her hair had been cropped very short, had been thick and silky, and now it hung in
rather greasy strands over the collar of her velveteen dress. Dr Sedum had almost no hair: none at all on the top of his head, which was smooth and the same texture as a close-up photograph of a
wax pear. There were also coarse, reddish tufts at the sides just above his ears. It was extraordinary how, when you
knew
about people, their appearance took on an entirely different
meaning.

Dr Sedum had finished his sherry, but as he was probably the only person she had ever met with a clear understanding of how to drink it, one expected him to finish first. She offered more; it
was accepted, and she wondered when the serious talking would begin. Not until she’d got lunch actually on the table by the feel of things. She filled up Lavinia’s glass, and then her
own. There was an astonishingly long silence at the end of which Dr Sedum and Lavinia smiled at each other, and Dr Sedum said,

‘That was good; very good.’

‘I think Harvey’s are a very reliable brand.’

A low rumbling broke from Dr Sedum, that, as she got used to it, May recognized as his compassionate chuckle: she had heard him use it when people asked questions at the one Time she had been
to. She felt herself beginning to blush.

‘I’m sorry – I thought you meant the sherry. I think I’d better get lunch now.’

‘I won’t offer to help you.’ Lavinia made this sound like a really imaginative and generous concession.

Which May thought, as she started the journey to the kitchen, it was, on the whole, because it would have been frightfully rude to leave someone like Dr Sedum all by himself.

The colonel lowered himself into a chair at his favourite corner table. He was feeling quite peckish, and looking forward no end to a damn good lunch. Henry, the head waiter,
limped forward:

‘Would you care for anything to drink, Colonel?’

‘Oh yes, Henry, I should certainly care. A large pink gin.’

‘With soda, sir?’

‘With soda.’

It was early, and the dining-room was almost empty: very few people lunched before one, and at these times, Henry always gave any early member his personal attention. His reputation in the club
stood very high; Henry was ‘wonderful’. This simply meant that he remembered what each of them liked to drink and smiled obsequiously at all the monotonous badinage that went on and on
and on about it. ‘Henry must have seen a lot: he must know a thing or two’ was another thing people far too often said about him. In fact he hardly ever saw anything: men behave
differently in their clubs, but they all manage to behave differently in the same way: and all Henry ever saw was a lot of Old Head Boys having a (bit of a) spree. His varicose veins were awful,
and he only stayed because he had first pick of the batches of fresh and buxom Irish girls who streamed across the Channel to earn their living and lose their virginity. The staff said he was a
terror with the girls: the girls giggled and whispered about him in their attic bedrooms at the top of the building, and told one another fearful lies about his disgusting and manly ways, and the
junior waiters held tremulously revolutionary meetings about him in their local. The older waitresses treated him like any other member, as though he was rather mad and failing in health. The
Kitchen loathed him, though this held them together, as nothing else could do, and the committee regarded him as a tradition.