Something in Disguise (21 page)

After supper, the remains of which were clearly going to provide an ample snack for Claude, the colonel insisted on putting the car away without help. May and Elizabeth piled the dishes on to
the rickety trolley and wheeled it down the stone passage, through the baize doors that stuck and squeaked, to the kitchen. Claude emerged unhurriedly from the larder where he had had a rather
unsatisfactory check-up.

‘Do you mean you
still
haven’t had the larder door fixed?’

‘No: like so many things, I still haven’t done it.’

Her mother’s voice sounded despairing, and Elizabeth, going to hug her, realized that she was very near tears. ‘Darling – what
is
it?’

‘Don’t know – feel so awful – don’t tell Herbert – headache – lovely to have you here –’

A bit later, she said, ‘I’ve had my little moan. Feel
much
better.’

Elizabeth offered her a cigarette, and she took it doubtfully.

‘It might be nice; but often they make me feel sick, these days.’

Elizabeth said, ‘Do you think you might possibly be having an ulcer?’

‘The doctor didn’t seem to think so. Herbert took me to one in Woking. And I saw someone else in London and they thought definitely not.’

‘Who did you see in London?’

May had lit her cigarette and now turned to throw away the match. ‘Oh nobody you would know, darling; but he was most reassuring.’

Here, the conversation was interrupted by Claude, who was sick and tired of waiting for his plaice. He stood on his hind legs and reached an arm across the top of the trolley until he’d
hooked a backbone off what, unfortunately for him, turned out to be the colonel’s plate – the only one of them who’d eaten all his dinner. He shook it free and tried again,
knocking over and breaking a glass half full of water. This gave him a horrible fright, but this time he held on to a hardly-eaten fish and retired with it under the table.

‘Isn’t he ghastly?’ said May fondly. ‘The dustpan’s over there. It isn’t as though he’s intermittently awful – he never stops being it.’ And
what with getting the fragments of glass and the sticky glue of fish bones and skin off the floor, nothing more was said about the London doctor. Later, Elizabeth made her mother some hot milk and
took it up to her in bed. There she learned that Herbert, who was shutting the dogs in, had taken to doing this every night.

‘He’s very sweet about it. He’s bought Horlicks, and Bournvita and cocoa, and I never know which it’s going to be.’

‘That’s good.’ Elizabeth tried not to sound surprised. ‘I’m afraid I’ve just put a little nutmeg in this.’

‘Delicious, darling. Now off you go to bed – you look tired and we’ve got the whole of tomorrow to talk.’

But somehow or other, they never did talk. This was because May was afraid of Elizabeth telling Oliver about Dr Sedum and his laughing at her, and also because Elizabeth was afraid of breaking
down completely if she began to tell May about John. So long as she never said even his name to May, she could pretend that the whole situation – including having to go away because of awful
Jennifer – was unreal, or at least that the going away part of it was unreal. For minutes at a time she did not think at all about it, and then, just as she was beginning to notice in perhaps
a rather sickening, congratulatory way that she had not thought about it, it filled her mind; John, unhappy, apologetic, at a loss, giving in to blatantly horrible Jennifer, so that there was a
kind of double pain of seeing him give in and send her away and of actually going away. Thinking about it after not thinking about it was always worse. Going to bed was, of course, the saddest
time: better at Lincoln Street because Oliver was always about, but here, at Monks’ Close, it was really awful. She was even glad of Claude, who turned up reeking of fish to lie on her bed.
He waited until the lights were out before he began a vigorous all-over wash that shook the bed for about forty minutes. At least the maddening absurdity of him stopped her crying.

Next day she knew she couldn’t bear to stay much longer. It was having nothing to do – except things that she didn’t really have to do – that made it impossible to stay.
By lunch time, after she had fed the dogs, gone to the village shop for some rennet to make her mother a junket, made it, talked to Mrs Green, been shown the possible croquet lawn by Herbert (she
was trying not to call him Daddo any more as he was obviously being so nice to May), been offered, and accepted, a South African sherry, it seemed as though she had been back for months; and just
after she had tried the sherry, forgetting and remembering how much she had always disliked it, she also had a moment of actual panic because it seemed to her that far from time making things
better about John, it was making things worse. Already they seemed to her about as much as she could bear. May had tried asking her about her job in the South of France, but she had been waiting
for that, and her dull answers came out so pat that they quenched the kind of mild curiosity known as ‘showing an interest’ that was all May thought proper with her grown-up children.
The colonel asked her whether she’d been to Monte, and when she said no, told her how much nicer and cheaper it had been in the thirties.

After lunch, she offered to take the dogs out, and when she got to the village, she rang Oliver who was in.

‘Goodness me, you haven’t got much stamina, have you?’ he said in a rather jeering voice (she had got him out of the bath).

‘Well you only stuck it for the inside of one day.’

‘Quite a contrast to Antibes, I bet.’

‘Oh – don’t!’

‘Do you want me to ring you up or send an urgent telegram?’

‘Ring up, I think.’

‘Have you got any money?’

‘Only what I left you with: minus train ticket, of course. Surely you haven’t spent all that dough you got?’

‘Don’t say “got” in that suburban voice. Stole you mean. No, I haven’t. I’ll buy us a lobster if you come back in time to make mayonnaise.’

‘Ring up in half an hour then. Is there – are there any letters for me?’

‘Afraid not.’

So Elizabeth was half dragged back to the house by the large, dull dogs, but with a lighter, if more guilty, heart.

May accepted her going with the usual good grace: there was an awkward moment when she reminded Elizabeth of her promise about transporting Claude, but it was agreed that May should come to
lunch at Lincoln Street next time she was in town, and bring Claude with her. The colonel said it was a pity she was going when she’d only just come, and Claude yawned for such a long time
that she thought perhaps he had forgotten what he was doing, but eventually he shut his mouth and then his eyes very slowly like sliding doors. May drove her to the station while they reassured
each other about what they had not really discussed. Elizabeth said, ‘You
will
see another doctor, won’t you, if you go on having this stomach bug or whatever it is?’ And
May said, ‘Of course, darling, but it’s bound to go: everybody’s been having it; even Herbert hasn’t been feeling quite the thing.’

As they drew up at the station, May said, ‘Darling, don’t work
too
hard. You don’t look as though you’re having enough fun. Make Oliver pull his weight.’ And
Elizabeth said, ‘Oh – I don’t do too badly. Yes, I’ll tell Oliver: perhaps he’s got this job.’

They kissed and Elizabeth told her mother not to wait, and May said that she’d just walk on to the platform, but she
did
wait for the train, and kissed Elizabeth again and then
immediately started walking down the small platform: it was then that Elizabeth noticed how much weight her mother must have lost.

Waterloo: the bit of time walking down the platform when you knew you weren’t going to be met, and you could imagine that you might have come from anywhere; you had to jazz up the
departure because there wasn’t enough to be said about arrival. You could only like London at the beginning of August if you knew it very well the rest of the time. She took trains to Sloane
Square and then walked – with one or two rests from the suitcase.

When she rang the bell, the door of Lincoln Street opened rather slowly and she couldn’t see anyone. Then Oliver said:

‘It’s me. Behind the door. I’m naked. I knew you’d come if I took off all my clothes.’

‘Is that why you did?’

“No – you
fool
! I was just going to try out a new stuff that’s supposed to turn you brown while you wait. Give it to me.’

He took her case and they padded upstairs. Oliver collected a bath towel and Elizabeth flung herself on the sofa saying, ‘Anything to drink?’

‘I must say high life has made you very demanding.’ But when he got nearer to her, he saw that tears were sliding down her face. ‘Liz!’ He rubbed his face against her.
‘It’s nothing like as bad as you think.’

‘How isn’t it?’

‘I’ve made a marvellous drink for you. And there is a huge lobster in the fridge, and I went to Buck and Ryan and bought some immensely useful-looking tools that will do for picking
the best bits out as
well
as screwdriving. I bought a bottle of Pouilly Fumé – costs the earth, I must say – to drink with the lobster and a packet of Gauloises for
nostalgia –’

‘Oh don’t, Oliver! It’s only – seventy-two hours since we were there!’

‘
That’s
why you haven’t heard from him. Oh yes, and I was out last night so he might easily have rung up if he can ever sneak away from loathsome Jennifer. Now –
first you’re going to get a bit drunk, and then you’re going to get indigestion, but the whole thing will turn out to have been worth it when you look back on the evening –
you’ll see.’

‘What about the mayonnaise?’ she said about half an hour later.

‘Do you think if I brought the ingredients here to you you could manage it?’

They’d each had three tremendously strong Negronis and Liz had just remarked that he had a lovely easy name to say when drunk.

‘Standing on my head.’

‘That won’t be necessary. You’re not at the Palladium now.’

When he had assembled everything, and she was sitting with her feet tucked up under her on the sofa stirring away, she asked, ‘What about the job?’

‘Which job?’

‘The newspaper one.’

‘Oh that. Well I’ve got that in a way. Freelance. As a matter of fact I’ve got three jobs. Haven’t let the grass grow under my feet. Can you imagine
anyone
doing
that in England? Rheumatism and awful metal notices telling you to keep off it, and dogs peeing and worms casting and even policemen asking you to move along.’

‘What are your other jobs?’

‘Well – one of them’s rather silly, really. The idea is that I should do a TV ad for the people who make this instant brown stuff. And I wanted to see if you could watch it
working.’

‘You’re brown already.’

‘Not really. I’m simply not the British un
earthly
white. This is supposed to turn you Nescafé olé, as the international slogan might well go.’

‘What’s the third job?’

‘Well that’s a bit queer, and I’m not supposed to talk about it. I answered an ad in the paper. All they seem to want you to do is to watch things.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Not absolutely
any
thing, of course. They ring you and tell you to watch, say, 29 Pelham Place.’

‘How do you mean – watch it?’

‘Who goes there, etcetera.’

‘Oliver! That’s simply spying!’

‘That’s right. An immensely fashionable occupation. Not very well paid at my level, but still not negligible.’

She put down the fork in the mayonnaise bowl.

‘Look here, Oliver, honestly!’

‘Before you start all that, I’m going to get the lobster. You may think you’re a stanchion of society, but I know bloody well you couldn’t walk down a flight of stairs
without help. So off I go.’

While he was assembling dinner, she sat in a state of semi-alcoholic despair about life: about Oliver: brilliant at Oxford; no fool, really by any standards, fiddling about with sleazy old
part-time employment kicks. And what was she doing? Cooking for unknown, boring, quantities of people. Their father had died fighting the Second World War. May was hanging out with that silly boor
in the home counties. Who was enjoying what? And what about John? What about John? What about him?
What?
Was the world ruled by Jennifers? Once it was certain that you could get no pleasure
from anything, were you automatically in a position of power? Where the least you could do was to see it that other people did not enjoy themselves? What was the
point
of being as clever as
Oliver if people only asked you to do silly things like watching houses and putting idiotic stuff on your back? Why should children – like Jennifer – exercise this fearful blackmailing
jurisdiction over parents? Jennifer was the same age as
she
was – grown up, in fact: no longer in need of – supposing
she
had made that sort of fuss, she supposed that she
(and Oliver, of course) could have prevented May from marrying Herbert. They could have made May feel so awful about it that she would have given up the idea. Perhaps that was exactly what she
ought to have done. This thought quickly took hold to the exclusion of any other.

‘Crying again, I see.’ He dumped the tray on the coffee table. ‘Everything is your fault, I have no doubt, and by the time I’ve reassured and comforted you about that,
everything will be
my
fault. Better if we both got down to a nice dose of strontium 90.’

‘What?’

‘Liz, dear, do stop snuffling and blow your nose. Lobsters, as you clearly didn’t know, are chock-a-block with strontium 90: not as much as crabs, but still enough to worry some
people. There.’ He handed her a plate on which was half of an enormous lobster, some chopped pieces of tomato and a length of cucumber. ‘You’ve
cried
into the
mayonnaise!’

‘It won’t hurt it.’ She stirred up the bowl a bit. The lobster looked far too big. He was pouring out the pale, delicious wine.

‘You’d better eat some bread: this’ll taste awful after Negroni.’