Something in Disguise (22 page)

On the tray were a collection of what looked like burglars’ tools. While she was fingering them, Oliver tied a large tea towel round her neck.

‘Now: we are going to enjoy this: you may think I’m wasting my life, but I’m not going to have you wasting my lobster.’

‘What about
you
having something round your neck?’

‘No point when it’s just skin.’ He was still bare to the waist, but had put on a pair of jeans and some vicious-looking sandals that a friend had brought back from
Marrakesh.

The lobster wasn’t too big, and the burglars’ tools turned out to be extremely useful. Oliver was the ideal person to eat a lobster properly with, she thought: you could crunch and
probe and lick and he only thought the more of you.

After the lobster there was half an extremely ripe Camembert and some crusty bread and finally half a bottle of brandy.

‘It is so awful changing one’s standard of living with too much of a jolt,’ he said. By then she had told him about May and how Herbert had seemed to be nicer, and he had said
that May would be bound to feel ill if she lived with such a bore and he, for one, did not believe that Herbert was ever
really
nicer, he must be pretending. Elizabeth argued a bit –
that people surely didn’t throw
up
for psycho-whatever reasons, and Oliver said oh yes they did. She had hiccoughs by then and you never win an argument with them. Oliver gave her a
mediocre fright and some more brandy. Then she said,

‘Now, Oliver – we’ve got to talk about you.’

‘What are we going to say?

‘Oh,
I
know,’ he added, when he’d had a good look at her face. ‘The trouble with me is that all my life I
haven’t
wanted to be a doctor. I’ve got no sense of purpose. You get that with rather charming, spineless people sometimes,
and with me you’ve got it. I simply want a tremendous lot of money for nothing. Nearly all work that people do seems to me so absolutely awful that I’d rather live from hand to mouth. I
haven’t quite got that sense of showmanship required for the Church, or the Bar or the stage. I haven’t the senses of responsibility and greed that would make me any good at business. I
only like nature in amateur quantities, so farming is out. (Also – I could never fill in the forms.) I’ve thought seriously of crime, but prisons are full of such
frightfully
boring people all wanting to tell you every single unfair thing that has ever happened to them. What else is there? Oh yes, the Services. Now them I wouldn’t mind so much if you could choose
at all where you went, and didn’t get chucked out the moment you’d got any good at it and had a chance to tell other people to do the dirty work. Also they are tremendously keen on
people having spines. The arts sound more fun and I might end up on that kick somehow or other, but deep down they’re horribly hard work and you get your sense of dedication creeping in:
I’d have to be a charlatan. I thought of running a brothel – rushing to Victoria station and saying, “You like my sister? Very clean” – what else is it they say?
– but somehow that is a mixture of business and vicarious pleasure. No: I’m afraid I’ve simply got to marry a very rich girl and let people say what a marvellous chap I would have
been if I hadn’t done that. So I’m quite prepared to talk about Ginny. The trouble is, I don’t think she has the stamina for marriage, and the other thing is I’m really very
fond of her in between when she’s not being spoilt and boring. What do you think of her?’

Elizabeth, who felt as though she’d been holding her breath without warning for far too long, hiccoughed in spite of this and said that she didn’t think marriage was a way out. For a
man, she added.

‘What about a woman? I mean one could look at it from Ginny’s point of view. It might be a way out for her. You don’t like her, do you?’

‘I don’t have any feelings about her.’

‘With you, that amounts to dislike. Well, of course she’s not the
only
rich girl in the world. I don’t think we ought to marry people each other don’t like, do
you?’

She shook her head, hiccoughed again, and held her glass out for more brandy.

‘Like a Gauloise with it?’

She nodded.

‘It’s a pity we’ve got to marry anyone, really: we get on so well. The only trouble about incest must be getting yourself to feel like it. Otherwise it strikes me as a very
harmless and economical arrangement. It’s funny how brandy seems to make me talk and shuts you up. Can’t you think of
anything
to say?’

‘It’s my hiccoughs. But what would we do about children?’

‘Have them, of course. With your looks and my brains (I must say, Liz, that you really have quite
suddenly
got much prettier) they’d probably be marvellous. And think how nice
for May not having any sons- or daughters-in-law: cutting down family friction to the minimum. I suppose I could be an amateur detective, but there’s nothing I really want to find out –
in that sort of way, I mean, I would love to know what we’re all here for. The only people who’ve taken any trouble about that got so bogged down with knowing what
they
were
for.’

‘What?’

‘Taking trouble about what we’re here for, silly.’

‘Anyway, I can’t marry you. I don’t think I’ll be able to marry anyone.’

‘Watch it! You’re going to cry in a minute. You mean because the only person you want to marry is John and you won’t be able to because foul Jennifer will bitch it
up?’

She nodded, put down her glass and started looking for her handkerchief.

‘He is the first person you’ve ever fallen in love with.’

Miserable tears had started streaming down, and no handkerchief.

‘Look, darling Liz: most people have to try dozens of people before they find the right one. He isn’t the only man in the world.’

‘He
is
!’

‘Oh dear. O.K. I was afraid of that. Because you see the course that
yawns
before me, don’t you?’

She rubbed her face with the tea towel.

‘No.’

‘It’s up to me to seduce and elope with Jennifer. Thereby getting her out of your way and remaining true to what I know would be generally accepted as a sordid ambition; but I do
feel that that simply means one must exercise even more loyalty. She is awful, though. I suppose if I was drunk and always wore dark glasses I could just about bring it off. But then, you see,
you
wouldn’t like me marrying someone you didn’t like, would you? How will it all end I wonder.’

‘You don’t know how awful I feel.’

‘Now then. Your situation is by no means hopeless, and the best thing you can do is think of others. That usually makes one feel so frightful that one can stand any parochial anguish.
Think of Alice.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘You see? You can hardly bear it at once. You just think of how you can brighten her perfectly dreadful life.’

‘Claude!’

‘What about him?’

‘I promised May I’d take him to Bristol for her.’

‘What on earth made you do that?’

‘You know how when you’re bored you’ll pledge yourself in the most tiring ways. Alice is pregnant; she can’t travel to fetch him, and nobody seems to think he could go
anywhere unaccompanied. So I said I’d do it.’

‘You do it and then you can tell me all about their horrid little happy home.’

‘You are absolutely beastly.’

‘No. Just accurate. But if Alice wants Claude and you are at all sorry for her, it is the least you can do.’

Alice was so excited at the double prospect of Elizabeth and Claude that on the morning of the day that they were due, she hardly minded being sick. She was usually sick about
three times before eleven a.m.: once after she had fried Leslie’s bacon and eggs, once after she had mopped and cleaned up after the hysterically dirty puppy that was Mrs Mount’s newest
token of kindness to her daughter-in-law, and once after she had obeyed Leslie’s command that she have a nice cup of hot tea, or coffee. Leslie had usually gone to his office before she got
to the puppy-cleaning time. Then she would go and have a bath. The cold sweat, the dizziness, the soiled disorder of her body, usually revolted her so much that she had to try not to be sick a
fourth time. So far as she knew, she was six and a half weeks pregnant, and the doctor had said that many people suffered from morning sickness for the first three months. She explained that she
often felt sick in the evenings as well and he said that often happened, but with most people it was one or the other. The idea of another six weeks of feeling like this was so terrible, that she
simply retched and crawled through each separate interminable day. After her bath, she did the housework very slowly while the puppy yapped round her. If she shut him into any room he made a mess
in it and then yapped and howled to be let out Sometimes she put him out into what would one day be their garden but was still just a rectangle marked off by a paling fence. As soon as he found he
could not get out of the garden, he yapped to be let into the house. He was (more or less) a miniature poodle and his nature was both disagreeable and demanding: he smelled faintly all the time of
shit; she no sooner got rid of one set of worms than he contracted another; his breath offended her, particularly in her present condition; he had a capacity for yapping that seemed almost
electronic; he was hardly ever obedient, and totally undiscriminating in his affections; he ate so fast that he nearly always threw his food up; he seemed quite unable to keep any parts of himself
clean and his grasping claws ruined any pair of stockings she wore. His expression was unreliable and silly and she could not get fond of him. Leslie thought it was wonderful of his mother to give
her a dog – it was company, as he kept on saying: he did not seem to think that it mattered what kind. She took him shopping with her on the days when she felt strong enough and he strained
on the lead, strangling himself, winding the lead round and round her until she was immobile, peeing every two or three yards, yapping at any other dog. When she felt really weak, she would leave
him in the bathroom and go guiltily off without him. She would buy food for supper; things at the chemist and the ironmonger for the house; she would get herself some books from the library and
occasionally she would eat lunch of some kind in a tea shop or women’s café. Then she would walk slowly home, clean up and let out the dog and lie down with one of the library books.
In the afternoons she did not feel sick, simply overwhelmingly tired. She would read two pages and fall into a heavy sleep. The house was still far from finished, and she did nothing at all about
preparing for the baby in whom, when alone, she just did not believe. She would wake at about five, force herself to get up, and start sewing Rufflette tape on to half-made pairs of curtains,
slicing french beans for supper, or marking some of the wedding present linen with indian ink and a tiny, spluttery pen. By the time Leslie returned she was just beginning to feel sick again, but
gave the appearance of having been at wifely occupations all day. He would make himself a drink, switch on the television and tell her about his day in a raised voice over it, while she struggled
with nausea and supper. After they – or sometimes he – had eaten, he would watch more television with another drink. He always asked her how she was feeling; he was very bucked about
the baby and said several times a day that he was sure it would be a boy. Once or twice a week his family either turned up or summoned them. These were the worst evenings. Otherwise, she could get
into her housecoat after dinner and read or watch television with him. At about ten she got hungry, and what she liked best was anchovies on water biscuits. When, eventually, they went to bed,
Leslie left her alone which was the single best thing about being pregnant, she decided. He would kiss her forehead, pat her hand, sometimes – maddeningly – stroke her belly, but he
seemed to regard sex as unnecessary.

There were terrible days when Rosemary turned up in her little second-hand M.G. and talked and talked: it was extraordinary how people telling you things could wear you out: the only hope was
that one day Rosemary would have told her everything and would then stop coming. And this was odd, because nearly all the time she felt more lonely than she had ever felt before in her life.
Always, before, there had been so many things to do for her father that she had not needed to bother about how she felt. She had always wanted a friend, but somehow Rosemary would not do: she
seemed to treat Alice like an inversion of the radio – she simply turned Alice on as a listener.

So when Elizabeth wrote to say that she would bring Claude down and could she stay the night, Alice felt as though it was a turning-point. Things were bound to get better once Claude was there,
and Elizabeth must care about her or she wouldn’t go to all the trouble: Claude would not be an easy person to travel with. After she had told Leslie and he had remarked kindly that that was
very nice, she started feverishly to get the spare room into some sort of order. The bungalow was tremendously full of wedding presents, and as they were mostly either ugly or useless, and often
both, Alice had been dumping them in the spare room. Elizabeth had only given her twenty-four hours’ notice (never
mind
) so after Leslie had gone and she was more or less over being
sick, she set to work. It was lunch time before it occurred to her that Claude would be unlikely to take kindly to the puppy. He disliked all dogs intensely, and a puppy in his own house was a kind
of double insult. If
only
Mrs Mount would take it back! She had a sandwich lunch (anchovy and cucumber) and finished the curtains for what she by now called Elizabeth’s room. She had
telephoned Lincoln Street and made all the arrangements: they were travelling by the morning train, and she would meet them in a taxi if Leslie could not let her have the car. She spent an hour or
two with her cookery books trying to think of the best things for dinner: Elizabeth was such a good cook and Leslie preferred very plain food. She decided on lamb and summer pudding which she made
well because her father had particularly liked it. In the afternoon she went to buy the meat and fruit and she took the puppy with her to make up for probably being horrible to him tomorrow.