The Alien (5 page)

Margaret's small guilt derived from her knowledge that she was so much better off than her friends and that this happy state was none of her own doing, but solely Colin's. She had always understood her very real debt to him. It did not improve their relationship, rather the reverse. The more he loved her, the more he gave her, the more she resented her failure to equal his gifts, even to admire the giver. Not only in his attitude to herself but in his whole life and attainments. It was some quality in herself that stopped her, that drove her to criticize even his friends for praising his brains, his hard work, his loyalty. When her own friends, envying her new freedom from housework and cooking said, “Colin again! My dear, you're the luckiest woman I know,'' she felt like slapping their faces. And then the guilt returned. For it wasn't only the Ogdens she must thank Colin for. It was Boris. The small uncomfortable guilt of March had grown into the delicious guilt of June.

One day in the middle of the month Margaret took the newspaper and a book to the end of the garden where she arranged herself on a brightly-coloured canvas and chrome metal day-bed, piled with cushions, to wait for Boris. He had telephoned that morning to say he would come between two and four. All very proper and above-board. The Ogdens were devoted to Mr. Sudenic. They had not forgotten his arrival in the snow. Louise, who attended English language classes at the Institute, would be out.

Arranging the day-bed in the shade of their two trees, Margaret looked about her. The gardens of these houses were small, long in proportion to their width. They gave very little privacy, since the back windows of their neighbours, as well as their own, gave a good view of the whole of at least three gardens, together with a partial view of the mews beyond, where the Brentwoods garaged their car. A door in the high wall at the end of the garden gave easy access to the mews. To secure a small part of the garden from prying eyes Colin had put up a short length of wattle fence not far from the two trees. On the side of this facing the house he had grown climbing roses, which were now all in bloom.

Margaret pulled the day-bed close to this screen where part of it afforded a deep shadow for her head while on the rest of its length the sun filtered through leaves in a pattern she found entrancing. Even in London, she thought, the garden is beautiful, almost as beautiful as it was at home the year before the war. She laughed at herself for the comparison, recklessly happy, reaching back, as usual now, to her young pleasures and fulfilments, her easy existence, her natural assumption of prosperity and safe living.

Before stretching out on the cushions she looked up sharply at the windows along the row. All empty except one, the inevitable exception, Flora, Lady Cotville. The old woman lived at her window. There was never a day when she was not there with her high-brushed mass of white hair, yellow in the front where it was stained by tobacco smoke from her eternal cigarette, her high-necked, lace-fronted blouse, her gold watch pinned to the lace, her rings, her sad ivory face. Does she count his visits, Margaret wondered. She can't possibly see me when I lie down, but is that a good thing or not? Is she a menace or just the pathetic old bore she seems to be when I visit her? Perhaps I'd better take her in some roses. She likes that. “I've admired them so much from afar, my dear. It'll be heaven to smell them as well.'' Keeping up with what she thought was the fashionable idiom, poor old thing.

Folding back the newspaper Margaret felt goodwill to all pour through her in a generous flood. Colin included. It was a day when he was not likely to be home early for dinner.

From the open window of the drawing-room, Louise, standing a little back in the shadows of the room, watched Margaret's head disappear below the wattle fence. She then closed the window and drew the curtains across it. This was an ordered regulation because the sun would shortly move round to flood the room and might bleach the valuable carpet. Louise approved of the regulation. She had been brought up to believe that windows were there to be shut against excessive cold, unusual heat and all draughts.

Having finished with the window and its curtains she went across the room to where another pair of windows looked out on the road. From here, by craning her neck, she could see part of the main thoroughfare with the buses and heavy traffic pouring along it. She stayed watching until she saw a tall figure swing round the corner in her direction. Then she drew back until the figure, passing the window, raised a hand and turned a smiling face in welcome.

Immediately she went out into the hall and when the bell rang below in the Ogdens' quarters she leaned over the basement staircase and called, “I am going out. I will open the door. Do not you come up.''

“Ask her if it's Mr. Sudenic,'' Mrs Ogden said. “She'll know. She's always at the window.''

Mrs. Ogden had her feet up after lunch and was not inclined to move.

“Is it Mr. Sudenic?'' Ogden called out.

“I do not know. I open the door – yes?''

“You do that, miss,'' came the answer. “If it's Mr. Sudenic show the gentleman into the drawing-room and inform Mrs. Colin. In the garden, she is.''

“I do that,'' Louise called back. The bell rang again.

Directly she opened the door Boris snatched her hand, held it while he closed the door and then drew her into the drawing-room. Having shut that door too he put both arms round her and kissed her long and hard.

Louise came up from the kiss with a sigh of content, followed by a smile.

“Darling,'' said Boris, fervently, “You are beautiful like a dream.''

“That is not very original.''

“In English, I cannot yet be original. You prefer I tell you in French or in German? Or perhaps in Polish. There I can be most original, but you do not understand.''

“We must speak in English. I am here to learn this language.''

“The hard-working Swiss. Wonderful. I tell you again then – but not speaking.''

The next kiss told Louise more than any words could do in whatever language. But she did not lose her head. After all, she had known about Boris's feelings for over a month and she was a very sensible girl with her European feet well on the ground.

So now, though gentle and smiling up at him, she pushed him slowly away.

“You must go to her,'' she said. “In the garden. She waits for you.''

Boris nodded, gravely. In spite of his delight in the girl he had never taken her into his confidence in any direction, neither telling her about his past, nor very much about his present life in London. And whenever she tried to discover his future plans he always managed to switch the inquiry to her own. Louise was aware of all this and naturally curious. But she also rather enjoyed the mystery, because she rightly felt it was a true one. This was no charlatan but a man of strange and terrible experiences. One day, she promised herself, she would make him speak. But not yet.

“Well, go then,'' she laughed, giving him another little push. “She may have heard the bell. It rings below and Mrs. Ogden has always the windows open.''

With a quick final kiss Boris turned towards the curtained opening to the balcony. But Louise, remembering, ran up to hold him back.

“You have not said where we meet tonight. I stop you too soon.''

Boris gave her his warm smile but his eyes were withdrawn, wary.

“
Je regrette infiniment
. Not tonight,
mon amour
. Tonight I have business, very important business.''

She could not argue with the finality of this statement. She pouted and shrugged and let him go. Soon, she told herself. He will not always keep me out. Then, remembering that she was supposed to be going to her language class, though it was now far too late to do so, she crept out of the front door, closing it loudly, but without locking it, and then, opening it again without noise, made it fast and tiptoed into Colin's study, the room on the other side of the front door, to wait.

Boris put aside the curtain, unfastened the window and stepped out on to the iron balcony. He stood there for a few seconds, marvelling that the scent of roses was able to reach him through the petrol-laden air. The narrow strip of garden was bright with flowers, the lawn green where the sprinkler had refreshed it, though it was never able in term-time quite to recover from the scuffing feet of the Brentwood boy and girl. The surrounding houses gleamed white and grey beyond the gardens and the mews, veiled by occasional trees such as those beneath which he knew he would find Margaret.

As he went down the steps and reached the bare patch at the edge of the grass he looked back. The curtain hung discreetly straight at the drawing-room window. There were no faces at the glass below. He turned from the grass to follow the paved path beside the flower-border. From here, as he came to the wattle fence with its burden of roses, he bent to smell them, looking up sideways at the houses flanking the one he had left.

The old woman was there, of course, as always. She did not seem to move but he knew her eyes had followed him from the moment he had first come into her field of vision. He straightened up and went round the corner of the fence.

This part of the little garden had charmed him from the first moment he saw it, in the early spring, with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils under the trees in delightful succession, while the buds slowly swelled into leaf on their bare branches. Piled in one corner against the wall was the original Victorian rockery, now given over to ferns and in the spring, following the daffodils, a carpet of lilies of the valley, those hardy fragrancies that thrive so well in the London air. The flowers were over now but the leaves, smooth, broad, dark green, made a quiet background to the ferns and the old soot-rotted stones. In front of this stood the sycamore that provided most of the shade. Nearby was the white double cherry, still a glory of blossom, though the silver was beginning to tarnish and the coarse grass under the trees was sprinkled with fallen petals. In the corner of the wall opposite the rockery the small green-painted door into the mews was doubly fastened on the inside with a lock and a chain and padlock. The wall above was set with vicious glass spikes and an outward curving reinforcement of barbed wire.

Boris glanced quickly round that green seclusion with his usual approval. Then he went up close to the striped day-bed where Margaret lay still with closed eyes. He judged correctly that she was not asleep and had heard his approach.

“
La belle au bois dormant
,'' he said, gently.

Margaret instantly opened her eyes to meet his smile with her own.

“Are you the prince?'' she asked, lightly, not moving. “After a hundred years?''

It was a pretty obvious cue, if he had wanted to take it. He did not take it. He laughed, looking about for somewhere to sit. Margaret swung her feet down and moved along a little.

“There's the other end of this thing,'' she said. “But your weight may tip it up if you sit too near the end. Or there are deck-chairs under the balcony steps.''

With a sharp pang of disappointment she watched him go away to fetch a chair. As he was unfolding it she said, with exaggerated casualness, “Sorry I didn't bring one out here. I wasn't sure when you'd be coming.''

This implied a lack of courtesy that Boris felt he must defend.

“But I telephoned. You answered yourself. I said I would ‘look in'. That is the phrase, I think.''

“It is, but it can mean you may not do so. It is fairly non-committal.''

“None—''

She explained. They had a short, very boring discussion of the English language.

“Well,'' Margaret said, when she had managed to stop his questions, “now tell me about the new job. Is it to be permanent?''

He spread out his hands.

“How can I know? They give me six months and to have my permit renewed later. The British are sympathetic but very careful.''

“So we should be. But I'd have thought, knowing your history, knowing you were
persona grata
when you came to us before the war, they'd make an exception.''

Boris did not answer at once. Then he said, “We have discussed this question before, Margaret. So many times. It is good that I stay – for six months – perhaps a year—''

“Perhaps for always if you get naturalized,'' Margaret urged.

“Perhaps.''

His smile turned her heart over but he did not move from his chair, just lay back, quite evidently delighting in his surroundings, in the sunshine beyond their shade, in the filtered light where they sat, even in herself. But as part of his surroundings only, her mind told her, bitterly.

“This job,'' she said. “You haven't said anything about it. Is it whole-time?''

“Yes. It is much better than the little lectures at the university and the lessons in languages. There is no one to learn Polish and to teach Russian makes me ill.''

“Sick,'' she corrected automatically. “Go on.''

“This company, Swedish, you know, trades in the Baltic. I have been seven years on Russian ships in the Baltic. My – experiences, – is useful to them. My exact job is to translate and write letters.''

“I see. D'you like the work?''

“It is a job,'' he said, gravely, without enthusiasm. “The pay is good.''

That was self-evident. He hardly looked the same man as the rough, hairy, sea-racked creature who had caused such a sensation emerging on to the cliffside at Higlett Bay. He was clean-shaved now, though the shadow of his beard was always present on his lean jaw. His hair, abundant though it was, lay in a controlled sweep back from his forehead. His face without the beard was narrower than it had appeared before, and with better living and the sun of that excellent summer, had turned an attractive brown. With his blue-grey eyes he might belong to any northern European country, Margaret thought, or even to America, though the faces there, she had noticed on two visits with Colin, were predominantly round or square. His clothes were good, chosen, as one would expect, with taste and economy. The suit he wore that afternoon was one she had not seen before.