The Man Whose Dream Came True (7 page)

He spent much of the next two days in her company. They walked round the town together, went round the country in her solidly elegant Rover. Tony drove, and it was a pleasure to be behind the wheel of a car again, but at times he felt like a chauffeur.

‘In this village there’s a nice little antique shop as you go in on the left, just stop there will you,’ she would say, or ‘I don’t think we’ll have lunch at the Blue Peacock, it’s no good, just take us on to the next village like a dear boy.’ Not simply a chauffeur, but a chauffeur-cum-gigolo, for her manner towards him had become distinctly proprietorial, expressed in the requests she made for him to perform small services like getting her scarf and cigarettes. He did not mind her giving him money to pay for things, nor did he really resent being ordered about, but somehow it put their relationship on a footing which he did not feel they had reached. In the night she moaned for him and asked again and again if he loved her, but in the daytime she behaved as though absolutely certain of his dependence on her. What was the end of the situation, what did he want to happen? He was not sure himself.

On Saturday morning he came down just after eleven, feeling weary but looking smart in a very pale sports jacket with dark blue trousers and elegant grey suede shoes. The honeymoon couple were going home and Widgey was at the entrance to tell them goodbye. There was no sign of Violet. Widgey beckoned him with a grimy forefinger and he followed her into the parlour, which was untidier than usual. Half a dozen small receptacles were brim-full of ash and stubs, playing cards were littered over the table as if a midnight poker game had been broken up by a police raid, small bits of orange peel were scattered on the side board. Widgey herself was wearing an old grey skirt fastened by safety pins and a dirty blue pullover. The contrast she presented to his own elegance was somehow uncomfortable.

‘Sit down.’ He sat in one of the stiff rexine covered chairs at the table. She rolled around the cigarette in her mouth, perhaps a sign of embarrassment, then suddenly emitted a powerful stream of smoke from her nose, like steam coming from a horse’s nostrils. ‘How long are you staying?’

The question took him aback. It was something she had never said to him before. But she did not wait for an answer.

‘I’m fond of Violet, known her a long time. What about you?’

‘How do you mean?’

She made an irritated gesture, cigarette in hand. Ash fell to the floor. ‘What are you going to do?’

He began to feel annoyed. Was he to be blamed because a woman fell in love with him? He moved his shoulders.

‘Harrington had some sort of engineering firm. She still owns it. She’s got plenty of money, only stays here for old times sake.’ What was she getting at? ‘You going to marry her?’

‘I don’t know. She might not want to.’

‘She’d eat you, boy, she’d eat you up alive. Don’t do it.’

‘It’s my business.’ He said it with a sharpness he did not intend.

Widgey did not answer but she turned round and he was startled to see tears in her eyes. In the next moment he felt the pricking behind his own eyes, lowered his head and moved towards her. Then she was in the old armchair that had always stood in this room, his face lay on the rough texture of the grey skirt, he was sobbing and she was stroking his hair. He had the common sensation of thinking that the whole incident had happened before, and then he remembered that this was so, that there had been a time in childhood when he had been lost for a couple of hours on the beach and had been brought back by a policeman and been scolded, and had then dirtied his pants. Rejected by his father and mother he had run into the parlour, flung himself weeping into Widgey’s lap and pressed his face into the roughness of her skirt. It was as simple as that. He wiped his eyes, got up.

‘You’re right, it’s your business,’ she said huskily. ‘I’m telling you, that’s all. Have you got to get married?’

‘I’m not pregnant.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I told you I’m not in any trouble.’

‘You will be one day. I was looking at the cards.’

‘Oh, the cards.’

‘Don’t laugh at the cards.’ Her face as she said this, thin, small and malevolent, was witch-like. ‘And about Violet. Remember what I said.’

‘It might be nice to be eaten up.’ He giggled. ‘By all that money.’

She shrugged. The effect of the conversation was to make him feel that he would marry Violet if she said yes to him. Widgey, he thought, has never been short of money. But he knew that this was unjust, that she would never have done anything simply to get it.

He made the approach that afternoon, in the car, on a headland overlooking the sea with rain pouring down outside. He had gone for a long walk – alone, because Violet did not appear until just before lunch – and had made up his mind to ignore Widgey. It was time he settled down, be needed to marry somebody with money, and Violet was everything he could reasonably expect. After all, hadn’t he thought in relation to some of those Violetish ladies in the past that he could happily settle down with them if they weren’t married already? And when he thought of himself as the master of that delightful house, three or four servants, no doubt the squire of the village – and of course a trip abroad every year or more often, with inevitably a flutter at the casino – why should he hesitate? And flutter was the wrong word, he would have money enough to play the Prudential or the Rational System, and with enough capital you couldn’t lose. The money would bring him independence. Certainly Violet was not up to Fiona, but Fiona had not been real and Violet was unquestionably there in the flesh. You had to think about the future, and it was nonsense to talk about being eaten alive.

Afterwards he could not remember what words he had spoken in the desire to avoid the straight question, ‘Will you marry me?’ but whatever the words may have been they were not misunderstood. The car had a bench seat and in a moment Violet was upon him, holding him in her arms so that his very slight recoil pushed the side of his body against the door. The door handle dug into his ribs. Her mouth was on his, her warm strong scent overpowered him.

‘Darling Tony, we’re going to be so happy. You don’t know how lonely I’ve been.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Not any more. A woman needs a man to look after her.’

He found himself being desperately honest. ‘I haven’t got any money.’

‘What does it matter? I’ve got enough for two.’

He moved slightly, almost lolling back on the seat. The door handle stuck into his side just below the armpit, like a hard finger.

‘We could travel abroad,’ he said interrogatively.

‘Yes. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Yes, he would like that. The hot animal breath was on him, the pop eyes looked into his own. Outside the rain changed suddenly to hail. It rattled against the windows as though somebody was firing at them with a pea shooter.

‘We’re cosy,’ she said. They shifted positions so that both of them lay awkwardly along the bench seat. She breathed in little pants; her mouth nuzzled the side of his neck. He was incapable of making love to her. Her dress had ridden up to reveal a patch of thigh, slightly mottled. He felt terror, the sensation of being caught in a trap. A man eater, Widgey had said.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The door handle.’ He moved again.

‘Is it that woman?’

‘What woman?’

‘The one you told me about, that you were going to marry. You think it’s just on the rebound, is that it?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I don’t mind. I shall understand.’

He disentangled himself and sat up behind the steering wheel. He could not go through with it. ‘I think we should give ourselves time. To consider.’

‘What for? We’re over twenty-one.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’ She looked at him. He repeated feebly, ‘We ought to wait.’

She sat up too, pulled down her dress. ‘That’s not what you were saying five minutes ago.’

The hail stopped suddenly. He looked out at the greasy sea. She said, ‘Drive back. And put down the window, it’s stuffy.’

That’s the way it would have been, he thought on the way back.

I should have been her lackey, it would have been a terrible mistake. After their return she held out her hand for the keys, got out of the car. He got out too. They faced each other, with the car between them.

‘I usually get what I want.’ With these words – were they an expression of disappointment or somehow an implied threat? – she turned away from him and went into the hotel.

That night Widgey put on one of her roast turkey dinners, with an elaborate ice cream pudding afterwards. She carved the turkey herself, attacking it with frightening ferocity. Flash flash, pieces of breast fell off. Crunch – a leg had been severed and in a few moments was sliced to the bone. A spoon violated the carcass of the bird, emerging with greeny-brown stuffing. Some new guests had arrived, and the sight of the small woman making so furious an attack on the large bird stimulated them to an excited buzz of conversation. They glimpsed a series of gastronomic feasts ahead which would never be put before them. Violet did not come down to dinner, Widgey never glanced in his direction.

After dinner, the reckoning. He looked at his wallet and found that it contained only twenty pounds. He would have to get some sort of secretarial job, and get it soon.

Later in the evening he told Widgey. She was sitting in the parlour eating chocolates and reading a book called
Nancy and the Handsome Sailor.
Playing cards were spread on the table.

‘I’m not going to marry her.’ She nodded. ‘You’re right. She would have eaten me up.’

Widgey bit into a chocolate, looked at the centre, ate the rest of it. ‘She’s gone.’

‘Gone!’

‘She was staying another week, but she packed and left.’

He felt uneasiness, guilt, the need to explain. ‘I only did what you said.’

‘I didn’t tell you to do it that way. I told you, she’s a cow but I’m fond of her.’ She spread out the cards again, turned them over. ‘You’re a Gemini.’

‘What? Oh, Gemini. My birthday’s on the third of June.’

‘Gemini. And you’re twenty-seven. Black queen after a red queen and a red king before that. It means trouble. And it means a chance.’

‘I’m going to look for a job, I shan’t be here much longer.’

‘Stay as long as you like, it doesn’t matter to me.’

Affection for her welled up in him. ‘Have you got any paint? In the morning I’ll paint that chest of drawers in my room.’

‘I believe there’s some in the store. Not sure what it’s like though. Do you know something?’

‘What?’

‘Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps it would be good for you to be eaten up alive
.’

Later, in room thirteen, he wept as he looked at the scarred chest of drawers. Was he weeping for his youth, for the lost days of football matches and kindness, for Widgey, for his present situation? He did not know. It was after three in the morning when he fell asleep.

What Widgey called the store was a kind of cupboard outhouse which contained a lot of junk like old bicycles with flat tyres (he had ridden one of them when he was a child), electric hedge clippers covered with rust, dozens of empty bottles, dozens of unopened tins of tomato soup, four brass fenders, various pieces of old iron and, sure enough, some paint tins and stiff old brushes. Most of the tins were empty and the paint in the others was covered with a thick crust which had to be broken before penetrating to the liquid below. He used one of these tins to paint the chest of drawers but did not make a very good job of it because the colour, which started off as light blue, deepened steadily as he went on. The result was a parti-coloured chest, which would obviously need another coat. Widgey, however, expressed herself as delighted when she came up to see it. She looked vaguely round the room.

‘Think I ought to get some new stuff in here?’ She patted the tallboy. ‘That’s a good piece.’

‘Some more wallpaper perhaps.’

‘I’ve had people who like it, think it’s original. And what the hell, they can’t expect the earth for what I charge.’ It was true that her charges were low. ‘Know that grey-haired man with the young blonde wife, came yesterday. I believe she’s his niece.’

‘Why?’

‘She called him Uncle. Still, it’s not my business.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘You’ve made a wonderful job of this.’ She absent-mindedly patted the chest of drawers and paint came off on her fingers.

Sunday was the only day on which Widgey served lunch and, as always in her periods of abstraction, the food was poor. The remainder of the turkey had mysteriously vanished and the guests got pork luncheon meat and salad, followed by cold jam covering leaden pastry. Grumbles moved like distant thunder round the tables. After lunch Tony went for a walk. He was approaching the pier when he heard a shout. ‘Jonesy. Hey there, Jonesy.’ He felt a thump between the shoulder blades and turned to see a red faced man smiling at him.

‘Passed you just now and thought to myself “I know that face,” and then I thought, “Of course, it’s old Jonesy.”’ He shook Tony’s hand vigorously.

‘I think you’re making a mistake.’

‘No, I’m not. I tell you what, I know your other name, it’s Tony, right? I’m Bill Bradbury.’

And then he did remember. Bradbury had been the leader of the boys in the lavatories, the big boy who had started it all. And here he was now, big man bursting out of his tweed suit, with horn-rimmed glasses and thinning hair. Tony hesitated for a fatal moment and then had to say ‘Yes, I remember. It’s been a long time.’

‘And I’ve changed, don’t I know it. Putting on weight where I shouldn’t. I’d have known you anywhere. Still at Eltham, are you?’

‘No. I left there long ago.’

‘Same here. Shaking the old dust off the feet. Now I tell you what we’ll do, you just come along with me.’ And as though to enforce this policeman-like injunction Bradbury took an uncomfortable grip on Tony’s arm and walked along with him. ‘I’ve had to come in to collect a couple of things from the office, then you come back and have tea and meet the wife and family.’

‘I’m not sure that–’

‘Come on now, I won’t take no for an answer.’ They turned off down a side street. A brass plate said
South Eastern Export Company.
Bradbury unlocked the door and led the way to an office with ‘Manager. Please Knock’ lettered on it in black. The room had that ghostly chilliness common to offices when they are not in use.

‘Sit you down.’ Tony sat in the chair that was no doubt reserved for clients. Bradbury busied himself behind a big desk, then took papers from a filing cabinet and began to make notes. From time to time he would look up with an encouraging smile, and say that he wouldn’t be a couple of minutes. Tony felt like a mouse being protectively watched by a cat. Suppose he started to walk out, would Bradbury pounce? Contemplating the bullet head behind the desk, pink scalp showing beneath the carefully brushed hair, he wondered also what would happen if he said, ‘Do you remember a day at school…’ and went on to recall the details of that afternoon. Bradbury had been only two or three years older than he, but at the time he had seemed like a creature from another world. No doubt he would look up and say with genuine incomprehension that he did not know what Tony was talking about. Now he took two differently coloured pens from a small battery of them on his desk and began to make notes on the papers. He returned the file to the cabinet, snapped it shut. His movements were brisk, business man style.

‘That’s that. One of the boys made a real cock-up on some bills of lading. Can’t trust anybody nowadays, have to check everything yourself. I’ll have something to say to that young gentleman tomorrow. Now then, let’s get moving. I left the bus in the garage round the corner.’

‘You don’t live in town?’

‘Not likely. I’m out in the country, good clean air, can’t beat it.’

The car was a Hillman. ‘What d’you drive yourself?’

‘A Jaguar.’

‘Do you now?’ He gave a whistle between the teeth that Tony remembered. ‘Things are all right, eh?’

‘As a matter of fact I’m between cars at the moment.’

‘Oh yes.’ Bradbury gave him one quick glance and said nothing more, but Tony was suddenly conscious of the tweed-trousered leg close to his own in the car.

He said with attempted carelessness, ‘By the way, I’ve changed my name. Lots of family complications, remarriages you know, things got difficult. It’s Bain-Truscott now.’

‘I see.’ Again that quick glance, then he was looking at the road again. ‘I’ll remember. What’s your line then?’

‘I’ve just been helping a General with his memoirs. Rewriting them.’

‘A writer, are you?’

‘Yes.’ He regretted more than ever the decision, although it had hardly been a decision, to accept Bradbury’s invitation.

‘Gathering material down here?’

‘I’m staying with my aunt. A short holiday. What does your company do?’

The question shifted Bradbury into another gear. During the rest of the drive he talked about himself, and about his contacts with other European countries and the agencies he held. By the time they reached Beaver Close Tony had heard about Bradbury’s wife Evelyn whose dad was well in with Rotary, and knew that they had decided not to have any kids for a year or two and since then had been trying without any luck. Mr Granville, Evelyn’s dad, was staying the weekend with his wife and some friend of Evelyn’s was coming to tea.

Beaver Close was a complex of half a dozen identical mock-Georgian houses neatly placed round their own small square of green on the outskirts of a village. It was not Tony’s idea of living in the country but after getting out of the car Bradbury inflated his chest, taking in and expelling great mouthfuls of air. Each of the houses had a differently-coloured front door and Bradbury pointed this out. ‘Gives that touch of originality. Come in.’

Inside there were rugs on parquet floors, a pervasive smell of newness. Bradbury tapped the parquet with his foot. ‘Under-floor heating all through. Wonderful investment. Paid five thou for it three years ago, sell it for eight any day I wanted.’

A door opened and a small harassed woman appeared. ‘Surprise surprise,’ Bradbury cried. ‘Evelyn, my dear, I ran into an old friend, brought him back to tea. This is Tony, Tony Bain-Truscott.’ There was a slight pause after the Christian name.

Three people were in the neat sitting-room. Mr Granville was a larger, older image of his son-in-law, red faced and white haired. They might have been father and son. His wife had a blue rinse and a manner of pained aristocratic reserve. ‘And this is–’ Bradbury looked round. His wife had vanished.

‘Genevieve Foster. We haven’t met.’

‘Charmed.’ Bradbury inclined his body, then said with tremendous formality, ‘May I present my old friend, Tony Bain-Truscott.’ Their how do you do’s rang out at the same moment. Tony received an impression of whiteness and fragility. Evelyn wheeled in a trolley on which every article seemed to be gleaming silver, teapot, milk jug, strainer, hot water jug, sugar bowl. On a lower level there were elegant china plates, thin bread and butter, scones, jam.

‘I’m afraid it’s just pot luck, Mr Bain-Truscott.’

‘Call him Tony,’ Bradbury boomed. ‘Too much of a mouthful, the other.’

He found himself sipping pale tea from a cup so frail that he feared it might break in his hands, and talking to Mr Granville. ‘So you were at school with Bill. I expect he was a live-wire even in those days.’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘I spotted that the first time I saw him. That boy’s got ideas, I said, he’ll go a long way. It so happens I play golf in a foursome every week with the English director of Hispano-American Construction.’ Could that be what he had said? Mr Granville sucked in his breath, winked, and went on, ‘Wheels within wheels.’

Surely he must be Bradbury’s father? He bit into a scone and said nothing. He saw the school lavatories with terrible clarity, the doors that were always being banged, the group of boys round him, Bradbury’s big red face. Somebody spoke. He replied to Mrs Granville’s blue rinse. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Eldon Truscott in Shropshire. Is he–’

‘My branch of the family came from Australia.’

‘Colonial.’ She lost interest.

‘Writing, now, is there money in that?’ That was her husband.

‘I have an independent income.’ Behind the horn-rims Bradbury was studying him curiously. Tony rose, took a plate, handed round bread and butter. Mrs Foster held out her teacup. It was refilled from the silver pot.

‘I hear you’re a writer. My husband writes too.’

‘I’m not a professional writer. I was helping an old soldier with his war memoirs.’

‘How interesting. My husband’s an amateur. He is interested in topography, which is too much for me I’m afraid.’ The chair beside her was vacant, and he sat down. At least he had got away from the Granvilles. Seen more closely Mrs Foster was attractive. Her face was neat and small, the features classical, the hair cut short like a boy’s. Her eyes were a strange colour, a flinty grey. The first impression of fragility was confirmed, the hand that held the teacup was small, but he had a sense of something controlled and fierce behind this delicacy.

He was wondering about her age when she said, ‘You look too young to have been at school with Mr Bradbury.’

‘I’m twenty-seven. He was one of the older boys.’

‘But you were friends.’ Something about her flinty grey gaze seemed to question it.

‘Of course. We’ve not met for years.’ He gave a start as he felt pressure applied to his upper arm. Tea spilt into his saucer, some went on to the mushroom coloured carpet. Evelyn mewed with distress.

‘Startled you, old man, sorry.’ It was Bradbury’s hand, of course. Then Evelyn had rushed out for a cloth and he was on his knees helping her to wipe the carpet, although really only a few drops had been spilled. Evelyn kept repeating that it was perfectly all right, but her stare at the carpet said the reverse. The tea trolley was wheeled out, he was shown round the neat suburban garden, and then it was time to go.

Mrs Foster was taking him back. Bradbury accompanied them out to her car.

‘It’s been good to see you, but we never got a chance to talk over old times.’ His leg brushed against Tony’s. ‘Have lunch with me one day.’

‘I’m going back to town in a day or two. I’ll ring you when I’m free.’

When they were out of sight of the house Mrs Foster said, ‘Are you pleased to get away? I am. I’d only met Evelyn before, we’re both members of the Women’s Club. He was a bit of a shocker, I thought. But I forgot, you’re a friend of his.’

‘Not so much of a friend as all that.’

‘Do you know, that’s what I thought.’ She flashed him a smile of what might almost have been called complicity. ‘It’s a pity.’

‘What is?’

‘That you’re going back so soon. Eversley, my husband, needs help badly with his book and you do that kind of thing. Or am I wrong?’

There was the most curious kind of tension in the car. She did not look at him, she stared ahead at the ribbon of road. Why did some kind of invitation seem to lie behind those innocuous words?

‘Not exactly. I told you what I did for the General.’

‘Eversley would expect to pay. If you wouldn’t be insulted.’ He wanted to say, I am not sure, I have been much deceived in women, I am afraid of what they may do to me. Instead he said, ‘I really ought to go back to London.’

‘It’s up to you. Where shall I drop you?’ When he opened the door to get out she said, ‘Don’t make any mistake. I asked you because I thought you’d get on with Eversley. He’s not the easiest man in the world.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘There’s no need to be.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘If you want to ring you’ll find me in the book.’

He was walking away when she wound down the car window. ‘Eversley likes to see references. If you’ve got any.’

References indeed! He tried not to show by the stiffness of his back that this really did insult him.