The Nice and the Good (22 page)

There are mysterious agencies of the human mind which, like roving gases, travel the world, causing pain and mutilation, without their owners having any full awareness, or even any awareness at all, of the strength and the whereabouts of these exhalations. Possibly a saint might be known by the utter absence of such gaseous tentacles, but the ordinary person is naturally endowed with them, just as he is endowed with the ghostly power of appearing in other people’s dreams. So it is that we can be terrors to each other, and people in lonely rooms suffer humiliation and even damage because of others in whose consciousness perhaps they scarcely figure at all. Eidola projected from the mind take on a life of their own, wandering to find their victims and maddening them with miseries and fears which the original source of these wanderers could not be justly charged with inflicting and might indeed be very puzzled to hear of.

Jessica felt herself so powerless and so harmless in her relation to John that she could not conceive that she was rapidly becoming as hateful to him as a boa-constrictor clutching him about the neck. She could not conceive that he had nightmares about her. Ducane could not forgive Jessica for having broken his resolution by screaming and made him so abjectly take her in his arms. This scene, which he could not banish from his mind, seemed to symbolise the way in which he had allowed himself, by a show of violence, to be trapped into a position of hateful falsity. Meanwhile poor Jessica, whose whole occupation was thinking about him, was driven by the sheer need of an activity connected with him to write him daily love letters, which he received with nausea, read cursorily, and did not answer.

What had driven Jessica, on this summer afternoon, to make the journey to Earls Court was chiefly the letter which she had received from Ducane saying that he had too much work to do this week to be able to see her. She was miserably disappointed not to see him. But she received yet another
impression from the letter which was in a curious way invigorating, and this was the clear impression that Ducane was lying. She did not believe in these ‘evening conferences’. She was sure that he had never lied to her before. A certainty of his absolute truthfulness with her had been a steady consolation. But the tone of this letter was something new; and Jessica was almost glad of it, since to detect him in a lie, even to know that he was lying, seemed to endow her with a certain power. It was after all very improbable that John should be so busy that he had no time in the whole week to see her. The letter sounded distinctly shifty.

Jessica had no very clear intention in her pilgrimage. She did not really want to spy on John, she just wanted the comfort of doing something, however vague, ‘about him’. She considered waiting at Earls Court tube station and meeting him ‘by accident’ as he emerged, since he occasionally returned by train, and she did in fact wait for a while in the station entrance although it was still a little early for him to be coming home. Then she walked slowly up the road and down the short street which led to the backwater of small pretty houses where John lived.

John’s road, a cul-de-sac, met the other street at right angles and opposite to this junction there was a public house which was just opening its doors. Into this pub Jessica now went and stationed herself with a glass of beer at the window with a good view of the corner and of the front of Ducane’s house. She had not been there for long, and was wondering whether if she saw him she could stop herself from running out, when something happened which astonished and appalled her. An extremely attractive and well-dressed woman came briskly down the street, stopped outside Ducane’s house, rang the bell and was instantly admitted.

Jessica put her glass down. She thought, he is
there
, he is
in there
, he has been lying, he has a mistress. A completely new sensation of jealousy shook her whole body in successive shudders of pain. At the same moment, by some connected miracle, the strength which had flowed into her when she had received Ducane’s lying letter was increased a hundredfold, and in that quiet sleepy pub a new demon came into existence, the demon of a ferociously determined jealous woman.

Kate Gray came briskly down the street, stopped outside Ducane’s house, rang the bell, and was instantly admitted. She knew that Ducane could not be at home since he was going directly from the office to spend the evening with Octavian. Kate had come to make her personal investigation of Ducane’s manservant.

“I want to come in and leave some things for Mr Ducane and to write him a note,” said Kate, advancing promptly into the hall. “Could you let me have some writing paper please? And perhaps I could leave these things in the kitchen. Thank you, I know the way. I am Mrs Gray. You are Fivey, I believe.”

Fivey had followed Kate into the kitchen and was silently watching her unload from her basket a box of marrons glacés and a bottle of slivovitz, her offerings to Ducane and her excuse for calling.

“You keep things very neat in here, Fivey,” she said approvingly. “Very neat and clean indeed. It’s a pleasant kitchen, isn’t it. Now these things are for Mr Ducane. You know he won’t be home until late this evening, he’s over with my husband.”

Kate surveyed Fivey across the table. She found him very unexpected indeed. Ducane’s attempts at describing, in answer to a question of Kate’s, his man’s personal appearance had been vague and had made Kate anticipate something a little coarse and brutish. Brutish perhaps Fivey was, but with the picturesque romanticised almost tender brutishness with which the Beast is usually represented in productions of
Beauty and the Beast
, a large touching cuddly animal which had always seemed to Kate in her childhood greatly to be preferred to the tediously handsome prince into which it had to be metamorphosed at the end. Kate marked the apricot skin, so strikingly blotched with big brown freckles, the huge inflated shaggy head, the abundant hair and moustache the rich colour of a newly opened conker, the long long slanted eyes of the purest spotless light brown, the long straight line of the lips. He must
comb
it, she thought. I wonder if I could persuade Octavian to grow a moustache, I never realised it could be so becoming.

Kate became aware that she had for some moments been staring at Fivey, who had been staring back. She said
hastily, “Could you bring me some paper please, to write my note on.”

Without a word Fivey disappeared and returned in a moment with some paper. Kate sat down at the table and wrote
Dearest John
. His
hands
are spotted too, she thought, lifting her eyes far enough to see one of them. I wonder if he is spotted all over. She put in a comma and poised her pen. She could not think of anything to say to John. She went on
Here I am
, and crossed it out. She wrote
I’ve just been to Fortnum’s and I’ve got you some nice things
. She said to Fivey, “I don’t think after all it’s necessary to leave a note. Just tell Mr Ducane I delivered these.”

Fivey nodded and Kate slowly crumpled the note up. Something had gone wrong. She made out that what was wrong was that Fivey had not spoken. Ducane didn’t say he was
dumb
, she thought.

She said, “I hope you’re happy here with Mr Ducane, Fivey?”

“Mr Ducane is a very kind gentleman.”

“Good heavens!” cried Kate. “Mr Ducane never told me you were Irish!” There was no mistaking the voice. “Why I’m Irish too!”

“I took the liberty of recognising your accent, ma’am,” said Fivey. His face was impassive and the slanted brown eyes were intently fixed on Kate.

“How splendid, I come from County Clare. Where do you come from?”

“I come from County Clare myself.”

“What an extraordinary coincidence!” cried Kate. “Well, that’s a real bond between us. Where in Clare are you from?”

“On the coast there—”

“Near the Burren?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How astonishing! I come from quite near there. Are your people still there?”

“Only my old mother, ma’am, with her little house and a cow.”

“And do you often go back?”

“It’s the fare, ma’am. I send my mother a little bit of my wages, you see.”

I must give him the fare, thought Kate, but how? He
looks rather a proud man. Of course I can see now that he’s Irish.

“Have you been in England long, Fivey?”

“Not long at all, ma’am. I’m a country boy.”

A real child of nature, she thought. How very simple and moving he is, a true peasant. Ducane didn’t describe him properly at all. And she thought, I do rather wish he was
our
servant. I wouldn’t at all mind
having
Fivey.

“London must be a bit intimidating. But I expect you’ll get used to it.”

Kate, who by now felt very disinclined to leave the house, got up and began to prowl about the kitchen, patting cups and stroking saucepans and peering into bowls. She was beginning to feel quite at ease in the presence of Fivey as if warm rays from his reassuring beast-like presence were both caressing and stimulating her nerves.

“Have a marron glacé,” she said. She tore the box open and thrust it across the table towards him.

Fivey’s large spotted hand descended and, still staring at Kate with unbroken concentration, he conveyed the marron to his mouth.

He does stare so, she thought, but I rather like it. Bother, now I’ve opened that box I can’t give it to John. I’ll have to take it away with me. Or else give it to Fivey!

She resumed her prowling. “What’s that?” She pointed to a bowl-like steel sink with a round gaping orifice at the bottom of it.

“A waste disposal unit,” said Fivey with his mouth full of marron.

“Oh. I’ve never seen one. Let’s dispose of some waste.”

Fivey came over to demonstrate. He took a soggy newspaper bundle out of the rubbish bin, dropped it down the hole, and turned a switch. There was a formidable grinding sound.

“It’s rather alarming, isn’t it,” said Kate. As she leaned forward over the machine she rested her white nylon gloves for a moment on the edge of the bowl. Then, with a flash like the escape of a fish, one of the little white gloves slid down over the slippery steel surface and into the dark churning void below. After it, with almost equal quickness, went Fivey’s spotted hand, but not quick enough to save the
little glove from its fate. Half a second later Kate had gripped Fivey by the wrist.

“Oh, be careful, be careful!”

They stood quite still for a moment staring at each other. Kate drew back a little, drew him back, still holding the thick hairy wrist in a firm grip. Then she released him, sat down, and reached out automatically for the bottle of slivovitz.

She said, “That quite shook me. You must be terribly careful with that dangerous thing. I think I need a drink. Could you get two glasses?”

Fivey put two glasses on the table and sat down, not opposite to Kate but beside her. With a hand that trembled slightly Kate poured out the slivovitz. She had forgotten its quite extraordinary
sexy
smell. She could still feel the texture of Fivey’s hairy wrist engraved upon the palm of her hand. She turned towards him and they drank.

Kate put down her glass. Fivey had turned his chair to face her, his drink in his right hand, his left hand upon the table. The big extended relaxed hand looked suddenly to Kate like a couchant animal. It’s all very odd, thought Kate, I’d quite forgotten the taste of slivovitz, it’s wonderful, wonderful. She laid her own hand down very slowly and carefully on top of Fivey’s hand, moving it about slightly to feel the hair, the skin, the bone. They continued to stare at each other.

Then with a kind of formal deliberation, as if he were about to take hold of her for a dance, Fivey put down his glass, moved Kate’s glass out of the way, edged his chair nearer, and began to slide his arm round her shoulder. The chestnut-coloured moustaches grew nearer and nearer and larger and larger. Kate closed her eyes.

“Octavian, do stop laughing, I think you’re
awful
!”

“You mean to say the fellow actually made a pass at you?”

“No, darling, I’ve already explained.
I
made a pass at
him
!”

“And then you slipped him a tenner to visit his old mother!”

“It was the least I could do.”

“Kate darling, you’re mad, I adore you!”

“I must say I was rather
surprised
myself. It must have been something to do with his being Irish. Or something to do with my glove falling into the waste disposal unit.”

“Or something to do with the slivovitz!”

“Oh God, the slivovitz! We drank the whole bottle! I’ve got the most
ghastly
headache.”

“Anyway, you’ve proved he’s heterosexual!”

“I don’t know about that. He might be both. He’s
terribly
sweet, Octavian, just like a marvellous animal. And such a simple nature, straight out of the Irish countryside.”

“His conduct seems to me to have been far from simple. London is full of men who would faint with joy if they could get around to kissing you after a year’s acquaintance, let alone twenty-five minutes flat!”

“Oh Octavian, that heavenly moustache!”

“Well, you’re in a proper fix now with Ducane, aren’t you, with his valet as your fancy man!”

“Well, yes, I am—Octavian, do you think I ought to tell Ducane? It’s rather awful, isn’t it?”

“Fivey’s not likely to tell him, anyway!”

“It depends what terms they’re on. Maybe they’re in bed together at this very moment, discussing it just like us and laughing their heads off!”

“Come, you don’t think that.”

“No, of course I don’t. But it’s all most embarrassing. Whatever would the others think if they knew what I’d been up to while they were soberly shopping!”

“Think of the scenes at the dinner table. The surreptitious glances. The hands touching when the soup arrives. I shall enjoy every moment of it!”

“Oh dear! Do you think John would be hurt?”

“Yes, I do think he would be hurt. And he’d never believe you started it. He doesn’t know you like I do! And he might sack Fivey.”

“You mean he wouldn’t
understand
?”