The Paying Guests (11 page)

She began to feel the twinkle like the buzzing of a fly. After a minute of it she said quietly, ‘Shall we find somewhere else to sit?’

Mrs Barber spoke without raising her head. ‘Because of him? Oh, I don’t mind.’

Their murmurs made the man draw closer. He began studying them like an artist, like a master of composition. ‘Now, if only I had a camera!’ he said, stooping at the side of an imaginary tripod, squeezing a bulb. He laughed at Frances’s expression. ‘Don’t you want your picture taken? I thought all young ladies wanted that. Especially the handsome ones.’

‘Shall we go?’ she asked Mrs Barber again, in an ordinary tone this time.

The man protested. ‘What’s the hurry?’

Frances got to her feet. He saw that she meant it, and came closer, and spoke in a more insinuating way. ‘Did you enjoy your picnic?’

That made her look at him. ‘What?’

‘I should just about say you did. I should say the picnic enjoyed it, too.’ His eyes flicked to Mrs Barber, and he smirked. ‘I never thought it possible for a fellow to envy a boiled egg, until I saw your friend eating hers.’

He was the man who had been watching them earlier on. He must have seen them finish their tea and been following them ever since, from the bench to the flower-beds, from the flower-beds to the pond, from the pond to the tennis courts, from the tennis courts to here. Of course, the red parasol made them rather hard to miss. That wasn’t why Mrs Barber had brought it, surely? That wasn’t why she’d wanted to sit here, in this oddly public spot?

No, of course it wasn’t. She was doing her best to ignore the man, her head dipped, her face flaming. He ducked his own head, in an attempt to catch her eye. ‘Don’t want to play?’

‘Look, go away, will you?’ said Frances.

He looked at her with a gaze grown fishy, then spoke to Mrs Barber again, turning down the corners of his mouth. ‘Your chum doesn’t seem to like me much, I can’t think why. How about you?’

Frances said, ‘No, she doesn’t like you either. Do go away.’

He held his ground for another few moments. But it was Mrs Barber he was after, and she wouldn’t raise her eyes to his; at last there was nothing he could do but give up on them both. He drew in his shoulders, pretending to shudder against a chill, and, ‘Brrr!’ he said, still addressing Mrs Barber, but jerking his head in Frances’s direction. ‘Suffragette, is she?’

No one answered him. He retreated, got out a cigarette, produced a lighter, struck a flame – all in a leisurely sort of way, as if it were the only thing he’d climbed the steps for. But the twinkle had faded from his manner, and after a moment he drifted back to his previous spot at the balustrade. A moment after that, he left the band-stand.

Mrs Barber’s pose loosened. She looked embarrassed, admiring, appalled. But she laughed. ‘Oh, Miss Wray! What a Tartar you are!’

‘Well,’ said Frances, still furious, ‘why should our nice day be spoiled simply because some fool of a man fancies himself a lady-killer?’

‘I usually just ignore them. They always go away in the end.’

‘But why should you have to waste your time ignoring them? Did you know he was following us? There he goes, look.’ She was watching the man as he sauntered away across the park. ‘Off to try his charms on some other poor woman, no doubt. I hope she hits him. “Suffragette”. As if the word’s an insult! Honestly, if I were younger I might have hit him myself.’

Mrs Barber was still laughing. ‘I think you’d have beaten him, too.’

Frances said, ‘I might have, at that. I was once taken in charge, you know, for throwing my shoes at an MP.’

Mrs Barber’s laughter died. She said, ‘You weren’t. I don’t believe you.’

‘I was. And spent the night in a police cell with three other women. We’d caused a fuss at a political meeting. I marvel, now, at our pluck. The entire crowd was against us. I oughtn’t to have thrown things, though. We were supposed to be pacifists.’

‘But what happened to you?’

‘Oh, the charges were dropped. The MP got wind of the fact that we were all gentlemen’s daughters; he didn’t want it getting into the papers. But I had to go home the next morning and explain the whole thing to my parents – they thought the white slavers had nabbed me. Still’ – she got to her feet, her spirits rising at the memory – ‘it was worth turning up at the house in the police matron’s shoes for the sake of the look on my father’s face! The neighbours enjoyed it too. Shall we move on?’

She offered her arm, meaning the gesture playfully, but Mrs Barber caught hold of it and let herself be pulled upright, laughing again as she found her balance; it seemed natural, after that, to remain with their arms linked. They went down the steps and into the sunlight, wondering where to make for next. The little encounter with the man had put the polish back on the day.

But they were conscious of the time. Somehow, an hour and a half had passed. They thought of returning to the tennis courts for a final look at the match – but at last, with reluctance, decided that they ought to head home. They climbed the slope of the park, paused again to admire the bluebells; then were back on the dusty pavement.

They stayed arm in arm all the way. Only in hurrying across the busy road did they separate. But on the opposite side, as they started up the hill, Mrs Barber paused, to move the parasol from one shoulder to another, and to step around to Frances’s left instead of her right. Frances was puzzled by the gesture – then realised what she was doing. She was ‘taking the wall’, putting Frances between herself and the traffic in just the same instinctive way that she might have done while walking with a man.

Two more minutes and they were back at the house. Frances unlatched the garden gate, led the way inside. They went up the stairs together, Mrs Barber yawning as they climbed.

‘All the sun has made me dozy. What have you to do now, Miss Wray?’

‘I’ve to start thinking about my mother’s dinner.’

‘And I’ve to start thinking about Len’s. Oh, if only dinners would cook themselves! If only floors and carpets and china – if it would all just see to itself. You’d think Mr Einstein might invent a machine to help with housework, wouldn’t you? Instead of saying things about time and all that, that no one can understand anyhow. I bet I know what
Mrs
Einstein thinks about it all.’

As she spoke, she hung the parasol on a peg of the coat-stand, then pulled off her lace gloves, finger by finger.

But when she had drawn both gloves free, she paused with them in her hand; and she and Frances looked at each other.

Frances said, ‘I enjoyed our picnic.’

‘So did I, Miss Wray.’

‘We might do it again, another day.’

‘I’d like that, yes.’

‘In which case – well, I wonder if you’d consider calling me Frances.’

She looked pleased. ‘I’d like that, too.’

‘What shall I call you, though? I’ll stick to Mrs Barber, if you prefer.’

‘Oh, I wish you wouldn’t! I hate the name; I always have. It’s like a card from Happy Families, isn’t it? You might call me Lil, I suppose, which is what my sisters call me, but – No, don’t call me that. Len says it makes me sound like a barmaid.
He
calls me Lily.’

‘Lily, Lil. Mayn’t I simply call you Lilian?’

‘Lilian?’ She blinked, surprised. ‘Hardly anybody calls me that.’

‘Well, I’d like to call you a name that hardly anyone else calls you.’

‘Would you? Why?’

‘I don’t quite know,’ said Frances. ‘But it’s a handsome name. It suits you.’

The comment was a piece of gallantry, really. How, in the circumstances, could it have been anything else? But they stood a yard apart, in the relative gloom of the landing, and in the silence that followed her words there came another of those shifts, those alchemic little quickenings… Once again, Mrs Barber looked uncertain for a second. Then, smiling, she dipped her head. It was just as if, Frances thought, she was unable to do anything with a compliment except receive it, absorb it; even when it came from a woman.

‘How funny you are, Miss Wray,’ she said quietly. ‘Yes, do call me Lilian.’

And, in another moment, they parted.

Over dinner that night, when Frances’s mother asked her how she had enjoyed her afternoon, she said, Yes, it had been pleasant. She and Mrs Barber had liked looking at the flowers. They had been glad to stretch their legs… She meant to leave the matter there.

Five minutes later, however, she found herself adding, ‘You know, I’ve begun to feel rather sorry for Mrs Barber. She spoke a bit about her marriage today, and I don’t think it can be a very happy one.’

Her mother looked up from her plate. ‘She didn’t tell you that herself?’

‘Not in so many words.’

‘I should hope not, no, on so slight an acquaintance.’

‘But, still, that’s the impression I got.’

‘Well, she and Mr Barber can’t be so very unhappy. Whenever I overhear them they seem to do nothing but laugh. Probably they’ve had some sort of a quarrel. I dare say they’ll soon be on terms again.’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Frances. ‘But, I don’t know. It seemed a larger thing than a quarrel, to me.’

Her mother’s tone grew comfortable. ‘Oh, these things often seem larger, from the outside. Even your father and I had our occasional fallings-out… But we really oughtn’t to be discussing it, Frances. If Mrs Barber tries to talk to you about the matter again, do your best to discourage her, will you?’ She returned to her dinner, nudging spinach on to her fork – then paused with the fork lifted. ‘I hope
you
haven’t been speaking frankly to her.’

Frances was sawing at a piece of mutton. ‘Well, of course I haven’t.’

‘With relations like hers —’

‘I think she’s simply a little lonely. And she’s a kind woman. I like her. We have to live with her, after all.’ Still cutting, she spoke blandly. ‘There’s no reason why she and I shouldn’t be friends, is there?’

Her mother hesitated, but said nothing. The bit of mutton gave at last. Frances chewed and chewed, then swallowed, then turned the conversation; and they finished the meal without mentioning the Barbers again.

And perhaps, in any case, her mother had been right. While she was out in the kitchen later, polishing the knives and forks, the Barbers’ gramophone started up: she could hear it across the house, a lively modern dance tune. Whatever differences the couple had had, they must already have settled them. The music went on for half an hour, one melody giving way to another, the final record winding down in a sort of melting groan as no one ran to turn the handle; after that there was a silence, somehow more bothersome than the jazz. Frances went to bed without seeing Mrs Barber again, and when they met the following day they were both slightly shy. They made a point of calling each other by their Christian names, but the moment was awkward, contrived. Their friendship seemed to have foundered before it had barely set sail. Mrs Barber left the house in the afternoon with a shopping bag over her arm, and Frances, suddenly restless, drifted about from room to room. She hadn’t planned to go into Town, but in a fit of decision she changed her clothes, went out, caught a bus to Oxford Circus and called on Christina. Christina asked how she and her mother were getting on with Len and Lil, and she answered with jokes about the crowded house, queues for the bath-tub.

But then, next morning, while Mr Barber was at work and her mother was clipping lavender bushes in the back garden, she climbed the stairs to her bedroom to fetch a bag of laundry; coming out of the room with the bag in her arms, she glanced across the stairwell – and there was Mrs Barber, seated at the table in her kitchen, shelling peas into a bowl, reading a library book as she did it. She was wearing her plum-coloured gown, and her hair was up in its red silk scarf, the ends of the scarf lying ticklingly against the nape of her neck; she was easing the peas from the pod without once looking at them. And since Frances could never see anyone absorbed in a book without itching to know its title, she called across the stairwell.

‘What’s that you’re reading, Lilian?’

The name sounded natural at last. Lilian turned, blinked, smiled. She opened her mouth to answer, then changed her mind and lifted the book to show its spine. Frances, of course, was too far off to read it. She went around the landing and looked in from the kitchen doorway; and then she saw the library lettering. The book was
Anna Karenina
.

Exclaiming with pleasure, she moved forward. Lilian watched her come. ‘Do you know it?’

‘It’s one of my favourites. Where are you up to?’

‘Oh, it’s awful. There’s just been a race, and —’

‘The poor horse.’

‘The poor horse!’

‘What’s its name? Something unlikely. Mimi?’

‘Frou-Frou.’

‘Frou-Frou! That’s right. Do you suppose that sounds dashing in Russian?’

‘Oh, I could hardly bear to read it. And poor Vronsky – Is that how you say it?’

‘I believe so. Yes, poor Vronsky. Poor Anna. Poor everyone! Even poor old dull Karenin. Oh, I haven’t read it in years. You make me want to again. May I see it?’

She took the book from Lilian’s hand, careful not to lose her place, and looked from one page to another. ‘Princess Betsy. I’d forgotten her. Dolly, Kitty… Where’s the bit where Anna appears at the station? Isn’t it right at the start?’

‘No, there are chapters and chapters first.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Let me show you.’

Their fingers collided in the pages as Lilian retrieved the novel. She searched for a minute, then handed the book back – and there was the moment that Frances had remembered, nearly a hundred pages in after all, Vronsky moving aside from the door of the train to allow Anna to step down on to the Moscow platform.

She drew out a chair, and sat. She read the scene right through while Lilian shelled the peas; soon, their fingers colliding again as they reached into the bowl, they were shelling the peas together, discussing novels, poems, plays, the authors they did and didn’t admire… The day was warm, and the window was open; from out in the garden, as they chatted, there came the snip of secateurs. And only when the secateurs fell silent and Frances’s mother could be heard in the yard, making her way back to the house, did Frances get to her feet, and retrieve her laundry, and head downstairs.