The Paying Guests (12 page)

After that they met more or less daily, partly to compare their thoughts on
Anna Karenina
–
which Frances had begun to re-read – but mainly, simply, for the pleasure of each other’s company. Whenever they could, they shared their housework, or made their chores overlap. One Monday morning they washed blankets together in a zinc tub on the lawn, Frances feeding them through the mangle while Lilian turned the wheel; afterwards, hot, damp, their skirts hauled up over their knees, they sat on the step drinking tea and smoking cigarettes like chars. Two or three times they returned to the park, always making the same small circuit, always finishing up at the band-stand, looking for the names of new lovers in the paint. And one bright afternoon while Frances’s mother was visiting a neighbour they carried cushions out to the garden and lay in the shade of the linden tree eating Turkish delight. Frances had seen the sweets on a market stall and had bought them for Lilian as a gift. ‘To match your Turkish slippers,’ she said, as she handed them over. They were the sham English variety, sickly pink and white cubes; she herself gave up on them after a single bite. But Lilian, delighted, prised out lump after lump, putting each piece whole into her mouth, closing her eyes in ecstasy.

Just occasionally, Frances found herself wondering what the two of them had in common. Now and then, when they were apart, she’d struggle to remember where the essence of their friendship lay. But then they would meet, exchange a smile… and she wouldn’t wonder at all. Lilian might not be amusing or clever in the way that Christina, say, was amusing and clever – But, no, she
was
amusing, and she
was
clever; she could sew, for example, like a Bond Street seamstress, thought nothing of picking apart an entire garment and restyling it, nothing of settling down at three o’clock in the afternoon with a needle and a thousand seed-pearls that had to be attached to a blouse in time for a trip to a dancing-hall that night. Frances would sit and watch her do it, and marvel at her poise – admiring again her calmness, her stillness, that capacity she had for filling her own smooth skin. It was like a cure, being with Lilian. It made one feel like a piece of wax being cradled in a soft, warm palm.

The bigger mystery, surely, was that marriage of hers. Every so often when her husband stopped in the kitchen for one of his chats Frances would study him, trying to discover some quality in him that might chime with some quality of Lilian’s; more often than not, she failed to do it. She asked again about their courtship, and Lilian replied as she had before: he’d had nice blue eyes, a sense of fun… Beyond that, she became evasive; so Frances learned to leave the subject. She had evasions of her own, after all. How little the two of them knew each other, really. They were practically strangers. She hadn’t had an inkling of Lilian’s existence until six weeks before. Now she’d catch herself thinking of her at all sorts of odd moments, always slightly surprised when she did so, able to follow the thought backward, stage by stage, link by link, this idea having been called to mind by that one, which in turn had been suggested by that… But they all had their finish at Lilian, wherever they started.

But women’s friendships were like that, she reflected: a giddy-up, and off they cantered. If she occasionally lapsed into gallantry – well, there was something about Lilian that inspired gallantry, that was all. And if there were more of those moments, those little licks, almost of romance, they meant nothing; she was sure they meant nothing. Lilian, at least, seemed untroubled by them. She might look doubtful for a second, but she always laughed the doubt away. She might gaze at Frances from time to time with her eyes narrowed and her head cocked, as if she could sense some enigma to her and wanted to get to the bottom of it. Or she would turn the conversation to love and marriage, in a hinting way… And then, it was true, Frances would feel a qualm, a prick of unease, to think of the shallow foundations on which their intimacy was built. And she would resolve in future to be more cautious; but the caution unravelled, every time.

By now it was June, true summer, each day finer than the last. Mr Barber grew jauntier than ever, going off to work on Saturday mornings with his tennis racket under his arm, spending the afternoons at his sports club, coming home to boast to Frances about the points he had won, the spots he’d knocked off the opposition. And in the long, light evenings he took to wandering about the house looking for little jobs to do, things to fix and improve. He oiled hinges, re-cemented loose tiles on the hall floor, replaced the washer in the scullery tap so that it lost its plink. Frances couldn’t decide if she was grateful for the help or felt piqued by it. She had been planning for ages to see to those tiles herself. Now, whenever he crossed the hall, she had to listen to him pause, test the floor with his foot, and give a murmur of satisfaction as he admired his own handiwork.

But perhaps his energy was infectious. One morning in the middle of the month she went looking for a fly-swatter, and when she opened a cupboard in the passage a pile of things tumbled out. The things were her brothers’; the house was full of them; she had got used to digging her way through layers of school caps and cricket balls and Henty novels and fossil collections whenever she searched for something in a drawer or a chest. But would she have to dig for ever? Her brothers were never coming back. She collected everything she could find, then summoned her mother. For an hour they sifted and sorted, her mother resisting at every step. The books could go to a charity, surely? Oh, but Noel had had this one as a prize; his name was inside it; it wasn’t quite nice to think of another little boy looking at that. Well, all right. But, these boots? Couldn’t they go? Yes, the boots could go. And the boxing-gloves, the telescope, the microscope and slides?

‘Must we do it now, Frances?’

‘We’ll have to do it some time.’

‘Mightn’t we put them in a trunk, in a cellar?’

‘The cellar’s full of Father’s things. Look, how about this stamp album? Maybe I’ll take it to be valued. Some of these might bring in some money —’

‘Frances, please.’

After all, it had been a bad idea. They seemed to finish up with more than they had started with. They put together one small bundle to be passed on to the vicar’s wife, and Frances’s mother, her cheeks sagging, carried off a few items for herself: school badges, a college scarf. Frances had found a model boat that Noel had built as a boy; he had named it after her. It made the tears stand in her eyes.

Afterwards they were both rather quiet. They ate their lunch, then settled down at the open French windows. Frances’s mother put an upturned tray in her lap with paper, pens and ink on it: she had promised to write some letters, she said, for one of her charities. Frances darned stockings to the regular scratch and tap of her nib, but after fifteen minutes or so she became aware that the sound had ceased; her mother had fallen into a doze. Hastily putting down her mending and darting out of her chair, she was just able to catch the pen before it rolled out of her mother’s fingers. She screwed the cap back on the ink bottle, put it safely to one side. And as she stood gazing down at her mother’s slack, pale, undefended face, tears pricked at her eyes again.

Oh, but it was pointless to be gloomy. She shook the tears away. What could she do with her afternoon? The darning was all very well, but she ought really to take advantage of her mother’s doze and do something grimy. The porch needed a sweep; that would be a good job done. It always made her mother twitchy to know she was out there with a broom, where any of the neighbours might stroll past and see her.

But now there were sounds overhead: Lilian was up in her bedroom. Was she dressing to go out? No, the creaks didn’t suggest it. She was standing still, the boards wheezing with the shifting of her weight. What
was
she doing?

It wouldn’t hurt, would it, to slip upstairs and find out?

The bedroom door was wide open. Lilian called to her from beyond it the moment her step left the stair. ‘Is that you, Frances?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are you doing? Come in and see me.’

Frances went in warily. It was still a shock to see her brothers’ room as it was now, cluttered with Lilian’s knick-knacks, hung with lace and swags of colour. The top of the chest of drawers was so crammed with scent bottles and powder-puffs and cold-creams that it looked like something from backstage at the Alhambra; over the swing-mirror a pair of newly washed pink silk stockings had been hung to dry. Lilian was standing beside the bed, gazing down at a lot of fashion papers that she had spread on the counterpane. She was making sketches, she said – trying out ideas. Her sister Netta was having a party in a couple of weeks’ time, and she planned to make herself a new frock for it.

Frances looked the sketches over. They were good, she saw with surprise; at least as good, it seemed to her, as Stevie’s Bloomsbury designs. She said, ‘Why, you’re talented, Lilian. You’re an artist, in fact. Your mother said you were; I remember now. She was quite right.’

Lilian answered modestly. ‘Oh, my family call you an artist if you put the clock on the left-hand side of the chimney-piece instead of in the middle.’ But she added, after a second, in a shyer sort of way, ‘I did want to be an artist, though, once upon a time. I used to go to picture galleries and places like that. I thought of taking classes at an art school.’

‘You ought to have done. Why didn’t you?’

‘Oh —’ She laughed. ‘Well, I got married instead.’

She picked up the drawings and held them at arm’s length, looking at them critically. Frances, watching her, said, ‘You might go to an art school now.’

She brightened. ‘I might, mightn’t I?’ But she spoke without much conviction. ‘I don’t expect I’m good enough. And I know what Len would say! He’d call it a waste of time, and a waste of his money. He’s got money on the brain these days. He’s not coming to Netta’s party; he’s going to some stupid assurance men’s thing. He and Charlie are both going to it. A boys’ night out.’

It was an anti-Len day, clearly. But she seemed to want to leave the subject. She studied the drawings for another moment, then made them into a bundle along with the papers on the bed. She took the bundle over to the chest of drawers and did her best to find a spot for it among the scent bottles.

Then she grew still, and raised her head, and looked at Frances through the bit of swing-glass left unobscured by the stockings. ‘Why don’t
you
come to Netta’s with me, Frances?’

Frances was taken aback. ‘To the party?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘I haven’t been invited.’

‘Netta said I could bring who I liked. And my family would be pleased to see you. They’re always asking after you. Oh, do say yes!’ She had turned, was growing excited. ‘It’ll only be little – at Netta’s house in Clapham. But it’ll be fun. We’ll have fun.’

‘Well —’ Frances was thinking it over. Would it be fun, with the Walworth sisters? ‘I don’t know. When is it, exactly?’

‘The first of July. A Saturday night.’

‘I’ve nothing to wear.’

‘You must have something.’

‘Nothing that wouldn’t shame you.’

‘I don’t believe you. Let me take a look. Come and show me, right now!’

But, ‘Oh, no,’ said Frances. Her mind had gone flashing through her wardrobe. ‘Half of my things are falling apart. I’d be ashamed for you to see them.’

‘How can you say such a thing?’

‘You’d laugh at them.’

‘Oh, Frances, come on. You threw your shoes at a policeman, once.’

‘Not a policeman. An MP.’

‘You threw your shoes at an MP. You can bear to show me the inside of your wardrobe, can’t you?’

She came across the room as she spoke, her hand extended, and when Frances still hesitated she reached and caught hold of her wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong: Frances tugged against it for a moment, but then, protesting, complaining, she allowed herself to be drawn from the room and led around the stairwell. They went into her bedroom laughing, and had to stand, pink-faced, to let the laughter subside.

Once Lilian had recovered, she began to look around. She had never been right inside the room before: Frances saw her gazing in a polite but noticing way at the few little things on display, the candlesticks on the mantelpiece, the Friedrich landscape on the wall…

‘This is a nice room, Frances,’ she said, with a smile. ‘It suits you. It isn’t full of rubbish, like mine. And are those your brothers?’ She had spotted the two framed photographs on the chest of drawers. ‘May I see? You don’t mind?’ She picked them up, and her smile grew sad. ‘How good-looking they were. You’re awfully like them.’

Frances stood at her shoulder to look at the pictures with her, the studio shot of Noel as a handsome schoolboy, the family snap of John Arthur in the back garden, larking about, tilting his hat to the camera. He was years younger there than she was now, though she still thought of him as her elder. And how quaint he looked in his waistcoat, with the old-fashioned watch-chain across it. She had never noticed before.

All at once, she had had enough of her brothers for the day. And she could see Lilian’s eyes beginning to wander again, to wander almost furtively this time, as if she were thinking that there might be another young man in a photograph somewhere, perhaps over there, on the bedside cabinet…?

‘Look here, this party.’ Frances crossed to the wardrobe. ‘You really meant it, about going through my clothes?’

Lilian returned the pictures to their places. ‘Yes!’

‘Well —’ The wardrobe door creaked open like the door to a cemetery vault. ‘Don’t say I haven’t warned you.’

After a moment of looking over the drooping garments on their wire shoulders she began to unhook them and pull them out. She started with her house blouses and skirts, then moved on to the things she kept for best: the grey tunic, a fawn jacket, a navy frock that she was fond of, another frock, never quite so successful, in tea-coloured silk. Lilian received each item and carefully examined it, polite and tactful for a while, finding details to praise and admire. As she warmed to the task, however, her tone grew more critical. Yes, this one was handsome enough, but it was the colour of a puddle. This skirt ought to be shortened; no one wore them so long any more. As for this – it might have belonged to Queen Victoria! What had Frances been thinking?