The Paying Guests (18 page)

Leonard got to his feet to escort her across the room. ‘At least you haven’t got far to go,’ he said, palely humorous, as he opened the door for her. His manner had changed again. She went to step past him and he moved closer, approaching her with such intent that she thought for a moment that he might be about to kiss her. But what he did was to touch her arm, just above the elbow.

‘You’ve been a jolly sport, Frances. You won’t give any mind, will you, to me and my big mouth?’

She found herself unable to reply. She shook her head and moved away.

She looked so dreadful in her bedroom mirror, all her features blurred and coarse, that when she had taken off her frock she tried to drape it over the glass; almost at once, it slid to the floor. She needed the lavatory rather badly, so as soon as she had changed into her night-clothes she headed purposefully downstairs. The Barbers had not yet emerged from their sitting-room – she was glad about that. The hall light was still burning, but the edges of her mother’s door were dark – she was glad about that, too. In what seemed a jumble of motion she let herself into the yard, visited the WC, then returned to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. She wasn’t aware of drinking the water, or of putting down the glass, but the next moment she was empty-handed; the next moment again she was back on the stairs with the hall light extinguished; and then she was noisily closing her bedroom door and kicking off her slippers.

She approached the bed with longing, but once she had climbed on to it and was lying flat on her back the mattress tilted like the deck of a ship; she had to push herself upright again. She sat with her head in her hands and groaned. God Almighty, what an evening! If only she had stayed at Mrs Playfair’s! She felt as though she’d been fed poison. The longer she sat there, the more unnaturally aware she became of various furious currents in her body: the slosh of liquids in her stomach, the pounding of blood through the channels of her ears. Braving the tilt of the bed, she carefully lowered herself back down. But there was no ease, no relief, to be found in any position; no possibility of escape from herself. When she closed her eyes she saw a sort of futurist nightmare, snakes and ladders in acid colours, inky hearts, Leonard’s grinning red face. Clearest of all, however, she saw Lilian, groping for the clasp of her suspender. She saw the silk stocking coming down, over and over again.

When she awoke the next morning, at just before six, the details of her evening with the Barbers seemed weirdly out of reach. On the other side of the window the sun was already blazing, but of the night that had passed she retained only a muddle of echoes and impressions, noise and laughter, a glass in her hand… Apart from that, she felt quite clear-headed; unnaturally well, in fact. She knew that she had drunk more than she ought to have, but she seemed for the moment so unaffected, so unharmed, that she began to grow slightly complacent. Weren’t there certain people, with particularly sturdy constitutions, who could stand large amounts of alcohol without ill effect? She must be one of those.

But only a few minutes later, as the factory whistles went off, the lustre of her well-being was beginning to cloud. The light at the edge of the curtains was bothering her. She needed the lavatory again, she wanted another glass of water, she felt as hollow as though she hadn’t eaten anything in days. But when she attempted to sit upright her bed, like a beast, came back to life, and her insides gave such a sour plunge that she thought for a moment that she might be sick. She hastily lay flat again, rigid and swallowing, and though the worst of the feeling soon passed, she realised that making a trip downstairs was out of the question. Thank God for the chamber-pot! She managed to fish it from under the bed, to squat giddily over it, to scurry back between the sheets. Now her heart was thudding as if it would burst. She didn’t understand it. Could she have eaten something bad at Mrs Playfair’s? Queasily, she thought over the meal: the soup, the sole, the chicken, the pudding, the cheese, the crème de menthe —

The memory of the glass of green liqueur made bile leap into her mouth. But what she tasted was gin and lemonade. Gin and lemonade; and black cigarettes.

And gradually, then – gradually but relentlessly, like a series of bloated corpses surfacing in murky water – gradually the evening in the Barbers’ room came back to her. She remembered reclining in the easy chair with a glass in one hand and a fag in the other. She remembered pausing with her fingers over Mr Barber’s box of cigarettes, gazing girlishly up at him, practically fluttering her eyelashes: ‘I had the idea you didn’t approve of ladies smoking.’ She recalled singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ at the top of her lungs. She recalled tittering, she recalled bellowing, she recalled —

No, she wouldn’t admit the memory! No, no, no!

But up it came, the most bloated corpse of all… She remembered leering like a drunken soldier while Lilian stood on a cushion to do a wobbly strip-tease.

She hid her face under her blanket, fighting down waves of nausea and shame.

At seven o’clock the Barbers’ alarm clock went, and she heard Mr Barber – Leonard, damn it, she had to call him now – she heard Leonard rise, go softly downstairs, then return and enter his kitchen. She listened in disbelief to the jaunty ordinariness of his movements as he washed, shaved, fried himself a solitary breakfast. He was even, at one point, humming through his teeth; she felt that he was quite capable of breaking into the chorus of ‘Everybody’s Doing It’. Once she had recalled the image of him with his thumbs hooked in his armpits it hopped about on the inside of her eyelids and made her feel queasier than ever. When she heard the splash and gurgle of tea being poured from the pot, followed by the rattle of china as he carried the cups to his bedroom, she longed so dismally for a cup of tea of her own that she nearly wept.

There came a few calmer minutes after he had left the house, but presently she heard movement downstairs: her mother, heading for the kitchen. She thought of the stove to be seen to, the milk to be brought in, the breakfast to be made, all the chores of the day ahead of her. Could she do it? She had to try. Her stomach quivering, she rose, put on her slippers, tied on her dressing-gown. So far, so good. Then she went to the glass. Her eyes were red and swollen, but her face was powder white; even her lips were white. Her hair was sticking up as though she’d been electrocuted.

She did the best she could to put herself tidy, then ventured out of the room. There was no sign of life on the landing save the smell of Leonard’s rashers.

Down in the kitchen she opened her mouth to wish her mother a casual good morning, and instead began to cough. The cough had the taste of those filthy cigarettes in it; it went on and on until it almost convulsed her.

‘I hope you aren’t starting a cold, Frances,’ her mother said at last. She was cutting herself a slice of bread.

Frances wiped her mouth and streaming eyes, and spoke hoarsely. ‘I think you know very well that I’m not.’

‘You enjoyed yourself with Mr and Mrs Barber?’

She nodded, swallowing something with the taste and texture of tar. ‘We didn’t disturb you too much, did we? We ended up playing a silly game of —’ She coughed again. ‘Snakes and Ladders. Things ran on later than we planned.’

‘Yes, I heard them doing that.’

Now the bread was cut and on a plate. It couldn’t be toasted, with the stove unlighted. Her mother was bringing over the butter dish, fishing out a knife from the drawer. But, the weather being so warm, the butter was beginning to run: Frances caught the faintly rancid whiff of it as the lid of the dish came off, and had to turn sharply away. She must have grown even paler as she did it, because her mother, with a mixture of rebuke and concern, lowered the knife to say, ‘Really, Frances, you look dreadfully done-up! You must remember, you aren’t as young as Mr and Mrs Barber.’

Frances kept her gaze from the liquefying butter. ‘Mr Barber is only a year younger than I am.’

‘Mr Barber is a man, with a man’s constitution.’

‘What a very Victorian thing to say.’

‘Yes, well, as I’ve often pointed out, the Victorians are much maligned. How old is Mrs Barber?’

Frances hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Twenty-four or -five, I think.’

She knew very well that Lilian was twenty-two. But she was counting on her mother having reached a stage in life from which it was impossible to tell the age of anyone under forty. So her mother surprised her by narrowing her eyes in a sceptical way and saying, ‘Well, she has a very youthful air indeed for a woman of five-and-twenty. As for Snakes and Ladders —’

‘A nice Victorian game.’

‘A nice noisy one, apparently! Noisier than I remembered it. I’m amazed you were up to playing. Your head was too sore, I thought, for bridge at Mrs Playfair’s.’

Frances couldn’t answer. She’d had another flashing vision of Lilian’s stocking coming down. If her mother knew about that! The thought went through her on a wave of heat. With a trembling hand she drew herself a glass of water. Once she had drunk it she managed to take care of the stove. But then she caught another whiff of the butter-dish.

‘If it’s all the same to you, Mother, I think I’ll go back upstairs for an hour. Tasker’s boy will be here soon, but you can take the meat from him, can’t you? I’ll just slip a coat on and fetch the milk —’

‘The milk is in already. Mr Barber brought it in for us. And, yes, I think bed is the best place for you. Goodness knows, we don’t want anyone to see you while you’re in this sort of condition.’

Frances drew herself another glass of water and slunk from the room.

So Leonard had brought in the milk, had he? He had never done that before. He must have guessed that she wouldn’t be up to it. The thought made her uncomfortable. She remembered how, the previous night, he had pressed the gin on her, filling up her glass the moment it was empty. He’d practically poured it down her throat! Just why, exactly, had he done that? She recalled the grip of his hand on her ankle. She remembered, again, simpering at him over the box of cigarettes. And hadn’t she leaned and poked his knee? Another wave of shame ran through her. She had to pause on the stairs and put a hand across her eyes. Once she was back in her room she lay turning the scenes over in her mind until she fell into a fretful sleep.

When she awoke from that, at almost eleven, she felt much better. She made a second start to her day, taking a bath, even managing a few light chores. She and her mother spoke politely to each other. They ate their lunch in the garden, in the shadow of the linden tree.

There was still no sign of Lilian. Frances began to wonder if she mightn’t have quietly left the house. In a way, she hoped she had. In another – oh, she didn’t know what she wanted. Her burst of energy was already fading; bringing in the lunch things from the garden seemed to finish it off. She had planned to go out today. She had promised to visit Christina. But she thought of the jolting journey, the walking about, the four flights of stone steps up to Chrissy’s flat… She couldn’t face it. When her mother settled herself in the drawing-room with a new book of brain-teasers, she crept back upstairs to her bedroom and lay fully clothed on the bed.

She no longer felt sick; that was something. And the room was comfortingly warm and dim. She had opened the window wide but left the curtains almost closed, and now and then a breeze stirred them, making the column of light between them blur and sharpen, widen and thin. The scents were those of the garden: sweet lavender, sharp geranium. From the scullery of a house near by she could just hear the splash of water, from a kitchen the whistle of a kettle, hectically rising, rising, then falling weakly away. The sounds and the smells snagged and tussled, but struck a precarious kind of balance. She felt herself held in the balance along with them, an infinitely fragile and humble thing.

She closed her eyes. Perhaps she dozed. She was faintly aware, in time, of the opening of Lilian’s bedroom door, followed by slippered footsteps on the landing. But the steps slowed, hesitating, and something about the hesitation made her wake up properly; she could feel, as it were, the direction of it. Her stomach gave an unpleasant flutter. She was just pushing herself up into a sitting position when Lilian tapped at her door.

‘Are you there, Frances?’

She cleared her throat. ‘Yes. Yes, come in.’

The door opened and Lilian came gingerly into the twilit room. ‘You weren’t asleep?’

‘Not really.’

‘I wanted to see how you were.’

She stood with a hand on the doorknob, her other hand raised to her face, pushing in her cheek with her knuckles. She and Frances looked at each other, neither of them knowing what to say. Then Frances let her head fall back against the iron bed-head.

‘God, but I feel seedy!’

Lilian said, ‘Oh, so do I! I feel like nothing on earth! I don’t know what to do with myself. Can I – Can I sit with you for a bit?’

Frances’s stomach fluttered again, but she nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

Lilian closed the door and moved towards the bedroom chair. But the chair was draped with clothes from the night before, all of them reeking of cigarette smoke, and Frances, seeing the uncertainty in her step, said, ‘I’ll have to tidy that later. I haven’t the strength for it now.’ She shuffled back against her pillows and drew in her legs. ‘Up here, instead? Is that all right for you?’

If Lilian hesitated, it was only for a moment. She climbed on to the bed, keeping right down at the foot of it, then sinking sideways against the wall, closing her eyes. Her eyelids were heavy, Frances saw now, and her hair had lost its dark shine. She was wearing a skirt the colour of an envelope, and her plain white blouse had just a bit of violet stitching on its cuffs and at its collar – as if that was all the dash she had been able to muster.

She opened her eyes, and met Frances’s gaze. ‘I’m so sorry about last night.’

Frances blinked, embarrassed. ‘So am I.’

‘I don’t know what was the matter with me. I didn’t do or say a natural thing all evening. Len was even worse. What must you think of us? He feels awful about it now.’

‘Does he?’

‘Oh, yes. Don’t you believe me?’

Frances didn’t know what to think. She recalled the sound of Leonard that morning, going springily about his kitchen. But, ‘It isn’t that,’ she said. ‘It’s just – Oh, Lilian, I can’t make your husband out. He isn’t to blame for last night. I made a fool of myself, I know that. But I can’t help feeling that he enjoyed watching me do it… And he wasn’t very pleasant to you. But then, I wasn’t very pleasant to you either.’

Lilian lowered her eyes. ‘It’s only what I deserved.’

‘What do you mean?’

But she shook her head and wouldn’t answer.

For a minute or two they sat sighing. Gradually Frances’s sighs became groans. She rubbed her face. ‘What a state to get ourselves into! I haven’t been as drunk as that in the whole of my life. My stomach feels like some poor creature that’s been beaten with a club. My eyes might as well have had gunpowder rubbed in them! Shall we have a smoke? Will that make us feel better, do you think, or worse?’

They didn’t know, but decided to find out. Frances got out papers, tobacco and a glass ashtray, and rolled two untidy cigarettes.

When she had taken her first puff she sank back on to her pillows. ‘Oh, it does help, doesn’t it?’

‘Does it?’ asked Lilian. ‘I’m not sure. It makes me feel racy.’

She meant it innocently, putting a hand to her galloping heart. But Frances, hearing the word, and seeing her hand at her bosom, had another flashing vision: the cushion on the floor and Lilian stepping tipsily about to get her balance; her heel coming down on the carpet, and the bounce of her breasts. The image brought a tangle of feelings with it: disbelief, embarrassment, and something else, a queasy remnant of the excitement of the night before.

Lilian was watching her face. ‘What are you thinking, Frances?’

‘Oh —’ She drew on the cigarette. ‘I’m thinking how frightful I was last night.’

‘You weren’t frightful. It was Len and me.’

‘I should never have come in in the first place. Had the two of you been quarrelling?’

‘No, we hadn’t been quarrelling.’

‘But all those awful things Leonard said to you. Is he often like that?’

‘He’d just had too much to drink. Anyhow, I say awful things to him.’

‘That doesn’t make it any better. It makes it worse! Surely a marriage oughtn’t to be so unkind?’