Something in Disguise (32 page)

‘I ordered it while I was packing, silly.’

‘Where are you going?’

She was trying to open the front door and did not reply.

‘Claridge’s, I bet.’

And when she did not say anything to that, he seized her by her spiky little shoulders. ‘It wasn’t true about the money, was it?’

‘Oh – Oliver!’

‘What about the other things?’ He shook her slightly. ‘The being married and not caring about anyone – all that?’

‘Oh Oliver! You are a fool! It wouldn’t matter, would it, whether it was true or not. The point is I’ve
told
you. Even
you
ought to be able to understand
that
.’ The bell rang and in surprise, he released her. As she opened the door, she said, ‘I honestly think you are one of the dimmest people I’ve ever known.’ A
lightning, feathery kiss on the side of his chin and that was that. Helplessly, he watched the taxi drive away (she didn’t look back or wave). In the house the stairs smelled of her rich rose
scent, there was more washing up than the kitchen would hold and Millie was guiltily cracking goose bones. One of the dimmest people she’d ever known. He went slowly up the scented stairs in
search of the tequila.

The reason that the colonel had ‘stormed off’, as May had put it to Oliver, was that he had mistakenly thought all day that it was Tuesday. The naked,
incontrovertible truth had dawned only when – long after dark – there was still no sign of the dogs’ weekly (and inadequate) consignment of horse-meat. The moment he started to
complain about this – which of course he did to May, there being no one else to complain to – she told him that it had come yesterday. ‘It always comes on Tuesdays,’ she had
added.

‘I know it does. And it hasn’t come today. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.’

‘It’s in the fridge.’

‘Why didn’t you simply say it had come then? No need to make a damned mystery of it.’

‘Herbert, don’t be absurd! Of course I’m not making a mystery. It came yesterday, like it always does, and naturally I didn’t rush to tell you. I couldn’t have; you
were out.’

‘How do you mean ‘like it always does’? You said just now it always came on Tuesdays.’

‘I did! It does!’

‘You don’t mean to tell me it’s Wednesday!’

‘Of course it’s Wednesday.’

He would not believe her until he had looked up a radio programme for Wednesday and tested that it was actually in progress. And even then he didn’t seem pleased: rather more furious than
ever, in fact. He became suddenly panicky about the time and wouldn’t believe her about that, either: just snapped at her.

‘Are you going out?’

‘Of course I’m going out. Why on earth do you think it matters what blasted day it is?’

She said nothing to this, but eventually tracked him down – or up – to his dressing-room where she found him fumbling irritably with his ties. It was half past seven: fear –
now familiar – at being left alone in the house with her evening pains coming on induced her to make one of those gestures which are vaguely in a self-preserving direction but none the less
more often cause damage. ‘Herbert, I really think you might tell me more what you are doing. I really think it’s a bit much to be left suddenly at this time of night. Just because
you’ve forgotten something.’

‘You do, do you?’

‘Well,
yes
. I mean – you didn’t even believe me just now about what day it was. And then you sound as though it was all my fault.’

‘I never said it was your blasted fault –’

But she had fatally interrupted, ‘Couldn’t I come with you?’

Of course she couldn’t. And not only could she not come, but why on earth had she asked? Was he to have no vestige of privacy – have every little thing he did – or wanted to do
– or, as in most cases
had
to do – interfered with, probed into? It was time she realized that he gave up far more of his life to her than most husbands did to most wives, but it
was his personal and bitter experience that if you gave any woman an inch she asked for an ell. By now he had changed his tie, brushed his hair, arranged a new pocket-handkerchief and apparently
whipped himself into a state of such general indignation that it would have been hopeless for her to attempt an answer to any specific charge. He decided that he wanted to see how much money there
was in his wallet but not, of course, in front of her, so he sent her off to his den to look for his car keys. But she had hardly got down the stairs before he called out that he had found them
(nine pounds ten and his cheque book). Then, because he really couldn’t face her again, he shouted, ‘Off now: shan’t be late,’ and scarpered down the back stairs. He was
almost smiling as he let himself out. A bit of an old devil, that’s what he was . . .

May found it very difficult to be angry. She was not an unemotional woman, she simply found
anger
difficult; perhaps confused would be a better word for her feelings round about being
angry. To begin with she so often felt that any unfortunate state of affairs was the result of something she had done (and since Dr Sedum,
been
): to go on with, she could far too often see
the other person’s point of view. It was therefore almost impossible for her to fix upon the reason for an object of anger. Being told to find Herbert’s keys at once made her forget why
he wanted them, and not finding them before he did made her feel (very faintly) guilty and inferior. As she heard one of the many back doors slam behind Herbert, her main feeling was of desolation.
‘It was too bad of him’ was as far as she could get about her husband leaving her without warning and for no reason at the beginning of yet another long winter evening. She decided to
bolt the back door after Herbert before she began thinking about any of it. But by the time she had done this (the back door was at the farthest possible point from Herbert’s study) her mind
was too full of the emptiness of the house to sustain what had seemed like a straightforward state of indignation with her husband.

Her feet seemed to make too much noise on the uncarpeted passages, and the varnished pine floors had an institutional and discomfortingly unfurnished air that in turn gave the house the feeling
of being barely, even uncertainly inhabited. She paused in the kitchen, but the thought of supper made her feel queasy and tired. This was not what Claude felt about it: and he rammed her
thoroughly with all his firm and furry bulk until it was clear what his requirements must be. She fed him and heated herself some milk while he ate. When the milk was hot, she longed for a little
whisky to put in it: the chances were that Herbert would have locked up the drink but perhaps it was worth going to look. Claude accompanied her as he never slept in the kitchen in winter if he
could help it. She was glad of his company through the creaking baize doors that swung and creaked so long after one had passed them and decided that if there
was
any whisky she would shut
them both in Herbert’s study with as many electric fires as possible.

There
was
a small drop: it was so small that he hadn’t bothered to lock it up. Unexpectedly, there being some, and it being so little, started to make her feel angry with Herbert
again. It really was monstrous that he should go off as he had done, without warning, to goodness knows where leaving her entirely alone in this awful house that she had really come to hate. And if
she hated it so much, why on earth had she let Herbert bludgeon her into buying it? Why wasn’t she living in Lincoln Street with Oliver – leading entirely his own life, of course, but
there
? The whisky wouldn’t be locked up
there
. She had got used to far too much: had been taking bad things for granted which must surely be even worse than taking good ones . .
.

Claude, who had been sitting on her lap, tried once more to like milk with whisky in it, but the filthy taste was too much for him. He shook his head violently, and beads of hot whisky-milk flew
from his chin and whiskers and landed all over the place. He was going to have to wash his face to get rid of the smell, and as he could never manage this unless he was on a really firm base, he
jumped heavily off May’s lap to the floor where he found that her legs were taking up all the hot room in front of the fire. ‘How affectionate he is,’ she thought as he butted
impotently against her until she made room for him. She wasn’t entirely alone while Claude was about. It didn’t seem to make much difference moving her feet from the fire to make room
for him, as she couldn’t feel them anyway. It must be a very cold night. This made her remember that the fire was not on in the bedroom, which would be icy, and then she began thinking of the
awful trek upstairs, feeling for and turning on the half-a-dozen light switches – and then, without warning, she began to feel frightened. She was almost at once too much afraid to consider
what she was frightened of: she simply knew that she did not want to have to make the journey upstairs and down again; did not even really want to have to leave the comparatively small and bright
room. This was when she telephoned Oliver. While talking to him she managed to discover and thence to explain that in fact Herbert going off in this sudden manner had frightened her; she
couldn’t very well just say that it was the house, but Oliver sounded very busy and there were some other people talking so she wasn’t sure whether he heard properly or not. Then he
said he had ’flu and then something else he said made it clear to her that he didn’t really want her. She knew she was going to cry, so she said something pointless and sensible to put
an end to the conversation in time. Crying left her feeling rather sick, but, she told herself, relieved in her mind. The whole thing showed what a beginner she must be about the League, because
she tried several times to think of higher and better things and didn’t in the least succeed. But she
did
remember afterwards that something had been said about making use of what
material was to hand, and clearly Herbert came under that heading. She had
married
him, after all. Why? She had to think very hard about him to recall the first impression he made upon her .
. . Chelsea Flower Show – the last day. Marvellous weather, too hot, in fact, to march about in one’s best clothes; but they had met wearing them, both in search of a good shrub rose to
buy when the show closed. The circumstances weren’t the point: what had he been
like
? Very frank and straightforward: simple, in a way, but chivalrous: obviously, she had thought, a
man who liked women: he had a keen way of looking at you as though he was interested because he immediately understood you so well. He had been modestly reticent about himself – he
didn’t want to bore her etc. – but he had been an awfully good listener and it happened that at that time she particularly needed one. Oliver had just come down from Oxford; not, as she
had fondly hoped, with a brilliant degree and a dedicated determination about his mission in life, but with a Second, the general reputation for not having done a stroke of work and the expressed
intention of enjoying himself. This was when he needed a father, when even uncles, she had felt, might have stiffened up his moral fibre, but alas, there were no uncles. Clifford had had a sister
but she had never married: she herself simply did not know a single man of approximately her own age except her lawyer and her dentist, neither of whom she had felt would be really right for
dealing with Oliver. So this large, military-looking, interested and courteous stranger was an open blessing. They had had dinner together, at the end of which she felt better about Oliver than she
had for months (they had spent most of the dinner over him, neither Alice nor Elizabeth proving to have the sheer staying power as a topic of conversation that Oliver seemed to have).

In the end (when they had got to Grand Marnier and coffee) the colonel – as she already thought of him – had leaned forward and said how much he admired the gallant way in which she
had for years shouldered burdens clearly meant for men. When she explained how much easier everything had become since Aunt Edith in Canada had died, he said money be damned, excuse his French, it
in no way lessened her
moral
responsibilities. And May, who had never really thought of relations with her children in those terms, instantly began to worry about
why
she
hadn’t, since this kind and upright gentleman seemed to do so. What she now should do was stop worrying about her son, realize that he was – to all intents and purposes –
grown-up, and start to live her own life a bit more. Get out, make new friends – enjoy herself. At the time she had simply agreed with this agreeable advice: afterwards she had interpreted
it. What he had really meant – only he was far too kind to say so – was that in spite of all her secret vows about it, she had imperceptibly become a possessive and stultifying mother:
living her life vicariously through her wretched children. This was wrong and at all costs must stop at once. With her new friend, the costs did not seem to be at all high. They started to spend
every Saturday together: Kew, Richmond, the river-boats to Greenwich, Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park, Hampstead Heath, and then invariably home to tea or drinks and supper at
Lincoln Street. Quite soon, she had realized that Herbert was not a monied man and she had used the utmost delicacy to avoid his having to pay for things . . .

One thing she realized about her life was that through some initial piece of cowardice (masked, at the time as not wanting to hurt other people’s feelings), she kept on landing herself in
awkward situations. The present predicament was really due to her having given in over buying Monks’ Close in the first place. Now, having got it, she wanted to leave it to the League in her
will and Herbert wanted her to leave it to him. Really, the fairest thing to do would be to sell the place and leave or give them half each of the money. In the case of the League she would give it
to them: in the case of Herbert they could buy some small but comfortable place to live in that would suit whoever outlived the other. Darling Elizabeth seemed to have married someone with almost
too many houses, and Oliver, of course, should have Lincoln Street. It all seemed so simple when she thought of it by herself. In one way this solution got easier as time went by, because, as
Herbert had predicted it would, the house was steadily increasing in value. Agents wrote to her – not often, but regularly – asking whether she would consider putting the house on the
market, and the last sum quoted by them (Herbert always made them do that) was the astronomical one of twenty-two thousand pounds. Surely enough to go round? Yes, but plans of this sort, or indeed
any sort, did not take into account the possibility of her dying before she had accomplished them. Herbert was also right about making a will. She must not dally any longer, and whatever he might
feel she could not now go back on her promise to Dr Sedum. If she died, the League would get everything: otherwise, she would share it out. Tomorrow morning she would ring Mr Hardcastle and get him
to post her the will to sign.