Sunday Best (14 page)

All day she did nothing but wait for him to come home, rehearsing the questions with her birds, polishing their cage all the while to give vent to her rage and indignation. ‘You sure you haven't seen the birdseed?' she shouted at Spit and Polish. Then, after a pause, ‘Then maybe, you've seen my white bra?' She repeated these questions endlessly, and it was on the first of these, asked of the birds for the hundredth time, that George surprised her, coming through the back door into the kitchen. She turned around, the question still hanging, and he made as if to back away, his face a pale green, and trembling with what seemed to him to be a total discovery.

‘What are you talking about?' he said, playing for time, but knowing that in the end there was no escape. In fact, he experienced a faint sense of relief that she had come to know about it. All he could hope for was her anger, and non-comprehension. If she were to sympathize with him, or worse, to understand him, it would be unbearable. And so he did not bother to defend himself. His attitude was that it was, after all, his own business, and he could choose to dress as he pleased.

‘Yes,' she screamed at him, ‘but not in my clothes.'

‘Then I shall get them elsewhere.'

‘In a shop?' she said, horrified.

‘There are women's clothes in other women's wardrobes,' he said quietly. He started to fill the kettle as if, on his side, the conversation was at an end.

‘There are corsets too,' she said. ‘But I've discovered it's not natural to wear them in bed. You've made a freak out of me, too. Well, I hope you can find another.'

‘That won't be difficult,' he said, ‘and it's not that I haven't thought of trying.'

He hadn't meant to go that far. He had never thought of looking elsewhere. His wife was adequate to his needs, and in any case, the whole notion of adultery offended him. He wished he had not threatened her. But his wife had left the room and it was too late for apology, something he never in any case indulged in. As far as he was concerned, he was
rarely wrong, and never, never sorry. So he got on with the tea-making, and by the time the table was set, she had returned. She looked as if she had been crying, but the rage had not left her. She sat primly at her end of the table. ‘I don't want to discuss it any more,' she said, meaning that she was going to have her own say, but that she had no intention of listening to him. ‘I find the whole business disgusting and, until you mend your ways, you will sleep in your study. I am going to lock my bedroom door.'

Which she did. Over the weeks, he made occasional attempts to get in, never knocking, never pleading, but aggressively demanding his rights. Perhaps, had he begged her, apologized for his misguided ways, had he made her feel the victim and ultimately, the forgiving one, perhaps she would have relented. But his aggression only served to cement her will, though she rarely used foul language, she cursed him through the door, as his sense of being wronged became more acute.

And then, after a few weeks, he stopped coming to her door altogether, and she would hear him go out at night and come home very early in the morning. She knew that he had carried out his threat, and she began to regret her hastiness. She had been almost sure that he would not be able to find another woman who could cater to his perversities. She was not to know that parts of London were full of them, and probably offering a great deal more than he had fantasized in his wildest dreams. And in fact, this is exactly what George had done. He had found a regular, Mavis, a good many years older than himself, but who was more than willing. At first, he enjoyed her, the anonymity of the situation excited him. But gradually Mavis palled. It was not her ageing body. On the contrary, when corseted, age was far more attractive to George than youth. But he missed his wife, for his wife had found nothing unnatural in his mode of congress. She had accepted it as if it were naturally expected from her. But Mavis, though willing, found the whole procedure disgusting, and never ceased to cheapen it, and that made George find it disgusting too. But he could not bring himself to equate perversity with his own person, and in the end, after only a few weeks, he had to leave her, expelled by Mavis's own contempt.

By the time he came back, Joy was more than ready to
receive him, but she kept her door locked as before. She still wanted his apology, and in those early days of her marriage, she hadn't fully understood that her husband was incapable of contrition. But she hoped, nonetheless, and one day she thought of a way of reopening negotiations, without it appearing that she was doing the asking. So at supper one evening, she asked him if he had any old clothes to give to the church jumble sale. She herself was sorting out her wardrobe, she told him. She waited, hoping for some reaction. But he was a man who would never ask anyone for anything, because to no one would he be beholden. He was in all senses a mean man, and for a moment, she hated him. But she had married him, and it was the status of marriage that she was above all holding on to. ‘I'm sorting out my wardrobe,' she said again. ‘There are so many things I'm tired of. They're still in very good condition.' She tried to conceal the pleading in her voice. ‘It seems a pity to be giving them away.'

‘Then don't,' he said, ‘but if you're not wearing them, there's no point in them hanging there, is there?'

‘Then what shall I do with them?' she tried again.

‘Why ask me?' he said. ‘Give them away. I'll sort mine out too.' He was not going to give her an opening so that she could give him one too. He knew well what she wanted to offer, that she wanted to come together again with him, but she bloody well would have to ask, to beg, for it was she who had locked the door in the first place.

‘Some are too good to give away,' she said almost tearfully. She looked at him and felt a bitter hatred in her heart. ‘Would you like them?' she almost shouted at him.

‘D'you realize what you're offering?' he said with a sneer. ‘In the name of whose so-called perversion have you locked your bedroom door? Yours or mine?' He was going to make her offer him her clothes on her bended knees. And he wanted everything too, underwear, jewellery, accessories, yes, and bras as well, and as much birdseed to cater for the day's fashion.

‘I'll give them away then. Perhaps you have changed your little habits.'

He had goaded her too far. He wanted her clothes, badly. Especially the black ones, and that blue chiffon that he knew she was tired of. ‘Don't give them away if they're too good,' he said. ‘You should sell them.'

‘What are you offering?' she said.

He didn't answer, knowing that her capitulation was only a matter of time.

‘I'll give them to you,' she said in despair. She got up quickly from the table and went to her room. She had already laid the clothes out on her bed, her black indispensable, her blue chiffon and sundry accessories. She took the dresses and crumpled them furiously, wringing them out as if wet. At least he'd have to go to the trouble of ironing them. She rolled all the clothes together, tying up the bundle with a torn petticoat, and threw the lot outside his study door. As she went downstairs, he crossed her silently on the staircase. He went into his study and he stayed there for a long time. That night, she left their bedroom door unlocked, and once again, they renewed their corseted congress.

So after all those joyless years, those childless, corseted, budgerigar years, perhaps it would be a relief if George had disappeared for ever. But at such a thought, she grieved a little, for over the years she had come to understand him, had reluctantly at first, and then willingly, played the victim for his sake. He had to come back for the sake of the battle. Moreover, she was stunned by their years together. Seventeen years. She could not envisage a Georgeless life, either now, or before her marriage. It would be easier if he were dead, like Mr Johnson. At least Mrs Johnson knew where she stood. But relief or no, grief or no, it was midnight, and time to start worrying. He could, of course, have started an outside fling again, but there had been no warnings of that. On the contrary, of late, their marriage, though silent and occasionally spiteful, had been a successful connection, in fact, more so than in the early days. He had seemed fraught occasionally, but that was probably due to pressure of school work. Occasionally, he had even been happy. She could not imagine that there was someone else, though in a way she would have preferred it, because she could cope with anger more efficiently than with anxiety. It had not occurred to her to go to his study to look for extra clues to his disappearance. That room would be locked, and double locked, as always. So she decided to go to bed and wait for him, expecting him in the early hours, giving her time to rehearse a tirade. She fed her birds from her own stock – she had even consented to buy George seed for his own use. Now she bitterly resented that
concession. She covered their cage and went upstairs. On the landing, she stopped. Not only was the study door unlocked, not only was it ajar, but it was flung open as if inviting entry. And when she saw that abandoned stronghold, she knew that he had retreated from battle, and that she was alone on the mangled pitch. She hesitated to go inside. She had never been in the room alone. When she cleaned it, it was always under his supervision, and he would follow her around, allowing her to touch only surfaces and forbidding her to open drawers or cupboards. So she was frightened to go in alone, dreading what the room would have to offer. Automatically she looked around to see if she were being spied on. Entrance to that room alone had been so strictly forbidden that she could not trust that she wasn't being put to some kind of test. She went slowly to the study and peered about, fearing that he might be inside and waiting for her. But the room was empty, and moreover the wardrobe door hung open, and the drawers of his desk were ajar. She touched nothing. Her conditioning had been so acute, she was afraid to move without supervision. In the wardrobe she could see his collection of Sunday clothes, that over the years she had given him. But all his own clothes, his suits, shirts and jackets were gone, all except his old school blazer which he had never worn but kept for old times' sake. On the desk lay his passport and cheque book. Her desperation gave her courage and she looked through his drawers and his desk-papers, but found no letter, no address, no clue whatsoever to his disappearance. But she had a feeling he had gone for ever. He had given up the Sunday life, he had left as a man, without possessions, and she was forced to conclude that he must have gone to a monastery. But the disappearance of all his clothes scotched that possibility. He could, of course, have drawn another cheque book and left that one on the desk as a red herring. But that could easily be checked with the bank. She really didn't know how to start tracking him down or whether she should start at all. She looked in the bathroom for any evidence he might have left behind. His razor was gone, and that with George was significant. He shaved rarely, possibly only once a week. She had often admired his almost womanish lack of hair. Now she understood. If his razor was gone, he intended to go on living and once again she tried to convince herself that he would be back by morning. She went to bed, leaving the door open, and
all the lights on, for the lights sharpened her hearing, and she would know the moment he returned.

She woke early next morning, with the door still open and the light still on, and George patently not there. She went into his study again thinking perhaps that he had sneaked in during the night and left a note, but it was as she had left it. She decided to let the morning pass. If he weren't at school, the headmaster would phone, and then she would know that he had really disappeared. His absence from school would close up all other loopholes, and she would have to go to the police. She fed Spit and Polish without her customary affection. She missed setting the table for his breakfast, hurrying over her own so that she could serve him. From force of habit, she ate quickly, and then was faced with the morning, still early, with little incentive to do anything, even to clean the already spotless house, an activity never once forgone in all her married life. She wanted to tell somebody but she didn't know as yet what there was to be told. She felt she ought to be frantic, she felt she ought at least to be crying, but there was a numbness about her fed perhaps by the hope that he would come back, and his night out held some valid explanation. But she recalled the open study door and experienced a fleeting moment of panic. It was still only 8.30. She couldn't expect a phone call from the school for at least an hour. They would allow a little time for his being late. She dreaded that the phone would ring and confirm his disappearance, and she toyed with the idea of going to the Rotary committee meeting that had been called for 10.30. She could go out early, now even, and miss the phone call if it ever came. But she decided that she would have to wait for him. For his confirmed absence or presence she would have to be there.

The phone rang at 9.30. She hesitated before answering. But it could be George, she thought, so she picked up the phone with less fear. It was the Reverend Richard Baines himself.

‘Mrs Verrey Smith? Headmaster here. Your husband not well, this morning?'

‘No. No,' she stammered. She had received the information. She was not obliged to tell him that George had disappeared. ‘He's not well,' she said. ‘'Flu, I think,' with feeble invention. ‘That's why he wasn't at the funeral. Found him in bed when I got home. The doctor came last night and said it would take a few days. I was going to ring you later, but I'm waiting for
the doctor.' She was becoming obsessively chatty and the Cloth was anxious to get a word in.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, with a complete absence of regret. ‘Makes me very short-handed. Seemed all right to me yesterday morning. Nevertheless, wish him well. I may call to see him. Part of my extra-mural duties, you know.' He put the phone down before she had time to wonder how to put him off. She regretted her dishonesty. It only complicated matters for her. But there was still a whole day in which he could make a sudden reappearance, and she had to stay at home, both for that, and for the headmaster's promised visit, whenever that would be. But she had to tell somebody. Having decided on Mrs Bakewell as her confidante, she knew not what to tell her. If George did come home, it would be a pity if anyone had known of his disappearance. So she had to hold her tongue. She went to the window, and looked hopefully down the street but, save for the laundryman, it was empty. Absentmindedly, she fed the birds again. Spit and Polish, confused by their good fortune, fought over the second helping, and she covered the cage to punish them. She sat down again at the table. She had not cleared the breakfast dishes. She half made a decision never to clean the house again until George returned. She realized what a complete and radical difference this would make to her life, a life punctuated by polish and George's disappearance. He had to come back or the house would go to rack and ruin. She lit a cigarette. She smoked very rarely, not wanting to dirty the ashtrays. But that life was already behind her. She would chain-smoke until George returned. As she lit her cigarette, the phone rang. That was George. It had to be. He'd been held up somewhere, lost his memory or something, any feeble excuse she was more than ready to accept. She ran to the telephone.