The Long Prospect (19 page)

Rosen blew his nose and she smiled. He said, ‘I've told you I was only having a friendly conversation with Glad. Don't talk to me like this, Lilian. I've helped you, too. Be fair to me, Lilian.'

She gave a contemptuous laugh and looked consideringly at his fleshy, U-shaped face, the pale mournful eyes, and bald shiny head across which a few strands of gingery hair were draped in parallel lines. ‘Remember the night you came to my door with your case? “Please let me stay. I've left my wife. I'll be good to you. Just to be near a woman like you would make a new man of me.” Then you had a little cry, didn't you?'

Even by Lilian, Rosen's protest was felt across the narrow space that separated them and she stopped.

‘Oh, Lilian!' He blew his nose again noisily and long.

‘You've helped me, did you say? When? How? What could someone like you do for me?'

He was silent, so she turned away and glared through the open car-window at the park by whose side they had stopped. A row of dusty palm trees looking like overgrown pineapples enclosed the rapidly darkening square of grass. It was the only park in Greenhills and Lilian had never been in it; its sterile attractions were—even to inexperienced eyes—so far from what might be expected in a park that it was shunned. Children preferred to play in wide cement storm-water channels and lovers to find back-lanes, quiet beaches.

‘Well? Can't you remember?' she asked too pleasantly. Politely she waited. ‘No! Because you've done nothing for me but take. You're good enough at that, all right.'

‘Presents, Lilian! I didn't ask—'

‘You didn't ask! You didn't say no! Oh, I know, I know all about you. I've heard about the way you go on at your office telling them all what an important fellow you are. Showing off the things I've given you.'

‘It's not true. Who said so? I swear to God—'

‘Oh, what do you know about God, you baldy old heathen! Swear your head off for all I care. I said you're to go, and go you will, right out of my house.'

Rosen's oyster-eyes overflowed. The street lights came on and flashed on the tears, on Lilian's diamonds and her yellow hair, and as if moved by the same switch her finger came up to point at his face and she gave a squawk. ‘Ha! Look at that! Ha!' She stayed for a moment silent, her hands clasped at a level with her throat, her mouth twisted ironically.

It seemed that nothing could provoke Rosen to retaliate. Solemn, almost dignified, he removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes. With painstaking care he readjusted the thin gold wires over his ears. He sighed. ‘You can be very cruel. You know how to hurt a man.'

‘Man!'

A group of anonymous figures passed along the footpath close to Lilian, hurrying because of the cold wind and threatening black sky. She screwed up the window and lost some of her zest for the game. God, you'd think it was winter, she thought. She suddenly longed for the cosy fire, a cup of tea and a salmon sandwich.

‘If you don't take me home this instant I'll call a policeman and have you arrested,' she said through her teeth. ‘And don't think I couldn't do it!'

He did not for a moment doubt her powers. The car slid out into the road.

One night some weeks ago Rosen had worked overtime and Lilian had gone to a party by herself. There she met for the third or fourth time the cheery, gossipy, portly Mr Watts who had told her about Max. Since then she had seen him frequently, though not alone, and while there was nothing between them except a certain complicity which was the responsibility of their eyes Lilian knew there was more to come. It was inevitable. She would never marry Rosen. He bored her. If he had not been so soft he would have forced a decision from her long before this. But where was the man who could force her to anything? His grievous absence from her life, the lack of that hard hand and will inspired Lilian to ride over her own and other lives with the mindless destructiveness of a hurricane. Whoever the superman was, or was to be, it was not Rosen.

Financially he had done well. Even emotionally—for he was a man born to be dominated by a woman—his wants had been satisfied. And his wife would take him back.

Feeling her temper desert her, Lilian guessed that this would not be the show-down. He would not go this time, nor, when she thought it over, did she wish it. With her mind firmly settled she could have a little fun with him before the end, and then, some visible competition would do that jolly Mr Watts with his wicked brown eyes no harm at all. He was a bit of a hard doer, Mr Watts.

Rosen, who had been following his own thoughts, went morosely behind her into the quiet house. He had it all worked out. He knew who it was he had to blame for this. He had had back there a moment ago a sickening vision of Max wearing his new gold watch. Lilian would never let him take it away, back to his wife. It was far too expensive. But his suits, made by the best tailor in Ballowra—she couldn't keep them? He was broader all over than Max.

Yes, that must have been what happened. Max had talked to Lilian and got her worked up about decency and Emily and God only knew what. After all, she was impressionable; she was only a woman, full of fits and fancies. Oh, he would not believe she meant what she said. Spurred at the thought of all he stood to lose, he lumbered quickly after her. She was trailing through the house, calling instructions to him, switching on lights, leaving her scarf in the hall, her coat in the sitting-room, her handbag in the kitchen.

There, catching her, he chanced a reproachful expression, seeing that, anyway, her grey eyes were no longer hard, but mild and blank. She had quite abandoned her fiery mood. He was reassured, and smiled at her sheepishly. Her new look must mean apology. In fact, Lilian thought about salmon sandwiches. She filled the kettle.

‘Where's Emily?' Rosen asked, inspired.

This was so unusual a query as to cause Lilian to turn right round to see what he meant.

‘What do you mean?' She held the tin-opener poised.

‘I asked if you knew where Emily was,' he repeated, with visible patience.

Lilian looked at him, turned back to the table. ‘She's out with Max, I suppose.'

Behind her back Rosen mimed his sad concern at this news. He cleared his throat. ‘I don't like all this business.'

Lilian had just dropped the salmon into a bowl. Now she turned with a rather more incredulous expression on her face. ‘All
what
business?' she demanded. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘Lilian...' Suspecting that this was one time when he might safely play the master, he waved an authoritative finger at her, and sure enough, she responded, came over to him, heavy and erect in her smart blue dress. ‘Well?'

‘I know I'm no relation—it's nothing to do with me—but I tell you I don't like the way Max hangs round her. Emily. That's all.'

‘
What
?' Lilian screwed up her face and waited for patience. It did not come. ‘The way Max hangs around her! Oh, you're—'

Rosen had expected this reaction, and was consequently so calm that Lilian halted. He gestured again to establish his probity. ‘All I say is, have you ever asked yourself why? He could be her father, but they're never apart. It's not natural. What does he want?'

Lilian was transfixed. When she was able, she gave him a look that was infinitely withering. With the quietness of exhaustion and pity, she said, ‘Don't be so bloody silly. “What does he want?” What in hell's name do you think he wants? Ask him yourself what he wants. My God, if he's queer, so are you. You're a good pair.'

Trying to cover his chagrin with an air of righteousness and impartiality, he said, ‘Laugh! Laugh! You'll be sorry, Lilian.' He strolled over to the table where she had begun to butter some bread. ‘It's what I said—unnatural.'

Mildly, she said, ‘Shut up before you start to annoy me. Here. Make the tea.'

Straight-faced, she was amused by the martyred air with which he accepted rebuke and task. Looking over her shoulder to see how he would go about it, she noticed more, his height, the width of his shoulders under his white shirt.

Great hulking thing! she thought, divided between desire and exasperation. She cut the sandwiches, washed her hands at the sink and frowned.

Together she and Rosen set the tray. When it was completed Lilian said abruptly, ‘He only likes to talk to her, don't you think? She's company.'

Rosen eyed her dispassionately.

‘There's nothing wrong with him. Nothing like that,' she insisted. He was still silent. ‘Well, if they can't play their chess and go to the beach without...Oh, you're just a nasty old man.'

Made by her uncertainty invulnerable, over-confident, and having easily convinced himself of the truth of his cause, Rosen became less than wise. He said, magnanimously ignoring the jibe, ‘My advice to you is to send him away—now—before any damage is done. You'll be sorry if you don't, mark my words.'

‘O-oh!' Lilian cried on a note of complete comprehension. ‘That's it!' And she and the tray were suddenly gone, borne swiftly from the room on a surge of relief.

Rosen was taken aback by the speed of her withdrawal. He needed to see from her face what she had inferred. Charging after her, thrown a little off course by his bulk and his urgency, he knocked against a small table which, its claw feet catching in the thick pile of the carpet, could but topple over, carrying with it a vase of carnations and maiden-hair fern. He was, as Lilian had had reason to know, an incurably clumsy man.

When at length they were established by the fire, drinking the too-strong tea, she remembered and waved a half-eaten sandwich threateningly. She swallowed, drank, and said, ‘I know what that was all about. You've been looking for some way to get rid of Max ever since he came into the house. Why, I wonder? Now, I wonder why?' She smiled. ‘You're jealous.'

Rosen would not meet her eye. Instead, he gave some fussy attention to a morsel of pink fish which had fallen from his plate to his grey flannel knee. His intention was to be very distant with Lilian in order to prove her wrong. She was nothing but a misjudger of men, of him in particular. He was a victim of that common human failing which is to lie, grow angry that the lie is recognized for what it is, and fume with disinterested rage to imagine that
thus
it would be received if it
were
the truth. Outraged that the truth should be outraged, he ate the piece of salmon.

‘You're jealous,' Lilian repeated. ‘Yes, you are. That's what your trouble is. You'd like to be the only great big man for miles around. You should have been a sheikh. You should have had a harem.'

He blushed. ‘I was talking about him with Emily, not...'

‘Yes, I know you were. And don't do it again,' she said, suddenly hostile, conscious that she was a grandmother. ‘Just because he's not like you you think there's something wrong with the man. Well, I know for a fact he's had a wife and a girlfriend, and if he hasn't got someone else tucked away right now I'd be surprised.'

‘How could he? He's always with Emily?'

‘Not every minute of the day and night! Anyway, shut your face! He's a very clever man. He's a good twenty years younger than you and he'll have more money at the end of every week than you'll see if you live to be eighty.'

Diverted, as usual, by Lilian's illogical course, hurt, Rosen said, ‘It's not so hard to get on if you've had attention and good schooling when you're young. I've had to make my own way, Lilian. I had to leave school to help my mother and go—'

‘Oh, not again!'

There was a silence.

Lilian thought of nothing, but Rosen's insinuations were in the air. She disbelieved, but she was disturbed.

All at once the idea of summoning Thea to the house was pricked to life. Without giving in to Rosen, it would settle everything.

‘Fetch me the Sydney telephone book,' she said in an other-worldly voice and, eager to ingratiate himself, Rosen went.

Lilian stood up involuntarily and let her not over-supple imagination rest for a moment on the implications of what had been suggested. She ran restless fingers over the curves of her ears and finding pearl earrings attached to the lobes she unscrewed them and tenderly pressed the soft flesh.

She thought of Paula; she thought of the telephone book. Her wandering unfocused eyes met their reflection in the round wall mirror, rosewood framed, and she was drawn, perhaps by an echo of her reference to age, to examine her face in its bright surface.

She saw the special enigmatic face of self-communion. It made her tired. It had looked out on fifty-three long years. It was lined, heavy at this moment. Her mouth was smaller than it had been. Tightly drawn, it radiated lines. And as for her neck...

Her mother had died, she remembered with an astonishing pang of fear, when she was fifty-one. Died. Broken apart. Putrified. And there was no God.

She lifted a hand to her cheek.

Finding her thus, strangely still, Rosen came up behind her and not very hopefully put his arms round her. She clutched at him, turned to him, and did not send him away.

Lilian stood on the footpath outside the back gate, waiting for the car. It was three o'clock on a hot Saturday afternoon.

Above, the sky was drained of colour, the sun so glaring that no cloud survived to float across its face and bring an illusion of relief. In a world so hot it seemed that the sun might dissolve and merge with the spaces of the sky without a lessening of that fierce power whereby it drew up moisture from the earth, and life and virtue from plants and mortals.

Lilian shivered. She sneezed as another blast of wind from the furnace of the west struck her. The light silk of her dress clung to her clammy skin.

Fifteen minutes earlier she had lain on the leather sofa, her face covered by a rapidly drying cloth. Under a newspaper tent, Rosen sheltered from the flies and tried to sleep. In another room, flat on a strip of uncarpeted floor, Emily was eating a peach and reading
The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Gussie the dog, gasping in the humid air, was taken by Lilian to lie on the tiled floor of the bathroom and given an ice-cream in a saucer. His head between his paws, he occasionally whimpered, causing those in the sitting-room to bestir themselves in the midst of lethargy to identify the sound.