The Long Prospect (27 page)

Exasperated, Lilian went up the hall at a trot. ‘Well, well, well!' she cried, laughing loudly.

Left behind, Emily heard their voices—Lilian's shrill, breaking constantly into breathless gusts of laughter; Thea's words she strained to hear through Lilian's shouted welcome, and was surprised by their arrival in the room.

‘—just the same,' Lilian was saying. ‘The carpet's new, and the curtains. Do you know what that stuff cost me a yard? Oh. You've seen Emily? What do you think of her? She keeps growing. I don't know where she gets it from.'

‘We knew each other at once,' Thea said, and heard again the peculiar note of relevance in Emily's cry of recognition, remembered the extraordinary perturbation her arrival seemed to set up in the girl.

‘Ah. She would.' Lilian's response was just not sour.

Thea said, pausing before she sat down next to Lilian on the sofa, ‘If I've come at a terribly inconvenient moment—do say so. I should have let you know that I thought of coming out.'

‘No, no, no!' Lilian flapped a hand, shook her head. ‘Sit down, sit down. God knows I'm always here just waiting for someone to pop in. You're not going to get away now that you're here.'

Her vehemence was comical but reassuring. Thea sat down, to be studied with ferocious shamelessness for signs of deterioration. Knowing Lilian, she humoured her, and waited.

‘Well?'

‘You're older, but you're still a good-looking woman. You're lucky. Look at me, I'm putting on weight. Have to go on a diet.' She slapped her body vigorously.

Her tone was so downright, her manner so aggressive, that Thea smiled, laughed, made Lilian laugh, and turned to Emily.

Intently Emily looked at the laughing face. She did not remember, would have denied, that she had ever seen herself in competition with this grown-up woman who smiled at her. Indeed, she was at so great a distance from herself that she was conscious of nothing but dull suspense.

For why had Thea come? Why now? For what purpose? That it was accidental she could not believe. A minute after her arrival her presence had seemed to be an inevitable part of the chaos. That she had been summoned for her, Emily's, special discomfiture had been the girl's first thought. But now she began to wonder.

One of her deepest instincts—an automatic response to the consciousness of a conscious person, strong in proportion to the degree of consciousness—made her begin to wonder. So profound was the insidious charm of its unseen presence that it lifted her, at this moment of extreme distress, to optimism.

Max and Thea, Max and Thea...A small fantastic hope began to grow. She stared at Thea's face as if to extract the truth from it, but it was not a face to be analysed while her head echoed with the reverberations of her new belief, while she was gripped by the vision of safety and beauty that life would be with Max and Thea.

For this was the miracle. Max had sent Thea to rescue her.

Animated, Lilian talked of Ballowra and Greenhills, of Rosen, Mr Watts, Billie and Fred, and Paula. She told Thea about her more spectacular successes on Saturday afternoons for years back. She talked about repairs to the house, parties, minor illnesses, a motor accident she had witnessed, a new cocktail she had learned to mix. These were all stories told so often that Lilian herself hardly participated in the recapitulation. She was wondering, waiting, debating.

Thea listened idly, too grateful for the sheer verve and distraction of the monologue to be bored, or to feel the assault on her memory that the room, with its unutterably familiar air, had in its power to deal.

Without thought, at some time during Lilian's discourse, she knew that she would go to Max. That she would leave this house and on her return to town find someone who could tell her where he was. Knowing what she would do, feeling the certainty of the completed action fall into place, she felt the inevitable lightness of her intention. Whatever the outcome might be she was already at peace. Knowing that she would see him, there was nothing to be desired.

She moved, became aware of Emily's concentration on her, and was led to examine and reject the idea that she had been expected. Her method of arriving—unannounced—had been dictated by her uncertainty, resolved only in the five minutes before she reached the house, as to whether or not she would make the call.

Of course the conference would have been reported by the local press, she remembered. Lilian must have seen it mentioned, spoken of her letter, and, presumably, have said something to account for Emily's attitude of—was it anxiety, or expectation? In either case—why?

A shaft of sunlight crept across her knees and she rested her hands in it. After a moment she raised her left arm and pressed the palm of her hand against her cheek.

Bribing fate with an intense, demented belief in her miracle, Emily watched her, refloating without apparent effort a capacity for concentration and feeling which had seemed, even minutes before, to be irretrievably wrecked. Since this morning she had been kept intact only by her incapacity to believe what was proved now to be a lie. Hadn't Patty guessed she was waiting for someone? They—it—had been testing her, that was clear now. And she had succeeded, and she would be saved.

Silently she went across the room to a chair which brought her closer to Thea. (She might have to receive a secret message: they might have to run. Anything.) Thea glanced at her with a pleased smile of welcome.

This half of the room was brilliantly lit by the afternoon sun. It coloured everything a rather too rich gold. Emily thought she might feel sick.

Now Lilian asked Thea a few questions about the conference and Emily sat listening to the sound of her voice. She felt utterly soothed, incredibly soothed, to be sitting in the sun listening to Thea. For a moment she could have cried with weakness and relief but just then she caught a glimpse of Max and Thea and herself in their own house, and was tied up in fascination.

They were relaxed, knowing one another, a family. You could tell just to look at their faces how happy they were. At night they were all together, truly pleased to see one another,
saying
so. Sitting on the rug, with both of them in sight, Emily hugged her knees to her chest. With them, her life—the whole of her childhood—would be relived and then, only then, would she go forward.

The telephone rang and Lilian exclaimed in annoyance as she heaved herself from the sofa. Before she disappeared she warned Emily, ‘Mind your manners, my lady!'

Emily woke with a jerk.

This was the moment. She was overcome with shyness. She could not look at anything but the floor. She saw the elegant lines of Thea's shoes and could have jumped with nervousness. The sense of separateness from the marvellous woman who wore them increased. But this was the moment when they would have to make plans for the escape...

Thea gazed reflectively at Emily's downcast face. At length she said, ‘Emily...' She smiled and laid a hand on the cushion beside her. ‘Come and talk to me for a few minutes. I must go very soon and I haven't seen you properly at all. What a long time it is...'

Emily could not move from her chair.

After a moment Thea said, ‘Lilian says that you're coming to live in Sydney soon. I wonder how you'll like that? Do you mind changing schools?'

Emily felt a surging tumult of despair. She gave Thea a dumb tormented look and stood up.

‘What's the matter? What is it? Is something wrong? Tell me.'

The bell tinkled outside as Lilian replaced the receiver of the telephone. Emily ran past her as she came into the room.

Hands on hips, she halted and raised her eyebrows at Thea. ‘Good God! Now what? What's she been saying to you? Blubber, blubber. No wonder she hasn't got any friends. Who'd be friends with a thing like that!'

Delivering this, half to Thea, half to the girl, whom she suspected of being within hearing, she tugged at her corsets and dropped to the sofa.

Lilian gave Thea a bright smile of peculiar unpleasantness, as if defying her to protest, as if to mark the opening of hostilities.

Thea had the impression that she had walked into a trap.

She said, ‘You're not very kind, Lilian. I don't know what she's done, or what's the matter, but I can't think it's wise to talk to her like that.'

The smile deepened and froze as Lilian huddled over the sensation of rage and pleasure that this piece of impudence brought her. She could always make the soft ones bite. Now that she had been insulted, she could go straight ahead—and would. Whether he sued, whether she sued, whether the roof fell in.

‘What did she say to you?'

‘Nothing. Not a word. She seems too unhappy to speak. What's happened to her?'

‘You might well ask. If you'd come a bit earlier today you'd have heard it all.' Suddenly tiring of hints, she added, leaning forward, ‘We've got a friend of yours to thank for all this.'

Thea was surprised. But feeling herself overcome by a tight, throbbing numbness as some apprehension of danger reached her, she had to feign surprise. ‘Of mine? I didn't realize—' she slowed, ‘that I had any other friends left here.'

She let her eyes rest, with a show of conventional interest, on Lilian's.

‘
Didn't
you?' said Lilian quite gaily. ‘Oh, yes. My word you have! But this particular one won't be here much longer, praise be!'

‘Is that so?' Thea's voice was uninflected. With an effort she added, ‘Who is it? You are very mysterious.'

‘Do you know that Max is in Ballowra?'

‘Yes. Yes, I do,' she said swiftly, too swiftly, on a quick breath. Then she heard the question, heard her answer, was racked with shock.

‘Oh. Maybe you know he was staying here then, with us?'

‘In this house?' Her eyes went over the room. ‘No.'

‘He was sent back to the works where you both used to be—you know that, do you? Well, he came to me one night and asked me to take him in, and I'd never seen him, of course, but I remembered his name and that he used to be a friend of yours, so I said, all right. I gave him your old room.' Lilian contrived to look at once severe and wanton.

After a pause, Thea said, ‘How long was he here?'

‘How long? Going on for a year. My God, you knew what you were doing when you upped and offed, didn't you? You were well rid of that one. Did you know his wife's been locked up again for ages? Did he ever tell you?'

‘...No. I didn't know.'

‘Not that he told
me
, mind you.' Lilian was scrupulous. ‘I heard it from one of the men.'

For an uncertain length of time there was silence. Unnoticed, Emily re-entered the room. Then, at last, Thea broke away from the dull fascination of watching the quick grey eyes opposite her own, at work on her face.

‘I'm sorry. I don't seem to understand you. But, apart from whatever it is you're trying to imply, I take it you intended us to confront each other here when you wrote asking me to come? Why? I find it hard to imagine your motive.'

‘Why? Why?' Lilian stuttered, giving herself time to improvise. ‘I'll tell you. It was to save this. All this trouble with her.' She flung round, pointed to Emily. ‘If you'd come when I asked you, things might have taken a different turn. I knew it wouldn't be anything to you to see him after all these years off by yourself in Sydney. (If you
are
by yourself: I haven't heard about that, yet.) But if he'd seen you, he might have remembered to behave himself and saved us all a lot of trouble and worry.' Her indignation turned to a kind of arch reproof. ‘You made your mark there, all right. He's lived like a blessed monk on your account. I often felt like telling him he ought to move to the place across the river. But all joking aside, you're better off without him. If it'd just been that he was quiet and wouldn't join in our parties the way anyone might—well, I'd have said, well and good. It's a free country. But. The thing was...He got too interested in this! And she's just—what?—just about touching thirteen. Wouldn't leave her alone almost from the beginning. So. You see why we had to do something about it. Oh, we've had fun and games this last day or so. You've only just missed it.'

Having committed murders all round, Lilian was suddenly stopped by a sensation of fright. In a moment her face declined from vivacity to haggardness. She was frightened of Thea.

‘That's quite enough.'

Having felt too much, Thea now felt nothing but an unwillingness on the part of her eyes ever to see the woman opposite her again. Slowly she roused herself, turned away, stared as it were, from the stage, out into the room where Emily, in a world of her own, wept into her hands, recounting with automatic, sick persistence what was the truth and what was not.

In a hard, dead voice Thea said, ‘I wish I could believe you didn't know what you'd done.'

Lilian snorted. ‘Believe what you like! I'm telling you. I had to get this girl's mother and father here by telegram. We gave Mr Max his walking papers last night and he was out of this house at half past nine this morning. So!' Her grey eyes flared, she crossed her arms tightly. ‘As for
her,
silly big thing that she is, the sooner she's away with them the better. Harry won't stand for any of this nonsense. Mind you,' she added hastily, startled again, instinctively, by the unmoving stillness of Thea's eyes on hers, ‘I'm not saying—'

‘No. You really have said enough.' Thea stood up. ‘You made quite vile, unspeakable insinuations which I feel you know, as surely as I do, to be untrue. Your manner, and the fact that you have chosen to repeat this in front of Emily, convinces me of that.'

‘It's a damn long time since you saw him, remember. I'm not saying anything about anyone but I don't know what makes you so sure. I tell you—'

On a high note, pushed beyond herself, Emily cried at her in a tone so imperative that Lilian was stopped.