While they talked, and now after they had fallen silent, Adela had got on with laying the table. All meals, except George’s, were eaten here in the kitchen, because what had been the dining-room was now Marigold’s bedroom. George obviously had to be on the same floor as the bathroom; there were only three conceivable bedrooms on that first floor, one shared by Bernard and Shorty, another occupied by Adela, the latter draughty, facing north, altogether less attractive than the former dining-room, and in general unsuitable for an invalid. So it had been Marigold who, with remarkably little fuss, had agreed to move downstairs on George’s arrival.
In a moment, Shorty reappeared with a bottle of the bad-year Muscadet that Adela had picked up cheap at the off-licence, and made straight, or reasonably straight, for the dresser drawer in which for nine years he had kept the corkscrew, an instrument whose whereabouts he permanently needed to know. His hand was reaching for the drawer in question when Adela said,
‘Corkscrew in the left-hand dresser drawer, Shorty.’
‘Oh, thanks, Adela.’
Bernard said nothing to that either. He watched Shorty uncork and pour. Then Adela looked up from her nearly-completed task with a sudden smile.
‘Here they are. You can turn that down and leave it, Bernard.’
She ran out of the kitchen like a rugby forward following up a kick. It was clear that Shorty too had heard sounds of arrival, but, possibly mindful of his vestigial place as a servant, he made no move to go and welcome the guests. Bernard, not having heard, followed his sister at a less headlong pace. By a calculated omission, he left Marigold’s simple drink behind.
Seven
Trevor Fishwick, Marigold’s daughter’s son, stood on the cracked stone doorstep of Tuppenny-hapenny Cottage and swung the wrought-iron knocker. Rust or corrosion impeded its movement; it gave a feeble tap that must have been inaudible indoors, even to normal hearing. But no further attempt was needed: muffled footfalls could be heard fast approaching, and a very female voice raised. Before the door was thrown open, Trevor squeezed his wife’s hand.
In a moment he was in his grandmother’s embrace, being kissed with little tense groaning noises that Shorty had once compared to those of somebody straining on the bog. Released after an interval, Trevor moved on to Adela, gripped her by the upper arms to forestall any attempt at a hug, and kissed her briefly. Tracy, coached in advance, did the same when it came to her turn. She would have done more if Adela had not smelt so old.
Bernard had hung back. He had glimpsed the Fishwicks’ car while the door was open and felt wrath stirring. All cars displeased him, and not just for superficial reasons like the noise they made or their tendency to be painted bright colours. They were like horses as seen by a foot soldier: damned nuisances, much too much fuss made about them, needing constant attention, ridiculous that grown men should be reduced to depending on them. This particular car was outstandingly objectionable. It was larger and newer than the one he had at any rate a financial stake in; far more galling, it belonged to someone of twenty-five or thirty or whatever it was. The youngster seemed to think he had a perfect right to buy it and stuff it with petrol and oil and drive it about all over the place just as he felt inclined. And did he have to have all that hair growing from his head and face, outwards from his face, a good deal of it forwards from his face? It was extraordinary, and also typical, that he apparently had quite a responsible job in something he chose to call electrics, or perhaps electronics.
‘Good of you to come all this way, my boy,’ said Bernard, dealing out one of the soft lateral handshakes Trevor so much disliked.
‘Only from Cambridge, actually. I had this business call to make there.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Still …’
Bernard limped over and made a kissing movement in the direction of Tracy’s cheek.
‘Come along, darlings, and have a drinkle-pinkle,’ cried Marigold, putting unusual animation into the idionym. When she added, ‘You must be simply frozen,’ both Bernard and Trevor, unknown to each other, silently mouthed the phrase in time with her.
In the sitting-room, which was almost warm by now and not very smoky, Trevor took from a plastic carrier-bag the three bottles he had chosen with some care at a cash-and-carry store: a pricey Chablis for his grandmother, a dry Spanish sherry so that Adela and Tracy and he could drink something they liked, and a cognac as a collective gift. The older women said it was sweet of him but he really should not have done it. Shorty was summoned to act as barman, then at once departed again to fetch the corkscrew, and incidentally, on a safe reckoning, to put down the glass of Muscadet poured just now for Marigold. Having returned and got a drink into everyone’s hand except Bernard’s, he joined the party.
Over the years, Trevor had grown used to this move at such a time, but it still aroused in Tracy a feeling that seldom visited her: embarrassment. She would have claimed vigorously that she was not a snob; nevertheless she was disconcerted, made not to know what to say or where to look, when chatted to and Christian-named by somebody who had been behaving like a servant a couple of minutes before and who would, she knew from previous visits, do more of the same at the lunch-table. The servant-like behaviour was not just a matter of doing servant-like tasks, it was doing them in a servant-like way, with a servant’s expression, movements, carriage; perhaps being an actress helped one to see these things. And – she would again have denied that she had anything against pooves – there was the boyfriend angle. The trouble with it was nothing so specific as imagining these two old men messing about with each other: Bernard, at least, must have been past it for years and years. No, it was just that, whereas meeting a man and his wife did not by any means necessarily bring up the idea of sex, meeting a pair of pooves of any age necessarily did, and these two were old, and the idea of sex in any relation to the old, any relation at all, was obscene. It was a great pity, but there it was. Tracy had heard people talk as if admiringly of old So-and-so who was still fucking like a stoat at over seventy; it was only talk, with no thought behind it.
Trevor had been telling his grandmother, on urgent request, about the work he had been doing recently. He simplified everything as much as he could short of downright falsification, a vain scruple, he knew, for the simplified version was still about as difficult for somebody like her as, say, fast colloquial French in a strong Norman accent, or would have been were she listening. He understood quite well that she was acting on two related principles: that men liked talking about their work and that it was important, especially for an old lady, to seem interested, or to keep quiet, while they did so. The whole thing was a game, but it had to be played out as conscientiously as possible.
‘Of course,’ ended Trevor, ‘the control has to ignore changes due to the weather and heating and so on and only take notice of readings that suggest a fire’s broken out.’
‘How fascinating, Trevor dear. You are so terribly lucky to be so clever and have a job you enjoy so much.’ Conscientious on her own part, Marigold turned to Tracy, whom she genuinely liked and approved of, envied no more than was reasonable, and would have considered quite pretty in a tall dark pale way if the girl had ever taken any trouble with her appearance. ‘And what about you, darling? I saw you in that Strindberg thing, we all did, and thought you were simply marvellous.’
‘Very natural, Tracy,’ said Shorty. ‘Very natural.’
‘Thank you. Well, I go into rehearsal next week for another of the Professor Pobble series. I play the scientist who’s trying to get him.’
‘Kids’ show, that, isn’t it?’
Unlike her granddaughter-in-law, Marigold had a vast amount more than nothing against what in her terminology were nancy-boys, active and superannuated alike. Among the many other groups she had a similar quantity against were lower-class persons, lower-class persons who had come the smallest distance up in the world (this lower-class person had done well enough in a minor way of business to buy
himself a still fully adequate annuity, was in fact subsidizing her to some extent, so he qualified with honours), and drunks. Altogether, then, it was with some emphasis that she now said to Shorty,
‘That is neither here nor there. An actress has to learn to play in any type of production if she’s a professional like Tracy. Damn it, I ought to know.’
Not more than a pinch of shit you oughtn’t, said Shorty to himself, having heard enough from Adela to conclude that Marigold’s very often mentioned stage career had been undistinguished and brief. But he was better at hiding his feelings than some of his housemates, and all he said aloud was,
‘Oh, I appreciate that, Marigold. I was just making sure I’d got the right programme. It’s good – I quite often watch it.’
‘You know nothing whatever about these things.’
‘Is this in the West End?’ asked Adela.
‘Further west than that, I fancy,’ said Bernard. ‘At or near Shepherd’s Bush, if I remember rightly.’
‘I didn’t know there was a theatre there.’
‘There may or may not be. I was referring to the BBC television centre.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Is it a closely-guarded secret?’
‘But you never look at the television.’
‘Nevertheless the information has reached me somehow.’
‘Actually it’s Medway TV,’ said Tracy. ‘In Baker Street.’
‘Oh,’ said Bernard with an air of distaste.
‘You see,’ said Adela.
‘I see? What do I see? How do I see? See?’
‘What’s your news, Goldie?’ asked Trevor, using the diminutive Marigold had decreed upon her grandchildren.
‘You don’t want to listen to an old woman’s gossip.’
‘Just who you’ve heard from, that sort of thing,’ said Trevor with commendable speed.
‘Now which of my chummy-wummies would you remember? … What about Jill Grigson-Morse? She used to come to us in Beauchamp Place.’
Trevor’s face seemed to light up. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘No, you couldn’t have seen her there, because she didn’t come back from Italy until after we’d left Beauchamp Place. Her husband had a job in the Diplomatic, I think, or …’
‘How’s he getting on?’
‘Oh, he died it must be ten years ago. A very slow and painful cancer. She was absolutely marvellous all the way to the end. She’s a brave woman.’
‘How is she these days?’
‘I was just coming to that. I had a letter from her yesterday or the day before. They’ve had to take her other leg off, but she’s awfully good about it. I do so admire people like that.’
At least the poor bitch didn’t have her bloody leggle-peggle whipped off, thought Shorty, saying, ‘That glass is looking pretty sick, Marigold. Here, let me top it up for you. There we are. Funny, I’ve never really taken to white wine, ever. Too sharp, somehow. Tastes do differ, don’t they? Tracy, you’re on the sherry.’
‘No more for me, thank you. No, yes, I will, please.’
‘But I heard from Emily Rouse just this morning. She’s much better, poor thing. She can get up and sit in a chair most days now. You remember her, of course, Trevor dear.’
‘I think so, yes.’ Trevor told himself it was all physiological, all bodily chemistry, not a thing they or anybody else could do about it.
‘She was a great beauty in the Twenties. One of the Bright Young Things, as they used to call them then; always having her picture in the papers. There was a certain very famous person who died only a year or two ago who was quite devoted to her. Oh, literally hundreds of men were always pestering her to marry them, but she never would, and now she’s—’
‘How’s George?’ asked Trevor.
‘George?’
‘Professor George Zeyer, possibly,’ said Bernard. ‘Of this address.’
‘Oh, he’s had a stroke,’ said Adela – ‘not another one, I mean, but he had that stroke, so he can’t move about much. Still can’t move about much. Well, at all. Not really.’
‘Let’s get him down here.’
‘I don’t really think—’ began Bernard.
‘Good idea, Trevor,’ said Shorty with animation. ‘Spiffing suggestion, actually, old fruit.’
‘But he can’t walk.’
‘Trevor and I’ll carry him, Adela. Hoots, he’s nae more nor a wee laddie is yon.’
Eight
George sat in bed with that month’s issue of a learned journal open in front of him. At least he was trying to keep it open, but with only his wrong hand available he could not weaken its spine enough to make it lie flat, and the pages constantly closed and closed again and had him fumbling for his place with that wrong hand. In fact the journal held no more than half his attention; the sound of voices from downstairs came readily to his unimpaired hearing, Marigold’s voice more than others’. Well, it was her day. Luncheon-time must be near: it looked, then, as if he would get his ten minutes of Trevor and Tracy before they had to be off back to London, rather than before they had to be off down to luncheon. On the whole, that would be preferable, because it would break up the interval before luncheon and tea. No, here they came now, or here came somebody, two people if not more.
Two it was. Trevor and Shorty entered the bedroom and Trevor gave him a warm left-handed handshake as he had done before.
‘Hallo, George old chap: how’s things?’
‘Shut up, you,’ said George, but he said it to Mr Pastry, who was growling tremulously. Then he said, ‘I’m fine, Trevor, thanks. How nice of you to come up. You’re looking—’
Shorty had taken the plaid dressing-gown from its hook behind the door. ‘Right, George, you’re on your way to join the party.’
‘Oh, you don’t want me; besides, I’m—’
‘Oh yes we do, me old cock-sparrer. Just you slip into this and we’ll have you down there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, not to speak of other appurtenances such as one might or might not possess.’
While the other two got him into his dressing-gown, George felt a physical thrill of excitement such as he had not felt for a long time, much longer than the months he had spent under this roof. All he had ever seen of the ground floor had been those parts which a man half carried straight upstairs from the front door could have expected to see. Now everything was changed: if he could be moved about like this on one occasion, then, given the presence of a second able-bodied man to assist Shorty, the same thing could happen on many, perhaps every couple of weeks or so. A precedent was being set. George wondered a little what Bernard thought of the present manoeuvre; but, whatever anyone might think, that manoeuvre was now in train. As the first excitement ebbed, hope replaced it.
‘You’re so kind, both of you,’ said George at the top of the stairs. ‘You don’t know what this means to me. I shall never forget it.’
Nine
At the foot of the stairs, Bernard stood and watched the descent of the trio. He was there from a mixture of motives. First was the hope that Shorty might be drunk enough to drop George or even bring the three of them pitching down the stairs. That would go some way to compensate for his own failure just now to block the operation under way; it was no comfort to protest to himself that he had never had a fair chance, that George’s two helpers had reached their joint decision in a flash and gone to execute it with the speed of promotion-hungry firemen. Secondly, to watch so closely and obviously would embarrass George and might also, thirdly, be mistaken by Adela for sympathetic concern. But what of that? What if she saw her brother’s interest as it was? Habit must be at work, the habit of wanting to be mistaken for a man of ordinary decent feeling.
George’s impending presence meant that it had been a total, as opposed to a nearly total, waste of time to do him earlier, true, but this loss was more than offset by the likely effect on others. The length, even
the bare fact, of his conversational intrusions could not fail to annoy Marigold, and their style might well disconcert the two young people, if anything ever could.
When the party had half a dozen stairs still to go, Pusscat, Marigold’s spayed tortoiseshell, arrived on the scene, recognized Bernard and, as always on doing so, hurriedly left the scene again by the nearest exit. This happened to be up the staircase. Pusscat passed between Trevor and the wall without trouble and disappeared from view, only to reappear almost at once pursued by Mr Pastry, who, evidently alive by now to there being some novelty afoot, had wandered out on to the landing. Cat and dog reached the descending three within the same second. There were lurches, stumbles, cries, but George, held fast by Trevor, stayed relatively upright, and it was Shorty who fell – not far or badly, however, his head missing by almost a yard the large brass-bound basket that, full of sodden logs, stood near the sitting-room doorway.
Bernard held out a hand to Shorty, who got up unaided. The animals were nowhere to be seen.
‘That damned dog,’ said Bernard with real feeling.
‘Not his fault,’ said Shorty. ‘No harm done.’
‘It’s his nature to chase a, you know, tabby one when he sees one,’ said George.
‘Now let’s think.’ Bernard had had time to do so. ‘I suggest we take George straight out to the kitchen. Luncheon must be just about ready and we don’t want to get him settled in there and have to move him all over again in a couple of minutes.’
Shorty guessed that this proposed arrangement was intended to make George feel he was due for less of a party than he might have been expecting, but said nothing.