The Parrot Cage, page 20
‘Not really – it’s just rather humiliating.’
‘I don’t see why. He’s one of the most fascinating men either of us is ever likely to meet, ravishingly handsome, brilliantly clever – and dotty about you; there you are, unhappily married for five years to a pompous, stupid man: how could you not fall for him?’
‘Andrew’s not stupid,’ said Gerry, seizing on something they could talk about that did not bring Suvarov’s name into the conversation. ‘The rest I give you, but not that. That’s what most of the problem was. He was intelligent; he had been to Cambridge; he seemed quite different from all those others that Mother produced for us.’
‘You know, Gerry,’ said Flixe, walking over to Gerry’s chair to pat her shoulder, ‘this is the first time you’ve really explained why you married him.’ Gerry looked up at her sister, smiling for the first time that evening.
‘Well the recent events have made discretion seem a little redundant.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Are you dreadfully shocked by my activities?’ Flixe was irritated to hear a familiar note in her voice; it was the old sound of supplication. She reminded herself that she no longer needed Gerry’s approval; it was years since she had decided that she was not simply a second-rate version of her elder sister, but a quite different creature, just as a cat is different from a kestrel. Neither was better than the other; merely different. Why should she suddenly want Gerry to tell her that she was doing the right thing?
‘Well, I was for the moment, but that was before I understood. My only … well, negative feeling is that it must be so horrid for you.’
Flixe laughed shortly and with no mirth in the sound.
‘I can bear that. Heavens! Compared to what some of the women working for Baker Street and so on are risking and putting up with, this is quite literally nothing,’ she said, looking at her watch. Then she turned back to Gerry:
‘I’m going to have to throw you out now, ducky. The man in the car may be coming here later and there are things I must do first.’
‘Can’t I meet him?’
‘Certainly not. He’d take one look at you and realise that I’m not what I seem at all. And why should you want to meet him? Peter would strangle me if I involved his Gerry Alderbrook in this kind of thing.’ Flixe winced inwardly as she heard the waspishness of her voice and hurried to cover it. ‘No, don’t say anything more. Get going. We’ll meet soon.’
‘Yes, but when, Flixe? There are things I need to ask you – not about the man in the car or anything like that. Things I need to know about … me, really.’
‘OK. Tomorrow; why not lunch – at the Charing Cross Corner House. Now, hop it.’
She hustled Gerry out of the door and shut it behind her with relief. While she could play her part entirely in the world to which Suvarov had sent her, she was all right; but once her other worlds began to impinge, all the doubts and questions came back to bother and distract her.
It was not until all her housework was done (to salve her conscience for lying to Gerry) and she was lying under the eiderdown with a mug of soup in one hand and a book in the other that she let herself think of Gerry’s reactions. Flixe’s lips twisted into a bitter little smile as she thought of her elder sister and allowed herself to recognise the momentary sense of power she had felt at Gerry’s first question. The satisfaction was quickly banished, but it had been there. For most of their childhood, she had lived in awe of Gerry’s cleverness, and to have Gerry playing the supplicant’s part for once … Flixe stopped herself on that thought and opened the book.
Chapter Fourteen
Flixe was full of reluctance when she arrived at the Lyons Corner House for her lunch with Gerry. The last thing that Flixe wanted was to discuss Peter Suvarov with Gerry, and she had said too much already about her work, but she cared for her sister too much to refuse whatever reassurance Gerry needed. There was no sign of her in the restaurant and so Flixe found a table for two that was still free and sat down to wait. When the nippy arrived to take her order, she explained that she was ‘waiting for a friend’ and took out her powder and lipstick. A moment or two later she heard her sister’s voice.
‘Sorry, Flixe. I couldn’t get here any earlier.’
‘Trouble?’ asked Flixe, folding up the black and gold compact which Jean-Pierre had given her a week or two earlier.
‘No, just Peter wanting to go over a report with me. Gosh, Flixe, it is good to be able to talk about the job to you. You can’t imagine how often I wanted to when you used to ring me up last year.’
Flixe smiled, but did not reciprocate the confidence. Gerry, looking a little disappointed, picked up the thread of what she had been saying:
‘And I didn’t want to explain that I had an appointment with you. It seemed that it would only make things even more tangled if he were involved – if you see what I mean.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Flixe, picking up the greasy menu and handing it to Gerry. ‘What are you going to have? Not that there’s all that much choice.’
‘Are you all right, Flixe?’ asked Gerry, looking searchingly at her sister’s pale, beautiful face as she accepted the card.
‘Fine. Why not? “Sin” doesn’t mark the complexion, you know.’ The irony in her sister’s voice made Gerry hurry to amplify her question.
‘I didn’t mean that, honestly. It’s just … Well, I so hate it when Andrew, you know … that I can’t bear to think of you going through that with someone who isn’t even your husband.’ At that Flixe laughed in genuine amusement and people at the tables near them smiled in pleasure: there was so little to amuse anyone at that juncture of the war, when all the news was bad and rationing seemed to bite harder month by month, that anyone’s laughter was to be enjoyed.
‘Oh, Gerry, you are so funny. I’m sorry Andrew’s such a lout. But you know I’m not actually going to bed with Jean-Pierre.’ Gerry’s face was such a study in shock that Flixe roared with laughter again. Then she said: ‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry to shriek, but you did look funny.’
‘Well I’m glad I made you laugh, but Flixie, I thought that was what you were telling me yesterday. Wasn’t it?’
‘Not quite, ducky …’ began Flixe as the nippy came back, her order book in hand.
‘Well, what’s it to be?’ she said in the bored tones of one who has asked the same question every five minutes for four hours or so.
‘Oh, two Welsh rarebits and a pot of tea, please,’ said Flixe, then turned to Gerry to add: ‘All right with you?’
‘Yes, of course – unless you have some bacon?’
‘Sorry, dear,’ called the nippy over her shoulder as she left them.
Gerry fiddled with the salt and pepper pots for a moment, keeping her eyes lowered. Then she looked full at Flixe once more.
‘But mightn’t you have to? I mean, given that you presented yourself to him as Peter’s … well, you know.’
‘Mistress?’ supplied Flixe, becoming irritated with her elder sister’s circumlocutions, and irritated, too, to hear Gerry articulating the questions that she was asking herself more and more often.
‘Flixe, hush. People might hear.’
‘Oh, Gerry,’ she said and then broke off as the waitress reappeared. ‘Good, here’s the food.’
Each ate with the concentrated enjoyment of what was becoming a rare pleasure. Neither was ever actually hungry, but there was so little variety in the food they could get that anything which tasted as positively as Lyons’Welsh rarebit was to be cherished. Flixe did better, of course, because of the restaurants to which her work took her, where an enormous cover charge got neatly round the government’s fiat that no meal was to cost more than five shillings. When the waitress was well clear of their table, Flixe tried to answer her sister’s question.
‘Gerry, there will undoubtedly come a time when Jean-Pierre propositions me seriously, and then I’ll have to do something about it. Until then all we do is flirt, dine, dance and talk. The sort of things that would no doubt make Father decide I was a tart, but quite innocent to anyone else.’
‘What do you talk about?’ asked Gerry quickly, not feeling up to discussing their father then. It often distressed her that Flixe seemed to hate him so much, and yet she could never quite do anything to interpret the good qualities of each to the other.
‘Almost anything. He talks about me, France – the gaieties of Paris, that sort of thing – and paintings and antiques, architecture, books, wine. You see, he knows a lot about everything and tries to educate my tastes. He says that for someone who is one-quarter French I am distressingly ignorant of the most important part of my heritage. You needn’t look so surprised; it’s all very civilised. He’s not some filthy, fumbling bounder. He’s a charming, delightful man, with rather Continental ideas about ways to take his pleasure.’
‘Oh. You make me feel very provincial.’
Felicity was honest enough to admit to herself that that was partly what she had meant to do, but not enough to say so to her sister, whose shocked disapproval the day before had caught her on the raw. Gerry knew Flixe well enough – and cared enough for her – to see that she had made a mistake and so she quickly changed the subject.
‘So, what’s happened to your architectural job, Flixe?’
‘I still do it. But it’s flexible. That’s why Peter got me out of the Fanys. But careless talk, Gerry …’
‘Yes, of course. Oh, there is something I meant to tell you,’ she said as she loaded her fork with Welsh rarebit, ‘Mother rang me up last night to ask about Christmas. I can’t possibly go again, having had last year off, I mean. And Andrew is bound to want to go to his parents if he can get leave. What about you?’
‘Go home to Sudbrook House? God forbid! I can’t really tell the chaps that I’m off home to Mummy, can I now? It would hardly square with the picture of the character I’ve been at such pains to create. She’ll have to make do with her evacuees and Ming. What’s up?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m just a bit worried, but I hadn’t realised that it showed. Mother said that Ming would be spending a week after Christmas in Sussex, and it sounded as though she thought I would have known about it anyway. But I’ve hardly heard from her since she told me about staying on to take Higher,’ said Gerry slowly.
‘I had a letter today. She seemed pretty miserable. With luck Christmas will cheer her up.’
‘Oh, well I hope so, but what’s this business about Sussex?’
‘God knows. Probably she’s going to stay with a school friend.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Ah, well, Mother will just have to concentrate on her boys. Isn’t it extraordinary how much she seems to like them?’ said Gerry with feeling. ‘I wonder what Father will think when he comes back.’
‘Is he going to?’ asked Flixe in horror through her last mouthful of cheese on toast.
‘Hadn’t you heard?’ Gerry answered with all the old stiffness. She tried to relax and talk normally about him. ‘Yes, he is coming back, possibly in time for Christmas, possibly not. Depends on what actually happens in North Africa. It seems that he’s being promoted and they’re bringing him back for some reason. She wants me to entertain him while he’s here.’
‘That’s just what you need now, isn’t it? Does she expect you to put him up?’
‘No, no – he’ll stay at the club, but I’m to receive him as the returning warrior he is. I wonder she hasn’t said anything to you.’
‘You could hardly expect her to – after all he has always loathed the very sight of me.’
‘Oh, nonsense, Flixe. He’s just stiff – and bad at talking to females. He doesn’t hate me, despite all our rows about Cambridge, and I could never tease him as you always did. You could always make him laugh, however cross he was – and then you never made him as cross as I did about Cambridge,’ Gerry said earnestly, really wanting for once to make things easier for Flixe.
‘Didn’t I just? I put him in a passion of disgust and rage whenever I appeared,’ answered Flixe with considerable feeling. She stirred the last of the tea in the pot and then poured them each another cup. ‘No, ducky, it’s just that I was never scared of him.’
‘Lucky you. Anyway, will you give me a hand with him when he comes?’
‘Of course, if I can. I’d have thought you’d done your bit in that direction with Andrew. How is he, by the way?’ she asked, not really interested in her sister’s husband, but glad to turn the subject from their difficult relations with their father.
‘Physically OK, I suppose. I mean, obviously having an artificial foot is absolutely ghastly and I do feel truly sorry for him.’
‘But?’
‘Oh, he just expects me to wait on him,’ said Gerry, sounding almost as tired as she felt. ‘After a draining day at work I have to queue for food, cook it for him, do his laundry in inadequate supplies of hot water and with – what are we down to now? – eight ounces of soap each week.’
‘Poor Gerry. Look, there’s the waitress. D’you want more tea?’
‘No, I don’t think so. It’s too filthy. Let’s just get the bill. But, you see,’ she went on, getting back to the subject that was obviously filling her mind, ‘I can’t make him understand that my work at RE(1)R is more important than my wifely duties – or frankly than this job they seem to have manufactured for him in Storey’s Gate.’
‘Fair’s fair, Gerry. Just as you can’t explain to them what yours is, so he can’t.’
‘No, you are right.’ But in spite of that admission, Gerry had plenty more to say about her difficult husband.
Flixe listened, and really sympathised, but she was surprised that Gerry could take her troubles so seriously. They all seemed rather trivial in the middle of the war. Flixe could imagine that living with Andrew would be tiresome, but Gerry had chosen to marry him after all – it was the price she had to pay for that kind of security and social approval. And surely she could talk to him and explain modern life to him.
‘But Gerry,’ she felt impelled to say at one moment, ‘if it’s so ghastly sleeping with him, why not tell him and say you won’t any more?’
‘Oh I couldn’t.’
‘Why on earth not? It’s obviously doing things to you.’
‘He seems so vulnerable – it would hurt him so much,’ Gerry said slowly, as though trying to work it all out for herself as she spoke.
‘And it’s more important to protect him than yourself?’ asked Flixe in a noncommittal tone as she remembered poor Johnny Blenkarne.
‘Isn’t that what we were always taught?’
‘There are a great many lessons from our school and governesses and mother and grandfather that we have to unlearn if we are to survive in the real world.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Gerry, resting her forehead on her left hand. ‘Isn’t it ridiculous? I’m sure I used to be stronger than this. Lord knows what’s happening to me to make me so pathetic. I suppose it’s just the war, and rationing and—’
‘Gerry, how much of all this is to do with Peter Suvarov?’ asked Flixe, interrupting. Gerry flinched, dropped her hand back to the table and looked directly at her sister, blushing.
‘I’m not sure. No, no, I’m not trying to pretend anything, Flixe. I just don’t know. When I started to work for him I was in seventh heaven: here at last was something important that I could do, I liked them all, Suvarov was so interesting – and, well, challenging. He sort of made me sizzle.’
‘And now?’ asked Flixe, trying not to wince as she recognised precisely what Gerry meant.
‘Well, it all got a bit complicated – he’s probably told you.’
‘No details.’
‘Good,’ said Gerry quickly and then as fast tried to cover her pleasure: ‘I don’t mean that I … that you … oh, you know, Flixe.’
‘Yes, I know. But, Gerry, one thing he hasn’t needed to tell me is how much he cares about you.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Why should I mind?’ Flixe answered aloud, thinking to herself, of course I mind. How could I not? Don’t you understand anything?
‘Well, please don’t say anything to Father if you see him while he’s here.’
‘Gerry, don’t be absurd. I don’t propose to tell him anything. I never have. And am I likely to do anything to damage his image of his beloved first-born, who so sensibly married a regular soldier and has always done everything he wanted?’
‘Except submit without bitter protest to the no-education-for-females rule.’
They both laughed then, and both felt better for it. But each held new reservations about the other and as they left the restaurant may have toyed with the idea of his finding out about the things she would never actually tell him.
Chapter Fifteen
Flixe spent Christmas Day idly and for the most part alone. Jean-Pierre had sent round a hamper filled with all kinds of virtually unobtainable delicacies the previous day with a note explaining that he would not be able to see her because of a longstanding commitment. She was surprised to find how much she minded.
A week earlier Anna Kingsley had invited her to dine in Dover Street, explaining that Gerry and Andrew would be there too. Assuming that Jean-Pierre would whisk her off somewhere, Flixe had declined the invitation and was now faced with the choice of dining on her own from his hamper or losing face in front of Anna Kingsley and begging for her invitation to be renewed. The fact that doing so would also involve having to be polite to Andrew made up her mind for her and she decided to stay with her own company.
Now that she was stuck with it, she realised how much she minded being alone. Christmas had never been one of the Alderbrooks’ main family celebrations, and if it had been Flixe would probably have hated it, but as she pottered about her flat, trying to think of things to do, she began to feel as though by taking the job Peter had asked her to do she had exiled herself from her family; that in a curious way her loneliness that Christmas was a punishment for all the times when she had subverted the family’s guests from their dull conversation into admiration of herself. Doing her best to laugh at herself, Flixe even began to wonder whether her father’s attitude to her might not have some justification after all. As her mind reached that pitch of idiocy, her brains reasserted themselves and she explained to herself precisely why she was right to be doing what Peter had asked.
