Just Like a Lady, page 11
‘How monstrous.’ Ann stared at Lucy, saucer-eyed.
‘We thought it funny. She’s pathetic, really. She believes that the British middle classes are the chosen race and the ingratitude of the rest of the world burns her up. She says Mr. Gaitskell should be clapped into jail for pandering to the laziness of the working classes. It’s probably a form of sexual frustration.’
Ann smiled vaguely. Lucy wondered if she had been listening. ‘I’ll put Baby down now,’ she said, and carried the child out to his pram in the garden. Lucy reminded herself that Ann was never malicious. This virtue made her rather a dull companion. She said to Angus, ‘You ought to have your rest now, dear,’ but he pouted ferociously and bounced his bottom up and down on the floor. ‘Go and play in the garden, then,’ she suggested and with a heavy sigh he got up and left the room, kicking at the door post as he passed it.
Ann returned with a bright expression on her face. ‘Where did you go for your honeymoon?’ she inquired. She had evidently determined to avoid any more personal question.
‘Brighton. Arthur thought it would be amusing to go somewhere so obvious.’
‘Brighton is very nice,’ Ann observed placidly. ‘We went to Torquay.’
Luck wondered briefly if Ann saw only externals. It would be difficult to imagine how the world must look to Ann, as difficult as imagining how it must look to a cat. She essayed a frontal attack: ‘Do you like Arthur?’ ‘He seems awfully nice,’ Ann ventured, absently folding and refolding a baby’s napkin. Trying to prod her into a more definite position, Lucy complained cautiously, ‘His eye is always on the main chance.’ ‘Is it?’ Ann countered in the same distant tone. Suddenly she dropped the napkin and gazed gravely at Lucy, her lower lip caught between her teeth. ‘So is yours,’ she said bluntly. Lucy was taken aback. ‘I don’t tread on people.’ Ann shook her head. ‘No. You’re much too soft-hearted as long as they’re there. But you forget about them whenever it suits you. Oh—not intentionally. You’re never unkind. I don’t think you can help it.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Lucy demanded in a dejected tone. Ann looked at her unhappily and brushed her hand across her forehead. ‘I don’t know. It’s just that you don’t take anything seriously. You’ve been telling me the most frightful things about Arthur without turning a hair. One would think you didn’t love him.’
‘But I don’t,’ wailed Lucy. Ann sat down suddenly on a chair. ‘Then it’s much worse than I thought,’ she said solemnly.
Lucy saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said, exasperated. ‘I can’t help it,’ said Ann, her voice shaking. ‘I’m so sorry.’ ‘Why? Because I don’t love Arthur?’ Ann nodded. Lucy sighed. Ann was very unsophisticated in some ways. ‘I’m very fond of Arthur,’ Lucy explained patiently. ‘He dominates me, of course, but that’s good for us both. I need a father figure. At least, Arthur says I do.’
‘I’d like to think you were happy, like me and Derek.’ Ann blushed charmingly; she often blushed when she mentioned her husband’s name. ‘I can’t bear to think of you married to someone you don’t love.’ Her genuine distress animated her, it made her beauty warm and magnificent.
‘Then don’t think about it. Arthur says you can separate love and marriage—that they should be separated. It’s quite reasonable to argue that you might choose quite a different sort of person to go to bed with from the man you might like to live with or have as the father of your children.’ Recollecting that Ann might feel this was a delicate subject, she added quickly, ‘Arthur says the Polynesian Islanders live like that and they are the most psychologically integrated people in the world.’
‘But we aren’t Polynesian Islanders.’
‘Arthur says that is our misfortune.’
There was a short silence. Ann turned away. ‘You make a joke of everything. Perhaps it will be all right when you have a baby.’ Her eyes were wistful. ‘It must be wonderful to have a baby of your own.’
‘Arthur doesn’t want one,’ said Lucy, shrinking from this grotesque sentimentality. ‘He says we’re not ready for the responsibility.’
‘But surely he’d be pleased if you started one. You could present him with a fait accompli.’
Lucy was shocked. ‘That’s a terribly immoral suggestion.’
Ann gasped. ‘You say you don’t love him, you’ve been fearfully disloyal—and yet you couldn’t deceive him over that?’
‘It’s quite different. I could never deceive him about something so important.’ Lucy scowled heavily. People like Ann always seemed to think they had a monopoly of morality.
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Ann with a bewildered look.
‘You never have,’ Lucy replied shortly. She was hurt because Ann had proved so unsympathetic—almost antagonistic, she thought, rehearing their conversation indignantly in her mind. Whereas she had been careful to avoid saying anything that might offend—after all, she could have given much more weight to Jebb’s theory of sexual relationships if she had pointed out how foolish it was that Ann should be unable to have a child of her own—Ann had shown no such reticence. She has changed, Lucy thought, she has grown hard and opinionated. Earls Gate has ruined her.
‘Why did you ask me to stay?’ Ann asked in a low voice.
‘Arthur suggested it.’
‘Oh.’ Ann’s face was suffused with colour. Lucy, her eyes drawn to her by that sharp, startled gasp, wondered, but only briefly, whether she should tell her the truth about Jebb. She would enjoy doing so, she knew; but she would also enjoy denying herself the pleasure, particularly as she felt Ann had ill-used her.
On the other hand—looking at her friend’s flushed, virginal countenance—her conscience smote her: might it not be better if Ann were forewarned? Jebb was as randy as a farmyard cock and as indiscriminate: he had even fondled the chambermaid’s knee when she brought them their breakfast in bed on their honeymoon at Brighton. Lucy, who had been in the bathroom, had returned to find the coffee spilt all over the quilt and the girl threatening to complain to the manager. Smiling inwardly, Lucy realized that if she were to recount this incident now, it was probable that Ann would not believe her. She would see it as just another low attempt to put Jebb in the wrong. Let her find out for herself then, Lucy thought crossly. If he makes a pass at her, it might even do her some good. She’s too smug by half! Anyway, she was too cold, too remote and unawakened even for Jebb—though of course these attributes might stir the old Adam in him even more than a come-hither look—and surely he would not try to dally with her while they were all together in the house? Frowning, Lucy doubted this consolation. He’s capable of anything, she thought, the old goat.
‘Arthur finds you attractive,’ she said demurely and saw Ann’s lip quiver. ‘But of course I wanted you too, you old silly,’ she cried warmly. Ann’s eyes misted over. ‘I’m glad. I’m so fond of you, dear Lucy,’ she said solemnly.
Before this embarrassing declaration, Lucy faltered. ‘I’m sure I don’t know why.’ Conscious that she sounded grudging, she argued that it was easy for Ann to be unself-consciously loving because she had always been loved: she had the simple and trusting nature of a child who has never known a rebuff. Immediately, Lucy felt ashamed of her critical attitude. Ann was good, so genuinely affectionate, so warmly kind. Only a shabby, petty creature would deny her these virtues or, worse, pretend they were not virtues at all, only the attributes of inexperience or simplicity. Getting up from the floor and smiling at her friend, Lucy determined that in future she would be nicer to people.
‘We’ll take the children for a walk,’ she cried. ‘We’ve been stewing indoors long enough.’ She flung open the window to call Angus.
The air had a crisp, autumnal nip. ‘It’s cold enough to burn your knuckles,’ she said joyfully.
Angus was standing by the pram, peering into it. His head was half-hidden by the hood. Lucy thought she saw something in his hand. ‘Angus, come here,’ she shouted, suddenly fearful. He looked up, vanished behind the pram for a moment, then reappeared and began to stroll slowly towards the house, his hands in his pockets. ‘What were you doing?’ Lucy demanded. ‘Nothing.’ He looked at her with a bland, guileful expression. Lucy had a clear and horrid sense of foreboding. ‘Don’t you dare go near the baby again, you little wretch,’ she said furiously.
His mouth turned down pathetically at the comers and Ann, coming up beside Lucy, gave her a soft, reproachful glance. ‘He just likes to watch the baby.’ ‘Are you sure?’ Lucy said doubtfully. ‘You mustn’t be too hard on him. He’s only a little boy,’ Ann said.
Lucy felt rebuked. Had she caught her Aunt Ida’s tendency to see the worst in people? She lifted her chin and, smiling at Angus, resolved to do better. ‘We’ll go for a walk, shall we?’ she suggested kindly. ‘I’ll find you some bread, so that you can feed the ducks.’
Chapter Five
On Wednesday morning Jebb woke up with a sore throat and a letter arrived by the first post from the bank to say his account was overdrawn and the mortgage payment overdue.
He arrived in the bedroom, the thermometer in one hand and the letter flapping weakly in the other, a silk Charvet scarf tucked in the throat of his dressing-gown. He stood above Lucy with a menacing expression while she read the letter. ‘“We are bringing this to your notice in case a remittance expected in your favour has not reached the Bank!” Of all the bloody hypocrisy,’ Lucy snorted.
‘It’s just under a hundred,’ said Jebb in a distant voice.
‘What? Oh—your temperature.’ She held the thermometer up to the light, squinting at the offending mercury. ‘Only ninety-nine,’ she corrected disparagingly.
‘My temperature is usually subnormal,’ he said. ‘So now it is two points up.’
Ignoring this statement, Lucy got out of bed, yawned, stretched her arms above her head and looked at the muddle. Her clothes, and Jebb’s, were flung everywhere. A pile of dirty shirts lay in a corner, the mantelpiece was littered with screwed-up balls of Kleenex, jars of face-cream, squashed cardboard cartons of vitamin pills, and empty boxes of the peppermint creams Jebb ate all the time to stop himself smoking. Kicking at a pile of shoes, Lucy reflected on the obscure malevolence of inanimate objects; surely all these things had been neatly in their place the night before? The bedroom furniture was reproduction: a heavy mahogany tallboy; a large gentleman’s wardrobe with a broken lock; a Queen Anne dressing-table with bulbous legs. These pieces loomed over the small, box-like room and made it shrink self-consciously as if overawed by their bogus antiquity. ‘I expect the originals were good,’ Lucy muttered as she dived under the bed to look for her slippers.
‘What did you say?’ Jebb had got back into bed and lay pathetically prone.
‘Never mind. Have we got the money?’ she demanded, struggling into her sweater and skirt. The skirt had mysteriously lost its hooks and she fastened it surreptitiously with a safety pin: Jebb abhorred slovenly women.
He shook his head fractiously. ‘You know we haven’t. We don’t even live on my salary.’
‘Then you’d better get another job,’ she said dispassionately. ‘I thought the point about advertising was that you sold your soul and got a decent price for it.’
He groaned loudly. ‘Who on earth would want to employ me? I’m a polymath. There aren’t any jobs for polymaths. I was born into the wrong decade,’ he explained proudly.
Lucy heaved a great sigh. ‘Ask one of those people we’ve had to get to know because they’re so useful.’
‘You must never let people know you’re looking for another job,’ he told her sagely. ‘You have to wait until something turns up. The way to get on is to make the right people see you’re a likely young man.’
‘Oh—I see.’ Lucy stood poised, her hands on her hips. ‘You wait for a fat industrialist to say, “Ever thought of sisal, young man?” “No,” you say. “Aha,” says he, “sisal’s an up-and-coming business right enough.” And drinks up your brandy, pokes you in the stomach with his cigar, and goes off to offload his own children. Where does that get you?’
‘I thought wives were supposed to encourage their husbands.’
Lucy sighed again. She knew it irritated him. ‘What about the money? They’ll foreclose or something.’
He grinned. ‘You see yourself being thrown on the streets, do you? You take money too seriously. Paying bills is a rich man’s hobby,’ he told her loftily.
‘You’d take money seriously enough if you’d been brought up without it,’ she retorted grimly.
He laughed. ‘Oh dear, we know all about your working-class background. Why do you think it gives you such a moral advantage?’
She was stung. ‘I don’t. There’s nothing working class about wanting to pay one’s bills.’
‘All right.’ He waved his hand weakly. ‘I’ll borrow the money from the firm.’
‘How do you imagine we’re going to pay it back?’ He flinched intentionally: she supposed she was to see that the vulgarity of the discussion offended his sensibilities. ‘Oh, you are irresponsible,’ she cried excitedly.
He glared at her beadily. ‘Why do you always have to bring these things up when I’m ill? It’s so thoughtless. My head is splitting and I think’—he fumbled beneath his pyjama jacket—‘I’ve got a boil coming.’
‘Tell that to the mortgage company,’ she said.
He did not reply; his weak acceptance of her rudeness saddened her. ‘What about Preedy?’ she suggested more gently. ‘Couldn’t he get you a job in television?’
‘It’s not my medium,’ he informed her seriously, arranging the pillows comfortably behind his neck. ‘I haven’t got a visual imagination. Of course, the appeal of the mass audience is terrific, I do feel that. But the intellectual approach is useless. One would have to sink one’s integrity.’ He clutched the worn phrase to his chest like a child his battered toy—this image, and the pathos of it, struck Lucy so forcibly that she conscientiously held her tongue. Jebb’s integrity was too blemished a property to be offered for sale, as it were, in any argument. This thought dispirited her so much that she did not even give herself credit for not saying any of the things she might have said. Averting her eyes from his suffering presence—he was lying back against the pillows and plucking fretfully at the bedclothes—she began to pick up the clothes that littered the floor.
A swift, explosive sound drew her attention. ‘Oh, my God!’ Jebb was sitting bolt upright, his eyes bulging. ‘What is it?’ she asked approaching him with a kindly, sick-room manner that was not entirely assumed because he really did look very pale. ‘The Preedys!’ he explained. ‘Why didn’t you remind me?’ She looked blank. ‘The theatre,’ he said in a tragic voice. Her hand flew to her mouth, her disappointment, for the moment, as violent as his. ‘Perhaps you’ll feel better soon,’ she suggested hopefully, but he shook his head, outraged. ‘You know I have to be careful of my chest.’ His old-maidish hypochondria restored her good humour. ‘I’ll ring up and explain,’ she offered. ‘They’ll understand.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he shouted. ‘You must go. It may be our only opportunity to get in with them.’ He frowned. ‘They probably only asked us because someone else had let them down. After all, they didn’t give us much warning!’
She was astonished to find his social assurance as fragile as her own and immediately pretended that no such thought had occurred to her. ‘What nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘You know it’s not,’ he returned with a sharp look and she flushed and compromised. ‘Anyway, there isn’t much point in my going. You’re the one who wants to make the good impression.’
‘If you go,’ he said, ‘we can ask them back without it looking as if we’re running after them.’
Lucy, drawing a deep breath, reflected that this bare-faced reasoning perhps demonstrated a peculiar innocence: he was not ashamed to say what other people thought. He smiled at her sweetly. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to spoil your fun.’
‘By this evening,’ she prophesied unkindly, ‘you’ll have persuaded yourself that’s the only reason why you want me to go.’
His hurt look made her feel churlish. ‘It wouldn’t be surprising if they did only ask us as a last resort,’ she said. He raised his eyebrows at her coolly and she lost her temper. ‘Why,’ she flung at him with intentional vulgarity, ‘the last time we met, you didn’t half make a fool of yourself.’
‘Tuesday evenings,’ Jebb had said at the golf club cocktail party, tilting back on his heels to look up into Gilbert Preedy’s face, ‘any Tuesday evening you feel like making your way to our place we can promise you some rather indifferent claret but, we like to think’—he smiled modestly—‘some quite good conversation.’
The silence that greeted this stock remark was not, Lucy noted, quite as bewildered as usual. The Preedys had beautiful manners. ‘How delightful,’ Diana murmured after a short interval. ‘Wine and poetry readings,’ said Gilbert thoughtfully, his eyes resting on Lucy’s face. ‘A new venture in Westbridge.’
‘Possibly. Oh—I had in mind a quite informal gathering—more informal than this, anyway,’ Jebb explained airily. ‘But I like to think, more worth-while. They are all’—tucking his thumbs into his velvet waistcoat he nodded wearily at the gin-drinking, cigarette-waving company—‘so bright and meretricious, like those chocolate-box biographies that the lending libraries find so popular.’ He smiled happily at his own careful wit and Lucy, fidgeting in uncomfortably high-heeled slippers, decided that this remark was not as funny as when he had first made it. She thought that besides Gilbert, who she guessed to be in his middle thirties, Jebb looked ridiculously young and inexperienced and knew that he was aware of it. His drawl was more pronounced than usual, his attitudes more pompous and at times his eyelids drooped so ferociously that they almost completely veiled his eyes. ‘I want to make them think,’ he continued, turning to Diana, who blinked at him nervously. ‘They have no thoughts, only prejudices.’
