The Winds Of Heaven Page 6
Louise longed to break through the barrier which kept her out of those parts of Eva's life which mattered most. There was no point, however, in Eva discussing the play with her, since Louise thought it a sordid and unreal concoction and could not see what all the fuss was about. Nor could Eva be persuaded to talk about David, whom Louise still thought charming, though disconcertingly sure of himself*
He came frequently to the flat after the evening performance of the play in which he was appearing. He had given Louise a ticket to see the play, and she had admired him in it very much. He reminded her a little of Gerald du Maurier since whose death Louise would hardly admit that there had been another actor.
When she told David this, as the most complimentary thing she could think of, he had said: "Thanks, Mrs. Bickford, but actually I don't want to remind people of anyone except myself." He said it with a pleasant smile, however. He was always very polite.
If Louise was still up when he came to the flat, sometimes with traces of his make-up still darkening the edges of his pepper-colored hair, he would make agreeable conversation to her; but when he began to look at Eva, Louise knew that it
was time for her to go to bed and listen to the murmur of their voices through the flimsy wall.
Sometimes, David left before she fell asleep. Sometimes she slept without knowing what time he went home, and consoled herself with the hopeful thought that it was a good thing she was there in the flat as chaperone.
Louise was to stay with Eva for two months. By the middle of June, with the warm days coming, her aimless life began to seem a crime against the benevolence of this London summer. Everyone else seemed to have something to do, someone to enjoy it with. Louise was merely killing time, and she felt that her life was slipping by unused.
The trees in the park were richly clad with the same dark, urban green under which Louise had walked as a girl. The may trees were loaded with marshmallow scent, and the view from the bridge across the Serpentine, with the traffic sounding miles away, was a dreaming idyll of willows and lazy boats and still water that held and gave back whatever light was in the sky.
The park was beautiful, and Louise had all the day to enjoy it, and so could not enjoy it as she would have if she were snatching a stolen hour there from other things that claimed her. Girls came out in new cotton dresses, but they were in pairs, or with men. They walked lightly, admiring their skirts, and thinking that the money had been well spent.
Louise bought a blue dress, because she felt that she would die if she did not have something new. When she tried it on at home, she did not like it so much, although Eva, hurrying out to meet David for tea before his show, gave it a quick, nodding glance, kissed her mother before the mirror, and told her it made her look ten years younger. What if it did? Louise had nowhere to go in it, no purpose in putting it on, except to pass the hours until it was time to take it off again and go to bed.
Like many other lonely women in London, Louise was having to learn the art of killing time cheaply, without pausing
in a vacuum to admit defeat. She knew all about taking a long time to dress in the mornings and spinning out the ritual of retiring at night. She knew about dawdling in teashops over the kind of light meal that other people were bolting and running from as soon as possible. She knew about the half-price morning shows at West End cinemas, where women ate their lunch out of crackling paper bags, and about stopping wherever a crowd was gathered, to see a wedding, or a political agitator, or a comic man with a desperate face dancing in the street, with his hat on the ground for pennies.
Once she waited nearly two hours at the corner of Exhibition Road to see a foreign royalty drive by. When David came that night Louise heard him tell Eva that he had been caught in a traffic jam that afternoon on his way to the theatre.
"The police were holding up the traffic for some king or other with no country left to speak of. The incredible thing was that there was quite a crowd of people waiting on the pavement to see the cars go by. Who are these people, one always wonders, with nothing better to do?"
"It's me," Louise wanted to say- "People like me/'
But she never told Eva the way she spent her days. When Eva, flying out of the flat without hat or gloves, called to her: "Have a happy day!" or asked when she came home: "Did you have a happy day?" Louise always answered Yes, she would, or Yes, she had.
One afternoon, walking among the vacant, pushing crowds in Oxford Street, Louise was so bored with herself that she turned into the shop where Gordon Disher worked, and took the lift to the bed department. She wandered among the rows of beds that offered themselves bleakly to the human body, but there was no sign of the breathless, fat man with the gentle voice. An assistant came up, and Louise asked nervously for Mr, Disher, trying to sound like a customer.
While he was being sought, Louise began to wish that she had not succumbed to the impulse that had brought her in off the street. Would he think that she was taking advantage of
their brief encounter, which he might not even remember? He had not answered her letter. She would make that the excuse. She would say that she had come to see whether he had received it. Or would that look as if she were reproaching him for not having answered?
He came toward her, moving among the supine beds assuredly, like an elephant shouldering its way through a familiar jungle. When he saw who it was, he increased his pace, and arrived a little out of breath before Louise, in his neglected dark suit that surely only just scraped by the standards of the store.
Did one shake hands? He solved the problem for her by holding out his hand. Tm delighted to see you/' he said, in that soft voice, which could not help sounding intimate. "I didn't think I would/'
Louise had been going to say something polite, like: Fm afraid my letter to you must have gone astray, but instead she found herself saying abruptly: "You didn't answer my letter."
"No," He looked down, and dropped his voice into the carpet.
'Why didn't you?" Again, Louise had that queer, exhilarated feeling she had known in Lyons, of being able to talk to him as if she knew him quite well.
"To tell you the truth, after I gave you the book, I thought I shouldn't have. It didn't seem right, and I was sure you'd think that too. So I thought probably you had written the letter because you were kind, and you thought it rude not to."
"It was rude of you not to answer it," Louise said instructively, as if she were speaking to a child.
"Perhaps. But I thought that would be imposing further."
"How silly of you," Louise said gaily. "It was true, what I said about the book. I loved it. I'd like to read some more."
"You would?" His heavy jaw creased in a delighted smile. He looked round automatically to see if the floor manager was aware that they were talking about anything except beds.
There was no one near them, however. The department was as empty as furniture departments invariably are, so that,
walking through them, you wonder how the store can afford to keep so much stock. There were only the beds, without character now, but each waiting to become the centre of someone's existence: the haven for tired limbs and plagued minds, the resting-place for sickness, the battle-ground for love.
Tm sure I shouldn't keep you talking/' Louise said, seeing the glance. "Unless, of course, I buy a bed, and I don't really need one. Perhaps we could have tea again some day, and you could bring one of your other books?"
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Disher. "I will. I'll bring you Kisses and Corpses, if you like. Fve only got one copy, but I'll give it to you to keep, if you'd accept it. No one has ever taken such an interest in my work before."
Through her daughters, Louise had met a few writers. Even the ones who could not get their work published had talked of it with some conceit, and taken it for granted that their listeners would be interested. Gordon Disher was the first author she had met—although she felt sure Miriam would not call him an author—who was proud of his writing, yet honestly diffident about it.
When she asked him, he accepted at once, to make up, perhaps, for having been foolishly humble about the letter. He seemed delighted. He leaned his fat hand on a nearby bed and prodded the springs, smiling like a boy offered a treat.
An assistant was approaching with a sheaf of papers. "Till Sunday, then." Louise held out her hand, and was going to take it back, recollecting that this would not do before another assistant, but Gordon Disher took it and held it softly for a second, his own hand quite enveloping it. Evidently, he had been here long enough to have favorite customers, who came to him through the years for marriage beds, cots, beds for
daughters getting married, cots for grandchildren, until they were on handshaking terms with our Mr. Disher.
On Sunday, Louise began to get ready for her tea party almost as soon as she came back from church. She pinned up the short, off-color hair which her daughters had made her cut ten years ago, riding over their fathers protests like a charge of cavalry. She ironed the blue dress, and trimmed her unvarnished nails. After an early lunch, she started her preparations in the kitchen.
Although she usually longed for company in the flat, she was glad now that she was alone. Eva might have laughed at her for taking so much trouble over Mr. Disher. Not that Eva was a snob. She had picked up some people in her time who had disgusted Miriam; but she never took extensive trouble over any guest, yet managed to entertain successfully and with aplomb.
Louise laid everything out on a tray, ate two of the biscuits, and went to her room to change her dress. The weather had broken in a storm that was heavy with far-off thunder. Outside Louise's window, the rain fell vertically, as if someone were emptying a bucket into the well of the flats. What a pity. It would spoil Eva's tennis party, and she had looked so nice going off with David in her white dress. However, Louise supposed that it did not matter so much when you were in love.
The lift whined, the gates clashed open and shut, the front door of the flat banged, and Eva and David went into the sitting room and shut the door.
"I'm glad we got away/' Eva said, turning into David's arms, as she always did when they came into an empty room. His hair was wet, and she smoothed it for him, to stop him doing it himself, with that familiar, palming gesture he repeated dozens of times a day.
"I expect they thought us rude as hell," he said, 'leaving right after lunch; but honestly, those people they had there. And then suggesting bridge "
"It probably would have been better than tennis on that dreadful court Did you see it?"
David let her go, and sat down to light a cigarette. "I can't think why we went, really/' he said, leaning forward with the cigarette between his fingers, watching the smoke.
Eva knew why. She wanted to meet all his friends, and to establish herself with him as a couple, who went everywhere together.
"Did you ever go there with Frances?" She had to say it, although she knew it would annoy him.
"Well, of course. You know I've known Jack and Diana for years. What if I did? Evie, I do wish you "
"How did Frances look in white?" Eva said lightly, deciding to make a joke of it. She stood on tiptoe before the wall mirror, to see as much as she could of the flaring white dress, with which, surprisingly, she had met the conventions of a tennis party,
"Awful," David said glumly. "Stop goading me, and let's have some coffee."
"In a minute." Eva turned round. "I do love you," she said, her face confirming it. The first time she had said that, it had been difficult, and a little frightening. Now she had to keep on saying it, as if it was a grappling iron to hold on to the happiness she had.
"Do you really?" David asked. "Or is it just that you need a man?"
Someone else had said that. Who was it? Arthur of all people. "Eva," he had said, after several drinks, "you're getting jittery. You need a man." She had been afraid for a moment that he was going to suggest himself, but he had taken his eyes away from the front of her dress, and lit a cigar. Not Arthur. There would never be anything like that about Arthur. Poor Miriam. That must have made it doubly difficult for her.
"The coffee?" David suggested.
Eva sat down beside him, spreading her skirt and pointing
her toe. "Don't go to see Frances next week/' she said. "Why must you? It could be done just as well by letter. 5 '
"Oh God, Evie, we've been through all that. Leave me alone about this, will you?"
Eva's eyes filled with tears. She turned away her head, struggling to resurrect her pride. The doorbell rang. There were voices in the hall, one male and murmuring, the other her mother's, carefully hushed, as if there were a child asleep.
"Mother's boy friend," Eva said flatly. "I'd forgotten."
She's been crying, Louise thought, in the middle of her embarrassed explanations to Gordon Disher, as Eva came through the door. Eva's face, however, recovered in an instant. She breathed charming apologies at the bulky man in the shiny new tie, who stood in her narrow hall, almost touching the walls on either side.
"Do come in," she beamed. "I'm delighted to meet you. Mother's told me so "
"Oh, no, it's all right, dear," Louise said quickly, "We're going out. We'll have tea somewhere. The rain's slackening off, I think." She hoped that Eva would not feel bad when she saw the loaded tray in the kitchen, and that she and David would eat the cake and sandwiches, so that they would not be wasted. The biscuits would keep. Even in distress, Louise could not help having these economical thoughts.
When they were out in the street, Mr. Disher took a deep breath, and said: "The tea places will be so crowded on a Sunday. Would you consider—please say no, if you don't care to—having tea at my place? I could show you my other books."
"I'd like that very much," Louise said immediately, "How do we go? Bus or tube?"
"No, no," Mr. Disher said. "You must have a taxi. We'll find one on the high street."
The hall porter would have got them a taxi, but Louise did not like to ask him. He was tall and military, with a stiff leg, and he always saluted Louise, and called her Madam. She did
not want to be called Madam when she was with Gordon Disher. As they walked to the corner, she smiled at his assumption that she was accustomed to traveling in taxis. He did not know that she often walked quite long distances to save a bus fare.
When the taxi drew up and pinged its flag outside the tall, pale house, which was attached to a string of identical houses with many chimneys along the defeated-looking street, a face appeared at a lower window, and was gone with an agitation of the lace curtain.
Various names identified the bells by the door. Mr. Disher's was the top one. He was out of breath by the time they reached his two rooms, which were under the roof, with sloped ceilings that made him appear to take up more space than ever.
"Those stairs are a crime," he said, sinking into a chair without waiting for Louise to sit down, which showed that he must be distressed. Louise felt quite bad about the lift and porter in Eva's block of flats. She did not want Gordon Disher to think of her as one of the enemy class, the customers, with money to spend. She would like him to understand how poor she was, poorer than he, undoubtedly, since he had a job and could afford a place of his own, with furniture that was comfortable, in a run-over-at-the-heels way.
He made the tea with an electric kettle, getting the cups and plates out of a cupboard under the basin in his dark, untidy bedroom, and the milk off the window sill. When he opened the window, his cat walked in, a great scarred tiger, who accepted milk, and then sat on Louise's lap, purring rustily while she drank her tea.
Mr. Disher had panted downstairs and back with a plateful of sugar biscuits. "Mrs. Dill, in the ground floor back, always obliges, God bless her," he said. It seemed odd that such a fat man did not have such delicacies already on hand to regale himself. He did not eat
the biscuits. Fie ate a piece of bread and butter and some dry crackers, and drank his tea without sugar
or milk. He looked after Louise without fussing, and they were both relaxed, as if it were quite usual for her to be there.
"What a nice, cosy room this is/* Louise said, looking round at the restful, sagging furniture, and the typewriter and papers left askew on the dusty table, among the other odds and ends of a man alone who does not have to put things away. "If it were mine, I should put some chintz curtains up, I think, and have plants on the window silL I wish I had a little place of my own like this/
Mr. Disher looked at her with gentle inquiry, and Louise suddenly put down her cup and said: "I can't afford it, you see. I have hardly any money of my own. I have to live with my daughters."
"I'm sorry/' he said, as if he understood. Stroking the noisy cat, Louise began without self-consciousness to tell him about herself, spurred on by the relief of having someone to talk to.
Most people would have been bored. She had discovered soon after Dudley's death that to talk of your misfortunes reduced people to stiff-jawed fidgeting. But Gordon Disher listened seriously, breaking his crackers into small pieces, nodding his head and murmuring from time to time, like an old-fashioned family doctor with time to listen to his patient.
Louise found herself telling him what it felt like to live under an obligation, and to lead an aimless life in which you were no use to anybody. She had never said these things to anyone before. She had only said them to herself when she woke in the middle of the night with her defenses down.
She would never have been able to say them in Eva's flat. If they had had their tea there, as planned, she knew she would have acted the courteous hostess, making light conversation, pressing Mr. Disher to cake, while he sat on the edge of one of Eva's uncomfortable chairs. They would have got nowhere at all, and would probably never have seen each other again.