Monday Lunch in Fairyland and Other Stories Page 4

  The chink of his coin.

  ‘Miss Leonora Thorne, please.’

  ‘Miss Thorne?’

  Terrible silence, bringing back to the professor his first teenage date acquired through a telephone call to some nubile girl in Windsor. He remembered the trapped isolation of a call box, only possible to escape from by the cowardly act of putting down the receiver. He remembered the alarm of silence. The fear brought about by his own determination to hang on.

  ‘Mr Wheeler’s office. Can I help you?’

  ‘Leonora?’ Surely it wasn’t her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Thorne is in South Africa for a month on business. Can I take a message?’

  ‘No. No, thank you. No message.’

  The professor put down the telephone. Silly not to have rung before. But a month was not so very long, he thought. Why, it was almost a month since he had seen her. Thirty days. Give him another chance to clear up the cottage.

  But stacking the tins of rice and pilchards into the kitchen cupboard – mice droppings on every shelf – it seemed longer. Tea! That was it. He had meant to get more tea. The professor swore out loud. Tea-less, thirty days was hopelessly long.

  Then he began to laugh at himself, at the absurdity of the whole plan, at the weeks he’d waited brooding upon it when it was in fact irrelevant to his central strategy. He cursed the disease of hope, for the restlessness it caused, the silly flutterings of the heart. Damn Miss Leonora Thorne and her thoughtless waving: she had lost her chance. He would not recognise the signals. Like all the others, having offered some fragment of hope, she had failed. He was no longer interested, he no longer cared. There was tinned rice enough till spring. Tomorrow he would clean the shelves – for himself, not for the benefit of Miss Thorne. Tonight he would read Carlyle, and eat pilchards straight from the tin.

  Much later it rained again. The professor tried to block his ears against its battering of the window, but the sound penetrated the sparse feathers of his pillow. Miss Leonora Thorne, as he sailed once more down his course, still waved from the bank, smugly, in her tailored scarlet, with the mocking smile of one whose existence is to remind. Damn her: she would fade. Trespassers upon solitude were easily cast out. They had no power to distress, and what most concerned the professor at present was the itching of his eyes.

  For several days he had been afflicted by irritation of the eyelids. Each time he blinked they seemed to scrape his eyeballs with filaments of glass. As a result, the eyeballs were raw and tearful. He bathed them night and morning, but felt no improvement. Now, in the dark, heart pounding from half a bottle of whisky, and head bleary from sleeping pills, they fiercely hurt. The lids scratched the balls in a way that made sleep impossible. Reluctantly, the professor got up and went down to the kitchen.

  There, the fire was dead and water dripped from the ceiling again. Black rain slashed against the windows and the wind keened with horrible self-pity. In his half-drunk state the professor felt a sense of shock: he was used to such depressing things, but not in the middle of the night. He poured himself the rest of the bottle of whisky and, not counting them, swallowed a clump of sleeping pills. Then he went to the sink and chose two damp tea bags from the pile on the draining board. He had heard they contained antiseptic and could soothe sore eyes.

  He carried them upstairs and returned to bed. After turning out the light he lay down and arranged the tea bags on his closed eyelids. Almost immediately, he thought, he could feel some improvement. In celebration he drank the rest of the whisky – an awkward feat in his recumbent position: some of it ran down his chin and wet the neck of his pyjamas. Perhaps this is the right time, he thought: then, confused by the pills and alcohol, he remembered it was not so. Another thirty days. If Leonora Thorne had not faded in another thirty days . . . He might give her one last chance.

  His eyes ceased to hurt and the wind faded. The sound of the rain dulled against the windows, no longer to be avoided, quite soothing in the dark.

  They found him ten days later, decomposing in his narrow bed, tea bags dry but still in place upon his eyes. No one in the village could imagine his motive for suicide: he was a quiet man, the professor, they said – kept himself to himself, but always so charming to talk to. He seemed happy enough, full of smiles in the pub on the rare occasions they saw him – just as he was on television. Pity.

  Leonora Thorne’s trip to South Africa was cut short by three weeks due to an economic crisis in the firm in London. On the train, her first day back to work, irritated by the change in plans, she completed the Times crossword with particular speed. All but the quotation. Further irritated, she turned to the obituaries, which she always enjoyed. There she saw a picture of Professor Gerald Bravington, described as an eminent man of letters. She had not thought of him since the day he had given her a lift in the taxi. Now, she remembered, he had helped her with the Shelley quotation on a rainy morning such as this. He had struck her – in as far as she had thought of him at all – as being an eccentric old thing, nervous – not at all as he appeared on television – and pompous at the same time. Inquisitive, too. He had asked her questions about her life, she recalled, with an eagerness which had exceeded the bounds of mere politeness. Perhaps she should have been more friendly in return, but she was fed up with men pestering her, seeking her out for comfort and all the rest of it, but never offering permanence. Still, it was always a pity when someone of such ability died before his time.

  Leonora Thorne turned back to the crossword. For some reason the news of the professor’s death inspired in her a determination not to be defeated by today’s quotation, at least. She read it again.

  The whirligig of time brings in his–

  The line was quite unknown to her, she had never been good on Shakespeare. But, with uncanny speed, the word was suddenly there, dazzling her mind.

  Revenges, she wrote, and smiled to herself, knowing it was right.

  Had there been time, she might have paused to reflect upon the strange coming of her inspiration. But the train was already drawing into Paddington. Leonora Thorne stood up, smoothed her scarlet coat with her navy glove, as was her daily habit, and thought of the fortune she was obliged to spend on taxis, these days, due to so much rain.

  Thinnest Ice

  Laura’s cheek was cold.

  Apart from that, it was a perfectly normal evening, a Tuesday. Philip stuffed his glass full of ice before filling it with gin and tonic, a trick he had learnt in America. He liked to show, through gestures rather than words, that he had been about a little in his time, although he had given up the travelling side of his business when he married. In spite of Laura begging him not to – she knew how much he had enjoyed his jet life – he had been insistent. Of course they could trust each other, but he had seen enough of what could happen to the most trusting married couples when one or the other of the partners was much absent. But his peripatetic bachelor days had left their mark. He still wore Indian cotton shirts and suits from Hong Kong, smoked Russian cigarettes and drank bourbon on the rocks.

  Laura sat opposite him on the sofa, her evening face ready with concern. In two years, he had never come home to find her anything but full of love, welcome and interest. She had learnt, from her meticulous mother, that a man is entitled to be selfish at the end of a day. He needs to come home to a wife who casts aside – at any rate to begin with – the petty cares of her own day, and is all sympathy for his. On this score she never let him down. She was always there, ice in the bucket, dinner prepared, curtains drawn in winter, cushions on the garden chairs in summer. Philip had come to rely on these things, and would no longer trade for them a business trip to any part of the world.

  He had, in fact, only the vaguest idea of how Laura spent her day. He imagined she shopped, and took care of domestic things in the morning; lunched with a friend, went to an exhibition in the afternoon – he was quite proud of her interest in the arts. One day a week, he knew for certain, she devoted to a group of disabled people in
Kensington. But she rarely spoke of her activities at the Day Centre, perhaps for fear of boring him. Sometimes she mentioned taking a job – what job, exactly, was never discussed, and none of the plans had ever materialised. She seemed content enough with her quiet life. Soon they would have children and the peace and privacy would be changed. It was her right to enjoy the peace while it lasted. Philip approved.

  In the dappled light of their sitting-room he studied her face. Such innocence, he thought. Such innocence, and a fist of pain screwed round in his chest. He had telephoned her at five, to check what time they were expected for dinner, and there had been no reply. There was never no reply at five o’clock. Laura was always there at that time, in her apron in the kitchen eating ginger biscuits (he liked it very much when he caught her on the telephone with her mouth full, barely able to speak) sifting through her cookery books choosing something for their dinner. He had rung at quarter past and half past. Still no answer, and he had left for home. There, of course – and the underground had never been so slow – she was waiting for him by the fire, holding up her peculiarly cold cheek for him to kiss. He had managed not to ask where she had been. Now, he studied the familiar patterns of room, aware that he was seeking something as he looked at the framed prints on the silky walls, plump cushions, fringes that hemmed the sofas and felt tablecloths – the autumn colours of the square conventional place, their sitting-room, that he loved so much. For a moment he found that each piece of furniture, each ornament, was back-lit by a strong light, making it strange. He struggled with the illusion, fighting it off like the end of a nightmare, pressing his fingers against his icy glass, and the room returned to normal. First signs of flu, he thought. Several people had it at the office. Or, as Laura had often said recently, he had been working too hard.

  ‘So what’ve you been up to this afternoon?’

  Laura looked surprised. She shrugged.

  ‘Nothing much. The cleaners. Boring things.’ There was a lilt in her voice, an unusual brightness. She paused. ‘You don’t have to change,’ she said, ‘but I shall. We’re meant to be there at eight-thirty.’

  ‘What are you going to wear?’

  The gin had melted the odd pain in his heart, replacing it with warmth. Laura’s smile, with its power to reassure, had become part of his existence. The spell of black fantasy, the signs of encroaching flu, were over.

  ‘You’ll see. Surprise.’

  She surprised him in a flurry of smoky velvet that he had not seen before; jet beads at her neck, amber gloss on her cheeks. Philip frequently suggested she should buy new clothes, but, with a nice sense of economy when it came to other people’s money, Laura rarely took advantage of his encouragement. When she did, Philip was always pleased. She had taste, the girl. Wonderful taste. In the narrowness of their hall he congratulated her.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘all those husbands will be after you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Laura laughed, spiralling about, making the velvet flutter with shadows. ‘You carry on just like a newly married man.’

  They drove through fog to Hampstead. At dinner Philip was aware of every movement his wife made at the other end of the table. Bored by conversation with the high-pitched women on either side of him, he fell to musing, as he often did, on his luck in having found Laura. He quite understood why other men envied him. She was not only beautiful, as now, in the candlelight, but she was spirited. Exuberance blew off her like gold dust, touching other people, so that in her presence they found themselves reflecting her brightness. Her head was bowed. She was listening carefully to the man on her left, who taught Russian at Oxford. Philip heard the word Chekhov several times, and saw Laura smile. Ah! She was intent on educating herself. Having been unenthusiastic about coming to this business dinner party, she was now revelling in the don’s company. Revelling. Smiling. Smiling almost constantly.

  With a sharp movement Philip pushed back his plate. The duck stuffed with brandied plums quite suddenly sickened him. The old pain stabbed at him again. He closed his fists on the polished table.

  Philip was a man of instincts: this he often claimed. Several years back, big game hunting in Kenya with experienced guides, he had suddenly sensed the dangerous proximity of an elephant. His companions had scoffed at him; they had seen it charge, enraged, in the opposite direction. It would never have returned so soon, they said. But such was Philip’s conviction that they were persuaded to return to the Range Rover. No sooner had they done so than they saw the elephant a few yards from them, half hidden behind trees. It bellowed, prepared to charge; they escaped. Another time, alone in a bar in London airport waiting for a plane to Switzerland, Philip heard with uncanny clarity a voice telling him to switch flights. Without asking himself any questions at the time, he did so. A few hours later, he heard that his original flight had crashed in the Alps.

  And now his instinct was at work again, gripping him in its horrible conviction. Laura, after only two years, was being unfaithful to him. What’s more, she was being pretty blatant about it. The previously innocent, once embarked upon deceit, are often the most skilful. Here she was, not six feet from him, putting up an immaculate show. No one would ever guess she and the arrogant don had spent afternoons, days, months, for all he knew, in some form of contact. Not just talking about bloody Russian writers all the time, either. Christ, what a fool he was not to have seen it all before. Philip’s mind jerked back to other occasions when they had met the don, Crispin – ridiculous name – with mutual friends in Oxford. Now he came to think of it, Laura had always made a point of paying him special attention, asking him questions and listening to his interminable answers with her big eyes. She said, he remembered, Crispin was shy – shy! But that when you got to know him, he was wonderfully entertaining.

  Philip refused the cheese, the soufflé, the coffee. The heat of the room tightened about him; the candle flames, magnified by their own halos, pained his eyes. Only a lifetime’s training in the art of politeness enabled him to contribute to a conversation about duck-shooting with the woman on his left.

  After dinner, regathered in a beige drawing-room, Philip saw a look pass between Crispin and Laura as they chose their places: Crispin sat by his wife on the sofa, Laura talked to her host. Unspoken calculation. A tedious hour passed until the goodbyes, when Laura and Crispin merely nodded to each other. Admirable restraint. Philip took Laura’s stiff velvet arm. Then they were in the car again, pushing through the solid fog.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad, after all, was it? I was lucky getting Crispin. You know what he was telling me? He was telling me that the problem at Oxford these days –’

  Philip wiped the windscreen with the back of his hand. Laura watched his face.

  ‘Are you all right, darling? You didn’t eat a thing.’

  ‘I’m all right. Get that rag and keep wiping.’

  They concentrated on their journey.

  The next morning the feeling of unease had died. On his way to work Philip convinced himself he was being ridiculous. It had all been in his imagination, due to overwork perhaps. He spent a contented two hours reading through a long report, able to give it his full attention. At eleven Laura rang. This was unusual. She did not like to bother Philip at the office. There was some minor problem about servicing the car. The conversation was brief. Laura ended:

  ‘See you at the usual time this evening, then.’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was only when he had put down the receiver that Philip realised what Laura had done. By ringing him now, she was making fairly sure that he would not ring at five: there would be no need. Thus he would not discover her absence. She would have no need to lie.

  Philip’s afternoon passed in a turmoil of disbelief. How could she? Laura? What had he done to deserve . . .? Where had he gone wrong? At five, hand shaking, he rang her. No answer.

  Laura’s cheek was cold again. And again, apart from that, it was a perfectly normal evening. They watched a documentary on television and ate d
evilled chicken’s legs in the kitchen. Philip opened a bottle of her favourite Sancerre.

  ‘Why such extravagance?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He wondered if she noticed the quaver in his voice. He wondered why, when one human being can see a beast that haunts him, revolting as some creation of the devil, another person can remain unconscious of the vile, almost tangible presence.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I was thinking. Laura: I was thinking – if ever all this . . . If ever you decided all this wasn’t what you wanted after all, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? I mean, you wouldn’t put up with it, bravely, just for my sake, without telling me, would you?’

  Laura looked at him in amazement.

  ‘What a funny idea,’ she said. ‘What on earth’s on your mind? You look quite pale.’

  With a tremendous effort of will Philip forced himself to laugh.

  ‘I expect I sound quite mad. It’s just that – I don’t know. Such innocence as yours, such continuing innocence, makes one quite suspicious sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, you silly idiot!’ Laura laughed and blushed. ‘You should find yourself something really to worry about.’

  She was so convincing that for a moment, in the warmth of their kitchen, Philip felt the chill of shame. In bed he made love to her with unusual violence: she responded with surprised pleasure. If she was tired from her don lover all afternoon, then she did not show it. If there were recollections of his touch in the recesses of her mind, they stood little chance of survival while Philip thrust himself, full of his own agony and love, upon her. In his frenzy he bruised her, hurt her, and she cried to him to stop. She slept quickly, as she always did, her body curved into his.

  Philip lay on his back listening to her breathing, and watched the picture show of his wife’s infidelity glitter on the ceiling. She and the brute don lay on an anonymous bed, location impossible to define. Where did they go? How often and for how long? What did he do to her? The academic hands, luminous in the darkness, stroked Laura’s thighs, Laura’s cheeks, Laura’s . . . Sickened by the vision, Philip took a sleeping pill, shut his eyes, tried to shut his mind. But sleep would not come. Both drained and alert, he watched the fogged dawn infuse itself into the room. When Laura eventually opened her eyes Philip buried his face in her hair, clinging to her, murmuring he had had a nightmare.