Providence Page 14

  From time to time she returned to the dusky interior of the house, to the smells of coffee and Vadim’s plum brandy, to the hushed atmosphere that always accompanied Louise’s concentration on her task. Kitty cleared away the plates from which snacks had been eaten hastily, abstractedly; a crust of bread already hardening in the heat, a rind of sausage or cheese, the peel of a fruit, empty mustard glasses containing the dregs of wine. She recorked the bottle and put it away, then silently emptied the ashtray and replaced it at her grandmother’s elbow. The heavy dull yellow silk lay in a pool in her grandmother’s lap, although the jacket was finished, had been pressed by Vadim, and was now displayed on the dressmaker’s dummy in the spare room, where it strained over the descending swan-like bosom and flared over the unindented hips. But the dress, the dress! Sometimes it seemed to Kitty as though it would never be finished, as if the minute stitches would go on for ever, as if there were always another seam, another pleat, as if it might have to be dismantled and started again. And she did not think she could bear to sit either in the silent room or in the silent garden much longer. For now impatience, like a deeper than normal heartbeat, was beginning to make itself felt in her, and she wanted to get through the intervening time between this moment and that Saturday, to abolish the journeys and the fitting and the lecture and all the meals she would have to eat between now and then, and to find herself sitting at her window, in her final moment of waiting, before the beautiful evening was to begin.

  At the end, the tension in the sitting room was too much for her. Louise seemed not to have moved from her chair for two days. Kitty carried out with her, into the sunshine, an image of Louise, in her dusty black dress, with a powdering of sugar on the breast, her face impassive, her swollen feet propped on a footstool, stitching with rapid unhesitating strokes. Vadim moving silently around her, his expression watchful, almost severe. The room indifferent to the splendour outside, aromatic and enclosed. In the garden Kitty sat and waited for the hours to pass. It stayed light until very late and she had no idea of the time. Finally, on the Monday, as she was sitting, she heard the window above her open, and turning, saw her grandfather’s head emerge, and heard him say, ‘Ça y est. Viens, Thérèse.’

  Standing on a sheet in the middle of the floor, she submitted while Louise dropped the dress over her head, while Vadim turned her round and secured it, while Louise then lifted the dress on the shoulders and let it settle. She stood quite still as Louise stepped back, lit a cigarette, and contemplated her handiwork. She stood until the cigarette was smoked, the inspection finished. Not a word was exchanged. Then Louise turned to Vadim and nodded to him. His face broke into his great smile and he kissed her cheek. Then Kitty was allowed to see herself in the glass. The dress was exquisite, so light, so easy, with the famous pleats breaking about the knees, and the long graceful jacket. I cannot possibly wear any of Caroline’s jewellery with this, thought Kitty. I shall have to put it on to save her feelings and keep it in my bag for the rest of the evening. I must remember to put it on when I get back to Old Church Street in case she is still up and about. Then she turned to her grandmother who motioned her to walk up and down, and then when she was back on the sheet and her grandmother seated, she said, ‘It is perfect.’ She took the dress off and gave it to Vadim who packed it carefully in layers of tissue paper and put it into a bag. As if I were a customer, thought Kitty, with a pang. She knelt by the side of her grandmother’s chair, longing to lay her head on the worn velvet of the arm. When she could speak, she said, ‘Thank you.’ Louise looked at her, with no apparent emotion, even a certain distant gravity. Then she reached out her hand, pinched Kitty’s chin and said, ‘Vas-y, ma fille.’

  They all had a cup of coffee together, and it was so late, and they were so tired, that they had little to say to each other. Kitty wanted to see them both into bed, but they never would allow that. With a sigh, she realized that she must leave them, that the long day had finally come to an end, that the time of contemplation was behind her and the time of action about to be inaugurated. She was irritated by this solemn thought and anxious to be done with it for it had no place in her new life, in which everything was possible. So she collected the cups quite briskly and marched into the kitchen and put it to rights, and tried to break the mood that had intensified around them. She gathered up her things and kissed them both goodnight, and went out into the evening air, breathing deeply. As she turned to give them a last wave, as she always did, she saw their two faces at the window, white masks that dwindled as she walked backwards down the hill, still waving.

  THIRTEEN

  Kitty, waving goodbye at the gate, saw Pauline Bentley stow her mother carefully into the car. She had offered to stay at home and mind the dog while Pauline undertook the one annual outing to which Mrs Bentley remained faithful, despite her loathing of being transported anywhere by any means she could not control. They were going to a fête at a large house in an adjoining village; Mrs Bentley had known the previous owners and considered it her duty as an upholder of the old regime to support the nurses’ charity to which the proceeds would go, although she voiced her loud disapproval every time someone shook a collecting box under her nose. They were, Mrs Bentley had told Kitty, to sit in the rose garden, which she had always admired, talk to one or two people, have a cup of tea, and come home.

  Kitty, lingering by the gate, saw them in her mind’s eye, as if admitted to a larger gathering or assembly than she had ever enjoyed, conversing with people of greater breadth and ease. What were they wearing, she wondered? What would be suitable? Mrs Bentley had gone off in her sandals, with her tin in the pocket of her usual cardigan; Pauline had worn an unimpressive pair of trousers. She herself would have tried harder, she thought.

  But Pauline, steering her mother over tussocks of bleached grass, and quite unaware of Kitty’s disapproval, felt that she was trying quite hard enough, particularly as her mother had forgotten where she was and was demanding reassurance in her usual carrying tones.

  ‘I can’t remember what I am doing here,’ said Mrs Bentley, stopping dead and shading her sightless eyes, ‘although I dare say it makes a change. But what sort of change is it making, my dear? Are you smuggling me into an old folks’ home? Will you abandon me in the middle of this field, or whatever it is? More to the point, have I got time for a smoke?’

  ‘You know perfectly well, Mother, that this is the most splendid treat and that you are going to enjoy every minute of it.’

  ‘Then when is it going to start?’ asked Mrs Bentley with interest.

  ‘The moment we get out of this apology for a car park and into the main garden. I thought we might sit by the roses and inhale.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bentley, ‘I remember. The Gretton’s place. Open Day, and people I have never met telling me how marvellous I am looking. Shall we have tea?’

  ‘It is only three-fifteen, Mother.’

  ‘I see nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘If I could remember where I put the car, we can do whatever you like,’ said Pauline, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘I do wish your friend could have joined us. It can’t be much fun for her with just the dog for company. Although he appreciates it, of course.’

  But Kitty was at that moment genuinely lost in the Romantic Tradition and the dog observed a suitable silence.

  ‘She is putting the final touches to her lecture, Mother,’ said Pauline, quite accurately. ‘It is this coming Tuesday, you know. We shall tell her all about the fête when we get home.’

  ‘Why are you speaking so slowly, Pauline? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Why should anything be wrong?’ asked Pauline, who had just caught sight of Maurice Bishop striding along with an unaccustomed air of elation about him. ‘Let us go along here,’ she added, taking her mother by the elbow, but she was forestalled, and it would have been too impolite to have turned away at this stage.

  ‘Mother,’ she said. ‘Here is Maurice Bishop.’

  ‘Why, Ma
urice,’ cried Mrs Bentley. ‘How delightful! Is your mother with you?’

  Pauline and Maurice gazed steadily and warningly into each other’s eyes. ‘How are you, Mrs Bentley?’ said Maurice. ‘You are looking simply splendid. Can I get you some tea?’

  ‘Thank you so … What is it, Pauline? Are you ill?’

  ‘You will forgive us, won’t you?’ said Pauline. ‘It is getting so crowded that I think we will just stroll round the rose garden and then go home for tea,’ and nodding her head twice in farewell, she grasped her mother by the arm and directed her none too gently to the rose garden, where they sat for ten minutes, Mrs Bentley expostulating between drags on a half-dead cigarette, and Pauline rather silent.

  ‘You were quite overbearing, Pauline. I should have liked to talk to Maurice. After all, I have known him since he was a boy. Has he got over that girl yet?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, Mother.’

  A shred of flaming tobacco fell on to Mrs Bentley’s skirt and was brushed off by Pauline as a matter of course. An intriguing thought struck Mrs Bentley.

  ‘Are you in love with him, Pauline? I should quite understand it if you were. But that is no excuse for behaving as you did. A little finesse, my dear. There is no point in wearing your heart on your sleeve.’

  ‘In fact,’ said Pauline, ‘I rather dislike him. I always have, now that I come to think of it. Shall we go home and surprise Kitty? She is our guest, after all.’

  In the car Mrs Bentley expressed a desire to attend Kitty’s lecture but was told by Pauline that the journey would tire her too much.

  ‘But I am so fond of her. Tell me, Pauline, what does she look like?’

  Pauline thought. ‘She looks very pretty when she is animated and rather plain when she is not.’

  Mrs Bentley nodded. ‘Journalière, that used to be called. What else?’

  ‘She is very well-dressed, almost too well-dressed. Oh, I suppose she is quite attractive. They think highly of her in the Department.’

  ‘She has such a pretty voice,’ said Mrs Bentley. ‘Such very precise English. You rarely hear such good enunciation these days. It comes from her being a foreigner, of course.’

  ‘Oh, really, Mother. She was born in London. Although I agree that she gives the impression of someone not quite at home here. Trying to learn the rules, as it were.’

  ‘I should call her well-bred, and that says it all. The natives, after all, don’t have to bother.’

  There were many reasons why Pauline did not want to pursue the subject of Kitty, who, she felt, must be having a perfectly ghastly weekend, and so she diverted her mother from this particular topic of conversation by trying to persuade her to give up smoking, as she did, in the line of duty, at least once a week.

  ‘You nearly set fire to yourself this afternoon.’

  ‘I didn’t even notice,’ said Mrs Bentley absently. ‘But what a spectacular way to go. It might even be on the wireless.’

  ‘I should have bought a cake at one of those stalls,’ mused Pauline. ‘Kitty will be starving to death.’

  But Kitty had had quite a pleasant dreamy afternoon in the little garden, reading her lecture superstitiously, although she knew it was finished, and even rather good. She walked down to the local shop and bought a packet of waxen tea cakes and toasted them and put the kettle on and so a second tea was ready when Pauline and Mrs Bentley got home – the least she could do, Kitty felt, for Pauline had been so kind with her invitations, and was prepared to drive Kitty to the station whenever she decided to leave. Kitty was anxious now to get back to London and the intense absorbing ritual she had devised for herself and which now afflicted her with shivers of anticipation. So that when she asked Mrs Bentley if she would excuse her shortly after tea, explaining that she still had more work to do, although she had not, and had patted the still comatose dog, and met Pauline’s eyes fixed on her in some sort of speculation, she felt the visit had reached a quite natural conclusion. She kissed Mrs Bentley, who appeared a little surprised, but pleased by the attention. ‘I wish you all good fortune on Tuesday, my dear,’ said Mrs Bentley in her usual loud conversational tones. ‘Remember to aim your voice at the back of the room. And try not to look at anyone in particular. They will begin to wonder if you are sending out secret messages and then you will wonder what you have done to make them so uneasy, and then you will lose your nerve.’ It was not a cheerful piece of advice, but Kitty felt it was a useful one. I must remember not to look at Maurice, she thought.

  She was rather silent in the car, thinking of the various ordeals of the week to come. Her lecture was in the evening and Professor Redmile had invited her to drink a glass of sherry beforehand – ‘although I am sure you will not need Dutch courage, Miss Maule. We know the quality of your material. Great stuff. Great stuff.’ The occasion, thought Kitty, would be even more taxing than the lecture itself, particularly as there would be several people there and whenever this occurred Professor Redmile tended to confide in them details of the revised estimates for the New Building. Glazed with boredom, his guests invariably drank too much, and Kitty had visions of them falling asleep during the lecture, rending the air with their snores and having to be elbowed awake when it was all over. For the lecture itself she could trust herself to her typescript and Louise’s dress; if I can keep my nerve, I shall be quite effective. Whatever Mrs Bentley says, I must remember not to shout. That is not the dress for shouting in. And I must get plenty of sleep between now and Saturday.

  London was silent in the heat and although the weather was so exceptionally fine the streets seemed to be deserted. She reached the flat in an anxious though somnolent state which surprised her; she put it down to the effects of so much concentration and to Mrs Bentley’s curiously jarring command not to look at anyone while she was lecturing. She had imagined herself communing eagerly with her audience, and had seen them responding to her with equal eagerness; she had envisaged the sort of open exchange that always seemed to elude her. And now, she realized, it was to be yet another solo performance of high strain. She sighed, and let herself into the flat.

  Through the wall there came the sound of a robust and actorish voice describing sheep-stealing in Elizabethan England. Within minutes, Caroline knocked on the door and was revealed to Kitty’s gaze in a violet cotton print dress, violet sandals, and violet eye-shadow to match. She had evidently spent the entire day refurbishing herself, for her hair and nails were immaculate. ‘Thank God you’re home,’ she said. ‘I’ve been dying of boredom.’ She advanced into Kitty’s flat, leaving the sheep-stealing recital behind her. ‘It must have been marvellous in the country. You are lucky, Kitty. Nobody ever asks me out now.’

  ‘But all your friends …’ Kitty began.

  ‘Well, now that I’m divorced they don’t want to know me. You know how it is with a woman on her own. The wives close ranks. A woman on her own is a threat, Kitty.’

  Kitty, who could not see Caroline as a threat, said nothing. Then, realizing that Caroline meant to stay for the rest of the evening, she calculated how many eggs she had left. ‘You’ll have a snack with me, won’t you?’ she said pleasantly. And even more pleasantly, ‘Why don’t you switch that thing off and leave it off for a bit? You cannot, by the remotest stretch of the imagination, be interested in Elizabethan sheep.’

  Caroline laughed, drifted off, then drifted back again, displacing a small cloud of scent. ‘Actually, I don’t want anything to eat. It’s too hot. Why don’t you show me what you’re going to wear for your lecture? I haven’t seen your dress yet.’ Kitty, seeing her face rosy and childlike with anticipation, went obediently to the bedroom to prepare herself. The dress was as good as ever, but Kitty did not like what she saw. I am strained, she thought; this waiting is telling on me. And I am tired of the company of women. If only I could see Maurice. If only he were here instead of Caroline. Why does he not come to me? Do I have to give a lecture to engage his attention? Must I avoid his eyes in the hall at the very moment when I ne
ed to read some message in them? Why does he keep me waiting so long?

  ‘Very nice,’ said Caroline, in a dubious sort of voice. ‘But don’t you think you ought to liven it up a bit? I think if you wore my chains and a vivid scarf … Actually it’s your face that needs dressing up a bit, if you don’t mind my saying so, Kitty. Just stay there. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  When she returned, it was with an armoury of bottles and jars and brushes, and a pair of sandals with very high heels. Instructing Kitty to try them for size, she darted into the bathroom for a towel, and draping it around Kitty’s shoulders, proceeded to transform her, humming with pleasure as she did so. I must let her get on with this, thought Kitty, suppressing a yawn; it has clearly saved her evening. Although it is rather ruining mine.

  Her face, which Caroline demonstrated to her with pride, was enlivened with many colours: green on the eyelids, a curious brick pink on the cheeks and mouth. She looked, in fact, like a bad facsimile of Caroline. When she had been draped in the chains and scarves, she saw, with interest, that she resembled a prostitute she had once seen emerging from the George-Cinq. A cynical, capable, and utterly French other self had emerged, and this self was not the sort of woman who gave lectures or aspired to the unity of a simple life or desired to align herself with the beliefs and customs of the established majority. This startling face held promises of great assurance, of sophistication; this was a face that belonged to a woman who knew how to please. Caroline was delighted with it. ‘The thing is, Kitty, that you sometimes look a bit depressed, if you don’t mind my saying so. As if you’ve … I don’t know, been stood up, or something. In fact, you want to take the initiative a bit more. Nothing’s going to happen if you just sit in this flat.’ She sighed. ‘I should know.’ She looked so tragic that Kitty went to put the kettle on. Changing out of her dress, but with her face still adorned, she wondered how she could get rid of Caroline at a reasonable hour, remove all traces of her ministrations, and get a good night’s sleep.