A Misalliance Read online

  Bertie sat down in his usual chair with a slight sigh.

  ‘I hope I find you well,’ said Blanche, looking at him with an expression of some reserve.

  Bertie appeared strange to her. Mousie insisted that in the evenings and at weekends he change into clothes that broadcast messages of youth and leisure. He looked like a child, Blanche thought. ‘In any case, I think it behooves lonely women to take on the burden of the world’s drinking,’ she said. ‘Curious verb, behooves. I behoove, you behoove. Or is it intransitive? You’ll find a bottle of Malaga in the larder,’ she added, seeing that, as usual, he was taking no notice. ‘Or there’s some Madeira, if you prefer it. With a sliver of Madeira cake, perhaps.’

  Bertie ran a finger round where his collar ought to be. ‘Home-made?’ he enquired, remembering that he was wearing a polo-necked jersey.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Blanche, getting up and going out for the tray.

  They sat sipping in companionable silence, while Bertie ran an eye over his former home. There was no doubt that this flat was more congenial to him than his new home, although the house agent had told him that prices in Fulham were due to go through the roof. When they did, he planned to buy something else; Mousie was all for keeping on the move, exploring new possibilities, getting to know new people. Eventually, she said, they would want to settle down and become part of a community. But there was no hint of mobility or change in Blanche’s rooms, where the lamps were always low and where furniture stood, shadowy, in the half light. Blanche, gliding back from the kitchen, seemed to be moving soundlessly, her feet half hidden. An atmosphere of quietude surrounded her activities; in all their years together he had never known her to be unreasonable. When he thought about it, as he sometimes did, he realized that he had never really been put out by her bizarre notions, although he now supposed that they were more noticeable than had ever been apparent to him. Of course, he was sorry to have upset her, more sorry than he judged it wise to let Mousie know, but the great thing about Blanche was her self-sufficiency. What was more, he had never seen her cry, whereas Mousie cried rather a lot.

  ‘This carpet is getting shabby, Blanche.’

  ‘True,’ she agreed; ‘but it is so dark in here that you can hardly see it.’

  This, coming from her, sounded almost like an accusation.

  ‘There is no need for it to be so dim. I keep telling you to buy stronger bulbs. Anyone would think you liked sitting in the dark.’

  ‘I should look rather foolish sitting here by myself in a blaze of light,’ she said. ‘Besides, I should notice the shabbiness of the carpet. No, this way I can prepare myself for a good night’s sleep. The evening is the time for meditation. It is a fitting way to end the day.’

  ‘What is the matter with you, Blanche?’ he said impatiently. ‘You are not becoming melancholy, I hope?’ Or maudlin, he added silently.

  ‘Me?’ said Blanche, giving signs of a fearful animation. ‘I am in simply splendid shape. There is no need to worry about me, Bertie. I am in better shape than you are. You are putting on a good deal of weight, I see. Have some more cake.’

  Bertie brushed crumbs from the front of his pullover and reached for another slice of Madeira cake. ‘I shall take it all off when we go on holiday,’ he said, with some dignity. ‘I shall adjust rapidly. We shall be swimming a great deal, after all.’

  ‘Oh, really? Where will you be doing this?’

  ‘Didn’t I mention it? We are going to Greece. Next month, as a matter of fact. We have taken a villa with some friends of Mousie’s.’

  Then I can’t expect to see you for some time, she thought, and was almost relieved that he had let her know, so that she should not stand at the window and wait for him.

  There was never much to say on these occasions, although Blanche sometimes allowed herself the luxury of saying more now than she had done when she was married to him. His presence comforted her, and in a way he took some sustenance from hers. Once in a while he would have liked to have stayed and watched television, not saying anything. But he usually stood up, with a small sigh, after about three-quarters of an hour, kissed her absentmindedly, and left. Locking the door behind him, as he instructed her, Blanche would go to bed and, on those nights that he had visited her, sleep.

  There was no rancour in her towards Bertie. She looked on him, as she had always looked on him, as a kind of gigantic treat, a prize won in a lottery, something fortunate and undeserved, and, because undeserved, all the more pleasurable. She even understood his defection, for he was a restless man and she had always dreaded boring him. Over the years she had hidden her sorrows from him, and in doing so had lapsed into odd silences: often Bertie wondered what he had done wrong. And it was a matter of honour to her never to utter a rebuke, although he would have welcomed it. Thus she sent him off to his new life with a whole area of normality stretching between them, untouched. She had simply refused to discuss what he referred to as ‘the breakdown of our marriage’, since, as far as she was concerned, it had not broken down. This refusal had led to such discomfort that it was a relief to both of them when he left. And yet, even after a year, and with all her deficiencies intact, she still waited for him to come back, and he, perhaps, on odd occasions, found himself returning to what he had to be careful not to think of as ‘home’. He was aware of his age, and of hers. But Blanche thought of herself as no age at all, as dematerialized, made hollow by his disappearance. It was as if he had taken her entire history with him. Bertie, when he looked in on his way back to Fulham, would be disconcerted to see how young she looked. It was only after he left, when she was alone again, that her face saddened and altered. But Blanche, who was not much interested in how she appeared to others these days, scarcely noticed the change.

  THREE

  Blanche saw the child and mentally appropriated her before she knew her name: Elinor.

  The child, dressed in pink dungarees and a pink anorak, with a wisp of her brown hair caught in a pink ribbon bow, was about three years old and not conventionally appealing. What was impressive about her was her extraordinary gravity, as she sat, pursuing a piece of cake with a teaspoon, in the little vestibule where Blanche was dispensing tea for the Outpatients, this being her occupation for two days of every week, although she usually carried out her duties on one or other of the wards, where she was known to, and liked by, the patients, who saw something quasi-professional in her indomitable smile and her tactful lack of false cheer.

  Blanche’s first thought was that the little girl must be a foundling; no normal child could sit so quietly in this unsettling place, without fidgeting, without crying, without staring, without protesting, yet she had none of the awful passivity that Blanche had come to recognize in children waiting to see the doctor, children too sick to play, to question, to assert their own pagan energy. This child looked perfectly well, but indifferent to her surroundings, as she sat with the composure of a small adult, imposing a sort of autonomy on the uneasy conviviality around her, ignoring it. Like a foundling, she appeared wise beyond her years, as if on a mission, needing no guidance or assistance, but rather waiting for the story to be unfolded. Her dreadful patience, as she pursued the piece of cake, instead of picking it up and cramming it into her mouth, gave Blanche a pang of mingled horror and sympathy, for she saw signs there of a determination to succeed at difficult tasks no matter how easy an alternative there was to be found.

  So great was the child’s degree of self-possession that Blanche would not have been surprised to find her unaccompanied, but eventually a cheerful red-headed girl, who had been in animated conversation with the blonde mother of a fractious baby, leaned over to her, and, scarcely noticing the effort that was going into the accomplishment of the child’s self-imposed exercise, said, ‘Want some more?’ Ignoring the child’s reply, perhaps because there was none, or perhaps because it was too late in coming, she transferred her cigarette to her left hand, dug in the pocket of her complicated and fashionable kimono coat for some money, sauntered over to the counter, and said to Blanche, ‘Another piece of that. Oh, and I might as well have another tea.’

  I would not let her have any more cake, thought Blanche. It is synthetic and horrible and will do her no good. I would let her have a banana and some fruit juice; she would find the banana easier to eat and it would be better for her. But she said nothing and smiled at the girl as she gave her her change, registering, as she did so, a disagreeable impression which she could not analyse although it was powerful enough to make her transfer her attention from the child to its mother.

  Unlike the child, the mother was spectacular, vivid, obtrusive. The ichor of extreme and abundant youth and fertility made its pulse felt in the sheen of her skin, the coarseness of the red hair, the limbs swimming in their layered cotton garments, the small feet bare in their black leather sandals. An air of wealth surrounded her and glinted from the gold bracelets she wore on either wrist. The incongruity of finding such a woman in charge of so plain and serious a child worried Blanche, as if the woman, by virtue of her very contemporaneity, her involvement in her own passionate and desirable present, could not possibly give the child the attention it needed, as if, in the shadow of such a mother, the child had learnt, too young, too drastically, the lesson that some are born to bask in the attention of others while some are destined for a discreet position in the half-light. While the mother’s every movement proclaimed her intense appetite for life, the child’s eyes seemed to be drawn downwards, in eternal contemplation of the elusive piece of cake, which she would not abandon until she had mastered the art of successful capture; while the mother laughed in conversation with the blonde woman on her left, and rectified her bracelets, and examined a chipped red nail, the little girl continued to ply her wavering teaspoon, an expression of perfect gravity on her face.

  What worried Blanche, in the anxiety she now felt as she followed the child’s unvarying efforts, was that the balance of life was on the wrong side here, that the vitality was invested in the mother rather than in the little girl. For an odd moment it seemed to her as if the mother were actually younger than the little girl, and she wondered if that was why she had felt so decisive a reaction when she had first identified her. It was not that her behaviour was in any way tiresome or displeasing; it was in fact a relief to find the mother of so small a child, in so gloomy a place, laughing so naturally and so confidently. What disturbed Blanche was the curiously blind and undifferentiated smile that the girl turned on everyone, as if the smile were not so much a response to the smiles of others as a function of the girl’s own progress, as she swung through the rows of chairs, her cup of tea and her cigarette held slightly outstretched, like a libation, and then Blanche saw what had given her that slight shock of recognition. The girl’s expression was the same as the expression of those nymphs who had seemed to mock her progress through the Italian Rooms of the National Gallery on long slow April afternoons. She had the smile of a true pagan. She would operate according to the laws of the old gods rather than huddle in the mournful companionship of the fallen world.

  So disagreeable a realization – for it was stronger than an impression – caused Blanche to accuse herself of gross eccentricity. It was as if the sight of the woman and the reaction she had produced had brought out in Blanche the latent madness of which Mousie had implicitly suspected her and of which she had hitherto given no sign. The woman, or girl, for she could be no more than twenty-four or -five, had done her no harm, had addressed no word other than a request for tea, had swept her searchlight smile over Blanche’s face without ill-intent, not seeing her because she had no reason to see her, taking Blanche’s outstretched hand with the plate, the teacup, at face value, simply as commodities. It was not the effect of the girl’s indifference that alerted Blanche (for why should she not be indifferent?) so much as the girl’s lack of sadness at seeing her child in these surroundings. Blanche, who was used to Miss Elphinstone’s pursed lips as she strove to conceal her disappointment when she found a stray empty bottle, could detect sorrow, could detect it a mile off, could detect it even in Mrs Duff, met on the bus or in the street, eyes widening in sympathy as she registered Blanche’s stately and disarming progress, her elaborate stratagems for going nowhere in particular, could detect it in Barbara, with her laconic telephone calls. The gift of compassion is born in one or not at all; the artificial commodity, assumed or advertised, misses too many clues. Compassion acquired later in life might have murmured over the plight of the little girl; it would not have registered the odd dimension of the deep and unfettered optimism – almost a secret – of the mother.

  Taking herself further to task, Blanche wondered why the mother should not be optimistic. The child did not seem in any way endangered, did not even look ill. Only her gravity was unnatural, and her silence; Blanche now realized that she had not made a sound. As the room emptied, and Blanche came from behind the counter to collect the empty cups, she hovered near the couple, curious to absorb more of their signals. The mother continued to smile, to smoke, to glance at her watch: evidently an appointment had been missed or had not been kept. Her eyes did not at any time engage Blanche but continued their sunny progress over tattered magazines or through the contents of her large shoulder bag. Several times she got up and went to the telephone in the corner to make a call. She gave the impression of being not so much in a hospital as in some sort of transit area. Her mild impatience, as she checked her watch, added to the suggestion that she was in an airport lounge. She looked ready to fly off at any moment; the child might have been brought along to say goodbye. The idea that it was the younger of the two who was the more grown-up deepened, as Blanche, lingering by the table, gazed into the little girl’s face and found in it the entirely responsible expression of a tiny adult.

  ‘I’m afraid she must be getting tired,’ she said to the mother.

  The girl laughed. ‘Well, now we’re here, we might as well stay,’ she said. ‘We were a bit late and they told us we’d got out of order and had to come back next week. But I know the doctor; he’ll see us if I can catch him.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to be at all ill,’ said Blanche.

  ‘She isn’t. She’s perfectly fine, aren’t you, Nellie?’

  ‘Nellie? That’s an unusual name, these days.’

  ‘She’s called Elinor. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her. It’s just that she doesn’t speak,’ said the mother, turning away to light another cigarette.

  The implications of this statement registered less with Blanche than the fact that the child’s name was Elinor and that it suited her. She was well dressed, although her clothes were cheap, cheaper than those of her mother.

  ‘Was that nice?’ she whispered to the child, taking away the plate with the still unfinished morsel of cake on it.

  Sitting back, and placing her hands in the pockets of her anorak, the child nodded. So she was not deaf, Blanche thought.

  ‘Is she your only child?’ she asked, falling back on trusted formulae, aware of a need to know more.

  ‘Well, she’s not really mine,’ said the girl. ‘Her mother died when she was a month old. And then I married her father and took them both on.’ She laughed, as if at the enormity of this, eluding or abolishing all the information that might have been included and was not.

  Blanche felt humbled by evidence of such rapid thinking, such careless experience, such lack of hesitancy. There was no evidence in the girl of painful decisions, painfully arrived at: she acted as if such decisions had caused her no furrowing of her smooth brow, had been easy, had been almost fun. But it would be a mistake to judge her on this, she thought, for such decisions have to be made, and who but the strong can make them?

  Seen close to, Elinor’s mother was nearly a beauty. A collection of well-defined, even sharp, features had been harmoniously assembled in a small white face: the eyes, down drooping at the corners, were deeply set, the eyelids a colour between grey and bistre. Both the ears and the nose were shapely and finely cut; the mouth, like the eyes, drooped naturally, as if in fatigue or disdain, giving a hint of boredom to her expression when it was not relieved by her habitual yet undiscriminating smile. The orange hair, heightened in colour, Blanche could see, from its original dark brown, was fashionably disarrayed, so as to give an impression of carelessness, to which the girl added by running her fingers through it, lifting it almost amorously from the nape of her neck. Her strange black cotton clothes hinted at the unfettered body beneath, and made anything more conventional look both stingy and costive. A free-running emotion was mirrored in her appearance, as if she were only to be glimpsed in passing, as she sauntered on some mysterious progress, her motives known only to herself. She had, Blanche thought, a legendary look. Beside her, the child was almost inconspicuous, and in her cheap bright colours, so out of tune with the evident seriousness of her character, pathetic.

  A nurse, coming out through double glass doors, to see if there were anybody left, checked an exclamation as she saw the girl.

  ‘Mrs Beamish! The doctor can’t possibly see you now! You were nearly an hour late for your appointment. You’ll just have to come back next week.’

  All the lines in Mrs Beamish’s face were drawn down suddenly, revealing sharp furrows in her slightly lifted upper lip. She was evidently used to this kind of reproach.

  ‘What does it matter?’ she said, with a hint of haughtiness. ‘I’m always kept waiting when I get here. I think you pack us all in here for the doctor’s convenience anyway. And if he’s still here I don’t see why he can’t see us now. I’m sure you don’t want me to come back next week. And I’m quite sure I don’t want to, so that makes two of us.’