Fraud Page 7

  With Lawrence Halliday, who had taken over attendance on her mother when Dr Howarth, the senior partner of the practice, retired, she had thought that all would be well. It was not quite love, but for the first time in her life she had felt an untroubled sense of appropriation. This, she imagined, was how other women felt when they met their future husbands. Professional propriety had stood between them, and nothing had taken place, either inside or outside the drawing-room, but she could see his deference, could see that he was impressed by her demeanour, and had indeed, on those occasions when they drank their sherry so thoughtfully, with talk only of her mother, eyed him impassively, objectively, acknowledging that he pleased her, but not yet inclined to break the spell of good manners that lay on them both.

  He was weak, she could see that: he flushed too readily, was uneasy when not being a doctor. Although his accent and speech were classless, she sensed a lifetime of scholarships behind him, and an eager mother in the background to whom he occasionally spoke roughly but to whom he was devoted. She sensed that his arrival in the Cheltenham Terrace practice was the realization of a lifetime’s dreams and ambitions, and that he was on his best behaviour, impressed, in spite of himself, by the massive shadowy comfort of Albert Hall Mansions. She could also see that he would need to shed these good manners from time to time, would seek noisy company, might have tastes which did not quite accord with his professional dignity. She felt that she could take care of all this. He must be cultivated, he must be guided, he must be made to feel comfortable. She would be happy to make him comfortable. In return he would make her into a married woman, and together they would both look after her mother. For it was unthinkable that she should abandon her mother, now that she was obviously failing, and Albert Hall Mansions was big enough for all of them.

  It was not quite love, but it had seemed like destiny. What he felt she never knew. She could see that she impressed him, that he too thought in terms of what was fitting. She thought gravely about what might unite the two of them but sought to contain her mother’s too obvious enthusiasm. Love came later, when he in his turn disappeared, and disappeared in the company of another woman, whose confident and confiding tones had made him bold. Then love took over, together with desolation and a sense of failure. She had sat in the drawing-room for many evenings, alone, after her mother had gone to bed, and fought hard with herself for control and mastery of her feelings. She knew what she had to do. What she had to do was to be perfectly courteous, always, to convey to him no sign of disappointment, to make no violent gulping scene such as a lesser woman might make. She saw that the effort she would be demanding of him would have been too much for him. Nothing was said; everything was understood. ‘Don’t upset my mother,’ she had said. ‘I will tell her later.’ He had been relieved. But she had told her mother nothing.

  ‘You’re terribly thin, Anna,’ he had said. ‘Are you sure you’re looking after yourself properly?’ ‘You’re terribly thin,’ he had said again at Mrs Marsh’s party. ‘You’d better come and see me.’

  That was what she had brought home from the party, not the promise of pleasing Nick, for she knew that he found her ridiculous, with her flushed face and her careful clothes. And with this realization came an increasing coldness, as if the eager feelings with which she had anticipated the party had been overcome by reason and by hard fact, against which they had no defence. He did not even dislike her enough to feel antagonistic, as she suddenly and shockingly did. As if to disguise this unpleasantness she sought to please him, as that imagined other woman would have done, assumed a look of sparkling animation, darted forward, as Mrs Marsh, in black, with a crescent of dusty diamonds pinned to her left shoulder, came trudging in with a tray of slightly burnt sausages and a dish of mustard. Briefly they wrestled for control of the tray until Mrs Marsh moved inexorably on.

  ‘Where do you live in London?’ she had asked.

  ‘Notting Hill Gate,’ he had answered briefly, spraying her with his meaty breath.

  His breath changed to cheese, as Lucy, his niece, offered tiny Welsh rarebits, and then to garlic as Mrs Duncan came by with the crudités. All this time he kept his eyes firmly in front of him, as if in implacable refusal of her presence.

  ‘Have you any children?’ she had asked desperately.

  His dark jowled face swung briefly in her direction, one eyebrow lifted, the eye expressing surprise.

  ‘None,’ he replied. ‘Have you?’

  She was aware that she was uncomfortable to be with, had little to offer but her maidenly accomplishments and her letter-writing and her too careful clothes. Nothing there for a man like Nick, or perhaps for any man. But that is not what I am looking for, she thought. What she was looking for was a man to whom explanations of her position would be unnecessary, for he would be so interested that information would flow between them, with no effort required on either side. Instead she was presented, as if he were a treat, a prize, with this Nick, whose costive utterances and implacable reserve she was supposed to find rewarding, as she supposed some other women might, women to whom a man resembled a safe waiting to be cracked, and the reward all that the safe contained. But that kind man, that teacher, lover, friend, who remained indistinct, would be generous with words; she imagined their life together as a long conversation, equally shared. For it was many years since she had spoken freely. She had grown up with the knowledge that she must protect her mother from hurt, and that meant from the truth. They had lived in a pleasant collaboration of unrealities, each secretly knowing that she was making a sacrifice for the other. Amy Durrant had pretended to feel more cheerful and certainly stronger than was the case; only once had she blithely disregarded their pact, when she let the stranger in, and the resulting devastation, when he left, was almost enough to hasten her end. They took it as a warning, paid more careful attention to their fictive life together, and presented a façade of optimism to the last. ‘Such a marvellous spirit,’ said neighbours, who sometimes commented, and who were briefly sympathetic when Amy died. ‘Devoted. Such faith.’ They had done it all without faith of any kind, but the discipline sometimes amounted to a kind of religious observance. And now it was too much part of her life to be discarded.

  Within that carapace she was an adult woman, but one who had no voice because of her lifelong concealment, which no-one now would question. She was represented by an exterior manner which she herself found burdensome, as if she were only just learning what other women had always known, so that she made too many efforts, and all of them inept. This strenuous task of engaging the attention of a man who secretly appalled her filled her with sadness, yet she was bound to persevere with him, as another woman might, as if some part of her still wanted to prove that she might make a conquest, and because of Lawrence Halliday being in the same room. She hated Nick Marsh, hated his cruelty, and was determined that he should notice her, that he should acknowledge her in some way. All this was exacerbated by the public nature of the encounter. She was almost pleased when Vickie Halliday interrupted their conversation, halting as it was, arid immediately began sparkling and dazzling like a firework in her red dress, with her red nails, and Lawrence’s diamond on her finger. She had had a certain amount of champagne to drink, enough to make her silly and tactless, and an answering smile had spread over Nick’s face. This was what ordinary, normal women did, Anna had thought: they issued a challenge, even if that challenge were only one of availability. And never mind propriety, decorum, good manners: all these had to go, and that was the whole point … ‘Hypersensitive,’ she heard this child-woman say, her eyes widening at the drama of her own life. Yet at the same time, when Lawrence had come up and touched her arm and said that they must leave she had accorded him a brisk no-nonsense attention, briefly grown up, like the woman she might be in thirty years’ time. That was when Anna had moved to the kitchen. When she returned it was to hear Vickie inviting Nick to dinner. ‘I’m a very good cook, even though I say it myself.’ Turning to Anna, whom she had prev
iously ignored, she had said, ‘And you must come to one of my parties, Anna. It’s time you met some new people. Lawrence has told me how good you were to your mother.’ Lawrence had briefly drawn her away.

  ‘You’re very thin, Anna. You’d better come and see me.’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ she had replied.

  ‘Will you go to her dinner party and eat her fabulous food?’ she had asked Nick with a touch of asperity, once the others had left.

  He had accorded her a brief glance of interest.

  ‘Probably not,’ he said.

  ‘You two seem to have a lot to talk about,’ said Philippa merrily, coming round with more champagne despite her mother’s warning glance.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ she said to him. And, to kind Philippa, ‘It’s been a lovely party. I must say goodbye to your mother. Although of course I’ll ring her tomorrow.’

  They had travelled back to Cranley Gardens in virtual silence, once he had looked round to see if his dog were comfortable, and then to explain the dog’s absence. She had felt very cold, very tired. When the car stopped in the silent frosty street he had leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. She had kissed him back, knowing that this was his way of dismissing her. They had looked at each other, momentarily absolved from their mutual antagonism. Then, without a word, she had got out of the car, slammed the door, and walked away.

  He had thought her a virgin, as did everyone else, as had her mother, but she had had her modest adventures during her year in Paris, students, as young and unspoiled as herself, two French boys and the more sophisticated Austrian who had told her to wear gardenia scent, as she had done ever since. They were so sweet, so friendly—part of her youth which now seemed to her archaic, as if the trusting creature she had been then were now under sheet ice. If her mother had guessed she had said nothing. Neither had said anything; that was part of the pact. No confessions, no confidences, nothing to disturb or to threaten their closeness. And now there was nothing to say, to anyone, only a letter to finish, with that faint distortion in the presentation of events at which she had become so expert. She was tired, very tired, as she always seemed to be these days, and her bed was her greatest comfort. She went to bed earlier and earlier, for the night thoughts were precious to her. Only then, in her solitude, did she seem to join her mother, whose presence was always in a corner of her consciousness. Lying down she found not only peace but her essential self, her loving self, when love came easily and was met with equal love, before cruelty and loss had taken their toll.

  She turned back the bed, and went to the desk to finish her letter. ‘I shall be thinking of you all at Meaux on Christmas Eve. How nice that Emmanuel and his family will be with you instead of with Solange’s parents. How I wish that I had a nephew, or a niece, or best of all a sister! But I have many good friends, for which I am grateful, and above all I have you. Don’t forget—I shall be coming to Paris to celebrate your sixtieth birthday! In the meantime my love to Papa, and my fondest love to yourself. I am thinking of you.

  ‘Grosses bises,

  Anna.’

  7

  ‘SHE IS VIRTUOUS,’ said Mrs Marsh. ‘She is a good woman.’

  ‘Hardly a recommendation in this day and age, Mother.’

  ‘I’m obliged to correct you, Nick. People take too ribald a view of virtue, in my opinion. It is not necessarily very intelligent of them. And do stop saying “in this day and age”. Anyone would think that goodness was simply an item of fashion. It is rather more than that, I should hope.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you are doing her no favours by describing her in that way.’

  ‘I find your attitude quite extraordinary. Is this the generation gap I have always heard about?’

  ‘You started it, Mother.’

  Mrs Marsh was tired and therefore combative. She was also appalled to see how tired she had become; far more so, surely, than after last year’s party. They sat amid empty glasses and plates of congealed sausages, and she hardly had the strength to clear them away. Mrs Duncan had gone off smartly, saying that she would see to everything on the following morning. She could have stayed, thought Mrs Marsh, but I suppose she wanted to get her husband’s meal. Philippa would have helped, but I did not want her to be late for the opera. She looked so nice for once: there must be someone in the background. The children, of course, think that I am immortal. And Nick would never dream of doing my washing up. Not that he would be unwilling, but he would simply never dream of doing it: the thought would never enter his mind. He grew up with servants, and he married a competent wife. I loved him the best, of all of them, Bill included. And yet nowadays he pleases me less. He looks self-satisfied, as if he might be a menace to women, meaning them no good. Ever since the divorce, ever since Sonia’s remarriage, he has been taking his revenge. Her fault, both technically and morally, yet there is something unattractive about a man who divorces his wife on principle, because she has been unfaithful to him, when with a little magnanimity it could all have been settled. Whereas he had to punish her by making public the adultery.

  I liked Sonia, so beautiful, so witty. There was never any intimacy between us, but I enjoyed her flying visits. She made me feel younger, although we had nothing in common. I was always a dull woman, and she was prestigious, with something a little unreal about her, as if her status and her beauty and the private income she had always enjoyed protected her from knowing painful truths. But they gave her a certain grace. I admired her. She never quite neglected me, although she was certainly of no use in any practical sense. Those flying visits of hers cheered me up, but when the visits became even more flying and even more brief I thought nothing of it, until the day when she rushed in, and after a few breathless enquiries, said she must use the bathroom and came down smelling of scent, saying she was late for a meeting with a friend.

  That was her only clumsiness; ordinarily she was very graceful, knew how to organize these matters. That little trail of excitement gave me pause. Nick was unapproachable at this time. He took the whole matter more seriously than I did, than any of us did. And he found out, of course, because Sonia had no concealment in her. She was in love: that was what he could not forgive. So they divorced, much to my regret, and eventually she married again, not the man who caused the divorce but someone much older, to whom she was an ornament and an entertainment. And we lost touch: I never blamed her. It was a sort of tact in her, although I missed her. Nick has borne a grudge ever since, as if he has it in for all women. It is high time he married again. I imagine he is not short of companions, whom he treats jocularly, without compassion. He defends himself against hurt, but what sort of a man is frightened of being hurt?

  She heaved herself to her feet, collected the few glasses and plates which were left and took them out to the kitchen. She put the remaining canapés on a clean plate and went back with them into the drawing-room.

  ‘You might finish these,’ she said. ‘We are only having scrambled eggs. I couldn’t think of anything else. The kitchen is still in a state of siege.’

  ‘What I meant was,’ she said, seating herself again, as if reluctant to leave this important subject, ‘that good women are an investment that many men refuse to make. Why should this be?’

  ‘Don’t hedge, Mother. You are talking about one particular good woman, as you call her, and I refuse to be drawn.’

  ‘There is lipstick on your handkerchief,’ said Mrs Marsh sharply.

  ‘Blame yourself for that, Mother. There was no other way I could say good-night, knowing that I never wanted to see her again.’

  ‘I dare say you insulted her, when she is so obviously virtuous.’ A virgin, was what she meant to say, but it seemed too unkind.

  ‘It is the obviousness that I object to,’ he said.

  Prudently, each observed a short silence. Neither wished to be drawn. Nick was uncomfortable, feeling vaguely in the wrong, but only because his mother made it clear to him that in this matter she opposed him. It was so rare for him to be ad
monished by his mother. For the rest he could not see that there was anything about which he need feel guilty. He had cancelled so many women with a kiss: in his view it signified that he did not wish to take matters further, the kiss itself conveying recognition of the woman’s appeal. He thought of it as a form of chivalry, a way of saving both their faces. He saw no harm in it, rather the contrary. A man in his position—in any position—owed it to himself to make his intentions clear. It was even more important to make his lack of intentions clear, otherwise there might be telephone calls, invitations of an unwelcome nature which he must answer with a more brutal refusal. He had always known that he lacked a certain grace. He had inherited something of his mother’s rectitude but simply misapplied it. Consequently he mishandled most emotional situations, cut them short, laughed at them, or refused to forgive. With a little more finesse he could have retained his wife. Yet he did not see how he could have continued to live with her after what he considered to be her unforgivable lightness. He thought of her a great deal, with regret, but also with rage. No woman, in his opinion, merited consideration after the suffering she had caused him.