Fraud Read online

  In the drawing-room she had switched on a single lamp, and then switched it off again: it seemed to her appropriate to sit in the dark, and she had allowed herself this little touch of drama. Besides, she could see quite well in the light of the street lamps, and she was not going to exaggerate her hurt. It was not yet despair. She recognized the rules of the game, saw that in any contest the more brightly coloured of the species would carry off the prize. Simply she was sorry that Lawrence had succumbed to so obvious a woman: she thought less of him for that. Vickie with her permanent air of excitement and suspicion, her urgent little body, her impermeable self-confidence, her air of conveying her understanding of a man’s needs, her own greediness … Lawrence had looked hapless as he had told her of his plans, almost a victim, as if he were sorry for what he was doing, but was in no way able to change his mind, having been taken over by a will greater than his own. She had behaved simply and with composure, had not expressed surprise, had wished him well. In the drawing-room that night, in the dark, she was grateful for the memory of that dignified parting. It had not been easy. But nothing in her life was easy, and she had had to learn to deal with the constraints. Her mother had had to be kept in ignorance: another constraint. She was proud that she had not caused her mother additional hurt and disappointment. In comparison with her mother’s wistful frailty, her exaggerated sensibility, she herself was calm and strong, so calm, throughout the months which followed, that she had felt herself growing immeasurably older, becoming a parent to her own mother, and as if she had no business to think in terms of a marriage of her own, as if whatever feelings she had left must be put on one side. For the duration, she thought, measuring the duration of her mother’s life, but in time meaning the duration of her own.

  This blind calm, this stoicism, had encountered, at Mrs Marsh’s party, a Vickie to whom Lawrence must have made admiring references to Anna Durrant’s strength of character. From such exchanges Vickie had retained not the tribute but the admiration, and had been on her guard, even against so humble an adversary. Bad skin, she had noted, no figure to speak of, and in her relief, in her contempt for the woman’s evident spinsterhood, she had greeted her with a tone expressing deep commiseration, as if her sympathy were not only manifest but entirely natural, and appropriate in the circumstances. If others noted this, so much the better. But Anna was simply bemused: why was Vickie so anxious? And was it not strange to affect such a tone of intimacy in such crowded surroundings? There was an invitation to confidences there to which she had no intention of responding. She sensed that Vickie would be quite happy to have her as an acolyte, a pensioner, provided that an unseen audience would commend her for her generosity: these considerations apart, Vickie’s hectically darting eyes conveyed her entire lack of interest. The meaning of this encounter was not lost on Anna, who put any discomfort felt on either side down to the fact that Vickie was some years her junior and had not yet acquired the smoothness of manner necessary in such a context. She recognized also that women of Vickie’s temperament cannot deal with unhappiness, even if it is felt by others: she would be hopeless in a bereavement, impatient, urging recovery. ‘Look on the bright side,’ she would say. ‘It was over so quickly, he could hardly have felt a thing.’ In the same way she had looked askance at Anna’s composure, aware that it was built on unhappiness, an unhappiness in which she herself had played an active part. Hence her dislike.

  These thoughts accompanied Anna on Christmas Eve, when she sat at her window looking out at the dark street, now devoid of the slightest signs of life. No passers-by, few cars, everyone safe at home. In upper windows some lights still shone, as reluctant children refused to go to sleep. An empty taxi passed, its wheels greasily indicating recent rain. Rain was forecast for the following day, and for the day after that. Neatly, thoughtfully, she turned away, back into her own living-room, a pleasant room, with its striped taffeta curtains and chaircovers, its oval mirror over the fireplace. Never quite warm enough—but she had felt the cold ever since her mother’s death. As this was Christmas Eve, and she had no duties on the following day, except perhaps to look in on Miss Carter (who would not be pleased to see her), and to invite her neighbour, Eric Harvey, for a cup of coffee, she would allow herself the supreme luxury of a sleeping pill, one of a dwindling stock given to her after her mother’s funeral. These represented a problem: soon she would have to obtain another supply. For she could not now do without them; they made all the difference between loss and hope. On days following her nights of natural sleep she would feel weighed down by her deficiencies, shackled to the past, but after a sleep of artificial depth and duration she would not be able to suppress a certain childish expectancy. For who was now to cast her down? She was free, she was healthy, she had survived. She would feel buoyed up, a lightness in her step. And the anticipation of such a state was part of the benefit of the medication itself, to which she attached a small ritual. Bathed and cleansed, her hair down, she would prepare the cup of camomile tea with careful gestures, and then, seated on the side of the bed, she would place the tiny pink pill on the back of her tongue and take a sip of the hot tea. It always went down easily. She thought it entirely anodyne, as perhaps it was. And even if it is habit-forming, she thought, what of it? I have no other bad habits.

  Her waking was beautiful. If she had any regrets they were for the darkness of the windows, the earliness of the hour. On such a day—Christmas Day—she could have slept until ten had she wanted to. But she was always early: that was seemingly inevitable. The day stretched before her, endlessly, yet she was not unhappy. She looked at the luminous dial of her clock: five forty-five. Presently she would make tea and bring it back to bed, perhaps even stay there. But she knew that once she was awake her bed would soon become intolerable. Reaching for her dressing-gown she got up and went to the kitchen, aware, as she had been on the previous evening, of the oppressive silence of the streets.

  The hours promised to be long. When she could stay in bed no longer, she pushed back the covers, collected her teacup, ran a bath, and tried to visualize the coming day. Dressed, she sat down to breakfast at half-past seven, the windows still black. The chemical benefits of her beautiful night’s sleep had bestowed on her a very slight optimism, even amusement. She would go through the charade of this day, she decided, but without taking it too seriously: it would be under-populated, devoid of conversation, but otherwise no worse than any other. She had never been sentimental about Christmas. She and her mother had exchanged gifts—usually exquisite, usually expensive—and had then retired to their rooms to dress. Lunch had been a mild affair, a roast chicken, salad, cheese, a little fruit. In the afternoon her mother rested, while Anna went for a walk. They came together again for tea, after which they read or watched television. Fatal alliance! There was no strain, no frustration, no untoward longing for other company. They had enjoyed a day of rest and were in perfect harmony.

  This harmony was something which she was still able, as now, to recapture. But the long days she found wearisome, and the even longer winter, and the bad light, and the absence of conversation. Then the marvellous thought struck her: but there is no need to live like this! She was, by her careful standards, a fairly rich woman. She was not bound to this flat, which was never warm enough, to this house, to this silent street. She could escape; escape was within her means, and she need explain herself to no-one, need not offer excuses or explanations, since no-one would be curious enough to make enquiries. She could live in Paris, near Marie-France; she could go south to the sun. Excited, she began to make plans. A season in Paris to begin with: she could revive that almost extinct plan of research, begun so long ago, and dwindling into insignificance in the light of more urgent matters. And perhaps she would look up those old friends who had been her lovers, thirty years ago. There had been much sweetness there, no rancour; they had met as equals. Long walks beside the Seine, or in the gardens at Versailles, would end in a simple meal, and then a walk home, arm in arm. She would meet the
m now as adults, and they would remember their youth, and then say a fond goodbye, glad to have been reminded of each other. She would walk by the Seine, alone now, but no longer lonely. The possibilities were infinite. Then she would take the train to Nice and spend some days warming her chilled mind and body, until she felt free and lively again. She saw a southern market in her mind’s eye, its colours, its promise of plentitude and of health. She would rent a flat and stay there until it got too hot (but could it ever get too hot?) and then move back into the green heart of France, perhaps to Bourges, until she found a town or a village in which she might want to live. A house, this time, on a street, with big windows, through which she would hear the sound of bells. She looked out of her own windows in Cranley Gardens, and laughed at the pretence in which she was somnolently imprisoned: one crawling taxi, coming off duty, grey dusky air, a light sprinkling of damp, and in the distance the mournful sound of a car on a wet road. Good-humoured now—for even if nothing came of it the fantasy would have served its purpose—she got up, put the flat to rights, and carefully made up her face. The day no longer held any terrors for her.

  At ten o’clock she rang the bell of the neighbouring flat. There were two on this floor, and she was on nodding and greeting terms with Mr Harvey, who had her spare key, as she had his. A small neat meek man, some years into retirement, he was the ideal neighbour, virtuous, discreet, and silent. Sometimes she thought that she would have welcomed a more forceful presence, but this man, with his bald head, his short neck, his short legs, and his high round stomach, was peaceable, did not object to her radio, and kept his own television sound fairly low, wincingly aware that behind the party wall there lurked a presence which registered his own. Their relationship was built on caution; neither desired to know the other particularly well. Anna thought that a brief seasonal gesture might be offered, had indeed arranged a tray in readiness, with her mother’s best coffee cups and some shortbread biscuits, but Mr Harvey came to his front door wearing an overcoat, a faint additional flush of animation on his submerged cheekbones, the surrounding flesh strongly perfumed. Beyond him, in the hall, she could see two plastic carrier bags filled with small parcels wrapped in Christmas paper.

  ‘So kind of you, Miss Durrant, but I am just off to my sister in Mill Hill. Was there anything I might do for you? I expect to be out all day, but I shall be back this evening. Can I give you a lift anywhere? But perhaps you are not going north?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I am going to Brompton Square, and I think I’ll walk.’

  ‘Oh, but I could easily drop you off at Brompton Square.’

  ‘No, please don’t bother. I should like the walk. I hope you have a pleasant day.’

  ‘You’re sure there was nothing you wanted?’

  ‘Perfectly sure, Mr Harvey.’

  She could see that he was becoming agitated, fearful that he might have annoyed her, yet agonizingly aware that every minute spent in her company made him late for his sister, whom he had promised to take to church. The dilemma was resolved by Anna’s wishing him a Merry Christmas, and turning back to her own flat. He heard her door close and waited a prudent five minutes: another meeting would be embarrassing. When he judged the coast to be clear he silently opened his door, took his carrier bags, crept out, and then recklessly pulled the door to and locked it with a flourish. Anna, standing behind her own front door, hands in pockets of her raincoat, registered that the coast was clear and smiled with relief. This day was to be full of surprises: her own hilarity, Mr Harvey’s embarrassment, and above all the enriching fantasy of escape. Unfortunately there was little she could do to implement this at (she checked her watch) ten twenty on a lowering Christmas morning. She had no cooking to do: she had nothing much of anything to do, and she was too restless to read. That left Miss Carter, in Brompton Square. She was grateful to her for providing a suitable excuse to offer Mr Harvey. Miss Carter, in this instance, was her alibi.

  Miss Carter had been her mother’s dressmaker, not a very good one, but invaluable in Amy Durrant’s later years when she could no longer go out to the shops. It was Miss Carter who had taught Anna to make her own clothes, and had then jealously withdrawn her favour. She had insisted on a monopoly of Mrs Durrant’s needs, and they had not liked to deprive her of her visits, of the cup of tea and the glass of sherry, and of her frequently angry outpourings. Miss Carter was endemically angry, sometimes for no reason they could divine, but although quite old, in her late seventies, was still useful if hems needed to be taken up or buttons to be changed, small tasks which she was happy to undertake. A dry spry woman, with badly tinted black hair, she had been on the stage as a girl, and had on one occasion shared a dressing-room with Jessie Matthews. Now she lived in a basement in Brompton Square, and still did occasional work for increasingly elderly patrons.

  She had turned up at Amy Durrant’s funeral, dressed in black from head to foot, and had seemed so badly affected that Anna had invited her back to Albert Hall Mansions afterwards, when the few mourners had dispersed.

  ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she had managed to say, warming her frozen hands, and longing for someone else to take over. ‘Or would you rather have a drink?’

  Two glasses of whisky later Miss Carter had seemed disposed to stay for the afternoon, but Anna had pleaded a headache, and her visitor had reluctantly got to her feet. ‘I shall miss her,’ she had said accusingly. Anna had patted her arm, seeing tears in the small eyes. ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ she had said, although she knew that Miss Carter had no affection for her. And now here she was, keeping in touch, just in case Miss Carter should lack for anything on this festive morning. She had bought her a tin of biscuits, and a plant, and felt ashamed that nothing more lavish had come to mind.

  The windless air made walking almost a pleasure, although the sky was low and grey. Once past South Kensington there was a little more animation in the streets, although the day seemed preternaturally calm, vowed to silence. In Brompton Square a stray balloon was tied to a railing, and there were a couple of empty lager cans in the gutter. Otherwise it was as still as Pompeii. Miss Carter’s basement door opened very slightly on to Miss Carter’s suspicious eye; they took stock of each other over the chain which she kept fastened day and night. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Miss Carter finally. ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’ The door closed and opened again, giving Anna time to ponder the cause for Miss Carter’s animosity. But it had always been there, she reflected: Miss Carter had always been a contentious woman. It was her devotion to Amy Durrant which had stood her in good stead. But that is over now, thought Anna. And really it need no longer concern me. Her smile, as she handed over the biscuits and the pot of hyacinths, was kindly, for the reality of Miss Carter was beginning once more to be obscured by her earlier vision of the south, made all the more radiant by the darkness in which Miss Carter chose to live, sacrificing everything to her cats and their comfort, keeping the fire burning at all hours, turning out bags of scraps for them to play with, jealously loving them, as she did now, one clasped tightly to her face, the other occupying the seat of the chair on which Anna had supposed she might be invited to sit.

  ‘Were you on your way somewhere?’ enquired Miss Carter. ‘Only we don’t often see you round this way.’

  Although obviously anxious for Anna to leave she thought it politic to blame her for not coming sooner. She was more timid than anyone knew, and was really only comfortable when undisturbed. This pleasantly smiling woman was a nuisance. She had never had much time for her.

  ‘I just wondered how you were going to spend your day,’ said Anna. ‘Yes, don’t worry, I must be off in a moment. Will you be all right?’

  For she recognized a lonely person when she met one.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me,’ said Miss Carter indignantly. ‘I’m invited out! Upstairs, on the ground floor. Christmas drinks, eleven thirty. Then I shall come back here, and me and the girls will have our lunch.’

  ‘You’ll be all right on you
r own?’

  Miss Carter took her time. ‘I think my time will be adequately filled,’ she said. She was by now furious. This was habitual. Amy and Anna did not know, but they suspected, that Miss Carter was ashamed of her excesses, and frequently went home to clasp the older of her two cats and weep into its fur. ‘I don’t want to hurry you,’ she said, feeling the slow onset of shame, ‘but I want to get changed.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Nice of you to come. Thank you for the biscuits.’

  The cat darted off the brown velvet cushions and made for the front door.

  ‘Don’t let her get out,’ cried Miss Carter, scooping the heavy body into her arms.

  ‘Goodbye,’ they said. ‘Goodbye,’ as if for the last time. Before Anna turned to make her way up the basement steps she heard the sound of the chain being replaced.

  Resigned now to the empty day, but still strangely comforted by her earlier thoughts, she turned into the park, where a few determined joggers were to be seen. She walked now to tire herself, so that she could go home and stay indoors with a good conscience. She walked for a couple of hours until the rain started. Bleak, bleak, she acknowledged, under the leaden sky, with the steady rain soaking her hair, but I never need spend another winter like this. Even if the weather is bad elsewhere it need never be as cheerless as this. Around her the park emptied, as the joggers and the men with dogs went home to their lunch. Tired now, and wet, she turned towards the Alexandra Gate and into Exhibition Road. The last mile seemed very hard, and she fancied that the sky was darkening towards evening, although it was not yet two o’clock.