The Hours Before Dawn Page 11

  But little laughs don’t always travel well down telephone wires. They can sometimes sound more like gasps of terror…. Beatrice’s unslaked curiosity twanged again down the line:

  ‘Listen,’ she seemed to splutter, though that may have been a fault at the exchange, ‘listen, why not pop round right away and tell me all about it? I don’t really know anything, but when you’re upset there’s nothing like talking it over with a friend.’

  So she had given the impression that she was upset. Perhaps even that she was frightened. For a moment Louise contemplated confiding to Beatrice the whole story, even at the risk of making an utter fool of herself. To learn that you are being an utter fool can sometimes be very comforting.

  She hesitated. She moved the mouthpiece nearer. She hesitated again.

  It was the ghost of the Upper Fourth that tipped the balance. Already she seemed to hear Beatrice telling and retelling the story: (‘Have you seen poor old Louise lately? My dear, when I last spoke to her she was in an awful state! No no, worse than that. My dear, she’s positively seeing spooks!—’) Mavis would hear it. Janice would hear it. That freckled little beast Pamela something would hear it. Yes, and the still unidentified Muriel sitting at her breakfast table somewhere in Bristol would lap it all up in her morning’s post….

  ‘No, no. It’s perfectly all right, really—’ she began; but it was not as easy as all that. Once upset always upset – or at least until Beatrice had at her fingers’ ends the truth, the whole truth, and that satisfying little bit more than the truth. And it all ended in Beatrice and Humphrey’s being invited to supper that night. If only Louise had been less preoccupied, she would have seen from the start that the telephone call could only end in this way. Since it was impossible for her to leave her children, her washing, and her stewing neck of lamb in order to pop round on the two-hour journey to Acton, then what more natural than that Beatrice should pop round to her? And since you can’t ask people to pop that distance without offering them a meal at the end of it, and since you can’t ask a wife to a meal without asking her husband too, if you know that he exists – well, it was clear to Louise (too late) that a full-scale supper-party had all along been the logical and only outcome. Perhaps, she reflected, the philosophers of Predestination had first been set on their heretical paths by just such humble episodes. Except that philosophers were nearly always men, and men just don’t find themselves in these predicaments. If a man doesn’t want people to supper, he merely doesn’t invite them – it must be one of those few fields in which male supremacy has so far never been challenged.

  Louise rang off, and began to think about the evening meal. The neck of lamb wouldn’t do now. There wouldn’t be enough, and anyway, it wasn’t just Beatrice and Humphrey that she would be catering for. The whole of the Upper Fourth would be there in spirit; she could almost see them now – Janice – Winnie – Pamela – all the lot of them, hanging on to the ends of their telephones and listening to Beatrice’s quite unnecessarily amusing account of the meal she had had with poor old Lou: ‘Irish stew, my dear, and there couldn’t have been more bones if she’d fished out the family skeleton for us!’ …

  Well, she’d have to get some mince and make one of those Italian-type dishes that are really the same as Shepherd’s pie, only you serve them with macaroni all round instead of with mashed potato on top. They usually seemed to go down very well with one’s middle-brow friends. Unless, of course, one had produced that very dish for those very same middle-brow friends the last time they came. And the time before that. Louise tried hard to remember what she had given Humphrey and Beatrice at their last visit. It was nearly a year ago now, and all she could remember of the evening was that the pair of them had missed their last train home, and had reappeared just before midnight to argue endlessly in the draughty hall about whether to ring up a taxi. Since they both appeared to be whole-heartedly in favour of the taxi, Louise did not see why the argument should have gone on so long. But then Humphrey and Beatrice always talked to each other like that, and apparently very happily. Like many husbands and wives, they never noticed how often and how closely they agreed with one another on almost every subject.

  If the avowed purpose of the visit was to calm Louise’s fears about her mysterious tenant, then it succeeded admirably. It had, in fact, already succeeded before it began; for while Louise, with Michael on one arm, stirred the mince and onion mixture, watched for the macaroni to boil over, and simultaneously tried to convince Harriet and Margery that it would be much more fun to have supper by themselves tonight instead of sitting up with the grown-ups – while she attended to these duties, it seemed to her that Miss Brandon’s identity was no longer of any importance whatever. Let her be a spy – a lunatic – a murderess – anything, provided only that it didn’t lead her to come into the kitchen at this moment to ask questions or argue.

  Beatrice and Humphrey arrived a little before seven, in a brand-new car for which Beatrice at once began apologising. It was not, she explained, a new car at all, but one that they had picked up second-hand, incredibly cheap, and actually they hadn’t paid for it yet, they were so absolutely broke.

  Humphrey looked a little bewildered at this recital, as well he might, seeing that he had the receipt from the makers in his pocket at this very moment; but before he had time to spoil the story, Louise hastened to agree with Beatrice that it was impossible to afford anything nowadays. She understood better than Humphrey that Beatrice, with her flair for contemporary values, was grimly determined to be as bankrupt and poverty-striken as a prosperous husband and a substantial private income would allow her; though her fur coat and diamond earrings sometimes made the role difficult to sustain. Louise tactfully bundled the fur coat away among the mackintoshes in the hall; admired the earrings in order to give her guest the opportunity, if she wished, of claiming that they came from Woolworths, and then left her visitors to Mark’s reluctant care in the sitting-room while she hastened back to the kitchen.

  The meal was a success – enough of a success, Louise hoped, to quieten the shades of Janice, Winnie, Hope and Pamela; though the total effect was somewhat marred by Harriet’s four appearances for drinks of water – (‘Nice little things, of course, but poor old Lou has no idea of controlling them. She never could, you know. D’you remember that time when she first went on cloakroom duty after she was made a prefect …?’)

  It was just as they were returning to the sitting-room that the telephone rang. It was Mrs Henderson senior, who, after enquiring with grandmotherly solicitude whether the children would be out of the way by half past eight, announced her intention of dropping in at about that hour.

  ‘But only for a few moments, dear,’ she apologised. ‘I have to go round to Hugh’s, you know, he absolutely insists. He’s entertaining some tiresome creature about a contract, and as it’s bringing a wife, Hugh says I’d better be there too. I don’t see that, do you?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Louise discouragingly; and then, relenting, she added warmly: ‘But do come round. We’ve got some friends here actually, a Dr and Mrs Baxter. Do you remember them? – Anyway, they’d love to meet you.’

  ‘Why are you talking like that? Do you mean they’re in the room listening?’ enquired Mrs Henderson cautiously; and then, less cautiously: ‘What are they like? Are they as extraordinary as most of your friends?’

  Louise found this a little difficult to answer. Mrs Henderson’s voice was a carrying one, and it was quite likely that Beatrice and Humphrey had heard what the question was to which Louise would be saying ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Were people more likely to be offended if you said they were extraordinary, or if you said they weren’t?

  ‘I believe you’ve met them here before,’ she compromised and rang off hastily before she should find herself launched on one of those descriptions which can only be sufficiently complimentary to one party by being incomprehensible to the other.

  Whether Mark’s mother had in fact met the Baxters was debated for some minutes; an
d the lady’s arrival half an hour later did nothing to dispel the uncertainty. Both parties, to be on the safe side, assured the other that its face was familiar, indeed unforgettable, and that they had undoubtedly met somewhere; and with a certain blankness behind the eyes, each went through the motions of trying to identify the occasion.

  Humphrey gave it up first. He was charmed by this new arrival, for not only was she old enough (despite earrings and eyeshadow) for him not to feel obliged to flirt with her (always an effort after a good supper); but she had the additional charm of possessing a car with which the very thing had recently gone wrong which he (Humphrey) knew how to put right. Knew better than any garage, and far, far better than the particular garage which had dealt with it for Mrs Henderson. Now, when his car had developed the same symptoms – not his present car, of course, but his dear old Vauxhall—

  ‘Now he’ll be happy for hours,’ said Beatrice contentedly, as Louise came to sit by her on the sofa. ‘That is, if your mother-in-law will put up with it. He loves talking about the inside of his car. It’s a sort of substitute for talking about his operation,’ she added vaguely.

  Louise laughed. ‘Oh, she’ll enjoy it,’ she assured Beatrice. ‘Though I expect she’ll soon get him on to his operation. She doesn’t believe in substitutes—’ Louise was talking at random, to fill in time. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen Mark sidle from the room with that air of belonging to a different planet with which men so effectively evade the visitors who bore them. Six months ago, thought Louise, I’d have winked at him as he left the room, and he’d have winked back. But now my eyes – my eyelids are too stiff, too sleepy. Sleep has captured me – is parting me from him – as ruthlessly as any lover….

  Beatrice’s voice caught her attention again. It had dropped to that piercing whisper which both shows proper respect for your secrets and also allows everyone else in the room to enjoy them:

  ‘The first thing I did,’ she hissed, ‘was to pump poor old Humphrey about the woman, but you know what he is. She impressed him tremendously, except that he can’t recall her name; he had a wonderfully interesting talk with her, except that he can’t remember what it was about; he thought she was exceedingly attractive, except that he doesn’t know what she looked like; he was determined to keep in touch with her, except that he never asked for her address; in fact, if he only knew her from Adam, he’d be having an affair with her right now!’

  Louise laughed. ‘I know – that’s all very well,’ she said. ‘But he must have known more than that to start with. Didn’t he tell you anything? – At the time, I mean?’

  ‘Only her name,’ said Beatrice thoughtfully. ‘He’d written it down, you see, in his pocket book. He always writes people’s names down in his pocket book – he gets into the way of it because of the new students each year. And the name stuck in my mind because, as I told you, the Brandon-Smiths – Besides – well – names just do stick in my mind.’

  This was perfectly true. Beatrice could still recite the names of every girl in every class that she and Louise had ever been through – with the addition, now, of the said girls’ employers, children, husbands, ex-husbands, and co-respondents. Her mind, reflected Louise, must be like a telephone directory, only with little notes appended to each name:

  Abbotts, Joanna … Married insurance clerk with glass eye.

  Mortgage on bungalow not yet paid off. Garden a mess.

  Ashley, Penelope. Still looking after old mother. Not filial

  duty, just no good with men. Failed typing course….

  ‘… And so all I can definitely get out of him,’ Beatrice was saying, ‘was that it was she who picked him up, and not the other way round. She came up to him after the meeting, and congratulated him on something he’d said in the discussion – no, don’t ask me what, it cramps my style if I have to talk in words of more than six syllables – and how she led the conversation round to you, Louise, I can’t imagine, since all the rest of it seems to have been about terribly intelligent subjects—’

  ‘It was me then, not Mark, that she asked for the address of?’ asked Louise quickly, wondering why this point had never struck her before.

  ‘Why, yes – that is—’ Beatrice hesitated. ‘I think that’s what he said. Or did he? Did he say “Them” perhaps? Oh dear, if only Humphrey wasn’t such a fool!’

  His own name hissing across the room like an escape of gas could hardly fail to attract Humphrey’s attention, and he looked round amiably.

  ‘Now, now, now!’ he chided. ‘What are you ladies saying about me? Nothing very flattering, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘No, dear,’ said his wife, also amiably. ‘We’re just saying what a fool you are. I’ve been telling Louise it’s no good asking you, because you never remember anything, but what we want to know is: When that Brandon woman asked you for the Hendersons’ address, whether it was her or Mark she asked you for it of?’

  This sentence baffled Humphrey for a moment; but experience of the unseen translations of his first year students stood him in good stead, and he was soon able to reply:

  ‘Why, really, I simply can’t remember—’ And then, like a good soldier answering the call of duty, he roused himself to grin coyly at Louise:

  ‘Aha! Aha!’ he enunciated with scholarly precision. ‘So that’s the way the wind blows! The little lady thinks Hubby may have a secret! Could be, could be. Husbands do have their little secrets, don’t they, Bee? Now admit it!’

  ‘I never said they didn’t,’ said Beatrice impatiently. ‘I’m not accusing you of being faithful, only of being forgetful. Now, do try to think, Humphrey. What did she say? What words did she use? Did she say “The Hendersons”? Or did she say “Louise Henderson”? Or “Mark Henderson”?’

  ‘Well, now,’ said Humphrey, wrinkling his brows obligingly, though not as if he thought the smallest enlightenment would result. ‘When I think about it, I think she must have said “Mark.” Or “Mr,” was it? – not that that makes any difference. Yes, that’s what she said. Must have done, because I remember now it made me madly jealous to think that no sooner had she met me than she wanted the address of another man.’ He turned and challenged his wife, a trifle absent-mindedly: ‘Didn’t I come home seething with jealousy that evening? I’m simply asking you – didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Beatrice equably, ‘but that was because Dr Wilcox had managed to get out of taking the Second Year seminar and you hadn’t. But are you certain that she said—’

  Here Mrs Henderson senior, who had been following the conversation with the amused tolerance of a grown-up at a children’s tea-party, broke in with mock dismay:

  ‘Children, children! Why can’t you be more modern? Why can’t any of you be up-to-date? Though I’ve noticed before that no one under fifty ever is – I suppose up-to-dateness takes all that time to learn. Between you, you seem to be trying to make a triangle out of this Mark-Louise-and-Violet-What’s-her-name— Oh, all right, Vera, then— Out of this situation. A triangle! Don’t you know that Triangles are absolutely out? Out, I tell you. Like the Sack Look. Besides, Mark’s far too lazy to get into much trouble. Always has been.’

  Beatrice surveyed her interrupter without amusement. She was not sure on whose side this outburst was supposed to be, but she was in no doubt about one thing – that it had broken the thread of what was promising to be a first-class story.

  ‘Well, you know Mark best, of course,’ she allowed grudgingly. ‘But all the same, I think it’s funny that she should have sought out Humphrey simply to ask him for an address that she couldn’t know that he knew—’

  ‘Who says it was simply to ask me for the address?’ began Humphrey indignantly; and simultaneously Mrs Henderson raised her hand beseechingly:

  ‘Please – please! Haven’t we been through it all enough? Why did who tell whom what about which – really, anyone would think we were investigating a murder—’

  Everybody heard the front door slam. Suddenly, thunderously, as if it wa
s intended to arouse the whole street. But it was only Louise who imagined that she had heard another noise first. The faintest, faintest shuffle of a sound … down the stairs … and across the hall…. It was only Louise who now trembled and felt her face grow stiff and expressionless as the loud, ostentatious footsteps sounded across the hall and towards the stairs. Now, now, if she only dared to grasp it, was her opportunity to confront Vera Brandon with Humphrey; to stand over her, as it were, demanding: Why did you ask him for our address?

  To the surprise of her guests, she jumped to her feet and ran to the door. Flinging it open, she called into the dim hall: ‘Come in, Miss Brandon; won’t you come in and meet some friends of mine?’

  Was it her fancy that Miss Brandon did not look as if she had just come in from outside? In spite of her tweed coat, her hat and her little case, she did not have the cold, brisk look of a person who has just walked up a windy street; she had the look of a person who has been sitting, hunched in a chair, all day long….

  ‘I think you’ve met Dr Baxter before,’ said Louise clearly; and watched the two faces. For a moment, both were devoid of expression; and she blundered on: ‘Dr Baxter tells me it was he who gave you our address. I’d no idea. I thought you’d got it from our advertisement….’

  She had not meant it to sound like an accusation. Strange how so slight a deviation from a conventional introduction should sound so ill-timed, so aggressive….

  Miss Brandon was looking at Louise now with slightly raised brows and that painfully tolerant smile (‘You’ve committed a fearful gaffe,’ it seemed to say, ‘but I, with my superior poise, will do my best to cover up for you’). She held out her hand to Humphrey.