The Jealous One Read online

  And after all, here was Geoffrey back! Rosamund heard his feet bounding up the stairs with anxious haste. Had he, after all, suspected that she was ill this morning?

  Rosamund half rose from the bed in confused hope as the door burst open, and she felt her head spinning. Surely his kind, tired face looked more worried, more dismayed, than even her wildest vanity could have warranted? He seemed hardly to see her—certainly not to notice that she had been lying down.

  ‘Rosamund! I say!’ he exclaimed tensely. ‘Have you any idea what’s happened to Lindy? She’s disappeared!’

  CHAPTER II

  In actual fact, of course, Lindy never had been beautiful. When Rosamund had first seen her, flushed and untidy, leaning into the back of the removal van to explain something to the men rootling about inside, she had summed her up as a rather dumpy, fussy little woman. ‘Woman’ mark you, not ‘girl’, was the word that had sprung to her mind at that first glimpse, when she and Geoffrey had been peeping, guiltily, like two naughty children, at the arrival of their new neighbour. It was only later that Lindy had begun to seem so young, as well as so beautiful. It was only later, too, that her house had begun to seem so beautifully and so tastefully furnished. On the day of the move, her furniture had looked absolutely dreadful, bumping its way sordidly across the pavement, every stain, every worn patch of upholstery, cruelly exposed to the blaze of a July afternoon.

  ‘School teacher’, Geoffrey had surmised cheerfully, his arm thrown lightly across Rosamund’s shoulder as they both peered with companionable, ill-bred curiosity round the edge of the bedroom curtain. ‘School teacher, full of earnest, progressive theories about the potentialities of the young. The sort that loses her illusions late—good, sturdy, well nourished illusions, built to last. I wonder how long they’ll stand up to living next door to our Peter and his pals …?’

  They both giggled. In those days—barely six months ago though it was—they had both been able to laugh at their sixteen-year-old son’s shortcomings. It hadn’t occurred to either of them, yet, to blame the other one for everything that went wrong. So they stood there at peace, intent and happy as children at the Zoo, watching a great clumsy greenish-yellow settee blundering hideously across the pavement. The men had to tip it at an angle to get it through the little iron gate of the front garden, and at another angle again to get it through the front door into the anonymous, echoing cavity of Next Door.

  ‘Cat?’ Rosamund put the eliptical question confidently, serene in the certainty that Geoffrey would understand not only the question but all its ramifications. For cats were good, in hers and Geoffrey’s happily arbitrary scale of values. Cat-lovers were better—nicer—more amusing-than dog-lovers, or budgerigar-lovers. Dog-lovers were sentimental, and budgerigar-lovers—well, it was rather awful to keep creatures in cages, wasn’t it?

  Geoffrey pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘No cat,’ he opined, after several moments’ reflection; and Rosamund felt his arm tighten very slightly round her shoulders—a gesture of recognition—of gratitude—for the total understanding which made such monosyllabic exchanges rich beyond the dreams of oratory.

  ‘But all the same, I don’t think she’ll mind the guitar,’ he added, modifying a little the elaborate survey of the new neighbour’s shortcomings which had just been completed in three words. ‘At least, she may mind it, but she’ll pride herself on not making a fuss about that sort of thing. Just as good.’

  ‘Better,’ Rosamund pointed out. ‘People who pride themselves on not minding noise can be relied on to go on priding themselves, no matter how bad it gets. With people who actually don’t mind, there’s always the risk that there’s some degree of noise that they will mind. And then you’ve had it. Car?’

  ‘Ye-es. I’m afraid so. Probably.’

  Cars were bad, too. They were almost the same as not liking cats. Lots of their friends did have cars, of course, but it was a point against them. Geoffrey and Rosamund had often talked about it—how silly it was to drive everywhere when you might be enjoying the walk, or the luxury of being carried along by public transport with someone else having to worry about the traffic jams and the one-way streets. How bad it was for children, too, to be driven everywhere, they’d lose the use of their legs. Though Rosamund had to admit to herself that, in spite of his parents’ foresight in not owning a car, Peter seemed to be making very little use of his so carefully-preserved legs these days: he’d spent practically the whole of last holidays lying on his bed reading James Bond—or, worse still, just lying there, thinking dark thoughts about the universe, which he would later enlarge on, despondently and somewhat patronisingly, while his mother tried to count the laundry. Why can’t I have one of those secretive teenagers who never tell their parents anything? Rosamund would sometimes wonder ruefully as she tried to determine whether Life itself was a manifestation of futility as well as whether four shirts should really have cost 3/11½, and if so, how much could they possibly have been each?

  Still, it was probably just a phase. The thought that everything was probably just a phase had sustained Rosamund through the sixteen years of Peter’s upbringing just as religious principles had once sustained her grandmother. Something settled, and all-embracing, and totally unproveable, that’s what you needed in dealing with children….

  A sharp nudge and a muffled spurt of laughter from her husband recalled Rosamund’s attention to the scene below them. For a second they gripped each others’ hands in an ecstasy of shared disapprobation. This wasn’t just No Cat. It wasn’t even a Dog, in the ordinary sense. No, it was much, much worse. It was a Pekinese. A sniffing, snuffling, arrogant, utterly pedigree Pekinese, titupping ridiculously up the path behind its mistress.

  ‘Perfect!’ whispered Geoffrey, squeezing Rosamund’s hand exultantly: and: ‘Won’t it be fun to complain of the yapping!’ commented Rosamund, giggling delightedly. ‘Shush!’ she amended, dodging back behind the curtain. ‘She’ll hear us!’

  It really was the most shocking, vulgar behaviour, spying and jeering like this. But how delightful, how utterly forgiveable, shocking behaviour did become when both of you were engaged on it. And anyway, there was no malice in it. Neither of them had the least thing against their new neighbour really—didn’t know a thing about her yet, in spite of the guessing game which it was such fun to play.

  ‘Let’s invite her to supper tonight,’ suggested Rosamund impulsively. ‘She’s sure to be in a frightful muddle, with the electricity not wired up, or something, and all the shops shut till Monday. You go and ask her, Geoffrey—right now, while she’s still in and out of the front door, so that you won’t have to ring the bell or anything. We don’t want to make too much of a thing of it.’

  Geoffrey looked at his watch. He often did this when in doubt about something, however little relevance the time of day had to the question in hand.

  ‘Well—I don’t know,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Aren’t we busy, or something?’

  Rosamund gave him a little push. ‘You know we’re not, darling!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know we’re only going to do what we always do on Saturday afternoons—sit in deckchairs, talking about you perhaps mowing the lawn.’

  ‘But I like sitting in deckchairs talking about me perhaps mowing the lawn,’ protested Geoffrey longingly; but Rosamund continued to steer him relentlessly towards the stairs.

  ‘Go on. It’s only neighbourly. And besides, we’ll find out all about her,’ she encouraged; and as soon as Geoffrey was gone, she went into the kitchen to decide what to prepare for their unknown guest this evening.

  Something cold, of course. Everybody liked cold food best in this weather. At least, anybody who didn’t knew very well that they were in the wrong. Salad, then. Salad, and cold meat, and stewed fruit. A bit dull, perhaps, but then Geoffrey and Rosamund had never believed in making a great fuss about visitors. On the contrary, it was Rosamund’s custom to cook special delicacies only when the two of them were on their own, without even Peter. Peter, of course, was
a major complication to any meal, with his newly-acquired cynicism about food, his enormous appetite (a most awkward combination, for all concerned); the uncertainty about whether he would be there at all; and, if there, whether he would have four or five hungry (and/or cynical) friends with him.

  However, he’d said he would be out this evening, for what that was worth. She’d plan without him then, firmly, and if he turned up unexpectedly—that is, if you could call it unexpectedly when it happened like that two times out of three—then he could just get something for himself. There seemed to be a sort of limpness about teenage arrangements today, Rosamund reflected, that she didn’t remember from her own girlhood. Surely, in her day, when they’d planned to go out, they’d gone out—often in the teeth of fierce parental opposition? Now that parental opposition was nonexistent, there seemed to be left a sort of helpless vagueness about the social arrangements of the young; a built-in liability to cancellation or breakdown at every stage; an unerring tendency to deposit all the participants back in their parents’ homes in time for some meal that one had hoped they were going to be out for.

  A few years ago, when Peter was a blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked urchin who looked as if he had come straight out of a William book, Rosamund would have wanted him to be there at supper; would have wanted to show him off to this new, childless neighbour—she and Geoffrey had leapt arrogantly to the conclusion that she was childless as soon as they saw the Pekinese. And no doubt, one day, it would be fun to show him off again, as a handsome young man embarked on some creditable career. But for the moment it seemed better to Rosamund to boast of his existence from as great a distance as could be contrived.

  The front door slammed, and Geoffrey strode through into the kitchen, smiling.

  ‘You may down tools, dearest,’ he announced. ‘We don’t have to succour the starving after all. She’s going to succour us. She wants us to go in and have supper there. O.K.?’

  ‘Well——’ But——’ Surprise at this turning of the tables somehow drove Rosamund into mustering objections to the plan, just as though she, and not their new neighbour, were going to have all the trouble and inconvenience of it. ‘But how can she? I mean, she hasn’t even got the furniture in yet…. How can she possibly think of cooking for visitors? I mean, it must be hard enough to scratch up a meal for herself, the very first night. That was the whole idea of asking her.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I told her,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But she just laughed. She says. First things first, and it’s much more important to give a party than to get the furniture straight—and honestly, Rosamund, it does look rather fun. She’s been fixing candles all about on the packing cases and things, and flowers and so forth. We will go, won’t we?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. If you’re sure she really wants us. It still seems to me an awful lot of extra work for her, just on the day of the move….’

  Rosamund was suddenly aware of how dull and unimaginative she was sounding, in comparison with all that light-hearted inventiveness next door. ‘Of course we’ll go,’ she amended, smiling. ‘It sounds great fun. But wouldn’t she like me to go in and help her, or something?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ll ask her, if you like. I’ve promised to go back and run a flex for her out through the french window so that she can fix up a sort of lantern arrangement in the garden. We ought to do that, you know, some time. I don’t know why we never thought of it. Oh, by the way, there is something she asked me to ask you. Have we got a piece of bright red ribbon, or something like that? She wants to make a bow for Shang Low. To celebrate their arrival.’

  ‘Shang Low?’ Rosamund knew, of course, who must be the owner of this ridiculous name. Her query was a plea not for information, but for reassurance. For there should have been a note of mockery in Geoffrey’s voice as he retailed this whimsical request. They had always jeered at Pekineses, she and Geoffrey, it was one of their things. And as for Pekineses that needed red bows for special occasions …!

  But Geoffrey, horrifyingly, did not seem to understand. He simply answered her question.

  ‘Shang Low—yes. The Peke,’ he explained easily. ‘Her sister had one called Shang High, you see, and really it was very appropriate, because——’

  But Rosamund didn’t want to hear the story. Not hear it, at least, recounted in this innocent, genuinely amused style, with no recognition of its silliness, its affectation, its typical spinsterish sentimentality….

  By sheer will-power, she checked the epithets piling up in her mind against the unheard and probably innocuous anecdote. Instead, she smiled.

  ‘You’d better let her tell me the story herself,’ she admonished. ‘She will, I’m sure, and it might be difficult to laugh in the right places if I’ve heard it before. It’s going to be quite a strain, isn’t it, adjusting ourselves to Peke-type humour at such close quarters!’

  She giggled in terrible solitude for a fraction of a second; and then Geoffrey joined in, a tiny bit too late and a tiny bit too loud. And the joke did not lead to another joke. Murmuring something about ‘having promised…’, Geoffrey hurried away out of the kitchen and out of the house, without any red ribbon. And this piece of red ribbon, which they didn’t look for, didn’t find, and probably hadn’t got, became the very first of the objects which couldn’t ever again be mentioned between them.

  CHAPTER III

  Rosamund was not usually an ungracious guest. Usually she loved meeting new people, seeing their homes, learning about their lives, adding them to her rich collection of acquaintances or even friends.

  But this evening, somehow, she was feeling mean. From the very moment of stepping out of the summer twilight into next-door’s echoing, uncarpeted hall, she felt her whole soul bristling up, on the alert for faults and failings of any kind. So that when the door at the side of the hall opened onto a scene of sparkling prettiness, her immediate instinct was to reject it in some way—to belittle it. She found herself trying to see through and past the dancing welcome of the candle flames; beyond, above, and round the massed glory of flowers and leaves; to discern behind it all the ordinary, dull, badly-proportioned little sitting room, exactly like their own next door.

  But it was impossible. The place had been turned into a magic cave, and all you could do was to forget your mean censoriousness, and surrender yourself to enchantment. Poppies, nasturtiums and great trailing sprays of leaves had made a fairyland jungle of what must really have been a hideous shambles of lumpy furniture, dumped anyhow, just as the removal men had left it. A great dusty roll of carpet loomed out of the shadows, but how cunningly those loops of ivy cast speckled lights and patterns down its length! With what a blaze of gold and scarlet did that bowl of nasturtiums surmount the scratched surface of some undistinguished table, or it might be a chest of drawers, you couldn’t tell, it didn’t matter. The flowers and the candles had swamped and submerged everything in one vast victory of light and colour.

  ‘Lindy! It’s superb! It’s a knockout, it really is!’ exclaimed Geoffrey. ‘Isn’t it, Rosamund? Oh, but I must introduce you, mustn’t I? This is my wife Rosamund, Lindy. Rosamund, meet our new neighbour—Lindy—er…’ Evidently he had forgotten her surname already—or had he never heard it? Had it been ‘Lindy’ right from the very first moment? Rosamund found herself shaking hands with a sturdy-looking young woman in orange slacks and some kind of black sleeveless garment—you couldn’t see properly in the uncertain candle-light.

  ‘Isn’t this fun!’ Lindy exclaimed, seizing Rosamund’s hand with eager welcome. ‘I’m so glad you could come! I was feeling so depressed, you know, and so tired, and everything was looking so hideous and moving-day-ish, I felt I must have a party! Have you ever felt so tired that all you could do was give a real slap-up party, straight away?’

  Rosamund hadn’t. She couldn’t conceive of any other woman ever being in such a paradoxical state of mind, either; it was all the most outrageous affectation from beginning to end. Impossible to say any of this, of course; so she smiled
, and said how lovely it all looked, and how clever Lindy was to have arranged it all.

  Lindy laughed, in sheer, simple pleasure at hearing words of praise; and then suddenly her voice changed, became low and confidential:

  ‘Well, actually, I had another reason as well,’ she explained. ‘You see, I wanted to make things a little cheerful for my sister, for her first evening. That’s why I was so glad you could come. She’s a bit depressed, you see, about coming here. Moving house is depressing, isn’t it, even at the. best of times?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure it must be,’ agreed Rosamund, trying to remember herself back into her own just-moved state of several years ago. Had it been depressing? Or exciting? Or just a period of minute to minute activity so continuous as to make any sort of feelings at all seem a ridiculous and superfluous luxury? Anyway, what was all this about the sister?

  ‘Your sister?’ she prompted tentatively. ‘So she’s going to be living with you?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, the whole thing is because of her, really. You see, her husband’s left her, poor soul, and as I’m the free agent in the family, I felt it was my job to give her a home for a bit. I mean, it seemed a bit silly, each of us in our separate little flats, and her so lonely and everything; so I thought perhaps this would work out better. I think it will. I hope it will.’

  ‘It sounds a good idea,’ said Rosamund cautiously, trying to suppress her vulgar curiosity sufficiently for good manners, and at the same time to find out lots more about the sister. ‘When is she coming?’