The Tumbled House Page 9

  “Yes I did.”

  “On your own? Weren’t you frightened?”

  “What was there to be afraid of?”

  “I don’t know. But usually you’re so fey.”

  “I’d been down to spend the week-end with Doreen and Bryan Colcutt at Brighton. It was rather a grand party. On the way home on the Sunday evening, I thought I’d drive round this way to see if everything was all right. I didn’t intend staying long. But when I got in I began to dislike the thought of driving the rest of the way in the dark. You know how I hate meeting oncoming lights, in a car. So I camped out until the morning.”

  “I haven’t seen the Colcutts for ages. When I get a bit more time we ought to fix a date.”

  She had managed to confine her hair at last. Her face thus laid bare had a rather wild look, with narrowing temples, fine jaw and delicate fastidious nose.

  She said: “Yes, we’ll do that sometime.”

  Chapter Ten

  When Bennie left her flat on the Monday morning Michael was waiting for her.

  “Hullo,” he said. “Remember me?”

  She smiled. “ Pat does.”

  “That’s only because you’ve refused to speak to me.”

  “I haven’t—refused to speak to you. I’ve been away.”

  She moved slowly past him and he fell into step beside her. “I came this morning to ask you to my flat-warming tomorrow evening.”

  “I doubt if I can, Michael. I’m on stand-by part of the time.”

  “Look.” He stopped again and she stopped. “I’m sorry about what happened last Tuesday.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Then why won’t you come tomorrow evening?”

  She said: “Aren’t you supposed to be starting your new job this morning?”

  “I’m due at Chancery Lane in ten minutes——”

  “You’ll be late——”

  “We’re having a few drinks; there’ll be a dozen people there; bring Pat too. You can’t come to any harm with a chaperon.”

  Bennie said; “I’m not afraid of that.… If I don’t go now I shall be late myself.”

  “Good. I hope they ground you for a week.”

  She said: “All right. All right, I’ll come, thank you very much.”

  “Thank you.” His sudden relieved smile almost embraced her; she was touched by his obvious sincerity. “I’ll put out the flags.”

  “Now go to work quickly or you may be grounded for more than a week.”

  “It’s a permanent grounding for me,” said Michael. “I wish I were your pilot.”

  “It sounds like a comic song?”

  “Not a comic song; a love song.”

  She looked past him towards the end of the mews. “We’d soon get off course, don’t you think?”

  “We’d leave a vapour trail, Bennie. Nothing more.”

  During the following afternoon a young woman went into the Agnew Galleries in Bond Street. There were very few other people in, but almost at once a man came across and spoke to her.

  “Well, Miss Laycock, I didn’t know you were a picture fancier.”

  The colour came rather quickly to her cheeks. “ I’m not really, Mr Shorn, but I’d an hour to spare, so I thought.…”

  “Exactly what I do,” agreed Roger. “It’s a good way of filling a few spare minutes.… I called on your father on Saturday. Did he tell you?”

  “No.”

  “It was to apologise for Michael the other evening. I just don’t know what got into him.”

  “Oh, I think my father is a little touchy sometimes. We really didn’t think anything more about it.”

  “You’re both very kind—and very forgiving.… There’s a pleasant small Rowlandson over here; I love his church scenes.” They went across together. “ Michael said afterwards he’d been feeling ill all day. I think sometime he would like to apologise personally.”

  “Thank you, but it really wouldn’t be a bit necessary. We both enjoyed our evening enormously.”

  Roger said: “ Your father seems interested in entering the newspaper world. On Saturday he did me the honour of inviting me to become his official adviser.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it. I’m sure you’ll be able to help him, Mr Shorn.”

  Roger’s glance idly assessed the people in the next room, and then dismissed them. “Well, though it may seem immodest, I have to agree. I have been in journalism twenty years, and I know almost everyone in Fleet Street. I also know the pitfalls. To come into this world as a stranger, as your father would, would be asking for trouble, however highly one may esteem him as a businessman.”

  She laughed. They had stopped opposite a painting of a horse.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re a woman of discernment.”

  “Well, not really. It’s just that I would never buy a horse like that.”

  “Or a painting like that.”

  “Or a painting like that—incidentally.”

  He eyed her. “If you’re a judge of horses you’ll have seen the Stubbs exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery.”

  “No. I’m afraid I never know about these things until too late.”

  “It shows him as a very good artist by any standards. I do implore you to see it before it closes.”

  They went on round the room. He talked interestingly but never for the sake of showing his knowledge. He got her to talk too. Presently he looked at his watch, and she thought he was going to excuse himself and go; instead he said:

  “Have you still an hour or so?”

  “To spare? I——”

  “Before you answer, I was going to suggest you went to see the Stubbs pictures now. I’d like to see them again myself. Once is not enough.”

  She looked startled. “You mean you would come?”

  “If I might. I haven’t to be back at the office till six.”

  She looked at her watch, not to see what time it was but to give herself a second to think.

  “But I expect that would take too much of your time,” he said.

  “I haven’t actually anything else on but——”

  “But you would rather go another day.”

  “No. But I don’t want to put you to the trouble of making another journey.…”

  Roger smiled into her eyes. “I was going in any case sometime this week. To take you would add a great deal to the pleasure.” Before she could look embarrassed he turned away. “Let’s have another five minutes here and then go. I think there’s only that small room to look into now.”

  Half an hour before Michael’s party was due to start his father called.

  “I was passing,” said Roger, “so I thought I’d look in to see how you were going on.”

  Michael hesitated, his eyes slightly masked but not with resentment. Roger had spoken as if nothing had happened.

  “Oh.… I’m fine thanks.”

  “You haven’t collected many of your things from the flat.”

  “No.… There’s no hurry.”

  “How are you managing about furniture?”

  “It’ll take time, of course.”

  Roger looked his son over with his polite cultured glance. “Mind if I come in?”

  “… No.” Michael drew aside.

  Roger went into the narrow hall and then into the big ground-floor living-room. Since he first saw it it had been scrubbed out and furnished with some second-hand pieces. A Victorian dining-table was covered with an Irish linen tablecloth, and on it were bottles of drink and cocktail glasses. There were striped rush and sisal rugs on the floor, and bright cushions made the best of two leather armchairs.

  Roger whistled. “ You seem to be getting on pretty well. Expecting friends?”

  “Yes. A few people are coming to a sort of house-warming.”

  Roger fingered the curtain material. “I hope you’re not going to run up a lot of debts.”

  “No. I cashed my Savings Certificates. They’l
l see me through.”

  “Cigarette.”

  Michael half hesitated. “ Thanks.”

  There was a pause while they lit up. Softening in spite of himself, Michael said: “I made a pig’s ear of it the other night, didn’t I?”

  “It wasn’t as disastrous as I thought.”

  Michael frowned through the cigarette smoke. “ I suppose having a difficult son is worse than having a difficult wife …”

  “Much worse. There’s no divorce in fatherhood. But the fault was partly mine. I’m too much of a planner, Michael. A born schemer. Perhaps you’ve noticed.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “It’s bad psychology to expect other people always to fit in.… How have your first days gone?”

  “With Bartlett and Leak? Oh, they’ve been all right, thanks. They put me on reading manuscripts today. They were all pretty terrible.”

  “As you grow older,” said Roger, “you’ll come to realise the dreadful mediocrity of nearly all talent. That’s what turns the average critic after a few years either into a harmless babbler or a sneering misanthrope. I suppose you want me to go now?”

  “No. I’m not expecting anybody for a few minutes.”

  “I’m glad we’ve had this talk. Last Thursday I got pretty hot, and it’s not a thing one ever has reason to be proud of.”

  “I gave you good excuse.”

  “Yes, I know, but personally I’d like to forget the evening. Agreed?”

  Michael looked at his cigarette. “ Yes, certainly agreed. And thanks for coming.”

  Roger’s visit to the art galleries had put him in a good mood; but he had needed this reconciliation too. All was well now with the Laycocks, but his recollections of Thursday still held a residue of discomfort. Priding himself on a clear-sighted view of things, in which illusion and passion had their place but no more than their place, he didn’t like even the smallest slip that suggested his authority over himself had gone off duty for an hour or two. It was too reminiscent of earlier times. He had come today not so much to put things right with Michael as to put things right with himself.

  As he left the house a taxi was just drawing up at the door, and Peter Waldo got down from the driver’s seat. There was another man sitting beside him in an additional seat which had been fitted where the luggage usually went. Roger had been going to hail the cab, but when he saw there was no meter on it he walked on.

  Peter came up the steps. “ Who was that? President of the World Bank?”

  “No, my father.”

  “Now I know where you get your looks. Oh, this is Boy Kenny. I met him at the Middle Pocket last night. D’you mind? I thought he might be helpful.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Boy.

  You could never tell what sort of friend Peter Waldo would pick up. Kenny was a big man of about twenty-eight, with narrow eyes and narrow lapels and narrow trousers and black curly hair shimmering like cellophane. He would have been handsome but for his nose, which looked as if it had suffered like the maid’s in the song of sixpence.

  “Boy’s quite a find,” said Peter Waldo. “ His experiences have been legion. Borstal and Brixton from the inside. I’ve promised him you’ll publish his life story.”

  “You write it and we might,” said Michael, leading them in.

  “My dear,” said Peter, looking round the room with his unfocusing blue eyes. “Why do you want more furniture? The place is as lush as a seraglio.”

  “It lacks the concubines.”

  “Never fear; they’ll come. By the way, I’ve invited a few people on my own. You said you didn’t know many folk in London.”

  “That’s all right. Not too many, I hope.”

  “No. Probably about thirty.”

  Michael shouted. “ What? That’s twice as many as I’ve asked, you fool!”

  “It’ll be all right. Half of them won’t come.”

  “If they do we’re sunk. I haven’t half enough drink.”

  “I thought of that,” said Peter, fumbling in his pocket. “But then I think of everything.” He took out a pill box and opened it to show a number of capsules.

  “What on earth are those?”

  “Phenobarbitone. You break them and sprinkle them on the gin.”

  “Don’t be a fool——”

  “My dear, all the old ladies of Kensington do it now. It’s perfectly harmless and it saves——”

  “And have everybody go to sleep on me! Take them away!”

  “That’s what you might think in your innocence, child. I swear to you the only effect will be that everyone will get drunk on a third of the liquor and save you a lot of money.”

  Bennie and Pat were late, so when they arrived the party was already at its height. Michael saw them at once and fought his way over, smiling a welcoming but rather anxious smile. “How lovely and cool you both look! Sorry for this crowd; Peter invited most of them. What will you drink? It’s got to be gin and something.”

  He led the way back, elbowing and smiling among the noise. Peter’s friends were a mixed lot. Some sat on the floor like inelegant sea-lions. Everybody was already very gay. At the table Michael thrust drinks into their hands.

  “You remember Bennie, don’t you, Peter? And this is her friend, Pat.”

  “Why, it’s my little friend from Istanbul,” said Peter, turning his full look of innocence on her. “ Do you come here by magic carpet or is there a lamp to rub?”

  “Of course she comes by magic carpet,” said Michael. “ She works on an air-liner.”

  “Oh.… Oh, I see.… You’re one of those beautiful dedicated images. I always thought air-hostesses were kept in dust-proof containers between flights.”

  “Shut up, Peter,” said Michael. “ I wonder when these friends of yours are going to start moving on——”

  “When the drink dries up.”

  “Which will be soon. I wish when they’ve gone we could get a dance going with a few selected friends. Bennie, it’s such a relief to see you again. Have you really forgiven me?”

  She smiled at him. “There’s absolutely nothing to forgive. Please forget about it.”

  “Drink your drink. You’re four laps behind the leaders.”

  Talk surged around them. Babel and smoke and laughter. Peter Waldo was talking to Pat, and under his kindly eyes she was suddenly vivacious in a way she seldom was at borne. Bennie said: “So this is where you live.”

  “It’s where I’m going to live. Just now I’m camping out.”

  “I like your curtains.”

  “I dashed around. It would be a good idea if we could dance. Peter, have you a gramophone at your flat?”

  “No, darling boy.”

  “I left one at Dad’s place,” said Michael. “ It’s a big old thing. But we could get it, I suppose.”

  With the second drink Bennie began to feel peculiar. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but it was as if she’d had three neat gins on an empty stomach. The normal restrains were not quite functioning.

  Two elderly men near her were arguing about poetry. One, a little grey-haired gnome, said: “ But Arthur, when one is confined within the corset of the ballad.… Restriction can be so stultifying.…” She wanted to join in. It was all very odd.

  “Let me top that up,” said Peter.

  She let him, but decided not to drink it just yet. Everybody seemed extremely happy.

  “He had an appointment to see me,” said the other elderly man, brushing the dandruff off his velvet jacket. “ But I made an excuse and cancelled it. The sheer social nausea of meeting one’s friends’ friends.…”

  She heard Pat laughing at something Peter Waldo had said. She looked at Peter, at his long slender neck, at his slender bony hands, at his clean boyish face with its dazed inattentive eyes, and she had a strange illusion for a moment that his neck was like a snake’s and that his eyes were hooded when he looked down. They seemed to know neither good nor evil. Then she glanced at Michael and feared for him. That too was a
part of the strangeness, for Michael looked much the stronger of the two young men.

  Bennie began talking to a dark girl called Kathie, who was wearing purple corduroy slacks and had hair like parted curtains. Later she saw Michael whispering to Peter and Peter nodding and gazing from his eminence over the sea of heads. Then Michael came up to Bennie and put his mouth against her ear.

  “Bennie, we think it would be rather fun to slip out of here without anyone noticing. We’ll go round to my father’s place and pick up my old radiogram. By that time we think most of the others will have drifted away.”

  “Shall we wait for you here?”

  “No, come with us. We can put the radiogram in the boot. You and Pat slide out first. We’ll join you in a couple of minutes.”

  “All right.”

  Bennie passed on the information to Pat, who giggled and nodded her head. They eased and manœuvred their way to the door. As they left, Bennie saw the dark girl Kathie following them and also a tall man with curly brilliantined hair and a peculiar nose.

  The six of them met at the gate. Bennie sat in the front of the Delage with Michael while the other four piled in the back. She did her stuff with the choke ring without being asked. Michael said: “ You clever girl,” and they started off with a jerk and a roar.

  She hoped he was clearer in the head than she was. The sudden change of atmosphere had made her feel dizzy and sick. But she was quite happy enough to enjoy his method of driving which seemed to be to use all his gears all the time. They stormed through London, screeching up to traffic lights, racing across the yellows and lurching in and out of traffic. They swung round the last few corners and snorted to a violent stop in Belgrave Street, so that the four in the back were flung into a laughing heap.

  By the time they had sorted themselves out Michael was up the steps with Bennie pressing Roger’s bell.

  “Quiet!” said Michael. “No giggling. I have a stern parent to deal with.”

  “Leave him to me,” said Boy. “ I’ll sink him front or stern.”

  They were in the mood to laugh at that while they waited. After the second ring Michael said: “ I think he must be out. Bad luck. But I’ve got a key.”