A Demon in My View (17 page)

Tony, Forgive me. I’m sorry not to have written to you before as I promised. I knew you would be angry if I said I couldn’t make up my mind. I have made it up now and I am going to stay with Roger. I am his wife and it is my duty to stay with him
.

I never really loved you. It was just infatuation. You must forget me and it will soon be as if you hadn’t known me
.

Do not phone me. You mustn’t try to get in touch with me at all. Not ever. Roger will be angry if you do. So remember, this is final. I shall not see you again and you must not contact me. H

   Anthony read it again because at first he simply couldn’t believe it. It was as if a letter for someone else and written by someone else had got into one of those envelopes whose colour and shape and texture had always held a magic of their own. This—this obscenity—couldn’t be intended for him, couldn’t have been written by her to him. And yet it had been. Her typewriter had been used, those distinctive errors were hers. He read it a third time, and now rage began to conquer disbelief. How dare she write such hideous, cliché-ridden rubbish to
him?
How dare she keep him waiting three weeks and then write this? The language appalled him almost as much as the sentiments it expressed. Her duty to stay with Roger! And then that lonelyhearts novelette word “infatuation.” “Contact” too—journalese for approach or communicate. He examined the letter, analysing it, as if close scrutiny of semantics could keep him from facing the pain of it.

The truth flashed upon him. Of course. She had begun it and the remainder had been dictated by Roger. Instead of serving to pacify him, this realisation only made him angrier. She had confessed to Roger and he had compelled her to write like this. But what sort of a woman was it who would let a man take her over to that extent? And when did she think she was living, she who was self-supporting and had the franchise and was strong and healthy? A hundred years ago? A deep humiliation enclosed him as he imagined them composing that letter in concert, the woman abject and grateful for forgiveness, the man domineering, relegating him, Anthony, to the status of some gigolo.

“You give that presumptuous devil his marching orders. Let him know whose wife you are and where your duty lies. And put
in something about not contacting you if he values his skin. For God’s sake, Helen, make him see it’s final …”

Final.

He screwed the letter up, then unscrewed it and tore it into tiny shreds so that the temptation to read it again was removed.

The news of Brian Kotowsky’s death reached Arthur at nine o’clock that night by way of the television. The announcer didn’t say much about it, only that a drowned corpse had been identified and that there would be an inquest. But Arthur was satisfied. He had never even considered that honourable promptings of conscience might bring him qualms when Brian was tried for Vesta’s murder. Brian Kotowsky was nothing to him, his indifference towards the dead man tempered only by a natural dislike of someone who got drunk and was noisy. But Kotowsky might have been acquitted. Nothing could now acquit him. His self-dealt death marked him as plainly a murderer as any confession or any trial could have done. The police would consider the case as closed.

He slightly regretted his forgery of the morning. So much of his life had been ruined by terror, so much of his time wasted by gruelling anxiety. All of it in vain. But he consoled himself with the thought that, at the time, he had had no choice. Undoubtedly, Kotowsky’s death hadn’t appeared in the early editions of the evening papers so, even if he had bought one, he still wouldn’t have known in time to avoid the substitution of the letter. But now, if Anthony Johnson were to find him out, there was no damaging action he could take. The police had a culprit, dead and speechless.

And so to get on with the business of living. Arthur watched a very old film about the building of the Suez Canal, starring Loretta Young as the Empress Eugénie and Tyrone Power as de Lesseps, till eleven. He enjoyed it very much, having seen it before
with Auntie Gracie when he was thirteen. Those were the days. In euphoric mood, he really thought they had been. Saturday tomorrow. The new attendant at the launderette was Mr. Grainger’s nephew’s wife, earning a bit of pin money, and he thought he could safely leave his washing with her while he went to the shops. Maybe he’d treat himself to a duck for Sunday by way of celebration.

   There are ways and ways of ending a love affair. Anthony thought of the ways he had ended with girls in the past and the ways they had ended with him. Cool discussions, rows, pseudo-noble renunciations, cheerful let’s-call-it-a-day farewells. But it had never been Helen’s way. No one had rid herself of him with a curt note. And yet any of those other girls would have been more justified in doing so, for he had claimed to love none of them and offered none of them permanency. A last meeting he could have taken, a final explanation from her or even an honest letter, inviting him to phone her for a last talk. What he had received was more than he could take and he refused it. There still remained the last Wednesday of the month. Tomorrow. He would ask Linthea for the use of her phone so that there wouldn’t be that hassle with the change. And Helen should learn she couldn’t dismiss him as if he were some guy she’d picked up and spent a couple of nights with.

Leroy was still at school when he called at Linthea’s on his way home from college. “You’re welcome,” she said, “but I have to go out around eight, so when you’ve done your phoning, would you sit with Leroy for an hour or two?”

This wasn’t exactly what Anthony had envisaged. He had seen himself needing a little comfort after speaking his mind to Helen. On the other hand, this way Linthea wouldn’t have to know whom he was phoning and why. And there would be plenty of time later in the week, next week, the week after, for consolation. All the time in the world …

Linthea was ready to go out when he got there and Leroy was playing Monopoly in his bedroom with Steve and David. Because it was still only ten to eight, Anthony passed the time by
reading the evening paper’s account of the inquest on Brian Kotowsky. Evidence was given of the murder of Brian’s wife three weeks before, of his disappearance but not a hint was breathed that Brian might have been responsible for that murder. The body had been in the sea for a fortnight and identification had been difficult. No alcohol had been present, but the cumulative effects of alcohol were found in the arteries and the liver. The verdict, in the absence of any suicide note or prior-to-death admission of unhappiness on Brian’s part, was one of misadventure. In a separate paragraph Chief Superintendent Howard Fortune, head of Kenbourne Vale C.I.D., was quoted as saying simply, “I have no comment to make at this stage.”

Eight o’clock. He would give it till ten past. Steve and David went home, and Anthony talked to Leroy, telling him stories about a children’s home where he had once worked and where the boys had got out of the windows by night and gone off to steal cars. Leroy was entranced, but Anthony’s heart wasn’t in it. At eight-fifteen he put the television on, gave Leroy milk and biscuits and shut himself up in Linthea’s bedroom where she had a phone extension.

He dialled the Bristol number and it began to ring. When it had rung twelve times he knew she wasn’t going to answer. Would she, after all there had been between them, just sit there and let the phone ring? She must know it was he. He dialled again and again it rang unanswered. After a while he went back to Leroy and tried to watch a quiz programme. Nine o’clock came and he forgot all about sending Leroy off to bed as he had promised. Again he dialled Helen’s number. She had gone out, he thought, guessing he would phone. That was how she intended to behave if he tried to “contact” her. And when Roger was at home and the phone rang they would have arranged it so that he answered.… He put the receiver back and sat with a contented little boy who didn’t get sent to bed until five minutes before his mother came home with Winston Mervyn.

“I don’t owe you anything for the call,” said Anthony. “I couldn’t get through.”

He went home soon after and lay on his bed, thinking of ways to get in touch with Helen. He could, of course, go to her house. He could go on Saturday, it was only two hours to Bristol in the
train. Roger would be there, but he wasn’t afraid of Roger, his guns, and his rages. But Roger would be
there
, would possibly open the door to him. With Roger enraged and belligerent, Helen frightened and obedient according to what she had the effrontery to call her duty, what could he say? And nothing would be said at all, for Roger wouldn’t admit him to the house.

He could phone her mother if he knew what her mother was called or where she lived. The sister and brother-in-law? They had hardly proved trustworthy in the past. In the end he fell into an uneasy sleep. When he awoke at seven it occurred to him that he could phone her at the museum. He had never done so before because of her absurd neurosis about Roger’s all-seeing eye and all-hearing ear, but he’d do it now and to hell with Roger.

He had planned to spend the day in the British Museum library but it didn’t much matter what time he got there. At nine he went out and bought a couple of cans of soup at Winter’s in order to get some change. On the way back he passed Arthur Johnson in a silver-grey overcoat and carrying a briefcase, the acme of respectability. Arthur Johnson said good morning and that the weather was seasonable, to which Anthony agreed absently. A hundred and forty-two was quite empty, totally silent. The seasonableness of the weather was evinced by a high wind, and little spots of coloured light cast through the wine-red and sap-green glass danced on the hall floor.

He went upstairs to the phone and dialled. Peep-peep-peep, and in went the first of his money. A girl’s voice but not hers.

“Frobisher Museum. Can I help you?”

“I want to speak to Helen Garvist.”

“Who is that calling?”

“It’s a personal call,” said Anthony.

“I’m afraid I must have your name.”

“Anthony Johnson.”

She asked him to hold the line. After about a minute she was back. “I’m afraid Mrs. Garvist isn’t here.”

He hesitated, then said, “She must be there.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Then he understood. She would have come to the phone if he hadn’t given his name, if he had insisted on anonymity. But because
she didn’t want to talk to him, was determined at any cost not to talk to him, she had got the girl to tell this lie.

“Let me speak to the curator,” he said firmly.

“I’ll see if he’s available.”

The pips started. Anthony put in more money.

“Norman Le Queuex speaking,” said a thin academic voice.

“I’m a friend of Mrs. Helen Garvist and I’m speaking from London. From a call box. I want to speak to Mrs. Garvist It’s very urgent.”

“Mrs. Garvist is taking a fortnight of her annual leave, Mr. Johnson.”

How readily the name came to him.… He had been forewarned. “In November? She can’t be.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. She told you to say that, didn’t she?”

There was an astonished silence. Then the curator said, “I think the sooner we terminate this conversation the better,” and he put the receiver down.

Anthony sat on the stairs. It is very easy to become paranoid in certain situations, to believe that the whole world is against you. But what if the whole world, or those significant members of it, truly are against you? Why should Helen go away now in the cold tail end of the year? She would have mentioned something about it in her last letter if she had planned to go away. No, it wasn’t paranoid, it was only feasible to believe that, wanting no more of him, she had asked Le Queuex and the museum staff to deny her to a caller named Anthony Johnson. Of course they would co-operate if she said this was a man who was pestering her.…

   “Kotowsky’s being cremated today,” said Stanley Caspian.

Arthur put the rent envelopes on the desk in front of him. “Locally?” he said.

“Up the cemetery. Don’t suppose there’ll be what you’d call a big turn-out. Mrs. Caspian says I ought to put in an appearance, but there are limits. Where did I put me bag of crisps, Arthur?”

“Here,” said Arthur, producing it with distaste from where it had fallen into the wastepaper basket.

“Poxy sort of day for a funeral. Eleven-thirty, they’re having it, I’m told. Still, I should worry. I’m laughing, Arthur, things are looking up. Two bits of good news I’ve got. One, the cops say I can relet Flat 1 at my convenience, which’ll be next week.”

“It could do with a paint. A face-lift, as you might say.”

“So could you and me, me old Arthur, but it’s not getting it any more than we are. I’ve no objection to the new tenant getting busy with a brush.”

“May I know your other piece of good news?”

“Reckon you’ll have to, but I don’t know how you’ll take it. Your rent’s going up, Arthur. All perfectly legal and above board, so you needn’t look like that. Up to four-fifty a year which’ll be another two quid a week in that little envelope, if you please.”

Arthur had feared this. He could afford it. He knew the Rent Act made provision for just such an increase in these hard times. But he wasn’t going to let Stanley get away with it totally unscathed. “No doubt you’re right,” he said distantly, “but I shall naturally have to go into the matter in my own interest. When you let me have the new agreement it would be wise for my solicitors to look at it.” As a parting shot he added, “I fear you won’t find it easy letting those rooms. Two violent deaths, you know. People don’t care for that sort of thing, it puts them off.”

He took his envelope and went upstairs, his equilibrium which had prevailed, though declining, for a week, now shaken. He hoped that any prospective tenants of the Kotowskys’ flat would come round while he was at home, in which case he would take care to let them know all. A gloomy day of thin fog and fine rain. Not enough rain, though, for his umbrella. The orange plastic bag of laundry in one hand, the shopping basket in the other, he set off for the launderette.