A Start in Life (11 page)

‘Here, here,' protested Leslie, fending her off humorously with his pipe. He was not quite so spruce this time. ‘What about all that home cooking you were telling me about?'

‘Plenty of time for that,' said Mrs Cutler (Margaret as she now thought of herself). ‘First things first.' She saw herself in the Lurex two-piece she had bought in the sales, being absolutely charming to some old dear while her husband hovered cheerily in the background. ‘My husband will take care of it,' she would say. ‘You will have to speak to my husband about that.' They would make an ideal pair. After all, if she could look after Helen, she could look after a few more. And they had nurses, didn't they? She sent Leslie back to Folkestone with instructions to make enquiries at all likely establishments along the coast. Then she nipped back to the Black Lion and had two gins to steady her nerves after her momentous afternoon.

‘Do you realize,' said George to Mrs Jacobs, ‘that if you didn't feed me, I'd never get anything to eat?'

They were washing up together in the immaculate kitchen, after listening to the obligatory Viennese waltz on the record player. Mrs Jacobs shook her head sadly. George was now nearly a stone overweight. Mrs Jacobs, on the other hand, was thinner and less happy than she had been. George kept her in in the evenings and she had had to abandon her bridge friends. She loved cooking for him – she had even made him a pound of coconut biscuits to keep in the car – but she thought she was a bit ill-used. And he had failed to show compunction over the ruined counterpane. And her nephew Roddy was beginning to hint that she might make him a partner in the shop as he was doing most of the work. All in all, Mrs Jacobs felt, George ought to marry her. That was the conclusion at which she had arrived in the small hours of that morning. Once they were married, she could go out again. She was thinking in terms of a cruise, when George made his significant statement about lack of food.

They took their lemon tea back to the sitting room. Mrs Jacobs massaged cream into her hands and slipped her rings back on. George glanced at his watch, belched very softly, and told himself he would not be sorry to get to bed. Leading a double life could prove tiring. He held out his hand to Mrs Jacobs with a charming impulsive smile. Had she but known it, this was how he used to
behave with Helen, when they had temporarily run out of sex or conversation. Mrs Jacobs took his hand and smiled herself. It was for moments like these that she endured the knowledge that George still lived with his wife, a knowledge that compounded her own loneliness. She often urged him to spend more time in Bayswater, to stroll along on a Sunday morning and stay for an early lunch, but he refused. At least she had got him to telephone her every night. That call was necessary to her. Without it she doubted if she could go on facing the troubled dreams with which she was afflicted, and the unnecessary spaces of her large double bed.

It was time to leave. George gave his usual sigh, straightened his cuffs, and heaved himself out of Mrs Jacobs's husband's favourite chair, while Mrs Jacobs stood beside him like an acolyte. When he had gone she would plump up the cushions, leave instructions for the cleaning woman on the pad in the kitchen, and change into a housecoat. She would switch on the radio, switch if off again, make herself a last cup of tea, have her bath and take her place in the bed, waiting for George's goodnight call. An occasional flash of common sense told her that she would be better off with someone else, as her sister frequently reminded her, the news of her attachment having spread to the family via Roddy. Yet she rather loved George and they had so much in common. When he called she felt warm and tearful and anxious to prolong the conversation even though she knew that he was crouched in the drawing room with his ear blocked against the noise from the television. Sometimes she got his deaf ear and nothing much ensued. But he always said, ‘Goodnight, my darling, sleep well,' and that kept her going. Well, that is to say, it kept her going until the next time.

There was one terrible evening when she did not hear from him. She rang the engineer to see if her number were in order, then contemplated ringing Oakwood
Court, but she knew that she must not do that. She arrived at the shop the following morning pale and trembling and had to send Roddy out to renew her prescription for tranquillizers, although George had forbidden her to take them. He liked being masterful in these little ways and she liked it too, although she usually kept an emergency supply handy. At eleven o'clock George turned up looking no less pale and sank into a chair with his head in his hands. Fearfully, Mrs Jacobs placed a glass of tea at his elbow.

‘I knew it,' he said finally. ‘I knew it would come to this.'

‘You mean …' Mrs Jacobs's throat was dry. ‘You mean she knows, about us?'

George raised his head from his hands and looked at her as if he could hardly remember who she was.

‘I mean,' he said, ‘that my bloody housekeeper is leaving. Getting married, if you please. To a chap in Folkestone. Folkestone,' he repeated, as if that last detail were the crowning insult.

Mrs Jacobs was bewildered.

‘But you never liked her. You always said she was no good.'

George sipped his tea grimly. ‘That's hardly the point now,' he told her. ‘She's been with us for years. Looks after Helen. Knows all her little ways. Nobody else is likely to take her on.'

‘Why ever not?' asked Mrs Jacobs. She only knew of Helen as charming, spoilt, beautiful, selfish, and lazy; she did not know of the long straggling hair, the nightdress stained with coffee, the horny fingernails under the chipped polish. George tried to tell her.

‘But she's no age at all,' cried Mrs Jacobs in surprise. ‘You must put your foot down. She's not old and incapable. If you don't watch out you'll have an invalid on your hands.'

George, who had had just that for several months now
– ever since their holiday, in fact, and the last time Helen had been out – said nothing.

‘I'll find you another housekeeper,' urged Mrs Jacobs. ‘I'll put an advertisement in the
Lady.
I'll interview her for you. All I ask is that you don't interrupt our routine.' She burst into tears. ‘I can't go back to the doctor again and that's what it would do to me.'

George rubbed his hands unhappily. ‘I don't want to interrupt anything, darling.' He had visions of himself being tied to the house, doing the cooking, the cleaning, and, worst of all, listening to Helen all day.

‘What about your daughter?' said Mrs Jacobs. ‘When is she due home?'

George raised his head and calculated. ‘What is it now? March? She's due back in the summer, I believe. At least, that was the original plan. As you know, I was against her going.'

They looked at each other. ‘Well,' said Mrs Jacobs. ‘I think that's the answer, don't you?'

Mrs Cutler, to her surprise, had not looked forward to telling Helen that she was leaving, so she had told George first. His reaction was one of total amazement and blank outrage.

‘Married?' he echoed. ‘Married?'

‘I told you I had it in mind when you came back from Brighton,' she said with eyes downcast, like a maiden in one of Helen's novels. ‘Just before Ruth went.'

‘But you can't mean it,' George protested. ‘We can't do without you. And anyway, you've been married once. Why go through it all again? If it's a question of money …' he added.

Mrs Cutler recovered her dignity. She had in fact saved one hundred pounds out of the housekeeping and had prudently put it in a Post Office Savings Account. Well, there was precious little housekeeping at Oakwood Court these days, and nobody seemed to eat much, so
she bought less. No point in throwing money down the drain.

‘Mr Dunlop and I have more than enough,' she replied. ‘And we shall be taking another post. I am willing to stay until matters are settled. In the meantime you can look around for someone else.' Though who, she said to herself, is going to put up with this lot I fail to imagine. Still, that's their worry.

While George, a vein beating ominously in his forehead, wrenched his car in the direction of Mount Street, Mrs Cutler made herself a cup of instant coffee and sat down to think things over. The die was cast now, but she felt no enthusiasm. She looked round the big kitchen, not noticing the smell of cheese kept a little too long, or the strands of greasy fluff around the feet of the gas cooker, or the calendar, showing Constable's
Hay Wain
, which had not been changed since February. To exchange this for a bungalow in Folkestone was a gamble. But we shan't be there, she reminded herself. We shall have our own quarters in a proper house somewhere. I shan't have to wear a uniform or anything; in fact I can dress up a bit. Might get myself a couple of trouser suits. No more overalls, thank God. And he'll be easy enough to manage. A woman's no good on her own, even at my age. Margaret Dunlop, she said to herself. Sounds quite nice.

Helen, fully made up but a bit dingy about the neck, was reading. She had got to the part where the governess, maddened by despair at the rakish ne'er-do-well younger son's forthcoming engagement to the neighbouring squire's daughter, has rushed out into the night and is about to be discovered sobbing on the moor. Helen knew what was coming. Deserting the glittering lights of the ballroom, the ne'er-do-well, his black curls streaming in the wind, finds a tiny fragile figure all but spent with exhaustion. Cradling her roughly in his arms, he realizes that she is his own true love. The book jacket showed the deserted fiancée, in vast crinoline, staring in
agony through the window, with a dancing couple and a chandelier in the background. Helen had read it before. Only a month before, in fact, but Mrs Cutler had other things on her mind these days and did not spend too much time at the library.

As Mrs Cutler, rakish and defiant, stepped in and started dusting the borders of various surfaces to give herself something to do, Helen sighed unconsciously as the door of the ballroom opened on to the stormy night. Why had nobody ever done as much for her? Well, nobody had had to, really, to be perfectly fair. But if only they had
tried.
If only they had
offered.
If only they had made the
slightest effort.
My God, I'm bored, she thought. If only there were something to get up for. She said as much to Mrs Cutler, who sniffed unsympathetically.

‘These things don't happen in real life,' she said, thinking of Leslie's pipe and his cardigan and his darts team. ‘You should know that by now.'

She was angry with Helen because in a way she saw her point. But she could not change her position now. It was too late to think again.

‘By the way,' she said, her head averted. ‘You'll have to find someone else to look after the place soon. I'm getting married.' She rubbed furiously at the dressing table. She felt absurdly unhappy.

Helen raised her head from her book, marked a full five seconds' pause, and raised the back of her hand to her forehead.

‘You can't be,' she pronounced finally. ‘The agency couldn't find anyone suitable. At least, that's what you said.'

She laid her book down, as if it were of no further use to her. Reality had taken over with its usual vengeful effect. She had always felt like this when she came off stage. And now she was never on … Her heart beat uncomfortably and her eyes stung with tears.

‘I met him at the library,' said Mrs Cutler, hoping to
salvage a little good will. Helen looked so stricken that she felt a pang of remorse. Poor cow, she thought. She won't have anyone to talk to now. ‘He's retiring to Folkestone,' she continued. ‘He wants me to go with him.'

‘Are you telling me the truth?' asked Helen, her voice gaining its old resonance. ‘What's his name?'

‘Arthur Godwin,' replied Mrs Cutler quickly. She wondered why she had started all this. With a shaking hand Helen lit a cigarette from the stub of her old one and ran her fine grubby fingers through her hair. A rich smell of unaired bedclothes, like humus, filled the room. In sudden disgust, Mrs Cutler shoved open the window.

Helen, after giving the matter some thought, chose to be dignified. ‘You are old enough to know what you are doing,' she said, ‘although for the life of me I cannot see that it is going to work. The idea of a woman of your age … But perhaps it is better all round.' She viewed Mrs Cutler with distaste, although only half an hour ago she had flung out a hand in one of her old flamboyant gestures. ‘How soon,' she said carelessly, ‘will be you leaving?'

As Mrs Cutler understood it, she was being dismissed. And she had only come in to give in her notice. She was furious to discover that her eyes were smarting. It was ‘Darling Maggie' this morning, she thought, adding to herself those useless words, after all I've done for her. Wait till she asks the next one to cut her toenails or wash her back or dye her hair. And what about him? What does he get up to all day? Why doesn't he ever want to eat much in the evenings? There's a lot going on here I could say something about. But I'll rise above it. I won't go down to her level. She banged with unnecessary violence at a cushion and prepared to withdraw.

‘I shan't need any lunch today,' said Helen, remote. ‘But I can't get interested in this book. Perhaps you could find your way to the library this afternoon. Perhaps Mr
Godwin would be kind enough to allow you to find me something to read.'

Mrs Cutler wondered what she was talking about, then realized that she had lied instinctively to protect the married name of Dunlop. You never knew with her. But she could not quite remember whether she had mentioned Leslie's real name to George. If she had, she was in for it this evening when he came home. Helen was quite obviously working herself up to a scene, and something of her old expression was returning: that air of indomitable vitality that George called her Joan of Arc look and that had seen her through many a first night. But Mrs Cutler noticed the still shaking hands and resigned herself to losing this round.