An Accidental Man (18 page)

His room had got into an extraordinary mess. Every room he lived in did. Unwashed clothes were everywhere, smelling. Old cigarette packets and coins and string and squeezed out tubes and razor blades and yellowing sheets of evening papers lay about. Why did his life somehow generate this excrement? He had applied for jobs. He had written cunning letters offering himself as one whose dedicated wish was to be an assistant librarian, a clerical officer, a part-time teacher, a secretary in a publishing house (they said one must type, but did not specify how fast) a personnel manager, a club organizer. What he thought of as rubble jobs. But no one wanted him. The Labour Exchange said they could get him a job as a nurse.

Meanwhile he had not managed to let the flat. Perhaps Garth put off prospective tenants. It suited the holy boy to live rent free. Two possibles failed to get in at all, since Garth was away. Another man only wanted it for the week of the Motor Show. There were debts and very little in the bank. He had borrowed a few pounds from Mitzi. Garth was shamelessly penniless. While Gracie Tisbourne had, they said, inherited hundreds of thousands. Why were things thus? Would it be possible for him to grit his teeth and become a nurse? No. Names were important. If he took a rubble job he could always laughingly call himself an executive. But a nurse was a nurse.

He cared what Dorina thought, he cared what Matthew thought, he cared what Garth thought, he even cared what the bloody Tisbournes thought. Why should he be always the slave of his audience? Well, he was. What was so relaxing about Mitzi was that he did not care a fuck what Mitzi thought. Or Ludwig. There was peace there. But the others were his torment. How the Tisbournes would dance and sing if he became a nurse. ‘Darling, Austin's got a job, guess what!' And Dorina. How could he bear to be such a failure in her eyes? He had felt so proud on his wedding day. How had his marriage then become so vulnerable and exposed? He must be able once again to mystify and impress Dorina. She would lend herself to the mystification as she had always done.

He must get a job. He must get the flat back. He hadn't even let it yet. He must make Dorina stop being whatever she was being. Afraid of him? How he feared that fear, how he feared her horrible ghost-haunted thoughts, she was for him a fatal and destructive girl. Yet how precious she was and how much he loved her. He would kill anyone who came near her. How much longer could he keep her immobilized and spellbound at Valmorana? Of course she understood, she knew his jealousy, perhaps she feared it. She would keep still, as still as a frightened mouse, as still as prey. But supposing somebody were to kidnap her? The vile Tisbournes had asked her to stay with them. Supposing Mavis were to interfere or Garth or —

He could hear Mitzi stirring, hear the sound of her door opening. He switched off the light. There was a soft knock and Mitzi said, ‘Austin, are you awake?' He lay back silently. The door opened an inch or two. ‘Austin.' He closed his eyes. He had read in a book that the eyeball reflects light. She must not see his terrible open eyes. The door creaked as it opened wider. He lay tense and stiff, feeling that he would scream if he were touched. The door closed again quietly and the feet shuffled away. He was on Calypso's isle. But was Ithaca still real? He turned sideways pulling a blanket up. Suppose Ludwig were to write him a testimonial? What happened if the money simply ran out? Was it conceivable that he could ask Matthew to lend him money? No. Would Ludwig lend him some of Gracie's hundreds of thousands?

He was beginning to see those clear coloured images, the gentle precursors of sleep. Now he saw again the blue lake in the quarry to which he had climbed down on that hot summer's day. Matthew would not come. Matthew was a timid boy. Scrambling down was easy, but to climb up was impossible, the loose stones came away, running past him in long rattling sluices. Matthew was laughing. Weakness, impotence, rage made him limp, the sun blazed in starry tears in his dazzled eyes, he could not get up. Now Matthew was throwing stones down at him and laughing. Weeping with rage he climbed and climbed. Something struck him and he fell and an avalanche of rattling stones cascaded him down to the very edge of the blue water. He had hurt his hand.

Sleep took him and he began to dream a dream which he had had many times before. Betty was not dead after all. She had been kidnapped and taken away and kept in a big house by somebody who gave her drugs. She was alive still but drugged. He saw with horror her dazed vacant face. Yet he did not want her to awaken. That must never be.

‘Honey bun,' said Ludwig to Gracie, ‘Austin has asked me to lend him money.'

‘Oh,' said Gracie, ‘Did you?'

‘I lent him five pounds.'

‘That was quite enough,' said Gracie. ‘I hope you won't lend him any more. After all, you aren't going to be paid until September.'

Ludwig pondered on this. ‘Sure,' he said. ‘But I just mentioned it in case
you
might feel like lending him some.'

‘I don't,' said Gracie.

That was that.

The fact that he was quite accidentally going to marry a rich girl had made more difference to Ludwig's consciousness than he would have believed possible beforehand. The prospect gave deep and warm satisfaction. He had become more extravagant. A life-long habit of anxiety about money was distinctly weakened. And when Austin had asked him for a loan he had felt pity for Austin and also a kind of contempt, which was new. He noticed the contempt with dismay. Had he then so quickly deserted to the side of the rich? With even more dismay, after parting with the five pounds, he reckoned out that before September he would have to ask Gracie for money. So far she had been delicate enough not to offer him any.

Being paraded around as a fiancé was something he had not yet got used to. He had not got a fiancé's temperament. ‘Have you met my fiancé, Ludwig Leferrier?' Ridiculous word. And what about ‘husband'? ‘Have you met my husband?' ‘May I present my wife, Grace?' ‘Did you know, Leferrier's got a rich wife?' What would Andrew Hilton think? Gracie's husband. Husband. The word became senseless to him. One day he looked up its derivation and was appalled. Gracie and Clara were busy planning the wedding. They asked if Ludwig's parents would be coming. He did not know. He decided that if his parents seemed to want to come he would ask Gracie to pay their fare. It was all rather awkward and curious. And meanwhile he and Gracie were still careering around London like tourists. And they had still not been to bed.

Ludwig thought a lot about Garth and tried to see him again, but Garth had once more disappeared. Of course Ludwig had been a dull companion because he had wanted only one thing from Garth on that evening, the ratification of his own decision. When one has momentously decided one does not want to be told that ‘it doesn't matter'. Of course Ludwig had acted rightly. But he should have argued more intelligently with Garth. Garth's theories had seemed mad, but now they recalled to him things which he had thought for himself in the quiet room at school. Of course he did not agree with Garth. But he did need what only arguing with Garth could give him, a clearer theoretical grasp of his own action. It was all hazy in crucial places. And he did need, just for once, to be praised by someone he respected. If only his parents' attitude did not force him to think about other people's opinions so much. Those awful touching letters stirred his imagination and robbed his decision of its cool certainty. When he slept he doubted himself in dreams. One terrible night a huge half naked woman in a helmet and starred and striped panties, looking rather like Mitzi Ricardo, brandished a spear at him and shouted, ‘Defend me!' The dream Ludwig fled crazed with terror.

‘There's a fly in the milk,' said Gracie, ‘could you rescue him?'

Ludwig removed the struggling fly on a teaspoon.

‘All right, Ludwig, leave him now, he'll dry his wings. God helps flies who help themselves.'

They had been at a sculpture exhibition in Holland Park and were now in a Kensington High Street tea shop. Gracie had eaten two chocolate éclairs and was now eating a meringue.

‘Do you mind if I smoke now, moppet?'

‘All right, barbarian. Why is the smoke at one end of a cigarette grey and at the other end blue?'

‘I think it's a matter of —'

‘You know, you really must meet Matthew.'

‘I've just been thinking that,' said Ludwig.

‘Why?'

‘Oh, I don't know —' I'd care what
he
said, thought Ludwig. He had heard Matthew much talked about. Opinions about him seemed to differ.

‘You'll probably meet him at my parents' awful cocktail party.'

‘Must we go?'

‘It's
for
us! Yes, I have plans for Matthew. Matthew is our fate.'

‘How do you mean, sweetie? I'm
your
fate!'

‘Yes, darling, I just mean we'll take him up. He's awfully amusing.'

‘OK, poppet.' Ludwig was aware that married people usually used pet names. His father called his mother ‘Mudge', his mother called his father ‘Topper', he had never discovered why. He had not yet determined Gracie's secret pet name.

‘He's much cleverer than Austin, or Garth.'

‘By the way, angel, I've a message for you from Garth.'

‘From
Garth
?'

‘Yes. He says he thinks you should tell Aunt Charlotte very soon how much you want her to stay on at the Villa. You see, he called on Aunt Charlotte and he formed the view —'

‘Really, Ludwig,' said Gracie. She put down her fork. ‘
Really
! Do we have to be told what to do by Garth Gibson Grey?'

‘No. I agreed with him too, of course. And I'm sure you don't need to be told anything. It's just that he thinks Aunt Char might take off soon if — You see, he formed the view —'

‘I'm not interested in what view he formed. He's conceited and interfering, he's as bad as my parents. I don't want to know his beastly thoughts. There's something cold and dead about him, there's a dead mark on him — Ugh!'

‘Well, Gracie, sorry dear, I —'

‘And as for begging Aunt Char to stay on at the Villa, I shall do no such thing. I shan't ask her to go, but I shall leave it to her to move out without being asked.'

‘Gracie!'

‘Really, Ludwig, you must learn to
think
about these things. Honestly. If I ask Aunt Char to stay now it would be very unkind to ask her to go later. And how do I know what I want to do with the Villa? I may want to sell it.'

‘Yes, I see —'

‘Or we may want to live there ourselves. We shall need a town house. And there's all our children.'

‘All our — yes —'

‘It would be terribly short sighted and silly to make Aunt Charlotte feel it belonged to her, as she must feel if she were to stay on now. Of course I'm not a monster, I'll do something for Aunt Char later on. But I want to understand my own situation first of all. There's nothing one regrets so much as one's thoughtless acts of generosity. They're usually just conceit anyway, one wants to see oneself acting nobly. Garth would have an idea like that, he'd so much enjoy begging Aunt Char to regard the house as hers.'

‘He's rather sure of himself, I know —'

‘He's not, he's afraid of life, he's a timid man like his father, only vainer. That sort of priggish vanity makes nothing but trouble. You do see what I mean?'

‘Yes, sure —'

‘And I think it's extremely impertinent of him to offer us advice.'

‘Yes, I guess so.' Ludwig was stunned by her grasp of the matter. And after a moment's reflection he saw that she might very well be right. Would he and Gracie ever live in the Villa? And their — Oh God.

‘I wish we had a place of our own right now,' he said. ‘Maybe I could find other digs where you wouldn't mind coming. You know, Gracie, I'm a man after all and, well, we are engaged, aren't we, and —'

‘It's an exceptionally hot summer.'

‘Honey, don't tease.'

‘“Time on my hands and you in my arms”.'

‘Gracie, stop it. Do you want me to insist, do you want me to get tough and bully you?' Was she capable of making him wait until the wedding day? Oh Christ.

‘No, Ludwig. Darling. My parents are going away next weekend, they're going to stay in the country with the Odmores.'

‘Oh that's great! That's —'

‘Ludwig —'

‘Dovikins —'

‘You wouldn't ever talk to Garth — about that — would you?'

‘Sweetie puss, of course not, cross my heart.'

‘I'd rather you didn't talk to him too much, he's a wrecker, a hater.'

‘OK, honey bun.'

A few minutes later they were holding hands on top of a bus. Ludwig remembered he had meant to tell Gracie that after all he felt that he ought to go and see Dorina. But as he hadn't argued about Charlotte or even about Garth it would sound rather artificial to raise Dorina now. Let them all go. It was only three days to the weekend. Whoopee!

‘It must be wonderful to have so many wonderful memories,' said Clara. ‘You've achieved so much, it must be marvellous to look back on it all.'

‘I hope you're going to write your memoirs for us,' said George.

‘And to have visited so many famous places, to have been
everywhere
, I do envy you, you must have the most super photograph album.'

‘I'm afraid I never took any photographs,' said Matthew.

‘Charles is very disappointed you won't come on the commission,' said George. ‘But I don't blame you. Those things are so boring. I expect you feel you've earned a rest.'