Designs on Life (4 page)

After a little while, Helen glanced up at him and found that that brooding gaze had been transferred to her face, as if he were asking himself some profound question about her. She smiled and asked him what he had on his mind.

He muttered, “Nothing,” and opened his book. But he went on staring at the first page for so long that she knew he was not reading it.

At breakfast next day he told her that he was going back to the library, and as soon as he had done the washing up he left the flat again. He had hardly spoken at breakfast, but once he had gone, the complete silence in the flat seemed suddenly unbearable. Limping from room to room, she tried to fight off a new and terrifying sense of claustrophobia. She had never suffered from it in this way before. It felt as if the walls of the flat were closing in on her and were going to crush her.

The kitchen seemed specially sinister. It had a modem sink and a gas cooker, but the floor was of great, uneven blocks of stone, which must have been there since the house was built, for at no later time would a floor so many storeys up have been paved with such slabs. They were very cold to stand on. Helen found herself thinking of the maid of long ago, so beautiful and so dangerous, who had probably had to live in this kitchen, feel the chill of the floor through her shoes and get down on her knees to scrub it. The thought of her sent Helen back as fast as she could go to the sitting-room, wishing that somehow, if only for a little while, she could get out of the flat and talk to the butcher and the greengrocer and the baker, flesh-and-blood ordinary people who had never driven any man or woman to their deaths.

Going to the window, she wondered if, after all, she made up her mind to it, she could get down the stairs alone and breathe in some of the fresh, cold air of the streets. Getting down should not really be too difficult. She could do it sitting down, manoeuvering herself from step to step without ever putting any weight on her painful leg. It was the thought of trying to get up again without Colin there to support her that she found intimidating. She might actually find it impossible and might have to stay below in the cold for she did not know how long until, if she were lucky, she could persuade some kind passer-by to help her up again.

While she was thinking of this, she saw an old man on the far side of the street slither and fall and lie helplessly where he had fallen on the pavement. It was then that she realised that there had been another heavy frost in the night, and that the half-melted snow of the day before had hardened into a sheet of ice. A passing milkman helped the old man to his feet, brushed him down and made sure that he had not hurt himself before leaving him to go on again down the street, holding tightly to the iron railings of the areas as he went. But the sight had put Helen off any thought of trying to go out herself. She must accept the fact, she was imprisoned here in this silent dwelling.

If only it had not been so silent! If only she could have heard other people moving about in it!

Knowing how foolish she was being, but all at once exasperated beyond bearing, she crossed to the fireplace, grasped the bell-pull beside it and wrenched it and wrenched it over and over again, feeling as if, sooner or later, if only she went on long enough, it would make some sound. Then suddenly it did. A bell pealed clearly in the silence.

She snatched her hand back from the bell as if it had burnt her. Then she realised that of course it was not this bell that had rung, but the front door bell. Leaning on her sticks, she made her way along the hall to the front door and opened it. As she had expected, it was Mrs. Lambie who stood there, dressed in her neat grey tweed suit and holding a saucepan.

“I’ve just been making a pot of lentil soup,” she said, “much too much for just myself, and I thought in this weather you might find it acceptable. There’s nothing like a good soup when the weather’s so inclement. Do you care for it?”

“How very good of you,” Helen said. “Won’t you come in?”

“Are you sure it’s not inconvenient? I don’t want to intrude.” Mrs. Lambie was already inside the door by the time she spoke. Helen closed it behind her. “You’ll find there’s nothing unwholesome in it, none of that tinned stuff, just good ham bones and lentils and plenty of vegetables. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you and your delightful husband are happy here. I know it isn’t very grand, but I did my best to make it comfortable.”

“It’s fine,” Helen said, taking the saucepan and carrying it to the kitchen, then rejoining Mrs. Lambie, who had gone into the sitting-room and sat down by the fire. She was patting her red hair, so bizarre above her aged face.

“Yes, I did my best,” she said, “but you aren’t happy here, are you? I can always tell. You won’t stay.”

“Well, of course we never meant to stay for long,” Helen said. “As soon as I can get about better we want to find ourselves a small house somewhere and have our own furniture moved in. We had it sent to Edinburgh when we left to come home, and it’s in store now.”

“Yes, yes, your husband made that quite clear to me when we signed the lease,” Mrs. Lambie said. “I knew you’d only be here temporarily. But when I said you aren’t happy here, that isn’t what I meant. It’s nothing to do with the flat, is it? There’s trouble between the two of you, anyone can see that. So sad, when you’re both so charming. And you’re both trying so hard to make a success of things now. I think that’s what I noticed first, how hard you were trying. It didn’t seem quite natural. Of course I realise you may think I’m very interfering, but I’m a very old woman and I always say what I think now, and I know that sometimes it’s a help to have someone to talk to, even someone like me. So tell me, my dear, was the trouble another woman? Was that the real reason why you left Africa, and why you think your husband let you take that unsafe car out on purpose?”

“On purpose?” Helen said sharply. “Whatever made you think that?”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not. I’ve never thought of such a thing.”

“Dear, dear,” Mrs. Lambie said with a sigh. “How very sad. Because it’s what your husband thinks himself, you know. He says you blame him for your accident. He told me so himself only yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Helen said.

“Yes, when he dropped in for a drink with me when he got back from the library. I happened to be coming up the stairs myself when he got home and I asked him in for a chat. And we had a wee drink together. I do so enjoy company for a wee drink. It isn’t the same when you’re by yourself. And he told me how you blamed him for not having had the brakes of the car seen to, just as I was saying to you the other day. And he said how angry you were with him for taking a flat at the top of so many stairs and how you’d stopped trusting him in any way. And I asked him if the real trouble was another woman, because that’s what it generally is, and he didn’t answer, but I could tell from the way he coloured up that I’d hit on the truth. Oh dear, it’s so sad. He’s so very unhappy about it. If only I could persuade you not to blame him, because young men like him can’t help attracting women, you know. They’ll always pursue him. There are people who are like that without meaning any harm, women as well as men. They can’t help it. So if you can’t make up your mind to put up with it, you’ll never be happy yourself. Do take my advice and try to conquer your jealousy. There’s been enough unhappiness in this flat because of jealousy. I told you all about that, didn’t I—about the young advocate and the beautiful maid? Yes, I remember I did. Well, we don’t want any more tragedy here, do we?”

Helen had been only half listening to what the old woman had been saying. She had taken in the fact that Colin had visited Mrs. Lambie the evening before when he returned from the library, had apparently unburdened himself to her, and then had said nothing about this to Helen. And the fantastic thing about this was that what Helen felt about it was a kind of jealousy. That he should have kept the visit to himself made it seem important, overwhelming her for a moment with as deep a fear of losing him as she had ever felt when she had known that he was with Naomi. For if he was afraid to tell her such a thing, it must mean, surely, that she had completely lost his confidence.

Determined above all things that the old woman should not see how she had been shaken, she asked, “Wouldn’t you like a drink now, Mrs. Lambie?”

“No, no, thank you, it’s much too early in the morning for me,” Mrs. Lambie replied. She stood up. “I hope you enjoy the soup. I’m very fond of a good lentil soup myself, and it’s as easy to make a big potful as a small one. And think over what I’ve been saying, because I’ve had a great deal of experience of life and I know what I’m talking about. Good-bye for now. Don’t bother to come to the door. I’ll let myself out.”

Helen let her do so, then got to her feet and poured out the drink for herself that Mrs. Lambie had refused. Before she drank it, she took two of her pills. Her leg was hurting more than usual. Nerves, she thought. She had actually let that old creature upset her.

Colin came home earlier than he had the day before, bringing with him a cold roast chicken and the makings of a salad. It would have been a chilly meal for such an evening, if it had not been for the lentil soup. As they sat drinking sherry before it by the fire, Helen told Colin how Mrs. Lambie had brought it to her in the morning.

He smiled and said, “She’s a kind old thing really, isn’t she?”

“I think she’s horrible!” Helen said with sudden violence. “She’s been doing her best to put evil thoughts into my mind.”

“Aren’t they there already?” he asked with an edge on his voice.

“Don’t, don’t!” she exclaimed. “I’m getting the feeling she’s putting us against one another. And we’d made up our minds to stop quarrelling, hadn’t we? We wanted this to be a really new start.”

“Of course, but it isn’t her fault if it isn’t, it’s our own.”

She gave a sigh. “I know you’re right. It’s this being cooped up with the snow and everything that’s making me unreasonable. I’m sorry, Colin. But d’you know, it was rather funny this morning. I was in a vile mood and I started pulling that bell, as if it would ring if only I pulled it hard enough—and suddenly
she
came—Mrs. Lambie—just as if I’d summoned her.”

“Coincidence.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, the bell there wouldn’t have been the one that that woman who got murdered used to ring. I’m pretty sure this is a Victorian thing, not Georgian. The works may be original, the wires and so on, but the bell itself isn’t really old.”

Helen turned to look at the pretty, painted bell-pull, and her face became thoughtful.

“The fact is, you know,” she said, “Mrs. Lambie’s never told me when that murder happened. She said it happened long ago, but that could mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean two hundred years. Suppose it was only fifty, she might actually have been in Edinburgh herself at the time, and remembered quite a lot about it. Perhaps she even knew the people.”

“You’re letting it obsess you,” Colin said. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“It obsesses her.”

“Because it’s nice and dramatic and she’s lonely and old and hasn’t much else to think about. Now I’ll get that soup, and let’s forget the ghosts.”

“But if it
did
happen only fifty years ago …”

But Helen did not finish her sentence. She was not sure what she wanted to say. It was a new thought to her that Mrs. Lambie might have more knowledge of the murder that had happened here in this building than she had implied and that that perhaps was why she had such a pressing need to talk about it. Perhaps, now that she was old and her own death was close to her, she even wanted to confide in someone some secret that she had nursed all these years.

Helen sipped her sherry and tried to adjust her picture of the people who had once lived here in this flat from the hoops and powdered wigs of the eighteenth century to the brief skirts, flesh-coloured stockings and shingled hair of the nineteen-twenties.

Next morning Colin said again that he was going to the library. Helen nearly asked him to stay at home for a change, partly because she was afraid of the mood of yesterday morning returning once she was left alone, but she knew that he would have nothing to do in the flat, and that if he had nothing to do he would soon become restless and irritable. It was fortunate really that he had found something to interest him in the library.

But was it true that he had?

The question sprang so abruptly into her mind that for a moment it made the room spin about her. But once she had asked it of herself she realised that it had been troubling her since the day before. For if Naomi had arrived in London, as it had been plain from the postmark on her letter that she had, might she not have come the small distance further to Edinburgh? Might Colin not be spending his time with her?

The thought filled Helen with sudden terror, more because she felt that she was losing her grip on herself than because she really believed in it. Yet it might be right. Why should it not be right? And if it was, what was to become of her?

In a mood of needing to distract herself at any cost, she fetched the saucepan that had contained the lentil soup from the kitchen, let herself out of the flat and rang Mrs. Lambie’s bell.

There was silence for a little while, then the door opened a few inches and Mrs. Lambie peered out cautiously, just as she had when Helen had first arrived. She was dressed as she had been then, in an old quilted dressing-gown, with her red hair tangled about her face. For a moment she gazed at Helen as if she did not know her, but then she gave a vague little smile and said, “Oh, it’s you. I couldn’t think who it could be. I’m sorry, I’m not dressed.”

“I just came to bring you back your saucepan,” Helen said.

“Oh dear, you shouldn’t have troubled. Any time would have done. But do come in, if you don’t mind everything being in a mess. I haven’t started to tidy up yet.”

It looked to Helen, when she went into the flat, as if Mrs. Lambie had not tidied up for a long time. The room into which she took Helen was very like the sitting-room next door, and it was furnished in much the same way, but there was thick dust everywhere and cobwebs trailed from the ceiling. There were heaps of old newspapers on the floor and stuffing showed through slits in the worn upholstery of the chairs. A small table had been drawn close to the electric fire and had a cup and a coffee-pot on it.