Eva Trout (11 page)

“And also hot?”

“A little tiff with the heater—you may have heard me?— but I’ve got it alight. Now better left, I should say, to its own devices.”

“
I
, now, also,” pointed out Eva, “should like that better.”

“Whereas the refrigerator, a later model—”

“—Thank you. I expect that you must be going?”

“Toilet in order?” He reached past Eva and gave a tug to a chain. The resultant roar, cataclysmic, stampeded Eva, who pushed nay fought her way violently past him, shouting: “This is enough! Go—go away at once! You take liberties!”

Mr. Denge was no less outraged. He went crimson. What could or did she imagine, this she-Cossack? Cautionary stories raced through his brain. Fraught though his calling was with erotic risks, nothing had so far singled him out. A frame-up? Blackmail? This could be the end. This could be all round town. He should not have bought sheets with her without Mrs. Denge. Mrs. Denge was right—”You never know,” she often was known to say. But at other times she was equally known to say: “Whatever’s the matter with you?—she can’t eat you.” You could not win.

“You make too many noises in my house,” Eva, from a distance, deigned to explain.

“Just as you wish,” he stuttered, like a choked engine.

She indicated her one, imperative wish with a large gesture. “Out!” it wordlessly said.

He put a finger in to loosen his collar. “I had been intending to ask you: fuel?”

“No. Not now.”

“The heating-system requires—”

“—Have you set free my bicycle, my new bicycle?”

“Miss
Trout
…?”

“Have you untied my bicycle from your Rover?”

He stuffily said: “It is in the hall.”

“Is there no garage for my bicycle?”

Mr. Denge, in justifiable silence, brought out a key labelled “Garage” and, at extreme arm’s length, handed it over. Eva saw him off as far as the top of the stairs—bob, bob, bob went his head on its downward course. At the turn, he revengefully said: “Well,
good
afternoon!”

“Stop!—one thing you must show me!”

“And what might that be?”

“How a kettle is boiled.”

There was no kettle. There was certainly one on the inventory, Mr. Denge said, but by an oversight that was in his office. The kettle was in his office? No, the inventory—this would be seen to tomorrow. Meanwhile, could Miss Trout make do with a saucepan?”

“From that, how am I to learn how to boil a kettle?”

Once he was gone, Eva wheeled out the bicycle and rode figures-of-eight on the asphalt sweep. She experimented with the 4-speed gear, tested the brakes and tried out the bell. This was a springlike evening, the dusk falling—when and if she took her thumb from the bell, birds, temporarily astounded, began to flute again. No other sound came from any part of the promontory … Becoming hungry, finally, she dismounted. Having installed the bicycle in its quarters—as new to it as hers, tonight, were going to be to her—she then homegoingly turned indoors.

The bay window at the seaward end of the drawing-room contained a love seat—originally, a gilded one. Fetching provisions, she brought them to this camp. She drank milk out of one of the cocktail glasses and repeatedly brought the knife to bear on the swiss roll: still more, an abyssmal contentment filled her. Day darkened over the Channel, the skyline vanished—then, at a moment, the window at the other end of the room sprang into diaphanous, distant illumination: street lamps along the twisted, bosky, misty and empty roads coming alight. The faint shape of the window, enmeshed in branches, was cast over far-away chairs and parquet.

Eva was glad, later, of this ghostly give-off from civilisation, reflected likewise upon her staircase; for it, only, lighted her way to bed. She was able to find no switch that turned anything on.

Three mornings later, a letter dropped noisily into the wire letter-cage.

No letter could be from anybody but Henry …

Dear Eva,

Not a nibble so far, I am sorry to tell you. But don’t be alarmed, I shall get things moving. A rich widow is what I am rather looking out for, and I think a boy here has an aunt who is. But also how would it be if I advertised, in a cryptic way? If so, send me the cash, please. How long can you hold out? No hue and cry after you so far, from what I hear or rather from what I don’t. I did not go home last week-end (a match, we won) but Mother said nothing when she wrote. If the police were digging for your bones in the Larkins garden, she would have told me. How are you getting on in Old Cathay? Don’t let Denge & Dotheboys stick you with any extras. What make of bike did you go for? I shall be interested to hear. No more now, but will write when there is anything further to report.

Yours truly,

Henry.

Eva read this, then crammed it into a pocket. At the minute, breakfast was what concerned her. Mr. Denge, though preserving a wounded silence, had sent out a kettle by special messenger; but no instructions came with the kettle. Nor, for that matter, had she yet had the nerve to try anything on with that angry gas-cooker. She drank gulps of water straight from the tap, polished off the remaining digestive biscuits, then set off, as was becoming habitual, for Broadstairs, cycling zigzag head-on into a Thanet gale. Over two thick jerseys she wore her anorak. One of the mesh bags, empty, lightheartedly flew from a handlebar—its return home would be more sober than this.

In Broadstairs, she chose a picture postcard for Henry. It depicted North Foreland (though where, alas, was Cathay?). She wrote on it, stamped it, posted it. No sooner was it into the box than a qualm seized her: how if this card fell into enemy hands? What a give-away, what a clue to her whereabouts! … Had she but known, those had been already established—with little trouble. In her precipitate flight from Larkins she had overlooked papers wedged far back into her bedside drawer: these comprehended drafts (in the hand of Henry) for the Eva side of the Eva-Denge correspondence, including the “clinching” letter, plus the ardent replies of Denge & Donewell, headed, of course, by the firm’s address and particulars. Intermingled were various notes from Henry on the subject of taking over “the J.” and the basis on which he was to receive commission when the J. should be, as was to be hoped, disposed of … Iseult had gone straight to the drawer like a hawk to water. What, if any, should be their course of action had gone on being debated between the Arbles. Agreement had not been reached. That had not prevented
an
action’s being independently taken.

Today, Friday, on her return from Broadstairs some time in the afternoon, Eva was greeted by Eric in the Cathay garden.

Now she owned it, the gate was let stand open. She’d come sailing in and was on the point of dismounting when he appeared round a boss of evergreen at the side of the house. She fell off the bicycle on to one foot—slowly, she disentangled the other before bringing herself again to look at him. She did so, this second time, with appalled credulity. A yellow sprig,
her
forsythia, was shamelessly in his buttonhole. He wore a check tweed jacket, the more jubilant of the two he had. “Quite a nice bit of property,” he conceded, “you’ve got here.”

She looked elsewhere.

“Not much of a welcome,” he said unreasonably.

Gripping the bicycle, she told him: “You’ve come to take me away.”

“Take
you
away?”—really, he had to laugh! He came nearer, inspecting the gaping shopping-bag. “What have you been buying up, half the town?”

“Milk, and …” She was overcome by amnesia. “I don’t know… How
can
you be here?”

“Can’t you get milk delivered?”

“Where is, is, is—is Iseult?”

“Where should she be?—Can’t we go on in, Eva? I’ve had this garden.”

“First I must put away my bicycle.”

He took part in the ceremony—not happily, for now it was that the useless void of this garage, nothing inside but a garden fork, tore a cry from him: “
Where’s
the Jag? What’s that little so-and-so done with it?”

“It is safely somewhere.”

“Much you care,” he said bitterly.

Eva flinched under that injustice. She answered nothing.

“You’re funny in the people you trust,” he nagged.

They moved out of the garage, and Eva locked it. “How did you come?” she asked.

“Drove: how else? For the better part of last night.” At the thought, he yawned.

“I was obliged to come by expensive trains.”

“
Hard
luck,” said Eric sardonically.

“Then, where’s the Anglia, Eric? I never saw it.”

“You weren’t meant to. (It’s round there, round the corner.)”

“Oho. If I saw it, I’d run away?”

“Well …”

She led the way back to the house, and into the hall. “Look!” she invited; looking about, herself, with infatuation.

“Baronial,” said he, preoccupied—he threw an arm round Eva, pulled her to him and kissed her. Her cheek was wind-burned. “No harm?” he asked, letting her go.

She showed no opinion, either way.

“Glad to see me?”

There was no saying, apparently.

“You dealt us a knock, you know. You gave us a fright.”

“
Now
come,” she said, in an almost siren tone, “and look at the sea.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“See it out of a window.” She walked away through an archway, so he followed.

Eric took in the drawing-room, saying nothing. Its disreputability was what chiefly struck him. On top of that, the whole place was filmed with dust and, if not cold yet, made stale by used-up sunshine. Round the bay window were copious strewings of crumbs: at those, he could not restrain himself— “You’ll be bringing mice in.”

“ ‘No,’ Mr. Denge says.”

“He the big noise round here?”

“He was noisy, but he is quite small, though.”

Talk ran out. Absently, to establish communication, he put a hand on Eva’s anorak shoulder: they stood lined up, staring out to sea. “Well,
I
don’t know,” he decided after some minutes.

“Did, did, did—did Iseult send you?”

“No. My idea.”

“She’ll wonder where you have gone to?”

“She knows—naturally.” He took his hand from the shoulder—but then seemed lost, dissatisfied and unanchored.

Eva, in an unlikely bout of perception, due perhaps to feeling herself a hostess, put forward: “We might sit down?” There seeming little to choose between the large tarty chairs, he settled at random. Eva made for the love seat. Picking crumbs from the wicker, she began to brace herself for a question. “How
did
you learn where I am?”

He told her. Eva was mortified. She exclaimed: “Henry will say, ‘How stupid!’”

While hating to side with Henry, he rubbed salt in. “You can’t get a grip on things. I could have done the job for you, if you had to do it—I don’t mind saying. Instead of which, you give me a slap in the face. There
I
was, you could always have come to me. There I was, all the time.—What was wrong with me?”

“Being my keeper.”

“I don’t work for loonies—I’ve got better to do.”

“You married my keeper.”

“Look, leave Izzy out of this. I don’t know what’s gone wrong between you two, and I’m not asking. I could have cared for you—I
do
care for you, Eva!”

“I think/’ she said—in extenuation?—”I had perhaps a peculiar upbringing.”

“Don’t think I blame you; I’m only telling you.” To emphasise what he was saying, he turned full round at her—there she sat, twisted against the window, keeping fanatical watch on the Channel skyline. Uncomprehending? Dumb, anyway, as a rock. Over
his
nerves spread a kind of petrification. He rebelled, got up and strode across to her. “You’re my girl, you see—in a way. Or you could have been.”

“Never,” said Eva positively, “have I been anyone’s; so how could I be?”

“Come on. You were your father’s—weren’t you?”

“No. Always Constantine. Has, has, has—has she told him?”

“Where you’ve got to? Don’t know—I couldn’t tell you.”

“Oh, oh, oh.” She dragged a fist slowly across her eyes.

He thought up a remedy. “Come on out!” he commanded.

“
Out
of my house?”

“We could go for a spin. It’s as cold as the tomb in here!”

It had come to be—the sun had moved off. In the emptied chill, bronze radiators were mocking, inactive presences. The elaborated fireplace of the dual drawing-room sent out, only, a breath from soot which had sifted on to its hearth-stone, during how long a time, since when? “How you don’t die …” he wondered. “This is winter, to all intents and purposes.”

“Oh no: March. March is spring.”

“Isn’t there anybody to fix things up, anybody in charge?”

“Mr. Denge has gone,” Eva told him, with the utmost complacency. Her euphoria had for Eric, for the first time, almost an overlap of insanity. How she did live beat him—he shrank from asking; for how, and still more where, might not asking end? How had she fared, these three-four days; what had the hours done? She had found two primroses; they gazed at him from a cocktail glass on a window sill. And a gull’s bleached skull and some razor shells and some others, beach gleanings, were set out on one of the trefoil tables. And so what? A recidivist, Izzy said. He had started walking about, and he kept going—like a man kept living by being marched.

“Oh, very well,” Eva agreed, “we will go out.” She stood up. “Where?”

Eric consulted his wrist watch—his heart sank: still an hour to go! An hour to go till the hour anything opened: six o’clock. Till lately a fairly abstemious man, he was that no longer. Since Eva’d lit out of Larkins he had taken to putting it down steadily: all round, he was the worse. And the worst was now. That parting set-to with Izzy: that night-long drive: that wait in the garden: Cathay: Eva—all at once all that, everything, rose and hit him. He thirsted sorely. He craved, like an alcoholic. His need was whetted by the sight, through the arch to the dining-room, of a cellarette …

“You wouldn’t,” he said, “have anything in the house?”

“ ‘Anything’?”

Making his right hand into a glass, he jerked an imaginary drink down: eloquent dumbshow. She caught on, but only to shake her head.