Eva Trout (21 page)

“What you are suffering from,” diagnosed Henry, blinking at his reflection in the glaze of the teapot, “is guilt, not penitence.”

Mr. Dancey, bored, said: “Just as you like.”

“The distinction’s rather important, I should have thought. Penitence is a reflex, guilt is a state.”

“I will make a note of that.”

“I do not feel guilty,” Eva remarked—unheard.

Mr. Dancey gave a furious push-away to the
gâteau
, which had reached his end of the table, as though suspecting some effort to buy him off. “ ‘Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things …’ ” he boomed out.

“That comes well from St. Paul,” said his son, “I have always thought. Egocentric, and took a most blinkered view.”

“At times,
I
find him trying,” said Mr. Dancey. “But as an assessment, that’s idiotic.”

“Wrote like an angel,” said Henry, tipping his chair back.

“If you’re going to condescend, you had better go.”

“Jeremy’s first view of British family life.—Eva, what became of Cathay, is it still there?”

“Oh, yes. I bought it. Making those innovations, to rent it, merely, became unsatisfactory.—Many of those,” she said moodily, “will be by now obsolete. Yes; we go there next week.”

“To find what, I wonder. May not moth and rust rather have broken in?”

“Mr. Denge is in charge.”

“Wasn’t he rather a pill?”

“That was overcome.” Eva handed her handkerchief to her little boy, to wipe jam from his mouth with. The kitchen window, which was behind Henry and faced out on the street, was slowly filled as the Daimler slid into view. “Yes—now we must go,” she declared. She turned to her host. “Thank you, Mr. Dancey, for your great kindness, also your hospitality. Jeremy, thank Mr. Dancey.” The boy slid off the cushion, made his way round the table.

“A short visit.”

“It is a long drive.”

“You were good to come; I am really most deeply touched, and so will my wife be—cruel, she should have missed you. Eva, may I tell her you’ll come again?”

“Yes,” said Eva vaguely—she was looking at Henry. “Shall you be here?”

“If not,” he said leniently, “you can come to Cambridge; I could show it to Jeremy.—Yes, we’ve begun again. More or less where we left off; not, naturally, quite.”

Merry Monarch Garage

Nonest Street Luton

Beds

23.4.67

Dear Eva,

Well, it was strange to hear from you after all these years, though I am not so sure that you should have written or gone out after my cousin for my address. It was a mistake of mine to rely on him. Well did he know my wishes, I should have thought. I left there seeking a new start. Was thinking of Canada or Australia when I chanced to hear of this going in Luton. On investigation it proved to be just the thing. To cut a long story short, I am doing well. Little other news, since you kindly ask.

Yes, since you do ask you did make trouble. What else did you expect? You went out of your way to. The state Izzy came home in I shall never forget. I respect the fact she did not go crazy. Not a word I swore would she listen to. What you led her to think was the case got her on the raw. She was not blind, saw how I’d wanted a kid all that time while where she and I were concerned none came along. (I have now two, Diane, 5V2, Trevor, 4. Their mother is a Norwegian.) You incidentally injured my reputation. I am not harping on that, just telling you.

No I have no idea where she now is, any more than you have, so no use asking. Yes France was where she went off to, not a word since, never did she do anything by halves. This is not altogether convenient, as due to the turn events have taken I wish to contact her with a view to obtaining my legal freedom. In this one way she is treating me thoughtlessly. In other ways she treated me more than fairly, considering the bitterness she felt. She for instance divided with me a cash present you had recently sent. She also left with me this typewriter, which stands me in good stead for office work, correspondence,
etc.
She intended to go for an Olivetti on reaching France. It seems curious sometimes that after all those years when she was my wife I have nothing left of her but this typewriter. Looking back, she was above me in all ways. As for me, the worse things went, the more I cared for her. By the end, we seemed nearer than at the outset. So go on, Eva, you puzzle that one out!

The disappointment you were to me, but why drag that up? Life is too short. At a time, I do not deny I was fond of you. That day we had, by the sea and so on, could have gone on to be a wonderful memory. Then subsequently you let that be all fouled up by the construction afterwards put on it. That was the finish, Eva. However could you? Doubtless your Mr. Ormeau also injected poison in Izzy’s ears, and for him I perhaps ought not to hold you liable. However enough of that, at this late date.

Otherwise, I should have been all for your having this little boy, and am glad to hear he is such a nice little chap. He should be an outlet for you, and steady you down. The best news would be you were getting married. Placed as you are, I agree you need to look twice. Reliability is the thing to go for. I was fortunate, coming across this nice girl. We are well suited. We found a nice maisonette, but are looking about for something having a garden. In time I shall regularise the position. What I won’t have is anyone rocking the boat. I appreciate your saying we ought to meet for old times sake, but do not see my way to that. I am kept busy. So there it is, Eva. At risk of hurting your feelings, I must ask you not to arrive in Luton.

Yours ever,

Eric.

The recipient made little of this letter—she laid it beside her plate for attention later. So far, this was not being a good morning. Jeremy, in one of the paroxysms which were the inverse of his angel nature, had flung a potted gloxinia out of a window, just not decapitating a Gloucester Road pedestrian. Sympathetic though the hotel was to family life, protests had had to be registered, in the public interest—a note on a salver, a plaintive telephone call. Still sadder, the gloxinia had been a gift from the management. The boy now lay on the floor, unappeasedly drumming with his heels. Eva, a quilted robe over her pyjamas, presided over the breakfast trolley. Their suite had a sort of unwilling, provisional look of permanence: more and more cultural picture books, a scooter, boxes of crystallised apricots, a telescope, a cageful of budgerigars, and so on. The silver-mounted claw of the greater eagle had reappeared. Here they still were. What next?

Cathay was not the answer. They had visited it, having notified Mr. Denge, requesting the key be left for them at the Albion. Jeremy, cantering from room to room, raising reverberations he could not harken to, had twitched sheet after sheet from the covered fetiches. All stood immaculate, bygone, mute as he—disconnected. Time had stood still in them. Elsewhere it had not. Mutilation, a rush job, had been wrought on the evergreen; last-minute lopping and chopping by Denge employees had left the sun lounge desolatedly sunny, the drawing-room shorn of conspiratorial crepitation against its windows. Not even dust remained. Rooms had been aired out, nothing came back to fill them. What had been had gone. Cathay, emptied, had at the same time been by an evil paradox bled of that imperial emptiness once its. Unmeaningness reigned. Again, a case of an absence which had been fatal. Eva went halfway up the staircase, lost heart, came down again. (“What to find, I wonder?” Henry had meditated.) At the foot of the stairs, Jeremy stood wondering at the antlers. At sight of him she swallowed a sob. “No,” she cried, “come along, come
along
!” He stood his ground a minute, bewildered, resisting—Larkins over again? Where, then, was to be the promised land, the abiding city? She prevailed; they withdrew, conclusively locking the door behind them. She swooped him (there being already another Jaguar) down to sea-level, Kingsgate bay. Glossed by April sun, it looked like a postcard. The bereft boy looked from the Channel to her: what about his boat? Back in Broadstairs, they sat down to tea in the Albion; she then rendered the key back to the hotel office, where she demanded the telephone. Denge & Donewell.

“Miss
Trout
? Welcome!” cried Mr. Denge.

“Thank you. We are back from Cathay.”

“Everything shipshape?” asked he, with justifiable confidence.

“Very. It is a pity we cannot stay, but we cannot.”

“No longer alone, Miss Trout?”

“Oh no. I now have a little boy.”

“
I
see.—I trust you had a pleasant time in America?”

“Yes, but I had to dissolve my marriage. I have therefore returned to my maiden name.”

“I see.” He so far recovered himself as to let her know: “In actual fact, Miss Trout, I had no idea you—”

“No, I expect not. It was very sudden.”

“Dear me. Ha-ha. No bones broken, I hope?
Next
time, my dear Miss Trout, look before you leap—eh? However, all the more fortunate, is it not, that you have your old home to return to, waiting and ready. Exactly the place, I should say, for your little lad. What age might he be?”

“Seven or eight.—I shall not, though,
be
returning, I am sorry to say.”

The line recorded sincere shock. “Surely that is not definite, Miss Trout?”

“Yes. I should like you to sell Cathay.”

“Now, immediately?”

“Yes, please. Put it back on your books, without loss of time.”

He allowed himself one prolonged groan, then one more try. “But absence,” he wheedled, “makes the heart grow fonder. It’s completely unheard of that it should fail to. An eternal verity. Give yourself time, Miss Trout. Think how much has gone into that residence, years of upkeep. Are you not being impetuous?—if I
may
say so, impetuous once again?”

“No.”

“You resided there very happily.”

She agreed.

“You propose to remove those various … installations?”

“No, they stay with the house.”

“You will not,” he told her revengefully, “see your money back. I must ask you to realise, Miss Trout, that not
everybody
…”

“That is up to you, Mr. Denge. You must do your best.”

He blew his nose, by the sound of it. “I am somewhat wounded, I must confess. All these years, you may not know with what loving care—”

“—Yes, I am sure. All was very shipshape.—Thank you,” she added vaguely. “Now I must go. Goodbye.”

“Just a minute—if these
are
your instructions, kindly put them in writing.”

“I should naturally do so.”

Eva and Jeremy tore back across Thanet, taking the London road. He, leaning an elbow out of his rolled-down window, with eyes at their widest scanned the enormous sky. Once he pointed out an ascending (and singing?) lark. Jeremy’s silentness, usually, had manifold eloquent variations, outgoings, clamourings and insistencies, queries, ripostes. It took much to tie the tongue of his mind. But this evening he was in a silent mood.

Back to Paley’s.

Since then, days had gone by.

Ashy spring rain had been falling, this dubious morning, but now ceased. Eva yawned, rang and had breakfast removed —it dawned on her later that Eric’s letter must have been also carted away. All the budgerigars loudly burbled and chittered. A trough of low pressure, a negative feeling of bother, impended over her. Constantine would be coming to tea at five: how best fill the intervening day? What next phase in Jeremy’s education? “Get up,” she said, “we are going to Richmond Park.” She telephoned down and ordered a picnic lunch. She adverted to one of the fauna books, leafing it through. “Deer,” she said, “there’ll be deer there”—indicating a picture. He got up, to eat a crystallised apricot. She walked away from him slowly, to have a bath. Doldrums.

The afternoon was enervating, green, steamy. Smells of refreshed dust fumed from the Richmond grass. The deer shrank back on to their bosky hillocks, little of them was seen. Still exhausted after whatever crisis had brought about the murder of the gloxinia, Jeremy fell asleep in the Jaguar, which ever more aimlessly trailed through spaces. Eva complained: “This is a beautiful park.” She stopped the car, bent over and kissed his forehead. She drove on, saying: “I thought we were going to walk.” Lovers were out, dogs were off the leash. “Tomorrow, I take you to the Imperial War Museum.” Some dream made the boy give a violent start. As so often happens when one is dissatisfied so keeps on trying, they stayed too long.

Constantine, therefore, was already awaiting them in the lounge at Paley’s. He began by forgiving them—”Nothing like air and exercise. This is Jeremy?” He and the boy shook hands. Constantine, that over, seemed at a loss: no suitable word could be framed, to address to the youngster.

“You need not say anything,” she said easily, “he can’t hear. Jeremy’s deaf and dumb.”

“Ah.—Yes?”

“Shall we have tea upstairs?”

“Quieter?—Yes.”

It was not, in fact, noisy in Paley’s lounge.

This first meeting after the eight years gave promise, so far, of passing off with admirable triteness. On their way up, Constantine sang the praises of the hotel. “Exactly where I’d have advised you to come,” he told her. “Law-abiding, very quiet at nights. Seldom a difficulty, I remember, about a taxi.”

“Oh,
you’ve
stayed here?”

“No, not stayed.—I find an increasing charm in this part of London.”

They entered the Trout suite. “Yes, how very nice.—But could those little birds go into the bathroom, Eva, or wherever you think fit? They are pretty, but would be pleasanter stuffed. I have—you remember?—a phobia about chirruping.”

“So you had.—Jeremy, take the budgerigars away.” He did so. “Stupid of me,” Eva acknowledged.

“As one used to say, ‘Much fades from human memory,’” said he, with indulgence bred of affection. “Well… Eva.”

She telephoned down for tea, then said: “Yes, Constantine?”

“Simply, I’m glad to see you.”

“I am so glad.”

“Glad I’m glad to see you, or glad to see me?”

“Oh, both.” Jeremy came back, and made for the apricots. “
Don’t
,” she cried, “greedy! Tea will be coming.”