Injury Time (6 page)

They were a little wizened, he thought, but otherwise normal. ‘They’re lovely,’ he said. ‘Simply lovely.’

‘Don’t you ever do any cooking?’ she asked. There was a hostile note in her voice.

He bent over the crossword and prayed the Simpsons would arrive soon.

Some minutes later Binny demanded to know if he did any washing.

‘Washing?’ he queried, playing for time.

‘Do you wash your smalls?’

‘We’ve a washing machine,’ he said.

‘Even for your smalls?’

‘It’s for everything,’ he said. ‘Big or small.’

She wanted him to describe his washing arrangements in detail.

It seemed a funny thing to be interested in. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I put my clothing, underpants, socks and so forth, in a polythene bag in the bathroom and Helen places them, in due course, in the machine.’

‘And you let her?’ Binny cried, as though they were discussing coal-heaving or some equally strenuous job.

Inwardly he grew rattled. It was unfair of Binny to attack him over his underpants just because the Simpsons were late and she was worried about the chops. ‘Look here,’ he protested, ‘I have enough to do in the office, you know, without worrying about the washing. Helen’s in all day. It’s no trouble if you’ve got a machine. Besides, I don’t know how to load the thing. As a matter of fact she won’t let me touch it. It’s her department.’

‘Do you sleep with her?’

The question was so unexpected that his mouth fell open. He felt he’d suffered a minor stroke. ‘My love,’ he began inadequately.

‘You do, don’t you?’

‘No, no,’ he protested. He knew she knew he was not telling the truth. ‘She’s not one for that sort of thing,’ he floundered. ‘Not now. She’s gone off it.’

Binny abandoned her place at the stove and came to sit at the table. She smiled lovingly at him.

He said uneasily, ‘I do care for you, you know. I really do.’

‘We all go off it,’ said Binny. ‘Us women.’ She held her fourth glass of wine to her lips and drank. ‘Until somebody exciting comes along. Like you,’ she added generously and, reaching out, attempted to touch his cheek.

He ducked, thinking she was going to strike him.

‘Take Helen,’ she continued. ‘She’s used to you. You’re the old sod that’s part of the furniture.’

It wasn’t, he felt, a flattering description. Still, Binny was smiling in an affectionate manner. He allowed her, without flinching, to caress his face.

‘You’re not a mystery any more,’ she told him. ‘Probably if you stayed very still she’d run a duster over you. But if a bloke came along, someone she’d never set eyes on, well . . . stands to reason, doesn’t it?’

‘Does it?’ he said.

Binny withdrew her hand and thumped the table. ‘I bet you if the milkman rushed in and grabbed old Helen, she wouldn’t say no.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he said dubiously. He had a mental picture of his wife moving serenely about the kitchen in her housecoat, and the youth from United Diaries running through the door in his striped apron and flinging her to the floor. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There’s always the possibility that she might phone the police instead.’

Outside it had grown dark. The block of flats across the street was transformed into a glittering mass of glass and concrete. Behind net curtains shadowed with the leaves of rubber plants, blurred figures moved across rooms that blazed with light.

‘Six letters,’ said Edward, looking down at his paper. ‘Beginning with T.’

‘Terror,’ said Binny.

‘A hard case,’ said Edward. ‘Turtle.’ And he pencilled it in.

D
riving in their car across London, the Simpsons exchanged bitter words. Outwardly it was on account of Muriel’s interpretation of the street map of N.W.6. They took a left turning instead of a right and ended up on the wrong side of the park.

‘Well, go through the park then,’ advised Muriel, but in fact the gates were locked. They made a minor detour, during which Simpson hunched his shoulders meanly and swore several times.

‘Why are you behaving like a fool?’ she asked.

‘You never see anything clearly,’ he accused. ‘You haven’t the wit.’

‘I try,’ she murmured, thinking he was referring to her map reading. ‘I don’t have X-ray vision. I did tell you to stop under a lamp.’

‘God knows what we’re getting mixed up in,’ shouted Simpson. ‘We don’t know this woman from Adam.’

Muriel pointed out reasonably that they didn’t know a lot of people. Why, only last week they’d had dinner with a young couple neither of them had met before. It had been an enjoyable occasion, even if he’d complained afterwards that the main course was stone cold. ‘Though I can’t think how you noticed,’ she said. ‘You were so busy ogling the girl.’ Muriel hadn’t been perturbed by his behaviour. She knew her husband acted as if he had a roving eye, but really he was seeking attention, not giving it. To her knowledge he was a puritan and an egotist. She considered him incapable of indulging in more than a wink and a nudge; it might interfere with his golf.

‘Last week,’ Simpson reminded her heatedly, ‘was business. Bloody bread-and-butter business. The sort of thing that pays the bills and puts the clothes on your back.’

He was thinking how unfair it was that the nicer moments of life – a few drinks under the belt, good food, a pretty woman seated opposite – were invariably spent in the company of one’s wife.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I know you don’t give a damn about that, as long as you manage to get out of the house and have another excuse for going to the hairdressers, but there are one or two mundane things that have to be paid for.’ He proceeded to list a few of them – the mortgage, the tax on her car, the red telephones she’d insisted on installing. He ended by telling her that Edward Freeman was in a potentially dangerous situation; didn’t she realise it could lead to blackmail?

‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Muriel. ‘He’s not a member of the Cabinet. Besides, what has it to do with my telephones? It’s no good shouting at me. He’s your friend, not mine. I had nothing to do with the arrangements. As for getting out of the house, I’m perfectly capable of opening a door. I have merely to turn the handle.’

‘Go to bloody hell,’ ordered Simpson.

He almost took the wrong turning at the next roundabout. Muriel remained silent but pointed a contemptuous finger, at the last moment, in the correct direction.

It was raining heavily as they drove into Fulton Street. Simpson cruised slowly past a row of terraced houses, a block of flats, a further line of houses in a dilapidated condition, and a garage. Reaching the end of the road he reversed some distance down an alley and drove back the way they had come.

‘Aren’t the trees pretty?’ said Muriel. ‘The raindrops look like flakes of snow.’ She smiled.

Simpson stopped the car. He sat there with his leather gloves resting on the wheel and his plump thighs splayed wide. ‘I’ve forgotten the number,’ he confessed. ‘Freeman said something about a black-and-white cat, and some sort of creeper hanging over the balcony.’

‘Knock on doors,’ suggested Muriel. ‘Look at the names under the bell.’

She watched him sprinting across the road with the rain falling on him. She knew he didn’t remember the name either.

He ran up and down steps, peering at windows and glancing now and then at the car. She waved encouragingly once or twice. After a while he returned and slumped damply into the driving seat.

‘No luck,’ said Muriel. There was a funny smell coming from his suede overcoat.

‘I’ve got it,’ cried Simpson. ‘His car. Freeman’s car. It’s a brown Rover. It’ll be outside the house.’ He turned the key in the ignition.

‘He won’t have come by car,’ said Muriel. ‘Just drive very slowly and we’ll look for vegetation.’

There were three balconies, next to each other, entwined with thin strands of creeper. On Muriel’s instructions Simpson went up the steps of the second house and knocked on the door. Here the vine, coming into bud, hung low and dripped water down his neck. Muriel remained in the warmth of the car. The house was in complete darkness.

Edward plucked Simpson inside with such haste that to Muriel, observing the scene from behind a window distorted by rain, it was as if her husband had simply been swallowed up. She stared curiously at the empty porch.

Simpson’s propulsion into the hall was painful; he was pierced in the ankle by a sharp implement. His small cry of agony went unnoticed amid the enthusiasm of his welcome.

To Edward, the arrival of Simpson was comparable to sighting the cavalry on the brow of the hill when all seemed lost. He hit his friend repeatedly on the shoulder as though they’d not met in years.

‘My wife,’ said Simpson. ‘She’s still out there.’ He tore himself from Edward’s embrace and hobbled down the steps.

‘What on earth happened to you?’ asked Muriel. ‘Why are you being so silly?’

‘I was stabbed,’ said Simpson, gritting his teeth and locking the car.

Muriel took no notice. He was always complaining of aches and pains; he had no stamina. She stood on the pavement in the rain, trying to protect her hair with her arms. The privet hedge, she noted, illuminated by the block of flats across the street, was festooned with egg shells, strewn among the dripping leaves like Christmas baubles on a tree.

‘Aren’t they stopping after all?’ asked Binny, confused by the comings and goings. She stood at the table, rearranging the flowers in the white vase.

‘They’re on their way,’ said Edward. ‘Simpson forgot his wife. He’s gone to fetch her.’ And he ran out again to wait for them behind the door.

Simpson, followed by Muriel, re-entered the house with caution. In the gloom he saw the outline of a bicycle leaning against the wall.

‘Such weather,’ murmured Muriel, peering downwards for somewhere to wipe her feet.

Edward led them into the front room. ‘This is George Simpson,’ he said, speaking to Binny.

Simpson saw a small woman with a pale face, dressed in mourning. She was holding a pink carnation in her hand.

‘And his wife, Miriam—’

‘Muriel,’ corrected Simpson. He bent and rubbed at his ankle. He felt sure he was bleeding.

‘We weren’t certain of the house,’ Muriel said. ‘It was in darkness.’

‘Edward made me draw the shutters,’ explained Binny. ‘He doesn’t like being overlooked.’

‘It’s cosier, don’t you think?’ cried Edward. ‘Keeps the place warm. I felt rather chilly myself, though I did turn up the thermostat.’ He looked anxiously at Muriel, fearing he’d sounded too familiar with the central heating system.

Simpson said shutters were splendid. It was just like France. So much better than curtains.

They all gazed at the windows and nodded in agreement. The metal bar that kept the shutters in place, once fixed, was difficult to unclasp. The children, impatient to let in daylight at breakfast-time, were in the habit of jabbing at the bar with a poker to release it; most of the paintwork and portions of the wood panelling were severely damaged.

‘We did have curtains,’ said Binny. ‘But they fell down.’ She knew Edward was observing her critically – watching her face, her movements, noticing the way she spoke. Often, when she felt particularly rested and well, he would tell her she looked tired.

‘I’d better take that upstairs,’ she said, admiring the expensive fur about Muriel’s shoulders. She would have taken Simpson’s coat too, but he kept bending down and fiddling with his sock.

‘Please don’t trouble,’ Muriel said, looking round for somewhere safe to lodge the cape. ‘Any old place will do.’

But Binny insisted. When she held the fur in her arms it felt like some animal drowned in a pond. She ran upstairs stroking it tenderly, and laid it across the ping-pong table.

Simpson remembered he’d left a bottle of wine in the car. He would fetch it at once.

‘Don’t bother, old boy,’ said Edward. ‘We’ve plenty to drink, believe you me.’

‘Nonsense,’ Simpson said. ‘I won’t be a jiffy.’

Limping painfully down the steps, he turned left at the hedge and began to run as fast as his injured ankle would allow, along the street in the direction of the garage. Earlier, when he’d been looking for the house, he’d observed a telephone box through the rear window of the car. Stumbling down the alleyway, he saw a man running from the opposite end of the lane towards him. They reached the kiosk at the same time.

‘Do you mind?’ said the man. ‘I’ve a taxi waiting. The wife’s just had a baby.’ He pulled open the door and went inside.

Simpson fumed. He had tried unsuccessfully all afternoon to make a telephone call. When Muriel was in the bedroom dressing for dinner he’d tried again, but just as he was getting through he’d thought he heard her on the stairs. He strolled up and down, struggling for breath. There was a taxi with its engine running parked in the main street at the end of the alley.

He heard the man say, ‘Yes . . . no complications . . . about half an hour ago.’ When he came out of the box he was smiling.

‘Congratulations,’ Simpson said grudgingly.

‘Ta,’ said the man.

Simpson dialled the number. ‘Hello . . . is that Marcia?’

‘No, it isn’t, I’m afraid,’ said a masculine voice. ‘Hold on, I’ll get her.’

Marcia came to the phone and asked who it was.

‘It’s me . . . George. Was that the candidate fellow I just spoke to?’

‘He’s out,’ she said.

‘Oh. It was Lloyd, was it?’

‘No it wasn’t, sweetie. Just a friend. Why are you ringing?’

‘We were out for dinner and I thought I’d say Hello.’ He’d always impressed on Marcia that he wasn’t the sort of chap to run around behind his wife’s back. That wasn’t his style at all. He and his wife, he had told her, went their own separate ways. Within certain limits, he was a free agent. ‘We’re in a very nice house in the park,’ he said.