Providence (21 page)

She poured herself the dregs of the coffee and was thankful that her sitting room lay in the shadow, that
the sun was on the windows directly opposite. She thought it might be politic to take a short rest, although she was already sharpened by impatience and anticipated triumph. It was not quite the innocent pleasure she had always felt before a party; it was complicated by the desire to impose herself as she had imposed herself on that hot evening in the crowded lecture hall. She placed her coffee cup on the bedside table, removed her dress, and lay down, glad now of the silence. Idly, she put out her hand to the books displaced by the coffee cup: a history of Gothic architecture,
Adolphe
, and Marie-Thérèse’s Bible. They were suddenly devoid of virtue. Kitty smiled. They have seen me through, she thought; I shall not need them again. Thank You, she added, politely.

She must have slept, for her next clear thought was of the time, which she could no longer calculate. With wakefulness came a strange and unanticipated feeling of desolation, as if she would have been better employed in doing something sensible with the day instead of consecrating it to the evening. Distressed, she sat upright, hoping that she was not going to sink into the panic that sometimes overtook her without warning. She found herself worrying whether she would be able to eat, in this great heat, and the very reflection brought with it an echo of that terrible cry, ‘Marie-Thérèse! Marie-Thérèse!’ It was the source of all her woes. But that is over, she assured herself, struggling against despair. This panic is quite irrational, due to nothing more serious than discomfort and low blood sugar. Make tea, and after tea, go out and buy an evening paper. She followed her own advice as if it had been dictated by someone else, but noticed that the hand holding the cup was shaking very slightly.

It was better in the street. Patches of sweat showed across the back of the greengrocer’s overall; children
slumped in push-chairs, one finger in their mouths, returned to babyhood. It was easier to talk to strangers in the great heat, which struck up from the pavements and rushed by in waves from passing buses. Kitty found herself checking the time, as if calculating at what moment it would be suitable to go home and start preparing herself. For the moment she was unwilling to leave the hectic weary street, and wanted to be at one with ordinary people, not marked out for this great test or triumph, whatever it was to be. She wanted to be able to go home to an ordinary house after an ordinary day’s work, to sit in a deck chair and eat something without worrying about it, to watch the light fade and die, and then to go indoors to an unremarkable bed, and the prospect of a night’s sleep and another day just like the one that had already ended. But this is not to be my way, she thought. It seems that everything will be more difficult than I supposed.

As she let herself into her flat she heard the sound of the five o’clock news, and her relief that Caroline was there drove her previous distress to the very edges of her mind. Unprecedently, she rang Caroline’s bell. When Caroline appeared, she was wearing an old paisley silk dressing gown that had once belonged to her husband and her face was puffy. ‘Are you all right?’ asked Kitty. ‘I feel a bit off, actually,’ Caroline replied. ‘I was thinking of taking a couple of aspirin and going to bed. Have you got anything to read, Kitty?’ Kitty found her some paperbacks and the latest
Vogue
, which she intended to take to her grandmother the following day. ‘Do you need anything?’ she asked. ‘I shall be out later, you know, so think about it now.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said Caroline, patting down a yawn. ‘Your boyfriend’s dinner party. No, I don’t want anything, thanks. Let me know how it went. I expect I shall be all right tomorrow. And thanks for the
Vogue.
’ With which she made as if to
shut the door, but Kitty, superstitiously, put out her hand, and said, ‘Wish me luck!’ ‘Oh, really, Kitty, you don’t need luck to go to a dinner party! Just think of me lying here. That should make you feel better.’ And the door was closed.

She did not look all that well, thought Kitty. If she is really going down with something, I ought to stay. She looked at her watch; it was half-past five, and she was due at Maurice’s house at half-past seven. I shall feel better after a bath, she thought. I might as well start getting ready; anything might happen at the last moment.

In the bath she tried to dismiss the realization that Caroline had not wished her luck. But had she not dismissed from her life all these signs and portents, all these omens, whether sanctified or not? Her search for corroborating evidence of the life to come she now saw as the rankest superstition, yet this in some strange way intensified her fear rather than lessening it. She doubted if she could ever manage to set foot inside a church again. For she felt herself to be more rigorously excluded than ever, and the fact that everything she had ever asked for had come about, more or less, in no way diminished the wariness that persisted in her relations with the unknown. She shrugged impatiently. I am like those awful people who win a large sum on the football pools and swear that it will not change their way of life. I do not deserve my luck. And I had better get a move on: it is ten to six.

Dressed, she felt calmer, more adult, more controlled. A taxi had been ordered from the local car hire firm the evening before, so there was nothing to do except wait. She sat at the window, as she had known she would, and tried to retrieve her keenness, her sense of the main chance, that brief moment of realism that would have to serve instead of simplicity and happiness. I am sorry, she
thought, and almost said the words: I should have liked to have enjoyed this more, to have been more worthy of the occasion, to have been up to Maurice’s standards. It seems as if I am doomed to fall below them. Why should this be? She tried to summon up the image of Maurice, but it was so difficult when he was not there; for some reason, she had never been able to picture his face. She had no photograph of him and all she carried in her mind was a sort of outline, a silhouette, as if she were seeing him against the sun, and the occasional involuntary memory of an ear, a hand, the excluding smile. She wondered, again, where he had been going the other night, dressed in his dinner jacket. Perhaps his mother had been giving a dinner party and he had driven down for the lecture and was going to drive back again afterwards. His parents owned a house in Ebury Street, and Maurice had a rather large flat of his own in the basement. Some sort of family occasion, she supposed, before the parents departed again for Gloucestershire. She was wistful. She was as remote from such occasions as her grandmother had been from Glyndebourne. Yet Louise had always known what was required. There was no reason why she, Kitty, should not do the same.

One last look in the glass. She was looking well, or as well as she ever would. She was appropriately dressed. She was suitable. She heard the taxi winding down the street, slowing, stopping. She leaned out of the window and signalled that she would be down. As she locked her door, Caroline’s door opened to reveal Caroline, a handkerchief pressed to her nose. ‘What a time to get a cold,’ she said, thickly. She looked older, almost plain. ‘Good luck, Kitty. You look very nice. I probably shan’t see you when you get back. You might give me a ring tomorrow.’ ‘Will I be all right?’ asked Kitty. ‘Oh, of course you will. What’s the matter with you? Although
I still prefer the dress with my chains,’ she added. It was a qualified blessing but it would have to do.

‘Good evening, madame,’ said the taxi driver. Oh, God. It was Old Haileyburian who sometimes drove her and who always lost the way and talked incessantly, over his shoulder, of the time when he had been a farmer in Zambia. ‘Big night, tonight?’ ‘Good evening,’ said Kitty. She was rather early and had thought of asking the man to drive around but now she was anxious to get rid of him. She would walk a little at the other end, take a few deep breaths, and pretend this was an evening just like any other. ‘A dinner party,’ she answered politely. ‘Ebury Street, please.’ He had had a few drinks, as usual, and the hot car smelt of whisky. ‘I don’t expect you’ll be seeing me much longer,’ he continued. ‘Thinking of trying my luck out there again. Still have contacts, you know. Politics is the art of the possible, and all that. Know who said that?’

They drove slowly, but jerkily, along the King’s Road while he expounded on his habitual theme. This country’s finished. Nobody willing to do a day’s work any more. Exports up the spout. Bloody foreigners everywhere. What this country needs. Stiff dose of unemployment. Someone like Churchill. I fancy Mrs Thatcher for a change. Couldn’t do worse than this lot. Bloody unions buggering it all up, if you’ll pardon my French. Kitty drew in her breath as the car shot past and nearly overturned a cyclist. ‘Nervous?’ he asked pleasantly, turning round to her, his arm on the back of the front seat. ‘You seem unusually tense, if I may say so. And yet as lovely as ever.’

She swallowed. They were approaching the small triangle in Pimlico Road that marked the end of her territory and the beginning of Maurice’s domain. Suddenly she felt exhilarated, shaky with excitement. ‘Drop me here,’ she said. ‘I’d like to walk a little.’ He drew up
to the kerb with a flourish, opening her door at the same time. As they came to an abrupt halt, he surveyed her openly. ‘Mind if I ask what all this is about?’ he enquired, with sodden charm. ‘Big night?’ Kitty emerged from the car thankfully and breathed the stale evening air as if she were on the shore of a distant sea. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said, proffering two pounds. ‘Oh, I do, I do,’ he replied, stowing the money away in a bulging wallet. ‘Well, if we don’t meet again …’ ‘Oh, of course,’ said Kitty. ‘You’re going back to Africa. Well, the very best of luck to you too.’ She stood on the pavement and waved to him as he executed a dangerous turn and plunged back in the direction of Sloane Square.

When she had looked in a few shop windows and then decided to go straight to Maurice’s and see if he wanted any help and had turned her steps resolutely to Ebury Street, she noted with a start that it was already half-past seven. She could feel the blood warm in her cheeks and her heart was beginning to pound. Maurice had told her to come straight down to the basement, where she would find the door open. She had only been to his house once before, shortly after their first meeting, when he had had a large party and she had just been one of the many guests. She was glad she had dismissed the taxi and was arriving on silent feet. She looked with love at the soft, bright evening, at the beautiful dirty city. Soon I shall be where I have always wanted to be, she thought, in his house. But I must be practical now. I am, after all, here in a very special capacity.

She heard a voice call her name and, turning back, was surprised to see John Larter, wearing a very tight snuff-coloured velvet suit. ‘Why, John,’ she exclaimed. ‘How unusual to see you here. In London, I mean,’ she added hastily. ‘This is a bit of luck,’ he grinned. ‘I believe I am to take you in, as they say. I wondered if I should call for you at your flat, or whether we should
amalgamate here.’ ‘Take me in?’ asked Kitty. ‘Yes, I was given to understand that we are sort of partners. At least, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Professor Bishop told me to look after you. Maybe we are all supposed to look after you.’ He laughed and passed a hand through his already untidy hair. ‘How kind of you, John,’ she said, and thought, how kind of Maurice. He truly wants it to be my evening.

They reached the door of Maurice’s basement and voices were already raised on the other side of it. As they rang the bell, the door was flung open to reveal Professor Redmile in full spate. Lady Redmile, nodding and smiling, was seated on the sofa, and the Roger Fry Professor and his wife, quite clearly in the throes of some private argument, stood gazing into their glasses. No Maurice. Kitty drew a deep breath and greeted them, gazing round in delighted recognition at the dark red walls. Nothing had changed. There was evidence here of much greater wealth than was normally associated with university professors, and the Redmiles were thawing in the reflected glow, while the Roger Frys appeared to have been driven into permanent opposition. Professor Redmile, indeed, was so delighted with his surroundings that he acted as if he were entirely at home, pouring out the sherry, and lifting his glass to Kitty. ‘We are celebrating,’ he announced. ‘Yes, we are celebrating two delightful pieces of news. Or perhaps three,’ he amended. ‘But I can’t say anything about that until Maurice comes.’ ‘Where is Maurice?’ asked Kitty. ‘Oh, I believe he is in the kitchen with his helpmate,’ replied Professor Redmile. ‘Quite delightful, as ever. He has asked me to hold the fort. Well,’ he continued, pouring out more sherry, and frowning slightly as Larter proffered his glass. ‘We are celebrating, as I was saying, two delightful pieces of news. One is Miss Maule’s appointment to our staff.’ He raised his glass again.

‘And the other,’ he sounded even more lyrical, ‘is Maurice’s lamented, alas, lamented removal to Oxford. Yes,’ he put up a hand as they murmured in surprise. ‘Yes, of course I am sorry, but what a proud day for our university, and for Maurice himself.’ Kitty felt cold. He did not tell me, she thought. The Roger Fry Professor cleared his throat. ‘Does that mean we shall not have the pleasure of hearing him on the cathedrals of France?’ he enquired. Kitty saw his wife kick him quite hard on the ankle. ‘Oh, I have arranged that he should continue the evening lectures for as long as he can,’ smiled Professor Redmile. ‘We shall quite understand if the pressure of other business,’ he twinkled, ‘or indeed of other pleasure forces him to stop a little earlier than anticipated.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Roger Fry Professor fervently. Larter, raising his eyes in despair, dropped all pretence and poured himself another drink. ‘I wonder if Maurice needs any help,’ murmured Kitty, half rising. ‘No need to worry, my dear,’ assured Professor Redmile. ‘I was told by our host and hostess that they would join us as soon as they could.’ At which point the door opened and Kitty at last saw Maurice, and with him Miss Fairchild, in her usual cotton skirt. She was carrying a large tureen of soup, and Maurice was steadying her with a hand in the small of her back. Larter quickly downed his drink as he saw Kitty’s face. ‘Come, Miss Maule,’ boomed Professor Redmile, who had not seen anything, ‘let me escort you.’