Providence (8 page)

‘All the same,’ said Kitty, holding out her cup for more and forestalling the usual recital, ‘it is a bit much. Oh, I realize you’re lonely. Perhaps if you got a job?’ They had had this conversation before.

‘I’d still be alone in the evenings,’ said Caroline. This was unanswerable.

‘How was your boyfriend?’ asked Caroline after a pause.

‘Oh, fine, fine.’

‘You’re upset, Kitty. Oh, men. You don’t have to tell
me.
’

You wouldn’t understand if I did, thought Kitty. No one would. Maurice’s story now appeared to her as something she could never tell a living soul. It was, after all, a secret.

‘Tell you what, darling,’ said Caroline. ‘Why don’t you come with me to this marvellous clairvoyant I’ve just discovered? No really, Kitty, she’s fantastic. I know you don’t believe in them, but this one is different. She told me all about Paul and how life was so stagnant at the moment, and how I was going to make a new life abroad, and meet a man whose name begins with J. In the entertainment business. Well, that’s not really my line, you know. I’m used to rather better than that. Did I ever tell you about the time we chartered a yacht off Saint-Tropez?’

She had. Many times.

But a thought was forming in Kitty’s mind. Supposing she went to this clairvoyant, made a firm declaration of her scepticism, and then waited to hear what she said? She needed a message, desperately. For Maurice had not said when he would see her again. And soon he would be off to the cathedrals of France.

‘Where is she?’ she enquired.

‘My dear, she’s two minutes from here, just next door to the antique market. And it’s only ten pounds. And she’s marvellous. She told me all about the lease running out.’ (This was another frequent topic of conversation.) ‘And she told me I was looking for another flat but that I didn’t need to bother because I was going to meet this man beginning with J. In the entertainment business.’

‘All right,’ said Kitty grimly. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Caroline’s face lit up. She was easily pleased and just as easily disappointed.

‘We’ll go next week,’ she promised. ‘You’ll see. Everything will come out right.’

‘I hope so,’ said Kitty. The sudden silence informed her that the radio had gone off the air for the night. It must be quite late. She did not have the heart to speak to Caroline again about the noise. She knew it would make no difference anyway.

Trudging back across the landing to her own flat, she was aware that she was very tired. The evening now appeared to her in retrospect as completely unreal. Had she really heard what she had heard? Could she, she thought disgustedly, compare her visit to a fortune teller with Maurice’s profound convictions? And yet she was disturbed, moved, but moved for herself as well. I must do something, she thought. We cannot go on as we are. If we do I cannot bear it.

As she lay in bed it occurred to her to turn to Marie-Thérèse’s Bible and to seek out the passage that had originally comforted her. But she felt unworthy, not a believer. Maurice had talked about Providence. She was a determinist, herself. But she would give it a try, she thought wearily. Are You there she wondered, in the silence. And if so, will You let me hear from You?

For the visit to the clairvoyant Caroline wore violet trousers, a blue silk shirt, and several chains round her neck. Dressing the part, thought Kitty, watching her twine a blue trailing scarf round her hair. And she’s not even coming in.

‘Isn’t this fun, Kitty?’ enthused Caroline, discarding the blue scarf for a green one, and then discarding that. Kitty sank resignedly into a chair.

Her mood was uneasy. Part of her was deeply ashamed of what she was doing. Another part of her was aware that this line of enquiry might easily become an addiction, that if she heard good news she would go back to hear more, and that if she heard bad news she would go back to see when her luck would change. And she would not know, actually know as she had been taught to know, anything at all. She was intellectually, as well as morally, uneasy. But it was all fixed now; Caroline had made the appointment, although they had had to wait for nearly two weeks, and had given a false name, for some reason. This too was further cause for shame.

There were additional rumours of unease. On the telephone, the previous evening, Louise’s breathing had sounded more laboured than usual, and she had given the telephone back to Vadim to finish the conversation.

‘What is the matter?’ Kitty had asked him. She was a little tired, he had said: the weather was so unseasonably warm. She has her bad days. But nothing to worry about. He sounded sad, out of character. ‘Papa,’ said Kitty, ‘call the doctor.’ No, no, my darling, everything was all right. He had bought artichokes as a treat. Louisette loved artichokes. And there was a good programme on television. She would be better tomorrow, have no fear. Kitty had not had the heart to tell him that Pauline Bentley had invited her home for the weekend. She would cancel it if necessary.

There was also the matter of her lecture on the Romantic Tradition, timed for the fourth week of the summer term. She had done no preliminary work for this, yet she was aware that it was something of a test. If she acquitted herself well, it might lead to a proper appointment. As it was, she was a sort of guest in the department, being paid for the seminars she gave, but regarded as a more or less permanent researcher. But if her lecture were to be a success, she could regard her investigation, her apprenticeship, as finished.

Her seminar the previous week had not gone as smoothly as she had hoped. Miss Fairchild being inexplicably absent, Larter and Mills had argued without restraint, both revealing rather more bad temper than was proper to the occasion. They were tired; it was getting near the end of term, and they had grown pale on cheap food and not enough fresh air. Kitty had decided to cut the afternoon short, for it would not get better, and had called a final class for the following week. This had not been a popular suggestion, and later that day Redmile had asked her how she was getting on. ‘Very well,’ she had said, smiling at him. ‘We are all looking forward to your lecture, Miss Maule.’ This was patently false, so she went on smiling at him. ‘Great stuff. Great stuff.’ He always said this. Then his eyes lit
up as his secretary approached with a file. ‘Have you got the latest estimates, Jennifer? Well, I mustn’t keep you, Miss Maule. And I think Jennifer has something to show me. The New Building, you know.’ And he was gone.

Kitty felt a sort of irritated langour, very different from her usual state of calm if timid determination. Although she looked on Caroline’s activities sternly, she wondered with genuine humility if she could ever be such a woman, delighting in her own appearance, devoting much time and effort to embellishing it, regarding her small outing as a genuine point of reference in the day, fascinated by her ultimate fate and waiting for others to bring it about. Kitty had frequently felt that she lacked some essential feminine quality, that this resided in the folklore passed on by women who possessed a knowledge that she was forced to supplement by reading books. She had sometimes, but with a curious sense of secrecy, scanned the advice columns in the magazines she bought for Louise, even studied the horoscopes. She knew that she had chosen a more severe path of ascertainable information, but she was lured by the stratagems, the reassurances, the promises of that odd sub-consciousness shared greedily by, she supposed, women with a surer touch than herself. There must be ways of getting what she wanted, but she did not know what they were. This visit to the clairvoyant held out the dangerous attraction of such a hidden way, just as Caroline, with her confident and gratuitous self-adornment, represented another mode of being. As if Caroline, regarding herself as a prize, were simply waiting for someone to come and claim her. Whereas Kitty usually felt that she was the one who had to prove her worth, her desirability, her merit, her right. As if she lived in a world where moral imperatives obtained. She felt that she was serving an apprenticeship in more ways than one, and that, by analogy, she had to work hard on
all fronts. She longed to join that more confident majority that made assumptions, that imposed a sense of superiority whether it had any basis in fact or not. She had been amused but also genuinely impressed by a small incident in the newspaper shop a few days previously. The girl behind the counter, a stringy and exhausted blonde, was selling a packet of cigarettes to a handsome young labourer from a nearby building site. The man had held out a ten-pound note. ‘Oh Christ,’ said the girl, ‘haven’t you got anything smaller? I’ll have to go next door for some change.’ ‘So what?’ he grinned. ‘Aren’t I worth it?’ ‘Dunno,’ said the girl, without a change of expression. ‘Haven’t tried you yet, have I?’ They were both delighted with this exchange. Kitty had joined in the laughter but had felt prim, knowing that she could never achieve such ease of manner, knowing also that on occasions it might be appropriate.

They were passing this same shop on their way to the clairvoyant. Caroline undulated like a siren, clutching her bag, her scarves, touching her chains, her feet slipping about in ridiculously fragile sandals. From time to time she had to steady herself by hanging on to Kitty who assumed a martyr-like pose of rigid stillness until all the necessary adjustments had been made and they could start off again. She wondered how Caroline ever managed to get to Harrods on her own. She also knew that Caroline could walk as easily as anyone else, and was using her as a convenient foil in the absence of a man. She was thankful that no public transport was needed, for Caroline would expect her to organize their journey, pay their fares, if there were a bus coming, or to step into the road and summon a taxi if there were none. Kitty mused on this. She supposed that it was the equivalent of negative capability, something she had always attributed to certain aspects of behaviour rather than to modes of perception.

They turned down a small alley and stopped outside a mean front door painted bottle green. As Caroline rang the bell a cat, startled, plunged off the windowsill, knocking over two milk bottles. While Kitty was picking these up and restoring them to their rightful place by the step, the door opened and a neat-looking elderly woman – Madame Eva, Kitty thought to herself with a thrill of shame – appeared. ‘Hello, my darling,’ she said to Caroline. ‘Brought your friend, have you?’ Caroline made the introductions as if she were at a rather smart party. ‘Madame Eva,’ she said, taking the woman’s hand. ‘I want you to meet my friend, Miss Mortimer.’ Kitty took a deep breath. She supposed that having an abortion was something like this. ‘How do you do?’ she heard herself saying. ‘I shan’t keep you long. By the way, my name is Maule. Kitty Maule.’ She was aware of some asperity in her manner, and took another deep breath. ‘I’ll see you at home later, Caroline.’ Caroline’s face fell. Madame Eva turned a mild but shrewd glance in her direction. ‘Why don’t you wait next door, in the café?’ she said. ‘Then you can go home together.’ Anything to get this over, thought Kitty. I should never have come. I should have stayed at home with
Adolphe
and the Romantic Tradition. That is where I belong. But she had ventured so far outside her role that she could do nothing but follow the woman into the house, while Caroline waved encouragingly and turned her tottering footsteps towards the antique market. Kitty knew that the moment she was out of sight she would resume her normal brisk tread. As indeed she did.

Madame Eva’s consulting room was small, dark, dingy, indeterminate and oddly comfortable. It represented perhaps the ultimate mess or primal ooze from which vatic female pronouncements would appropriately emerge. Dirty cushions softened the shapes of a couple of sagging armchairs, two of them placed in close
proximity. A radio was playing very softly, a cat was asleep under a table, and on another table lay the remains of a frugal lunch. Madame Eva herself looked like the headmistress of a decent primary school. She was reassuringly plump, neatly groomed, and spotlessly clean; indeed she was rather attractively dressed in a loose flowered smock, which reinforced the infants’ school image, with her spectacles hanging on a chain round her neck. She moved slowly and with great deliberation, switching off the radio, getting rid of the cat, settling herself in one armchair while motioning Kitty to the other. Reaching into a leatherette shopping bag by the side of her chair she brought out a Thermos flask and a mug and poured herself a quantity of orange tea. While she sipped this, she studied Kitty’s face. Kitty forced herself to look steadily back. This was an initiation ten times worse than her lecture would be. Thank God Maurice will never know about this, she thought. The woman smiled. ‘Thinking of your boyfriend?’ she said.

Because the room was so dark, Kitty was aware of the brightness and stillness of the afternoon. Sunlight glinted off the rim of the woman’s spectacles, and the warmth brought a comfortable frowsty odour out of the cushions. She did not know how long she had been there, while Madame Eva sipped her tea, and did not much care. She felt oddly safe, for this was a secret place. A total silence enveloped her, a silence ultimately broken only by the small cawing noise of the Thermos flask being screwed up. This was set aside on the table, ready for further libations. Then the hand descended again into the leatherette bag and produced a small crystal ball.

Madame Eva leaned over Kitty’s cupped hands. ‘I see a man,’ she said. Her voice was not up to the standard of her appearance, held indeed the faint whine of the
professional gipsy. Kitty’s heart began to beat rather hard. With alarm and surprise she felt herself surrendering to the occasion. ‘A man,’ repeated Madame Eva. ‘Very tall. Nice looking. Clever. You met him through your work.’ Kitty nodded. The woman breathed heavily. ‘Now I’m getting a relative. Elderly lady. Bit of trouble there. But not yet. In the future. Be prepared. I see a foreign city.’ She stopped abruptly and wiped a little moisture from the sides of her mouth. ‘Doesn’t half take it out of you, this work,’ she said to Kitty. ‘Sometimes in the evenings I can’t even do me hair, I’m so tired.’ Her hair, a heavily lacquered pyramid the colour of dirty brass, evidently took some doing. She bent over Kitty’s hands again. ‘I see a tall building. Like a church. I see you going in. Might be a wedding. Don’t think so. Might be. I can’t see. Hang on, darling, I’ll have a drop more tea.’