The Fallen Curtain (11 page)

He ran away from them then, out of the house. He hailed a taxi and in a shaking whisper asked the driver to take him to
where Zoe lived. All the lights were on in her windows. He rang the bell, rang it again and again. Then, while the lights still blazed but she didn’t come down, he hammered on the door with his fists, calling her name. When he knew she wasn’t going to come, that he had lost her and her image, her double and her, for ever, he sank down on the doorstep and wept.

The taxi driver, returning along the street in search of a fare, supposed him to be drunk, and learning his address from the broken mutterings, took him home.

As soon as Daphne had taken off her hat and put it on Merle’s bed, Merle picked it up and rammed it on her own yellow curls. It was a red felt hat and by chance it matched Merle’s red dress.

“It’s a funny thing, dear,” said Merle, looking at herself in the dressing-table mirror, “but anyone seeing us two—any outsider, I mean—would never think that I was the single one and you’d had all those husbands and children.”

“I only had two husbands and three children,” said Daphne.

“You know what I mean,” said Merle, and Daphne, standing beside her friend, had to admit that she did. Merle was so big, so pink and overflowing and female, while she—well, she had given up pretending she was anything but a little dried-up widow, seventy years old and looking every day of it.

Merle took off the hat and placed it beside the doll whose yellow satin skirts concealed her nightdress and her bag of hair rollers. “I’ll show you the flat and then we’ll have a sherry and put our feet up. I got some of that walnut brown in. You see I haven’t forgotten your tastes even after forty years.”

Daphne didn’t say it was dry sherry she had then, and still, preferred. She trotted meekly after Merle. She was just beginning to be aware of the intense heat. Clouds of warmth seemed to breathe out of the embossed wallpaper and up through the lush, furry carpets.

“I really am thrilled about you coming to live in this block, dear. This is my little spare room. I like to think I can put up a friend if I want. Not that many of them come. Between you and me, dear, people rather resent my having done so well for myself and all on my own initiative. People are so mean-spirited, I’ve noticed that as I’ve got older. That’s why I was so thrilled when you agreed to come here. I mean, when
someone
took my advice.”

“You’ve made it all very nice,” said Daphne.

“Well, I always say the flat had the potential and I had the
taste. Of course, yours is much smaller and, frankly, I wouldn’t say it lends itself to a very ambitious décor. In your place, the first thing I’d do is have central heating put in.”

“I expect I will if I can afford it.”

“You know, Daphne, there are some things we owe it to ourselves to afford. But you know your own business best and I wouldn’t dream of interfering. If the cold gets you down you’re welcome up here at any time.
Any
time, I mean that. Now this is my drawing room, my
pièce de résistance.”

Merle opened the door with the air of a girl lifting the lid of a jewel case that holds a lover’s gift.

“What a lot of plants,” said Daphne faintly.

“I was always mad about plants. My first business venture was a florist’s. I could have made a little goldmine out of that if my partner hadn’t been so wickedly vindictive. She was determined to oust me from the first. D’you like my suite? I had it completely redone in oyster satin last year and I do think it’s a success.”

The atmosphere was that of a hothouse. The chairs, the sofa, the lamps, the little piecrust tables with their load of bibelots were islanded in the centre of the large room. No, not an island perhaps, Daphne thought, but a clearing in a tropical jungle. Shelves, window sills, white troughs on white wrought-iron legs burgeoned with lush trailing growth, green, glossy, frondy, all quite immobile and all giving forth a strange green scent.

“They take up all my time. It’s not just the watering and watching the temperature and so on. Plants know when you love them. They only flourish in an atmosphere of love. I honestly don’t believe you’d find a better specimen of an opuntia in London than mine. I’m particularly proud of the peperomias and the zygocacti too. Of course, I expect you’ve seen them growing in their natural habitat with all your mad rushing around those foreign places.”

“We were mostly in Stockholm and New York, Merle.”

“Oh, were you? So many years went by when you never bothered to write to me that I really can’t keep pace. I thought
about you a lot, of course. I want you to know you really had my sympathy, moving house all the time and that awful divorce from what’s-his-name, and babies to cope with and then getting married again and everything. I used to feel how sad it was that I’d made so much of my life while you … What’s the matter?”

“That plant, Merle, it moved.”

“That’s because you touched it. When you touch one of its mouths it closes up. It’s called
Dionaea muscipula.”

The plant stood alone in a majolica pot contained in an elaborate white stand. It looked very healthy. It had delicate shiny leaves and from its heart grew five red-gold blossoms. As Daphne peered more closely she saw that these resembled mouths, as Merle had put it, far more than flowers, whiskery mouths, soft and ripe and luscious. One of these was now closed.

“Doesn’t it have a common name?”

“Of course it does. The Venus’ Fly-trap.
Muscipula
means fly-eater, dear.”

“Whatever
do
you mean?”

“It eats flies. I’ve been trying to grow one for years. I was absolutely thrilled when I succeeded.”

“Yes, but what d’you mean, it eats flies? It’s not an animal.”

“It is in a way, dear. The trouble is there aren’t many flies here. I feed it on little bits of meat. You’ve gone rather pale, Daphne. Have you got a headache? We’ll have our sherry now and then I’ll see if I can catch a fly and you can see it eat it up.”

“I’d really much rather not, Merle,” said Daphne, backing away from the plant. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings but I don’t—well, I hate the idea of catching free live things and feeding them to—to that.”

“Free live things?
We’re talking about flies.” Merle, large and perfumed, grabbed Daphne’s arm and pulled her away. Her dress was of red chiffon with trailing sleeves and her fingernails matched it. “The trouble with you,” said Merle, “is that you’re a mass of nerves and you’re much worse now than
you were when we were girls. I thank God every day of my life I don’t know what it is to be neurotic. Here you are, your sherry. I’ve put it in a big glass to buck you up. I’m going to make it my business to look after you, Daphne. You don’t know anybody else in London, do you?”

“Hardly anybody,” said Daphne, sitting down where she couldn’t see the Venus’ Fly-trap. “My boys are in the States and my daughter’s in Scotland.”

“Well, you must come up here every day. No, you won’t be intruding. When I first knew you were definitely coming I said to myself, I’m going to see to it Daphne isn’t lonely. But don’t imagine you’ll get on with the other tenants in this block. Those of them who aren’t standoffish snobs are—well, not the sort of people you’d want to know. But we won’t talk about them. We’ll talk about us. Unless, of course, you feel your past has been too painful to talk about?”

“I wouldn’t quite say …”

“No, you wouldn’t care to rake up unpleasant memories. I’ll just put a drop more sherry in your glass and then I’ll tell you all about my last venture, my agency.”

Daphne rested her head against a cushion, brushed away an ivy frond, and prepared to listen.

  From a piece of fillet steak Merle was scraping slivers of meat. She was all in diaphanous gold today, an amber chain around her neck, the finery half-covered by a frilly apron.

“I used to do that for my babies when they first went on solids,” said Daphne.

“Babies, babies. You’re always on about your babies. You’ve been up here every day for three weeks now and I don’t think you’ve once missed an opportunity to talk about your babies and your men. Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I don’t mean to upset you, but one really does get so weary of women like you talking about that side of life as if one had actually
missed
something.”

“Why are you scraping that meat, Merle?”

“To feed my little Venus. That’s her breakfast. Come along.
I’ve got a fly I caught under a sherry glass but I couldn’t catch more than one.”

The fly was very small. It was crawling up the inside of the glass, but when Merle approached it, it began to fly and buzz frenziedly against the transparent dome of its prison. Daphne turned her back. She went to the window, the huge, plant-filled bay window, and looked out, pretending to be interested in the view. She heard the scrape of glass and from Merle a triumphant gasp. Merle trod very heavily. Under the thick carpet the boards creaked. Merle began talking to the plant in a very gentle, maternal voice.

“This really is a wonderful outlook,” said Daphne brightly, “You can see for miles.”

Merle said,
“C’est Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You never were any good at languages, dear. Oh, don’t pretend you’re so mad about that view. You’re just being absurdly sensitive about what really amounts to
gardening.
I can’t bear that sort of dishonesty. I’ve finished now, anyway. She’s had her breakfast and all her mouths are shut up. Who are you waving to?”

“A rather nice young couple who live in the flat next to me.”

“Well, please don’t.” Merle looked down and then drew herself up, all golden pleats and stiff golden curls. “You couldn’t know, dear, but those two people are the very end. For one thing, they’re not a couple, they’re not married, I’m sure of that. Of course, that’s no business of mine. What is my business is that they’re been keeping a dog here—look, that spaniel thing—and it’s strictly against the rules to keep animals in these flats.”

“What about your Fly-trap?”

“Oh, don’t be so silly! As I was saying, they keep that dog and let it foul the garden. I wrote to the managing agents, but those agents are so lax—they’ve no respect for me because I’m a single woman, I suppose. But I wrote again the day before yesterday and now I understand they’re definitely going to be turned out.”

Forty feet below the window, on the parking space between the block and the garden, the boy, who wore jeans and a leather jacket, picked up his dog and placed it on the back seat of a battered car. His companion, who had waist-length hair much the colour of Merle’s dress, got into the passenger seat, but the boy hesitated. As Merle brought her face close to the glass, he looked up and raised two wide-splayed fingers.

“Oaf!” said Merle. “The only thing to do with people like that is to ignore them. Can you imagine it, he lets that dog of his relieve itself up against a really beautiful specimen of
Cryptomeria japonica.
Let’s forget him and have a nice cup of coffee.”

“Merle, how long will those flowers last on that Venus thing of yours? I mean, they’ll soon die away, won’t they?”

“No, they won’t. They’ll last for ages. You know, Daphne, fond as I am of you, I wouldn’t leave you alone in this flat for anything. You’ve a personal hatred of my muscipula. You’d like to destroy it.”

“I’ll put the coffee on,” said Daphne.

  Merle phoned for a taxi. Then she put her little red address book with all the phone numbers in it into her scarlet patent-leather handbag along with her lipstick and her gold compact and her keys, her cheque book, and four five-pound notes.

“We could have walked,” said Daphne.

“No, we couldn’t, dear. When I have a day at the shops I like to feel fresh. I don’t want to half-kill myself walking there. It’s not the cost that’s worrying you, is it? Because you know I’ll pay. I appreciate the difference between our incomes, Daphne, and if I don’t harp on it it’s only because I try to be tactful. I want to buy you something, something really nice to wear. It seems such a wicked shame to me those men of yours didn’t see to it you were well-provided for.”

“I’ve got quite enough clothes, Merle.”

“Yes, but all grey and black. The only bright thing you’ve got is that red hat and you’ve stopped wearing that.”

“I’m old, Merle dear. I don’t want to get myself up in bright colours. I’ve had my life.”

“Well, I haven’t had mine! I mean, I…” Merle bit her lip, getting scarlet lipstick on her teeth. She walked across the room, picked her ocelot coat off the back of the sofa, and paused in front of the Fly-trap. Its soft, flame-coloured mouths were open. She tickled them with her fingertips and they snapped shut. Merle giggled. “You know what you remind me of, Daphne? A fly. That’s just what you look like in your grey coat and that funny bit of veil on your hat. A fly.”

“There’s the taxi,” said Daphne.

It deposited them outside a large overheated store. Merle dragged Daphne through the jewellery department, the perfumery, past rotary stands with belts on them, plastic models in lingerie. They went up in the lift. Merle bought a model dress, orange chiffon with sequins on the skirt. They went down in the lift and into the next store. Merle bought face bracer and cologne and a gilt choker. They went up the escalator. Merle bought a brass link belt and tried to buy Daphne a green and blue silk scarf. Daphne consented at last to be presented with a pair of stockings, power elastic ones for her veins.

“Now we’ll have lunch on the roof garden,” said Merle.

“I should like a cup of tea.”

“And I’ll have a large sherry. But first I must freshen up. I’m dying to spend a penny and do my face.”

They queued with their pennies. The ladies’ cloakroom had green marble dressing tables with mirrors all down one side and green washbasins all down the other. Daphne sat down. Her feet had begun to swell. There were twenty or thirty other women in the cloakroom, doing their faces, resticking false eyelashes. One girl, whose face seemed vaguely familiar, was actually brushing her long golden hair. Merle put her handbag down on a free bit of green marble. She washed her hands, helped herself to a gush of Calèche from the scent-squirting machine, came back, opening and shutting her coat to fan herself. It was even hotter than in her flat.