The House in Paris (23 page)

London was beginning; you could not mistake the train's roar between walls, or the glare on the sky: everyone in the carriage felt it and moved their shoulders, as though being forced to shoulder something again. The newspaper slipped off the couple's knees; they moved apart, their faces filling up with Monday morning concern. The girl looked ruefully at her splashed stockings; the man said: 'Well, well,' reaching up for his hat. Everyone waited for the train to impale them on London. Karen stared at her suitcase on the opposite rack. Past midnight, that other train would crash into the Gare du Nord; Max getting out would be carrying
his
suitcase and the Folkestone mackintosh through the angry steam a French train makes. She thought suddenly: I don't know his address.

A wave of silence out of the park trees washed the steps of the Chester Terrace houses. But for the fanlight and one basement window, the Michaelis's house appeared desertedly dark: the night sky picked out its pale parapet. It had stopped raining here, but the steps were wet. Karen's key turned soundlessly in the slick lock: when she let herself in the whole house stood above her in unsuspicious peace. The light inside the fanlight fell on the hall chest, on which waited a letter from Ray and the telephone message pad with something written on it. So as not to have to approach Ray's letter, Karen avoided the chest, going on upstairs. The first landing was dark, but the drawing-room door stood ajar; inside she saw a lamp, the Chinese lamp, throw light up a curtain: she stood still, gripping her suitcase. Someone moved and got up; she heard her mother's step on the carpet. Mrs Michaelis came to the door of the drawing-room. She wore a black, full-falling dress, with lace from the elbows, a 'picture' dress that made her belong to no time. Her figure stood in dark outline against the lamplit curtain, the silk shadows and darkish glow of the room. She held her head like Aunt Violet. Karen heard a log fall in the fire as her mother, one hand on the door, stood waiting for her to speak. Feeling light on her face, she could say nothing.

'You came in so quietly,' said her mother at last.

'Because it's late — isn't it?'

'Yes, it is late.'

'I'm sorry, darling; I didn't think you'd sit up.'

Mrs Michaelis by pausing made Karen pause. Then she said: 'Did you find Ray's letter?'

'On the chest? No. I came straight up.'

'Straight up? Oh, then you didn't — ' Mrs Michaelis, with a curious dip of the head, broke off, looking away from her daughter. Her hand dropped from the door and buried itself in a fold of her black silk skirt. She turned and walked out of sight, back to the fire. Her voice, sounding unfamiliar, came from in there: 'Karen ...' Karen put down her suitcase and followed her mother in, with a false ease. She found Mrs Michaelis standing facing the fire, staring at the reflection of the room in the tall mirror above it. Something made her impossible to approach.

'Has it been raining all the time here?' said Karen.

'I think it has. Yes, it has.'

'Mother?'

'Yes?'

'Aren't you well tonight?'

Her mother paused again. 'I've been missing you,' she said in the same unreal voice.

'I'm sorry, darling. I'd no idea — I wish — '

'Yes?' said Mrs Michaelis. She was not of the generation that fingers things on a mantelpiece, but Karen could see her eyes in the mirror, uncertainly moving from object to object in the reflected room. A yellow rose on the mantelpiece suddenly shed its petals, but did not make her start.

Karen said: 'I've been with Evelyn, you know. Evelyn Derrick' (naming a studio friend her mother had not met and who was out of London). 'We went through Kent in her car. I told you, didn't I?'

Mrs Michaelis's hands made the folds of her dress rustle. She said: 'Yes, I think you did. I — I wasn't sure of the name. Your friends have so many names.'

Karen saw reflected a smile she did not quite know, as though someone else were imitating her mother's smile. She came up, ignoring the barrier defiantly, and put an arm round her mother's waist, as she used to when she was small. Mrs Michaelis turned inside the arm, like a statue moving, to look at her daughter closely but from a distance. Karen smiled at her, and they stood there rooted in the deep white hearthrug till her mother said: 'Well kiss me and go to bed.'

They kissed. Karen breathed the familiar lilac scent and set free a strand of her own hair, smiling, from her mother's paste ear-ring. Mrs Michaelis turned to go to the door. 'I
am
tired tonight,' she said, 'I think it must be the rain. Will you put the lamps out and put the guard on the fire? Your father has gone to bed.' She went out, unexpectedly shutting the door. Karen, on her way to put out the first lamp, stopped to take a cigarette from the box: her hand shook. With eyes fixed on the lamp she intently listened — she heard her mother going
downstairs,
not up, with unknown cautious steps: a thief in her own house. After a minute down there Mrs Michaelis came up again; re-passing the drawing-room door she went on up, with calm firm steps and a swishing of stiff silk. When she heard her mother's door shut, Karen put the drawing-room lamps out, crossed the landing and looked down into the hall. She must take Ray's letter tonight, or they would wonder. She went down, flicking on, to support herself, the stairs lights. Ray's letter was there, alone. Why did it look alone? The telephone pad had gone. Why had her mother gone down to move the pad?

Going into the morning-room, Karen found the pad back on the bureau, where it lived. But it was blank: the message had been torn off — and torn off unprecisely, leaving an edge jagged. The blank pad was scored with curves where writing had dug through; the sheets were thin, her mother's pencil emphatic. Karen stared at it; then, bringing the pad nearer to the light, she took the pencil and traced her mother's dinted writing. What she read was: Karen. 6-30 Saturday. Evelyn Derrick rang you up to talk plans for next week-end. She says will you ring her up on Monday when you are home, before she leaves London?

Nothing was said. On Monday there was no rain but it was a vapoury, close day. Mrs Michaelis had breakfast in bed quite often; on Monday morning she did. Karen did not go out that day; she did not dare to take her eyes off the house. Mrs Michaelis came down in a hat and went straight out. The telephone and the doorbell went on ringing: when Mrs Michaelis came in three guests arrived for lunch. Then a hamper of white peonies arrived from the country, and Karen settled these in bowls in the drawing-room while her mother sat writing note after note. Uncle Bill Bent came to tea half an hour too early: he was staying at his club, which was what he preferred, he said, but Mrs Michaelis felt anxious about him. He sat rigidly in his chair with eyes glued unconsciously to the mantelpiece, while his sister-in-law told him about the Flower Show; once or twice he glanced at her hand moving among the tea-cups; his lids were red, you could see that he often cried. When he left at six o'clock Karen walked with him to the bus. When she came in, Mrs Michaelis called over the banisters, asking her to help to go through some things for a gift sale — lace, fans, Indian jewellery. This they did in Mrs Michaelis's bedroom: the tea-coloured lace gave out an orissy smell, the white, silver bangles were sent down to be polished. Painted fans fell open, lovely and rotten. Karen and her mother, lace and fans on their knees, talked over Uncle Bill and what there was to be done for him. Mr Michaelis came up with the evening paper, which he had brought to read Karen the cricket news from. He was glad to hear that his daughter was not going out, for once, and that they were to be alone for dinner. Over the soup, he was just beginning to ask Karen whether her week-end had been enjoyable when Mrs Michaelis suddenly brought out a long letter she had had from their son Robin. So that went no further. Karen felt like a wound-up toy running perfectly, till her father asked why she looked pale. Mrs Michaelis said: 'Nonsense, Robert, that is only the light.' An unnatural reflection did, in fact, come from the park trees. 'It makes
you
look pale, for instance, but I know you are not.' Mr Michaelis asked to have the candles lit. It was some time since they had all spent an evening together, and Mr Michaelis said it was pleasant being unpopular. He looked at his wife's arms reflected in the table, and at his daughter, shining now the candles were lit. Braithwaite brought in, for dessert, the first dish of English strawberries; they observed that it would soon be the longest day. Upstairs, the drawing-room was full of damp after-glow. Mr Michaelis and Karen played piquet; Mrs Michaelis opened the piano. Her touch was surer than Aunt Violet's, but less disturbing. Later, she left the piano and sat down beside her husband to watch the game. Once or twice her mute eyes rested on Karen: they kissed good night on the stairs. Nothing was said.

Nothing was to be said. This was like being a dog in a house in which they are packing up quietly, or a sick man from whom it is kept that he is going to die. If a silence rears its head, it is struck down like a snake, but with a light smile, as though you had struck the head off a grass. Life went on very fast, like a play with no intervals; actors, flagging, overact, the trying lights are not lowered. Karen was no longer compelling the house with her eye: the house with its fixed eye was compelling Karen. She performed on in dreamlike, unreal distress. Even Braithwaite's tortoise face looked violently guarded. Karen saw what was ruthless inside her mother. Unconscious things — the doors, the curtains, guests, Mr Michaelis — lent themselves to this savage battle for peace. Sun on the hall floor, steps upstairs in the house had this same deadly intention to not know. To the studio, in the streets, this careful horror pursued her; she could not see traffic without seeing with what overruling coldness things guided themselves. After that first Monday, the week got speed up and went triumphantly over her like a train. Not a word from Max, not a cry from Naomi.

Karen ran into Evelyn Derrick, who said: 'Has your mother got anything on me? She sounded odd when I rang up.'

'Oh?' Karen said. 'No. She may have thought you were somebody else.'

Remembering how naturally Aunt Violet, sitting on the ivied parapet, had looked at her, she wished she were here now. So much has happened to both of us since then. But perhaps she foresaw that; she knew too much to be alarmed.

It was six o'clock on Friday when Uncle Bill, who never liked the telephone, rang up, spluttered and said he could not dine tomorrow; he would have to be catching the Irish mail tonight. He had decided to go home, back to Rushbrook, he said. Karen answered the telephone in the study; Mrs Michaelis was there in her husband's chair, looking through
The Spectator,
which had just come.

'What does Uncle Bill want?'

'He can't dine tomorrow; he's going back to Rushbrook.'

'What can one do? I wanted to do so much. I know it is wrong to feel this is very annoying of him. I suppose he liked coming here. But one always felt — '

'Perhaps he
did
really want to talk about Aunt Violet.'

'No, that simply upset him. When I spoke of her once he cried, then looked so wretchedly mortified.'

'But perhaps he did want that.'

'You
might have talked to him, then, Karen. You were with them last.'

'I can't talk to anyone.'

'Don't be so silly, Karen.'

'Mother, how much do you mind about Aunt Violet?'

Mrs Michaelis sat nobly in the armchair, eyes fixed on the second page of
The Spectator,
behaving as she had behaved in August 1914. She said with unshaken innocent simplicity: 'It is the idea of her not being there, I suppose.'

She dares not look up and say: 'You transgress,' though she feels that; she won't ask why I ask. Her resistance is terrifying; she would rather feel me almost hate her than speak. The good morale of our troops won the war. Karen looked at the green lampshade that had been alight when Max rang up. She is full of love, she thought, she protects me. She tore up Evelyn's message — but was that love? Love would have made her say: 'Where
have
you been, really?' Love is obtuse and reckless; it interferes. But when mother does not speak it is not pity or kindness; it is worldliness beginning so deep down that it seems to be the heart. Max said: 'Why are you running away from home?' Now I know. She has made me lie for a week. She will hold me inside the lie till she makes me lose the power I felt I had.

'Mother — '

Mrs Michaelis looked up in such a way that Karen knew if one met her eyes one would weep. Dread of chaos filled the room, so that Karen's heart weakened; for the first time since Sunday she thought: What have I done? What has made home such a shell? After all, they were trying to keep me safe.

'On Sunday night, when — '

Mrs Michaelis put a hand to her face. 'You know I never ask you to tell me everything, Karen.'

'On Sunday night when I came in, I really did see Ray's letter. I left it where it was because I felt bad, because I am not going to marry him.'

'I think you will want to, Karen,' said her mother.

'When I first came in, there was a telephone message beside the letter. I didn't look at it either. I left them both there.'

'Someone rang you up, perhaps.'

'I did not look at the message or see it was from Evelyn before I went upstairs. When I went down for the letter the message was gone. Why?'

'If you would not tell me the truth, I did not want you to have to.'

'Of course, I was not with Evelyn, as you could see. I met Max Ebhart.'

'I don't understand. In Paris?'

'No, at Hythe. We wanted to meet again. Now I am going to marry him.'

Mrs Michaelis thought this over a minute. Then she said: 'But then, why didn't he come here?'

Karen paused also. 'It was too far,' she said.

'So you went more than half-way to meet him,' said Mrs Michaelis in a strange voice, as though she were half asleep. 'Apart from anything else — isn't he marrying Naomi?'

'I haven't thought of her.'

'Then perhaps you have thought of Ray — Karen,
what has become of you?'