The Paying Guests (43 page)

Frances told them all that, so far as she knew, the police were still undecided. They were waiting for the surgeon to examine the body. ‘You didn’t hear anything, last night?’ she forced herself to ask Mrs Golding. But the woman shook her head. No, no one had heard a thing. That’s what made it all the more strange and frightening…

By the time she had left, the endless twilight of the wet day was beginning to thicken, and Frances’s mother looked ill with tiredness and strain. Frances, exhausted herself, drew the curtains at the front window and put a match to the gas, keeping the hall light low to discourage further visitors. When, at half-past five or so, the door-knocker sounded again, she groaned. ‘I don’t think I can face any more questions. Shall I leave it?’

Her mother had twitched at the sound. ‘I don’t know. It might be someone for the Barbers —’ She corrected herself, unhappily. ‘For Mrs Barber, I mean. Or it might be a policeman, Frances.’

A policeman! Yes, thought Frances with a sick sensation, it very well might be. She’d remembered what Inspector Kemp had said, about wanting Lilian to remain at home, in case he should need – that sinister phrase – to get hold of her in a hurry… The knock came again, and this time she went to answer it. She fought down her fear, saying to herself, Be calm, be ready.

But on opening the door she found not a policeman after all, but a drab middle-aged couple and a boy of about fourteen, their expressions a baffling combination of apology and anguish. As she stared at them, the husband took off his hat. She saw the gingerish cast to his hair, and the blood rushed to her cheeks.

They were Leonard’s parents and his younger brother.

She would almost rather have faced the inspector. With an awkward gesture she moved back to let them in. They had heard the news, they told her, just an hour ago. They’d been away from home – over in Croydon, visiting Len’s uncle and aunt. A policeman had come to them there and had brought them back in a car. They hadn’t believed him at first. They’d supposed there’d been some sort of a mix-up. Then he’d told them that Lilian had identified the body. It was true, then, what he’d said? They were out of their minds with worry. They’d come to see Lilian herself. Was she here?

Frances led them upstairs, unable to think of a thing to say to them, and once she had handed them over to Netta and Lloyd she got away from them as quickly as she could. She re-joined her mother, and the two of them sat without speaking, uncomfortably conscious of the creaks overhead that meant that the visitors were being taken into Lilian’s bedroom; a moment later there were murmurs, rising and breaking, perhaps dissolving into tears. Soon the sounds began to feel to Frances like pressure on a bruise. She stirred the fire. She got to her feet. If only her muscles would stop hurting! She went nervously back to the French windows to peer down the garden again. The door in the wall still stood open. Upstairs, the murmurs went on and on.

But when, forty minutes later, she heard the couple leave Lilian’s room and join the boy on the landing, it suddenly seemed indecent to let them go away so soon. She nerved herself up, and as they came down she went out and invited them to spend a minute in the drawing-room. They sat on the sofa in a stunned sort of way, the husband with his hat in his lap, the wife hanging on to her handbag, as if they were desperate not to put the house to any more trouble. The boy, Hugh, embarrassed by his own grief, smiled and smiled.

Frances said, ‘You’ve spoken to Lilian, then.’

Mr Barber nodded. ‘Yes. You know, do you —?’

‘It’s very sad.’

‘It’s terrible. Terrible. We could hardly believe it, could we?’ He appealed to his wife, who didn’t reply. ‘On top of the other thing – No, it’s knocked us for six. It just doesn’t make any sense to us. To have had him come safe through the War… And then, he’s been getting on so well at the Pearl. We just wish we knew what happened. They’re all up there talking about it as if it were a murder. But I said, Well, how can it be a murder? Len’s always been so popular. The police didn’t give much away, you see.’

‘They didn’t?’ Guiltily, Frances found herself encouraging him to say more. But he clearly knew very little – hadn’t yet heard, for example, that no robbery had taken place; it seemed to hearten him slightly when she told him that. Then he learned that she had accompanied Lilian to identify Leonard’s body, and he looked at her with a bright, sad gleam of envy.

‘You saw him too, did you? We wanted to see him, but the police said not to. The surgeon had only just finished his examination and they hadn’t quite made him tidy. How was he looking, when you saw him?’

Frances thought back to that plasticine face. She said, ‘Quite peaceful. Quite – Quite calm.’

‘Was he? That’s good. Yes, we wanted to see him, but they said best not to, today. They said we can have him at home, though, while the funeral’s being arranged. We’ve spoken to Lilian about it, and we’re going to take him. You and your mother won’t have any of the bother of it, that way. We shan’t take him tomorrow, it being a Sunday; we’ll take him on Monday, and keep him at home. They’ve been very decent about it, the police. Yes, very decent. Of course —’

Here the boy gave a sort of squeal, making all of them jump: the grief had burst out of him; he hid his face in his sleeve. His father patted his twitching shoulder, but his mother spoke scoldingly. ‘A great boy like you! What must the ladies be thinking?’ He lifted his head at last, and Frances was horrified to see that his smile was still in place, rigid and agonised, even as his face ran with tears.

Once she had closed the front door on them, she returned to the sofa and sat down with a thump. ‘God, that was awful.’

Her mother was fishing for her handkerchief, looking iller than ever. ‘I wish this day would be over, Frances. Those poor parents! To have lost their son – and in such a way!’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And to have lost their grandchild, too.’

‘Yes. It – It’s too cruel.’

Her mother had the handkerchief at her mouth. Her head was bowed, her eyes were tearless but tightly closed, and Frances, recognising the posture, knew that she was thinking now not so much of Leonard but of her own lost sons and grandsons – was slipping away into some bleak interior place peopled only by ghosts, by absences.

The thought brought with it a wave of absolute loneliness, and she longed and longed for Lilian. Could she venture upstairs, just for five or ten minutes? Just to be sure that she was all right? But there was fresh activity up there now. The baby was crying. Water was running. The drawing-room lights gave a dip, as a kettle was put to heat on the stove. A barrier of fuss and motion still lay between the two of them – so that it dawned on her that, of course, this was how life was to be now, not just for a few chaotic hours but for days and days. The single emergency of Leonard’s death, with which, last night, they had dealt together, had simply bred other emergencies, that were now certain to keep them apart.

The realisation made her shake. In an effort to calm herself, and to keep up some semblance of routine, she went out to the kitchen to put together some kind of supper; after staring blankly at the larder shelves she keyed open a tin of corned beef, put a couple of eggs on to boil. She and her mother queasily forced the small meal down. And then there was nothing to do but return to their chairs beside the fire to sit out the tatters of the day.

At nine o’clock there were footsteps on the stairs, followed by a tap at the drawing-room door. It was Netta and Lloyd, with Siddy asleep in his father’s arms. They were heading home, they told Frances. They were taking Mrs Viney and Min back to Walworth on their way. Vera was staying to look after Lilian, who couldn’t be persuaded to leave the house.

‘We thought it best not to cross her,’ Mrs Viney confided as she came down behind them. ‘She’s had a little sleep, and a little feed; she still looks like death, mind. But Vera’ll keep an eye on her, and we’ll see how she feels about it tomorrow. I should be easier with her near me, I do know that. And it ain’t fair on you and your mother, all this upset in the house!’

‘Please, please don’t think that,’ said Frances.

‘No, Miss Wray, you’ve done enough! We wouldn’t dream of asking any more of you. We shall get her to Walworth, don’t you fear, by hook or by crook; and until we do, me or one of her sisters’ll stop here with her.’

Frances couldn’t answer. With a sense almost of despair she saw the family from the house, then made a start on the bedtime chores. Her mother was anxious that the windows be properly fastened; she had to go from one to another, making a display of checking the bolts. When she climbed the stairs at last, and found Lilian’s bedroom door still shut, she paused, and considered tapping on it; only the thought of having to speak before Vera made her move on. But the sound of her step must have carried. As she crossed the landing she heard Lilian’s voice, strained but clear – ‘There’s Frances, isn’t it? Go on!’ – and a moment later the door was opened and Vera’s sharp face appeared around it. Did Miss Wray mind? She wanted the lavatory. She ought to have gone while the others were here. She wouldn’t be a minute, but didn’t like to leave Lil on her own…

She took a lamp with her, and the room was left lighted only by a single shaded candle. Lilian was in the bed: she pushed herself up when she saw Frances, and they went into each other’s arms, clinging breathily together until the steps had faded from the stairs.

‘Oh, Frances, it’s been so dreadful!’

Frances drew free, to look at her properly, to take her white face in her hands. ‘Are you all right? I’ve been out of my mind! You aren’t still bleeding?’

‘Only a bit. It isn’t that. It’s just, they won’t leave me, not for a minute. I just want you! They keep on at me to go to the shop. You don’t want me to go, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘They said you’d rather it.’

‘How could you think that?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. They gave me something to make me sleep, but it – it’s left me muddled.’

They had given her Chlorodyne, Frances remembered. She turned her face to the candlelight and saw the glassiness of her gaze. The fear in her eyes, though, was as sharp as ever. She caught at Frances’s hands and spoke in an urgent whisper. ‘What do you think is happening, Frances? What they said – the police, I mean – They know, don’t they? That Len didn’t fall? That somebody hit him?’

Frances squeezed her fingers. ‘They don’t know that for certain. And they don’t know
who
hit him.’

‘But they’re bound to work it out! They must be talking to other people. They must have spoken to Charlie by now. They’ll know that Len wasn’t with him last night. They’ll start to put it all together. That Inspector – he’ll figure it out, I know he will.’

‘No. Why would he? They’re just – just trying out ideas.
We
know what happened. We’re the only people who do. Remember that. It makes us strong. But you’ve got to be careful, when you talk to them again. You’ve got to take care. We both have. Lilian? Do you understand me?’

Lilian’s gaze had loosened. She was like Frances’s mother now, looking not at Frances but into the depths of her own misery. But she blinked, and nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be careful.’

‘At least you got the doctor on your side.’

She started. ‘The doctor? No, there mustn’t be a doctor!’

‘At the police station, Lily.’

Her gaze refocused properly. ‘Oh, it feels like a lifetime ago! The matron saw that I was bleeding, so I had to say something about it. I pretended it had all come out in a rush, right there. I thought for a while they wouldn’t believe me. The doctor kept saying how pale I was. But he must have believed me, mustn’t he? Or they wouldn’t have let me come home?’

‘Yes, he must have believed you,’ said Frances. ‘Yes, I’m sure he did.’

She wasn’t sure. How could she be? And the uncertainty had crept into her voice. Lilian’s grip on her hands grew tighter, and for a moment that electric panic was back – or, anyhow, the possibility of it – Frances could feel it like a threat, ready to race between them.

But they were too worn out to sustain it. Lilian closed her swollen eyes, and her shoulders slumped. When she spoke again, her voice was small.

‘It was so awful seeing Len’s parents. They wanted to talk about the baby. They wanted to know why Len hadn’t said anything. I had to pretend we were keeping it quiet, because of what happened last time. The way his mother looked at me, though. She hates me worse than ever now. She blames me for this. I knew she would. Oh, I wish I could sleep for a hundred years!’

She looked so ill that Frances almost feared to take hold of her again. But they couldn’t be apart: they moved back into an embrace, their arms tight around each other – as if, she thought, by love, by passion, they could make everything all right.

‘You won’t leave me?’ Lilian whispered.

‘No! How could I?’

‘I’ve been so afraid. If I could just have you with me, none of it would be so bad. If I could just —’ But clear across her words there came the sound of the closing back door, and, ‘There’s Len!’ she said, in alarm and excitement, twitching free in the old way.

For a second, Frances, aghast, could see that she believed it. Then she looked into Frances’s face, realised what she had said, and her own face pulled tight. She covered her eyes. By the time Vera returned, she was crying.

Once Frances was in her own room, she didn’t believe that she would sleep. There was so much to think about still. She was reluctant even to undress. Suppose Lilian should give something away? And then, there were the stains on the carpet, the ashtray tucked behind the sofa: oughtn’t she to have another look at it all? Finally, wincing with pain and stiffness, she put on her nightgown, climbed into bed, and rolled herself a cigarette. She’d give it half an hour, she thought, and then go creeping into the sitting-room, just to be sure that everything was all right.

But even before she’d got the cigarette lit, she closed her eyes, leaned back into her pillow – and suddenly she found herself in an unfamiliar house with crumbling walls. How had she got there? She had no idea. She knew only that she had to keep the place from collapsing. But the task was like torture. The moment she got one wall upright, the next would start to tilt; soon she was rushing from room to room, propping up sagging ceilings, hauling back the slithering treads of tumbling staircases. On and on she went, through all the hours of the night; on and on, without pause, staving off one impossible catastrophe after another.