The Realms of Gold (48 page)

‘He's never shown any signs of getting married, has he?' said Frances, vulgarly curious, as usual, about other people's sex lives, and wondering whether her original hazard of repressed or unacknowledged homosexuality might be correct.

‘Not that I know of,' said Janet. ‘But then, I really haven't heard much of him for years. Not since he started all these travels. I think the last time I saw him was the day he got his degree. I must have been about fourteen. His parents gave this horrible party and we all went off to Manchester to see David shown off—poor old David, he
did
look miserable. I was miserable too, I was wearing a dreadful green dress that didn't fit. My party dress.' She laughed. ‘I think I was so upset by how awful I looked that I hardly spoke to him. And his father made this terrible speech, about how he had encouraged David, and bought him books, and made him work, and all that—you'd have thought he'd got the degree himself the way he carried on, and David looked so embarrassed, though I suppose in a way it was true, do you think? It's a terrible thing, what parents do to their children. Don't you think?'

Frances did think so, and they talked for a while of their non-Ollerenshaw mothers and their Ollerenshaw fathers, and what they felt about them: they agreed that their fathers, who seemed to share a capacity for staring into space, had, unlike David's father, been non-interventionists of the first order, and had erred, if at all, in the direction of neglect and indifference. ‘I suppose one's never satisfied,' said Frances.

‘Sometimes I wonder about what will happen to my baby,' said Janet. ‘It's such a responsibility, trying to bring up a baby. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But of course, that's the only thing one can't do.'

‘It doesn't seem so bad, as they begin to grow up,' said Frances. ‘They begin to seem so obviously themselves. One doesn't feel so directly responsible, when they grow older. My eldest will be old enough to get married, next year.'

‘That's comforting,' said Janet, without a flicker of surprise: usually, when Frances made such a remark, people hastened to tell her that she looked far too young to have so old a child. Either those days were over, and she looked her considerable age, or Janet was herself so young that she regarded Frances as a member of a different generation. Either way, Frances found she did not mind. It was of course true that Daisy was old enough to marry, legally, next year, though probably she would not: the problems of Stephen and his young wife might one day be hers. (Where was Stephen? She must ring Natasha in the morning, for more news.)

There was a silence. Both women stared at the bar of the fire, contemplative. ‘I know what you mean,' said Janet, ‘about being obviously themselves. They are, of course. But I just don't see how it happens. I mean . . . ' she hesitated, unused to such concepts, such conversations—‘I mean, I feel I am myself, and that I've got to look after it. But I don't know what it is. I know it's there, that's all. That's why I don't think it was at all awful about Aunt Con, she was being herself, if you know what I mean, everyone could see what she was being.' She paused, gathered courage, went on. ‘And as for you, it's easy for you to know who you are. Even the
Sunday Examiner
Colour Supplement tells you who you are. Anyway'—(still slightly reproachful)—‘I can tell from looking at you, who you are.'

‘How do you mean?' asked Frances. Janet Bird was not a fool, not a fool at all. She was so pleased, so grateful, that she had thought of ringing her.

‘Well, you know what I mean,' said Janet Bird, gesturing, in a slightly camp, surprisingly confident manner, at Frances's jersey, and her muddy shoes. ‘I mean to say, look at your clothes. When would I ever dress up like that?'

‘I'm not
dressed
up,' wailed Frances, ‘this is what I wear, I can't help it. And you mustn't,' she continued, well aware of the issues, ‘you mustn't get cross about a silly article in a paper, I never know what to say, but one has to say
something
, after all . . . '

‘It said you liked peeling vegetables' said Janet. ‘That must have been a lie. Surely that must have been a lie.'

Frances considered for an instant. It had in fact been the truth, that remark, though a truth, she agreed, fit only for Pseud's Corner: she did like peeling potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, leeks, even the crazy Jerusalem artichoke. Truth, however, is relative. ‘Yes,' she agreed, ‘of course it was a lie.'

On the basis of such a mutual deception (for Janet too, as we have seen, liked peeling vegetables), they felt quite friendly.

‘You know,' said Janet, ‘when all this row came up, I was interviewed on the television. The local news. They made me look somebody quite different. And I thought, why isn't that person me? And why could I never do that for myself? Interesting, isn't it?'

Frances was just about to reply that it was indeed extremely interesting, and that it was the kind of question that had often perplexed her, when they heard a car pull up outside, and the sound of footsteps. Both fell silent, in a moment of conspiracy. Frances herself was used to such homecomings; she felt considerable womanly solidarity with her new cousin. ‘Don't forget,' she said (whispering, despite herself just very slightly nervous at the thought of the advent of a cross man, even though it was the advent of a cross twenty-nine-year-old man who was in no way her own problem)—‘don't forget, you've got to come out with me. We've got to talk about a funeral.'

‘All right,' whispered Janet.

And in walked her husband Mark, and his colleague Bill David. Frances rose to her feet to greet them, prepared (indeed intending) to be charming, but she could see at once that there was going to be little opportunity to charm Mark Bird: he was one of those men on whom effort is wasted, one of those men on whom she never managed to have any effect at all. Neatly dressed, well-shaven, angry with some permanent grievance, he stood there on his own hearth, rocking backwards and forwards slightly, while Janet made introductions, explained (rather bravely, Frances thought) her own immediate plans, and disappeared into the kitchen to warm up the portion of shepherd's pie. ‘You've just been out to a meeting, Janet tells me,' said Frances, unable to prevent herself from social niceties, ‘about a new pedestrian precinct, is that right?' Mark nodded. ‘You take an interest in local politics?'

‘Well, somebody has to,' said Mark. ‘If we don't speak up, there are others who will.' He implied dark moneyed storms of malice, of corruption. Frances tried to guess which side he would be on—for or against the precinct—and found that she had no idea: Janet hadn't been interested enough to tell her. ‘Tell me,' she asked, smiling brightly at Mark and Bill, ‘which side did you go to support, the anti-precinct, or the pro-precinct?'

Mark Bird stated at her in feigned, in over-done horror. ‘Which side, did you say?' he said, rudely, as though the question had betrayed imbecility.

‘Yes, that's what I said,' said Frances snappily. What a horrid little bully, she thought to herself.

‘Do you mean to say,' said Mark, ‘that there are still people in the British Isles who don't realize that the pedestrian precinct was the most (and Frances still, even at this point, couldn't tell if he was going to say ‘brilliant' or ‘disastrous')—‘one of the most (and the word, when it came, was spat out with a most unpleasant vehemence) ‘
outmoded
concepts in town planning?'

‘Come, come now Mark,' said Bill, uneasily, embarrassed, marginally more susceptible to the presence of a woman and a stranger: ‘Come along, you know that's not quite true, there are still areas where a precinct might be a perfectly appropriate way of dealing with shopping problems . . . '

‘But we're talking about
Tockley,'
said Mark, with all the violence of illogic: ‘We're not talking about all those other areas, we're talking about Tockley, or I am, anyway.'

‘Yes, yes,' said Frances, soothingly. ‘Do explain to me why it is that a pedestrian precinct would be so unsuitable in Tockley.'

They explained, Bill fairly politely, Mark with such weighted innuendoes about her ignorance and folly that she hoped, for Janet's sake, that Janet couldn't hear through the hatch. How extraordinary people are, she thought, as she listened to Mark and Bill describe Town Planning Acts, and condemn the views of distinguished architects, and rail against the Council and the Ministry of Transport and the Department of the Environment and a local solicitor: how amazing, to tell me all this, when all I asked was a polite question, and when, according to their evident assessment of my intellect, I am quite incapable of following a single word that they are saying.

They were in the process of informing her about car parking statistics in towns of comparable size, sparing her none of the figures, and gazing at her accusingly as though she would, if given a chance, reveal some other dangerous heresy, when Janet came back, with her coat already on.

‘I won't be late back,' she said to Mark. ‘Hugh won't wake, he's been sleeping much better lately, but if he does, we'll be at—at the King's Head, won't we—er, won't we, Frances?'

The use of the Christian name was an act of marital defiance: Mark registered it, but at the same time registered the name of the hotel where Frances was staying. There was nothing wrong with the King's Head: it was the best hotel in town, a hotel where he certainly could not afford to eat whenever he fancied, a hotel where bar and restaurant had witnessed many a transaction of civic importance. Quickly, Mark changed his tack, and looked at Frances with something remarkably like an old-fashioned leer.

‘Well, don't have too much to drink, you girls, will you?' he said. ‘Janet's got a very weak head, I'm afraid. Half a glass of sherry and she's half seas over.'

What an extraordinary remark, thought Frances, but all she said was ‘Oh, you needn't worry, I'll look after her and get her back all right.'

‘Is that your car outside?' said Mark, adding more to his mental calculations about Frances's status. A horrid man, whatever could have gone wrong with him? He was stiff and unnatural, and his head didn't properly fit on his neck.

‘Yes, that's mine,' she agreed. She moved towards the door. ‘We'd better get off,' she said, ‘or we'll never get back again, will we?'

He laughed at this non-pleasantry, a hard, unnatural, unamused laugh, and followed them to the door, to see them out. There stood her car, parked at the end of the cement path. She looked at it with longing. She wanted to get moving, claustrophobia was sweeping rapidly over her, she would have felt frantic if she had had to hang around a moment longer, waiting for a taxi.

Safely in the car, she turned to Janet, as she started the engine, and asked, ‘Do you drive?' She already knew the answer. Janet shook her head. ‘Mark tried to teach me once, but I don't think I'd ever be able to. And then there wouldn't be much point, because Mark always takes the car to get to work . . . '

Her voice trailed away: Frances could see it all, the caged days, the walks with the pram, and not even a car at the end of the garden path. No way out. She would buy Janet a large drink, at the King's Head.

The town looked good, in the night. They drove down the dark High Street. The Indian restaurant was still open: so was the Great Wall of China. Everything else was shut. The church spire, the famous church spire, was floodlit. Tedium and beauty lay like a quiet pall. How can one have content, without content?

The hotel was brightly lit, welcoming, its large front doors open. Cars were leaving the car park: there was activity, movement, the sound of voices and laughter. Friday night, the liveliest night of the week. Frances parked the car in the park, and she and Janet got out, and walked up the steps of the hotel and through its large revolving doors. The porter smiled, nodded, came up to Frances. ‘Dr Wingate?' he said, politely. ‘Two gentlemen were looking for you, madam. I told them I didn't know when you'd be back, but they said they'd wait. They're in the bar, madam.' He looked at the orange gilt clock in the high hall. ‘Been there some time, now,' he said.

‘Oh dear,' said Frances, to Janet, as they crossed to the entrance of the bar. ‘I wonder who that could be?' A solicitor, an undertaker, a vicar, her brother: one or two of these, she thought it might be. But it wasn't. There, in the bar at the King's Head, looking, as the porter had said, as though they had been there for some time, sat David Ollerenshaw and Karel Schmidt.

 

For the second time in his life, Karel Schmidt had the satisfaction of seeing Frances Wingate's face turn grey with shock. She stood there in the door of the bar, gaping, her eyes fixed; her mouth dropped open and all the blood poured out of her, leaving her that peculiar tint of yellow grey that had at first so enraptured him. Her recovery was terrific. She took a deep breath—he could see her, right across the room, take a deep breath, as though gasping for air—and as he rose to his feet, she ploughed towards him, the colour coming back, life coming back, everything returning to its proper place, her hair settling back on the nape of her neck, for there he was, there was Karel, looking exactly, but exactly like Karel himself.

She reached their table, stopped, stared again, smiled. ‘What on earth, but what on earth, are you two doing here?' she asked.

‘Looking for you, of course,' said Karel.

‘Whatever
for
?' said Frances, already on the attack: she was not one to succumb too easily to surprise tactics.

‘I got your postcard, that's why,' said Karel. ‘I got it a day or two ago. I've been looking for you ever since. All over the place.'

‘You got my postcard?' she repeated, stupidly. And then began to laugh. ‘But of course you got my postcard,' she said. ‘Of course that would be it. I must have known you couldn't have had it any earlier. Can I sit down?'