The Rules of Engagement (24 page)

His equally unpopular attribute was to make
our little party seem cheap and churlish, myself
included. I wanted more creature comforts than a
walk in the park could provide, as did the
students who stayed obstinately together,
unappreciative of their surroundings. Mr
Ward, no fool, could see that this particular
endeavour was proving a failure but had the good
manners to give no sign of this, and went on
talking pleasantly in a voice almost carried
away by gusts of wind. He appeared entirely
impervious to the occasional harshness of fortune,
heroic, and sexless. I was impatiently aware of
all this but unsympathetic. I was also tired of
walking in a disaffected group. What was more
significant was my realization that I fared
better without company. Solitude was obviously
my destiny. I regretted this, but I was not much
discomposed by the discovery. If I desired
company it was for the company of one other person,
intimate colloquy, a form of nurture that I
could certainly embrace. The whole idea of
friendship would have to be recast if it were to mean
anything. I must in future, I thought, set
standards of my own. What was called for was not
compliance but its opposite, the more extreme forms
of exigence.

I missed my husband, whom Mr
Ward strangely resembled. Not in physical
terms: he was extremely tall and thin, whereas
Digby had been of moderate height and bulk.
The likeness was one of disposition. Both were
courteous to women, a fairly unusual
characteristic, and therefore gentlemanly. There was no
need for me to know Mr Ward for any greater length
of time to be entirely convinced of this. I felt
safe in his company and endured the subsequent
feeling of boredom with something like the familiarity of
long association. Even after two meetings, the
present one unsatisfactory, I knew that he
would be a good friend if he would allow himself a little more
freedom of behaviour and of inclination, but
unfortunately there was no sign of his capacity
to develop either. I wondered briefly about his
marital, even his sexual status, but only because
I had been spoiled in this respect, and had
acquiesced all too eagerly in the sort of
plans no gentleman would make. But this was
forbidden territory, which I was not permitted
to revisit, and I suggested to Mr Ward that he
might like to come for a drink one evening.
“
Do ring me
when you're free,
”
I urged, my enthusiasm
fuelled by the providential sight of a taxi.
“
I'm always at home by five.
”
He bowed his
head, as if accepting yet another challenge, which
firmness of purpose would enable him to carry out. The
whole group watched as the taxi carried me
away. I felt ashamed, as if I had let them
down, but in fact they were merely envious. My
action in leaving was, if anything, applauded.
Yet Mr Ward's noble nature had had this
effect on me: he had made me want to do
better.

Back in the flat I felt violently
relieved, as if I had resisted a brainwashing.
What had briefly been on offer was a succession
of anodyne pastimes in the circumscribed
company of an utterly respectable man. It would
have been in my interest to bow my head and
acquiesce in a process that might extend far
into the future: I put it no higher than that. And
yet this prospect roused me to a kind of anger.
I wanted to remain in character, low spirited, but with a
fund of unexpended bad behaviour. I knew that
I should respond without hesitation to the right kind of
stimulus, but that I could not be satisfied with the
merely mild and useful. Even Betsy's
behaviour struck me as more natural, more
understandable, even more sympathetic than the entirely
upright stance of those whose conduct was open to inspection.
I was no longer willing to pass this test. I
welcomed anarchy and had proved myself capable of
sustaining it. At the same time I longed for
company, as only a lonely person could. The
problem was that the company I might be offered was not
to my taste, was too peaceful to invite my
interest. The conundrum resisted my efforts
to solve it. I spent most of that Sunday afternoon
asleep, and the evening watching television. By the time
I went to bed I felt a paradoxical pride
in having merely pleased myself.

These various considerations foundered, or were swept
aside two days later, when, returning from a
routine shopping expedition, I became aware of a
car drawing up beside me, and heard a voice
saying, without preamble,
“
Elizabeth. Have you
got a minute?
”
I nodded, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world that I should be reunited with
Edmund at a traffic light in the King's
Road. I slid into the car, aware only that this was
the first time that I had seen him for many months, and
strangely calm, as if I had known that we should
meet again some day. I longed to question him, but in
fact we were both silent and staring straight ahead,
as if we were two ordinary passengers on an
ordinary afternoon, proceeding westward, and too
preoccupied with our own thoughts to engage in
conversation. Out of the corner of my right eye I
took in the salient features. He was older,
or he looked older, his relaxed stomach
slightly bulkier than I remembered it, his
face more furrowed, his hair longer and streaked with more
obvious grey. He seemed tired to death,
assured but no longer triumphant as I had
always remembered him. It was that confidence of his,
that air of having outwitted the gods and their
designs that was his most humbling feature. No
one who came within the orbit of his intense
scrutiny could dissemble; from that first confrontation all
actions would be known. As they had been.

“
Rather an awkward situation has arisen,
”
he
said finally.

“
Oh?
”

“
I don't know how much influence you have on your
friend ...
”

“
I take it you mean Betsy. No influence
at all. W
ere you intending to take me into your
confidence? If so, I should warn you
...
”

He ignored this.
“
When did you last speak
to her?
”

“
Not for quite a time. Whenever I telephone I
get no answer. I don't know where she is.
”

“
I can tell you where she is. She is round
at my house, on various pretexts which are in
fact quite nebulous. Although I have to say that she was
a great help when we moved.
”

“
How is that going? Are you pleased?
”

He shook his head.
“
A mistake.
”

“
Well, I can't help you there. What is the
problem?
”
I asked. Since this conversation was to be
about Betsy I felt coldly objective,
any hope that I might have intruded into his
consciousness quite gone, leaving an absence of
calculation, or indeed forethought, behind.

“
The problem is that Constance is getting
upset. It's not that they've had a disagreement
—
in fact Constance takes care to be out when Betsy
puts in an appearance. It's just that Constance has
come to dislike her. Quite irrationally ...
”

“
Not quite.
”

“
Well, perhaps not. But there's never been any
threat to my marriage. Constance knows that. And
Betsy knows that I'm a married man, always has
known it. I was wondering if you could have a word
...
”

“
Why can't you have a word?
”

He stopped the car in a discreet side street
somewhere in Kensington and sat looking resolutely
forward, his hands loose on the wheel.

“
I can't hurt her,
”
he said.
“
And I
can't stop her coming to the house. She turns up as
if it's the most natural thing to do, as if she's
a member of the family.
”

I winced.
“
You put it so tactfully. And
yet you say you can't hurt her. Why can't you
hurt her? Are you in love with her?
”
These words
I ground out, knowing that at last the truth must be
faced.

“
There has been a degree of involvement,
”
he said.

“
Oh, please.
”

“
Difficult for you to understand, perhaps. She's not
at all my type. Nothing I can do will alter the
fact that I was taken by surprise by all this.
”

“
Is it over, then?
”

He raised his hands from the wheel in a helpless
gesture and let them fall again.

“
I think it had better be. I have Constance
to consider. And the children.
”

“
I thought she loved the children.
”

“
So she does. Too much. Wants them
to take her into their confidence, and so on. The
girls, that is. David takes no notice of
her.
”

“
That is fairly harmless, surely? Women
with no children of their own frequently love the children of
others.
”

“
I don't want them to come under her
influence.
”

“
I'm sure she'd be very discreet.
”
In
fact I was not so sure; Betsy had never been
discreet with her affections and would now be even less
so. In the circumstances I thought Edmund more
likely to be discreet than Betsy. He would have
the fierce protectiveness that a man of his type
would feel towards his daughters, prone to hatred for
any man likely to remove them from his sphere of
influence. And the advice, the intimacy of an
older woman who might urge them on
to independence, to other affections, might be more than
he could tolerate.

“
What do you want me to do, Edmund? This is
strictly none of my business. I never wanted
to know about your marriage or your love affairs,
let alone this one. I can't take sides in this
matter. You must sort it out for yourselves. What is
so difficult? I'm sure you must have done it
before.
”

“
She trusts me, you see.
”
His voice was
sad, as if he had no desire for this trust but
accepted it as a fact.
“
And she has so little in
her life, that awful flat, no friends apart from you.
No family.
”

“
That, of course, is how the whole trouble
started. She always wanted a family, as I dare
say she imagined herself one day with children of her own.
You may have given her what she wanted in one
sense, but you've also done a considerable amount of
damage.
”