Undue Influence (6 page)

I began to wish that I were out in the street, enjoying, if that is the word, one of my solitary walks. I reckoned that Martin Gibson had no business to leave me standing there while he pursued some conversation in another room. From what I could overhear this conversation was muted but enthusiastic, the sort of tone adopted in a sickroom. So I was not wrong about the illness, I thought. There was a sense of a conspiracy that left me attending vaguely on the sidelines, a mere spectator, or rather auditor. And yet I had no other role. The role that was assigned to me I had devised for myself. Martin Gibson, whom I had admired in the shop, seemed now to be reduced to a sort of servant, emptied of substance by a wife who was somehow impotent, laid up; his manhood, such as it was, would be subsumed by her needs. I felt sorry for him, but my
pity was edged with irritation; this was the kind of call I was bound to answer. I saw myself as Potiphar’s wife, embracing a reluctant Joseph, and felt the sort of reprehensible excitement to which I was prone. I knew my character was poor, that I could lay claim to few moral qualities. In these moments I thought of my mother, her artlessness, her careful days in the belted smock, copying from the model, and the sadness that her friend’s wedding had occasioned. I knew that such simplicity was beyond my reach, let alone my grasp. That was why, at the age of twenty-nine, I stood in a stranger’s room calculating my chances.

When Martin Gibson returned his face showed a certain animation. ‘Cynthia, my wife, would like to meet you,’ he said. ‘If you are not in a hurry do come and say hello.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She sees so few people these days. She says her illness has driven all her friends away. So when she hears a strange voice …’

‘I’m sorry your wife is ill,’ I said. ‘What is the matter with her?’

When I looked back on this remark I found it intolerably crude. Though plain it was evidently unanswerable, for Martin Gibson, who was, I noted, still wearing his chalk-striped suit, looked as if this were the one question that no one in their right mind would have thought appropriate.

‘Her heart,’ he said. ‘And her nerves, of course. Poor darling.’

I wanted to hear more, but little more was to be vouchsafed. I thought of one of the books my mother had insisted I read, about a man with an ailing wife. My mother had thought it a masterpiece; I had not. This had disappointed her. ‘It’s not the saddest story ever told,’ I protested. ‘Why was he so helpless?’ She had smiled. ‘It is circumstances that make us helpless,’ she
replied, and I saw that she was looking back to her own past years of incarceration. I said nothing after that, but my dislike for the story increased, and has remained.

I followed Martin Gibson along a corridor and into a bedroom lit by more opaline lamps, but more brightly. I hardly had time to register more than the fact that the wife lay in a large bed, or rather lay back against a multitude of pillows, with manicure implements on a small tray on her knees. I had an impression of blondeness, of a round face, of anxious eyes. She was immaculately made up, and did not look in the least ill, yet when she spoke her voice was hoarse, and the hand she held out to me, and which I took, was hot and moist. She was wearing some sort of peignoir, coral pink, with a certain amount of lace, and she smelt of the kind of scent which should be reserved for decisive women executives looking forward to a career in the boardroom. I imagined, though I could hardly turn round and look, a whole armoury of such scents, indulgences brought to the sickroom by the devoted husband who would naturally be at a loss in such a situation and who would seek the advice of the sales assistants behind the beauty counter. My mother had never used more than a simple cologne. But this was no time to think of my mother.

‘How do you do?’ I said. ‘Claire Pitt. I brought your husband’s book. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘My dear,’ said the hoarse voice. ‘If you only knew how eager I am to see new faces. My life, as you can see,’ she gestured around the room, upsetting the tray with the manicure instruments which her husband bent eagerly to retrieve, ‘is confined to this one room now.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

‘Of course Martin could have collected the book,’ she said sharply. ‘He is quite free in the daytime. In fact I make him go
out; I know he likes to walk. I insist that he does so, though I suspect he doesn’t always enjoy it.’ She flashed him a smile which revealed another, earlier woman, mischievous, not entirely kind. She would have been lovely, I reckoned. She was still good-looking in a ruined way, although I was touched to see that her cheeks had taken on a little colour since I had entered the room. Her hand still held mine, as if to prevent me from leaving.

‘Who looks after you in the daytime?’ I asked, since it was clear to me that she had no interest in myself.

‘Oh, Sue is here in the daytime,’ was the reply.

‘Your daughter?’

She laughed. ‘Did you hear that, Martin?’ she said. Her tone was not quite friendly.

‘The nurse,’ said Martin Gibson, not registering the implied insult. At least I thought it was an insult. If these people did not sleep together that was hardly the husband’s fault. Nor was it entirely hers. She did seem ill; the heat of her hand was disagreeable. Yet it would have been rude to have disengaged my own. My eyes strayed to the bedside table, on which stood a flowered china candlestick, and a photograph, in an Art Nouveau silver frame, of a white Scotch terrier sitting in a basket. Her eyes followed mine, and she smiled slightly, as if she had discerned my curiosity but was not disposed to satisfy it. ‘Yes, my poor dog had to go,’ she said. ‘Along with all the rest.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again, since this seemed to be expected of me. ‘If there’s anything I can do …’ I still do not know why I said this.

‘Of course, it broke my heart when Martin had to give up his teaching,’ she went on.

‘Oh?’ I looked at him inquiringly, but he seemed resigned to being a mere attendant.

‘European literature, at that place in Hampstead. What was it called, darling? I can never remember.’

‘But that must have been terrible for you,’ I said, turning to him.

‘It was,’ said his wife. ‘And for me too. His students used to love to come and talk to me. If they had a little problem it helped them to confide, you know.’

I reflected that she might enjoy other people’s problems, particularly those of young people who are still tender enough to trust. No doubt she had designs on whatever problems I might have. As if in answer to this the hot hand grasped mine even more tightly. I felt a slight desire to escape.

‘Yes, the secrets I’ve heard. Of course it was the girls who wanted to talk. Their love affairs. They were all in love. Most of them with Martin.’ She smiled. I watched as the smile faded. ‘The weekends are the worst,’ she said to my surprise. ‘Nobody comes. And there’s not a sound from the street. I hate it here.’

‘Darling,’ her husband pleaded.

She ignored him. ‘What do you do at weekends, Claire?’

‘Well, I don’t like them much either,’ I said, startled into honesty. ‘On Saturday evenings I have a meal with my friend Wiggy …’

‘Your boyfriend?’

‘No. Wiggy is a girl.’

‘Why is she called Wiggy? Is there something wrong with her hair?’

‘Her hair is fine,’ I ploughed on. ‘And on Sunday …’

‘Oh, Sunday!’ The hands were now clasped reminiscently, for which I was grateful. ‘When I was well we always went out on Sundays. The Compleat Angler for lunch, and then a drive. The car had to go, of course. No point in keeping it in the centre of town. And Saturdays too. We used to go looking for
things for the flat. I see you are admiring the lamps.’ I realized that her eyes had never left my face.

‘My parents used to do that,’ I told her. ‘Before my father got ill. He …’

Her hands flew to her face. ‘Oh, don’t tell me about illness. It’s life I want to hear about. Life!’

‘Darling,’ interjected the husband. ‘You’re getting tired.’

‘Yes, I’m tired,’ she said gratingly. ‘But I haven’t heard anything about this young person.’ Not surprising, I thought, since she had expressed no interest. ‘You can tell me anything, you know,’ she said, clasping my hand again. ‘Come again. Come on Saturday. Bring that friend of yours with the funny name.’

I disengaged my hand with difficulty. Martin—I was now disposed to think of him as Martin—moved forward and rearranged her pillows.

‘I’ll get your infusion,’ he said. ‘And then you must sleep.’

‘Yes,’ she said, exhausted. ‘I must sleep. Goodbye. Until Saturday. Don’t forget.’

‘Did she mean that?’ I asked Martin, as he shut the door quietly behind him.

‘Well, yes, she did. She sees so few people. It would be a kindness … Of course you are under no obligation …’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I’ll come on Saturday. I’ll bring Wiggy. If that’s all right with you.’

‘Most kind. And now I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. Cynthia will want her drink. And then I’ll have to get her settled for the night …’

‘Of course. I understand.’

‘Until Saturday, then.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

At that stage I had no intention of returning on Saturday.
Let them find some other form of entertainment. I felt particularly bad about introducing Wiggy’s name into the conversation, if conversation was what it had been. She had enough trouble dealing with me. I knew she would rather have stayed at home than sat through those artificial evenings out which looked likely to become a ritual. She would keep these up as long as I did. There was no way she would welcome the idea of sitting by a solipsistic stranger’s bed. Unlike me she had a companion.

Out in Weymouth Street, the evening only slightly darkening at nine o’clock, I felt lonely, ejected from the intimacy of countless bedrooms. Not that this particular bedroom had impressed me. What had impressed me was the fact that the woman had felt confident enough to be slightly rude to her husband. That was the sort of confidence I could never acquire, since I should never marry. I knew this suddenly, out on the pavement in Weymouth Street. I raised my eyes to the Gibsons’ windows, but they were now dark. I decided that Cynthia Gibson was both sentimental and malicious: sentimental because of her hot hands clinging to mine, malicious on account of her husband on whom she was dependent but who insisted on treating her like a child, or like the invalid she was. It had been the frustrations of a healthy woman that had come through to me.

And the stifling comfort of those paradoxically comfortless rooms! The careful lamps everywhere, the cluster of milk-glass vases on the console in the hall! He would have been the collector in those days when they motored round waterside towns and villages, she the signer of cheques. That they were wealthy was in no doubt, but I sensed that the money must be hers. They were not old, but they were elderly; he might be forty to her fifty, or even fifty-three. That would account for her
acerbity, as if the poor fellow could be credited with a capacity for infidelity. She was probably the only woman he had ever known. As a young man he would have been excited by her, by her hot little hands, her air of authority. And by her money, which had entitled her to put a high price on herself. She had no doubt discerned the erotic potential in a shy young man, had teased and flattered him into a state of excitement, under the watchful eye of an experienced mother. I was making this up, of course, but it struck me as entirely feasible. She would have been thirty-five to his twenty-five when they met, and it would have been a white wedding, never mind the flattering expertise with which it had been anticipated. ‘Life!’ she had said, in tones of ardour and despair. Something harsh had broken through, the first sign of authenticity in that whole strange scenario. I felt as if I had spent an evening at the theatre, but had not much appreciated the play, perhaps had not understood it. For once I was conscious of my own lack of experience.

I knew only simple transactions, in which there was no room for connivance or complicity, certainly not subjection, submission. Maybe the time had come for me to learn these higher or lower arts. Martin Gibson’s appeal to me was in this category. His wife had shown me that. The strange visit had taught me this particular lesson. There are no accidents. Everything is connected.

The light had gone, the evening was under way. In Wigmore Street I found a café, went in, and ordered a toasted sandwich and a cappuccino. What did those people eat? Something refined, no doubt, in the best possible taste. I licked a crumb from the corner of my mouth, paid the bill, and left. My meal had taken twenty minutes. When I reached home the flat seemed to me a haven of plain dealing, the hardwood floor a guarantee of straightforward behaviour. For a moment I wished
I was the sort of girl my mother had been. Then I went to bed, determined to put the evening out of my mind. In this I partly succeeded.

On the following day I was hardly surprised when Martin Gibson came down the stairs into my basement. The cautious steps could surely announce no other.

‘Good morning,’ I said, with possibly a slight edge to my voice. ‘What can I do for you today?’

‘Oh, nothing, nothing. I came to thank you for your visit.’

‘Not at all.’

‘It made such a difference to Cynthia,’ he went on. ‘She sees so few people.’

‘So she said.’

‘She’s talked about it, you know. She was quite thrilled …’

‘How long has she been ill?’

‘Two years, slightly more.’

‘And she doesn’t go out at all?’

‘No, not any more.’

The slight animation faded from his face; he looked haggard and handsome. ‘So if you could come on Saturday? With your friend? Just for half an hour or so.’

That morning, as I walked to work, I had been aware of the first truly fine day in a spring of predominantly grey skies. I wondered how I might fare if I were condemned to view it through the shrouded windows of that awful flat.

‘I’ll come,’ I said.

His expression lightened at once. I think he was quite unaware that I might have other plans. Besides, I had no other plans. And it was so long since I had seen gratification on another’s face that my decision seemed to be quite rational. At the same time I knew that I had left simple rationality quite a long way behind.