While England Sleeps (9 page)

Edward introduced me to Lil, who without getting up warmly shook my hand with one of hers while with the other she patted Headley’s back. Headley had his face tightly buried in her kimono. A dark wet stain seeped out from where he had planted his screaming and vampiric mouth. Edward had talked of Lil so often that she’d taken on an independent life in my mind. For some reason I’d envisioned her as fat, and bloated from drink, and
old,
when in fact she was—or at least looked—
young,
with flushed cheeks, freckles, eyes green as Edward’s, and stiff blond high-piled hair, and bright teeth. Though Headley’s head consumed, for the moment, the entirety of her ample bosom, the shortness of her kimono gave a good view of her legs, which were elegant and slender, very much the legs of a music hall dancer. I felt ashamed—was it only because of her class that I assumed Lil would be hideous? Yet I also missed the Lil I’d invented, and vowed to preserve in my journal a description of her; what we imagine buckles and crumbles so easily, after all, under the sheer massive weight of the real.

Sarah, on the other hand, was exactly as I expected her to be, shy and plain, furiously concentrating on her carrots so as to avoid at all costs the ordeal of contact or conversation with a stranger.

“Now, Sarah,” Lil said, “don’t be shy. Say hello to Mr. Botsford.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sarah said, almost inaudibly.

“Do sit down,” Lil said, clearing a chair of old newspapers. “I’m afraid my kitchen’s no Buckingham Palace, but it’s home, and I try to keep it cheerful and comfortable-like. As I’m sure Edward’s told you, I’ve been down with the influenza. A killer, that influenza; it’s just a blessing the children never got it. Now, Headley, enough, darling, get off.” But removing Headley was like removing a barnacle from the side of a boat.

It was from Lil, I was learning, that Edward had acquired his garrulousness. She talked almost without cease; I had the suspicion that we could have all left the room for half an hour, gone on a walk, come back, and found her still chattering amiably to air. “Headley’s a bit sensitive,” she was saying, “since his
m-u-m
went up to
G-l-a-s-g
—Edward, how do you spell Glasgow? Oops!” The mention of that northern city set Headley off again. “Sarah,” Lil said, “get Mr. Botsford a cup of tea. I can’t do it myself, what with this crying child on my lap.”

“Please call me Brian, Mrs. Phelan.”

“Mrs. Phelan!” (Her laugh earsplittingly shrill.) “Lovey, I haven’t been Mrs. Phelan since 1924. So just call me Lil, thank you very much; everyone else does that doesn’t call me Mum. Unless you prefer to call me Mum.” She smiled winningly, as if this were a real invitation. “Your own mum’s passed on, hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said. (What else had Edward told her?)

“Well, lovey, I’m perfectly happy to be substitute mum to you. God knows with all these, one more wouldn’t make much difference.” She looked with some irritation toward Sarah, who had abandoned her carrots and was gazing at me in awe. “Sarah!” she shouted, and slapped her hand against the table so that Sarah jumped. “Now what did I tell you?”

“I—I—”

“I told you to get Mr. Botsford—Brian—his tea!”

Sarah lurched up, poured hot water into a small teapot and set it in front of me.

“Thank you,” I said. Our eyes met briefly—hers were full of terror and hunger.

“You’re welcome,” she said, very fast and very softly.

“Cup!” Lil barked.

Again Sarah jumped, rushed to supply the necessary utensil, then returned to her carrots.

Lil was sniffing. “What a smell! Lord, Pearlene, what have we been feeding you?”

From her high chair the baby gazed at Lil beatifically. No one had bothered to wipe away the mucus, which was now dribbling precariously off the edge of her chin.

“Oh, the smell’s not the baby,” I said. “It’s these cheeses.” I opened the bag. “I thought you might enjoy them. Only they’ve gotten a bit
ripe
. French cheeses. Very high quality.”

“Well, that was thoughtful of you,” Lil said, eyeing the bag dubiously.

“Baby-shit cheese!” Edward laughed. “And they say France is so sophisticated!”

“Edward, that’s no way to talk,” Lil said. “I think it’s very thoughtful of Brian to bring us the cheese. We’ll have it after dinner, just like at a real elegant party, like in the cinema. Sarah, put it in the larder.”

Holding the bag at arm’s length, Sarah lugged it off.

“Headley, love, you’ve had your cry now,” Lil said. “It’s time to get off. Come on, that’s a good boy.”

Reluctantly Headley allowed himself to be removed from Lil’s soggy bosom.

“Supper’s nearly ready,” announced the returning Sarah in a hushed, anxious voice.

“Very good,” Lil said. She stood and stretched her legs. “Shall we repair to the dining room?”—her voice suddenly that of an actress aping nobility in a cheap theatrical.

“Yes,” I said, and followed her in.

Dinner consisted of beef, potatoes and cabbage—the carrots were either abandoned or had been intended for another meal altogether. But though the Phelans acted as if this were an ordinary meal to which I, having “just dropped by,” had been invited on the spur of the moment, it was clear that quite a bit of effort and expense had gone into it: not only had the dining room been resurrected; we were eating off good china (or what passed for good china in Upney). The beef, moreover, was tender, and I couldn’t help but worry lest it had cost so much that it would mean no meat at all for the rest of the week. “Care for some more?” Lil asked when I had cleared my plate. “Give him some more, Sarah.” Food was being heaped in front of me before I had a chance to say a word. No one else, I noticed, got offered seconds, though Edward eyed the pot hungrily.

For the first half of the meal, conversation centered on the decision of one Cousin Beryl to open a teashop in Dorking.

Edward was for; Lil against. I was asked if I had ever been to Dorking, and I had to admit I hadn’t—a confession that provoked from Lil a rather pitying gaze that seemed to say, Poor untraveled waif, you
have
led a sheltered life. Then Lil started asking me questions: where my family lived, why I had left home, who cooked in Richmond and whether my sister Caroline had a “young man” and how my brother Channing was getting on with his examinations. She seemed to be intensely interested in these details, as if she derived from accounts of other people’s domestic arrangements the same sort of pleasure more educated people derived from novels, and I answered her queries as best I could. Mostly I wanted to look at her, to watch her talk and laugh and smile her fine smile. There was something so
fresh
about Lil! No doubt she had been a beautiful girl, and would be a beautiful old woman as well. And like Edward—like Pearlene, for that matter—she had such
extraordinary
eyes.

“I can’t tell you, Brian, how grateful I am to you for taking my boy in,” Lil was saying. “It’ll be such a relief for him, living in Earl’s Court—he’ll be able to sleep a full hour later each morning and not have to make that long, long trip home! And it does a mother’s heart good to know he’ll be in such capable hands. Why, you’re just the sort of friend a mother would hope her boy might find—a gentleman. I hope you’ll always be my boy’s friend; he needs a friend like you, I must say.”

“It’s a pleasure for me,” I said. (Was I mad, or was there something ambiguous—almost suggestive—about Lil’s use of the word “friend”?)

“And I hope you’ll always feel you’ve a home here, Brian. Though goodness knows it ain’t much of one, I’ve done my best to make it happy for my little ones. My sister Ellen always says, ‘Lil, you’re mad to have had so many kids,’ but she’s just jealous, having only one herself and a bad lot at that. ‘Ellen,’ I tell her, ‘my only regret is I didn’t have ten more.’ And it’s true.” Tears misted her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I
am
a good one at working myself up.”

“Now, Mum,” Edward said, “it’s all right; don’t let’s get all weepy.”

“You’re right, Edward. I just think of your brother and I—” She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “Sarah, why not bring in the cheese now, love?”

Obediently Sarah stood and went into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with the cheeses on a tray. One was a grainy orange cylinder dotted with mold, the second a slobbering wedge, the third a dented square pillow the color of sheets that have not been washed for some time.

Everyone regarded the cheese suspiciously.

“I’m afraid we haven’t got any cream crackers,” Edward said.

“That’s all right. No need for cream crackers. We can just eat it as is.”

Nervously I sank my knife into the wedge and took an odorous sliver onto my plate.

The jangling of keys sounded, then the barking of the invisible dog.

“That’d be Lucy,” Edward said. “Late as usual.”

The dining room door opened, and a young girl walked in. She had bobbed blond hair and wore on her pretty face the alert expression of a young terrier.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “God, what’s that smell?”

“We’re just having cheese,” Edward said.

“Cheese!” Lucy said. “Since when?”

“Cheese Mr. Botsford brought,” Edward said. “Remember? I told you I was bringing my friend Mr. Botsford to supper, and you promised not to be late?”

“Sorry, Edward, I got held up.” She sat down in the empty seat next to mine. “Hello, I’m Lucy.”

“Brian,” I said. “How do you do?”

“Likewise, I’m sure. Excuse me, my feet are absolutely killing me.” She took off her shoes and threw them casually toward the kitchen door.

“Lucy, please!” Lil impotently remarked.

“Is that a
livarot
?
” Lucy asked, eyeing the cheese.

“Why, yes,” I said. “You know
livarot
?
”

Ignoring my question, she sliced into the wedge with her knife and took a taste. “It is
livarot,
” she said. “And this one—is that a
vacherin
?
”

“You certainly do know your cheeses.”

“She’s got a French friend,” Sarah said, almost inaudibly.

“Shut up, you idiot,” Lucy snapped.

“Say what?” Edward asked. “What did you say, Sarah?”

“She’s got a French friend,” Sarah said again, her eyes opening wider now, her mouth bursting into a smile.

“All right, and see if I keep any of your pathetic little secrets from now on,” Lucy said. “See how you feel when I announce to the whole world you’re in love with Mr. Snapes at the post office.”

Sarah’s face went white, her mouth opened.

“Sarah,” Lil said. “Mr. Snapes! With the crossed eyes!”

“And he’s got no hair!” Edward added. They both started laughing. Mortified, Sarah pushed out her chair and fled the room.

“Sarah,” Edward called after her, “don’t be so sensitive, we were only teasing! Poor dear, no one ever takes her seriously.”

Distantly a door slammed. The unseen dog started up its barking. Headley gave a little shriek like a warning signal.

“You didn’t say anything about a French friend,” Edward remarked leeringly.

“Don’t see why I should report every detail of my personal life to you,” Lucy said, cutting once again into the
vacherin
. “Have you got a fag, Mr. Botsford?”

“Certainly.” I took the cigarette case from my pocket.

“My, a cigarette case,” Lil said. “You
are
a gentleman.”

“Of sorts,” I said, lighting Lucy’s cigarette. Lil laughed, then started coughing. “Lucy, take that outside. You know I can’t stomach smoke since this influenza.”

“All right,” Lucy said, standing and sauntering to the door. “Mr. Botsford, would you care to join me for a cigarette?”

“Yes—of course,” I said. And followed her out. The door was made of splintery wood and opened onto a dreary garden in which a few ragged lettuce heads lounged among the weeds. Beyond the fence another garden, a mirror image of the Phelans’, led up to a mirror house.

I lit my own cigarette. Lucy was leaning against the railing, gazing dreamily at the wretched expanse that passed for a view.

“So is my brother buggering you?” she asked quite casually.

For a split second I was taken aback.

“No,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, I’m buggering him.”

“How interesting,” Lucy said. “I always assumed it would be the other way round. I suppose I don’t know my brother as well as I thought I did.”

“Of course it’s quite possible we’ll try it that way too.”

“Men
are
wonderfully capable.”

“Aren’t we.”

Lucy blew smoke rings. “I
do
have a French friend, you know. And my friend’s going to take me to live in Paris, and I shall never ever ever return to bloody cold horrible dreary London as long as I live.”

“How nice for you.”