A Fairly Honourable Defeat

  A little rain was falling and the wind was beating the roses against the trellis. Wet rose petals adhered to the pavement in a design of heart-shaped pink and white blobs. The rain pitted the surface of the swimming pool, making it look like a grey metal grill. Morgan tried the kitchen door, but it was locked. With less hope she tried the French windows and found that they were open. She stepped in on tiptoe, closed the doors carefully behind her, and stood quiet and suddenly breathless in the drawing room. A clock was ticking. The house felt inward, mysterious, full of thoughts. It brought to Morgan quite automatically a breath of peace, though she told herself at the next moment: all is changed. Only the house does not know it yet. The house still keeps for me a smiling Hilda. Then she told herself, perhaps the change is not too terrible after all. Hilda will forgive Rupert. But she will ever after be closer to me.

  Morgan opened the cupboard where the drink was kept. There was no whisky, but she found the remains of a bottle of gin and poured some into a glass. She had drunk a good deal in the last two days. Then holding her glass and instinctively treading quietly she went on up the stairs. She went into Hilda’s boudoir. The room was tidy, full of stretched velvets and fragrant chintzes. There were some dead roses in a silver cup. Morgan dropped them into the wastepaper basket. Then she began to search Hilda’s desk. Piles of impersonal letters, bills, pamphlets, circulars. She soon had her hand on the address book and with triumphant anticipation turned to the letter R. No Ruabon was listed. Morgan put the book down in puzzlement. Hilda was usually so methodical about these things. Then it occurred to her that of course if this Ruabon was married and was an old friend Hilda might have listed her under her maiden name. Morgan sat down and began to go through the whole book. There were no Antoinettes and no addresses in France. Hilda’s note had just said ‘old friend’. Had they been at school together? Would it be any use asking the school? Owing to the difference in their ages Morgan had not known many of Hilda’s school friends. She could not recall Hilda mentioning this Antoinette. Or had there been some talk about a French girl, a long time ago? She dimly remembered something of the sort. It came to Morgan that of course the reason for the absence of the address was that Hilda knew it so well that it was unnecessary to record it. Morgan began to think seriously about this Antoinette Ruabon.

  After all she really knew very little about Hilda’s personal life. She had, she now realized, rather taken it for granted that Hilda had no personal life. Happily married people don’t. Hilda was Rupert’s wife and Morgan’s sister and Peter’s mother, and, so Morgan had assumed, into these eminently satisfying relationships the whole of that generous being was without residue absorbed. Of course Hilda had lots of friends of a luncheon party, bridge-playing, sherry morning for the local charity kind. But no close friends. Could it be that this picture was all wrong? Why after all had Rupert so suddenly fallen in love with Morgan? Was it conceivable that he was being neglected? Could this flight to Paris be something really significant? Morgan thought, I talked so much about myself when I came back. I did not ask Hilda one single searching question. Oh God. Morgan suddenly began to feel jealous and frightened in an entirely new way.

  She decided, just to occupy herself, to search the rest of the house, just in case papers of Hilda’s elsewhere might reveal the coveted address. She looked into the bedroom. The bed was unmade, the drawers open, underclothes of Hilda’s strewn here and there, a bottle of brown cosmetic lotion broken upon the carpet. Morgan examined the dressing table and the cupboard. There were no papers. She looked into Rupert’s dressing room, where the divan bed was also unmade, and into Rupert’s study. Rupert’s study was full of little piles of torn paper, like autumn leaves, and something about it made Morgan shudder. On the table by the wall some of the scraps of paper had been laid out, as if in an attempt to reconstitute the torn pages. Morgan closed the door quickly. There would be nothing of Hilda’s there. She went downstairs and began to search the drawing room and the kitchen. There was nothing to be found. She poured the rest of the bottle of gin into her glass and wondered what to do next. She was curiously reluctant to leave the house. Getting into it had seemed to be an important action. Then she thought, letters. Might there not be letters from this Antoinette? When she had been looking for the address book she had only glanced cursorily at Hilda’s letters. She ran upstairs again and started once more to forage in Hilda’s desk. The letters there yielded nothing. Morgan drank the rest of the gin and went over gloomily to the window. It had stopped raining.

  Morgan looked down on the familiar garden. The sun was just beginning to come out and a faint steam was rising from the wet pavement. The swimming pool looked somehow odd. Morgan gripped the window ledge. Something weird and awful was in the pool, seeming to occupy nearly all of it. Something dark, like a huge dangling spider. A great bundle, some immense animal or—Morgan’s glass fell to the ground. She ran to the door and fled moaning down the stairs. The French windows of the drawing room had swung open. Morgan reached the edge of the pool. Her legs gave way and she sat down with a whimper. A fully clothed human body was floating in the pool below the surface, arms and legs outspread and dangling. It was a man. It was Rupert.

  Morgan could not see the face, but she knew the clothes, she knew the form. She tried to scream but her throat was so constricted that she could scarcely breathe. She sat there gasping, raucously drawing her breath. Then she reached out and tried to catch hold of some part of the terrible dangling object. Her hand brushed a sleeve but she could not get a grip on it. She got to her knees and staggered up. She began to climb down the steps into the pool but the water was so intensely cold that she instinctively drew back and climbed up again, her soaking skirt clinging to her knees. One shoe came off and the rungs of the aluminium ladder cut into her foot. She lost her balance and plumped back into the shallow water with a splash. Water filled her eyes and her mouth and her feet slithered on the slippery sloping floor of the pool. Then she was able to cry out. She gave a choking sobbing wail and stretched her hands out blindly. She touched something, gripped it, pulled, and felt another human hand in hers. She let go, tried to scream. Then she was holding onto material, clothing, pulling again. Something huge and dark moved slowly up against her in the water.

  Rupert was floating face downward, his head drooping down towards the bottom of the pool, his arms and legs spread out and more buoyant. Morgan, her mouth wide open and frothing with terror, tried to pull his shoulders upward. She found herself gripping his hair. The sodden waterlogged thing was heavy, heavy. The back of the head slowly broke the surface and Morgan had a terrible glimpse of a darkened swollen nearly unrecognizable face. Then the weight of the body broke from her again and the head sagged.

  Morgan began to climb out of the pool. She felt that in another moment she would faint. She could hardly pull herself out. She crawled onto the pavement and began to struggle to her feet. Get help, she thought, get help. She was not able to utter a sound. Her soaking wet clothes constrained her, she shuddered with cold, she could hardly walk. She got into the drawing room. The telephone rang.

  The familiar sound of the telephone bell sounded like a signal from another universe. But Morgan automatically picked up the receiver.

  Hilda’s voice said ‘Rupert’.

  Morgan sat down in an armchair holding the receiver against her breast. Then she lifted it again.

  ‘Rupert, darling. It’s Hilda.’

  Morgan swallowed something in her throat. She said in something like her own voice, ‘Hilda, it’s Morgan.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Hilda said, ‘Is Rupert there?’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’

  ‘Well, look, never mind. Give him a message will you. I’m at Newport changing trains, I can’t talk more than a second. I’m on my way home. Please tell Rupert that everything is absolutely all right. And you too, darling—it’s all right. There’s been an extraordinary mistake. No one’s to blame. I shouldn’t have gone away. I’ll tell you both
when I see you. Just give Rupert my love, my very special love, and tell him not to worry. And don’t you worry either. Nothing terrible has happened after all.’

  Morgan put the telephone down. The clock ticked. Then she lifted the receiver again and dialled for the police. In a sense there was no hurry now. Rupert was indeed not there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘IT DOES ME NO CREDIT,’ said Julius. ‘I just have a passion for cleanliness and order.’

  With neatly rolled sleeves he was washing the dishes, while Tallis sat at the kitchen table and watched him. The table had been scrubbed and Tallis’s books and notebooks put into orderly piles. The newspaper and other debris had been removed from the floor and the floor had been swept and the bins emptied. Julius lowered another collection of plates into the steaming water.

  ‘What did you do with all those milk bottles?’ said Tallis.

  ‘I washed a few and put them outside and I put the rest in the rubbish tip across the road. It’s just as well I thought to bring you some new drying up cloths. I’ve soaked several already.’

  ‘There were one or two somewhere here—’

  ‘I’ve thrown them out. They would not have made self-respecting dusters. I also brought you this thing for cleaning the pots and this thing for mopping the sink. I hope you didn’t mind my starting before you arrived?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s very kind of you.’

  ‘You were expecting me?’

  ‘Some time.’

  ‘I cannot make any great claims for the floor,’ said Julius. ‘A rather superficial job, I’m afraid. It needs to be scraped all over with a knife and then thoroughly washed.’

  ‘It looks fine to me,’ said Tallis.

  ‘And I hesitated to deal with the stuff on the dresser. I suspect a good deal of it ought to be thrown away. But you’d have to sort it out yourself.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will.’

  ‘How’s your father?’

  ‘In bed.’

  ‘Have you told him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he had any treatment?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s for arthritis.’

  ‘Are you going to tell him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tallis began automatically to spread out his books and notebooks in front of him.

  ‘You ought to stop this lecturing nonsense, it wears you out and it’s completely unconstructive. Can’t you find some easier way of earning money? You should be doing proper research in a university. Surely you know somebody who knows somebody?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be so down in the mouth. It wasn’t your fault about Rupert.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘How were you to know that Hilda would break her telephone? ’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Or that she would get lost on the moors and wander around all night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In any case, it seems that Rupert may have been already in the water when we telephoned Hilda.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And of course you don’t imagine it was suicide?’

  ‘No.’

  Rupert had died of drowning, but with a large dose of sleeping pills and alcohol in his body. It was presumed that he had fallen into the pool accidentally. The verdict at the inquest was death by misadventure.

  ‘But really, how terribly stupidly they all behaved. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Human beings set each other off so. Put three emotional fairly clever people in a fix and instead of trying quietly to communicate with each other they’ll dream up some piece of communal violence. ’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s all egoism of course. They will do the most dreadful things to each other rather than seem to be made a fool of or seem not to be in control of the situation.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And sex—They get so agitated, they crave and muddle so. I must say, it’s always seemed to me a very over-rated phenomenon. Where do these plates go?’

  ‘In there.’

  ‘God, what a mess. I think this stuff, whatever it is, can be thrown away, can’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hilda, for instance, of whom one might have hoped better things. Why did she have to run off like that? They all do of course. She should have stayed and talked and listened. But the hurt pride of the outraged wife had to be satisfied by some sort of violent gesture. She wanted to make the other two feel wretched and then, if they consoled each other, even more guilty. And why when we telephoned was she so keen to tell the other two herself? She had to be the good fairy, the one with the knowledge and the power.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And Rupert and Morgan. Of course they were flattered into a state of stupefaction at the start by finding themselves adored. Then they each thought they were so wise and good they could manage the whole situation and change passion into spotless love without in any way endangering their loyalty to Hilda. Then suddenly being found out is ugly, nothing lofty and dignified there. Morgan turns nasty and blames Rupert. Rupert just folds up. He cannot endure the destruction of his self-respect. Rupert didn’t really love goodness. He loved a big imposing good-Rupert image. Rupert didn’t die of drowning. He died of vanity.’

  Tallis was silent.

  ‘You’re looking very tired. Are you all right?’

  ‘Didn’t sleep much last night,’ said Tallis.

  ‘Why not? Do you suffer from insomnia?’

  ‘No. The police were here.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘They were arresting somebody upstairs.’

  ‘What had he done?’

  ‘Something to do with motor cars.’

  ‘How’s Peter, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s disappeared. Hilda doesn’t know where he is either.’

  ‘Where is Hilda?’

  ‘At Lyme Regis.’

  ‘Lyme Regis. How splendid. Alone?’

  ‘No, with Morgan.’

  ‘I believe the house at Priory Grove is for sale?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t happen to know what she’s asking for it? I’m looking for a house in that area.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’d prefer the Boltons, but there’s nothing available there at the moment. Where did you get these rather pretty cups and saucers? I believe they’re real Worcester.’

  ‘They’re old family things,’ said Tallis. ‘We’ve always had them. I think they belonged to my mother’s family.’

  ‘I’ll stick them up on this shelf on the dresser. The cups can hang and the saucers can sit upright. Better clean it first though. There, they look charming. I’ve got an awful lot of nice stuff in store in New York which I haven’t seen for years. I really must get a house to deploy it in. My parents had excellent taste as well as a very good eye for an investment.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’ said Tallis.

  ‘No. I lost touch with them ages ago in fact. We were scarcely on speaking terms.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because they changed our name to King. And because they were converted to Christianity.’

  ‘What was your name before?’

  ‘Kahn.’

  ‘Why didn’t you change yours back?’

  ‘I don’t know. A sense of history perhaps. I have a strong sense of history. What has happened is justified somehow. At least it’s one up on what hasn’t happened.’

  ‘You are an only child?’

  ‘Yes. And you had a sister. Only she died of polio.’

  ‘She didn’t actually,’ said Tallis. ‘She was murdered. She was raped and killed by a sex maniac. She was fourteen.’

  ‘Ah—I’m sorry—’

  ‘I don’t tell people,’ said Tallis. ‘Because it remains—too dreadful.’

  ‘I understand. Where do the knives go?’

  ‘In the drawer of the table. Here.’ Tallis shifted his chair back
a little and opened the drawer.

  ‘Any special order?’

  ‘Any old how.’

  Julius leaned forward and began to stow the knives into the drawer. He closed the drawer.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Tallis.

  Julius’s shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. Just above the elbow something was visible upon his arm. Tallis took hold of Julius’s wrist with one hand and with the other rolled the sleeve back a little further. There was a blue tattoo mark, a number inscribed in a circle. Tallis released him.

  ‘So you were in a concentration camp?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julius. He added apologetically, ‘I spent the war in Belsen.’

  ‘Morgan must have noticed that mark,’ said Tallis.

  ‘Oddly enough she didn’t. Perhaps it is only visible in certain lights. You need a little line here to hang your drying cloths on. They’re all quite wet now. There. I think that’s all I can do at the moment.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tallis.

  Julius rolled down his sleeves and began to pull on his jacket.

  ‘The sun’s coming out. That’s nice. Well, I suppose I’d better be getting along.’

  Tallis rose and Julius fingered the door. They looked at each other and then looked away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tallis. ‘But there it is.’

  ‘I quite understand. Well, what am I to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh just go away,’ said Tallis. ‘I don’t think you should live in the Boltons or Priory Grove. Go right away.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I didn’t really intend to settle here. I was only playing with the idea. I’ll go abroad. I may take on another big assignment quite soon. This was just an interim.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Do try to get yourself a decent job. As things are, what does your life amount to? I suppose it’s always like that, but it does pain me. After all, I am an artist. This is just a mess.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Tallis.