The Parasites

  “That woman there, with the basket,” said Niall. “She has a cheerful face. How about asking her?” He slowed the car to a standstill, and, reaching over Maria, he lowered the window and called out to the passing woman.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Could you come just a moment?”

  The woman turned round in surprise. Her face was not quite so cheerful close to as it had seemed in the distance. And she had a cast in one eye.

  “This lady doesn’t know what to do about the baby,” said Niall. “It keeps crying. We wondered whether you would be so terribly kind and help.” The woman stared at him, and then down at Maria and the wailing Caroline.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “The baby,” said Niall. “It goes on and on. It won’t stop. And we neither of us know what to do.”

  The woman turned very red. She thought it was some sort of practical joke.

  “You shouldn’t try and fool people that way,” she said. “There’s a policeman over there. Do you want me to call him?”

  “No,” said Niall. “Of course not. We only wondered…”

  “It’s no use,” whispered Maria. “Drive on… drive on.”

  She bowed haughtily to the woman, who turned away uttering exclamations of disgust. Niall let in the clutch of the car and it jerked forward.

  “What a beastly woman,” he said. “That sort of thing would never happen in France. In France they would offer to mind the baby for the afternoon.”

  “We’re not in France,” said Maria. “We’re in England. It’s typical of the country. All that fuss about prevention of cruelty to children, and yet there’s not a soul to help us with Caroline.”

  “Let’s drive to Mill Hill,” said Niall, “and leave her with Truda.”

  “Truda would be angry,” said Maria, “and tell Celia, and Celia would tell Pappy, and it would be all over the Garrick in no time. Oh, Niall…” She leaned against him and he put his left arm round her, and kissed the top of her hair, and the car swerved in all directions.

  “We could go on driving westwards forevermore,” said Niall. “We’re heading for Wales at the moment. Welsh women are probably very good with babies. Shall we go to Wales?”

  “I know why mothers leave their babies in shops to be adopted,” said Maria. “They can’t stand the strain.”

  “Couldn’t we leave Caroline in a shop?” said Niall. “I don’t believe Charles would really mind. It would only be his pride. The thing is no one in their senses would be mad about Caroline, not at this stage. Years later, perhaps, when she’s a debutante.”

  “I wish to God she was a debutante now,” said Maria.

  “All those trailing feathers,” said Niall. “I never can see that anything is gained by it. Stuck in the Mall, hour after hour.”

  “It’s pageantry,” said Maria. “I love it. Like being a king’s mistress.”

  “I don’t see that it’s the slightest bit like being a king’s mistress,” said Niall. “Driving into the courtyard in a hired Rolls, as you did last year, with Lady Wyndham stuck beside you.”

  “I adored every minute… Niall?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve suddenly thought of something. Let’s stop at the next Woolworths and buy Caroline a comforter.”

  “What’s a comforter?”

  “You know, those awful rubber things that common babies have stuck in their mouths.”

  “Do they make them nowadays?”

  “I don’t know. We can try.”

  Niall slowed the Morris to a crawl, looking for Woolworths, and finally they came to one, and Maria got out of the car and went inside the shop. She returned, her face triumphant.

  “Sixpence,” she said, “and very good rubber. Red. The girl said her little sister had one at home.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Who?”

  “The little sister. We might take Caroline and the mother could look after both of them.”

  “Don’t be silly. Now, watch…” Very slowly Maria pushed the comforter into Caroline’s mouth. It acted as a sort of gag. Caroline sucked noisily, and closed her eyes. The effect was magic. The crying ceased.

  “You’d scarcely credit it, would you?” whispered Maria.

  “It’s rather frightful,” said Niall. “Like plugging someone with cocaine. What if it has a terrible effect on Caroline in after-life?”

  “I don’t care,” said Maria. “Not if it keeps her quiet now.”

  The sudden peace was wonderful. Calm waters after storm. Niall started the car again, increasing the pace, and Maria leaned back against his shoulder.

  “How easy it would be,” said Niall, “if every time one felt on edge one could just go to Woolworths and buy a comforter. There must be something psychological about it. I think I shall get one for myself. It’s probably what I’ve wanted all my life.”

  “I think it would be vicious,” said Maria, yawning. “A grown man going around with a bit of rubber in his mouth.”

  “Why vicious?”

  “Well, perhaps not vicious. But putting off… where now?”

  “Wherever you like.”

  Maria considered. She did not want to go back to Richmond. She did not want to carry the now peaceful Caroline upstairs, and start the weary routine of the orange juice, the kicking on the cushion, the next feed, the changing of the napkins, and all the things that she was supposed to do. She did not want to play at being the Hon. Mrs. Charles Wyndham all alone at home. The house at Richmond, empty of Charles, empty of everything but wedding presents and the furniture that had come from Coldhammer, seemed suddenly a tie, a millstone round the neck.

  She was reminded, curiously and for the first time, of the doll’s house that Pappy and Mama had presented to her on her seventh birthday, and with which she had played, enchanted, for a fortnight, letting no one touch it but herself. Then, after one wet day, when she had played with it for a full afternoon, it suddenly bored her, she did not want it anymore, and very generously she had given it to Celia. Celia had it still…

  “Where are we going?” said Niall.

  “Let’s go to the theater,” said Maria. “Take me to the theater. I can watch you rehearse.”

  The stage-door-keeper was an old friend of Maria’s. His face was wreathed in smiles as he welcomed her.

  “Why, Miss Delaney,” he said. “You ought to come to see us more often. You’re quite a stranger.”

  Quite a stranger… Why did he say that? Did he mean that people were forgetting her? That already she was slipping from their minds? Niall found some cushions, and a rug from the car, and between them they carried Caroline to one of the boxes on the circle level, and made up a bed for her on the floor. She was sleeping soundly, the comforter between her lips. Then Niall went down again onto the stage, and Maria went and sat at the back of the dress circle in the dark, because, after all, she had no right to be there, it was cheek to go and watch someone else’s rehearsal in a show that was no concern of hers. She had never seen a revue in rehearsal before, and she was glad to find the chaos even greater than the chaos that she knew. So much argument. So many people talking at once. So many bits and pieces that surely never, never could be pulled into one, and every now and then Niall’s music, dear and familiar to her because he had played it on the piano, magnified into numbers for the orchestra, and Niall himself, stumbling about in his absurd clothes, getting into everybody’s way.

  And she wanted to be with them on the stage, not sitting alone there in the circle in the dark, waiting for Caroline to cry.

  She wanted to be in a theater that she knew, where she belonged, in her own sort of play. And for it to be the third week in rehearsal, and knowing her lines, and getting into her stride, and having worked all day—but really all day—and now a little tired, and now her temper rather worn, and snapping “What?” to the producer who called up to her from the stalls. Then quickly regretting it, because after all you never knew, you might be fired. But the producer b
eing also perhaps the actor-manager, and likeable, and human, and possibly even lovable, would laugh silently inside himself and call, “Just once through again, Maria darling, if you don’t mind.” And she would not mind. She would know it had not been right. She would want to do it again. Later, when they broke off, they would go and have a drink together, in the pub across the road, and she would talk too much, and he would not mind, and she would be so tired she would want to die. But it would be the right sort of death. The only death…

  Suddenly she was aware of Niall kneeling beside her in the circle.

  “What’s the matter?” he whispered. “You’re crying.”

  “I’m not crying,” she said. “I never cry.”

  “They’re stopping in a moment,” he said. “They always break at six thirty. You had better come up to my room with Caroline before they know you’re here.”

  She went to the box for Caroline, and Niall carried the rugs and the napkins and the bottles, and led the way upstairs to his curious flat at the top of the theater.

  “Well, what did you think of it?” he said.

  “Think of what?” she asked.

  “The revue,” he said.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t really watching,” said Maria.

  He looked at her, but he said nothing. He knew everything, always. He gave her a drink, and lit a cigarette, and she threw it away after a minute or two, she never smoked much. He put her in the armchair, the seat sagged and the springs were broken, and he found another chair for her feet. Caroline was asleep on his bed, wrapped in the rugs. The comforter lolled sideways from her mouth.

  “It’s nearly seven,” sighed Maria. “She has not had a bottle for hours.” There were all the napkins too. What should she do with the napkins? She put out her arms to Niall and he went and knelt beside her. She thought of the Regency drawing room, small, correct, and exquisite, in her house at Richmond. The evening paper, ready beside her chair. The bright fire burning. The maid having tidied and drawn the curtains. Here, in Niall’s room at the top of the theater, the curtains were not yet drawn. The sound of the traffic in Shaftesbury Avenue came to the blank, staring windows, and down on the pavements below them would be hurrying, passing people, some making for the Underground at Piccadilly, others walking to meet their friends and go out upon the town. The lights were going up on all the theatres. The Lyric, the Globe, the Queen’s, the Apollo, the Palace. The lights were going up on all the theatres over London.

  “The thing is,” said Maria, “I shouldn’t have married.”

  “It need not affect you,” said Niall. “You can always do two things at once. You always have. Or even three.”

  “I suppose so,” said Maria. “I suppose I can.”

  They spoke in whispers because of Caroline. If they talked louder Caroline might wake.

  “Charles wants to go to live near Coldhammer,” said Maria. “What then? I can’t go and live at Coldhammer.”

  “You’ll have to have a flat,” said Niall, “and go down to Coldhammer at weekends. It’s too far to go up and down every night.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Maria. “But would it work? Would Charles mind? Would it break up our married life?”

  “I don’t know,” said Niall. “I don’t know what married people do.”

  Lights kept flashing from the building opposite, sending streaks of color into the darkened room. The newsboys at the corner shouted “Late Night Final. Late Night Final.” The traffic surged below.

  “I have to come back,” said Maria. “I shall go mad if I don’t come back.”

  “Charles will watch you from a box,” said Niall. “He’ll be terribly proud of you. He will cut out all your notices and paste them in a book.”

  “Yes,” said Maria, “but he can’t spend his life doing that, watching me from a box and pasting things in books.”

  The telephone started ringing. It was a soft burr… burr… Not a shrill summons. The sound would not wake Caroline, in the drugged sleep that the comforter had given her.

  “It often does that,” said Niall. “I never answer it. I’m always afraid it might be somebody boring, asking me to dinner.”

  “What if it was me ringing?” said Maria.

  “It can’t be you tonight. You’re here,” said Niall.

  The telephone went on ringing, and Niall reached for one of Caroline’s napkins and threw it over the bell. The shot was a brilliant one. The napkin hung suspended like a shroud.

  “We’ll have some dinner presently at the Café Royal,” said Niall. “They know me there, it’s always rather pleasing.”

  “What about Caroline?”

  “We’ll take her too. And then I’ll drive you home.”

  The telephone, that had stopped with the throw of the napkin, began again.

  “It’s a soothing sort of sound,” said Niall. “I don’t mind it. Does it worry you?” He tucked another cushion under Maria’s back.

  “No,” said Maria, holding out her arms. “Let it ring.”

  18

  Celia felt very selfish when she put down the receiver after breakfast. It was the first time she had ever refused doing anything for Maria. She adored the baby. There was nothing she liked better than going over to Richmond and spending a day with the baby. But Pappy’s publisher friend at the Garrick had made such a point of her going to see him on this particular day, taking the stories and the drawings, and it would be very discourteous to put him off.

  Not that he would mind, not that it would really matter. He was a busy man, and it was just doing her a kindness, because she was Pappy’s daughter, that he bothered to see her at all. Only it would be rude not to go. How unfortunate that Maria should have been left without the nurse on this day of all days. Even if Celia had not made that appointment with the publisher it would be difficult to go over to Richmond. Pappy was not well. He had not been well for nearly a week. He kept complaining of pains. One moment in his head, one moment behind his knee, and the next moment in the small of his back. The doctor said that now he no longer sang he smoked too much. But would smoking too much give a person pains? Pappy had not been down to the Club now for several days. He pottered about at home in his dressing gown, and he hated being left alone, even for a few minutes.

  “My darling,” he would call, “my darling, where are you?”

  “In the morning-room, Pappy,” and she would cover up the story she was writing with a piece of blotting paper, and hide the pencil drawing underneath a book, because writing and drawing were to her private, rather furtive things. If you were suddenly discovered in the midst of them it was like being found in the act of prayer, or the door bursting open in the bathroom.

  “Were you working, my darling? I won’t interrupt.” Pappy would settle himself in the chair by the fire with books and newspapers and letters, but the very fact of his presence did something to the room. She could not concentrate. Instead of being in a world of escape, she was back again once more in a world of reality. She was only Pappy’s daughter writing fairy tales. She felt self-conscious, cramped. She bit the end of her pencil, trying to recapture the lost mood. Every now and again Pappy coughed, or moved, and he rustled the pages of The Times.

  “I don’t disturb you, do I, my darling?”

  “No, Pappy.”

  And she would lean forward over the table, making a pretence of working, and then after about five minutes or so she would stand up, and stretch, and say, “Well, really, I think that’s all for the moment,” and gather her things together, and put them away in a drawer.

  “Finished?” said Pappy with relief, dropping The Times.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I’ve been wondering about those pills that Pleydon gave me,” said Pappy. “I don’t think they’re suiting me at all. The pains in my head have been much worse the last two days. I wonder if I should have my eyes tested again. It may be my eyes all the time.”

  “We must go to see an oculist.”

  “
That’s what I thought. We will go to someone good. We will find out the name of someone really first-class, my darling.”

  His eyes followed her as she moved about the room.

  “What should I have done,” he said, “if you had wanted to be an actress like Maria? Sometimes I wake up in the night and I ask myself, what should I have done?”

  “How silly,” said Celia. “It’s as silly as if I woke up and wondered what I should have done if you had ever married again, and the pair of us had lived here being bullied by a stranger.”

  “Impossible, my darling,” said Pappy, shaking his head, “impossible. I read an article in some paper the other day about the mute swan. The mute swan mates for life. When the female dies the swan lives disconsolate; he takes no other. I thought to myself as I read it: Ah—that’s me. I am the mute swan.”

  He must have forgotten about Australia, thought Celia, and South Africa, and that time we visited America; there were always women swarming around him like moths, he was not really very mute. Still, she knew what he meant.

  “Your little stories and your clever drawings don’t take you away from me,” said Pappy, “but had you been an actress… I tremble to think what would have become of me. I should be in Denville Hall.”

  “No, you would not,” said Celia. “You would be living with me in some sumptuous flat, and I should make more money than Maria.”

  “Dross,” said Pappy, “filthy dross. What is lucre to you and me? Thank God I have not saved a penny… My darling, you must show your little stories to Harrison and the drawings too. I trust Harrison. His judgment is sound, and the stuff he publishes is good. Not one of the fancy boys. Besides, he will tell the truth to me, he won’t beat about the bush. It was I who put him up for the Garrick.”

  Celia had sent some of her drawings and stories to this James Harrison, following on a lunch he had had with Pappy, and today she was to take any others she could find and be at his office at four o’clock that afternoon. She was worried, though. She wondered what Pappy would do while she was gone.