One night he said how much he wished we could get married. This was the first time he had ever mentioned marriage, and I looked at him, trying to see how serious he was. When I did not speak he added with a scowl that Lorne, being a Catholic, would never divorce him. But, I said, if she left him, might it not be possible for him to divorce her – for desertion?
He said: ‘My God, if only I could . . . But anyway, you’re too good for me.’
‘Oh, I’m a great catch with a leg and a half. But might it not be worth keeping the idea in mind?’
‘I’ll more than keep it in mind. I’ll find out.’
The next evening he met me with a wry face. ‘I went to a lawyer in the lunch hour. It’s two years. She has to have been gone two years before you can file a what’s-it for desertion.’
‘Well, that’s – that could be worse. Isn’t it eighteen months already?’
‘Nearly. But it means over a year more before the thing is sewn up. And in the meantime I’ve got to put on an act of wanting her to come back.’
‘Would she?’
‘I wouldn’t think there’s a chance in hell. But the solicitor chap, this Davis, said it might be worth having her watched. If we could prove adultery against her . . .’
‘Would she be likely to?’
‘Don’t know. I was her first. It depends whether she’s met anybody.’
‘What did you decide to do?’
‘Have her watched. Expensive but it’s worth it. I’ve got to afford that.’
‘You’re sure she wouldn’t divorce you?’
‘Not a hope. She never misses Mass on Sundays.’
‘You’re not a Catholic?’
‘Me, no . . . I’m nothing. Remember the man in Shaw’s play. “I believe in Michelangelo and Rembrandt, in the might of – of design, the mystery of colour, the redemption of all things by beauty everlasting. Amen.” Some caper like that. That’s near enough to what I believe in, in spite of being no bloody good at it!’
I said: ‘That’s a lot to believe in, darling. It’s a religion on its own.’
Since we came back I’d heard nothing of Ted Sandymount or Jack Foil, but the following Saturday night Leigh took me for a drink to a public house in the Old Kent Road where a group called the Sunspots were playing, and they were both there, together with three or four other people I knew by sight.
It was a fantastic place because the pub was enormous but was so crowded that they had to have a doorman to regulate the numbers, and they only let us in in rotation as the same number came out. Once in, it was pretty nearly impossible to move or speak; you stood shoulder to shoulder with your neighbour, who might or might not have been able to get a drink, and there you stuck like a crowd at a cup tie, while every cubic inch of air over your head was full of the beat and howl of amplified trumpet and electric guitar. After we’d got a bit acclimatized Leigh took my hand and began to hack a way through the crowd. Almost everyone was young.
I thought, don’t get scared of being closed in, forget claustrophobia, somebody’s shoulder, somebody’s back, somebody’s hair, pity I’m not as tall as Sarah; crowd coming the other way; impasse; tack, Leigh, go round them. What’ll you have? Right, two whiskies. Then we saw the others at the back of the room; Ted waved; whiskies in hand we began to fight our way.
At the back it was just tolerable. Ted got up and gave me his seat beside Jack Foil. Thick lips, pebbles smiling. ‘Miss Dainton. Nice to see you again. D’you come here often?’
‘Never before. It’s very crowded, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Very crowded.’
There were broken bottles underfoot. A barman was squeezing through trying to collect empty glasses. His left hand had endless fingers, producing unnumbered bubbles of glass like a glassblower in a factory.
‘. . . music?’ Jack Foil shouted.
‘What?’
‘D’you like this music?’
‘Yes, love it.’
‘Strange.’
‘What?’
‘Very strange. Youth. I feel very old.’
‘Why?’
‘Must be much oldest here.’
I looked round. He probably was.
‘Blood, rhythm, sex,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘What the young like, I suppose.’
‘Isn’t just that . . .’
The group reached a crescendo and crashed into silence. No one applauded. Voices suddenly strident in place of the beat. Leigh was talking to two girls we’d met somewhere. They were quite pretty.
‘. . . worried about Leigh.’
I turned back. Jack Foil’s heavy voice did not somehow rise above the hum.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘A little worried about Leigh, Miss Dainton. Lost interest in painting, become objectless. Crazy for a talented kid like him to spend his life on platform of bus. Don’t you agree?’
‘I hope he’ll soon get something better.’
‘Very fond of him. Look on him – like a nephew. Still think he can paint. A very pretty picture of you.’
The next number began. It was a famous pop song. Ted shouted at us what were we all drinking, and then began to fight his way toward the bar.
‘A part-time job, he needs,’ shouted Mr Foil in my ear. Smell of Guinness and carnation scent.
‘I didn’t know his legacy was so nearly spent.’
The pebbles smiled again. ‘Not a careful boy. Doesn’t keep account of what he spends, so money dribbles away. Easily done. Have been trying to think of something for him.’
The music got louder, more all-invading, then sank again. Someone dropped ash on my shoes.
‘D’you mean working for you?’
‘Well, or something. He’s not skilled.’
Leigh was laughing with the two girls, making rather a fuss of one of them. This twist in my stomach, any connection with jealousy?
‘I hope you’ll try,’ I said.
On the way home I told Leigh what Jack Foil had said. A curious expression crossed his face. ‘Well, I’ve done odd jobs for him before.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, various. He’s got lots of irons in the fire.’
‘What sort?’
‘All sorts. He promotes things. I’ve told you.’
We stopped at traffic lights. ‘Leigh, tell me what you mean.’
‘Well . . . You can’t have supposed . . . Among other things, he’s a fence.’
‘A fence? He buys stolen property?’
‘Yes.’ We started off with a jerk that nearly took us into the car in front. ‘Don’t ever tell anyone, will you?’
We turned into Westminster Bridge Road. ‘If you’ve worked for him before, is that how you’ve worked for him?’
‘Oh, not exactly. Sometimes it’s handy for him to have someone like me who can act as messenger boy, or delivery boy or what-have-you. It’s been dead easy and no risk. And worth a fiver or a tenner. That’s for half a day’s work, and no tax deducted.’
No more then until we reached the flat.
‘Leigh,’ I said, ‘there must be something more worth doing than being errand boy to a crook.’
He sat with his hands gripping the wheel. ‘When are you going to cut this out and come and live with me?’
‘I don’t know. Isn’t this the best arrangement for the present?’
‘Who for? Not for me, it’s not.’
That week Philip called in one evening, and while we were alone I mentioned this thing about divorce for desertion and he said: ‘No, it’s three years, Deborah. You have to have deserted a person three years before he can file a petition.’
‘Oh,’ I said carefully, ‘I’m sure I was told it was two.’
‘Alas, no. I just happen to have been reading up the latest Act because of a case we’re doing next week.’
When I met Leigh I asked him again. Again he said, two, until I told him what I knew and then he suddenly gave way and admitted he had been t
old three also.
‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why lie to me? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I – didn’t want you to know. I thought you might not feel you could wait that long.’
‘But I was bound to find out sooner or later!’
‘Yes, but later it wouldn’t matter so much. It would be nearer the time then, wouldn’t it?’
There was silence between us. ‘D’you know,’ I said, ‘I can’t bear you to lie to me. It puts all our – our relationship in question.’
‘I’m sorry, love. I’m that afraid of losing you.’
‘But don’t you see – if it matters that much – this is the way you would lose me?’
‘Don’t speak of it.’
‘But I must speak of it. Unless there’s – there’s honesty between us, and trust, there can’t be anything. Oh, of course we can make love and go skating and that sort of thing, but that doesn’t add up to what I want – or what you seem to want. It’s back to the old thing we broke up on before. You don’t cheat people you really care about.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be that, honest,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry too. Perhaps I’m blowing it up too big. But you do see, don’t you, what I mean?’
‘I see all right,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll learn in time.’
Whittington’s asked me to go to see a house in Norfolk, a small Victorian mansion built by one of the beer barons in 1890 for his eldest son. Aside from the furniture there was a valuable collection of china and porcelain. Grant Stokes, who did furniture, drove me in his car, and we got there about eleven on the Thursday, having overnight things with us, since it was a two-day job. Mr and Mrs Bustard, the owners, had just inherited, and were going for a quick sale; he looked like something smooth and well pressed in the City and she had blonde hair and ice-blue eyes and smoked and coughed alternately.
My mouth watered at the very sight of the lovely display shelves of Doulton and Sèvres and Dresden. I started in on the Doulton, but at once began to sense something wrong with it – after being constantly in touch for a number of years one almost smells the imitation – and I soon knew it for a forgery. I passed on to the next group of things – some lovely Dresden figures – and found them the same. By the time we stopped for lunch I had not found a single genuine piece. This went on all through the afternoon, and by six I was in a bit of a panic because I had covered all the show pieces, and they were forgeries without exception.
It’s very awkward when this happens. These pieces had all been giving pleasure and satisfaction to their owners ever since they were bought seventy-odd years ago. So long as they remained as showpieces in a case in Norfolk, they fulfilled just the same purpose as the genuine pieces that they copied. But once they came into the market their value and charm had to be destroyed in the eyes of their owners – because no man who thinks a thing is genuine can prize it when he knows it’s only imitation. This is something wrong with human nature, but there doesn’t seem to be any cure. And often the owners – apart from the financial disappointment – don’t appreciate being told.
Mr and Mrs Bustard did not. They came in full of a hard, well-groomed, patronizing good-will; but when I told them that the entire collection had been specially manufactured as copies of the originals, all in the same French factory about 1880, and that the whole lot was worthless, they froze up. I thought they were even going to withdraw their invitation to us to spend the night. What they did do instead was cast doubts on my competence, and the meeting was thoroughly unpleasant all round. Grant Stokes, of course, backed me up, but he hadn’t had a lot to do with porcelain and he couldn’t speak with the authority of Maurice Mills. The furniture, he told them, was all fairly good.
We went on working through the evening. If you’re a rich Victorian brewer and don’t know an awful lot about antiques it isn’t difficult to be taken in. If he’d been content to buy decent stuff of his own period it would have been worth far more than this.
But about ten o’clock, fishing in the back of a cupboard upstairs, I found a porcelain statuette about nine inches high and a foot long. It was a statuette of a Chinaman sitting down, with a disproportionately big brown dog beside him. The workmanship was exquisite, and I knew I had come on a treasure at last.
That one piece of genuine early Meissen – a perfect specimen of which perhaps only four were ever made – was the only piece of china of any value in the whole rambling mansion; but it took much of the sting out of the rest. We were there all the following day and didn’t get back to London until seven in the evening, so Grant Stokes dropped me in Ennismore Gardens.
As I went up the steps I saw my father’s Vauxhall parked almost opposite the front door. A second too late, I realized I’d left my gloves in Grant Stokes’s car, and this took my mind off ‘coo-eeing’ as I usually did to let Sarah know I was in. It was a pretty small flat, and I went through into the kitchen to prop my stick in its corner. As I did so I heard my father’s voice coming through the serving hatch, which was half open.
‘You see, Erica feels that she’s not like you and Arabella. She’s been delicate and handicapped and that makes her more a special charge on us all – a responsibility, as it were.’
Sarah said: ‘I think you’re wildly wrong to look on her as delicate. I think she’s tough. I mean, when has she ailed of anything ever – I mean apart from the effects of the polio? I can’t remember anything at all.’
There was silence, and then the chink of a glass. Douglas said: ‘Thanks. Oh, no, I quite agree. But one wonders how far stamina is impaired. Is she still sleeping with the man regularly?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘She does come back here?’
‘Yes, always. But it’s not my business to ask, is it?’
‘No. Oh, no. I thought she might be quite open about it, that’s all.’
I tried to turn silently to move away. Douglas said: ‘Erica’s surprisingly concerned. She persists in trying to worry me.’
‘I honestly can’t see why she should be so worried.’
‘Well, a pregnancy for one thing. Has Deborah sought any advice from you?’
‘Hardly! Strange as you may think it, I’ve never yet slept with anyone!’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sarah, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that you’re so medically qualified. It would be rather a reflection on us all if she got caught, as Minta would call it. And I suppose Hartley can’t marry her, even if he wanted to.’
‘No.’
I got back to the door, trying to keep my breathing quiet.
‘Have you seen the first wife?’
‘I hardly know Leigh even. We’ve only met a half-dozen times.’
Douglas said: ‘I wonder if she’s in any way handicapped.’
‘Who?’
‘The first wife. Of course Deborah is very pretty indeed, but most men would sheer off. The odd man who doesn’t may find her bad leg fascinating rather than repellent. Deformity fetishism isn’t as rare as you’d suppose.’
I went out through the kitchen door but his cool, clinical, uncommitted voice followed me.
‘. . . Men of that type, with that peculiarity, are usually unsatisfactory as husbands and lovers. There tends to be some hidden inadequacy in their own characters . . . They seek—’
I went out, quietly closing the front door again, and went down the steps. I walked the length of the square and then turned towards Knightsbridge. I raised a hand to a prowling taxi.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He was surprised and delighted; it was the first time I had ever gone to him uninvited; then he saw my face in the light of the studio.
‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong? You’ll stay the night?’
‘If you’ll have me.’
‘Darling . . .’
‘No, I don’t mean that way. Not tonight. You’ll have to give me a day or two.’
‘What did they say? Were they blackguarding me?’
>
‘Not specially. Don’t ask me, I’d rather not talk about it now.’
‘But you’ll stay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Permanently?’
‘I don’t know.’
I sighed, trying to shake off misery and anger and malaise, to share his pleasure and sense of adventure. ‘Don’t you have a shift on a Saturday?’
‘I’ve been going to tell you, Deborah. I’m out of a job again.’
‘Leigh, when?’
‘I got the sack last Monday. I wanted to tell you on Tuesday but I hoped I’d have something fresh by the end of the week.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was one of these rush hours. I grabbed a man and shoved him off. He’s threatening to bring a case.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. You should have told me.’
I made some scrambled eggs and we sat together in companionable ease. We talked only about his future that night. Then we went to bed and lay together quietly, and it was only in the last drowsy minutes that I moved closer to him and went to sleep in his arms.
In the morning he was up and out before I woke, and while I was in the bath I heard him come back.
‘I went to telephone Jack Foil,’ he said. ‘I think he’ll help.’
‘In what way, though?’
‘Don’t fret yourself. He’s never yet been in trouble with the police.’
‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘I wonder sometimes . . .’
‘You think too much,’ he said, ‘that’s the only trouble with you. D’you remember what you said in Spain? Just be. Exist. Just live. That’s the only answer to life really. That’s the only answer I’ve found.’
After three weeks at the Studio, Rotherhithe, SE24, I had got used to the bus journey to Piccadilly, shopping on the way home, cooking for him at weekends, the companionship and the demands of love. Hampstead seemed to be something only now observable through the wrong end of a telescope.
I felt relatively little anger against Douglas. Or if it was there it hid itself within, or transformed itself into a deeper commitment on behalf of Leigh. I felt more than ever, more deeply than ever, that I had to help him make something of his life. Whether we ever married or not, we were partners working toward a common end: my realization of myself, his realization of himself. This was all.