The Tumbled House

  “My dear, I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

  She picked up from the mantelshelf a delicate crinoline figure in pink porcelain. “ This is lovely. Isn’t it new?”

  “Yes. Chelsea, about 1750.”

  She said thoughtfully: “A child’s mind shouldn’t have to grow up watchful, should it, probing all the time into what is meant, not what is said? With my father and mother always sniping at each other, I grew up in a permanent ‘situation’. Life was perpetually subtle, artificial, alert. Perhaps that’s why when I met you we seemed to understand each other so well.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, it’s a way to live.” She put the porcelain figure back. “Being married to Don is another way.”

  He watched her.

  “It’s different company,” she said. “There isn’t really anything hidden, implied, difficult at all.”

  “How shallow.”

  “You could call it that. And dull, in a sense. But also, after a time, refreshing. I don’t know if it’s ever occurred to you, my dear, but, whatever their father was, Don and Bennie are good people. I don’t at all mean good as being without fault but as being without meanness, without envy, without artifice, sometimes without diplomacy.”

  She was standing leaning against the mantelshelf, one arm along it. Although not listening to every word she said he was conscious that the meeting between them was going further downhill. “ It still sounds tiresome to me.”

  “In two years I’ve had to adjust myself. It’s not always been easy. It isn’t always now.”

  “Joanna, I don’t know why you need to beat all this out of yourself. So long as you find your relaxation and happiness here.”

  He put one hand gently under her armpit. The other moved to her tautened breast, slid over it and round to draw her into his arms.

  She said: “You’re not listening.”

  “Yes, I am. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That it’s over between us, Roger. Whatever happens between Don and me.”

  He smiled into her eyes and kissed her. She made no move this time to accept or to draw away.

  He said: “You’re saying this not to convince me but to convince yourself. It won’t do, darling. You’re bored to death with Don and you know it. Put it to the proof, to the comparison!”

  “I have done,” she said. “That’s why I’m not coming back to you.”

  “You … bitch!” he said, gently, amusedly, still not believing.

  She didn’t move. “All right. I am a bitch. That’s in the specifications.”

  “And what is going to happen between you and Don?”

  “If he finds out? I don’t know. It would be outside his wavelength that the woman he loved.… He’d want a reason that doesn’t exist.”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t?”

  “Not his sort. What should I say to him? That ever since I broke it off with you I’ve had a tendency to glance backwards? Or should I simply say that while he was away I got so lonely and disenchanted I could have jumped off a cliff, that I looked for somebody’s chest to cry on and that yours was the nearest?”

  “You didn’t cry on it.”

  “No, because I wanted to be made love to. Well, there it is. I wanted you to take me. You did. I wanted to drown things.”

  “We drowned them.”

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted, “we drowned them all right.”

  There was silence for a few moments.

  “And can do so again.”

  She slipped slowly away from him, picked up her drink. “But I don’t want to again. When I got home after that last time—the last time I’d been here—I faced up to those facts too. Perhaps I’ve proved something to myself after all. Perhaps I‘ve grown out of you—rather late.”

  With his foot he flicked off half the electric fire; it was an admission of defeat. “ You’ve worked yourself into this state of mind because I’m Moonraker and because of the libel action and because you think I’ve behaved rather badly. I’ve offended your vanity and your sense of propriety. I’m desperately sorry for that—for both our sakes.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve no vanity where you’re concerned. And one doesn’t love or stop loving because of—of whether a man cheats or plays fair. It would be deliriously easy if it worked that way. Anyhow … it was over for me before I knew you were Moonraker.”

  “You didn’t say so when I phoned you two weeks ago.”

  “The only thing I hadn’t decided then was whether I could go on living with Don, and live with myself at the same time.”

  “And now you have? I must say that makes my own hypocrisy seem pretty slim.”

  She was silent for a long moment, considering this, considering his change of tone. “ Even if I had left him it wouldn’t have meant coming to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m sorry, Roger, I didn’t come here to quarrel with you.… But I couldn’t have. With you, in the end, I wouldn’t quite exist as a separate person. It isn’t merely sex, though it’s that as well; it’s the intense—intense possessiveness of a human being without pity.… I think that must be why Michael had to find another home.”

  That touched him on a raw spot. He stared at her as at a stranger, succeeded temporarily in seeing her as of no importance in his life. They were two a penny, women like her, kicking around every studio. Anyway, there was nothing duller than a reformed wife.

  “I’ll get your coat.”

  But when he came back he knew they were not two a penny. There was only one Joanna, however many carbons might exist. He helped her into her coat, desiring her and hating her at the same time. He wondered in a moment of sudden insight whether she felt the same about him.

  “You still haven’t told me why you came.”

  “I thought there might have been the possibility of coming to some sort of an understanding. You told me once we talked the same language. Maybe I had illusions as to what that meant.”

  “You mean you thought I might help you to pick up the odd bits and pieces of your marriage?”

  “I thought you might agree not to do any more to chop it down.… It was a pretty hopeless idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, I promise to do nothing I can reasonably avoid. I promise that because I still want your goodwill.” He bent and kissed her neck. “You see, I know one of these days you’ll come back to me.”

  She half-smiled, but for the first time nervously and broke away from him. “ I’ve tried to be honest, Roger. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “All right,” he said. “But don’t let it be four years this time.”

  “Are you so very sure of yourself?”

  He shrugged. “ Shall I get you a taxi?”

  “No … I’ll pick one up outside. Good night.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Michael said: “ I’ll put some more discs on. There’s a mass of these older ones you haven’t heard.”

  “The radiogram’s terrific,” Bennie said. “Did you say Peter gave it you?”

  “He let me have it for ten pounds.” Uneasiness stirred in Michael like a cat disturbed in sleep. “ I won’t have the thing in here,” he’d said when they brought it up the steps; “ you’ll have to sell it or get rid of it somehow.” “ Darling boy, we did it all for you. Remember?” “A joke’s a joke, Peter. If you——” “A gramophone’s a gramophone, Michael, and we want ten pounds, don’t we, Boy? My dear chap, there’s no danger now. We’ve run the risks, you get the benefit.”

  That had been ten days ago. Grumbling, he’d said he’d keep the thing for a week or so till they decided what to do with it. But in a week its tone and look had captured him. He would part with it now with regret. And the first feeling of alarm had passed. The first week or so was in fact the danger period. After that … well, it made his old records sound like new. Not that it wouldn’t have to go in the end, of course.

  “Does he own a couple of oilfields?” Bennie asked.

  “
Who?”

  “Peter.”

  “Oh, no, but there’s a lot of money in his family.”

  They had been out to a snack meal and then a film together. After the cinema Michael had asked her back to his flat for coffee. But she was on the night flight to Zurich and she tried not to keep glancing at her watch.

  “What time’s your plane—one a.m.? You’ve got ages yet.”

  “We have to report at L.A.P. an hour and a half before the time of the flight.”

  He knelt down, going through some of the records scattered on the floor; then he glanced up at her, pushing back his hair, smiling that rather lost, charming smile that seemed so personal and yet so lonely. “ What d’you do: play patience with the crew till the passengers turn up?”

  “No, I’m busy all the time, believe me!”

  “What made you take up a thing like that? It isn’t natural to think of you droning off into the night while I turn over and go to sleep.”

  She smiled. “ I like doing things.”

  They listened to the rest of the record. While it was changing he said: “Thanks for coming back with me tonight.”

  “I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed the whole evening.”

  “I mean coming back here means extra, in view of that first night.”

  “I’ve forgotten it.”

  Silence fell between them again. Then, she looked at her watch and started up. “I can’t wait until the end, Michael. I must go; I’ve got to change yet. So sorry!”

  He pressed the stop switch. “That’s all right, but just wait a few minutes more. I’ll run you home and then out to the airport. That’ll save twenty minutes.”

  “There’s no need to do that. You have to——”

  “Think no more of it. I want to do it. And I’ll show you what my old steam wagon will do with the throttle against the stop. Air-travel will seem slow by comparison.”

  She doubtfully subsided into her armchair.

  “Bennie, I want to talk to you.”

  She watched him with grave clear eyes as he came round her chair and brought a stool up and sat on it. She showed no signs of supposing that this was a move to ensnare her.

  “That’s a pretty frock,” he said after a minute.

  “Was that what you were going to say?”

  “No.… For the first time in my life I’m tongue-tied.”

  “Let me untie it.”

  “Ah. You could so easily.”

  “How?”

  He frowned doubtfully at his hand, then looked up suddenly. His eyes were deeply concentrated on her. “Will you marry me, Bennie?”

  Neither of them moved for quite a while. Then she put her hand over his.

  “I … don’t think so, Michael.”

  He blinked, as if coming out of a dream. “Why not?”

  “I—don’t know that I love you.”

  “Is there some other man?”

  “No. No one.”

  “I love you, you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I suppose it’s pretty obvious. What’s wrong with me?”

  She smiled gravely, her dark eyes never leaving his face. “There’s no right or wrong in this. If I loved you I’d say yes—instantly.”

  He got up slowly and stood over her. “If I believed you meant it, saying no, it would be like a death sentence.”

  “Michael, you mustn’t say that!”

  “But I do.”

  She half-frowned, half-smiled in perplexity, slid out from under his shadow and took his arm. “We’ve only known each other a few weeks. Aren’t you rather rushing your fences?”

  “You mean you might change your mind?”

  “How can I say? I don’t want you to think——”

  “Is it because I haven’t any money?”

  “Darling, do you really think that could make any difference?”

  “Earlier tonight you were saying you go to all these airports and never have a real chance of exploring the countries, Greece, Switzerland, Austria—you said you longed some day to have money to go over them at your leisure.”

  “So I do, but—Michael, don’t cheapen what you’ve said by putting it in any sort of scale, least of all one in which money figures. It doesn’t. It really couldn’t.”

  “What have I to do then, to make things right with you?”

  “If I knew I’d tell you. But there isn’t any way of knowing.” She let go of his arm.

  After a few seconds he said: “I’m afraid of somebody else getting you.”

  “Well, there’s no one in sight, I promise you. Anyway, you might fall for some other girl in the meantime——”

  “I shan’t.”

  “You might. Never’s a long time. If you’re still as interested in six months——”

  He turned, looked as if he was going to get hold of her, did not. “In six months it’ll be different?”

  She said: “Michael, drop it I can’t say. I’m frantically sorry. Throw me out if you want to.”

  He took the records off the gramophone, put them in their sleeves. “I’ll take you home.”

  “You don’t have to come to L. A.P. I’ve still just time to make the Underground.”

  “Nonsense. I want to come.”

  They went out to the waiting car, and after a struggle got the old Delage to go. Then they roared round to Bennie’s flat and Michael tinkered with the engine by the light of a street lamp while Bennie flew upstairs and changed and grabbed her equipment. When she came back his head was still inside the engine but he pulled down the great bonnet and fastened its leather strap.

  “All right?” she asked.

  “I’ve had ignition trouble this week. Nothing to worry about.”

  They lurched out into the Fulham road as if they were riding an obstinate donkey. Michael somehow couldn’t balance the clutch and the accelerator to keep the revs up and the speed down. They bucketed along, and every time they were stopped at traffic lights the engine fizzled out and Bennie had to do her stuff with the choke. Once or twice the engine wouldn’t re-start until the lights were red again. Cars and buses hooted behind them, and one taxi-driver leaned out as he passed and said: “Where did yer buy it: jumble sale?”

  When the old car got going again it would lurch forward in a strangulated fashion, mewing and missing and exploding. By the time the trouble had cleared they had to brake for the next lights.

  “It’ll be all right—as soon as we get out of me traffic,” Michael panted between jerks. “Driving a car like this—in London is like putting a thoroughbred—between shafts.” Bennie had dissolved in laughter, and kept apologising breathlessly because she saw Michael didn’t like it.

  They reached Hammersmith somehow and took the High Road, but at one of the busiest crossings the car gave a terrific burp and stopped altogether. More cars hooted and policemen put in their headland impatient hands pushed. Michael leaped out and began tinkering with the engine. He told Bennie to press the starter and pull the plug at the same time, and the engine fired instantly. Michael slapped the bonnet down and leaped in before the revs had died. They roared out into the traffic like a rocket that had lost its stick.

  “I could put it—right in fifteen minutes,” he shouted; “maybe—less. But—we haven’t that much time.”

  “If you can—take me as far as—Hounslow West I can—get a bus.”

  He patted Bennie’s knee. “Fasten your—safety belt.”

  They staggered along with great intermittent gulps of power, overtaking cars and lorries, squeezing by inches between a bus and an island, racing to a traffic light and then exploding past all the waiting cars as it turned green. On the Great West Road Michael jammed his foot down. The traffic had thinned, and now that they were really in motion it seemed as if nothing but a brick wall could stop them. But without any apparent reason as they squealed round a round-about the engine gave another of its terrific burps and expired. They coasted on for about five hundred yards. Michael kept slipping into gear and l
etting in the clutch but nothing happened except a series of strangulated jerks. He steered in towards the pavement.

  “I’ll get a new set of points in the morning. Difficulty with an old car.… Now let’s see.…”

  Bennie slid out and watched him for a minute or two. “What a blissful engine.”

  “How long have we got now?”

  “About twelve minutes.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll just check that it’s not petrol starvation. The auto-vac petrol feed sometimes gives trouble.”

  One minute stretched into five. Michael slid in and used the starter again. Nothing happened. “I’ll have to watch this,” he said. “The battery is low.”

  They got out again and Michael took out one of the plugs. A few cars were still going past.

  “Michael,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you think it foul of me if I thumbed a lift?”

  “Just wait another minute while I put this, back.”

  “I think it’ll be too late.”

  “They’ll forgive you for once, won’t they?”

  “Oh, yes.…”

  “I’ll give up after this.” He put the plug back and got in again. The car seemed about to start but the battery was almost dead and just coughed once whurm—whurm like a tired old tubercular cow. “ I’ll give it a jerk with the handle.”

  “Michael, will you forgive me?” she said, and slipped out and stood in the road. Two or three cars went past and then a red Austin-Healey two-seater slowed up.

  “I’m terribly sorry to stop you,” Bennie said, “but are you going anywhere near London Airport? Our car’s broken down and I’m late for my flight.”

  The young man inside looked at the old car then he looked at her. “ I wasn’t going that way but I will.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t bother you if——”

  “It’s no trouble. Honestly. Jump in.”

  Bennie turned. “Sorry to rat on you, Michael. If you’ll forgive me.…”

  “Sure, sure, go ahead.”

  Bennie ran around the Austin-Healey and slid into the passenger’s seat. “It’s terribly good of you,” Michael heard, and: “ What time’s your flight?” … “ Phew, we’ll have to move.” Michael saw a lifted hand, heard the high-pitched drone of a modern exhaust, and the red car was gone.