‘Mummy!’ Derrick was saying. ‘Mummy! Look at me!’
The shrill persistence of his voice had penetrated at length through her abstraction. Derrick, having long finished his ice, had sought distraction by balancing a spoon on the top of his head. Marjorie suddenly became conscious of the amusement of the two well-dressed women at the next table, and of the hostile polite smile of the manageress. She snatched the spoon and checked Derrick’s protests with a shake, smiled apologetically at the manageress and passed out of the restaurant to pay her bill.
The street was hot and full of blinding sunshine, and of course, as she saw by Tomlin’s clock, it was ever so late. She grasped Derrick’s hand and began to hurry home, up the High Street, past the Gas Company’s showrooms – answering a patient ‘Yes, dear,’ to Derrick’s shrill announcement that that was where Daddy worked – up Simon Street with its steep slope until she reached the last turning, which was Harrison Way. The very name of that road revealed the fact that it was of post-war construction and built by a speculative builder for sale, not for rent – a long road of pairs of semi-detached houses, stucco built and with tiled roofs, two little rooms and a kitchen downstairs, two little rooms and one still smaller and a bathroom upstairs. Yet in the glowing sunshine it was quite a pretty road with its copper beeches and red tiles.
Marjorie wondered if she could bear to live there any longer, to go on working in the kitchen where Dot had died. And now everyone in the road knew that her sister had killed herself because she was going to have a baby and was unmarried. It was horrid for herself and would be beastly for the children – but with Ted’s office in the High Street it would be silly of them to move far away even if they had the money to do so. Ted’s small salary was worth far more to them than some men’s because Ted had no fares to pay and could get home to dinner every day.
And there was the question of Mother. They had talked about that last night. Mother was an officer’s widow, as Marjorie was always proud to remind herself. The father whom she hardly remembered had been a bank clerk and a temporary officer who had been killed in the War. The little house in Dewsbury Road had been his own, and with that and the pension and the insurance money and the handsome gratuity from the Bank, Mrs Clair had been able to bring up her daughters satisfactorily enough – in fact after Marjorie had married and Dot had begun to earn she had been really comfortable. But Mother was alone now. Marjorie, daring the certainty of Ted’s wrath, had asked last night if Mother would come to live with them, and he had refused, saying very sensibly that it never did for a mother-in-law to live with her son-in-law (and Marjorie knew in her heart of hearts that there was no love lost between Ted and Mother).
Marjorie turned in at No. 77, opened the door with her key and persuaded Derrick to go out into the garden, all automatically, so that her train of thought was hardly interrupted. But still, Marjorie did not like the idea of Mother being alone. Ted had made the really sensible suggestion that perhaps Mother would like to have a young man lodger, more for the sake of the company he would give than the money he would pay.
‘Yes,’ Mother had said, ‘that’s a good idea. But young men lodgers are hard to get nowadays.’
‘Young George Ely would come if I told him to. You said you liked him, and he’d come all right. You bet he would.’
There had been the hard businessman’s look on Ted’s face when he said that. George Ely was Ted’s assistant at the showrooms.
‘But I wouldn’t like Mr Ely to come against his will,’ said Mother.
‘He was saying only last week how rotten his digs were,’ countered Ted. ‘I’ll mention it to him.’
Marjorie hoped George Ely would accept. She liked him. He was slender and fair and quiet and even-tempered; just the opposite of Ted in every way. He would be sure to get on all right with Mother.
It was nicer to think of that than about Dot’s death, but she could not keep the latter out of her mind, either, as she moved about the kitchen getting the dinner ready. Marjorie remembered now that some weeks ago Ted had brought home with him a printed report issued by the Association of Gas Producers dealing with the question of suicide by gas poisoning. She had not read it herself, but she knew that Dot had done so. Perhaps it was that which had put the idea into poor Dot’s head. Ted had studied it very carefully, but of course it was his job to do so, as down at the showrooms where he had to persuade people to use as much gas as possible he had to be able to argue about every single thing to do with gas.
But what – the old picture danced up into her mind’s eye quite irrelevantly, as she started to lay the cloth, as it always did – what in the world were those smashed wine bottles doing in the dustbin?
‘Mummy!’ said Derrick, tapping on the kitchen door. ‘Mummy!’
It was too good to expect Derrick to stay in the garden, even on a fine morning like this, for more than half an hour without attention. And Ted and Anne would be in soon, expecting their dinner. And Ted’s temper had been very uncertain lately, ever since Dot died.
‘That’s a clever boy,’ said Marjorie, as Derrick managed to unbutton his garden shoes all by himself.
It was a little surprising that Ted should be so upset. Perhaps it was because it would not do him any good at the office to have his sister-in-law kill herself in his house, and for that reason, too.
‘Hullo, Mummy,’ said Anne, coming in by the kitchen door. She was a grave, quiet little woman, although she was as light on her feet as a fairy.
‘Hullo, dear,’ said Marjorie. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready. Get your hands washed.’
Anne had been very good and sensible about it all, asking no questions even on the day of the funeral.
Who was the lover Dot must have had, about whom she had not even told her sister?
4
Marjorie had taken Derrick round to Dewsbury Road to have tea at Grannie’s, and Anne was to come and join them as soon as school was over. Derrick was playing happily on the floor of the dining room with Grannie’s solitaire board and bag of glass marbles, so that Marjorie was able to go into the kitchen and potter about with Mother while preparing the tea tray.
Marjorie admired her mother all the more nowadays. She had not been weak and weepy about Dot’s death, the way Marjorie had, although Marjorie knew perfectly well that she had felt it just as much. Mother had remained calm and still and grave. She was such a capable woman, too, thought Marjorie admiringly, and conscious of her own inadequacies. She was so tiny and frail, and yet Marjorie knew she was very strong, never ill, never even occasionally indisposed. Although her hair was grey her complexion was pink and white like a young girl’s, and there was a peaceful placidity about her expression – not like Marjorie’s, for Marjorie knew she had a deep line between her eyebrows which worried her, although actually it indicated only petulance and not the bad temper which she feared.
Mrs Clair set the tea tray, her expression peaceful and placid, like a nun’s.
‘I met Mr Lang today,’ she said. She was paying close attention to her work and did not look up as she spoke.
‘Yes?’ said Marjorie. Mr Lang was one of Ted’s boon companions, and Marjorie was not very fond of him.
‘He spoke very nicely to me about Dot,’ said Mrs Clair, opening a milk bottle with elaborate care. ‘I thought it was very kind of him.’
‘Yes?’ said Marjorie. She knew there was something more to be said, and something important, too.
‘I’m trying to remember just what else he said,’ went on Mrs Clair, quietly. ‘I want to tell it to you exactly as he told it to me.’
‘I’m listening, Mother,’ said Marjorie.
‘He said that Ted was so lively and excited on that Wednesday night when – when it happened. He said that Ted came in very late for his snooker match, all puffed and out of breath from hurrying from the office, and although Mr Lang (it was Mr Lang that he had to play) wanted to wait and give him a chance to get steady,
he insisted on playing at once, and he beat Mr Lang. Mr Lang says he never saw Ted play such a good game.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,’ said Marjorie.
‘I went on talking to Mr Lang,’ said Mrs Clair, ‘and I got him to say what time it was when Ted came in. Mr Lang didn’t notice what I was doing. He said it was after nine o’clock.’
Mrs Clair lifted her gaze from the tea tray and met Marjorie’s eyes. Yet her face was still mild and expressionless.
‘Mother!’ said Marjorie.
Ted usually left the office at six o’clock, and during the summer time when things were slack he was never known to be delayed.
‘Mr Lang said that Ted was ever so funny about it. Ted said that it was hard luck on him that while he could only enter for snooker tournaments in the summer when he could be sure of being free it would go and happen that the only enquiry to keep him late for months should come on the night of the semi-final.’
Marjorie had heard nothing of Ted being kept late at the office that night. The arrangement made in the morning was that he should go straight to the billiard hall from the office and make his supper of sandwiches there. If he had not really been detained by an enquiry, there was a period of three hours of his time unaccounted for.
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Clair, quite evenly, ‘it may not mean anything at all. He may have been at the office, after all. But in that case it’s odd that he didn’t tell us, or the Coroner. And he may have been with some other woman.’
‘Yes,’ said Marjorie, ‘Y-yes.’
There was a sudden flood of revelation in her mind. There was only man in all the world about whom Dot could have told her nothing if he had been her lover. And now that her attention had been called to it, she could remember one or two isolated, vague incidents in the past. There was that time when she had come suddenly into the sitting room where Dot and Ted were talking, and the conversation had been broken off abruptly. She could remember twice intercepting an exchange of smiles between them. Nothing had made any impression on her at that time. Not Dot and Ted! She could not suspect them. And yet she knew – none better – what a wheedling clever way Ted had with women when he wanted to. And Dot was passionate and wayward. Oh, it was possible – just possible.
‘The kettle’s boiling,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘And Anne won’t be a minute now. We can make the tea and see what that young Turk has been up to in the dining room.’
But Derrick had managed to be quite good during the few minutes he had been left alone. He was always pleased and excited at visiting his grandmother’s, and the solitaire board and the marbles, with which he could only play on these visits, were very favourite toys of his. He was talkative as Marjorie lifted him and swung him into his chair, and he talked, as children do, with no reference to anything he had been talking about before.
‘Auntie Dot was funny yesterday,’ he said. ‘Ever so funny.’
Marjorie’s nerves almost gave way.
‘You didn’t see Auntie Dot yesterday,’ she said, very sharply. She would have shouted it, shrilly, if it had not been for the habitual self-control she practised with her children.
‘Yesterday a long time ago,’ said Derrick, reproachfully. Yesterday was still the same as a week ago or a month ago to Derrick’s mind. And Derrick did not know that Auntie Dot was dead. He looked up at the two women, and was surprised and delighted at the impression his words were making.
‘She was funny yesterday a long time ago,’ he continued. ‘I heard her singing downstairs when I was in bed after she said goodnight to me, and I ran downstairs. Auntie Dot was funny and Daddy was funny. Can I have some brem butter please?’
‘With jam on it?’ asked Mrs Clair.
‘Yes please,’ said Derrick.
Mrs Clair bent her head to spread the jam, and with lowered head, in her still calm voice which won every child’s confidence, asked the question which would set Derrick talking again. She showed none of the excitement which would confuse him.
‘How was Auntie Dot funny a long time ago?’ she asked.
‘She was singing,’ said Derrick ‘an’ she was dancing round. She an’ Daddy had red stuff in their glasses. That pretty red stuff, and I wanted some. Auntie said she’d smack my botty-bot for me, and when she ran after me she fell down on the stairs. But she didn’t hurt herself, Grannie, because she laughed. She laughed ever such a lot. Then Daddy came and put me back into bed.’
‘That was funny,’ said Grannie.
It was marvellous how calm and natural she was, while Marjorie sat sick and dizzy, feeling her skin flushed hot, and the sunlit room seemingly dark and misty. Through the dark and the mist she was most conscious of Mother’s steady glance – a Sphinx-like glance full of a meaning which she could not read.
‘Here’s Anne!’ said Mrs Clair, looking out through the window into the street; and Anne’s arrival naturally broke the thread of Derrick’s discourse. Marjorie shook off her weakness and greeted her daughter. She was reaping the benefit now of seven years’ self-control. When Anne was born she had resolved never to allow her own particular mood to affect her behaviour towards her children, never, for example to be cross with them because some extraneous influence made her cross. By now it had grown into a second nature with her, so that the reverse reaction was possible – contact with her children steadied her where previously she had steadied herself in preparation for contact with them.
But later, when Anne had settled herself at the table, and was spreading bread and jam for herself, and had entered gaily into conversation with her grandmother and Derrick, Marjorie found herself with leisure to think once more. There were terrible, dreadful pictures floating before her eyes, pictures tinged red as if with blood. She could visualise it all so clearly. Dot lurching drunkenly about the room, with Ted at hand finding always some new excuse for filling up her glass – Ted had always been good at finding reasons and excuses. Probably he had made that rendezvous with her that night on the specious excuse of discussing what they were going to do now that Dot found for certain that she was going to have a child. For a second Marjorie could visualise that earlier meeting too, with Dot saying ‘But what are we going to do?’ and Ted saying in that convincing way of his ‘Don’t you worry, old girl. I’ll make it all right. Tell you what, Madge is going out next Tuesday. I’ll say I’m going to be out, too, and then you come to mind the kids. Then we can talk it over and get it settled.’
Then in the house Ted would arrive with the wine. It was a hot stuffy evening and Ted would coax and cajole her, first one glass and then another – so easy for Ted to do with his glib tongue. Ted knew all about that wine, because he had told Marjorie about it three months ago – just as he knew all about the number of people who killed themselves with gas, and whether or not they had drunk anything before doing it. There would be the momentary interruption when Derrick came padding downstairs barefooted and in his pyjamas, and then— One more glass, two more glasses, perhaps, with Dot saying ‘No, really, I’ll be squiffy if I have any more,’ and Ted saying ‘Don’t be silly, old girl. This won’t hurt you. We’ve got to finish the bottle,’ and pouring it out firmly. Dot would be dazed and stupefied. Unconscious, perhaps, and Ted’s arms were strong, well able to lead her or carry her out to the kitchen. Only a second or two for further preparation needed now – to smash the bottles in the dustbin, rinse out the glasses, close the kitchen window, perhaps with Dot murmuring, stupidly, ‘What’s all the trouble, Ted?’ Then – turn on the gas, and close the door, and hurry away, quickly, to the billiard hall where Mr Lang is waiting and looking at the time. Ted would be excited, keyed up, right at the top of his form – oh, she knew him so well! – able to win his match with ease, able to come home and face the police, keyed up to a higher tension still by that excitement so that he would become tiresome to his wife that night. And then, after that, the reaction, depression, jumpiness, raw nerves. Everything fitted in, everything.
/>
‘Marjorie!’ Grannie was saying, ‘Mummy! Would you like another cup of tea?’
‘Yes please,’ said Marjorie, passing her cup. So vivid had been the scenes she had been visualising that her present surroundings were dreamlike and unnatural. The familiar room and furniture – she had done her homework on this very table every evening for years – her mother’s kindly smile, the very faces of her children, were unreal and surprising.
‘Mummy’s daydreaming,’ said Anne, displaying an unexpected capacity for observation and bringing an unexpected word out of her vocabulary, in the manner of seven-year-olds. Anne had begun to lose her teeth, and her gap-toothed grin was inexpressibly charming. Love for the children tore at Marjorie’s heart strings, deepening her misery. She drank her tea thirstily, avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes. She must not have the children noticing anything. All their lives she had done her best to protect them from beastliness.
‘How are you getting on with Mr Ely, Mother?’ she asked.
‘Splendid,’ said Mother. ‘Really, he’s no trouble at all. He’s so quiet you’d hardly know he was in the house. He gets up when he’s called, and he comes in early, and he’ll eat anything without a word sooner than say he doesn’t like it.’
Mother sighed a little, and Marjorie knew why. Happy-go-lucky Dot, the last person Mother had to look after, had been quite the opposite – falling out of bed at the last moment, clattering about the house, unrestrained in her speech, with holes in her stockings for Mother to mend always at the last minute. Marjorie struggled to maintain the conversation at an ordinary level.
‘And it’s nice to have a real man to look after, isn’t it, Mother?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Mother, simply.
‘Please may I say grace?’ said Derrick.
‘Yes, dear,’ answered Marjorie.
Derrick clasped his hands and shut his eyes and gabbled through his grace; Anne’s eyes were closed and her hands were clasped, too, devoutly, and Marjorie smiled maternally as she looked at their serious faces. She had dropped out of the habit of church-going, and she sidestepped the question of religious instruction for her children. She had had them baptised, and she saw that they said grace after every meal and nightly prayers. More than that she felt she could not do. But they looked sweet while saying their grace.