Raymond laughed nervously, having observed that Mrs Fitch was, for the first time since their conversation had commenced, observing him closely. She was looking into his face, at his nose and his moustache and his spectacles. Her eyes passed up to his forehead and down the line of his right cheek, down his neck until they arrived at Raymond’s Adam’s apple. He continued to speak to her, telling of the manner in which his flat in Bayswater was furnished, how he had visited the Sanderson showrooms in Berners Street to select materials for chair-covers and curtains. ‘She made them for me,’ said Raymond. ‘She was almost ninety then.’
‘What’s that?’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘Your nurse made them?’
‘I measured up for her and wrote everything down just as she had directed. Then I travelled out to Streatham with my scrap of paper.’
‘On a bicycle.’
Raymond shook his head. He thought it odd of Mrs Fitch to suggest, for no logical reason, that he had cycled from Bayswater to Streatham. ‘On a bus actually,’ he explained. He paused, and then added: ‘I could have had them made professionally, of course, but I preferred the other. I thought it would give her an interest, you see.’
‘Instead of which it killed her.’
‘No, no. No, you’ve got it confused. It was in 1964 that she made the curtains and the covers for me. As I was saying, she died only a matter of months ago.’
Raymond noticed that Mrs Fitch had ceased her perusal of his features and was again looking vacantly into the distance. He was glad that she had ceased to examine him because had she continued he would have felt obliged to move away from her, being a person who was embarrassed by such intent attention. He said, to make it quite clear about the covers and the curtains:
‘She died in fact of pneumonia.’
‘Stop,’ said Mrs Fitch to the Tamberleys’ Maltese maid who happened to be passing with a tray of drinks. She lifted a glass to her lips and consumed its contents while reaching out a hand for another. She repeated the procedure, drinking two glasses of the Tamberleys’ liquor in a gulping way and retaining a third in her left hand.
‘Nobody can be trusted,’ said Mrs Fitch after all that. ‘We come to these parties and everything’s a sham.’
‘What?’ said Raymond.
‘You know what I mean.’
Raymond laughed, thinking that Mrs Fitch was making some kind of joke. ‘Of course,’ he said, and laughed again, a noise that was more of a cough.
‘You told me you were forty-two,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘I in fact am fifty-one, and have been taken for sixty-five.’
Raymond thought he would move away from this woman in a moment. He had a feeling she might be drunk. She had listened pleasantly enough while he told her a thing or two about himself, yet here she was now speaking most peculiarly. He smiled at her and heard her say:
‘Look over there, Mr Bamber. That man with the woman in yellow is my husband. We were born in the same year and in the same month, January 1915. Yet he could be in his thirties. That’s what he’s up to now; pretending the thirties with the female he’s talking to. He’s praying I’ll not approach and give the game away. D’you see, Mr Bamber?’
‘That’s Mrs Anstey,’ said Raymond. ‘I’ve met her here before. The lady in yellow.’
‘My husband has eternal youth,’ said Mrs Fitch. She took a mouthful of her drink and reached out a hand to pick a fresh one from a passing tray. ‘It’s hard to bear.’
‘You don’t look fifty-one,’ said Raymond. ‘Not at all.’
‘Are you mocking me?’ cried Mrs Fitch. ‘I do not look fifty-one. I’ve told you so: I’ve been taken for sixty-five.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant –’
‘You were telling a lie, as well you know. My husband is telling lies too. He’s all sweetness to that woman, yet it isn’t his nature. My husband cares nothing for people, except when they’re of use to him. Why do you think, Mr Bamber, he goes to cocktail parties?’
‘Well–’
‘So that he may make arrangements with other women. He desires their flesh and tells them so by looking at it.’
Raymond looked serious, frowning, thinking that that was expected of him.
‘We look ridiculous together, my husband and I. Yet once we were a handsome couple. I am like an old crow while all he has is laughter lines about his eyes. It’s an obsession with me.’
Raymond pursed his lips, sighing slightly.
‘He’s after women in this room,’said Mrs Fitch, eyeing her husband again.
‘Oh, no, now –’
‘Why not? How can you know better than I, Mr Bamber? I have had plenty of time to think about this matter. Why shouldn’t he want to graze where the grass grows greener, or appears to grow greener? That Anstey woman is a walking confidence trick.’
‘I think,’ said Raymond, ‘that I had best be moving on. I have friends to talk to.’ He made a motion to go, but Mrs Fitch grasped part of his jacket in her right hand.
‘What I say is true,’ she said. ‘He is practically a maniac. He has propositioned women in this very room before this. I’ve heard him at it.’
‘I’m sure –’
‘When I was a raving beauty he looked at me with his gleaming eye. Now he gleams for all the others. I’ll tell you something, Mr Bamber.’ Mrs Fitch paused. Raymond noticed that her eyes were staring over his shoulder, as though she had no interest in him beyond his being a person to talk at. ‘I’ve gone down on my bended knees, Mr Bamber, in order to have this situation cleared up: I’ve prayed that that man might look again with tenderness on his elderly wife. But God has gone on,’ said Mrs Fitch bitterly, ‘in His mysterious way, not bothering Himself.’
Raymond did not reply to these observations. He said instead that he hadn’t liked to mention it before but was Mrs Fitch aware that she was clutching in her right hand part of his clothes?
‘He shall get to know your Anstey woman,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘He shall come to know that her father was a bearlike man with a generous heart and that her mother, still alive in Guildford, is difficult to get on with. My husband shall come to know all the details about your Anstey woman: the plaster chipping in her bathroom, the way she cooks an egg. He shall know what her handbags look like, and how their clasps work – while I continue to wither away in the house we share.’
Raymond asked Mrs Fitch if she knew the Griegons, who were, he said, most pleasant people. He added that the Griegons were present tonight and that, in fact, he would like to introduce them to her.
‘You are trying to avoid the facts. What have the Griegons to recommend them that we should move in their direction and end this conversation? Don’t you see the situation, Mr Bamber? I am a woman who is obsessed because of the state of her marriage, how I have aged while he has not. I am obsessed by the fact that he is now incapable of love or tenderness. I have failed to keep all that alive because I lost my beauty. There are lines on my body too, Mr Bamber: I would show you if we were somewhere else.’
Raymond protested again, and felt tired of protesting. But Mrs Fitch, hearing him speak and thinking that he was not yet clear in his mind about the situation, supplied him with further details about her marriage and the manner in which, at cocktail parties, her husband made arrangements for the seduction of younger women, or women who on the face of it seemed younger. ‘Obsessions are a disease,’ said Mrs Fitch, drinking deeply from her glass.
Raymond explained then that he knew nothing whatsoever about marriage difficulties, to which Mrs Fitch replied that she was only telling him the truth. ‘I do not for a moment imagine,’ she said, ‘that you are an angel come from God, Mr Bamber, in order to settle the unfortunateness. I didn’t mean to imply that when I said I had prayed. Did you think I thought you were a messenger?’ Mrs Fitch, still holding Raymond’s jacket and glancing still at her husband and the woman in yellow, laughed shrilly. Raymond said:
‘People are looking at us, the way you are pulling at my clothes. I’m a shy man –’
> ‘Tell me about yourself. You know about me by now: how everything that once seemed rosy has worked out miserably.’
‘Oh, come now,’ said Raymond, causing Mrs Fitch to repeat her laughter and to call out for a further drink. The Tamberleys’ maid hastened towards her. ‘Now then,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘Tell me.’
‘What can I tell you?’ asked Raymond.
‘I drink a lot these days,’ said Mrs Fitch, ‘to help matters along. Cheers, Mr Bamber.’
‘Actually I’ve told you quite a bit, you know. One thing and another –’
‘You told me nothing except some nonsense about an old creature in Streatham. Who wants to hear that, for Christ’s sake? Or is it relevant?’
‘Well, I mean, it’s true, Mrs Fitch. Relevant to what?’
‘I remember you, believe it or not, in this very room on this same occasion last year. “Who’s that man?” I said to the Tamberley woman and she replied that you were a bore. You were invited, year by year, so the woman said, because of some friendship between the Tamberleys and your father. In the distant past.’
‘Look here,’ said Raymond, glancing about him and noting to his relief that no one appeared to have heard what Mrs Fitch in her cups had said.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Mrs Fitch. Her eyes were again upon her husband and Mrs Anstey. She saw them laugh together, and felt her unhappiness being added to as though it were a commodity within her body. ‘Oh yes,’ she said to Raymond, attempting to pass a bit of the unhappiness on. ‘A grinding bore. Those were the words of Mrs Tamberley.’
Raymond shook his head. ‘I’ve known Mrs Tamberley since I was a child,’ he said.
‘So the woman said. You were invited because of the old friendship: the Tamberleys and your father. I cannot tell a lie, Mr Bamber: she said you were a pathetic case. She said you hadn’t learned how to grow up. I dare say you’re a pervert.’
‘My God!’
‘I’m sorry I cannot tell lies,’ said Mrs Fitch, and Raymond felt her grip tighten on his jacket. ‘It’s something that happens to you when you’ve been through what I’ve been through. That man up to his tricks with women while the beauty drains from my face. What’s it like, d’you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Raymond. ‘How on earth could I know? Mrs Fitch, let’s get one thing clear: I am not a pervert.’
‘Not? Are you sure? They may think you are, you know,’ said Mrs Fitch, glancing again at her husband. ‘Mrs Tamberley has probably suggested that very thing to everyone in this room. Crueller, though, I would have thought, to say you were a grinding bore.’
‘I am not a pervert –’
‘I can see them sniggering over that all right. Unmentionable happenings between yourself and others. Elderly newspaper-vendors –’
‘Stop!’ cried Raymond. Tor God’s sake, woman –’
‘You’re not a Jew, are you?’
Raymond did not reply. He stood beside Mrs Fitch, thinking that the woman appeared to be both drunk and not of her right mind. He did not wish to create a scene in the Tamberleys’ drawing-room, and yet he recognized that by the look of her she intended to hold on to his jacket for the remainder of the evening. If he attempted to pull it away from her, she would not let go: she did not, somehow, seem to be the kind of woman who would. She wouldn’t mind a scene at all.
‘Why,’ said Mrs Fitch, ‘did you all of a sudden begin to tell me about that woman in Streatham, Mr Bamber, and the details about your, chair-covers and curtains? Why did you tell me about your uncle dying and trying to leave you a business and your feeling that in your perverted condition you were unfit to run a business?’
Raymond’s hands began to shake. He could feel an extra tug on his jacket, as though Mrs Fitch was now insisting that he stand closer to her. He pressed his teeth together, grinding his molars one upon another, and then opened his mouth and felt his teeth and his lips quivering. He knew that his voice would sound strange when he spoke. He said:
‘You are being extremely offensive to me, Mrs Fitch. You are a woman who is a total stranger to me, yet you have seen fit to drive me into a corner at a cocktail party and hold me here by force. I must insist that you let go my jacket and allow me to walk away.’
‘What about me, Mr Bamber? What about my husband and your Anstey woman? Already they are immoral on a narrow bed somewhere; in a fifth-class hotel near King’s Cross station.’
‘Your husband is still in this room, Mrs Fitch. As well you know. What your husband does is not my business.’
‘Your business is your flat in Bayswater, is it? And curtains and covers from the Sanderson showrooms in Berners Street. Your world is people dying and leaving you stuff in wills – money and prayer-books and valuable jewellery that you wear when you dress yourself up in a nurse’s uniform.’
‘I must ask you to stop, Mrs Fitch.’
‘I could let you have a few pairs of old stockings if they interest you. Or garments of my husband’s.’
Mrs Fitch saw Raymond close his eyes. She watched the flesh on his face redden further and watched it twitch in answer to a pulse that throbbed in his neck. Her husband, a moment before, had reached out a hand and placed it briefly on the female’s arm.
‘So your nanny was a guide to you,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘You hung on all her words, I dare say?’
Raymond did not reply. He turned his head away, trying to control the twitching in his face. Eventually he said, quietly and with the suspicion of a stammer:
‘She was a good woman. She was kind in every way.’
‘She taught you neatness.’
Raymond was aware, as Mrs Fitch spoke that sentence, that she had moved appreciably closer to him. He could feel her knee pressing against his. He felt a second knee, and felt next that his leg had been cleverly caught by her, between her own legs.
‘Look here,’ said Raymond.
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Fitch, what are you trying to do?’
Mrs Fitch increased the pressure of her knees. Her right hand moved into Raymond’s jacket pocket. ‘I am a little the worse for wear,’ she said, ‘but I can still tell the truth.’
‘You are embarrassing me.’
‘What are your perversions? Tell me, Mr Bamber.’
‘I have no perversions of any kind. I live a normal life.’
‘Shall I come to you with a pram? I’m an unhappy woman, Mr Bamber. I’ll wear black woollen stockings. I’ll show you those lines on my body.’
‘Please,’ said Raymond, thinking he would cry in a moment.
Already people were glancing at Mrs Fitch’s legs gripping his so strongly. Her white face and her scarlet lips were close to his eyes. He could see the lines on her cheeks, but he turned his glance away from them in case she mentioned again the lines on her body. She is a mad, drunken nymphomaniac, said Raymond to himself, and thought that never in all his life had anything so upsetting happened to him.
‘Embrace me,’ said Mrs Fitch.
‘Please, I beg you,’ said Raymond.
‘You are a homosexual. A queer. I had forgotten that.’
‘I’m not a homosexual,’ shouted Raymond, aware that his voice was piercingly shrill. Heads turned and he felt the eyes of the Tamberleys’ guests. He had been heard to cry that he was not a homosexual, and people had wished to see for themselves.
‘Excuse me,’ said a voice. ‘I’m sorry about this.’
Raymond turned his head and saw Mrs Fitch’s husband standing behind him. ‘Come along now, Adelaide,’ said Mrs Fitch’s husband. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again to Raymond. ‘I didn’t realize she’d had a tankful before she got here.’
‘I’ve been telling him a thing or two,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘We’ve exchanged life-stories.’
Raymond felt her legs slip away, and he felt her hand withdraw itself from the pocket of his jacket. He nodded in a worldly way at her husband and said in a low voice that he understood how it was.
‘He’s a most understanding chap,’
said Mrs Fitch. ‘He has a dead woman in Streatham.’
‘Come along now,’ordered her husband in a rough voice, and Raymond saw that the man’s hand gripped her arm in a stern manner.
‘I was telling that man,’ said Mrs Fitch again, seeming to be all of a sudden in an ever greater state of inebriation. Very slowly she said: ‘I was telling him what I am and what you are, and what the Tamberleys think about him. It has been home-truths corner here, for the woman with an elderly face and for the chap who likes to dress himself out as a children’s nurse and go with women in chauffeur’s garb. Actually, my dear, he’s a homosexual.’
‘Come along now,’ said Mrs Fitch’s husband. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ he added to Raymond. ‘It’s a problem.’
Raymond saw that it was all being conducted in a most civilized manner. Nobody shouted in the Tamberleys’ drawing-room, nobody noticed the three of them talking quite quietly in a corner. The Maltese maid in fact, not guessing for a moment that anything was amiss, came up with her tray of drinks and before anyone could prevent it, Mrs Fitch had lifted one to her lips. ‘In vino Veritas,’ she remarked.
Raymond felt his body cooling down. His shirt was damp with sweat, and he realized that he was panting slightly and he wondered how long that had been going on. He watched Mrs Fitch being aided through the room by her husband. No wonder, he thought, the man had been a little severe with her, if she put up a performance like that very often; no wonder he treated her like an infant. She was little more than an infant, Raymond considered, saying the first thing that came into her head, and going on about sex. He saw her lean form briefly again, through an opening in the crowded room, and he realized without knowing it that he had craned his neck for a last glimpse. She saw him too, as she smiled and bowed at Mrs Tamberley, appearing to be sober and collected. She shook her head at him, deploring him or suggesting, even, that he had been the one who had misbehaved. Her husband raised a hand in the air, thanking Raymond for his understanding.