Raymond edged his way through all the people and went to find a bathroom. He washed his face, taking his spectacles off and placing them beside a piece of lime-green soap. He was thinking that her husband was probably just like any other man at a cocktail party. How could the husband help it, Raymond thought, if he had not aged and if other women found him pleasant to talk to? Did she expect him to have all his hair plucked out and have an expert come to line his face?
Leaning against the wall of the bathroom, Raymond thought about Mrs Fitch. He thought at first that she was a fantastic woman given to fantastic statements, and then he embroidered on the thought and saw her as being more subtle than that. ‘By heavens!’ said Raymond aloud to himself. She was a woman, he saw, who was pathetic in what she did, transferring the truth about herself to other people. She it was, he guessed, who was the grinding bore, so well known for the fact that she had come to hear the opinion herself and in her unbalanced way sought to pretend that others were bores in order to push the thing away from her. She was probably even, he thought, a little perverted, the way in which she had behaved with her knees, and sought to imbue others with this characteristic too, so that she, for the moment, might feel rid of it: Mrs Fitch was clearly a case for a psychiatrist. She had said that her husband was a maniac where women were concerned; she had said that he had taken Mrs Anstey to a bed in King’s Cross when Mrs Anstey was standing only yards away, in front of her eyes. In vino veritas, she had said, for no reason at all.
One morning, Raymond imagined, poor Mr Fitch had woken up to find his wife gabbling in that utterly crazy manner about her age and her hair and the lines on her body. Probably the woman was a nuisance with people who came to the door, the deliverers of coal and groceries, the milkman and the postman. He imagined the Express Dairy on the telephone to Mrs Fitch’s husband, complaining that the entire milk-round was daily being disorganized because of the antics of Mrs Fitch, who was a bore with everyone.
It accounted for everything, Raymond thought, the simple fact that the woman was a psychological case. He closed his eyes and sighed with relief, and remembered then that he had read in newspapers about women like Mrs Fitch. He opened his eyes again and looked at himself in the mirror of the Tamberleys’ smallest bathroom. He touched his neat moustache with his fingers and smiled at himself to ascertain that his teeth were not carrying a piece of cocktail food. ‘You have a tea-leaf on your tooth,’ said the voice of Nanny Wilkinson, and Raymond smiled, remembering her.
Raymond returned to the party and stood alone watching the people talking and laughing. His eyes passed from face to face, many of which were familiar to him. He looked for the Griegons with whom last year he had spent quite some time, interesting them in a small sideboard that he had just had french polished, having been left the sideboard in the will of a godmother. The man, a Mr French amusingly enough, had come to Raymond’s flat to do the job there in the evenings, having explained that he had no real facilities or premises, being a postman during the day. ‘Not that he wasn’t an expert polisher,’ Raymond had said. ‘He did a most beautiful job. I heard of him through Mrs Adams who lives in the flat below. I thought it was reasonable, you know: seven guineas plus expenses. The sideboard came up wonderfully.’
‘Hullo,’ said Raymond to the Griegons.
‘How d’you do?’ said Mrs Griegon, a pleasant, smiling woman, not at all like Mrs Fitch. Her husband nodded at Raymond, and turned to a man who was talking busily.
‘Our name is Griegon,’ said Mrs Griegon. ‘This is my husband, and this is Dr Oath.’
‘I know,’ said Raymond, surprised that Mrs Griegon should say who she was since they had all met so pleasantly a year ago. ‘How do you do, Dr Oath?’ he said, stretching out a hand.
‘Yes,’ said Dr Oath, shaking the hand rapidly while continuing his conversation.
Mrs Griegon said: ‘You haven’t told us your name.’
Raymond, puzzled and looking puzzled, said that his name was Raymond Bamber. ‘But surely you remember our nice talk last year?’ he said. ‘I recall it all distinctly: I was telling you about Mr French who came to polish a sideboard, and how he charged only seven guineas.’
‘Most reasonable,’ said Mrs Griegon. ‘Most reasonable.’
‘We stood over there,’ explained Raymond, pointing. ‘You and I and Mr Griegon. I remember I gave you my address and telephone number in case if you were ever in Bayswater you might like to pop in to see the sideboard. You said to your husband at the time, Mrs Griegon, that you had one or two pieces that could do with stripping down and polishing, and Mr French, who’ll travel anywhere in the evenings and being, as you say, so reasonable –’
‘Of course,’ cried Mrs Griegon. ‘Of course I remember you perfectly, and I’m sure Archie does too.’ She looked at her husband, but her husband was listening carefully to Dr Oath.
Raymond smiled. ‘It looks even better now that the initial shine has gone. I’m terribly pleased with it.’ As he spoke, he saw the figure of Mrs Fitch’s husband entering the room. He watched him glance about and saw him smile at someone he’d seen. Following the direction of this smile, Raymond saw Mrs Anstey smiling back at Mrs Fitch’s husband, who at once made his way to her side.
‘French polishing’s an art,’ said Mrs Griegon.
What on earth, Raymond wondered, was the man doing back at the Tamberleys’ party? And where was Mrs Fitch? Nervously, Raymond glanced about the crowded room, looking for the black-and-white dress and the lean aquiline features of the woman who had tormented him. But although, among all the brightly coloured garments that the women wore there were a few that were black and white, none of them contained Mrs Fitch. ‘We come to these parties and everything’s a sham,’ her voice seemed to say, close to him. ‘Nobody can be trusted.’ The voice came to him in just the same way as Nanny Wilkinson’s had a quarter of an hour ago, when she’d been telling him that he had a tea-leaf on his tooth.
‘Such jolly parties,’ said Mrs Griegon, ‘The Tamberleys are wonderful.’
‘Do you know a woman called Mrs Fitch?’ said Raymond. ‘She was here tonight.’
‘Mrs Fitch!’ exclaimed Mrs Griegon with a laugh.
‘D’you know her?’
‘She’s married to that man there,’ said Mrs Griegon. She pointed at Mr Fitch and sniffed.
‘Yes,’ said Raymond. ‘He’s talking to Mrs Anstey.’
He was about to add that Mr Fitch was probably of a social inclination. He was thinking already that Mr Fitch probably had a perfectly sound reason for returning to the Tamberleys’. Probably he lived quite near and having seen his wife home had decided to return in order to say goodbye properly to his hosts. Mrs Anstey, Raymond had suddenly thought, was for all he knew Mr Fitch’s sister: in her mentally depressed condition it would have been quite like Mrs Fitch to pretend that the woman in yellow was no relation whatsoever, to have invented a fantasy that was greater even than it appeared to be.
‘He’s always up to that kind of carry-on,’ said Mrs Griegon. ‘The man’s famous for it.’
‘Sorry?’ said Raymond.
‘Fitch. With women.’
‘Oh but surely –’
‘Really,’ said Mrs Griegon.
‘I was talking to Mrs Fitch earlier on and she persisted in speaking about her husband. Well, I felt she was going on rather. Exaggerating, you know. A bit of a bore.’
‘He has said things to me, Mr Bamber, that would turn your stomach.’
‘She has a funny way with her, Mrs Fitch has. She too said the oddest things –’
‘She has a reputation,’ said Mrs Griegon, ‘for getting drunk and coming out with awkward truths. I’ve heard it said.’
‘Not the truth,’ Raymond corrected. ‘She says things about herself, you see, and pretends she’s talking about another person.’
‘What?’ said Mrs Griegon.
‘Like maybe, you see, she was saying that she herself is a bore the way she goes on – well, Mrs Fitch wouldn’t say
it just like that. What Mrs Fitch would do is pretend some other person is the bore, the person she might be talking to. D’you see? She would transfer all her own qualities to the person she’s talking to.’
Mrs Griegon raised her thin eyebrows and inclined her head. She said that what Raymond was saying sounded most interesting.
‘An example is,’ said Raymond, ‘that Mrs Fitch might find herself unsteady on her feet through drink. Instead of saying that she was unsteady she’d say that you, Mrs Griegon, were the unsteady one. There’s a name for it, actually. A medical name.’
‘Medical?’ said Mrs Griegon.
Glancing across the room, Raymond saw that Mr Fitch’s right hand gripped Mrs Anstey’s elbow. Mr Fitch murmured in her ear and together the two left the room. Raymond saw them wave at Mrs Tamberley, implying thanks with the gesture, implying that they had enjoyed themselves.
‘I can’t think what it is now,’ said Raymond to Mrs Griegon, ‘when people transfer the truth about themselves to others. It’s some name beginning with an R, I think.’
‘How nice of you,’ said Mrs Tamberley, gushing up, ‘to put that notice in The Times’ She turned to Mrs Griegon and said that, as Raymond had probably told her, a lifelong friend of his, old Nanny Wilkinson, had died a few months ago. ‘Every year,’ said Mrs Tamberley, ‘Raymond told us all how she was bearing up. But now, alas, she’s died.’
‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Griegon, and smiled and moved away.
Without any bidding, there arrived in Raymond’s mind a picture of Mrs Fitch sitting alone in her house, refilling a glass from a bottle of Gordon’s gin. ‘In vino veritas,’ said Mrs Fitch, and began to weep.
‘I was telling Mrs Griegon that I’d been chatting with Mrs Fitch,’ said Raymond, and then he remembered that Mrs Tamberley had very briefly joined in that chat. ‘I found her strange,’ he added.
‘Married to that man,’ cried Mrs Tamberley. ‘He drove her to it.’
‘Her condition?’ said Raymond, nodding.
‘She ladles it into herself,’ said Mrs Tamberley, ‘and then tells you what she thinks of you. It can be disconcerting.’
‘She really says anything that comes into her head,’ said Raymond, and gave a light laugh.
‘Not actually,’ said Mrs Tamberley. ‘She tells the truth.’
‘Well, no, you see –’
‘You haven’t a drink,’ cried Mrs Tamberley in alarm, and moved at speed towards her Maltese maid to direct the girl’s attention to Raymond’s empty glass.
Again the image of Mrs Fitch arrived in Raymond’s mind. She sat as before, alone in a room, while her husband made off with a woman in yellow. She drank some gin.
‘Sherry, sir?’ said the Maltese maid, and Raymond smiled and thanked her, and then, in an eccentric way and entirely on an impulse, he said in a low voice:
‘Do you know a woman called Mrs Fitch?’
The girl said that Mrs Fitch had been at the party earlier in the evening, and reminded Raymond that he had in fact been talking to her.
‘She has a peculiar way with her,’ explained Raymond. ‘I just wondered if ever you had talked to her, or had listened to what she herself had to say.’ But the Maltese maid shook her head, appearing not to understand.
‘Mrs Fitch’s a shocker,’ said a voice behind Raymond’s back, and added: ‘That poor man.’
There was a crackle of laughter as a response, and Raymond, sipping his sherry, turned about and moved towards the group that had caused it. The person who had spoken was a small man with shiny grey hair. ‘I’m Raymond Bamber,’ said Raymond, smiling at him. ‘By the sound of things, you saw my predicament earlier on.’ He laughed, imitating the laughter that had come from the group. ‘Extremely awkward.’
‘She gets tight,’ said the small man. ‘She’s liable to tell a home truth or two,’ He began to laugh again. ‘In vino veritas,’ he said.
Raymond looked at the people and opened his mouth to say that it wasn’t quite so simple, the malaise of Mrs Fitch. ‘It’s all within her,’ he wished to say. ‘Everything she says is part of Mrs Fitch, since she’s unhappy in a marriage and has lost her beauty.’ But Raymond checked that speech, uttering in fact not a word of it. The people looked expectantly at him, and after a long pause the small man said:
‘Mrs Fitch can be most embarrassing.’
Raymond heard the people laugh again with the same sharpness and saw their teeth for a moment harshly bared and noted that their eyes were like polished ice. They would not understand, he thought, the facts about Mrs Fitch, any more than Mrs Griegon had seemed to understand, or Mrs Tamberley. It surprised Raymond, and saddened him, that neither Mrs Griegon nor Mrs Tamberley had cared to accept the truth about the woman. It was, he told himself, something of a revelation that Mrs Griegon, who had seemed so pleasant the year before, and Mrs Tamberley whom he had known almost all his life, should turn out to be no better than this group of hard-eyed people. Raymond murmured and walked away, still thinking of Mrs Griegon and Mrs Tamberley. He imagined them laughing with their husbands over Mrs Fitch, repeating that she was a bore and a drunk. Laughter was apparently the thing, a commodity that reflected the shallowness of minds too lazy to establish correctly the facts about people. And they were minds, as had been proved to Raymond, that didn’t even bother to survey properly the simple explanations of eccentric conduct – as though even that constituted too much trouble.
Soon afterwards, Raymond left the party and walked through the autumn evening, considering everything. The air was cool on his face as he strode towards Bayswater, thinking that as he continued to live his quiet life Mrs Fitch would be attending parties that were similar to the Tamberleys’, and she’d be telling the people she met there that they were grinding bores. The people might be offended, Raymond thought, if they didn’t pause to think about it, if they didn’t understand that everything was confused in poor Mrs Fitch’s mind. And it would serve them right, he reflected, to be offended – a just reward for allowing their minds to become lazy and untidy in this modern manner. ‘Orderliness,’ said the voice of Nanny Wilkinson, and Raymond paused and smiled, and then walked on.
The Distant Past
In the town and beyond it they were regarded as harmlessly peculiar. Odd, people said, and in time this reference took on a burnish of affection.
They had always been thin, silent with one another, and similar in appearance: a brother and sister who shared a family face. It was a bony countenance, with pale blue eyes and a sharp, well-shaped nose and high cheekbones. Their father had had it too, but unlike them their father had been an irresponsible and careless man, with red flecks in his cheeks that they didn’t have at all. The Middletons of Carraveagh the family had once been known as, but now the brother and sister were just the Middletons, for Carraveagh didn’t count any more, except to them.
They owned four Herefords, a number of hens, and the house itself, three miles outside the town. It was a large house, built in the reign of George II, a monument that reflected in its glory and later decay the fortunes of a family. As the brother and sister aged, its roof increasingly ceased to afford protection, rust ate at its gutters, grass thrived in two thick channels all along its avenue. Their father had mortgaged his inherited estate, so local rumour claimed, in order to keep a Catholic Dublin woman in brandy and jewels. When he died, in 1924, his two children discovered that they possessed only a dozen acres. It was locally said also that this adversity hardened their will and that, because of it, they came to love the remains of Carraveagh more than they could ever have loved a husband or a wife. They blamed for their ill-fortune the Catholic Dublin woman whom they’d never met and they blamed as well the new national regime, contriving in their eccentric way to relate the two. In the days of the Union Jack such women would have known their place: wasn’t it all part and parcel?
Twice a week, on Fridays and Sundays, the Middletons journeyed into the town, first of all in a trap and later in a Ford Anglia car. In the shops and elsew
here they made, quite gently, no secret of their continuing loyalty to the past. They attended on Sundays St Patrick’s Protestant Church, a place that matched their mood, for prayers were still said there for the King whose sovereignty their country had denied. The revolutionary regime would not last, they quietly informed the Reverend Packham: what sense was there in green-painted pillar-boxes and a language that nobody understood?
On Fridays, when they took seven or eight dozen eggs to the town, they dressed in pressed tweeds and were accompanied over the years by a series of red setters, the breed there had always been at Carraveagh. They sold the eggs in Gerrity’s grocery and then had a drink with Mrs Gerrity in the part of her shop that was devoted to the consumption of refreshment. Mr Middleton had whiskey and his sister Tio Pepe. They enjoyed the occasion, for they liked Mrs Gerrity and were liked by her in return. Afterwards they shopped, chatting to the shopkeepers about whatever news there was, and then they went to Healy’s Hotel for a few more drinks before driving home.
Drink was their pleasure and it was through it that they built up, in spite of their loyalty to the past, such convivial relationships with the people of the town. Fat Cranley, who kept the butcher’s shop, used even to joke about the past when he stood with them in Healy’s Hotel or stood behind his own counter cutting their slender chops or thinly slicing their liver. ‘Will you ever forget it, Mr Middleton? I’d ha’ run like a rabbit if you’d lifted a finger at me.’ Fat Cranley would laugh then, rocking back on his heels with a glass of stout in his hand or banging their meat on to his weighing-scales. Mr Middleton would smile. ‘There was alarm in your eyes, Mr Cranley,’ Miss Middleton would murmur, smiling also at the memory of the distant occasion.
Fat Cranley, with a farmer called Maguire and another called Breen, had stood in the hall of Carraveagh, each of them in charge of a shot-gun. The Middletons, children then, had been locked with their mother and father and an aunt into an upstairs room. Nothing else had happened: the expected British soldiers had not, after all, arrived and the men in the hall had eventually relaxed their vigil. ‘A massacre they wanted,’ the Middletons’ father said after they’d gone. ‘Damn bloody ruffians.’