A Little Death (17 page)

But of course, Miss Georgina couldn’t share those interests. They weren’t lady’s things and she wasn’t the type to put herself out for anyone—unless it was for Master Edmund. She got into the way of doing little things for him when he was ill and she still looks after him to this day. Miss Georgina takes the trouble to dress for dinner even now, just like in the old days. She’s only got the one set of jewellery, but the lovely clothes Mr. James bought her, she still wears them— they may not be the latest fashion, but you’d be hard
pressed to find that quality nowadays, I can tell you, and I’ve never in my life seen a back so straight as hers. Every night at half past seven she comes down those stairs like a duchess—with the kitchen mincer tucked underneath her arm! You’d think it was a beautiful evening bag the way she holds it, instead of an ugly old lump of metal. I’ve told her I’ll give it a polish, but she won’t let me so much as touch it.

Then down comes Master Edmund in his evening clothes—over twenty-five years old, some of those suits he’s got, and he still wears them. Of course they’re hanging off him now, poor Master Edmund. He’s so thin you’d think a breath of wind would knock him over and that’s her doing, of course, having the worry of her. Anyway, he and she drink their sherry. Then at a quarter to eight she bangs on the floor with the broom handle, and I’ve got all their dinner put ready on the dumbwaiter and up it goes. Master Edmund had the dumbwaiter put in a few years ago. I was against it at first, I mean, it doesn’t matter what anything looks like down here, but it’s a pity to spoil Miss Georgina’s sitting room with that great wooden monster. They always had proper dinner in the dining room before the war, but now that’s so filled up with stuff you can’t get into it. But Master Edmund wouldn’t hear a word against his precious dumbwaiter and I’m ever so glad of it now; my legs couldn’t stand to go up and down with those heavy dishes six times a day. I used to get up to the sitting room and put up the little card table for them to eat off, but I can’t even do that now, not every day. Master Edmund was ever so good about it, he said not to worry, they can do it themselves with the cloth and all the silver and that, just show him where it is. Well, you can imagine how I felt about that! But with my legs being the way they are, I didn’t have any choice. So they
set up the table by themselves and then Miss Georgina takes all Master Edmund’s food and runs it through the mincer till it’s nothing but little strips. For his teeth, you see. I’ve told her, I can do it down here, but I’m not let to touch the blasted thing and I’ve no idea where she washes it. In their bathroom, I suppose. Very nice, I don’t think! But she does it because she loves him, so I’m not complaining.

I don’t understand women. I’d say I was like most chaps in that respect and in any case, one was never encouraged to look too deeply into these things, it only leads to morbidity. But I have always been fond of Louisa. Ever since I can remember, she’s been my—well, my pin-up girl, if you like to use these modern terms. When we were children, if I knew she was coming to see us, she and her brother, I’d look forward to it more than anything else. I’d wake up on that day and think: Louisa’s coming today, and I’d feel happy and excited. Special, you might say. Something special was going to happen. I don’t know why—why does any man prefer one girl to another? Not even the scientists know that and they seem to know everything else nowadays. Louisa had this wonderful soft hair and she was always smiling. You couldn’t say that she was elegant or beautiful like Georgie, but she had a kind face and her hair was nice and wispy. She’s still quite lovely now, only much older, of course—we all are. Everyone wants to talk to Louisa because she listens to what they say and she never laughs at anyone or says clever things to make them look foolish. Both men and women enjoy talking to her, I’ve noticed that. People don’t seem to like talking to Georgie much, I think she frightens them. She treats Louisa terribly, says dreadful things about her. Never to her face, of course. Louisa’s always been so
kind to her, but sometimes I think Georgie’s got some demon inside her that can’t be silenced.

It’s no use wishing now, but one can’t help thinking if I had proposed to Louisa before I went to France and she had accepted me, everything would have been quite different. Louisa would have met Davy Kellway afterward, of course, but she would have been my wife by then, so she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him, or I suppose she wouldn’t. And even if she had taken a shine to him, nothing would have come of it because she would have been married to me.

But I didn’t have the confidence, certainly I never had the confidence of a chap like Davy, or Roland, or even Jimmy, come to that. Roland had confidence shining out of him. If he’d proposed to a girl it would simply never have occurred to him that she might turn him down. Wouldn’t have occurred to her either, I shouldn’t think. But I didn’t know if Louisa would… I didn’t know if she cared enough to marry me. I used to tell myself that it was all for the best. Suppose we’d been married and I’d lost a limb in the war, or been blinded, or had half my face shot away, what sort of a husband would I have been then? That was what I told myself, but it wasn’t the true reason. I didn’t ask her because I was afraid she’d say no. It’s as simple as that. It was bad enough at the time, when one didn’t know how she felt, but then to be given the knowledge, to have lived and to have
known
all these years that one could have simply asked… that’s worst of all.

I went to see my father before I left for France. It was the first time I’d seen him for quite a few years, to be honest, and the prospect of going back to Dennys without Georgie was dreadful. For months, years, I’d told myself I had to go, but I put it off and put it off, and of course the longer I put it off, the harder it became. I
wrote letters from time to time, but that was all. I knew the man Thomas was there—he was to let me know if there was anything wrong—but of course when the time came to go to France I simply couldn’t go on making excuses. I asked Georgie if she’d care to come with me, but she refused. ‘Why should I? I don’t wish to see him and he doesn’t wish to see me, and that’s the end of it.’

‘But you haven’t seen him since you were married.’

‘That was the plan, remember? You ought to, you were the one who suggested it.’

When I pointed out that it was almost five years since she’d left Dennys she was almost shrewish. ‘You only want me to come because you’re afraid of him. I can’t do everything for you, Edmund. For heaven’s sake, stop expecting me to nursemaid you.’

Before I left, I went up to her room to see if I could patch things up a bit. She wouldn’t let me in. I said, ‘I’ve come to say good-bye.’

‘Oh, Edmund, don’t fuss.’

‘Shall I give Father your best wishes?’ I knew even as I said it that I’d never dare to.

‘You can give him the Archbishop of Canterbury’s best wishes for all I care.’

I said, ‘Please let me say good-bye to you,’ because I didn’t want there to be any bad feeling between us, but she said, ‘Please, darling, I simply can’t bear it if you fuss. Just
go.’

But the incredible thing was that my father was pleased to see me! He was almost sentimental. It was the most extraordinary thing. I sat on the train telling myself that he’d never fought in a war, that I was going to do something he had never done, trying to make myself less afraid of him. I was wearing my uniform, I suppose because I thought that dressing like a soldier would make me behave more like one. When I wasn’t
wearing it, the idea of myself as a soldier—an officer, no less, giving orders to other chaps, leading them over the top and all that rot—seemed like some awful joke.

My father was shorter than I remembered, more frail—more like a human being, really. I’d taken the evening train because I was going to have dinner and then return to London the next morning, and we sat at either side of the fire in his study until it was time for dinner. I was waiting for him to shout at me—that’s what I was prepared for—but he didn’t. He asked about the regiment, how I thought the war was going, that sort of thing. And Father’s man, Thomas, produced the most wonderful dinner. I was staggered. I mean, the food was never up to much in Ada’s day, although she did her best, God bless her. I remarked on how nice it all was and my father said, ‘Thomas cooks it.’ Come to think of it, that’s quite good, ‘Thomas cooks it,’ because of the travel agency, you know. I must tell that to Georgie, she’d like that. Anyway, then he said, ‘It’s one of our hens. Thomas keeps them at the back.’ I said ‘Oh?’ or something like that and he said, ‘Still got the rabbits on the veranda. Had to be rabbit or chicken, but I told Thomas you’d want the chicken.’ It really was quite bizarre. I kept trying to imagine the two of them having a conversation about whether I’d prefer rabbit or chicken. I wouldn’t have thought my father would have known the difference between them. He certainly couldn’t have done anything in a kitchen, he’d have broken every dish he touched. Mind you, I don’t suppose I’d be an awful lot better myself; it’s a complete mystery to me, how it all gets on to the plate like that.

Father said, ‘Does James still employ that dreadful woman?’

‘Ada? Yes, she’s still with us.’

‘Can’t think why, woman’s half-witted. But Jimmy
always was one for taking in stray dogs. Compassion, that’s the measure of the man. That stupid woman let all the rabbits out. Only found out the next day. Never caught a single one.’

I said, ‘I don’t remember that. Why on earth would she want to do a thing like that?’

‘Scatter-brained.’ He cleared his throat as if he was going to say something important. ‘Hare-brained, you might say.’ And he laughed! I wanted to ask him if he liked making puns because I enjoy it myself and it would be nice to think that one had something in common with one’s father, even if it was only that, but he started telling me how Thomas had dug up one of the lawns for vegetables and things, like a sort of allotment. He seemed to know all about it, how it was planted and all the rest of it. I told him about Jimmy’s vegetable garden that he’d started because of the war and I thought: Georgie will never believe me if I tell her about this, because there we were, having an ordinary sort of chin-wag, not about anything very important, but to me it was a miracle. But of course I never did tell her, because… well, because it would have been like boasting and it wouldn’t have been fair, somehow. But I began to wonder if perhaps I could come up to see Father again. I could tell him about the war and he might be pleased, he might start to be proud of me… but the man Thomas put the kibosh on that. I’d noticed during dinner that he was making his presence felt, hovering about behind Father and glaring at me, but Father didn’t seem to mind, so I thought it must be his usual manner.

Later, when I asked Thomas where I was to sleep, he said, ‘The top of the house is all shut up now. You’ll have to take the housekeeper’s room. You’ll manage for the one night, I’m sure.’

I couldn’t think what he was talking about. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think—’

‘You’ll recognise it soon enough. Come on, follow me.’ We went traipsing round to the kitchen corridor and several times I nearly ran into him because it was absolutely pitch-dark. It felt suffocating, as if we were walking through a tunnel.

‘Can’t you light the gas, Thomas?’

‘No gas here. Waste of money.’

‘I’m sure there used to be—’

‘Never had gas in this part of the house.’ He turned round and stood in front of me in the dark. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his breath. ‘Why should you worry, Mr. Lomax? You’ll be gone in the morning.’

‘Yes, but surely it would be easier—’

‘Well, we’ve managed without you and your advice for years, haven’t we? I’m sure we can manage for a few more.’

It turned out he was taking me to Ada’s old room beside the kitchen. I must say, it smelled jolly peculiar. I don’t think anyone could have slept in it since she left. Thomas had put clean sheets on the bed, but the mattress was quite damp and he must have known about it. The armchair wasn’t too bad, so I spent the night in that. When I woke up in the morning it was still pitch-dark. I couldn’t work it out at first, but then I saw that the windows were completely smothered by creeper, just like the corridor. It was even finding its way inside the frames and reaching along the walls of the room. Thomas didn’t reappear in the morning. He left a cup of tea and a bowl of shaving water outside the door, both stone cold.

They had some ancient horse and cart to take me to the station—all the decent animals were long gone— and I was just about to climb aboard when my father
suddenly appeared on the veranda with a shawl round his shoulders, slashing at the creepers with his stick like a native clearing a path through the jungle. He leaned over the balcony and said, ‘Let me give you a spot of advice before you go. I don’t know about this war, but if you come through, you be careful. Don’t get caught up in all that women’s business, marriage. Stay out of it. No need for it, you’re better off without.’ God knows what I said in reply, I can’t remember. Then he asked me to thank Jimmy for him.

I thought, this must be something to do with Georgie, at last he’s going to say something about Georgie, so I asked: ‘What am I to thank him for?’

‘The money he sends me.’

‘I could send you money.’

‘No, Edmund, I don’t want your money. I never gave you very much of anything, did I? You go now. Good luck in France.’

‘The money he sends me.’ I felt dreadful when I heard that. I had a job because of Jimmy and a roof over my head, everything I had in the world was because of Jimmy and now he was sending money to support my father. It had never occurred to me that my father might need money. Of course, I knew that the allowance I received at university came from my mother’s money, but I had just assumed he was financially sound… because I didn’t want to think about him, I suppose. Yet he hadn’t said those words to me with reproach, rather the opposite, as if he didn’t deserve anything from me. It suddenly came to me—it was the same as Georgie. The acceptance, I mean. As if it was some sort of punishment… as if they were punishing each other. And although they each behaved as if the other didn’t exist, they were closer in understanding, somehow, than I could ever be…
When I got back to Hope House I asked Georgie if she’d known about the money and she said she had. ‘Jimmy has done it ever since we got married. He asked me about it and I said it was a good idea.’ I didn’t know what to say—she never, ever mentioned our father, yet she was quite matter-of-fact about it, as if it was all quite ordinary. I was confused, frustrated by it, but most of all there was this strong feeling that I was simply stuck, that events must take their course. I suppose that was partly because of the war, one had to go and do one’s bit and just—well, just leave everything else alone, really. Georgie said to me: ‘Jimmy can afford it. Besides, he
wants
to send it. For heaven’s sake, Edmund, it doesn’t matter. Why ever should it matter?’ And then she smiled and turned the subject to something else. I felt as if I was in the middle of a game of blind man’s bluff and it was always my turn to wear the blindfold. I could never catch Georgie and, nowadays, I’ve stopped trying.