Buffet for Unwelcome Guests (33 page)

‘I expect it’s really because you like licking the spoons,’ he said, laughing.

‘Licking the spoons,’ said the old woman’s daughter, leaning over the balcony rail to look down into the lighted kitchen. ‘See her? Half a pint of double cream, that looks like to me; and there she’ll be, dipping the spoon in every other minute, licking away… And chocolate sauce, that’ll be for the ice-cream; hot chocolate sauce, that’s her favourite. Some stuff she puts into it, fetches the bottle from the dining room, and then great spoonfuls to see she’s got it just right…’

 ‘What’s this muck?’ said Mr. Jennings that night. ‘It’s got far too much kirsch in it. You haven’t got it right.’

‘I’m trying to keep off tasting all the time.’

‘Yes, well while you’re on that lark, I’ll have my dinners elsewhere,’ he said.

So there was no more tasting. Sick with knowledge of her own lack of appeal, Mrs. Jennings accepted his absences, increasingly frequent and prolonged, and since she made no objection, he shrugged and went his way. ‘He’s left her,’ said the Family, adding pity to contempt. ‘Well, almost. Keeps up the outward pretence. But it won’t be long now.’

Mr. Jennings kept up the pretence because it suited him to do so; the thin lady was keeping up pretences of her own. But at home, he troubled not at all. ‘If you don’t like it,’ he said, ‘look in the mirror. Just ask yourself, whose fault is it? You’re disgusting.’

‘It’s her own fault,’ said the people opposite.

She began to diet in real earnest. Now that the tasting was over, it wasn’t any great hardship. She had spoken the truth when she said that she by no means grossly over-ate or indeed over-ate at all—not by standards other than her own. It was simply that with her particular metabolism, she more easily put on fat. And with so little cooking to be done for her husband, the weight loss became, if gradual, at least very steady. ‘I live almost entirely on salads now,’ she said to her doctor.

‘If she eats any more of them greens,’ said the old woman on the balcony, watching her stagger home, laden with lettuces, ‘she’ll turn into a rabbit.’

‘Lashings of salad cream,’ said the daughter, who never touched anything, herself, but a dab of malt vinegar, ‘what’ll you bet?’

‘Mind, she’s losing!’

‘Skinny,’ said the old woman. ‘Much more of it and she’ll be skinny.’

‘Doesn’t suit her,’ said the husband. ‘She was better fat.’

‘She was never all that fat. What’s she messing herself about for?’

‘Never get him back that way,’ said the Family, comfortably.

‘You were a lot too fat,’ said Mrs. Jennings’ husband, on one of his now rare visits home, ‘and now you’re a lot too thin.’

‘Don’t you like me thin?’

‘I don’t like you at all,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said, shocked. She ventured: ‘You used to like me once. When I was slim.’

‘You’re not slim now,’ he said. ‘You’re gaunt.’

‘She’ll take to the drink,’ said the old grandmother. ‘You watch!’

She had given up even the six o’clock half-glass of sherry. Now, sad and lonely, faced with an evening meal of yet more lettuce, she took to the habit again. Had a half glass—a whole glass—a couple of glasses: before the evening salad—before the lunchtime salad—at eleven o’clock. ‘I see they’re delivering from the wine shop regular,’ said the grandfather. ‘
And
the hard stuff. Not sherry any more and that derbonny.’

‘You’re not drinking too much?’ said her doctor.

‘Only what they call “socially”.’

‘I’m not too sure that it isn’t a drop more than that?’

‘You’ve been talking to the people opposite,’ she said.

‘The people opposite?’

‘In the flats. They watch me from the balcony there.’

‘Well,
I
don’t know them, do I?’ said the doctor. ‘How could I talk to them?’

‘They watch me all the time. Criticise me among themselves.’

‘How do you know?’ he said.

‘Well, I’m sure. What else would they watch me for? There’s an old lady, an invalid, she sits in her chair and watches me through the railings of the balcony, she’s got nothing else to do. And the Family come in and out and they talk about me.’

‘How do you know they talk about you? You can’t hear them.’

‘What else would they talk about?—hanging over the balcony up there, looking down, watching me. What else has the old woman got to interest her?—she talks about me to them, and then they all talk about me together. There’s nothing I do that they don’t know about. They’ve watched me get fat and stay fat, and get thinner; and get fat again and now get too thin and stay too thin. I’m so fixated on salad stuffs now, I seem never to eat anything else. I expect they know that too. Everything I do, they see, they comment on.’

‘Maybe they talk kindly?’

‘No, they don’t. Why should they? They’ve seen me drive my husband away, making myself so unattractive, they’ve seen him with his mistress, he brought her to the house once, I smelt her scent on my pillow…’

‘Perhaps they criticise
him
?’

‘No, they don’t,’ she said. She said again, ‘Why should they? You can’t blame him.’ But in her heart, she blamed him. She had tried very hard and he had been cruel. She thought to herself with fear that by now she was beginning to hate him.

‘Well, well,’ said the doctor. There seemed nothing else to say. But he did advise: ‘Go easy on the booze, my dear.’

‘Alcoholics Anonymous any day now,’ said the old woman, from her wheel-chair.

In the doctor’s waiting room Mrs. Jennings had leafed through the magazines. ‘Go out and get a new hair-do,’ they all advised, as a way to reclaim lost love. ‘Have a facial, dress yourself up a bit glam.’ She went out and got a new hair-do, had a facial, bought some bright-ish new clothes. ‘What in God’s name are you doing to yourself now?’ said Mr. Jennings, on the next of the rare visits. They were becoming almost non-existent.

She had had a little drinkie and now she embarked upon another of her humble jokes. ‘I read in a magazine that the way to get back my husband’s love was to make myself look glamorous.’

‘Well, you’ve made yourself look a freak,’ he said.

More than one little drinkie, actually; several little drinkies. She tottered up to her feet, took the decanter by its stout glass neck and lifted it above her head. He gave her one look of stunned amazement and, as the bottle hit him, stepped back and fell, grazing his temple on the hard edge of the marble mantelpiece. She put back the decanter slowly on its tray and knelt down beside him. After a little while she realised that he was dead.

Wonderful how it sobered you up. One minute, you were half tight, reeling, stupefied, boiling up within you the pain and indignation of the ultimate insult; and all of a sudden cool again, cold again, aware and very much afraid. But thinking, quickly. I hardly touched him. Well, yes, I hit him. But he scraped his head on the mantelpiece as he fell, it could have been that. I could just have been—talking to him. He’d had a few drinks before he came, he slipped and fell backwards, he banged his poor head. I didn’t hit him, I didn’t touch him, it’s nothing to do with
me
. And she picked up the decanter and wiped from its neck any grip marks that might be there, and handled it as though it had been used merely for pouring out whiskies, and put it back on its tray. And knelt down again—and touched with her fingers the blood oozing from his head wound, and tweaked out a grey hair, and stood up and smeared her finger against the edge of the mantelpiece, and held the hair against it so that it stuck there….It was horrid, doing it, but she knew, as she had known at the doctor’s with a flash of insight, that in fact she no longer loved him, wouldn’t really have wanted him back: to touch him did not terribly upset her. It will be nicer without him, she thought. I can move away, where I won’t be looked down on, be talked about, by those horrible people up there, out on the balcony.

Out on the balcony! On this sunshine-y evening, they would be out on the balcony—leaning over, peering into her window: seeing it all!

‘He’s fell over,’ said the old woman. ‘He’s lying there. She’s—what’s she doing now?’

‘Leaning over him,’ said the daughter. ‘He’s dead, she can see he’s dead. She’s killed him.’

‘Hit him with that there glass bottle,’ said the daughter’s husband. ‘What’s she up to now?’

‘Wiping the neck of it,’ said the granddaughter.

‘Covering up her traces,’ said the grandson, eagerly.

‘Kneeling down again. She’s… Will I never!’ said the daughter. ‘What’s all this for?’

‘Blood on the mantelpiece. She’s going to pretend he hit his head there. Going to pretend he was drinking and fell over. Just slipped and fell, she never hit him, it’s nothing to do with
her
. I’ll tell you what,’ said the old grandfather, slowly, ‘I think we should inform the police….’

Mrs. Jennings stood listening—listening….She could almost hear them now, she knew so well what they would be saying. After a little while, she went to the telephone. ‘Police? Would you come round.’ She gave her address. ‘I think I’ve just killed my husband. He’s lying here dead.’ She replaced the receiver and went and stood in the window, looking up at them. ‘I don’t know why I said “I think”,’ she said. ‘You’ll tell them anyway.’

‘Police?’ the daughter’s husband was saying. ‘You’d better come round. We’ve just seen a murder committed.’

‘Yes, it was I who phoned you,’ said Mrs. Jennings when the police arrived. ‘But you’ve had a call already. From the people opposite. Up there, in the balcony flat. They watch me,’ said Mrs. Jennings. ‘Everything I do, they know all about me!’ She glanced down at her fleshless frame in the too-smart new clothes; glanced at the dead body on the floor. ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘They spy on me, they criticise; I never get away from them….They’ve ruined my life. If it hadn’t been for them, I don’t think—this—would ever have happened.’

The officer made a sign to his sergeant and himself knelt down beside the body, glanced up at the mantelpiece, at a grey hair on the edge of it and a smear of blood. ‘Fell against this?’ he suggested, standing up, easing his cramped back. ‘Stepped back, tripped over the mat, something like that?—hit his head as he went down?’

‘Do you mean—an accident?’ she said.

‘Well, that’s the way it looks. Is there something,’ he suggested, made very curious by the tone of her voice, ‘that you’d like to tell me?’

‘They’ll tell you anyway. The people opposite. It wasn’t an accident. I picked up the decanter and hit him with it. He insulted me. Just once too often. He insulted me.’

‘You hit him?’

‘With the decanter. He dodged back, trying to avoid it and then he fell and hit his head, but only a little bit, against the mantelpiece. But I hit him first.’

‘You mean, to—’

‘Oh, yes, to kill him. I might as well admit it.’ She repeated, ‘They’ll tell you anyway.’

‘The people opposite?’

‘They’ll have been watching. They’re always watching. The old woman in her wheel-chair: what else has she got to do? And the Family. Always talking about me. Can’t you hear them?’ said Mrs. Jennings. ‘Talking about me?’

‘Who was she telephoning?’ said the old woman.

>‘Police most likely. She knew we’d tell anyway.’

>‘It began with her putting on all that weight,’ said the daughter.

‘It began with me putting on weight,’ said Mrs. Jennings. ‘That’s what they’re saying. Can’t you hear them? “She knew we’d tell anyway,” they’re saying. Always watching me, always talking about me. But for them, I could have pretended this was an accident, I might have got away with it; but they wouldn’t have that. Better ring the police, they said. It was the daughter’s husband rang you, I heard him, we’ve just seen a murder committed he said, I heard him. I hear them all the time. They watch me and talk about me. Can’t
you
hear them? Listen!’

‘They’ve stopped now,’ said the policeman.

‘No, they haven’t, they’re chattering on, chattering on….’ A policewoman had arrived and now put an arm lightly about her shoulders. ‘Where is she taking me?’

‘Where you won’t hear them talking. You don’t have to worry, love; you won’t have them watching any more.’

‘They’ll watch you taking me.’

‘No, no, they’ve all gone inside, there’s no one now on the balcony.’

‘You can’t hear them talking? They’ll still be talking.’

‘Well, now you mention it, I think I can,’ he said. ‘But nicely. Sorry to see you go, they’re saying. Such a nice lady, really, they never meant anything against you; be sorry to see you go….’ Tenderly clucking, he urged her gently towards the door, the woman’s arm still about her shoulders. But when she was gone, he said to his sergeant, ‘No Family?’

‘Single-room bed-sitts., sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘One elderly lady on that floor, lives alone. Neighbour calls in, wheels her out on to the balcony with a thermos flask and some sandwiches, for the day.’

‘No one else calls?’

‘No one, sir. No friends, nobody. Sad for her, poor old girl,’ said the sergeant. ‘She’s blind.’

T
HEY WERE BEAUTIFUL; AND
even in that first moment, the old woman was to think later, she should have known: should have recognised them for what they were. Standing there so still and quiet in face of her own strident aggression, the boy in the skin-tight, worn blue jeans, with his mac held over his head against the fine drizzle of the evening rain—held over his head like a mantle; the girl with her long hair falling straight as a veil down to the pear-shaped bulge of her pregnancy. But though suspicion died in her, she would not be done out of her grievance. ‘What you doing here? You got no right here, parking outside my window.’

They did not reply that after all the street did not belong to her. The girl said only, apologetically: ‘We got nowhere else to sleep.’

‘Nowhere to sleep?’ She glanced at the ringless hand holding together the edges of the skimpy coat. ‘Can’t you go home?’

‘Our homes aren’t in London,’ said the boy.

‘You slept somewhere last night.’

‘We had to leave. The landlady—Mrs. Mace—she went away and her nephew was coming home and wanted the place. We’ve been hunting and hunting for days. No one else will take us in.’