Down in the City (7 page)

Esther stirred beside her and distracted the savage, living boredom that was eating into her. Rachel admired Esther, and felt for her none of the touchy suspicion that dwelt with her affection for Laura.

Her thoughts turning from one to the other, she reflected: when Mrs Maitland thinks she knows me right through she'll never bother about me again. I'll be about as interesting to her as a piece of plate glass. To keep her liking me I have to be frank, but complicated, and young and pliable…

She suffered over the hypothesis for a while, then, persuading herself that she had discovered what seemed to be an inherent trend towards self-destruction in the relationship, she decided: it'll kill me.

Liking the dramatic thought, she let injustice stand, enjoying the excruciating hurt to herself involved in any abuse of Mrs Maitland.

She shivered and turned to Esther. ‘Would you like to move?'

They drifted slowly across the flat dusty park, the sun dazzling their eyes, heat shimmering in the air around them.

Esther's head ached and she thought of her cool dim bedroom. She would have a shower and then rest until Stan came home. He would not be late, for they were meeting the family for dinner at Cave's at eight.

Rachel scuffled dismally. Suddenly remembering her, Esther's thoughts scattered and she looked guiltily at the girl's pale face.

‘I'm sorry I've been such bad company,' she said as they turned in at the entrance to Romney Court. ‘Another day we'll go down to the pool together—one day during the week—and you can swim and I'll sunbathe.'

Rachel mumbled her willingness and disbelief.

‘But I think you should go this afternoon—even by yourself, dear. It would be much better for you than staying at home. Really.'

Esther tried to catch her eye, but Rachel, letting herself into the apartment, smiled politely in the direction of Esther's chin and said goodbye.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In three months Esther had seen her brothers twice and Marion three times. David and Clem, and then Hector, had called on her unexpectedly on midweek afternoons and found her at home alone; she and Marion had met in town. Stan, however, had not met them since the ceremony. There were always reasons why it was not convenient—business or pleasure. ‘I like it best when we're alone…'

Finally David had telephoned to suggest a family dinner party at Cave's on Saturday night. Tonight. And she had agreed, trusting that she would be able to persuade Stan.

He had listened with the sardonic expression that the mention of her brothers always brought to his face, and said, when she had finished: ‘The boy from the backblocks goes into café society, huh?'

‘Don't speak about yourself like that, Stan. Surely there need be no awkwardness, darling. I wish I could make you believe that they like you because you've made me so happy, and they want to know you better. Isn't that natural?'

‘Yes, yes,' he soothed her, preening himself in the warmth of her concern. He felt enormous and powerful as he let her have her way.

Yes, he would go. Yes, he was sure he would just
love
her brothers when he got to know them. Yes, yes, yes.

Esther padded lightly up the stairs, relieved to see that the Maitlands' door was closed. Her head was thumping sickeningly. After what seemed an interminable hunt for her key she had the door open, but on the threshold stopped, surprised to hear the wireless booming, claiming all kinds of excellence for a new brand of self-raising flour.

She walked quickly through the hall and the moment of uneasy suspense turned to delight when she saw Stan.

‘Stan! I thought you would be out all day?'

He struggled up from the sofa, but his two companions, red-faced men, remained in their chairs. It was obvious that she was interrupting something.

‘The business is done, my dear Esther.' He mouthed the words with elaborate precision.

‘Business!' one of the men chortled. ‘Haw-haw!'

After frowning at him, Stan turned again to Esther. ‘I want you to meet two of my best pals, pet. Nobby and Jock Carter. Known them…' he deliberated. ‘Must 'a known these boys twenty years!'

The shiny red faces smirked. One of them said, ‘Pleased to meet your little woman, Stano. Pleased to meet her.'

He held out his hand and lumbered towards Esther, but midway across the small carpeted space he lurched and fell into a chair. ‘Ah,' he said, and lifting the coloured racing guide that was crumpled in his hand, tried to focus his eyes on it.

Esther's face was stiff. Overflowing from the two small tables were bottles, syphons, glasses and ashtrays. Someone had spilt his drink on the pale rug, and the stain was spreading gradually as the liquid seeped through the fibre.

Nobby said ponderously, ‘I don't think she likes us, Stano.'

Jock said, ‘God, I feel crook!' He made for the bathroom.

‘No, she don't like us. Jock and me'll just clear out.' He drank deeply.

‘You'll stay where you are.' Stan glared round the room, his face twisted in anger. He stood himself in front of Esther. ‘And you'll be polite to my friends when I tell you. Stan Peterson won't put up with any nonsense like this, you know.' Catching her by the shoulders, he propelled her towards Nobby, and then, as he returned, wet about the eyes, to Jock. Above the wireless, he bellowed, ‘Say: “I'm sorry I was so bloody rude to you, Mr Carter.”'

‘Oh, Stan! Please!'

‘Please, Stan,' he mimicked, squeaking. ‘Go on! Say it!' His fingers dug into her shoulders.

From the wireless came the announcement: ‘We are now taking you over to Randwick to Peter Craddow for news about the starters and riders for the first event of the day.'

Dropping his hands, Stan grabbed his racing guide. Nobby and Jock opened eyes and mouths, fumbled for pencils, gaped.

Esther made her way along the hall to the bedroom, and, closing the door, sat down on the bed, shivering. The shock and humiliation of the past minutes were too close to be clearly understood. She sat, without thought.

After a time she pulled herself round on the bed until she lay with her face pressed to the pillow, her back to the door.

Her eyes regarded the lilac linen threads of the pillow cover, noticed choked-up thicker threads of pale green amongst the lilac. She wondered how and why, and ran a fingernail along a length of green. She closed her eyes tightly.

The door burst open as if it had been attacked with a battering ram.

‘Shuttin' the door. Tryin' to keep a man away from his own bloody phone!' In a fury, Stan lifted the receiver.

Esther stared at him. His face was flushed and swollen. His shirtsleeves were pushed up past his elbows; his collar was unbuttoned and the tie pulled loose. His trousers had slipped from his waist and hung swivelled at his hips.

‘That you, Lou? Stan here…Well, listen, boy; I want fifty straight on Crabapple…Right you are.'

He tried ineffectually to replace the receiver on the stand, then with a curse dropped it and let it swing by the cord, hitting bed and table.

‘Well!' He stood looking down at Esther, his hands tucked in the waistband of his trousers. ‘Well!' he said again. His mouth spread in a smile of superiority that struck a vague, premonitory fear in Esther's mind. He seemed immensely pleased with himself.

She looked away, but he continued to stand and leer at her. His expression was smug: his was the face of a tyrant restored to balance by a massacre. He was ready to forgive her. As he savoured her dismay, his smile grew deeper. ‘Hm!' he said.

Through the open door, the excited high-pitched drone of the race commentator could be heard from the other room.

‘And here comes Jolly Boy on the outside, followed by The Ranger and Lady's Finger. As they round the last turn into the straight Prairie Gal is leading by half a length from Cricket, then comes Crabapple fighting hard for second place—'

As the horses thundered towards the winning post, the voice reported at incredible speed.

‘Stan, boy, did you hear that?' Nobby groped his way into the darkened room. ‘Cricket won by a length from Crabapple. How were you fixed? Each way?'

‘Each way!' Stan abused the horse, and Nobby, for some seconds. His wrath burned out, he finished, clapping an arm around Nobby's neck, ‘How about a little drink, pal?'

His friend smiled, his false teeth gleaming whitely in his red face. Just at that moment it came to him that he was in the bedroom, and he saw Esther.

‘Ah,' he said, ‘and here's the little woman herself, and me not noticing her. And I never shook her by the hand yet.'

Slipping away from Stan's heavy embrace, he made a lunge at Esther, missed, and sliding to the floor, clasped her ankles.

Helpless with disgust, she tried to push him away. ‘Stan!' she called. ‘Oh, Stan, take him away.' Her voice rose hysterically, succeeded in rousing him from his fuddled trance.

Nobby still clutched Esther's legs, but the sudden descent to the floor had made him feel sick, and he hardly knew where he was.

With a burst of rage Stan flung himself at his friend, and lifting him by his padded shoulders dragged him into the hall, ignoring his protests. He banged the door shut.

A long time afterwards Esther heard the clink of dishes in the kitchen and the sound of running water. She could feel a cool draught from the window on her face.

Rolling over onto her back, she passed her hands over her face: her imagination looked reluctantly to the time when she would have to get up and begin to act and think. Then she was on her feet moving about the room sluggishly, unsteadily, from window to wardrobe to dressing table, purposeless.

I must have a shower. I must do something.

She shivered and knew that she could not make a decision before she knew what Stan was doing. Where he was. How he was.

There was a soft tap at the door, and she turned as he came in, carrying a tray. Not looking at her, he put it on the table and said, ‘You'd better have this. We have to leave in an hour.'

‘Yes. I know.'

After waiting to see if she would say anything else, he stuffed his hands deep in his pockets and left the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Talk sputtered and died when the guitar began to twang softly at the other end of the room. The basement restaurant was shadowy, half empty: the plaintive, melancholy music lingered in its spaces as appropriately as the sound of a pipe on a Greek hillside.

The waiters, members of the race which serves in order to observe the peculiarities of non-waiting man, hovered and leaned with lazy busyness—tall, secret men thinking no earthly thoughts, living no life away from the air-conditioned basements, the Chicken Maryland and the champagne.

A spotlight fell on the guitarist's hands, small and podgy, strumming and plucking a Spanish tune: in the semi-darkness his face was putty-coloured. The thin, metallic scrape of cutlery, the faint smell of food that came from time to time as waiters and trolleys passed his back, revolted him.

The Prescott party peered along the length of the room under the haze of cigarette smoke, listening to the music with false attentiveness, relieved to find a unity in hypocrisy and silence at least.

Hector bore the tedium by pondering on its cause. He recalled the lack of ease that had exhibited itself between the eight people at the table. He knew his own defences and sensed the others'—it was their necessity that troubled him. With an abrupt change of mood he began to wonder why he should expect communication to be easy. Even social communication became unbearably false and difficult if one member of the party refused to stick to the rules. The ritual fell to pieces as soon as there was a failure of effort. They were all made to look as stupid, he thought, as they probably were.

David smoked and drummed his fingers abstractedly on the table, looking under his brows, now at Esther, now at Stan. Their expressions were bland, withdrawn, curiously alike. As he searched his sister's face, he had to believe that she was satisfied with whatever it was she had seen in her husband. She looked at the same time serene and vital. Different. A vague term which hid his reluctant admission that the marriage appeared to be successful—a term he sighed at, a little lonely, a little jealous.

Angela, and Erica, who had come with Clem, held a whispered conversation, raised brows at Esther and Marion, and glided away from the table.

When they had gone, Hector leaned forward and reverted to a theme he had introduced earlier in the evening. ‘So you've decided on a holiday?' he asked Stan.

‘That's up to Est.' He turned to her. ‘What do you think, pet?'

They were all watching her—watching as they had been for hours. ‘If you can get away, I'd like it very much.'

‘And you can manage that, Stan?' David asked, raising a hand to summon the waiter.

‘We'll be on our way by Monday.'

David helped Marion to adjust her wrap and everyone prepared to leave. Angela and Erica came back, smiling, freshly powdered, enigmatic.

They made their way out to the street, chatting amiably, salaamed by the manager. The guitarist was finding a new tune as the doors swung shut behind them. Outside, the air was sea- and tree-scented, relaxing, after the manufactured coolness in Cave's basement. Relieved that the party was over, they guiltily prolonged their farewells.

Stan sauntered round to the car park alone, swinging his key chain and whistling. It took all his determination to whistle with a host of sighs gathered in his chest pressing for release, with his head and stomach unreconciled, in spite of black coffee and cold showers, to the rich and elaborate dinner that had passed in front of him. And worse than nausea, than the sight of three male Prescott faces around him all evening, was remorse. He whistled to keep it at bay as he climbed into the car, whistled shrilly at the corner as he gave way to a line of cars linked together by the strong yellow blaze of their headlights. But all the time, behind the dazzle and his own reedy noise, lay a sense of loss.