For Love or Money (16 page)

‘Shall I tell them why I nearly bust your wrist then? Or perhaps George would like to suggest a reason?’

‘I think this has gone quite far enough,’ said George,
starting
to get up.

‘I agree,’ added Ruth. ‘I expect Sarah’s tired and wants to go and unpack and get to bed.’

‘I expect Sarah is old enough to look after herself. Do I have to repeat the question or are you determined that I’m going to play alone?’

George sank back into his chair. Why the hell didn’t Ruth take her bottom off the arm?

‘What would I want to know from David?’ asked Steven again.

George saw Steven’s face thrust near to his. It was twisted with anger.

‘Your behaviour is hardly my responsibility,’ he said quietly.

‘No, George? Do you suppose that you never affected me? Do you remember how, when you used to come to school plays and concerts, I always made excuses so I didn’t have to sit with you? “Is that your father?” “How old was he when he married your mother?” “Fifteen?” Not only that, but you always had to go and have coffee with Crofts too after it was over. “This is my friend, Mr. George Benson.” And what do you suppose they said when you had gone? You didn’t have to have Crofts’s tactfully indirect and searching questions.’

‘Did it matter what other people said?’ Ruth said with a shaking voice.

‘Yes, it did. It mattered a lot. You could go back to your fool’s paradise but I had to listen.’

‘I didn’t think you were so sensitive,’ said George.

‘So it’s a joke is it? I wonder if David still finds it such enormous fun.’

George felt the anger of the righteous boiling within him.

‘What do you suppose those visits were like for me?’ he asked.

‘You didn’t have to come.’

‘Who’d have driven your mother?’

‘You could have worn a peaked cap and sat in the car.’

‘Did it ever occur to your twisted little mind that a woman needs a man? Your mother’s a woman you know. A very human one too.’

‘If you’re trying to tell me I’ve got an Oedipus complex, you’re wasting your time. Who was always Mummy’s boy, David? If I didn’t like it, God knows what it was like for you watching them pinching each other. Did you ever hear
anything
at night? Your bedroom was next to theirs. Or did you bury your head in the pillow and cover your ears?’

‘Leave him alone, can’t you?’ George hissed. ‘It’s me you’re gunning for, isn’t it?’

‘Steven, I’m not going to listen to you any more. I’m going straight up to bed. If you think I’m going to go on sitting here listening to such revolting things … George was almost a father to you both.’ Her voice was trembling. Sarah felt sick as she watched the tears start to spill down Ruth’s cheeks.

‘Almost a father … yes, taught us what “cads” were before we even went to school. The boy’s guide to the old grey stones. Responsible citizenship, the right way by a perfect pillar of society. Look at him … just look at him.’

The sight of Steven shaking his head from side to side goaded George to his feet. Pushing Ruth aside he leapt up to face Steven. With difficulty he said:

‘I made sacrifices too.’

‘It must be a real nightmare to have such a lot of free time and free drink. Why, you might have been a provincial bank manager by now.’

‘I might and I might have preserved my self-respect.’

‘And your liver‚’ Steven sneered.

Ruth was crying softly, bent double over the arm of the chair.

‘Why did you do it for me? George, why did you do it? Why?’ she wailed.

‘Perhaps David will tell you. Or has he lost his tongue?’

There was a long silence, punctuated by Ruth’s sobs.

‘Was it for love or money, George?’ Steven went on.

‘You can’t hurt her like this. Steven, you can’t,’ David whispered unbelievingly.

‘Hasn’t George ever opened his book of clichés and told you sometimes one has to be cruel to be kind?’

‘Get out of here. Get out,’ George said weakly, without moving.

‘I’ll hit you if you touch me,’ Steven leered at him. ‘
Anyway
, don’t I have some right to part-ownership? You’ve got a place in London, so there’s no need to be selfish.’ He watched his mother’s body convulse. ‘And besides, you even have a nice little woman to look after you.’

‘I won’t listen. I won’t,’ Ruth screamed.

‘It’s lies, all lies,’ George said almost to himself. ‘He’s got no proof. What colour are her eyes, what does she wear?’ George paused. ‘You can’t tell me, can you? You can’t tell me because she doesn’t exist.’

Ruth clutched at his hand.

‘I believe you, darling, I do.’

‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ Sarah groaned with her head buried in the side of the sofa.

‘You want to believe it. That’s what you mean, isn’t it,’ Steven shouted. ‘But David can tell you that I’m right. Tell them what you saw when you were in London that night, you idiot, you won’t get another chance.’

David did not answer. Steven crossed the room and
implored
:

‘Tell her, it isn’t for me, it’s for her; for God’s sake.’

‘For love or money,’ Steven heard George echo tauntingly.

David looked Steven in the eyes and said quietly: ‘I warned you, I told you, I saw nothing, nothing.’

Quite suddenly Steven did not care. He went over to his mother and said softly:

‘You’ll never believe me, but I didn’t do this entirely for myself. When the money goes, you see if he doesn’t too.’

George had put his arms round her. Her bosom was still shaking with grief and anger. Her head pressed against George’s chest, she whispered:

‘I never want to see you again.’

Steven walked to the door and beckoned Sarah.

‘We’re going now.’ He turned to his mother and said: ‘I’ll go as soon as the taxi comes. I’m going to telephone now.’

As he picked up the receiver, he heard her say to David:

‘Come here, darling; it’s all been awful, I know, but now everything’s going to be all right. You see if Mummy isn’t right.’

 *

Only when they were in the taxi did Steven notice that Sarah was crying.

‘Why did you have to bring me?’

‘I thought I could win,’ Steven said simply.

‘You were so cruel, so horrible.’

‘I was so brave and he was so cowardly. The little coward, the silly little coward.’

Sarah was surprised to see that his expression was not one of scorn but of bewilderment.

‘He used to get up at six o’clock in the morning to scare the rabbits away so that we couldn’t shoot them, yet he defended that man. He found him in that flat with another woman and he still loves him. I don’t understand. I simply don’t understand any more.’

He seemed to be talking to himself. Sarah put an arm round him.

‘So it was true. It wasn’t all for yourself. You didn’t bring me just because you wanted money … Poor Steven.’

‘Poor Steven,’ he said, burying his face in the fur of her collar.

I
T
was such a lovely walk to the church through the fields. At the next gate she would be able to look down across the valley and see the simple square tower peeping through a gap in the trees of the woods below. Ruth hurried on eagerly.

She paused at the gate. There was the tower with the sun shining on its lichened walls. She could hear the sound of the bells rising in waves through the morning haze. Quite a long way to go yet. She took off her coat. So warm already … it was going to be another marvellous hot day. She breathed in deeply and stretched out her arms.

In a few minutes she was coming down from the corn fields into the woods. The bells were louder now.

 *

George lazed in a deck-chair on the front lawn. He was still in his silk dressing-gown. A large straw hat sheltered him from the rays of the still-climbing sun. Putting down the papers for a moment, he leant out and lifted his glass of iced coffee from the small table beside him. David was away for a couple of days with an old school friend from Edgecombe days. Ruth would be at church for the next hour and a half or so. He gazed across the well-mown lawn towards the herbaceous border. He listened to the enveloping humming of the bees.

At length he got up and walked over to the bench by the sundial, so that he could look back at the house. He looked down at his stomach and beneath it his slippered feet
swinging
across the grass. Fatter and balder, he thought without
emotion. There would have been a time when he cared; but now there was little point. Now there was little to disturb his peace of mind.

 *

There had been one narrow escape. Sally had telephoned shortly after his deliverance from Steven. George had left for London the following day, ostensibly to see his mother. He had calmed himself with the thought that a glance at his bank statement would mark the ending of Sally’s
infatuation
. In the event this had proved unnecessary. He had stayed at the flat for a couple of days awaiting her arrival. Her letter had been short. She hated to have to tell him that there had been others and that, well, an offer, as generous as one that she had just received, should not be idly cast aside. Even after five years George remembered his joy with
undiminished
pleasure. He’d been a fool to have supposed she just sat at home demurely waiting for his monthly
appearances
. And a girl like her … He nodded his head self-
critically
at the thought of his stupidity. But all that was so long ago. Over and done with, he reflected. At last the future was as clear as the neatly trimmed hedges in the rose garden. In October David was going to Cambridge and would take with him for the major part of the year the less pleasant features of an earlier landscape. He would make new friends who might ask him to stay; he would go abroad with them. In fact there was every possibility that he would spend little time at Trelawn. Of course there was no need to be
uncharitable
. The boy had been remarkably little trouble. He’d spent most of his time working in his room. The old twinges of guilt were intermittent almost to the point of
non-existence
.

The day Steven’s old room had been turned into a junk room had been the turning-point. Now his name was hardly ever mentioned.

Ruth had changed for the better too. She was less excitable, and her church-going not only gave her an outside interest but also often kept her occupied
during the evenings. She was embroidering hassocks.

When George reached the bench he realised that the sun would be in his eyes if he sat there. Slowly he ambled back to his old chair.

As soon as he sat down he saw a small black car almost half a mile away slowly coming up the drive. It disappeared momentarily behind the group of beech-trees and then emerged in front of the dark-leaved rhododendrons. He wondered whether it might be David coming back earlier than expected. To be caught by anybody else in his
dressing-gown
at this hour would be annoying. Nobody from the village ever came unless invited. The sun caught on the car’s windscreen as it rounded the bend into the final sweep up to the house. George hastily removed his straw hat and drew his dressing-gown more closely round him.

 *

Ruth sat listening to the First Lesson. She pursed her lips slightly as Canon Jenner read out:

‘… Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego …’

Really it was too bad that he should have chosen to read about the ‘fiery furnace’ on such a lovely day. It was definitely more a winter piece. She would have to talk to him about it afterwards. The hymn before had been a notable contrast though. She smiled at her realisation of the joke … ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains’ to the fiery furnace. Even George would be bound to laugh at that.

‘… Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt …’

Ruth stared up at the patterns on the walls made by the sun shining through the stained glass of the east window. On days like these it was so easy to believe.

 *

George raised his paper in front of him and sat back in his
chair with apparent unconcern. No reason to be put out by uninvited visitors. He did not look up as he heard the muted sound of footsteps on the grass, and the faint swish of a dress.

‘George?’ questioned a voice on the other side of the
newspaper
.

He lowered his defence and saw a woman wearing a
tight-fitting
coat and skirt in front of him. Must have been the lilac coat on her arm that he had heard. Her eyes were
hidden
behind a large pair of dark glasses.

‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘Not for five years anyway, George. Remember now?’ She jerked off her dark glasses and smiled at him.

George felt sick. The green lawn might have been a sea of corpses, the sun a monstrous skull for all they pleasure they promised now.

‘Sally,’ he groaned.

 *

It was ten minutes later; they were in the drawing-room. George was fumbling around over by the writing-desk. If only he could find it. A consecutive run of bank statements ought to be enough to convince her that she had wasted her time. They used to be in a large buff-coloured envelope. Damn the weather for being so hot. He felt the sweat
trickling
down his back.

‘What are you up to over there?’ he heard her ask.

‘I’m just trying to prove to you that I’ve got no money. That I lied to you, that I’m nothing more than a
blood-sucking
parasite.’

‘What makes you so sure that I’ve come for money?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘You’d hardly have made the journey for old time’s sake on a stifling day like this.’

‘I haven’t come for your money, George, I’ve come for you.’

‘Look, you simply don’t understand … I can’t leave … I’ve got responsibilities,’ he ended lamely.

‘Anyway you can’t fool me about the money. You don’t suppose I’m going to believe that she paid for that flat of yours?’

George went on looking, even when he knew that he was not going to find the envelope. He turned round and saw that she had brought his straw hat in from the garden.

‘I’d never thought of you wearing funny hats here. More hunting-clothes and dinner-jackets was how I imagined it.’ She held out the hat towards him. ‘Won’t you put it on?’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Be like that then.’ She laughed loudly.

‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to go now,’ he said firmly. ‘You had your chance, but you turned me down. I suppose you’ve forgotten that. I’m not going to let myself in for that sort of thing again.’ He looked at her with more confidence. Should have taken the firm line earlier on.

‘If it comes to forgetting, I don’t suppose you remember what you promised. It’s all square now. A perfect basis for further negotiations. Being a soldier I expect you know all about that.’ She smiled.

‘It takes two to come to an agreement,’ said George with decision. ‘It’s too late now.’

‘Five years isn’t a lifetime you know. I’m prepared to
forgive
you for shutting me out in the snow. After all, you started the distrust. You can’t blame me for taking revenge. But I’ve realised now that I was wrong. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. I was silly, but I’ve learned a bit since then.’

‘I don’t doubt it. How many has it been? How do I know there haven’t been five or six? So you’ve been chucked out once too often and have come crawling here. Well, you can crawl straight out again.’

‘Not crawling, George. I’ve come back to the only person who ever mattered.’

‘You’ve taken your time about it. Why did the last one throw you out? Or should I ask why did he ever have you in the first place? Five years may not be a lifetime but twenty years is a good deal closer. I’ve been with her too long to just
get up and leave. There comes a time when it really is too late.’

‘Would it still be too late if I decided to stay for a few hours more?’

George looked at her with disgust.

‘You’ve got too much make-up on your eyes,’ he said.

‘Maybe because I haven’t had you to keep me young and chaste.’

She seemed fatter now; he noticed the curving creases in her skirt just below the stomach. There was a hint of too much flesh beneath the jaw.

‘There’s another train at twelve-twenty. I’ll drive you there.’

‘You’ll be driving a bit further. And, what’s more you’ll be taking me too. It’s going to be just the two of us now. She’s had her go, now it’s my turn.’ She stood legs apart with her hands on her hips.

‘If you told Ruth, she wouldn’t believe you. You’d better come now. Steven told her and she didn’t believe him and he’s a lot cleverer than you and knew her rather better.’

‘You don’t suppose she’d believe me if I told her the dates you went to see your mother? Or would it be more
convincing
if I threw in a description of her son as well?’

George watched her as she paced up and down in front of the sunlit window. The incongruity of her presence made him dry up inside. What did she understand about beautiful things? About the table that he and Ruth had bought, about real candles that one lit? About art and poetry? George tried to think of some of the beautiful lines he knew by heart, but couldn’t. How could she ever understand the tranquillity of life in the country: the simple round of rural pleasures? She probably didn’t even like the room they were in. To have survived so long and then to lose all this for a little slattern would be too hard to endure.

Sally coughed loudly. George looked at his watch. The Second Lesson would have just started and she would be staying for Communion after the Sermon. He said:

‘I don’t suppose that she would be so impressed if you described David. There’s a photograph over there.’ He
pointed to a silver-framed photograph on a small table by the door. ‘She would think you just met me in a pub and saw my address on a letter to me and thought that you’d try a bit of cheap blackmail.’

‘She wouldn’t be impressed if I told her the date David was in London? You say Steven told her. If I told her the same tale you still think that she wouldn’t smell a rat?’

‘She doesn’t remember dates. She’d think you were
making
them up.’

Or did she? George thought of her diary. If he could get his hands on it … he rushed across to the writing-desk. She kept it in the top drawer. He pulled. It was locked. Could probably break it open. He wrenched again but it wouldn’t give.

‘I should think that’s quite an expensive piece of
furniture
; it would be a pity to spoil it.’

Of course the thing mightn’t be there anyway. There wasn’t time to search the house. Only one thing to be done. He’d have to go with her now. Make her believe that he was going for good. Pack a few cases and get out. He could phone Ruth and tell her that his mother had been suddenly taken ill. He could leave a note. Better still. If it was money she was after, his mother could be made to have an operation in a private hospital. Ruth would be sure to send a cheque.

While they were packing, George looked at his watch. Ruth might be back in twenty minutes. Hastily he pulled down two large suitcases from the top of his wardrobe. To convince Sally it would be necessary to take a lot of clothes. He dropped several pairs of shoes into the bottom of one of the cases and then ripped a couple of suits off their hangers before thrusting them in too.

Sally said:

‘How about some shirts?’

They were all in the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Perfect, this was the chance to leave a note.

‘Won’t be a moment.’

 *

In the bedroom, George tore the fly-leaf out of a book on the bedside table and wrote: ‘Mother sinking. Operation imminent. Sorry mess. Will ring you. George.’ He read it through and hastily inserted ‘All love’. It would save time if he took the whole drawer to the dressing-room. He lifted it out.

 *

When he got back Sally was thrusting a pair of pyjamas into the second case. He looked down and saw his bedroom slippers. No time to change. He pulled some trousers on top of his pyjama bottoms and then jerking off his dressing-gown he reached for a jersey and slipped it on. He snatched the jacket, he had worn the day before, from the back of a chair.

Sally sat on the suitcases while he fastened them up. She was as eager as he to get away before Ruth arrived. A last final appeal and generous offers of forgiveness were highly undesirable.

 *

George led the way down the stairs. The cases thudded against the banisters. Should have made her go first, he thought uneasily. Still they were nearly at the bottom now. He could hear her behind him.

‘I’ve got to go somewhere before I go,’ Sally suddenly announced.