Jigsaw (32 page)

When Paul left – greatly relieved, he said, to be leaving his dear girl in my mother’s hands – he and Doris took a taxi to the station so as to have their goodbyes on their own. We all said how much we had taken to him, and how devoted they were to each other.

On that morning I had a letter from Rosie Falkenheim. Some details about Upper Gloucester Place no doubt – oh dear. I put the letter in my pocket. I opened it after luncheon. Rosie did not express herself particularly well on paper, her letters were understated, brief, one got their gist. When I had read this one, I showed it to my mother. She said two things,
Women, how
they carry on, most of them don’t seem to know how to run a marriage. The second, This, dear girl, is a cry for help.

From
me
? I said. How could
I
help? 

‘You can’t. I should have said, a cry for the illusion of help. It often comes to the same. Unburdening oneself … A new witness arriving on the scene … Perhaps your friend, I mean the obstinate one, may even be waiting for someone to jolt her out of her folly.’

‘You haven’t met Toni.’

‘Real help is usually unlikely,’ said my mother.

What had been in Rosie’s letter simply was that Toni had forbidden Jamie to go on seeing Finchingfield, or rather she had put an ultimatum: he must choose between her and those people. It wasn’t clear what that choice involved, except that Toni would not put foot into the Essex cottage as long as Jamie had not renounced the visits to his friends. The letter ended, ‘Now Jamie is digging in his heels, not that I blame him, he is selfish, but you shouldn’t make a man look a fool. Unless something stops Toni soon, they are both headed for a great deal of misery.’ A postscript said, ‘It would be good to have you back, I hope you haven’t changed your plans and we can expect you on the twenty-third.’

‘What
is
so wrong with Finchingfield?’ my mother said, ‘It can’t be just those games?’

‘It is. Her not being good at them …
She’s
convinced she is superior,
they
take no account of
her
– it’s all a matter of hurt intellectual pride,’ I said, feeling I’d hit the nail on the head.

Oriane put herself out persuading me to stay. ‘You
can’t
miss the house-warming, our
crémaillère
.’ This was to be on a day in
mid-March
which happened to be my birthday. In the end she relented, ‘We’ll give a party for your twenty-firster instead. In two years’ time? That’s a promise.’ (It was one she kept.)

But I had not hit the nail on the head. When I arrived in London I found that matters had got worse, much worse. There was no longer an ultimatum; for Jamie no more choice. The question was not Toni putting a foot into Essex but Jamie putting his into their London flat. Toni had asked him to leave. 

Rosie was calling her sister a mad woman and her brother-in-law a fool. I had not unpacked yet:
what had been happening?

‘Jamie’s been having an affair with Cynthia.’

‘Oh.’ Cynthia was a Finchingfield habituée, a young woman I rather liked. ‘Oh. Why?’

Rosie exploded. ‘Why do people have affairs? You should have asked why it hasn’t happened earlier: Jamie is an attractive man … given Toni’s attitude …’

‘But is it … is it serious?’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so for a minute. Toni does.’

‘She knows?’

‘She knows.’

‘Oh my God.’ Then, ‘How did she find out?’

‘In one of the oldest ways. Basically there are three: the well-meaning friend, finding a letter, confession. The first two may be odious but the third is the most culpable because it’s so stupid.’

‘You mean Jamie …?’

‘Yes. He did.’

‘How could he?’

‘He was very down-hearted about that ban on Finchingfield. I don’t believe that Cynthia thing started before then. It might of course and in that case Toni acted on instinct, but I don’t think so. Well, he defied the ultimatum, he thought Toni was being unreasonable, and went on seeing his friends at the weekend. Toni stuck to her not coming to Essex and was icy to him in London. Finchingfield – they are bright people – saw that Jamie had been put into an intolerable position, they sympathised … A little feminine sympathy can go a long way … It can be consoling – among other things. I’m being a realist: an affair must have been quite a change for him. So now he had one more reason for not giving up Finchingfield. Hung for a sheep …’

I tried to take it in.

‘So far so bad. Then Jamie must go and have flu. During the week. In London. Bad flu. Toni looks after him, worries, gets the doctor in, does all the right things. Jamie is touched by her nursing – he must 
have longed for all to be well again between them. They
are
fond of each other – deeply. So he tells her he will cut down on Finchingfield, not all at once, he can’t drop A.J., and – you won’t believe this – there is someone else, he told her, he can’t hurt by an abrupt break, it would be so rude: he’s done something he feels awfully sorry about and hopes Toni will understand and forgive, as she doesn’t set much store by such things herself.

‘And indeed at first my dear sister didn’t have an idea what her husband was talking about. So Jamie spelt it out: he’d been having this affair with Cynthia and it doesn’t mean anything and he won’t do anything like it again but Toni must see that he can’t just walk out on Cynthia from one minute to the next.’

‘He must have been delirious.’

‘He
was
running a temperature. Look at it this way: he was feeling low, he was feeling guilty all round, he was feeling fond … Wanted to eat his cake and have it.’

‘I always thought Jamie was such an intelligent man.’

‘Oh intelligence,’ Rosie said.

I girded myself for the crucial point.

‘Toni didn’t say a word. Nursed him for two more days. When he was fit to get up, she told him to leave.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Jamie was shattered. He didn’t know what to begin to do, he couldn’t believe it. Toni stayed silent. It was morning and as he was dressed, he decided he might as well go out to work. At the door Toni said to him, “You haven’t packed. You ought to take at least one suitcase now, the rest can be sent on later.” “Well, if you won’t have your things tonight it will be your fault.”’

Jamie went to his office and somehow got through the day. At teatime he took a bus home. He let himself in with his key. Toni hadn’t put up the catch or had the lock changed or anything of that kind. When she heard him, she appeared at the top of the staircase, the dog bounding down, she said, ‘I told you you were not to come back.’ 
She said it in such a way that he pushed the dog in, and left.

‘Yes,’ Rosie said, ‘she hadn’t locked him out, he didn’t attempt an entrance – it must have been a matter of her will. He came straight here.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘The day before yesterday.’

After she had given him some tea, made him lie down, seen him into an hotel, she had gone to her sister.

Toni had been calm, monosyllabic, stonily determined.

‘Determined to what?’

‘Ruin her own and Jamie’s life, I should say.’

And this is how things stood on my arrival. They did not stand still. Next day Jamie received a letter at his office. In reasonable language Toni wrote that it would not be right for her to stay on in the mews flat as it had been lent to Jamie by his American patron, she would
therefore
leave it as soon as she found a place to live in. It would be helpful if Jamie would give her an indication as to the rent she would be able to afford. She was leaving all future arrangements to him. Perhaps he would also advise her about an inexpensive lawyer; lawyers, she supposed, were indispensable for the divorce. There were unlikely to be any points of disagreement, perhaps they might be able to manage with one only? She had complete confidence that Jamie would be honourable in the necessary financial dealings. She signed herself, Yours, Toni.

‘Divorce?’ Jamie said to Rosie and me, ‘she hasn’t mentioned divorce before.’

‘She was taking it for granted,’ said Rosie.

To me Rosie said she would like to shake her but would try reason again … For the third time. Alas she knew her too well.

She came back defeated. Toni would say nothing beyond: He is in the wrong. His fault. He must pay for it. I cannot remain married, I’m divorcing him, I have no choice. 

‘That’s cave-woman’s talk, Rosie,’ I said, ‘didn’t you argue with her?’

She had. Again and again and again. One could not argue fruitfully with Toni.

Jamie was convinced all might still be well if only they could talk. He would ignore that letter. What he needed was an hour alone with her. Not in the flat – he would not force himself on her there.

Rosie suggested a meeting in her place. Toni turned it down.

Jamie had some new ideas, and asked Rosie and me to meet him for lunch at the National Book League. I would have been interested in the venue, now it hardly registered. Jamie explained that he had not apologised enough – he could see that now – he needed an opportunity to put that right. He would promise Toni not to … well, not to … to see Cynthia any more. He had not done so since … since he had told Toni.

Rosie remarked drily that if this was so an apology in that quarter might be in order too.

Jamie looked if anything more unhappy.
She
– he meant Cynthia but didn’t much like to speak her name – was a very independent person; divorced, we knew, didn’t we? living on her own. A good job in publishing. She would be horrified …

Rosie gave him an ironical look.

He wouldn’t drag her into this mess, Jamie persisted.

Silence. There were quite a few silences during that lunch.

What would we think of this? Jamie asked, what would
Toni
think of this? He would get a few weeks’ holiday from the firm and take Toni to Berlin. He would be able to afford it if he gave up the Essex cottage, which, he would tell her, he was now ready to do.

Where
could he meet her to present these projects?

We concocted that I should suggest lunching at Schmidt’s restaurant in Charlotte Street to Toni. Jamie would appear two minutes later. I would vanish, he would have his say. She could hardly evict him from a public place – or could she? – we counted on her shyness.

Jamie asked if it was a good idea if he were to bring the tickets? Ostend ferry, sleepers to Berlin. 

‘I shouldn’t,’ said Rosie.

‘Flowers?’ I suggested.

‘This is not a farce,’ said Rosie.

It was not. I got to Schmidt’s early, feeling horribly nervous. At one o’clock sharp: Toni. She was looking at the menu she knew well –
Schmorbraten? Schnitzel?
– when he loomed over her. I had seen him come in. She looked up, through him, at me. ‘Traitor.’

Jamie, hovering, looking very big, said her pet name, a German diminutive chosen by her. Toni addressed the air. ‘If he does not leave at once I shall tell the waiter that I am not sharing my table with this gentleman.’

Jamie heard, said her name again, turned to go, I rose to go with him. Toni – with that concentration of will – said, ‘
You
are lunching with me.’

I had at least the guts to tell her about the Berlin tickets and the rest. Her face did not open. ‘And make a nineteen-year-old girl the messenger?’ she said.

‘He came to tell you himself.’

‘Too late.’

That evening Jamie moved to his mother’s at Surbiton. He had not begun to think of giving up. He wrote Toni a long letter followed by notes appealing to the emotions. They were returned to sender.

It was unthinkable for Jamie to leave Toni without money. So a weekly cheque began to be sent. And with money Toni was able to act. She went to look for a flat. Compelled by pity, protectiveness and the vague hope of instilling some discouragement, Rosie and I went with her.

Rosie not relinquishing her engagements with the Judge, I spent most evenings at the mews alone with Toni. She was too unhappy to be left on her own. I’d bring some food, small things she liked, she hardly touched them. I got in a bottle of Bristol Cream, she did not touch it; 
I brought some wine and I drank that. I was working out how I could approach her. Evenings passed and the openings were in my mind only. You cannot really mean to divorce Jamie? Toni, you must know that Jamie loves you? Toni, will you not forgive him?

I could hear her answers too clearly.

‘What were you two talking about last night?’ Rosie would ask me.

‘Thomas Hardy.’

She pulled me up. ‘Someone
must
try – she’s too deeply stuck already, she’s got to be prised loose.’

‘I’m not the right person.’

‘Of course not. We’d be hard put to find one. If her uncle were still alive … He was a worldly man, she adored him, he might have knocked the nonsense out of her. As it is, we haven’t
got
anyone else. In Germany the Courts have an official reconciliation service – I don’t know if they have anything like that here. I must ask Jack.’

‘Can you see Toni?’ I said.

Rosie was distraught but she could still laugh.

‘
You
will have to try,’ she said, ‘you needn’t tell me that you are not a worldly uncle … You have a mind of your own, and Toni is extremely attached to you.’

‘Is she? She’s more than that to Jamie and look what good that’s done.’

‘He has
wronged
her. You haven’t.’

‘So far.’

‘You must give her a shock, show up the enormity of her conduct. Have the courage of your convictions. She’s locked herself in – smash through something. Think of poor Jamie – think a little of poor Cynthia who must have been made to feel pretty guilty by now … Think of me.’

‘
You
haven’t done anything.’

‘If Toni succeeds in losing Jamie, I shall have to live with her for the rest of our days.’