Light A Penny Candle (50 page)

‘Father, you’re going to have to face it. I
am
a mad old spinster, a quarter of a century old … why shouldn’t I talk to myself? But this time I insist I was only laughing.’

‘Well, there’s a letter from your mother’s friend, on the hall table. I’m sure that will stop you laughing.’

Father went on gloomily out through the gate, head bent and sighing. Oh God, what could be wrong? Harry didn’t write letters. Please, please let Mother not be worse, please let Mother not need her this week when she was going to have the party in Stefan’s. Please.

*

… I got to thinking I never laughed or had a good time since Violet got unwell, only the time you and young Johnny came up here. And we had such a good night that evening, and I got a pain laughter, that I began to think you both enjoyed it too. So that makes what I am going to ask a bit easier. Could I come and have a holiday in London? And could I stay in Johnny’s place? You see, I can’t obviously go near George, I know that, fair’s fair. And I don’t have enough readies for a guesthouse, and I’m not too steady on my pins and I’d be happier with someone I knew. …

Dear Harry,

I’m sorry I took two days before replying to your letter, but I had to work things out, and here’s what we’re going to do. You’re to come down next weekend, on the train and I’ll meet you at the station with a taxi. It’s not possible to stay in Johnny’s flat because apparently there are a lot of people there at the moment. It’s like Clapham Junction. But you
are
going to stay with Stefan Worsky who is my boss in the antique shop and his lady friend – well, she’s about a hundred but she’s still a lady and a friend – her name’s Anna. They are doing up their room for you. I wish I had a house of my own Harry, and I’d paint a room like you once painted one for me. …

She posted the letter grimly and patted the top of the red letter-box as if it had done her some kind good deal by accepting the letter. It wouldn’t know any more than Harry would ever know the two days of drama that had preceded its posting.

She had just shown Harry’s letter to Johnny without comment and then, without pleading, she had asked coolly, ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘Oh Jesus, the poor old sod,’ Johnny had said.

‘So can he come, or can’t he? I’ve got to write back.’

‘Oh Eliza, Eliza, a holiday, the daft old fellow wants to come and spend a holiday with me. I can’t have him … really and truly. …’

‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell him that.’

‘Put it nicely … put it sort of diplomatically, you know.’

‘No. I don’t know.’

‘I mean, don’t say it baldly, get round it, and tell him we’ll take him up West one night he’s here, and he can tell us what it was all like before the war, he’d like that. He’s a nice old fellow.’

‘Yes he is. And he obviously likes you too.’

‘Don’t blackmail me, Elizabeth, I’m not having it. I never ask you to take on any lame ducks for me ever, do I?’

‘No, no, indeed.’

‘So, I’ll be glad to see him, but there’s really too many people passing through here to make it sensible for him to come and stay.’

‘Right.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘Go to hell,’ she said calmly. ‘What I do has nothing to do with you.’

‘Oh dear, dear. A temper. Look, Elizabeth, you’re becoming very odd, sneaking behind my back to get Stefan to organise a party for the art lovers … trying to make me turn my house into a convalescent home for ailing stepfathers. …’

‘Why don’t you go all the way and say ailing stepfathers stabbed by mad mothers … that would round it off neatly.’

Johnny looked stricken. ‘Look, I’m selfish and low. I didn’t mean it. I’m very very sorry. I say it with all my heart. I am very sorry I lashed out like that.’ He looked at her levelly. He was sorry, she could see that.

‘That’s all right,’ Elizabeth said.

‘What?’

‘You said you were sorry and I accept your apology, I said that’s all right.’

‘Well. …’ Johnny was nonplussed, he had expected her to rush into his arms or to continue being upset. The calm reply seemed to bewilder him. ‘Well … that’s generous, and you know you’re my lovely funny-face, don’t you?’

‘Yes, indeed I do.’ She gathered up her handbag and gloves. She was leaving.

‘Why are you going away? You are still upset, I said I was sorry.’

‘I know, my love, and I said that it was all right. I’m not
upset
. I just have a lot of things to do. Arrangements to make. I’ll see you.’

‘When?’ he asked.

‘Soon.’

Stefan sat silently and listened. She finished the whole tale. ‘I won’t start apologising and begging and everything. I’ll just ask you yet one more favour. Will you have him?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Stefan.

Harry walked very slowly and though he pretended his stick was just an ornament, he needed it to lean on.

My mother did that to him, Elizabeth thought. My poor mother who loved him more than anything in the world did that to him. Left his insides so weak that he can’t even walk properly down a platform.

She hated Euston. Mother had sent her away from Euston, she had come back as a grown-up and met Mother, the thin stranger, here. She had waited for Aisling to come that time, the time when she was so frightened, and she had seen Aisling off again when it was all over. No, she preferred the airport really. Big stations made her sad. And Harry’s face looked pathetic. Nonsense, it didn’t look pathetic. It looked fine. It was only because Elizabeth knew all that happened to Harry she thought he was pathetic. To himself and to everyone else he was not, and must never be.

Harry was the life and soul of the party. He suggested that he sit at the door and give people little names to wear on
their
lapels. He would write these out himself in his funny curly script. Elizabeth thought that this was quite a good idea, but feared that it might look too business-like.

‘People are always a bit shy coming into any kind of gathering,’ Harry had said. ‘By the time I’ve got their names sorted out for them, they’ll be so relaxed they’ll be asleep.’

And of course he was right. People were delighted to talk to the cheerful man who hadn’t an ounce of shyness or self-consciousness. He hunted for their names happily in the display in front of him, he complimented the ladies, he pointed the gentlemen towards the table where the drink was being dispensed, he answered questions about the place, questions which many of the guests would never have put to Elizabeth.

‘No, this is not Miss White’s own shop, she does help out as a consultant and I do believe she is on the board of directors. …’

‘Yes, Miss White is my stepdaughter. I’m very proud of her. I am glad you like the art course, I’ll certainly pass that on to her. …’‘Yes, it is a nice shop, isn’t it, and I believe it does very well. It’s run by a great friend of mine, Stefan Worsky … that is him over there, the elderly gentleman … and that’s his assistant and manager, Mr Stone. Mr Stone’s a card, you’ll enjoy talking to him. …’

Elizabeth had no idea whether or not Johnny would come to the party. She had been deliberately vague when Harry wanted to know, and Stefan with his sharp old eyes had asked her nothing but obviously knew nothing either.
Johnny
was busy, she had explained to Harry. But Harry said no matter how busy Johnny was he would be able to come to the night of Elizabeth’s triumph.

Johnny had even bought Stefan, Harry and himself buttonholes to wear for the part. Elizabeth couldn’t believe it when she arrived, Harry at the door sitting up at a high desk and wearing a huge carnation; Stefan with his flower, examining the glasses to make sure that they were shining. … And Johnny – she still felt a tightness in her chest when she looked at him. He was so handsome in his dark suit and a cream shirt and the jaunty flower in his buttonhole. He stood smiling with welcome and she realised with a start that at the end of the gathering perhaps two dozen of these people would go away pleased and warmed by Johnny’s personality. They would never know he dismissed them as amateur dabblers, as poseurs who wanted to learn the jargon of artistic conversation, they would only think he was a marvellous man to talk to. And he would never reveal to anyone, man or woman, that he was Elizabeth’s lover, or that she was in any way special. That sort of thing didn’t come into Johnny’s conversation.

She saw him talking to the Clarksons, a middle-aged couple, both short-sighted, eager and intense. Both their faces were a study in concentration as Johnny explained something to them. He made no move to talk to the two attractive-looking girls among the guests, Grace and Susannah. Elizabeth knew Johnny well. He didn’t need to make any move to talk to them, he could bide his time
talking
to the Clarksons, it would not be long before Susannah and Grace managed to find their way to Johnny. That’s the way it worked.

Elizabeth looked around and smiled as she saw Henry Mason and Simon Burke. They were so funny, those two. They had been in the art course from the very beginning because their office was near the art college. She had been slightly surprised when they joined, somehow she had thought that they would both have had plenty of things to fill their leisure hours. … She imagined they would have gone to lunches with people who had big gardens sloping down to rivers, and they would have passed cocktail sausages and drinks to jolly girls.

They were always the first to laugh if she made any little joke, they had walked her back to her office several times when the coffee evenings were over and it was time for her to put away her notes and pointers and lists. Now tonight they had come early and had been very helpful at the start, making sure that the conversation kept going.

Simon was a big, rather flamboyant man, though how anyone could be flamboyant in his city suits she didn’t know, but there was a hint of it waiting to escape. It was as if he had only dressed up in fancy dress for this life … but in another world he would have been a troubadour, a sultan, a cowboy. She giggled to herself at the idea … and caught Henry’s eye. He was nice too, Henry. Tall and pale, his fair hair always seemed to fall into his eyes. He was possibly taller than Simon but he didn’t stand in such a shoulders-flung-back way as Simon did. He used to finger
his
tie a lot when he had talked to Elizabeth in the beginning, but she noticed he didn’t do that any more. It was a mannerism she supposed, like the way she used to shake her own hair out of her eyes. She used to do that a lot, the O’Connors used to imitate her, it had irritated Mother even further back than that. And once or twice Johnny said she still did it and it made her look like a schoolgirl again. Henry Mason had a patterned tie on tonight, he must have changed it especially to be more festive for the party. She thought that was nice.

Elizabeth liked them, and particularly Simon who had an endearing streak of self-mockery. He had enquired whether any of her friends could start an Instant Music Appreciation class, and a Learn to Love Literature source; then he would feel ready to face the twentieth century.

Elizabeth had often seen Henry and Simon chatting to Grace and Susannah and had wondered whether or not the class was acting as a lonely hearts club, one of the many things that Johnny had suggested it might be.

‘Henry and I would like to take you to dinner, will you come out with us one evening?’ Simon was smiling at her.

‘With both of you?’ Elizabeth asked, amused.

‘Yes, I said I’d been thinking of asking you out to say thank you for the marvellous course, and Henry said the same so we agreed to do it together, if you were willing. That way we could take you somewhere splendid. And that way you wouldn’t be afraid of our ulterior motives … not if there were two of us.’

‘That’s true, I’d feel safer certainly,’ Elizabeth said
gravely
. Simon smiled. He was a very pleasant young man. Why couldn’t she set her sights on him rather than that man with the crinkly smile and the dark hair who was standing there effortlessly delighting both Grace and Susannah, and who now was shaking Henry Mason warmly by the hand and including him in the group. How simple it would be if she didn’t have this ridiculous chain attaching her to Johnny. Then she could look at Simon flirtatiously and allow herself to become interested in him and his uncomplicated life.

Harry and Stefan had wondered whether anyone should make a little speech. They consulted Johnny and sought his advice about what should be done.

‘It would be nice to mark it for Elizabeth,’ Harry had said. ‘And the people here obviously think a lot of her.’

‘Yes, to round it all off there should be a few words,’ Stefan had said.

Johnny looked at Henry Mason. ‘Can you do it? It should be someone from the course. I don’t want to butt in, you could say something that everyone would relate to, and you know the people. Elizabeth would like that.’

‘Oh do, Henry,’ squeaked Grace.

‘I’m not very good at speaking in public,’ Henry began.

‘This isn’t public, this is your group, friends now more likely, I’d say. Go on, just a few words. I’ll call for hush.’

Elizabeth was startled to see Johnny clapping his hands. Her heart leapt in that anxious way it often did when Johnny did things. Oh, he wasn’t going to say anything awful about it being time to go home, was he? Please no.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, forgive me for interrupting you for a moment, but a lot of you have said that you would like somebody to express on your behalf thanks to Elizabeth White for all she has done to open doors into the world of art for you. …’

Elizabeth nearly dropped her glass. Oh Johnny, darling, darling Johnny, he knew how much it meant to her and to everyone there. He was not cruel and dismissive. He stood with the eyes of everyone in the room on him and he was going to make a little speech about her. Her face went red and white and red she could feel the burning come and go. She saw Harry and Stefan looking pleased and proud … oh she would never be able to thank Johnny enough for this.

‘… so on your behalf I have asked one of the long-standing members of your group, Mr Henry Mason, to say these words to Elizabeth from you all. Henry, the floor’s yours. …’