Love in Our Time (24 page)

Alice took a deep breath.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said. “I remember.”

Mr. Biddle looked from one to the other and then said good-bye. He felt strangely hurt by the way they treated him. If Gerald hadn't wanted to come to the smoking concert he could perfectly well have said so without inventing an engagement that Alice didn't know anything about.

And he was really gravely disappointed by Gerald's attitude towards Mrs. Sneyd. He had secretly promised himself that as soon as he had got Gerald to the point
of promising her a definite allowance he would offer to share it with him. But not until. So long as he kept up his present behaviour he could face the future unaided.

If ever there was a young man, Mr. Biddle felt, who needed a lesson it was his son-in-law.

When Mr. Biddle had left them, Gerald went back into the drawing-room to find Alice.

“I saw him,” he said gloomily. “I saw him on the way home.”

It was Saturday, the day of Mr. Biddle's smoking concert.

Alice and Gerald hadn't slept much the previous night; they had kept on waking up and remembering the afternoon's appointment. And when the morning came they were hot-eyed and unrested. They didn't talk much either. During breakfast Gerald kept on leaning over and squeezing Alice's hand but, in a sense, they avoided each other. Even when they kissed goodbye it was as though each was holding something back from the other.

The morning seemed almost suicidally long to Alice. Whenever she paused for an instant she found herself calculating the time till four o'clock. Even when she was doing the shopping her mind kept jumping into the future and back again. The baker's—Dr. da Leppo—Woolworth's—Dr. da Leppo—Boots—Dr. da Leppo—the dairy—Dr. da Leppo. The words made a pattern inside her mind and repeated themselves there. Dr. da Leppo at four o'clock, four o'clock at Dr. da Leppo's

When she finally got back to the house at eleven-thirty she was trembling so much that she had to sit down and rest. And a sudden wave of panic came over her. Suppose that something went wrong, suppose that she were the one exception to Dr. da Leppo's brilliant rule? She found that she could make herself cry simply
by thinking about it; and she didn't want to cry. Instead, she went over to the desk and wrote Gerald a note. In a way, it made it better, doing the matter-of-fact thing and leaving him something that he would find when he got back; but in a strange, foolish fashion it frightened her. It was as though, simply by the fact of writing, she was making that terrible possibility into a certainty.

The note was a short one. When she came to write it, she couldn't put in half what she wanted to say.

“
Dearest
,” it ran, “
remember that if anything happens to me, I don't want you to be miserable, ever. It wasn't your fault and you couldn't have helped it. It's simply that we had to do the sensible thing—try to think of it that way. Please remember what I said about marrying again. I meant it. I shouldn't ever want to think of my Gerald being lonely. Good-bye, dearest, if it is good-bye. Your ever loving Alice.

“P.S. You'll find that I've left everything tidy and there aren't any bills you don't know about.”

She put three kisses after her name, as they had always done in their love letters to each other and then, because she was crying too much to get on with things, she went through into the little kitchenette with the No-Toil Boiler in the corner, and sat on the corner of the table while she ate an orange.

It seemed strange to be doing so when in two or three hours' time she might be dead. But she felt calmer again now. And having tidied up a bit she went upstairs and put the note in Gerald's collar drawer where he would find it if he came back alone.

It was nearly two o'clock when Gerald got back.

He looked rather pale and drawn, Alice thought. But
he behaved in a very quiet, matter-of-fact fashion. And simply by being quiet he made Alice feel quieter, too. The first hint of what he was feeling was when half-way through lunch he paused for a moment and turned towards her.

“You're sure you want to go through with it?” he asked.

Alice nodded.

“Quite sure,” she said.

“You're not frightened?”

“Just a bit,” she admitted.

“Because you don't
have
to do it, you know.”

But she wouldn't listen to him.

“We've been into all that,” she said. “And we've decided. Don't let's begin again now.”

He went over and put his arm around her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and that he knew just what this meant to her, and that some day he would be able to repay her and that when they had got a little more money they would have the children she had been hoping for: he wanted to say just that.

But somehow when he came to say it all that he could manage was, “Good old Alice.”

At a quarter past three they began to get ready. Alice went upstairs and dressed as carefully as if they had been going out to tea somewhere. Then, just before they left, she went slowly from room to room as if she were trying to memorise everything. It wasn't until Gerald had called her twice that she came through into the hall; she had been quietly going round the drawing-room putting the covers straight.

There was nothing about the departure that was agitated or hysterical. They might have been any one
of the East Finchley couples setting off for a drive in the car. Everything about them looked ordinary and normal. But to Alice herself it was as though she was rediscovering Boleyn Avenue. She had noticed again how happy the houses looked, and how the sun, striking them, seemed to fill everything—the road, the houses, the gardens—with life. The whole business of living appeared to proceed more kindly in Boleyn Avenue than elsewhere. And then she remembered how it had looked in the previous September when she and Gerald had first gone there together. The road had been under water then, rutted with pot-holes and with planks and bricks lying about it. They had decided then that it looked happy—so happy that they had wanted to live there.

The sunny day lasted only as far as Highgate. After that, the sky greyed over, so that by the time they had reached Kentish Town they were running through a sombre, sooty world. The buildings were dirty and discoloured. Even the faces of the people seemed to have changed a little as if they had lived amid the soot and the sombreness too long; they all looked as if they needed a holiday by the sea and half a pint of fresh milk every day.

When they reached Mornington Crescent they turned off towards Regent's Park down the long, slanting perspective of a road of grey, brick houses to the faded rectangle of stucco mansions where Dr. da Leppo lived. East Square had been respectable once: now the front door bells were grouped together at the side with the occupants' names hastily written underneath. Notices about bed-sitting-rooms for single gentlemen appeared in the windows.

Alice was trembling again when they stopped at Dr.
da Leppo's surgery at the corner. There still seemed time to turn back until they had actually rung the bell. Then, once she heard the jangle from somewhere down in the basement—it was one of the old-fashioned bells with a handle like a door-knob—she knew that there was no turning back. They waited there while an elderly woman in a long, grey overall slopped up the stairs and led them through to Dr. da Leppo's waiting-room.

The room was worse even than Alice had expected. She took one glance at the tattered magazines on the table, the newspaper in the grate and the drooping folds of the lace curtains and closed her eyes. She wanted to shut everything out and remember only what Boleyn Avenue had been like.

Gerald looked across at her.

“You all right?” he asked anxiously.

She nodded. “I'm all right,” she said.

Dr. da Leppo was more spruce than ever when he came in. He was wearing a tight grey suit and a buttonhole. His little feet in patent leather shoes looked no larger than a woman's. He danced forwards across the check oilcloth to meet them.

“Is this the young lady?” he said.

Then, before Gerald could answer, he went over and took hold of Alice's hand in his two brown ones. He wanted her to think of him as her friend, he said; above all, he assured her, there was absolutely nothing to get upset about.

Dr. da Leppo led Alice through into the surgery and motioned Gerald to remain where he was. He wanted to have a few words with him in private, he explained. When he came back he was still smiling.

“Did you remember about the fee?” he asked.

Gerald produced it, all ready in an envelope. Dr. da Leppo counted the notes carefully, almost lovingly, and pocketed the two half-crowns. Then when he had put the notes into his wallet he patted Gerald confidingly on the shoulder.

“It's really nothing,” he said. “Quite a simple affair.”

Gerald did not answer. His heart was pounding inside him. He wanted to rush in and take Alice in his arms for the last time. And Dr. da Leppo seemed to understand perfectly.

“Go in and sit with her,” he said. “I shall be just a few minutes getting ready.”

The surgery was a bleak cubicle of a room. There was a small sink in the corner and a picture of Dr. da Leppo as a young man over the fireplace. The ash-tray on Dr. da Leppo's desk was full nearly, to the brim with cigarette ends.

There was one easy-chair and Alice was sitting in it. She looked young—startlingly young—and very pale. Even her lips had lost their colour. He went over and sat on the arm of her chair and put his arms round her.

“I love you, Alice,” he said.

“I know,” she answered.

She was shaking so much she could hardly speak and her teeth were chattering.

It was very quiet in the surgery. The street noises of the Square died before they got in there, and left the room in its original state of stale exhaustion. Gerald held Alice tighter and tried to forget where they were. The only disturbance was the everlasting
plip-plop
of the tap dripping into the sink and the sound of Dr. da Leppo moving about in the next room. After a moment, even
these seemed to fade away as well and there were just the two of them sitting there in the grim terrifying silence. Gerald felt a thin mist of sweat break out along his forehead: he wondered if Dr. da Leppo were really as expert as people said he was. He wondered a lot of other things as well in those few minutes, and bit at the quick of his fingernail until he made it bleed.

In a sense, it was Alice who was the calmer of the two of them now. She was just sitting there shivering. Then he felt something wet on his hand and looked down and saw that Alice was crying. At the same moment he heard Dr. da Leppo open the door of the next room.

That was all he waited for. He jumped down off the arm of the chair and grabbed Alice by the arm.

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“Come on,” he said. “We're going.”

The last glimpse they had of Dr. da Leppo was as they drove away. He had come running down to the front door after them, shouting out an unintelligible stream of questions.

They left him, a small distracted figure in a long white surgical coat standing at the top of his steps not daring to call out from there for fear of summoning the police.

They didn't say much on the ride back; somehow there didn't seem very much that they
could
say. Alice still looked pale and frightened, and sat huddled up in the seat hugging her knees as they drove; and Gerald, his scarf knotted round his neck, stared straight ahead like a chauffeur. It wasn't until, they got past Highgate
and the road showed clear ahead of them that he made any movement towards her. Then he drove with one hand on the wheel and put his other arm round her shoulder for a moment. The contact seemed to wake her up. She came closer to him and thrust her hand into his pocket. It was uncomfortable for both of them that way, but they stayed like that until they got to Boleyn Avenue.

As soon as they were inside Alice turned to him.

“What made you do it?” she asked.

Gerald shook his head.

“I dunno,” he said. “Just thought I would.”

“Was it because you loved me?”

“I guess so.”

“I'm so glad.”

Then without any warning she slipped forward onto him. He caught her as she fell and, taking her in his arms, he carried her up the creaking Tudor staircase into the bedroom.

At ten-thirty that night when he undressed he found Alice's letter in his collar drawer, and read it. A little bomb of cold exploded in his stomach as he did so and he stood quite still where he was, the bit of paper in his hand. He looked across to the bed. She had been afraid that it was coming to that, and still she had said that she wanted to go through with it. Pushing the letter back into the drawer he went over to her. But she didn't stir. She was sleeping as easily as a child, with her hand flat on the pillow under her face. He stood for a moment looking down at her.

Then putting out the light, he got into bed beside her and put his arm over her.

It was a letter from Tadford that set Mr. Biddle moving again.

Mrs. Sneyd thanked him for four and a half pages for the five pound that he had sent her and admitted that she didn't know how she was ever going to get through the autumn. It was a wild, desperate kind of letter written in a series of breathless, disjointed sentences, and with it was enclosed a separate note from young Violet. This was a very different kind of document. It asked when Mr. Biddle would be in Tadford again and hinted shyly that if he couldn't manage the journey she would be ready to come down to London herself whenever he asked her.

Mr. Biddle smiled as he read young Violet's letter; it was all so girlish and innocent. Then he folded it and put it absent-mindedly into his pocket. It was Mrs. Sneyd's letter that he was thinking about. For all its sprawling emotion and exaggeration, it was the real thing: it stated the plain truth that another human being didn't know how she was going to go on living. In the face of it, his idea of teaching Gerald a lesson in responsibility seemed simply frivolous. It was, he realised, up to him to do something, and do it quickly.