Odd Girl Out (20 page)

They both drank some boiled, bitter coffee, and Edmund tried to assess his thoughts. Before he could do so, she said calmly, ‘I’m not “becoming your mistress” in case
that’s what you are afraid of. I told you why I did it. I wouldn’t dream of getting in yours or Anne’s way, whatever that may be. You’re behaving like men say women do.
Don’t. I won’t, and you needn’t. You may be short of excitement, but that’s a luxury shortage. Try being me.’

‘I can’t, can I?’

‘No. So just you leave it alone.’

He looked at her: because he had no idea how she felt now, he thought that perhaps he had never known what she had felt. This made it more difficult to know what to do about anything. Then, she
said, as though she knew what he was trying to think, ‘Look. If you want me to connive at the lies you’ve already told, I will, because I can see that it might make things bad for you
if I don’t. But
don’t tell
any more. OK?’

‘All right.’ Feeling humiliated at a position she seemed to have put him into, he reiterated, ‘We had the puncture miles away. You got wet through, and we thought you’d
better dry your clothes and have a bath. That meant dinner. The reason I didn’t ring before was because I was staggering about in the dark trying to get help.’

She nodded, and then looked away from him. Then she said, very sadly, ‘It is extraordinary how everybody seems to have a little conspiracy in the cupboard – like a skeleton. Perhaps
we’d better go now.’

So they did. Edmund paid the bill. Outside, the rain had stopped, everything was dripping and the air smelled of moss. In the car, she said, ‘Perhaps you’d rather I went away?
Perhaps that would make things easier for you?’

He stared at her. She was not looking at him, but straight ahead with her hands folded – no fingers to be seen. The thought of losing her, of her disappearing from his life, was
intolerable; he had not considered it; but now, as she suggested it, he knew that it was, or would be.

‘Of course not! Please don’t think of it; don’t say it. We are both exceedingly fond of you. Anne told me. I think she feels about you rather as she might about a
daughter.’

She smiled faintly, and then said, ‘Nobody has ever thought of me like that.’

‘Well – a younger sister, then: you know what I mean. She wants to look after you – to protect you.’

She gave a deep sigh, of contentment, and, although he could not name it, of hope.

Getting back and facing Anne turned out to be far easier than Edmund had expected. To begin with, she was – unusually for her – a little drunk, or possibly
feverish. She looked flushed: the kitchen was in an uncharacteristic mess, and she was in the middle of brewing some hot and also alcoholic drink. Halves of squeezed lemons lay all over the
draining board, brown sugar had been spilled from its jar and the whisky bottle was on the shelf by the stove. She was wearing her winter dressing-gown.

‘Hullo, darling,’ said Edmund kissing her forehead and altogether approaching the situation in a manner tempered with apology plus its not really being his fault.

‘Hullo!’ said Arabella, ‘how’s Ariadne?’

‘One of the kittens died, but I spirited it away. I’ve tried to get her off your bed, but she simply carried them all back. It’s all right otherwise. They’re supposed not
to be able to count up to more than two or something.’

‘I bet they know. I mean it wouldn’t just be a matter of counting, would it? They aren’t all the
same.
What are you making?’

‘I got so wet gardening,’ she sneezed. ‘Afraid I’ve caught a cold. You’d better have some too, if you got so wet.’

‘Good idea,’ said Edmund. ‘We’ve all got pretty wet, one way and another.’

‘I got deluged twice!’ Arabella said cheerfully. ‘Once when Edmund took me to see this house with a fabulous garden, and then when we had the puncture.’

Oh God! thought Edmund, as he fetched glasses and spoons to put in them. What on earth will she say next?

‘Oh, you went viewing with Edmund, did you?’ said Anne. ‘And did you see poor old Sir William?’

‘No: missed him. I was nearly late for lunch, you see, because I had to see someone in the morning and then I got bogged down shopping.’

‘I thought your clothes were different.’

‘They got different again later. I bought a lovely white unsensible trouser suit and got soaked. So then Edmund had to get me these from Marks and Sparks. Then I got wet in
them.
You see why I have to have so many clothes. I’m no good with them.’

‘But what about the ones you went to London in?’

‘Oh, those. I left them in the shop, not wanting to cart them about and not thinking about the rain.’

‘I told you it would rain,’ Anne said, the maternal note – missing during the last few exchanges – back in her voice.

‘Well,
you
got wet too.’

‘It was entirely my own fault. I simply had to finish my bit of gardening. Here we are.’ She started to pour – rather sloppily – the delicious-smelling hot toddy into the
glasses that Edmund held out.

‘I must just go and see Ariadne. Back in a second.’

When Arabella had gone, Anne looked more carefully at Edmund and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were taking her out to lunch? I mean, I don’t
mind
in the least; it
just seems so odd your not saying anything about it.’

‘I didn’t know I was taking her. You know what a mysterious girl she is. I thought she had a day packed with secret missions in London, and I was just the chauffeur, so to speak, and
then it turned out that she just had one person to see and didn’t know what to do with herself all day. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘I said I didn’t mind,’ she said almost crossly; and added on a different note, ‘I expect she had to see – you-know-who – and it all turned out worse than she
thought it would. Good thing you took her out to cheer her up.’

‘You-know-who?’

‘You
know.
The
man
,’ Anne almost hissed, as they could hear Arabella coming back.

After she had returned, full of loving enthusiasm for Ariadne’s family, and Edmund had given her her glass of toddy, he suddenly thought, so
that
was what she was doing. Seeing the
last man who – a wave of what he thought was disgust, but was really jealousy struck him. Perhaps she has been to bed with hundreds of men. Perhaps it meant nothing to her at all. Perhaps she
had been acting the whole time. He leaned against the dresser and shut his eyes as the vision of her naked and streaming below him recurred.

‘Darling – are you ill or something? Do you think you’ve got a cold as well?’

‘As well as what?’

‘As me.’ She sneezed again.

Arabella said, ‘Perhaps we’ve all got colds and it will be like a siege, with Ariadne going out and bringing us mice and birds for sustenance.’ She giggled and then added,
‘We’d soon find out if she could count then.’

‘I’ve put a camp-bed in your room. Or you could have the other room, only it’s rather cold because we haven’t put the heating on there for weeks.’

‘I’d much rather be with her.’

Edmund drained his glass. ‘I’m going to have a hot shower.’

‘You should as well, Arabella. Don’t worry – I’m not going to bother to wash up tonight.’

For a moment Edmund visualized himself standing under a hot shower beside, or rather facing Arabella: he would kiss her and there would be no room for the water to fall between their bodies . .
.

‘Good night,’ he said.

As soon as Edmund had gone, Arabella put her arms round Anne and said, ‘Honestly, I’m awfully sorry about us not getting back for dinner. I bet you made a lovely one, as usual, and
we should have rung you earlier, only Edmund had to use a police box for the puncture trouble.’

Anne said, ‘That’s all right.’ Then she added, ‘At least you notice that I must have cooked it.’

‘Men aren’t so good at that. What did you make? Can we have it tomorrow?’

‘I did a duck, with morello cherries.’

‘That’s extraordinary. We had the most awful duck you can imagine in the ghastly place we went to. All tough and stringy and greasy – the kind that makes you feel you ought to
be jolly glad it’s duck, if you know what I mean.’

‘Where did you have dinner?’

‘Honestly, I don’t know. It was raining so hard, and when we saw a pub sign that said it had a restaurant, we just ran like drowned rats. You’re not cross, are you?’

‘Was your – morning – all right?’

Instantly, she became remote. ‘I suppose so. Rather what I expected, really.’

Anne looked at her: she was sitting on the kitchen table, one bare foot swinging just off the floor. ‘Dear Arabella. I didn’t mean to pry. Only I couldn’t bear – ’
she stopped and finished her drink rather shakily.

‘What?’

‘Well, if you want to know, I couldn’t bear to think of you unhappily in love with someone who was horrible to you. I know what it’s like, and I couldn’t bear it for
you.’

Arabella smiled faintly. ‘You are so
kind
: nobody’s ever been so kind since I was a child. But don’t worry: I’m not in love with anyone. I’d know if I was,
and I’m not.’

After that, they went upstairs together, and everybody went to bed.

In bed, Anne said to Edmund, ‘Everything’s all right.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘She’s
not
in love with anyone. So whoever it was this morning, didn’t hurt her too much.’

Anne, full of whisky, lemon, and Codis, fell asleep at once, while Edmund lay trying to sort out whether Arabella had meant it when she said she didn’t tell lies and whether he would mind
more if this were true or untrue. He wished that he was able to put into words – or thoughts – what he wanted, but found this impossible. He felt, at the same time, very tired and very
much awake.

Arabella slept with Ariadne and her brood. This turned out to be practical, and from Arabella’s point of view, a good thing. They managed to share the bed, with Ariadne’s back turned
to Arabella and the kittens on the far side. Ariadne was full of vibrating warmth, but with her back turned, her whiskers were not in evidence, and in fact everybody fell asleep as soon as their
various heads settled on the pillow. Everybody, thought Arabella sleepily, felt at home.

T
HE
next morning was hot and bright and fresh, but Edmund woke feeling only the first of these things, and this, he
realized, was because Anne, breathing heavily beside him, seemed to have some kind of fever. She was certainly much too hot, and there were far too many bedclothes on their bed – more than
their usual number in summer. He twitched a couple of blankets off his side of the bed and lay on his back for a few minutes remembering a number of disparate occurrences and states of mind. His
mouth felt dry and dirty; he had a slight headache and a considerable thirst; in fact, he had a hangover. Anne seemed deeply asleep: he settled for a long, hot bath, some Alka-Seltzer and a good
deal of coffee before he woke her. To this end, he took his equipment out of their adjoining bathroom and went along the passage to the one used by Arabella. Then he realized that he had left the
Alka-Seltzer behind, and swearing softly, went down to the kitchen where some was usually kept. He drank two in hot water – the taste was like white wool in his mouth and he nearly retched,
but he knew it would make him feel better, and so it did. The bath, in which he lay for longer than usual, made him sweat, but that, too, he felt was a good thing. After all, he had a day’s
work in front of him whatever he felt like. He decided to make the coffee in his bathrobe to give the sweat time to die down. The breakfast tray that Anne invariably laid at night in the kitchen
ready for the morning was not laid, and he was both irritated and surprised to find how long it took him to lay it, and how difficult it was not to forget things and then to find them. As he padded
upstairs with the laden tray, he thought of Arabella in her room and an overwhelming desire simply to see her, asleep in bed, overtook him. He put the tray carefully down on a passage table, poured
out a mug of black coffee with some sugar, which was how he knew by now that she liked it, and knocked softly on her door. He was only bringing her some coffee after all. There was no answer from
within. He opened the door gently. Arabella lay in the half-light of the half-drawn curtains, one arm thrown over Ariadne’s back. Ariadne raised her head and stared steadily at him in an
outfacing manner. What was he doing here? her look implied. Arabella did not stir.

‘I’ve brought you some coffee.’

She turned her face towards the door, but did not seem to see him.

‘Too early: too sleepy yet,’ she murmured, turned so that he could only see the silky tangle of her hair and the fact that she seemed naked except for the sheet half covering her
shoulder. He moved nearer the bed. Ariadne sat up, yawned, and then, curling one protective arm round her kittens, lay down again. He was interrupting.

‘Arbell! Darling! Wouldn’t you like some coffee? I’ve got to go to London in half an hour and I shan’t see you all day.’

Arabella raised herself on to one elbow and looked at him.

‘No. Thank you. I just want to sleep some more. Thank you,’ she said again, retreating into warm unconsciousness.

It was no good. He went out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He did not like coffee with sugar in it. He poured it down the basin and rinsed it out. Then he picked up the tray again
and returned to his bedroom. Anne was half awake and clearly feverish. She looked flushed, which did not become her, and said that she did not want coffee, only fruit juice. He gave her his as well
as her own; felt vaguely annoyed that she did not seem to notice or thank him, and drank three mugs of coffee, the third while he was shaving.

‘I think I’ve got a temperature.’

‘Better take it and find out.’

‘The thermometer’s in the cupboard.’

He put down his cut-throat and reached in the cupboard, expecting it to be in its case; it was not, and it rolled into the basin below where it broke.

‘Damn!’

‘What?’