Odd Girl Out (27 page)

When this finally occurred, Edmund – as a lone man – was easily able to procure a double whisky and ginger ale. The small plastic table that was pulled out for him by the stewardess
as she served his drink made him feel safe and cared for in an alien world. Perhaps he would not even want dinner. His stewardess was small, and dark, with pancake make-up and false eyelashes. She
had large breasts, and he thought of Anne again, and then of
her
with those small, childish protuberances that made him feel so agonizingly protective. There was a delicacy about her that he
had never dreamed of. That, and her surprising, and patchy, sophistication. It would have been unbearable if she had seemed all of a piece. Perhaps she
was
exactly that, but it was unknown
to him. She was beautiful, and brave and honest, and who, meeting that, could not love it? He took the pictures of the house in Barnet out of his wallet to look again at the cedar tree and the
lake.

Sir William sat in the huge, dank room that Irene had called his study. Its large windows faced north, and looked out on to the back wall of a mews, and Sir William was so used
to being too cold in it, that even on this midsummer night he had, out of habit, the old Astrakhan car rug from the even older Bendey (now sold) on his knees. He was, as usual, watching television
and eating a bowl of Corn Flakes. He enjoyed almost all television immensely, even when facts – as he saw them – or people – as he saw them – seemed erroneous or out of
place. ‘Silly young monkeys,’ he muttered, as a pop group came to the end of its gesticulations that had been emphasized by a steady, monotonous thud, and applause filled the empty
room. His favourite programmes were Miss World, ballroom dancing contests, party political broadcasts and American gangster films. How Irene would have laughed at this lot! Their clothes and all
that hair all over the place and their voices that ranged from America to Liverpool . . . dammit! His right eye was watering again; he found that both eyes often watered in the evenings. As the
commercial began, he put down the empty bowl on a table and fetched himself his nightly Scotch. He always had a Scotch after his Corn Flakes. As he was a poor sleeper these days, he watched until
there was nothing left to watch, right through the pop groups, the news, adverts, serials, documentaries to intellectual discussions about pretty well anything but ending with God. The ways in
which they managed to go on about God impressed him deeply: with apparently no trouble at all they could bring Him into damn nearly anything. One minute a feller was talking about trees or the East
End or sports and the next moment he’d applied it all to God. He stood when they played the Queen (next to Irene she was the finest woman he knew), and then switched everything off and
stumped up two flights of stairs to bed. He slept now in his dressing-room: Irene’s room was just as she had left it, and sometimes he went in to see that everything was all right, but not
often, and not for long. It was funny, he told himself, what a long time it seemed to take to get over it. So many people had told him that he would, that he had come to believe them, but it still
didn’t happen. Going back to his (her) house was still a nightly ordeal, but he resisted any casual efforts of his sons or friends to move him to a flat. This house had been theirs, so he was
going to go on in it.

As he drank the last of his Scotch now, the News began with its headlines of disaster and deadlock, and he wondered suddenly how young Edmund was getting on with his journey to Greece. Must be
in the air by now. He was a bit of a stuffy egg, as well as being deaf, which was extraordinary for a young feller who hadn’t been under heavy fire: he didn’t seem to have the gusto for
life that Sir William would have liked in his successor. But then, he hadn’t got Irene: it was women like Irene who made a man tick. By God, he’d been lucky. His left eye was watering
now; better go and see some eye feller about them. If only, he thought, letting himself have one thought for once about her, if only she hadn’t died,
he
would have taken her to Greece
and she would have enjoyed every minute of it. The other thing he found he often had to do in the evenings was to pull himself together. He did so now – clearing his throat, and blowing his
nose very loudly, so that he missed how many Russian technicians were now operating in Egypt.

‘I can’t wear it for cracking up crabs – you said it was for doing nothing in.’

‘I know, but you looked so smashing in it.’

‘You’re not hurt! It’s not because I don’t like it. It’s because I like it so much.’

They were sitting side by side at the large kitchen table with hammers and picks and a dish, getting the crabs done.

‘Once,’ said Arabella dreamily (they had both had drinks made by her that were so cold that their strength had been momentarily concealed), ‘once, I got a black wool beard that
hooked behind the ears. I wore it for about three weeks.
All the time.
I loved it so, you see. And it annoyed Clara awfully in hotels.’

‘Edmund will be in his aeroplane by now.’

‘You aren’t missing him too much, are you?’

‘I would be, if you weren’t here. Now look: this is the poison bit.’ Anne had a sharp knife, and showed Arabella how to cut this out.

‘Would it really kill you if you ate it?’

‘I’ve never tested it to see. But yes, I think it easily might. The fishmonger should have taken them out for you.’

‘Those sort of people always know I don’t know.’

‘Let’s just have a crab and lettuce and masses of raspberries and cream,’ Anne said, as the crab dismemberment was drawing to a close.

‘Yes, let’s. There’s a little of that drink I made left. Shall we have that first?’

‘Of course.’ Anne felt surprisingly well and slightly drunk. ‘And you tell me more about your book.’

I’ll tell you bits about the principle of it. You see, what I feel is,’ she went on, having gone to the fridge, collected the jug of drink and poured out the rest of it for both of
them, ‘is, that if I really
am
rich, I ought to be good and useful to somebody or some people. But I can’t properly think how.

‘I mean, you know, Dr Schweitzer and Josephine Baker and all the people who find a way of being needed. They don’t even need money to start with. But all I seem to have is money. On
the other hand, I wouldn’t begin to know how to start a leper colony or how to run a huge crowd of adopted children. I could just give all the money away, but so far that has always just come
under the heading of Good for Arabella and never Nice for her. I suppose I want my pound of flesh in gratitude for having a purpose in return. I want to know what I’m
for,
and I
can’t simply be for a million dollars or whatever I turn out to have.’

‘I think you should start by being married to somebody you really respect and care for.’

‘Like you, you mean?’

‘Well – I don’t know about that. I love Edmund: I haven’t got any special gifts or advantages, so I suppose I haven’t thought beyond the fact that I love
him.’

‘And respect him?’

Anne thought before answering, ‘Yes: I do, I suppose. For a man.’

‘Ah! Then men aren’t necessarily the answer. But children might be.’

I’ve honestly never wanted them. Edmund has filled the bill for me.’

Arabella drained her glass and said, ‘Do you believe in lies?’

‘How on earth do you mean – believe in them?’

‘I mean – do you think it is quite all right for people to tell them?’

‘Of course not. Except when it doesn’t matter.’

‘When doesn’t it matter?’

‘Well – when you would hurt somebody very much if you told them something they don’t need or want to know.’

‘Surely, needing and wanting could be different?’

Anne said slowly, because she was having to think about it, ‘Yes, I suppose they could. But,’ she finished more lightly, ‘one can trust one’s instinct there. To get that
sort of thing right.

‘Do you still want Heinz with your crab?’ she asked a few minutes later, when the shells had been consigned to the rubbish and the table was being laid.

‘If you don’t mind. If you don’t feel it’s an insult to your home brew.’

‘Of course not. Let’s both have what we like.’

‘It’s funny, isn’t it, how some kinds of being drunk simply make you feel hungry and happy? And other kinds don’t, at all?’

‘Is that what you are?’

‘Oh yes: I’m quite drunk, but in a very good way.’

Anne noticed how her chin was charmingly and neatly square, which, by itself, would not seem to go with the rest of her face at all, but, in fact, was exactly the right finish.

When Anne had lit the lamp on the kitchen table they ate their meal there, with a bowl of cooling water to dip their fingers in and damp tea-cloths to wipe them. Ariadne soon smelled the crab
and walked, or picked her way round the table making her wishes plain. Occasionally a neat, hooked paw collected a piece of fish, and in the end, as they had far too much, they gave her the smaller
claws. These she took singly to the floor and crushed up with professional skill and satisfaction.

‘Glad to get away from those boring, demanding kittens,’ Anne remarked.

‘Well – wanting a change, anyway. Everybody except me seems to want that.’

‘But you only don’t want one, because you’re always having them. I mean, you’d soon get bored with here if you found you
had
to stay.’

‘Gosh – I wouldn’t.’

The telephone rang, and Arabella, with what seemed to Anne to be a sixth sense, said, ‘I know who that is. My mother. Don’t let’s answer it.’

It went on ringing. Anne said, ‘It might be Edmund. He might have missed his plane.’

‘Well, then
you
answer it.’

‘But if it
is
your mother, it would be much better if you did, because then you could say that Edmund was away and I’m frightfully ill and you have to stay to look after
me.’

Arabella gave her a look composed of fear and resentment in equal proportions.

The telephone still rang: by now it had got on both their nerves, and they knew it must be answered. Arabella got slowly up from the table, wiping her hands on the tea-cloth, and walked slowly
and rather unsteadily out of the kitchen into the hall where the telephone was.

Anne listened. The conversation began in French, with Arabella accepting the call from, presumably, a Paris operator. It then became clear that she was talking to her mother in English and
French that seemed interchangeable. What struck Anne with a surge of love and protection was the way in which Arabella’s voice – in either language – seemed to change when talking
to her mother. She sounded defiant, childish, inadequate, obstinate, and generally bad at expressing herself. She couldn’t come to Paris or Nice, she said; she was nursing Mrs Cornhill:
Edmund was abroad – no, she didn’t know how long for, but there was nobody else in the house, and she couldn’t leave. Pas de domestiques. Ludwig
who?
Merde! She
wasn’t going to get off with some grasping old toad old enough to be her father. She hated yachts. She loathed St Tropez. She was perfectly all right where she was. She was twenty-two. Tell
that to Vani. No. No. Non – All right. Call next week, but she wouldn’t change her mind. She needed some more money. Her dentist had charged her nearly two hundred pounds for crowning.
Please. It was her money anyway, wasn’t it? Without it, she would never come: if it was sent or accorded her she might change her mind. No – she did not want to speak to –
Bonsoir, Vani. Je suis infirmière pour une femme qui est souffrante. Avec une maladie très dangereuse. Oui. Maman ne comprend pas. Please leave me alone, Mummy – I’m
perfecdy all right where I am. No – I told you – they
want
me to stay. I dare say you don’t but it’s true. They like having me – they said so. He only went this
evening. N’oubliez pas l’argent, s’il vous plaît, maman, parce que je suis trop pauvre. I
can’t.
I’ve told you – I simply can’t leave a very
ill person alone in a house. Ludwig est horrible – je le déteste. Je ne veux pas de château. Je suis très contente ici. Maman . . . !

When she came back, Anne started to give her a cigarette; she crumpled it up in her fingers and said, ‘I tell
her
lies, anyway,’ and burst into tears.

A moment later she said, ‘She doesn’t believe them, of course, but she never tries to find out what I really mean. Oh! Why does she have to be so
awful
? Why couldn’t she
just be a nothing mother – bored with me and leaving me alone?’ She was wiping her face with the crab-ridden cloth. Anne got some brandy and gave her a glass without saying anything.
Arabella’s relationship with her mother was something so entirely outside her own experience that she felt afraid to give advice or pronounce any sort of judgement upon it. Arabella drank
some brandy. Anne wanted to say, ‘You are twenty-two. If you hate her so much, why don’t you just get free of her?’ But she realized that if, indeed, the situation was as simple
as that, she would not need to say it.

Arabella sat down again at her place and put her elbows on the table.

‘I hate her so much, that if I could think of the kind of lies that would make her never want to see me again, I’d tell them like a shot. But I’m not clever enough. The things
you’d think she’d mind, she doesn’t seem to, and the other way round.’

‘Who’s Ludwig? I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying.’

‘Ludwig is some little German punk with a broken-down castle who’s looking for some rich, dumb fool to marry. I expect he’s related to Vani – nearly all really awful
people are. It would settle me down. Get me out of the way. He’s a Catholic, you see, and I’m a lapsed one, so I’d
never
get away from him. His breath is like the ghastly
old dungeons in his castle. His family are haemophiliac, so most of the time he stays indoors collecting stamps. I hate him,’ she added unnecessarily.

Anne gave her another cigarette and lit it for her. ‘Now listen. This is the twentieth century. You can’t be made to marry someone you really hate. You must calm down a bit, darling,
about all of it.’