The Nice and the Good (17 page)

“Tell yourself,” said Ducane, “that anything is possible.”

Mary thought, yes, I will marry Willy and I will
take him away
. With this idea so much happiness entered into her that she stood up lightly and involuntarily as if two angels had lifted her up, their fingertips underneath her elbows.

“I’ll try,” she said, “I’ll try.”

“I hear you behaved intolerably at lunch-time today.”

“Who told you?”

“The twins.”

“Well?”

“Well nothing. Let’s have a look at your Latin prose.”

“Oh Willy—I’m so wretched—sorry.”

“Barbara?”

“Yes.”

“And she?”

“I just annoy her.”

“I have no comfort for you, Pierce. You will suffer. Only try to trap the suffering inside yourself. Crush it down in your heart like Odysseus did.”

“Is it true that the first time of falling in love is the worst?”

“No.”

“Oh God. Willy, I think I’ll have to go away from here. If only she wouldn’t play that damned flute. It nearly kills me.”

“Yes, I can imagine the flute is—terrible.”

“Do you mind if I walk about the room. You can’t imagine what it’s like when every moment you’re conscious
you’re in the most frightful pain.”

“I can a little.”

“Who were you first in love with, Willy?”

“A girl, a girl, a girl—”

“What was she like?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“It must be good to be past the age of falling in love.”

“Like Cephalus in the first book of the
Republic
.”

“Yes. I never understood that bit before. I envy you. Do you think she’ll change?”

“Hope nothing.”

“Is there a cure?”

“Only art. Or more love.”

“I should die of more love.”

“Dying into life, Pierce.”

“No, just dying. Oh hell, I’ve broken one of those eggs the twins brought you. I’ll just go and wash it off.”

Why did this little shattered egg which he was washing off his fingertip, with its fragments of speckled blue shell and its fierce yellow inside make him think so intensely of Barbara? ‘My name is death in life and life in death.’ A love without reservation ought to be a life force compelling the world into order and beauty. But that love can be so strong and yet so entirely powerless is what breaks the heart. Love did not move toward life, it moved toward death, toward the roaring sea-caves of annihilation. Or it led to the futility of a little broken bird’s egg whose remains were now being washed away by water from the tap. Even so one day God might crack the universe and wash away its fruitless powerless loves with a deluge of indifferent power.

“Sorry, Willy. Let’s look at my prose now.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll see your prose tomorrow. Today we will read love poetry. You shall read aloud to me and we will weep together. Here.”

“
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
,

rumoresque serum severiorum

omnes unius aestimemus assis
.

soles occidere et redire possunt:

nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux
,

nox est perpetua una dormienda
.…”

T
HE
lazy sinister summer evening thickened with dust and petrol fumes and the weariness of homeward-turning human beings drifted over Notting Hill like poison gas. The perpetual din of the traffic diffused itself in the dense light, distorting the façades of houses and the faces of men. The whole district vibrated, jerked and shifted slightly, as if something else and very nasty were trying, through faults and knots and little crazy corners where lines just failed to meet, to make its way into the ordinary world.

Ducane was hurrying along, consulting a little map which he had made in his notebook to show him the way to where Peter McGrath lived. He felt a certain amount of anxiety about this surprise visit to McGrath. Ducane did not like playing the bully, and deliberate and calculated bullying was what it was now necessary to produce. He was also anxious in case he should bully to no purpose. If he had to use force he should at least use it quickly and efficiently and get exactly what he wanted. But he unfortunately knew so little about his victim that he was uncertain how best to threaten him, and once the advantage of surprise had been lost McGrath might refuse to talk, might stand upon his rights or even ‘turn nasty’.

There was behind it all the unnerving fact that so far his enquiry had got nowhere. The Prime Minister had asked for an interim report and Octavian, who had had nothing to tell him, was getting nervous. The newspaper was still withholding the story, George Droysen’s further investigations in Fleet Street had produced nothing, it had proved impossible to trace ‘Helen of Troy’, Ducane had searched Radeechy’s room in the office without finding anything of interest, and the promised authorisation to examine Radeechy’s house and bank account was held up on a technicality. Ducane might reasonably have complained that as his enquiry had no status it was not surprising that it was unsuccessful. But he had undertaken the task on precisely these terms and he hated the idea of defeat and of
letting Octavian down. McGrath was still his only ‘lead’ and everything seemed to depend on what more he could now be bullied into telling. This thought made Ducane even more nervous as he turned into McGrath’s road.

McGrath lived in a noisy narrow road of cracked terrace houses, some of which contained small newsagents’ shops and grocers. Most of the front doors were open and most of the inhabitants of the street, many of whom were coloured, seemed to be either outside on the pavement or else hanging out of the windows. Not many of the houses bore numbers, but by counting on from a house which announced its number Ducane was able to identify an open doorway where, among a large number of names beside a variety of bells, the name of McGrath was to be seen. As he hesitated before pressing the bell Ducane felt his heart violently beating. He thought grimly, it’s like a love tryst! And with this the thought of Jessica winged its way across his mind, like a great black bird passing just above his brow. He was going to see Jessica again tomorrow.

“Bells don’t work,” an individual who had just come down the stairs informed him. “Who d’yer want?”

“McGrath.”

“Third floor.”

Ducane began to climb the stairs, which were dark and smelt of cats. In fact as he climbed three shadowy cats appeared to accompany him, darting noiselessly up between his ankles and the banisters, waiting for him on the landings, and then darting up again. On the third floor there was a single well-painted door with a Yale lock and a bell. Ducane pushed the bell and heard it ring.

A woman’s voice within said, “Who is it?”

Enquiries at the office had not revealed that McGrath was married, and Ducane had assumed him to be a bachelor.

Ducane said, “I wanted to see Mr McGrath.”

“Wait a minute.” There were sounds of movement and then the door was opened about an inch. “Don’t let those rats in for Christ’s sake.”

“Rats?” said Ducane.

“Cats, rats, outsize rats I call them, I’m going to open the door and you must
rush
in, otherwise they’ll get in too, quick now.”

The door opened and Ducane entered promptly, unaccompanied by a cat.

The person who had opened the door for him was a tall woman with a very dark complexion, so dark that he took her at first for an Indian, dressed in a white dressing gown, her head wrapped in a towel. Possibly the white turban had suggested India. There was something very surprising about the woman though Ducane could not at first make out what it was. The room was a little obscure and hazy, as the curtains were half pulled.

“I can’t abide cats, and they take things anyway, they’re half starving and they
scratch
; my mother told me I had one jump on my pram and it was sitting there right on my face and ever since if there’s a cat in the room I can’t get my proper breath, funny isn’t it. Have you got a thing about cats yourself?”

“No, I don’t mind cats,” said Ducane. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m looking for Mr McGrath.”

“Are you a policeman?”

The question interested Ducane. “No. Is Mr McGrath expecting the police?”

“I don’t know what
he
’s expecting. I’m expecting the police. I’m expecting the Bomb. You’ve got a sort of hunting look.”

“Well, I’m not a policeman,” said Ducane. But I’m the next best thing, he thought with a little shame.

“McGrath’s not here. He’ll be back soon though. You can wait if you like.”

Ducane noticed with some surprise that his agitation had now completely disappeared, being replaced by a sort of calm excited interest. He felt physically at ease. He could well believe that he had a hunting look and he wore it coolly. He began to inspect his surroundings, starting with the woman who confronted him.

The tall white-clad woman in the turban was certainly not Indian. Her complexion was rather dark and wisps of almost black hair could be seen escaping from the towel, but her eyes were of an intense opaque blue, the thick dark blue of a Northern sea in bright clouded light. Ducane judged her to be some sort of Celt. She stood before him, equally staring, with a relaxed dignity, her arms hanging
by her sides, her eyes calm and slightly vague, like a priestess at the top of some immensely long stone staircase who sees the distant procession that wends its way slowly towards her mystery.

Startled by this sudden vision, Ducane lowered his eyes. He had been staring at her in a way that was scarcely polite and, it now seemed to him, for some time.

“Don’t tell me who you are, let me guess.”

“I’m just from—” Ducane began hastily.

“Oh never mind. In case you’re wondering who the hell I am, I’m Judy McGrath, Mrs McGrath that is, not
old
Mrs McGrath of course, she’s dead these ten years the old bitch. I’m McGrath’s wife, God help me; well, you’d hardly think I was his mother, would you, though I’m not what I was when I won the beauty competition at Rhyl. I
did
win it, you know, what are you looking like that for? I’ll show you a picture. You married?”

“No.”

“I thought you were a bachelor, they have a sort of fresh unused look. Queer?”

“No.”

“Not that you’d tell me. It’s their mothers that do it to them, the old bitches. Why don’t you sit down, there’s no charge. Drink some pink wine, it tastes like hell but at least it’s alcohol.”

Ducane sat down, on a sofa covered with a thin flower-printed bedspread, which had been tucked down into the back of the seat. The room was cluttered and stuffy and smelt of cosmetics. A second door, half open, showed a darkened space beyond. The furniture, apart from the sofa, consisted of low dwarfish chairs with plastic upholstery and modern highly varnished coffee tables, grouped round a television set in the corner. The tables were covered with slightly dusty trinkets, little vases, fancy ash-trays, china animals. A rather expensive-looking camera lay upon one of the chairs. A white frilly petticoat was extended upon the linoleum reaching into the darkened doorway. The place had somehow the air of a shop or a waiting room, an un-confident provisional faintly desperate air, an atmosphere of boredom, an atmosphere perhaps of Mrs McGrath’s boredom.

“Oh God I was so bored when you arrived!” said Mrs McGrath. “It’s so boring just waiting.”

What does she wait for, Ducane wondered. Somehow it was plain that it was not her husband. “No, thank you,” he said to the glass of wine she was holding out to him. He noticed that she was holding something in her other hand which turned out to be a hand mirror.

“Toffee nose, eh? I’m legally married to McGrath, you know, would you like to see my passport? Or do you think I’m going to put a spell on you? I’m not a nigger, I’m as good as you are. Or are you anti-Welsh? You’d be surprised how many people are. Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, and all that, and they really believe it. I’m Welsh Australian actually, at least my parents were Welsh Australian only they came home and I was born in Rhyl where I won the beauty competition. I could have been a model. You English?”

“Scottish.”

“Christ, like McGrath, except he isn’t, he’s a South London hyena, he was born in Croydon. My name’s Judy, by the way. Oh, beg pardon, I told you. Excuse me while I change.”

Mrs McGrath disappeared into the next room, scooping up the extended petticoat as she went by. She returned a moment later dressed in a very short green cotton dress and brushing out her blackish hair. Her hair, abundant and wiry, swept down on to her neck in a thick homogeneous bundle, rounded at the end, giving her a somewhat Egyptian look.

Ducane rose to his feet. He had become aware that what was remarkable about Mrs McGrath was simply that she was a very beautiful woman. He said, “May I change my mind and have some wine.”

“That’s matey of you. Christ, what ghastly plonk. Here’s yours. Sit down, sit down. I’m going to sit beside you. There. Mind if I go on brushing my hair? No, hard luck, I’m wearing tights, there’s nothing to see.”

Mrs McGrath, now seated beside Ducane, had ostentatiously crossed her legs. He sipped the pink wine. If she was indeed putting a spell on him he felt now that he did not mind it. The room had begun to smell of alcohol, or perhaps
it was Mrs McGrath who smelt of alcohol. Ducane realised that she was a little tipsy. He turned to look at her.

The low-cut green dress revealed the dusky line between two round docile tucked-in white breasts. Mrs McGrath’s face, which seemed without make-up, now looked paler, transparently creamy under an even brown tan. The wiry black hair crackled and lifted under the even strokes of the brush. Dark Lady, thought Ducane. He thought, Circe.

The cold dark blue eyes regarded him with the calm vague look. Mrs McGrath, still brushing, reached her left hand for her own glass. “Pip pip!” She clinked her glass gently against Ducane’s and with a sinewy movement of her wrist caressed the side of his hand slowly with the back of hers. The movement of the brush stopped.

Mrs McGrath’s hand was still in contact with Ducane’s. Ducane had an intense localised sensation of being burnt while at the same time a long warm spear pierced into the centre of his body. He did not remove his hand.