The Trouble-Makers (6 page)

K
ATHARINE TOOK HER
friend’s arm, and continued to walk at a steady pace.

“I thought so,” she said, quietly, untruthfully, and with absolute certainty that this was the right thing to say. “You mustn’t be too upset about it, Mary; after all, anybody can lose their self-control for a moment, and it isn’t as if you’d hurt him badly. How did it happen?”

Mary’s head was bent, as though she fought her way against a great wind. Her high heels clattered painfully along by Katharine’s side; she seemed confused, beaten, unable to find where in her story to begin. Katharine tried to help her.

“You said you’d had a row yesterday,” she prompted. “You remember—when I caught you up. You were walking slowly so as not to get home while Alan was still there.
Was
he there after all?”

Mary’s head lifted a little, gratefully.

“Yes—yes, he was. That’s how it all started. You see, after you’d gone in, I still waited about—walking around, you know—for quite a long time. But at last I
had
to go in….” Her steps dragged slower, as if she was reliving all over again her reluctant entry into her home last night. “And then, the moment I came into the hall I knew—I could feel—that Alan was still there, in his study. As I stood there, wondering whether to slip out again and come back later, the study door opened and he came out and looked at me. Just that. Looked at me. And then he looked at the clock—it was ten past six by then—and didn’t say a word. Oh, Katharine, I know this sounds silly, but you don’t know how Alan’s eyes are when he just
looks
! Everything he is thinking is right there in them, shining, and I can read it, like some awful language that he has forced me to
learn. I was reading it then—how I had been out all day, neglecting the house, neglecting him—how I hadn’t lit the sitting-room fire, or got tea ready, or made the beds properly or anything—and I couldn’t explain, or argue, or answer back, because he hadn’t
said
anything—do you understand, Katharine? You can’t contradict someone who hasn’t said anything, that’s what’s so awful about it. So awful. So awful….

Her voice trailed into a sort of moan, her foot tripped on the kerb as they crossed into the main road, and Katharine steadied her.

“So it was then that … that …?” She attempted to prompt Mary again, and Mary raised her drooping head a little and continued:

“No. Oh no. Not then. I didn’t do anything. I just—sort of muttered something. Not even an apology, because he still hadn’t accused me of anything, had he? It was just a mutter—you know—without any actual consonants or vowels. If you’ve ever had to mutter like that yourself, you’ll know what I mean. And then I slipped off into the kitchen. I thought I’d get dinner ready, and then perhaps it would all blow over, because of course Angela would come down for dinner, and I will say for Alan he’s always careful not to be—awful—in front of Angela. But I’d forgotten to do any shopping that morning, and so when I looked in the fridge there was nothing but the cold joint. So I started slicing it up. I don’t quite know what I was planning to do with it—I mean, you can’t really give your husband just cold meat, can you, even when he’s in a good temper, let alone when he’s like
that.
But anyway, I thought I’d start by slicing it up, and think afterwards. Don’t you think that’s quite a good way, Katharine, when you’re quite
desperate
?—
do
something first, and then decide whether to do it afterwards … if you see what I mean….” Her voice was growing vague again, wandering evasively down tortuous byways of philosophy as the climax of her story loomed nearer. Katharine forced her to the point again.

“So you sliced up the meat?” she pursued, pulling Mary gently to a halt at the bus stop “And then?”

“And then I heard the study door open again,” said Mary, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, as if even now she had to listen, nerves alert, for Alan’s soft movements. “And I heard Alan coming down the hall—very softly, the way he does when he’s angry. And then he was standing in the kitchen door, very neat, very calm, and his eyes shining. ‘Cold meat!’ they were screaming at me. ‘Out all day—no fire—no comfort—and now cold meat for dinner!’ They
screamed
it at me, Katharine—two or three times! My hand shook so that I cut my finger—my
own
finger, isn’t that funny, when you think what happened afterwards? I really did—look!” With a short laugh, she held up a forefinger encircled with sticking plaster for Katharine’s inspection, and went on: “And then he spoke to me. Actually spoke, with his mouth, I mean—and you can’t think what a relief that was, even though he was still as angry as he could be. ‘I see there’s going to be nothing for dinner,’ he said politely. ‘And as I have to go out in a few minutes, perhaps I could trouble you to bring me a sandwich in the study? I’d ask for some coffee too, but of course that would be too much trouble; and no doubt we have run out of coffee.’ Absolutely quietly he said it, perfectly civil—and oh, Katharine, I’d give
anything
for a husband who’d stamp, and rage, and throw things at me…. Oh! …” Tears were swelling her features once more, but with a cruel effort she gulped them back and went on:

“So I began making the sandwiches as quickly as I could—I used the cold lamb for them. Oh, it was such a job, with the bread new, and the butter hard, and my finger bleeding, and trying to make coffee at the same time—and knowing that any minute he’d come back into the kitchen and say in that polite voice: ‘I see I’m expecting too much,’ or some awful sarcastic thing like that, and go off without anything to eat at all. Anyway, I did manage to get it ready, and piled it all on to a tray in a great hurry—the carving knife too, just because it
happened to be still on the plate with the sandwiches—I didn’t mean it to be there, of course—I swear I didn’t. And when I put the tray down by Alan as he sat at his desk, the
knife was the first thing he saw. He picked it up and handed it to me saying, ‘I think this is surplus to my requirements.’ And so that’s how it happened that I was standing there, with the knife in my hand, when he … when I …”

“He said something else sarcastic, and it was just the last straw?” suggested Katharine, as Mary’s voice ground to a stop once more. Mary nodded forcefully, blinking back a new spate of tears, and tossing her head with an odd, coltish gesture.

“Yes—that’s just how it was! Oh, Katharine, I knew you’d understand. You see, as he turned his back to me, and began eating, sitting there at his desk, I felt I ought to say
something.
So I began apologising about not having any dinner ready, and I said that I’d thought he was going to be out for dinner. Well, I
did
think so—he’d said he was going out at six—
you
know that, don’t you, Katharine. I told you so at the time. So I said just that: I said, I’m sorry there isn’t a proper dinner, but I thought you were going out at six.

“And then, Katharine, he swivelled round in his chair and looked right at me. And his eyes were, blazing, yelling, bellowing, but this time I didn’t know what they were saying. And I didn’t have to, because again he actually spoke:

“‘You thought I was going out, did you, Mary? You actually
thought
about me to that extent? I’m touched beyond words. It’s wonderful to have a thoughtful wife, isn’t it? And what a sweet, loving thought! …’ And at that, Katharine—can you believe me?—he stood up and moved as if to kiss me—a sarcastic, poisonous kiss, like a snake.

“And that’s when it happened. I simply struck out. I’m not sure I remembered I had the knife in my hand or not, but I struck out…. And the next thing I knew, he was slumped in the chair again, staring at me … and blood was everywhere. And then he didn’t cry out, or snatch the knife from me—
nothing
. He just sat there, looking at me, holding his sleeve, trying to check the bleeding. ‘You’d better phone the doctor, Mary,’ he said quietly. I was terrified. I rushed to the phone, and when I got back into the study he seemed to have fainted—he was very white, and his eyes shut. And the doctor came at once, he was
very kind; he hardly asked me any questions; he said he’d take Alan straight to hospital in his own car. And so we got him into the car, and I went too … and they stitched him up under an anaesthetic, and when he came to, he told everyone this story that I told you—that a dark man in a raincoat had done it.
Why
does he make up such a story? Oh, Katharine, I’m so frightened!”

Before Katharine could answer, her bus drew up beside them, and she stepped quickly on to it, Mary scrambling up beside her, careless of their destination. By great good luck, the top deck of the bus was empty, and they were able to settle themselves in precarious privacy on the front seat. At last Katharine was free to answer her friend’s question—and it seemed to her that the answer was simple and obvious, and that Mary must really know that it was.

“Why did he make up the story? Why, to protect you, of course, Mary. He must have seen that the wound couldn’t possibly pass as an accident once a doctor had seen it, and he didn’t want you to be blamed. He probably realises, in his heart, that it was at least half his fault—that he provoked you past endurance. He’s probably just as sorry about it all as you are. He loves you, Mary—don’t you understand? He always has, in spite of the rows, and in spite of his sarcasm, and his reserve, and all the rest of it. He loves you—and this is the proof of it. You should be happy about it—to have him sticking up for you like this.”

Mary’s answering silence seemed to throb to a rhythm of its own, cutting across the noisy rhythm of the bus, and filling Katharine with new uneasiness. She thought that perhaps Mary was overwhelmed by feelings of guilt at thus escaping scot-free from the consequences of her crime: for crime, of course, it was, no matter how much one might sympathise with her, and understand the provocation.

“Of course,” Katharine went on, when Mary still did not speak, “if you’re having pangs of conscience about it and are pining to confess, I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. I don’t imagine anything very dreadful would happen to you
in the circumstances, and with Alan himself taking your side and everything. But really, I would have thought you’d do better to leave well alone. Obviously it’s what Alan wants—and you have to think of Angela, too. Think how it would upset her to know the truth—and all the gossip she’d have to face at school, too. If it was me, I’d stifle my pangs of conscience and leave it all to blow over. I really would. Unless, of course, some unfortunate dark man with a raincoat really
does
get pulled in—but I’m sure it won’t happen. Alan couldn’t have hit on a vaguer description—deliberately, of course—and I’m sure he won’t encourage the police to investigate too enthusiastically. And there can’t
actually
be any clues
incriminating
a dark man, since there wasn’t one….”

But Mary seemed scarcely to be listening at all. Katharine had the feeling that in spite of her damaging and apparently frank confession, Mary was still locked away with some secret fear of which Katharine still knew nothing, and on which all her eloquent reassurance had no bearing. She could do nothing more until Mary herself chose to break the silence.

The bus drew up with a jerk as the lights went red, and Katharine stared out at the hoardings on the wall facing her. Ever afterwards she was to connect the picture of a gigantic, impossibly rosy little boy grinning down at a plate of sausages with the white, agonised face that Mary now turned towards her.

“That would be all very well,” Mary almost whispered, low and harsh, “if he just told this story to everyone else. But he tells it to
me
too. It makes me wonder if I’m going mad or if he is. After he came round, you see, they let me go in to him; and when I saw him lying in that stiff, neat bed, looking so white and … and sort of
young
,—I suddenly felt terribly, dreadfully sorry. I ran to him crying, and I bent down and began kissing him, and telling him how sorry I was, and that I’d never meant to hurt him…. And do you know, Katharine, he just stared at me, sort of incredulously. ‘What do you mean?’ he said, pushing me away. ‘How do you mean, you’re sorry? It wasn’t
your
fault.
You
didn’t let the man in; you didn’t
even see him. You didn’t know anything about it until I called out to you, and you came in and found me with my arm bleeding.’ He looked at me then, very straight, right into my eyes. ‘How could it be
your
fault?’ he said again.

“Katharine, what am I to think? Does he
really
think it happened like that? Did he have some dream under the anaesthetic that has muddled him—made him forget what really happened? Or when he fainted? Can fainting make you forget things, like concussion is supposed to do? And if so, will he go
on
forgetting? Or is it all some awful, complicated, martyred sort of pretence, that he’s going to keep up for ever and ever? And what
for
—when he must know that I know?—And know that he knows I must know? Oh, Katharine, what shall I
do
?”

“Hush,” warned Katharine, for Mary’s voice was rising, and any moment someone might come up the stairs. “He could have forgotten, I suppose, after a faint—I don’t know much about fainting. Or—Mary—are you sure he wasn’t saying all that just in case there were some nurses or someone within hearing? Just to stop you betraying yourself then and there? After all, a hospital’s not a very private place, is it?”

Mary shook her head decidedly.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t that. There weren’t any nurses for miles—or any other patients. He was in a sort of little side-room by himself. But anyway, I’ve talked to him since then—since we’ve been home, I mean, all alone in the house, and he still says the same—that a dark man in a raincoat attacked him and then ran away. I tried—well, I sort of tried—to tell him what really happened, but he shut me up in a dreadful, icy way, and told me I was being hysterical. Oh, Katharine, it was awful. I just had to give up and accept the raincoat man. He seemed satisfied then. In fact, he really began being very nice to me, in his stiff sort of way. But, Katharine, what does he think? How can I know what he is thinking? Can you imagine what it must be like, to spend the rest of your life with someone who knows that you tried to kill him? Who knows that you know that he knows, and yet neither
of you must ever speak of it? To have him watching you—sitting at meals with you—going to bed with you—and to know that all the time he’s thinking: ‘She tried to kill me once.’”