Visitors (6 page)

When the taxi stopped outside her building she climbed out gracelessly, her bag dangling open. She dropped her keys, bent to pick them up, intent only on reaching her pills. As she straightened, with some difficulty, she became aware of a young man coming forward to help her. ‘Hi,’ he said, as she turned her desperate eyes up to his face. ‘I’m Steve.’ No doctor, no attendant, no guardian angel could have been more welcome. Indeed he was rather better than any of these, being utterly unimpressed by her plight, or perhaps simply not aware of it. The gaze with which he favoured her was neutral, yet he helped her indoors, sat her down in her own drawing room, vanished, and came back with a glass of water. ‘My pills,’ she managed to say. ‘Room on the right, bedside table.’ He vanished and reappeared once more, then stood, watching her calmly. Within minutes, it seemed, she was looking at him with amazed gratitude, cautiously restored to something like
health. It was only the heat, she told herself, and nerves: Monty was right. There is nothing to be alarmed about. Nevertheless she retained from the experience the sensation of falling that was becoming habitual. If this young man had not been there she might indeed have fallen, might have had to clamber to her feet in full view of any passer-by. ‘Your room is next door,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you.’ She got to her feet and preceded him down the corridor. ‘In a minute,’ she announced, ‘I shall make tea. There is a fruit cake. I’m sure you must be hungry.’

Why she was sure of this was not explained. He did not look hungry. He looked careful, expressionless. But he had been kind, and there was no-one else, no friend, no neighbour at hand to succour her. He was neatly made, of middle height, with a patient abstracted air, as if he too would rather be elsewhere. ‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘I’ll get my bag.’ It was a pity that the pills had such a sedative effect; she was ready for a nap, in her own room, in silence, the curtains drawn. She knew that she should be asking him questions, making it clear that she expected him to be out all day, showing him the kitchen and the bathroom, feeling a tug of despair at the complications still to come. And the coverlet was not yet in place, was still in the plastic bag, which she was carrying like a visitor, a stranger in her own home. Yet he seemed unoffended, took off his linen jacket and hung it in the wardrobe, as of right. In his position she would have offered thanks and a mild compliment on the aspect of the room, with its view of the silent sunny street, but he continued to say nothing. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she was too becalmed by the pill to care about this. Tea, she thought; I must have tea. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said to the room generally; his back was towards her, and
he was extracting clothes from a large nylon holdall. Turning to face him at the door, she saw his bright incurious eyes on her, his closed lips wearing a half smile.

‘The tea,’ she repeated. ‘Do join me when you’re ready.’

‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘Take your time.’

‘If you want to wash,’ she suggested.

‘I bathe in the morning,’ he told her. ‘If that’s okay with you.’

Mrs May also bathed in the morning. Fortunately there were two bathrooms.

‘Or I can get a shower at the swimming pool, if there is one.’

‘I’m sure there is,’ she said. ‘But of course you must feel perfectly free.’

‘If I could just put a few things in your washing machine—you know what it’s like, travelling.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But have your tea first.’ She felt extraordinarily tired. As long as she could endure him until she could decently go to bed, she did not much mind what he did.

Tea restored her somewhat, permitted her to take stock. He seemed civilised, she thought, was quiet and contained, but with a patent lack of interest, of engagement, in his expression. One silent circular glance had apparently told him all he wanted to know about his surroundings.

‘I wasn’t expecting you until the weekend,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you’ll have for supper—an omelette, perhaps. I myself don’t eat in the evenings.’

‘We came on an earlier flight,’ he explained. ‘There was no point in hanging about. Ann said her grandmother would put me up. Then when I got to her place I was told to come on here.’ He looked annoyed, as well he might. ‘Anyway, I’m
going there for dinner tonight. That way I can bring the rest of my stuff back here.’ Mrs May felt anxiety return, but forced herself to remember his kindness.

‘How did you all meet?’ she asked. ‘Of course you must know Ann better than I do. I haven’t seen her since she was a little girl.’

She remembered a stolid child, encountered one afternoon at Kitty’s when she and Henry had gone there to tea. The child’s thick body had been encased in a smocked Liberty print, a white ribbon in her flat dark hair. She had opposed a considerable will to Kitty’s rage and love, which had not prevented Kitty from endowing her with a wardrobe of unsuitable clothes. At least they would have been suitable for a baby. Mrs May had a vision of Kitty in shops that sold clothes for toddlers, although on that occasion Ann would have been about six. There was dissension in the air even then, an embryo battle of wills. And Kitty had not entirely managed to subdue the little girl; the grown woman would offer even greater resistance.

‘Have you known her long?’ she asked, coming back with a start to the present.

‘David’s my friend,’ he said. ‘We hang out together. When he said he was coming to London I said I’d tag along. He said Ann’s grandma could put me up.’ Annoyance once more flitted across his generally impassive face.

‘Ann’s grandfather is not in good health,’ she explained. ‘That’s why you’re here. He needs quiet. And anyway it’s only for a few days.’

‘I may stay on for a bit,’ he said. ‘Check out the music scene. I won’t be any trouble. You won’t know I’m here.’

‘I’m afraid you won’t be here at all,’ she rallied. ‘I shall be needing the room. A relative may be coming to stay.’

Mrs May had no relatives, as this young man would undoubtedly discover. I shall invite Susie Fuller, she decided. Susie might be glad of a break in London, although she would be astonished at the invitation.

‘I think it best to make things clear at the beginning, don’t you? You’ll be able to look for something else; I should do that as soon as you can. To tell you the truth, Steve, it is not convenient for me to have you here. You’re welcome to stay until you find something else, which I’m sure you will. Perhaps your friend David—whom I haven’t yet met—could help you.’

‘Sure,’ he said equably. ‘Mind if I have a quick bath? And you’d better let me have a key. I might be back late tonight.’

‘The Levinsons keep early hours, as I do—I doubt if you’ll be late. I’m sure you won’t make a noise. I’ve noticed that you move very quietly. Your key is in your room. Don’t lose it, will you? I shall undoubtedly be in bed, when you come in. Or perhaps not, knowing Kitty and Austin. They will be tired too, as I’m sure you will.’

His flat level gaze did not leave her face. ‘I might take David out for a few beers,’ he said pleasantly.

She gazed steadily back at him, confident that Kitty would forbid such an excursion. Oh, how the young must hate us, she thought. We try to stop them doing what they want to do; we forget their unrelenting energy, since we no longer have much energy left to us. And Kitty would have one of her headaches, and would be obliged to rely on Molly, even on herself, would complain—justifiably—at the inconvenience, whereas she would really be complaining about the unfair competition between youth and age. Mrs May could see Kitty, red-faced, furiously attending to her oven, while Ann
leaned on the jamb of the kitchen door, supplying monosyllabic answers to questions Kitty directed over her shoulder. And all the while, between them, stood the missing link, the absent Gerald.

‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Has Ann been in touch with her father?’

‘No idea,’ replied Steve, uninterested. ‘Lives in a commune, doesn’t he?’

So that rumour was true, not that Kitty had ever confirmed it. Kitty gave it out that Gerald was working as an ecologist. Fortunately few people knew what that meant, apart from prolonged absence. ‘Doing very well,’ she would say, if anyone were imprudent enough to ask. ‘He moves around a lot. We see him when we see him.’ But they had not seen him for an unconfirmed length of time. Austin had gone in search of him at one point, when Henry was still alive. The meeting had been either unsatisfactory or fruitless, was in any event overshadowed by the bad attack of angina that Austin had suffered as a result. Mrs May had a distinct impression of Austin, in his polished shoes, among the bracken and dead leaves, as he made his unsteady way back to his car. This had been so frightening that the visit was never repeated. That Gerald might have caused his father’s death became a possibility; the matter was shrouded in silence. Shortly afterwards Austin had lost heart, had sold his business, and now sat at home, devoting his life to Kitty. Gerald was a closed book, and would remain so until, if ever, he came home. So far he had given no sign that he intended to do so.

‘And when is the wedding?’ she asked, pretending an interest she did not feel.

‘I reckon some time next week.’

‘You’ll be the best man, I suppose.’

His face darkened, as though she had uttered a threat. ‘David doesn’t want any fuss.’

‘In that case I’m afraid he’s in for a disappointment. Ann’s grandmother will certainly want to do things properly. She has very high standards. It will be a register office, I dare say, unless David is religious.’

‘He is.’

‘Oh? I didn’t think young people had much time for religion.’

‘David’s a religious teacher.’

‘Is he? Where?’

‘He teaches sport and religion in a school.’

‘What a curious mixture. Well, perhaps not really. Where is this school?’

‘Northampton. That’s in Massachusetts.’

‘And that’s where you met?’

‘I’d been travelling,’ he replied evasively. ‘I was passing through, got to know him, stuck around. You know how it is.’

She had no response to this. ‘And will Ann be happy with him?’ she asked. She felt that someone, anyone, should put this particular question.

‘Should do. He’s a really nice guy. A bit heavy sometimes, you know?’ There was no response to this either.

‘And what about you? What do you do?’

‘I’m looking around, getting it together. Like I said, I’ve been travelling for about a year. I’m into music.’

‘That’s nice. Music must be a very uplifting profession. What sort of music?’

‘I play guitar.’

The guitar had always seemed to her the most specious of instruments, a parasitic offspring of the harp and the harpsichord.
Suddenly she longed to be listening to a full orchestra playing something majestic, Schumann or Brahms. She longed to be seated alone in the drawing room, listening to the radio. This she was only able to do when her upstairs neighbour was away, as he was now. The neighbour, a small peppery man who avoided her eyes whenever they met at the entrance, had once sent down a note, complaining. She had felt rebuked, had blushed, the note in her hand. But she had seen him going off in a taxi, his fishing rods propped up by the driver, and in his absence had enjoyed whatever Radio 3 had to offer. She would know when he came back; he always banged his doors. She had not mentioned this, an unruly exchange between neighbours being unthinkable in her quiet respectable building. It was simply now that she was missing her chance, and would continue to do so for as long as this young man was on the premises. She felt a great weariness. Henry would never have let things get this far, she thought. It was true that Henry did not enjoy loud music either. She had only been able to indulge her tastes since his death. And until she met him she had only had reasonable tastes to indulge.

‘All right if I have my bath now?’ he enquired patiently.

‘Good heavens, is that the time? I had no idea. Yes, you have your bath. I don’t expect we shall see each other again this evening. I get up very early,’ she told him. ‘So I’ll be able to get your breakfast. Then I’m afraid you’ll have to look after yourself. I go out to lunch; I expect you’ll do the same.’ Fleetingly she remembered that she had had no lunch, had had nothing to eat since breakfast. That was no doubt why she had felt so poorly. She rose. Obligingly he got to his feet: a good sign. At the door she said, ‘I’ll see you in the morning then. Give my love to the Levinsons. Tell Mrs Levinson I’ll be in touch.’

She was aware of backing out of the room, of retreating, the flat no longer her own. Her own room was a haven in which she humbly took refuge. In vain she admonished herself for what she saw as unfriendliness. It is because I never had children, she thought. That is why I appear so unnatural. That is what Kitty knows, and Molly too, though Molly has no children either. But Molly still yearned foolishly over young people, exclaimed over babies, tried to capture their little hands. Useless to tell them that she and Henry had come to terms with this apparent inability, that each had become the other’s child. In his last illness she had washed and changed him but had not otherwise treated him as a baby. The most she had done was hold his hand when she saw that he had a moment of fear. Together they had watched the light change, until the room was in shadow. In that way Henry was spared disappointment, for her attention remained undivided. Maybe he had had regrets. Who did not have regrets at the end of a life, knowing that life was receding daily? Maybe he had longed secretly for children, making it a point of honour not to let her know of this. Disillusion had not soured him, though she could date her own increasing coldness from her own disillusion, which she in turn had kept to herself. Without children one was always lonely, yet she was thought to be merely independent, as if independence were not simply an alibi, and a concealment for one’s losses.

After a desultory restless evening—the flat surprisingly quiet once he had left—she prepared for bed. Tomorrow she must telephone Kitty and ask to speak to Ann, or the unknown David, to suggest that he and Steve go to an hotel. She would offer to pay, her contribution to the wedding expenses. This seemed to her utterly reasonable. On this suggestion, which she thought she could put quite forcefully, she dozed
off. She slept fitfully, kept awake by the need to hear Steve return and lock the front door. And it seemed to her that he never did come back, so that in the morning she crept to the door of the spare room and listened for a sound. There was no sound, only a smell of heated flesh, as if he had been lying in his bedclothes for at least a week.