‘There’s no news of Frank,’ she said. ‘It’s over five months.’
‘I suppose he’s learned how to fix a bomb in a car and connect the contacts to the ignition. That’s all they seem to be doing these days in Algeria. When I first saw you tonight I thought you’d had news, you looked so radiant.’
‘He must still be in the desert,’ she said, ‘if he’s anywhere at all.’ She didn’t like to talk about it, and had argued with herself for hours as to whether she should have Albert invited to the party. It was bad enough to think about it on waking for hours in the middle of the night, but to talk of it with a friend who also knew Frank brought back the desperate ache in her heart and stomach, and it was difficult not to be stricken with tears. ‘I can’t wait for him to come back. I’m really unable to dwell on that part of it.’
It was possible that Frank would not come back, he thought. His life wasn’t worth much, having thrown it into such a desert. There was less chance of him returning than even she thought in her most pessimistic moments, though when speculation joined them as now he was wrong, because her hopes were often in a worse plight than that.
‘As I said before,’ he smiled, so that not even she could disbelieve him, ‘we’ll soon see Frank. And who knows, the time might not be too far off.’ Death isn’t the end of all idealists, he thought. Some live to tell the tale. They must. In her wildest moments she had imagined him coming out of it, a sudden turning up at the house that blinded her with all the happiness she’d ever dreamed about. But the swing into oblivion was more bitter. Hope and optimism were a sin to be paid for by the further sin of despair. Both were the deadly enemies of suffering mankind. Handley was trying to comfort her, when the only accurate opinion on the matter was total silence, to push it out of her mind and trust that such policy would never lead to indifference.
‘I’d rather talk about other people,’ she said. The party was gathering force. Someone fell down near the door, a crash of glass as he went. A prominent critic gave a halfhearted cheer, as if it were a shadow-faced novelist from the north about to indulge in another blackout.
‘My trouble,’ he said, ‘is that my daughter Mandy’s got herself in love with a farmer’s son who’s a bit of a layabout. Not that I mind that. I’m one myself, but he’s a bit of a nut as well. I caught him last week spying out the house with binoculars, trying to see how Mandy lives, I suppose, when she’s in the sanctity of the home.’
‘He seems moonstruck,’ she smiled.
‘I suppose I must give his binoculars back, because when he saw I was on to him he hid them, and made his getaway. I found them, so when he came back for them later he’d be unlucky. The people I get landed with. Still, I did a painting this last week that I’d have given my right arm for a couple of years ago. I don’t know what anybody else’ll think, but it’s left me all of a sweat.’
‘I’d like to see it,’ she said.
‘Any time. I’m going back tomorrow. Come up with me.’
‘What about Mark?’
‘Bring him. My kids’ll be all over him. You’ll have a comfortable journey in the car. I’ll pick you up at your sister’s at twelve.’
She was tempted. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ve got to see Teddy Greensleaves for an hour. After that I’ll call on you.’
She decided: ‘All right.’
‘I’m the happiest man in the world,’ he said.
‘Wasn’t that the village Frank lived in?’
‘That’s it. I’ll tell you all about it. He won’t mind.’ She was even clinging to that. ‘It’s marvellous, Lincolnshire. You’ll like it.’
She didn’t hear. ‘I’ve finished with this party. Can we go to supper?’ He collected her coat, sensed the inner fight to assuage her suffering. ‘We’ll go to the Blue Dumpling. It’s quiet there, plenty of space.’
‘Anywhere,’ she said. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘In a garage. We’ll get a taxi.’ She clung to his arm as they went through the hall. Someone greeted her, wanted to talk, but they walked on.
Outside, in the half-light, Albert recognised Russell Jones. From a happy and forgiving mood at the beginning of the party, Myra’s torment had now suffused acid into his blood and brought back his morose bitterness. He disengaged his arm — ‘See you in ten minutes’ — walked over and gripped Jones’s wrist.
‘Remember me?’
Jones greeted him with the friendliness of a journalist who imagines that no artist could have any success if it weren’t for them. ‘Albert! How are you? I thought you might be here, and decided to look out for you.’
‘I’ll bet you fucking well did,’ Handley said, half dragging him around the corner where it was dark. He slammed him against a wall. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’
‘What the devil do you mean? Let go. Let go, for God’s sake.’ Handley saw that Jones was absolutely unaware how spiteful and slanderous his article had been. If you felt innocent you were innocent — and so such people escaped death by guilty conscience or hanging. Handley’s faith in the ultimate goodness of human nature was shaken once more. He’d never expected otherwise, and he relaxed his grip, though still enraged at the idea of vainly hoping someone like Jones could realise that by any standards he’d done wrong. ‘That article you wrote about me, remember it?’
‘Of course. It was a jolly good one.’
His fierce moustached face jutted out as if he were about to fight a battle with his head. ‘You said I had mistresses, was carrying on with God knows how many women, when you knew I was happily married with a wife and seven kids. Many people saw the lousy injustice of it. My lawyer said it was actionable, but I didn’t want to make you more notorious than you are by skinning you of every penny you drunken high-living word-spinning scumpot.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be taken in that way at all,’ Jones said, unabashed as he straightened his jacket.
‘My bloody lawyer didn’t think so,’ Handley raised his fist. ‘You bastards print what you like, foul up people’s lives and don’t even know it, never mind expect to pay for it when the time comes.’
Jones tried to push by, but the way was blocked. ‘Tell me honestly, what did you have against me that you’d write something like that? I’m just a bit curious about such an aberration of human nature.’
‘I wrote the truth. That’s what people want.’
‘I wish I had your editor here as well.’ So did Jones. ‘He allowed it to be printed, though I suppose he’d just smile and say it was nothing but the truth as well?’
‘If it wasn’t the truth,’ Jones said, ‘who was the woman you were with just now? Isn’t she one of your mistresses?’
Handley was afraid to strike. There were some people you couldn’t hit, unless you wanted all the pride sucked out of your marrow. And once you began, you didn’t stop till they were half-dead. He raised his screwed up fist and drew it back, saw the first sign of life in Jones’s eyes when they lit up with panic. Then he smashed his fist with all the human force he could muster — right into the wall behind Jones’s head. The pain nearly split him in two, but it was the only way to take the boiling power out of his body and yet save him from the humiliation of smashing Russell Jones. He held bruised knuckles to his pale, frightened face. ‘Your mug should have been like this,’ — lifted his good hand: ‘And I can still do it. But the respect I’ve got for myself is bigger than the loathing I’ve got for you. I might as well try to knock that wall down as think I can bash some humanity into such a drunken pimp.’
He left him shaken against the wall. As long as you knew you couldn’t win you could not humiliate yourself, and so they could not hurt you. You kept your faith, while reserving a special category for these innocents of the devil who did not even know when they were doing harm.