”Please-“
”All right, I’ll see. You can come up and wait on the landing. Oh hello, Adelaide. This is Adelaide the Maid. Mrs. Greensleave. Miss Watkin.”
Danby went up the two flights of stairs and put his head round Bruno’s door. The unlit room was a tiny grey box suspended from the window, where racing luminous grey clouds were imparting a gliding motion to the black bar of the power-station tower. Bruno was sitting bolt upright in bed in a position unusual to him: he lay usually well snuggled down into the blankets. His red and white striped flannel pajamas were buttoned up to the neck. His arms held stiffly by his sides descended into the blankets. His face was so contorted that it was difficult to discern the features or to see this prominent mass of crumpled “flesh as part of a human being. Nigel, who said it was now “too difficult to get into the crevices,” had not shaved him for two days and the lower face and neck were covered with a grey fungus. Danby averted his eyes. “Bruno, Miles’s wife and sister-in-law are here.”
Bruno’s head rolled slightly and Danby felt himself looked at.
”Please, we’ll just-“ Danby felt a fluttering outside the door behind him and the pink and white mackintosh creaked, touched his coat.
Bruno said nothing. Danby, turning and opening the door a little more, said, “Just put the flowers quickly on the bed and go.” He felt upset and confused by the arrival of the women, as if he were suddenly frightened of Bruno on their behalf. He ought to have warned them about Bruno’s appearance.
Diana pushed past into the room and then stood rigid. He caught the faint gasp of her breath. Lisa had come up close behind her shoulder, pushing back her yellow scarf. He saw their two juxtaposed faces with wide eyes staring, the light brown eyes, the dark brown eyes. After a moment Diana leaned nervously forward and with an outstretched arm dropped the wrapped bundle of narcissus, like a very thin baby in swaddling clothes, onto the top of the bulging foot cage. It was like an official visit to a cenotaph. Only this tomb was not empty.
Still facing towards the bed, with unfocused eyes, Diana was beginning to back towards the door, edging past Lisa, who had stepped aside.
”Who did you say these girls were?” said Bruno. His un steady voice had the hoarse gurgling note which belonged to the more confused days, but the strength and force of the question had a startling effect.
”They’ve just brought you some flowers. They-“
”Who are they?”
”Miles’s wife and sister-in-law.”
”Miles’s wife and sister-“
”Sister-in-law. These two ladies are sisters.”
”Sisters.” The word as Bruno uttered it sounded heavy, uncanny, meaningless.
Diana had reached the door.
”What do they want?” said Bruno. He was still sitting bolt upright and motionless and it was difficult to see where he was looking. “We came from Miles to say that he’s very sorry he upset you,” said Lisa, speaking slowly in a low clear voice.
The big indented head moved slightly. “What?”
”Miles says he’s sorry.”
Bruno was undoubtedly staring at Lisa. His face seemed to unravel a little, the mouth and eyes becoming more evident.
”Who are you?”
”I’m-“
”I think that’ll do, that’s quite enough of a visit,” said Danby. “You’ve had a lovely visit from two nice girls. Doesn’t happen every day, does it, Bruno? Bringing you flowers and all. But we mustn’t overture you, must we? Say good-bye now. Off we go.”
Since the entry of the two women into the bedroom Danby had felt an intense physical awkwardness almost amounting to sickness. Something about the juxtaposition was suddenly dreadful. Perhaps it was just the onrush of new pity, almost of shame, this glimpse of poor Bruno through unaccustomed eyes, a glimpse of the grey shabby jumbled room, the stained wallpaper and the soiled sheets, the monster-headed moribund old man imprisoned in the smelly twilit box. Danby was so used to Bruno. He saw a person there not pinned by time. But now he wanted to get the women outside and to get outside himself. He fumbled with the doorhandle and put out a shielding ushering hand towards Diana.
”Danby, for Christ’s sake shut up!” They paused in the doorway. “Don’t talk to me as if I were a puling infant! Do you want them to think I’m senile? I’m still a rational being so have the decency to address me as one. You sit down here, you. Please.”
Bruno was still looking at Lisa. Rather laboriously he pulled one arm out of the bedclothes and moved it across the counterpane to point at a chair beside the bed. Lisa sat down.
Danby felt himself being nudged from behind by Diana. He jumped and twitched away at the contact. Diana was murmuring something to him and sliding away through the door. Trying to take hold of his hand she caught hold of a finger and pulled it. Danby half followed her through the door, shuffled with hesitation, made a reassuring gesture as she moved towards the top of the stairs, and then came back into the room and shut the door again. The smell of the narcissus was mingling with the doggy old-man odour of the room. Lisa had taken Bruno’s hand.
Danby leaned against the door still feeling the curious pan icky giddiness. What was he afraid of? He saw Lisa’s profile now, her face close up to Bruno’s. Was he frightened of the old man on her behalf? It wasn’t quite that.
”You don’t mind me, do you, my dear?”
”No, of course not. I’m so glad to see you.”
”And you brought me flowers.”
”We both did. And they’re from Miles too.”
”Miles-you-of course-Miles was cruel, so cruel to the old man.”
”He’s very sorry. He got upset and muddled. He’s sorry now. He hopes you’ll let him come again.”
”Danby said it was a mistake to see Miles, all a mistake. A little bit of peace one needs at the end. Miles shouting at me, horrible. You see, I tried to tell him things and he wouldn’t listen, said he didn’t want to know.” Bruno had lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. The intensity of the girl’s attention to him seemed to have stilled the room. The two heads together, so strange.
”You mustn’t be too cross with Miles. It was just a muddle really.”
”He said the past doesn’t exist anymore, but it does exist, doesn’t it?”
”It certainly does things to us.”
”Exactly. Now you understand.”
”You’ll have to get to know Miles again. Talk to him about more ordinary things. It’ll take a bit of time.”
”There isn’t much time left, my dear. And no ordinary things. Only last things. Danby.”
”Yes, Bruno.”
”Pour us some champagne.”
Danby took a champagne bottle from the dusty little queue on the floor. There were two glasses on the table. He began to ease out the cork. It flew gaily up into the topmost corner of the room, alarming the Tegenaria atrica who was drowsing there, and the creamy champagne cascaded into the glass. The brusqueness of the gesture gave relief. He handed the glass to Lisa, who handed it to Bruno. Danby filled the other glass and gave it to Lisa, reaching it across the bed.
”You two-share the glass-drink with me.” Bruno sipped the champagne. Lisa, who was still holding Bruno’s other hand, gave the glass to Danby with a smile. He drank. It was all very odd.
”Would you turn the lamp on, Danby.”
The window and the hurrying sky were gone. The shaded light shone upon Bruno’s huge nose pendant over the grey stubble which grew so painfully out of the many crevices which had defeated Nigel’s razor, and upon Lisa’s rather long hands, one of which she now raised to release the heavy tangle of her dark hair from the scarf which was hanging loose about her neck.
”You see, my dear, when you’re my age there’s not much left except you want to be loved.”