”Here’s the bloody stamp. I wish you’d never snitched the damn thing.”
”Well, it was your idea!”
”Don’t keep saying that!”
”Mind the camera, you’re banging it against the kitchen table.”
”Fuck the camera. It’s all the blasted camera’s fault.”
”Never your fault, I suppose.”
”Shut up, Ad, unless you want your head punched.”
”Will, stop shouting, and go away for heaven’s sake. You know I don’t like having you in this house.”
”The way you’re going on you soon won’t have me in any house.”
”Well, that would suit me down to the ground!”
”Oh it would, would it-well, good-bye.”
Will pulled the strap of the camera case over his head and hurled the camera down violently onto the stone floor of the kitchen. He bounded out of the door and up the stairs and slammed the front door after him. Adelaide dissolved into tears.
After a while she dried a glass which had been standing on the draining board and went to the kitchen cupboard. She had been down to the Balloon Tavern that morning and bought herself a half bottle of gin. It helped a little bit.
She had not seen Danby. She had kept her bedroom door and the kitchen door resolutely shut and locked. She had heard him coming and going. Twice he had tapped on the door and called her name and she had not replied. She was beginning to need desperately to talk to him, but she could not bear to see that frightened pitying look upon his face again. She felt that before she saw him she should have something to confront him with, she should have made a plan and developed an attitude, but she had no plan and no attitude, only tears and total misery. She had been glad to see Will, but then of course they had quarrelled.
After sipping a mixture of gin and tears for a while she leaned forward and picked the camera up from the kitchen floor. Her body felt heavy and stiff and old. She wondered if the camera was broken. It must be. Yet when she shook it it didn’t seem to rattle so perhaps it was all right. She hung it round her neck and shed a few more tears.
A little later she heard someone coming down the stairs. She had heard someone mount the stairs earlier in the afternoon and enter Bruno’s room, and she had assumed that it was Nigel, though she had prudently told Will that Nigel was not there. She moved out to the foot of the stairs. Ought she to warn Nigel about Will?
Lisa Watkin passed through the hall and out of the front door. Without a moment’s hesitation Adelaide dashed up after her.
She caught up with Lisa just as she was turning into Ashburnham Road.
”Miss Watkin-“
”Oh, hello.”
”Could I have a word with you?”
”Yes, surely. I do hope you didn’t mind my going straight up to Bruno? I didn’t like to ring the bell in case he was asleep.”
”That’s all right. Look, there’s something I want to tell you.”
”Oh yes. About Bruno?”
”No. About Danby.”
”About-Danby?”
”Yes. You see I know all about you and Danby.”
Lisa slightly quickened her pace and her face put on a cold stiff slightly amused expression which enraged Adelaide. “I am unaware that there is anything to know about me and Danby.”
”Don’t give me that. You know he’s been making advances. He wrote you a letter.”
”Really.”
”Or are you denying it?”
”I object to your rude and aggressive tone of voice.”
”Well, you’ll just have to put up with it, won’t you.”
”I have no intention of putting up with it. You seem to be under some sort of misapprehension. But I am certainly not going to discuss it with you.”
”You can put on airs, but I bet you’re dying to know what I’ve got to tell you.”
”If you have something to say, say it.”
”There you are you see! Well, before you get going with Danby there’s something about him you ought to know.”
”There is no question of my, as you put it, getting going with Danby. I scarcely know Danby.”
”I bet that’s a bloody lie. Anyway, you keep away from Danby. Danby is my lover. We live together. We’ve been lovers for years.”
”I cannot think why you trouble to press this information on me. It’s of no conceivable interest to me and it doesn’t concern me. I can see you’re upset and I’m sorry if I was rude to you just now. Now will you please go back. Bruno may be needing you.”
”I’m not your servant, madam. Do you believe me? If you don’t believe me ask Danby, just ask him.”
”I have no plans for seeing Danby. You are upsetting yourself about nothing. I haven’t the slightest intention of interfering with your arrangements. Now be kind enough not to trouble me any more with this nonsense. Good afternoon.”
They had reached the King’s Road. Lisa darted quickly into the traffic and crossed the road leaving Adelaide standing on the curb. Adelaide stood for a moment, then slowly turned back. Then she paused and pulled off the camera, which had been bobbing round her neck, and hurled it down violently onto the pavement. This time all its inward parts came out and scattered themselves in the gutter. She left them lying there.
21
It was Sunday. Miles was walking along the crowded pavement of the Fulham Road in the rain. With vague unfocused eyes he sidestepped his way through the oncoming crowds. His hair was plastered darkly to his uncovered head and the raindrops moved down his face like tears. He came to the discreet doorway of the Servite church and went mechanically through it. He needed somewhere to sit and think.
Miles had been to see Bruno. It had been all right. He had said that he was sorry and almost felt it. Bruno had told some rambling story about a stamp being lost and Danby finding it stuck underneath the stair carpet. None of the women had been mentioned. They had talked at random, darting from subject to subject in a way which Bruno seemed to find quite natural. They had talked about the house where they used to live in Fawcett Street and Miles had said it was all let out in flats now. They had talked about the printing works and about Miles’s job and about the state of the economy. They had re called a dog called Sambo who had been part of the family when Miles was a child. Miles had discussed whether Bruno would like to have a cat since he knew someone whose tabby had just had most attractive kittens, and Bruno had said no, he would get too damned attached to the cat and then it would be certain to run away or get run over. They had discussed the difference between cats and dogs. They had talked about spiders. It had all been quite easy. Bruno was quite rational and much more relaxed, and looked a good deal less appalling. No terrible memories had been stirred, only innocent and sad ones. Miles had not thought about Sambo in years. He came away, moved by the old man, and with a fresh and strangely pathetic sense of himself.
Now however he had already ceased to think about Bruno. He went through the corridor into the cold inward light of the church. There was a plaintive urgent melancholy sound of chanting, but after he had stood for a moment just inside the door he made out that there was no service in progress. The singers must be the choir, who were practicing invisible to him in a side chapel at the far end. The body of the church was almost empty, though here and there between bunchy brown granite pillars he could see one or two people kneeling before the shrines which arched along the side walls in a series of rich shadowy caverns. The plain-song chant ceased, leaving an intense quietness behind it. Miles knew the place. He had come here in the past to meditate. He took off his drip ping mackintosh and hung it over the back of the pew in front. He sat down and began to dry his face and hair with his hand kerchief.
What on earth was he going to do about Lisa? She had avoided him on Saturday, leaving for work early and coming back late. He had managed to see her for a moment early this morning in the garden, when all she had said to him was, “I’ve got to go away. Don’t let it start, don’t let it start” But this was impossible, it had already started. On Saturday evening, after Lisa had resolutely planted herself in the drawing room with Diana, he had withdrawn to his study. What had the women said to each other after his departure? Perhaps nothing. Before going to bed he had tried Lisa’s door. It was locked.