I read what he’d written. The Silver Wraith’s number had been allocated to an organisation called ‘Hire Cars Lucullus.’
I left the Blaze via the roof. Tally, apple cake and mending ribs complicated the journey, but after circumnavigating ventilation shafts and dividing walls I walked sedately in through the fire door of the next-door newspaper, a popular daily in the full flood of going to press.
No one asked me what I was doing. I went down in the lift to the basement and out to the huge garage at the rear where rows of yellow vans stood ready to take the wet ink bundles off to the trains. I knew one of the drivers slightly, and asked him for a lift.
‘Sure, if you want Paddington.’
‘I do.’ I wanted anywhere he was going.
‘Hop in, then.’
I hopped in, and after he was loaded he drove briskly out of the garage, one indistinguishable van among a procession. I stayed with him to Paddington, thanked him, and back tracked home on the underground, as certain as I could be that no one had followed.
I beat Mrs Woodward to six by two minutes but had no heart for the game.
From six-thirty to seven I sat in the armchair holding a glass of whisky and looking at Elizabeth, trying to make up a beleaguered mind.
‘Something worrying you, Ty,’ she said, with her ultra-sensitive feeling for trouble.
‘No, honey.’
The hands galloped round the clock. At seven o’clock precisely I sat absolutely still and did nothing at all. At five past I found I had clenched my teeth so hard that I was grinding them. I imagined the telephone box in Piccadilly Circus, with Homburg Hat or Raincoat or the chauffeur waiting inside it. Tiddely Pom was nothing compared with Elizabeth’s peace of mind, and yet I didn’t pick up the receiver. From seven onwards the clock hands crawled.
At half-past Elizabeth said again, with detectable fear, ‘Ty, there is something wrong. You never look so... so bleak.’
I made a great effort to smile at her as usual, but she wasn’t convinced. I looked down at my hands and said with hopeless pain. ‘Honey, how much would it hurt you if I went... and slept with a girl?’
There was no answer. After an unbearable interval I dragged my head up to look at her. Tears were running down her cheeks. She was swallowing, trying to speak.
From long, long habit I pulled a tissue out of the box and wiped her eyes, which she couldn’t do for herself.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said uselessly. ‘I’m sorry...’
‘Ty...’ She never had enough breath for weeping. Her mouth strained open in her need for more air.
‘Honey, don’t cry. Don’t cry. Forget I said it. You know I love you, I’d never leave you. Elizabeth, honey, dear Elizabeth, don’t cry...’
I wiped her eyes again and cursed the whim which had sent me down to the Huntersons for Tally. I could have managed without Gail. Without anyone. I had managed without for most of eleven years.
‘Ty.’ The tears had stopped. Her face looked less strained. ‘Ty.’ She gulped, fighting for more breath. ‘I can’t bear to think about it.’
I stood beside her, holding the tissue, wishing she didn’t have to.
‘We never talk about sex,’ she said. The Spirashell heaved up her chest, let it drop, rythmically. ‘I don’t want it any more... you know that... but sometimes I remember... how you taught me to like it...’ Two more tears welled up. I wiped them away. She said, ‘I haven’t ever asked you... about girls... I couldn’t, somehow.’
‘No,’ I said slowly.
‘I’ve wondered sometimes... if you ever have, I mean... but I didn’t really want to know... I know I would be too jealous... I decided I’d never ask you... because I wouldn’t want you to say yes... and yet I know that’s selfish... I’ve always been told men are different, they need women more... is it true?’
‘Elizabeth,’ I said helplessly.
‘I didn’t expect you ever to say anything... after all these years... yes, I would be hurt, if I knew... I couldn’t help it... Why did you ask me? I wish you hadn’t.’
‘I would never have said anything,’ I said with regret, ‘but someone is trying to blackmail me.’
‘Then... you have...?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Oh.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I see.’
I waited, hating myself. The tears were over. She never cried for long. She physically couldn’t. If she progressed into one of her rare bursts of rebellious anger she would utterly exhaust herself. Most wives could scream or throw things. Elizabeth’s furies were the worse for being impotent. It must have been touch and go, because when she spoke her voice was low, thick, and deadly quiet.
‘I suppose you couldn’t afford to be blackmailed.’
‘No one can.’
‘I know it’s unreasonable of me to wish you hadn’t told me. To wish you hadn’t done it at all. Any man who stays with a paralysed wife ought to have something... So many of them pack up and leave altogether... I know you say you never will and I do mostly believe it, but I must be such an unbearable burden to you...’
‘That,’ I said truthfully, ‘is just not true.’
‘It must be. Don’t tell me... about the girl.’
‘If I don’t, the blackmailer will.’
‘All right... get it over quickly...’
I got it over quickly. Briefly. No details. Hated myself for having to tell her, and knew that if I hadn’t, Homburg Hat wouldn’t have stopped his leverage with the whereabouts of Tiddely Pom. Blackmailers never did. Don’t sell your soul, Bert Checkov said. Don’t sell your column. Sacrifice your wife’s peace instead.
‘Will you see her again?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Or... anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘I expect you will,’ she said. ‘Only if you do... don’t tell me... Unless of course someone tries to blackmail you again...’
I winced at the bitterness in her voice. Reason might tell her that total lifelong celibacy was a lot to demand, but emotion had practically nothing to do with reason, and the tearing emotions of any ordinary wife on finding her husband unfaithful hadn’t atrophied along with her muscles. I hadn’t expected much else. She would have to have been a saint or a cynic to have laughed it off without a pang, and she was neither of those things, just a normal human being trapped in an abnormal situation. I wondered how suspicious she would be in future of my most innocent absences; how much she would suffer when I was away. Reassurance, always tricky, was going to be doubly difficult.
She was very quiet and depressed all evening. She wouldn’t have any supper, wouldn’t eat the apple cake. When I washed her and did the rubs and the other intimate jobs I could almost feel her thinking about the other body my hands had touched. Hands, and much else. She looked sick and strained, and for almost the first time since her illness, embarrassed. If she could have done without me that evening, she would have.
I said, meaning it, ‘I’m sorry, honey.’
‘Yes.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Life’s just bloody, isn’t it.’
11
The uncomfortable coolness between Elizabeth and myself persisted in the morning. I couldn’t go on begging for a forgiveness she didn’t feel. At ten I said I was going out, and saw her make the first heart-rending effort not to ask where.
‘Hire Cars Lucullus’ hung out in a small plushy office in Stratton Street, off Piccadilly. Royal blue wilton carpet, executive type acre of polished desk, tasteful prints of vintage cars on dove grey walls. Along one side, a wide gold upholstered bench for wide gold, upholstered clients. Behind the desk, a deferential young man with Uriah Heep eyes.