Raymond protested again, and felt tired of protesting. But Mrs Fitch, hearing him speak and thinking that he was not yet clear in his mind about the situation, supplied him with further details about her marriage and the manner in which, at cocktail parties, her husband made arrangements for the seduction of younger women, or women who on the face of it seemed younger. ‘Obsessions are a disease,’ said Mrs Fitch, drinking deeply from her glass.
Raymond explained then that he knew nothing whatsoever about marriage difficulties, to which Mrs Fitch replied that she was only telling him the truth. ‘I do not for a moment imagine,’ she said, ‘that you are an angel come from God, Mr Bamber, in order to settle the unfortunateness. I didn’t mean to imply that when I said I had prayed. Did you think I thought you were a messenger?’ Mrs Fitch, still holding Raymond’s jacket and glancing still at her husband and the woman in yellow, laughed shrilly. Raymond said:
‘People are looking at us, the way you are pulling at my clothes. I’m a shy man –’
‘Tell me about yourself. You know about me by now: how everything that once seemed rosy has worked out miserably.’
‘Oh, come now,’ said Raymond, causing Mrs Fitch to repeat her laughter and to call out for a further drink. The Tamberleys’ maid hastened towards her. ‘Now then,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘Tell me.’
‘What can I tell you?’ asked Raymond.
‘I drink a lot these days,’ said Mrs Fitch, ‘to help matters along. Cheers, Mr Bamber.’
‘Actually I’ve told you quite a bit, you know. One thing and another –’
‘You told me nothing except some nonsense about an old creature in Streatham. Who wants to hear that, for Christ’s sake? Or is it relevant?’
‘Well, I mean, it’s true, Mrs Fitch. Relevant to what?’
‘I remember you, believe it or not, in this very room on this same occasion last year. “Who’s that man?” I said to the Tamberley woman and she replied that you were a bore. You were invited, year by year, so the woman said, because of some friendship between the Tamberleys and your father. In the distant past.’
‘Look here,’ said Raymond, glancing about him and noting to his relief that no one appeared to have heard what Mrs Fitch in her cups had said.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Mrs Fitch. Her eyes were again upon her husband and Mrs Anstey. She saw them laugh together, and felt her unhappiness being added to as though it were a commodity within her body. ‘Oh yes,’ she said to Raymond, attempting to pass a bit of the unhappiness on. ‘A grinding bore. Those were the words of Mrs Tamberley.’
Raymond shook his head. ‘I’ve known Mrs Tamberley since I was a child,’ he said.
‘So the woman said. You were invited because of the old friendship: the Tamberleys and your father. I cannot tell a lie, Mr Bamber: she said you were a pathetic case. She said you hadn’t learned how to grow up. I dare say you’re a pervert.’
‘My God!’
‘I’m sorry I cannot tell lies,’ said Mrs Fitch, and Raymond felt her grip tighten on his jacket. ‘It’s something that happens to you when you’ve been through what I’ve been through. That man up to his tricks with women while the beauty drains from my face. What’s it like, d’you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Raymond. ‘How on earth could I know? Mrs Fitch, let’s get one thing clear: I am not a pervert.’
‘Not? Are you sure? They may think you are, you know,’ said Mrs Fitch, glancing again at her husband. ‘Mrs Tamberley has probably suggested that very thing to everyone in this room. Crueller, though, I would have thought, to say you were a grinding bore.’
‘I am not a pervert –’
‘I can see them sniggering over that all right. Unmentionable happenings between yourself and others. Elderly newspaper-vendors –’
‘Stop!’ cried Raymond. Tor God’s sake, woman –’
‘You’re not a Jew, are you?’
Raymond did not reply. He stood beside Mrs Fitch, thinking that the woman appeared to be both drunk and not of her right mind. He did not wish to create a scene in the Tamberleys’ drawing-room, and yet he recognized that by the look of her she intended to hold on to his jacket for the remainder of the evening. If he attempted to pull it away from her, she would not let go: she did not, somehow, seem to be the kind of woman who would. She wouldn’t mind a scene at all.
‘Why,’ said Mrs Fitch, ‘did you all of a sudden begin to tell me about that woman in Streatham, Mr Bamber, and the details about your, chair-covers and curtains? Why did you tell me about your uncle dying and trying to leave you a business and your feeling that in your perverted condition you were unfit to run a business?’
Raymond’s hands began to shake. He could feel an extra tug on his jacket, as though Mrs Fitch was now insisting that he stand closer to her. He pressed his teeth together, grinding his molars one upon another, and then opened his mouth and felt his teeth and his lips quivering. He knew that his voice would sound strange when he spoke. He said:
‘You are being extremely offensive to me, Mrs Fitch. You are a woman who is a total stranger to me, yet you have seen fit to drive me into a corner at a cocktail party and hold me here by force. I must insist that you let go my jacket and allow me to walk away.’
‘What about me, Mr Bamber? What about my husband and your Anstey woman? Already they are immoral on a narrow bed somewhere; in a fifth-class hotel near King’s Cross station.’
‘Your husband is still in this room, Mrs Fitch. As well you know. What your husband does is not my business.’
‘Your business is your flat in Bayswater, is it? And curtains and covers from the Sanderson showrooms in Berners Street. Your world is people dying and leaving you stuff in wills – money and prayer-books and valuable jewellery that you wear when you dress yourself up in a nurse’s uniform.’
‘I must ask you to stop, Mrs Fitch.’
‘I could let you have a few pairs of old stockings if they interest you. Or garments of my husband’s.’
Mrs Fitch saw Raymond close his eyes. She watched the flesh on his face redden further and watched it twitch in answer to a pulse that throbbed in his neck. Her husband, a moment before, had reached out a hand and placed it briefly on the female’s arm.
‘So your nanny was a guide to you,’ said Mrs Fitch. ‘You hung on all her words, I dare say?’
Raymond did not reply. He turned his head away, trying to control the twitching in his face. Eventually he said, quietly and with the suspicion of a stammer:
‘She was a good woman. She was kind in every way.’
‘She taught you neatness.’
Raymond was aware, as Mrs Fitch spoke that sentence, that she had moved appreciably closer to him. He could feel her knee pressing against his. He felt a second knee, and felt next that his leg had been cleverly caught by her, between her own legs.
‘Look here,’ said Raymond.
‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Fitch, what are you trying to do?’
Mrs Fitch increased the pressure of her knees. Her right hand moved into Raymond’s jacket pocket. ‘I am a little the worse for wear,’ she said, ‘but I can still tell the truth.’
‘You are embarrassing me.’
‘What are your perversions? Tell me, Mr Bamber.’
‘I have no perversions of any kind. I live a normal life.’
‘Shall I come to you with a pram? I’m an unhappy woman, Mr Bamber. I’ll wear black woollen stockings. I’ll show you those lines on my body.’
‘Please,’ said Raymond, thinking he would cry in a moment.
Already people were glancing at Mrs Fitch’s legs gripping his so strongly. Her white face and her scarlet lips were close to his eyes. He could see the lines on her cheeks, but he turned his glance away from them in case she mentioned again the lines on her body. She is a mad, drunken nymphomaniac, said Raymond to himself, and thought that never in all his life had anything so upsetting happened to him.