In the afternoon I took the children for a walk in the park.
‘Mambi’s gone to stay in the country,’ Anna said. ‘I’m lonely without her.’
‘Well, she’s coming back tonight, isn’t she?’
‘Daddy,’ Christopher said, ‘what’s the matter with Mummy?’
I’m not very sure when it was that I first noticed everything was in rather a mess. I remember coming in one night and stumbling over lots of wooden toys in the hall. Quite often the cornflakes packet and the marmalade were still on the kitchen table from breakfast. Or if they weren’t on the table the children had got them on to the floor and Lisa had covered most of the house with their mixed contents. Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice. She sat in a dream, silent and alone, forgetting to cook the supper. The children began to do all the things they had ever wanted to do and which Elizabeth had patiently prevented, like scribbling on the walls and playing in the coal-cellar. I tried to discuss it with Elizabeth, but all she did was to smile sweetly and say she was tired.
‘Why don’t you see a doctor?’
She stared at me. ‘A doctor?’
‘Perhaps you need a tonic’ And at that point she would smile again and go to bed.
I knew that Elizabeth was still having her conversations with Mr Higgs even though she no longer mentioned them. When I asked her she used to laugh and say: ‘Poor Mr Higgs was just some old fanatic’
‘Yes, but how did he –’
‘Darling, you worry too much.’
I went to St Albans to see old Mrs Maugham, without very much hope. I don’t know what I expected of her, since she was obviously too deaf and too senile to offer me anything at all. She lived with a woman called Miss Awpit who was employed by the old woman’s children to look after her. Miss Awpit made us tea and did the interpreting.
‘Mr Farrel wants to know how you are, dear,’ Miss Awpit said. ‘Quite well, really,’ Miss Awpit said to me. ‘All things being equal.’
Mrs Maugham knew who I was and all that. She asked after Elizabeth and the children. She said something to Miss Awpit and Miss Awpit said: ‘She wants you to bring them to her.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I shouted, nodding hard. ‘We shall come and see you soon. They often,’ I lied, ‘ask about Granny.’
‘Hark at that,’ shouted Miss Awpit, nudging the old lady, who snappishly told her to leave off.
I didn’t quite know how to put it. I said: ‘Ask her if she knows a Mr Higgs.’
Miss Awpit, imagining, I suppose, that I was making conversation, shouted: ‘Mr Farrel wants to know if you know Mr Higgs.’ Mrs Maugham smiled at us. ‘Higgs,’ Miss Awpit repeated. ‘Do you know Mr Higgs at all, dear?’
‘Never,’ said Mrs Maugham.
‘Have you ever known a Mr Higgs?’ I shouted.
‘Higgs?’ said Mrs Maugham.
‘Do you know him?’ Miss Awpit asked. ‘Do you know a Mr Higgs?’
‘I do not,’ said Mrs Maugham, suddenly in command of herself, ‘know anyone of such a name. Nor would I wish to.’
‘Look, Mrs Maugham,’ I pursued, ‘does the name mean anything at all to you?’
‘I have told you, I do not know your friend. How can I be expected to know your friends, an old woman like me, stuck out here in St Albans with no one to look after me?’
‘Come, come,’ said Miss Awpit, ‘you’ve got me, dear.’
But Mrs Maugham only laughed.
A week or two passed, and then one afternoon as I was sitting in the office filing my nails the telephone rang and a voice I didn’t recognize said: ‘Mr Farrel?’
I said ‘Yes’, and the voice said: ‘This is Miss Awpit. You know, Mrs Maugham’s Miss Awpit.’
‘Of course. Good afternoon, Miss Awpit. How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you. I’m ringing to tell you something about Mrs Maugham.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, you know when you came here the other week you were asking about a Mr Higgs?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Well, as you sounded rather anxious about him I just thought I’d tell you. I thought about it and then I decided. I’ll ring Mr Farrel, I said, just to tell him what she said.’
‘Yes, Miss Awpit?’
‘I hope I’m doing the right thing.’
‘What did Mrs Maugham say?’
‘Well, it’s funny in a way. I hope you won’t think I’m being very stupid or anything.’
I had the odd feeling that Miss Awpit was going to die as she was speaking, before she could tell me. I said:
‘I assure you, you are doing the right thing. What did Mrs Maugham say?’
‘Well, it was at breakfast one morning. She hadn’t had a good night at all. So she said, but you know what it’s like with old people. I mean, quite frankly I had to get up myself in the night and I heard her sleeping as deep and sweet as you’d wish. Honestly, Mr Farrel, I often wish I had her constitution myself –’
‘You were telling me about Mr Higgs.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You were telling me about Mr Higgs.’
‘Well, it’s nothing really. You’ll probably laugh when you hear. Quite honestly I was in two minds whether or not to bother you. You see, all Mrs Maugham said was: “It’s funny that man suddenly talking about Mr Higgs like that. You know, Ethel, I haven’t heard Mr Higgs mentioned for almost thirty years.” So I said “Yes”, leading her on, you see. “And who was Mr Higgs, dear, thirty years ago?” And she said: “Oh nobody at all. He was just Elizabeth’s little friend!” ’
‘Elizabeth’s?’
‘Just what I said, Mr Farrel. She got quite impatient with me. “Just someone Elizabeth used to talk to,” she said, “when she was three. You know the way children invent things.” ’
‘Like Mambi,’ I said, not meaning to say it, since Miss Awpit wouldn’t understand.
‘Oh dear, Mr Farrel,’ said Miss Awpit, ‘I knew you’d laugh.’
I left the office and took a taxi all the way home. Elizabeth was in the garden. I sat beside her and I held her hands. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a holiday. Let’s go away, just the two of us. We need a rest.’
‘You’re spying on me,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Which isn’t new, I suppose. You’ve got so mean, darling, ever since you became jealous of poor Mr Higgs. How could you be jealous of a man like Mr Higgs?’
‘Elizabeth, I know who Mr Higgs is. I can tell you –’
‘There’s nothing to be jealous about. All the poor creature does is to ring me up and tell me about the things he read in my diaries the time he came to paint the hall. And then he tries to comfort me about the children. He tells me not to worry about Lisa. But I can’t help worrying because I know she’s going to have this hard time. She’s going to grow big and lumpy, poor little Lisa, and she’s not going to be ever able to pass an exam, and in the end she’ll go and work in a post office. But Mr Higgs –’
‘Let me tell you about Mr Higgs. Let me just remind you.’
‘You don’t know him, darling. You’ve never spoken to him. Mr Higgs is very patient, you know. First of all he did the talking, and now, you see, he kindly allows me to. Poor Mr Higgs is an inmate of a home. He’s an institutionalized person, darling. There’s no need to be jealous.’
I said nothing. I sat there holding her two hands and looking at her. Her face was just the same; even her eyes betrayed no hint of the confusion that held her. She smiled when she spoke of Mr. Higgs. She made a joke, laughing, calling him the housewife’s friend.
‘It was funny,’ she said, ‘the first time I saw Christopher as an adult, sitting in a room with that awful woman. She was leaning back in a chair, staring at him and attempting to torture him with words. And then there was Anna, half a mile away across London, in a house in a square. All the lights were on because of the party, and Anna was in that red suit, and she was laughing and saying how she hated Christopher, how she had hated him from the first moment she saw him. And when she said that, I couldn’t remember what moment she meant. I couldn’t quite remember where it was that Anna and Christopher had met. Well, it goes to show.’ Elizabeth paused. ‘Well, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, imagine my thinking that poor Mr Higgs was evil! The kindest, most long-suffering man that ever walked on two legs. I mean, all I had to do was to remind Mr Higgs that I’d forgotten and Mr Higgs could tell me. “They met in a garden,” he could say, “at an ordinary little tea-party.” And Lisa was operated on several times, and counted the words in telegrams.’