‘You mustn’t stay,’ she repeated, ‘you mustn’t be here.’
‘Are you expecting George?’
‘No, but he always might.’
‘May I stay a minute, please?’
Diane sat down rather unsteadily on the chaise tongue and poured herself out another glass of wine. ‘Would you like some whisky?’
Diane poured a little wine into the second glass, spilling some. Tom took off Greg’s coat and hat and picked up the wine. He found a chair with a plant on it, put the plant on the floor and sat down. He felt suddenly at home in Diane’s room, and his natural habitual cheerfulness was about to assert itself when he remembered all the horrors of recent days. He said to Diane, ‘William Eastcote has died, did you know? Well, you couldn’t know, he’s only just died.’
‘Lucky man, wish I had,’ said Diane. She took a gin bottle from under the table and poured some into her wine.
‘Diane, I wanted to ask you something, do you mind, that evening at the Slipper House, last Saturday — ’
‘Was it only last Saturday? I lose count of time. What’s today?’
‘Thursday.’
Diane had not seen George since the Slipper House evening, when, from her hiding-place behind the shrubs, she had heard the singing and seen George run away through the garden and had followed him. She knew nothing of the incident with Hattie until she read the Ennistone Gazette article. She read The Swimmer article next day. These effusions had been troubling and confusing her mind ever since. She had not forgotten George’s jokes about Hattie. Now she did not know what to believe. She ate little, drank a lot, checked on the bottle where she kept enough sleeping-pills to finish it all, and waited. The only thing which cheered her up a little was that the article had referred to her as ‘our own Madame Diane’. George had once given her a humorous lecture about ‘whores in literature’ and she remembered there had been a Madame Diane. She and George sometimes referred to these literary ladies in private jokes, and this helped Diane to feel that she had identity in George’s mind. The scurrilous and untrue way in which the Gazette spoke of her did not trouble Diane at all, indeed it pleased her slightly.
‘Did you read that horrible article in the Gazette?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forgive me - I must know - did you bring George there, and did you - bring him and - Miss Meynell together?’
‘Miss Meynell?’ said Diane. ‘Oh yes, of course, I must be drunk.’
When she said no more, Tom said, ‘Did you bring George to the Slipper House?’
‘No, he brought himself. As for what Miss Meynell did, don’t you know?’ She was becoming rather dazed with drink, but her senses seemed to have become more vivid. She had lost her urgent terror at the idea of George finding Tom with her. She was looking at Tom and thinking, how tall he is, and what beautiful long curly hair he has, and his long legs in his grey trousers, and his blue eyes like his mother’s, he’s so young. And Diane thought, oh if only life was ordinary for me and I could look at people and be with them, and a tear came into each eye.
Tom said, in answer to her question, ‘No, I don’t!’ He discerned the tears and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Aren’t you going to marry Miss Meynell?’
‘No.’
‘It’s off - because of that?’
‘No! It was never on!’
‘Oh well, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything. I’m just sitting here drinking myself to death.’
Tom thought, I’m crazy, I can’t discuss Hattie like this, it’s awful, how foul my mind is, I oughtn’t to be here at all. And how tiny she is, almost a dwarf, and so unhappy. He said, ‘May I have some whisky after all?’ Inspired by her example he tilted it into his wine and swallowed a little and began to feel rather strange. He said, ‘How did all this happen to you?’
‘You mean on Saturday?’
‘No, I mean, all this, how did it start — ’
‘My being a prostitute?’
‘Look,’ said Tom, ‘I’d better go, I’m very upset about a lot of things, please excuse me — ’
‘Don’t go,’ said Diane, ‘I haven’t talked to anybody for a week. I became a prostitute to get my revenge on men.’
‘No - really? I can’t imagine — ’
‘No, that’s something I read in a magazine. I don’t know why, I don’t know why anything happened in my life, it’s all muddle and accident and the horribleness of the world. Oh what does it matter. I was forced to pose in the nude. Then when I got pregnant they left me. I wish I’d had the courage to have a child. All I’ve got is George and he’s mad, he ought to be in an asylum chained to a wall, he’ll kill me one day. He said he saw the Meynell girl undressing.’
‘What? How, where?’
‘I don’t know, George is a terrible liar. I don’t know what happened last Saturday. George may have seduced the little girl, I’m sure he wanted to.’
Tom remembered all his griefs, the terrible scene with John Robert, the nightmarish hiding at Travancore Avenue, the loss of Hattie, these crazy tormenting doubts - what was he thinking? The loss of Hattie? He had never had her to lose, he had rejected her. Had he forgotten that? And he had seen her proud eyes reject him. He thought, I must see her, I must. He stood up and put his glass, pushing aside various ornaments, on top of the piano. Then he picked it up again and poured some more whisky into it.
Diane held out her glass and Tom filled it. Tom sneezed. Diane said, ‘You’ve got a cold.’
‘Sorry, yes.’
‘Well, don’t give it to me, for God’s sake. George won’t see me when I’ve got a cold, he hates me. Well, I suppose he hates me all the time, the cold just brings it out. Do you play the piano?’
‘No— ’
‘Funny, none of my gentlemen ever played the piano.’
‘I must go.’
‘Where’s Stella, isn’t it time she came back to join in all the fun we’re having?’
‘I don’t know where she is. I like Stella.’
‘She’s afraid of George.’
‘So am I!’
‘I wish I could go to the south, to the Mediterranean, Italy, Greece, anywhere. I’ve never left England, been to London a few times, big deal. I used to keep a suitcase packed in case some marvellous man came, some prince, I used to dream about him, a rich man, gentle and sweet, and I’d love him like he’d never been loved before, a sad man and I’d make him happy.’
‘Why don’t you chuck George, you’ll never get any good out of him, go away somewhere and — ’
‘Start a new life! You grew up rich and easy, you think people can go away, for you there are other places, anywhere you go you’re somebody, you’re visible, you exist, you can make friends and be with people in a real way. If I left here I’d die in a corner, I’d dry up and shrivel up and die like an insect, no one would care, no one would even know.’
‘Don’t say that - things could change - I wish I could help you — ’
‘Well, you can’t. Don’t say empty untrue things. I’m - like that - finished — ’
‘I wish you could talk to William Eastcote, only he’s dead. He was a good man.’
‘If I’d been that rich I’d have been good too.’
‘But you are good - I mean — ’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. You mean well. You always looked at me kindly, your eyes sent me messages.’
‘Are you really Pearl Scotney’s sister?’
‘Cousin. And Ruby’s. But they don’t want to know. Madame Diane. The Ruby and the Pearl and the Diamond. All fakes. Our fathers were gipsies.’