An Accidental Man (7 page)

She found him physically horrible but she liked him and could not be cold. Some muddle might soon have developed had it not providentially come about that Mr Secombe-Hughes began to owe Mitzi money. With much hair-tossing he explained one day that he was not in a position to pay all her wages and would she accept half and an IOU? She now had several IOUs. A time would come, Mr Secombe-Hughes mysteriously asseverated, when all would be well and she would get her money. How this time was to come, unless perhaps borne by a swift horse, was unclear to Mitzi, and she kept intending to leave and then deciding not to, because of pity, because she doubted whether she would find another job, and because she thought that if she hung on she would get some money whereas if she went away she would get none. Meanwhile Welsh honour forbade the continuation of attentions to a lady to whom money was owed, and ogling ceased.

Mitzi had saved a little money from the time when she had been a successful athlete, and she had a house, also in Hammersmith, in a melancholy road off Brook Green, of which she owned the freehold and where she usually took in one or two lodgers. Mitzi Ricardo was thirty-five. It was now ten years since the unspeakable accident which had changed her from a goddess into a wreck who could not frighten even Mr Secombe-Hughes. Her parents, now dead, had been in a poor way in the clothing trade. They were Christianized Jews and they had but one child, a strong radiant little sprite whom they christened Margaret. Mitzi was her father's nickname for her. This child had wings. A perceptive school teacher paid for her to have ballet lessons. She won a scholarship. She began to be a little success, then at the age of fourteen a six-foot high success, as supple as Proteus and as lithe as an Etruscan Aphrodite. She was a phenomenon. Why she had ever left the world of ballet for the world of sport she later wondered. Any other path would not have led through a million entwining contingencies to that hideous tennis court moment when she sprang over the net, tripped, fell, and through some utterly improbable complex of injuries destroyed her ankle for ever. She had had bad advisers. She was too tall. There were so many temptations. She wanted to play at Wimbledon. She had not the nerve or the courage to give her life over to the austere disciplines of art. She wanted money. She wanted fun.

She achieved her ambitions. She played several times at Wimbledon. Innumerable tennis balls rose before her, dazzling cubes of which with terrific force she hit the upper surface. She competed in the Pentathlon at the Olympic Games. She was a good skier, coming up to championship standard. She wrote regularly for the sporting pages of the papers, at least she signed her name under things which other people wrote. She drank champagne on jet aeroplanes. Southern suns bleached her hair and gave her freckles. She declined charming proposals of marriage. She no longer minded being six foot one. Then suddenly in a clap of thunder it was all over.

At the end of a diminishing vista of hope, after consultations, operations, therapy, doctors, quack doctors, even prayer, she limped away alone. A newspaper offered her a job as a sports journalist, but she refused it. Tears would have prevented her from seeing the Centre Court now. Why should she suffer the endless consequences of a single moment? Her life had been wrecked by a momentory absurdity which it should be possible to delete. She raged only briefly against fate. She was glad that people quickly forgot her. Sympathy was the last thing she wanted. She had to become another person so as not to die of grief. She took a secretarial training. She tried to take up religion. She tried to become resigned. She lived quietly and squalidly in the mess of her emotions. The person who helped her most, though he was far too self-absorbed even to notice it, was Austin.

She first met Austin when, after Betty died and while Garth was still at school, he took rooms in the same lodgings as herself in Holland Park. This was before she had decided to use her capital to buy a house. Austin had just sold his and was looking for a flat. He was in a state of black misery. His gloom cheered her up, as the gloom of others often quite automatically cheers. Here was someone who seemed even more miserable than herself. Then there was his stiff hand, she liked that. He promised to tell her how it happened, but never did. They met a lot in pubs. Mitzi was beginning to need alcohol and Austin had been needing it for some time. At home however they scarcely visited each other's rooms. This was partly because Austin's evident bereavement made him untouchable. It was also because Mitzi was going through a long crisis in her relationship to her body. She had so triumphantly been her body. Now it was no longer a soaring flame of weightless incarnate soul, but a stump of clay, a thick heavy object, separate from herself, which she had to trundle slowly about, sometimes with pain. And with lameness and obscurity there was also the loss of youth. Alcohol and lack of exercise did their part. Mitzi began to get fat. She felt gross. So it was that although she found Austin attractive she did not expect him to touch her.

He took an intelligent interest in her which, though it was largely politeness, was a novelty to Mitzi. And he helped her not only by being more unfortunate than herself. He also, without noticing it, educated her. He talked to her occasionally about books, pictures, music. Dimly she learnt one of the most important of all lessons, how art can console. She read fewer magazines and more books. More even than this perhaps, and more unconsciously still, Austin helped Mitzi by a revelation of how it was possible to live simply by egoism. Austin, with nothing particular to boast of, never seemed to doubt his own absolute importance. Just because he was himself the world owed him everything, and even though the world paid him very little, he remained a sturdy and vociferous creditor. Misery could not crush Austin. Simply being Austin enabled him to carry on.

When Mitzi bought the house off Brook Green she offered Austin the best rooms, but he declined having just found the little flat in Bayswater which he inhabited still. They continued to meet in pubs. Mitzi did not get any thinner. Soon she would have to go to the Outsize Shop. People turned and stared after her in the street. However, she was just beginning to inhabit herself again when Austin went off into a daze about Dorina. Austin had known Dorina for a long time. His brother and Dorina's sister had been friends. Mitzi had met Dorina once or twice and thought her frail and affected and a bit unreal. She could see that Dorina was sorry for Austin, and Mitzi even resented this slightly on his behalf, though of course she was sorry for Austin too. Then Austin announced his second marriage. Mitzi was faint with jealousy and remorse. Why had she never really tried, why had she not conceived that he might be in the mood for marriage? But her own egoism was tougher now. She had made dull quiet friends and expected little of life. She persuaded herself that her love for Austin had never been anything really personal, had never really filled her and become
her
love for Austin. It had been just a vague yearning, an ideal, something like what she felt when she came out of the cinema. Later, however, she was cheered by news of Austin's troubles and woke every morning to a small glow which was the knowledge that Austin was unhappy. When she saw him very occasionally for a drink they behaved like old friends.

‘What a shame! After all those years!'

‘I could sue them I expect,' said Austin. ‘But one can't be small-minded. One has one's dignity.'

‘Of course one has! Let them see that you reject them!'

‘That's right. I reject them.'

‘What a shame! And you came straight round here. I'm so glad.'

‘You can help me, Mitzi,' said Austin.

‘You know I'd help you any way I could!'

Austin was drinking powdered coffee in Mitzi's little office. Although it was so early in the summer he contrived to look sunburnt. He had a long doggy nose and longish hair the colour of milk chocolate which he tucked back behind his ears. He wore a serene majestic expression and his steel-rimmed spectacles gleamed with a fine consciousness.

‘Mitzi, I won't beat about the bush. I'm broke.'

Let me lend you something was on the tip of Mitzi's tongue but she recalled that she was broke too. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘I shall soon get another job, of course.'

‘Of course! A much better one.'

‘A much better one. But meanwhile I'm in a fix. I thought I could manage if I let my flat. You can get big rents now.'

‘Jolly good idea.'

‘But then I'd need to live somewhere else, wouldn't I?'

‘Come and live with me,' said Mitzi.

‘Oh. Do you think I could? You did so kindly suggest it once before. I know you need to let the big rooms. But perhaps I could just sleep in the attic.'

‘Certainly not,' said Mitzi. ‘You can have one of the big rooms, one's just gone empty.'

‘But, Mitzi, I couldn't pay you enough.'

‘You can have it free. Don't be silly, Austin, we're old friends.'

‘
Could
I, Mitzi, honestly?'

Ten guineas a week gone bang, she thought, and Secombe-Hughes offering another IOU. Still, Austin in her house! ‘You could pay me something later.'

‘When I get a good job. Of course it may be difficult. I don't want to take just anything. It may take time. I can't promise, you know. I'd really rather — I mean, I could sleep just anywhere.'

‘Austin, don't worry about the money. You can have the room for nothing.'

‘You're a friend in need, Mitzi old girl.' He clasped her hand, squeezed it, dropped it, looked relieved and reached for his coffee.

Mitzi felt an old amicable exasperated pity for him and a momentary desire to hit him. She laid her fingers spread wide upon his chest, touching the material of his jacket rather than him, an incoherent gesture such as an awkward affectionate animal might have made.

Austin patted her arm briskly and rose. ‘Can I come this evening?'

‘Yes, yes.' Austin in her house. She felt protective, huge. Austin there at night, every night, like in the old days. ‘You can have the front room on the second floor. Oh by the way, guess who's engaged?'

‘Engaged?'

‘Engaged to be married.'

‘Who?'

‘Ludwig. And guess who to?'

‘I don't know,' said Austin, looking worried.

‘Gracie Tisbourne.'

‘Oh. How do you know?'

‘He rang me just before lunch.'

‘Oh. I wouldn't have thought of that match, would you? I wonder if it will work?'

Mitzi felt a vague thoughtless interest in Ludwig's engagement, not pleasure since she did not like Gracie, but not displeasure either. Now seeing Austin's annoyance she felt sad herself. She was fond of Ludwig. And she knew that Austin was fond of Gracie. He liked Ludwig too. But the spectacle of the young people's happiness clearly gave him no joy.

The sunny sky was producing rain again. Austin said, ‘I'll go and pee if you don't mind.' He went through the studio and out into the ragged garden. Mitzi followed and watched him. He went over by the wall with his back to her. As the sky slowly darkened he looked like Mr Secombe-Hughes, standing there sturdily with his feet apart. The smell of male urine was wafted on the damp air. I hate men, she thought. I just hate men. I hate them.

‘Clare, is that you? This is Charlotte. I think she's going.'

‘Oh God. We're dining with the Arbuthnots.'

Charlotte was silent for a moment. ‘Well, do as you like. I'm just reporting.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes. The doctor says — Yes, I'm sure.'

‘All right. We'll come round.'

Charlotte replaced the telephone.

Doctor Seldon was putting on his coat.

‘Please, doctor, don't go. Please don't go.'

The doctor took his coat off again, controlling a look of annoyance. ‘There is nothing more I can do, Miss Ledgard.'

‘She may have one of those awful seizures and you said if she did you would give her a shot — you know — to send her off quickly.'

‘Close the door, please, nurse,' said the doctor.

Nurse Mahoney closed the door of Alison's room. As the door closed Charlotte saw Alison looking at her. Only one of Alison's eyes was open, but such a fierce consciousness was collected in it that Charlotte felt as if a dart had pierced her. Why had she spoken like that almost in Alison's presence? She would not have done so this morning. As the day went on she had come to see her mother as remote, a ship moving slowly away. How much could that fading mind still perceive?

‘Sorry. She couldn't have heard and understood, could she?'

‘I don't know,' said the doctor. ‘I don't think it will be necessary to help her on. She will go very soon.'

‘Will she go peacefully?' I couldn't bear it if she fights, thought Charlotte.

‘I think so.'

‘But suppose she doesn't? Please stay.'

‘The nurse can do all that is needed.'

‘You mean the nurse can give her the shot to — help her on?' Charlotte used the doctor's phrase. It sounded strange, more like birth than death. Death can be a struggle, an achievement too.

‘No,' said the doctor.

‘No?'

‘It will not be necessary,' he repeated.

‘Please sit down in here. Can I bring you anything? Wait a little while. She'll go soon, you said so, it will be such a comfort. Please wait until my sister and brother-in-law come. My brother-in-law wants to ask you something.' Charlotte invented that. Men attended to what other men wanted.

‘All right. I'll wait.'

‘Can I give you tea, a drink?'

‘Some tea perhaps.'