Casting Off (36 page)

It felt simply like a consolation.

Must get to work. A punt had come in view, or a boat that looked like a punt, with an old man in it fishing. He got out his pad and a piece of charcoal and began to draw. He drew a man fishing in a boat with the poplars behind him – it turned out a dogged, explicit little drawing. He had a go at the vine terraces; their ranks and faintly undulating lines were well known to him. He was looking, but without any spirit. Got to get my hand in, he thought. Just a bit rusty. But drawing required constant practice and it was years now since he had really practised. What that meant was that one fell into all the early traps. Like a beginner one got something wrong and tried to manipulate it into being right and in that process the life went out of whatever it was. The first sight of something that made him want to draw it got lost, he had not the capacity to hang on to it. He had almost forgotten what this felt like – this feeling one’s way into work after a break. He’d been back a week now and he was still struggling. But he also realized that he was only intermittently struggling; he wasn’t trying often or long or hard enough to break through because he only had one more week before he had to go back to England.

By the time he packed up the sun was sinking and parts of the river had become dark. As he bicycled back along the narrow straight road edged by plane trees that arched over it, he decided that he would give up his white-collar work. He could have got out months ago if he’d really wanted, but a combination of indolence and preoccupation with the family had intervened.

When he got back to the silent, empty flat, had climbed the steep stairs, unpacked his knapsack and poured himself a
pastis
, he thought that perhaps there had been some fear as well. He was no longer good at living alone, or disposed to find some casual female company as occasional solace. He felt aimless and afraid to be so. In spite of the fact that his money was getting low – fifty pounds was all he’d been allowed to bring over, and what he’d left in the bank had simply paid his back rent and taxes – he decided to dine in the restaurant. The
prix fixe
was not expensive and included a carafe of wine. He took a novel by someone called Arthur Koestler to read while he ate. He’d bought it on the railway station in Paris and had not opened it.

Marcel’s wife brought him his hors d’oeuvres: thin slices of sausage, juicy black olives, tomatoes strewn with basil and rich green oil, and a basket with slices of bread. The food, after England and the war, was delectable.

‘Did you find your telegram, Monsieur?’

‘No?’

‘The boy put it through the door – I saw with my own eyes.’

‘I must have missed it, then.’

He got up and went outside the restaurant to his door. When he opened it he found the little buff envelope that had slid sideways so that it was propped against the wall on the ground.

‘Please ring after six. Trouble, Polly.’

It took him nearly an hour to get through, and then the line was awful. He could hardly hear her.

‘It’s Clary,’ she said. ‘Clary’s in trouble. She’s . . .’ and then he couldn’t hear
what
was said.

‘What’s happened to her? Polly? Are you there?’

There was a lot of crackling and then he heard her, very faint. ‘So could you possibly come back, Archie? I can’t think of anyone . . .’ And then her voice faded away again and he was cut off.

So he didn’t stay his second week. He didn’t even finish his dinner. Madame made him a sandwich while he packed up, shut the flat, and arranged for a taxi to take him to Avignon. There was a night train to Paris and he spent his last francs on a taxi to the Gare du Nord. All the way across on the ferry he tried to imagine what had befallen Clary. She had eloped; Fenella had tried to murder her; she had become suddenly and dangerously ill . . .

At Newhaven, he took the Pullman: he was tired from sitting up all night and had gone without breakfast. He was served an execrable lunch by the impeccable steward who behaved like an old family retainer.

‘Nice to see you, sir. I hope you had a good holiday,’ he said, as he tenderly placed a plate of brown Windsor soup before Archie. He drank the soup and ate some of the rugged little fillets of plaice that followed, but then he gave up and fell asleep.

The steward waited until they were drawing into Victoria before giving him his bill. ‘Didn’t like to wake you, sir.’

He had debated whether to go home first and telephone from there, but he didn’t. He took a cab straight to Blandford Street. It was just under eighteen hours since he had got the telegram. He rang the bell, waited, rang again, and eventually, she came down to let him in.

‘I thought you were in France!’

‘I was. Let me in, Clary.’

She had been standing, indeterminate in the gloom.

‘Oh – all right.’

She led the way upstairs to her room, which was in its usual state of chaos. The relief he had felt at seeing her, at her being there, ebbed to a different anxiety. She looked dreadful. Her face, devoid of the absurd make-up in which he had last seen her, was puffy and grey with bruising circles under her eyes. She was wearing a ragged, peach-coloured kimono that he recollected Zoë had used to wear. Something to do with Noël, he thought. She would take that very hard.

‘I was in bed, actually,’ she said. Her voice was lifeless and carefully non-committal. All the same, some relief returned.

‘What made you come back?’

‘Poll sent me a telegram. She said you were in trouble.’

‘Did she say what kind?’

‘The line was too bad. I couldn’t hear.’

‘You said a telegram.’

‘Yes, and as a result of it I rang up.’

‘Oh.’

There was a silence. She stood facing him, and he saw that she was trembling.

‘What’s up?’

‘I might as well tell you. It seems that I’m pregnant. Pretty corny of me, isn’t it?’

‘You know that you are?’

‘Yep. I’d been worrying a bit – and I found out for sure last week.’

It was the last thing he had expected.

‘Nobody else knows,’ she said, ‘except Poll.’ After a pause, she added in the same lifeless voice, ‘And Noël, of course. And Fenella.’ She frowned, as though she was trying to hold her face together. ‘Oh, Archie! They’re so
angry
about it! As though I
meant
to be! It was just an awful mistake – I really don’t know how it happened at all. I don’t!’ And she collapsed on to the floor hugging her knees and began a painful, dry sobbing.

He knelt beside her and she clung to him. He stroked her head, put his arms round her and let her sob. There were no tears.

‘I can’t even cry properly any more,’ she said. ‘ I seem to have used up all the usual ways of doing it.’

‘Darling Clary. Of course it’s not your fault. Of course it isn’t.’ After a bit, he said, ‘Why is Noël so angry?’

‘Because he
hates
the idea of children. He says it would drive him mad. And
she
says – Fenella says – that it’s true. He made her promise never to have one and she did, and she says I’ve betrayed them both. I didn’t
mean
to! It was just an awful accident!’

‘Do
you
want to have it?’

‘How can I? He would never speak to me again – or see me. I love him and I couldn’t be so selfish and wicked as that.’ A moment later, she said, ‘It’s all over anyway. They told me yesterday – at least
she
did. He can’t even bear to see me. Oh, Archie, I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how to – how to – have an abortion, and anyway, they cost hundreds of pounds.’

‘If he doesn’t want you to have it, he might ante up for that.’

But she looked at him with speechless denial. Then she said, ‘I thought he loved me. I really believed that. Sorry, Archie, I’ve got to go and be sick.’

While she was gone, he removed books, papers and some clothes from the only easy chair for her return. A sheet of writing paper floated to the floor. He picked it up. ‘My darling Noël,’ he read, and read no more. The line between what was his business and what was not had suddenly become very tenuous. It
was
his business to help her now. He must not lose his temper in front of her about that bastard: indeed, he hoped that Noël would stick to severing all connection with her, as it might shorten her misery about him. He must be careful to say nothing that would provoke her into defending him.

She came back and he made her sit in the chair, drew up a kitchen stool and sat by her.

‘Better?’

‘I jolly well hope so. That’s the third time today. It usually stops by now.’

‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t particularly
want
one, but I’d better have a water biscuit. They’re supposed to be a good thing, Polly says. She’s been finding out things like that.’

‘What does Poll think about it all?’

‘It’s difficult, because she didn’t like Noël the one time she saw him. I don’t know why, she just didn’t, and I asked her and, of course, she told me. She’s extremely truthful, so she had to say.’

There was a pause, and then she added, ‘It was mutual, actually. Noël thought she was shallow.’

‘You don’t agree with
that
.’

‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘I sometimes don’t agree with him about things.’

‘Where are your water biscuits?’

‘I think under my bed – I think they must have got there.’

‘Did you have any lunch?’

‘There wasn’t much point. I usually have dinner. That seems to be OK.’

‘You mean you can fancy it
and
keep it down?’

It was an old family joke. She nearly smiled then. ‘That was one of Dad’s chars, wasn’t it? Dad did seem to have the most remarkable collection of them.’

‘Do you think it might be a good thing to tell him about this?’

‘Not if I can help it. I suppose if I
have
the baby, he’d have to know – everyone would . . .’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to think about that now,
or
make any decision. I think it might be a good idea if you had a little sleep. I can stay upstairs in Poll’s rooms and then I’ll take you out to dinner. Would that suit?’

‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll read, or I might have a short kip myself. Didn’t sleep much on the train.’

She agreed to this, although she said she wasn’t sleepy. ‘But I have got rather a headache.’

He got her some aspirin from the cupboard in the tiny little bathroom and a glass of water. When he returned, she’d got into bed. ‘Goodness! London water tastes so horrible! I’ve only just started noticing it.’

He drew her curtains. ‘I’ll be upstairs if you want me.’

‘Yes, you will. Archie! Did you come back specially for me?’

‘Yup. I’m very much attached to you, you know.’

‘I’m attached to you,’ she responded – more like the old Clary, he thought.

He waited fifteen minutes before going down to look at her: she was deeply asleep.

Away from her, he was able to think more clearly. She had three options: to have the baby and get it adopted, to have it and bring it up herself, or not to have it. It was essential that she should make this decision without his or anyone else’s influence. He knew nothing about abortion except that it was illegal, which must in turn mean that it might be difficult to find somebody who would do it, and even more difficult to check up on them. It occurred to him that Teresa, Louis Kutchinsky’s partner, might know somebody, and she had met Clary once when he had taken her to dinner there about three years ago. He rang them and made a plan to go and see them the following day. If she wanted that, he could pay for it, and he resolved upon telling her so that that would not be an influence, but there was no point in an option that she thought was practically impossible. If she decided to have it, then Rupert would have to be told: he wondered why she had not told him already. But, then, Clary would not have told him, Archie, if Poll hadn’t got him back. What on earth would have happened if Poll hadn’t sent the telegram – if he hadn’t come back? Supposing Teresa
didn’t
know of anyone, how would he set about finding them? On the other hand, how could Clary have a baby and a job? He was too tired to contemplate these problems. He wrote a note to Polly saying that he was upstairs in her room and that Clary was asleep, and went down to put it on the stairs by the front door. Then he went back to Polly’s room and cast himself upon her divan.

When he woke Polly was putting a tea tray on her table. ‘Thought you might like some.’

‘Thanks. I would.’

‘You did get back fast. I couldn’t hear you properly on the telephone so I wasn’t sure if you’d come.’

‘I hope you didn’t mind me passing out on your bed.’

‘Of course not. You’ve got very
brown
.’

‘It was hot.’

He sat up and she gave him some tea.

‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes. Poor Clary. He does sound a perfect swine.’

‘He sounds like he
is
.’

‘She said you didn’t like him. What’s he actually like?’