Down in the City (16 page)

‘Well—maybe I'm off my rocker—but I was just wondering what you'd think about us having a kid? I don't know why, but it just struck me it might be a good idea.' His eyes were all over the room, and he spoke very fast, not giving her a chance to interrupt. ‘We get on fine without one—maybe it's a lousy idea, I don't know.' He gave an almost theatrical shrug of indifference. A moment later he turned excited eyes on Esther and she was caught.

A pang of extraordinary desolation swept over her heart and spread to every nerve of her body. It ached in the palms of her hands.

‘I can't. I saw a doctor months ago and he said it isn't possible.' She spoke in a voice so dry and lifeless that Stan would not have understood if he had not read her lips.

With dead eyes she surveyed the blankness on his face as he tried to take it in; she caught blindly at his hand. ‘Oh, darling…I can't bear it. I can't bear to disappoint you like this. I'm so sorry.'

He put a hand on her head, smoothed her hair. ‘Sorry?' he echoed vaguely. ‘Be sensible, Est.' He kept stroking her hair. ‘You went to see a doctor? Why didn't you tell me?…Well…' He could think of nothing more to say, and, being conditioned to close his mouth over a cigarette on such occasions, he lifted a packet from the dressing table, shook two into his hand, lit them with enormous concentration, and gave one to Esther.

She held it and looked at him mutely, silently entreating another word, but Stan strolled about the room, elaborately casual, as if he were outdoors, on holiday.

‘Oh, yes,' he said, as if he had remembered something he must do, and, humming tunelessly, he transferred wallets, papers, keys, pen and samples of plastic from the pockets of the suit he had been wearing to his dinner suit. Then, noticing what he had done, he took them all out again.

‘Stan.'

He swung round and gave a forced laugh when he saw that he had been observed. ‘Now look here,' he began on a note of extreme reason, groping unwillingly for words. ‘Just because I…well…' He took a deep breath and threw his arms about. ‘Just because I have some mad idea there's no need for you to…' As Esther turned slowly away he broke off, and gazed stupidly at the narrow shoulders left bare by the tight white dress, gazed at the diamond earrings, the dark hair.

The thin bleating tinkle of the alarm clock broke the silence. Small reverberations of shock sent pulsing heat over Esther's skin.

‘Hell!' said Stan.

Esther pressed the black knob on the clock and the bell was quiet. ‘I must have wound it up,' she said, letting her hands fall heavily to her lap.

‘Quarter to eight! We're going to be late! A fine time I pick to talk about a thing like this. Are we nearly ready?' He looked at her busily, pretending nothing was wrong.

‘I don't know. I can't think.'

He drew her to her feet. ‘Now look,' he said with rough kindliness, ‘you've got to forget all about this and cheer up. Forget it.' He held her and waited. ‘Will you do what I tell you?'

Her nerves cried out for the relief of honest words, for—not a scene that would leave her comforted and Stan deprived, but—
something
more than had been said.

Now, however, he was regarding her with a baffling insincerity that made them less than strangers. He would neither acknowledge nor revile.

She frowned, drew breath to speak, but shook her head instead, and giving up, leaned against him.

It was then, unpremeditated, that she asked, ‘Could we adopt a child, Stan? Would you? Would you hate to?' And she moved back to study his face.

‘Adopt?' His hands slipped from her shoulders. ‘I never thought about it.' There was a pause and each could feel a lightening, a rising hope. ‘
Could
we?…I don't see why not, though.'

‘The doctor said we should think about it, but of course, I…'

‘What do you think yourself, Est? Can you see us with a family in a couple of weeks?' He was ablaze with enthusiasm.

She looked at him.

‘A boy and a girl?' he said. ‘Could we get two at once? Or should we start with one? Or what?'

Esther, lacking Stan's easeful volatility, felt the need to sit down. He repeated a question and she cried, ‘Oh, I don't know!' She gazed blankly at the floor, down the hall, up at Stan.

‘I wasn't prepared for this,' she said, with the youthfulness of utter confusion, and Stan laughed. The welling tension broke and he roared with laughter; he sat down beside her on the bed and laughed until his eyes watered; he put a hand on her knee, heavily, to support himself, to join himself to her in this moment of supreme amusement.

An unwilling smile, caught from Stan, half pity, half hysteria, came to her reluctant mouth. At last Stan wiped his eyes.

Esther said, ‘But it wouldn't be the same, would it? You'd feel—you must feel—it's natural that you should…' He tried to stop her but she warded him off with upraised arms. ‘After I saw the doctor I hoped I'd never have to tell you. You'd never said…we'd never planned…but I didn't really feel so very miserable about it. I suppose I'm not maternal—not like Laura—I'm selfish…I might even have been jealous. Oh!' she jerked around on the bed with a wail, ‘but that's not true either. I did care about it. You must know that I did. How could I not?' Leaning away from him, against the back of the bed, she pressed her lips together and Stan stroked her neck with his big soft hand.

After a few minutes he heaved himself up from the bed and bent over her. ‘Now!' he said decisively. ‘We're going to have one drink each and then we're going to scram. We'll talk about all this in the car, or later, or sometime soon, and you're going to have a good time tonight and so am I. Do you hear me?' He spoke to her in the firm hypnotic tone of one who would have obedience, and, struck by it, and by the rare gentleness in it, she opened her eyes and looked at him. They exchanged a smile that had in it everything of themselves.

Stan marched off and Esther sat still for a moment, her hands clasped, looking through the empty door where he had gone.

When he came back from the kitchen he put the glasses down and stared anxiously in the wardrobe mirror. ‘Thirty-four and forty-one, Est. Are we too old?' he asked, examining his skin, smoothing his hair.

Esther went slowly up to him. ‘No!' she said in a tone sufficiently eloquent to force a vain, relieved grin to his face. ‘I wondered, that's all. Just the same,' he added, ‘we'd better not pick the smallest size they've got.'

That night, driving the car, Stan added many a flourish to the signals of the highway code, and Esther, feeling the breeze on her face, reflected that she had never seen him in quite the same mood of optimism.

The immediate past, until tonight a pattern for their future, seemed now to have been merely a preliminary course for beginners. Soon, she thought, Stan would have what he had always needed—solid foundations, people, places of his own, demands, responsibilities. He would enter the normal world of the Maitlands and their fellows. Graduate.

Stan stopped whistling to say, ‘What should we get first, Est? House or kids?…House, I guess.' Pulling up at a red light he said, ‘You do want
two
, don't you?'

‘If we can have them. All at once, like this, it's hard to imagine any, but I think you're right that two would be best.'

Chortling away, Stan accelerated as the lights changed. In a minute he said, ‘Old Clem'll think we're lost…Do you think we should see someone about all this? David, maybe? After all, he's a solicitor or something, isn't he? He should know about these things. Might be able to get it fixed up faster. Pull a few strings.'

‘I know he would be very happy to help us. I'm sure he could tell us what we should do,' she said steadily, but Stan guessed her reaction. Magnanimously confirming his offer he said, ‘I'll go in to his office tomorrow. Bet it'll surprise him.' He gave a short laugh. ‘It'll surprise a few so-and-sos.'

They cruised along the tree-lined street looking for a parking place. The nickel and bright duco of American cars gleamed under the lights.

‘I'll ring David in the morning and tell him you're coming,' Esther said, as they walked back towards the hotel. ‘But I'd rather not mention it to Clem tonight.'

‘You are keen on this, aren't you, Est?'

She touched his hand and they slowed, dawdled lover-like for a few steps until the sound of music coming from the hotel reminded them of their obligations, and with sudden belated compunction they began to hurry.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The office was cool, even chill, after the heat outside. Stan sat in a deep leather chair and inspected the room while he waited for David to see him. Five minutes, his secretary had said. Now she was tapping efficiently on her typewriter, occupied and withdrawn, and next to her, on the other side of the polished wooden fence, another girl, a blonde—Clem's secretary, he supposed—sat at her machine.

Neither of the girls had looked up, or spoken, or slackened pace for an instant since he had established his identity and picked up a copy of
Punch
. The smooth, shining heads remained slightly averted to the left, the hands raced.

The clack of typewriter keys had a peaceful effect in the high, white-walled room. Dark wood, gleaming floor and furniture, fresh flowers, electric light and the snap of machines. Stan seldom found himself in such surroundings. He felt he was being sapped and subdued by them until he cleared his throat noisily—so noisily as to make the girls look up—to reassert his personality. Behind the glum façade he was jittery.

In his imagination he rehearsed the scene to come. His voice was gruff and matter-of-fact. That was the way to be, he decided. And then when he had it all taped he'd ring Est. Pity he had to see Connelly about those blueprints; he'd have gone straight home, otherwise. Still, Connelly was just back from the States. He'd have news. After they'd had a talk he could collect Est and go and see whoever David said. Maybe look at some houses.

Voices came from the other office. Someone was coming out. A stout man who had, a moment before, been a dark grey shadow behind the opaque glass-panelled door, came from David's office. He glanced at Stan, and, as he passed the girls, nodded good morning.

Stan wished again that he was seeing David somewhere else. Against his will these austere chambers overpowered him. However, here he was, like it or not.

The girl said something. ‘Would you come this way, please, Mr Peterson? Mr Prescott will see you now.' She closed the door behind him.

‘Hello, David.'

‘Sit down, Stan. I'm sorry I kept you waiting.' The apology was automatic. ‘I'm glad you came in today. I suppose Esther told you that I was on the point of ringing to suggest the same thing when she spoke to me?'

‘Yes, she said something about it.'

David sat at a desk, his back to a sheet of windows. One wall of his office was lined with books. There were some engravings in narrow black frames. A thick, dark-blue carpet covered the floor. Stan noticed these details and gathered a general impression of order and space.

Removing his spectacles, David laid them on a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. As he spoke he watched the circles of light reflected through them.

‘My business with you can wait for a few minutes. Tell me, what kind of information is it that you want? Esther preferred not to mention it on the phone.'

Stan fixed his eyes on the pattern of light that still held David's attention. ‘Well,' he began, and was thankful to hear his voice, gruff and matter-of-fact, continuing with the story just as he had planned. He was relieved. It was much easier than he had expected. David made no sound or movement until he came to a halt.

When it was all told, Stan allowed himself a sheepish grin—indeed, he could not restrain it; for there it was in a nutshell. They planned to get a house and two kids. Yes, it had to be two; and they wanted to get them at the same time. As to age, they weren't so fussy, but the boy had to be a bit older than the girl. And now, the point was, who should they see? How long would it take? And could he use a bit of influence to hurry it up and cut out the red tape?

Stan fell back in his chair and crossed his legs. Then he leaned forward with his cigarette case. When David shook his head, he sat back again, at ease for the first time that morning.

‘Well? What do you think?' he asked when the smoke was streaming from his cigarette. ‘You look surprised, all right. Knew you would be.'

David raised his head. ‘I
am
surprised,' he said with quiet emphasis, ‘and if what I have been told is correct, I shall be more than surprised, I shall be disgusted.' He put on his spectacles and clasped his hands in front of him.

Freezing into stillness, Stan said angrily, ‘What the hell are you talking about?'

‘Just this. I've had a visit from an ex-employee of yours, and, I regret to say, of mine…'

‘Jeffries.'

‘I have no admiration for the man. He may have lied to me. He obviously bears you a grudge and wants to injure you. As a rule such witnesses are not reliable, or shall I say, not completely reliable. Hatred can produce a view of the truth so obliquely distorted that one is never sure again of the ground in question. There must always be doubts.' He paused for a moment and met Stan's eyes. ‘In this case, however, Jeffries was dealing with facts—a great many facts. Was he speaking the truth?'

Trying bravado, Stan answered insolently, ‘Depends a bit what he said, doesn't it? Anyhow, you're so good at it, you tell me.'

‘I thought so.'

Only the subdued clatter of the outer office broke the silence.

‘According to Jeffries, every detail of the business you conduct is illegal. You manufacture without licence. You ignore copyright. You have contempt for laws regulating imports and exports.' He went on, ‘You appear to find opportunities for gain during every consumer shortage the city suffers. Indeed, Jeffries credits you with the ability to create these gluts and shortages in order to turn them to your own advantage. New regulations of all kinds appear to inspire your ingenuity, so that you are at the same time able to overcome them, and increase profit.' David stopped again and looked at Stan, who eyed him derisively.