England's Lane (21 page)

I touch the newel post at the base of the stairs, smiling at myself for registering the sticky edge of neglect that has over a very long time bonded the dust into the very heavy dullness of the thing … smiling at that, yes, though not in any sense at all out of happiness at being here. The situation into which I argued myself so terribly eloquently, not to say volubly, almost evangelically … well I have it now, don't I? Here it is: the thing is mine. So how about it, Milly? What to do? Well get on with it, I suppose. No sense in hanging around. Just get it done and over with, for either good or ill: nothing else for it. So a sort of resolve is upon me, then—the partial allaying, anyway, of incipient panic—though I am newly unnerved that the very first tread on the staircase has just now emitted a woeful and deeply dispiriting groan. I slide the palm of my hand up and along the banister rail as I very slowly ascend, the cracked and brittle loose linoleum snagging insinuatingly upon the soles of my shoes: this,
I think grimly, is a lurking deathtrap for any young child in a headlong hurry, but how it must be for poor young Anthony, well it hardly bears thinking about. He just must have, I suppose—as in so many other ways, little mite—learned to adapt: to be aware of the intrinsic treachery in this or that tread, and then to somehow negotiate it appropriately. And yes I do know that Stan has a great deal to see to, to think about—I am aware that his responsibilities, his daily duties are a considerable burden, an ongoing trial, though still I am surprised that he has allowed things to deteriorate quite to this extent: the patterned flock of the wallpaper, it is rubbed clean away and is shinily flush where it has been constantly buffeted by the traffic of countless elbows and shoulders, all down the years. On the landing, there is a rustic chair with its canework burst, an oval rug of indeterminate color and a pair of wall sconces—one with a scorched and skewed tasselated shade, the other with nothing, not even a lightbulb.

And now, of course, I come to a halt. For had I thought myself foolish before, I now feel quite as thoroughly imbecilic as they come—because hadn't I omitted altogether to ensure that Stan make it quite plain to me which room is Jane's (and nor, silly man, did he think to tell me). Well I have to assume that she is on this floor somewhere, because the layout, you know, in all these buildings in the Lane, it's very markedly similar: they all do rather conform. And so going by my own place then, I'd say that certainly she wouldn't be on the floor above because the rooms up there, they're really rather small, the dormer windows hardly more than a token thing. So now let's think about this … well, I am guessing that the front room here, that will be the lounge, the sitting room, whatever people like to call it. And next to that the dining room—that's the way we have it, anyway, and it does seem to make sense. Kitchen beyond that … then here there's the boxroom. And right next to
that … what I think must surely be the main bedroom, the large one to the rear. Which Stan, I expect, will long ago have given over to her (maybe, who can say, it is the unhappy lot of doleful and uncomprehending husbands the length and breadth of the nation to be consigned to box rooms on either the idle whim, strenuous disgust or serious instability of their wives).

I pause outside. Silence. Total and utter silence. Oh dear heavens. No television or wireless certainly, nothing of that sort—not even so much as the squirm of movement, or a single exhalation. So what to do …? Well knock, of course—of course knock, yes. In this case, knocking is quite obviously essential. Yes I know but will that startle her …? I don't want to startle her. That is the last thing in the world I should ever want, to startle her. And yet considerably less alarming, we think, than swinging wide the door and then striding right in with a hearty cry of greeting. So I'll tap, then. Yes—I'll very softly tap … And what if, as does now seem likely, what if she's asleep? Should I wake her? Or run away quickly, with glee in my heart. I think, you know, this is one of these predicaments where planning, really, is just no good. I am clearly going to have to react to whatever I might find at the very point of confrontation. Well that's all right—I came through the war, didn't I? One learned then to live on one's wits: no choice in the matter. One never knew from one day's end to the other quite how one's life would be, or even when and if it might suddenly end. So here—here is nothing. Nothing at all. Right, then. So here we go …

And now I'll tap again, I suppose. If only for the sake of politeness, really. Though it must be quite clear that she's asleep. She has to be. No other earthly explanation. For I don't really think—or at least I fervently hope and pray not—that Jane, dear Jane, has selected this day of all days to give up the ghost and just go and, well—die, or something. Oh Lord. Don't know what to do now …
Should I go, I wonder? Just turn around and creep like a felon down the umbrous staircase and swiftly and silently leave the way I came? It really is so very tempting a prospect. But silly. Because I'm here now, aren't I? Won't get another opportunity will I? Shouldn't imagine so. Oh blow it—I'll just go in. And if she's asleep, then I'll decide on the spot what to do. Because whether I wake her or not, it really wholly depends upon exactly
how
she is asleep: the manner of it. If she appears to have gently nodded off in the middle of … I don't know—knitting, say. A crossword, or somesuch … then I'll softly touch her shoulder and then make utterly sure that the very first thing that she sees upon opening her eyes is the broadest and most reassuring smile imaginable from a friend who is only there to help. Though if she's actually all tucked up in bed and thoroughly dead to the world, then I'll certainly leave her to it: make my apologies later to Stan, and there's an end to the whole affair—a wasted afternoon, despite my best intentions.

It is rather dark in here, I must say … but then the whole of the house is: terribly lowering, actually. I couldn't myself bear it, not for a single day. And it cannot at all be conducive to Anthony, living always within a shadowy twilight. But my eyes, they're beginning now to slightly adjust. I look to the bed … single bed … a great upheaval of jumbled blankets and a faded floral eiderdown, though no one actually amongst it all. There is an armchair, wing chair, averted from the window, where the slightest slits of light are slicing where the brownish curtains almost are meeting. Nowhere else then that Jane can be—unless at the very first tap on the door she took it into her head to make a bolt for safety, and now is crouching at the base of the wardrobe amid a rubble of shoes. So I very gradually approach the tall and upright back of the chair with, I admit, a fair amount of trepidation—because I don't at all know—do I?—what I shall find there …

Well nothing. Is what I find there. No one. The room is empty. What has apparently happened this afternoon is the very thing, according to Stan, which is simply without precedent: Jane has left her room. And this puts me into another quandary now. One further dilemma. But before I decide quite what to do next, I can't really resist just the merest look around. I shan't be too nosy—I'm not going to be peeking into the drawers—but after all, I am only a woman, and therefore heir to all those things that women are prey to: for there is not one of us alive, let us be honest here, who really could bring herself to immediately walk out of a bedroom in a circumstance such as this. And I am sure that I am able to persuade myself that once I have witnessed at close quarters the, um … how can I put it? The way Jane lives, the little things she keeps about her … then I shall be gaining a rare and valuable insight into quite what it is that I find myself up against. On this dressing table, for example: there is no scent. No make-up. Not even a lipstick. Though there is the largest jar of Pond's Cold Cream I have ever set eyes upon. Which, Miss Marple, tells me what exactly? Precisely nothing, I'm afraid—except that maybe she suffers from exceedingly chapped hands, or that the skin of her cheeks is as moist and soft as that of a baby. There is also here a rectangular cream porcelain tray with twelve pennies very carefully aligned, each of the reign of George VI, and all with that great man's profile to the fore. A fountain pen—Conway Stuart, I happen to know, because I had one just like it: Eunice gave it me one birthday, and I was inconsolable, so very terribly distraught when many years later I managed to lose it somewhere. Jane's is mottled green, mine was a sort of a burgundy color. And hanging askew on one of the dressing table mirror's finials is a bonnet—a very flowery sort of, well … it's a veritable Easter bonnet, really: yellow gingham, basted on daisies and lacy ties dangling a good way down from it. Well. And books—there are
some books on a side table, look: one about the Queen,
Ten Little Niggers
(very well spotted, Miss Marple!), Marguerite Patten's wartime recipes, the
Concise Oxford Dictionary
and a London
A–Z
. Not much else here. Over the bed, a sepia print of a waterfall, white plaster chips on the dull gold frame. On the bedside table, a pair of stockings, unopened—Ballito, size 10, sand gold. Alongside a brimful cup of cold tea, together with a sideplate bearing I think a sausage roll, quite intact. And suddenly, you know—I have to be out of here. I am very uncomfortable. My skin is creeping, and I wish I'd never come. I am leaving immediately. It is quite clear now that she must be in the bathroom, poor Jane, and I am certainly not intruding any farther. I am leaving immediately.

The door to the front room, I notice as I am about to pass it, is not quite to. Would it be too awful of me just to ease it open a fraction further? Because I have no idea, you know, how Stan … well—lives, really. It would be so very interesting just to glimpse the three-piece suite, to see which corner he has the television. So I do that, I do that—I slowly push open the door, and then of a sudden my heart is stopped by shock and I let out a short, shrill scream, which I am quite amazed to hear. A quiet voice from the corner—though it had annihilated the silence as if it had been thunder:

“You took a very long while to find me …”

I simply stand there, and I know that I am quivering.

“Jane …” is all I can stupidly say.

In this room too the light is very dim: the curtains are closed, though a shaded lamp is glowing on the table where Jane I can now see is sitting. She holds between her fingers a blue Bic biro, and laid flat open in front of her is an exercise book with narrow feint ruled pages. She looks surprisingly healthy: Miss Havisham briefly flares up in my mind's eye, and then falls to the very floor of my hot imagination, there to crumble into ash and cinders.

“Jane …” I say again, and so terribly feebly.

“Won't you sit down? Or must you rush …?”

I walk just two steps into the room. I think I shall take up the offer of a seat—my legs are decidedly wobbly, and I can't seem to control that. And then I think I shan't.

“Jane—you must think me very … well I cannot imagine what you must be thinking, actually, but all it is, well—I just thought I'd come and see you. You know—pop in, sort of thing. Because, um …”

“It's Mrs. Stammer, isn't it …?”

“Yes. It is. Milly. I'm Milly. Look, Jane—all I wanted, well … I just wanted to see that you're all right, and everything.”

Her hair, grayish, it is hard in a bun. She is wrapped quite tightly into a quilted housecoat—not at all similar to the diaphanous and rather raggy thing that Stan had been considering. Her eyes—so very chillingly bright, though set into the slump of a face that has decided to be aged. She is setting down the biro into the gutter of the exercise book.

“Why should I not be? All right. What have you heard?”

“Heard? Well nothing. Well actually—Stan, he um …”

She is making a funny sort of a noise, now. I think she is almost chuckling, though it does sound very gravelly.

“Ah. Stan. Yes, of course. My husband. That Stan, yes? You do mean Stan, my deeply concerned husband?”

“Well he is, quite frankly Jane. Concerned. About you. He cares. Of course he does.”

“Are you really quite sure you won't sit down? Yes? Very well. And what little tales, I wonder, has Stan, my husband, been spreading about me …?”

“Oh no—no sort of tales. It's not like that at all, Jane. Please do believe me. It's just that he's worried—naturally he's worried because,
well—for one thing, you never go out, do you? Like you used to. You never leave your room.”

“Ah but as you can see, that is not the case. Is it?”

“No. Right. Of course …”

“I come in here when Stan, my husband, is in the shop. Or elsewhere. As today. Then I come in here. I write, you see. I write.”

“Really? You write? Well that's very, um. What is it you are writing, Jane? Is it a thriller? Agatha Christie? Romance? Something of that sort?”

“No, Mrs. Stammer. Nothing of that sort at all. It is simply a journal. No more.”

“Aha. I see. A diary sort of thing, then. And Milly—do please call me Milly. I used to do that when I was at school. Every night, quite religiously. Wish I'd kept it up now. I often wish that, actually. Jane, um—can I possibly get you anything …? Cup of tea, perhaps? Some little thing to eat, maybe …?”

“I expect you have been told that I don't. Eat. But I do. I do.”

“What do you eat, Jane? Because Stan says …”

“Stan, my husband, says that he brings me food, and I ignore it. That's what Stan says: my husband. Scorn it. Let him take it all away again. This is true. I do that. I do that daily. I eat chocolate. Chocolate, yes. Nothing else whatever. It is remarkably nutritious. Not good for the complexion, this is true. I have to use a great deal of cold cream. Though it does not seem to make me fat. Do I look fat to you? I don't think so. I am not fat, as you may see. Here is the evidence before you. I take it from the shop, sometimes the storeroom, the chocolate. Often at night. Stan, my husband—his bookkeeping, I can only think, must be very loose. He never appears to miss it. And I do take rather a lot. Fry's Peppermint Cream I very much favor. Mackintosh's Toffee Cup—I don't know if you know it at all? A delightful mouthful. Mars, when I feel I need the energy.
And water. I drink water. I do love water. It's very pure, Mrs. Stammer. So very pure.”