Enough to Kill a Horse (18 page)

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Fanny said. ‘I don’t want to talk about her. She believed I tried to murder her, when in fact I was doing my best, my very best, to be nice to her. Now come and have a drink with the others.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘thanks. Jean knows I went to see the Mordues and she’s probably anxious about the outcome. I’d better go home.’

‘You’ve told all this to Jean then?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did she think about it?’

‘I hardly know.’

Fanny heaved herself up from her chair, making such a labour of it that it was easy for a moment to see the old woman that she would one day become. ‘Well, thanks for coming, Colin,’ she said, ‘though I don’t know what I’m thanking you for. You’ve only said a lot of things to worry me more than ever.’

She went with him to the door. When he had gone she closed the door on him and stood there, her hand still on the latch, her face set in a frown of intense thoughtfulness. Then she returned to the sitting room.

When she had left it Basil, Kit and Clare had been there together. Now only Kit was there. He was sprawled in a low armchair, holding open before him the local newspaper at the page on which sales of furniture were advertised. But Fanny knew as soon as she saw him that he was not reading the advertisements. He was only pretending not to be impatiently, nervously waiting for her return, to hear what she and Colin had been privately discussing.

‘Where’s Basil?’ she asked.

‘Gone to his room to work,’ Kit said. ‘And Clare’s lying down or something.’

Fanny sat down near the fire, fondling Martin the cat as he moved closer to her to rub himself against her ankles. The sound of his sudden loud purring filled the quiet room.

It was scented with hyacinths, from a bowl that stood on the windowsill, beside the large, framed photograph of Laura. Fanny’s face, as she sat down, looked stern and at the same time forlorn and rather bitter.

Minutes passed before either she or her brother spoke again. Then Kit, still holding the paper up before him, grunted, ‘What did Colin want?’

Fanny did not answer. She was leaning forward in her chair, as if she wanted to get as close to the warmth of the fire as she could.

Kit did not repeat the question but behind the screen of the newspaper his heavy jaw jutted forward and his lips moved for an instant. Then he tossed the paper aside, stood up and planted himself, still silent, with his back to the fire. His thick-set body, his ruddy face, his blue, bewildered eyes expressed an almost desperate protest.

Fanny was hardly aware of it. Her mind was full of her own desperation and her own protest. She remembered the peace that she had felt for a short time earlier in the evening when it had seemed apparent to her that the burden of guilt which, against the arguments of everyone else, she had insisted on taking up, could be justifiably shifted on to the shoulders of Laura Greenslade. Colin had destroyed that peace, first by his refusal to be impressed by her argument and later by hinting at new and unspeakably disturbing possibilities in the situation. She felt now a muddled and distracted anger against him because of it, yet she did not doubt for a moment that his insight was clearer than hers.

Once or twice, staring at the fire while Kit stood tensely near her, she sighed sharply and impatiently. Her hand, without her being aware any longer that it was doing so, went on stroking the relaxed and contented body of the cat.

When at last she began to speak, it sounded as if she were taking up an argument in the middle. She spoke in a low, puzzled voice.

‘What I don’t understand is why anyone should have ideas like that about me – that I’m possessive, that I’m jealous, that every time I try to do something reasonably helpful I’m simply doing it so that I can keep a tight hold of you. I don’t understand – that’s to say, I do, I do understand it perfectly in Laura, but to find that Susan –

Susan of all people –’

‘What about Susan?’ Kit said quickly.

‘She hates me,’ Fanny said.

‘What rot!’ Kit said.

‘No, she hates me so much that she wouldn’t face becoming my sister-in-law – isn’t that the truth? Isn’t it, Kit?’ For the first time she seemed to be speaking to him directly.

His face reddened, but he spoke more quietly than before. ‘No, not exactly. In fact, not at all.’

‘But you did ask her to marry you, didn’t you, and she refused because of me?’

‘I asked her to marry me and she refused me.’

‘Because of me?’ Fanny insisted.

‘No,’ Kit said, ‘because she hadn’t any use for me. That’s quite a normal reason, isn’t it? It doesn’t need explaining.’

‘Only it isn’t true – she’s in love with you,’ Fanny said.

‘Rot!’ Kit said again, the red in his face deepening.

‘And you,’ Fanny went on, ‘you were in love with her all the time, as I used to think you were, and you just went and got engaged to Laura to get even with Susan, of all the suicidally imbecile things to do! And it’s all my fault – that’s what I discover – all my fault for being so possessive and jealous.’

‘Will you shut up!’ Kit said fiercely. ‘I got engaged to Laura because I’d fallen in love with her and she with me. And Susan isn’t in love with me and never has been. I ought to know that better than anyone, oughtn’t I?’

‘You ought, but you don’t,’ Fanny said.

‘I do,’ Kit said, ‘and if other people would realize that and leave me alone – and leave Susan alone – and Laura, we’d be able to sort things out without any difficulty.’

‘Even with Laura accusing me to Clare, and probably to the police by now, of having tried to murder her?’

‘Well, what have you been accusing her of in your own mind?’ Kit asked.

‘I’ve only been doing my very best to help her and you but it turns out that means I’m jealous and possessive – ’

‘God!’ Kit shouted. ‘What the hell has that man Colin been saying to you? Have I ever said you were either, or been anything but damned grateful for all you’ve done for me, or shown any signs of wanting to walk out on you?’

‘But that’s what you ought to have done, it seems,’ Fanny said. ‘If you’d been ready to walk out on me, Susan would have married you, and then you’d never have got tangled up with that shallow, frightened, spiteful creature in London – and then probably none of these awful things would have happened. Why, oh why,
didn’t
you walk out on me?’

Kit strode a step closer to her. ‘Is that what you want? I’ll walk out on you now, this minute, if that’s what you want.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘But it is what you want. You’re beginning to hate me because of Laura. You’ve shown it ever since I told you about my engagement.’

‘I haven’t. I’m not. I’ve only got near hating Laura since I heard she was trying to show that I’d tried to murder her.’

‘You’ve only got Clare’s word for that.’

‘I trust Clare absolutely!’

‘I’d sooner wait till I’ve heard Laura’s side of it,’ Kit said. ‘When she comes tomorrow, I shall ask her – ’

‘Tomorrow?’ Fanny cried shrilly. ‘The inquest isn’t till the day after.’

‘We happen to want to spend a little time together.’

‘And you mean I’ve got to put her up here, while she’s actually going about saying I tried to poison her?’

‘Not on your life! I’ve got her a room at The Waggoners.’

‘So she
won’t
come here! She thinks I might be more successful this time, is that it?’

Turning away, going towards the door, Kit said, ‘You can put it like that if you want to.’

Fanny’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘And you – you say you’re in love with a woman like that. It isn’t possible.’

‘That almost sounds,’ Kit said, with a new note of deliberate cruelty in his voice, ‘as if you’ve never been really in love yourself. But you’d better get used to the idea that I am in love with Laura – and that that means I’m going to stand by her.’

‘In that case – in that case – ’ By still staring at the fire, Fanny could conceal the tears in her eyes from Kit, but she did not quite succeed in keeping them out of her voice. ‘In that case, perhaps you had better move out – as soon as you can conveniently do so. And you’d better stay away until Laura’s ready to come here and to eat and drink whatever I choose to offer her.’

‘All right,’ Kit said. ‘All right, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll go at once.’

‘Don’t be silly. In the morning – ’

‘I’ll go at once.’

‘Kit!’

But he was already through the door and striding along the passage. He went straight out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

Fanny sat still, the tears pouring steadily down her cheeks and her stout body beginning to tremble. For some minutes she told herself that he would soon be back, that he had taken no clothes with him, that he had probably very little money on him, that he had not even taken his overcoat.

But even while she told herself this, she knew that there was no point in sitting there, waiting for the sound of his returning footsteps.

Blindly, instinctively, Kit made for The Waggoners.

He was in a rage and Kit, in a rage, which was a condition in which he found himself far more often than most people realized, was inclined to drink heavily. The drink always seemed to dissipate the rage itself, let him enjoy an hour or two of excitable cordiality towards the world around him and had next to no physical after-effects. Its psychic after-effects appeared in a sullen and long-lasting depression, but though Kit knew, even while he was drinking, that this was unavoidable, and had a deep fear of this state of mind in himself, he always awaited it with an inner bravado, a silent fury with himself in which he dared the terrors of his own spirit to attack him.

It was not any thought of this that made him, this evening, stop sharply in the doorway of The Waggoners, turn and walk quickly away. It was simply that he realized, as he was about to enter the room that would be full of familiar faces, that tonight of all nights he must do his drinking amongst people who did not know him too well. Something had happened to him which he had not begun to understand and he needed badly the privacy which the company of strangers would give him while he tried to come to terms with it.

The trouble was that by the time he had gone to the garage where he kept his small and dilapidated car, had got it out, found that he was almost out of petrol, stopped at a pump to fill up and then had driven the few miles to the nearby small town, the town in which he was to meet Laura at the station next morning, it was almost closing time.

Going to the Station Hotel, he had a hurried and unsatisfactory drink in the small, bleak bar, then took a room there for the night.

His rage grew all the more intense for the frustration. He hardly slept at all, which was a new experience for him and one which he found curiously terrifying. He could hardly bring himself to believe that any emotions of his were capable of having such a dire effect on his generally healthy constitution. It was like feeling the onset of symptoms of an unknown disease, which, because of his ignorance of it, it was easy to believe must be fatal.

By degrees his sheer astonishment and fear at being unable to sleep filled his mind so completely that he even forgot his rage, forgot what had brought him there to the small drab room and the uncomfortable bed, forgot that he was homeless and jobless. Through this phase of restless dread, he passed on into one of weary apathy, which remained with him for what was left of the night and when he got up the next morning, drank watery tea and ate a discouraging sausage and presently went to the station to meet Laura.

She noticed his state as soon as she saw him. He did not look tired or pale and yet in some way looked dimmed and faded. This irritated her, for Kit’s fresh good looks were of the greatest importance to her. The firm, healthy look of his skin, the brightness of his fair hair, his heavy, muscular look of vigour, were what provided him with his power over her. They were what convinced her that she loved him and wanted him, even though she recognized that as a human being he was rather more complicated than she thought really desirable.

He was excessively reserved, she had discovered, had moods and a streak of acute suspiciousness in his nature. But at least, as a rule, none of these qualities obtruded themselves much on her attention or was likely to be noticed by those whose opinion of him was valued by her. So long as he kept his air of youthful, blond, male energy, he was intensely attractive to her.

But she had no emotions prepared to cope with a Kit in whom the pulse of life seemed to have slowed. It made her feel uneasy and unsure of herself.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked him at once, as they walked side by side along the platform. ‘What is it, Kit? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing much,’ he said.

‘But I can see that something has happened,’ she said. ‘Is it something more about this frightful business, this poisoning?’

‘No, nothing’s happened – nothing special,’ he said. It felt very important to him to make as little as possible of his break with Fanny, particularly in talking to Laura. ‘Of course, the whole situation’s been getting us all down,’ he added, as if to admit this were a great concession.

‘Of course,’ Laura agreed, but not with sympathy. Her tone was suddenly and cruelly sarcastic.

Kit’s eyelids twitched. Reaching his car, putting her suitcase on to the back seat, he said, ‘I’ve got you a room at The Waggoners. I hope it’ll be all right. It’s not exactly luxurious.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She was thinking now of the fact that Kit had not kissed her or even touched her, and that his whole attitude, the slouch of his heavy shoulders which were usually held straight, the slight droop of his head and the way that his eyes avoided hers, meant for certain that she had trouble on her hands.

She had been prepared for this, realizing that although the day before, on the telephone, he had taken quietly her announcement that she would not stay again in the Lynams’ house and that he must find a room for her in the village, explanations and argument would be necessary when they met. But she had thought of having to give these explanations in an atmosphere of excited emotion and not in this curiously deadened, enervated air.