Getting It Right (45 page)

Gavin made him some tea, and ran him another bath, and, by saying he was hungry himself, persuaded Harry to consider some food. He found the remains of a stew in a pudding basin in the fridge,
but decided that even that might have unhappy associations, so he scrambled some eggs for them both, and Harry ate some of that. But, during all this, he was wondering what on earth to do next: he
couldn’t leave Harry like this; should he take him back to Barnet for the night? And then what about tomorrow? He couldn’t take him to lunch with Jenny’s family. At least, perhaps
he could from their point of view, but he didn’t think Harry would be able to cope. This problem was solved for him most unexpectedly, by Stephen ringing up: he’d heard the news and was
deeply concerned. He and Noel would come and fetch Harry in the morning and take him away for the rest of the weekend. He seemed to have the right touch, because Harry agreed to go: it would get
him out of the flat, he said, and he thought he’d be better out of the flat. Gavin offered to stay the night with him, but Harry, who seemed stronger for the hot bath and the food, said that
he could manage. ‘I’ve got to start some time. And if I know they’re coming in the morning, I’ll be all right.’ He still wouldn’t go into the bedroom, so Gavin
fetched a couple of blankets off the bed and made him comfortable on the chesterfield. He could see that he was worn out. He made him a hot drink and gave him a couple of aspirin.

‘I’ll stay with you until you’re asleep.’

Harry agreed to this; he was past arguing about anything; he tried to thank Gavin, but this made him cry. Gavin said he was his friend, and gratitude wasn’t in order, and Harry,
recognizing his own phraseology, actually smiled. Then he lay down – passed out, more like, Gavin thought, watching his poor ravaged face stilled in sleep. He waited until he felt sure that
it
was
sleep, then he wrote a note saying: ‘Gone home; ring if you want me
any
time of night,’ put the note on the floor where Harry would be sure to see it, and
left.

It wasn’t until he’d got home, and he realized that he, too, was exhausted, that anger with Joan manifested. He felt so angry that, briefly, the idea of killing her occurred –
and went. He was too tired to think about it then, but he knew that he couldn’t leave it at that: he had got to do something.

He had gone to bed with his door open in case Harry rang, and, in fact, was woken up by him next morning. His watch said quarter-past nine: he’d overslept. Harry said he
was all right: Stephen and Noel had come for him and he was going off to have breakfast with them. ‘In view of your very kind note, I thought I’d just tell you I was off. In case you
rang me.’

‘I was going to. Afraid I overslept.’

‘You deserved it. Thanks, Gavin. I don’t know what I would have done without you, last night.’

‘Think nothing of it. Take care of yourself. Ring me when you get back.’

He had a bath and made himself some coffee: the feeling that he’d had last night about having to do something about Joan hadn’t changed, in fact he felt clearer about it. It occurred
to him now that perhaps Joan didn’t know what she was doing in taking Winthrop away from Harry. He felt that, if this was true, and he told her, there was a fair chance that she would desist.
He went out to the hall to the telephone – noticing that the table on which it stood was now very dusty. He’d have to spend at least one evening cleaning things up.

All that week he had tried to ring Joan, but the line was either engaged or the bell simply rang unanswered. But on the morning of his lunch with Jenny he struck lucky. He got through, as usual,
to a Filipino, but this time he simply said, ‘Get Madam. You just go and get her. Important. Danger,’ he added for good measure. That worked. After a pause, there she was; sounding
rather guarded, but there.

‘This is Gavin. It’s very important that I see you.’

‘Oh – Gavin,’ she said: she did not sound enthusiastic. ‘I’m afraid I’m going abroad.’

‘Well then, I’ll come round this evening. At six o’clock.’ He rang off before she could reply. Of course, she
might
just not be there but somehow he felt she
would. She would want to know what he thought was so important. Years of working with women had taught him some things about them.

That Sunday was like early summer: sunny and windless. People were wearing summer clothes; dogs basked on doorsteps, and cats crouched prosperously on garden walls. He’d taken the car, in
case Andrew and Jenny wanted to go to a park after lunch. He drove slowly through the back streets – the way he had come that evening – which seemed such a long time ago now –
when Minnie had chased him in her car. An awful lot seemed to have been happening lately: not only things outside him – but events within. He didn’t
feel
the same. He
didn’t feel up to analysing the difference, but he knew it was there. For instance, he was looking forward to this lunch, which was managing to be a new experience without being
nerve-wracking. He saw a barrow at a street corner, and stopped to buy two bunches of pink and white striped tulips for Jenny’s mother. There was a newsagent’s shop just behind the
barrow, and he went in to see if he could find something for Andrew. There was a large card with little toy cars attached to it, and he chose a fire engine because that was what he would himself
once have liked best from the selection. Then he felt bad about having nothing for Jenny. It was the kind of shop that had a little of everything, and he found a Penguin copy of Laurie Lee’s
Cider with Rosie
. The front of the book had faded a bit from being displayed in the sun, but it was far the best choice. In the car, he got out his pen and wrote ‘To Jenny’.
Then he thought for a bit and put ‘from Gavin’. It didn’t seem quite right, but he couldn’t think of anything righter. Then he bought two packets of Wilhelm II for
himself.

Jenny opened the door to him, wearing an apron over a sleeveless yellow dress. She had the pearl studs in her ears and looked excited. ‘We thought we could have lunch in the garden,’
she said, ‘if you could help get the table out.’

He put his presents on the draining board and helped her with the table. Andrew was sitting in the middle of a very small sandpit. He wore a pair of scarlet shorts and a toy wristwatch strapped
sloppily round his wrist. Jenny’s mother was picking him dandelions which he was planting on a turned-out sandcastle. Gavin said: ‘I’ve got something for him.’ He wanted to
give the flowers and everything at once – when he met them. Jenny followed him back to the kitchen, so he gave her her book. ‘I’m sorry it’s faded a bit,’ he said,
‘but it is a lovely book: the next one for you to read. The flowers are for your mother.’ The fire engine was in a weak paper bag, and the ladder had already punctured it, so he took it
out. ‘I’ll just give it to him like this.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Jenny said. She had read the inscription, and for the second time he felt that it wasn’t quite right, but it was too late now. ‘You go and give
them their presents,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll just have a look at the meat.’

In the distance, Jenny’s mother looked extraordinarily like Jenny. She wore a blue denim skirt and paler blue shirt – sleeveless, like Jenny’s dress. They had the same arms,
long, and thin, and capable. Her hair was darker, brindled with grey and tied back in a ponytail. She was delighted with the tulips. ‘How lovely,’ she said. ‘I don’t know
when I was last given flowers. Is that for Andrew? He’ll like that. He loves fire engines. We go on a walk to look at them: it’s his favourite walk.’

Andrew received the fire engine with majestic gravity – it was rather like bringing tribute to a king, Gavin thought. He grasped it and put it very close to his face – almost as
though he was smelling the colour – and then, holding it with both hands, he perched it on top of his silvery head. Jenny’s mother said: ‘Say thank you, Andrew,’ but he
merely looked at her sorrowfully – as though she had committed a grave breach of etiquette. The engine fell off his head, and he gathered it up, muttering: ‘enchin enchin enchin’.
Gavin felt he could take it that the gift had been well received.

Before lunch, a brand new half-bottle of gin was produced together with tonic water. They all had a gin. Gavin and Jenny’s mother smoked, and when Gavin lit her cigarette for her, she
asked him to call her Anne, as people calling her Mrs Fisher made her feel over a hundred.

For lunch they had roast stuffed breast of lamb with spring greens and carrots and very good roast potatoes. Andrew was strapped into his high chair and given a bowl of chopped-up food which he
ate with his fore-finger and thumb. He spent a lot of time staring at Gavin in a penetrating but impassive manner, but except for putting all his carrots in his mug of water, he was unobtrusive.
The sun was quite hot: Jenny produced some cider to drink with the lamb, and Gavin began to feel pleasantly relaxed if not sleepy.

When they were eating apple pie with custard, Jenny’s mother, or Anne, said: ‘Jenny tells me you’re finding it very difficult to get yourself a place to live. We’ve got
two rooms on the top floor here that our last lodger has just left. I wondered if you’d like to see them after the meal?’

A quantity of conflicting feelings hit him. The first was that it served him right for telling Jenny that glib lie about leaving home if only he could find somewhere to live. Then he thought
that something that he had thought very difficult was turning out to be easy – or perhaps difficult in a different way. Then he wondered what Jenny thought, or felt, but she was eating with
her eyes fixed on her plate. He couldn’t refuse to see the rooms. At least he had to do that. He said he’d like to see them.

‘Don’t feel that you’ve got to take them because you know us. Just have a look at them and think about it.’

Jenny said: ‘We’ve only got one bathroom.’ But he couldn’t tell from the way she said it whether she meant, ‘Don’t come,’ or, ‘Sorry about one
bathroom.’

Anne said: ‘That’s one reason why we have to choose our lodger pretty carefully. There is a little kitchenette up there though. Anyway, you can have a look.’

So, after mugs of coffee and Andrew going back to his sandpit, Anne said she would do the washing-up while Jenny showed him.

There was a large front room with a fireplace and two windows, and a smaller back one with a basin in it, that looked on to the garden. On the landing there was a small sink, and cooker. The
rooms were very barely furnished with linoleum on the floors, but the large one had a real fireplace with cupboards each side of it. Jenny showed them to him in a silence that became oppressive . .
. He said they were nice, and when she didn’t say anything, he asked her how she would feel supposing that he did come and live there.

‘You must please yourself,’ she said in a colourless voice.

‘You don’t sound as though you think it is a very good idea.’

‘I haven’t thought about it at all!’

He gave up: he didn’t believe her, which also meant that he didn’t at all understand her. He felt piqued by her lack of enthusiasm for the enterprise. In the kitchen he told Anne
that he would think it over. ‘Did Jenny tell you the rent?’

‘No – no, she didn’t.’

‘It used to be fifteen, but I’ve had to put it up to seventeen fifty. We let them to cover the rates, you see. I know there’s not much furniture up there, but Jenny said you
had some lovely things. Of course you could bring anything you like. I have to let them as furnished in case I ever have to get anybody out.’

It all seemed very simple and straightforward, but it wasn’t. He didn’t feel he knew Anne well enough to mention Jenny’s reluctance, and anyway, it was a big decision, and he
needed time to think about it. He said again that he would think it over. Jenny had gone straight into the garden and was playing with Andrew.

‘Are you taking Jenny out tonight?’

‘I can’t, tonight. I’ve got to see a friend.’

‘Oh. Well, I think she thinks . . .’

‘I’ll go and tell her.’

Jenny had made a house for Andrew out of two chairs and the tablecloth. Andrew was inside it, and Jenny was ringing the bell and asking if Andrew was at home. She stopped when Gavin approached,
and he saw her face close up in the same way that it had when they’d been upstairs . . .

‘I’m sorry Jenny, that I didn’t tell you before, but I can’t manage this evening. I’ve got to go and see someone. To do with the friend I saw last night,’ he
added.

‘That’s all right. You never said we were doing anything this evening, anyway.’

‘Would you like to come tomorrow?’

‘All right: yes.’

‘I’ve got to clean the house up a bit before my parents get back. Shall I ring you up when I’ve done that?’

‘If you like.’

Andrew had come out of his house and was now clinging to her dress.

‘Jenny, is something the matter?’

But she answered violently: ‘
Nothing’s
the matter.’ She picked Andrew up in her arms and gave him a fierce hug. ‘Come on, Andrew. Let’s see Gavin off,
shall we?’

He said good-bye to Anne who was arranging his tulips in a jar and Jenny walked to the door with him with Andrew. He picked up Andrew’s hand and gave it a little, friendly shake, whereupon
Andrew shut his eyes and buried his face in Jenny’s neck. ‘Thank you for lunch,’ he said, ‘it was great.’

‘It was nothing.’ She sounded a shade – but not very much – more friendly.

In the car, he realized that it was only just after four: he had nearly two hours before his appointment with Joan. So he drove across Hyde Park, stopped the car by the
Serpentine and went and sat in the sun for a bit. What
was
the matter with Jenny? It was irritating of her to keep saying nothing, when there clearly
was
something. The lunch had
been thoroughly enjoyable; they’d talked about all sorts of things; he’d learned quite a bit about Jenny’s childhood – in Buckinghamshire when her father had been alive.
They’d talked about different parts of the country, the animals that Jenny used to have – she took after her father, Anne had said: good with animals and children. He’d liked her
mother: she seemed very young to be a widow, and he gathered obliquely that the last few years had been far from easy. Everything had been fine until when? When Anne had mentioned the
rooms
to let – that was it. Jenny had changed then, and she certainly hadn’t changed back. Perhaps she really didn’t want him to have them, but felt she couldn’t
say so. That might be it. But, since he was far from sure himself whether he did want them, he felt that she was coming on rather strong too soon about that. And perhaps she’d been more upset
than she’d let on at his not seeing her for the second night running. She probably
had
been banking on tonight. This made him think of Harry, and wonder how he was getting through
the day. Then he started worrying about the meeting with Joan, and whether he would handle it right, and get her to
see
about Harry. Well, all he could do was try, and he was glad that he
hadn’t told Harry he was going to, because it would then be doubly awful if he failed.