Imaginative Experience (2 page)

‘True, and he her husband,’ said Madge thoughtfully, rinsing another glass. ‘And
she
his widow. Are you the widow of a divorced husband?’

‘Don’t start splitting hairs,’ exclaimed her friend. ‘Little Christy was her child!’

‘So he was.’

‘And
my
precious grandchild.’

‘She probably had no black clothes with her wherever she was when she got the message,’ said Madge tolerantly. ‘She looked as though she was wearing black even if she was not. One did not notice the jeans.’

‘I did,’ said Clodagh.

‘You are such a perfectionist,’ said Madge.

‘Whose side are you on?’ Julia’s mother raised her voice to a shout. ;It was all her fault, that accident; everyone knows Giles was a terrible driver. She always did the driving when they were together. She should never have divorced him.’

‘Did she ever give a reason?’ Noticing that her friend stood idle, Madge took the cloth from her and began polishing the glasses. ‘You never told me the real reasons. We all heard the reasons in court, of course, but—Where do these go?’ She held up a glass.

‘On that shelf, no, not that one, the one on the left. Julia’s reasons were outrageous.’

‘Oh?’ Madge set the glass on the shelf indicated. Damn, I’ve cracked one, she thought. Better say nothing, old Clodagh’s such a fusspot. She turned the glass so that the crack faced inward.

‘One reason was that Giles—no, I can’t tell you, it’s too—’

‘Go on,’ said Madge, ‘nothing shocks me.’

‘What was shocking,’ said Julia’s mother, ‘was the utter frivolity of her reasons. Hey! Madge, you’ve cracked a glass.’

‘It’s a very small crack. What do you mean by frivolous reasons? Give me an example.’

Ignoring Madge’s request, Clodagh said, ‘Giles gave me those glasses. You have spoiled the set.’

Madge said, ‘Oh dear, sorry.’

Clodagh, harking back, said, ‘Their divorce was not yet absolute so she would be his widow, and the divorce was making no difference to Christy.’

‘Julia had custody,’ said Madge.

‘Yes.’

‘If my child was killed in a car smash I would be stricken, absolutely stricken. Perhaps Julia is stricken,’ said Madge.

‘She doesn’t look it, does she?’ Clodagh snorted. ‘Julia is not stricken. If you ask me, the judge who gave Julia custody wanted his head examined. Dreadful old man.’

‘Then would you have wanted Giles to have custody?’ Madge raised astonished eyebrows. ‘Surely everybody—’ Surely everybody knew that Giles was to all intents and purposes an alcoholic? Charming, of course, but an alcoholic.

‘Of course I would,’ said Clodagh. ‘Christy would have lived with
me,
that’s what Giles would have wanted.’

Madge said, ‘Gosh, Clodagh, what honesty.’

L
EANING FORWARD TO READ
the meter, Sylvester Wykes noticed that there was another taxi outside his house and, standing by it, his wife Celia. ‘Drive on a bit, please,’ he said to the driver. ‘Stop at the next corner by the pillar-box.’

The man drove on. At the corner Sylvester got out, paid his fare and waited while it drove away. Then, sheltered by the pillar-box, he looked back.

His wife, watched by her driver, was loading suitcases and packages into the cab. ‘You might give me a hand.’ Her voice, high and whining, carried in the quiet street.

‘Got a bad back,’ said the driver.

‘Bet you haven’t.’ She heaved a large cardboard box into the taxi.

‘That the lot, then?’ asked the driver.

‘No, it is not the lot.’

Sylvester smiled.

Celia went back into the house to reappear with two outsize carrier bags which she threw onto the seat of the cab, followed next by a cardboard container.

The driver produced an evening paper and began studying the form.

Sylvester waited.

Five and a half, six years ago, he thought, I looked across the room at a party and saw that woman, caught her eye. We nodded, I wove through the crowd and took her arm. As we left the party I told her my name and she told me hers. I took her out to dinner, she confided her troubles. We ended the evening in bed and were married six weeks later. I loved her, he thought, I supposed it to be a grand passion.

His wife had gone back into the house. Sylvester shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Now Celia emerged from the house dwarfed by the television in her arms. She negotiated the steps with care, biting her lip in concentration.

The cab driver half-folded his paper, but thinking better of it opened it out while watching his fare in the driving mirror as she placed the television on the floor of the cab.

Sylvester thought admiringly: she took the small television from the bedroom on her first raid, bravo, full marks for thoroughness. Finally Celia went back into the house, but only to fetch her bag; she slammed the door shut and got into the cab, shouting, ‘Drive on, then.’

Did I confuse love with lust? Sylvester wondered. Time was when I would have raced after that taxi, stopped it, dragged her out, prevented her going. ‘It was lust,’ he said out loud to the pillar-box.

The taxi diminished down the street and turned out into the King’s Road. Sylvester walked back and inserted his key in the lock. Inside the house he sniffed, let the bag he was carrying drop and, breaking into a run, rushed round the house opening windows. Cold air streamed through french windows opening onto the garden from the sitting-room, and upstairs through bath and bedroom. Hurrying to the basement, he heard the door-bell ring. He threw open the kitchen window and squinted up to catch a glimpse of his visitor.

Recognizing stout calves above neat ankles and extremely high-heeled shoes, he said, ‘Rebecca! I’ll come up.’ He wedged the area door open with an empty milk bottle.

‘What’s going on?’ Rebecca leaned to peer through the area railing. She had immense black eyes popping either side of a handsome nose and sensual lips parted over large competent teeth.

‘I’ll let you in.’ Sylvester retreated from the area to hurry upstairs and open the front door.

‘Are you aiming to catch pneumonia?’ Rebecca stepped into the house. ‘It’s freezing.’

‘Celia has been here.’ Sylvester closed the door behind her.

‘Oh?’

‘Removing the last of her clobber.’

‘I
see.’
Rebecca moved into the sitting-room. ‘But why the howling gale?’ she enquired.

‘Can’t you smell it?’

Rebecca sniffed. ‘M–m. How long was she here?’

‘Long enough. I don’t know.’

‘It won’t linger,’ said Rebecca. ‘“Emotion” doesn’t. I thought you were still away,’ she said. ‘I brought a note asking you to telephone when you got back, thought you might like a meal or something, thought you might be lonely.’

‘I am,’ said Sylvester. ‘It’s lovely. Great.’

Rebecca laughed. ‘If you are going to keep all the windows open I’ll borrow a coat,’ she said.

‘Just a few more minutes,’ said Sylvester. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and give you tea.’

‘Coffee, please,’ said Rebecca, ‘and I shall shut the windows now. You are imagining the smell.’

‘I saw her from a distance,’ said Sylvester. ‘She was piling her stuff into a taxi as I got back.’

‘You talked to her?’

‘I dodged.’

‘Coward,’ said Rebecca. ‘I wonder what else she took.’

‘She’s taken everything floggable already, probably sold it to pay for her new outfits.’

‘Don’t you mind? The house looks dreadfully bare.’

‘No.’

Rebecca closed the french windows and followed Sylvester down to the kitchen. ‘Has she left you a kettle?’

‘I bought a new one. Oh, confound it, she’s taken it!’

‘Come round to my place,’ said Rebecca, laughing. ‘I’ll make you tea.’

Sylvester said, ‘I’ll boil a saucepan.’

‘Get the locks changed,’ said Rebecca, ‘or you will come home one day to a completely stripped house.’

Not fond of unsought advice, Sylvester boiled water in a saucepan and made coffee for Rebecca and strong Indian tea for himself.

‘That stuff will rot your guts. Celia was right there,’ said Rebecca.

‘Coming up in the train,’ said Sylvester, putting their cups on a tray and setting off up the stairs, ‘I saw the most extraordinary thing.’

‘What?’ Rebecca sat on the sofa with her legs apart.

About to sit in an armchair opposite, Sylvester changed tack to sit next to her on the sofa. The brevity of Rebecca’s skirts unnerved him. ‘I am easily unnerved,’ he said.

‘You are too easily unnerved. What was this thing?’ Rebecca reached for her cup.

‘A sheep.’

‘A sheep?’

‘On its back.’ Sylvester explained the sheep, the rescuing girl, the drama, the guard, the twitcher, the broken glasses.

‘The train must have been going very slowly,’ said Rebecca.

‘InterCity trains go very fast, at least a hundred miles an hour.’ Sylvester gulped his tea, hot, strong, just as he liked it.

‘Not on Sundays. On Sundays they mend the track, the trains go slow. The train must have been going very slowly or it would not have been able to stop still within reach of the sheep. The girl would have had to run back miles to reach it if the train had been going fast.’ Rebecca, knowing best, gripped her saucer. ‘I expect you were asleep when she stopped the train,’ she said.

‘I smelled the brakes,’ said Sylvester.

‘You and your sense of smell! Did you speak to her?’

‘No. I told you.’

‘You wanted to, but you hesitated. You are a terrible hesitator,’ accused Rebecca.

Once, for a brief moment, I was tempted to make love to you but I hesitated, thought Sylvester, and laughed.

‘What’s the joke?’ asked Rebecca. ‘The way you tell it, it’s a sad story. You said the girl looked mad.’

‘No. The oafish bird-watcher suggested she was mad—she looked terribly sad, not mad at all. I should say she was perfectly sane.’

‘How could you see all this without your glasses? You say you broke them. Let me see your hand.’ Rebecca took Sylvester’s hand. ‘Gosh, Sylvester, that’s a nasty cut. Shouldn’t it be stitched? Let me get you a plaster.’

‘No.’ Sylvester withdrew his hand. ‘Thanks, but no. It’s OK.’

‘And you must get new bifocals. Shall I make an appointment for you?’

‘You are no longer my secretary,’ said Sylvester.

‘I’ll ring your oculist tomorrow.’

‘No thanks,’ said Sylvester and thought: mustn’t tell her I no longer go to him.

‘Have it your own way, I’m only trying to help.’ Rebecca pursed her lips. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘sad story, poor little sheep.’

‘It was a very large sheep, probably a Texel. They are the largest breed.’

‘Does it matter?’ Rebecca was tiring of the sheep.

Sylvester said, ‘No.’

‘So what else did Celia take?’ Rebecca’s eyes probed the room. ‘Books?’

‘She hardly reads.’

‘I see she has taken the Meissen pugs and the Chelsea bowl, oh, and the Capo di Monte snuff boxes.’

‘She gave them to me. She’s taken everything she ever gave me. And her furniture, of course.’

Rebecca said, ‘Oh my!’

‘She never gave me anything unless she wanted it herself.’ Sylvester stretched his legs and looked round the room, savouring the lack of clutter.

‘I think Celia has been utterly outrageous,’ said Rebecca, ‘and I am a feminist. Has she left you any sheets? I remember when you married, it was she who brought the bed linen. If she has purloined the sheets I can lend you some. Bath towels, too. She’s probably taken those. I’d better go and look.’ Rebecca rose, stabbing a sharp heel into the parquet, raising her bulk from the sofa in a surprisingly spry movement.

Sylvester said, ‘No, no. Please don’t bother, Rebecca. Everything is fine. I’ll see you out,’ he said, assuming she would go, thinking that there would be another carry-on if she saw all the new stuff he had bought at Habitat.

‘I’ll just wash our cups,’ said Rebecca, gripping the tray. ‘I gave you these cups when you married,’ she said. ‘I’m glad Celia left them with you.’

‘So you did. No, Rebecca, please leave it. I am capable of washing a teacup.’ Sylvester inclined his torso towards the door.

‘Promise me you will let me know if there is anything I can do,’ Rebecca relinquished the tray but stood her ground. ‘I’m glad she left you the sofa,’ she said, her eyes making an inventory of the room. ‘Did she leave you the bed?’

Sylvester said, ‘Yes.’

‘M‑m. That figures, yes. You will need somebody to come in and clean. I’ll ring the agency I deal with and get you a cleaner.’

‘Please don’t bother,’ said Sylvester. ‘I propose to manage without.’

‘You can’t possibly manage, I—’

‘I don’t want a cleaner. I don’t want the noise of Hoovers. I cannot cope with all the talk.’

‘Talk is part of the wage, you have to talk. You learn a lot, it’s interesting.’

‘No, thank you. I shall manage, Rebecca.’

‘The house will be a shambles within a week, unwashed dishes, soggy bath towels on the floor and you will run out of loo paper. Marriage has not changed you.’

‘Rebecca, please stop bossing me. You are no longer my—’

‘Secretary. I know, but I will get you a cleaner who comes when you are out, and while I am about it I will get the locks changed. You will live to thank me and be properly grateful.’

Sylvester laughed. ‘You are a bossy lady.’

Rebecca said, ‘I am. I should not tell you this,’ she said, moving at last towards the door, ‘but Celia once told me that you bored her.’

‘I bored her because she bored me,’ said Sylvester equably and pecked Rebecca’s cheek. ‘Goodbye.’

Closing the door on Rebecca’s departing back Sylvester

Wykes sniffed the air of his empty house and, sensing no lingering trace of ‘Emotion’, let out a whoop.

T
HE TWITCHER, WHOSE NAME
was Maurice Benson, assumed he would have little difficulty in locating Julia Piper. He had what he liked to think of as flair, a talent developed during a brief career in the police and a slightly longer period snooping for a private detective agency. Neither career had remotely satisfied those who employed him and in consequence had given him small job satisfaction. So when his widowed mother died, leaving him a small but adequate income, he turned bird-watching, which had previously been a hobby, into a way of life. He was not married; he was as free as the birds which were his passion to travel wherever and whenever he pleased.