Madame Sousatzka (25 page)

‘All this is going to cost you a lot of money, Madam,' George persisted. With this surprise bathroom he had good grounds for an argument. He wanted to scold her. He wanted to tell her that she had no right to play about with the law. Even if she was pleading guilty, he was not going to let her off without a reprimand.

‘Every penny I will pay,' said Madame Sousatzka with enthusiasm, and no doubt, had she had the cash, she would have thrust it into George's hands then and there.

‘Yes, but it's not that easy,' said George, hanging on to her guilt. ‘This sort of thing isn't done, you know. Cameron & Hodge' – he almost crossed himself at this point – ‘take a dim view of this sort of thing. Isn't that right, Frank?'

‘That's right,' said Frank sadly, and he managed a sidelong smile at Madame Sousatzka to show her what side he was on.

‘It'll all have to go,' George argued, as if someone were trying to shout him down. Madame Sousatzka said nothing. George tried again. ‘The geyser, this bath, the lavatory, it'll all have to go,' he decided. ‘There's no provision for a water system here on my map.'

‘As you say,' said Madame Sousatzka.

‘It'll cost you a pretty penny,' George gurgled. ‘Can't go against the law for nothing.'

‘I have said already,' said Madame Sousatzka, tired now, ‘that I will pay for everything. What d'you want with me, Mister?' she said quietly. ‘You want also my blood?'

George looked at her as if he thought it wasn't a bad idea. ‘As long as we understand each other,' he said. ‘Get out the book, Frank, and take all this down. Everything I tell you.' George had begun to sense Frank's wavering loyalty. Frank had his book and pen ready and George bent down, dictating in his ear in whispers. He'd done all he could to humble Madame Sousatzka. Now he was going to try and make her afraid.

But Madame Sousatzka did not even look at them. She was re-sorting the music on the piano, testing the distance from the stool to the keyboard, and heartily wishing they would go away. She heard George's whispers growing louder and more angry, so she set the metronome going to drown them. George dictated louder, competing with the rhythmic tick and bell of the machine, but Madame Sousatzka set it faster, and the bell, now ringing at each alternate tick, put George off his stride completely.

‘We will finish at the office,' he yelled to Frank. ‘Now let us go to the basement.'

Madame Sousatzka turned off the metronome and announced herself gaily at their service. ‘I lead the way,' she said. ‘The stairs is a little shaky. Frank, if you want to write it down in the book, there is dry rot here too. Very dry. Also bad drains. Put it all down for Mr Cameron and Mr Hodge. Is very important.' Frank pulled out his notebook automatically. He was a man who would have taken orders from anybody.

‘I will tell you what to put down, Frank,' said George. ‘That is my job. I assure you, Madam,' he said to her back as he followed her down the stairs, ‘I shall not miss anything. This basement,' he added, ‘I shall go through with a tooth-comb.'

‘Who's there?' Uncle shouted as they came down the stairs.

‘We are here,' Madame Sousatzka shouted back. ‘We come to look at the dry rot.' By now, she didn't even care whether Uncle had bothered to clean up her room or not. In fact, she rather hoped she'd left it in its usual state. She heard scuffling inside Uncle's room. She must be tidying up after all. She went into the room without knocking. ‘Don't
bother, Uncle,' she began to say. And then she saw Cordle.

He had been on his knees by Uncle's rocking-chair, and he was beginning to stand up. When he saw Madame Sousatzka the blood rushed to his face in a violent blush, sensing that he could have given time for the grass to grow. Uncle giggled nervously. Madame Sousatzka tried desperately to convey to them an understanding smile. For a moment, she forgot about Marcus's telephone call, and a swift pang of jealousy pricked her. She hadn't wanted Cordle herself, but she didn't particularly want anyone else to have him. But more than anything, she didn't want their pity. She remembered Marcus, and she wanted to deal out her happiness to them like a card in Snap. ‘Marcus is coming back,' she said quietly.

Uncle and Cordle, relieved to change the subject, came towards her, taking her hands in theirs. Frank and George tried to circumnavigate their reunion, dodging around the circle they had formed in the doorway, trying to get into the room and on with the job.

‘Did he telephone?' Uncle asked, breathless.

‘Yes, ten minutes ago. He wants to see me. He wants a lesson. He comes at eight o'clock. I wait for him in my room. He's come back, Uncle,' she whispered. ‘Cordle,' she said touching his shoulder, ‘Marcus has come back to Madame Sousatzka.'

‘I will get my couch ready,' said Cordle happily, ‘and put on a clean overall. We will all go back to work, Sousatzka. Uncle, find the draught board and make his bed. Oh, Uncle,' he laughed, ‘we shall all be happy again.'

‘We shall start to live,' said Madame Sousatzka, solemnly, ‘all of us.'

‘If you can spare me a moment, Madam,' said George disdainfully. He stood, quizzing the map in his hand, like a tourist lost in a grotto. ‘Perhaps you will tell me, to save us time, where on this floor you have installed the lavatory, the bathroom, and the shower.'

‘Here is nothing installed,' said Madame Sousatzka proudly. ‘Here is exact as Mr Cameron and Mr Hodge left it.' She spoke in reverent, hushed tones, as if the basement were an important historic ruin. ‘There is no water here.
Mr Cameron's and Mr Hodge's convenience is in the garden. From here is a long walk.' She intended to give George his money's worth. ‘Here in the basement is untouched. Genuine period. Oh, I made a mistake,' she confessed. ‘I modernize the ruin just a little. I put in the gas. I'm sorry. I take it out again. Then real genuine.'

She paused to give George a chance. He did the only thing that was left to him. He ignored her. He turned to Frank and started talking to him in highly technical terms. Frank looked uncomfortable, but he felt sorry for George and he pretended to understand everything he was saying. After all, they worked as a team and they must stick together. He even jotted down a few meaningless phrases in his notebook. Then George got busy with his tape, and his plumbline, while Frank pulled out his large sheet of paper, and with his red pencil he ticked away all house diseases like a madman. He thought of the application form he'd had to fill in when he'd applied for the job. ‘Do you suffer from any of the following?' it had asked. ‘Please put a tick where applicable.' Had he ticked them as he was ticking now, he would have succumbed to epilepsy, tuberculosis, venereal disease, diphtheria, malaria, and several unheard-of maladies. He wondered fleetingly how many applicants owned up to their maladies, or whether they suppressed them like poverty. He stopped ticking for a moment, suddenly overcome by a feeling of guilt. It was not his business to diagnose the diseases of a house. It was the house that was applying for life, and for Frank this house had suddenly become personalized. The house was Madame Sousatzka, and all those odd people who surrounded her; the blonde up in the attic, and these two crones in the basement, and Madame Sousatzka herself, who not so long ago in her studio had given him his first break. He closed his pen and put it back in his pocket. Even without one more tick the house was condemned twice over, and how often could one demolish a house? He folded up his paper and watched George as he knelt on the floor, prodding the boards and the skirting like a punch-happy boxer, whose victim has long since surrendered.

Madame Sousatzka was still huddled in the doorway
with Uncle and Cordle. She was repeating for the tenth time her conversation with Marcus on the telephone. And Cordle was asking her the same questions over and over again. ‘Did he sound happy? Did he mention Manders? Did he ask about me? Or Uncle, or Jenny?'

‘No, he hadn't,' Madame Sousatzka told them. ‘But tonight everybody will see him. Marcus is coming home.'

‘I'll go to my room to wait for him,' said Cordle. ‘Are you coming, Uncle?'

Uncle looked at Madame Sousatzka for a moment, as if asking her permission.

Madame Sousatzka smiled. ‘You wait with Cordle, Uncle,' she said. ‘I will wait for the men to leave my house. Then I wait for Marcus in the studio.'

Uncle was drawing on her long stored-up energy. There was no hint of dismay at the thought of the journey in front of her. Madame Sousatzka watched them go upstairs together, and she knew that their need for Marcus had lessened and the surplus had been added to hers.

The two men were in the process of packing up. ‘We'll be back,' George said to her, in case she thought she was seeing the last of them. ‘Can't possibly do the whole job in one visit. We'll be back tomorrow,' he added, ‘and we'll probably have to come again after that. Probably with Mr Cameron,' he said, lowering his voice with respect.

‘Yes, of course,' Madame Sousatzka said, ‘very often, I like you to come. Special Mr Cameron.' She was willing to entertain them to her dry rot every day for the rest of her life, if only they'd go away now and stop robbing her of her waiting time. She wanted to sit down and organize how she would spend it. She didn't want to think about it. She wanted to sit down with paper and pencil and write it down. It was part of the pleasure of waiting.

Frank closed the clasp on his brief-case. George was taking his time, gathering up his papers and tools one by one. Madame Sousatzka started to walk up the steps, hoping that they would follow her. She looked at her watch. Four hours of waiting were still left to her. She tried not to think too much about it. She wanted to wait until she was completely alone. She heard them coming up the steps
behind her, and suddenly she wanted to delay them. The anticipation of waiting for Marcus had already exhausted her, and she wanted to postpone it, as if the waiting itself were the sole object of her excitement.

‘Please,' she said to Frank, who was first at her side, ‘would you like both of you a cup of tea?'

‘A cup of tea?' said George, on his guard. ‘It's not usual, you know. Not in this business.' He made Madame Sousatzka feel as if she'd bribed a policeman.

‘I was in any case going to make one,' she said flatly. Frank smiled. He wanted a cup of tea very much. ‘But of course,' said Madame Sousatzka, ‘if you think it is for other reason, then I like it better you shouldn't have it.'

‘In any case,' said George, ‘we've got another job. We're late there already. Well, I won't say goodbye, Madam,' he said formally, ‘we'll be seeing each other again very soon.' He opened the front door and let Frank out in front of him.

Madame Sousatzka watched them disappear down the steps. She closed the heavy door, and turned to face the empty hall. There was now no question that she was alone. She couldn't postpone it any longer. She would have, there and then, to begin the waiting.

She sat at her desk in the studio with a blank sheet of paper in front of her. It was just after four o'clock. She drew a line down the centre of the page, dividing it into two columns. She knew from experience that the hours of waiting were long and they needed to be divided. So she wrote in the first column, 4.15 to 4.30, and opposite, she wrote. Make tea. The next quarter of an hour was assigned to the drinking of the tea, and a further quarter of an hour was generously allowed for clearing it away. That would occupy her till five o'clock. She chewed the end of her pencil, considering what activities she could indulge in to while away the remaining three hours. But she knew that whatever she did, she would be waiting all the time, and that nothing was more important than the act of waiting, that nothing should interfere with it, or take priority. She felt that she was insulting Marcus in trying to occupy herself till he came. With sudden decision, she firmly crossed out her tea arrangements with her pencil, and wrote very simply, in huge letters, FROM NOW UNTIL THEN – WAIT.

And so the waiting began, with Madame Sousatzka, her hands in her lap, her watch flopping like a sick pendulum over her bodice, and staring, as Uncle so often stared, at the wall, and a patch on the wall, and the infinite isolated patches within each patch. After a while, she lifted up her hand to catch her watch to look at the time. But she quickly put it down again, as if she were about to cheat and had thought better of it.

She transferred her gaze to another wall, and found it, not surprisingly, similar. Her hand rose again, fingering the face of her watch as if it were braille. And as she touched it, the temptation was too much for her, and she slyly looked down. Half past four. She put it to her ear, hoping that it
had stopped, and in spite of hearing its reassuring tick, she shook it violently.

She got up restlessly and went over to the shelves of bound music. She turned her head sideways and squinted at the book spines. She noticed that the books were in no particular order, but that she knew their disorganized state intimately. Mozart was next to Bach, because she felt they would be happy together. Suddenly she thought she would reorganize the shelves into some conventional alphabetical order. She ran her finger along the shelves, looking for a composer who satisfactorily began with A. She found some music by Arne, tucked away unplayed on the bottom shelf. She pulled it out and gave it pride of place at the beginning of the top row. The rest of the shelf, and the one below, was taken up completely by the Bs, and she found enough music to satisfy her new form until she came to the letter E. She went through all the remaining music and could find nothing suitable. She was beginning to like this new system, and she didn't want it disturbed. Although she disliked his music intensely, she longed for even a sheet of Elgar to contribute a link to the chain. A pile of Cesar Franck lay alongside, waiting to be called. She thought of leaving a gap and filling it in later, even if she had to buy some Elgar, but the idea of postponing the completion of the pattern made her angry.