Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (14 page)

‘It’s a strange set-up,’ he told Rosie. ‘No husband would stand for it. So why he, who doesn’t have to?’

‘There’s no accounting for tastes. Perhaps she’s unusual in bed.’

Ludo felt such distaste that he changed the subject. ‘Why my sweater?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s so chilly down here. It’s like the bowels of the earth. I’ve done the salad.’

‘Stout work, as the Major would say.’

Leaving his mother’s flat he had met the Major by the front door, coming early from his office to show his devotion. He was wearing a crumpled light-weight suit of a pale colour and a tie with a pattern of tankards on it. He carried a wrapped-up bottle.

‘How’s tricks, old fellow? Full of the joys?’

They had talked a little about what he called ‘our invalid’, then he had told what Ludo considered a perfectly filthy story, and gone stumping upstairs to the love-nest.

‘You see this egg,’ Ludo now said to Rosie, and held one up, about to make an omelette. ‘Would you believe that if I hold it end to end like this between the palms of my hands and squeeze hard it won’t break?’

‘No I wouldn’t.’

‘And squeeze … and squeeze …’ The egg broke and yolk ran down his trousers.

Rosie stared at him.

‘Well, I’m damned, that’s never happened before. It’s supposed to be impossible.’

‘You must be going out of your mind.’

‘I swear I’ve done it hundreds of times. God, what a mess.’

She fetched a damp cloth and began to clean his trousers, kneeling before him, looking cross. He stared down fondly at her dusty-looking hair, still dyed grey as when he had met her first, although she often talked of making a change.

‘Well, we shall just have to have a smaller omelette than I’d meant,’ he said cheerfully.

The major shouted out from the kitchen, ‘Did you have that nice crust of bread?’

‘‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘Well, it’s gone. That bloody boy, I s’pose.’

‘My son, you mean.’

But they weren’t really quarrelling. They never did.

‘I’d looked forward to that,’ the Major said, covering his disappointment with a jolly laugh.

M
RS DE SALIS was all that Mrs Post could have wished for – a confidante, a companion, a diversion, a chatterbox. She arrived at the Claremont from a convalescence in a nursing-home, and brought stories of doctors and operations, of tiffs and feuds, of wrong diagnoses and medical neglect.In fact, she hardly stopped talking except at meal-times, when she sat at Mrs Arbuthnot’s old table and ate in what appeared to be an appalled silence.

She might have felt set apart from the others by her youthfulness (she was only sixty), and the fact that she was a bird of passage as she put it, was looking for a flat in London – Gheyne Walk, she stipulated; or Little Venice.

‘I love to look out over water,’ she declared, looking out over the Cromwell Road.

‘Difficult, I’d think, to discover anything in those areas,’ Mrs Post said, hoping that it would, in fact, be found to be impossible. ‘So sought after.’ So expensive, she added to herself.

‘I’ve never been beaten yet,’ said Mrs de Salis.

She had a low, husky voice, rather actressy, Mrs Post thought. The general effect of her was fashionable. She made that impression, in spite of being rather careless -scarves tied anyhow and dresses hanging below coats, a
button missing that never was to be replaced.

On the summer evenings after dinner they sat together, a thing they had not done before – Mrs Palfrey, Mrs Burton, with a drink beside her, Mrs Post always next to Mrs de Salis, Mr Osmond not of, but near, the group. The armchairs were pushed about -a thing the manager did not like.

‘Have you any children?’ Mrs Post asked Mrs de Salis.

‘I have my beautiful Willie.’

Mrs de Salis brought out from her vast handbag a photograph of a young and pretty man, with drowsy eyes and dimpled chin. The ladies exclaimed over his looks. Mr Osmond gave one glance at the photograph and handed it back in silence, with a curious expression on his face.

‘I
dote
on him,’ said Mrs de Salis. ‘I adore my darling Willie.’

‘Shall we see him?’ Mrs Post asked breathlessly.

‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment,’ Mrs de Salis said gaily, thus knocking down all the structure of face-saving, of pretence, that had gone on for ever at the Claremont. ‘Willie’s got other fish to fry.’

I wish I’d thought of saying that about Desmond, Mrs Palfrey decided.
That
was the thing to say, saving all subterfuge. I could have overridden the shame, if
she
can.

‘Oh, what a pity!’ Mrs Post said, but only pitying
herself
Tor missing that extra excitement. ‘It would have been nice.’

‘I can’t imagine Willie at the Claremont,’ said Mrs de Salis and, as none of them could either, no one took offence.

‘Some young people
do
come,’ Mrs Burton said. Tor instance, Mrs Palfrey’s grandson. He’s quite gorgeous, too.’

‘Have you a photograph?’ asked Mrs de Salis.

‘Not on me,’ Mrs Palfrey said.

‘Well, I carry my adorable Willie with me wherever I go. He’s so
special
to me – perhaps
extra
special because I had such a terrible time when he was born. They say those things fade from one’s mind, but it never will from mine.’

Mr Osmond laced his fingers across his chest, leaned back and closed his eyes, making it clear that he was unable to concentrate on his crossword.

‘It wasn’t on the cards that I should live,’ Mrs de Salis continued. ‘They did a Caesar in the end.’

Mrs Palfrey began to disapprove. She even looked vaguely at the back page of the
Daily Telegraph
which, she, too, had folded for the crossword.

‘What do you make of five down?’ Mr Osmond called across, as if to a kindred soul. ‘I can’t finish it today. I think they’ve got a different fellow setting it. Can’t get his drift. Our usual one on holiday, I shouldn’t wonder,’

Mrs Palfrey pondered. ‘Isn’t it “nomadic”?’ she asked in a modest tone.

‘My goodness, I believe you’re right.’

Mrs Burton was now in full swing. ‘When I have my
operations I always tell the anaesthetist … quite frankly … I tell them … well, doesn’t it make sense? … I drink a lot, I say. I smoke a lot. I drink a lot. So I need more than most people to put me out. The premed’s not working, I’ll say …’

She was rather forcing Mrs de Salis downstage. They both began to talk at once.

‘… it was dehydration …’

‘… I have no wish for waking up on the table, I said …’

‘… tubes up my nose …’ cried Mrs de Salis.

‘Did you enjoy your dinner, Mrs Palfrey?’ Mr Osmond asked – he hoped pointedly – across them.

‘Well, I
do
think that green pea soup is my favourite.’

‘They’re very good with their
croutons
here.’

‘I had an operation once,’ Mrs Post dared to say.

‘Only
one?
’ said Mrs de Salis. ‘I wish I could look back and say the same. Was it major?’ She glanced at Mr Osmond. ‘Or mustn’t one inquire?’

‘Well, I don’t suppose it was major,’ Mrs Post said sadly. ‘I broke my nose, and had to have it straightened.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Mrs de Salis said dismissingly. ‘I suppose you just had a local anaesthetic.’

‘No, we were living in Norfolk at the time, and my husband insisted on my coming to London.’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ Mrs de Salis said, and had a trilling laugh ready to follow. ‘Have you had any operations, Mrs Palfrey?’ she asked politely.

‘No, and don’t wish to have any,’ Mrs Palfrey said to an astonished audience.

Mrs Burton, in the slight pause that followed, walked across the room and pressed the bell for the waiter.

‘I thought the chicken wasn’t half bad,’ said Mr Osmond.

‘There is so much chicken nowadays,’ Mrs Palfrey complained. ‘Once it was a treat.’

‘Oh, I agree there.’

‘Variety becomes more and more important as one gets older. There don’t seem to be enough animals and birds.’

‘Yes, lamb on Sunday, and it’s round again in three. I agree with you. Only three animals, really.’

‘Of course, there’s veal, but …’

‘Veal’s expensive. I was looking at veal yesterday in Harrods.’

‘Oh,
do you
go to Harrods?’ Mrs Palfrey asked in great alarm.

‘I think the butchery department is one of the sights of London – and those marble beds for the fish to lie in state on! Why, I’d rather go there than the National Gallery. The way they arrange their scallops and suchlike.’

‘Twenty-one stitches,’ said Mrs de Salis in her carrying voice.

‘Of course, there’s turkey at Christmas,’ Mr Osmond reminded them. ‘They do us quite well at Christmas.’

‘I haven’t had a Christmas here,’ said Mrs Palfrey.

‘Christmas is quiet,’ said Mrs Post.

‘Christmas is sad,’ said Mr Osmond, almost to himself.

‘They feel they must do something about it, d’you see; but they wish that we weren’t here,’ Mrs Post said. ‘Sometimes one
hasn’t
been; but it isn’t always convenient at that time of the year to go away, to relations and so on; travelling is
so
risky.’

Mrs Palfrey felt foreboding.

‘One or two local people come in – to the actual Christmas dinner,’ Mrs Post went on. ‘From those flats in the Square, I expect. Can’t be bothered to cook for themselves, I suppose, and I can’t blame them. We have turkey and all the trimmings, and they put up some decorations.’

‘The same old decorations,’ Mrs Burton said.

‘And there’s a little tree in the hall. I’m always glad when it’s over,’ Mrs Post said in an exhausted voice, as if she had just survived the ordeal.

‘It doesn’t sound very festive,’ said Mrs de Salis. ‘You’ll all have to come to me in Cheyne Walk or wherever. I’ll give a party.’

At this unusual word, Mr Osmond looked up, startled.

‘Yes, you, too, darling,’ Mrs de Salis said, meeting his glance.

Oh, how wistfully Mrs Post dwelt on the idea! It will never happen, she thought sadly. Once she’s gone away, she’ll quite forget.

Mr Osmond, flushed, returned to his crossword puzzle.

‘It’s that bloody motor show I hate,’ said Mrs Burton, now well on, and with another drink beside her. ‘
That’s
when they’d like us elsewhere. Mr Wilkins going on and on about how he could sell each room ten times over. Not a bed to be found in London for love or money, that’s his theme-song. I get fed up with hearing him telling us.’

‘Yes, we feel quite
de trop?
said Mrs Post.

‘I like Mr Wilkins’s nerve,’ said Mrs de Salis, meaning that she did not. ‘We are paying dearly for what we get, I should have thought.’ She spoke as if in the role of their leader. This was outspoken talk; for how much was paid, by whom, was a matter for reticence.

‘But
reduced,’
Mrs Post said in a timid voice, ‘it is
reduced.’

‘For obvious reasons,’ said Mr Osmond.

At that moment, the receptionist looked in, cast a glance of disapproval at the rearranged chairs, and said to Mrs Palfrey, ‘There is a young gentleman in the vestibule would like to see you.’

Mrs Palfrey got up, rather flustered.

‘Your grandson, sure to be,’ Mrs Post said, quite excitedly.

Standing in the vestibule, reading notices about Church Services, was not Ludo, as Mrs Palfrey had expected, but Desmond, the real Desmond.

He turned and looked at her coolly through thick spectacles which magnified his pale grey eyes.

Mrs Palfrey glanced about her. The hall, for that moment, was empty.

She went to him and gave his cheek a peck.

‘You can’t come here,’ she hissed.

‘But mother said I had to,’ he replied.