Possession (11 page)

“Why, Mrs
Er
skine!
” she exclaimed—her voice lingering on the name with a sort of sleepy mockery. “So we meet again! And how are the happy pair?”

I wasn’t going to tell her, naturally. She probably knew, anyway, and that was why she was asking.

“Very well, thank you!” I said brightly, and continued on my way up to the next floor. But her voice followed me, husky and lazily venomous.

“Good. I’m glad they’re making the most of it. Because you know what happens next, don’t you? You know about Mervyn Redmayne’s girl-friends, I suppose, and what becomes of them?”

She laughed, an unpleasant sound; and I marched on up the stairs, ignoring her. It was nice to be able to ignore her from the bottom of my heart at last, and not just as a matter of pride. She could hint what she liked about the Redmayne family now, and only make me the more thankful that Sarah was well out of it. It was amusing, really, to find myself the target for arrows falling so very wide of the mark. Evidently I had overestimated Sonja’s perspicacity, if not her spite; it seemed that she did
not
know of the ending of the
engagement
, or she would not be thus squandering her malice in so useless a direction.

I laughed to myself as I hurried on up the stairs; and while
we perched along the edge of the bath, clutching our plates to our laps, I could feel myself being better company than I had been for days. I had Liz and Bernie actually laughing in their exile; and after he had gone off to his office I tried to cheer Liz up still further by telling her as much as I could of
our
misfortunes, not omitting an unexpurgated version of Janice’s bad temper and general tiresomeness.

It is rare for me to reveal Janice’s shortcomings in this way; and I must say that it seemed a poor reward that Liz should just simply agree with me. That was not the idea at all. Yes, she said absently; she’d noticed that Janice didn’t seem too happy these days. The girl had been round two or three times lately, and didn’t seem at all her bright self. She, Liz, supposed that it was A-levels, or something; perhaps the prospect of University? There was a certain pathetic
hopefulness
in her voice here: Liz is always on the watch for drop-out material among her friends’ children: she lives in the (not unfounded) hope that at least some of them will throw away their educational opportunities in just the way her sons have done. She wanders keen-eyed like a
beachcomber
along the reluctant fringes of the academic sea, and I must say she makes some good hauls now and again; I just didn’t see why Janice should be one of them. Particularly just now, just when I had been so generous with her failings just to cheer Liz up. I changed the subject, and asked after Tony.

Oh dear. Poor Tony. It seemed to get more and more complicated. Long-distance phone calls from
Wolverhampton
, at all hours of the day and night, and Tony shouting ‘Tell her I’m out!’ right across the room, and she, Liz, at the telephone trying to explain it away to the poor girl as best she could; it was getting more and more embarrassing. It was all Sonja’s fault really, pursuing Tony like this and turning his head: didn’t I think it was disgraceful, a woman of her age, and him so much younger? Especially, Liz added, aggrieved, when she’d only been invited to tea in the first place. Five months ago that was, and she’d been here
ever since, seducing sons, borrowing aspirins: the list of grievances was endless.

“But I suppose it’s not really her fault” Liz finished charitably—nowadays you can say as many nasty things as you like about a person and still be charitable, so long as you end with the final insult: it is not their fault. They are not only contemptible, that is to say, but they are incapable of being otherwise.

“She can’t really help it, you see,” Liz explained, in dutiful conformity with the above principle. “She’s had such a sad life—everybody seems to have let her down. And then that business with Mervyn, of course; that was the last straw!”

“Mervyn?
What
business with Mervyn? You mean
our
Mervyn—Mervyn Redmayne?”

I swivelled round to stare at her; the bath dug into my other hip. I suppose my whole manner must have seemed aggressive with the shock of it, for she edged away along her perch like a nervous robin. She clutched at the rusty tap, still labelled Hot, for support.

“Oh dear. Oh, Clare, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything! But I thought you knew. I thought Sonja had told you. That time you were here—you remember—and there was all that muddle about the jumble. They told me you’d been talking to her about Mervyn for
hours
!”

“They”? The whole, shambling, idle lot of them, probably. Talking on the stairs as we had been, we could hardly have hoped for privacy.

“No—well, that is, we
were
talking about him, but only because she’d known the family. Years ago, I mean, when she was a schoolgirl. She certainly didn’t tell me that she’d ever had any closer relationship with him.”

“Oh, Oh dear! I’ve said the wrong thing. But” (with a little spurt of self-assertion) “if she wants it kept a secret, she shouldn’t go round
telling
everyone, should she?”

This seemed eminently reasonable. I made encouraging noises, but Liz still seemed hesitant.

“Oh dear, Clare, I wish I knew what to do! You see, it’s not as if your Sarah was still engaged to him—if she was, then perhaps I’d feel that you
ought
to know….” Her voice trailed off, uncertainly, and her glance darted this way and that around the room, as though the rules of fair and unfair gossip were posted up somewhere on those stained and peeling walls, for reference.

“Well, I suppose it must be all right to tell you
roughly
what happened,” she concluded at last. “It’s just that Sonja and Mervyn were going around together for a bit, a year or two ago, and—well—his mother got wind of it.” She paused for a long time. Then: “Well, that’s all, really. You know what his mother is!”

I tried to make her go on. What, exactly, had Mrs
Redmayne
done to bring the romance to an end? Had Mervyn given in without protest? And what had Sonja said—done?

“She doesn’t strike me as the sort of girl who would take that sort of interference lying down,” I prompted.

“She isn’t. She didn’t.” Liz paused, staring in front of her. “Actually it all ended—well—in a rather dreadful sort of a way….”

Again she paused; came to some decision and finished in a sort of nervous gabble: “Well, that’s all. I daresay Sonja will tell you all about it herself, sometime. Meanwhile, I think you should be thankful, Clare, that Sarah’s not mixed up with the Redmayne family any more. You should be absolutely
thankful!
”

And when I returned home that afternoon it was to find Sarah radiant; a creature transformed. All was forgiven! Misunderstandings were at an end! She and Mervyn were to be married early in the New Year!

T
O SAY THAT
Love is blind is a truism; but that this
blindness
is as infectious as the common cold has been less often remarked on. I ought, as a parent, as an older, more
experienced
person, to have damped that singing joy; I ought to have warned my daughter that her happiness might be illusory, her confidence misplaced. I ought to have told her of my doubts and fears; to have reminded her of that last, shameful scene when Mervyn had repudiated his love for her and trotted off home with his Mummy like an obedient toddler. What sort of faith, I should have asked her, could she put in the love of a man so childish, so easily dominated?

But I didn’t; and I didn’t for the simple reason that I couldn’t feel these doubts any more myself. Sarah’s present happiness dazzled and confused my judgement as if I was gazing full into the noonday sun; all my adult common sense was obliterated by the sheer impact of her joy. I flung my arms around her, and we clung together in a shared, unthinking rapture, and relief flooded my being as if she had miraculously recovered from a long and dangerous illness. For that is what it is like—no, what it
is
—when a girl is crossed in love: it is truly an illness. Her vital forces fail, and she becomes a sick and ageing woman under your very eyes. Her skin grows dull, her eyes sunken; even her mind begins to wander and she becomes peevish and inattentive, like an old, old woman. And when the miracle happens—when, between one hour and the next, she becomes a young and blooming girl again—how can you then urge her back onto her bed of sickness, and call it common sense? Force her to take up the trappings of senility once more, and feel you are doing your parental duty?

You can? Well, I couldn’t. I could only send up prayers
of gratitude at recovering my happy, lovely young daughter as if from the very threshold of the grave. Together we rejoiced; together we chattered about the happy days to come; and together, with a determination that neither of us knew we possessed, we forgot about that last, humiliating scene of Mervyn’s tears. She knew, and I knew, that we would never mention it again. By our combined strength we defied the poet’s words: we succeeded in cancelling that half line: not with tears, but with joy, we washed out the words of it.

That evening Mervyn himself came round, and it seemed to me that I had never before seen them so truly happy together, so truly in love. There was an ease in their
relationship
now, a total understanding, that had been absent before. He still teased her, and treated her as the silly little woman, and she still played up to it; but there was so much warmth in the teasing, so much laughter in her response to it, that it no longer worried me. He recognises her innate wisdom, I thought, and he respects it. The rest is just a game.

No one else was quite as overjoyed as we were.
Congratulations
were cautious this time, as was understandable. “Well, she’s made her bed
twice
now, hasn’t she?” observed Peggy. “She really
will
have to lie on it.” And Granny remarked, with a certain smugness, that
she
had always made a point of
never
taking a man back after a jilting. “Whether it was his fault or whether it was mine,” she declared jauntily. “It made no difference. ‘A quarrel is a quarrel’ I used to say, ‘and no sense in patching it up. Who wants a
patched
garment when the shops are full of nice smart new ones, all sorts and sizes?’ That’s what I used to say.” She cackled wickedly, and I undertook, at her earnest request, to convey the substance of this philosophy to Sarah. Sarah just laughed.

“Dear Granny! It’s amazing, isn’t it, that with all that choice she ended up with
Grandad
! Though I suppose he wasn’t deaf in those days, and didn’t go on about windows being open four inches at the top. Mummy, will it be all right if I’m away next weekend? Mervyn has to go to Bristol
about his job, and we thought we might do a bit of
flat-hunting
.”

“Of course. A splendid idea. But—”

I stopped. I had been going to say “But what about his mother?” I was so accustomed by now to her automatic obstructiveness that it seemed to me extraordinary that she should be taking such a plan in her stride. But it occurred to me just in time that perhaps they hadn’t told her? Perhaps—and this was the first time that the thought had struck me—perhaps she didn’t even know that the engagement was on again? I couldn’t possibly blame the young couple if they had decided, this time, to keep her in the dark about it all. It was really the most sensible thing to do, and possibly the kindest, too. If this was the case, then it would explain—a thing that had been puzzling me—why it was that no word of protest had so far come from Mrs Redmayne about the renewal of the engagement. The last time I had seen her she had been declaring with the utmost vehemence that there was no possibility of the couple coming together again. Now it had happened, and not so much as a murmur had been heard from her. The only possible explanation, it now seemed to me, was that she must be totally unaware of the true state of affairs.

But I was wrong. Whatever it was that had been keeping Mrs Redmayne quiet these last few days, it was not
ignorance
. On the very afternoon of their departure, the Friday, she rang me up. Her voice was peremptory, businesslike. She was ill, she said. She had been taken ill very suddenly, and would I inform her son and ask him to return home immediately?

Just that. No apology. No compunction at upsetting his plans, and possibly losing him his new job. And certainly she didn’t sound in the least ill; I had never heard her voice so crisp and powerful.

I thought quickly. In less than half an hour they would be gone. Sarah was up in her room putting the finishing touches to her packing, and Mervyn would be arriving with
the car at any moment. There was no need for either of them to know of this telephone call at all.

“I’m sorry,” I said, holding the mouthpiece as close as I could to my lips so that my voice should carry clearly down the line, but not upstairs and into Sarah’s ears: “I’m sorry, Mrs Redmayne, but they’ve already gone. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

The gasp of dismay was certainly not feigned.

“Oh! Oh
no
! Oh, please, Mrs Erskine, can’t you help me? The address? The address of the hotel where they’ll be staying?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know it,” I lied; then wondered how much use the lie would be. There must be only a finite number of hotels in Bristol: I wouldn’t have put it past her to ring round the lot. I was determined that she should not—absolutely should
not
—spoil this, their first weekend together since the reconciliation.

“Mrs Redmayne,” I said firmly. “I’m sorry you’re ill, and I’d like to help you, if I can. I
can’t
get your son for you, because he’s already gone” (the lie became more convincing each time I told it, as is the way of lies). “But listen. I’ll come round and look after you myself, with pleasure. I’ll be there in an hour—”

“Oh no!”—she began; but I was listening to no
protestations
. Serve her right to be landed with my company for an evening;
that
would teach her to invent bogus illnesses! I put the receiver down sharply, and just in time, for here already was Mervyn, just drawing up outside the house. For the next twenty minutes my whole energies were concentrated on getting the two of them off on their travels as speedily as possible—for who knew if Mrs Redmayne might not have suspected me of lying?
I
certainly would have, if I’d been in her place. She might ring up again; she might arrive in a taxi; anything.

I think the young couple were somewhat puzzled at the zeal with which I ran errands for them up and down the stairs—undertook messages—carried things out to the car—
anything to hurry them up, to save precious moments. They must get off while it was still daylight, I kept saying, in explanation of my unwonted helpfulness. The impending rush hour … the roads just before Christmas … Sarah accused me, though kindly, of being an absolute old
hen
; and she was perfectly right. At last, at long last, the car door slammed, the engine started up, and they were off. There was one more awful moment when I saw the car stopping forty or fifty yards down the road, and I thought they were coming back for something. But no; they must have been just consulting the map, or kissing each other, or something; because half a minute later they set off again, and in a few more seconds were blessedly out of sight.

The danger was over; now I could attend to my own preparations. I had promised Mrs Redmayne that I would be there in an hour, and the least I could do, after telling her all those lies, was to keep my promise, even though it meant taking a taxi. I scribbled notes for Janice and the long-suffering Ralph, I hustled a rice pudding and some scrubbed potatoes into the oven, and in a few minutes I was sailing in expensive, unaccustomed luxury through the darkening suburbs. By the time I reached Bayswater the winter night had come into its own: the block of flats in which the Redmaynes lived loomed square and black like a fortress against the reddish glow of the London sky. It was a luxury block, and so the windows were dark as only the windows of the rich can be, with thick expensive curtains overlapping in heavy folds, and shutting out every chink of darkness, every breath and emanation of the night.

Mrs Redmayne opened the door to me in a dressing-gown; and to my amazement she really
did
look ill. The fluffy pinkish hair was limp and dull; it lay in damp little curls around her scalp, and you could see now how thin it really was. Her face with no make-up looked yellow and sagging; for the first time, and with a little sense of shock, I saw in her the beginnings of a helpless old woman.

She apologised for her disarray, and for that of the hall,
which was dusty and untidy; and, going ahead of me, tinier than ever in her flat bedroom slippers, she led the way into her bedroom, which I had never seen before.

It was a pretty room—or should have been. White rugs on the floor: rosebud coverlet; and lovely thick curtains of an old-rose colour, hanging right to the floor. But at the moment it was untidy and ill-cared for; bottles and jars littered the dusty dressing-table; clothes and shoes were everywhere; and on the little table beside the unmade bed stood a squalid little array of dirty cups and glasses; remnants of orange juice; half-finished cups of tea. More and more each moment was I forced to contemplate the possibility that perhaps she really
had
been taken ill? This possibility, I have to admit, had never till now crossed my mind, and I felt a moment’s compunction.

“I’ll make you some fresh tea, shall I?” I suggested awkwardly. “You get back into bed. You’re not well—you should be in bed.”

She obeyed my suggestion with alacrity, scrambling back into the big, soft bed, and arranging herself against the pillows with a speed that suggested long practice. Oddly, she looked stronger now—more imposing—as she relaxed, tiny and fragile, against the plump, pink pillows. The
old-woman
look was quite gone.

“I shan’t be long,” I murmured; and collecting up all that I could carry of the dirty cups and glasses, I made my way into the small kitchen.

I had said I wouldn’t be long; but you know how it is in other peoples’ kitchens; there seems to be nothing to light the gas with; no tea-pot; no spoons; and the jar marked “Tea” has odds and ends of string in it. I didn’t want to disturb the invalid—rightly or wrongly, I had already begun to think of her as such—so I prowled about looking for the necessary implements and ingredients by myself; by the time the tray was ready, a quarter of an hour had passed, and when I carried it into the bedroom, I found that she had fallen asleep.

Yes, she truly must be ill. I studied the sleeping face. It looked limp, and sunken, but not relaxed. On the contrary, a ceaseless, uneasy twitching animated the unconscious features; the lips moved a little, as if trying to speak; the eyelids quivered constantly. A faint dew, as of fever, glistened on the skin of her forehead.

Very gently, trying not to wake her, I set the tray down; at the slight sound a spasm crossed her face.

“No! No!” she cried. “It’s her feet! I can see her feet!”—and in the same moment she woke. For a moment, while consciousness slowly returned, she stared at me, in blank non-recognition, her mouth, strange and senile, still sagging open.

Full consciousness snapped back while I watched: her eyes knew me; control returned to her muscles, and she closed her mouth.

“Oh, Mrs Erskine! Thank you for waking me! Oh,
thank you
! It’s these nightmares! They’re the worst part of my illness. That’s why I’m so terrified of being alone; that’s why I need Mervyn….”

A sly look had come into her eyes even while she spoke. Of the genuineness of her distress there could be no doubt; but she was trying to mislead me somehow; to distract my attention from some aspect of her predicament.

“Well—never mind!” I was all nurse now, and she all patient. I rearranged her pillows for her, poured her a cup of tea, drew up a chair for myself at her bedside, and then—what?

I’ve never been much good at hospital visiting. There you sit, trying to entertain the patient with your conversation; and there lies the patient, trying to be entertained. He has to avoid shock and excitement, this you know. But if a conversation neither shocks nor excites, how can it possibly entertain? And on this occasion matters were rendered even more difficult by the fact that Mrs Redmayne seemed able to fix her mind on nothing—absolutely nothing—except her son’s expedition to Bristol. I don’t mean she was worrying
about the important aspects of it—the interview for the job; the prospect of his making his home there; no, it was the boring details of it that seemed to obsess her. What time, exactly, had they started? What time did they plan to arrive? Did they mean to have dinner on the road, or after they got there? Had Sarah taken a suitcase? What sort of clothes had she packed in it?

I could answer none of this. The only thing I knew for certain about Sarah’s packing was that it had included my only unladdered pair of fifteen-denier stockings. This I told Mrs Redmayne, hoping mildly to amuse her; but she did not seem to be listening. Or, rather, she
did
seem to be listening—and very intently—but not to me. Suddenly she clutched my arm.