The Complete Short Stories (6 page)

Michael came in first.
He was carrying an empty birdcage and a cardboard box with holes in it. On
opening the box a bird flew Out in a panic.

‘A budgerigar,’ said
Michael. ‘I expect they fly about wild where you’ve come from. They talk, you
know. It’s frightened at the moment, but when they get used to you, they talk’
He giggled.

The bird was perched on
a lampshade. Daphne caught it and put it in the cage. It had a lavender breast.

‘It’s for you,’ Michael
said. ‘Mummy sent me home with it. She bought it for you. It says “Come here,
darling” and “Go to hell”, and things like that.’

‘I really don’t want it,’
said Daphne in despair.

‘Peep, peep, peep,’ said
Michael to the bird, ‘say halo, say halo. Say come here darling.’

It sat on the floor of
the cage and moved only its head from side to side.

‘Really,’ said Daphne, ‘I
have no money. I’m hard up. I can’t afford your mother’s birds. I’m just waiting
to say goodbye to her.’

‘No,’ said Michael.

‘Yes,’ said Daphne.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Take
my advice and clear out now before she comes back. If you tell her this to her
face there’s bound to be hell.’ He giggled weakly, poured himself a drink of
brandy which his mother had watered, and said, ‘Shall I get you a taxi now? She’ll
be back in half an hour.’

‘No, I’ll wait,’ said
Daphne, and ran her hand nervously through the poodle’s curls.

‘There was nearly a
court action one time,’ said Michael, ‘about another girl. Mummy was supposed
to have given two balls for her, but she didn’t or something, and the girl’s
people got worked up. I think Mummy spent the money on something else, or
something.’ He giggled.

‘Oh, I see.’ Daphne went
and telephoned to Mole and asked him to call for her when he left his office.

Greta arrived, and when
she had taken in the situation she sent Michael from the room.

‘I must tell you,’ said
Greta to Daphne, ‘that what you are proposing is illegal. You realize that, don’t
you?’

‘I can give you a week’s
money in lieu of notice,’ Daphne said, ‘and a little extra.’

‘You agreed to stay till
the end of June, my dear. I have it in black and white.’ This was true. Daphne
realized how deliberately her letter of confirmation from the country had been
extracted from her.

‘My uncle has had some
unforeseen expenses. My cousins were murdered by the Mau Mau, and their sons —’

‘I’m sorry, my dear, but
one just can’t be sentimental. It’s not like taking in ordinary lodgers. A
Season is a Season, and one can’t get another girl at this time of the year.
Look what I’ve done for you. Parties, the races, meeting important people … No,
sorry, I can’t consider releasing you from the obligation. I’ve arranged a
cocktail party at Claridge’s for you next week. After all, I don’t make
anything out of it. Mercy Slater charges fifteen hundred to bring a girl out.’

This put Daphne off her
stroke, it prompted her to haggle: ‘Lady Slater gives balls for her debs.’

Greta rapidly got in: ‘You
surely didn’t expect the full deb process in your position?’

‘Mole is calling for me,’
Daphne said.

‘I don’t want to keep
you against your will, Daphne. But if you leave now you must compensate me
fully. Then, if you want to go away, go away.

‘Go’way. Go’way, go to
hell,’ said the budgerigar, which had now risen to its perch.

‘And then there’s the
bird,’ said she. ‘I bought it for you this afternoon. I thought you’d be
thrilled.’ She began to weep.

‘I don’t want it,’ said
Daphne.

‘All my girls have
adored their pets,’ Greta said.

‘Come here darling,’ said
the bird. ‘Go’way, go to hell.’

Greta was doing a sum. ‘The
bird is twenty guineas. Then there’s the extra clothes I’ve ordered —’

‘Go’way. Go’way,’ said
the bird.

Mole arrived. Daphne
placed a cheque for twenty pounds on the hall table and slipped down to his
car, leaving him to cope with her bags. ‘You will hear from my solicitors,’
Greta called after her.

Michael was hanging
about in the hail. He took the scene calmly. He giggled at Daphne, then went to
help Mole with the luggage.

They had been driving
for ten minutes before they had to stop for a traffic light. Then, when the
engine stopped, Daphne heard the budgerigar chirping at the back of the car.

‘You’ve brought the
bird!’ she said.

‘Yes. Isn’t it yours?
Michael told me it was yours.

‘I’ll ring the pet shop,’
she said, ‘and ask them to take it back. Do you think Greta Casse will sue me?’

‘She hasn’t a hope,’
said Mole. ‘Forget it.’

Daphne rang the pet shop
next morning from the country.

‘This is Mrs Casse
speaking,’ she said with a nasal voice. ‘I bought a budgerigar from you
yesterday. So silly of me, I’ve forgotten what I paid you, and I’d like to know,
just for my records.’

‘Mrs Greta Casse?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I don’t think we sold a
budgie yesterday, Mrs Casse. Just a moment, I’ll inquire.’

After a pause another,
more authoritative, person came on the line. ‘You’re inquiring about a
budgerigar, Mrs Casse?’

‘Yes, I bought it
yesterday,’ said Daphne through her nose.

‘Not from us, Mrs Casse
— oh, and by the way, Mrs Casse…’

‘Yes,’ twanged Daphne.

‘While you’re on the
phone, I’d like to mention the account.’

‘Of course. How much is
it? I’ll send a cheque.’

‘Eighty guineas — that’s
of course including the toy poodle.’

‘Ah, yes. What exactly
was the sum for the poodle? I’m so scatty about these things.’

‘The poodle was sixty.
Then there was an amount last October—’

‘Thanks. I’m sure it’s
quite correct. I’ll send a cheque.’

‘You have stolen that
bird,
I
know,’ said Aunt Sarah that afternoon, giving the cage a shove.

‘No,’ said Daphne, ‘I
paid for it.’

In the spring of 1947 Linda died of a
disease of the blood. At the funeral a short man of about forty-five introduced
himself to Daphne. He was Martin Grindy, the barrister who had been Linda’s
lover.

He gave Daphne his card.
‘Would you come some time and talk about Linda?’

‘Yes, of course.

‘Next week?’

‘Well, I’m teaching. But
when school breaks up I’ll write to you.’ She wrote during the Easter holidays,
and met him for lunch a few days later.

He said, ‘I miss Linda.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you must.

‘The trouble is, you
see, I’m a married man.’

She thought him
attractive and understood why Linda had always felt urgently about keeping her
appointments with him.

In the summer she
started to replace Linda as Martin’s lover. They met in London at weekends and
more frequently in the summer holidays.

Daphne was teaching at a
private school in Henley. She lived with Pooh-bah and a middle-aged housekeeper
whom they had persuaded into service, the old servant, Clara, having died, and
Aunt Sarah having been removed to a nursing home.

Mole had married, and
Daphne missed his frequent visits, and the long drives in his car. Until she
met Martin Grindy her life was enlivened only by the visiting art master at the
school, who came down twice a week.

Martin’s wife, several
years older than he, lived in Surrey and was always ill with a nervous
complaint.

‘There’s no question of
a divorce,’ Martin said. ‘My wife’s against it on religious grounds, and though
I myself don’t share these principles I feel a personal obligation towards her.’

‘Oh, I see.’

They spent their time in
his flat in Kensington. There was a heatwave. They bathed in the Serpentine.

Sometimes, if his wife
was specially ill, he would be summoned to the country. Daphne stayed alone in
the flat or wandered round the shops.

‘This year,’ said
Martin, ‘she has been more ill than usual. But next year, if she’s better, I
hope to take you to Austria.’

‘Next year,’ she said, ‘I
am supposed to be returning to Africa.’

Earlier Chakata had
written, ‘Old Tuys has had a stroke. He is up now, but very feeble in his mind.’
Since then, he had seemed less keen on Daphne’s return. Daphne thought this
odd, for previously he had been wont to write when sending her news of the
farm, ‘You will see many changes when you return,’ or, when mentioning affairs
at the dorp, ‘There’s a new doctor. You’ll like him.’ But in his last letter he
said, ‘There have been changes in the educational system. You will find many
changes if you return.’ Sometimes she thought Chakata was merely becoming
forgetful. ‘I’m trying to make the most of my stay in England,’ she wrote, ‘but
travelling is very expensive. I doubt if I shall see anything of Europe before
my return.’ Chakata, in his next letter, did not touch on the question. He
said, ‘Old Tuys just sits about on the stoep. Poor old chap, he is incapable of
harm now. He is rather pathetic on the whole.’

At the end of the summer
Daphne’s lover took his wife to Torquay. Daphne wandered about Kensington alone
for a few days, then went back to Pooh-bah. She took him for walks. She asked
him to lend her some money so that she might spend a week in Paris. He replied
that he didn’t really see the necessity. Next day the housekeeper told her of a
man in the village who would give her thirty pounds for the poodle. Daphne had
grown fond of the dog. She refused the offer, then wrote to her lover in
Torquay to ask him to lend her the money to go to Paris. She received a
postcard from Martin, with no mention of her request. ‘Will be back in London
1st week October,’ he wrote on the card.

Term started at the
beginning of October. That week Martin’s wife turned up and demanded of Pooh-bah
Daphne’s whereabouts. She was directed to the school, and on confronting Daphne
there, made a scene.

Later, the headmistress
was highly offensive to Daphne, who straight-way resigned. The headmistress
relented, for she was short of staff. ‘I am only thinking of the girls,’ she
explained. Hugh, the visiting art master, suggested to Daphne that she might
find a better job in London. She left that night. Pooh-bah was furious. ‘Who’s
going to attend to things on Mrs Vesey’s day off?’ Daphne realized why he had
not wished her to go to Paris.

‘You could marry her,’
Daphne suggested. ‘Then she’d be on duty all the time.’

He did this in fact,
within a month. Daphne settled in a room in Bayswater, poorly furnished for the
price; but on the other hand the landlady was willing to take the poodle.

Martin Grindy traced her
to that place.

‘I don’t like your wife,’
she said.

‘I’m afraid she got hold
of your letter. What can I give you? What can I do for you? What can I possibly
say?’

Besides teaching art to schoolchildren,
Hugh Fuller painted. He took Daphne to his studio in Earl’s Court, where she
sat and reflectively pulled the stuffing even further out of the torn
upholstery of the armchair.

Quite decidedly, she
said, she would not come and live with him, but she hoped they would always be
friends.

He thought he had made a
mistake in putting the proposition to her before making love, so he made moves
to repair his error.

Daphne screamed. He
looked surprised.

‘You see,’ she
explained, ‘I’ve got nerves, frightfully, at the moment.

He took her frequently
to Soho, and sometimes to parties where, for the first time, she entered a
world in the existence of which she had previously disbelieved. Here the poets
did
have long hair, and painters wore beards, and what was more, two of the men
wore bracelets and earrings. One group of four girls lived all together in two
rooms with a huge old negress. Among Hugh’s acquaintance were those who looked
upon him with scorn for his art teaching, those who considered this activity
harmless in view of his lack of talent, and those who admired him for his
industry as much as his generosity.

Daphne found this
company very relaxing to her nerves.

No one asked her the
usual questions about Africa, and what was more surprising, no one made advances
to her, not even Hugh. Daphne was teaching at a Council school. On
half-holidays in spring she would sometimes meet Hugh and his friends, and
regardless of the staring streets, would straggle with them along the
pavements, leap on and off buses, to the current art show. There, it was clear
to Daphne that Hugh’s friends occupied a world which she could never penetrate.
But she came to be more knowing about pictures. It may have been the art master
in Hugh, as one of his friends suggested, but he loved to inform Daphne as to
form, line, light, masses, pigments.

Her cousin Mole looked
her up one day. He told her that Michael, the silly son of that Greta Casse at
Regent’s Park, had married a woman ten years his senior, and was emigrating to
the Colony. Daphne was affected with an attack of longing for the Colony, more
dire than any of those bouts of homesickness which she had yet experienced.

‘I shall have to go back
there soon,’ she said to Mole. ‘I’ve saved enough for the fare. It’s a good
thought to know I can go any time I please.’

One night Daphne and
Hugh were drinking in a pub in Soho with his friends, when suddenly there fell
a hush. Daphne looked round to see why everyone’s eyes were on a slight very
dark man in his early forties, who had just entered the bar. After a moment,
everyone started talking again, some giggled, and continued to glance at the
man who had come in.

‘That’s Ralph Mercer,’
one of Hugh’s friends whispered to Daphne.

‘Who?’

‘Ralph Mercer, the
novelist. He was at school with Hugh, I believe. Rather a
popular
writer.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said
Daphne, ‘he looks as if he might be popular.’