The Eye of the Storm (31 page)

To disguise her own ineptitude she heard herself suggest in a high bright voice suspiciously like the Queen of England's, ‘I do wish you'd call me “Dorothy”—won't you? Mr Wyburd?'

He sounded understandably gratified, but did not make a reciprocal offer, because after all, he was quite a bit older-desirably so; instead he said, ‘Thank you, Dorothy. I'll be glad to. As a matter of fact I've always—my wife and I, that is, have been in the habit of referring to you by your Christian name, for old times' sake.'

None of this meant he wasn't still expecting to hear her plans; he fell silent waiting for them.

‘Well,' she began desperately, ‘I had better pay my mother a short, early visit—before she has tired.' The shortness of the visit would ensure that you could not initiate your real, your infernal plan, on this occasion. ‘Any time later in the morning—I know nobody, and have nothing else to do—I shall be at your disposal.'

The solicitor was too discreet to react in any way emotionally to her admission; but she had impressed herself by the pathos of her nothingness.

Mr Wyburd suggested eleven-thirty at his office provided Basil also.

‘Yes, yes, provided Basil—naturally,' Dorothy earnestly agreed.

But was it ‘natural' that she should confer with her brother at any time about their mother's affairs? Basil's character was such that he must accept without hesitation the most ruthless details of her
design. And had the solicitor perhaps smelt the crypto-plan? Bad enough; but worse if he had some more convincing,
legal
solution to share with his client's long-suffering children. He could be the wily Wyburd in fact.

Madame de Lascabanes felt desolated as she put down the phone, not so much because the good solicitor might turn out to be yet another dishonest man, but because, when a victim of injustice, she preferred herself as the sacrificial lamb rather than the justified crusader in burnished, many-faceted armour; brilliance at its best is a quality of heartless jewels, at its worst, of supple, ultimately self-destructive intrigue. So she forgot the solicitor for seeing herself in an ignominious light.

She forgot the whole issue when the white telephone went off again, far too soon. ‘Is it the princess—the Princesse de Lascabanes?' Not a bad attempt at it.

‘Yes. It is.' There was no escaping the caller, except through a downright lie; alone in the chintzy bedroom, there was no escaping yourself.

‘This is Cherry—Cherry Cheeseman—Bullivant that was.'

‘Why—
Cherry
!' In the train of your false enthusiasm a dark pause filled with breathings: Cherry Bullivant Cheeseman sounded bronchial, or corseted, or perhaps she had taken the plunge too quickly.

The princess threw in something appropriately banal. ‘How clever of you to have tracked me down.'

‘Oh, but everybody knows—Dorothy. It's in the papers.'

Dorothy de Lascabanes frowned. ‘I haven't read one—not since I left
Le Monde
behind in Paris.'

It was Cherry who filled the current awkward pause. ‘You can buy it, Dorothy—at least I think so—all the foreign papers—from a stall outside the G.P.O. You remember the G.P.O., darling?'

Helpful Cherry could not have seen herself as the unwelcome revenant she was; ghosts are never so insubstantial that they don't breed others, and strings of ghostly incidents, and odd, chilling, ghostly phrases. Cherry Bullivant had been present on too many
first occasions: the First Meeting (accidental) in the Crillon lounge; first to see the ring after the improbable engagement; she should have played First Bridesmaid if Mrs Bullivant hadn't been overcome by Methodist misgivings. A sweetly pretty girl, dark and glossy to match her name, Cherry was also practical:
shouldn't you ask for a settlement or something?
it had occurred to her to ask. Born plain and shy, Dorothy Hunter, too, was of a practical, if more disillusioned nature:
don't you see Cherry I'm the one who's expected to bring the settlement?
If she had been less wealthy, though as luscious as Cherry Bullivant, she suspected even then that this desirable man would not have been enticed. No, she was born without illusions, about life anyway, and other people; instead she had been given determination which enemies saw as stubbornness, and Hubert failed to understand as love. Just as he could not believe in fastidiousness. It was her delicacy in sexual matters rather than his perversities which had ripped the ribbons off their marriage.
Oh Cherry why did you make this telephone call?
Dorothy Hunter, whose self-confidence began trickling away on her arrival as a bride at Lunegarde, glanced down as though expecting to catch sight of a last pool on the club carpet.

‘The point is,' Mrs Cheeseman's wheezy voice returned to insist from away down the tunnel of the telephone, ‘when are we going to see you, Dorothy dear? From all he has heard, Douglas would adore to meet you. I thought perhaps a little dinner—here at Warrawee.'

Mrs Cheeseman
sounded
comfortably middle-aged, and Dorothy de Lascabanes, still
au fond
a jittery girl, was grateful for it. ‘I'd love it, Cherry—just ourselves—so that we can talk;' when to talk was the last thing she wanted, unless to be confronted with a whole battery of listening faces.

‘Oh, we'll keep it
small
!' Cherry Cheeseman lowered her voice to make her promise. ‘What about Thursday?'

All the way to Mother's that morning Dorothy de Lascabanes was half conscious of a malaise from which she should not have been suffering: the steam of yesterday had lifted, leaving behind it
a glossy morning; the taxi was diving, describing curves with such daring she could easily have claimed for herself expertise in living; she should have felt as free as she was ever likely to be on earth, returning to the country she knew through her instincts, but to which at the same time she was under no further obligation. Oh yes, she was free enough. Only the sickness persisted. Supposing. She had intended to have that check-up. Perhaps she should ask the advice of one of Mother's army of nurses—while appearing not to, of course: you could look too foolish if the trouble wasn't physical, as it more than probably wasn't.

So she tried, physically, to shrug the sickness off, as the face of a television star on a hoarding, skin stretched, teeth bared in a ravenous imitation of youth, towered for the instant before dismissal.

‘Mais qu'est-ce qui vous prend? Vous êtes fou?
' the passenger in the taxi screamed as she was shot against the roof.

Who was
fou
was immaterial: the driver, or the elderly pedestrian, his pace abnormally leisured, too uncertain in crossing, the face too white, the bags under the eyes too blue.

‘Is he ill? Drunk more likely!' shouted the princess: the bump (what if her skull had been fractured?) together with the fright she had got, made her feel extra virtuous.

‘Some flaming metho artist!' The driver himself had had a fright, his passenger screaming down his neck: bloody hysterical foreign woman.

Of them all, the drunken, sick, or possibly only aged man continued gently, unsteadily, on his undisturbed progress.

‘How can they?' How dirty, smelly, frightening, so many old people are: the Princesse de Lascabanes felt more virtuous than ever.

While the driver remained appropriately incensed. ‘The Council sweeps the rubbish off the streets, and leaves the half of it behind! Eh?'

Dorothy Hunter's sick sick not sickness only a malaise returned: herself potentially a murderess.

At Moreton Drive peace was pouring in a bland golden flood
out of the park opposite. There were birds in Mother's garden. Somebody had put out seed for them in a little terracotta dish suspended from the branch of a tree. Sparrows and finches were fluttering, flirting; a rain of seed scattered from the swaying dish. From the lawn at the foot of the tree, a flight of blue pigeons took off clattering, and away.

Oh dear, this is what I must keep in mind, at all times: the light, the movement of birds. Climbing the path, the princess knew she was giving herself a piece of hopeless advice: as if you can possess the moment of perfection; as if conception and death don't take place simultaneously.

It wasn't the housekeeper, it was that boiled nurse who answered the doorbell. ‘Isn't this a priceless morning, mad-
dahm
? Priceless,' she repeated, evidently proud of her adjective. ‘Let's hope it's the end of the humidity. Your mother would be so relieved. The old backs do play up when there's any humidity around.' Sister Badgery oozed professional sympathy, not only for her patient, but for a caller she suspected of being, behind the voice and the fal-lals, a neurotic inexperienced girl.

Dorothy coughed drily; she didn't think this was the nurse she would pump for information on the symptoms and whereabouts of cancer in women of a certain age. ‘I see you've been feeding the birds.' A feeble comment, and the more annoying in that Sister Badgery was so obviously stupid.

‘That is Sister de Santis. She puts out seed for them before she goes off duty. It's quite a little ceremony. Sister de Santis is so good.' Though Sister Badgery's gold-rimmed spectacles radiated approval, you couldn't help feeling that any admiration she had for her colleague was strictly theoretical; just as ‘goodness' was probably a theory, one that you were supposed to get sentimental about.

So Sister Badgery beamed, and stood aside for her patient's daughter to enter.

‘Is my mother
well
?' Nervousness gave the question an exaggerated emphasis; it sounded ominous, Dorothy thought.

‘Never better. Mrs Hunter is unexpendable.' Sister Badgery laughed so gaily leading the way upstairs; if her calves looked strained, her step was springy.

All of this helped increase a gloom gathering in the princess. ‘Such a ridiculously large house for one old woman to be bedridden in!' She sighed. ‘I know from experience how unpractical. So much work for everyone involved.'

‘It isn't work when your heart's in it,' Sister Badgery reminded rather breathily from over her shoulder. ‘And I think I'm safe in saying we're all devoted to Mrs Hunter.'

‘That isn't the point. The housekeeper alone must be run off her feet.'

‘Mrs Lippmann's such a grateful soul—after all she's been through—she wouldn't begrudge her services. No, she wouldn't begrudge.' Sister Badgery never ran out of breath though she seemed permanently on the point of doing so. ‘And then she has the help of Mrs Cush—that's the cleaning lady—two mornings a week. Though sometimes she doesn't come. Today—if she comes—is Mrs Cush's day. But Mrs Lippmann has gone to the dentist.'

One less to face, Dorothy Hunter was relieved to think; besides, her French self, overlooking the housekeeper's Jewishness, disliked her automatically as a German.

‘Poor Mrs Cush! Her husband is an epileptic.'

Perhaps after all you could ask Sister Badgery, though prudently, about the cancer symptoms and the check-up.

But
epilepsy
!

Sister Badgery said, ‘I think today Mrs Cush more than likely won't be coming—considering she isn't here already, and the hire-car sent to Redfern to fetch her.'

‘Qu'est-ce que ce
…? The
hire
-car?'

‘Yes. Mrs Hunter believes—in the goodness of her heart—the least she can do is send a car for poor Mrs Cush—what with the varicose veins and the epileptic husband.'

But is my mother mad? Madame de Lascabanes fortunately prevented herself exclaiming in her most disapproving voice:
outside the bedroom door too. Instead she remarked weakly, ‘Epilepsy must be frightening—quite frightening,' and touched her pearls.

Then Sister Badgery opened the door, and she was allowed into the sanctuary, where the shrunken head was still lying on the pillow as she and Hubert had seen it at Assisi. (That night he had been unusually kind, simply holding you in his arms, stroking, in no way sensually, but with that same reverence you were conscious of sharing earlier at the shrine.)

Mrs Hunter opened her eyes. ‘Leave us, Badgery,' she commanded; ‘I want to talk—confidentially—to my daughter, the Princesse de Las—ca—banes?'

The nurse looked pained, but did as told.

Dorothy felt weak at the knees. For a moment she feared she might be forced down on them, but succeeded in staggering as far as the bedside chair.

‘Mummy!' she began mouthing in a genuine attempt at affection. ‘I should have brought you something.'

‘What?'

‘A present.'

‘Don't be silly! It's too late. I'm too old. Though that doesn't mean I'm going to die.'

‘Did you have a good night?'

‘Oh-dreaming.'

‘What about?'

‘My husband.'

‘Won't you share him with me as my father?'

Mrs Hunter ignored it.

‘I hope at least they were pleasant dreams,' her daughter persisted.

‘Yes, and no.' She began wheezing like a bellows. ‘Oh, Alfred—oh, his face! His teeth—or throat—suddenly clicked. That's how I knew he was dead.'

Boiling tears were pouring down the dry canyons of Dorothy de Lascabanes's face.

‘I'll tell you something,' Mrs Hunter's voice warned the listener
not to expect an abstract confession. ‘For many years I couldn't love, only respect him. Then I—well, I never loved enough. In all our life together, I didn't touch his penis. To touch would have shown, wouldn't it?' Hands moved on the sheet as though to gather a rare flower; lips twitched back, exposed naked gums. ‘Or would it have seemed—whorish?'

The Princesse de Lascabanes was horrified; she couldn't answer: her best intentions were destroyed at every move.

But she tried again, making conversation with what after all was only a dotty old woman. ‘As a matter of fact, I too had a bad night.'