The Hours Before Dawn (10 page)

‘W
ell, why on earth don’t you
ask
her why she’s taken the room, and be done with it?’

Like most men, Mark was not at his best while ransacking his drawers for a shirt with all the buttons intact, and Louise realised too late that she had chosen just the wrong moment for bringing up the subject of Vera Brandon again – particularly now that the matter had been further embellished by Tony’s spy story. As might have been expected, Mark had dismissed this entire narrative with a single
contemptuous
grunt, and Louise knew that it would be useless to argue – even if there had been time for an argument at a
quarter
to eight in the morning, and the children still not dressed. She began to comb her hair, slowly, although it was getting so late. She had been sitting up with Michael as usual last night, but the effect on her seemed to be different. This morning she felt neither tired nor sleepy, only slow. Slow like an old woman. She stared into the mirror almost expecting to see the hair grey that the comb ran through; grey and sparse, and the comb would make furrows in its dead texture. The face would be lined, the eyes dull; the voice, when it came, would be querulous and thin:

‘Why doesn’t somebody attend to those children?’ it would
quaver. ‘What are they doing in there, thump, thump,
thumping
? Why aren’t they dressed?… Why isn’t breakfast ready?… That counterpane hasn’t been washed for weeks…. This house is full of confusion. Full of danger. Someone must come at once…. Some bustling, motherly figure who will clean things, arrange things, quieten the children, ward off the danger … protect us all …’

The comb caught on a savage little tangle, and Louise gazed stupidly at the young woman in the mirror. A woman who was neither old enough nor young enough to hope for protection. A woman who must be her own bustling, motherly figure,
cleaning
, arranging, quietening. Tiredness would not get her out of it – nor inefficiency. Sometimes it happens that without skill a skilled job must be done; without courage, danger must be faced….

But what danger? Though her movements had grown so slow, Louise’s brain seemed to have acquired a restless vigour of its own; like some hungry animal it prowled eagerly among the facts and guesses:

First, there was Tony’s account of Vera Brandon as a spy. Well, of course, he
could
have made it up – or, more likely still, have lifted it bodily from Dead Hand Dick, or whatever was the current saga of his generation. But in that case, why were there no shots? No pools of blood? No heroic exploits by Tony himself? No matter how fertile a small boy’s imagination may be, it could never, surely, envisage a situation in which he (the small boy) took no more part in a drama of espionage than to peep through a keyhole for a few minutes and then lie on a bed waiting for the grown-ups to come home. Since such a story could not possibly be fiction, it must therefore – so Louise reasoned – be fact. Miss Brandon
had
been prying about in the desk. But why? What was it that she had found – or failed to find?

Then there was the fewness of Miss Brandon’s possessions – already remarked on by Mrs Morgan. No pictures – no
ornaments
– no souvenirs of her many travels. And no books to speak of, apart from school books – this seemed extraordinary in a woman who was obviously cultured, and who claimed to be a scholar of some distinction. There was the puzzle of the
suitcase
, too, and of Mark’s feeling of recognition – which he had mentioned just once, and then never again. And now the address, so inexplicably sought from Humphrey. Didn’t it all add up to something disturbing enough to be laid before Mark, as the responsible householder?

And if only the responsible householder had succeeded, even at this late stage, in finding a shirt with the full complement of buttons, Louise might have told him of her fears. As it was, the next five minutes were devoted entirely to Louise’s
shortcomings
as a housekeeper, beginning with shirt buttons and ending with her having forgotten to get the mower repaired, and including en route the disciplining of the children, the losing of the spare front door key, and the repeated serving of cold meat and fried potatoes for lunch. At the end of it all Louise slunk off to prepare the breakfast full of rather blurred resolutions, such as: ‘Always sew on your husband’s buttons before starting an argument’ and ‘Never ask him questions before breakfast’ and ‘If he didn’t agree the first time you said it, he certainly won’t agree the second.’

Nor the third, of course. Mark would have to be left out of it for the time being. The obvious thing to do was for Louise to make some enquiries about Miss Brandon for herself.

Yes, that’s all very well, she mused. ‘Make enquiries’ – it’s a nice business-like phrase, but how do you start? Do you march into the headmistress’s study at the grammar school and say: ‘You’ve got a teacher here who calls herself Vera Brandon, and please is it an assumed name, and is there a Mystery in her Life?’

No, you have to find out where your subject used to live, and go and see her old landlady. It couldn’t be difficult to find out the address – one might even get it tactfully from Miss Brandon herself without any direct question. ‘How are you liking this neighbourhood, Miss Brandon? It must be a big change for you.’ ‘Oh no, Mrs Henderson [or ‘Oh yes, Mrs Henderson,’ as the case might be] I come from XYZ.’ ‘Oh, how funny, I’ve got a friend living in XYZ, I wonder if you were anywhere near her? …’

Yes, it could probably be done that way. Casually, the next time they met on the stairs. So long as Michael wasn’t crying at the time, or Harriet asking questions, or something boiling over in the kitchen….

Bother! All the eggs would be hard by now, and Margery was the only one who liked them hard. Harriet liked hers soft, and Mark liked his
very
soft. As to Louise herself, she had long
forgotten
which way she liked them. It made the housekeeping that much easier if there was one person out of the five whose tastes didn’t have to be considered. To neglect one’s own tastes was more labour-saving than any vacuum cleaner, and it was a form of neglect about which no one would call you to account. Your husband wouldn’t demand buttons on it – your children wouldn’t hurt themselves on it, or be made late for school by it. It wouldn’t pile up against you, like the dirty nappies….

Or would it? Louise set the saucepan with a clatter on to the draining-board, and as she did so the years of her future seemed to rattle menacingly about her ears. If you went on neglecting your own tastes like this, did you, in the end, cease to have any tastes? Cease, in fact, to be a person at all, and become merely a labour-saving gadget around the house? Less and less
labour-saving
, of course, as the years went by – (‘My mother? – Oh, you mean that thing that used to do the washing-up so well? Daddy’s thinking of getting a new one….’)

‘A new what, Mummy?’

With dismay Louise realised that she must have spoken the last sentence out loud as Harriet came into the kitchen. This was just what was liable to happen when one was half asleep like this.

‘
What’s
Daddy going to get new?’ repeated Harriet inexorably, and Louise tried quickly to think of something reasonably likely – or, better still, something so utterly uninteresting that Harriet would forget the whole episode.

‘A new washer for the tap,’ she lied; an inspiration which
fulfilled
this last requirement so thoroughly that Louise herself as well as Harriet rapidly lost interest in the whole business. For at this time Louise had no reason to suppose that more than the last sentence of her thoughts had been spoken aloud. Still less could she have supposed that anyone but Harriet could have overheard.

The house was strangely quiet after the children had gone; and it seemed to Louise that the quietness was something more than that familiar tide of peace and relaxation which flows over any home when the door slams for the last time as the last member of the family departs for work or school, leaving the housewife to reign alone over her suddenly tranquil kingdom. Perhaps it was that Louise herself was sitting so quietly, her elbows resting on the kitchen table among the dirty breakfast things, her limbs heavy with the longing for sleep. Her eyes wandered distastefully over the unwashed floor, over the dresser littered with papers, plasticine, and miscellaneous woollen
garments
waiting to be put on, put away, or mended. And those eternal bits of broken crayon sprinkled all over the house like petals in spring-time; every time you tried to do anything one rolled off something on to something else. Strange that in the midst of such muddle it could still be so quiet.

So quiet that when Louise heard the heavy, measured footsteps
on the stairs she gave a great swallow and jumped to her feet. Even as she did so, she knew that her alarm was foolish – it could only be Miss Brandon setting off for school – rather late for some reason, and walking more heavily than usual. The steps reached the foot of the stairs – moved nearer, and a moment later Miss Brandon was standing in the doorway, her small leather case in her hand, and a pleasant, unrevealing smile on her face.

Louise stood there beside the unwashed breakfast things looking – and feeling – as guiltily startled as if she had been one of Miss Brandon’s own pupils caught red-handed with a crib to Thucydides; though what, exactly, she felt caught red-handed
at,
she would have found it hard to define. Her discomfort was increased by the knowledge that this was probably the ideal moment for that casual remark: ‘How are you liking this
neigh
bourhood
’ – etc. But how idiotic it would sound! How stilted – how carefully rehearsed! How on earth did real actresses
manage
to make their carefully rehearsed speeches sound natural? Well, for one thing, of course, a real actress would be playing opposite someone who had carefully rehearsed the appropriate answer. That must make it a whole lot easier….

‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mrs Henderson, but I just thought I’d better let you know that I’m going out now and I won’t be back till late. I have to go down to Oxford for the day, and then, in the evening, I’m giving a talk to the Archaeological Society. Quite a small affair, of course,’ she interposed modestly. ‘But the secretary tells me they were most interested by my article on Mycenaean architecture. And, of course, the recent finds have added to the interest. Perhaps you’ve read about them in the papers?’

Louise gaped at her visitor helplessly. Not because she knew nothing of the Mycenaean finds – nor, indeed, of anything else that had been in the papers during the last six months, except
that headline about a woman who complained that her
husband
made her eat dog biscuits. No, her blankness was due not to ignorance but to bewilderment. Why should Miss Brandon be telling her all this – and have come into the kitchen
specially
to do so, too? Louise had an odd feeling that the whole speech had been rehearsed – just like her own still undelivered speech that began: ‘How are you liking this neighbourhood?’ A sudden absurd rush of fellow-feeling made her rack her brains for the appropriate response.

‘I hope you have a nice time,’ she said feebly; and was
immediately
aware that anyone playing opposite the Senior Classics mistress should do better than this. She tried again:

‘Have you broken up already?’ she asked, and knew at once that this was worse than ever. Obviously Miss Brandon’s school had broken up, or how could she be going to Oxford today?

But it was plain that Miss Brandon, like Nurse Fordham, had taught herself to suffer fools gladly. She answered patiently: ‘Why, yes, we finished yesterday. Didn’t your little girls—? Oh, no, of course; the Primary Schools go on longer, don’t they? Right up till Easter, isn’t it, this year? Her voice, though civil, was preoccupied. She glanced first at her watch and then at the kitchen clock.

‘I must hurry,’ she said. ‘It’s twenty-five to ten. My train …’

She backed out of the kitchen, closing the door gently behind her. Louise again heard the heavy footsteps crossing the hall, and then the slam of the front door – a really terrific slam. The cups quivered on their hooks, and a fork rattled noisily from the draining-board into the sink.

Then silence. The same uneasy, waiting silence that had filled the house before. Louise went upstairs to make the beds with an odd feeling that she should be going on tiptoe. Should be pulling up the sheets slowly … slowly, not to make the
slightest stir…. The thud of Margery’s velveteen pig as it slithered from among the blankets made her jump as if another door had slammed.

But it hadn’t. Everything was quiet. Even Michael hadn’t stirred, though it was past ten o’clock. Louise had put him out in his pram early this morning to catch the first glory of the April sun. Through the window she could see him now, his covers kicked off, his arms akimbo in such utter abandonment of sleep that the tranquillity of it seemed to fill the garden like the scent of some new, miraculous flower. The sunlight
flickered
through the leaves onto the magical texture of his skin – that texture which in a few months would be gone for ever, gone with the baby roundness of his cheeks and the plump, enchanting folds of his thighs.

Odd that she should be staring thus, with something near to worship, at her tormentor of so many nights. Odd, too, that she should just now feel that sweet and sudden pang of protective fear. He lay there so utterly relaxed, so utterly exposed and defenceless. What made him so certain that only the kindly warmth of the sun would be allowed to spread over him? Couldn’t evil, too, pour down from above; flicker like sunshine through the young spring leaves?

Not from above. Evil traditionally comes from below. Doesn’t it? Isn’t that right? But what about the Evil Eye? ‘Overlooking’ – that must be done from above, the very word implies it. Why, it could be done by someone looking out of a window, with her elbows on the sill, just like this….