The Meddlers (2 page)

Even before he was fully awake he felt the oppression of unpleasant memory, the threat of worse to come, although he couldn’t remember exactly what it was that he remembered. And then he turned over and saw the empty crumpled pillow beside him, and it hit him in a great wave. Last night. He’d upset her thoroughly, and obviously she was still sulking, because she would never have got up before him otherwise.

She was going to use the sainted patience ploy, the one he found most difficult to handle. He would have much preferred the hysterical crying, the accusations of lack of love for her to that. But he’d had that last night—or rather, in the small hours of the morning. And now she was going to pile it on thick and heavy.

And with a short night’s sleep behind him and a miserable hour ahead of him before he could get away to the hospital, the day would be spoiled before it started. He almost groaned as he got out of bed.

As he came out of the lavatory, Ian slammed the bathroom door behind him and went past in a wave of Old Spice.

“Morning, Prof!” he said with a loud cheerfulness. “Late this morning, aren’t you?” And not waiting for an answer, he went into his room, moving jauntily.

So they’d been talking about it already. Ian knew perfectly well that his father loathed being called Prof, disliked intensely the way the boy went between the bathroom and his room with his towel flung over his shoulder so that he could flaunt his nakedness. That he had done both this morning made it perfectly clear that he knew George had upset her again.

As he shaved, he tried to organize his thinking. Apologize and promise her that he’d make it up somehow—take her out to dinner? But that wouldn’t do. With the amount of work that was to be dealt with during the coming months his chances of getting away from the hospital much before eight or nine any evening were very slight. It would only mean he might let her down again, and that would be asking for it. Try again to get her to understand the implications of what he was doing, the possibility of a Nobel, and all that could mean? But she hadn’t the patience for that. If he hadn’t managed to convince her during the past eighteen years, he was unlikely to succeed this morning.

She was fully dressed, even wearing shoes rather than slippers. Her red hair was carefully arranged and her face made up, and she was grilling sausages and frying potatoes. Oh, God, he thought as he closed the kitchen door behind him. It’s worse than I thought.

“You look nice,” he said carefully.

“Do I, George? I’m glad.” And she gave him a bleak little smile and put a plate of hot rolls on the table. “I hope these are all right. They were left over from last night.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Marjorie! All I can say is I’m sorry. I know you think I did it deliberately, but I assure you I did not. The project just—”

“Matters more than anything else. I know. I should be used to it by now. I’m sorry I’m not, and I know I’m at fault. How many sausages can you eat? Four?”

“You are not at fault. You have every right to be angry. I let you down in front of your friends, and I’m sorry. Please don’t punish me any more!” And he tried to keep the impatience out of his voice.

“Punish you?” she raised one eyebrow at him as she put a plate of food at his place at the table. “How am I punishing you? If I were sending you off without a decent breakfast you could say that, but as it is…”

And I only get this sort of breakfast when you’re angry, he thought. “Which I can’t eat while you’re still upset.”

“Oh, I’m over it now. I can’t deny that last night I was… very hurt. I know you don’t much like them, that I should have asked a couple of the hospital people as well as people who share my interests—”

“Marjorie, please, will you accept what I tell you? It wouldn’t have mattered
who
was here last night—and I don’t dislike them in the least. They’re very interesting. It’s just that I got so involved with what was going on that I completely forgot! If I hadn’t been so snowed under I’d have phoned myself, and you could have reminded me. And you could have told the girl on switchboard to remind me—she’d have given me the message, I assure you.”

“And let
her
know that you cared so little for me that you had to be reminded? Oh, no, George. Bad enough the entire drama group will be gossiping this morning; I don’t want all
your
people laughing at me too.”

“No one will be laughing at you!” He began to eat his breakfast, not enjoying it in the least. But then, she knew he wouldn’t. It was all part of his punishment, to give him food he liked when it couldn’t be appreciated. “Surely people have better things to do than make a great song and dance about missing a dinner party.”

“I am not making a great song and dance about it,” she said in a softly dangerous voice and, with a hint of ostentation in her movements, stirred a saccharin tablet into a cup of black coffee.

“You ought to eat a proper breakfast.” He responded obediently to the black coffee. Why did every bloody argument have to follow such a pattern? Didn’t she realize that he saw through every trick
she used? “And I didn’t mean to imply
you
were making a song and dance. Only that intelligent people can surely accept that a man who has a job like mine can accidentally forget that his wife is giving a dinner party without immediately assuming his lapse is due to lack of concern for her.”

“Oh, I know my friends aren’t on a high intellectual plane like yours! They’re only interested in theater, and music, and art, and things like that! A very dingy lot compared with the great minds you spend your time with.” Her voice rose shrilly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Do we have to go through all that again?” He dropped his knife and fork with a clatter and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! What more can I do than apologize? I do not despise your interests. I do care about you. I did not intend to embarrass you deliberately, and I will do all I can to ensure it doesn’t happen again! What more do you want?”

“To be important to you.” Now she was using her pathetic pleading little voice, the one that still could affect him even though he knew she was performing, using all the tricks she used to keep her place as the most important member of her bloody drama group. Yet, obvious a performance though it was, behind it lay a real anguish and he knew it, and knew he couldn’t help it.

“You are important to me,” he said helplessly. “Last night, I thought you could have told from last night—”

“You use sex the way I use makeup,” she said with a sudden abandonment of her act. “To cover up the blemishes. Don’t you think I can see through that? Making love and loving aren’t the same thing.”

“They are for me.”

“No, they aren’t. The only thing you love is the workings of your own mind. I’m here to be made love to when you need to, or when you think I need to, just to cover up. Like makeup. Oh, what’s the use?”

She stood up and began to clear dishes from the table. “I take second place to your work, and I’ll have to settle for that, I suppose.”

“Why does this present project matter so much more?”

“More? More than what?”

“More than it’s ever mattered before. I’ve been in research of one kind or another all our married life. Haven’t I? Yet now you mind more. The time it takes, the inevitable abstraction I show when I’m involved with something big…”

For the first time she was really listening, not going through the motions of an argument. He felt suddenly a brief return of the closeness they had used to enjoy when the children were small and she still felt important to them and minded less his involvement with his work. He put out his hand toward her.

She looked at it and then shrugged and turned away, and the brief light that had illuminated him spluttered and died.

“It’s always mattered. You just never noticed, that’s all. I ought to be used to it, but I’m not. That’s all there is to it.”

“No—” and then the door swung open, and Ian came in, ostentatiously noisy, making sure his father knew that he, Ian, was aware there was an argument going on.

“Will I do, Rusty, my own?”

She turned and looked at him, and her face lit up joyously, and George looked at Ian and tried to keep his own face expressionless.

“You look splendid!” she cried. “If they don’t cast you, it’ll be because they’re blind as well as stupid. I
know
you’ll get it, darling. It’s meant! Just you remember that, and you’ll get it. Can’t you see it? Ian Briant, up in lights!”

And then they were both looking at George, and he stretched his neck in his collar, tortoiselike, and said, a little gruffly, “Where are you going?”

“I’m auditioning for a new show.” Ian’s voice was slightly defiant, and he dropped his head and with a careful casualness flicked away some nonexistent dust from his high-buttoned silver jacket.

George looked with distaste at the rest of his outfit—at the indecently tight green trousers, the silver-shot green scarf in the neck of the jacket, and the way the boy’s flaming red hair curled against it.

“I see. And these—garments—are the sort to impress?”

Ian laughed loudly. “What would be more impressive would be nothing at all, since they’re casting another protest show. Most of the cast’ll be starkers for the second half.” He slid his eyes at his mother, and then said a little maliciously, “How much will you object if I
am
cast?”

“As long as I don’t have to see it, not in the least,” George said dryly. “But if a willingness to display nakedness is an essential part of the… job”—he couldn’t help letting some of his scorn show—“it was hardly worth spending money on such clothes, was it?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Marjorie said, and her voice was high and brittle. “We couldn’t have afforded to buy them anyway. They’re borrowed from the costume store. My drama group people may be rather dim, but they’re generous. But take care of them, darling. I hate to think what we’d do if they had to be replaced. Scrag end of mutton for weeks.” She kissed Ian warmly. “You’ll get the job, darling—I’m sure you will. But I wish you’d have some breakfast before you go.”

“No, thanks, dolly-chops,” Ian said and rumpled her hair. “But pop a poulet in the pot for me, and I’ll be back for lunch. And keep your chin up. I’ll be here by one, I promise.” And he raised his own chin at George and went out, slamming the door behind him.

There was silence for a moment after the front door too slammed, and then George said carefully, “I would prefer you not to discuss our disagreements with the children. You know that.”

“I didn’t discuss. I simply mentioned it. Anyway, I don’t see why I shouldn’t talk to my own son if I choose. I have to talk to someone. And
we’re
very close.” And she placed the emphasis delicately but unmistakably.

But this was no time to complicate things by being sidetracked by Ian. George looked swiftly at his wristwatch as she turned away, and then leaned back in his chair.

“Marjorie, you were about to tell me why this project annoys you more than any other project ever has. I’d like to know.”

I’ve got to know, he thought. The adoption shouldn’t affect her, they shouldn’t take her into account, but Kegan thinks they might want her token agreement, so I’ve got to handle this right. Oh,
God, why did I have to forget her wretched dinner party last night of all times?

“I told you. It doesn’t.”

“But I suspect it does. And that makes me rather unhappy.”

“Why?” She shot a sharp look at him. “Maybe I should be asking what’s so extra important about it to you.”

How can a woman who is so intelligent be so often stupid? George thought suddenly. Or is it intelligence? Is there such a thing as intuition? I’ve never believed it, but sometimes she makes such leaps of comprehension…

He pulled his mind back. “You know why. Because it will be my definitive work. Because if I find the answers I’m seeking, it should be worth—oh, an inestimable amount. Its application could—I think I can say it might revolutionize life by the end of this century. You know that.”

“And it might get you your Nobel, you’ll take your place in scientific history alongside the Curies and Rutherford and the rest of them. I’ve heard all that before! But is that all?”

“It’s a pretty big all.”

“It’s a pretty big might. When I used to get all excited about the projects you got involved with years ago, you used to slap me down with that. Told me I was jumping to conclusions and weaving fantasies and all the rest of it. And now you’re doing it. Now I wonder why?”

She seemed to have completely forgotten her anger over the dinner party, which was one comfort. But she was being a little too shrewd for real comfort. If he didn’t get this across to her properly and she chose to be obstructive she could make so many complications that the very project could be damaged. He spoke particularly carefully.

“This time I’m onto a… a big thing. I’ve been working towards it from the start. I can see that now, even though I had no idea at the beginning where it might all lead me. This one is—it involves so many factors, you see.”

He stopped, a little helplessly. “I hardly know where to begin. I’ve told you something of the plan—”

“As much as you thought I could cope with. Not a lot.”

“It was nothing to do with whether you could cope or not. It was just that I dislike going off half-cocked, talking too much about a project before I can see where it’s leading.”

“Yet now, all of a sudden, you want to know why I think it’s so important. That’s what you mean when you say it annoys me, isn’t it? You think the things that are important to you annoy me the way the things that matter to me annoy
you
. You’re—what’s the word?—extrapolating. That’s it. You’re extrapolating from your own feelings to mine. If I needed any proof that I bore you, that you don’t care about me—”

“No!” He almost shouted it. “That isn’t just, and you bloody well know it! I just want to know if your anger is because of the way the project has absorbed me lately, or if it’s simply the ill-mannered forgetfulness I showed last night—which I don’t deny, and for which I again apologize.”