Undue Influence (7 page)

Five

Wiggy was not best pleased with the evening I had in store for her, but had evidently decided that I needed consoling, indulging. In fact we were both in need of diversion, or perhaps development, in the direction of something more serious. Her life was no more satisfactory than mine was, although she never complained. As for myself, I was perhaps in search of significance—not that I knew what that should be. One thing was certain: I was not destined for the happiness of a settled life, whether or not I longed for it: I was not one of the elect. ‘Oh, for a closer walk with God,’ the radio had moaned at me on the previous Sunday, when I was about the business of clearing my mother’s effects out of the flat. Indeed, I had thought. One would venture a few criticisms, of course, if admitted to the Presence, a few reminders of broken promises. The lion does not lie down with the lamb, one would observe; swords have manifestly not been beaten into ploughshares. And what was my Father’s business, exactly? To judge from the Old Testament it was about being angry. In which case how had such a Father had such a charming Son?

This was not for me. I was resigned to the laws of this rough world. I would take my chance, and with it the penalties, for there are always penalties. I had spent that morbid Sunday wondering
if simple happiness were available to all and had come to the conclusion that it was not. One had to make a determined bid for it, and I did not quite know how this was done. Friends of mine who had married young had revealed that they were no strangers to triumphal calculations and this had puzzled me. I was no romantic, but part of me wanted the process to be effortless. Instead of which I had taken the only options I thought I had, and had considered myself secure against disappointment. The disagreeable element in all this was that I knew nothing would come of such manoeuvres, invigorating though they were. I returned every time to the
status quo ante
, whereas those same friends seemed to move quite easily into further stages of maturity, leaving me on the outer margin, waiting for my life to begin. Needless to say, this awareness was concealed, though not always from myself. In my former circle I was the entertainer, a role which I had adopted, and which was, I knew, appreciated. Yet it was surely no accident that I rarely saw those friends now. My role was becoming harder to sustain. If my way of looking at the world was hazardous, it was, by this date, largely unalterable.

As always my mother’s life was the standard by which I measured my own, although I had learned disaffection from my father. I had concluded that happy families belonged in some mythic category, together with promises that had not been kept. Even in the fairy tales which I had read greedily as a child I had been disturbed by the absence of pity, by the slyness and guile that was regarded as quickwittedness. Many years later I realized that I had taken this creed as my own, yet my innocent mother had thought it suitable for a child. Presumably the more subversive message had passed her by when, as a child, she had read the same stories. One speaks of unawakened women as virtuous, though this may not have been their intention.
In my mother’s case both were true. She never wavered in her purpose of making our lives as agreeable as possible, even after my father had changed from a courteous companion to an intractable and self-absorbed invalid, not seeing that it was owing to her excellent care that he had lasted so long.

The only uncensored feeling I ever discerned in her was unconscious relief when he died. Even this she failed fully to register, and therefore experienced no guilt. She resigned herself gratefully to her pastimes, pictures and books, and to myself. It was I who was guilty when conscious of the disparity between her life and my own, though I think—I hope—that she remained in ignorance of this. In truth my black heart had had few occasions on which to manifest itself. But I had only to picture my mother and her girlhood friend, their heads together, wandering through the summer evenings, to feel unworthy. Yet even they had been subject to change. Marriage had transformed my mother into a woman, although she remained a girl at heart. Marriage had put an end to the blamelessness of those evenings, which she was never to know again. The same may even have been true of her friend. I no longer thought it odd that they had not kept in touch. Both would now have been conscious of concealment, of secrets no longer to be shared. I thought my own methods were healthier. For me concealment meant distance. Perhaps it was time I took another holiday.

I had suggested to Wiggy that if we looked in on the Gibsons at about six o’clock we could escape after at most half an hour on the pretext of dinner. This seemed to me more satisfactory than a later hour, when Cynthia Gibson would no doubt be tired. I had noted her sudden slump into exhaustion from my previous visit. Had I stayed longer, I knew, she would
have become febrile, querulous. I remembered her husband’s assiduity in marshalling me out of the room. Looking back to say goodbye I had been shocked by the sudden deterioration in her appearance, her colour faded, her mouth bitter, set in a grimace which may have been habitual. Therefore I was relieved, for my own sake, as well as Wiggy’s, when the door was opened by a robust-looking girl in a white coat, the nurse, presumably. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Good timing. I was just about to leave. Your visitors are here, Cynthia,’ she called. ‘I’ll just see if she wants anything, then I’ll make myself scarce.’ She laughed pleasantly, revealing dazzling teeth. Had I been ill I should have found her presence reassuring. Nothing could conceivably go wrong in the presence of those teeth.

But I was not ill, and I wondered if it were entirely in order that she should be wearing earrings and that the white coat should be open over a blouse and a pair of pin-striped navy blue trousers. I wondered this again when she returned to the hall, took out a comb, and stationed herself in front of a small and no doubt venerable mirror. She was good-looking in an uninteresting sort of way, with large blue eyes and regular features. The white coat came off and was hung in a cupboard.

‘Sue, darling,’ came a cry. ‘Don’t leave me without saying goodbye. After all I shan’t see you until Monday.’

The nurse, Sue, presumably, gave us a conspiratorial wink, and said, not much lowering her voice, ‘She’s been like that all day. Restless. Fortunately you’ll be a bit of a distraction. Only don’t stay too long, will you? And remind Martin to give her her pills. I’m coming,’ she carolled. ‘Ready or not.’ It was evidently her job to coax and tease, to provide affectionate banter, even to flirt. She would, throughout the day, be the unfortunate woman’s sole companion. I felt equally sorry for them both.

At first sight all I could see of Cynthia Gibson was those
greedy little hands clasped round the nurse’s neck, disturbing her recently combed hair. Therefore it was not really surprising to see the nurse stroll over to a dressing-table confected out of some antique table and a nineteenth-century looking-glass in order to put herself to rights all over again.

‘Good evening, Mrs Gibson,’ I said. ‘It’s Claire Pitt; do you remember me? And this is my friend, Caroline Wilson.’

‘Of course I remember you. You bad girl,’ she added. ‘You told me you were bringing another friend.’

‘No, no. Caroline is called Wiggy. That’s probably what you remember me saying …’

She took no notice of this. ‘Martin,’ she called out. ‘Bring the champagne. I want Sue to have a glass before she goes.’

‘You shouldn’t,’ I protested, for form’s sake.

‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ she said, leaning towards me and releasing a wave of scent. ‘Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary, Martin’s and mine. That’s why we’re celebrating. We always do.’

‘Show them the photographs,’ said Sue, favouring me with another wink.

‘I will, I will. Now give me a kiss and go. Which boyfriend is it tonight?’

‘The ironing, in fact. See you Monday. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ At this point a spectral Martin appeared in the doorway with a bottle of champagne and several glasses held between the fingers of his left hand, like a bouquet.

‘Give Sue a glass quickly, Martin. She’s in a hurry. Where on earth had you got to? I was beginning to think you’d gone out.’

This was to be the pattern of our entire visit. We sat on either side of the bed, ignored, while various items of what actors call business were performed for our benefit. After Sue had left, it was, ‘Come round to this side where I can see you both,’
but in fact either the sight of us did nothing to stimulate her interest or she had forgotten who we were and why we were there. It was difficult to maintain the fiction that my previous visit had so thrilled her that she could not wait to see me again. If anything she was more interested in Wiggy, who wore her usual polite pleasant expression. I was proud of her; I always knew she would not let me down. Cynthia Gibson sensed this and asked Wiggy what she did. Without waiting for an answer she reached out and felt, indeed fingered, the stuff of Wiggy’s skirt. ‘Pretty material,’ she said. ‘I had something like it once. Martin! Where are you?’

By dint of valiant effort and a good deal of social expertise I managed to tell her that Wiggy and I were best friends, that we always met for dinner on a Saturday, that we were delighted to have looked in, in my case to renew acquaintance, in Wiggy’s case to meet someone whom I had described as fascinating (this was true though not quite in the sense she might have expected), that we were sorry to make this such a short visit but that restaurants always got so crowded on a Saturday that we must be on our way … I could see that she was not much interested in this but I felt I had to furnish the silence, or what would have been a silence. Her husband, as before, had retired to a dusky corner of the room. I need not have bothered. I realized that he was there as audience, while Cynthia’s role was to divulge information, about herself, mostly. It was clear that she was used to doing this, had behaved in this manner all her life. If Martin were audience we were little more than props, brought in to express appreciation. It was true that she was unfortunate; what was interesting was the fact that her will was intact. She was entitled to ignore what did not please her, which included anyone whose interest in her was less than her own. The mute husband, unnecessary now that the champagne
had been poured, was witness to what she no doubt thought of as her enormous popularity.

He was, if anything, out of place, a man among women, for the atmosphere surrounding Cynthia Gibson was feminine, conspiratorial. I saw that it was the function of the nurse to provide the repartee that he was too sombre to deliver. Yet how he must have loved her! Even now his eyes never left her face. What must one do to inspire such love? Clearly it had nothing to do with superior qualities. Maybe it was the fascination exerted by sheer selfishness. I had never come across this before. All the people I knew, including the Colliers, father and daughters, were good and I had accepted this as the right true order of things. Now, as Cynthia Gibson held out her glass for more champagne, I began to see that there was a quicker, easier way to secure a man’s attention. Clearly it only worked in the case of a man. Wiggy and I were hardly eligible. ‘Darling,’ he warned. ‘You won’t sleep tonight.’

‘And don’t be such an old fusspot,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I don’t just finish the bottle, since these two girls aren’t interested. Where did you say you were going for dinner?’

‘Charlotte Street,’ I said firmly. In fact we were going to an Italian restaurant in Tottenham Court Road.

‘I used to eat out a great deal before I was married,’ she said. ‘In those days I was terribly in demand. The Caprice, it used to be. That was my favourite. Now, of course, I don’t go out at all.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Wiggy. I knew she was entirely sincere.

Cynthia gave a brief bitter smile. ‘Off you go, then. Leave me to Martin’s tender mercies.’ As if on cue he approached the bed noiselessly, removed her champagne glass, and smoothed her brow. The look she gave us was not entirely innocent. Even a trophy husband is better than none, she seemed to imply.
There are always errands to be run, services to be performed. And there are gratifications even now that you may not suspect.

We stood up awkwardly. ‘It’s been so nice,’ she said. ‘You’ll come again, won’t you? And next time I’ll show you those photographs. The wedding photographs,’ she reminded us. ‘It was such a pretty day.’

I did not like this but there was nothing I could do about it. And besides I had seen her head fall back in the gesture which was now curiously familiar. I knew that gesture, the sudden vulnerability of the exposed throat. My mother, who had so recently left me, had fallen back in exactly the same way, during her last days in hospital. And my mother had no devoted husband to monitor her every movement, only my poor self. I felt pity for Cynthia Gibson, but also a measure of contempt. I felt she could manage better if she tried. These feelings I now extended to Martin who was ready to usher us out of the door. I realized that apart from making welcoming noises he had not uttered a reasonable sentence all the time we had been there. Wiggy and I had wasted our sweetness on the desert air. And yet there was no doubt that in some fashion we had been necessary.