Down in the City (25 page)

She stood up and walked to the window. She was again assailed by the quivering coldness of unrealised shock and loss. Vi opened her eyes.

To them both the room was a cage, and they were dangerous to each other; even so, to be imprisoned thus was to be safe from time and its consequences. An instinctive recognition of this kept them silent a moment longer. And then a small flame of anger, feebly inappropriate, made Esther say: ‘It never occurred to you to send him away when he came back? You didn't, I suppose, think that that might be the thing to do?'

Vi stared at her in amazement. ‘Oh, act your age! He came after
me
, remember? God knows I wanted him back, but he came to suit himself, because he wanted me. No one made him, and, no, I'm afraid I didn't think of sending him back to you.' After an almost exasperated pause, she said, ‘Where did you live before you met him? In a convent?' She looked at her curiously. ‘This is nothing new—this kind of thing—it happens all the time.'

While she had been speaking, Vi found her slipper and stood up. Standing in the middle of the floor they stared at one another as if in eyes and flesh there might be found a key.

Just then there came a banging at the front door, and a woman's hoarse voice, adding to the clamour, cried, ‘It's me, dear.'

‘Cleaner,' Vi said, and going to the door she called, ‘Later, Daph, later.'

‘Righto!'

The noise ceased and she came back, drawing the cord of her gown more tightly around her waist. ‘I know you think so,' she said, ‘but you haven't got it all your own way, you know, not by a long shot.'

‘Perhaps not.' Her eyes on her clasped hands, Esther spoke almost patiently. ‘In any case,' she said, ‘it's all over now—this meeting,' she added, seeing Vi about to break forth again.

With slow steps and pauses they started to walk to the door. In what seemed a momentary enlargement of comprehension Esther experienced a frightening sense of human frailty and vulnerability. They were all in the power of something stronger than themselves, and to be pitied. But she could feel no pity, nothing.

‘Well,' said Vi on a deep breath, ‘now you've seen the low-life that's left by the tide. The girl from the pub and the kept woman in person. But not very much kept,' she added, putting her hand on the lock to open it. ‘Don't kid yourself I'm in this for the profit.'

The door was open, but, knowing that there was nothing to be done, they hesitated to say goodbye. The lack of precedent caused them at this late moment to regard each other with something of apology and resignation. The long pause, the expectation of a miracle, the waiting for the dream to break, and then the door closed and it was over.

In the street outside the day was lustrous with spring; spring-like and enchanting in the middle of summer. All the late humidity had cleared and the air was as light and clear as the shining sky.

Underfoot, brick, asphalt and stone were warm and dry. Today no dust blew through the crevices of the roads that covered the old land beneath.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

After ringing five numbers Vi finally heard Stan's voice coming through the receiver. ‘What d'you want?' he asked peevishly. ‘I'm busy.'

‘Well, busy or not, come round as soon as you can. Come right away, Stan, it's important.'

Her urgency pierced through to him. ‘Oh? What's up?'

She could see his eyes narrow, suddenly alert. ‘I'll tell you when you get here. Don't be long.'

Just as she finished dressing he let himself in and came to the bedroom where he leaned against the door jamb, his hat pushed back, one leg crossed in front of the other.

‘Well,' he said, ‘what's it all about? What's the mystery?' He was protected from surprise by disdain, preoccupation.

‘Come out here,' she said, and he followed her, swinging his car keys on the end of their silver chain.

He flopped into a chair and, without wasting any time, Vi told him what had happened.

He was impassive. ‘Oh?…So she was here, was she?…Mmm.' He stretched his legs, smiled, and said, ‘Mmm,' again on a note of such false interest that Vi became impatient.

‘Yes, she was, for I don't know how long. We had quite a chat,' she said drily. ‘“What's your connection with my husband? You aren't just friends, are you?”…Friends!'

He lifted his brows. ‘I'll bet you took damn good care to tell her, didn't you?'

‘Oh, for Pete's sake! She only knows what she knew. No one had to spell it to her.'

Stan held her gaze solemnly, grimaced and looked away. ‘This is lovely! Lovely!' he said, jumping up and walking about the room. He was still incredulous, but as belief began to grow, angry excitement, too, began to penetrate his defence.

‘It isn't my fault,' Vi said. ‘It was no fun for me.' On a lower note she added, ‘Whatever happens, it isn't going to do me any good, I know that.'

‘Yeah, yeah!' Stan shut her up with an impatient wave of his hand.

She dropped her forehead on her arm, and straightway he turned on her viciously. ‘Don't let's have any waterworks!'

‘What do you mean?' She lifted her head and he turned away without answering.

He went to the window and stood drumming his fingers on the sill. ‘How was she?'

Vi put a hand to her throat as if to find some comfort in the touch of skin against skin.

‘How
was
she?' As he repeated his question he strode across the room and stood glaring down at her as if he could scarcely restrain himself from violence.

She looked at him steadily, looked away. Dragging herself to her feet she said, ‘How
would
she be? Try to guess. And how am
I
, if it comes to that? Thanks for your interest…not so hot.' There was a pause and she put a hand on his arm. ‘Well, anyway, I'll leave you to it, I'm—'

‘Why? Where are you going?' The anger was gone. He didn't want to be alone to think, to wonder what to do.

‘Just through there,' she said, ‘not to work, thank God, not till two.'

He let her go and wandered morosely back to his station at the window.

Trailing about her room, lifting a stocking from one chair, dropping it on another, Vi wondered stonily what would happen. The possibility that she might find herself the loser brought a pain that carried its own antidote.

The jealous strength conjured up by Esther's presence had been replaced by passivity. If it happens, it does, she thought. I can't help it. And if she felt that her mood was an attempt at self-deception, she let the feeling lie in darkness.

A pearly breeze blew through the open window, played over her face, made her drop her hands and stand quiet.

‘Can I come in now, Vi?' The banging at the door and the voice came simultaneously.

Starting a little she moved a step or two nearer to call back, ‘Oh, no, Daph. Leave it for today, love.'

Then she heard Stan crashing through to her. ‘What was that?'

‘Cleaner—Daph.'

She put some shoes in the cupboard and began to tidy the bed. Stan watched her all the time with an air of brooding frustration and at last said, ‘Well, I'm off!'

‘Where to?

‘Anywhere they've got some whisky.'

Vi stiffened. She went over to him. ‘I wouldn't do that today, honey.'

‘Wouldn't you? You know how interested I am in anything
you'd
do, don't you?' He leaned against the wall, his mouth curling with sarcasm.

‘Okay. Okay!' she shrugged. ‘It's your own business, I guess. But just…' She hesitated and he prompted, still eyeing her superciliously, ‘But just?'

‘Watch what you're doing—that's all.' He made no reply and she said after a moment, looking up at him, ‘When'll I see you?'

‘Soon,' he said, and pulled her into his arms. He gave her a hard, unloving kiss and let her go.

‘No wonder I love you,' she said, pushing her hair back from her forehead. ‘You're so…' She gave up and he laughed and said, ‘Maybe I'll see you tonight or tomorrow.'

Stan drove out past Rose Bay to Watsons Bay, a quiet wealthy suburb set on the cliffs of the south head of the harbour. He went there for no particular reason except that it had seemed to him the quickest way to leave the city centre. The wide street, the white cement footpaths, were deserted. Parking the car, he climbed under the painted railing that separated the road from the tramlines, and, turning east, away from the houses and streets and harbour, crossed the few yards of rocky ground to a lookout platform that faced the ocean.

Hundreds of feet below, the Pacific slapped against the rocks at the base of the headland, and spread out in a tremendous arc, dark blue and calm, stretching away to the Americas. Stan wondered if he might not be looking in the direction of the South Pole.

Some freighters, coastal freighters, passed on the horizon which was today clear, a distinct line where the pale and the dark blue met. Behind him a tram rattled past beginning the journey into town, and the conductor, idle in the empty compartments, stared at the ocean as if it were magnetic. He noticed the solitary figure on the platform and envied him that he could stand there on such a morning.

The driver of the tram turned his head slightly as the conductor came up behind him and peered over his shoulder at the silver rails ahead.

‘Bonzer day!' he said in an effort to express his appreciation of the radiance of air and sea.

‘Sure is. Like a dip, wouldn't you?'

The shining rails curved away from the sea: the tram reached a stop, and a man and four women climbed in.

The piping at the top of the high fence was warm under his fingers. Stan gripped it tightly, then let it go. Ever since he had left Vi's apartment he had kept his mind clear of thought by some mental effort akin to the physical one of holding the breath. But now as the blood flowed again to the suddenly slack fingers, so the implications of Esther's discovery came to his brain, and he was alarmed.

If only someone would listen to
his
side of the story. But who would, except Esther or Vi, and what could he say to them that wouldn't send them into hysterics? Women and fuss, women and fuss! Well, to be fair, there was a lot to be said for them. But everything was going to be kind of awkward now for a while. Somehow, someone wasn't going to be pleased. He had a horrible feeling about that.

Gazing at the ground, he kicked a pebble through the wire-mesh fence. It doesn't look too good, he thought, and yet, is it so bad? Why should it matter so much to Est? Vi doesn't care about
her
.

He moved uneasily at the sound of his ‘why' and his ‘yet'. Of course it wasn't sensible but it
would
matter.

Falling into a mood of sentimental melancholy, he pictured himself as he had been before he met Esther, a garish picture of ignorance personified, and beside that he placed the latest model of Stan Peterson—not perfect, far from it, but a man of the world—a man who could make his way round confidently. And whose doing? Who—you might say—practically lived for him? Est, again, not Vi—Vi would always get along.

Est was different—expecting a fellow to be different, too, believing that he was, and because of that, making him feel lower than he was. Oh God, it was complicated. He scratched his head and expelled a sigh. That was the trouble. She honoured him—
she him
—in some outlandish way, in spite of everything, rows and drinks and everything.

‘Oh hell!' he said aloud, and screwed up his eyes, noticing again where he was. He could still see the freighters, but they had moved well apart by this time.

How in hell's name did she find out anyway? he wondered, enveloped in contrariness all at once, as usual feeling aggrieved with fate for doing this to him. He went so far as to convince himself that curiosity discovered what it deserved, but his dishonesty nagged at him until he let the swollen bag of self-justification deflate.

So it'll be the worst thing that's ever happened. It'll be the end of the world. He knew it, and he did not like it. The thought of facing her was quite a thought.

He took out a cigarette and as he did a voice behind him said: ‘Got a light?'

A young man of nineteen or twenty, thin and dark-haired, stood grinning at him. His eyes were blue, his clothes cheap and flashy. ‘Got a cigarette?' he said when Stan held out his lighter. He took one from the packet with the sinister deliberation of an American film gangster. ‘Thanks, mate,' he said cheerily. They stood side by side for a minute, not talking. Stan wished that the boy would disappear as he had come. When, instead, he pointed to the extreme edge of the cliff and said, ‘Hear about the joker that jumped over the other night?' Stan turned to go. ‘No,' he said repressively and went back under the railing to the car.

‘So long, mate,' the voice called after him, faintly ironic.

He moved out from the kerb and drove back to town. At first he drove fast, glad to be urged by indignation against the intrusion on his lonely platform, pleased to have even so flimsy a thought to occupy his attention.

But as he neared the city he slowed down, trying dismally to decide where to go, what to do. In spite of his declaration he didn't want to go to a pub. But what was the alternative? Back to Eddie's where he had been when Vi phoned? He crawled along. No business, he thought, not yet awhile. And not Est, certainly not back home. That only leaves Vi.

As the thought formed his energy rose again and his face lightened. He could do something positive—constructive. What he had said about tonight or tomorrow wasn't true. Mightn't come off at all, ever.

He knew himself well enough to realise that he would very likely promise Est that he wouldn't see Vi again. And if he did, he vowed, if it was really necessary, he would stick to his word. But this time he would tell her it was over.