Down in the City (5 page)

‘He's always up to something,' Demster chuckled, half admiring, after a session at the bar. But Bill Maitland from that day kept the relationship strictly confined to the golf course.

‘What kind of a creature can she be, do you think?' Laura Maitland asked when she heard. ‘She's bound to be a shocking type like him, I suppose, but even so, she has my sympathy. I'll be glad when we can get away from the Cross. I'm tired of having all these odd-bods for neighbours.'

Unlike Esther, Stan had no family to inform. As far as he knew, he had no living relative. And he would not go near the boys. The thought, at this stage, was abhorrent to him, but in any case they were always at the Cross Keys, and Vi was at the Cross Keys.

He circled the idea of Vi, the memory of Vi, very carefully, and standing at a great distance, decided that she would just have to hear it in her own good time—when the news reached her. When she knows, she knows, he thought.

Everything would have to be different from now on, and everyone might as well get used to the new set-up—including Stano. No more drink, no more horses. At least, he amended, not too many. And the boys would have to be neglected a bit, and Vi—altogether.

And then cash money. A matter of looking round till you found some safe little business, he supposed. Put a manager in. An investment, legal as anything. He'd do it like a shot for Est.

Est…God, wouldn't they all look when they saw her. They wouldn't know what to say to her—just as well, too. And there'd better not be any cracks. God, they weren't good enough to rest their eyes on her—rotten, dirty-minded bastards for the most part. Stan chuckled affectionately and then grew sober again. Just let one of them open his trap near her! Just let him try it! What he wouldn't do for her.

All thought led to this thought, and this thought to renewed resolutions and vows. He was startled, even embarrassed, by the strength of his feeling for Esther, and that he alone could know the passion and the will to please that lay under her cool impersonality gave him the most exquisite pleasure he had ever experienced. He was alternately humbled and elated by the realisation that he possessed and was loved by her. And that Esther, who was one of
them
, who could never win anything but respect and homage from the rest of the world, had chosen him, loved him, surely proved something in his favour. That he wasn't just any ordinary bloke, either?

Yet, in the midst of self-congratulation, he would pause with a grimace and tell himself that he wasn't in the same street as her and that was the plain truth—couldn't ever hope to be. She should be treated in ways, too, that he knew nothing about, and he had nothing to guide him but how he felt about her—what seemed fitting for her. And what was? Little enough.

Would she tell him where he went wrong? he asked her one day. He knew he was rough, and he didn't want people feeling sorry for her. Wouldn't she help to put him straight? Keep his manners and his clothes in line with her brothers'?

She protested. She could not bear his suggestion. Please would he not insist? But although he was gratified by her valuation of him and her distaste for the plan, he did insist, and made her agree. If she wouldn't help him, she didn't care about him.

From that moment Stan was in competition with the Prescotts. He went to their tailor and barber; he aimed at their manner, and his instinctive dislike for them increased and hardened. So they would try to show him up, would they? They would try to make him feel small?

Before the wedding Stan had one meeting with David, who tried to discover the nature of his business and to learn a little about his background. But Stan was practised in evasion. Pressed, he had spoken for some time about exports and imports, contacts and American lines.

David had smiled, puzzled. ‘I'm afraid I'm still vague about your connection with these things.'

But Stan had made his speech and refused, good-naturedly, to enlarge. ‘That's it in a nutshell,' he said. ‘There's nothing else to tell. I can give her everything she wants—that's all you need to know, isn't it?'

David implied that it was not quite all, but did not persist. Esther had spoken to him, made him promise that he would not ask for more than Stan was willing to say.

‘After all, David, I am thirty-three. Stan is almost forty. It would really not do for you to question him like a Victorian father.'

David had agreed, with what little resignation he could command, that it would, indeed, be ridiculous. But when the interview was over, conjuring up Stan's pale, weak face, he felt no confidence that he had been wise, and a deep frown creased his forehead. It was true that Esther's money was strictly controlled under the terms of her father's will, and the thought gave him some comfort. He had pointed this out to Stan, but his grin had not wavered. ‘So what?' he had said.

‘I'm convinced that in his way he really does care for her,' he declared to Clem and Marion later. ‘But it's all so extraordinary—so incredible.' He expostulated with them as if, somehow, it were all their fault. ‘He isn't what one would have expected. I simply can't understand it. I can hardly believe it, yet.'

‘Outsiders never can,' Clem said, lifting the top from his boiled egg.

‘Never can what?'

‘Understand it. It's probably just as well. If they could, where would we be? Think! Would you pass the salt, please, Marion? Thank you.'

‘You seem to think it a matter for amusement,' David said heatedly. ‘I'm not so easily amused. I'm really concerned about this.'

Marion moderately said, ‘So is Clem—and Hector; so are we all. But we are helpless. We can hope that Esther will be happy, with him: I do, most sincerely. She's had a very lonely life.'

David, who had been on the way to being pacified, at this last remark let his cup clatter on the saucer. ‘Lonely? What on earth do you mean?'

And so, out of Esther's hearing, the talk went on: questions and answers.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘The only thing is—no lift,' Stan had warned her when he took her to see the flat. ‘But you get used to the stairs, don't you think?'

She climbed, concentrating on the calves of her legs, which were too thin, hoping that the exercise would develop them. She did not regret the four flights. The ceilings were low, the flights shallow, and in the two weeks since her marriage she had, as Stan hoped, had time to get used to the stairs. Second floor and two to go.

The door of flat number eleven stood propped open to catch a current of air. As Esther paused, hand on the banister, a woman passed the open doorway and came back again. She had a pleasant face.

‘Good morning!' Her smile was friendly and challenging. ‘You're Mrs Peterson, aren't you?'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘I'm Laura Maitland. I saw you one day from the balcony, when you and Stan were going out. Perhaps he's mentioned that he and Bill, my husband, play golf together fairly regularly?'

‘Yes, he has. I've been hoping to meet you.'

They stood smiling at one another. Laura's quick eye was noting the quality and approximate value of Esther's clothes, confirming the impression of Esther's general appearance that had so astonished her in the glimpse she had caught a few days earlier; Esther was chiefly impressed by the strong feeling of warmth that seemed to flow from the other woman.

‘Have you got time to come in and see my baby? She's just turned two. I think she's a dream.'

‘I'd love to.' Smiling a little at Mrs Maitland's outspoken enthusiasm, thinking how seldom she had ever heard anyone praise her own possessions, and what a surprisingly endearing trait it was, Esther followed her into the flat.

Her appreciation of a manner which, surely, a few weeks before would have seemed at least unfortunate, she accepted as another fact to be noted about the person she had come to be.

Inside, she was formally introduced to a tanned and rosy child whose large grey eyes, fine brows and slender neck, whose air of serious attention, charmed her.

Her mother caught her in a close embrace, fierce and loving, which Anabel endured, watching Esther over her mother's shoulder until, loosening her hold, Laura said, ‘Play with Susie, darling. Sit on the floor and play with Susie.'

Anabel plopped down, her plump brown legs stretched out in front of her, and started to talk to her little Dutch doll.

Half laughing, half defiant, Laura said, ‘I'm a proud mother, as you can see.'

‘You've every reason,' Esther smiled, liking her, and looked again at Anabel.

Laura Maitland was the same age as Esther, a graceful, full-figured woman with irregular features and strikingly beautiful eyes, blue and peculiarly compelling. Her hair, well cut and softly curled, was fair.

The two women lit cigarettes and leaned back, talking easily until, after a few minutes, Laura threw in the first of her direct compliments on Esther's appearance. Her dress was really perfect, so simple, beautifully cut; and her figure was superb. Each word of praise seemed to burst spontaneously from her lips as if she could not restrain herself a moment longer. Her eyes were alight with sincerity.

Esther experienced a small shock of amazement which soon increased and altered as the barrage continued to fly around her. Her extremely cold reaction had the effect of inspiring Laura to still further compliments, until at last she could have held up her hands for mercy. But when Laura finished with a last heavy volley, speaking intimately of Stan as an old friend, of the difference marriage would make to him; how she had known that Esther, the moment she saw her, was exactly the right person for him, all the distaste, the distrust, began to fall away. Esther felt a need to believe that she was all the things that Laura had claimed for her. She wanted approval—even from a stranger; she wanted to hear that she was right for Stan—even from someone who could not possibly know. And when the words were said, it seemed essential that someone should think her attractive because now, for the first time in her life, it mattered.

A little later, Laura began to speak of her own affairs, taking up the subject of marriage again.

Turning her marvellous eyes on Esther, she spoke of her husband and child with a direct simplicity that demanded respect. Her admissions seemed to be offered as proofs of goodwill, as a surety for her integrity after her precipitate invasion, and Esther accepted them as such, with a kind of mild astonishment. She had a friend.

Drifting to other topics—the advantages of living at Kings Cross, the merits and demerits of Romney Court—they each seemed to detect a kind of complementary compatibility about their points of view. Finally, after veering to exchange a small amount of family background, Esther said that she must go.

‘I'm so glad you've come to live here,' Laura said. ‘I've often been lonely. There's no one in the block you can talk to, and all my friends live so far out of town. Of course,' she gave a conspiratorial smile and wrinkled her nose, ‘there's always Pauline Demster, but she's older than us, and really…'

Esther said, ‘I've heard Stan mention the Demsters. I expect I'll meet them quite soon.' She called goodbye to Anabel, who staggered to her feet and ran to the door to wave.

At home again, Esther wandered from room to room, rearranging the flowers and looking out of the windows. One of Mrs Mac's cleaners came in every day to scrub and polish so that there was little she had to do.

This was the first time she had been alone for a whole morning since the wedding. Stan had received a number of telephone calls the night before.

‘It's business, pet—something big, or I wouldn't go,' he had told her after the final prolonged conversation.

His other absences had been short single hours, soon forgotten in their time together. Now she found herself unexpectedly enjoying her solitude because it gave her time to remember.

She was glad that they had not gone away for these weeks to another capital or to the country, or one of the Queensland beaches. It was ideal, and right, that their life should start here and be held together by these walls, that their first memories should not be dispersed, or dimmed by distance. For this reason as well as others, Stan too, he said, had been unwilling to leave town.

So we are both pleased, she thought, and then smiled at the weakness of the word applied to them for any reason.

There had been one unimportant withdrawal between them in all this time. She thought of it as all this time, though it was in fact only two weeks; for a fact of equal truth was that these two weeks had been longer than all the years of her life.

It had happened when they were driving through town a few days earlier on their way to the beach, when Esther, seeing that they were passing her bank, had thought of something she meant to do and asked if Stan would drop her off for a minute.

Stan had neither answered nor stopped; a sullen expression, unfamiliar to her, played over his eyes and mouth.

Sinking back in the seat, she said in a low voice, ‘It didn't matter about going today.'

‘No place to park, anyhow,' Stan said moodily. He glanced at her reproachfully, feeling that she should have had more sense than to mention banks to him. But seeing the disquiet in her eyes, he said, ‘It wasn't that I wanted to stop you, petty, but I just wondered if you should rush in there like that without thinking.'

‘Thinking?'

‘Well, you know, it might be a good idea if you left an account under your old name. Maybe not in this bank, though—I suppose they know your brothers. I thought you might be going in saying, “My name is Peterson now,” and so on.'

‘But I was. Why should I not?'

‘Might be handy if you didn't, that's all. Please yourself, Est.'

‘Don't say, “Please yourself.” I only want to do what you think is best.'

He smiled at her then, and was ashamed of himself when he saw the uncertainty of her expression. He put a hand on her knee and said, ‘There's a good girl.'