Madame Sousatzka (12 page)

All except Madame Sousatzka. ‘Cordle,' she said, piercing him in the eye, ‘Cordle, you pushed.'

It was an unforgivable accusation. It cast suspicion not only on this session, but on all the others in which Cordle had participated.

‘That's a lie,' he spluttered, ‘a downright lie.' No one would ever have believed that Cordle could lose his temper. None of them had seen him like this before. He looked down at his hands and rubbed them gently as if they'd been hurt, then quietly he added, ‘Don't I need him back, too?' He got up and went over to the gas-fire.

Uncle and Jenny looked at Madame Sousatzka. She had begun to cry. ‘I'm sorry, Cordle,' she wept. ‘It wasn't true. I don't want to believe the glass. That is all. We need him. Both of us. Tomorrow will I telephone Manders.'

Each of them wanted to console her, even Mr Cordle who had understood her outburst and had already forgiven her. But what could they say? Mr Manders was her executioner and she was going to make an appointment with him in the morning.

‘I'll make some tea before you go,' Jenny said quickly to break the tension. She ran the tap quietly and got the cups ready with the minimum of noise. Then she put on the kettle and the steady sound of the gas relieved the silence in
the room. Suddenly Jenny started to hum. She was humming a well-known folk-song, putting in a word or two here and there. Uncle began to tap her fingers to the rhythm and Cordle shifted forward in his seat. Then at the third verse he joined in shyly, craning his neck towards Jenny, singing slightly off-pitch as in a mating-call. Only Madame Sousatzka sat silent, her hands trembling on her knees.

Jenny poured the tea using a strainer, which was not her custom, but she didn't want to give them a reason to ask her to read their cups tonight. She was tired anyway, and tomorrow she'd have to work.

Madame Sousatzka blew on her tea noisily, then lifting her cup forward and away from her, she said in a broken voice, ‘Let's drink to our Marcus and his future.'

‘Just listen to that,' Jenny said, laughing with relief. ‘That's a real toast. But we can't drink such an important toast with tea. Wait a minute,' and she ran to her cupboard and brought out a bottle of champagne. She shut the cupboard door, then after some hesitation she reopened it, and brought out a second bottle.

‘This is really worth a celebration,' she said, forgetting her fatigue, concerned only with making the most of the tumbler's decision. ‘Cordle, this is your job, I think.'

She gave him the bottle and Cordle tore off the silver foil. He pressed his thumbs under the wire and aimed the neck of the bottle at the door. He shut his eyes tightly as if, had he had his fingers free, he would have stuffed them in his ears.

For a moment, Uncle was back in Paris, but Madame Sousatzka sat sadly, her cup of tea still raised. ‘To Marcus,' she whispered, and she took a sip and put her cup on the floor.

Cordle was treating the cork as if it was a dislocated bone. He coaxed it this way and that, reluctant to dismiss it. ‘Fire!' Jenny shouted. Cordle giggled. ‘You're the boss,' he said, and the cork went flying across the room with a loud pop.

The champagne bubbled out of the bottle. Jenny had forgotten clean glasses, and it was poured hastily into the dregs of mint tea.

‘To Marcus and his future,' Cordle squeaked, already drunk with the fumes.

‘To Marcus,' they all said, raising their glasses. ‘And to our dear Sousatzka,' Uncle added, clinking her glass to hers. ‘To Sousatzka, who is responsible.'

‘No,' said Jenny. ‘We must have a fresh glass for Sousatzka. The next one. This one is for Marcus.'

Cordle emptied his glass quickly, eager to give some justification to his intoxicated mood. Uncle sipped hers gently, flitting from one Embassy couch to another. Jenny tackled hers professionally, savouring the mint bouquet. ‘Come on, Sousatzka,' she said, ‘drink up. We've got another bottle to get through.'

Sousatzka was sipping gingerly, but at Jenny's encouragement she finished it in one gulp. She tottered a little, slipping on the fur hem of her dress. There was a loud ripping sound, and then silence. Suddenly Madame Sousatzka laughed, and picking up her skirt she tore off the whole hem of fur and placed it delicately round Uncle's neck. It was Uncle's ticket to Paris again. She would be busy for the rest of the evening.

‘I never like this dress, anyway,' said Sousatzka, ‘I buy a new one for the concert. Another drink for the concert,' she added, raising her glass. There was a desperation in her sudden gaiety. She was determined not to spoil the fun. But so was everybody else in the room, each trying to feed the atmosphere of jollity that had been forced on them.

Jenny refilled the glasses. Uncle had put her feet on Jenny's chair. ‘Come and sit here,' Cordle said, daringly touching his knee. Jenny obliged as part of the job.

Sousatzka giggled. ‘And me?' she pouted.

‘Have the other one,' said Cordle generously, tapping his free knee. He couldn't have known what he was letting himself in for. Madame Sousatzka, tipsy as she was, put her whole weight on to Cordle's knee-cap. He let out an hysterical, painful laugh, tipped them both over and joined them rolling on the floor.

Uncle watched them disdainfully. They had temporarily disturbed her dream. She flicked her ash on to Cordle's trousers and lurched across to the table to refill her glass.
The others on the floor indicated that she should fill theirs too, and Uncle came down on the floor to join them.

Cordle was much in demand because of his minority status. Uncle put her arms around his neck, touching Sousatzka's fingers which were already there. Jenny was lying flat on her back, her feet resting on Cordle's knees. She was singing a song, a song she always used to sing on outside work, to while away the hours of back and fore pacing during the slack times. She would allocate herself a certain number of verses, plus the repeated chorus, before she would give up and go home. But invariably she went on singing until the end, because it was a song that told a story, and it was bad luck to leave it untold. The others were listening to her, humming the chorus, trying to learn the words. But it was the song of Jenny's Union, unknown to those outside the trade.

‘Let's dance,' said Cordle weakly, when the song was finished. He wanted himself fully exploited. Gently he removed Jenny's feet and disentangled himself from Sousatzka's and Uncle's embrace. He opened the other bottle of champagne and refilled the glasses. ‘To the future,' he said, not being able to think of a vaguer toast. Half of him wanted to stagger out of the room and go downstairs and shade Paradise into his chart in bright purple. The other half willed him to stay. He felt that some indefinable opportunity waited for him in this room. Without much difficulty he opted for the latter half. ‘May I,' he stumbled over to Sousatzka, ‘have this waltz?'

He started to sing in questionable three-four time. Madame Sousatzka joined him, putting him more securely into the waltz beat. He held her at arm's length, as if a crinoline separated them. ‘Do you come here often?' he asked.

‘Yes,' she giggled, ‘every week I come.'

With her reply, Jenny's room, which had for Cordle become a State ballroom, was reduced to the local Palais de Danse. He adapted himself quickly. ‘What d'you do for a living, love?'

‘I am a teacher,' she said proudly. ‘I am
the
teacher. The teacher of that great pianist who now is playing all over
Europe. I am his teacher.'

‘Oh,' said Cordle, trying to place the new location suggested by her answer. But seeing the two drunk wallflowers wilting against the cupboard he said, ‘Let's have a Paul Jones.' He grabbed them and joined their hands with Sousatzka's and started them off in a circle. He himself pirouetted in the centre, humming like a top. Although he was drunk, he was acutely aware of his dilemma, that if he ever stopped whirling, two of the ladies would be offended. And so he spiralled to the floor and lay there prostrate and exhausted. He saw three disappointed faces staring down at him, like the swollen head of a giant sunflower. He couldn't distinguish one from the other, and Uncle's fur collar seemed to encircle them all. Suddenly a third of the face disappeared and he was conscious of a great weight on his body. He felt cold metal on his neck, and touching it, he knew it was Sousatzka's watch. He rolled her over to his side, and they lay there giggling.

‘I'm drunk,' said Madame Sousatzka, anxious to give some justification for her amorous mood. Cordle said nothing. There was only need for one of them to take the responsibility.

He put his arm round her and drummed his fingers on the fat that covered her spine. Jenny had gone over to her bed. She had refilled her glass and lay face downwards, cradling it on her pillow. Uncle just about made the table, and she sat down heavily in front of the tumbler. There was a sudden heavy silence in the room, broken only by an occasional sigh from Madame Sousatzka on the floor.

‘It reminds me,' Uncle said dreamily, ‘of a party we had in the Austrian Embassy in 1905. I wore my black organdie. Everybody drank so much, all the people who next morning would be our enemies. Only Paul was sober. And then the awful thing happened. I was standing there, underneath some painting or other,' she moved the letter L for Louise to the side of the table. ‘Paul was there' – she did likewise with the letter P – ‘and that dreadful English General was in the middle.' She took the tumbler and put it between the two letters. ‘Drunk as a lord he was, tottering on his little feet.' She swivelled the glass from side to side.
‘ “He's not good enough for you, my dear,” he said. “Won't touch a drop because he can't hold it.” He touched Paul's lapel. “A man who can't take liquor,” he spat out at him, “he's not a man. You're not worthy of her,” he shouted, putting his arm around my shoulder. Paul was very calm, but I could see that he was angry.' Uncle was whispering now, and both Sousatzka and Cordle were sitting on the floor listening to her. Jenny leaned over the bed-rail. ‘I knew he was angry because of the vein that stuck out on his forehead. “You're drunk,” Paul said to him. “Drunk, am I? I'll show you how drunk I am,” and with both his arms he lifted Paul from the ground.' At this point, Uncle turned the tumbler on its side and with it she scooped up the letter P. The couple on the floor stood up for a better view, and Jenny crossed over to the table. Uncle was in a trance. Her whispering was unbearable. ‘So I put my arms around Paul and I screamed trying to drag him away. All the others at the party crowded round us.' With one swoop of her hand she scooped the remaining letters into an untidy pile in the centre of the table. ‘At last Paul got himself free,' Uncle gently took the letter out of the glass, ‘but I could see he was defeated.' She crumpled the card in her hand. ‘I couldn't bear that, not that look on his face. I took off my shoe – it had a pointed heel – and I hit that General on his face. I hit him and I hit him and I hit him.' With the card in her hand, she pushed the glass towards the edge of the table. She was shouting now hysterically. ‘I hit him, till he fell on his back.' She swept her hand over the table and the glass crashed into a thousand tiny pieces on the floor. With her other hand, she swept the rest of the cards after it, and clutching the crumpled letter P in her hand, she beat her forehead in an agony of remorse and remembrance.

In a way, Uncle's breakdown was a relief to them all. They could now drop the act they were each playing and become themselves again. The crash of the glass had sobered them. Jenny began to cry with a kind of rage at the loss of her glass, and anger at not being able to scold Uncle. She tried vainly to piece the glass together, but Cordle told her to let it be.

‘You'll cut your fingers,' he said gently. But Jenny
insisted, picking up the splinters one by one. Then she took another glass and poured them inside, like ashes in an urn. She held it up to the dim green light, like a penitential candle, and then gently consecrated it to the mantelpiece.

‘Poor Paul,' Uncle whispered. Sousatzka put her arms round her, stroking the fur collar. ‘Come Uncle,' she said, ‘we must all of us go to bed.'

Cordle went to the door and held it open for the two ladies. Madame Sousatzka's train dragged through the door, her arm firmly round Uncle's waist. Mr Cordle nodded to Jenny with a miserable smile, and he closed the door after himself.

Jenny stared at the door for a long time. Then she switched off the lights, leaving only the small night-light by her bed. She lay awake in the luke-dark, watching the glass that stood on the mantelpiece, upright and bare as a dead tree.

‘Tomorrow, I'll buy a new one,' she decided. ‘We're going to need a tumbler in this house.'

Madame Sousatzka had arranged to meet Manders the following Saturday in his office. She had written to Mrs Crominski informing her of her decision, and suggesting at the same time that her presence at the interview was not strictly necessary. Mrs Crominski had replied. To the first, natural, she was delighted; to the second, natural she understood. She hadn't really understood it at all, but she was still prepared to make concessions to the loser. She decided it would be Madame Sousatzka's last fling.

Madame Sousatzka was a little nervous of tackling Manders on her own, and she had asked Jenny to go with them.

Marcus was up early at the piano, and Sousatzka was still in her bedroom dressing. She had tried on her entire wardrobe, trying various combinations of colours and accessories. The women's magazine lay open on the bed with an article entitled ‘Start from Scratch'. Madame Sousatzka took everything off until she reached the scratch condition. Tabula Rasa. ‘The first thing you must do if you have an important date is to start from scratch,' the article said. Well, she'd done that, hadn't she, and it was an uncomfortable position to remain in for long. What now? ‘Now,' the article continued, ‘sit down and think.' Madame Sousatzka sat down and thought. She was much too cold to concentrate deeply on anything. She considered after a few moments of meditation that she'd been loyal enough to the article, and she leaned over to read what followed. ‘If your date is a formal one, there's nothing quite to beat that indispensable little black dress,' Madame Sousatzka rushed to her wardrobe. Yes, she had one of these indispensables, that by any standard of good taste is most readily dispensed with. She surprised it off its hanger and quickly put it on, more for the sake of warmth than conformity. She went
back to the article. ‘With a little black dress, you can go to town on accessories,' it dared her. Well, this was more in her line. She draped a heavy horse-brass round her neck, and swathed her arms in a smithy-full of heavy copper bracelets, and topped the ensemble with a large red velvet hat. ‘Let yourself go with the bracelets and bangles,' the article had said. She had followed it to the letter.