Marnie (6 page)

Terry wanted everyone to have farewell drinks, but nobody would, and we began to get coats and things out of the bedroom. I found I’d picked up a stain on the sleeve of my frock, and
stayed dabbing at it, but I swear I was only about five seconds longer than the others. When I came out all my winnings were still on the table and Terry was saying good-bye to the man Walden and
two others, so I clutched up the notes and stuffed them in my bag.

I went to the door with my coat over my arm as Terry saw the others out. He looked at me half winking, with this odd lower-lipped smile of his, and then when he closed the door on the others I
said:

‘Thank you very much. It’s been lovely. And I’m really awfully sorry about this money.’

‘It was fair fight, as Alistair said. Stay a few minutes more, do.’

‘I couldn’t. I’m asleep. And the MacDonalds are waiting for me.’

‘Oh, no, they’ve gone.’

‘Gone?’ That pressed the bell all right. ‘D’you mean—’

‘Don’t look so
alarmed
. I’ll run you home in a few minutes.’

‘But they said they practically passed my door.’

‘Did they? They must have forgotten.’ He took my arm and led me back into the living-room. ‘No, seriously, my dear, I told them you were staying a bit longer and I was going to
drive you home. Really, I’d be enchanted.’

‘And what did they think?’ I asked.

‘Think?’ He snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, really! Victoria’s dead. Don’t you know?’

‘I’d heard,’ I said.

He went across to the curtains and pulled them back. ‘You see. It’s half daybreak already. The sun will be up in a few minutes. Your honour’s saved.’

I didn’t answer. He came back and looked closely into my face. ‘Look, sweetie, I thought it was a delicious idea. It’s no
use
trying to go to sleep at this hour.
We’ve got to be back in slavery in less than four hours. Besides, I’m raving hungry, and I expect you are. I thought we could have breakfast together; then I could drive you home, wait
while you changed and bring you back to Barnet.’

I went across to the table and started gathering up the cards. There’s a lot of things I know about, but this was a bit out of my league. I mean, I could handle the Ronnie Olivers of this
world and get through without them laying a finger-nail on me. And I could deal with most of the numerous models that prop each other up at street corners and roam in espresso bars. But this one
was different. For instance, his language. I wasn’t even sure he meant any harm now. And he was my boss. If I wanted to stay with the firm I ought to try to keep in with him.

‘What do you want for breakfast?’

He laughed. ‘I knew you were a girl after my own heart. Bacon and eggs, d’you think?’

‘All right. But please, I don’t want to be driven home after. When we’ve had breakfast you can phone for a taxi. After all, I can afford it today.’

I went into the kitchen and began to put some bacon and eggs on the grill. He laid the table in the living-room while I cooked and did the toast. Then he came into the kitchen to make the
coffee.

‘But, my dear, you may spoil your delicious frock. I’ll get you an apron.’ He came back with a blue plastic one with flowers.

‘Is it one of yours?’ I said.

‘Naughty. It belonged to my wife.’

‘Where is your wife?’

‘She lives in Ealing now. We didn’t get on. Let me do it.’

I tried to take the apron off him but of course he had to put it round my waist and tie it. When he had finished it his arms got back round my waist.

‘Did I tell you you were pretty?’

‘. . . watch the toast.’

‘Well it isn’t true any more. Now you’re beautiful.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I slid round the side of the stove.

‘It’s too true. Because now you’re pale – and tired. It fines off the
shape
of your face, makes just the difference.’ He kissed the back of my neck.

‘Terry, if you do that I shall go home.’

‘Why?’

I pulled the toast out, put it on the table and began to cut the crusts off. ‘Have you made the coffee?’

‘Why will you go home if I do that?’

‘I just feel that way.’

He was still standing near by. A lot too near by. ‘I don’t think I’m exactly well acquainted with you yet, Mary. I don’t at all know how you tick.’

‘Just like anyone else.
Tick-tock-tick-tock
.’

‘No, you’re not like anyone else. I’ve – well, to put it in a genteel way, I’ve had my adventures. Girls, women, not to exaggerate, my dear, are not exactly a
closed book to me. But you’re not like them. Your mechanism’s different.’

‘I expect it’s the hairspring. Could you turn off the grill, please.’

He reached back and switched it off without ever taking his eyes from me. ‘Bury me deep if I lay claim to too much, my dear, but with most women I know – I’d know what
they’d do or say if I made a pass at them – I’d know it before they knew themselves – I’d know if they were willing. Not you.’

‘Here’s your plate – careful, it’s hot.’

We went back into the living-room and started in on breakfast. He was quite right about one thing; I was hungry. I ate like I was hungry in spite of feeling on a knife edge. He kept looking at
me. Opposite me like this, his face was pear shaped. It wasn’t a nice face but it was an interesting face. It was wild and sly and very, very alert. I felt scared, and a bit mad at being
stared at. I wished I’d never come.

‘Mary, can I say something very, very
rude
?’

‘I can’t stop you.’

‘Well, you could slap my face.’ He pushed out his lip. ‘This is what I’m going to say, if I may. I know your husband has been dead for only a short time but . . . well,
you don’t look like a married woman.’

The light from the window had got brighter while this was going on, and the room with its card-table and its empty glasses and its full ashtrays was a pretty ghastly sight. I got up.

‘Well, I think that’s a good cue for me to go home.’

He got up too and came round the table. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘What for?’

‘This is the best side to slap. The other side is already well coloured behind the ear.’

It was the first time he’d mentioned his mark. I said: ‘Why should I? It’s only your opinion.’

‘You could prove me so wrong.’

‘I could but, thank you, I still think of Jim.’

His eyes were a sort of gum colour – that gum you get in grip-spreaders for office use. Only it wasn’t thinking of offices that made them like that.

‘I wish you’d slap my face.’

‘Why?’

‘D’you remember
Through the Looking Glass
and the Queen who cried
before
she pricked her finger?’

‘I never read it.’

‘Women usually slap men – if they feel that way –
after
they’ve been kissed. I thought you might like to try before. It would be a variation.’

My heart was going now. ‘No, thank you. But will you ring for a taxi?’

I made to step away but he got his arms around me very expertly and nearly squeezed the breath out of me. Then as I jerked my face away he began to kiss my neck. I put my hands on his chest and
when he felt the pressure he stopped and let me go to arm’s length, but still held me round the waist. I nearly forgot my new voice then and let him hear the way I could really talk the
Queen’s English. But I had to get out of it nicely if I could.

‘Consider yourself slapped.’

He said: ‘Sorry, beautiful, but you really are enticing. And you bend like a wand. Like a wand. Shall I say something else?’

‘Yes. Good night.’

‘It’s morning. And very early in the morning like this, after not having been in bed all night, is a delicious time to make love. You’re tired and relaxed and your skin’s
cool and slightly damp, and there’s nobody, nobody,
nobody
awake. Have you tried it?’

‘I will sometime.’

‘Nothing doing now?’

I tried to smile and shook my head. ‘Nothing doing.’

‘One kiss ere we part?’

Oh, well . . . he looked clean and healthy. ‘And then you’ll get a taxi?’

‘Sure will.’

I turned my face up to his and he put his lips against mine. Then instead of it being just a kiss it grew and grew. His lips and tongue were wet and thrusting all over my lips and clenched
teeth. I jerked my head away violently, trying not to be sick. I must have caught his nose with my cheek-bone because he let me go suddenly and I nearly fell down on the floor. I clutched hold of a
chair and looked at him and he was rubbing his nose and looking at me in a way that put the fear of God into me. It really did. I saw my coat on the chair and grabbed it up and my bag beside it and
walked to the door. I fumbled about with the catch, all fingers and thumbs, thinking he was just behind me. The door opened somehow and I was out and had slammed it shut. Then I beat it down the
steps at full speed and got out into the cold morning air, rubbing my mouth with the back of my hand.

I wondered if I ought to give in my notice and leave. I wondered a lot about it. I expect it would be small change to most women, just a kiss in a flat. But I didn’t like
it at all. I felt sick every time I thought of it, and I didn’t want to meet him again.

He didn’t turn up at the firm that Saturday at all. Dawn said: ‘Where did
you
get to last night; I thought you was coming when we went?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The MacDonalds took me home.’

‘Oh. Very
a la
. I didn’t think she was pretty, did you? My life, didn’t his Lordship have an eye for you! Where’d you get that frock? – really, you are a
dark horse.’

When Terry came on the Monday he didn’t look the side I was on, and that suited me fine, if it would just stay like that. All the same I felt pretty unsettled all that week – until
the following Monday when I was transferred to the reorganized cash office in the main works. Then the sight of all the money I would be handling soothed me like a tranquillizer.

There was a lot of extra work to do that week. I was technically ‘under’ Susan Clabon, but in fact I’d had a rise in salary and was on equal terms with her. The same week a
holiday list was posted up in the main office. Susan Clabon at once put down for the fortnight beginning Saturday 10 September, so I wrote my name in for the following fortnight. She would be due
back on the 26th. I began to work on these dates.

On the Thursday I was alone in the office when Mark Rutland came in. He went to the safe and put some books in, and as he passed on his way out he dropped a ticket on my desk. I stared at
it.

He said: ‘Just in case you’re really interested.’

It was a ticket for the National Rose Society’s show. I looked up at him in real surprise, nothing pretended.

‘Oh, thank you. You shouldn’t have bothered, Mr Rutland.’

‘No bother.’

‘Well, thank you.’

At the door he said: ‘First day’s the best. But then you can hardly get there, can you. They’re still pretty good on Saturday afternoon.’

He’d hardly spoken to me except in the way of business since I came. And after all, nothing could be more innocent than being given a ticket for a flower show.

After he’d gone out I took up a compact and powdered my nose. I exchanged a look with myself in the mirror. I was imagining things.

The only rose I had ever had was the dusty rambler that bloomed every year in the back yard at Plymouth; but it always got smothered with greenfly and fizzled out. It used to
make me wonder about that song, ‘Roses of Picardy’ and why anyone should bother to go nasal and wet-eyed about a plant as feeble as the rose I knew. I’ve never had any room for
things that gave in without a struggle.

Not that ‘Roses of Picardy’ didn’t mean something special to me. One day I’d been watching some men clearing a bombed site in Union Street when they found an old portable
gramophone buried in the rubble. They turned it over and laughed, and one of them said: ‘Yur, ducky, you ’ave it.’ I went scuttling home with it and found it still worked, but the
only unbroken record in the bottom shelf was ‘Roses of Picardy’ sung by some Irish tenor with adenoids or something. For three years after that I couldn’t afford to buy any
others, so I just played that and played it until it was worn out.

I used to come home from school at half past four. Mother and Lucy would be out at work still, and Mother used to leave a paper with the things she wanted, and I’d go shopping. Then
I’d get the tea ready, which was usually ham and chips, or kippers, with bread and butter, in time for when they got home about half past six. Always I’d play ‘Roses of
Picardy’ over and over because it was the only tune I had.

Sundays were sombre because they were all church; but Saturdays, with Mother and Lucy at work, I was free most of the day. Of course it was my job to clean the rooms, but I’d fly through
this and be ready to join the others by about ten. We’d go mooching around Plymouth and watch the bulldozers and the builders at work; then when they stopped we’d wriggle under a gate
and scavenge around on the site seeing what we could pick up. Sometimes we’d lift off the bricks that hadn’t set and bury the spades and fill the cement mixer with stones. Later
we’d walk round the stores, or go into one of the pin-table arcades or find some boys and stand at a corner giggling, or we’d climb up by the railway and throw stones at the trains.

One Saturday, in the February that I was fourteen, I’d been out all day with a pimply girl called June Tredawl, whose mother was doing three months; there’d been these two other
girls with us but we’d split up, and all afternoon June and I had been hanging around looking for trouble.

It was a cold day, I remember, with a frosty look, and when we went on the Hoe the sea was grey as a skating rink. We wandered about for a time, kicking our cheap shoes together to keep our feet
warm, and talking about all the things we’d like to do if we had money. When we came to the car park we looked over the low wall at the cars. There was every proprietary brand there, from
little Austins made before we were born to smart MGs and Rileys.

June said: ‘I’ll dare you to go in and let down the tyres.’