Mavis Belfrage (6 page)

“A very bad idea.”

“I was
joking
Colin! But I know how to make an innocent-tasting punch with a kick like a mule. And
what about your father?” she asked, setting plates before them. “I bet Gordon knows how to enjoy a party. And there's Clive – Clive Evans, you know.”

She sat facing him. He stared at her. She nodded back and said, “He's great fun – socially I mean. You'll like him.”

“You'll
let me come to the party Colin? Please Colin?” Bill pleaded.

“No!” snapped Colin. He laid down the cutlery and shut his eyes feeling too tired to think or speak. He heard Bill mutter, “I had
almost
decided to regard you as a friend, but you act like a friendly sea-lion with unexpectedly vicious traits.”

He heard Mavis say, “It's strange that you and I have never been to a party together, Colin. I used to go to so many.”

He felt her hand touch his, despised himself for the comfort this gave yet relaxed for a quarter minute into something like sleep then wakened and quickly breakfasted because he must wash and dress for work. As he ate she suggested it should be a dinner party for ten – she could easily make a meal for ten – all Colin need do was ask his father and any six others he liked one Saturday evening a fortnight hence. That would give her plenty of time to prepare. Colin neither objected nor agreed to these suggestions but when he left the table she obviously thought the matter settled.

A week passed before Colin asked his father and some other people to the party. Mavis no longer went out at night. Perhaps she met Evans during the day. Since Evans had a job this could only be during his lunch hour, so the nature of her affair had changed and Colin hoped it was maybe dying of natural causes. The party would show colleagues that he and Mavis were living as husband and wife. The Welshman would see this too so when Evans left the party with the other guests his affair with Mavis could decently end. Colin considered suggesting this to Mavis but decided against making a selfish remark while she worked so hard to make him happy. As the party neared she grew more and more domestic, cleaning and tidying the house as his father had done, beautifying it with flowers and candles as his mother had never done. The Kerr candlesticks had been for decoration only but Mavis used them to light the dining-table which had once supported Glonda. Each night she placed there a different, surprisingly tasty meal. Colin showed appreciation by doubling her housekeeping allowance.

“I suppose I deserve it,” she said, kissing him. He decided he need fear nothing from Evans and persuaded Mavis to let Bill stay up for the meal if he went to bed immediately after.

On Saturday afternoon Colin drove into town with a shopping list written by Mavis for more wines and spirits than he thought necessary. She had made him
promise not to come home before five because that would spoil a surprise she was preparing. He guessed the surprise would be something she wore so decided to surprise her back. Visiting a gentleman's outfitter he changed his dark pullover and knitted tie for a red waistcoat and scarlet silk cravat. When he entered the living-room she laughed and said, “You peacock, you've outdone me.”

“O no,” said Colin, staring at her. She looked dazzling in white silk pants and white velvet tunic patterned with seed pearls, silver beads and minute mirrors.

“That must have … cost … a lot,” he said hesitantly.

“If you mean did I buy them out of my earnings as a street-walker the answer is
no
. You've never seen all the treasures packed in the cases I drag from lodging to lodging, Colin Kerr!”

“What's a street-walker?” asked Bill looking up from a comic he was reading. He too was sprucely dressed with well-polished shoes and neatly combed hair.

“I'll tell you one day when Colin isn't here – Colin's easily embarrassed. But Colin, look around! Isn't the room lovely? Doesn't the dining-table look inviting? Won't your colleagues envy you for having such an efficient, loving, beautifully dressed, beautiful mistress?” Colin nibbled a nut from a dish of them on the bookcase and said, “Yes there dawns on me, waveringly, the notion that I will enjoy this party.”

“Of course you will, and Colin!” (she laid a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a girlish little pout) “I've a favour to ask – why are you grinning?”

“When you're extra cheerful then ask me a favour it's usually for something I hate to do.”

“Is there anything you wouldn't do for me?”

“Probably not.”

She put her hands behind her back and said slowly, “Well I thought you, me and Bill would have a nice little snack together just now, and after that you might drive over to Comely Park which is where Clive – Clive Evans – lives and bring him back. You see he hasn't a car, this place is hard to find by bus and … well there would be time for the two of you to go to a pub and have a pint together – before the other guests arrive, I mean. But of course you needn't have a drink with him if you don't feel like one. But I think you'd enjoy his company.”

“No,” said Colin.

“What do you mean?”

“I won't go.”

“Why not?”

“Bill,” said Colin, “Mavis is going to make us a snack. Wash your hands please.”

“Are you two going to have a boring emotional storm?”

“Get lost Bill,” said Mavis. Bill pulled a face and went out leaving Colin and Mavis facing each other.

In a dangerously quiet voice she again asked Colin why he would not go. He replied in a voice which in his own ears sounded absurdly rational and laborious. “Mavis, I do not dislike Evans because he is your lover. In that he has my sympathy because I would like to be your lover. And it isn't impossible for me to meet him at a party and say the meaningless things people say to each other at parties. But I refuse to
treat him as a friend to satisfy either your vanity or convenience.”

“What a small tiny shrivelled ungenerous …” (she paused and grinned mockingly) “…
mind
you have!” He stared back at her and then sat down. She walked forward and back saying, “What do you suggest I do? I've told him to expect you. What do you suggest I do?”

“Phone him and tell him to come by taxi.”

“You do it. It's your idea – not mine.”

“No.”

He employed his agitation by picking up Bill's comic and staring at it blindly. After a few more aimless steps Mavis folded her arms and said, “I'll explain why I arranged for you to pick him up. He didn't
want
to come to this bloody party. He thought you would hate him because of me. I told him you were above such petty feelings. I said you would prove it by giving him a lift.” In a very low voice Colin said this showed that Evans understood and respected his feelings more than Mavis did; she should phone Evans, tell him she had been wrong and apologize. She flushed red and cried, “Phone him and tell him I'm ..! What about the party? What sort of time will I have here without Clive, with only you and your friends and your father to talk to? Nobody kind? Nobody who loves me?”

“Our guests,” he said with hard clarity, “will be decent, reasonable men and women.”

“Unlike me, you mean. Tell them I may be rather late as I've gone to pick up a friend. There's a piece of meat in the oven. It will be ready by eight if you don't burn it.” She strode to the door. He jumped up crying, “If you
take the car you'll have plenty of time to get back before the guests arrive!”

“I'll certainly take the car,” she said and left.

Half a minute after the front door was slammed Colin heard Bill say, “I suppose I can come back now that people have stopped shouting. Have you a pain there?”

Colin, looking down, noticed his hand was pressing his midriff and was surprised to feel tension there. He nodded.

“It goes away when she comes back,” Bill told him. “Will we look at the meat?”

But Colin knew nothing about serving a complex meal. He phoned his father and asked him to come earlier to help with an unexpected snag, then he went upstairs and changed his clothes for less festive ones.

Gordon was the only guest who did not find the party perplexing. The rest expected Colin to be less taciturn than at college but between short spasms of small talk he was more so. He had not told them he was living with a woman yet the place had a feminine look. His father (who they met for the first time) served the meal with eager assistance from a small boy who said he was Bill Belfrage and that his mother had gone to fetch a friend and would turn up eventually.

“Her movements are sometimes slightly erratic,” he explained.

“Bill Belfrage!” said Doctor Schweik thoughtfully. “In my psychology class last term I had a student called Mavis Belfrage. Your mother perhaps?”

“Yes!”

“A good-looking woman who asked interesting questions but, as you say, was a little erratic. Who has she gone to fetch?”

Bill looked at Colin who seemed listening for a sound outside the room. Schweik repeated his question. Colin said, “I think he's called Evans.”

“Evans? Clive Evans? He used to sit beside Mavis in my psychology class and he too asked interesting questions. I look forward to meeting them once more.”

The other guests knew each other almost as little as they knew Colin. Schweik became the star of the party because he could talk with little or no help from others. After the meal three guests gave reasons for leaving early, the rest gathered near the fire. Bill, refusing to go to bed, dozed on an armchair with his hands in his pockets.

“For years no one has been a more radical critic of the system than myself,” said Schweik, “but an extended bureaucracy is no answer to the problems created by a bureaucracy.”

“I'm glad you said that. It so definitely did need saying,” said another lecturer who was inclined to fawn on Schweik.

“That was a lovely piece of meat Colin,” said the other lecturer's wife.

“These ego-powered rebellions change a few superficial details and leave us with even more unwieldy superstructures,” said Schweik. “Colin will
agree with me.”

“I'm trying to keep an open mind,” said Colin.

“Do you see a solution?” asked the other lecturer.

“None, because I see no problem. Our societies are shaped by technological evolution, the only effective historical manifestation of the human will when religion fails. Since the shaping process is often painful many feel compelled to exclaim and proclaim and campaign, especially in democracies where crushed worms are permitted to wriggle. But nobody is being badly crushed in comfortable little Britain where the Labour Party draws its strength from the support of the trade unions.”

“Do you know what you're talking about?” asked Gordon who was listening with an obvious mixture of amusement, boredom and exasperation.

“Unfortunately yes. And now I regret I can stay no longer,” said Schweik glancing at his wristwatch. “It is a pity. I would have liked to meet charming Mavis again. One remembers interesting students because the majority are dead timber, psychologically speaking.”

“So why teach them psychology?” asked Gordon.

“Ah Mr Kerr, we academics are entitled to question everyone but our paymasters!” said Schweik smiling and standing up. “May I offer you a lift into town Mr Kerr?”

“Very kind of you. Yes, you may. The last bus went twenty minutes ago.”

The guests left and Colin gently shook Bill awake saying, “Go upstairs Bill. I'll wait for her.”

“Pull yourself together,” said Bill, yawning. “Things aren't as bad as you think.”

He wandered off to bed. Colin waited.

At half past three she came home and looked into the living-room with the cool sympathy of a surgeon visiting a patient after an operation.

“Hullo,” she said.

“Hullo.”

“How did it go?”

“Can't you guess?”

“Yes. I suppose that's what frightened me away. You're brooding. You should be in bed.”

He neither moved nor looked at her. She said, “If you want me to apologize I will. I'll even try to be abject. Will I apologize?”

“No.”

“Then I may as well go to bed myself.”

On a gentler note she added, “Come to bed Colin. I'll be nice to you. You know I can be, sometimes.”

“No.”

“Well, good night. I ought to feel guilty but I've worn that feeling out. I told you I was a bitch at the very start, Colin.”

“Can you not
change
, Mavis?”

“O yes. One day I'll be old and lonely because nobody will find me attractive. Meanwhile you must either kick me out or let me stay. Brooding can't alter that.”

“It must.”

“Well, Colin, if you think of something don't wake me with it. I'm very tired.”

She went to bed and he continued thinking hard. The problem was that he could not sleep without her and could not join her in bed without loathing himself.

He wakened her at eighteen minutes past six, switching on the bedside light, sitting on the mattress edge and saying eagerly, “I know what to do, Mavis! I know what to do!”

Dazed and puzzled she opened her eyes saying, “What's happening?”

“Nothing. I've just worked out what to do. You see, you hurt and humiliated me tonight, publicly, without needing to. I won't be able to rest until I've hurt you back.”

With open right hand he smacked her on one cheek, with open left hand hit the other, then lay beside her watching the result. Since she neither cried nor winced the pain may not have been great. Her bewildered look did not change until suddenly blushing red all over she scrambled out of bed away from him, staring and stammering faintly, “You ..! You ..!”

She seized a hairbrush from the dressing-table and raised it defensively or threateningly, he could not say which but assured her, “I'm all right now. We're even. Now I can rest.”