The Bachelors (17 page)

‘Disgusting,’
Alice whispered. ‘Onions.’

They
laughed as they sat in the darkening room, in a down-scale trill, one following
the other.

It wasn’t
funny at the time,’ Elsie whispered. ‘He didn’t go right on to the end in case
I got a baby, I suppose. That’s what makes me really upset; when they go so far
and no farther.’

‘You
don’t want a baby without a man to marry you,’ Alice said.

‘It
makes you feel there’s not much of a man in them when they only go so far.’

‘If
Patrick wasn’t the man he is,’ Alice said, ‘he wouldn’t be much of a
man.’

‘I
always said he wasn’t much of a man to look at. Thin about the thighs. You can’t
disguise it.’

‘But he’s
so different to other men. Patrick treats you with a difference.’

‘Oh
yes, he’s all talk. Still, talk makes a difference. Father Socket talks
beautifully. That’s what gets me, Alice. The boys are after one thing and one
thing only, but a man who’s a bit older and can talk, and if he’s got a
beautiful voice…’

They
sat hand-in-hand on the window seat and looked down on the lights of long Ebury
Street.

‘Yes,’
Alice said, ‘I suppose the main thing about Patrick is the talk.’

‘Do you
think he’s going to marry you?’

‘Of
course. As soon as the divorce comes through.’

‘I can’t
believe in that divorce, you know.’

‘What d’you
mean?’

‘Are
you sure he’s got a wife?’

‘He
says so.’

‘You
don’t look well, Alice.’

‘No, it’s
difficult for a diabetic in pregnancy. I’ve got a craving for parsnips, too. I’d
like a whole plate of parsnips.’

‘Aren’t
you afraid of Patrick?’

‘Afraid?
What is there to be afraid of?’

‘Well,
nothing that you know about. It’s all those things you don’t know about him.
They say, about his forgeries—’

‘Yes,’
said Alice’s voice in the dark, ‘I’m afraid of the things I don’t know. I don’t
want to know.’

‘I feel
the same,’ Elsie said as she sat, almost invisible, ‘about the Master.’

‘You’re
not tied to him,’ Alice said, ‘like I am to Patrick.’

‘But
there’s a bond between the Master and me.’

‘He’s
got a hold on you,’ Alice said. ‘Shall we put the light on?’

‘Not
yet,’ Elsie said. ‘I go on Thursdays and I do a bit of typing and then I stop.
And he talks and reads poetry. Then I do a bit more typing. Then he reads me a
bit of what he’s just written of his spiritual autobiography.’

‘Patrick
recites poetry,’ Alice said.

‘Father
Socket’s voice is beautiful. He was brought up in a big rectory and he broke
away from the Church of England. It’s true you don’t have to go to church to
believe in God. I agree with that. Father Socket knows psychology.’

‘Put on
the light,’ Alice said, and, when Elsie had switched on the light she jumped
from her seat, and now they spoke aloud.

‘He
ought to pay you for all that work. We’re both of us far too soft,’ Alice said.

‘It’s a
labour of love,’ Elsie said. ‘I’m going to his flat tomorrow afternoon. He
asked me specially to come, so I’ve put off the coffee bar.’

‘That’s
money down the drain,’ Alice said. ‘At least Patrick gives me a bit of money.’

‘So he
ought, in your condition. But where does he get the money?’

‘I don’t
know,’ Alice said.

‘He’s
hiding something from you,’ Elsie said.

‘There’s
always something hidden,’ Alice said, in such a way that Elsie was startled,
uncertain whether Alice knew about the letter concealed in her handbag. She
looked at Alice, to make sure, but Alice was holding her stomach and pulling
her face with indigestion.

The
gilt sunlight which sometimes happens in November poured through the window of
Father Socket’s flat on Saturday afternoon. Elsie waited, withering, in the
sitting room, listening to the voices coming now from the spare bedroom where
apparently the stranger was lodged. Father Socket must have put him up for the
night, and here he was staying on to the afternoon and keeping him back from
his work.

Then
she knew, of course, with a kind of exasperation, that the stranger was one of
the Master’s friends, and that they were all perverts, and she had really known
it all along.

The
voices rose to the pitch of a quarrel of which Elsie could not make out all the
words. She went and stood by the door, the better to hear. ‘… where to draw
the line, Mike… appearance’s sake… the girl is…’ and then a door closed,
muting the voices to a querulous rise and fall. This filled her with irritation
and impatience. She was inclined to leave the flat with a banging of doors, or
at least to bang one door as a token. But then she thought of the letter in her
handbag, and what palpitations she had gone through to obtain it, what risks
taken. She had looked forward all the previous day and part of the night to her
triumphant casual opening of her handbag and the producing of the letter before
the astonished eyes of the Master.

Last
week he had said, ‘Do you know the man well?’

‘I’ve
seen him in the coffee bar. He’s quite nice. He works in a handwriting museum.’

‘Ah
yes,’ said Father Socket, ‘in the City.’

‘He isn’t
very strong. He takes fits. He’s quite nice-looking, but a bit odd, you know,
fussy in his ways. You can tell from the way they put their sugar in the
coffee, and stir it, and place the spoon back in the saucer. And his paper
neatly folded with his umbrella and all that. A confirmed bachelor. Not that I
mean anything by that. He’s a friend of a friend of mine, an Irish fellow
called Matthew Finch.’

‘And
this man’s name?’

‘Ronald
somebody. Well, Matthew was in the “Oriflamme” with him the other night, and
talking to Alice. He was talking about this letter that Patrick Seton wrote.
Ronald is to test it for forgery. The police gave it to him and___’

‘Not
the police, surely. It would be in the hands of the police solicitor. Unless
the case is in abeyance, in which case, possibly the police…’

‘One or
the other. So Ronald’s got this letter that Patrick forged. Alice was upset and
I saw her next day. She wants to try to get the letter back through Matthew. Matthew
is keen on Alice.’

Father
Socket had thought this unwise. So, when she came to talk it over with him, had
Elsie.

‘Alice
may even go a long way with Matthew,’ she said, ‘to get that letter.’

‘Do you
know where this Ronald lives?’ Father Socket had said.

‘I
could find out.’

‘I
should like to have a look at that letter myself,’ he said.

‘Would
you?’ she said.

Here,
then, she was with the letter in her handbag, and Father Socket quarrelling in
the spare bedroom with the big man in the green and white striped dressing-gown,
and she sitting waiting like a fool, having lost an afternoon’s work at the
coffee-bar.

She
opened the door of the sitting-room and bumped into Father Socket just as he
was about to enter. His small face looked puffy and red. He looked suspicious
at finding her so near to the door and seemed convinced she had been listening
to the quarrel.

‘I’ve
been waiting a long time, Father,’ she said.

‘Oh,
poor creature! Oh, poor creature! I am so very sorry. Come and sit down.’

He wore
his best cassock and his broad hips swung under it as he put to rights a deep
pink chrysanthemum which had fallen from its vase.

He
turned and jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the stranger in the
other room. The gesture startled Elsie, for she had never seen the Master
anything but utterly dignified. He mouthed and breathed a message to her,
contorting his face as if she were a lip-reader. ‘My — friend’s — up — set. Won’t
— remove — dressing-gown.’

‘Who is
he, Father?’ Elsie said in a normal voice.

He
hunched his shoulders and flapped his hands to hush her.

She
whispered, ‘Who is he?’

The
Master jerked his thumb once more over his shoulder and was about to convey a reply
when Mike Garland walked in. He still wore his bright dressing-gown.

‘Ah,
Mike,’ said Father Socket, pulling himself straight, ‘come and meet my
amanuensis Miss Elsie Forrest. Dr. Garland, Miss Forrest.’

‘We’ve
already met, at the door,’ Elsie said.

‘How do
you do,’ Mike said. He sat down defiantly.

‘Something
unforeseen has arisen,’ Father Socket said to Elsie, ‘and so I’m afraid I’ve
brought you here on a wild-goose chase, my dear, this afternoon. However, I
will make some tea and I must read you my new translation of Horace. Where did
I put it?’

‘I’ll
make tea,’ Elsie said.

‘I
shall prepare some tea,’ Mike said. Elsie noticed as he left the room that he
wore lipstick.

‘Have
you received any information from young Matthew?’ Father Socket said to her
softly when Mike had left the room.

‘Matthew?’

‘Or
young Ronald? — The letter I mean. I don’t’ of course want Mike to know
anything about this. —But you haven’t had time to investigate the possibility
of obtaining it….’

Elsie
clutched her handbag, indignant and very put out, especially by Mike’s
lipstick. ‘No, I haven’t any news,’ she said. ‘I expect the letter is locked
away somewhere safely.’

Father
Socket sighed and looked at the carpet.

‘Poor
Patrick Seton!’ he said. ‘He does need taking care of. I feel if I could get
matters in hand I could do something for Patrick.’

‘He isn’t
any good to Alice. I don’t mind if he gets sent for trial!’

‘Hush,’
said Father Socket, looking at the door.

‘I’d
like to see Alice rid of him,’ she said, sitting down in a hard high chair, ‘good
medium though he is, he’s—’

‘Ah,’
said Father Socket, ‘Patrick has many enemies.’ Again he jerked his thumb over
his shoulder and mouthed, ‘He’s — one of— them.’ He pulled his spine straight
in his chair and said, ‘But I am not an enemy. What Patrick needs is
control.
Someone ought to control him. Find out about that letter, my dear, find
out. If once we know where it is—where young Ronald keeps it, I daresay we
should be able to obtain it. I am thinking in dear Patrick’s best interests. I
have no wish to impede the course of the law of the kingdom, but the laws of
the spirit come first, we ought to serve God rather than man, we must—— Ah —
tea!’ He rose to admit the tinkling tea-tray with Mike rosily proceeding behind
it.

During
tea, Elsie ate a slice of walnut cake very quickly because she was so very
upset inside at the sight of Mike in his highly sexual attire. She clutched her
handbag all the closer, and was damned if she would part with the letter now
that Father Socket had let her down so badly. Be damned to his paternal
solicitude for dear Patrick. She should have known before, indeed she had
really, inside, known all along that the Master was homosexual as Alice had
said. She could have put up with it, even preferred it, if he had no sex at
all, was above sex, but if there was one thing she detested…

Father
Socket, meanwhile, said, ‘Let me read you my little translation of the
much-translated Horace, one, nine. Mine pays special attention to alliterative
quantities…’

The
impudence of it, Elsie thought, talking round me all these months, and reading
his poetry, and there I’ve been typing out his papers, page after page,
Thursday after Thursday…

‘Mount Soracte’s
dazzling snow,’ boomed Father Socket in his reading voice, ‘piling upon the
branches…’

‘Stroking
my hair and saying, “There, my child,” week after week, and putting on,’
thought Elsie, ‘the holiness and spiritual life and all that.’

‘So, Thaliarch…’
said Father Socket.

Elsie
swallowed the last of her cake and washed it down with the last of her tea. She
gathered together her gloves and clutched her handbag. Father Socket, without
interrupting his reading, moved one hand to bid her sit still. In her distress
she had swallowed a whole walnut off the top of the cake, and it went down in a
lump, causing her face to go red. Mike Garland looked at her and smiled with
one half of his mouth.

Father
Socket read ‘on,

‘All else trust to the gods by whose command

Contending winds and seething seas desist,

Until the sacred cypress-tree

And ancient ash no longer quake.’

Father Socket interrupted
himself to tap the paper with his forefinger. ‘Now the cypress tree
was
sacred,’
he said, ‘and although Horace…’

Elsie
rose and sped to the door.

‘Elsie!
’ said Father Socket, in a kind of wail, letting his paper drop.