The Gazebo (6 page)

NICHOLAS’S LAUGH WAS not quite steady.

‘Oh, just going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, like my namesake in the book of Job.’

She said with a kind of soft irrelevance,

‘Do you remember when you dressed up as the devil with horns and a tail and frightened Sophy’s birthday party into fits by turning out the lights at the main and coming in all daubed with phosphorescent paint?’

He laughed again.

‘It went with a bang!’

‘Because you had a squib at the end of your tail and when you let it off everyone screamed.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I can’t when things happen – I go stiff.’

‘The trouble with you, darling, is that you’re just a mass of inhibitions. You don’t scream, and you don’t cry, and you don’t climb on a chair when you see a mouse.’

‘I might if it was a spider.’

‘Spiders can run up chairs, but it’s only the little ones that have an urge that way. The large hairy ones are given over to sloth. They lurk and brood in baths and places where you want to wash. Let us return to your inhibitions. If you don’t get the better of them, they’ll end in turning you to stone. You know that, don’t you?’

She said, ‘Yes…’ from the very bottom of her heart.

‘What are we going to do about it, Allie?’

Her lips were stiff, but she made them move.

‘I don’t know…’

‘Sure? What about this?’ His arms came round her hard and strong. They held her up against him and she felt the beating of his heart. He didn’t kiss her, just held her there and looked into her eyes. She didn’t know what he saw in them, but she knew what she saw in his. It wasn’t any of the things she expected to see. Anger, mockery, passion – he had looked at her with all of these in his time. This look was different, and she couldn’t look away. He said,

‘What are we going to do about it, Allie?’

There wasn’t anything they could do about it. She said,

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s very strong. I didn’t know it was as strong as this. Did you?’

‘Yes…’

‘You ought to know. You did your best to kill it five years ago, and I’ve been having a go at it ever since. If it hadn’t been practically indestructible we ought to have been able to polish it off. I’ve been telling it just how dead it was for the last five years, but it doesn’t seem to have had the slightest effect.’

‘No…’

‘I only came down here because I had to. Emmy left all my things behind when she sold the house to Jack Harrison. I wasn’t going to come and see you, because I was afraid. And do you know why? I kidded myself that it was because I didn’t want to risk the whole thing starting again. But it wasn’t that. I was afraid that I might find out how dead everything really was. And what do you do when you’re left with a corpse on your hands? Very difficult things to get rid of corpses. I wasn’t going to risk it! And I needn’t have troubled, need I? The damned thing was not only alive, it was ramping. I had only got to see you across the room and there it was, shouting at the top of its voice and hurting like hell!’

He spoke with extraordinary velocity. The words drove, and checked, and found their way again, his voice quite low, his clasp of her unbroken, and through it all the heavy beating of his heart. Something in her that had been slowly freezing to death began to thaw. She felt a warmth and a relaxing. She couldn’t move away, she couldn’t move at all – they were too close. She laid her head against his sleeve and felt the tears run down. It was all that there could ever be between them, tears and parting and pain, but at least they were shared, they hadn’t to endure them alone.

He let go of her suddenly and stepped back.

‘Allie, you’re crying!’

No use to say she wasn’t with her face wet and the tears still running. She said,

‘Yes…’

‘You never cry!’

‘No…’

He broke into sudden shaken laughter.

‘Well, you’ve made a proper job of it now! Here, have my handkerchief. I don’t suppose you’ve got one – unless you’ve changed a lot.’

The linen was soft and cool. She held it to her face and said,

‘That’s just it, Nicky, I have changed – dreadfully…’

‘And how?’

‘I’ve got hard and cold – and – and resentful. I don’t like people any more – I don’t have friends. I’m not a bit the same as I used to be. You wouldn’t like me a bit. I don’t like myself.’

‘And who is to blame for that? She’s made a slave of you. Even Ella Harrison says so.’

She said, ‘Yes…’

The barriers were all down and nothing was there but the truth. Her tears had even washed away the futile pretence of girlish bloom. He could see her as she was, too thin, too pale, too old for her years. He said in a laughing voice,

‘Darling, some of the colour has got on to your nose. Here, you’d better let me have the handkerchief.’

All at once something happened. It was like a fresh wind blowing over her and carrying away all the morbid thoughts that had been crowding in her mind. She felt a thrusting impatience of them, she felt as if she couldn’t do with them any more.

Nicky was here, and he loved her, and the past was gone.

He finished drying her face and put the handkerchief back in his pocket.

‘Or perhaps you had better keep it.’

‘No, I’ve got one – I really have. Nicky, we ought to go back.’

‘No – we’re going to talk. You will sit and I will sit, and we’ll get down to brass tacks. But you’re not to cry any more, because it interferes with rational conversation. And just in case anyone comes you’d better powder your nose. I suppose you’ve got something in that bag of yours?’

She opened it and took out the compact he had given her for Christmas, a month before the crash. When she had finished with it he took it out of her hand.

‘I’ve seen that before. Did I give it to you?’

She nodded, and he dropped it back into the bag with the comment, ‘Quite a long time since I handled one of those. Joyous reunion!’ His tone was light, with a tinge of malice.

She said quickly,

‘Nicky, where have you been?’

‘I told you.’

‘Nicky…’

‘Darling, we’ll keep it for the winter evenings. A serial in umpteen instalments. You will be enthralled, enchanted, intimidated, and at times appalled. There really won’t be a dull moment.’

‘Nicky, I saw an article in the Janitor signed “Rolling Stone.” Was that you?’

He nodded.

‘I thought it was. I went on getting the paper, because I thought there might be some more. After the second one I was sure they were yours, but they didn’t come out at all regularly.’

‘Darling, the wonder is that they ever came out at all. My very best one never arrived. Of course I can’t prove it, but I believe what happened to it was that my messenger took it to the local medicine man, who boiled it down for the use of some of his more exclusive patients. You see, my reputation was very high in those parts and anything I wrote was considered to be extremely strong magic. But we won’t anticipate the winter evenings. What we’ve got to do now is to talk business. Now listen! When are you going to marry me?’

‘Nicky…’

‘No, you had better not say anything rash! Besides I’ve heard it all before, and it’s damned nonsense! Five years ago you were an earnest young fool and I was a hotheaded one. And your mother put it across us good and proper! I must say, looking at it dispassionately, that she put up a very talented performance, ably assisted by Barrington, one of the most gullible old women in the medical profession.’

‘Nicky …’

‘Darling, it’s not the slightest use your saying Nicky to me in that tone of voice. The gloves are off and the sword is out of the scabbard, and any other nice mixed metaphors you can think of. In other words, we’re going to have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Your mother started trying to separate us seven years ago. She made you believe that she had only a short time to live, and that it was your duty to stay with her. After this had gone on for two years there was a final blow-up. I’d been worn down to the point of saying we would live at Grove Hill and I’d go up and down to my job on the Janitor. Right at the end I lost my head to the extent of suggesting we should take over the top floor of the house. I must have been crazy, but she wouldn’t even have that. She threw a heart attack, and Barrington said she might die if she went on agitating herself about your getting married. Of course what he ought to have done was to tell us to get on with it and confront her with a fait accompli. She was, and is, much too fond of herself to take any serious risks once she knew the game was up.’

‘Nicky… Nicky… what is the use…’ She wasn’t crying now, just sitting there, her hands slack in her lap, her eyes imploring him.

‘Quite a lot. That is a statement of the situation up to date, just to make sure that we are both thinking on the same lines. Now we’ll get down to what we are going to do about it.’

‘There isn’t anything we can do. Everything is just the same as it was five years ago. Mother hasn’t changed, and she won’t.’

He laughed.

‘Don’t be nonsensical! Five years – no, as much as seven years ago – she was supposed to be going to die at any moment. Well, she didn’t, and she hasn’t and she isn’t going to. Ella says she takes a lot of care of herself and keeps you waiting on her hand and foot. She’ll probably live to an ornamental ninety, with everyone running her errands and saying how wonderful she is. I don’t want to say anything I oughtn’t to, but if people can only prolong their lives by being vampires and sucking the last drop of blood out of everyone round them they would be a great deal better dead.’

‘Nicky!’

‘Well, they would! But you needn’t worry – she’ll live as long as she can! And what we’re going to do is what we ought to have done five years ago – first find her a companion, next walk round the corner and get married. You can have three days to break the companion in, and then we go off on our honeymoon. If your mother behaves well, we’ll find something here. I’m writing a book and going on contributing to the Janitor. If she doesn’t behave well, we’ll go and live on the other side of London, and Barrington and the companion can have her all to themselves. My own feeling is that once she knows it’s no go she’ll be all out to make the best terms she can. You see, it’s really quite easy.’

She shook her head slowly.

‘She wants to sell the house,’ she said.

‘And go on a cruise. I know – Ella told me.’

‘We’ve had a very good offer. Mother seems to have told Mr Martin that she would like to go on a cruise, and he sent up a Mr and Mrs Blount with an order to view. Mr Blount says his wife has taken a fancy to the house, and every time I say we don’t want to sell he offers more. He has got up to seven thousand.’

‘That’s fantastic!’

‘I know. It worries me. There are two houses just round the corner in Linden Road, and they are practically the same as ours. Mr Martin says the Blounts won’t even go and look at them. And this morning a man came round with an order from Jones, the other agent. I told him about the Linden Road houses, and he said he wasn’t interested – what he wanted was The Lodge. He said he used to pass it when he was a boy and think he would like to live there.’

‘You don’t want to sell?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

She looked distressed.

‘It would be so difficult. You see the house is mine, and that has always been a grievance. But as long as we’re living in it the grievance is more or less in the background and she can pretend that it isn’t there. But if the house was sold and the money was in the bank in my name it would be quite dreadful. She is already talking about using some of it for this cruise and saying of course the only thing to do with capital is to live on it.’

He said quickly, ‘She can’t do that if it’s yours.’

She moved her hands as if she was pushing something away.

‘If I once said that, it would be the end – it really would. There would be the most terrible scene. She would never forget it, and she would never forgive me. No, I shall just have to tell Mr Martin that I won’t sell, no matter what they offer, and leave it at that. I shall have to remind him that the house is mine, and ask him not to talk to my mother any more.’

He leaned forward and took her hands.

‘When will you marry me?’

‘Nicky, I can’t!’

‘I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense! My Uncle Oswald has left me a competence. He is the one who was my guardian. I never liked him – nobody did. He used to quarrel with everyone and make a new will every six months or so. Owing to my being off the map I missed my turn in the quarrels, and the current will left me quite a lot of money. We can buy your mother a companion and be able to live very comfortably on what is left. We shall in fact be affluent, because every thing has been piling up whilst I was away.’

Just for a moment it all seemed possible. She and Nicky would have their own house. She would have her own life. There would be children. Her mother would be reasonable – she might even go on a cruise with the companion. The prison doors were opening – Nicky was opening them, and she could walk out. And then she woke up and knew that it was a dream. People don’t suddenly turn reasonable and unselfish. She had given way for too long to make a stand now. She said in an exhausted voice,

‘She won’t ever let me go.’

His grasp tightened until it hurt. He said in a vicious undertone,

‘She isn’t going to be asked. Five years ago I was a boy and a fool. This time it’s going to be different. She can like it, or she can lump it. If she wants to destroy herself she can. I’m going to get you away if I’ve got to smash her and everything else in sight.’

He had his back to the door, but Althea was facing it. She saw it opening and she pulled on her hands to get them away, but she was too late. The door swung in and Myra Hutchinson stood there. She was more like a poster than ever – bronze hair, scarlet lipstick, and a dress with a halter-neck in a surprising shade of green. She had been laughing, but the laugh had stopped half way. It had stopped because of what she had just heard Nicholas say. She said ‘Oh!’ and he looked over his shoulder and grinned at her.