The Rules of Engagement (32 page)

“
Oh, no. And anyway I don't want
him to think of me as ill. He hates illness.
Even when one of the children is ill he's quite
squeamish. So I probably shan't bother him
until I'm home again. Of course if he
turns up that's a different matter.
”

“
Q
uite
. Give them my name by all means.
”

There was a pause which seemed to me significant.

“
Are you sure it's nothing serious?
”

“
Well, I don't think so. As I say,
discomfort, rather than anything else. A little pain,
perhaps. I didn't know what to make of it. I've
never been ill before. I'm quite healthy, really.
”

“
I'll be along to see you. When are you going
in?
”

“
Tomorrow. Leave it for a day or two. They'll
want to do these tests.
”
There was another pause.
“
You will come, won't you?
”
This time the voice was
wistful, as if she had shed all her irritating
adult mannerisms and had reverted to being the girl
not yet damaged by the ways of the world. That was my
thought at the time: damage. And in a moment that
summoned up our previous history I wished that
we were both still our uncorrupted selves, before the
onset of calculation. I too was damaged, if
only by the decisions I had made. These
decisions had not been fatal, but neither had they
been innocent. I had always been conscious of the work
that time, that enemy, can do, or rather undo. Now I
had the sensation of being rather more implicated in its
processes than I had previously
recognized.

“
Let me know if there's anything you want,
”
I said.
“
I'll see you in a couple of
days.
”

Even a couple of days seemed a difficult
prospect. I stood, with the now silent
telephone in my hand, unwilling to move, wishing
the previous untroubled hours back again, wanting
to be on my own. When I heard Nigel's
steps on the stairs I was conscious of the need
to greet him in my familiar disguise, that of a
person of good will whom he thought he knew, whose good
faith he was beginning to trust. And really nothing had
changed, apart from that seismic revelation that I was
no longer secure, that there was no direct menace
other than that provided by the unknown, the
accidental, the change that must be investigated,
subjected to
“
tests.
”
In this process I
was as vulnerable as Betsy, even though the hour had
not yet struck.

A voice. Not Nigel's. Edmund's.

“
Your door was open.
”

“
I'm expecting a friend. He should be back in
a moment or two.
”

“
Very unwise, leaving your door
open. I shan't keep you long.
”

“
You came about Betsy, of course.
”

He looked tired, even haggard.
“
I must
get home. We're going out to dinner.
”

“
Ah, yes. How is Constance?
”

“
Don't look at me like that,
Elizabeth.
”

“
What do you want from me, Edmund? I'll
go and see Betsy, of course. I rather gather that you
won't.
”

He sat down heavily.
“
This is a bad time
for me.
”
I could see that it was.
“
It has
damaged my family for ever. I bear the
burden.
”

“
So does everyone else, I rather imagine.
”

“
I thought it could be kept within limits.
”

“
Men always do.
”

“
Instead of which she has, deliberately or
otherwise, not understood my situation.
”

“
She had her own to consider.
”

“
She rings up the girls. God knows what
she says to them.
”

“
She is a decent woman. She would not do
anything underhand.
”

“
Constance may not forgive me. I have to take
notice of that.
”

“
What will you do?
”

His hands, which I remembered acutely at that
moment, went up to cover his face, to rub his
eyes.

“
I know what has to be done.
”

“
Can't you tell me?
”

“
No, I can't drag you into this. You're not
involved.
”

“
I am, you know. Not just with Betsy. With you.
I have never doubted it. I don't doubt it
now.
”

He stood up, shocked out of his misery. This
scene of tacit complicity was what greeted
Nigel when he returned.

“
Edmund is just leaving,
”
I said, but with a
voice that hovered between terror and confidence.
“
I'll see you out.
”
In that moment the future
was banished. In the hallway we spoke in lowered
voices, conspirators.

“
You'll go and see her?
”

“
Not you?
”

“
I may have to go away on business. If
there's any change, of course, you'll let me
know.
”

“
Is she really ill?
”

“
I don't know. She looks pale,
certainly.
”

“
You've just come from there?
”

“
Yes.
”

He made the supreme mistake of handing me
his card, which I thrust angrily into the nearest
telephone directory, knowing that I should not bother
to retrieve it. He went on to compound the
mistake by laying a heavy hand on my shoulder, a
gesture which he obviously thought appropriate
to the circumstances. And yet there was intimacy there,
as well as deliberation. Distantly I heard
Nigel clearing his throat in the living-room.
When Edmund was half-way down the stairs I
shouted,
“
Who's paying for this?
”
His upturned
face was creased with sorrow.
“
Provision has
been made,
”
he said.

I stood in the hall until I heard the outer
door close, then his steps on the pavement, then
the car starting up.
“
Provision has been
made,
”
he said. To make provision:
to provide for. So Edmund had been contributing
to Betsy's life in more ways than one. I was
profoundly shocked, as if giving money to a
woman implied yet more intimate
responsibility. I had not understood this, although
I might have done. Money was not anything Betsy
had earned or inherited. The strange equality that
existed between us was not a matter of our respective
resources. It was both deeper and more troubled than
that. He had also said,
“
I know what has to be
done.
”
This was equally shocking, hinting at the
stirrings of conscience. Did he mean to marry her,
to escape from Constance and her dinner parties? To me
he had merely given his card, as if I were a
business acquaintance, or a client. I knew
that I would never forgive him for that.

“
Where are you?
”
said Nigel, coming out to find
me.
“
Why were you shouting?
”

“
I just remembered something I should have told
him.
”

“
I have never heard you raise your voice before.
Who was that?
”

“
Someone I used to know,
”
I said. When I
looked up and saw his face I knew that I had
made a mistake.
“
Dinner is not ready,
I'm afraid. Shall we go round to the
restaurant?
”
For it was important to get us
both out of the flat, to observe an
interval that might otherwise be filled with questions.
Yet it was time for questions to be asked, if there were
to be more honesty between us. I suspected that he had
already come to his own drastic conclusions about my
association with Edmund: that wordless confrontation,
even more than my conspiratorial manners on the
stairs, would have convinced him that I was concealing a
liaison of which he had previously known nothing.
In a sense he was correct, though all this was
long in the past and of no immediate relevance. But he was
the sort of man who expects and demands full
disclosure, in the manner of the account of himself he
had given me, obviously hoping to convince me that
I need not fear further revelations. This had
satisfied him, as he had supposed that it would
satisfy me. But I knew that this was of no
further interest, that I should have been rather more aware of
him had there been signs of conflict in his account,
and also in his present behaviour. He now appeared
to me as a man of little emotional energy (though I
had already been conscious of this) and I had to ask
myself whether I could live the rest of my life with
such latency. What brief signs of impatience
and dissatisfaction he ever betrayed were confined to the
dilemmas he saw portrayed on television.
I had thought it curious that a man of such obvious
strength of purpose should let himself be persuaded
by such ersatz sensations.
I had not previously thought this anomalous, but
now I did so. Perhaps it was not significant;
what was significant was that I now knew that I
could not tolerate this level of conversation and
preoccupation as my staple evening diet. Of his
virtues I remained convinced; what I now
perceived was a certain determined superficiality.
He had decided that I had no history that need
concern him. He was less sure now. My stance,
with my back to him as he came upon Edmund and
myself, and, if he had caught it, Edmund's
brief spark of appraisal, of involuntary
memory, would have spelled out some kind of wordless knowledge
that could only presuppose long acquaintance. And
that was true; his conclusion was entirely correct.
It would now fall to him to adjust all his
attitudes, and if necessary to withdraw whatever favour
he was granting me. Any explanation that I had
to offer
—
that we were discussing the fate of a sick friend
—
would not excuse that stance, that look. He had
further work to do on himself in the light of these new
facts, work that might exclude me
altogether.

This did not seem to be my problem, and yet it
was. The sight of Edmund had revealed the
different nature of the two men, and their different
appeal. Edmund was essentially a transient, and
I had always known that. Nigel was what would do
duty as my next of kin. He would stand by me in
all circumstances, but only if I fulfilled
certain moral requirements. I could see the
advantages of such a settled arrangement, but
I could no longer see the attraction. I might
do better on my own, with my own knowledge to guide me.
For I was still processing the past: it had not
left me. In a sense it had revived; my
long-dead feelings were once again active, and I
could no longer bear to let them go. And I should have
to do so if I were to have any sort of future with this
man. I foresaw with something like dread the day when we
would agree that he should move into the flat with me,
inaugurating a lifetime of domesticity in which our
respective roles would be decreed by immortal
custom. I could see him reading the evening paper,
seated in Digby's chair, while I busied
myself in the kitchen. I could also see that in time I
might be tempted to attend fictitious evening
classes, not necessarily in order to meet a
lover, but rather to escape the dead weight of
Nigel's presence.