A Word Child (29 page)

‘I think he only knew my mother for a short time. She said he was a Pakistani, but she called everybody a Pakistani.'

‘Milk chocolate Biscuit. Here, give me your hands.' Biscuit had taken her gloves off and now her two little skinny warm hands had burrowed into the sleeves of my overcoat and were holding onto my wrists. ‘And your mother?'

‘She died. She was a waitress.'

‘And how did Lady Kitty manage to acquire you?'

‘I was a cleaner, I did cleaning in houses, I did in her house when she was a young lady. I was fifteen. She thought I was pretty and she wanted me.'

‘She saw you and she wanted you and she got you?'

‘Her parents gave me to her as a Christmas present — '

‘Dear Biscuit!'

‘To be her little maid, like giving her a toy or something to play with.'

‘A playmate.'

‘A plaything.' She spoke entirely without irony, without bitterness or any intent to wit, in the curious objective open truthful-sounding manner which I now seemed to know so well and in which she could utter both truth and lies. Her voice had indeed the flat twang of east London, but her speech had some more ancient simplicity or perhaps it had just been in some way maimed or gutted as a result of living for so many years among educated people without being one of them.

‘But you don't mind, Biscuitine, you aren't unhappy? You must be devoted to her — '

‘Of course I am devoted to her,' said Biscuit, in the same even oddly authoritative voice, and she withdrew her hands from my sleeves. ‘She does with me what she will.'

‘I expect she does that with most people.'

‘But one day I shall go away.'

‘How will that be?'

‘I will meet a man who will take me away.'

‘Poor Biscuit. Have you been waiting for him all these years, your prince, poor disinherited princess?' The words were cruel, as I knew when I had uttered them. And yet her enigmatic dignity did not evoke pity. Suddenly I thought and uttered my thought. ‘Not me — darling Biscuit — I can't be him.'

‘I know.' She got up. ‘You see, you love her. They always do.' She began to walk away towards the bridge.

I went after her and caught the sleeve of her coat. ‘Biscuit, don't spoil things.'

‘What things?'

‘Don't — Don't — It's such a lovely day.'

A quartet of Canada geese whizzed under the bridge and took the water with a noisy checked flurry.

‘Biscuit, has Lady Kitty talked to you about me? Has she told you why she wants to talk to me? It's not perhaps — what you think at all. Has she told you anything?'

‘No.' We watched the geese fussily settling their wings. ‘I think nothing. She has told me nothing. Why should she. I am a servant.'

‘A plaything. A toy. Come! Biscuit, I may not be the prince but I do love you. I do. Is that any good?'

She smiled, first at the geese and then at me. ‘No.'

It was exactly six p.m. I had not returned to the flat for I feared an invasion by Tommy. I would have liked to shave again but by six o'clock this did not matter any more. I had been walking the embankment since five and was sick and faint with anxiety. It was a cold clear night and some stars were visible over the river. My limbs were restless and twitching with a chill ague, and I was fidgety and nervous with dread. I had resisted the temptation of the King's Head. I had eaten practically no lunch. This was no moment for seeking alcoholic inspiration. I must be chaste and cool. As it was I had reduced myself to a shuddering wreck with hunger and with cold.

My teeth were chattering. I pressed the iron gate and walked up to the door and rang the bell. Biscuit opened the door and a rush of warm air came out. Biscuit could not possibly have been wearing a white apron and a white starched cap and streamers, but the effect was somehow the same. She looked at me coldly. ‘Will you come in, please? Madam is upstairs.'

‘Come off it, Biscuit.'

‘Put your coat here, please. Madam is upstairs.'

‘Well, kindly tell Madam to come down,' I said. ‘I am not coming in.'

Biscuit turned expressionlessly towards the staircase, leaving me standing in the doorway. After a moment's hesitation I drew the door to without shutting it and went back down the path and through the gate and waited on the pavement. I looked up at the well curtained windows of the first floor where a little line of golden light was showing.

I had thought this out beforehand. I could not possibly enter Gunnar's house. My presence there without his knowledge would be an outrage. And how could I possibly talk to Kitty while listening for Gunnar's key in the door? I would be in continual fear in his house, suspecting his presence in darkened alcoves or behind screens. It was not that I rationally imagined that I would be walking into some sort of trap. I just did not want to step onto his territory at all. And I did not want to see his wife in the context of a conjugal home. Better the blasted heath for whatever conversation we were to have together.

I waited for what seemed a long time. Then Kitty slipped out of the door and closed it behind her. She was wearing the magnificent fur coat, pulled to her waist by the metal belt, and a scarf over her head. She came swiftly down the path, smiling, as if my refusal to enter had been the most usual thing in the world. ‘How kind of you to come.'

‘How kind of you to ask me.'

‘Shall we walk on the embankment?'

‘Yes, if you will.'

‘You needn't be afraid to come in, you know. Gunnar is dining at Chequers.'

‘I would rather talk to you out here.'

‘I quite understand.'

We went through the garden and across the road and approached the embankment wall. The tide was in and very full, upon the turn, and the black water moved slowly just below the wall, turning back meditatively towards the sea.

I did not want to stay near the house, and we walked on a bit in silence until we reached a wooden jetty which stretched out into the river, with one or two launches moored and bobbing beside it. There was a light halfway down the jetty. We passed the light and moved on into darkness. The water was all about us now, we could hear it splashing below our feet, gently slapping at the structure of the jetty.

‘What a pleasant region of London you live in,' I said. The shuddering and chattering had quite gone. I felt perfectly calm, even warm. A thrilling current of sheer joy came from the woman beside me and warmed my whole body and made it tingle with well-being. I could look at her, at the gorgeous soft coat with its turned up collar, at the slim waist and the way her pulled-in scarf had made her face seem thinner, more hawk-like. I could smell her perfume. Our steamy breaths, pumped out into the night air, mingled.

Hands in pockets she replied, ‘Yes, it is delightful, isn't it. I used to live in Chelsea when I was a child.'

When she had coveted a little Indian girl and received her as a Christmas present.

We were silent for a moment, not awkwardly, looking at each other. I could just make out her face, her long nose, the flash of her eyeballs, in the dimness.

I said, ‘How is Gunnar? Does he want to see me?'

‘That's just the question,' said Kitty. ‘That is what I want to talk to you about.' As if there might have been hundreds of other possible topics of conversation. ‘Gunnar is in a frenzy.'

‘Oh God.' She was going to tell me it was all no good, and then to say good-bye.

‘He is in a perfect frenzy. He cannot think about anything but you.'

‘Does he want to kill me?'

‘Sometimes.'

I thought to myself, suppose I were to offer myself to Gunnar's rage, like a hare jumping into a fire? Was that what Kitty wanted? Was she pleased that Gunnar wanted to kill me? Perhaps. Women could be like that.

I spoke coolly. ‘Am I then to assume that our little meeting in his room was not a success? He told you of it, I imagine?'

‘Yes, of course. But he is in a frenzy, he is totally confused and obsessed, he doesn't know what he wants, or what he will do. He didn't then. When you spoke to him he had to see you, but — '

‘He didn't know whether to talk to me or to strangle me?'

‘Exactly.'

‘Well, what am I to do now? You said I should try to see him. I have. He hated it. What next, if anything?'

‘Please don't be so impatient, Hilary.'

Her use of my name nearly sent me spinning off into the water. I wanted suddenly to turn right round like someone in a dance. I think I gave a sort of gasp.

‘I may call you “Hilary”, mayn't I?'

‘Of course. I'm not impatient. I'm prepared to hang on indefinitely if it's any good. But what can I do? Have you discussed it, have you tried to persuade him to see me?'

‘Oh yes, we've immensely discussed it, we've had such long long talks about you.'

What a vista.

‘You see,' she went on, ‘as I told you, we've been thinking about you for years. That's partly why I called you “Hilary” just now.'

Partly? And had they been thus bandying my name in their long talks ‘for years'? I felt a mixture of humility and exasperation which made me want to bow my head and mean, but the coolness persisted. We were still facing each other like two antagonists. She had thrown her head back and the scarf had fallen to her shoulders releasing the tumble of dark hair. Her hands were still deep in her pockets.

I did not pick up any of these fascinating matters. I said rather brusquely, ‘Well, I came here for instructions and you seem to have none.'

‘I am frightfully sorry. I know the whole thing is a terrible imposition, a terrible — impertinence.'

What a ridiculous word. I felt I wanted to laugh with despair. I was spending these privileged minutes of my life in her presence and I was behaving like a stolid churl and we could not communicate and she would never and could never know how I felt and had perhaps even the impression that I was annoyed with her. Wanting to scream I stood very still. The traffic rumbled along the embankment but the plopping meditating tide-turning river spoke of silence.

‘Lady Kitty,' I said, ‘it is for me to be sorry. I will do anything I can to help you and Gunnar. Shall I try to see him again? Shall I write to him?'

‘No, no. Just wait. The fact is that — things are now in motion. It is very good that you saw him in the office, that was brave of you and I am so pleased. It was a fearful shock, but good. You see, he is moving now, it is sort of dynamic, he can't rest, he'll decide something soon, he'll have to, it will be too much for him not to, he will have to see you in order to break the spell.'

This was not altogether reassuring. It also occurred to me that so far Kitty had had nothing to say to me which could not have been conveyed in a note via Biscuit just saying
Wait.
I wondered if there was more to come. I certainly hoped so. I dreaded her now saying good-bye. Soon, in any case, there would be between us a good-bye which was good-bye forever. Perhaps it was this one, which was now in an instant coming. I clenched my fists, trying hard to think of something important to say.

‘I wanted to talk to you,' she said rather abruptly, as if we had not hitherto been talking.

‘Anything you will.'

Kitty began to pace to and fro, her shoes striking the frosty boards with a muted hollow sound.

‘You see,' she went on, ‘the strange thing is, well I suppose it's not strange, that you're the only person I can talk to about certain things. Of course I've talked to Gunnar, as I told you, but between us there's only a sort of narrow area — I mean, we discuss the same things over and over, about how Gunnar feels, about whether time makes any difference, whether he feels better than he did a year ago, whether seeing this or that psychiatrist has done any good and so on and so on. It's been like living with a disease. Can you understand? Am I boring you?'

‘Don't be silly,' I said.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I mean that in some awful sense it is boring, dreadful but boring and somehow hopeless. Any deep obsession is boring. One is always in the same place saying the same things, going round and round in the same routine, and one wants to break out, one wants a huge absolute change and that's just what's impossible.' She paused but I said nothing. ‘When we met at Peter Pan I told you — I think — you see I've talked to you in my mind and I'm not sure what I've told you really and what I imagine I've told you — I've lived all these years — under her shadow.'

‘Yes.'

‘But we never really talked about her, Gunnar and I, we couldn't. At least I could have, but he couldn't. We talked about
it,
his obsession, his illness, but her name could not be mentioned. And yet she was there, she is there.'

‘Yes.'

‘I've been living with a ghost — well, with two ghosts.'

‘Two?'

‘Hers, and yours.'

‘Of course. And you must lay them both.' It had never come to me more clearly that it was not only my destiny but also my duty to vanish: to perform the necessary rites and then to crumble to dust and, in their lives, walk no more.

‘It seems an unkind way to put it, but yes. You see, I've never had it really straight with Gunnar. He keeps saying it isn't fair to me and that I married a sick man. Our love has always been crippled, damaged, because I could not get in to the place where he was suffering and help him. And I want, oh more than I can express to you, to see him let go of the past, became free, able to come forward into the future with me with a whole heart.'

I was rigid, every muscle hard, like a man about to be shot who keeps conjured before his eyes his absolute duty to the cause which brought him to that moment. Bitterness here could break all, was a more dangerous enemy than any kind of softness. There was a narrow comfortless line in the centre to which I must keep. I said, but it was not out of bitterness, ‘She existed.'