The Lake of Darkness (21 page)

“He’ll be able to find you in delectable Swan Place, though perhaps mah clever honey chile won’t give him a key?”

From the electric blanket came up waves of heat that
made them both sweat, but that morning Francesca had found ice on the inside of the windows. The atmosphere held a bitter and quite tangible dampness. Tim lit a Gauloise and smoked it in the darkness. The glowing tip of it was like a single star in a cold and smoky sky.

“I don’t think I’m going to go there at the beginning. I did think of moving in like he expects me to and after I’d, been there a few days stage a tremendous irrevocable sort of row with him and say I never wanted to see him again. But I don’t think I could. I’m not good at rows. So what I think now is I’ll just stay home here very quietly for two or three days and then I’ll write him a letter. I’ll tell him in that what I’d, have told him in the row, that it’s all over but that I know the flat’s mine and I need it and I’m going to live in it. How’s that? Shall we go and live in that lovely place, Tim, or shall we sell it and buy another lovely place?”

“That will be for you to say.”

“What’s mine is yours, you know. I think of you as my common law husband. Can you have a common law husband if you’ve already got an uncommon law one?”

Tim laughed. “I’m wondering what steps, if any, Miss Urban will take when she discovers your
coup.
You’d, better not count on keeping the furniture.” He drew on his cigarette and the star glowed brightly. “I must say I shan’t be sorry when mah honey chile isn’t deceiving me every night with another woman.”

“You must feel like a ponce,” said Francesca. “Ponces never seem to mind, do they?”

“The minding, as you call it, fluctuates in direct proportion to the immoral earnings.” He stubbed his cigarette out and turned to her. “It has nothing to do with the activities. Personally, I hope you’re giving Livingstone a good run for his money.”

“Well, yes and no. Oh, Tim, you’ve got one warm hand
and one icy cold one. It’s rather nice-it’s rather fantastic….”

Francesca brought Martin a large specimen of
xygocactus truncatus
from the shop. It had come late into flower and now, at the end of February, its flat scalloped stems each bore on its tip a bright pink chandelier-shaped blossom. Martin was childishly, disproportionately, pleased by this gift. He put it on the window sill in the middle of the window with the view over London. It was snowing again, though not settling, and the flakes made a gauzy net between the window and the shining yellow-and-white city.

That was Wednesday and Martin let her go home in a cab, but on Thursday she spent the day and stayed the night in Cromwell Court. Martin took the day off and they bought bed linen and towels, a set of saucepans and a French castiron frying pan, two table lamps, a Japanese portable colour television, and a dinner service in Denby ware. These items they took away with them. The three-piece suite covered in jade-green and ivory velvet, the brass-and-glass dining table and eight chairs would, of course, have to be sent. Francesca said she would be bringing her own cutlery and glass. She was bored with shopping for things she doubted she would be allowed to keep.

They had dinner at the Bullock Cart in Heath Street. Martin said he had heard from John Butler and that he and his wife would move out of Swan Place first thing Monday morning. He would give the key to the estate agent, or if Martin liked he could call in and fetch it himself during the week-end.

“We could collect it on Saturday,” said Francesca who could foresee the difficulties of any other course.

When Mr. Cochrane rang the bell at eight-thirty in the morning Francesca opened the door to him. She was wearing the top half of Martin’s pyjamas and a pair of blue tights. Martin had come out of the kitchen with the Worcester
sauce apron on. His expression was aghast. Mr. Cochrane came in without saying anything, his eyes perceiving the flowering cactus, his nostrils quivering at the scent of Ma Griffe. He closed the door behind him, said, “Good morning, madam,” and walked into the kitchen where he put his valise down on the table.

“How’s your sister-in-law?” said Martin.

“Home again,”said Mr. Cochrane. He looked at Martin through the bi-focals, then carefully over the top of them. Then he said, “Yes, home again, Martin, if you can call it home,” and, carrying a tin of spray polish and two dusters, he went into the living room where he scrutinised the cactus and, lifting up each item and examining it, the sheets and towels and saucepans and lamps they had bought on the previous day. At last he turned to Francesca, his death’s head face convulsed into a smile.

“What a blessing to see him leading a normal life, madam. I like a man to
be
a man, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean all right,” said Francesca, giggling.

“Is there anything special you’d, like me to do, madam, or shall I carry on as usual?”

“Oh, you carry on as usual,” said Francesca. “I always do,” and she gave him her best and most radiant smile.

It was her last day at the shop since Kate had said she needn’t come in on Saturday morning. Next week, when she had disappeared, would Martin come to the shop and ask Kate about her? It wouldn’t really matter what Martin did after Monday, after the deal was completed and the money handed over. Perhaps she should screw up her courage and really move in on Monday afternoon as Martin thought she was going to, move in, invite him that evening-and tell him the truth, that legally the flat was hers and she intended to live in it without ever seeing him again. She would never summon up that courage. The only way was to do as she
had told Tim she would do, disappear, write to him, when he made a fuss let Tim explain to him, finally take possession when it had all blown over. The flat is
yours
, hang on to that, she told herself. It’s yours in the law and nothing can shake that.

Martin called for her at ten to six and they went back to Cromwell Court where he cooked the dinner. At about eleven he drove her up to Fortis Green Lane and Francesca was again obliged to take refuge in the back garden of number 54. Tonight the house was in darkness. She stood against the stuccoed wall, listening for the car to go. As it happened, she came out too soon. It hadn’t been Martin’s car but a small grey van pulling away. Martin was still there, still watching the house-watching for lights to come on?

She told him she had left her key in the house and would have to wake Russell to let her in.

“Please go, darling. I’ll be all right.”

Reluctantly, Martin did go. Francesca was actually trembling. She had to sit down on the low wall for a moment. When she got up and turned round to look warily at the house she half-expected to see its occupant glaring at her from an upper window. But there was no one. It was colder tonight than it had been for a week, the sky a dense unclouded purple and the air very clear. She really needed something warmer on than the red-and-blue-striped coat over her corded velvet smock. Each time Martin landed her up here she tried walking in fresh directions to find a taxi, but now she had exhausted them all. So was it to be down to Muswell Hill or across to Finchley High Road? Martin had headed for Muswell Hill … Francesca, who wasn’t usually very apprehensive or given to improbable fantasies, found herself thinking, suppose his car broke down and I walked past it and he saw me…? Now that her task was so nearly accomplished, she was growing hourly more and more frightened in case anything should happen at the eleventh
hour to stop her getting the flat. People said it was virtually impossible to withdraw from such a deal once the contracts were exchanged. He wouldn’t have to withdraw, though, he would only have to have a new contract made with his name on it instead of hers.

Nothing must happen. She only had Saturday to get through now. They had agreed not to meet on Sunday, she would be too busy packing. She pulled up the hood of her coat and set off along wide, cold, empty Fortis Green Lane for Finchley High Road. A taxi picked her up just before she reached it.

“I don’t usually ever feel nervous about anything, you know,” she said to Tim. “I suppose anyone can get nervous if there’s enough at stake. While I was sort of lurking in that garden I kept thinking how awful it would be if that man came out of his house. I mean, he might have chased me and Martin might have hit him, thinking he was my husband. I imagined the most fearful things.”

Tim laughed. “The most fearful thing about that would have been the outcome, the loss of our future home. Otherwise I can’t imagine anything funnier than Livingstone having a punch-up with a complete stranger in the middle of the night in darkest Finchley.”

Francesca thought about it. Then she laughed too and helped herself to one of Tim’s cigarettes. “What made you pick on that funny house, anyway? What made you pick on that man?”

“Me? I didn’t pick on him. I didn’t pick on the house. That was your fiance. Remember? I didn’t even know there was anyone called Brown living in Fortis Green Lane. The idea of writing that par for the
Post
was solely to give verisimilitude to your story. People say newspapers are full of lies, but they believe everything they read in newspapers just the same. Fortis Green Lane is a long road and Brown is a common name. There may be half a dozen Browns living
there for all I know. Livingstone happened to find this one in the phone book.”

With a giggle Francesca said, “It would be most awfully unfair then if Martin had hit him.”

“You’ll have to take good care he doesn’t. He truly is that mysterious individual, the innocent bystander.”

There was a heavy frost that night and the roof tops were nearly as white as when they had been covered with snow. Francesca and Tim lay late in bed and Francesca brought Lindsay in with them. They talked about the flat in Swan Place while Lindsay sat on the pillow and braided Francesca’s hair. Tim said they would probably have to sell the flat and buy one that wasn’t in Highgate, it would be so awkward if they ever ran into Martin. That would be all right, Francesca said, she would quite like to live up near the Green Belt or out towards Epping Forest, she wasn’t wedded to London. Nor to the distinguished author of
The Iron Cocoon
, said Tim, and they both laughed so much that Lindsay pinched their lips together.

Tim drove her as near as he dared to Cromwell Court. Martin wanted to know what arrangements she had made for Monday. Had she booked a car? Was Lindsay going to the nursery that day or not? Could she manage all her clothes at one journey? And what about Russell? Had she told him there should be a fair division of their property and had he agreed? Francesca answered these questions as best she could while they were on their way to Swan Place to pick up the key from Mr. Butler. She felt elated when the key was in her possession. A key gives such a secure feeling of rights and privacy and ownership. Mrs. Butler took her round the flat once more, and Francesca could hardly contain her excitement. How different it was to view all this, to tread these soft, subtle-shaded carpets, finger stiff silky curtains, feel the warmth, turn on a tap, press a switch, in the knowledge it was going to be all her own!

“Will you ask me to supper on Monday evening?” Martin said.

“Tuesday. Give me just one day to settle in. Lindsay’s bound to be difficult, you know.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Tuesday then.” His face wore the hurt look that blurred his features and made it dog-like. “Adrian hopes to complete by mid-day on Monday, so you can come any time after. I expect the Butlers will still be moving out.”

Francesca didn’t see much point in talking about it when she wasn’t going to move in at all. SJhe wished she had the nerve to ask Martin what was to be done with the deeds or lease or whatever it was. Deposited in his bank maybe. Not for long, she thought, not for long. Tim would deal with all that, she had done her part, she had almost done it. She held Martin’s hand in the car, held it on her knee and said, “Let’s not go out to dine, let’s have a quiet evening at home on our own.”

Most of the time there was nobody in the house, but the man was there more often than the woman. This was a reversal, Finn thought, of the usual order of things. He had never seen them together, though he had been to Fortis Green Lane on five evenings now, each time parking in a different place. He had seen the woman twice and the man three times, and once he had seen the man with another woman. This didn’t trouble him, nor was he perplexed about the relations of these people to each other or that of Martin Urban to them. Emotions, passion, jealousy, desire, even hatred, were beyond or outside his understanding. They bored him. He preferred magic. He longed now to be able to wield practical magic, to conjure his victim out of the house and into his trap.

But he had lost that power even before the death of Queenie. Sitting in the van, watching, he thought of how, in Jack Straw’s, he had concentrated on that reporter and made him get out and light a cigarette. Or had he? Such doubt is the enemy of faith, and it is faith that moves the mountains.

Come out of the house, he said in his mind to the darkened windows, the closed front door, the indestructible stucco. He said it over and over again like the mantras he repeated for his meditation. He had no idea, and no means of knowing, if the house was empty or not. There might be a light on in the downstairs back room or in the kitchen. He had been there since five, since before the dark came down,
but there had been no sign of life from the house and no flicker of light.

It was a cold evening, the air already laying frost in a very thin silvery glitter on the tops of fences and the crosspieces of gates, on twigs and laurel leaves and on the oblique rear windows of parked cars. The sulphur light showed tiny early spring flowers in some gardens, pale or white or no-colour buds and bells. Finn didn’t know the names of flowers. The frost wasn’t heavy enough to whiten the grass much. Inside the van it was cold. Finn wore the yellow pullover and the grey woollen cap and the leather coat and sat reading Crowley’s
Confessions.
Back in Lord Arthur Road he had left Lena and Mrs. Gogarty indignant because Mr. Beard, proposing to raise up for their edification Abremelin the Mage, meant to do so by indefencible methods. In fact, by the sacrifice of a pigeon, the emanation from whose blood would provide the material for the seer to build a body out of. Pigeons were commoner than flies in Brecknock Road, Mr. Beard had said. Lena and Mrs. Gogarty shuddered and twittered and sent Mr. Beard to Coventry. Finn wished he was back there with them and the innocent pleasures of Planchette to which they had retreated, scared by Mr. Beard’s sophistication.