Consequences (17 page)

“I shouldn’t worry,” said Lucas. “It’s called social mobility. Mind, it usually operates the other way—upward rather than downward.”

The Faradays she felt easier with, when she went to the little market town on the Welsh borders, though the place seemed to her entirely stagnant, as though you had stepped back twenty years. Her grandparents welcomed her lovingly, and would try to digest her into their hallowed regime of constitutional walks and chapel on Sunday. She felt displaced here also, but differently so, with a shred of guilt at not being able to acclimatize. So where do I belong? she wondered. Is it perhaps not necessary to belong anywhere in particular?

“How did I manage without you?” says James.

They are in the upstairs library, his study. Molly is explaining to him the classification system that she is installing. He rests his hand for a moment on her shoulder. “Perfect,” he says. “For the first time I shall be able to find the book that I am looking for. And now I am going to take you out to lunch. I want to inspect the new Greek place around the corner.”

“Lovely dress,” says Glenda. “With your figure, you can wear these narrow styles. I’ve got too much bust. You know, you’ve come on no end over this year. I wouldn’t have called you sophisticated back when you moved in here.”

“Is that what I am now?”

Glenda considers. “Not really. There’s something more unusual than that about you. You’re a bit too quirky to be seen as straightforward sophisticated. No offense meant, mind.”

“None taken,” says Molly.

Lucas and Simon have settled to Molly’s absence, still complaining from time to time. The house in Fulham is now in a state of complete dishevelment, full of dirty washing-up, old newspapers, and discarded clothes. It reminds Molly of the most debased kind of student encampment, and whenever she drops by she is driven to do some frenetic tidying, while Lucas and Simon look on tolerantly. Simon is now fifteen; his voice swoops up and down the register, he is nearly as tall as Lucas and has acquired a bass guitar. When this instrument is in operation Lucas sits at the kitchen table with his hands over his ears.

“I had no idea fatherhood would be like this,” he tells Molly.

“He’ll probably grow out of it.”

“You were tranquil, by comparison. And organized. Homework done, school uniform in place.”

“Girls are different.”

Lucas sighs. “Women will take over, eventually. Just as well. Men have been making a hash of it for years.”

“That’s a very up-to-the-minute view.”

“Really? I’m not usually seen as up to the minute.” Lucas surveys his battered cord trousers, his moth-eaten pullover, and then looks at Molly. “You, on the other hand, seem very—contemporary—these days. The sassy fringe. Pink fingernails. Is that what comes of mixing with high society?”

“There’s not so much mixing. More, I oblige. I needed a haircut, that’s all, and my nails have been pink for years, on and off. Are you being critical?”

“Perish the thought. I look on with admiration. Simon and I are like gawking peasants. After all, we remember you in a gym slip and knee socks.”

“I’m twenty-three, Lucas,” says Molly.

“I know, I know. And a working woman. Incidentally, I hope he appreciates you—this James what’s-his-name. Does he?”

“I get the impression that he does.”

If it is not necessary to belong anywhere in particular, thinks Molly, then the trick is to float free, but to keep a weather eye out for what’s available, if only out of expediency. One may want to touch down somewhere at some point—throw out an anchor. So far, I’ve not covered much ground. I do know that the upper middle class is not for me, nor is provincial peace, and I didn’t get very far with the
haute bourgeoisie
—if the Lit. and Phil. is to be seen as that. I was comfortable enough in Lucas’s house, even if always driven to clean up, but Lucas’s way of life is not widely representative. And now I do not feel myself to be exactly in accord with the intelligentsia, if the crowd that comes to James’s place is that, and I’m not entirely sure that they are, judging by some of the chatter I hear on the stairs. Be that as it may, I have not seen much, as yet. Maybe I should sign up as an investigative journalist, or do a Ph.D. in social studies—a spot of anthropology.

James has taken to staying longer in Molly’s office, when he arrives with a string of instructions, or letters to be typed. Sometimes he settles in the armchair by the window, lights a cigarette, and talks: about some exhibition he has seen, about a book they may publish, about anything. On these occasions, there is something in the air—a crackle, a charge—that Molly finds both stimulating and unsettling. When he is gone, the room feels flat.

“There’s this man who has circumnavigated the British Isles in a coracle. That’s a kind of floating bathtub made of leather. Would you want to read about that?”

“I suppose it might have an awful fascination. As a thing you wouldn’t dream of doing yourself.”

“Exactly. But what about the memoirs of a lapsed nun?”

“I think not.”

“My sentiments entirely.” He is considering her, through the blue swirl from his cigarette—that intense look first encountered at the Lit. and Phil. interview. “Incidentally, I like the way you’ve got your hair now.”

“Oh, please,” says Molly, cross. “Everyone keeps going on about my hair.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He spreads his hands. “Very un-nunlike, anyway. Perhaps that was my train of thought. You didn’t go to a convent school, did you?”

“By no means. I went to the local grammar.”

“Of course. Convents turn out hothouse flowers. Eleanor was at one.”

His wife is seldom mentioned. Now, for an instant, she seems to stand in the room, a suave observing presence.

There is a silence. James stubs out his cigarette, sighs. “I’d better go. There’s a boring meeting for which I shall be late, and then I have to give lunch to an egomaniac author. And I have offended you anyway by making intrusive personal remarks.”

“I’m not offended. Just—a haircut seems unimportant.”

“You are such a level-headed girl, if I may say so. Oh dear, I’m doing it again.”

Molly picks up her notepad. “Do you want an early morning flight to Geneva next week?” she says crisply. “And have you remembered about the Sotheby’s sale?”

“Yes and yes.”

James is now at the door. He pauses. “Do you like dancing?”

“Dancing?” she stares at him.

“It’s my birthday on Friday. I thought we might celebrate together at Quaglino’s. Are you free?”

“Oh…” she says. “Well, yes, actually.”

Molly inspects herself in the bathroom mirror. Trouble has been taken. Indeed, she has pulled out all the stops—Paint the Town Pink lipstick and nail polish, Frosted Ice Blue eye shadow, mascara, a dab of Mitsouko behind each ear and at the wrists. The strapless green taffeta dress, with the bolero jacket that can be taken off for dancing. This is three years old but her only evening wear, and will have to do. She is not winsomely fashionable, like the women who sail up the stairs to James’s parties, but the mirror tells her that she has certain advantages. She has a good figure, she is…well, reasonably pretty. And she is aware above all of youth. She sees herself with momentary detachment, and notes rounded flesh, bright eyes, that glow—that indefinable quality that says, fresh this morning, just hatched, new-minted. In due course, she thinks, one will go brown at the edges, like everything else. So make the most of it, eh?

“Quaglino’s?”
says Glenda. “You jammy beggar!”

The diners’ tables surround the dance floor. The lighting is dim. Candles flicker in little glass bowls. Waiters flit about. There is a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. When first this was poured, Molly raised her glass: “Happy birthday!”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“But you said…”

“A foul deception. I thought you’d feel you couldn’t refuse if I said that.”

Molly laughs.

He does not talk of books or exhibitions but tells her about his wartime experiences as a liaison officer with the free French in London. “They needed fluent French speakers, and that was about the only skill I had, thanks to my French mamma. Not exactly front-line stuff. North Africa with de Gaulle was the nearest I got to a battlefield.”

Molly tells him about her parents, the Somerset cottage, the house in Fulham. “What a rite of passage,” he says. “I can’t think why you’re as normal as you are.”

“What’s normal?” says Molly.

“Good point.” The band is now playing. He rises. “Would you like to dance?”

He is a good dancer. He holds her close, he moves decisively, taking her with him, but at once they are moving in the most pleasurable accord. Molly feels that she has never danced so well. A quickstep. A samba, which she had not realized that she could do; she responds to his steering hand, and lo! she is doing the samba. Then the music shifts again, and they are into a foxtrot. He is holding her very close now, pressed right up against him, they are cheek to cheek. He murmurs something. “Molly…” he is saying. “My dear Molly.” She can feel his breath in her ear, the roughness of his skin against hers, the length of his body. He is holding her so close that she can feel something hard up against her groin. You know where you are when you dance with a person, she thinks; dancing is very explicit.

He leads her back to the table, refills their glasses, and begins to talk about his family—his father who died when he was twenty, his mother who lives in Brighton, and is querulous. Presently, they dance again. And again.

He drives her back to the flat. He walks up the flight of steps to the front door with her. She had wondered if he was going to ask to come in, or indeed if she should suggest it, but the matter does not arise. He simply takes her in his arms and kisses her—a full kiss, his tongue in her mouth, searching. Then he draws back, cups her face in his hands and says, “What a wonderful evening. Thank you, darling Molly.” And he goes.

She climbs the three flights of stairs to the flat, knowing that when the point comes, and he asks her to sleep with him, she will not say no.

She has wondered how it will be, when they meet again on Monday morning, when he comes into her office with a fistful of papers, says, “Good morning, Molly.” Things are different now, are they not? How will this difference be? How will he deal with it? How will she?

And in the event, when he comes, he does not say the usual good morning, but stands in the doorway, smiling—a different sort of smile. “Hello,” he says.

They sort out Molly’s tasks for the day. He stands by her chair and touches her neck. “I have meetings at the office this morning,” he says. “And then I’m elsewhere this afternoon. I should be back about six. Could you stay on a bit, so that we can have a drink together?”

Many hours later, she is lying in his bed. He has gone into the bathroom next door; she hears the shower running. He comes out drying himself, and she thinks that when you see someone you know without their clothes, they are transformed—intimate, startling. He sits down on the bed, pulls back the sheet, looks at her. Perhaps he is thinking the same. He runs his hand down her body.

“All right?”

She says, “Is it always like this?”

“Actually, no. In fact, quite rarely.”

There were now two levels to life in James’s house. There was the daily routine in Molly’s office on the top floor, which continued much as it ever had: she typed and made phone calls and went out to do errands, and in spare moments she attended to the library. And now there was the other, extracurricular life, in which she and James dined out, and went to the cinema and to the theater, drove into the country at weekends. And spent many hours in James’s bedroom.

When they were out and about, they sometimes ran into people that James knew. He would introduce her, and she read their faces.

“Your friends are wondering,” she told him.

“Then they will have to do so.”

He now wanted her to join those evening drinks parties in the big room on the first floor. She did so with reluctance, but he would steer her toward someone reasonably congenial, and after a few occasions she found a certain confidence with the suits and the silken women, though without acquiring any taste for this company. Some ill-adjusted writer was usually the best bet. Poets stood in corners, holding out a glass for replenishment and filching cigarettes. Hoary travel writers complained to Molly about their meager advances. Occasionally, such people were curious about her own status.

“I’m the amanuensis,” she would say. Sometimes, she met a look of skepticism, or even amusement.

“Am I your mistress?” says Molly.

“Hmn. What exactly is a mistress?”

“You tell me. I don’t know about these things.”

“I will tell you one thing,” says James. “I am becoming unhappy with this situation.”

“Me?”

“I’m concerned about your reputation.”

“I think I’m too young to have one.”

They are in the Greek restaurant near to the house, a favorite haunt. Indeed, the proprietor ushers them now to their special table. Later, they will go back to the house, and up to James’s bedroom.

“Maria and Carlo probably know,” says Molly. “But they are hardly going to spread the news, are they?”

He frowns. “We should have somewhere else to go. Not the house. In fact, I have a proposition. I should like to get a flat—take out a lease for you. A nice flat. Near here. A bolt-hole.”

She considers this, over the moussaka, through the carafe of retsina. And the more she considers, the more a still, quiet voice tells her that it will not do. Oh yes, one’s own front door would be nice, privacy would be nice. But. But, but, but. Once again, she finds herself skirting the word independence.

“It’s very kind…” she begins.

“No, it’s not,” he says. “It is entirely self-interested. The idea becomes more appealing by the minute. Somewhere to which I could vanish—incommunicado. With you there. If it smacks of kept woman, I’ll deduct five shillings a week from your salary as rent, to keep you happy.”