The Bachelors (24 page)

‘So it
does to me. He’s a clever forger. He’s done it before. He’s been convicted,
served a sentence.’

‘Well,
Alice doesn’t know that. Well, she does know it in a way, but she won’t face
it. The baby makes her believe in Patrick.’

‘She’ll
know sooner or later.’

‘Will
he be sent to prison?’

‘Oh,
one can’t guess,’ Ronald said, ‘it’s not such an easy thing to prove. This may
be a difficult document. Experts often disagree. Seton’s side would have their
own expert. And then, everything depends largely on the witnesses. If Mrs.
Flower’s evidence should break down, for instance—”

‘But if
they know he’s a forger from the past, surely—’

‘The
court isn’t told till after the verdict.’

‘Alice
thinks the case won’t come off.’

‘No,
perhaps it won’t come off. Perhaps he won’t be sent for trial.’

‘Is it
confidential that Patrick has been to prison?’

‘No, it’s
common property.’ He was examining the letter upside-down.

‘Perhaps
I won’t tell Alice. She thinks they’re going to get married, some hope. Anyway,
he’s taking her away to Austria as soon as the charge is settled one way or
another.’

Ronald
folded the letter and put it far away into his inner pocket. ‘I must go,’ he
said.

‘Will
you come again, Ronald?’

‘It’s
unlikely,’ he said.

‘You’ve
got your letter,’ she said.

‘Thank
you,’ he said.

‘You
need someone to look after you,’ she said.

‘I was
once engaged to a girl who wanted to be a mother to me. It didn’t work.’

‘You
think I’m not good enough for you,’ she said. ‘Not your class.’

‘I’m an
epileptic,’ he said. ‘It rather puts one out of the reach of class.’

‘I know
you’re an epileptic,’ she said. ‘I was told.’

‘Well,
goodnight, Elsie.’ He went down the stairs and out into the dark streets of
Monday morning.

Chapter XI

IT’S treachery,’ Alice
said, quite loud in the empty café.

‘Now
look, Alice,’ Elsie said, ‘I’ve never signed any blood-pact with you. We’re
friends. And being friends doesn’t mean being blood-sisters. For goodness’ sake
let’s keep our relationships straight. Treachery is not the word.’

‘Where
did you get all this kind of talk?’ Alice said. ‘Now don’t you turn cat, Alice.
You need a friend just at this moment.’

‘To
think that you actually handed over that letter without even letting me see it,’
Alice said, ‘and now the case is coming up and the letter will be used against
Patrick.’

‘To
begin with,’ said Elsie, ‘I didn’t know whether he was going to go for trial or
not when I gave him the letter. Secondly, it wouldn’t have made any difference
to the case because they photo’d the letter and that would have been good
enough. Third, I gave it to Ronald for his own sake and I’d do it again—’

‘What
you wouldn’t do for a night with a man…’

‘He
didn’t so much as shake hands with me. Fourthly, it was more his letter than
mine, and—”

‘It’s
Patrick’s letter,’ Alice said, ‘by law.’

‘No, it’s
Crown property, excuse me. But it’s his forgery, all right. Five, if you don’t
believe Patrick forged the letter I don’t see what you’re worried about. They
can’t prove a forgery if there isn’t a forgery. It goes by folds in the paper
and pauses in the writing. They see it under the microscope. Ronald—”

‘Oh,
shut up,’ said Alice, ‘with your one, two, three, four, five. You’re such a
clever cookie since you saw that man, a pity you don’t stop to think he’s in
the pay of the police.’

‘Well,
it’s his job.’

‘Yes,
to fake up the evidence. He’ll say whatever they want him to say.’

‘You
don’t know Ronald,’ said Elsie.

‘Now he’s
got the letter, you won’t be seeing
him
again,’ Alice said. ‘You wait
and see.’

‘I
know,’ Elsie said.

‘God,’
said Alice, ‘it’s kicking again. I feel faint when it does that.’

Elsie
leaned over the café table and looked at Alice’s stomach as she clutched it. ‘Take
your hand away,’ Elsie said, ‘and let me see.’

Alice
took her hand away.

‘I can’t
see anything,’ Elsie said.

‘Don’t
stare like that. Someone might come in the shop.’

‘No-one
will come in, it’s too early. I can’t see it move.’

‘You
have to look close. It only looks like a butterfly, but it feels like a
footballer inside me.’

Elsie
slid round to the seat beside Alice and put her hand on Alice’s round stomach. ‘I
can feel it!’ she said. ‘Kick, kick. I can feel it.’

‘It
makes me giddy,’ Alice said.

‘I’ll
go and draw you another espresso.’

‘All
right,’ Alice said.

‘I wish
I had something alive and kicking inside me, ‘Elsie said.

Tim Raymond sat in his
club, looking as lonely as possible in the hope that someone married would take
him home to supper, but prepared, if not, to dine alone at eight o’clock. Hildegarde
had just written from Gloucestershire, after a long silence, to say she was
entering a convent. On hearing this news Tim had telephoned to Ronald. ‘Have
you heard from Hildegarde?’

‘That’s
the second girl you’ve driven to religion,’ Ronald said.

‘
I’ve
driven?’

‘Well,
yes, in a way.’

‘Hildegarde
told you about our affair?’

‘Well,
not directly. Anyway, of course I knew about it and now that’s the second
girl——’

‘I
know,’ Tim said. Two years ago his first real girl friend had entered an
Anglican Sisterhood.

‘What
about that other one you were thinking of marrying?’ Ronald said.

‘Oh,
that’s all off.
She
hasn’t taken to religion.’

‘Well,
two’s plenty.’

‘I
wonder why they take to religion?’

‘There
must be something wrong with you,’ Ronald said.

‘So
there must. Do you know, I always felt Hildegarde was still keen on you,
Ronald.’

‘Well,
she must have got over it. What Order has she entered?’

‘Some
Canoness affair. I feel rather shattered. Not that I felt all that strongly
about Hildegarde, it’s just that a loss is a loss. And I didn’t know she was R.C.
When did she go Roman?’

‘Two
years ago,’ Ronald said, ‘and two months. I forget the odd days.’

‘What a
good memory you’ve got. Did she join under your influence?’

‘Yes. I
rather regretted it later.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
she lapsed.’

‘Well,
she’s gone back. There’s definitely something odd about Hildegarde. She was a
spiritualist for a time, not long ago.’

‘Under
your influence?’

‘Well,
it gave us something to talk about. One has to have something to talk about. Hildegarde
was a difficult girl to find something to talk about with. Anyway she gave up
spiritualism when I got out of it and she must have gone bang back to Rome.
Funny going from spiritualism back to Catholicism, don’t you think, all
prejudices apart? A bit extreme. There are other religions she could have
tried if she had to have a religion.’

‘There
are only two religions, the spiritualist and the Catholic,’ Ronald said.

‘I say,
that’s going a bit far. There’s the Greek Orthodox and the Quakers and of
course the C. of E. and some people are Buddhists, and—”

‘You
must take it in a figurative sense,’ Ronald said, ‘or leave it, because I need
a drink.’

‘Well,
that’s the news. I thought I’d let you know. Come and drink with me.’

‘I’m
going out. I’m late, actually,’ Ronald said.

‘I’ve got
nothing to do tonight,’ Tim said. ‘What would you do?’

‘See a
film.’

‘Don’t
want to, somehow.’

‘Sit in
your club and look as lonely and miserable as possible. Someone will turn up
and take you home.’

Tim was
doing this when the porter came to announce that his Aunt Marlene was enquiring
for him downstairs.

‘I’m
not here,’ Tim said, and moved to another chair. The chair he had been
occupying was placed in the window and the curtains had been left undrawn. He
suspected that Marlene had seen him from the street. He took off his glasses,
polished them with his handkerchief, and put them on again.

An
almost telepathic communication from the entrance hall — for nothing could be
heard from that direction — told him that an argument was going on between
Marlene and the porter at the desk. Tim tiptoed attentively to the door,
tripping over the legs of someone whose face was hidden by a newspaper, so that
Tim’s hand came to rest on the man’s lap.

‘Oh,’
Tim said, ‘it’s you, Eccie.’ He straightened up, by which time the porter had
appeared again.

‘The
lady said she is convinced you are in the building. I’ve told her I would have
another look.’

‘I’m
going along to the bar,’ Tim said. ‘Tell her you’ve had another look.’

‘I’m
not sure,’ said Eccie, ‘that the British Council is going to suit me. Their
notions of art—”

‘Come
along to the bar,’ Tim said, urgently. ‘My aunt’s downstairs.’

‘Well,
she won’t come up here.’

‘Oh,
won’t she?’ said Tim.

Eccie
puckered his face in puzzlement and followed Tim, who, looking over the banister,
perceived a corner of his aunt in the hall as she argued with the porter.

They
slipped into the bar.

‘I have
a series of twelve lectures,’ Eccie declared over his drink. ‘They have gone
down well for twelve years. They are old and tried and have stood the test of time
at the old Institute. They cover the Renaissance to Kandinsky. They were the
nucleus of the Art course at the Institute. Thousands of people passed through
our hands south of the Humber. I travelled the length and breadth, to W.V.S. centres,
National Service units, prisons, summer schools — all over the place. And
everywhere I went those lectures got a tremendous reception. They were highly
appreciated. From the Renaissance to Kandinsky, with a set of colour reproductions,
tested and tried. And now, when I’m all fixed for my injections for Malta, the
chap at the British Council says — and mind you it’s we who pay them, it’s the
taxpayer, you and I, whose money goes into their pockets — he calls me in and
he says—’

‘Tim,
oh, there you are!’

Marlene
stood by the other door leading from the back stairs.

Tim put
down his drink and disappeared out of the opposite door. Marlene did not pursue
him, as he expected, through the bar. She retreated down the back stairs to the
first landing, walked along a passage, and came out on to the big oak-panelled
first floor landing where she again encountered Tim.

She
said, ‘The trial is on, and it is settled that you are to be a witness. We have
decided, on Patrick’s own advice, not to give evidence for his character as he
prefers his character to speak for itself. But there is a question of a
statement that Patrick made to the police under duress, while still in a state
of trance after a séance. We must testify about this séance. I have the date
and the time. Eleven-thirty on the morning of August the twelfth. Patrick made
his statement at twelve noon. He was not properly out of his trance. You are to
give evidence that you saw him in a trance at eleven-thirty, but we must decide
exactly what you are to say because you are inclined to be hesitant and vague.
I am calling a meeting—”

‘Marlene,
you shouldn’t be here.’

‘Get
your coat immediately,’ she said, ‘and come with me.’

‘I’m
just going to the lavatory,’ Tim said and disappeared with his long legs up the
main staircase like an anxious spider. He did not, however, go into the
lavatory, but into the library where an aged member and a young man were
bending over an architectural-looking plan spread out on the table. They
looked up at Tim. The aged member said ‘Who?’ and they both looked down again
at their plan. Tim wandered over to the window and there slipped behind the
curtains. Marlene waited outside the lavatory. A man emerged with eyebrows
which were by nature fixed in slight astonishment, and which, when he saw
Marlene, seemed to try to rise. ‘Is my nephew in there?’ Marlene said.

The man
moved off, assuming her to be one of the maids gone mad in her private life.

Marlene
waited. In ten minutes’ time she knocked loudly on the door.

‘Tim,’
she said.

‘Tim!’
she said.