Loving, Living, Party Going (62 page)

Auntie May's room was next door and Claire said to Evelyn,
Amabel was keeping Alex hanging on. Even those who went to bed with her never were allowed to see her with no clothes on, because someone quite early in her life had carved his initials low on her back with an electric-light wire, or so Embassy Richard had told her.

'D'you think Angela Crevy ever's met him?'

'No I don't,' Evelyn said to her. 'She's trying to be one of us.'

At this poor Auntie May shifted slightly in her bed.

'My dear, what are we to do with her?' Evelyn put a finger to her lips, but Claire went on. 'I don't care,' she said, 'she must get well, it's too absurd her being ill here, letting that idiot doctor say fantastic things about her, even if they might be true. Why are the old allowed to go about alone; they ought to make a law about it. What would have happened to her if we had not been there and Max, he is so perfectly sweet, hadn't taken this room? But it's unfair to him if she doesn't get well soon or get over it, whichever it is, or both,' she said.

And Auntie May, half-way round from another spell of what had come over her and struck her down into nightmares and exhaustion and wandering so that she had been diagnosed as tight, and tight she was with dreams spoke up from mists which wrapped her round not sweet and warm. She mistook her niece for another barmaid, and Said in a high wavering voice:

'I'm surprised at you, surprised I am,' she said, 'you should be glad I came in and gave you custom, a customer I came in, that's what you are here for, here for,' she said, and was silent. 'I shall complain,' she said, trying to. raise herself on her arm, and Claire leaned forward and said: 'Hush, auntie, you don't know what you are saying.' This silenced her again.

'Claire, d'you suppose she heard us?'

'What on earth do you mean? My dear, she is raving. Oh, why did she come to be such a worry to us, isn't it a shame?'

'You mean she thought she was talking to a waitress,' Evelyn said. 'But you know it is so dangerous to speak in front of people when they are ill, you think they can't hear, but one can never tell. I remember my mother telling me when Grannie died the nurse said she had only so long to live, ten hours, or whatever it was then, and she said, "Don't," just like that. And that was after she had lain there like a log for two days and nights.'

'Well then,' Claire whispered, 'don't talk in front of her.'

'Oh,' said Evelyn, also in whispers now, 'but she is not going to die, is she?'

'My dear, don't you of all people go and let me down. I've trouble enough on my hands now in all conscience without – oh well,' she said, 'I'm sorry, it's not easy just now, is it? And where's that wretched husband of mine, why doesn't he do something?'

'But surely that's just it,' said Evelyn, 'there's nothing to do.'

Thomson, who was still looking after Julia's luggage where it had been left until it could be registered, felt he must stretch his legs again. He said to her porter: 'Jack, I'll be back,' and came out from behind her barricade of trunks to find Edwards sitting on one of Max's suit-cases.

'Mr Adey, I believe,' he said, and raised his hat.

'Mr Livingstone, I presume, Miss Wray,' said Edwards. They both of them laughed. Thomson sat down on yet another pigskin case and said what game was it this they were playing? and he got his answer, hide and seek. Oranges and lemons he suggested was more likely, but no, said Edwards, sardines was all the rage now not blind bloody man's buff, which was kept for Dartmoor Sunday afternoons. Both laughed again.

'Well,' Thomson said, 'it was a funny game whatever it was, and even if it had not got a name, it was more like drivers waiting outside shops or at dances.' He asked if Edwards had had his tea. Neither had so much as tasted it this afternoon. Edwards had some chocolate in bars which he called iron rations, but he explained he did not want to touch that, not knowing but what they might be here all night when they might want something more urgent, for even if it had been three hours or more since their dinner it might be long night before they saw supper. Thomson said he was not going to wait all that long time, and Edwards asked him why he did not go along and see if he could get himself something. Thomson explained it did not taste like it should if he had his tea alone, he liked company with it, and why didn't Edwards come along and see what they could find? But Edwards considered they would find every tea place full. Also he would not leave this dressing-case of his.

'Then what's in it?'

'It's fitted.'

'What, gold and silver stoppers and all that? Come on, it's insured and chances are he'd like a new one.'

'Go on if you like and pick up some bird, alive or dead, Thomson, and get yourself your cup o' tea if you feel like it.'

'What d'you mean, alive or dead?'

'Not but you'll find everything full and more than full out there. There's trouble enough to get in without trying for a cup o' tea. Alive or dead? I meant nothing.'

'Not wrapped up in brown paper you didn't?'

'What's that?'

'Oh, nothing. This is a rum thing this party. And they call it pleasure, eh?'

'I don't know. It's not their business if fog comes down like it's done, they can't be accountable for that.'

'No, but then why stay here or in that hotel, why not go back and sit down to a nice tea while you wait?'

'It's plain to see you haven't been outside, my lad, not lately. You couldn't get back now if you tried.'

'Oh, look at those blue eyes,' Thomson said, and Mr Adey's porter lifted his heavy head. Round one massive up-ended cabin trunk a girl was looking. 'Lovely blue eyes, and I like that nose.'

Edwards said: 'Now then, don't let's have anything like that here.'

'Anything?' said Thomson. 'Did you 'ear what that rude man called it, a lovely kiss?' he said, still sitting where he did. 'What a thing to call it. Listen, if that gentleman with the luggage will drop off again like he 'as been doing this last thirty minutes and my pal here turns his dirty disapproving face, will you give us a kiss, darling? There's none could see with these bags and things.'

'I like your cheek,' she said scornfully. 'Here,' she said, 'if you want one,' and crept round and kissed him on his mouth. Not believing his luck he put his arms round her and the porter said, 'God bless me,' when a voice over that barricade began calling: 'Emily, where are you, Emily?' and he let her go, and off she went.

'God bless 'er little 'eart,' the porter said, smacking his lips. He called out to his mate, having to shout it there was so much noise: 'Come up out of the bloody ground, and gave him a great bloody kiss when he asked her.'

'Poor Thomson,' Julia said just then to Max, putting on her hat
again, 'd'you think he's all right, and what about his tea?'

'We ought to go down,' he said.

'Yes, the others will be wondering what's become of us.' And what had become of both of them, she asked herself, suddenly despairing; nothing, alas!

'Oh, Max,' she said, 'everything is going to be all right, isn't it?'

'All right?'

'Do you see, I'm wondering about this journey. All the fog and all that,' she said, leading him off.

'You do think our train will run, don't you?' she went on.

'It'll have to.'

'I know,' she said, 'but things don't always go right because they have to. I wonder if I ought to ring my uncle and let him know what's become of us,' she said, because she was not and could not be sure Max would come to anything in the South of France. 'D'you think I'd better. Max darling, do say something. What do you think?'

He looked at the telephone and considered and at last he told her he saw no point in doing so. And now she remembered those two birds which had flown under the arch she had been on when she had started, and now she forgot they were sea-gulls and thought they had been doves and so was comforted.

'Good heavens! Come along, what will they think?' she said brightening. 'We must get on down.'

'Well,' said Thomson, 'and what do you think of that Emily? Emily,' he cried in a falsetto voice echoing the old lady who had called her back, but not so loud that she could hear. 'Where are you Emily, my lovey-dove?'

'Disgusting, I call it.'

'And what's disgusting? Lord, what's in a kiss? It don't mean nothing to her, nor anything to me, but it did make an amount of difference when I hadn't 'ad my tea.'

'You do meet some funny ones about these days,' Edwards said to the porter. 'Still thinking along of his tea and look what he's just got.'

'No,' said Thomson. 'No, it's fellow feeling, that's what I like about it. Without so much as a by your leave when she sees someone hankering after a bit of comfort, God bless 'er, she gives it him, not like some little bitches I could name,' he darkly said, looking up and over to where their hotel room would be. Their porter tapped his forehead. 'It's been too much for 'im,' he cried at large, 'too much by a long chalk. So it is for most of these young fellers, carried away by it,' he said.

'Waiting about in basements, with no light and in the damp and dark,' Mr Thomson muttered to himself, and if he and that girl had been alone together, in between kisses he would have pitied both of them clinging together on dim whirling waters.

'Well, there you are,' said Julia as she came in and before she could see who was there and in such a tone she might as well have been asking where had they all been all this time. 'Why it's you, Angela, my dear,' she said. 'Where are the others?'

'Alex is helping Amabel, actually, in her bath,' Miss Crevy said, and wished she had a periscope to see that bomb explode. But if it went off it did so out of sight, for Julia did no more than turn to Max, though she did this in the direction her heart had turned over when she heard.

'How did she get there?' he said, and he felt shocked.

'She walked, she told me, and she got here in front of her maid who came in the car.'

'Is Toddy here then?'

'Oh, Max,' said Miss Crevy, 'who ever heard of Amabel travelling without her maid?'

So she is coming after all, Julia thought, maid and all and six cabin trunks full of every kind of lovely dress. But how unfair, she thought, how vile of her when she knew Max did not want her, how low to pursue him in this way. She also noticed Miss Crevy seemed quick in using her Christian name and wondered if they mightn't somehow be in league. But it was going to ruin their entire trip her coming, and she went over in her mind when she heard him say he had asked Amabel.

She had been wearing her blue dress and the new shoes and they had gone on together alone somewhere to dance and she had been nervous about whether he would have too much to drink perhaps, but anyway it had been fun and lots of people there and then Embassy Richard had come up. How absurd of Angela to call him Embassy Dick like any bird; she was too free the way she made out she knew people. Perhaps that was why Max had seemed so much against him, but when Richard had come up he had said something
jokingly about his knowing someone Max was going to leave behind and who would be simply furious at being left. And that was all, come to think of it, and she had taken it to mean Amabel, but she might be wrong, there might be someone else. What could it mean?

'I didn't know Amabel was coming,' she said, meaning why had he not told her.

'She was most awfully upset she was so late,' Miss Crevy told Max, 'she told me to say to you how dreadfully sorry she was, and of course she would have missed the train if it hadn't been for this fog. But you see it was just that, the fog's so thick she simply could not get here, so she says you mustn't be too hard on her, please, she could not really help herself.'

Julia said, well anyway they had all got here in time, and that she had no maid to pack for her. 'In fact,' she said, because this news had upset her so she had to speak about herself, 'Jemima the old thing who packs for me, you can't call her a maid really, never can learn to put in my charms. You know,' she said to Angela very seriously, 'I simply can't go anywhere without them, the most frightful things have happened if I haven't brought them, and not to me only, but to everyone who was with me too. So you see it makes me most terribly nervous. You see I don't know to this minute whether I have them with me or not, and nervous not only for myself but for all of you, my poor darlings.'

Miss Crevy did not take this well as she could not understand the calm with which they seemed to accept, not Amabel's presence, which she thought natural, but the fact that Alex was in there with her. It made her furious they should make so little of it, and she burst out:

'Oh, no, but I think it's disgusting Ms being in there helping with her bath.'

This was so sudden it made Julia forget about her charms.

'My dear,' she said, 'what do you mean, helping?' And Angela who, as soon as she began to explain, felt in some way she was weakening her argument, had to say she did not know how he was helping, and at that she laughed, but he was in there and he ought not to in front of all of them.

'He is not,' said Max. Miss Crevy looked to see if he was jealous, but saw that he simply did not believe her.

'But I tell, you I heard them.'

'My dear, what did you hear about them?' Julia said.

Feeling in some way she was making her argument still weaker Miss Crevy explained how Amabel had asked him in front of her not half an hour ago.

'She did not,' said Max, and Miss Crevy said no more. If they did not believe her then let them find out for themselves and then, rather late, it came over her that she had not seen for herself, it was possible Alex was still in the bedroom and she felt foolish until she thought, well anyway if he wasn't in there now he soon would be.

On this Julia left them. She thought Miss Crevy an impossible girl and went to find Claire and Evelyn to tell them and ask after Miss Fellowes. This would be her way of apologizing for having gone off with Max. And Max, who wanted time to face up to this news began to make it by asking Angela if she had all she wanted. She would hardly answer him.

When Julia went into that bedroom where Miss Fellowes lay, she said to Evelyn and Claire, 'Well there you are,' in such tones she might have been telling them how hard it had been for her to find them, and as though she were saying she had been looking for them all that time she had been upstairs with Max. She asked after Miss Fellowes and they replied, all this in whispers, and then so soon as she decently could she said would they not leave Miss Fellowes to those nannies, she had something she must tell them. Both wondered if she were going to announce her engagement, but it seemed she was more angry than pleased, and for one moment Claire wondered if that idiot Robert, her idiotic husband, had tried to pounce on her.