The Paying Guests (33 page)

She had expected Lilian’s face to close against her. But Lilian looked back at her, damply, gravely. ‘You really mean it,’ she said.

‘I do. Why not? We’ve been talking all this time as if it’s something impossible. But women leave their husbands every day. The papers are full of them.’

‘But they’re society women. Things are different for women like that. They can arrange about divorces. And when they leave their husbands, they do it for other men. If it ever came out about you and me – There’s too much against it, Frances.’

‘Against a divorce – yes, all right. But a separation? Just walking away? No one minds about that sort of thing since the War. And once you were free, we could do as we liked.’

Lilian was wiping her face again. ‘But we’d have to have money. I’ve no money at all. All my money comes from Len.’

‘We’d find work,’ said Frances. ‘Wouldn’t you like that? Earning your own wages, decently? God, I would. Or, listen to this. I thought of it last night. You could go to an art school. – Don’t look like that.’

Lilian had turned away, disappointed. ‘You’re just romancing, after all.’

‘No, I’m not. I’ve been working it out. I think we could do it, just. I’ve a little money of my own still, that didn’t get swallowed up by my father’s debts. It isn’t much – about thirty pounds. But there are things I can sell, a few bits of furniture in the house that belong to me, some old pieces of jewellery that came to me from my grandmothers —’

‘You can’t go selling your grandmothers’ jewellery, Frances!’

‘Why not? A load of dreary old emeralds and garnets. What use are they to me?’

‘But I couldn’t live on your money.’

‘You live on Leonard’s.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Yes, it is. He pays you to be his cook, his char and his mistress. I should be sharing my money with you until you could earn money of your own. And once I’d found work —’

‘There isn’t any work.’

‘There’s always cleaning, cooking, waitressing. I’m good at those things. I might as well be paid for them. And while I’m doing them, I can enrol on some sort of correspondence course. Book-keeping, or typewriting. Christina did it; why shouldn’t I? And meanwhile, you’ll take your classes. Haven’t you always wanted to? Stevie can help us find you an art school.’

‘But even supposing – Where would we live? I’d be a married girl, separated. People would think the worst of me. We couldn’t stay here with your mother. She wouldn’t want me in the house. You know she wouldn’t.’

‘Then we’d look for rooms right away. My mother could take in more lodgers. I’ve been thinking about that too. She can’t live on dwindling dividends for ever. With more lodgers there’d be an income – enough for a maid, to replace me.’

‘But you couldn’t leave her like that, could you?’

Frances hesitated. Could she? But what was the alternative? Settle ever more neatly, ever more dumbly, ever more dishonestly, into her
role
?

She caught hold of Lilian’s hands again. ‘I would do it,’ she said, ‘for you.’

The tears came back into Lilian’s eyes. She pulled away. ‘Oh, Frances.’

‘Don’t cry. Why are you crying?’

‘Because it’s all too much. There are too many people in it. I don’t care about Len any more, but he’d hate it. He’d come after me. I know he would.’

‘Would he really, though? Isn’t he as unhappy as you are?’

‘But it isn’t about what he wants. It’s about how the thing would look. It’s always been about that. He’d think of his family, his friends, the Pearl. He wants to get on; it would ruin things for him. And then, what would
my
family say?’

‘They might say they wanted you to be happy.’

‘
Your
mother wouldn’t say that. Why should mine? – because she’s from Walworth, and cares less? You know what people would think of us.’

‘Not everyone thinks that way.’

‘Oh, the whole world does. You know it does. Everybody’s so narrow and mean and —’

‘No. Only a few people are. But the rest of us – don’t you see? The rest of us become narrow and mean when we live falsely. I’m sick to death of living falsely. I’ve been doing it for years. I had that chance with Christina to give myself over to someone I loved; I let it go by. It seemed at the time like a brave thing to do. But it wasn’t bravery. I was a coward. I won’t be a coward with you. I won’t let you be a coward, either. But you’re braver than you think. If you weren’t, you would never have crossed the kitchen and kissed me, after Netta’s party. You would never have said, “Take me home.” You would never have pulled the stake from my heart. You remember that moment?’

Lilian looked at her, but didn’t answer.

‘You remember?’ Frances persisted. ‘You drew out that stake, and everything changed. You’ve been acting since then as though you can somehow tuck that change into your ordinary life. Lilian, you can’t. It’s too big a thing.’

‘You keep saying that,’ said Lilian. ‘But don’t you understand? It’s
because
it’s so big. It’s everything I’ve ever known. What you want me to do, it’s everything I’ve ever thought, and everything everyone else thinks about me – it’s all of it, changing.’

‘I know it is. But isn’t it marvellous, to think of changing like that? And what’s the use of anything, otherwise? What’s the good of having gone through the War, all that, if two people who love each other the way we do can’t be together? But you have to promise me, about Leonard. You must say no to him from now on.’

Lilian turned away. ‘Oh, it’s all so stupid! It’s all such a mess! I don’t even
want
Len! I wish he’d just – just die! I wish it more than ever!’

‘Then it’ll be easy,’ said Frances. ‘Won’t it? Look, here’s how easy it will be.’ And she reached for Lilian’s left hand, took hold of her wedding and engagement rings, and, gently but firmly, began to draw them from their finger. Lilian gave the slightest of automatic twitches as the rings started to move, but after that she made no resistance, instead looking on in unhappy fascination as they caught on her knuckle and then came free.

‘You see how simple it is?’ said Frances, when she had tucked the rings out of sight and was running her thumb over the smooth white band of flesh exposed by their removal. ‘Your hand in mine, with nothing in between. It’s the simplest thing in the world. Isn’t it?’

Lilian didn’t answer for a moment. Instead she sank back against the pillow, closing her eyes. And when she spoke, she spoke flatly, as if surrendering at last.

But what she said was: ‘It isn’t simple at all.’

Frances stared at her shut, tired face. ‘What do you mean?’

She opened her eyes. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Frances.’

‘You’re – You’re choosing him?’

‘No, it isn’t that.’

‘What, then?’

She grew oddly guilty-looking. ‘I don’t know how to tell you. Something’s happened. It needn’t make a difference, if everything you’ve said is true. It just makes things harder, that’s all.’

‘But what are you talking about? What is it?’

‘Please don’t blame me. It wasn’t my fault. But, oh, Frances, I think – I’m almost sure – that I’ve started a baby.’

The words were so unlike any of the ones that Frances had been expecting to hear that for a moment she could hardly make sense of them. Outside, the day had darkened. She was aware of rain, in a sudden shower, producing a sound like rapid drumming on the flat lead scullery roof below her window. As the shower eased, and the drumming slowed, she put a hand across her eyes.

Lilian said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘How sure are you?’

‘I’m sure, Frances. It’s nearly a month over its time.’

‘You couldn’t simply be late?’

‘I’m never late. You know I’m not. And I feel… different.’

‘Different, how?’

‘I don’t know. Tired. Just different.’

Frances lowered her hand and gazed into Lilian’s face. She
did
look different, she realised. She had looked different ever since she had returned from her holiday; perhaps even since before that. She was changed, in some indefinable physical way…

‘Oh, God. I can’t believe it!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lilian again.

‘When did it happen?
How
did it happen? I’ve always supposed that you and Leonard —’ She had never wanted to know the details. ‘I’ve always imagined that you have some way of – of —’

‘We do. We did. But there was a night – He forgot to be careful.’

‘Careful?’

‘You know what I mean. He always… comes out before he’s finished, and I finish him off. We’ve always done it like that, and it’s always worked, more or less. But this time he stayed inside me. He said it was an accident. I don’t know if it was or not. But I
knew
. I knew that night. That I had caught, I mean. That it had taken. I just knew.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

Lilian looked utterly miserable. ‘I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to worry you for nothing. I’ve been hoping it would fix itself. It’s done that sometimes, in the past. And then, a part of me didn’t want to think about it at all… Are you angry with me?’

Frances covered her eyes again. ‘I’m not angry. I can’t think how I feel.’

‘I’ve been worried to death.’

‘I just wish I’d known.’

‘It doesn’t make you want to take back all those things you said?’

‘Take them back? Of course it doesn’t. But what’s the use of them now?’ She was working it out as she spoke. The disappointment of it was dreadful. ‘It’s no good our planning anything, is it? This keeps you stuck with him for ever.’

‘What? No, don’t say that.’

‘Well, doesn’t it?’

‘No!’ Lilian pushed herself up and caught hold of Frances’s arm. ‘It doesn’t change anything about you and me. Don’t think that. That’s not why I’m telling you. It just makes things more difficult for us.’

‘Difficult? That’s putting it mildly! You think we can manage, with a child? You think he’ll let us? He’ll have the law on his side. He’ll have everything on his side!’

‘But I don’t want to have Len’s baby. I don’t want any baby at all. If it won’t sort itself out, then – then I’ll sort it out myself.’

Again Frances was aware of the drumming of the raindrops. Drawing back from Lilian slightly, she said, in a hushed, shocked voice, ‘Get rid of it? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘
Yes
. It isn’t so bad, Frances. When it’s only just started there are pills you can take to put yourself right —’

‘Oh, Lilian, no. You can’t be serious. It’s too squalid.’

‘I don’t care, so long as they work.’

‘I can’t believe they ever do. And God knows what goes into them.’

‘They do work, if you get the right ones, and you take them at just the right time.’ Her tone was certain, knowing. She coloured. ‘Don’t look at me like that. It’s only what lots of women do.’

Frances was staring at her. ‘You’ve taken them before?’

‘Only once. Frances, I had to. It was the year after we got married, a few months after I’d lost my baby. I – I couldn’t face it. It felt all wrong. I got it into my head, you see, that it would happen again. Vera has a friend who’s a nurse, and she got the pills for me. They made me feel dreadful. I thought I was dying! I tried to do it on my own, but in the end I had to tell Len. He nearly had a fit. He thought his parents would find out. We had to do it all in secret, all in their tiny little house. But it won’t be so bad if I do it again, because this time I’ll know what to expect. I just can’t do it alone, that’s all. I thought of doing it and not telling you, but – It’s just too hard, when you’re on your own. I can get the pills. I can go to a shop —’

‘A shop? What shop? What shop are you talking about?’

‘There’s a place in Town, on the Edgware Road. Vera’s friend told me about it. I can get them. I know what to ask for. But I’ll need you to help me when the worst bit happens.’

She had clearly thought it all through. Frances was struggling to keep up with her. To be casually discussing this, there in her bedroom, on Champion Hill, on a rainy Monday morning —

‘Surely there’s another way?’

‘There isn’t, Frances.’

‘You might make yourself ill!’

‘I don’t care about that.’

‘Well, I do. One hears such stories. It isn’t safe.’

‘No, no, it only isn’t safe when it’s become a real baby, when you leave it too long and have to put something in there to get the baby out. But that’s different. That’s unnatural. That’s a sin, and against the law. I’d never do that.’

‘But what you’re talking about is just the same.’

‘No, Frances. It isn’t.’

She spoke with certainty again – with impatience, even. Frances couldn’t tell if she had genuinely misunderstood the process, or had simply decided on a convenient course of belief and was sticking to it. Either way – God, how monstrous it was! How different from the pure, true thing she’d had in mind!

She felt exposed, suddenly. She felt cold and under-dressed. She rose and crossed the room to her armchair, sat at the front of it, her limbs drawn in.

Lilian watched her. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m trying to realise it,’ she said. ‘I feel… caught out. Tripped up. I’m sorry.’

‘You mustn’t feel that. It’s isn’t so bad. It’s —’

‘When did it happen, exactly?’

The abruptness of the question made Lilian blink. ‘What? I’ve told you.’

‘Yes, but which night? That’s what I mean. Which particular night?’

‘Oh, what does it matter? It’s happened, that’s all.’

‘Was it that night when you were ironing? The night I came into the kitchen?’

‘The kitchen?’ Lilian frowned. ‘No. No, it must have been after that. I don’t know when it was, Frances.’

Just some ordinary night, then. Just one of those nights when Frances had lain there listening for the sound of the door…

Lilian was still watching her. ‘Don’t you want us to be together? You did, a minute ago. You said you would help me to be brave.’

‘I didn’t know this would be a part of it.’

‘You said you’d give things up for me. Why won’t you let me give this up, for you?’

And at that, Frances felt a touch of horror. Was this, after all, what she had persuaded Lilian into? She rubbed her bare shoulders, a shiver pimpling her skin. She knew that she ought to go back to the bed, take Lilian in her arms. But she couldn’t do it; she felt paralysed. She kept thinking of herself lying here, while just across the landing —

Didn’t they say that a woman had to enjoy it, in order for a pregnancy to take?

She shook the idea off. Lilian was about to become hers. That was the point to remember. That was the destination of it all. It had happened, it was dreadful, but they couldn’t be kept apart, could they, by such a little, little thing?

She rose, returned to the bed, and they held each other tightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lilian said again. ‘I’m so sorry. Don’t hate me, Frances. I love you so much. But it isn’t as bad as you think. It’s just a nuisance. It’s just… nothing. It’s like a bad tooth that has to come out. Once I’ve done it, we can forget it. We can be together, just like you said.’

When Frances’s mother returned to the house at lunch-time, fresh from her morning with the vicar, Frances could hardly bring herself to meet her gaze. She could hardly meet Leonard’s gaze, either, when he came home from work. Her excitement about the future that she and Lilian were planning – it was lost, overwhelmed, a single pale thread in a dark, dark tangle. Lying in bed that night, she tried to pull the thing apart. Suppose the baby were to be born. Could the two of them manage? It would be hard, but not impossible, not impossible at all. Other women managed it, with less money than they would have. There were thousands of fatherless families, since the War… But in her heart, she didn’t want it. Apart from anything else, it would be a permanent link with Leonard, even assuming that he would let them keep the child. It might draw Lilian back to him. It might somehow repair their marriage. And what would Frances do then? Would she return to her old life, her loveless, Lilianless life, like a snake having to fit itself back into a desiccated skin?

The idea made her panic, and the panic itself dismayed her. For was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy against not counting? How real was the passion she had with Lilian, after all? She remembered how flimsy it had appeared after Edith’s visit. Right there, in the darkness, it seemed suddenly to be founded on nothing. They had never spent a night together. They had never eaten a meal together – only foolish picnics in the park. And they were making all these plans, contemplating all these sacrifices, and forcing sacrifices on to other people, on to her mother, on to Leonard…

She lay sleepless for two or three hours, and rose the next day feeling wretched.

But Lilian, by contrast, looked better than she had looked in weeks. As soon as the two of them were alone she took hold of Frances’s hands; her rings, of course, were back on their finger. She had been thinking, she said, about when they ought to ‘do it’.

‘It has to be soon,’ she whispered. ‘The sooner you do it, the better it works. And if you take the pills around the time you should be falling poorly, then that works best of all. That would be this coming Sunday, for me. Well, that’s no good, because Len’ll be home. Saturday’s the same. But on Friday night he’s going out, straight from work; he’s seeing Charlie. And didn’t you say that your mother’s going out then, too? Round to her friend’s?’

Yes, Frances remembered, there was to be a bridge party that night at Mrs Playfair’s. She herself had been invited, a fortnight before. She had said no – wanting to remain at home, in earshot of Lilian and Leonard. And all the time —

‘You’re not changing your mind?’ Lilian asked her, seeing the shift in her expression.

She answered with a frown. ‘No, I – It’s just all moving so quickly. I still can’t believe in it all. I can’t believe there won’t be some difficulty, some disaster. If my mother should find out —’

‘She won’t.’

‘We can’t be sure.’

‘We can. We
must
be sure, because being sure will help the pills work. I’m going to get them today.’

‘Today? But can’t we take a little more time? I feel I’ve talked you into something, and —’

‘It isn’t like that.’

‘Well, then, you’ve talked
me
into something. And I know I’ve let you do it, against my sense of what’s right, because I love you and it’s the way to having you all to myself, and – I don’t know if that’s brave or cowardly, or what it is.’

Lilian laid a hand on her cheek. ‘Oh, Frances. It’s nothing so serious as that.’

‘Are you certain about this? Lilian, are you absolutely certain?’

‘I’ve made up my mind to it. Whether you help me or not, I’m going to do it.’

‘But in another day or two —’

‘No. It has to be today. Now that I’ve decided, I – I just want to be rid of it.’ She moved her hand to her belly, placed it there with a look of distaste. ‘I can’t stand to think of it inside me, getting bigger every minute.’

Frances watched her, uneasily. She said at last, ‘Well, you can’t go alone. I won’t let you go alone. Suppose something should happen to you?’

‘Nothing’s going to happen. Women do this all the time. Married women, I mean, as well as other sorts of women. But I don’t want you to have to go into a horrible chemist’s shop with me. It’ll make you stop loving me. It’ll make you hate me! It’s my problem, and I’m going to fix it.’ She squeezed Frances’s hand again. ‘Please trust me, Frances.’

Reluctantly, Frances returned the pressure of her fingers.

But, still, she wouldn’t let her go off entirely on her own. In a sheepish sort of way, she told her mother that she and Lilian had decided to visit a gallery, and after lunch they took a tram into Town; Lilian said that a tram would be better than a bus, because it would jolt her about more and ‘might help things along’. The thought was a ghastly one to Frances. She made the journey as tensely as if she were carrying a child herself. But Lilian’s spirits seemed high. When they parted at Oxford Circus, Frances stood for a minute watching her make her way westward through the crowd of shoppers, and her step didn’t slow once.

It was half-past two, and they’d arranged to meet again at four, in Cavendish Square. The day was another damp one, but Frances had brought along an umbrella; she raised it and began to walk, taking random turns. With every step, she felt her disquiet mounting by another notch. She oughtn’t to have let Lilian go off alone. They oughtn’t to have come. What on earth were they doing? Everywhere she looked she saw prams, she saw babies with pink, alive faces.

At last, realising how close she was to Clipstone Street, she crossed a road and went the few hundred yards to call on Christina.

But the visit was a mistake – she could tell that at once. It had come too soon after the last one, and Christina was busy; she invited Frances in, but her gaze kept wandering over to the papers on her desk. When Frances began to tell her about Lilian, she listened long enough only to hear that the two of them had reconciled their differences and said, ‘Oh, Frances, I can’t keep pace with you! I thought the whole thing had come to nothing.’