The Paying Guests (35 page)

‘It isn’t so bad. Honestly. And soon – soon you’ll never have to leave me again. When we’re together, I mean. We can do as we like then, can’t we? But I don’t want your mother to know something’s wrong, and tell Len, and get him thinking. Please, Frances. It’s just a few more hours.’

Her voice had that fretful note to it again, but her gaze seemed clearer. In an agony of indecision, Frances kissed her, and left her, and returned downstairs. She made the tea, and sat in the drawing-room, managing to chat with her mother, about the weather, about the garden – about God only knew what. An instant after she’d made a comment she’d forgotten what it was.

At six she even started work on a pie for her own dinner. She could hear her mother getting ready to go out as she was doing it, and longed for her to move more quickly; she looked at the clock, and willed its hands forward. The sunless day had given way to a chill, moonless dusk, and her mother, she suspected, would be glad to be walked the short distance to Mrs Playfair’s house; she had grown a little nervous since the attack on Leonard. But Frances had escorted her to Mrs Playfair’s one evening last week, and had been drawn inside and kept talking for half an hour; she was afraid to leave Lilian alone so long. So when her mother appeared in the kitchen, she kept her hands in the mixing bowl.

Her mother hovered, watching her work. ‘You won’t change your mind about coming?’

Frances showed her floury fingers. ‘Well, I’ve started this now. And I’ll only upset the card tables if I turn up at the last minute.’

‘Oh – yes, I suppose so.’

She was plainly disappointed. But it couldn’t be helped. Not this once. Not tonight. She lingered for another minute, then buttoned her coat and said goodbye. There was the sound of her crossing the hall, followed by the thud of the closing front door.

And then it was weirdly like the early, urgent days of the affair. Frances shook the moment off along with the flour on her hands. She untied her apron, ran to the stairs, started up them – then jumped with fright. Lilian was at the top, leaning over the banisters, clutching at the rail.

‘Is that your mother just gone? I need the lavatory!’

Frances hurried towards her. ‘It’s cold out. Use the pot.’

But she came down. ‘I need it badly, Frances! I need it now!’

She moved with a combination of speed and caution that, at any other moment, might have been funny, the sort of agonised closed-kneed hobble with which a low comedian would signify a pressing case of the trots. To Frances the pose seemed horrifying: she took hold of her hand with shaking fingers, helped her negotiate the staircase, supported her as she made her way along the passage and through the kitchen. She paused to light a lantern, but Lilian wouldn’t wait for that: she went scuttling across the twilit yard and into the WC.

She left the door to swing open behind her, and by the time Frances had caught up with her she was sitting on the lavatory with her legs exposed, leaning forward as if convulsed, a blood-stained napkin in her hand. When she saw Frances, however, she made a weak shooing gesture, saying, ‘Oh, Frances, don’t come near me! I don’t want you to see! Put the lantern down and leave me! Oh!
Oh, Christ!
’ And though the curse was shocking, because Frances had never heard Lilian swear before, not once, it was also queerly reassuring, a burst of anger rather than despair, the final snapping of tolerance; the breaking-point of the day. She did as she was told, set down the light and stepped away. She heard the rustle of the Bromo, followed by the gushing of the cistern. A minute of silence, then more Bromo – endless amounts of Bromo, it seemed – then the gushing of the cistern again.

And then Lilian emerged. She had the lantern in her hand, and her face looked ghastly with the light striking it from underneath. There was blood in the lavatory, she said; she couldn’t get it to go away. But apart from that she was all right. It was finished, all over.

Her teeth were chattering, though. Frances got her into the house, made sure that she was capable of climbing the stairs. Then she returned to the WC and peered gingerly into the pan. The china rim was spotted with red, but the stuff at the bottom was dark as black treacle. She stirred the whole thing up with the lavatory brush, added paper, pulled the chain. And when she had done that two more times, the water settled clear.

Upstairs, Lilian was back on the sofa, shivering, her hair sticking to her cheeks: Frances couldn’t tell if that was with sweat, or simply from the dampness of the night. She tucked the blanket more tightly around her, drew the slippers from her feet, tried to warm her toes and fingers – they felt like stiff white roots. The hot water bottle was cooling. She went to the kitchen, filled the kettle for a fresh one. There was no food about anywhere – Lilian had had nothing all day – but she found a jar of beef essence, made a spoonful of it into a broth, and took it back to the sitting-room along with a slice of dry bread. Lilian grimaced and turned away at the sight of the little meal, but gave in to it at last; and after that her shivering subsided and a trace of colour began to appear in her cheeks. She looked, unmistakably, less burdened and fretful.

And soon she sighed and grew still. Frances put an arm around her; they leaned into each other, exhausted. The fire leapt and crackled in the grate, and the room became improbably cosy. The clock on the shelf showed twenty to eight. What a day it had been! Frances felt as wrung-out as a dish-swab. And yet, the fantastic thing was that it had worked out just as Lilian had promised, even down to the timing of it all. Her mother wouldn’t be back from Mrs Playfair’s until half-past ten or so. Leonard might well not return until after eleven. They had a good three hours now to collect themselves, to regain their calm.

She kissed the crown of Lilian’s head, and spoke softly. ‘How is it?’

Lilian felt for her hand, and answered on a sigh. ‘It’s not so bad. Just an ordinary pain now. Not like it was this afternoon.’

‘I was frightened to death when I saw you! I thought I would lose you.’

Lilian shifted back to look up at her. ‘Did you?’ She was almost smiling.

‘But I think it’s worse than you’re making out. I wish I could take the pain myself.’

‘I’d never let you do that.’

‘Half the pain, then. Half each.’

She shook her head. ‘No. It’s my pain, and I can bear it. It’s my old life coming out of me; my life with Len. That’s why it was bad. But it’s better now.’

They leaned into each other again and sat with closed eyes, hand in hand.

But she was still worried about her napkin, about blood getting on the sofa. Once or twice, as she had before, she ran her hand under her thighs to be sure that none was escaping; and presently she got to her feet. Turning away, touchingly prim, she drew up the hem of her skirt, and Frances heard her groan. The blood was slowing at last, she said, but it had made an awful mess of her legs, her stockings and slip. She ought to wash herself, and change the napkin, before she grew any sleepier.

So Frances hauled herself up and went back to the little kitchen for a bowl of water, soap and a towel. She returned to find Lilian with her legs bare, unfastening the soiled napkin from a narrow linen belt around her hips. ‘Oh, don’t look!’ she cried, as she’d been crying all day; but she moved so wearily, and fumbled the pins so badly, that Frances set down the bowl and stepped to assist her.

The napkin, heavy with blood, resembled a piece of raw meat. Frances did her best to fold it, and then, for want of anywhere else to put it, she placed it among the cinders on the hearthstone. Lilian lowered herself with a wobble over the bowl, and soaped and rinsed between her legs. The water grew pink, then distinctly crimson: her pose had brought on another gush. Frances, alarmed, could see it falling from her; it was like a glistening dark thread. She helped her to rise and dab at her thighs with the towel. They quickly put the new napkin in place and attached it to the belt. Lilian stepped back into her skirt, then sat heavily down again, blowing out her breath with the effort of it all, letting herself sag sideways until her cheek met the arm of the sofa.

She watched from under heavy eyelids as Frances collected her cast-off clothes, the blood-smeared petticoat and stockings. And when Frances had lifted the bowl of grisly water and was carrying it across to the door, she said, ‘I’m so sorry, Frances. It’s all been so horrible, and you’ve been so good. I’d have died to have anybody but you see me like this.’

Frances answered after a hesitation. ‘You said you weren’t brave.’

Lilian looked back at her, not understanding.

‘You said you weren’t brave. Look how brave you’ve been today.’

Lilian’s eyes filled with tears. She shook her head and couldn’t answer. Her dark hair fell lankly. Her face was still doughy, and her lips were dry. But Frances, gazing across at her, felt that she had never in her life loved anyone so much, nor so purely.

She adjusted her grip on the bowl of water and got hold of the knob of the door. Hooking the door open with her foot, moving awkwardly around it, she stepped out to the landing.

There, at the turn of the stairs, just coming up them – just undoing the buttons of his overcoat – was Leonard.

She gave such a start at the sight of him that the bowl jumped in her hands and the water almost slopped. But after that she stood still, in a paralysis of confusion and fear. He came on towards her in an ordinary evening way, perhaps not quite thrilled to see her, but raising his hand in tired greeting. Then he began to take in the strangeness of her manner. Once he’d mounted the last of the steps and could see what she was holding – the blood-stained clothing, and the bowl, which there was absolutely no way of concealing – his gaze sharpened.

‘What’s going on?’

She answered absurdly, ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Is it Lily?’

He stuck his hat on the newel post and pushed past her into the sitting-room. ‘Lily?’ she heard him say. ‘What the hell’s the matter?’

All she could think of was to get rid of the blood. She went hastily into the kitchen and tipped the bowl into the sink, running the tap until the water lost its rustiness, then roughly wiping down the spattered porcelain. The petticoat and stockings she tried to rinse – but that simply made more rust, more spatters. At last she threw them into the empty bowl and carried them over to her own room, dumping them on the floor and closing the door on them.

Then, with a racing heart, wiping her wet hands on her skirt as she went, she returned to the sitting-room.

Leonard was seated at the front of the sofa with his back to her, still in his overcoat. He had one of Lilian’s hands in his and she was trying to pull it away. ‘I’m all right,’ she was saying. She had pushed herself up, and was smiling. The smile looked terrible on her strained white face. The flesh around her eyes suddenly seemed dark as a bruise. When she caught sight of Frances she gazed up at her, helpless, frightened.

Leonard twisted around to Frances too. ‘How long has she been like this?’

Lilian spoke before she could answer. She said, as Frances had before, ‘It’s nothing, Len.’

He twisted back to her. ‘Nothing? Jesus Christ, you look awful! I just saw Frances carrying off about a bucketful of blood. And – God Almighty, what’s that?’ He had spotted the bunched-up napkin on the hearthstone.

Lilian’s smile grew more terrible still. ‘I’ve been bleeding, that’s all. It’s been a bad one, I can’t think why. Frances has been helping. What are you looking at? Oh, don’t look at that! It’s just a napkin. Don’t look at it! It isn’t a thing for husbands to see!’ She put up her hand, drew his face back to hers. ‘Why are you home? Why are you here? Why aren’t you with Charlie?’

He said, ‘Charlie had to leave early. We only had time for a couple of beers.’

‘We didn’t hear you come in.’

‘No, I got the bus to Camberwell, so I came the garden way. You look shocking, Lily. It isn’t usually like this, is it?’

‘No, it’s a bad one this time.’

‘When I saw that bowl —’

‘It was just water.’

‘It didn’t look like water to me.’ He twisted round to Frances again. She was standing just inside the room with her hand on the doorknob; her legs would simply not carry her any further forward. ‘Has she been like this all day?’ he asked her.

She gazed at him and couldn’t speak.

Lilian answered instead. ‘You mustn’t worry. It’s nothing.’

He turned back to her. ‘Why do you keep saying that? What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s the matter. I —’

But Frances could see that she hadn’t the strength for it. Her voice had begun to waver, and the smile was tugging ever more unnaturally at her face. As Leonard stared at her, bewildered, she sank back against the cushions with a hand across her eyes. And when she let the hand drop she said, in a defeated way, ‘I didn’t want to tell you, Len. I – I think it’s a miss. That’s why it’s been so bad.’

He looked quickly over his shoulder at Frances, his sandy eyelashes fluttering. Turning to Lilian again, he dropped his voice. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know. It was only a few weeks along, and —’

‘Did you get a doctor? Today, I mean. Have you seen a doctor?’

‘I haven’t needed a doctor. Frances has looked after me. – What are you doing?’

He was getting to his feet. ‘What’s the time?’ It was quarter to nine. ‘It isn’t too late for me to run for a doctor now, is it? Where’s the nearest man?’

Panicked, Lilian put out her hand to pull him back. ‘Please, Len. I don’t want a doctor. There’s no point. It’s all finished.’

‘Just someone to look you over.’

‘There’s nothing for a doctor to do. It’ll be a waste of money. And Mrs Wray will come home when he’s here, and it’ll all be a big fuss, and I’ll be embarrassed. Please, Len.’

‘But you look like death! Frances, you must agree with me, don’t you? Just tell me where the nearest man is.’

Again Frances found herself unable to answer. She felt too ashamed, too exposed. The success of the thing, the cosy room, the romance: it had vanished. Lilian had scrambled to her knees now, the blanket slithering from her, the hot water bottle falling plumply to the floor. Their gazes met over Leonard’s shoulder and she gave Frances a small, urgent, warning shake of her head.