The Paying Guests (36 page)

And Leonard turned back to her just as she did it. Caught out, she blinked, then lowered her eyes. He stood and watched her, his expression shifting. ‘Just what the hell is going on here?’ He waited. ‘Frances? What’s going on?’ Then his face cleared, as he worked it out. He turned to his wife again. ‘You’ve never —?’

Lilian spoke in a guilty rush. ‘It just happened by itself. I just woke up and it had come on. I swear it, Len.’

He gazed at her, saying nothing. His silence made her bluster all the more. She appealed to Frances. ‘Tell him, Frances. You saw me this morning, didn’t you? Didn’t I tell you that it had come on? Didn’t I – Oh!’ She sat back, clamping her hands across her belly. ‘Oh, I feel so ill!’

The sight of her made Frances able to move forward at last. Leonard, however, remained where he was. ‘If you’re as ill as all that,’ he said coldly, ‘why won’t you let me fetch you a doctor? Are you afraid of what he’ll find?’

‘Please don’t, Len.’

‘I don’t believe this. – No, Frances, let her alone.’ Frances had been drawing up the blanket around Lilian’s shoulders, but he’d caught hold of her arm and was pulling her away. ‘You let my dear wife alone until you hear what she’s done.’

‘Stop it, Len,’ said Lilian weakly.

‘Why? Don’t you want Frances to know? Are you ashamed of yourself? No? Tell Frances, then. Go on. Or shall I tell her for you? I know, let’s call for Mrs Wray and tell her too, shall we?’

He still had hold of Frances’s arm. She tried to tug herself free. ‘Please, Leonard,’ she said at last.

‘No, no. I’m waiting for Lily to tell you.’

‘Leonard, for God’s sake!’ Her tone made him turn and look into her face. She blinked away from his gaze. ‘Please. It’s been a dreadful day.’

And her manner, her guilty pose, must have been as good as a confession. He released her arm. ‘You were in on it too? Jesus Christ! I don’t believe it!’

Lilian said, ‘Frances has been looking after me.’

‘Oh, she’s been looking after you, all right.’ He put his hand to his greased hair. ‘God! Is this what you women get up to? And then you complain when men call you devious! How many other times have you done it? – No, look at me. Listen to me. I don’t care how ill you are.’ He stood over Lilian. ‘How many times, since that first one?’

She groaned. ‘Oh, don’t be stupid.’

‘I suppose this is your idea of – what? Paying me out? Having a go at me, are you?’

‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’

‘Nothing to do with me? Christ!’ His face twisted. ‘Oh, I can’t look at you. It’s making me sick. What the hell’s the matter with you, girl? I just don’t know what you want. You couldn’t stand it at Cheveney Avenue; all right, so I moved you here. I don’t keep you short of money. You do whatever the hell you want with the rooms; you’ve got them decked out like a bloody bordello! A kid would – what? Spoil the decorations? There’s more to life than silk ribbons, you know.’

Lilian was hugging her aching belly. ‘I don’t care about the ribbons. I don’t care about the rooms. Don’t you understand? I don’t care about
you
.’

‘Oh, don’t you? Well, I’ve got some news for you. I’m not all that crazy about you, either. But we’re stuck with each other, aren’t we?’

‘No, we’re not.’

He put a hand to his moustache, to wipe his mouth. ‘Oh, talk sense.’

‘It is sense. I – I mean it, Lenny. Frances knows I mean it, too. We make each other too unhappy. I can’t stand it any more. I want us to live apart.’

His hand was still at his moustache. He stared at her across it. ‘What?’

‘I want a separation! Why do you think I’ve done all this?’

It was the first truthful thing she had said since he’d got home, and the honesty of it was unmistakable. He kept his eyes on her face in silence, then dipped his head, turned away, drew his hand down from his mouth. Catching sight of his expression from the side, seeing the twist of his features, Frances was appalled to think that he was about to cry. Then she was even more appalled to realise that he was laughing.

But the laughter disappeared, just like that, like a mask coming off. He straightened up. And what he said, with eerie blandness, was: ‘Who is he?’

Lilian’s shoulders sank. ‘Oh, I knew you’d think that. I knew it!’

‘Who is he?’

‘It isn’t all about men, you know! Can’t I just want to get away from you? Can’t I just have a life of my own? I’m going to get a job. I’m going to go to college.’

His lip rose on his crowded teeth. ‘A job?’

‘Well, why shouldn’t I? I had a job when I met you.’

‘Selling knickers for your step-dad! I’d like to see how long you’d last in a real job. And college! You expect me to believe that?’

‘I don’t care what you believe.’

‘Oh, don’t mess me about. There’s only one reason you’d want to leave me, and that’s to let some other poor sap make you his tart.’ He turned to Frances. ‘You knew all about this already, didn’t you? God, I
knew
something was going on with you two! All that whispering and darting about every time my back was turned. Does she bring him here, when your mother’s out? Keep watch at the door for them, do you? Deliver his little letters? And I thought you and I were pals.’

‘It isn’t like that!’ cried Lilian, before Frances could respond.

He ignored her. ‘Where did she meet him?’ His blue gaze had loosened slightly; Frances could almost see the grinding of his thoughts as he tried to work it out. ‘Was it at that party, in the summer? That party of her sister’s? Is it some Walworth Road swine? Some Irish tinker waster? Or – that little shitpot with the bicycle clips! What’s his name? Ernie?’

‘There isn’t any man!’ cried Lilian.

The words came out as a sort of shriek, making Frances jump. But they had no effect at all on Leonard. He kept on with his rant: Who was the man? Where did he live? When had she met him? When had it started? Just how long had the two of them been carrying on? He was working himself up, slowly but steadily letting go of reason and caution. His lips and moustache grew wet with spittle; he wiped them with a finger and thumb, then made a wide sweep of his arm that took in Lilian on the sofa, the blanket, the napkin in the hearth. Was that, he asked with horrible triumph, what this was all about? Her getting rid of another man’s child? Jesus, and to think that for a minute he’d felt sorry for her!

Frances began to grow frightened. She looked at Lilian and saw that she was frightened too. The atmosphere in the room, which so far had simply been tense and unhappy, now felt charged with actual danger. She thought with horror of her mother coming home. ‘Leonard, please stop it,’ she kept saying, making ineffectual movements towards him. ‘This is pointless. For God’s sake, calm down!’ But he ignored her completely, and when he fell silent at last he stood with his eyes darting, clearly searching for something. His gaze fastened on Lilian’s handbag. He strode to it and picked it up, undid its clasp and overturned it. ‘No, no!’ cried Lilian, beginning to dash towards him. But she was too late. The bag’s contents fell to the floor, to make a chaos of papers and coins, postage stamps, combs, lipsticks. He went roughly through them – he was looking for evidence, Frances supposed, appalled, of Lilian’s affair. Not finding anything there, he gazed around the room again, and spotted her work-basket: he seized that and tipped it up, too. The result was a shower of balls of wool, needle cases, paper patterns, cotton reels, scraps of material. A little tub hit the rug and burst open, and out flew a hundred pearl-headed pins.

As if the pins were the very last straw, Lilian began to weep. ‘Go away!’ she cried. ‘I hate you!’ She flung a cushion at him.

The cushion, a yellow one, bounced from his shoulder to add to the chaos on the floor. He stepped through it all, caught hold of her by her upper arms, and shook her.

‘Who is he? Who’s the man?’

‘There isn’t a man!’

‘Oh, don’t insult me. Tell me who he is. I’ll bloody well kill him!’

He shook her again as he spoke, and she moved in his hands like something lifeless – like a rug or a table-cloth having the crumbs jounced from it. Frances ran to the two of them and tried to prise off his fingers. When that had no effect she caught hold of the back of his collar and pulled. In response he shoved into her with his shoulder and she went stumbling back, and still he kept on shaking Lilian and hissing into her face. ‘Who’s the man? Tell me his name. Where does he live?
Tell
me!’

At last Frances couldn’t bear it; something inside her gave or snapped.

‘
I
’m the man, Leonard!’ she cried. ‘
I
’m the man. Do you understand me? Lilian and I are lovers. We have been for months.’

It was the sort of thing she had imagined herself saying to him, countless times. She had longed and longed for the opportunity to do it. All those nights when she’d lain in bed, desolate or furious, thinking of him at Lilian’s side… But this was nothing like her fantasies. Her voice was shrill, unsteady, and the moment had no triumph in it, no triumph at all. Leonard looked at her, at first, in pure irritation, as if ready to shoulder her away again and get a better grip on his wife. Then he saw her expression, and the meaning of the words must have got through to him. He held his pose, but opened his hands; Lilian slumped back on to the sofa. Her face was streaked and wet with weeping. She kept her head tilted forward, but gazed up at him, plainly guilty. He said to her, ‘Is it true? What Frances said?’

After a little hesitation, she nodded.

He looked at Frances again, then; and in the bareness of his gaze she saw how thoroughly she had betrayed him. His face twitched. He closed his mouth in a firm straight line, drew a few noisy breaths through his nose, then turned his back on both of them, took two or three steps away from the sofa.

But then, in a rush, he turned back. Frances moved too, thinking that he was going after Lilian again. But he came straight at her. Hooking an arm around her neck he started to haul her towards the door.

‘Get out!’ he said, as he did it. ‘Get away from my wife, you unnatural bitch!’

The shock of it made her stumble, and that almost pulled him over. They went staggering together across the rug, through the chaos of wools, papers, knitting needles, pins: she could feel it all slithering about under the soles of her slippers. She heard Lilian crying, sobbing, pleading with him to let her go. But his grip was an intent and terrifying one, his arm still tight around her neck, the roughness of his sleeve like a burn on her throat. She twisted about in an effort to push him away with her shoulder; her hand slid into the open folds of his coat and for a second they were embracing more closely than lovers, their arms and legs entwined, their faces grinding together; she felt the heat and the rasp of his blazing unshaved cheek. Then she twisted again and managed to get her back to him, bracing her feet against the floor. He loosened his grip around her throat and his hand groped for a hold lower down, catching painfully at one of her breasts, finally settling, more painfully still, in the crook of her armpit.

His mouth was close to her ear now, his breath a series of gusts and grunts. Through them came Lilian’s voice, still pleading with him to release her; a scuffle and a pressure at her shoulder must have been Lilian’s hands trying to prise the two of them apart. Then came the thud of small blows, travelling hollowly through his body to hers, that she understood dimly were Lilian’s fists on his back.

Then he kicked out at her ankles and they both lurched forward; and as they righted themselves there came another sort of blow, with a different sound to it – a smack, but an oddly liquid one, like a cricket bat meeting a wet ball. It knocked the breath from Leonard in a noisy, groaning rush; he caught hold of Frances’s shoulders as if trying to press her to her knees. Then she thought that he must have lost his footing on the slippery carpet, because his grip on her loosened and he slid heavily down her to the floor. And even when she turned and saw Lilian, a few feet behind him, something grasped in her hands like a club – what was it? The ashtray! The stand-ashtray! – even then, it didn’t occur to her that Lilian or the ashtray had had anything to do with his fall. She thought only of getting away from him before he could rise and grab her again.

But then she took in Lilian’s expression, and, following her gaze with her own, she realised that, far from trying to rise, Leonard was lying quite still. He had fallen on to his front with his arms pinned beneath him and his face squashed against the carpet. His breathing was shallow and laboured; he looked and sounded like a helpless drunk. The lapels of his overcoat were up around his ears, putting his head into shadow.

Frances stood panting, bent forward, her hands on her knees, her heart racing.

‘What happened? Lilian? What’s happened? Did you hit him? What did you do?’

Lilian blinked at her. ‘I just wanted him to let go of you. I just wanted —’ She looked at the ashtray as if she couldn’t imagine how it had got into her hands. She set it down with a shrinking gesture, then went warily over to Leonard. ‘Len?’ she said. ‘Len? Lenny?’ Still he did not stir. She squatted at his side, put her hand to his shoulder, then drew back his turned-up collar. And then she screamed, starting away from what she had exposed.

The side of his head was running with blood.

Frances’s heart stumbled, then began to race faster. She looked wildly around for something with which to staunch the bleeding; she got hold of the yellow cushion and placed it against the wound. Holding it there as firmly as she dared, she carefully turned his head so that she could look into his face. But his face – oh, his face was frightful, his eyelids parted but the eyes unseeing, his mouth open, made slack and misshapen by the position of his head on the floor. Worst of all, his tongue was showing, shockingly pink and uncontrolled, with a string of spittle running from the tip of it to the gaudy carpet. His breaths were more laboured than ever – wet and stertorous, like snores. Blood had cascaded down his cheek and had already drenched his white collar.

Still keeping the cushion in place, she patted him. ‘Leonard. Leonard!’ She wanted to get some response from him, something ordinary and undreadful.