The Paying Guests (53 page)

The street was busy with shoppers. Mr Viney’s window was bright this time, and the blind on the door was lifted: she could see him behind the counter, with Min beside him, serving a customer. But again she went to the other door and put her finger to the bell; again it was freckled, unfriendly Lydia who came down to let her in; again the dog was madly yapping as she climbed the narrow staircase. The door at the top was shut, but she could hear women’s voices beyond. She didn’t pause, she didn’t knock. She turned the doorknob and went through.

Gathered around the kitchen table she found Mrs Viney, Vera, Lilian and the little girl, Violet. They looked at her in amazement. Vera had a cigarette halfway to her mouth, her lips parted to receive it. Mrs Viney, clambering to her feet, said, ‘Miss Wray, well I never! We thought it was Lydia’s big sister, come to fetch her home!’

Lilian’s eyes were red with weeping. Frances spoke directly to her. ‘I just saw the paper. I just saw the news.’

She looked frightened. ‘Is it in the papers already? What are they saying?’

‘They’re saying a man’s been charged. They’re saying something about Leonard and a girl —?’

Her expression of fear turned to one of simple misery. She dipped her head and wouldn’t answer.

The dog barked again. Violet caught hold of it by its stub of a tail. Mrs Viney began to recover herself.

‘Oh, Miss Wray, aren’t you kind? To think of you coming all this way!’ She found Frances a chair. ‘We had it all from Sergeant Heath first thing this morning. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! Poor Lil’s quite floored. Who’d have believed it of Lenny? He’d been seeing this girl quite regular, by all accounts, for months and months. And Charlie doing the same with the girl’s married sister! It all come out last night, the sergeant said. They had Charlie in for more questions, and he broke right down and told them the lot. They went straight off, then, and caught the boy – picked him up just like that. He had the weapon on him and everything.’

‘He had the weapon?’ repeated Frances. She looked at Lilian again. ‘But —’

‘He’s one of these rough types,’ Mrs Viney went on. ‘Been in all sorts of trouble before. Well, it was him that had a go at Lenny back in the summer, it turns out. Do you remember? When we was all so worried? And Lenny told us it was a soldier? Well, it was this boy all along! He’d found out about Lenny and his girl and went after him to scare him off. Yes, it’s all come out now. Nineteen, that’s all he is! It’s his poor mother I feel sorry for.’

Vera was finally lighting her cigarette. ‘It’s Len’s mother
I
feel sorry for.’

‘Oh, now don’t,’ said Mrs Viney.

‘I should like to see her face, that’s all.’

The little girl, as usual, was taking everything in. ‘Why should you like to see it?’

‘Because she’s a mean old woman,’ said Vera, ‘who thought that the sun shone out of Uncle Lenny’s you-know-what. And now’ – she drew savagely on her fag, her features sharp as a hatchet – ‘now she’ll know that it didn’t. That’s why.’

Again Mrs Viney protested. It wasn’t fair to speak ill of the dead. And the funeral flowers barely drooping! Still, she did think Lenny had played Lil a very shabby trick…

There was a teapot on the table in a knitted cosy; someone tipped it over a cup as the conversation ran on, and when a bit of brown sludge came out someone else filled the kettle, fetched extra milk for the jug… Frances knew what was going to happen now. She and Lilian would sit here in this overcrowded room, gazing in agony at each other while the dog did tricks for a biscuit; and then they would have to stand in some dark corner to talk the thing furtively through, in whispers.

She wouldn’t do it; not this time. The cup was put on a saucer and set in front of her, but she spoke across it, directly to Lilian again.

‘May I see you somewhere, alone?’

The room fell silent at her words. After a pause, blushing, uncertain, Lilian got to her feet. ‘Yes, of course, if you want. I’ll – I’ll take you upstairs.’

The women were watching. Even Violet was watching. For once, Mrs Viney seemed doubtful. ‘You’re taking Miss Wray up to the bedroom, are you? None of the fires are lit up there.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Lilian, her head lowered.

‘Well, why don’t you go through to the parlour?’

‘No, we just need to talk for a minute about – Oh, we just need to talk!’

She was blushing worse than ever. Clumsily, she led Frances from the room. They went out to the half-landing, then climbed another narrow flight of stairs.

The house grew gloomier the higher they went. The staircase window had lace across it; a skylight was dingy with smuts. The bedroom they entered was small and cluttered, almost filled by its few bits of furniture, a high iron bedstead, a chest of drawers, a dressing-table with a blue satin skirt; a puppet hung on tangled strings from a crucifix on the wall. Here and there in the lino were odd little shining commas and stars: Frances peered at them in confusion, then heard the scrape of a chair, a murmur, and realised that they were chinks of light. The room below was the bright kitchen. She had a vivid sense of the women down there, still sitting at the table, perhaps gazing wonderingly up.

Lilian had gone around the bed to open the curtains wider, in order to let in the last of the fading grey daylight. When she had done it she turned back, then stood there, hunched and wretched. They looked at each other across the flowery eiderdown.

‘What are we going to do?’ whispered Frances. And then, when Lilian didn’t answer: ‘You know what it means? An innocent boy! We never thought of that, did we? We thought of Charlie. That was bad enough.’

‘It’s like a judgement on me,’ said Lilian.

‘What?’

‘It’s like a judgement on me, for everything I’ve done.’

Frances was thrown by her expression, and by the bitterness of her tone. She said, ‘It isn’t a judgement on anyone. It’s just – oh, I don’t know what the hell it is. What exactly did Sergeant Heath say?’

‘Just what my mother’s told you.’

‘You don’t know anything about this boy? How can they possibly have
charged
him? It doesn’t make any sense. What was your mother saying about a weapon?’

Lilian had lifted her hand to her mouth. ‘He had something on him – a cosh or something. Something, anyhow, that they think could have done it. And they’re talking about those hairs on Len’s coat again. They think some of them might be his.’

‘But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?’

Now she was gnawing at her lip. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. Some of them might have got there from the girl. From this – this
Billie
. If one of the boy’s hairs was on her shoulder, and then if she and Len – if they —’

‘That couldn’t happen, could it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How
could
that happen?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t know anything, do I? Len might have been seeing her every other evening for all I know! He might have been taking her to hotels —’

‘Hotels! Do you think he was?’

‘I don’t know! Yes, probably. Every time he said he was kept at work or had to go to some dinner – probably he was seeing her then. Anything could have got passed between them.’

Frances put her hands to her forehead, trying to take it all in. ‘God!’ She couldn’t draw her thoughts together; they felt as though they’d been hammered apart. ‘How could he have kept up the secret like that? For months and months, did your mother say? But, look.’ She lowered her hands, in a steadying sort of way. ‘It doesn’t matter now what he did or didn’t do. It doesn’t matter how long it went on for. What matters is this thing with the boy. What matters is that someone’s been arrested for a crime he didn’t commit. What on earth can we do about it? What did the sergeant tell you about what’s going to happen next?’

Lilian was chewing her lip again. She answered unwillingly. ‘He said the boy will have to appear at the police court on Thursday morning, for the prosecution to start making their case. If it looks strong enough to the magistrate, it’ll go to trial at the Old Bailey.’

‘The Old Bailey! Oh, this is dreadful. But, then, he isn’t on trial just yet? It could all still come to nothing?’

‘I – I don’t know. Yes, I think so. The police have to put their side of it together. And the inquest’s got to be re-opened. But that won’t happen straight away. The whole thing might take weeks, the sergeant said.’

‘Weeks! And meanwhile the boy will be – what? Kept in a prison cell?’

‘I think so.’

‘Oh, Lilian. It’s unbelievable! After everything we’ve been through. You know what we ought to do, don’t you? We ought to go straight to the police. We ought to walk into Camberwell police station and tell them everything. Suppose it does go to a trial? There wouldn’t be the evidence to convict him; a few stupid hairs won’t hang anyone. But we oughtn’t to let it go on for even another hour. We ought to speak to Inspector Kemp. But, then, if we were to do that – Oh, God!’ Her mind was leaping ahead, just as it had on the night of Leonard’s death: she was seeing the newspapers, the neighbours, her mother’s stricken face. She had to lean against the bed. ‘What would happen? They’d keep us at the police station. We’d have to think about lawyers; Mrs Playfair might help with that. But where on earth would the money come from?’

They paused, taking in the enormity of it all. Lilian blinked her red-rimmed eyes. She said, ‘You – You don’t really want us to go?’

Frances wiped her mouth. ‘No, of course I don’t want to. I’m just thinking of this boy. Aren’t you thinking of him?’

‘It’s just, I’m frightened.’

‘I know, Lily. I’m frightened, too.’

‘I’m frightened for you. I’m frightened for him. But most of all – I can’t help it – I’m frightened for myself. If we were to tell them the truth now, I don’t know what they’d do to me. Everybody hates me as it is. This would make it all a hundred times worse. They’d say I murdered him —’

Frances leaned across the bed towards her. ‘They wouldn’t say that. I promise you, I swear to you! I’d never let them say that.’

‘Then they’d just say that you helped me do it. How could we ever prove that you didn’t? They’d put us on trial for it, Frances. If we could just – just wait a bit. Until we know what’s going to happen next. I know it’s dreadful of me. But when Sergeant Heath came today, I thought he’d come to arrest me; and then, when he told me they’d arrested someone else, I felt sick. I felt sick with relief. It was just such a relief to think that now no one would be looking at me and hating me… If we could just let it be like that, just for a little while. I wouldn’t say it if it was any other sort of boy. But he’s been in trouble with the police before. It won’t be as bad for him as it would be for – for us.’

Frances was still leaning across the bed; the springs were creaking beneath her hands. She dropped her head in a sort of agony. ‘I don’t know, Lilian. I don’t know what we ought to do. It’s been clear up till now, but – Won’t it go against us, if it ever comes out? If they find out, I mean, that we waited? It was one thing when it was just the two of us, but if someone else has been dragged in… Won’t it look better if we go forward at once? Last week you were talking about going to the police yourself. Maybe you were right. I don’t know any more.’

‘But it’s different now,’ said Lilian. ‘They might have believed it was an accident if I’d told them about it then. Now they’ll think I did it on purpose, won’t they, because of Len and this girl?’

‘But you didn’t know anything about Len and the girl.’

‘I think – I think she might say that I did.’

Her hand was back at her mouth; she had spoken indistinctly. And perhaps because of that, or because of something in her pose or expression, Frances suddenly grew wary. She said, ‘Well, why would she say that?’ And then, when Lilian didn’t answer: ‘
Did
you know about them?’

Lilian was silent for a moment. Then she dropped her hand. ‘Yes.’

Frances straightened up. ‘What?’

‘At least – A few weeks ago I found something in one of Len’s pockets. The tickets from a show. They were from a night he said he’d been at his parents’; I knew he must have taken some girl. We had an awful row about it. In the end he told me the people at his office had set it all up, as a joke. I didn’t know whether or not to believe him. I never thought it was like this! I never thought there was just the one girl he was seeing over and over!’

Frances’s heart had grown oddly heavy. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

Lilian wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t want to think about it.’

‘But I wish you’d told me. I thought – I thought that was the point. That we were honest with each other, about everything, right from the start.’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘But these tickets. When did you find them? You said there was a row. Why didn’t you
tell
me?’

Again, Lilian didn’t answer. Frances waited – then, somehow, understood.

‘It was when you were on holiday. That’s what made you write me that letter.’

Lilian shook her head, and spoke quickly. ‘It wasn’t like that, Frances.’

‘The letter wasn’t about me at all. It was simply about hating
him
.’

‘No.’

But Frances had stepped back from the bed. She was painfully piecing things together. ‘When the police told us about Charlie, when we knew that Charlie was lying – you must have known what it meant. Why didn’t you say something then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lilian answered. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of it, not on top of everything else. When Len and I got married – You don’t know what it was like for me, Frances. We had to do it in such a hurry. People laughed at me. They said it served me right, for having been grand. I couldn’t bear the thought of them knowing, of them laughing at me again.’

‘You were ashamed?’ said Frances. ‘Of
that
?’

Lilian bowed her head, put a hand across her eyes. ‘Please, Frances. Don’t be like this.’

But Frances’s sense of dismay was giving way to anger. The anger was so pure, so complete, it amazed her. It was as if the feeling had been inside her, waiting for the signal to come out. She thought of all she had done in the past ten days, all those crumbling walls she had been frantically propping up. She thought of the breach with Christina, the suspicion in her mother’s eyes.