A Touch Of Love Part 14

'Well, my life's always been like that, you see. I've always known. The people I've been close to I've never allowed them to surprise me. It's so important, that, isn't it? Otherwise life just becomes a sort of anarchy. It's always been so important to me that I know, for instance, at five o'clock, when I'm just seeing my last client, that Angela is back at home in the kitchen getting ready to put the ca.s.serole on. They're what keep me going, these little certainties.'

'And something's happened to disrupt all this?'

Harry's voice started to quiver. 'I found out that she's being unfaithful to me.'

He took another drink, while his friend leaned forward, put a hand on his arm, and said: 'You'd better tell me the whole story.'

Harry's suspicions had started when a colleague of his informed him, quite casually, that his wife had been seen in the hotel tea room at four o'clock one Wednesday afternoon. Harry knew that this was impossible, because his wife invariably stayed at home in the afternoons, listening to the play on Radio 4. Indeed on that very Wednesday evening she had described the plot of this play to him in some detail over dinner, although he later found out that her synopsis was lifted word for word from the Radio Times. Anyway, at first he did not take the incident seriously; but when his colleague, reluctantly, told him that his wife had been seen with another man, and behaving in a way which suggested intimacy, Harry began to look worried.

'What do you think I should do?' he asked.

'You're in luck,' said the colleague. 'I can put you in touch with just the chap. A sort of detective. Very discreet, and very amenable. Specializes in this kind of work. I'll give you his card, and you can get in touch with him right away.'

Harry was given the address of an office at the top of a mews building at the cheap end of town. The name on the doorbell was 'Vernon Humpage'.

Mr Humpage turned out to be a balding, rather doleful man; he bore a certain resemblance to the character played by Mervyn Johns in Dead of Night. He quickly put Harry at his ease and explained that his work could be divided into two categories research, and surveillance. In this particular case, he suggested, it might be well to consider both. Harry agreed. Mr Humpage then promised to provide him with a full report within the s.p.a.ce of seven days.

Their next meeting took place one week later.

'I've managed to find out a great deal, Mr Eatwell,' said the detective.

'I'm pleased to hear it. Do call me Harold.'

'Gladly. Could I start by asking you a few questions?'

'Fire away.'

'When did you first meet your wife?'

'About two years ago.'

'I see: just after she got back from Berlin.'

'I'm sorry?'

'You know that your wife worked as a nightclub hostess in Berlin for six months?'

'No.'

'She ran away there. Shortly after the divorce.'

'Divorce?'

'She's been married before, of course, but you knew that. Actually my researches show that the marriage was never officially dissolved; but he doesn't get out of prison for another four years, so we don't have to worry about that just yet.'

'Mr Humpage, I didn't know any of this,' said Harry, his face loose with astonishment.

'Well, let's move on to surveillance. Harold, would you say you had an accurate idea of how your wife spends her time during the day?'

'Yes, I would.'

'Based on what?'

'Based on what she tells me.'

'All right, well, let's see now.' He picked up a handwritten sheet of paper from his desk. 'What's the first thing she does in the morning?'

'She, erm, she makes me a cup of tea.'

'That's correct. And then what?'

'And then we have breakfast together, and I go out to work.'

'Also correct.'

'Then she cleans up the kitchen and dusts downstairs.'

'No, I'm afraid she doesn't. The first thing she does after you leave the house in the morning is put her feet up, pour herself a gin and tonic, and have a smoke.'

'A smoke? My wife doesn't smoke.'

'Oh yes she does. Havana cigars. You didn't know that? Well, anyway: it then gets to be around mid-morning. You know what she does then?'

'Well, I've always pictured her having some coffee and biscuits... maybe drawing up a shopping list, watching some daytime television.'

'Wrong, I'm afraid. She phones her stockbroker.'

'Her stockbroker?'

'Yes. She has equity interests in five major light industrial businesses. A lot of buying and selling takes place. She didn't tell you?'

'No.'

'How odd. You know about the lunchtimes, of course.'

'Well, she's on this diet. She usually watches the news and has a light salad with some fruit juice. Doesn't she?'

'Actually she frequents a variety of local pubs. Yesterday it was The Bull and Gate: she had steak and kidney pie and chips and two pints of Yorks.h.i.+re bitter. The day before that it was a wine bar in Dale Street: she had a double helping of chilli con carne and several whiskies. Sometimes she goes on her own, sometimes with friends.'

'But when does she find time to cook dinner? Surely it must take her most of the afternoon to cook those fabulous dinners.'

'Most of them are from packets. She usually pops in and gets them on her way back from the arcades.'

'The arcades?'

'She plays the machines. Three days out of the last four, she's been out working the fruit machines. Not too bad at it: usually comes out with more than she takes in.' He stopped and looked up. 'Is this disturbing you, Mr Eatwell?'

Harry had put on his overcoat, and was standing by the window.

'What then?' he asked. 'The hotel?'

Mr Humpage nodded.

'What time?'

'Four o'clock.'

Harry made for the door. 'I don't want to hear any more,' he said, but asked, as an afterthought, 'Is it always the same man?'

Humpage nodded again. And just as his client was leaving, he said, kindly: 'Harold.' Harry turned. 'No one has the right to control another person, you know.'

'He was right.'

'I suppose he was.'

Harold forced a smile and wiped his eyes. His old friend, who had been listening carefully, thought for some time before saying: 'Do you mind if I make some very personal remarks?'

'No, not really.'

'You see, frankly, Harry, I don't think you loved your wife at all. I think you loved what she stood for or what you made her stand for.'

'How do you mean?'

'I mean that what's upsetting you isn't just the fact that your wife's been unfaithful. Your whole way of looking at the world it's been shot to bits. And not before time. You can't make a.s.sumptions like that. You can't a.s.sume that people will always behave in the way you want them to. Life is chaotic. It's random. Have you only just noticed?'

'Is there nothing we can do, nothing at all, which proves we have control over our own lives?'

There was a short silence.

'Which way did you walk to the hotel?'

'By the river,' said Harry, not even registering any surprise at the question.

'And what were you thinking, while you were walking by the river?'

'I looked at it,' said Harry, 'and wondered how deep it was in the middle...'

'So there's your answer,' said his friend. 'It's the only way. If you really want to prove that you have control over what becomes of you, if you really want to break the vicious circle, that's how you do it.' He laughed, and patted Harry on the back. 'But that's not what you want really is it?'

Harry smiled back gratefully and shook his head.

'What you really want is a good cup of tea, and for someone to tell those guys to play something more cheerful. So why don't I go and do that?'

'All right, Larry. Thanks.'

Harry went to the lavatory, washed his hands and face in warm water, and stood for a while with his back to the wall, breathing deeply. He had thought that he would cry, he had even wanted to cry, but the tears had failed him. Instead he felt a subtle elation which, had he been capable of a.n.a.lysing it, he might have recognised as a return of his own deadly self-rea.s.surance. What he found peculiarly comforting at that moment was the thought of Larry buying him another cup of tea, waiting for him, thinking up further words of consolation and encouragement. He was pleased to feel that he was again occupying centre-stage in the consciousness of another human being.

It was just as well, then, that he was not there to see Angela arrive at their table, murmur 'Lawrence, darling', run her hand through his hair and kiss him on the mouth. By the time Harry emerged from the lavatory, they had both disappeared.

Emma sank into the sofa and looked around the sitting room of her little house. It was not that she was tired, or that she especially wanted to take stock of her sitting room at that moment, but she had got herself ready too early, as usual, and now she had time to kill. She liked this room. You entered it straight from the street and dinner guests always began by saying, 'Oh, what a lovely room.' Then they noticed the photographs arranged in groups of four on the walls: sepia prints of Emma's great-grandparents and their family, taken near the turn of the century she had brought them back down from Edinburgh that summer. She looked at them now and felt supported by their benign melancholy, the fixed, unforced confidence of their gaze. In the face of a sad, upright great-great-aunt she could discern a curious resemblance to herself. Up in the attic at home, while they had been hunting these photographs out one afternoon from damp cardboard boxes, her father had told her the history of this woman, as well as he could remember it: she had married young and was widowed young and had never had children. Quite late in life she had taken to medicine and had even published a now forgotten textbook.

Emma felt comfortable sitting on the sofa looking at her family portraits, and suddenly it occurred to her that she did not want to go out this evening at all. This invariably happened. She worried herself with fears that she would never be able to build up a proper social life and then, when the opportunity finally arose to get out and see somebody, she had qualms. She hadn't been out all day and first there would be the problem of wiping all the snow off the car and getting it started. Then she would have to stop off at an off-licence and get some wine, and then she would have the worry of leaving her car parked out in the street near Hugh's flat, which was not in a particularly safe area. And once she was there she wouldn't be able to drink much herself, because she would have to drive back. All but the main roads were bound to be slippery and dangerous. On top of all this, did she really want to spend a whole evening with Hugh, whose company, she now realized, she had mainly used to enjoy as an antidote to her husband's?

Probably she would have had no hesitation in cancelling the evening if it were not for her anxiety to gain further information about Robin. Even if the story which Hugh had in his possession turned out to be unimportant, there was a peculiar pleasure in the prospect simply of spending a few hours talking about him. She had not yet asked herself why it was that she wanted to find out more about the circ.u.mstances of his death, or when it was that her initial, frozen shock had developed into a more enquiring kind of involvement. It had taken nearly a month, since the idea had first suggested itself, to compose her letter to Ted. He had written back promptly and courteously. He had been appalled, he said, by the news of the suicide, and he could sympathize with her feelings of implication and grief. Nevertheless, he thought it absurd that any blame should attach to Emma herself. If he could set her mind at rest by offering any sort of explanation, he would do so, but he felt as baffled by the whole affair as she did. Nothing that had pa.s.sed between him and Robin on the day of their last meeting had prepared him for such a development. They had ended by swapping reminiscences of their undergraduate days, in the most affectionate terms. Ted was deeply sorry that he could be of no further a.s.sistance; but he took this opportunity of returning to her a notebook, belonging to Robin, which he had found in the pocket of his overcoat some weeks before. It contained the first of his short stories. Ted must have taken it home with him by mistake.

He had also sent her a Christmas card, and a photocopied newsletter giving her a great deal of irrelevant information about his family. The card stood on the mantelpiece with six others: there would be fewer than usual this year. Two of her friends had invited her to come and stay with them for Christmas Day, and while Emma duly recognized the kindness behind these offers, she resented the underlying a.s.sumption that to be separated from one's husband was to be reduced to a state of chronic isolation and possibly homelessness. The idea of spending Christmas alone did not worry her, although she had decided, mainly in response to pressure from her parents, to go back to Edinburgh for a few days. Meanwhile she had succeeded in making her house, downstairs at least, look tolerably festive. She noticed that the tree in the stairwell had been shedding its needles again, and was glad of the excuse to get the vacuum cleaner out and busy herself for a few minutes. When that was finished she decided that she might as well go.

There were very few people in the streets, for a Sat.u.r.day night. Humanity made its presence felt in Coventry that evening not by walking drunkenly along pavements, or making its way, in groups of four or five, to wine bars and nightclubs; rather, it implied itself by means of lit windows, drawn curtains, distant music. Behind every front door Emma could imagine parties in progress, televisions being watched, drinks being poured and children staying up late. She wondered what Mark and Elizabeth would be doing; at least, she a.s.sumed that Mark and Elizabeth would be together that night, somewhere or other. When Mark and Emma had separated, they had made the usual promises of continuing to see each other as friends, but because they had ceased to be friends long ago, long before they split up, these promises had never been kept. She had very little idea of how he spent his time these days, and was unable completely to subdue her curiosity on the subject. Naturally they had sent each other Christmas cards.

Emma parked beneath an amber streetlamp a few doors away from Hugh's flat. By now the roads were layered with more than an inch of snow, and he seemed a long time answering the doorbell, long enough for her to get thoroughly cold. When he appeared, he was apologetic.

'I've been having a bit of trouble with the entree,' he explained. 'I seem to have gone a bit berserk with the pepper.'

'h.e.l.lo,' said Emma. 'I brought you this.'

She handed him a bottle, wrapped in purple paper.

'h.e.l.lo,' he said. 'Thank you.' He gave her a hairy kiss on the cheek.

She followed him up the stairs, wondering why he was wearing a tie.

'I'm afraid the main course is going to be a bit late,' he said, ushering her into his room. 'The people across the landing have been doing jacket potatoes and I've only just been able to get at the oven.'

'That's all right. I didn't realize you had to share your kitchen.'

'Well, it's not usually a problem. Are you going to sit down?'

Emma found that she had the option either of taking her place at the table straight away, or sitting on the bed, which was neatly made and covered with a dull green bedspread. Postponing the decision, she strolled over to the bookcase and started looking at the t.i.tles. It had always fascinated her that Hugh, who lived permanently either on or just below the poverty line, should spend so much money on books, and also on books which seemed so militantly abstruse and specialized. Works of literary theory stood side by side with modernist novels in the original French, and there were smatterings of music criticism and medieval English poetry.

'Do you ever read these books?' she asked.

'Well, only some of them, obviously,' said Hugh, who was in the middle of opening a bottle, a process which he now interrupted in order to show her a particularly bulky paperback which had been lying on his dressing table. 'It's just nice to know they're around. Here have a look at this: I got it earlier this week. I'll just go and fetch the gla.s.ses.'

Emma couldn't make head or tail of the book, but she sat on the bed and left it politely open on her lap while waiting for Hugh to return.

'It's good, this, is it?' she said.

'Actually, I was a little disappointed,' said Hugh, handing her a full gla.s.s. 'Cheers. Your very good health. Normally you can expect Fournier to be fairly progressive, as far as narratology's concerned, but I think he's developing revisionist tendencies.'

'I see,' said Emma. 'That's a pity.'

'These things happen,' said Hugh.

'Life goes on, I suppose. Society won't crumble at its foundations.'

'Exactly.' He took the book from her hands, slightly irritated that her irony had crept up on him like that, without his noticing. 'Nice wine,' he said.