The Paying Guests(105)
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!’