The Paying Guests(106)
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.