The Paying Guests(17)

‘Oh, now, on Wednesday,’ said Frances’s mother apologetically, ‘I’ve promised to see Mrs Playfair. I really must see her next week, to discuss the bazaar, and Wednesday afternoon is the only time she can manage. We shall have to miss our trip to the cinema, I’m afraid. Unless we go another day?’

Frances felt absurdly disappointed. Could they make it Monday, instead? But, no, Monday wasn’t possible, and neither was Thursday. She could always go alone, of course. She could always invite a friend. She did have friends – not just Christina. She had friends right here in Camberwell. There was Margaret Lamb, a few houses down. There was Stella Noakes, from school – Stella Noakes, with whom she’d once, in a chemistry lesson, laughed so painfully hard that the two of them had wet their flannel drawers.

But Margaret was always so awfully earnest. And Stella Noakes was Stella Rifkind now, with two small children. She might bring the children along. Would that be fun? It hadn’t been, last time. No, she’d rather go alone.

But how dismal, at her age, to be so disappointed over something like this! She pushed the food around on her plate, enjoying it less than ever – and picturing Christina and Stevie, who would almost certainly at that moment be eating some jolly scratch supper of macaroni, or bread and cheese, or fried fish and chips, and who might be heading off shortly to the sort of brainy West End entertainment – a lecture or a concert, cheap seats at the Wigmore Hall – to which Frances and Christina had used to like to go together.

Her spirits lifted slightly when, at half-past seven, Mr and Mrs Barber left the house, giving the distinct impression that they would be out until late. The moment they had gone she threw open the drawing-room door. She walked in and out of the kitchen and up and down the stairs, purely for the sake of being able to do so without fear of meeting anyone on the way. She lit the temperamental geyser and ran herself a bath, and as she lay in the water she summoned up a sense of possession and allowed it to expand across the house: she felt it as a physical sensation, a letting-out of breath, a loosening of nerves, through every blissfully untenanted room.

But by twenty to ten the Barbers were back. She heard the front door open and close and couldn’t believe it. Mr Barber came straight out to visit the WC and caught her in the kitchen, in her dressing-gown and bedroom slippers, making cocoa. Oh, no, he said blandly, when she expressed surprise at seeing him, no, he wasn’t home earlier than planned. He and Lilian had been for an early evening drink with a friend of his. The friend was an old army chum, and they’d gone to meet his fiancée… Not noticing, or not minding, that she gave him no encouragement, he settled himself in what was becoming his ‘spot’ in the scullery doorway, and told her all about it.

‘The girl’s a saint,’ he said. ‘Or else, I dunno, she’s after his money! The poor devil lost both his arms, you see, Miss Wray, from here down.’ He made a cutting gesture at his elbow. ‘She’ll have to feed him his dinners, shave him, comb his hair – do everything for him.’ His blue eyes held hers. ‘The mind fairly boggles, doesn’t it?’

There it was, she thought, the little innuendo, as reliable as a cuckoo coming open-mouthed out of a clock. She wished he didn’t feel it necessary to go on like this. She wished he’d leave her to herself in her kitchen. She was conscious of her dressing-gown, of the strands of damp hair at her neck, of her slightly downy ankles. She went rigidly back and forth between the counter and the stove, willing him to go; but, just as he had that other time, he seemed to like to watch her working. His colour was high, she noticed. He smelt, distinctly, of beer and cigarettes. She had the sense, perhaps unfair, that he was enjoying having her at a disadvantage.

He headed out to the yard at last. She washed up the milk pan, carried the cocoa through to the drawing-room, and as she handed the cup to her mother she said, ‘I’ve just been collared by Mr Barber. What an annoying man he is. I’ve made every effort to like him, but —’

‘Mr Barber?’ Her mother had been dozing in her chair, and pushed herself up to sit more tidily. ‘I am growing quite fond of him.’

Frances sat. ‘You can’t be serious. When do you see him, even?’

‘Oh, we’ve had our chats. He’s always very civil. I find him cheery.’

‘He’s a menace! How his wife ended up with him, I can’t imagine. She seems such a pleasant woman. Not at all his type.’

They were speaking in their special furtive ‘Barber’ voice. But her mother blew on her cocoa and didn’t reply. Frances looked at her. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Well,’ she answered at last, ‘Mrs Barber doesn’t strike me as the most doting of wives. She might take a little more care, for instance, over her household duties.’

‘Doting?’ said Frances. ‘Duties? How mid-Victorian you sound!’

‘It seems to me that “Victorian” is a word that’s used nowadays to dismiss all sorts of virtues over which people no longer wish to take the trouble. I always saw to it that the house was nicely kept for your father.’

‘What you saw, in fact, was Nelly and Mabel keeping it nice for you.’

‘Well, servants don’t manage themselves – as you would know, if we still had any. They take a great deal of thought and care. And I always sat down to breakfast alongside your father looking cheerful and nicely dressed. That sort of thing means a great deal to a man. Mrs Barber – well, I am surprised that she returns to bed once her husband has gone to work. And when she does attend to her chores, she seems to do them at a gallop, in order to spend the rest of the day at her leisure.’