The Paying Guests(170)

‘Are you here,’ said Frances, ‘simply to grouse about your husband? What with one thing and another, I’m not sure I’m quite in the mood for it today.’

She didn’t know where the comment had come from. It seemed to have said itself. She couldn’t remember ever before having used the word grouse like that; it was much more the sort of thing that Leonard would have said. Startled, she and Lilian looked at each other; but the moment for apology came, then went. Lilian put down her head, stepped past Frances for her suitcase, and carried it out of the sitting-room and into the room next door.

It was the first time that they had been properly alone together, and they were wasting it, Frances thought in despair; it was all grating, discordant. She followed Lilian as far as the landing, looked in at her through the bedroom doorway. She had put the suitcase on the bed and removed her hat and coat at last, but removed them only so that she could go more freely to the wardrobe and the chest of drawers and pull out the things she needed.

Frances thought back to that day in the summer when she had watched her packing this same suitcase for her trip to Hastings. They had gone rinking that day. Rinking! It seemed too quaint and wholesome to be true. She remembered the speed, the laughter, the holding of hands. Afterwards, they had gone to the park. It’s the only real thing, Lilian had said.

She was working quickly now, seeming to be taking clothes at random, and the small case was already almost full. Frances watched her fit in another nightdress, another pair of shoes. ‘You surely don’t mean to carry all that to Walworth?’ she said, as Lilian drew over the case’s lid and tried to press it shut.

Lilian answered tightly, without looking up. ‘I’ll take a tram. I’m all right, now. I’m not ill like I was before.’

‘And you really have to take quite so much?’

‘It’s easier to just take everything. We don’t know what’s going to happen, do we? I don’t know what I’ll need.’

Frances didn’t answer that. But after another moment of watching the struggle with the suitcase she moved forward to help, leaning her weight on the springy lid so that the latches could be clicked home. Lilian drew the case from the bed and, caught out by the weight of it, set it down with a thump. But, ‘I can manage,’ she insisted, still without meeting Frances’s eye, as Frances automatically reached to take it. ‘I told you, I’m all right now.’ She added, after a second, in a different, more hesitant tone, ‘I’ve something for you, though.’

She picked up her handbag and drew out an envelope. She put it into Frances’s hand, and Frances heard the chink of coins. ‘What’s this?’

She answered self-consciously. ‘It’s my rent. Did you think I had forgotten? There’s nearly twelve pounds there, enough for two months. Is that all right?’

And once again the moment had another moment inside it: that time, back in April, when they were still strangers to each other and Lilian had shyly held out her first paper packet of rent. It was as though their life, thought Frances, were being mercilessly spooled back on to a reel; or as if, one by one, the stitches that had fastened them together were being unpicked.

The thought upset her. She tried to give the envelope back. ‘I can’t take this, Lilian. You can’t pay rent for rooms you aren’t living in.’

‘Please take it. It’s yours. Yours and your mother’s.’

‘I’d far rather you kept it.’

‘Don’t you need the money?’

‘Well, yes. But so do you, don’t you?’

Lilian looked more self-conscious than ever. She said, ‘I saw a solicitor yesterday. He wrote to me about Len’s money. The money from his insurance, I mean. He gave me a cheque. – Oh, please don’t do that.’ Frances had gone close to her, to stuff the envelope back into her bag. She got it out again and attempted to return it to Frances’s hand.

Frances made fists, lifted her arms. ‘I don’t want it.’ They dodged and scuffled, absurdly.

‘Just take it, Frances.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Please.’

‘No! I hate that money!’

‘Well, I hate it too!’ said Lilian. She had flung the envelope on to the bed; her face was patched with colour. ‘How do you think it makes me feel? Have you thought about that? You know when Len took the policy out. It was right after that night in July, that night when the boy hit him. He must have thought it all through. He must have thought that the boy really meant it – that he might go after him again. He must have really thought he might die! But even then, even thinking that – well, that didn’t keep him from seeing her, did it? He thought enough of me to get me that five hundred pounds. But he thought more of her.’

‘God!’ said Frances, unable to bear it. ‘Why do you care?’

‘I don’t know! But I do. I do.’

‘You used to say that you didn’t even love him. You were planning to leave him, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, but —’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘Yes! Don’t bully me, Frances. You always bully me. I can’t explain it. I hate him for wanting her. I know he was only doing with her what I was doing with you, but I hate him for it. And I hate her, too. I never wanted his money. You say you don’t want it either, but —’ With a bruised, stubborn expression she retrieved the envelope and set it on the chest of drawers. ‘I’ll leave it here, and you can take it or forget about it as you like.’