The Paying Guests(172)

And after another few seconds of it, Lilian reached to still her fingers. They stood like that, with bowed heads, drooping shoulders, while their breathing steadied and the race of their hearts subsided.

Even then it might have been all right. ‘Come and lie down with me,’ Lilian said softly. She led Frances to the bed; they lay with their heads on a single pillow, drew the counterpane over each other so that they shouldn’t get cold, just as they’d done when they were lovers. The pillow smelled faintly of Leonard’s hair-oil. On the dusty bedside cabinet were his box of links and studs, his handkerchief, his public-library thriller racking up a fine; on the back of the bedroom door his dressing-gown still clung to Lilian’s kimono. But if one closed one’s eyes, thought Frances. If one forgot the fumble and failure of a few minutes before. If one forgot the blood, the electric panic, the police, the newspapers. If one made one’s mind a blank. Then couldn’t it be how it used to be, the two of them together, warm and true? It’s the only real thing. Couldn’t they let it be real again? Just for a moment?

But, then, that boy, trapped in the machine… Already, her mind was lurching back into horrible life. She turned her head. She opened her eyes. And what she saw, over on the chest of drawers, was the envelope with twelve pounds in it.

Don’t look at it, she told herself. Don’t think it. Say nothing. For God’s sake! But she couldn’t help it. The madness was rising in her again. She let out a horrid little sneering laugh, and in a voice that didn’t even sound like her own, she said, ‘I’m afraid you didn’t quite get your money’s worth today.’

Lilian lifted her head from the pillow, her face creasing into a frown. ‘Money’s worth?’

‘Or have I misunderstood? Is the payment for something else entirely? Don’t worry, I won’t go to the police, if that’s what’s troubling you. The boy will stay nicely tucked up at Brixton.’

Lilian held herself quite still for a moment. Then she jerked away, threw off the counterpane, got down from the bed. She turned her back to Frances as she straightened her skirt and blouse. Her hair was untidy, but she didn’t pause to comb it; in a series of rigid, furious movements she found her hat, stepped into her shoes, pulled on her coat, stuffed her gloves into her handbag. Only when the strap of the bag was looped over her arm and she had leaned to pick up the suitcase did she turn back to Frances, who, all this time, had been watching from the bed.

And what she said, coldly and levelly, was: ‘I’m sorry you aren’t as brave as you thought you were, Frances.’

Frances stared at her. ‘What?’

‘But don’t punish me because of it, and make out you’re doing it because of that boy. If I want punishing I’ll go to Inspector Kemp and get it for something I deserve.’

She covered her eyes, and spoke less steadily. ‘Now you’ve made me be sharp with you, when all I came for, all I came for was —’ She dropped her hand. ‘I gave things up for you, Frances. I gave my baby up for you. I never asked for what we had. If I’d asked for something like that, don’t you think I’d have asked for it to be easier? Instead – No, get off me. Get away from me.’ Frances had jumped down from the bed and was reaching for her. She pushed her back. ‘Let me alone.’

But Frances was panicking now. The madness had vanished, as completely as if pricked by a pin and exploded. ‘Lily, forgive me. Please. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I —’

‘Get off!’

‘I think – I think I’m losing my mind. The other night, I – Please, Lily.’ Lilian was at the door, had got it open. ‘Don’t go. Don’t leave me again. I don’t know why I said what I did. I didn’t mean it. I —’

‘Let me alone!’

She had struck out properly this time. The blow caught Frances on the bone of the cheek and made her start back. She put a hand to the sting of it, and for a second the two of them faced each other, horrified at what they were doing, horrified at what the moment recalled; but part of their horror, Frances knew, was at their own helplessness, their own inability to do anything to the tangle they were in but make it pull tighter. ‘Don’t go,’ she said again. But it was too late. It was all too late. Lilian had already turned, was fleeing. In the silent house, her heels were noisy as gunshots as she went down.



The Tuesday of that week was the anniversary of John Arthur’s death; Frances looked at his picture, dry-eyed. On the same day, the inquest was re-opened at Camberwell, and the jury, instructed by the coroner, brought back a verdict of wilful murder. When, two days later, it was time to make her way to the next police court hearing, she hadn’t the energy for it. She stayed at home, curled up on the sofa with a copy of Kidnapped. The news came at lunch-time, brought down by Mrs Playfair, who had had it from Patty, whose niece was engaged to that boy in the police. There was no surprise about it. The hearing had been over in a matter of minutes. The prosecutor had concluded his case, and the magistrate had declared himself satisfied. To applause from Leonard’s family, and cheers from the crowded public benches, Spencer Ward was committed to trial at the Old Bailey in just over a fortnight’s time.





17





And, well, if nothing else, she thought bleakly, there would soon be an end to it now: an end to madness, to secrecy, to skulking about in corners. November the sixth, and the trial would open. It was a relief to have the date to fix one’s mind on; a relief to know that the affair would be decided at last. Once, she never would have thought it possible for a person to be bored by fear. She recalled all the various terrors that had seized and shaken her since the thing had begun: the black panics, the dreads and uncertainties, the physical cavings-in. There hadn’t been a dull moment! But she was almost bored now, she realised. Bored to tears. Bored to the bone. Bored to death by those exacting lodgers, her own fright and cowardice.