The Paying Guests(184)
But she was used to that by now, used to this kind of waiting, that was slack as worn elastic yet had the tautness of wire. She thought of all the lobbies, corridors and ante-rooms in which she and Lilian had had to sit and wait since Leonard’s death, all the institutional spaces, not quite public, not quite private. They were like places outside time, outside life – a kind of limbo. Was that where Leonard was, after all? She tried to imagine the people who might staff it. Wingless angels, perhaps. And every one of them with the same expression that she had seen on the faces of the policemen, porters, matrons, warders, clerks and officials who had guided the way through the nightmare of the past two months, the obliging but impersonal look of men and women who saw other people’s catastrophes every working day and could shrug them off for a tea-break and a stretch of the legs.
Oh, for a cup of tea now! But, of course, they dared not stray too far, for fear that the verdict would come. Spencer’s uncle wandered the length of the hall like a man on a station platform. ‘Gets on your nerves, don’t it?’ he announced grimly, on his return. The Barber men bristled and ignored him, but Frances met his gaze and nodded, though without a smile. How could she smile at him? When had she smiled last, in fact? When had she laughed? She couldn’t remember. A sudden dreadful idea took hold of her. Suppose she were never to laugh again? Suppose she were never to sing or dance or kiss or do anything careless again? Suppose she were never to walk in a garden, never walk anywhere save grey prison spaces, never see a child, a cat, a dog, a river, a mountain, an open sky —
The bubble of panic was punctured by one of Douglas’s snorts of disgust. Footsteps were approaching from the staircase. She turned her head to follow his gaze and saw that the girl, Billie, was back.
She must have come to hear the verdict. She was, apparently, quite alone. She went to the door of the courtroom first, and spoke to the policeman there. He explained the situation, and gestured to the waiting-area; she looked over, saw the Barbers, saw the Wards, saw Lilian, but came bravely, in her tapping heels, to perch herself at the end of a bench – she put herself almost directly opposite to Lilian and Frances. Her coat was the powder-blue one that she had worn on Monday. Her hat was different, a thing of mauve velour with a silk rose on the brim: it was pulled down low, nearly meeting her collar, so that, from the side, all that was visible of her face was the tip of her nose and her childish chin. She nodded awkwardly to Spencer’s mother, and the little woman nodded awkwardly back. The uncle, however, glared at her – her arrival, bizarrely, having put him, just for the moment, on the same side as the Barbers. As for Lilian, she watched the girl come, she watched her sit, she watched her take out a powder-compact and tidy her face, she watched her put the compact away – the stare going on for so long, yet remaining so blank and unbroken, that Frances began to be unnerved by it; it was like the stare of a corpse.
Then, abruptly, without warning, without a word to Frances or anyone, Lilian got to her feet and began to make her way across the marble floor. There could be no mistake about where she was headed. Spencer’s mother and uncle and the Barber men all turned at the sound of her steps. The girl turned too at her approach – then gave a start, her courage failing; she even shrank back when Lilian came to a halt in front of her, as if expecting to be struck. When Lilian simply spoke to her in a murmur, she looked up at her with her lips parted and her eyes wide. ‘Yes,’ Frances heard her say in surprise. Then: ‘No. Yes.’ And then: ‘Thank you.’
And that was it. The whole exchange took perhaps twenty seconds. She ducked her head again as Lilian moved off, her face flaming through its powder.
Lilian looked at no one. She didn’t re-join Frances on the bench. Instead she left the hall, disappearing into the passage that led to the ladies’ cloak-room.
When five minutes went by and she did not return, Frances went after her.
She was alone in the small room. The lavatory doors stood open. A frosted window was ajar on to a light-well; she was leaning against the sill, smoking the last of a cigarette. When she saw Frances she was still for a moment, then turned away, stubbed the cigarette out, and flicked it from the window. Then she went to one of the basins, to examine her face in the mirror above it.
Frances addressed her almost shyly. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’
She had opened her handbag and was fishing in it. ‘Yes, I’m all right.’
‘What – What did you say to her?’
She brought out a little pot of rouge. As Frances watched, she drew off her glove and tapped a fingertip into the colour, tapped the colour on to her lower lip, her upper lip, her cheeks – the gesture accentuating that odd resemblance between her and the girl herself. ‘I told her I was sorry for her,’ she said, as she returned the rouge to her handbag. ‘I said she ought to be in my clothes. That she’s more Len’s widow than I am. It’s true, isn’t it? She ought to have that horrible money. Maybe I’ll leave it to her in my will. She’ll get it soon enough, that way.’
Her voice shook on the last few words. She snapped the handbag closed, then leaned forward over the basin, holding on to the straight white sides of it as though to keep herself from sinking to the floor. But when Frances went towards her, she moved away.
‘Don’t, Frances. It’s no good, you know it isn’t.’
‘Please, Lilian. I can’t bear it. I —’