The Paying Guests(47)

He looked at Frances and gave a shrug. ‘See what I have to put up with? You know, I’m thinking of writing a book of my own one day. All about the ordinary chap and the things he’s had to contend with since the War. That’ll be worth reading! You can have the first copy if you like.’

Frances sipped again. ‘Thanks. I’ll make a space on the shelf. Somewhere between Austen and Dostoevsky all right?’

‘Yes, I’ll sign it “To Frances, with —”’ He caught himself up. ‘Whoops! Miss Wray, I suppose I should say. But that sounds so awfully old-fashioned. You don’t mind me calling you Frances, do you? Now that we’re all getting along so well?’

His tone was so affable that it would have been impossible to protest or demur, but Frances felt taken by surprise – almost tripped up. She had no interest in calling him Leonard, she wouldn’t have dreamt of calling him Len, and she had the sneaking suspicion that his slip of the tongue was less accidental than he was pretending. Worst of all, the moment somehow undid some of the specialness of her friendship with Lilian. Was this, she thought, what happened when one made friends with a married woman? One automatically got the husband too? – like a crochet pattern, coming free with a magazine?

But then, of course, the specialness of her friendship with Lilian had already melted away. Looking at her across the hearth-rug, she wasn’t sure that she even liked her very much. Her figure seemed bosomy as a barmaid’s tonight. She was wearing brass bangles on one of her wrists, and they kept clattering up and down her arm with a cheap sort of ring. How conventional she was, really, for all her arty pretensions! Just now, for example, she had drawn up her legs and was shifting around on the sofa. Mr Barber – Leonard, Frances supposed she had to call him – Leonard had begun to complain that he was being kicked; that made her kick out at him in earnest, and he caught hold of her feet. They started to tussle, laughing and snorting, her skirt rising, exposing her knees. For more than a minute they kept it up, appealing to Frances for help or for judgement: ‘Tell him to stop it, Frances!’ ‘It’s her, Frances, not me!’

Even with the gin inside her this began to be tiresome. Frances had the sense that their antics were a weird kind of show, done for her but not flattering to her. She suspected that if she were to leave the room their hilarity would instantly die; that they would sit there, side by side, in silence.

Perhaps they suspected the same thing, because when she made a move to rise they grew calmer, as if really wanting her to stay. She drank more of her gin, still thinking to hurry it down; but then she was amazed, on lifting the tumbler, to find it three-quarters empty. The moment the last quarter was gone Leonard was up on his feet, whisking the glass away to be refilled along with Lilian’s and his own. She protested as he took it; she protested when he brought it back. He told her it was mostly lemonade – she knew that was untrue as soon as she tried it. But the knowledge was curiously without force. And when, with a smudge of discomfort, she thought of her mother in the room below, the thought had another feeling mixed up with it, something dark and unkind. Mother, she told herself, sipping again, can like it or lump it.

What was Leonard doing now? He seemed unable to sit still. He had gone to a drawer to dig something out of it – a fancy box, with a hinged lid. He brought the box to Frances and displayed it like a waiter.

‘What do you think?’ The box held cigarettes, fat, black, foreign-looking. ‘The real thing, these are. Given to me by a grateful client. He has them shipped in from the East. Can’t you smell the Orient in them?’ He waved them about under her nose.

She wasn’t sure whether he was offering them or simply showing them off. She gave a nod. ‘Very nice.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, what?’

‘Are you up to them?’

‘Oh, but I had the idea that you didn’t approve of ladies smoking.’

He looked shocked. ‘What, me? Who told you that? I’m all for ladies’ rights, I am. I’m a proper Mrs Pankhurst.’

‘Really.’

‘Oh, yes.’

She hesitated – then heard a sound in the room below and, with another surge of dark bravado, dipped in her hand and drew out the fattest cigarette of all. Leonard gave a honk of laugher – ‘Oh, Frances! I always knew there was more to you than met the eye!’ – and produced a book of matches from his pocket, with which he struck her a flame. There was a silver saucer near by, with one or two butts already in it, but he wouldn’t let her use that. Instead he brought over the stand-ashtray, the horrid bronze-effect thing, setting it down with a flourish beside her chair.

Lilian watched all this from the sofa as if not quite liking what she saw. When Leonard returned to her side with the cigarettes, she reached for them and said, ‘Well, if Frances is having one I’m going to have one too.’

At once he drew the box away from her. ‘Oh, don’t you have one.’

‘Why not?’

‘They’re too good for you, these are. Besides’ – he stroked his moustache – ‘I might want to kiss you later. It’ll be like kissing a man.’

‘Then you’ll know what I have to put up with!’

They tussled over the box, but Lilian got hold of a cigarette at last and, grumblingly, he lit it for her. For a minute the three of them sat in silence, slightly stunned by the strength of the tobacco. The smoke unfolded from their mouths and nostrils, tangible as muslin, bluish-grey where it hung in the shadows, green where it crossed the amber lamplight.