The Paying Guests(61)
He still had hold of her arm. She let herself be drawn back, and gave him a dry peck on the cheek. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said, releasing her, and then his blue eyes twinkled at last. ‘Your turn next, Frances!’ He offered his face. ‘How about it? Lily’s warmed it up for you.’
Lilian spoke with a tut, before Frances could reply. ‘Frances isn’t interested. Let her alone.’ She was blushing.
Down in the hall, the two of them paused. Frances had to say goodbye to her mother, but found herself loitering at the glass. She adjusted her collar and the angle of her hat, seeing again what a terrific trouble she had gone to: the shoes, the stockings, the frock, the hair. She felt half disguised by the outfit; half exposed by it.
But when she made her tentative entry into the drawing-room, her mother was as delighted as she had been that other time.
‘Oh, now, don’t you look stylish! So handsome, I shouldn’t have known you!’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘I don’t recognise that hat. Is it one of Mrs Barber’s? And the gown?’
‘No, the gown’s my own. It’s the one – I’ve had it for years.’
‘You ought to wear it more often. The colour becomes you. Oh, what a pity that Mrs Playfair isn’t here to see you! You wouldn’t think of calling in there before you go to the station?’
‘No, Mother.’
‘It wouldn’t take you a moment.’
‘No, Mother. Please!’
‘Well, it was only an idea… And is that Mrs Barber out there? Come in from the hall, Mrs Barber, let me see you too!’ Her smile grew slightly forced at the sight of Lilian’s lipstick and kohl. But, ‘Yes,’ she said gamely, ‘you both look very fine.’
Now Frances was itching to be gone. She felt more exposed than ever with Lilian standing there beside her. She edged her way towards the door. ‘I don’t expect we’ll be late. Leonard’s still here, but he’ll be leaving soon. His friend Mr Wismuth’s coming for him; you needn’t answer the knock. You’ll be quite all right, now?’
‘Yes, I shall be fine. Oh, but I did have some letters for the post. You couldn’t take them for me, could you? Now, have I put stamps on them yet? No, I haven’t. Just a moment. Oh, and this one lacks an address. I need my letter-case. Can you see it…?’
When she and Lilian escaped from the house at last, Frances felt as she imagined a fly might feel when, by some miracle, it had managed to prise its limbs free from a strip of sticky paper. It was only a little after seven, and the sun was still high in the sky. The pavement threw up heat like a griddle; they kept to the shade as much as they could as they made their way down the hill, but it was warm even on the platform of the station, in the bluish dusk of the railway cut. The crowd was a Saturday-night one. People were heading to theatres, picture-houses, dancing-halls. The men had an oiled-and-varnished look. The women were like heavy-crested birds: crimson, gold, green, violet. But none of them was as handsome as Lilian, she thought. Against the white silk and gauze of her dress the flesh of her arms and shoulders had a solid, creamy texture – as if one could dip into it with a spoon, or with a finger.
Mothers called to children to keep away from the edge of the platform, and their train arrived. Frances tugged open a compartment door and was met by a gust of warm stale air; she followed Lilian in and they sat side by side. Two boys and a man had the seat opposite, the boys about thirteen, looking at them with shy interest, the man staring at them both – staring at Lilian in particular, in that unabashed, amazing way that men, Frances had found, did stare at Lilian, even lowering his newspaper to do it, so that she felt like leaning to him to say, Put your feet up, why don’t you? Make yourself comfortable. Have you a pipe? Why not light it? Go on… But the feeling was partly envy, she suspected. When the man got out at East Brixton, she thought of slipping into his place. She was beaten to it by a woman who came in laden with bulging string bags.
And the next halt was Clapham. They went out and down the steps and a minute later were on the High Street, picking their way along the crowded pavement. The doors of the shops stood open. The air was soupy with smells: meat, fish, ripe fruit, perspiring bodies. A gramophone-seller’s was blasting out the hit of the moment, ‘The Laughing Policeman’.
‘He said “I must arrest you!”
He didn’t know what for.
And then he started laughing
Until he cracked his jaw!
Oh — ’
The ha-ha-has pursued them as Lilian led the way into a residential street. The houses here were terraced, red-brick, neat, narrow, identical, each with a tiny front garden, flower-bedded or crazy-paved. In one of the gardens a boy was repairing a bicycle. In another a man in his shirt-sleeves was watering geraniums. There was the tinkle of a pianola from an open window, accompanied by the wobbly parps of a trumpet as someone tried to keep up with the tune.
Frances grew conscious all over again of the medieval flourishes on her frock. ‘Are we almost there?’ she asked as they made another turn, and when Lilian gestured – yes, the house was just at the end of this row – the sudden looming reality of the evening made her slow her step. When she got a glimpse of Netta’s front window, its Nottingham lace curtains lighted up from within and showing the heads and shoulders of people sitting or standing inside, she faltered completely.