Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

While Harry was upstairs she lay back, frowning, then arranging the softly flowered dress over her knees.

He came down holding a box. “I like a handmade cigarette,” he said. “Good old Joe.” He leant against the mantelpiece, opening the box.

She stood up in a graceful, swirling movement, and walked towards him with short, rather plodding steps, as though she was crossing an expanse of suet pudding.

“Shall I get you a light?”

She stood beside him and he put his arms round her and kissed her. When he let her go, he was grinning.

“Why have you gone so hard?” he asked.

“It’s from Paris. The corset’s built into the dress.”

“You feel like a piece of machinery. It’s like embracing a robot,” he said.

“These damned dress designers. They never think of practical details,” she said angrily.

“If you could think of a practical detail for a moment – is Joe really trying to get rid of me? Or is he trying to get rid of you?”

“Me? Joe trying to get rid of me. Harry, why should he?”

“Is he taking you to Ireland?”

“No.”

“Is he taking me to Ireland?”

“No.”

“So he’s going to leave us alone together, in this house. Do you suppose he’d be happy about that unless he wanted trouble. I can see the way it will be,” Harry said, his eyes beginning to shine. “He’ll only pretend to go away. He’ll come back suddenly, in the small hours. It’s the classic situation, except that he may come by helicopter. Is he a very jealous man? Do you think he wants a chance to kill me, or is he only after divorce?”

“Oh, Harry!”

“If he goes away we’ll have to be very careful. The only safe thing would be to have nothing to do with each other. Unless you want to be divorced?”

“Do I?” she said. She stood and thought, until her face forecast all the lines and bitterness of middle-age. She saw herself less brutally than the observer, not for a moment imagining that the pool was already drying up and that the thirsty traveller would pass it without a glance. She knew that soon she might have to rise from the pool and clutch the traveller and hold him while his eyes turned away.

“Perhaps I don’t. I’m used to dear old Joe,” she said.

“But, Harry, how awful if he’s really plotting against me!” She began to cry a little. He wiped her eyes with a pale blue silk handkerchief.

She stopped crying.

“That’s Joe’s handkerchief,” she said.

“I know. When I was getting the cigarettes, I remembered I was out of handkerchiefs. I did put some out for your old crab of a housekeeper to wash. But they never came back. I suppose she got them mixed up with Joe’s. So I took a couple of his. While we’re on the subject, Moira, I suppose you couldn’t trouble your feminine head about what happened to my other shirt?”

“She came to me – but we were talking about divorce.”

“Go on about the shirt.”

“She asked if she was to wash it or throw it out. Joe was there. He said, en passant, throw it out.” She laughed, a little nervously.

“Well, really, Moira!” Harry said in an outraged voice that made her laugh harder.

“But look at what I’m wearing!” he said, and took off his coat. She looked at the torn and dirty shirt underneath and laughed so much that she had to totter to the chaise longue and sink down, tortured by laughter.

Harry looked down at his shirt and laughed uncertainly.

“All right, then, let’s talk about divorce,” he said.

She made wild motions with her hands.

“Stop it, Harry, you’re killing me,” she said, choking.

There was a loud knocking at the door. She tried uselessly to control herself.

Joe walked into the room, looking fixedly at the floor.

“I knocked,” he said. “In my own house, I knocked.” He stood looking down with exaggerated meekness. “I was afraid of what I might see. You will be able to explain, Harry, what has been happening in this room?”

“I was talking about laundry,” Harry said, putting on his jacket. “It made Moira laugh.”

“It’s true, Joe,” Moira said. She was panting, and her face was streaked with tears of laughter.

“I haven’t laughed so much for years,” she said apologetically.

“Thank you, Moira, you have exposed the results of marriage. Harry, if you could make me laugh so much, I might keep you in this house for ever, but for me you are not a joke. You are so unamusing that I thought of hitting you. I have something to tell you. I am going to Dublin. I am going for a few days’ rest.”

“The last time I was in Dublin I didn’t go to bed for forty-eight hours,” Harry said reminiscently. “Moira says you’re chartering a plane. Why don’t you both go?” he asked in a generous manner.

“And leave you alone in this house? No, Harry.”

“I wouldn’t be quite alone. There are the servants.”

“I don’t want them corrupted. In any case, Moira is not coming with me. I wouldn’t want you to stay alone in the house, with her. The neighbours would talk.”

“I could stop their lying mouths with gin and tonic,” Harry suggested.

Joe very markedly didn’t smile.

“Have a cigarette?” Harry said, holding out the box.

“I don’t smoke cigarettes, Harry. I am going to Ireland on Friday. Would you like to pack now?”

“If I can find my clean shirts,” Harry said. He looked at Joe, measuring him. “Anyway, this is Wednesday. I don’t have to pack until tomorrow. I have to make arrangements,” he said in a reasonable voice.

“All this time you have had to make arrangements, Harry. Now we do not wait for the arrangements. You understand.”

“Right,” Harry said briskly. “Shall we have a farewell drink?”

HESTER and Prudence were in the kitchen, preparing dinner. It had to be a special meal, because Maurice was coming, and a man of many virtues should be honoured.

The whole family, in a way, depended on Maurice. He was the man who knew what to plant in the garden; when to ask the low-spirited out for a drink; how to do the maths homework. He looked reliable as a Rolls-Royce and steady as a lighthouse. Above all, he seemed to like the Wades enormously. He certainly deserved a good dinner, Hester thought, but it was a pity that good dinners involved cutting up so many things into such small pieces.

“Next dice the raw, fat pork,” Hester said gloomily. “Do you think it would be better if I used a razor blade? I’m getting blisters. Mix it with the remainder of the diced meat. Chop carrots and shallots very fine. Now remove skins and seeds of eight small tomatoes. Chop pulp of small aubergine previously fried very lightly. Have you previously fried it, Prudence?”

Prudence didn’t look round. “You’ll have to do that. Don’t forget the olive oil and the garlic. I’ll murder you if you overdo the garlic.”

Hester sighed. “Isn’t there some simpler way of preparing food, Prudence?”

“When we have simpler meals, you can make them by yourself,” Prudence said. “There’s no satisfaction in throwing some fish into a frying pan. If a meal can’t be a poem, it isn’t worth cooking. When we’ve finished this, we’ll feel like artists. Please cut those carrots a bit smaller. What should we feel if we’d been content to fry a piece of bacon?”

“That we’d provided food with less expense of time,” Hester said. “You can’t be a perfectionist in everything, Prudence. Life isn’t like that. You’ll find out.”

“I’ll find what I choose to find. Did I tell you I was taking up clothes next? If life was nothing but grim essentials I’d be content to dress for ever in a white blouse and a school skirt. Oh horror horror horror! I think I may go in first for a terribly elegant simplicity and then branch out into dernier cri clothes. That reminds me, Hester. Those tight bodices and full skirts you’re always wearing make you look awfully like a student, and an art student, at that. I suppose when you’re a doctor you’ll wear tailored suits all the time.”