Eva Ibbotson - The Morning Gift

‘We’ll have to wait for it to dry.’

‘It won’t take long,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you get undressed?’

‘I’ll just take the iodine back. It would be awful if we spilled it.’

She went past the life class pictures, past a small grey feather dropped from the breast of the little bird, and restored the iodine bottle. Returning, she found that Heini was in bed.

It could be postponed no longer, then — the living utterly. Ruth crossed her arms and pulled her sweater over her head.

On the same afternoon as Heini was learning to be demonic in Bloomsbury, Quin made his way to the Natural History Museum to confer with his assistant about the coming journey.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ said Milner, climbing down from the scaffolding on which he was attending to the neck bones of a brontosaurus.

But he was smiling. Since Quin had told him they were off in June, he had been in an excellent mood.

‘What kind of bad news?’ asked Quin.

‘I’ll tell you in private,’ said Milner mysteriously, and together they made their way through the echoing dinosaur hall to Milner’s cubbyhole in the basement. ‘It’s Brille-Lamartaine,’ he went on. ‘He’s got wind of your trip and he wants to come! He’s been lurking and hinting and making a thorough nuisance of himself. I haven’t said a word, but something must have leaked out.’

‘Good God! I thought he was in Brussels.’

Brille-Lamartaine was the Belgian geologist whose spectacles had been stepped on by a yak. It isn’t often that a member of an expedition is a disaster without a single redeeming feature, but Brille-Lamartaine had achieved this distinction without even trying.

‘I wonder how he heard?’

‘He’s been spending a lot of time at the Geographical Society. Hillborough’s totally discreet but something may have leaked out.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Quin, ‘if he brings up the subject again, tell him I’m bringing a woman. One of my students. A young life-enhancing woman greedy for experience with the opposite sex.’

Milner was appreciative. Brille-Lamartaine was terrified of women and convinced that every one had designs both on his portly frame and his inheritance from a maiden aunt in Ghent.

‘I shall like to do that,’ he said.

But as he left the museum, Quin knew that he could no longer postpone telling his staff that he was leaving. The Placketts could wait till the statutory term’s notice at Easter, but to let Roger and Elke and Humphrey hear the news from others would be unpardonable.

As it happened, Roger was in the lab, using the weekend to catch up with his research, and the look on his face when Quin spoke was hard to bear.

‘It’ll be a desert without you,’ he said and turned away to hide his distress. ‘Elke thought this might happen, but I hoped… Oh, hell!’

‘If it’s any consolation to you, I think next year may see us all scattered,’ said Quin. ‘This war, if it comes, won’t be like the last one. I’ve seen some pretty weird contingency plans, but few of them involve leaving scientists in peace in their universities.’ And as Roger still stood in silence, trying to deal with his sense of loss, Quin put a hand on his arm and said: ‘I’ll take you to Africa, Roger, if you can get away. I’d be glad to. It’s not strictly your line of country, but I think you’d enjoy it.’

‘Thanks — you know how I’d love it, but I can’t leave Lillian. We’re supposed to be taking delivery of an infant at the end of May, sight unseen. A Canadian dancer who’s got into trouble. Lillian thinks it’ll do entrechats as soon as we get it; she’s really thrilled.’

‘I’m glad!’ said Quin warmly. ‘And if you’ve got a vacancy for a godfather, perhaps you’d consider me?’

Roger’s face lit up. ‘The job is yours, Professor.’

Crossing the courtyard after his talk with Roger, Quin encountered Verena accompanied by Kenneth Easton, carrying a squash racket and clearly in the best of spirits.

‘You look very fit,’ said Quin when it was evident that she would not let him pass.

‘Oh I am, Professor!’ said Verena archly. She did not actually invite him to feel her biceps, but this was not necessary. Bare-armed and in shorts, the state of her musculature was evident to anyone with eyes to see. And then: ‘I was wondering what you thought of the Army and Navy Stores? Would you recommend them as the best outfitters before an expedition?’

‘Yes, indeed. They’re excellent — I always use them; you’ll find everything you want there. If you mention my name to Mr Collins, you’ll find him very helpful.’

‘Thank you, I’ll do that. And flea powder? Do you recommend Coopers or Smythsons?’

Quin, who had vaguely gathered that Verena was off on some kind of journey with her Croft-Ellis cousins, came down in favour of Coopers and made his way to his room, leaving Kenneth in a state of deep depression. The sacrifices he had made for Verena were considerable. He travelled fourteen stations on the Underground to partner her in squash; he had stopped saying ‘mirror’ and ‘serviette’ both of which, it seemed, were common, and been corrected when he mispronounced Featherstonehaugh. And yet every time she saw the Professor, Verena bridled and simpered like a schoolgirl. There were times, thought Kenneth, when one wondered if it was all worthwhile.

‘I am leaving,’ announced Heini. ‘I’m going to look for another room.’

Leonie stared at the wild-haired youth who had come back in a towering rage after spending Saturday in town.

‘But why, Heini? What has happened?’

‘I can’t discuss it, but I have to leave. I’m too upset to stay here. I can’t even play.’

This was not strictly true. Heini had been home for half an hour and had considerably decreased the life expectancy of the hired piano by crashing through the Busoni Variations so as to send the dishes rattling on the sideboard.

‘Does Ruth know?’ asked Leonie nervously.

‘Not yet. But she will not be surprised,’ said Heini darkly.

‘Oh, dear. If you’ve quarrelled… I mean, that does happen.’

‘Not this,’ said Heini obscurely. ‘This does not happen. I’ll leave as soon as I’ve found somewhere to go.’

Warring emotions clashed in Leonie’s breast. Ruth would be upset and Leonie would do anything to spare her daughter pain. Yet the thought of Heini being elsewhere rose like an image of Paradise in her mind. To be able to wander in and out of her sitting room at will, to be able to put her feet up in the afternoon… To be able to get into the bathroom!

Not knowing what to say, she retreated into the kitchen where Mishak was looking at the pages of a gardening catalogue lent to him by the lady two houses down.

‘Heini says he is leaving. I think he and Ruth have had some dreadful quarrel.’

Mishak looked up. ‘Where will he go?’

‘I don’t know. He says he’s going to look for another room.’

‘And how will he pay for it?’

Heini had, of course, been living rent-free; the money he had brought from Budapest having been used up long ago.

‘I don’t know. But he’s very determined.’

In Mishak’s mind, as in Leonie’s, there rose a vision of Number 27 without Heini. He imagined hearing the blackbirds in the morning, the rustle of wind in the trees.

‘Do you think he’ll want any supper?’ asked Leonie, preparing to mix the pancakes which, when filled with scraps of various sorts, could fill up large numbers of people at very little expense. ‘He was very upset.’

‘He will want supper,’ said Mishak, and was proved right.

It was Ruth who did not want supper. Ruth who phoned to say she would be late… and who was walking the streets wringing her hands like a Victorian heroine. Ruth who felt disgraced and shamed and wished the earth would open up and swallow her…