‘Where can he have got to?’ she said in the ensuing silence, and she got out of the car and walked with her golfer’s stride towards the house, followed by the faithful Linda.
Life had not been kind to Linda Forthman. At the age of thirty-two,after an unhappy divorce, she had remained alone– often courted, but still alone– and it required all Millicent’s good nature and enthusiasm to endure, for example, this entire Sunday in her company, playing golf. Though uncomplaining, Linda was infuriatingly apathetic. She looked at men (unmarried men, of course), they looked back at her,and things never seemed to go any further. To a woman like Millicent, who was full of charm and vitality,Linda Forthman’s character was an enigma.From time to time, with his usual cynicism, David would offer an explanation: ‘She’s waiting for a chap,’ he would say. ‘Like every other girl, she’s waiting for some chap she can get her hooks into.’ Not only was it untrue, it was grossly unfair. In Millicent’s view, Linda was simply waiting for someone who would love her, for all her apathy, and take her in hand.
Come to think of it, David was very contemptuous and acerbic on the subject of Linda, and indeed of the majority of their friends. She must talk to him about it. For instance, he refused to see the good side of that buffoon Jack Harris, who, even if he was as dumb as an ox, was generosity and kindness itself.
David was always saying of him: ‘Jack’s a ladies’ man... without the ladies’, at which point he would roar with laughter at his own joke as though it were one of the inimitable witticisms of Shaw or Wilde.
She pushed open the door into the drawing room and paused, flabbergasted, on the threshold. There were overflowing ashtrays and open bottles all over the place and two dressing gowns lying in a corner in a heap: hers and David’s. For one panic-stricken moment she wanted to turn round and leave, and pretend not to have seen. She cursed herself for not having telephoned beforehand, to say she was coming back earlier than expected: Sunday night instead of Monday morning. But Linda was there behind her, wide-eyed, a look of dismay on her pale face, and she would have to think up some plausible explanation for the irreparable occurrence that had evidently taken place in her house. Her house...? Their house . . . ? For the past ten years, she had said ‘our house’ and David ‘the house’. For the past ten years, she had talked about pot plants, gardenias, verandahs and lawns, and for the past ten years David had said nothing in reply.
‘What on earth,’ said Linda, and her high-pitched voice made Millicent shudder, ‘what on earth has been going on here? Has David been giving parties in your absence?’
Millicent laughed. She, at least, seemed to be taking it fairly lightly. And indeed it was perfectly possible that David, who had left for Liverpool two days before, had come back unexpectedly, spent the night there and gone out to dine at the near-by Country Club. Only there were these two dressing gowns, those two gaudy shrouds, those two banners, as it were, of adultery. She was astonished by her own astonishment. After all, David was a very attractive man. He had blue eyes, black hair and considerable wit. And yet it had never occurred to her, she had never had the slightest presentiment, let alone proof, that he was interested in any other woman. Of that much, without knowing why, she was certain. In fact she was absolutely convinced that David had never even looked at another woman.
She pulled herself together, crossed the room, picked up the two incriminating dressing gowns and threw them into the kitchen-hurriedly, but not hurriedly enough to avoid seeing the two used cups on the table and a butter-smeared plate. She shut the door hastily as though she had witnessed a rape; and, emptying the ashtrays, tidying away the bottles, chatting amiably, she set about trying to distract Linda from her initial curiosity and get her to sit down.
‘Such a bore,’ she said. ‘Probably the maid didn’t come to clean up after last weekend. Do sit down,darling. Shall I make you a cup of tea?’
Linda sat down gloomily, her head between her knees and her bag swinging from her fingertips. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘I’d prefer something stronger than tea. That last round of golf exhausted me...’
Millicent went back to the kitchen, averting her eyes from the cups, grabbed some ice cubes and a bottle of whisky and set them down in front of Linda. They sat facing one another in the drawing room furnished in bamboo and shadowed cretonne which David had brought back from somewhere or other. The room now looked-if not huma-at least presentable once again, and through the french windows the elm trees could be seen swaying in the wind, that same wind which had driven them off the golf course an hour ago.
‘David’s in Liverpool,’ said Millicent, and she realized that her voice was peremptory, as though she felt poor Linda was liable to contradict her.
‘I know,’ said Linda amiably, ‘you told me.’
They both stared out of the window, then at their feet, then at one another.
Something was beginning to take hold in Millicent’s mind. Like a wolf, or a fox, at any rate some sort of wild animal, it was gnawing at her. And the pain was getting worse. She gulped down some whisky to calm herself and caught Linda’s eye again. ‘Well,’ she thought to herself, ‘if it’s what I think it is, if it’s what any reasonable person might be expected to think it is, at least it isn’t Linda. We’ve been together all weekend and she’s just as appalled as I am, in fact even more so, oddly enough.’ For, to her mind, the idea of David bringing a woman back to their house, whether or not the children were there,the idea of David bringing that woman here and lending her her dressing gown, still seemed absolutely unthinkable. David never looked at other women. In fact David never looked at anyone. And the word ‘anyone’ suddenly resounded in her head like a gong. It was true that he never looked at anyone. Not even her. David had been born handsome and blind.
Of course it was natural enough, only seemly, really, that after ten years their physical relations should have dwindled practically to nothing. Of course it was only to be expected that after all this time nothing much should remain of the eager, hot- blooded, highly- strung young man she had once known, but even so it was really rather odd that this handsome husband of hers, so blind but so attractive...
‘Millicent,’ said Linda, ‘what do you make of all this?’
She gestured vaguely around the room, indicating the general disorder.
‘What do you expect me to make of it?’ said Millicent.‘Either Mrs Briggs, the charlady, didn’t come in last Monday to clean up, or else David spent the weekend here with a call-girl.’
And she laughed. If anything she felt rather relieved. These were the two alternatives, there was no great mystery about it. There was nothing wrong
with having a good laugh with a girl friend about being deceived by one’s husband and discovering it by chance because it was too windy to play golf.
‘But,’ said Linda (and she too was laughing), ‘but what do you mean, a call-girl? David spends his entire time with you and the children and your friends.I can’t see how he would have the time for girls.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Millicent, laughing even louder-she really did feel relieved, without knowing why-‘perhaps it’s Pamela or Esther or Janie... Search me.’
‘I don’t think any of them would appeal to him,’
said Linda, almost regretfully, and she made a move as if to get up, to Millicent’s alarm.
‘Look, Linda,’ she said, ‘even if we had caught them in the act, you know very well we wouldn’t have made a scene. After all, we’ve been married for ten years, David and I. Both of us have had the odd fling...there’s nothing to make a fuss about...’
‘I know,’ said Linda, ‘these things don’t matter very much. All the same, I must go, I want to get back to London.’
‘You don’t like David much, do you?’
For a second there was a look of amazement in Linda’s eyes, which quickly changed to one of warmth and tenderness.
‘Yes I do, I like him very much. I’ve known him since I was five years old, he was my brother’s best friend at Eton...’
And, having made that pointless and uninteresting statement, she looked intently at Millicent, as though she had just said something of the utmost importance.
‘Good,’ said Millicent. ‘In that case, I don’t see why you can’t forgive David for something I myself am prepared to forgive. I know the house is in a mess, but I’d rather stay here than be stuck in that awful traffic all the way back to London!’
‘David is very good to you,’ she said.
‘Of course he is,’ said Millicent unhesitatingly.
And it was true that he had been a considerate husband, courteous, protective and on occasion highly imaginative. He could also, alas, be exceedingly neurotic: but she would keep that to herself. She wasn’t going to tell Linda about David lying on the sofa in London with his eyes closed for days on end, refusing to go out. She wasn’t going to tell her about David’s terrifying nightmares. She wasn’t going to tell her about David’s manic telephone conversations with some businessman whose name she couldn’t even remember. She wasn’t going to tell her about David’s rages when one of the children failed an exam. Nor would she tell Linda how insufferable David could be about furniture or pictures, nor how forgetful David, the considerate David, sometimes was about his appointments, including those with her. Nor about the state he was sometimes in, when he came home. Least of all could she tell Linda about the marks she had seen on his back one day when she caught sight of it in the mirror ... And the mere memory of this was enough to break down her conventional English reticence, and she asked-at least she heard herself ask-‘Do you really think it’s Esther or Pamela?’ Because it was true that he didn’t have the time to see other women, and even women who indulge in illicit affairs demand a certain amount of time from their lovers. David’s adventures, if they existed, could only be crude, frantic, hurried affairs, with prostitutes or specialists. And it was surely impossible to imagine David, proud, fastidious David, as a masochist...
Linda’s voice seemed to come from a long way away.
‘What makes you think of Pamela or Esther? They’re much too demanding...’
‘You’re right,’ said Millicent.
She stood up, went over to the mirror on the wall and examined herself in it. She was still beautiful-men had told her so often enough, and sometimes proved they meant it-and her husband was one of the most charming and gifted men in their circle. Why, then, did she seem to see in the mirror a sort of skeleton without flesh or nerves or blood or sinews?
‘It seems a pity,’ she said (she hardly knew what she was saying any longer), ‘it seems a pity that David hasn’t more men friends, as well as women friends. Have you noticed?’
‘I’ve never noticed anything,’ said Linda, or rather Linda’s voice, since dusk had descended and all Millicent could see of her was a silhouette, a sort of mouse- like creature perched on the sofa, who knew-but what did she know? The woman’s name. Why didn’t she tell her? Linda was nasty enough or nice enough-how could one tell in such cases?-to murmur a name. Why then, in this July twilight,wrapped in her solitude and her pale suit, did she look as though she was scared out of her wits? One must be rational and down to earth about these things. If it was true, she would have to face up to the fact that David was having an affair with some woman, either a friend or a professional. Vulgar recriminations must be avoided at all costs, and, perhaps, later on, she might even take a light- hearted revenge with Percy or someone. One must see things in their proper perspective, like a woman of the world. She got to her feet, straightened the cushions with a regal hand, and declared:
‘Listen, darling, whatever happens we’ll stay here the night. I’ll go and see what sort of state the rooms are in upstairs. If by any chance my husband has been having an orgy, I’ll telephone Mrs Briggs, who lives down the road, and ask her to give us a hand. Does that suit you?’
‘Fine,’ said Linda from the shadows. ‘Fine. Anything you say.’
And Millicent walked towards the staircase, giving the photograph of their sons an absent- minded smile on the way. They were to go to Eton, like David, and who else was it? Oh, yes, Linda’s brother. Climbing the stairs, she was surprised to find that she needed to lean on the banisters. Something had deprived her of the use of her legs; it wasn’t the golf, nor the thought of possible adultery. Anyone can envisage, indeed must envisage, the possibility of their partner’s infidelity-it wasn’t an excuse for creating a scene or putting on an act. Not to Millicent’s way of thinking, at any rate. She went into ‘their’ bedroom, the bedroom of ‘their’ house, and noticed without the slightest embarrassment that the bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled, churned up as they had never been, it seemed to her, since her marriage to David. Then she noticed the watch on the bedside table, her bedside table. It was a heavy, waterproof watch, a man’s watch, and she weighed it in her hand for a moment, fascinated and incredulous, until the realization that it must have been left behind by another man finally sank in. She understood everything now. Downstairs, there was Linda, worried stiff and getting more and more scared, sitting there, in the dark. Millicent went downstairs again, and with a curious, almost pitying expression in her eyes, looked at dear Linda who also knew.
‘Linda, my poor pet,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid you were right. There’s a pair of salmon- pink cami- knickers in the bedroom I wouldn’t be seen dead in.’
The Lake of Loneliness
Prudence-for such was her name, alas, and an inappropriate one at that-Prudence Delvaux had parked her car in a forest ride, near Trappes, and was strolling aimlessly in the damp, chill November wind. It was five o’clock and growing dark: a melancholy hour, in a melancholy month, in a melancholy landscape, but nonetheless she whistled as she walked, stooping now and then to pick up a chestnut or a russet leaf whose colour appealed to her. She wondered drily what she was doing there-why, on her way home from a charming weekend, with charming friends, with her charming lover, she had felt a sudden and almost irresistible urge to stop her Fiat and set off on foot on this heart- rending autumn evening, why she had suddenly succumbed to the desire to be alone and walk.
She was wearing a silk scarf and an extremely well- cut coat in lodencloth the colour of the leaves, she was thirty years old and her hand- sewn walking shoes made every stride a pleasure. A rook flew cawing overhead and was immediately joined by a bevy of its fellows until they filled the sky to the horizon. And oddly enough, this raucous cry, familiar though it was, made her heart beat faster as though in response to some nameless terror. Not that Prudence was afraid of prowlers, or the cold, or the wind, or even of life itself. On the contrary, her friends would burst out laughing whenever they uttered her name. Considering her attitude to life, they said, it was the purest paradox. However, she hated anything she couldn’t understand, and that was really the only thing she was frightened of: not understanding what was happening to her. And now, suddenly, she had to stop and catch her breath.
