Part 11 (1/2)

He shuffled out without a word shortly after dark, she heard him go, that strong man. She wasted no time. She had planned precisely what to do. She packed her suitcase and got dressed in less than ten minutes. In her raincoat, head scarf, and sungla.s.ses she ran down the stairs and along the pa.s.sage at the bottom. There she waited a moment and then peered out into the yard. It was empty. She walked quickly out to the street. She paused by the wall to check that he wasn't on his way back. He wasn't. There was a cold wind off the river. She hurried away.

Half an hour later she cautiously entered the saloon bar of a shabby little pub near Waterloo. It was a clean, warm, empty, dangerous room; there were rooms like this all over London, she thought, rooms that appeared to promise safety but were in fact alive with the possibility that he would walk in. Just one man in a gray raincoat, up at the bar with his evening paper and a gla.s.s of beer in front of him. A carpet on the floor and a gas fire burning. Beside the fire, in the corner, a small round table with metal legs. Just the man at the bar, the warm fire, the warm low lighting, cigarettes and alcohol, and outside, cold and twilight, an empty studio, a madman. She would sit at that little table for a while and have a drink. The woman behind the bar sold her a packet of cigarettes and a large gin and tonic, and she carried them over to the fire and installed herself, bruised cheek to the wall. She poured tonic into her gin and lit a cigarette. She was aware after a minute or two that the man at the bar was watching her, but when she looked up he turned back to his paper.

It was warm and quiet and the lighting was subdued. There was tonic left in the bottle so she bought another gin. While she was up at the bar the man in the raincoat asked her if she'd like to join him for a drink. No, she said, she was waiting for her husband. He probably thought it odd, she told me, that she was wearing sungla.s.ses. He probably wondered about the bruise on her face. She wasn't concerned with what he thought. She took her gin back to her table by the fire. She was waiting. She had chosen this pub because there was a phone box outside. She had called Nick's flat and been told he was out. She would try again in half an hour.

An hour later she was still there. The sadness kept welling up inside her, wave after wave of it, and she told herself fiercely, in a tone she recognized as Max's, not to be silly, not to give way to self-pity-to pull herself together pull herself together. Ironic that one of Max's precepts for the management of unruly female emotion should come to her aid in this particular extremity. Pull yourself together, dear, you're in a public place, do you want to make an exhibition of yourself? This distracted her, the idea of making an exhibition of herself. Putting a frame around the little table and its weepy occupant, a somber black frame and under it the t.i.tle of the piece, Melancholy Melancholy. She smiled, her face hurt, soundlessly the tears streamed down. From the public bar came the sound of men's laughter. Enough of this, Stella, she said to herself, but it didn't help, it only seemed to make it worse, and at that point the man at the bar turned and brazenly scrutinized her, so the public exhibition rose to her feet and went out to try and reach Nick for the third time.

The flat was tiny but it was better than the loft. What a pleasure it was to have a proper bathroom! Nick had been worried sick about her. He had gone back to the loft and found it empty. He hadn't known what to think but he'd feared the worst. His relief was enormous when he heard her voice on the phone. He came to the pub, they had a drink together, then he took her back to the flat. She told him that more than anything she wanted a bath.

She undressed in the bathroom. She sank into the hot water and lay there with her eyes closed. She felt she hadn't been properly clean for a long time. Some of the unhappiness and squalor and anxiety and guilt of the last days lifted. After a while she examined her body, her white skin, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her limbs, her pale, delicate hands and feet. Max had lost interest in her body after three or four years of marriage, for he lacked the imagination to sustain s.e.xual attraction. She had then been more or less celibate until Edgar. But she couldn't think about him now. She blocked him out.

She emerged from her bath and powdered herself in front of the long mirror in the door.

Dear Nick. He was not well equipped to offer hospitality and succor to a distressed woman but he was trying. He insisted she have the bed, he would sleep in the armchair. So she climbed gratefully into bed in her dressing gown as he fussed around her, getting her a drink.

”Would you like something to eat?”

”I'm not hungry, Nick.”

She was demure and gracious, as befits a lady in straitened circ.u.mstances. She liked this weak, messy, good-hearted man. His paint-spattered trousers had always made her smile; she and Edgar had a private joke about them, they'd suggested he exhibit them as art. Poor Nick, he'd laughed, but the next time they saw him he was wearing clean trousers, though they didn't stay clean for long. Now he sat forward on the edge of the armchair, rubbing his long hands together and shyly telling her how he'd felt when he'd heard her voice on the telephone that evening, the enormous relief.

”I knew him when he started getting ideas about Ruth,” he said.

”Oh, Ruth,” said Stella. She didn't want to hear about Ruth now.

”Nick,” she said as an idea occurred to her.

”What?”

”Has Edgar ever been here?”

Nick looked sick and said yes.

She couldn't sleep, and nor could Nick, sprawled in the armchair under a blanket, tossing about, trying to get comfortable; she wondered at one point whether she should invite him into the bed with her. Later she slipped over to the window and pulled back the curtain an inch or two. The rain was coming down steadily, slanting down through the glow of the streetlights. The narrow street, slicked and gleaming, was deserted. What had she expected, to see him standing under the streetlight in the rain, gazing up at the window?

A little later she heard Nick groping for his cigarettes, trying to make no noise, and then came the flare of his match.

”I'm not asleep,” she said into the darkness.

”I can't sleep either.”

”Nick.”

”What?”

”He'll come here, won't he?”

”I don't know.”

”I'm frightened.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and held her hand.

”It's not him,” she said. ”It's because he's sick. You know what he's like when he's not sick.”

Nick didn't say anything. He was holding her hand tightly. She realized he was aroused. It had never occurred to her that Nick desired her. Had Edgar had seen it, was this how it had all started? Was it all Nick's fault?

”The door's locked,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. He leaned toward her and she let him kiss her. He slipped his hand under the blanket and tentatively touched her breast.

”No, Nick.”

”Sorry.”

He went back to his armchair.

”Try and sleep,” she said.

He came at dawn. They were awakened by the sound of the door handle being turned. They never did find out exactly how he got into the building, for the front door was locked. They sat up and stared with horror at the door.

”Nick, open the door.”

His m.u.f.fled voice terrified her. It wasn't him, it was still the other one with the strange artificial accent. Nick stared wildly at her, shaking his head. In the gloom she read the terror in his face.

”Open the door, Nick. Come on, man, it's me. I'm not going to hurt you.”

Silence. They were utterly still. He won't want to create a disturbance, she thought. He won't dare try and break the door down, it would be the end of him. Unless he doesn't care anymore.

”She's in there, isn't she?”

Nick didn't know what to do. He was paralyzed. Stella stared at him, shaking her head. He mustn't get into a conversation with him, not even through a locked door. Nick was shrugging his shoulders like a schoolboy. With her finger at her lips Stella silently crossed the room. She sat on the arm of the chair and put her hand on Nick's mouth. With her other hand she gripped his wrist. He gazed up at her and she made a silent shus.h.i.+ng shape with her mouth.

”It's not your fault, Nick,” came the voice. ”I know what she's like.”

Nick's eyes grew wide. She couldn't tell what he would do. She took her hand away from his mouth and leaned forward and kissed him.

”She's no good.”

Nick tried to turn his head toward the door but her fingers were in his hair, gripping him, as she kept her mouth pressed to his.

”Nick!”

He thumped the door very hard once. Nick almost jumped out of the armchair, but Stella held him, still kissing him, darting her tongue into his mouth. Her dressing gown had opened across her legs as she balanced herself on the arm of the chair, and Nick's hand crept under and began tentatively to touch her thigh.

There was silence now from outside the door. Had he slipped away, alarmed that all the noise he was making would rouse the house; or was he waiting in the corridor? Nick's hand moved up her thigh to her groin. She was becoming aroused too, by the situation as much as by his touch, but she pushed his hand away. She went to the door and pressed her ear against it. She could hear nothing. Nick had slumped deep into the armchair and turned gray. She went to the window and twitched back the curtain a fraction. She saw him emerge from somewhere along the side of the building, and she watched him walk away. Even his walk was different now, gangling, ill-coordinated. It cost her not to call out to him, to let him just walk away. It had stopped raining. She turned into the room and faced the slumped and shattered Nick.