Part 16 (1/2)
”Not what you're used to, Brenda,” she said, ”but needs must when the devil drives.”
”Regional cuisine can be surprising, don't you think?” Brenda spread her napkin in her lap. She lifted her spoon. ”Well,” she said hopefully, ”this looks hearty.”
Stella served herself last and then sat down, untying her ap.r.o.n and tossing it in the general direction of the pegs on the wall by the door.
”It can,” she said, ”if you can afford the ingredients. Not that there's much available in these parts. Anyway, on Max's salary it's a struggle just to put food on the table.”
”You're exaggerating, darling,” said Max.
”Cold mutton sandwiches I give them,” said Stella. ”On Sundays we have cabbage. For a treat.”
She looked at Charlie, and he was wriggling on his chair and grinning. He thought it was funny.
”You're being facetious, my dear,” said Brenda smoothly. ”But I take your point. One is often limited by the availability of local ingredients. When Max's father and I were traveling in Spain in the forties we often dined on a bowl of garlic and a loaf of bread. There was nothing else to be had.”
”Fancy,” said Stella. She had been trying to make the point that they were poor, and here they were talking about bowls of Spanish garlic. Max took the opportunity to tell his mother that all the good histories of Spain were written by Englishmen, and Stella couldn't tell if he was making this up as well.
”Isn't that interesting,” said Brenda.
”Fill our gla.s.ses, please, Max,” said Stella. ”If you drink enough you won't notice what you're eating. Collect the plates, please, Charlie.”
She rose and busied herself at the stove.
”I don't suppose you've ever eaten in a kitchen, have you, Brenda?” she said without turning. ”It's how the other half lives.”
”Charles and I were often in straitened circ.u.mstances in the early years,” she said.
”Hard to imagine,” said Stella, and turned with the ca.s.serole to see Brenda glance at Max and hear her quietly sigh. The dinner was not going as Max had hoped it would.
It didn't improve. There wasn't an argument as such, rather a series of snarls in the thread of the evening, small disruptions of the flow of talk Max was working so hard to promote. Stella was responsible of course, being disinhibited, and even felt disappointed by the end that she hadn't provoked Brenda to a good b.i.t.c.hy hiss. But the older woman wisely wanted no part of her manipulations.
”Good night, my dear,” she said when Max was ready to drive her back to the Bull. ”I hope you feel better soon.”
With that she climbed into the car.
Max returned in a fury an hour later and found Stella further disinhibited. He stormed the length of the kitchen to the window and stood there staring out and bristling. She was still at the table among the dirty plates, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes.
”Not only are you selfish,” he said, his voice low and hoa.r.s.e with anger, ”you are also stupid.”
She put her elbows on the table and held her gla.s.s in front of her face and gazed at him over the rim and said nothing.
”Do you realize what you've done?”
”What have I done, Max?”
She expected him to tell her she had destroyed any chance of Brenda ever giving them money. But he surprised her.
”You've squandered the last of your resources.” His voice had become suddenly quiet.
She did not enter into the melodramatic spirit of the moment.
”The last of my resources,” she said. ”What's that?”
He smirked bitterly. There was a brief silence. Then she snorted.
”What does that mean mean, Max?”
”It means you're on your own.”
”I've always been on my own.”
”Oh no you haven't. You've never been on your own. I'm going to bed.”
”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?”
She was on her feet by this time. She didn't like all this ponderous finality. She stood by the table and seized his sleeve as he tried to get past her to the stairs. He stared at her with a fury colder than any she'd seen in him before.
”Let me go,” he said.
She gripped his sleeve harder, got a bunch of material in her fist, and grinned at him.
”Let me go!”
He jerked free of her and lost his balance slightly. He stumbled and reached for the banister.
”You're disinhibited!” she shouted.
He went up the stairs.
”What sort of c.r.a.p is this, Max?” she shouted. ”What do you mean, I'm on my own? I've always been on my own, married to you!”
He came back down a few steps.
”Just shut up now, will you? We'll discuss the details in the morning, but I don't want you waking Charlie.”
”What details?”
They stood there glaring at each other, him halfway up the stairs but half turned to face her where she stood at the bottom. She saw Charlie first, on the landing rubbing his eyes and frowning.
”Sorry, darling, did we wake you?” she said. ”Daddy's just pretending to be a b.l.o.o.d.y fool.”
Max darted up the stairs. ”Come on, you,” she heard him say, ”back to bed,” and the pair of them disappeared. Stella returned to the kitchen table and finished whatever she could find. When Max came back down he bluntly told her the news he had kept from her all day. He told her that Edgar Stark was in police custody. He'd been picked up that morning. In Chester.
They were holding him there.
The next couple of days felt unreal. She buried her response to the news about Edgar and channeled the affect into fury at being paraded in front of Brenda to show off her mental health so the old bag would start giving Max money again. Max was quieter than she'd ever known him. Such was the ferocity of the rows they'd been having that apparently he felt there was no longer any future for the marriage. He abandoned the psychiatric perspective, and who can blame him? He tried to talk to her about separation but she wouldn't listen, she walked out of the room.
”This won't go away,” he said.