'Stop that! said Hugh. It was too late.
Ann got up, pushing her chair violently back. It screeched along the stone-flagged floor. 'That's not true! she said. 'You don't give me an ounce of support. You hide upstairs for days and then you come rushing down to make a scene as soon as you think you've got something —
'Don't you shout at me, you hysterical bitch. And you can tell that damn boy to put all that stuff back at once. And if you don't, I will!
'Oh no you won't! said Ann. She stood stiffly by her chair, her hands at her sides. 'You leave Penny alone. And don't speak to me like that and don't look like that. You frighten me. I'm tired out and I can't stand it. I won't have you upsetting the boy. We have duties to the living as well as to the dead.
'I see — Penn's alive — and Steve is dead, so we don't have to bother about him any more —’
'Oh, don't be so hideously cruel! said Ann, her voice rising at last. 'How can you use Steve like that, you're using him —’
'You torture me, you torture me! cried Randall, and he lifted up the end of the table and banged it savagely on the floor. 'You take everything from me, you take even Steve from me! His voice rose to a scream..
'Randall, control yourself! Hugh gripped his son's violently trembling Ann.
Without a glance Randall shook him off. I've a bloody good mind to clear off to London!
'Well, clear off! cried Ann. 'You expect me to wear myself out running the nursery single-handed to earn money for you to spend in London-
'You've gone too far now! roared Randall. As he moved half-way round the table Ann moved quickly behind her chair; but he paused, and with a whirl of his hand which made Hugh flinch back he swept the dominoes off on to the floor. They clattered loudly away through the kitchen in all directions. 'You make me miserable and take everyything away from me and then you have the insolence to taunt me about money! I'm not going to stay in this house another bloody minute! And you can have your precious Penny and your precious priesty all to yourself!
There was a moment's silence. Then Ann dropped her head. She said nothing. She stooped and began to pick up some of the dominoes. 'Stop putting on an act, Randall, said Hugh quietly. 'Now may I suggest —
'Did you hear me, damn you?
'Yes, she said tonelessly, as she put the dominoes back on the table. He stared at her for another moment and then went out banging the door.
Ann stood looking down at the table. Then she burst into violent sobbing.
'Oh! Shouldn't have lost my temper, I shouldn't have said those things —’Don't grieve, Ann, said Hugh. He felt tired and disgusted and ashamed, yet he felt how too as. if he had foreseen it all. He put an Ann round her. Don t you see it was a put-up job? You hadn't a chance. He was obviously determined to go away, and he just wanted a scene so that he could pretend to himself that it was your fault.
No, no, said Ann, weeping. She wiped her eyes on Miranda's dress. 'I'll go up and persuade him
'It'll be no use, said Hugh. He watched her gloomily. Now he would have to stay at least till Thursday.
Chapter Seven
RANDALL stretched his legs out comfortably on the big sofa and wriggled his back into the cunningly arranged pile of cushions behind him. He drew a little nearer to him the delicate table which held his cup of tea and a pink Bowery plate with a diminutive sugar-cake upon it. He took a sip of the sweet Lapsang Suchong. 'Come, come, he said. 'Surely you knew I'd come back?
Emma Sands and Lindsay Rimmer looked at each other. 'What shall we say to him? said Lindsay.
'We might say that we hadn't given the matter a thought, said Emma, 'but he wouldn't believe that, would he?
'If we say we were expecting him every day he'll begin to think he's important, said Lindsay.
'But he's important, isn't he? said Emma. The two women laughed and Randall smiled with satisfaction. It was good to be back.
A golden afternoon sunlight, spread out now in a soft web upon the permanent mist of tobacco smoke, filled Emma's big drawing room, which was crowded with slightly shabby, slightly. dusty, beautiful things. It revealed the cleverly darned Turkey carpet and the cleverly mended porcelain and made its daily contribution to the further fading of the chintz curtains whose powdery haze of pink and blue birds was still just discernible against a threadbare tawny background. The room, which was on the ground floor, had windows on both sides, one looking through tall iron railings at the street, and the other looking on to a small lawn planted around with spherical bushes of veronica and laurestinus, whose dusty leaves and dry stems, dark and immobile in the cruel sunlight, made them seem now like grotesque indoor objects which had been temporarily put out of the room. It was a garden designed for winter and in the summer it looked sleepy and sulky. It was however no concern of Emma's, being maintained by the management of the flats wherein she lived, a large red-brick Edwardian block amid the early Victorian facades of creamy stucco in that part of Notting Hill.
The two women sat with their backs to the sun, which gave them each a halo, Emma's a jagged haze about her frizzy dark grey mop, and Lindsay's a thin smooth semicircle of brighter gold about the already bright gold of her neatly coiled hair. They were both doing petit-point embroidery on circular frames. Randall faced the light. He felt revealed, cornered, happy.
'Terrible as my lot is here, said Randall, 'I assure you it was even more terrible there.
'I don't think his lot is so terrible, do you? said Lindsay. 'Certainly not, said Emma, 'Considering how bad he is, we let him off very easily on the whole.
'We hardly ever beat him, said Lindsay. She held the embroidery frame away from her, admiring the effect.
'Ah, but you don't understand my sufferings! said Randall. 'I won't always behave well, I warn you. One day I'll break out. You'll see!
'He'll break out, said Lindsay. 'What fun. More tea, Emma dear? Emma removed her glasses and set her embroidery aside. She caressed her closed eyes for a moment with long fingers. 'A fag, sweetie.
Lindsay rose to light it for her. Their hands touched, golden in the sunshine as some complexity by Faberge.
'But meanwhile, my dearest gaolers, said Randall, 'I'm delighted to be here. He looked affectionately round the room, to which the puffing Gauloise was now adding a momentary intensification of the sunny haze and the old familiar tobacco smell. Emma, part of whose witchery it was to seem older than she could possibly be, had contrived to give the room an Edwardian look, and appeared in the midst of it, her voluminous nylon dress seeming like transparent muslin, her silver-topped walking-stick half lost in the folds, Edwardian herself. Even her tea-table was a tea-table in some now vanished sense. Only her tape-recorder, dog-like at her feet, recalled the present age.
He added, 'It was hell at Grayhallock. Everyone was watching me to see what I'd do, to see which way I'd jump, to see how long I'd stay. I was slowly suffocating. I can't think how I stood it so long before.
After a pause Emma said, 'I don't suppose people were all that much interested in your doings, except for Ann. In my experience people's real interest in each other is very small. Even the most delicious gossip dies quickly. Don't you think so, Lindsay?
'Yes, said Lindsay. 'Hardly anyone really notices either how good one is or how bad one is. Which I suppose is consoling, given that one is more often bad than good.
It was always like that. They never let him really complain. With an air of fastidious good taste they would turn his complaints away into general conversation. This sense of being petted, permitted, indulged and ultimately bullied exasperated Randall, yet gave him, too, a sort of agreeable shiver. He enjoyed the outbursts and the little feeling of guilt afterwards. Still, they led him on, they provoked him, in a way which satisfied their curiosity while leaving them guiltless. He idolized the serene quality of their egoism.