`What are you doing after this?' said Reeve. 'You'll have dinner with us, won't you?'
`Sorry, I can't. I'm tied up.'
`Then tomorrow you must come and see the flat!' said Neville
`We can't give you lunch,' said Gillian, 'there's nothing in it except a tape measure and Papa's cap which he left behhidl But there's a super Italian restaurant nearly next door.'
Reeve had just bought a flat in Hampstead.
`Thanks, I'd love to,' said Rose. She was troubled by an aching tooth.
Rose had no engagement that evening, but was hoping that Gerard would come, and would have dinner with her. She hall still, in the lengthening interim since her time at Boyars, heard absolutely nothing from him. She rang his number less and less often. She wrote a letter and destroyed it. She did not dare to go round to his house. This faint-heartedness was a measure of how, after all these years, remote he had suddenly become: a dear friend, not a close friend, not an intimate. She had no idea at this moment where Gerard was or what he might be doing or thinking, and she dreaded asking anyone for news of him, thus admitting that she did not know what perhaps others did. Gerard might be out of the country, he might be in bed with someone, he might be in hospital or dead. He carried nothing which named her as closest.
Gideon, as master magician, watching his party fizzing on so well, had his chubby pretty look which annoyed Gerard so much. He had moved Gerard out of his house by playing on his weaknesses, his semi-conscious guilt feelings, his unhappiness which made him so unworldly, the sheer nervous irritability which suddenly made him want to get away from his sister and brother-in-law at any price. Gideon had completed the redecoration of the house, doing exactly what he wanted and not what Pat wanted. Pat's resistance had been minimal, so there was not much to crow about there. The drawing room, which under Gerard's regime had been an insipid spotty pinkish brown dotted with small pale English watercolours and full of dark dull conventional fat chairs, was now painted a glowing aquamarine adorned with a huge scarlet abstract by de Kooning over the fireplace and two colourful conversation pieces by Kokoschka and Motesiczky. The carpet was a very dark blue with pale blue and white art deco rugs. There were two very large white settees, and no other furnit tire. Gerard's hopeless kitchen had of course been completely reconstructed. Only the dining room retained its previous form and colour, exhibiting now upon its dark brown walls the pretty Longhis and the lovely Watteau. Even more pleasing to Gideon was the return from America, for good he hoped, of' his beloved and talented son Leonard, now to study at the Courtauld Institute. What a team we shall be, thought Gideon, who had never dared to call himself an art historian, and what fun we shall have! Gideon could also look with some satisfaction upon his success (so far) with Tamar and Violet. After the abduction things had moved rapidly. Tamar had moved into the upstairs flat. Violet (surprising Pat but not Gideon) had suddenly moved in too. Tamar had moved out and now had a tiny flat in Pimlico. Violet's flat was up for sale. Violet was quiet, letting herself be looked after. What next, time would show, and meanwhile it was another one up on Gerard.
Patricia thought, Gideon's worked really hard to get hold of those two, I hope he won't regret it! He's too kind-hearted and of course he's a power maniac with delusions of grandeur. He's quite unscrupulous when he gets going like this. How on earth will we ever get Violet out? She's sitting there like a toad and playing the interesting neurotic, it could go on forever, I suppose we shall have to buy her out! My God though, she may be a mental case, but she's kept her good looks and her figure, it isn't fair! Patricia was well aware of Gideon's funny kinky affection for Violet, and it did not trouble her. She was in any case too happy at present, what with Leonard's return and the house to play with, to bear any ill-will to her unhappy cousin. As for Tamar, it looked as if they were adopting her after all. Perhaps that was what Gideon had always wanted. Surveying the scene Patricia had already noticed something else which gave her pleasure. Leonard seemed to be getting on very well with Gillian Curtland. Hmm, thought Pat, a nice clever pretty girl, and she'll inherit a packet When they come to live in Hampstead we'll invite them tit dinner.
Violet's capitulation, which had occurred when Gideon arrived on the day after the abduction, was brought about by two kinds of consideration, one financial, the other emotional (Father McAlister would have used the word `spiritual'). The latter was a special kind of despair which took the form tit missing Tamar. Violet had been intensely and deeply shocked by the ruthlessness of Tamar's rejection of her. She realised that the docile spiritless girl she had known all her life watt gone forever, and that she would never meet that girl again, With Tamar so utterly gone from it the flat was desolate, n cage without its little captive. Keeping Tamar prisoner had been far more important to Violet than she had ever realised, Whether this importance had anything to do with love was a question which did not now concern her; she needed help, she was ready to run, Gideon appeared. The financial consideration could be more clearly stated. Gideon announced, which Violet had anticipated, that Tamar had already given up her ob. She wanted time to catch up with her studies. There were debts and bills and very little money. Gideon composed a rational argument. Violet had to face the facts and put her lifiin order. It made sense to sell the flat, which was a genuine asset, pay what was owed, and come and rest at Notting Hill, then get some sort of job (all right, not in his office) where she could use her wits, or anyway make a plan for a happier and more sensible life. She didn't have to stay on with him and Pat if she didn't want to, it could be an interim. Violet, who felt just then that the alternative was suicide, said yes with an alacrity which surprised Gideon, who had looked forward to a struggle, even a row, ending of'course in victory. Gideon had given her money to buy clothes. She had accepted the money and bought the clothes. (Gideon, discussing it all with Pat, attached great symbolic significance to this surrender.) Now at the party she felt like some sort of wicked Cinderella. Albert Labowsky was talking to her as if she were an ordinary person. She could see Gideon looking encouragingly in her direction. She had fallen into the hands of the enemy, the other race, who Would now expect her to be grateful, even to become happy! fcourse they had not expected her to share the flat with her ughter, the new Tamar. Gideon had bought a flat for amar before Violet moved in! What shall I do up there alone, thought Violet. Shall I quickly become ill, bed-ridden, have illy meals brought up by kind people who will sit by my bed and chat? Perhaps even Tamar might come and sit, and look of her watch. Violet was experiencing a sudden total loss of rnergy, what a car must feel when there is no more petrol. She had not really lived, before, on pure unmixed resentment and remorse and hate, she had lived on Tamar, as a presence, as a vehicle, as something always expected and looked forward to. Through Tamar she had touched the world. Could she now live on a hatred for Pat and Gideon, which she did not yet feel, but might have to develop as a source of'power? How she would detest their charity as the days went by, how she would loathe their kindness, their tactful sympathy, their gifts of flowers! But how now could she escape? Any relationship with the child who had rejected her seemed now impossible forever, one could only cast, in that direction, one's curse. Don't they know, thought Violet, that I'm not an ordinary person, that I'm dangerous, that I'll end by burning the house down? Now I'm a novelty. Soon they'll get nervous. I shall start to scream. They'll have foreseen this too. I shall go to a luxurious mental home and have electric shocks at Gideon's expense. If I leave now and go upstairs someone will be sent after me to see I'm all right. Soon they'll begin to be afraid of me. That at least will be something.