‘You left me,’ he stated, ‘and you abandoned Kevin, so he’s in my care. He’s only been seeing you in the holidays because I allowed him to.’
‘You mean I take him off your hands while you go off to Majorca or wherever it is with some typist or other.’ She raised her voice: ‘And stop talking like a judge. You’ve no right to judge me, in spite of your blackmail.’
‘I don’t want to. But Kevin won’t come here again. You can keep your facts of life away from him.’
They hadn’t heard Frank come in. He stood at the open door: ‘What facts of life? What’s all this?’
11
Even before opening the door Frank knew who it was. His reasons were vague, but he didn’t question his instinct. Two cars outside made it seem like a bloody roadhouse. He heard voices within but not what they were saying, Pat’s tone quiet and insistent though edged with hysteria, the man’s gruffer, loud, but with an odd shrill phrase chopping it — as if they’d been arguing for a long time and not yet convinced each other.
His instinct told him it was time to go, walk off, never look back, be a hundred miles away before midnight. The husband had returned, the game was up, and the rules said blow town. All’s fair in love and war. But love that equals war ain’t love. Running away was all right for a lark: it left everybody happy because things had fallen out as they should. But times had altered, and he happened to be in love, so there was nothing to do but turn that key and push that door.
They were facing each other across the table, tea things still on it. His unexpected entrance froze them. They looked like a brother and sister who had been talking about him. Keith’s hands rested on the table, by his cigarettes, lighter, and cold cup. Hers were on her lap, out of sight. She knew some introduction must be made, but gave Frank time to take stock of what blind emotions were knocking about the room. Her normal reserve of control had been drained, left her pale, her life now at the mercy of the bare features of her face.
She hoped Keith would not leave and drive away. That was all she wanted a few minutes ago, but if he went now he would never let her see Kevin again. It was so possible that she felt faint from the effort of holding down her blind misery.
Keith forced himself to glance at Frank. Having lost himself in plans and hopes, pre-occupied to the utter depth of his life, pleading to the exclusion of all else, he hadn’t foreseen this sudden appearance. Having failed, he wanted to go, but a new factor stood by the door as if it would never move or say anything, as if all of them were waiting for a bombardment to end before returning to normal life. Time passed. To Frank it seemed short because he was the first to speak: ‘Why did you come up to see Pat, then?’
‘A chance visit,’ Keith said, easily.
Frank, deciding not to sit down, felt that Keith was no stranger, since Pat had told so much about him. He was often angry that he could still take so much of her, while he had kept Nancy out of it. ‘It must have been important to bring you all this way. There’s a sharp frost tonight. It’ll need careful driving.’
Keith looked at this strong-faced broad-shouldered man still in top coat and scarf, the sort of working-class chap who, once out of housing estate and factory, lost his callouses and the final trace of discontent. He’d seen such types some time after the war at Cambridge, inmates of various colleges able to believe their intelligence but not their change of life — even in their second or third year. He looked younger than both of them at this moment, which gave Keith an undeserved feeling of superiority — somewhat mauled though by the fact that Frank had been the first to ask questions. Keith didn’t like that at all, and he liked even less the fact that he had answered that question.
Frank waited for him to stand up: it was always for the husband to make the first move, or try to, though the rules were shaky these days because not only had he come into the house when he should plainly have fled, but he had already spoken to the husband in a way that seemed unlikely to start a fight. He was a traveller in a strange country, and he liked travelling. ‘I’ll make some more tea,’ Pat said, ‘if there’s any talking to be done. There’s no drink in the house.’ Frank followed her into the kitchen to wash his hands: ‘What’s he come up for, then?’ — the tap flowing loudly against the bowl.
She looked at him: ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.’
He stood with wet hands, regretting a question that only disturbed her. ‘Has he been upsetting you?’
‘Well, I was surprised to see him. I’ve had a difficult day, in any case.’ That didn’t explain her general air of bewilderment and shock. Hard days often left her in a good mood. He remembered she was menstruating, which certainly didn’t help. People always choose the right time to visit those they don’t like but pretend to love, he thought. ‘If he did upset you I’d flatten him.’
She put down the teapot, face rigid, eyes burning with the force of her words: ‘If there’s any of that, there’ll never be anything between us again. I’ll be finished with you. I won’t have any of that in this house. This is for me to settle.’
‘All right.’ But he knew something had been said, and that she was holding it to herself, too bloody tight and haughty to put the half-weight of it onto his back. ‘I’ll be subtle. Iron won’t melt in my mouth.’
Both men looked equally at home. Keith picked up the evening paper, scanning the front page. Pat came in with the tea. ‘Are you looking for a job?’ Frank asked, sitting down.
‘I have one,’ Keith said. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m living on my savings.’
‘Whose savings?’
‘Mine. Do you want to look at my hands?’
‘Not particularly. It wouldn’t prove anything.’
‘It would if you held yours up as well.’
Keith put the paper away. ‘If this is the way you compete for your lady love it won’t get you far.’
‘It won’t get me as far as London, and that’s a fact. It ain’t necessary for me to compete, in any case.’
‘You think not?’ Keith retorted. ‘You’d be a lucky young man if it weren’t. And the woman would be unlucky, wouldn’t she, Pat?’
‘She wouldn’t think much about it,’ Frank said, ‘unless she lived in the Dark Ages.’
‘We’re in them now,’ Pat said, pouring the tea, ‘so perhaps she would.’ She put bread and butter out, and biscuits. Frank ate, but Keith couldn’t. Pat only wanted tea, feeling parched and feverish at the throat. A petrol stove burned in one corner, but Keith was chilled, unable to trace the moves that had landed him in this wintry unlucky cottage.
‘Do you mind if we talk alone?’ Keith asked.
‘I do,’ Frank said. ‘I’m staying. But say what you like. Don’t mind me. I live here.’ He waited, curious and interested in this new kind of situation that at the moment made him forget his natural disadvantage of worldliness.
‘After all,’ Pat said, ‘we did have a long time before he came.’ Keith did not like him. In the old days, if any man looked at Pat otherwise than by accident, he imagined that man in bed with her, and immediately loathed him. Now he was in the same room with a man who was not only her lover, but had flaunted the fact in his son’s eyes as well. He had no real claim on her, but saw Frank as an under-educated throw-out of a workman who had treacherously planted himself like a rank weed in the fair field of his hopes and affections. He and his type fell by the million under the sway of his sub-Freudian scythes, spent their sweaty wages before displays of deep and tricky symbols. No doubt Pat had told him of their past troubles, revealed secrets. There was an air as if they’d been living together for longer than they had. Present lack of speech didn’t faze them. They were undisturbed by each other’s weariness at the end of the day. Maybe she’d been truthful in saying she was in love. The idea appalled him. He knew they wanted him to go, be alone and console each other, but he would stay to the bitter end of what his own perversity had dragged him into. Yet at the same time he wanted so badly to leave, fly down those icebound lanes to Boston and the south, back to the warmth, light, and civilization of London. He could not get up and make an exit that would satisfy the pride that had suddenly become apparent in front of another man. ‘I came to ask Pat if she would live with me again.’