‘The cleaning woman?’ The princess raised a startled head. ‘The one who was brought by hire-car— from Red-fern?’
‘Mrs Cush does live in Redfern,’ the solicitor confirmed, ‘with an epileptic husband.’
‘And varicose veins.’ The princess sank her chin. ‘We must all three of us resist becoming sentimental about epilepsy and varicose veins, I fail to see why the cleaner — a most inefficient one, my eyes immediately told me — should receive more than a hundred.’
The silence might have shamed Dorothy Hunter if it had not been for the Princesse de Lascabanes: only a woman of rational mind can save men from their impulses.
‘If that is what you sincerely feel,’ Mr Wyburd murmured.
‘Why drag in sincerity? A sense of reality is what is called for!’ The princess spoke so vehemently she had to hang on to the handbag sitting on her lap.
‘One hundred for the cleaner.’ Basil breathed; it was a matter of little importance, and his coming over could help shorten the session.
Dorothy was appeased, while making it clear that paltry concessions would not seduce her into relaxing her moral vigilance.
‘Finally,’ the solicitor said; but did he mean it? ‘there is the question of Mrs Hunter’s belongings — her furniture — her house.’
Basil hooted; Dorothy sighed.
‘If there’s nothing you want to keep,’ the solicitor gravely advised, ‘better dispose of everything by auction. Naturally there will be — articles of sentimental value — the jewels, for instance,’ he turned to Dorothy.
‘Are there any jewels left?’ Madame de Lascabanes broodily exploded. ‘After the nurses have taken their pick?’
‘And the electrician, and the man who mends the refrigerator?
The Hunter children were united in a good laugh.
Till suddenly glancing at this old man Dorothy realized how often she had been hurt by life. ‘Perhaps I’ll keep the jewels.’ She relented with a cultivated sulkiness to show she was not too eager: in any case, Mother’s jewels were bizarre rather than beautiful.
Mr Wyburd bowed his head. ‘That leaves the house.’
‘Oh, auction. Auction, Dorothy?’
She would have preferred not to agree with her brother, but submitted because it was practical. She opened her bag. The disagreeable stresses of the morning had left her with a touch of heartburn.
‘One more point,’ the solicitor offered.
Oh Lord! Sir Basil had risen: he was dusting imaginary crumbs off his flies.
‘While the estate is being wound up, we can’t run the risk of thieves and vandals at Moreton Drive. I have sounded out Sister de Santis and Mrs Lippmann, and gather they might be prepared to stay on, as caretakers, out of affection for Mrs Hunter.’
It was an arrangement neither of the Hunter children saw any reason for objecting to; though the caretakers would probably eat their heads off, Basil foresaw. Dorothy observed that, on the contrary, women in their position become depressed and develop frugal habits.
‘I’m sorry if it’s been in some ways a painful discussion.’ While apologizing to his clients, it was the solicitor rather, who was looking ravaged.
Dorothy smiled at him. ‘It’s over,’ she said softly; she could afford to be soft, at least in her attitude to someone who in no way threatened her equanimity. ‘Or it is for me. You are the one who will have to endure the auction.’
‘You’re not planning to leave us, are you?’
‘I have my reservation, I’m taking off tomorrow night for Paris.’
Basil forced her to look at him at last: he was making such ugly, unorthodox sounds. Isn’t that a pretty swift one? Dirty — anyway, crafty. But typical.’ The face which had appeared puffy on arrival was drained of a complacency probably induced by alcohoclass="underline" the leaner, lined Basil was standing on the brink of something; or was it nothing?
‘Is there any reason for staying?’ She hurried on in case he should produce one. ‘In this country to which I don’t belong, and where I shouldn’t choose to live longer than is absolutely necessary.’
‘You’re right. It’s time. I only thought we might have slunk off more cosily together.’
‘I can’t remember our depending on each other — to any extent — at any point.’
She looked away on making her thrust; she could not see whether she had drawn blood, but was conscious of a wound opening in herself.
Arnold Wyburd took them to the lift. Very properly, the solicitor volunteered to drive the princess to catch her plane the following evening. She was inclined to think his presence, so unemotional and banal, might soothe her airport nerves. The lift arrived, and soon after, was sinking with the Hunter children in it. Their fellow passengers huddled together to give them room. Unaccountably, a frightened look had settled on the anonymous faces.
It was Dorothy who was frightened: what if she couldn’t shake Basil off? If he trailed her from one hemisphere to another like some filthy dream she wanted to forget? They were stalking along this street together, in step, and silent. Equal in height, their eyes were at the same level when Basil closed in on her, forcing their progress to a standstill.
‘Your strength, Dorothy, is probably your greatest weakness.’
Her strength? Her swaying, timorous, ugly, helpless self! (If only the towers would crash, grind you into the gritty pavement, Basil too, with his cocky hat, parted lips, that split in the cushion of the lower one — buried beneath steel and concrete; but together.)
‘This is where I turn off.’ The voice of Madame de Lascabanes described its arc as gracefully as casually.
He switched on his professional charmer’s smile. ‘Faithful to Air France, I expect?’
‘Need you ask? I join them at Bangkok.’
Their laughter almost visibly splintered around them along with the other directionless refractions of a busy street.
Then Dorothy swooped down on the bundle of snakes he imagined he had seen writhing inside her. Not ‘imagined’. They were there. He knew. Hadn’t he unknotted and charmed them? He could feel them slithering still against his skin.
But Dorothy had ducked into the street she had chosen for her exit.
Sir Basil Hunter cocked his hat farther forward. (Never, in any circumstances, let plate glass windows fool you into taking a look.) He squelched on: it was his arches, his age. He would order a double Scotch, or two — or a whole bottle as on the day of the funeral. The funeral. (Remember you have inherited a fortune, and can buy yourself back into life, into art, into the affections of — almost — anybody.)
A revolving door propelled Sir Basil into the next scene. Unusually dim lighting or the unexpected laughter of several couples seated in black glass alcoves upset his timing: he stood too long mumbling his smile; when a partition of the door still in motion whammed against an ear and sent his hat spinning. The alcoves showered laughter on this unknown comic (or did they recognize the leading man wrongly cast?). At least a waiter ran forward to present the actor with a hat which might have looked a mistake in whatever circumstances.
Sir Basil strolled to the bar. He ordered a double Scotch. And a double Scotch. He had his ghosts to lay. (VOICE FROM LIMBO: Don’t look. The other one at the bar lifting her elbow so enthusiastically is Shiela Sturges the actress. She’s Basil Hunter’s wife. They say he drove her to it.)
At Bangkok Madame de Lascabanes re-entered her world.
‘Vous désirez, madame?’
‘Rien, merci.’ It was actually true.
The Air France hostess had inquired so impersonally that some (Australians for example, with their manic insistence on ‘warmth’) might have judged her contemptuous. Exchanging the ritual sliver of a smile, the princess and the air hostess knew better.