“And leave you alone in this house? No, Harry.”
“I wouldn’t be quite alone. There are the servants.”
“I don’t want them corrupted. In any case, Moira is not coming with me. I wouldn’t want you to stay alone in the house, with her. The neighbours would talk.”
“I could stop their lying mouths with gin and tonic,” Harry suggested.
Joe very markedly didn’t smile.
“Have a cigarette?” Harry said, holding out the box.
“I don’t smoke cigarettes, Harry. I am going to Ireland on Friday. Would you like to pack now?”
“If I can find my clean shirts,” Harry said. He looked at Joe, measuring him. “Anyway, this is Wednesday. I don’t have to pack until tomorrow. I have to make arrangements,” he said in a reasonable voice.
“All this time you have had to make arrangements, Harry. Now we do not wait for the arrangements. You understand.”
“Right,” Harry said briskly. “Shall we have a farewell drink?”
WEDNESDAY (6)
HESTER and Prudence were in the kitchen, preparing dinner. It had to be a special meal, because Maurice was coming, and a man of many virtues should be honoured.
The whole family, in a way, depended on Maurice. He was the man who knew what to plant in the garden; when to ask the low-spirited out for a drink; how to do the maths homework. He looked reliable as a Rolls-Royce and steady as a lighthouse. Above all, he seemed to like the Wades enormously. He certainly deserved a good dinner, Hester thought, but it was a pity that good dinners involved cutting up so many things into such small pieces.
“Next dice the raw, fat pork,” Hester said gloomily. “Do you think it would be better if I used a razor blade? I’m getting blisters. Mix it with the remainder of the diced meat. Chop carrots and shallots very fine. Now remove skins and seeds of eight small tomatoes. Chop pulp of small aubergine previously fried very lightly. Have you previously fried it, Prudence?”
Prudence didn’t look round. “You’ll have to do that. Don’t forget the olive oil and the garlic. I’ll murder you if you overdo the garlic.”
Hester sighed. “Isn’t there some simpler way of preparing food, Prudence?”
“When we have simpler meals, you can make them by yourself,” Prudence said. “There’s no satisfaction in throwing some fish into a frying pan. If a meal can’t be a poem, it isn’t worth cooking. When we’ve finished this, we’ll feel like artists. Please cut those carrots a bit smaller. What should we feel if we’d been content to fry a piece of bacon?”
“That we’d provided food with less expense of time,” Hester said. “You can’t be a perfectionist in everything, Prudence. Life isn’t like that. You’ll find out.”
“I’ll find what I choose to find. Did I tell you I was taking up clothes next? If life was nothing but grim essentials I’d be content to dress for ever in a white blouse and a school skirt. Oh horror horror horror! I think I may go in first for a terribly elegant simplicity and then branch out into dernier cri clothes. That reminds me, Hester. Those tight bodices and full skirts you’re always wearing make you look awfully like a student, and an art student, at that. I suppose when you’re a doctor you’ll wear tailored suits all the time.”
“You sound exactly like a schoolgirl who glues pictures of Paris models inside her science notebook,” Hester said coldly.
“Ah, the elder sister line,” Prudence said, sighing. “I warn you, Hester, in a few years you’ll come to me for advice. I’ll give you some now, if you like, while you stir the sauce. Don’t have anything to do with Harry. He’s not good enough for you. If you marry him you’ll spend half your life looking through a wire grating.”
“Wire grating?”
“Visitors’ day at prison.”
“You’re an insufferable adolescent, Prudence, and I hope your damned dinner burns,” Hester said angrily.
“Oh, Hester, I’m only saying it because you’re so good you can’t see when other people are bad. Please go on stirring the sauce. I’m beating the egg-whites and I can’t stop. Maurice is coming to dinner. I do want it to be perfect. You think you can change Harry but I know you can’t,” Prudence said, beginning to cry.
“You’re dropping tears in the souffle. You’ll spoil it,” Hester said. “I’ll go in and see if Mrs Timber set the table before she left.”
She took off her apron and went to the dining-room, thinking sadly how much easier life was in term-time, when she lived alone. She had a bed-sitting-room in a dingy house in an undistinguished street and there, whatever else happened, she was free from economic pretences. At home her father still dreamt of the easy past when he had sat in the manor house like a benevolent ornament; and even Prudence felt it was a social necessity to provide elaborate meals cooked with butter when they could afford to eat only bread and margarine. With the slightest encouragement her father would have insisted on dressing for dinner. She didn’t see this as going down with the flag flying: it was more like struggling to live underwater in a sunken ship. The pressure was too great; the quarrels were inevitable.
She heard a tapping on the dining-room window. Harry was outside, making expressive faces. She opened the windows and let him in.
“Hester,” he said, “I couldn’t keep away. I get pulled to you like the tides following the moon.” He held out his arms to her. She didn’t respond.
“You’ll have noticed that the ocean follows the moon for eternity but it never gets much closer,” he said. “Do you suppose it’s content with that?”
She moved dreamily towards him and he caught her wrist with one hand. She heard a step outside the door and pulled her hand away. She moved quickly to the table and began to rearrange the knives and forks with excessive concentration like a child who had almost been caught smoking.
Prudence came in, sniffing the atmosphere suspiciously. “Harry! I thought you’d gone home hours ago.”
“Home?” he said harshly. “You mean Uncle Joe’s? Don’t worry, Prudence, I’m going away again.”
“You must stay to dinner,” Hester said doubtfully.
“Oh, Hester! Father would be furious.”
“You needn’t worry about me,” Harry said heavily. “I’ll wait. I needn’t eat. Tell me a room that’s empty. I’ll wait there. Maybe I could sit in the bathroom if no one plans to have a bath at dinner-time. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take a book and sit on the edge of the bath.”
“Prudence, there’s no pepper left in this thing. Will you get some more,” Hester said.
“We can bring it in later.” Prudence lingered by the door, glowering at Harry.
“Please, Prudence. I want it now,” Hester said angrily.
“Oh, if you’re going to make a scene about pepper,” Prudence said, “I’ll oblige by leaving the room. But I’m coming back right away with your pepper.”
They watched her march out.
“Harry, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Only that Uncle Joe is turning me out. He thinks I’m not his nephew after all. But that’s nothing. I came here about you.”
“Me?” Hester asked in amazement, as though it had never occurred to her that Harry was more than an acquaintance.
“I had an attack of conscience. I’m not used to it – I feel very queer. What I thought was it would be all right if your father wasn’t your father. I don’t believe in interfering with the course of nature. But I know what Maurice is. He’s practically got it embroidered on his shirt. Hester, he’s a crook of the simplest kind. Can’t you see it?”
“Why don’t you attack him to his face?” she asked contemptuously.