Mrs Pettigrew and Mrs Anthony sat eating their omelette with their coats on, since it was necessary to have all windows open. In the course of the meal Mrs Pettigrew quarrelled with Mrs Anthony again, and was annoyed with herself afterwards for it. If only, she thought guiltily, I could keep a distance, that would be playing my cards.
Mrs Anthony sat with Charmian all afternoon, while Mrs Pettigrew, with the sense of performing an act of reparation, took her two pieces of chewing gum, each marked with a clear keyhole impression, to a person she knew at Camberwell Green.
SEVEN
There was a chill in the air, but Godfrey walked on the sunny side of the street. He had parked his car in a turning off King’s Road outside a bombed building, so that anyone who recognized it would not be able to guess particularly why it was there. Godfrey had, for over three years now, been laboriously telling any of his acquaintance who lived near Chelsea that his oculist was in Chelsea, his lawyer was in Chelsea, and that he frequently visited a chiropodist in Chelsea. The more alert of his acquaintance had sometimes wondered why he stated these facts emphatically and so often — almost every time they met him. But he was, after all, over eighty and, one supposed, inclined to waffle about the merest coincidences.
Godfrey himself was of the feeling that one can never be too careful. Having established an oculist, a lawyer and a chiropodist in the neighbourhood to account for his frequent appearances in Chelsea, he still felt it necessary to park his car anonymously, and walk the rest of the way, by routes expressly devious, to Tite Street where, in a basement flat, Olive Mannering, granddaughter of Percy Mannering, the poet, resided.
He looked to right and left at the top of the area steps. The coast was clear. He looked to right again, and descended. He pushed, the door open and called, ‘Hello, there.’
‘Mind the steps,’ Olive called from the front room on the left. There were three more steps to descend within the doorway. Godfrey walked down carefully, and found his way along the passage into a room of many lights. Olive’s furnishings were boxy and modern, coloured with a predominance of yellow. She herself was fairly drab in comparison. She was twenty-four. Her skin was pale with a touch of green. She had a Spanish look, with slightly protruding large eyes. Her legs, full at the calves, were bare. She sat on a stool and warmed these legs by a large electric fire while reading the
‘Goodness, it’s you,’ she said, as Godfrey entered. ‘Your voice is exactly like Eric’s. I thought it was Eric.’
‘Is he in London, then?’ said Godfrey, looking round the room suspiciously, for there had been an afternoon when he had called on Olive and met his son Eric there. Godfrey, however, had immediately said to Olive,
‘I wonder if you have your grandfather’s address? I wish to get in touch with him.’
Olive had started to giggle. Eric had said ‘Ha — hum’ very meaningly and, as Olive told him later, disrespectfully.
‘I wish to get in touch with him in connexion with,’ said Godfrey, glaring at his son, ‘some poetry.’
Olive was a fair-minded girl in so far as she handed over to Eric most of the monthly allowances she obtained from Godfrey. She felt this was only Eric’s due, since his father had allowed him nothing for nearly ten years past, Eric being now fifty-six.
‘Is Eric in London?’ said Godfrey again.
‘He is,’ said Olive.
‘I’d better not stop,’ said Godfrey.
‘He won’t be coming here today,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go and put my stockings on,’ she said. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes, all right,’ said Godfrey. He folded his coat double and laid it on the divan-bed. On top of it he placed his hat. He looked to see if the curtains were properly drawn across the basement window. He sat down with a thump in one of the yellow chairs which were too low-built for his liking, and picked up the
Olive returned, wearing stockings and carrying a tea tray.
‘Goodness, are you in a hurry?’ she said as she saw Godfrey looking at the clock. He was not in a hurry, exactly. He was not yet sure of the cause of his impatience that afternoon.
Olive placed the tray on a low table and sat on her low stool. She lifted the hem of her skirt to the point where her suspenders met the top of her stockings, and with legs set together almost primly sideways, she poured out the tea.
Godfrey did not know what had come over him. He stared at the suspender-tips, but somehow did not experience his usual satisfaction at the sight. He looked at the clock.
Olive, passing him his tea, noticed that his attention was less fixed on her suspender-tips than was customary.
‘Anything the matter, Godfrey?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, and took his tea. He sipped it, and stared again at the tops of her stockings, evidently trying hard to be mesmerized.
Olive lit a cigarette and watched him. His eyes did not possess their gleam.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
He was wondering himself what was the matter. He sipped his tea.
‘Running a car,’ he remarked, ‘is a great expense.’
She burst into a single laugh and said, ‘Oh, go on.’
‘Cost of living,’ he muttered.
She covered up her suspender-tops with her skirt and sat hugging her knees, as one whose efforts are wasted. He did not seem to notice.
‘Did you see in the paper,’ she said, ‘about the preacher giving a sermon on his hundredth birthday?’
