‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Mayben. ‘I’m sorry there have been these troubles in your life. It’s difficult to accept adversity and unhappiness, I know that.’
‘I was cutting ham,’ repeated Edward, ‘when my sister turned to me and said you had been murdered by a man in canvas shoes.’
‘Murdered?’ repeated Mrs Mayben, opening the door of her sitting-room and appearing to be nervous.
‘She’s affected by the past,’ said Edward. ‘You understand it?’
Mrs Mayben did not reply. Instead she said:
‘Mr Tripp, you have been most gallant. I wish you would now return to your home. I have my lunch to prepare and eat.’
‘ “I saw a dog today,” my sister said, “a vicious dog abroad in Dunfarnham Avenue. Go to the houses, Edward, and tell the mothers to look to their children until the dog is captured and set to rest.” She talked for seven hours, Mrs Mayben, about that dog, one day in 1951, and in the end she watched me move from house to house ringing the bells and warning the people about a vicious animal.’
‘This is no concern of mine. If your sister is unwell –’
‘My sister is not unwell. My sister pretends, exacting her revenge. God has told me, Mrs Mayben, to play my part in her pretended fantasies. I owe her the right to punish me, I quite understand that.’
Mrs Mayben shook her head. She said in a quiet voice that she was an old woman and did not understand much of what went on in the world. She did not mind, she said, Edward ringing her doorbell, but she wished now that he would leave her house since she had much to do.
‘I have never told anyone else,’ said Edward. ‘Years ago I said to myself that when I had to come to your house I would tell you the truth about everything. How I have grown up to be an understanding man, with the help of God. How the punishment must be shared between us – well, she has had hers. D’you see?’
Mrs Mayben shook her head and was about to speak again. Edward said:
‘ “There’s a smell of burning,” my sister said to me in 1955. “It comes from the house with the three Indian women in it.” She had woken me up to tell me that, for it was half past two in the morning. “They are women from the East,” she said. “They do not understand about precautions against fire as we do.” In my dressing-gown, Mrs Mayben, I walked the length of Dunfarnham Avenue and rang the bell of that house. “May I use your telephone?” I said to the Indian woman who opened the door, for I could think of nothing else to say to her. But she said no, I could not; and rightly pointed out that she could not be expected to admit into her house a man in pyjamas at half past two in the morning. I have never told anyone because it seemed to be a family thing. I have never told the truth. It is all pretence and silence between my sister and myself. We play a game.’
‘I must ask you to go now. I really must. An old woman like me can’t be expected to take a sudden interest. You must do the best you can.’
‘But I am telling you terrible things,’ cried Edward. ‘I killed my sister’s guinea-pig, I pulled her pansies by the roots. Not an hour passed in my early childhood, Mrs Mayben, but I did not seek to torment her into madness. I don’t know why I was given that role, but now I have the other since I’ve been guided towards it. She is quite sane, you know. She plays a part. I am rotten with guilt.’
Mrs Mayben clapped her hands sharply together. ‘I cannot have you coming here,’ she said, ‘telling me you are rotten with guilt, Mr Tripp. You are a man I have seen about the place with a string bag. I do not know you. I do not know your sister. It’s no concern of mine. Not at all.’
‘You have a kind face to live up to,’ said Edward, bowing and smiling in a sad way. ‘I have seen you feeding the sparrows, and I’ve often thought you have a kind face.’
‘Leave me alone, sir. Go from this house at once. You speak of madness and death, Mr Tripp; you tell me I’ve been murdered: I am unable to think about such things. My days are simple here.’
‘Since I was seventeen, Mrs Mayben, since the day of my mother’s funeral, I have lived alone with all this horror. Dunfarnham Avenue is the theatre of my embarrassment. You feed the sparrows, Mrs Mayben, yet for me it seems you have no crumb of comfort.’
‘I cannot be expected –’ began Mrs Mayben.
‘I am forty-one this month. She is four years older. See us as children, Mrs Mayben, for it’s absurd that I am here before you as a small man in a weekend suit. We are still children in that house, in our way: we have not grown up much. Surely you take an interest?’
‘You come here saying you are notorious, Mr Tripp –’
‘I am notorious, indeed I am, for God is a hard master. The house is dark and unchanged. Only the toys have gone. We eat the same kind of food.’
‘Go away,’ cried Mrs Mayben, her voice rising. ‘For the sake of God, go away from me, Mr Tripp. You come here talking madly and carrying a ham knife. Leave my house.’
Edward rose to his feet and with his head bowed to his chest he walked past Mrs Mayben into her hall. He picked up the ham knife from the table and moved towards the front door.
‘I’m sorry I can’t interest myself in you and your sister,’ said Mrs Mayben. ‘I am too old, you see, to take on new subjects.’
Edward did not say anything more. He did not look at Mrs Mayben, but into his mind came the picture of her leaning from her sitting-room window putting crumbs of bread on the window-sills for the birds. He walked from her house with that picture in his mind and he heard behind him the closing of her hall door.
Edward crossed Dunfarnham Avenue and entered the house he had always known, carrying the ham knife in his left hand. He moved slowly to the dining-room and saw that the table was neatly laid for lunch. The sliced ham had been placed by his sister on two blue-and-white plates. Salt and pepper were on the table, and a jar of pickles that he himself had bought, since they both relished them. She had washed a lettuce and cut up a few tomatoes and put chives and cucumber with the salad. ‘I’ve made the mustard,’ said Emily, smiling at him as he sat down, and he saw, as he expected, that the look had gone from her face. ‘We might repair the sitting-room carpet this afternoon,’ said Emily, ‘before that hole becomes too large. We could do it together.’
He nodded and murmured, and then, although he was awake and eating his lunch, Edward dreamed. It seemed to him that he was still in Mrs Mayben’s sitting-room and that she, changed in her attitude, was
