I worked at home one day, waiting for the telephone call. There was a ring at eleven-fifteen. I heard Elizabeth answer it. She said: ‘No, I’m sorry; I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong number.’ I didn’t ask her about Mr Higgs. When I looked at her she seemed a long way away and her voice was measured and polite. There was some awful shaft between us and I didn’t know what to do about it.
In the afternoon I took the children for a walk in the park.
‘Mambi’s gone to stay in the country,’ Anna said. ‘I’m lonely without her.’
‘Well, she’s coming back tonight, isn’t she?’
‘Daddy,’ Christopher said, ‘what’s the matter with Mummy?’
I’m not very sure when it was that I first noticed everything was in rather a mess. I remember coming in one night and stumbling over lots of wooden toys in the hall. Quite often the cornflakes packet and the marmalade were still on the kitchen table from breakfast. Or if they weren’t on the table the children had got them on to the floor and Lisa had covered most of the house with their mixed contents. Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice. She sat in a dream, silent and alone, forgetting to cook the supper. The children began to do all the things they had ever wanted to do and which Elizabeth had patiently prevented, like scribbling on the walls and playing in the coal-cellar. I tried to discuss it with Elizabeth, but all she did was to smile sweetly and say she was tired.
‘Why don’t you see a doctor?’
She stared at me. ‘A doctor?’
‘Perhaps you need a tonic’ And at that point she would smile again and go to bed.
I knew that Elizabeth was still having her conversations with Mr Higgs even though she no longer mentioned them. When I asked her she used to laugh and say: ‘Poor Mr Higgs was just some old fanatic’
‘Yes, but how did he –’
‘Darling, you worry too much.’
I went to St Albans to see old Mrs Maugham, without very much hope. I don’t know what I expected of her, since she was obviously too deaf and too senile to offer me anything at all. She lived with a woman called Miss Awpit who was employed by the old woman’s children to look after her. Miss Awpit made us tea and did the interpreting.
‘Mr Farrel wants to know how you are, dear,’ Miss Awpit said. ‘Quite well, really,’ Miss Awpit said to me. ‘All things being equal.’
Mrs Maugham knew who I was and all that. She asked after Elizabeth and the children. She said something to Miss Awpit and Miss Awpit said: ‘She wants you to bring them to her.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I shouted, nodding hard. ‘We shall come and see you soon. They often,’ I lied, ‘ask about Granny.’
‘Hark at that,’ shouted Miss Awpit, nudging the old lady, who snappishly told her to leave off.
I didn’t quite know how to put it. I said: ‘Ask her if she knows a Mr Higgs.’
Miss Awpit, imagining, I suppose, that I was making conversation, shouted: ‘Mr Farrel wants to know if you know Mr Higgs.’ Mrs Maugham smiled at us. ‘Higgs,’ Miss Awpit repeated. ‘Do you know Mr Higgs at all, dear?’
‘Never,’ said Mrs Maugham.
‘Have you ever known a Mr Higgs?’ I shouted.
‘Higgs?’ said Mrs Maugham.
‘Do you know him?’ Miss Awpit asked. ‘Do you know a Mr Higgs?’
‘I do not,’ said Mrs Maugham, suddenly in command of herself, ‘know anyone of such a name. Nor would I wish to.’
‘Look, Mrs Maugham,’ I pursued, ‘does the name mean anything at all to you?’
‘I have told you, I do not know your friend. How can I be expected to know your friends, an old woman like me, stuck out here in St Albans with no one to look after me?’
‘Come, come,’ said Miss Awpit, ‘you’ve got me, dear.’
But Mrs Maugham only laughed.
A week or two passed, and then one afternoon as I was sitting in the office filing my nails the telephone rang and a voice I didn’t recognize said: ‘Mr Farrel?’
I said ‘Yes’, and the voice said: ‘This is Miss Awpit. You know, Mrs Maugham’s Miss Awpit.’
‘Of course. Good afternoon, Miss Awpit. How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you. I’m ringing to tell you something about Mrs Maugham.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, you know when you came here the other week you were asking about a Mr Higgs?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Well, as you sounded rather anxious about him I just thought I’d tell you. I thought about it and then I decided. I’ll ring Mr Farrel, I said, just to tell him what she said.’
‘Yes, Miss Awpit?’
‘I hope I’m doing the right thing.’
‘What did Mrs Maugham say?’
‘Well, it’s funny in a way. I hope you won’t think I’m being very stupid or anything.’
