Riley, p.30
Riley, page 30
‘Oh, Mr Riley’—her voice was mocking now—‘you do say the most awfully nice things; but please don’t say them in front of my Johnny or you’ll likely get your nose punched.’
‘Thanks for the warning, Lily.’
‘Won’t it be lovely when we get into the New Palace? Everything seems too good to be true: I have to pinch myself at times, and when I look back I say to myself, “If it wasn’t for Mr Riley I’d still be running round with the tea urn.”’
‘Not you,’ he said, ‘you would’ve got there. Anyway, here you are!’ he said, stopping the car. ‘Now run for it. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight. Ta…thanks.’
As he started the car, he thought to himself that it was funny how she was haunting the New Palace these days. The only reason she had been there tonight was to pass on a letter to David that had been delivered to the old Palace. Yes, she would’ve made it on her own. She had spirit, but, as he himself knew, it was always good to have a friend at court. What really would he have done without Fred and Louise?
Fred had a stinker of a cold. He was in bed, Louise told him, not with hot lemon but under the influence of a couple of double whiskies in hot water and brown sugar, and had been snoring now for the past hour, but she was so pleased to see Peter and hear all the latest news.
In the sitting room, where they were drinking coffee, she said, ‘His cold’s been a blessing in disguise. He’s had it for more than a week, with his eyes and nose streaming, but it’s kept his dear Gwendoline at long distance. She’s petrified of catching his cold, but she’s very distressed, so she told me on the phone just a while ago, that she can’t see him before she leaves for Italy tomorrow.’
‘Are they going on another tour?’ he asked.
‘No. Apparently she’s going alone.’
‘Never!’
‘Oh yes. Her dear daughter disappointed her deeply over her last love affair: she had felt sure she had manoeuvred it to a head and made that girl see sense; but apparently’—Louise said now on a laugh—‘the maid isn’t for marrying and’—she, now nodded to him—‘I never thought I’d find anything to say in her defence, but rather than marry against her will she has suffered what must be to her penury. The latest I heard, she’s got a part-time job in a boutique in London, and she’s being allowed to stay in Gwendoline’s flat and has been given back her car. Can’t believe it, can you? But on the other hand, seeing this is the third fellow she’s turned down it looks to me as if Gwendoline has washed her hands of her and so darling Yvette has to work for her petrol and her bite to eat.’
This imparted knowledge from Louise only made him regret that he had gone for the girl in such a way at their last meeting.
He stayed a little longer listening to Louise’s description of her son’s progress at school. Jason was way ahead of his class, but at present he was upstairs, like his father, in bed with sniffles. Lastly she talked about Nyrene, and what a pity it was she couldn’t come and stay in the flat more often. But of course there was the child, and they were situated so close to a main road …
He was glad to get back into the flat. Tonight he was feeling lost somehow, and the place did look untidy. He gathered together the papers from the couch; then he switched on the gas fire before he sat down and stretched out his legs over the sheepskin rug. His hands behind his head, he relaxed, and like this his mind began to review his life. He had been lucky, very lucky. It was a pity though that his mother didn’t share that feeling. It would have been marvellous if she had been like an ordinary mother, proud of him and his achievements. That would have capped everything. But it hurt him to know that his success had not only made her vindictive but viciously malicious. Look at what she did to the child that time; and then those orders; and now from Betty he understood that she apparently had got the sack from Mrs Charlton’s, for she was at home all day. But not in the evenings, so it seemed. To get away from home, Sue had gone into service as a nursemaid, which left only Florrie; and now she was turning up more and more often at either Betty’s or Nurse’s house. Apparently sometimes her mother didn’t get in until late and she was frightened to stay on her own. It worried his father to think what she might be up to because he was sure she was out of her mind. And then, the morning he had confronted her, the neighbouring eavesdropper must have heard enough to pass it on to Mrs Charlton, resulting in Mona getting the sack.
The thought of his mother remained with him as a deep inner worry, which he aimed to put to one side and, in the words of the book, thank God for his blessings; and his blessings were, first and foremost Nyrene; then his work. At this stage, there would always be a pause in his thoughts: where did the boy come in? Well, if it hadn’t been for the boy, where would he have been now? Certainly not married to her; he was sure of that, because before the child came, she had given him over to his career.
Why must he always come back to the boy? He loved the boy. His feeling for the child, in a way, now went beyond love, because in his mind the child was firmly linked with Larry, and his feeling for Larry was that of compassion.
He pulled himself up with a slightly guilty feeling as he thought he should have phoned her as soon as he came in. What time was it now? Ten to eleven. She’d likely be in bed, and what would the sound of her voice do to him again? Set his urges working. Funny about that: he had only to hear her voice and it brought on the desire to touch her, to hold her, to love her. Oh, to love her. No, he wouldn’t phone her now, he’d do it first thing in the morning; he’d feel different after a night’s sleep.
He was pulling himself up from the couch when his head swung round towards the glass door that led from the sitting room into the small lobby. The front doorbell was ringing. Who was it at this time, and on a night like this?
For a moment, he thought of his mother, then he threw the idea out of his mind; more likely Betty, Harry with her because something had happened.
He pulled open the screen door, switched on the front light, then opened the door and gasped as the wet, bedraggled figure almost fell past him into the lobby and stood leaning against the wall.
‘Good heavens! You? What’s the matter?’ Yvette said nothing because she too was gasping. ‘I’ve…I’ve walked from the station,’ she blurted out. ‘You were nearer than Fred’s.’
Taking her by the shoulders, he pushed her into the room. She was wearing a long coat with a fur collar, which reached up to the back of her head and, tucked into it, was a plastic hood from which the water was still running down onto her face.
She was shivering visibly when he took the coat from her and spread it over a chair; and as she pulled the hood from her head she stumbled towards the couch. But having dropped onto it, she did not lean back: her body well forward, she thrust out her hands towards the flickering flames of the gas fire.
He stood by her side looking down at her, but when she did not raise her head, he said, ‘I’ll get you a hot drink.’
He almost ran into the kitchen, thankful in a way that he had washed the pans. He grabbed one, filled it half full of milk and thrust it onto the lighted stove. From the kitchen door, he could see her still sitting; but she had taken off her high-heeled openwork sandals and was holding her feet out towards the flames, and steam was rising from them.
‘Take your stockings off,’ he called to her, then returned to the stove and the milk.
When, some minutes later, he went to hand her the steaming mug, he said, ‘Now it’s hot milk. I can either put coffee into yours or a drop of whisky. Which do you prefer?’
‘Whisky, please.’
He poured a good measure of whisky into the milk, and when he handed it to her she straight away began to drink from it, and the mug was half empty when she sat it down on the side table.
She now leant back, saying, ‘I…I’ve never felt so cold in my life.’
‘Well, it’s come as a surprise. There were hailstones earlier on, and now it’s turned to sleet.’
‘Turned to sleet.’ She shook her head as she repeated his words, then added, ‘I don’t know how you exist up here.’
He smiled down at her as he said, ‘Oh, you’d be surprised. Newcastle is often warmer than Hastings, and that’s on the south coast, mind, the holiday Mecca. What’s brought you up here so late?’
He now took a drink from his own mug to which he had also added a little whisky; then he sat on the other end of the couch and looked at her as he waited for an answer to his question.
When it came it surprised him, for she said, ‘I was on my way to Mother’s to throw in the towel. She’s off to Italy tomorrow and I’ll promise her anything to be able to go with her, because I cannot stand the racket any more. It’s been hell these past months.’ She looked fully towards him now, saying, ‘I wasn’t brought up to it, Peter. I’ve tried and I’ve done my best to stick it out, served women in the boutique, women whom I wanted to spit on, dripping with money and as common as dirt, what you would describe as muck and dear Freddy as clarts. Well some of them were clarts.’
Her head was slowly shaking now as she added, ‘It’s my mother who is to blame: she let me be brought up with a silver spoon in my mouth, and then, when she had to take over, she found me too much, so she tried to marry me off. Her choice was the pot-bellied type, aiming to cover it up by dangling diamond bracelets in front of it.’
He was forced to laugh at the picture she presented of the diamonds being dangled in front of the pot bellies, but she didn’t smile.
‘She would even have bought a title for me, as she did with the count, but all his type are brainless, else they wouldn’t be running round the watering places. When she came to Pious Percy she changed her tactics. I kept telling her that I have no desire to marry. From what I’ve seen of marriage, even with my delightful foster parents who supposedly loved each other, at times skull and hair would fly in private. He could have his mistresses—it was supposedly natural for a Frenchman, but she hadn’t the same liberty with lovers. Funny, but he would have had her in a chastity belt.’ She was nodding at him now. ‘That’s what men do in happy marriages, they put the women into chastity belts.’
Again he was laughing outright, saying, ‘Oh, Yvette! You know, you are a card.’
His laughter died away as she looked at him and, her lip trembling, she said, ‘I’m…I’m not aiming to be a card, Peter. And I know what it means.’
‘Oh my dear.’ He automatically shuffled along the couch towards her and, taking her hand, said, ‘Don’t upset yourself; it’ll all come right, you’re so—’
Quickly she interrupted him: ‘Don’t say it, Peter, I’m not young, I’m as old as the hills inside and you’re just talking like the rest of them. I came here tonight because I felt that you of all people would understand. Yes, I knew I was coming here, so there!’
She turned her head away from him, and again held out her hands towards the fire. Presently, in a very low voice, she said, ‘You’re the only one who’s really ever gone for me and told me the truth about myself, at least the truth as you see it. But I am not the person you think I am, Peter. Fred and Louise and Mother, they all think alike. They want to see me tied to someone whom they imagine will keep me in order. They all seem old and it’s as if they’d never been young. I’m young, and you’re young, Peter.’ When her body jerked upwards, her head fell on his shoulder and her arm went round his neck, and his arms were automatically drawn round her to save them from falling sideways on the couch. He said, ‘Oh now, Yvette! Come on. Come on,’ and she whimpered, ‘Let me lie here, just like this, just for a moment. I’m hurting no-one and you’re hurting no-one. Please, please, Peter. And hold me, hold me close. Just for a moment, Peter, hold me close.’
‘Yvette, listen. Now listen.’
‘I’m listening, Peter. I’ve been listening to you ever since I first saw you in Louise’s sitting room. I…I can’t help it, I’ll have to tell you. I wanted you then, and the want has never eased. Don’t…please don’t move away, just hold me…just hold me. As I said, we are hurting no-one.’
‘We are, dear, we are, we’re hurting ourselves because—’
‘Don’t say it, please, Peter.’ She was begging now. ‘Don’t talk, just hold me and listen. I’m going to confess to you now. We’ve met only half a dozen times and four of those times I’ve manoeuvred. The car incident in York was manoeuvred too. I just wanted to see you. I can’t help it.’ Then she emphasised slowly, ‘I…can’t…help…it. I’ve tried, for, believe me, Peter, I don’t want to do anything drastic to your life. Don’t worry, I don’t want to marry you. I’ll never marry; I know I won’t. I’ll be like Mother in the end; but that’s the end, now I’m just at the beginning. She started much younger than I shall do, but before I start a career of being a mistress, Peter, oh, before that, be…be kind to me please, because I…I could have married you when we first met had you been free. Such were my feelings for you. But there, I suppose that wouldn’t have lasted; you, too, are the kind of man who would have wanted to put a chastity belt on me. Oh, Peter!’ Her lips now were moving around his neck. Earlier, he had taken off his coat and tie and now her lips were moving over the V made by his open shirt, and he remained still under their touch. It was a weird feeling, as if he were being massaged into sleep. He knew her voice was murmuring his name when her lips came up behind his ear, and so he went to pull himself away from her, but her grip was tight on him.
He heard his voice almost croaking, ‘Give over, Yvette! Now stop it! Give over. This is ridiculous. You know it is.’
Now her voice came to him as if from a distance, murmuring, ‘I only know, Peter, I’ve dreamed of this. I have. I have. We’re doing no harm to anyone, I’ve told you, and we’re young…young,’ at which word he made a firm attempt to press himself away from her; but this action only brought her lying half-across him, and when her mouth fell on his he could hesitate only a moment before answering to her unrestrained pent-up passion.
They did not fall to the side on the couch but onto the floor …
She had come into the house at about ten to eleven. From where he lay prone on the floor he could just see the hands of the clock which now pointed to a quarter to twelve. She hadn’t been here an hour, yet she had caused such an upheaval in his life. What had happened could never now be blotted out.
When her hand came onto his bare ribs he jerked himself into a sitting position, half-turned and looked down at her. She looked soft, all soft like a very young girl; but she wasn’t a very young girl. Her arm now stretched up and her hand touched his chin, and, her words still slurred, she said, ‘Wasn’t it wonderful!’
He was thinking, wonderful. Yes, he supposed in a way it had been wonderful and had even surpassed his own introduction into manhood; yes, even that, because she was youth, all youth.
Like a blow, this thought was struck from his mind with her next words: ‘It was for me like never before.’
The words brought him slowly upwards to his feet. Why was he such an idiot? He had imagined her so young she could never have had such an experience. Of all the blasted fools on this earth, he was the best of them. As he gathered up his clothes he said abruptly, ‘Get into your things.’
She turned onto her knees and resting her elbows on the seat of the couch she looked over the back of it and watched him making for the bathroom, and she called to him, ‘Oh, Peter! Peter, don’t be like that. It’s all right. It’s all right. It will remain our secret; you needn’t worry.’ Her voice was cut off by his slamming the bathroom door; then he leant back against it, his lips drawn tightly between his teeth and his eyes so screwed up that it felt as if he were pushing them back out of their sockets …
It took him only five minutes to take a quick shower and get into clean clothes, and when he returned to the sitting room she was standing with her back to the fire and her dress across one arm, and although her voice was still soft it was accusing as she said, ‘You never considered that I might need the bathroom too, did you, Peter?’
He moved towards the kitchen as he said, ‘It’s there for you now.’
He made more coffee, but drank his own before taking a cup into the sitting room.
He did not go near the fire for he did not want to look at the couch or the floor. Instead, he began pacing the room.
When, twenty minutes later, she came out of the bathroom fully dressed, he did not look at her as he said, ‘I’m phoning for a taxi.’
‘Oh no. Oh no, Peter. Look, Mother won’t expect me at this late hour.’
‘It’ll only be an hour later than if you had gone straight there. Do you expect to go to Fred’s, then?’
In answer she put a hand on his shoulder, only to have it thrust aside as he said, ‘No more of it now. No more. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. It was my fault, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be silly, Peter.’ She was smiling tenderly at him as if at a naughty child. ‘It wasn’t your fault, it was nobody’s fault. Well, perhaps it was mine. I intended that it should happen at some time. Oh, don’t look like that, dear. But you don’t understand.’ Now her voice was changing. ‘I care for you, in fact I’m in love with you.’
‘Shut up! Now, look here, Yvette, once and for all, this is the beginning and the end. It was a mistake, and I’ll carry the guilt of it for some time.’
‘Guilt of it? Oh you’re thinking of your loving Nyrene. Dear, dear!’
‘Yes. Yes, perhaps I am.’
‘Oh my goodness! Peter, be your age, as she is hers. She’s bound to know that you’ve made sidetracks before now, her at—’
‘Shut up! Once and for all shut up. I’m sorry, Yvette, I am, but I must say it, I don’t want to hear or see any more of you. I’m phoning for a taxi to take you home.’
‘But you loved me at the time, all the time, I know you did.’
‘You know nothing of the sort,’ he almost yelled, but then clapped his hand over his lips before adding, ‘that wasn’t love; that isn’t love.’ But when she bowed her head and her shoulders drooped, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Yvette. Just let us forget it happened. Do you think we can?’ He put his hand out towards her, but she pushed it aside, saying, ‘Phone for the taxi, Peter,’ and turned from him and went towards the fire.
