A Game of Consequences Read online

  ‘How, not well?’ her mother asked, smoothing the tousled hair from the child’s brow.

  ‘I’ve got a pain. I feel sick,’ Biddy said, as one offering a bargain choice.

  ‘What am I to do, you know I have to go to work, pet.’

  ‘Good mothers stay with their children,’ Biddy announced in a loud accusing tone, thrashing her legs among the bedclothes.

  To Tom’s surprise Kate’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Don’t be a goose, Kate, she’s only trying it on. She’ll have forgotten all about it by the time I get back from the station,’ he said in a low voice; ‘but if we don’t leave now you’ll miss the train,’ he warned, taking her by the arm and pushing her from the room.

  ‘Goodbye, Mummy darling, have a good day and give my love to Granny and Gramps,’ Dinah called in a voice unctuous with virtue, which brought to her mother’s face a wan smile.

  ‘Odd how that self-contained little morsel can unnerve me when she does complain,’ Kate murmured as they stopped at the station, ‘whereas Dinah with all her tragedienne’s airs is as transparent as glass.’

  ‘Forget them,’ was her husband’s terse recommendation. ‘You’ve enough to worry about, without that.’

  To this Kate made no reply, only gave him a quick strange pleading glance which mystified him, and turned her face away just at the moment he leaned forward to kiss her goodbye, so that his mouth merely bumped her cheekbone.

  *

  ‘I’ve just put a pound of steak in the fridge, tell Rory, will you,’ Tom said as he passed Jeremy in the yard with his head in the Jaguar’s jaws, tinkering around in there like an inexperienced dentist.

  ‘You tell her, Tom, there’s a good chap: I’m just off.’

  ‘Off, are you? Where to, may one ask?’

  ‘Less you know the better, old man. I’ve just got to get away from here for a bit or I’ll start crawling up the walls. It’s like being in one of those ghastly old plays where it turns out that everyone is dead and locked forever in some place where Time has come to an end.’

  ‘Crikey!’ exclaimed Tom, staggering back, provoked to mirth by Jeremy’s venture into metaphysics.

  ‘Laugh, little man, laugh away, and lang may your lum reek!’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Tom, touching his forelock, and went off to find Aurora and discuss whether she wanted the steak for lunch or dinner.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t tell her I’ve gone till I’ve gone, man!’ Jeremy besought him as the other departed.

  ‘And may Christ have mercy on your soul,’ Tom intoned, crossing himself and genuflecting.

  ‘And you. You’ll need it.’

  ‘You’re right there, mate.’

  Aurora was on the telephone indulging in a long nagging conversation, probably with Ellis by the sound of it. Tom went upstairs to see how Biddy was, he’d decided to keep her in bed to be on the safe side; she had a 101.6 temperature. He played a game of snap with her, read her a story, and left her to work on a jigsaw puzzle on a tray.

  ‘Hungry?’ he asked, putting his head round the door a little while later.

  ‘No.’ She had cast the jigsaw aside and was lying down, her face looking very small on the pillow.

  ‘How about a nice cup of chicken broth,’ he said, producing it. But she shook her head. ‘Try a little, pet.’

  ‘It’ll make me sick.’

  ‘You feeling sick?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Still got a pain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like a hotty to cuddle? No? Poor old lamb, try and go to sleep for a bit. Do you want me to sit with you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Would you like another story?’

  ‘No. Sing to me.’ She closed her eyes.

  Tom chose by way of lullaby a macabre Edwardian music-hall ditty much loved by the child.

  ‘My biby ’as gorn dahn the plug ’ole Cos somebody pulled aht the plug.

  Poor little mite,

  So fin ’n so white,

  ’E should ’ave bin barfed in a jug.’

  He sang it over and over, and when he fell silent Biddy opened her eyes and remarked that it hurt. He went downstairs and phoned for an appointment at the surgery. Emmeline’s mother promised to collect Dinah for him and keep her till he could pick her up on his way back from the doctor.

  ‘Not to worry,’ she said, ‘we’ll look after her.’

  Children’s ailments always seemed more alarming than they turned out to be, Tom assured himself with the expertise of an experienced parent as he raced through the village with Biddy lying on the back seat. It’s just that they look so small and wan and pathetic, he thought as he lifted her carefully out and smiled cheerfully down at her. She was dreadfully white.

  The doctor was Dr. Ryan’s younger partner.

  Biddy shrieked when he gently felt her abdomen.

  ‘Did that hurt? Sorry. There, I won’t do it again. I can see you’re a very brave girl, but you certainly won’t want to go on having that nasty pain inside.’ He mopped up the tears on her cheek and moved away for a murmured unintelligible conversation with her father.

  ‘She’s had nothing to eat all day? That’s good, good. I rather suspect we’ll have to do an emergency appendectomy. I’ll arrange it with Petersfield Hospital for her to be admitted right away.’

  ‘I wish Mummy was here,’ Biddy said in a tiny voice.

  ‘She will be, sweetheart, quite soon, I promise. I’ll ring her up just as soon as we’ve got you safely tucked up in bed.’ It was too early to ring the parents, Kate would still be caught in the rush hour, and anyway he had first to get Biddy to the hospital and stay with her till she was settled in.

  At the hospital he made an attempt to get through but the lines were engaged. He rang Mrs. Foster, Emmeline’s mother, and explained the situation and she very nobly offered to keep Dinah there overnight so that he could stay at the hospital if they were going to operate straight away.

  He went back to Upperdown to get Biddy’s night things and her Teddy for comfort. While he was there he took a moment to dial Kate’s parents’ home. It always gave Tom a feeling of discomfort to talk to his in-laws — or at least it had for the last few years, since his affairs had got into such a mess. They were always nice to him, he believed they liked him, but at the same time he could not rid himself of the notion that they regarded him, on the other side of their kind old faces, with grim disapproval as the wretch who had ruined their beloved daughter’s life.

  ‘Hullo, 9096011,’ said the elderly voice.

  ‘Elise, this is Tom. How are you?’

  ‘Oh Tom dear, how nice to hear you. How are you getting on these days?’

  ‘Elise, can I have a word with Kate, I haven’t much time.’

  ‘Yes, of course, dear, it’s so expensive now, we mustn’t waste time chatting. But Kate’s not here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not there! But she said she was coming to see you.’

  ‘Oh, she came, dear, yes; she hasn’t been gone more than half an hour. Father and I were so pleased to see her; it’s been such a long time, nearly three months. Not that I’m blaming her, Tom dear, I know how hard she has to work, poor darling. I’m glad to have this chance of a word with you, Tom. She’s not well, you know, not at all well.’

  ‘Did she say so, Ma-in-law?’

  ‘No, of course not, dear. But I could tell the minute I saw her. It gave me quite a shock, she looks so old, she might be a woman of forty.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Well, dear, you wouldn’t, would you? Men don’t. I wish she could have a holiday. I mean a real holiday.’

  ‘Yes, so do I. Listen, did she happen to mention where she was going?’

  ‘Yes, yes, that was why she was in rather a hurry, because she was spending the night with a friend and they were going out to dinner and … a theatre, I think she said.’

  ‘Oh. Do you remember if she said who the friend was, by any chance?’r />
  ‘Now what did she say? … ’ Elise mused uneasily, ashamed to have forgotten so soon what her daughter had told her. ‘It was one of her office friends, I’m almost sure, but — you’ll think me so tiresome — I can’t for the moment recall the name.’ She gave a light laugh: ‘It’s time they put me down. Is it important, Tom?’

  ‘No, no, it doesn’t matter in the least, don’t worry. How’s Charles?’

  ‘Charles is fine.’

  ‘Fine, is he?’ said Tom, growing cold to the tips of his fingers.

  ‘Well, for his age, dear. He is getting a little hard of hearing now — ’

  ‘That’s great. I’m glad to hear it. I gathered from Kate you were a bit worried about him and that’s why you asked … ’ his voice died away.

  There was a second’s pause.

  ‘No … No … Is everything all right, Tom?’

  ‘Absolutely, Ma-in-law! I simply must fly now. Give my love to Charles.’ He hung up. Oh Christ, oh God, he thought, what are you doing to me! Kate had said her father wasn’t well, Kate had said she would go to see them and spend the night there. Hadn’t she said, there, with her parents? Could he have misunderstood? Could he? Could she have meant, spend the night there in town? But nothing had been said of an outing with a friend, of dinner and a theatre. Why not? He wouldn’t have minded. He’d told her so when that Mahoney fellow had wanted to take her to … dinner … and a theatre … But, of course, spending the night was something altogether different. His mouth was suddenly full of saliva, as if he was going to be sick.

  He walked slowly away. He couldn’t think about it now. He had to get back to the hospital, to Biddy.

  Tom could have tried ringing round to a few of Kate’s girl friends to see if she was with any of them, but his commonsense told him that it was a risky thing to do: it would certainly get back to Kate, and if … well, if she had deliberately misled him, if, not to put too fine a point upon it, she was deceiving him then the last thing he wanted was for her to know he knew. That would be a devastating stupidity. The only thing to do was to cover it all up quickly and not speak of it to her or anyone.

  He quite saw though that it would look very funny if he did not let her know as soon as practicable about their daughter. So at nine-thirty next morning he rang Peabody & Langley, only to be told that she was not there, she had not come in.

  What he wanted at that moment more than anything was a drink, a good stiff drink. But since they could not afford to keep anything in stock, there was not even a beer in the fridge or the dregs of a bottle of wine. For once in a way he was almost thankful when Aurora appeared in their doorway to inquire after the little girl. She greeted him with kindness and sympathy:

  ‘My dear chap, you look just about all-in, as though you haven’t had a wink of sleep. What you need is a damned good drink.’

  ‘Oh Rory,’ he sighed, ‘I’ve never felt the need of one more.’ Absurd for a man of thirty-six to feel so close to tears; but it must be admitted it had been a stressful twenty-four hours.

  ‘I’m not feeling too bright myself, with that son of a bitch Jerry bunking off without a word, God knows where. God knows why I put up with him!’

  ‘Quite,’ Tom said, gazing down into his glass, struck by a sudden thought that brought the blood beating into his face and draining away again. Was it possible Jerry and Kate … ? And not Mahoney after all? It was quite possible. Why not? Propinquity, and so on. The sort of thing that happened all the time.

  He stared across at Aurora, nodding as though he heard what she was saying. He thought, it can’t be anything serious. Kate may look upon him as a better person than Aurora, but she doesn’t like him all that much; and Jerry would never give up Aurora and all her money. It was then just a question of not seeing, not hearing, not saying anything one shouldn’t; just keeping quiet and patient till whatever it was — the flurry of desire — blew over.

  *

  Somehow each managed to avoid the moment of embrace at the station, Kate dropping her magazine with a nervous laugh and Tom getting pushed aside by a disregarding passenger.

  She certainly looked as though she’d had a hard day’s night, there were shadows beneath her eyes as if the sockets had been scored with eyebrow pencil.

  ‘Biddy will be glad you’re back, she’s wanted you. I said I’d take you to see her right away,’ Tom said, as they walked to the car.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kate asked in alarm. ‘What’s happened? Where is she?’

  ‘She’s going to be all right,’ he said quickly, ‘but the poor little kid had to be rushed into hospital with an acute attack of appendicitis.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ An expression of panic invaded her face. Her natural feeling of guilt had led her to expect to be punished. But not so soon and not like this.

  Tom said: ‘If there’d been time I’d have let you know, of course, but everything happened in such a rush, I had to make arrangements about Dinah, and there simply wasn’t a moment. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault.’

  As far as Tom was concerned, the main thing was to prevent Kate knowing he had tried to get hold of her by ringing her parents. As long as that did not come out, there would be no need for ‘explanations’, and as long as there were no explanations, no disastrous revelations would be sprung on him; everything could remain as it was.

  Yet — and this was not just Tom’s imagination — in some indefinable way everything had changed. Something in the depths of their relationship had gone and a kind of hidden nervous tension had taken its place. Like the old tales of a sword lying between the groom and his bride, so something sharp and dangerous had come between them that at any moment might sever their marriage bond.

  Tom could not tell whether it was in himself or in Kate, or in them both, but the joy and responsiveness had gone out of their love-making. Too often Kate was tired and reluctant. Even the cosy dreamy conversations in the dark were forced and unreal. It seemed as though all the sweetness of spontaneous intimacy had gone out of their marriage. These days Tom found the words, ‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight,’ running through his head in apt lament.

  The Ransomes were not the only ones with troubles. The Eskdales too were not on the best of terms just then. Jeremy had returned jaded and despondent from his days and nights at the gaming-tables, owing money which he tried to borrow from his wife. ‘Like hell!’ was Aurora’s terse reply.

  ‘I’ll pay you back, I’ll pay you back! I’m only asking for a loan till the next divvy’s come in, for Christ’s sake.’

  At which Aurora had laughed maddeningly, as if at a child’s foolish and unreasonable request.

  Even the little girls were tiresome. Biddy had returned from hospital washed-out and fretful, demanding a great deal of attention, which in turn made Dinah jealous and resentful that no one was taking any notice of her.

  The pity of it was that the weather was perfect, the countryside rich with scents, the air filled with birdsong from morning till night. The fields paled to buff and straw as the trees took on a deeper green. The grass verges were dappled with dandelions and creamy clusters of cow-parsley, and the hedges were curtained with the small pink bindweed like an old-fashioned cottage wallpaper. No one noticed. No one cared.

  At Upperdown the roses in the deserted rose-garden bloomed and shattered unregarded. All day the bees worked ceaselessly in the catmint and foxgloves and canterbury bells; and at night bats darted among the trees, and in through the windows came the moths charmed by the lighted lamps. Such a feast of living beauty spread out before them for their delight and they were scarcely aware of it.

  Yet it must have had some effect on them; induced a kind of restiveness or brought tears to the eyes. Kate often wept at this time — but in secret. Her heart was heavy with grief and unassuaged guilt. She had not expected that.

  Once over luncheon with Patrick it had all come pouring out of her, all her despair and anger and frustration. He had listened patiently. ‘Take
my advice and tell him you’ll leave him,’ he advised. ‘If I know my man that’ll make him buck up if he thinks he’s going to lose you.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘I didn’t say do it, I said tell him you will. If you were my wife I’d make damned sure you didn’t get away from me,’ he said, smiling into her eyes.

  Kate had not intended to take his advice, and perhaps did not consciously do so. It may be that when one has released emotions which have been tightly compressed within one’s bosom it is never quite possible to pack them back again in the same manner as before, there must always be a certain amount left over like clothes which can no longer be crammed back into a trunk.

  It began trivially enough, with Tom casually asking if she had remembered to get the riding-cap for Dinah, as they sat down to chops and green salad. And she hadn’t.

  ‘Oh Kate!’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  ‘She’ll be so disappointed. You did promise.’

  ‘I did not promise; I said I’d see. I think it’s absurd for her to have a cap when we can’t afford for her to ride.’

  ‘It’s not like you to be unimaginative, Kate. She’s been longing for that cap for weeks, so that she can ride Emmeline’s pony. Never mind, I’ll explain it to her,’ he sighed.

  Kate looked across at him wild-eyed.

  ‘I forgot. I just forgot. I do have other things to think of, you know. Such trifling matters as the new Willerby campaign, for instance. It may seem quite unimportant to you, but it does happen to be our livelihood.’

  ‘I know, Kate, I know. Don’t take on, there’s a good girl. I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re tired.’

  ‘Tired!’ she laughed, and tears sprang out of her eyes. She leaned her forehead on her hand and wept.

  Tom rose up in consternation:

  ‘Darling girl, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t go on,’ she blurted out, ‘I can’t go on. You leave everything to me. You do nothing to help. I have to carry the full weight of the responsibility on my shoulders.’

  He stared at her.