Читать книгу Childish Things - Robin Jenkins - Страница 16

8

I was to fly off from Prestwick Airport on Saturday morning. On Thursday evening, I had a telephone call from Millie Tulloch. I hardly recognised her voice: it was still a little girl’s, but not as before an ill-done-to self-pitying little girl; on the contrary, a haughty sly little girl. Pathos had suited her, haughtiness and slyness did not.

‘Good evening, Gregor. Have you heard? About me and Tulloch? Of course you have. You were all discussing me at Susan’s, weren’t you?’

Her friend Morag McVey must have told her.

‘We were all sympathising with you, Millie.’

‘You needn’t have bothered. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy. Except yours, Gregor. Yes, definitely, you’re excepted.’

She giggled. It wasn’t, though, like all her previous giggles, nervous and silly. This giggle had ominous purpose in it. What was that purpose?

‘So you’re off on Saturday?’

‘Yes, Millie.’

‘I hope you weren’t sneaking off without saying goodbye?’

‘Certainly not. I was just about to ring you when you rang me.’

‘It’s not the same, is it, talking on the telephone? I want you to come here and talk to me. I’ve got something very important to say to you.’

I was wary. ‘I’ve not got much time left, Millie.’

‘You’ve got tonight. I want you to come now.’

All I could think to say was ‘But it’s pouring rain.’

‘Are you trying to insult me, Gregor? But I know it’s not the rain you’re afraid of. It’s Tulloch, isn’t it? Well, you needn’t be. He’s not here. He’ll never be here again.’

‘So it’s finished between you and him?’

‘Absolutely finished. I’m getting a divorce as soon as I can.’

‘How long have you been married, Millie?’

‘Thirty-four years.’

‘Isn’t it sad when a marriage of that length of time ends so miserably?’

‘What’s miserable about it? It’s not a bit sad. I’ll expect you in half an hour. Have you eaten?’

‘No.’

I should have lied and said yes. Millie was not a good cook.

‘Good. Then you can eat with me.’

Half an hour later, with rain slotting on my umbrella, as I was walking along the avenue to Millie’s, I made a discovery. The prospect of being alone with her and so seeing at long last that delicious rump, perhaps in naked pulchritude, did not delight me. I was like a child who, having longed for a toy in a shop window, found, when it was in his hands, that much of its magic had disappeared.

The alacrity with which the door opened alarmed me. She seized my arm and dragged me in. This was not the timid little Millie I had known; this was a rapacious little Millie that I had never seen before. She was wearing a pink jumper and skin-tight pants that were yellow with black stripes: imitation ocelot, she was to tell me later.

To show her an example of calmness, I shook my umbrella, folded it, and placed it in the stand. Then I took off hat and raincoat and hung them up.

Impatiently she grabbed my hand. ‘We’ll go through to the kitchen, Gregor. It’s cosier there.’

In the kitchen, a most untidy place, there was an unpleasant smell. It came from a pot on the cooker.

‘What are you cooking, Millie?’ I asked.

‘Goulash. I’m good at goulash.’

‘It smells as if it’s burning.’

She laughed. ‘That’s a secret ingredient, Gregor. You see, I’ve bought wine. Is it good wine?’

There were two bottles on the table. Yes, it was good wine. My heart rose a little.

When her back was turned, I peeped into the fridge and saw cheese, cold meat, and beetroot. If the goulash was uneatable, I would still have something to eat with the wine.

She was stroking her rear. ‘What do you think of my pants, Gregor?’

‘Very attractive, Millie.’

‘Imitation ocelot. I’ve got a nice round bottom, haven’t I?’

‘You have.’

‘Susan Cramond accused me of showing it off. She was jealous. She’s got nothing here at all. It’s not womanly to have a skinny bottom, is it?’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Mind you, I had an awful job getting into them, and I expect it’ll be an awful job getting out of them, unless of course I have assistance.’

There was that giggle again.

I sat down at the table and poured wine into the two glasses. I only half-filled hers.

‘More for me, please, Gregor.’

‘But wine makes you sad, Millie.’

‘It won’t tonight, I assure you. I’m very happy, haven’t you noticed? Isn’t it funny, Gregor, I’m going to get a divorce and you’re a widower.’

What was funny about that?

‘We’ll both be free.’

What was she getting at?

‘Ready for your goulash, Gregor?’

‘Thank you, Millie. Not too much, though. My stomach’s been bothering me these last two or three days.’

‘Is it nerves, do you think?’

‘It could be.’

She heaped my plate with the nauseating stuff.

She sat down and ate with relish. She drank her wine as if it was water.

‘Drink it slowly, Millie,’ I said.

I was beginning to feel alarmed. At any moment she might break down.

‘I said I had something very important to say to you, Gregor.’

Whatever it was, I tried to put it off. ‘If you divorce Bill, do you think he’ll marry this Mrs Cardross?’

Too late I realised that that was a damned tactless thing to say.

She answered calmly enough. I should have been warned. ‘I don’t care if he marries her or not. I expect he will, for he’s always wanted children and I couldn’t have any. Did you know, Gregor, that I couldn’t have children?’

‘No, Millie, I didn’t know.’

To humour her, I was eating the goulash as if I liked it.

‘We won’t bother with them, will we, Gregor?’

‘Not a bit, Millie.’

‘We won’t bother with anyone, when we get married.’

I was pouring wine when she said that. So great was the shock that I missed my aim and spilled it on the table-cloth. This was plastic, in green-and-white squares. I could never have married a woman that put a plastic cloth on her table.

But I had to be serious and very careful. In the war, I had had experience of mines. Here was one seated across from me.

‘I’m not saying I’ll make you as good a wife as Kate, but I’ll do my best.’ She dropped her voice and smiled lewdly. ‘After we’ve eaten, we’ll go upstairs. I want you to prove to me that making love should be done tenderly. Tulloch stabbed at me with that awful thing of his as if he wanted to hurt me. He did hurt me too. You won’t, will you, Gregor?’

She had to be stopped, she had to be told that what she was saying was hysterical nonsense, but how to do it without hurting her feelings or causing her to scream, like a wounded ocelot?

‘But, Millie,’ I said, desperately and mendaciously, ‘I promised Kate I would never marry again.’

‘I’m surprised Kate made you give such a promise, but she wouldn’t have if she’d known it was me you were going to marry. You see, when I visited her in hospital, just days before she died, we had a very private talk about you, Gregor. She said that she was worried about you. You pretended to be so sure of yourself, but you weren’t really.’

Some of that was true, but what had it to do with Millie? Kate had liked her but hadn’t respected her much, thinking her too submissive!

Thank heaven I would soon be safe in California.

‘I was thinking of going with you to California, Gregor, but I was afraid it would spoil my chances of getting a quick divorce. So, I’m sorry, Gregor, I can’t go with you.’

‘That’s all right, Millie. I understand.’

‘Will you write to me?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Every day?’

‘I might not manage every day.’

‘Well, twice a week at least. I’ll write to you every day. I don’t think I’ve got Madge’s address.’

She ran out of the kitchen and in a minute was back with a writing pad and a pen.

I was tempted to write down a false address. A letter a day from Millie would rouse suspicions. Better if all those letters went astray.

But I could not bring myself to do it. I felt, obscurely, that I ought to be on Millie’s side and not against her. So I wrote down the right address.

‘Thanks, Gregor.’ She flung her arms round my neck. Her lips kissed my ear. ‘If we went upstairs, who would know?’

Who indeed? She didn’t even have a cat.

The thought of doing away with her flitted into my mind. As she had said, who would know? Of course, it flitted out again just as fast.

Suddenly she let go of me and again ran out of the kitchen, in such a hurry that I thought she had an urgent need to go to the lavatory, having drunk too much wine and having eaten too much goulash.

She came louping in, as naked as an ocelot and as fierce-looking. I was reminded of a painting in the Glasgow Art Gallery, by a Dutch artist: the same doll-like face, small breasts, big stomach, sparse pubic hair, and knock-knees. One big difference, though, was that the woman in the painting looked wistful, whereas Millie looked rapacious.

With a twirl she turned round, showing me her most attractive feature. Alas, I saw only a pallid steatopygosity.

I felt pity, not desire. I realised that she was not right in her mind.

Had she really loved Tulloch and wanted him back, in spite of his cruelties?

‘Take off your clothes, Gregor,’ she whispered.

I had a memory, of childhood, myself aged five or so, and a girl – was her name Bessie Greenloaning? – also aged five, doing ‘dirty things’ in a coal cellar; that was, examining each other’s private parts. Here I was, at 72, threatened with a similar experience.

‘I want to see it, Gregor. Tulloch never let me see it. He made me hold it but he never let me see it.’

All I could say or rather stammer was ‘I think you should go and put on your clothes, Millie.’

This was a woman whom for years I had looked on with lust but also with goodwill and affection. I owed her something, but how could I repay it? I remembered how she had ecstatically praised Tulloch to people who had known how contemptuously he had treated her. Still loving him, she was in a pitiful plight, from which there was no escape.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to go upstairs with me, Gregor?’

It was time for me to make my own escape. Excusing myself, I pushed past her and made for the hall. There I had some difficulty putting on my raincoat and hat, and getting my umbrella out of the stand. I was in a state of agitation.

She had not followed me into the hall. I could not see her but I heard her, weeping and wailing.

‘Good night, Millie,’ I cried, as I opened the outside door. ‘Go to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.’

With that craven advice, I rushed out into the rain. I couldn’t put up my umbrella, my hands had forgotten how to do it. I hardly knew where I was. I kept thinking that, if Millie was found dead in the morning, I would be to blame.

I thought of telephoning Morag McVey and asking her to go and see that Millie was all right but, if Millie wasn’t all right, if she’d done away with herself, I would have involved myself.

The only person who could have helped Millie was a million miles away, in Mrs Cardross’s arms.

Before I went to bed, I had decided to telephone Millie herself in the morning.