The White Marriage Read online

  Randy had given Arietta the first three hours of Saturday morning off, so it was he who rolled up the blind from the top half of the shop’s front door, and it was he who took off the dustsheets, and he who wandered through to grapple with his ancient coffee pot, pouring in the hot water, and turning it upside down with lightning dexterity, before eventually pouring the coffee into a Parisian cup.

  ‘Ah, the first cup of the morning, always the best,’ said a voice behind him.

  Randy turned. It was Gray Wyndham.

  ‘Dear boy,’ he said, his expression unchanging. ‘And how are we this morning?’

  ‘Strangely indifferent, I don’t know why. Perhaps it is the hot weather, or perhaps it is the time of year, and the hot weather, neither August, nor May, neither autumn nor spring. Or perhaps it is the growing realisation that I am indifferent.’

  ‘To everything, or someone?’

  Gray shrugged. ‘Perhaps to both.’

  ‘Have we anything special that we want in the way of a book today?’

  ‘No, no, you choose, you always choose things she likes.’

  ‘Perhaps the new Angus Wilson collection? Very good. Most amusing, I thought.’

  ‘If you thought them amusing, Randy, then that is enough for me.’

  ‘You-know-who’s husband home, is he?’

  ‘Yes, and in crusty mood. Things are not well in the House of Zog.’

  ‘Zog? Mmm? Can’t quite see that gentleman being called Zog, but anything is possible.’

  ‘I know what you mean. At any rate, whatever the reasons, I have been put in the out tray for the moment. At least I think it is only for the moment.’

  ‘It happens from time to time.’

  ‘Yes, it’s happened before, and doubtless it will happen again. As far as I can gather it’s when things go wrong his end, he takes it out on her. So if you wouldn’t mind affecting the usual sleight of hand because a coup de telephone is definitely going to be frowned on?’

  ‘No, of course not, dear boy.’ Randy took the single sheet of paper that Gray was offering him, and slipped it in between the back pages of the book. ‘We will send this off for you, Mr Wyndham, sir,’ he said lightly sarcastic. ‘Just as soon as my assistant comes in, I will give it to her to take to the post office for you.’

  ‘Angus Wilson, you have been a busy boy this week,’ he murmured to the empty shop, once Gray had taken himself off. ‘To my certain knowledge this is the fourth little lettre d’amour that your book has taken up this week. It has to be the fault of the weather. All this summer heat must be making everyone crotchety, particularly husbands kicking their heels in the country with no one but their wives to talk to, and all the mistresses away picking up tans in the South of France. And not just tans, methinks.’

  The telephone rang. He picked it up.

  ‘Yes?’ A small pause, then he said after the voice the other end had said something, ‘Well, speak of the devil, it is Mr Wilson himself, is it not? I was, but a minute or two ago, only busily recommending your delicious new short story collection to a gentleman customer to send round to a friend. That is number four this week, so we are in the way of being quite pleased, really … Yes, I know we’re not Hatchards, Mr Wilson, but we do try – au revoir.’

  Randy replaced the telephone, saying out loud to the empty shop, ‘Nothing less than total ingratitude is all one can expect from writers,’ just as Arietta, only half a mile away, was waking up with her first ever hangover.

  There was a hand basin behind a curtain in the corner of her bedroom. She staggered to it blindly, throwing aside the curtain and running the tap. At first the water was brown and rusty coloured, and warm, but after a minute or so it ran clear and cold, at which point, head throbbing, mouth dry and eyes half closed, Arietta put a tooth mug underneath it.

  The water tasted disgusting, not sweet and clean as it did in Rushington, but odd and dusty as if it had been in the taps or the tank, or wherever they kept water in London, for far too long.

  There was a knock at the door, followed by a voice.

  ‘Hallo, Miss Leigh, I mean, Miss Staunton?’

  Arietta made a sound somewhere between ‘uh-huh’ and ‘mmmm’.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Arietta took the cold flannel off her head, and unlocked the door.

  ‘No,’ she said, opening it. ‘There is a line,’ she indicated the floor between them. ‘Over that you may not pass.’

  Sam stared at her solemnly, impassively, and for a second there was no emotion on his face or in his eyes, but he reached one hand forward and, taking one of hers, he tried to put something in it. Arietta immediately snatched her hand away from him.

  ‘No, wait, please. I’m trying to give you some aspirin,’ he said in a kind voice. ‘I’m not trying to hold your hand, just to put something in it.’

  Once again Arietta repeated the same sound as before.

  ‘Well, I agree with that,’ Sam said in a conciliatory tone. ‘And funny you should mention it because I was thinking of ordering one myself.’

  ‘What did I drink last night?’

  Sam’s face now registered emotion for the first time. He allowed it to exhibit undiluted guilt.

  ‘I am afraid it was a wine that our accountant gets for us, from Morocco.’

  ‘Morocco?’ Arietta crossed the room and, taking the tooth mug up again, she drank down the two aspirin before sinking on to the studio couch, still clutching the flannel to her head. ‘If this is what they give belly dancers no wonder they gyrate.’

  Sam laughed, and sat down in a chair opposite her.

  ‘If you can make jokes like that when all about you is spinning round then you are one hip cat, my friend.’ He stared at the crumpled heap that was seated opposite him. ‘I like your jams, they really are hip.’

  ‘They’re not jams, actually, they are my painting clothes,’ Arietta stated from behind the flannel. ‘I was in a bit of confusion when I went to bed last night.’

  ‘You should think about marketing them – all those streaky bits down the side, they’d be good.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I didn’t know you painted.’

  ‘I don’t paint. These are just my clothes for painting in, painting walls and so on. I packed them, in case.’

  ‘I am a painter, you know.’

  Arietta removed the flannel slightly.

  ‘Really?’ she asked, staring round the flannel, before replacing it.

  ‘Yes, I paint. Quite well, really. I have sold some paintings recently – well, not paintings, portraits. Would you like me to paint you?’

  ‘No.’

  The riposte was so swift and forceful it gave rise to a small silence.

  ‘Can’t blame you, really. But, if you would like me to paint you, that is, I would very much like it, especially in those clothes, in your painting clothes, but without the flannel. Can I rinse it out for you?’

  He walked across to the basin behind the curtain and, having rinsed out the flannel, he returned it to her.

  ‘There we are, my dear, one cold flannel.’

  It was because he said ‘my dear’ that Arietta came to suddenly.

  ‘My dear! Oh dear, what is the time? Oh dear, get out of my way, get out of my way, I am going to be late for work!’

  ‘It’s half-past midday,’ Sam stated, and seconds later found himself outside on the landing once more as Arietta shut her door and belted into her bedroom to dress.

  Ten minutes later found Sam driving Arietta round to Beetle’s Bookshop in his battered old Riley convertible. He turned to her at the traffic lights.

  ‘I’m only doing this out of guilt. I don’t want you to lose your job because I gave you bad wine.’

  ‘I should think not. It doesn’t seem possible that Morocco has wine, let alone that anyone drinks it,’ Arietta finished crossly. ‘You should be arrested, really you should.’

  ‘How long have you worked at Beetle’s Bookshop?’ Sam asked hurriedly to take her mind off what he had given he
r to drink.

  ‘All this week,’ Arietta called to him as the car started off again. ‘The lady I had worked for died after two days, but by that time I had met Mr Beauchamp, and the girl before me had gone, so he chose me.’

  The car was still moving as she jumped out of it, leaving Sam to continue parking it, and flew into the shop.

  ‘My, what have we come as?’

  Randy stared at Arietta, who had, without thinking, and probably because of her horrid headache, merely pulled on her clothes from the night before.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t realise.’

  There was a small silence as Randy stared at the matador pants, the tucked-in polo neck, the flat shoes and the ponytail.

  ‘Turn round,’ he commanded. ‘Mmm.’ Another silence, and then he said, ‘I prefer it. You don’t look so frumpish. Much better. Let’s have lots more of that look, and less of the young-lady-dressed-as-mother look. There should be a move towards looking less old, really there should. I was thinking about that the other day. Since the war everyone seems determined to go round looking just like their mothers, or fathers. Clothing shortage is, of course, the problem, but it is also here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Everyone wants their children to be nine hundred and forty-two just because they are. It’s such a pity, because it suffocates all originality. Before the war young girls were outrageous, cutting off their hair, and wearing shorts, and quite rightly they were expected to be so. I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking out a young lady who didn’t smoke, and have a deep mahogany tan.’ He sighed in reminiscence, and then, turning back towards the stockroom, he said, ‘Enough of that. Unpacking to do, my dear.’

  At which point Sam came into the shop, and Randy smiled.

  ‘Samuel Finnegan, of all the bars in all the world—’

  ‘Uncle Randy, dost thou need help in the stockroom of this sunny Saturday?’

  Randy stared at his nephew.

  ‘Now here’s a thing,’ he announced to no one in particular, pronouncing his words slowly and clearly. ‘To my certain knowledge, all the time Miss Grenville was working here, never, ever, was there any offer of help from this sometime jazz drummer-cum-Society portrait painter, mais tout d’un coup, there is a sudden and massive interest in helping out his poor old uncle. When the basement was flooded in the winter, where was Nephew Sam? In Morocco painting in kasbahs, smoking a hookah, and acquiring a taste for wearing a fez. When the lady upstairs came through the dry rot in the ceiling, where was Nephew Sam? In Cornwall painting fishermen, smoking Capstan, and acquiring a taste for wearing fisherman’s jumpers. When the front door was bished in by two drunken yobs, where was Nephew Sam? Half a mile away painting Lady Finsborough in a scarlet cloak and acquiring an expensive habit of drinking champage at noon. Therefore what says Uncle Randy to himself? He says “Tiss, tiss, Mrs Tittlemouse, what’s brought Nephew Sam therefore to my door with such humble mien and generous offers of help – not I think the welfare of his poor old Uncle Randy …?”’

  By now both Sam and Arietta were laughing, and Arietta was staring at him with new appreciation. Sam Finnegan had obviously led quite a life already, and he could only be a little older than herself.

  ‘You can help front of shop, dear boy. It being Saturday it should be a lively affair. And Miss Staunton can go to the stockroom and start unpacking the new arrivals, and by that I do mean books …’

  Randy’s facial expression as he saw Nephew Sam’s face fall remained admirably straight, but as Sam’s expression turned to what threatened to be woebegone, he leaned forward and murmured to Sam, ‘Don’t worry, dear boy, once the closing-time whistle goes, I’ll let you take her to the pub. But first she must wrap a couple of volumes for me, and take them to the post office. Miss Staunton!’

  As Arietta turned at the stockroom door, he indicated the Angus Wilson for Gray Wyndham, and a leather-covered, obviously second-hand book, to be sent to the Duke of Somerton.

  ‘Two labels to be written, one for this gentleman, address there, and one for this duke – his address there. See? Brown paper and string there, sealing wax and matches there. You may use my signet ring to stamp the wax. And please observe extreme caution when wrapping the books. We don’t want any to-dos and dramas when the books reach their destinations.’

  He slipped a letter into each of the volumes, and hurried off to help Sam, as not one but two customers had come into the shop, which was surely a minor miracle at this time of year?

  Nothing had changed for Leandra. Dilke was still in a foul mood, not just at breakfast, which was standard for him, but at every meal, which meant, naturally, that nothing, but nothing, Leandra could do was right.

  Normally, when one of Dilke’s love affairs had finished, he came home, was a little morose for a few days, ate and slept too much, but then allowed himself to be cheered up. Such was not the case now. No matter what Leandra or Cook or anyone did to gentle him along, nothing seemed to be helping. Strangely, he had lost weight when normally in these circumstances he put on weight. Now he seemed to spend most of the time sleeping, and when at meals he pushed his food away, leaving Leandra solitary and alone to struggle through the pudding course – if only to keep on the right side of Cook – while Dilke made his way through the French windows into the garden where he was to be found wandering about smoking endless Du Maurier cigarettes.

  ‘There seems very little point in planting all these sweet-smelling roses if we are to smoke them out, Dilke darling!’ Leandra joked, as she followed him out into the garden this particular night.

  ‘Shut up, Leandra! Just, just – shut up, would you?’

  Leandra stared at him, and then she too lit a cigarette from a small gold case that her escort before Gray had given her. Dilke might be offhand with other people, he might be charmless to a degree with Gray, but he was never, ever rude to her. Her manner did not allow it.

  ‘What’s the matter, Dilke?’ she asked him finally after watching him pace up and down between the borders.

  ‘I’m ruined, that’s what the matter is!’

  Leandra stared at him. Despite the bright light from the moon it was difficult to read his expression, but she did suddenly see how his face seemed to have fallen in, and as she did she wondered that she had not noticed it before. Dilke’s skin, normally tanned in summer from holidaying abroad with his amours, now had a sallow tinge to it, and she saw that his eyes were staring at her as if it was all her fault, as if she had somehow brought about his ruin, if indeed ruined he was.

  ‘Is it the supertax, Dilke darling?’

  ‘Yes, it is the supertax, Dilke darling!’ Dilke said, continuing to mimic her. ‘Yes, it is. It is this bloody government, and the one before, and the one before that, and the war, and the way you spend money—’

  ‘Which of course you don’t!’

  ‘The way you spend money one would think it was self-propagating; as if gold fell out of the sky every evening and you had only to come out here in the morning and pick it up, and start all over again.’

  Leandra threw her cigarette to the ground and stamped on it. It could have been Dilke’s face she was stamping on, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Leandra decided to ignore Dilke’s fantasy about gold.

  ‘I knew everything was a bit wobbly, but I had no idea it was disastrous.’

  ‘Wobbly? Wobbly? It is not wobbly, Leandra, it is crashed. I am ruined, finally, I am ruined. That accountant, God rot him, never let me know the final picture, never let me realise how deep we had sunk, or were sinking, too caught up with his divorce, and drink of course.’ Dilke stared past her to the house, which he actually loved, perhaps even more than Leandra. ‘This place will have to go, and that is just the start.’

  ‘Oh, but it can’t! Maydown is us.’

  ‘Maydown was us.’

  Another silence as Dilke lit another cigarette.

  ‘Will we have to live abroad?’

  ‘We certainly will, Leandra, probably in a backstreet in Marseilles, or
Naples, or Basingstoke, somewhere where no one we know will find us.’

  Leandra could not have said whether or not Dilke was being facetious, but she had known him long enough to know that he never made scenes, so he could not be stringing her along; their finances must truly have gone from being wobbly to being wiped out.

  ‘Are we really ruined, Dilke darling?’

  She put a gentle hand to his arm, and he turned, his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I am afraid so, Dippy.’

  He hadn’t called her Dippy since she didn’t know when.

  She frowned. ‘Can’t we do something about it? Is there nothing to be done, darling?’

  ‘Not really,’ Dilke sighed. ‘It’s simply a question of facing facts. This country does not like rich people, and there is no way round it. We are not like the Devonshires, we can’t donate a great painting to the nation in lieu of tax. We cannot bargain; we are not in that position. In short, we are rich enough to be bled dry, but not wealthy enough to come to some arrangement. I bumped into Noël Coward at the Ritz the other evening, and he has just been told that he too may have to live abroad, that he might have to sell everything. Paintings, houses, everything may have to go. He is paying something like nineteen shillings in the pound. He can hardly afford a new pair of socks. Supertax has hijacked us all, Dippy. Supertax is the Robin Hood of our era, and while I am no Sheriff of Nottingham, and know that we must feed the poor, it seems we are now the poor because of this tax. No other country would stand for it. It is appalling. We create wealth, people like us, we employ, we keep up old houses, we endow the arts, we are not saints but we are necessary. If we all flee abroad the country will be poorer by everything, but that is what I think will have to happen. We will have to go into tax exile, or starve.’

  As if suddenly reconciled, they sank down together on Leandra’s favourite Lutyens-styled garden bench, with its curved back and swooping side arms, and Dilke dropped his head into his hands.

  For a few seconds Leandra felt only sympathy for Dilke, of whom she had always been very fond, but once a half-minute had gone by, and she had speedily assessed the situation, she started to feel impatient, and then angry – first at him for not talking to her sooner, then at the accountant for getting divorced and taking to drink, and finally at the government.