I promise.’
Mrs Carson knew that Martha slept with the door open, but as long as she heard in words that it was locked, she was satisfied, apparently.
‘I’ll sack Saul in the morning. There was quite a nice-looking boy who came around this afternoon looking for work. I’ll give him a try.’
Martha’s visitor was her husband.
Douglas was sitting with his back to the window in such a way that he could watch both doors. From his attitude, which was tense and suspicious, Martha saw that he must have been there some time, and that while he was waiting he had, as she put it, ‘been working himself up into a state’. His face had the swollen reddened look which meant she could not take anything he said seriously.
He said: ‘I’m sorry if this is an inconvenient time to call.’
She said nothing, so he insisted: ‘It might have been inconvenient.’
‘Not at all,’ she said, falling automatically into meaningless politeness.
He brought out, self-consciously bitter: ‘William might have been here.’
‘Well, obviously,’ said Martha coldly. She sat down across the room from him. Her knees were trembling and this annoyed her. It had taken her a long time to admit that she was physically frightened of Douglas, but admitting it made things worse, not better.
She had seen him three times since leaving his house.
The first, about a fortnight after leaving him, he had come one Sunday morning to ask her to go for a drive with him. His manner had been simple and pleasant and she found herself liking him. She would have accepted if it were not that she had a group meeting that morning. After he had left her, she was thinking of returning to him. For some days she was very unhappy: the simple friendliness of his manner had made it possible for her to think of the child. Most of the time she was very careful not to allow herself to think of Caroline. Once, missing Caroline, she had borrowed Jasmine’s car and driven several times up and down past the house, to watch the little girl playing in the garden with the nurse-girl. The sight had confused her, for she had not felt as unhappy as she had expected. She had continued to drive up and down past the house until she saw a female figure through a window and believed she recognized Elaine Talbot. Afterwards, the thought of Caroline caused her acute pain. A cold shell she had been careful to build around her heart was gone. She longed for her daughter, and was on the point a dozen times of telephoning Douglas to say she would come back. During this time she was more in love with William than she had ever been. She was rocked by violent and conflicting emotions, vulnerable to a tone in William’s voice, or the sight of a small child playing on the grass verges of a street.
This period of misery had come to a sudden end when about three weeks later Douglas had rung up from the office to demand an interview. As soon as she heard his voice she felt herself harden. She went to his office where he had gone through a scene which she had recognized from the first word as something he was acting out for his own benefit. He questioned her with a fervid cunning about what he referred to as ‘her activities’, watching her all the time with widened glaring eyes, and finally informed her that he was only ‘checking up’ since he had a full report on her behaviour from a private detective. This was so much more dramatic than she had expected, that she was sorry for him, and said, almost humorously, that surely a detective was unnecessary since she would be only too pleased to tell him everything she was doing. ‘After all,’ she pointed out, ‘I have told you everything, haven’t I?’ He ground his teeth at her, but it was as a matter of form: the whole scene had the rehearsed quality she had expected as soon as she had heard the ‘official’ tone on the telephone.
The third time he descended abruptly at eight in the morning and she knew that this was the result of a sleepless night thinking about her. He informed her that in the year before she had left him, she had bought goods to the value of £20 at the shops, and as he was incurring a great deal of extra expense due to her having left him, he felt ‘it was the least she could do’ to pay it back. He produced an account like a shopkeeper’s on a sheet of stiff paper: Item one pair of shoes; Item one sweater, 25s; and so on, handing it to her with a sentimental and appealing smile. His lips trembled; he was nearly in tears.
She took the account and said she would let him have the money as soon as she could. She was earning at that time £15 a month. He continued to gaze at her appealingly, and she said, suddenly very angry: ‘I’ll pay it off at a pound a month,’ and looked to see if he would be ashamed. But he again gave her the sad trembling smile and said: ‘Yes, Matty, that-that-that would-would be a-a help.’ The stammer told her that all this was part of a pre-imagined scene.
When she had told Jasmine about it, the girl’s look of amused discomfort made her feel angry with herself: she knew she should have told Douglas to go to hell; and by acting in the way she had she had made herself part of his hysteria.
‘But Matty, you couldn’t have agreed to pay it? He earns so much money.’
‘Well, yes, I did.’
‘Then you’re mad too.’ Jasmine gave her the twenty pounds, told her to pay Douglas and be done with it. Martha sent Douglas the money, got a stiff but sentimental letter of thanks back, and because of Jasmine’s reaction to the incident, and her own shame, promised herself ‘when she had time’ to examine the emotion she called pride.
This, then, was the first meeting since she had sent him the twenty pounds.
‘What did you want to see me for?’
‘There’s this question of divorce.’
‘Yes?’
‘I intend to cite William as co-respondent.’
For a moment she was frightened: then she understood she was not frightened, her heart was beating out of anger. She had become skilled in listening to her instinctive responses to Douglas: If I’m not frightened, she told herself, then it means he is lying. I don’t believe him. Why don’t I? After a time she was able to see it: Of course he wouldn’t cite William – he would never admit publicly that his wife had left him for a sergeant in the airforce – that’s the way his mind works. So he’s trying to find out something else. What is it?
‘Of course you must cite William,’ she said. ‘It would be much quicker that way. ‘
He went red, and blurted out: ‘Of course if he were posted suddenly it would make divorce proceedings difficult.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would.’
‘Desertion is quick and civilized. But if you contested it, then it would be difficult.’
‘I deserted you,’ she remarked; reminded herself that there was something she ought to be understanding; considered, and finally said to herself: That’s it. He’s afraid I’d divorce him for that girl in Y— But how could I? I didn’t condone it – or did I? I couldn’t have condoned it, legally, or he wouldn’t be afraid.
Again she was dismayed by the depth of her contempt for him. She got up and said: ‘If you divorce me for desertion, I won’t contest it. Why should I? I don’t care about it one way or the other.’
He remained seated, staring, his fat lips trembling. She saw that he had imagined this scene differently. He had gained what he wanted, but not as he had wanted it.
‘I’d
