was so wrong-headed. Always.’
‘I think you ought to be discussing that with him.’
‘Well, yes, but – and don’t forget about Mrs Ashe, I must really ring off, I’m really very …’ She rang off.
This was so odd, struck such a discordant note, that Martha was unable to think about it, forgot to tell Mark.
It was Mark who took the next call from his mother.
Margaret had telephoned Francis’s school, and the headmaster said Francis was all right. As far as he knew the news had not reached the school. ‘But he’s such a fool,’ Margaret said. ‘I asked him if he banned the newspapers there, and he said, he was sure his boys understood the meaning of esprit de corps.’
‘Perhaps you could take Francis for a week or two?’
‘Oh, I don’t know – anyway, I’m off to America next week.’
‘You could take him until then, couldn’t you?’
‘I don’t really think …’
She then went on to talk about Mrs Ashe.
Mark said he really hadn’t time to worry about being a landlord, and rang off. It was so extraordinary of Margaret that Mark, like Martha, let it slide.
Paul had listened to this from outside the study door.
‘Why should Francis go and live with his granny?’ he asked.
‘She’s your granny too.’
‘No. She isn’t. She doesn’t like my mummy.’
‘Well, it would only be for a little time.’
She tried to pick him up. He was a heap of heavy limbs. The black frightened eyes, already lit by cunning, held Martha’s face, while he held himself rigid in her arms. She put him down.
‘I don’t want Francis’s granny to come to my party.’
‘She’s not coming.’
His birthday was the day after the next.
‘I want my party. I want my party,’ he sobbed, from the floor. He was saying, I want my mother.
Next morning, Martha put on a headscarf, and Mrs Van’s old coat, and got out of the house by eight in the morning, by the back door. Only two journalists had arrived, and they were at the front of the house. She went across London to Harrods, and bought a cake and presents for the party. When she arrived at the back door, it looked unoccupied. But before she could get in, a man ran up.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘I work for Mr Coldridge. I do the cleaning.’
She had the key in the door, but she was gripped by her other arm which clutched parcels.
His face was alive with suspicion, but also with the delights of the chase.
‘What’s going on in there?’
‘I work for Mr Coldridge. I do the cleaning.’
The clothes were right, but her voice was not. His face was hard, self-righteous. He was a man seeking to unmask evil. He took five pounds from his pocket. He hesitated. Five pounds was more than enough for a charwoman, but not for a friend or mistress or fellow-conspirator of Mark Coldridge. Hesitating, he lost his force of purpose; Martha slipped her arm away, and shot indoors, scattering parcels on to the floor of the kitchen. Through the back window his face appeared, in an angry teeth-bared scowl. Framed thus, emphasized, it was almost yes, funny. He looked like a bad actor in a melodrama: my prey has escaped.
One of the aspects of a bad time, before one has entered into its spirit, is that everything has a feel of parody, or burlesque. Martha stood in the kitchen, looking at the ugly, threatening face, and had to suppress laughter. Nervous laughter, certainly, and when he shook his fist at her, it was ugly and she was afraid. That evening, among the pile of newspapers that came from the newsagent, brought past the reporters by the newsagent’s boy, was one which carried a story about a mysterious woman, who had entry to Mr Coldridge’s house, and who would not give her name.
Next day was the birthday. In the morning Paul was given presents which he opened. Mark and Martha watching. He tore through them, throwing them aside, one after another: he was looking for evidences of his mother. He had not mentioned his mother for some days. Clearly the birthday had become for him the talisman which could produce his mother. The presents had not, but there was still the party.
After breakfast he went to Mark’s study and stood by the desk watching Mark pretending to work. By now they were waiting for him to ask: Where is my mother, so that they could tell him the truth. Which they should have done before. But the right time had gone past, and they did not know what to do. Everything was wrong, the ‘party’ absurd, the presents a mistake.
But now they did not know how not to have the party.
Martha laid a party-spread on the table in the dining-room. But Paul demanded that it should be in the kitchen. Nothing came in the front door, only sheaves of newspapers, falling through the letter-slot. But the back door could admit. It was through the back door that he expected his mother.
Martha spread out the cake, with its six candles on the kitchen table, and some biscuits and little cakes. While Martha moved about in these pathetic preparations, Paul stood just inside the kitchen door, watching them: Mark, trying to engage Paul’s attention, played with a wooden train on the floor. From time to time the two grown-up people exchanged glances of helplessness, and of shame, because things could have been allowed to reach this point.
There was a heavy knock on the back door; and the little boy, crying ‘There she is! There’s my mummy!’ rushed to open it. Two men stood there. One was the journalist of yesterday, looking angrily sullen. The other was a large smiling man.
‘Where’s my mummy?’ shouted Paul.
The two looked at each other, then studied Martha, arranging cakes, and Mark, playing trains.
The large man said: ‘Take it easy, son, take it easy. Your mummy’s not coming, you know.’
‘Why not, why not?’ screamed Paul, and flung himself down. Lying face down, he banged his head hard on the floor while his face exploded tears.
‘Is this Colin Coldridge’s boy?’ asked the sullen man, bending to examine him for describable details.
Mark now scrambled up off his knees, and advanced on the journalists. Yesterday’s man was suspiciously angry. The large man was smiling, ingratiating. The child continued to bang his head, crying noisily. Mark, with his eyes wide, his mouth open, his face white, appeared comic.
‘Take it easy,’ said the large man again, and backed away, in a parody of fear: he was making fun of Mark.
The self-righteous man was now making mental notes about the kitchen. Having done this, he returned his attention to Paul, who was writhing at his feet, and said accusingly: ‘Why didn’t you tell the boy about his mother?’
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