excitement. “It’s a bit complicated, in a way … I’ll tell you all about it tonight. And, Mother—” her voice had changed now, there was a note of anxious sharpness behind the jubilation—“You will promise not to be difficult, won’t you? Please! Promise me!”
She means she’s going to invite him to stay the night, Margaret thought darkly; and he will never go away again, never. Like Mavis. Like that man two years ago, that PhD student with the stomach ulcer whose wife had left him for an actor, only by the mercy of Heaven she came back to him, disillusioned about actors, before his diet, and his insomnia, and his views on the American Way of Life had driven Margaret stark, raving mad. Why couldn’t Derek put his foot down? Was he a man or a mouse? A mouse, of course, was the answer, but he would have described it as ‘trusting Claudia absolutely’. And anyway he was away until at least the end of the month, which no doubt was why Claudia had schemed this up just now, so as to present him with a fait accompli. That the recent innocent -seeming telephone call had been part of some complex machinations on Claudia’s part, Margaret did not now doubt. Promise not to be difficult she would not.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear,” she answered her daughter blandly. “You can tell me all about it when you come home. I suppose, coming at half past eight, he’ll have had supper, won’t he …?”
The conversation petered out in trivialities; and as she laid down the receiver, shutting off the whole problem for at least another six hours, Margaret felt all the happiness of the sunshine and the quiet house flooding back into her soul. It was nearly half past twelve by now, time for lunch. She cut herself a beautiful sandwich of cold beef and white, crusty bread, squashy with newness, and dabbed liberally with mustard. Then she made a cup of coffee, exactly as she liked it, with top-of-the- milk zestfully filched from one of the new bottles; and then, like a homing pigeon, like a creature slithering back into its native element, she carried the tray carefully out into the still, shimmering noonday sun.
CHAPTER IX
T HIS ONE SUFFERED from insomnia, too. Well, from writing poetry, anyway, which came to practically the same thing, it seemed to Margaret. She was sitting, quiet and inconspicuous , in the corner of the sofa, listening to this peculiar young man holding forth to Claudia, while his coffee cooled on the little table at his side, about the sort of ideas that came to him at two in the morning.
They weren’t the sort of ideas that appealed to Margaret at the best of times, and she was sure they would appeal to her even less at 2 a.m. They sounded, to her experienced ears, the sort of ideas that would involve the endless brewing of black coffee, with spills all over the kitchen table; and she was only thankful that, so far, there had been no suggestion that the visitor was to stay the night. Surely even Claudia would draw the line at that, considering what she knew about the young man’s background.
He wasn’t Margaret’s idea of a murderer. She had—naturally enough, after Claudia’s shocking revelations—been eyeing the visitor surreptitiously all the evening, and by now she knew his features by heart; and they weren’t, somehow, the features she had been expecting. What had she been expecting, then? What should a murderer look like, and in what ways did this young man fall short of—or rise above, perhaps one should say—the conventional image? Was it that he had that pasty, inactive look which one associates with sedentary, monotonous employments—in which category crimes of violence can surely not be included? Or was it that he looked too young? Too young for what, though? It was well known that a large proportion of criminals are barely out of their teens. Too young, anyway, to be wearing that neat, middle-aged suit of navy blue. Why, he ought to be in a shaggy
She means she’s going to invite him to stay the night, Margaret thought darkly; and he will never go away again, never. Like Mavis. Like that man two years ago, that PhD student with the stomach ulcer whose wife had left him for an actor, only by the mercy of Heaven she came back to him, disillusioned about actors, before his diet, and his insomnia, and his views on the American Way of Life had driven Margaret stark, raving mad. Why couldn’t Derek put his foot down? Was he a man or a mouse? A mouse, of course, was the answer, but he would have described it as ‘trusting Claudia absolutely’. And anyway he was away until at least the end of the month, which no doubt was why Claudia had schemed this up just now, so as to present him with a fait accompli. That the recent innocent -seeming telephone call had been part of some complex machinations on Claudia’s part, Margaret did not now doubt. Promise not to be difficult she would not.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear,” she answered her daughter blandly. “You can tell me all about it when you come home. I suppose, coming at half past eight, he’ll have had supper, won’t he …?”
The conversation petered out in trivialities; and as she laid down the receiver, shutting off the whole problem for at least another six hours, Margaret felt all the happiness of the sunshine and the quiet house flooding back into her soul. It was nearly half past twelve by now, time for lunch. She cut herself a beautiful sandwich of cold beef and white, crusty bread, squashy with newness, and dabbed liberally with mustard. Then she made a cup of coffee, exactly as she liked it, with top-of-the- milk zestfully filched from one of the new bottles; and then, like a homing pigeon, like a creature slithering back into its native element, she carried the tray carefully out into the still, shimmering noonday sun.
CHAPTER IX
T HIS ONE SUFFERED from insomnia, too. Well, from writing poetry, anyway, which came to practically the same thing, it seemed to Margaret. She was sitting, quiet and inconspicuous , in the corner of the sofa, listening to this peculiar young man holding forth to Claudia, while his coffee cooled on the little table at his side, about the sort of ideas that came to him at two in the morning.
They weren’t the sort of ideas that appealed to Margaret at the best of times, and she was sure they would appeal to her even less at 2 a.m. They sounded, to her experienced ears, the sort of ideas that would involve the endless brewing of black coffee, with spills all over the kitchen table; and she was only thankful that, so far, there had been no suggestion that the visitor was to stay the night. Surely even Claudia would draw the line at that, considering what she knew about the young man’s background.
He wasn’t Margaret’s idea of a murderer. She had—naturally enough, after Claudia’s shocking revelations—been eyeing the visitor surreptitiously all the evening, and by now she knew his features by heart; and they weren’t, somehow, the features she had been expecting. What had she been expecting, then? What should a murderer look like, and in what ways did this young man fall short of—or rise above, perhaps one should say—the conventional image? Was it that he had that pasty, inactive look which one associates with sedentary, monotonous employments—in which category crimes of violence can surely not be included? Or was it that he looked too young? Too young for what, though? It was well known that a large proportion of criminals are barely out of their teens. Too young, anyway, to be wearing that neat, middle-aged suit of navy blue. Why, he ought to be in a shaggy
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