Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [21]
‘I’m glad I didn’t have a weapon in the house,’ said Binny. ‘I’d have murdered mine years ago.’
‘My father,’ Edward told them, ‘had a nanny who hanged herself.’
‘No,’ screamed Muriel.
‘Yes, she did. It’s as true as I’m sitting here. My father was grown up of course, but he heard about it. It seemed her mind snapped under the strain. One by one, losing her babies in the mud. Master Charles, Master Guy—’
‘In the mud?’ said Binny. ‘Are you sure?’
‘The trenches,’ explained Simpson. ‘In France.’ He shook his head sombrely from side to side.
Anxious to change the subject, Muriel confided that her daughters were musically inclined; she hinted that they were fairly competent on the recorder.
‘My girls have frightful voices,’ said Binny, thinking of tape machines. ‘And their language—’ Her eyes filled with tears.
She put down her spoon and stared distressed at a segment of grapefruit on her plate. Nobody noticed. Edward was telling the Simpsons that houses like these were a jolly sensible investment. Gilt-edged in fact. With inflation and so forth, and the cutting back of the government building programme, superior properties in London would eventually be unobtainable. ‘We’ve seen the end of the downward spiral in prices,’ he said. ‘The slump is over.’
‘How many floors are there?’ asked Simpson. The house didn’t seem particularly superior, what little he could see of it. He wondered if the place was divided into flats. There was certainly something wrong with the electricity supply; the room was full of shadows. He sought with his foot for the table leg and gently worked at removing his shoe.
‘Three,’ said Edward.
‘Four with the basement,’ Binny said. ‘I’ve let it at the moment.’ She tried not to look at Simpson. Edward had told her that Simpson’s little sortie to the VD clinic was to do with some woman he’d met in the bar at a theatre. She’d written her telephone number on his programme when his wife had slipped off to the Ladies. Edward said Simpson had given good money for getting his leg over, because that way his lapse would be more likely to be understood, should he be caught out. Binny hadn’t been able to understand it. Neither she nor any of her friends had ever been paid for doing it. She’d thought at the time that Simpson had made the whole thing up out of his head; he was boasting. Now she wasn’t so sure.
‘My dear girl,’ cried Edward. He rapped boisterously on his plate with a spoon. ‘Who’s telling a little white lie?’ He turned to Muriel and explained that Binny’s ex-husband had sold off the basement several years ago to meet various business commitments. As he spoke he regretted that he’d addressed Binny as his dear girl; Simpson had warned him about hanky panky. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘the basement isn’t really much of an asset. It’s a little dark and there’s no garden to speak of at the back. No garden at all, actually. We’ve got quite a large garden – fruit trees, roses, one or two vegetables. I do a little potting in the greenhouse . . . take a few cuttings . . . nothing special. Are you a gardener, Miriam?’
‘Muriel,’ said Simpson.
Confused, Edward poured out more wine. He said loudly, ‘Helen’s not too keen on the spade work, but she likes it in summer – tea on the lawn, that sort of caper.’
Binny rose abruptly and took the saucers to the sink.
‘Get up, George,’ ordered Muriel. ‘Take things into the kitchen.’ She herself, seeing Edward was puffing at his pipe, took a cigarette from her handbag and lit it.
Simpson carried the sugar bowl and spoons through to Binny. As she stood there at the stove, the top of her tongue protruding as she concentrated on arranging chops and grilled tomatoes on a large blue plate, he thought how young she looked. Of course he knew the lighting was poor and she was no chicken, but the droop of her narrow shoulders and the little curls falling about her neck enchanted him. Muriel was tall with wide shoulders and strong as an ox. She had on two occasions moved their upright piano single-handed from one wall to another.