Old Filth - Jane Gardam [51]
It was so quiet that Filth could hear the beat of the sea two roads away, rhythmic, unstoppable. “Too soon,” it said. “They were right. This is histrionic nonsense. You’ve arrived too soon. You’re in shock. You’ll make a fool of yourself. There’s nothing here.”
Suddenly, at the top of the steps, the front door was wrenched open and a boy ran out. He came tearing down, missing several steps, belted along the path towards Filth at the gate. One hand held a music-case and with the other he pushed Filth hard in the stomach so that he fell back into the hedge. The boy, who was wearing old-fashioned school uniform, vanished towards the sea.
Badly winded, Filth struggled out of the hedge, dusted down his clothes, picked up the fallen parcel of presents, looked right and left and gave his furious roar. The quiet of the road then re-asserted itself. The child might never have been.
But the front door stood wide and he walked uneasily up the steps and into the passage beyond, where, as if he had stood on a switch, a torrent of Chopin was let loose in the room to his right.
“Hello?”
He stood outside its open door.
“Hello there? Babs?”
He knocked on the door, peered round it. “It’s Teddy.”
The music stopped. The room appeared to be empty.
Then he saw her by the back window, staring into the dark. She was wearing some sort of shawl and her hair was long and white. She seemed to be pressing something—a handkerchief?—into her face. Without turning towards him further, her voice came out from behind her hands, clear and controlled. And Betty’s.
In one of her very occasional cynical or bitter moods which Filth had never understood, and which usually ended in her going to London for a few days (or over to Macao from Hong Kong), Betty had said, “Look, leave me alone, Filth. I’m in the dark. Just need a break.”
“I’m in the dark, Teddy-bear,” now said Betty’s voice inside this crazed old creature. “You shouldn’t have come. I should have stopped you. I couldn’t find the number.”
“Oh, dear me, Babs. You’re ill.”
“Ill. Do you mean sick? I’m sick all right. D’you want tea? I make it on my gas-ring. There’s some milk somewhere. In a cupboard. But we don’t take milk, do we? Not from our classy background. I’m finished, Teddy. Broken-hearted. Like Betty. You’d better go.”
(Like Betty? What rubbish—never.)
“I can’t stay more than a few minutes,” said Filth, realising that this was absolutely so, for the room was not only ice-cold and dark, but there was an aroma about. Setting down his parcels on a chair piled with newspapers, he touched something unspeakable on a plate.
“Babs, I had no idea . . .”
“You thought I was well-off, did you? Sky television and modems? Well, I am well-off, but because I am still a teacher of music. I live alone. Betty always warned me against living alone. Said I’d get funny. But I prefer to live alone. Ever since well, you know. Wales. I had mother of course until last year. Upstairs. I still hear her stick thumping on the floor for the commode. Sometimes I start heating up her milk. But I’m glad she’s gone. In a way.”
“Then,” said Filth, prickling all over with disgust, making stabs at various shadows to find perhaps somewhere to lean against or sit. “Then it can’t all have been bad.” He had begun to lower himself into what might have been a chair when something in it rustled and streaked for the door.
“Ah,” he said, easing his shirt-collar. “And you have a dog.”
“What dog? I have no dog.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sorry. Even with a dog I would be utterly alone. And I am going mad.”
“Well”—he had sprung up from the chair and was standing to attention—“Well” (half-heartedly). “Well, I’m here now, Babs. We must sort something out. Get something going. Betty wouldn’t want . . .”
Babs had left the window and was fumbling about. A light came on and an electric jug was revealed. A half-empty milk bottle was withdrawn from an antique gramophone. Cups and