The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [99]
“Lots of poor people have babies,” Wilfrid said, rather bluntly, since he knew his uncle was talking nonsense.
“Yes, but we want to bring up our little boys and girls in comfort, with some of the lovely things in life that you and your sister have, for instance.”
Madeleine said, “Remember, George, you need to finish those remarks for the Vice-Chancellor.”
“I know, my love,” said George, “but it’s so much pleasanter conversing with our nephew.”
Nevertheless, a minute later George was saying, “I suppose you’re right, Mad.” A real anxiety started up in Wilfrid that he would be left alone with Aunt Madeleine. “You’ll be all right with Auntie, won’t you?”
“Oh, please, Uncle George”—Wilfrid felt the anxiety close in on him, but offset at once by a dreary feeling he couldn’t explain, that he was going to have to go through with whatever it was, and it didn’t really matter.
“We’ll do something lovely later,” said George, tentatively ruffling his nephew’s hair, and then smoothing it back down again. He turned in the doorway. “We can have your famous dance.”
When he’d gone, Madeleine rather seized on this.
“Well, I can’t do it by myself,” said Wilfrid, hands on hips.
“Oh, I suppose you’d want music.”
“I mean, can you play?” Wilfrid asked, shaking his head.
“I’m not awfully good!” said Madeleine, pleasantly enough. They went out into the hall. “I suppose there’s always the pianola …” But happily, the men had already wheeled it back down the cow-passage. Wilfrid didn’t want to play the pianola with her. Not meaning to initiate a game, he got under the hall table.
“What are you doing, dear?” said Aunt Madeleine.
“I’m in my house,” said Wilfrid. In fact it was a game he sometimes played with his mother, and he felt unfaithful to her but also a kind of security as he squatted down with the huge oak timbers almost touching his head. “You can come and visit me,” he said.
“Oh …! Well, I’m not sure,” said Madeleine, bending over and peering in.
“Just sit on the table,” said Wilfrid. “You have to knock.”
“Of course,” said Madeleine, with another of those glimpses of being a good sport that complicated the picture. She sat down obediently, and Wilfrid looked out past her swinging green shoes and the translucent hem of her skirt and petticoat. She knocked on the table and said loudly, “Is Mr. Wilfrid Valance at home?”
“Oh … I’m not quite sure, madam, I’ll go and look,” said Wilfrid; and he made a sort of rhythmical mumbling noise, which conveyed very well what someone going to look might sound like.
Almost at once Aunt Madeleine said, “Aren’t you going to ask who it is?”
“Oh God, madam, who is it?” said Wilfrid.
“You mustn’t say ‘God,’ ” said his aunt, though she didn’t sound as if she minded very much.
“Sorry, Aunt Madeleine, who is it, please?”
The proper answer to this, when he played with his mother, was, “It’s Miss Edith Sitwell,” and then they tried not to laugh. His father often laughed about Miss Sitwell, who he said sounded like a man and looked like a mouse. Wilfrid himself laughed about her whenever he could, though in fact he was rather afraid of her.
But Madeleine said, “Oh, can you tell Mr. Wilfrid Valance that it’s Madeleine Sawle.”
“Yes, madam,” said Wilfrid, in a sort of respectful imitation of Wilkes. He “went away” again, and took his time about it. He had a picture of his aunt’s face, smiling impatiently as she sat and waited on the hard table. A wild idea came to him that he would simply say he wasn’t at home. But then a shadow seemed to fall on it, it seemed lazy and cruel. But the game, which his aunt had failed to understand, really depended on the person pretending to be someone else. Otherwise you came to the end of it, and a feeling of boredom and dissatisfaction descended almost at once. Then his deep underlying longing for his mother rose in a wave, and the pain of thinking of her, and Uncle Revel drawing her, stiffened his face. It was a burningly important event from which he had been needlessly shut out. Madeleine suddenly