The World According to Bertie - Alexander Hanchett Smith [127]
He climbed the stairs to his front door and let himself in. On the hall table, a red light blinked insistently from the telephone: somebody had left a message.
He dropped the parcel and pressed the button to play the message. It will be from her, he thought.
It was.
83. At Miss Harmony’s Flat
Matthew listened to the message left for him by Elspeth Harmony. In the rather sparsely furnished hall of his flat in India Street, the recorded voice, with its clear diction – it was, after all, the voice of a teacher – echoed in the emptiness. And it seemed to Matthew that the chambers of the heart were themselves empty, desolate, now without hope.
‘I’m really very sorry,’ Elspeth began. ‘It was very sweet of you to ask me to dinner, but I can’t make it after all. I’m a bit upset about something and I don’t feel that I would be very good company. I’m so sorry. Maybe some other time.’
He played the message through and the machine automatically went on to the next message, which was from a company that had tried to deliver something and could not. The company spoke in injured tones, as if it expected that people should always be in to receive its parcels. Matthew ignored that message; his thoughts were on what Elspeth had said. Women had all sorts of excuses to get out of an unwanted date: family issues – my mother’s in town – I’d much prefer to be seeing you, but you know how it is. And then: I’ve had a headache since lunchtime and I think I should just get an early night, so sorry. He listened again to what Elspeth had to say. There was no doubt but that the tone was sincere, and from that Matthew took a few scraps of comfort. This was not a diplomatic excuse concealing a simple reluctance to have dinner with him; this was the voice of somebody who was clearly upset, and for good reason.
He switched off the machine and stood up from the crouching position in which he had been listening to the message. How he reacted to this would, he thought, determine whether he saw Elspeth again. If he did nothing, then she might think that he simply did not care; if, on the other hand, he tried to persuade her to come, in spite of everything – whatever everything was – then he might appear equally selfish. He decided to call her.
As the telephone rang at the other end, Matthew tried to imagine the scene. Her address was on the other side of town, in a street sandwiched between Sciennes and Newington, and he thought of her flat, with its modest brass plate on the door, HARMONY, and its window-box with a small display of nasturtiums. Or was that mere romanticism? No, he thought, it is not. Her name is Harmony, and there’s no reason why she should not have a window-box with nasturtiums, none at all.
‘Elspeth Harmony.’
The voice was quiet, the tones those of one who had been thinking of something else when the telephone had rung.
‘It’s Matthew here. I got your message. Are you all right?’
There was a momentary pause. Then: ‘Yes, I’m all right. But I’m sorry about tonight. I just couldn’t face it.’
Matthew’s heart sank. Perhaps it had just been a lame excuse after all. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘But—’
Elspeth interrupted him. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. Please don’t think that.’
He imagined her sitting in a chair in the kitchen, looking out at the nasturtiums.
‘Has something happened?’
‘Yes,’ she said. And then, after a momentary hesitation, ‘I’ve lost my job. Or rather, I’m about to lose my job.’
Matthew gasped.
‘Yes,’ Elspeth went on. ‘There was an incident at the school yesterday and . . . and, well, I’m afraid that I’ve been suspended, pending an inquiry. But they think that it might be best for me to go before then. I’m rather upset by this. Teaching, you see, has been my life—’
She broke off, and Matthew for a moment thought that she had begun to cry.
‘I’d like to come and see you,’ he said firmly. ‘If I