Turtle Diary

48 Neaera H

I came home from the museum on Tuesday having written nothing but that Madame Beetle paragraph. I looked at the telephone and said, ‘Ring’. It rang but it wasn’t George, it was William phoning to tell me what our expenses had been. Then in a few minutes it rang again and it was George. He invited me out to dinner and I asked him to my place for drinks first.

The flat looked different with that to look forward to. Everything in it, all the clutter on the desk and the drawing-table, all the books and objects took on new character with the prospect of being seen by him.

I bought whisky and gin and flowers. I had a long bubble-bath, washed my hair, put on the Arab dress I look best in and my posh boots. Patchouli too. I’d bought it for the first time only the other day at Forbidden Fruit but it seemed as if it’d always been my scent.

There was a knock on the door about an hour before George was due.

‘Good evening,’ said Webster de Vere. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you. Were you in full flow at the typewriter?’

‘Like a river in spate,’ I said, certain for no particular reason that he’d listened at the door before knocking.

‘I mustn’t bother you then,’ he said with a good deal of optical activity. Such bright glances! I said nothing, stood at the door without asking him in. He was bothering me. ‘But I thought,’ he said, ‘perhaps you might be persuaded to abandon your muse briefly for a sherry with me. Dreadful, really, we’ve been neighbours all these years and yet we scarcely know each other.’

‘I don’t think it’s dreadful at all,’ I said. ‘A friendly presence scarcely known can be quite nice.’ I hadn’t meant that to be encouraging but it encouraged him.

‘Then you’ll come,’ he said, his eyes absolutely darting rays of light.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but I can’t. I’m expecting someone in a little while.’

‘Pity,’ he said, lowering his sparkle. ‘Another time perhaps. How’re the snails?’

‘Cleaning up,’ I said, moving back a little with my hand on the door.

‘Actually they have tiny wireless transmitters in them,’ he said with an evil smile. ‘So I get to know everything that goes on in your flat.’

‘I’m afraid it must be terribly dull listening for you,’ I said. ‘You must excuse me now.’

‘Till soon,’ he said as I closed the door.

I quickly took the snails out of the tank, put them in a peanut-butter jar full of water and left the jar outside his door.

What could have worked him up to that awful pitch? He’d seen me often enough without getting all excited. But until he fed Madame Beetle he hadn’t seen my flat which perhaps looked as if a good deal of work was being done and a comfortable living being made. Maybe he was tired of young men and old ladies and wanted to settle down. Dreadful of me to think it but I thought it.

‘There’s a jar of snails outside your neighbour’s door,’ said George when he arrived.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘They were in Madame Beetle’s tank for a while but I didn’t like the way they looked at me.’

‘There’ll be more,’ he said, and showed me little patches of eggs on the sides of the tank.

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll get them before they get me.’

He walked about the flat looking at things. I’d only seen him in shirtsleeves before. He was wearing an old tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, no tie.

‘You look different tonight,’ he said.

‘How?’ I said.

‘Jolly. Full of smiles.’

‘That’s how I feel,’ I said. We both drank gin neat, it was bright and velvety. We smiled at each other over our glasses, time seemed full and easy, available in unlimited amounts. George seemed to carry a clear space about with him that made all things plain and simple where he was. The room lost its tired complexity, became comradely and cheerful. Without going to the window I knew that the evening view of the lamplit square would be as round and juicy as a ripe plum.

We went to the Bistingo on the King’s Road and had steak and drank red wine. The evening seemed very bright. We walked up the Embankment to Westminster afterwards, then over the bridge to the South Bank. We walked about on the different levels up and down the steps and by the river. The plaza by the Royal Festival Hall was like a gigantic stage-set, the night was full of quiet excitement, the river was shining, the music-boats had gemmed windows, the trains across the Hungerford Bridge were freighted with promise.

We had coffee at the National Film Theatre clubroom, then walked back to my place slowly and by devious routes. At two o’clock in the morning we came past the Albert Bridge. Five or six taxis always park there for the night by a little hut that must be a dispatcher’s office. In the first taxi in the rank the driver was sitting in the back seat in the dark playing a muted trumpet. Dixieland. The music floated quietly through the open window, small and lively.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Muskrat Ramble,’ said George.

At home we lay in bed smoking, watched the shapes of light on the ceiling, pale abstractions from the street lamps.

Before I fell asleep I saw green water, the white shark-glimmer. I looked at my watch. Half past three. I hope William’s all right, I thought.