Chapter 13 More Than a Frisson
Before getting into bed, Mina pushed her chest of drawers in front of the door and tucked a small, sharp knife under her pillow. Saul had told her to keep it with her at all times, “just in case.” She didn’t need telling twice. Still, she drifted in and out of light sleep, avoiding bad dreams.
Saul, the photograph of young Jimmy in his coat pocket, walked to Gloucester Road Underground station and got on an eastbound District line train. He didn’t return until after two o’clock in the morning.
Honor hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and she’d just been turned down for a new mortgage on the house.
The bank manager had been quite intransigent.
Wasn’t there a male relative, he’d inquired, who might serve as co-applicant?
He had the decency to look embarrassed, but what good did that do her?
She had hoped to pay Jimmy off once and for all.
Not only that, yesterday a letter had arrived from Rebecca Levene, the woman who owned Saul’s Chagall painting.
Mrs. Levene, who had inherited the painting from her father, had always refused to sell it.
Now she was emigrating to Israel with her family and apparently needed money.
So she was putting Gila with Delphiniums on the market and giving Honor first refusal, at the precise moment she was newly penniless. How God loved a joke.
When midnight came and went, Robbie got up and knocked for Jimmy in his usual way.
He saw the line of light along the bottom of the door and heard Jimmy saying “Shh!” then laughing.
A female voice said something anxious, imploring—the tone was clear, even if the words were unintelligible.
Robbie returned to his own bed and curled up in a ball.
He stayed like that all night, rigid and wakeful.
At six o’clock he got dressed and, in some sort of fugue state, went into Jimmy’s room.
In the narrow bed, George was asleep on her side, mouth slightly open and blond hair fanned on the pillow like a halo.
Her plump shoulders were bare, and a fraying black strap slipped down one arm.
Where her neck met her chest, the skin was deeply flushed.
Next to her, Jimmy lay on his back, eyelashes casting jagged shadows on his cheeks, one arm slung above his head.
His broad tuft of reddish underarm hair gleamed damply.
Suddenly, Robbie got the feeling Jimmy wasn’t really asleep, that he was enjoying the sensation of Robbie standing there, staring at them both.
The faintest of smirks played on his lips.
George, though, definitely wasn’t pretending.
She made rhythmic little snuffles as she breathed, and a sparkle of drool slid from the corner of her mouth.
Robbie was about to walk away when he noticed, from the corner of his eye, his leather gun holster on Jimmy’s bedside table.
He hadn’t noticed it missing. But he couldn’t reach across and take it, not without waking George.
I’ll retrieve it later, he thought, leaving the room with a light tread and closing the door silently behind him.
He had no idea what to do with himself. But he couldn’t just sit still.
So he put his coat on and went out into the bright, frosty morning.
He walked for maybe half an hour, his stomach aching and his thoughts slow and repetitive.
Nothing made the least bit of sense—except, he realized, his own foolishness.
He’d ignored what his gut was telling him, believed Jimmy’s lies, and now reality had smacked him in the face.
On his return, he found Honor in the kitchen, sitting with a cup of tea and a cigarette. She didn’t usually smoke at breakfast. “You’re up early,” he said.
“I might say the same to you. Where have you been at this hour?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He sat down and indicated her cigarettes. “Could I pinch one?”
For a few minutes they sat and smoked in silence. Then Robbie said, “Oh, you were right, by the way. About George and Jimmy having a frisson. It’s a bit more than a frisson, if the fact she spent the night in his room is anything to go by.” He wondered if Honor heard the spite in his voice.
“Oh, Robbie, tell me you’re joking!”
“Never been more serious in my life.” He ground out his cigarette. “She was pregnant five minutes ago, too. She had an abortion. You’d think she might, you know, curb her sociableness for a brief time. But no.”
“Pregnant how? From whom?”
“Not Jimmy, it predated him. One of her many other conquests. Who can keep up?”
Honor wanted to get a drink of water, but her legs felt weak. “I’m afraid words fail me,” she said. “Is she all right? Was the abortion done in a hospital?”
Robbie shrugged. “No idea.” He stood up. “Might as well get on with some work, I suppose.”
Honor knew Robbie didn’t much like George, but she was surprised by his indifference. As for Jimmy, she thought, is he trying to hurt me through George? Not that he understood, of course, what he’d done. Neither of them did.
All day Robbie worked with a strange focus and efficiency, while Honor drifted in and out of the office. If his rejection notes were a little more barbed, a little terser than usual, that couldn’t be helped.
He changed his mind hour to hour, minute to minute, about how to act when he saw Jimmy. He liked the idea of cutting him dead, remaining blank and stoical. At the same time, he longed to hear him explain himself. Apologize, even. He was owed that much, surely?
When he finished work that evening, Robbie’s legs carried him to the King’s Arms practically of their own volition. Jimmy was sitting at the bar, reading the Daily Express and eating an apple, a full pint at his elbow. He turned and smiled as Robbie slid onto the stool beside him.
“I just wanted to know,” said Robbie, “why you couldn’t be honest with me about you and George. Why was that so hard?”
Jimmy closed and folded his newspaper. “Honest about what? What are you talking about?”
“I know you and George are sleeping together. I saw her in your bed last night.”
Jimmy took a sip of his pint and carefully set it down again, as if composing himself. “Look, it’s not what you think. We’re just pals, me and George. She needs a friend, after all that horrible business with… you know. That’s all.”
Robbie swallowed. “I thought you liked me. At least, I thought you respected me enough to be honest. Really, it’s fine.
I’m not going to crumble into a thousand pieces.
So you’re having an affair with George. Fine.
Let’s have it all out in the open. What I can’t stand is being laughed at behind my back. ”
“Okay, listen. Last night, George came up to my room because—”
But Robbie couldn’t bear to hear it. Heat suffused his face, and a buzzing sound filled his head.
“You know what, forget it. I don’t need an explanation.
Just stay out of my way in the future. Do me that kindness, please.
” He got to his feet and swiped at an itch on his cheek.
He realized it was a tear. Embarrassment was inadequate a word to describe the shrinking of his soul as he left the pub—convinced, whether it was true or not, that every pair of eyes in the place was fixed upon him.