Chapter 15 I’ll Swing for You #2
He made a clucking sound of disapproval. “Poor old Thomas. Do you think it gives him comfort, as he lives out his days eating prison slop and sleeping in an eight-by-six cage, that he’s still got a wife on the outside?”
She opened her mouth to speak. He held up a warning finger.
“Trouble is, any widow’s inheritance would be invalidated.
That’s the house and Mr. Wilson’s war pension.
No more house, no more lodgers. The income from your little magazine isn’t much, is it?
I suppose you might apply for a waitress position at a Lyons, like in the old days.
Then again, they prefer younger girls in those places.
You might have to go out cleaning. I suppose it was good enough for Mum. ”
There was a terrible pause. Then Honor said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.
” She’d meant to sound dismissive. But panic was seeping out.
Her fingertips tingled. She fought the urge to stub out her cigarette on the back of his hand.
Straightening her spine, she shifted back in her seat.
“You know nothing about my life. Nothing. So don’t you dare think you can threaten me. If you ever—”
“Or you’ll do what?” said Jimmy with a mocking grimace.
A part of him recognized this fight as senseless, understood that he’d be better off simply disappearing.
But another part remained a terrified boy sitting alone in a cell, knowing his sister was swanning around London and never giving him a second thought.
In the opinion of that terrified boy, the score wasn’t yet even.
It was a good question, thought Honor. She’d do what? “Why don’t you go and pack your things.” Her tone hovered between furious and mollifying. “Pack your things, get out of my house, and forget you ever had a sister.”
For some time Robbie had been lying on his bed, his face jammed into a pillow, thinking that he ought to start packing his things.
He could find a cheap hotel, he supposed, just for a couple of nights, while he decided what to do.
If he took a suitcase tonight, he could ask Honor to put his remaining worldly goods, such as they were, into store.
Perhaps he’d go abroad. A bonus inducement to fleeing the country: It was Easter next Sunday.
He’d be expected in Dorking. Gathering the family to celebrate Christ’s resurrection was one of his mother’s stalwart expectations, which one defied at one’s peril.
The prospect of sitting down to lunch with his sisters and their husbands—tedious, unappetizing specimens all—and their innumerable snotty-nosed offspring made Robbie feel murderous.
But the real point of escaping to France, Italy, Spain—it hardly mattered where—was knowing he could walk down any street and never bump into Jimmy or George.
He looked at his wristwatch: nearly seven o’clock. Jimmy would be in the pub for a while yet, but at some point he might come home for supper. I’d better go down to the office now, thought Robbie. Get my address book and other odds and sods while the coast is clear.
To his horror, as he placed his hand on the banister, he heard Jimmy coming up the stairs. Robbie turned back, and as he did so, Jimmy stopped on the second-floor landing and rapped on a door. “Come in!” trilled George, obviously expecting him.
An alarming heat suffused Robbie’s temples, his forehead.
He had to sit down, right there on the carpeted stair, to steady himself.
Am I ill? he wondered. Has all this torment caused an aneurysm?
But no, he realized after a moment or two.
This wasn’t an aneurysm. It was rage. Unclouded, ungovernable rage.
George heard a soft knock on her door. “Come in!” she called, assuming it was Mina or Honor. “Oh!” She jumped to her feet from her sitting position on the settee. “Jimmy. Hullo. Is everything all right?”
“Sorry to disturb you. I was just at the pub with Honor, and—”
“She told you too?” George blurted the words out.
“May I?” He indicated the straight-backed chair by the dressing table. She nodded, and he pulled it closer. “Yeah. Says I’ve got to leave tonight.” He sat down. “She discussed it with you, then?”
“I beg your pardon? I mean—sorry, Honor’s kicking you out? Why?”
He sighed. “Oh, I dunno. She’s sick of me, I expect.
Everyone always gets sick of me. It’s just…
I like it here. I like all of you.” He crossed his legs and glanced toward the window.
What he didn’t say—couldn’t say—was that he wasn’t lonely anymore, and it felt miraculous.
“I was wondering—d’you think you could talk to her, ask her to let me stay, even just for another week?
She’d listen to you. She admires you, thinks the world of you, everyone says so. ”
George sat back down heavily. She looked at her stockinged feet, then at Jimmy.
She remembered trying to seduce him, sleeping pressed up against him, and felt ill.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “But I couldn’t possibly get involved.
Honor makes her own decisions when it comes to the household.
It’s not my place to interfere. I’m sure you understand. ”
He came and sat next to her. “I do understand, of course. It wouldn’t hurt to try, though, would it? I’d be no end grateful.” Even by tomorrow, he thought, Robbie might have calmed down. Then Jimmy would make him see the truth, clear up this farcical misunderstanding.
George said nothing, just tilted her head and considered him with a sort of chilly contempt.
As though he were a bothersome stranger.
He felt his face flush with humiliation.
“How about this,” he said lightly. “We could do each other a favor. Obviously I’d never think of telling anyone about your little…
your little mishap. Because there’d be trouble if I did, wouldn’t there?
Your friend, what’s her name, Fiona? The one who wrote to you.
She might get two years. Life is the maximum, but in this day and age, that’s not likely.
The doctor will be in the most trouble. Dr. Jenkins, isn’t it?
You’ll be seen as more of a victim than anything else.
I reckon you’d get six months. Possibly the sentence will even be suspended.
Except it’ll be in all the papers, won’t it?
I can see the headlines now: ‘Society Beauties in the Dock for Procurement of Abortion.’ ”
George got to her feet and stared down at him.
The ceiling light accentuated the rings around his eyes and cast a yellowish glow on his cheeks.
He stared back at her, no longer vulnerable but closed off, remote.
She was frightened and also incensed, on the brink of tearful hysterics or physical violence.
“How dare you,” she almost whispered. “Get out. Get out of my sight.”
Jimmy lifted his hand to knock on Robbie’s door, then hesitated.
Maybe first he’d talk to Honor. If she dug her heels in, he’d ask Robbie to leave with him tonight.
After setting him straight, of course, about George.
Maybe Robbie could get the truth from the horse’s mouth.
She’d certainly want to quash the rumor!
Except, of course, he’d probably rather die than raise the subject with her.
But if Jimmy suggested—pleaded—that he do so, wouldn’t that be evidence enough?
The thought was cheering, and he went downstairs with a lightened heart.