The Mask of Memory Read online

  The full report took him much longer. He had only half completed his notes for it when Margaret returned from, church and it was lunch time. Before lunch he locked all his material and the file in the study safe. Security, even when he felt most secure, was as natural as breathing to him.

  Over lunch he was withdrawn, almost resenting the time he had to take with eating, and was soon back in his study, not bothering to stay and take coffee with his wife. For Margaret his behaviour was nothing unusual, and today there was not even a shadow of resentment in her at his quick withdrawal. Her time was coming.

  The rain eased for a while after lunch and then returned bringing a strong wind with it which set the trees and shrubs in the garden swaying and tossing. The brook below the house rose in spate and the field and road ditches ran dark with storm water.

  At six o’clock Bernard finished. He burnt the rest of his notes and drafts, poured himself a whisky from his study tantalus and sat and read through his full report. He was pleased with it, more than pleased. He could log in his mind even now the reaction of Warboys and the PM. Ambition stirred strongly in him, and he fed it in some distant part of his mind as he read. He had done good work before, but so had other people. But this would mark him. Warboys would go higher and he would follow him … and people like Felixson and the Duke would always have him in mind. Political and governmental gratitude was measured on delicate scales … a breath of doubt or a whisper of inadequacy could set the finely poised beam trembling to the wrong side. Never for one moment would his name be mentioned publicly but the people who mattered would know and remember. At Vigo Hall he had said Yes to the documents and Yes to the good faith of Sir Harry Parks. He had given his word without hesitation. Many men would never have frankly and quickly committed themselves to a Yes. They were the Maybe men, the Perhaps men. There was a limit soon set to how far they would ever go.

  Satisfied with his work, he put his précis, the full report, and all the documents, letters and photographs back into the box file. He took the file up to his bedroom, locked the door, though he had little fear that Margaret would come in unexpectedly, and put them away in a hiding place which he trusted far more than any safe.

  He went down to the sitting-room, poured himself a drink and sat in his armchair, letting his body and mind relax, suddenly aware of the drain on both during the day. Margaret came in. As he moved to stand up and get her a drink she shook her head at him.

  ‘You’re tired. Stay there.’

  She went to the sideboard and poured her drink. As she turned he saw at once that instead of her usual sherry she had poured herself a glass of whisky – poured it, he noticed, with a small shock of surprise, generously and now held it, uncut by soda or water, in her hand.

  He said, ‘ What on earth are you drinking whisky for? Unusual isn’t it?’

  She raised the glass to her lips and sipped at it.

  She said, ‘Yes, it is.’

  He still looked up at her puzzled, and she knew that he had given her an opening which, if neglected now, she might have agonizing trouble the next day in finding. By drinking whisky – which she sometimes did when she was on her own – she had signalled the unusual without intent and was now easily able to commit herself.

  She went on, ‘It’s unusual because … well, perhaps because things are unusual. I want to get things straight between us … finally.’

  ‘What on earth are you getting at?’

  ‘Us. This life we live. Or rather – don’t live. It hasn’t made me happy. You must know that. And I’m sure the same must be so with you.’ She paused and moved to her armchair, perching herself on the side of it, carefully balancing her drink on her crossed knees. She watched him and saw without concern the shades of caution, almost wilful muteness, slide across his face. Bernard, she guessed, was on the point of making some rough, brusque move to turn away from awkwardness. But this time she would not let him. She was in control of herself and her words came easily, unflawed by nervousness. Behind her was Maxie’s strength and love for her. She went on, the wraith of some inner irony moving her, ‘I’m afraid there are things you have to know. It’s no good trying to avoid them. I’m not a child. You’ve got to listen to me and—’

  He made a hopeless gesture with his hand, tipped his head back and breathed deeply.

  ‘Margaret … just hold on a minute. I’ve had a hell of a two days before I came here, and I’ve been at it all day today. I’m flogged.’ He reached for his drink. ‘Whatever it is, let’s talk about it tomorrow. It can’t be anything so important that it won’t wait until then.’ He was running away. He knew that. Whatever was on her mind, its importance was clear in her manner and her words, but he was just too damned dog-tired at the moment to want anything but to sit quietly and let the turmoil and strain of professional work ease from him.

  ‘No, Bernard. It won’t do. I’m going to say what I have to say. I’m sorry I’ve picked a bad moment for you, but you mustn’t stop me now.’

  ‘Look, Margaret, nothing can be so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. This can’t wait.’

  She sipped at her drink and then put it on the table behind her. The movement drew her skirt slightly above her crossed knees, firmed the lines of her body and breasts as she half-turned. For the first time in years he was sharply aware of her. For a moment, though the thought was clouded with his own rising irritation, he held a picture in his mind of her naked and the abrupt knowledge, too, that it had been years since he had seen her naked. Transiently he was facing a desirable stranger. Her next words blacked out the imagery in his mind.

  She said, ‘You have to know, Bernard, that for many weeks now I’ve been unfaithful to you. I love another man. I want a divorce so that we can be married.’

  Of all the things she might have wanted to talk about this had never even peripherally been in his mind. It was impossible to cover his surprise. His stillness and his silence signalled it as though he had been struck some numbing blow. Oddly, underlying the surprise, he felt anger rise in him against Ankers. The damned, inefficient fool. What he had known might happen, wished to happen, had come without the stupid man being aware of it. He had lost the main advantage he had always wanted to have – that he should know everything while she still thought he knew nothing. It was almost as though Quint or Warboys had shamelessly betrayed him professionally.

  Margaret said, ‘Well, Bernard – why don’t you say something?’

  And that, too, from her wounded him. He, whose whole professional excellence allowed him to handle the subtleties of deceit, the deployment of special knowledge, like long practised weapons, now sat here as dumbfounded as some village shopkeeper that the whole district knew for a cuckold, sat, mouth dropped open, idiot moon-face blank, while some cruel-kind neighbour told him the truth. Anger in him suddenly broke its banks, overflowed its courses and swept him away.

  He stood up and almost shouted, ‘ What in God’s name are you talking about?’ There was no sense in his words. They were just a noise, a cry of pain that came from his wounded professional pride.

  Firmly, Margaret said, ‘About another man. I love him and I want to marry him. If it’s a surprise to you, I’m sorry. But I don’t see why it should be. There’s been nothing between us for years. You live your life and I’ve lived – or perhaps gone through the motions of living – mine. Now I want a real life with a man I love. I’m sorry to have dumped it on you at a bad moment. But when would any moment have been anything else but bad?’

  He moved away from her and went to the whisky decanter. He no more wanted a drink than he wanted to fly, but the movement of habit, the turning momentarily of his back on her, gave him a brief sanctuary. Now, rapidly, he began to marshal his powers and gather the lines of control in his own hands, where always – but for that fool Ankers – they should have rested. The advantage was with Margaret, her knowledge of it instinctive, and marked clearly by a firmness new to him. She was r
ational, unflustered and determined – aspects long lost to him, just as for a moment the image of her naked body had long been foreign to him. Now some other man knew her body, appreciated it, had a continuing hunger for it – an irrational jealousy stirred him. He held it down, controlling it though it struggled fiercely.

  He turned to her glass in hand, in some control now. Needing some material sign of the reassumption of his powers and authority, he said quietly, ‘Sit down. Properly in the chair … please.’

  She moved into the chair, sensing the beginning of a new phase, the civilized ordering of the situation. For a moment his eyes, watching her move, watching the long lines of her legs as she crossed them in the chair, stabbed him with the thought of another man’s hands on her body. He pushed it from him. Physically she meant nothing to him.

  He said, ‘ Just let’s sort it out calmly. How long has this been going on?’

  ‘For well over a month.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He has a cottage on North Lobb marshes. I go there.’

  ‘Never here?’

  ‘No …’

  He knew at once that she was lying but it was of no importance, a concession to his amour propre.

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘He’s called Dougall. Maxie Dougall. He’s thirty-five and he’s a naturalist and a painter of kinds … and …’

  He watched her, listened to her struggling now for some rhythm and meaning in her words to describe the man who should take his place. He knew he wanted her to be confused, to make a mess of the picture she had to paint. But, after a few hesitancies, she surprised him. She talked firmly and coherently – qualities he had long lost sight of in her. And she talked with love and affection, demanding from him, it seemed, something of her own response and joy in this man. But there was in him only a violent antipathy. In the past, imagining other men who might attract her and want her, he had felt no doubt about their kind. He would have laid bets on the truth of his predictions; a retired army or navy man, some well-heeled estate agent or solicitor from one of the towns around, a comfortable widower, full of years still, with a large house and gardens, a stretch of fishing on one of the rivers and the occasional day’s hunting. But this man was a tramp! A knowing, cunning one, bright-colour him though she did. He could read his motives as she never could because he had enchanted her with the rainbow hues of a freedom and fulfilment which – whether she would ever admit if or not – served only her physical, long-starved appetites. How typical it was, he thought, calmer now, that when she should come to make her first real claim for happiness she should have picked a worthless bastard who probably walked the world with a permanent chip on his shoulder because he had been an orphanage boy … she was a prize for his twisted ego, an easy sweetener for his daily bitterness. He would take all she could give and then abandon her.

  He broke into her words, and said, ‘What does he know, really know, about you?’

  She looked surprised. ‘What does he have to know? He knows he loves me, and that I love him.’

  ‘I’m ready to grant that. But what I mean is what facts does he know? Does he know how wealthy you are?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so. Yes, he must know I’ve got a lot of money. But what difference does that make?’

  ‘All the difference in the world, I guess. You wouldn’t want me to be less than honest about my feelings, would you? All right, it’s true – our marriage has gone, has been gone for years. I’m sorry about it, but I don’t think there’s any point in a post-mortem. But, dead though it may be, that doesn’t stop me from having a real responsibility towards you still. Years ago when we first met we made a mistake. The mistake was largely mine and, frankly, I don’t think I was particularly generous or understanding about it. I made a mess of it. The last thing I want now is for you to leave me – and find yourself in a bigger mess.’

  ‘There’s no fear of that.’

  ‘I think there is. Margaret, you must look at it sensibly – not like some stupid, immature girl! If it had been anyone else – someone of standing, somebody who had money and responsibility, I could have raised no objection. But, if we’re going to break up, I’ve got to know that you’re going to be happy and well-cared for.’

  ‘That’s just what will happen. Oh, you’ve no idea how Maxie—’

  ‘I think I’ve every idea. And I’m going to be quite brutal about it, because I want you to have your eyes open. You’re a wealthy woman – and you needed love. But getting into bed isn’t love, necessarily. You can’t spend the rest of your life frolicking about the sands and dunes watching birds, or taking long nature walks across the moors. For Christ’s sake, Margaret, grow up!’ Despite, his wish to remain calm, anger at this unknown man and her juvenile infatuation with him rose in him like bile. ‘ This man’s years younger than you. He’s never done a hand’s turn in his life except paint a few clumsy bird studies to sell to the visitors, to make up some small allowance he gets from God knows where. Don’t you see? You were a gift to him. He’s given you what your body wants and he’s charmed you with his sort of back-to-nature life. But if you go off with him, he’ll end up by bleeding you dry. He’ll take your money, as much as he can get and when he tires of being in bed with you he’ll find other women. For God’s sake – you can’t take that kind of risk! I won’t let you and I’ll be frank about why. I mucked up your life to begin with. I’ll never have any forgiveness for that, nor deserve it – but I’m damned if I’ll stand by and let you walk off into another life, to another man who in a couple of years will make you desperately unhappy and wishing to God you’d had the good sense to realize what a damn fool you were being!’

  Margaret stood up. ‘There’s no need to shout. And there’s no need for you to think I haven’t considered all you’ve said. I’m not a fool. But you’ve got it all wrong. I know Maxie and you don’t. I want a divorce and I want to marry him!’

  He said harshly, ‘You’ll get no divorce from me. You’ll find no grounds. And I won’t divorce you. If you want to be free to marry him, then you’ll have to wait five years.’

  ‘You can’t do that to me. You don’t love me. You don’t want me. Maxie and I want to be married.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to wait. Just go and ask your solicitor. If this Maxie wants you legally, he’ll have to wait five years. All right, live with him. Long before the years are up you’ll know exactly what he is – and you won’t bloody well like it!’

  Margaret shouted, ‘Maxie’s not like that! He’s not!’

  It was then that her stupidity, her blindness, really stirred him, his own guilt towards her forcing him to a sudden need to draw some amend for the past he had given her. He stepped forward and took her by the shoulders and shook her violently as he cried, ‘Go on then! Live with this oaf! Sweat it out until you come to your senses. You stupid, silly bitch!’

  He pushed her from him, throwing her roughly back into the armchair, her head thumping against the wooden frame above the velvet padded back. Without another look at her he went out of the room and into the hall.

  Angrily he took down his raincoat and hat and left the house. Out of the darkness, a slash of cold rain beat into his face and above the crest of the hill at the top of the drive, he saw the black top limbs of the trees, etched against a fleeting moon, shaking and tossing in the strong wind.

  A few moments after Bernard had left the house Billy Ankers walked through the sporadic showers to the top of the drive. He had left his car two hundred yards down the road in a lay-by. Buffeted by the wind, rain seeping under his collar, he cursed the boredom of a Sunday evening which had left him the victim of an impulse which came from his own frustration. He was shrewdly self-analytical enough to know – and to find little worth in – the motives which had brought him out into the night. Nancy had been due to arrive at his flat at six. It had been a long time since she had spent an evening with him. He had sat toasting his feet in front of his fire, sucking at his pipe, and enjoying the slow growth
of erotic fancies which crowded his mind as the minutes towards six had passed.

  At six there had been no Nancy. The letter-slit flap of his door had clanked and a moment or two after, he heard the outer street door bang shut.

  A note in a dark-brown envelope lay on the mat. It was from Nancy.

  Sorry, Billy. Boy from next door is bringing this. Ma’s been terrible with the wind and stomeck upset since dinnertime so she cant go down the road to the Harpers for the evening an I cant leave her not the way shes carrying on. Some other time love. Yours Nance. And it’s no good thinking I don’t feel just as upset as you do reading this.

  Her mother was a stupid bitch, he thought angrily. Stuffing her bloody self with food at dinnertime, no doubt, as though she hadn’t eaten for a week while she was still getting over a damned great breakfast if he knew her. And now here he was left half-way up a tree on a wet Sunday evening. She never gave a thought to anyone else, never thought that other people could have appetites, fancies, and what-have-you. If Nance had had any feeling for him she would have poured a hefty dose of bicarbonate down her Ma’s throat and left her. But not Nance. That was a woman all over. She liked it as much as he did, but she could take it or leave it Switch it on or off like an electric light. Didn’t she know that a man couldn’t do that? If you were looking forward to it, been promised it, you couldn’t switch it off just like that. What the hell was he to do now? Some people had all the luck. Got just what they wanted, whenever they wanted it. A picture came into his mind of Maxie Dougall’s cottage, of moving thighs, restrictedly seen through a thin break in drawn curtains. Now, there was a bastard who had the luck of the devil.

  Ten minutes later, knowing quite clearly and without shame that he went as a voyeur and not an investigator, he was on his way to North Lobb marshes.