The Fallen Curtain Page 9

  “They take up all my time. It’s not just the watering and watching the temperature and so on. Plants know when you love them. They only flourish in an atmosphere of love. I honestly don’t believe you’d find a better specimen of an opuntia in London than mine. I’m particularly proud of the peperomias and the zygocacti too. Of course, I expect you’ve seen them growing in their natural habitat with all your mad rushing around those foreign places.”

  “We were mostly in Stockholm and New York, Merle.”

  “Oh, were you? So many years went by when you never bothered to write to me that I really can’t keep pace. I thought about you a lot, of course. I want you to know you really had my sympathy, moving house all the time and that awful divorce from what’s-his-name, and babies to cope with and then getting married again and everything. I used to feel how sad it was that I’d made so much of my life while you … What’s the matter?”

  “That plant, Merle, it moved.”

  “That’s because you touched it. When you touch one of its mouths it closes up. It’s called Dionaea muscipula.”

  The plant stood alone in a majolica pot contained in an elaborate white stand. It looked very healthy. It had delicate shiny leaves and from its heart grew five red-gold blossoms. As Daphne peered more closely she saw that these resembled mouths, as Merle had put it, far more than flowers, whiskery mouths, soft and ripe and luscious. One of these was now closed.

  “Doesn’t it have a common name?”

  “Of course it does. The Venus’ Fly-trap. Muscipula means fly-eater, dear.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “It eats flies. I’ve been trying to grow one for years. I was absolutely thrilled when I succeeded.”

  “Yes, but what d’you mean, it eats flies? It’s not an animal.”

  “It is in a way, dear. The trouble is there aren’t many flies here. I feed it on little bits of meat. You’ve gone rather pale, Daphne. Have you got a headache? We’ll have our sherry now and then I’ll see if I can catch a fly and you can see it eat it up.”

  “I’d really much rather not, Merle,” said Daphne, backing away from the plant. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings but I don’t—well, I hate the idea of catching free live things and feeding them to—to that.”

  “Free live things? We’re talking about flies.” Merle, large and perfumed, grabbed Daphne’s arm and pulled her away. Her dress was of red chiffon with trailing sleeves and her fingernails matched it. “The trouble with you,” said Merle, “is that you’re a mass of nerves and you’re much worse now than you were when we were girls. I thank God every day of my life I don’t know what it is to be neurotic. Here you are, your sherry. I’ve put it in a big glass to buck you up. I’m going to make it my business to look after you, Daphne. You don’t know anybody else in London, do you?”

  “Hardly anybody,” said Daphne, sitting down where she couldn’t see the Venus’ Fly-trap. “My boys are in the States and my daughter’s in Scotland.”

  “Well, you must come up here every day. No, you won’t be intruding. When I first knew you were definitely coming I said to myself, I’m going to see to it Daphne isn’t lonely. But don’t imagine you’ll get on with the other tenants in this block. Those of them who aren’t standoffish snobs are—well, not the sort of people you’d want to know. But we won’t talk about them. We’ll talk about us. Unless, of course, you feel your past has been too painful to talk about?”

  “I wouldn’t quite say …”

  “No, you wouldn’t care to rake up unpleasant memories. I’ll just put a drop more sherry in your glass and then I’ll tell you all about my last venture, my agency.”

  Daphne rested her head against a cushion, brushed away an ivy frond, and prepared to listen.

  From a piece of fillet steak Merle was scraping slivers of meat. She was all in diaphanous gold today, an amber chain around her neck, the finery half-covered by a frilly apron.

  “I used to do that for my babies when they first went on solids,” said Daphne.

  “Babies, babies. You’re always on about your babies. You’ve been up here every day for three weeks now and I don’t think you’ve once missed an opportunity to talk about your babies and your men. Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I don’t mean to upset you, but one really does get so weary of women like you talking about that side of life as if one had actually missed something.”

  “Why are you scraping that meat, Merle?”

  “To feed my little Venus. That’s her breakfast. Come along. I’ve got a fly I caught under a sherry glass but I couldn’t catch more than one.”

  The fly was very small. It was crawling up the inside of the glass, but when Merle approached it, it began to fly and buzz frenziedly against the transparent dome of its prison. Daphne turned her back. She went to the window, the huge, plant-filled bay window, and looked out, pretending to be interested in the view. She heard the scrape of glass and from Merle a triumphant gasp. Merle trod very heavily. Under the thick carpet the boards creaked. Merle began talking to the plant in a very gentle, maternal voice.

  “This really is a wonderful outlook,” said Daphne brightly, “You can see for miles.”

  Merle said, “C’est Vénus toute entière à sa proie attachée.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You never were any good at languages, dear. Oh, don’t pretend you’re so mad about that view. You’re just being absurdly sensitive about what really amounts to gardening. I can’t bear that sort of dishonesty. I’ve finished now, anyway. She’s had her breakfast and all her mouths are shut up. Who are you waving to?”

  “A rather nice young couple who live in the flat next to me.”

  “Well, please don’t.” Merle looked down and then drew herself up, all golden pleats and stiff golden curls. “You couldn’t know, dear, but those two people are the very end. For one thing, they’re not a couple, they’re not married, I’m sure of that. Of course, that’s no business of mine. What is my business is that they’re been keeping a dog here—look, that spaniel thing—and it’s strictly against the rules to keep animals in these flats.”

  “What about your Fly-trap?”

  “Oh, don’t be so silly! As I was saying, they keep that dog and let it foul the garden. I wrote to the managing agents, but those agents are so lax—they’ve no respect for me because I’m a single woman, I suppose. But I wrote again the day before yesterday and now I understand they’re definitely going to be turned out.”

  Forty feet below the window, on the parking space between the block and the garden, the boy, who wore jeans and a leather jacket, picked up his dog and placed it on the back seat of a battered car. His companion, who had waist-length hair much the colour of Merle’s dress, got into the passenger seat, but the boy hesitated. As Merle brought her face close to the glass, he looked up and raised two wide-splayed fingers.

  “Oaf!” said Merle. “The only thing to do with people like that is to ignore them. Can you imagine it, he lets that dog of his relieve itself up against a really beautiful specimen of Cryptomeria japonica. Let’s forget him and have a nice cup of coffee.”

  “Merle, how long will those flowers last on that Venus thing of yours? I mean, they’ll soon die away, won’t they?”

  “No, they won’t. They’ll last for ages. You know, Daphne, fond as I am of you, I wouldn’t leave you alone in this flat for anything. You’ve a personal hatred of my muscipula. You’d like to destroy it.”

  “I’ll put the coffee on,” said Daphne.

  Merle phoned for a taxi. Then she put her little red address book with all the phone numbers in it into her scarlet patent-leather handbag along with her lipstick and her gold compact and her keys, her cheque book, and four five-pound notes.

  “We could have walked,” said Daphne.

  “No, we couldn’t, dear. When I have a day at the shops I like to feel fresh. I don’t want to half-kill myself walking there. It’s not the cost that’s worrying you, is it? Because you know I’ll pay. I appreciate
the difference between our incomes, Daphne, and if I don’t harp on it it’s only because I try to be tactful. I want to buy you something, something really nice to wear. It seems such a wicked shame to me those men of yours didn’t see to it you were well-provided for.”

  “I’ve got quite enough clothes, Merle.”

  “Yes, but all grey and black. The only bright thing you’ve got is that red hat and you’ve stopped wearing that.”

  “I’m old, Merle dear. I don’t want to get myself up in bright colours. I’ve had my life.”

  “Well, I haven’t had mine! I mean, I…” Merle bit her lip, getting scarlet lipstick on her teeth. She walked across the room, picked her ocelot coat off the back of the sofa, and paused in front of the Fly-trap. Its soft, flame-coloured mouths were open. She tickled them with her fingertips and they snapped shut. Merle giggled. “You know what you remind me of, Daphne? A fly. That’s just what you look like in your grey coat and that funny bit of veil on your hat. A fly.”

  “There’s the taxi,” said Daphne.

  It deposited them outside a large overheated store. Merle dragged Daphne through the jewellery department, the perfumery, past rotary stands with belts on them, plastic models in lingerie. They went up in the lift. Merle bought a model dress, orange chiffon with sequins on the skirt. They went down in the lift and into the next store. Merle bought face bracer and cologne and a gilt choker. They went up the escalator. Merle bought a brass link belt and tried to buy Daphne a green and blue silk scarf. Daphne consented at last to be presented with a pair of stockings, power elastic ones for her veins.

  “Now we’ll have lunch on the roof garden,” said Merle.

  “I should like a cup of tea.”

  “And I’ll have a large sherry. But first I must freshen up. I’m dying to spend a penny and do my face.”

  They queued with their pennies. The ladies’ cloakroom had green marble dressing tables with mirrors all down one side and green washbasins all down the other. Daphne sat down. Her feet had begun to swell. There were twenty or thirty other women in the cloakroom, doing their faces, resticking false eyelashes. One girl, whose face seemed vaguely familiar, was actually brushing her long golden hair. Merle put her handbag down on a free bit of green marble. She washed her hands, helped herself to a gush of Calèche from the scent-squirting machine, came back, opening and shutting her coat to fan herself. It was even hotter than in her flat.

  She sat down, drew her chair to the mirror.

  “Where’s my handbag?” Merle screamed. “I left my handbag here! Someone’s stolen my handbag. Daphne, Daphne, someone’s stolen my handbag!”

  The oyster satin sofa sagged under Merle’s weight. Daphne smoothed back the golden curls and put another pad of cottonwool soaked in cologne on the red corrugated forehead.

  “Bit better now?”

  “I’m quite all right. I’m not one of your neurotic women to get into a state over a thing like that. Thank God I’d left my spare key with the porter and I hadn’t locked the mortice.”

  “You’ll have to have both locks changed, Merle.”

  “Of course I will, eventually. I’ll see to it next week. Nobody can get in here, can they? They don’t know who I am. I mean, they don’t know whose keys they’ve got.”

  “They’ve got your handbag.”

  “Daphne dear, I do wish you wouldn’t keep stating the obvious. I know they have got my handbag. The point is, there was nothing in my handbag to show who I am.”

  “There was your cheque book with your name on it.”

  “My name, dear, in case it’s escaped your notice, is M. Smith. I haven’t gone about changing it all my life like you.” Merle sat up and took a gulp of walnut-brown sherry. “The store manager was charming, wasn’t he, and the police? I daresay they’ll find it, you know. It’s a most distinctive handbag, not like that great black thing you cart about with you. My little red one could have gone inside yours. I wish I’d thought to put it there.”

  “I wish you had,” said Daphne.

  Daphne’s phone rang. It was half past nine and she was finishing her breakfast, sitting in front of her little electric fire.

  Merle sounded very excited. “What do you think? Isn’t it marvellous? The store manager’s just phoned to say they’ve found my bag. Well, it wasn’t him, it was his secretary, stupid-sounding woman with one of those put-on accents. However, that’s no concern of mine. They found my bag fallen down behind a radiator in that cloakroom. Isn’t it an absolute miracle? Of course the money had gone, but my cheque book was there and the keys. I’m very glad I didn’t take your advice and change those locks yesterday. It never does to act on impulse, Daphne.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “I’ve arranged to go down and collect my bag at eleven. As soon as I ring off, I’m going to phone for a taxi and I want you to come with me, dear. I’ll have a bath and see to my plants—I’ve managed to catch a bluebottle for Venus—and then the taxi will be here.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t come,” said Daphne.

  “Why on earth not?”

  Daphne hesitated. Then she said, “I said I hardly know anybody in London but I do know this one man, this—well, he was a friend of my second husband, and he’s a widower now and he’s coming to lunch with me, Merle. He’s coming at twelve and I must be here to see to things.”

  “A man?” said Merle. “Another man?”

  “I’ll look out for your taxi and when I see you come in I’ll just pop up and hear all about it, shall I? I’m sorry I can’t…”

  “Sorry? Sorry for what? I can collect my handbag by myself. I’m quite used to standing on my own feet.” The receiver went down with a crash.

  Merle had a bath and put on the orange dress. It was rather showy for day wear with its sequins and its fringes, but she could never bear to have a new dress and not wear it at once. The ocelot coat would cover most of it. She watered the peperomias and painted a little leaf gloss on the ivy. The bluebottle had died in the night, but Dionaea muscipula didn’t seem to mind. She opened her orange strandy mouths for Merle and devoured the dead bluebottle along with the shreds of fillet steak.

  Merle put on her cream silk turban and a long scarf of flame-coloured silk. Her spare mortice key was where she always kept it, underneath the sanseveria pot. She locked the Yale and the mortice and then the taxi took her to the store. Merle sailed into the manager’s office, and when the manager told her he had no secretary, had never phoned her flat, and had certainly not found her handbag, she deflated like a fat orange balloon into which someone has stuck a pin.

  “You’ve been the victim of a hoax, Miss Smith.”

  Merle pulled herself together. She could always do that, she had superb control. She didn’t want aspirins or brandy or policemen or any of the other aids to quietude offered by the manager. When she had told him he didn’t know his job, that if there was a conspiracy against her—as she was sure there must be—he was in it, she floundered down the stairs and flapped her mouth and her arms for a taxi.

  When she got home the first thing that struck her as strange was that the door was only locked on the Yale. She could have sworn she had locked it on the mortice too, but no doubt her memory was playing her tricks—and no wonder, the shock she had had. There was a little bit of earth on the hall carpet. Merle didn’t like that, earth on her gold Wilton. Inside her ocelot she was sweating. She took off her coat and opened the drawing-room door.

  Daphne saw the taxi come and Merle bounce out of it, an orange orchid springing from a black bandbox. Merle looked wild with excitement, her turban all askew. Daphne smiled to herself and shook her head. She laid the table and finished making the salad she knew her friend would like with his lunch, and then she went upstairs to see Merle.

  There was a mirror on each landing. Daphne was so small and thin that she didn’t puff much when she had to climb stairs. As she came to the top of each flight she saw a little grey woman trotting to meet her, a woman with smooth white ha
ir and large, rather diffident grey eyes, who wore a grey wool dress partly covered by a cloudy stole of lace. She smiled at her reflection. She was old now but she had had her moments, her joy, her gratification, her intense pleasures. And soon there was to be a new pleasure, a confrontation she had looked forward to for weeks. Who could tell what would come of it? With a last smile at her grey and fluttery image, Daphne pushed open the unlatched door of Merle’s flat.

  In the Garden of Eden, the green paradisal bower, someone had dropped a bomb. No, they couldn’t have done that, for the ceiling was still there and the carpet and the oyster satin furniture, torn now and plastered all over with earth. Every plant had been broken and torn apart. Leaves lay scattered in heaps like the leaves of autumn, only these were green, succulent, bruised. In the rape of the room, in the midst of ripped foliage, stems bleeding sap, shards of china, lay the Venus’ Fly-trap, its roots wrenched from their pot and its mouths closed for ever.

  Merle tried to scream but the noise came out only as a gurgle, the glug-glug agonised gasp of a scream in a nightmare. She fell on her knees and crawled about. Choking and muttering, she scrabbled among the earth and, picking up torn leaves, tried to piece them together like bits of a jigsaw puzzle. She crouched over the Fly-trap and nursed it in her hands, keening and swaying to and fro.

  She didn’t hear the door click shut. It was a long time before she realised Daphne was standing over her, silent, looking down. Merle lifted her red, streaming face. Daphne had her hand over her mouth, the hand with the two wedding rings on it. Merle thought Daphne must be covering her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud.

  Slowly, heavily, she got up. Her long orange scarf was in her hands, stretched taut, twisting, twisting. She was surprised how steady her voice was, how level and sane.