The Inn at the Edge of the World Page 2

  ‘Lord,’ said Harry, as old and half-forgotten images of the island drifted through his head. Without knowing quite why he took paper and an envelope from his desk drawer and wrote off to Eric.

  Jessica ate her breakfast on foot since she felt ridiculous sitting alone at the table with food in front of her. Eating on your own was absurd enough, she thought, without making a meal of it. She pulled a grapefruit into segments and spat the pith into the ashtray. One of the benefits of eating alone was that you could do that without being looked at askance by some man. Whenever Jessica thought of not living alone she thought of some man. At the moment she was enjoying being alone, but she wasn’t certain how long this would last. Her principal fear at present was that she would get drunk and ask Mike to come back to her. Whatever the results of this were, they would be disastrous. If he refused her pride would be shattered, and if he did come back the whole dreary business would start again. ‘Yuk,’ said Jessica. She opened the fridge and looked hopefully for a bottle of apple juice. There wasn’t any, so she drank some milk from the carton. Then she wondered what to do next. She supposed she could always go and see her agent, who seemed to appreciate these small attentions. Jessica still could not get used to being greeted by agents with glad cries and welcome, since she remembered too well the times before she was successful when such people were always in meetings when she rang, or whisking out of sight through unmarked doors when she arrived in person at their offices. In the front office there had always been one of those all-purpose young girls so usual in publishing, publicity and public relations, and all liars. It was a bad world, thought Jessica censoriously, that taught all those indistinguishable young females to lie like that for a living. Still, it needn’t bother her any more since she was famous now – well, fairly. She got large sums for appearing in or merely doing voice-overs for com mercials and her agent loved her. She had also done well in film and television, but for some reason whenever she needed to reassure herself she thought of the vast sums she was paid for praising toilet soap and tea-bags. She supposed a person of more depth would be ashamed, or at least covertly deprecatory, of this activity, but it only gave her a sense of satisfaction, of universal acceptance. She was a household voice and a household face, if not a household word. The knowledge made her comfort able and it amused her. Mike had professed to despise the commercials, which was one of the reasons she had poured the coffee over him. He had then perversely accused her of being actressy. Only an actress, he had said, would do such a ludicrous thing: he said she was showing off. Jessica had found this irrational and infuriating, for surely any woman of spirit, be she waitress, wife or what-the-hell, would have done the same. It was then that she had decided they were incompatible, although she had to admit that it was Mike who had packed his bags and left. In leaving so hurriedly he had also left an assortment of his belongings. Every day Jessica debated with herself whether to send them round to him on a bike, thereby letting him see what she thought of him, or whether to wait for him to come and get them and see what he had to say for himself. It was a problem.

  Outside, a paltry November rain was falling, which made the prospect of going out seem unattractive. On the other hand, what would she do if she stayed in? She was starting rehearsals of a play in the new year but that was some time away and she had nothing to do in the meantime except sometimes watch or listen to herself on TV (this had also maddened Mike). Her agent might find her something untaxing to do while she was waiting. She hated the waiting. She was afraid. She looked at herself in the glass over the fireplace and asked herself if she was that living cliché, an actress who felt unreal when she wasn’t acting. No, she decided – for she had learned from that very profession that honesty was a prerequisite of performance – she was merely a woman who had been left by her lover. Why this should frighten her she didn’t know: it might reasonably have made her angry or sad, but what she felt was fear. She percolated the coffee as she thought about it, for doing anything was better than doing nothing. If, she argued, Mike had been the cornerstone of her existence, then when he extracted himself it was only natural that her confidence, at the very least, should have been shaken – and confidence was her stock-in-trade – but it didn’t feel like that: her confidence in her abilities was unimpaired. It was probably, she decided with dissatisfaction, that she was used to being half of a couple. Having been twice a wife and many times a mistress, she was unaccustomed to being single. It was some dreary atavistic residue that bedevilled her: a primitive instinct lingering on from the times when it was better that there were two of you, when it was convenient for one to go out hunting while the other picked nuts and berries and kept the baby from the ravages of the sabre-toothed tiger. But I haven’t got a baby and there are no more tigers, she told herself. And the two of you would only have been part of a larger tribe, and I would deeply loathe being part of a tribe. Being part of a cast was different.

  Jessica wearied of these reflections and started to read Private Eye, beginning with the Lonely Hearts column. It was by mere chance that, turning over the page, the word Christmas caught her eye and she read Eric’s ad. For want of anything more constructive to do she ringed it round with her eyebrow pencil and went to put her clothes on. As she painted her face she realized she had blunted her eyebrow pencil by so misusing it, and was glad of the necessity of sharpening it, since that, too, was something to do. She took up her coat, put an arm in a sleeve and then took it off again. It was still raining after all, and she’d left her umbrella somewhere. She turned on the radio and heard the announcer heralding the morning service. She turned it off again, for on the other channels they would only be playing love songs.

  Already her mantelpiece held several invitations to Christmas parties. The prospect made her feel slightly bilious and she resented their importunity. They had to be answered, and if she answered in the affirmative she’d have to turn up to them, and if in the negative she’d have to think of excuses, for her profession had also made Jessica meticulous in these matters. Offending people – be they her public or those concerned with management – could be harmful to the career. Her resentment increased until she took paper and an envelope from the cupboard under the telephone and wrote in answer to Eric’s advertisement. There, she said to the pale-faced invitations, now I can’t go to any of you. This gave her such satisfaction that she managed to get both arms into her coat and herself out of the front door on to the rainy street where she posted the letter. It took some time to find a cab, but she finally arrived at her agent’s office.

  ‘Jessica,’ said the liar employed by her agent, ‘you’re soaked.’ This was undeniably true.

  ‘They didn’t keep it in the fridge for long enough,’ said Jessica, who always maintained an appearance of vivacity and originality in the presence of those underlings who were somehow concerned with her profession. ‘If they’d frozen all those raindrops a bit more they’d have turned into snowflakes and I’d look lovely with them glittering in my hair.’

  ‘You always look lovely,’ said the liar, who hadn’t really followed this flight of fancy. ‘She’s got someone in there at the moment but she won’t be long.’

  Jessica sat down with her copy of Private Eye and read the True Stories column, for the liar had started to type.

  A door opened and she heard her agent’s voice slightly raised. ‘. . . and if there’re any more shenanigans, Jon,’ she was saying, ‘I won’t be held responsible . . .’

  A young man emerged through the door. ‘I’ll be good,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’ As he saw Jessica he said, ‘Jessica,’ as though he were her best friend.

  Her agent too cried, ‘Jessica?’ and Jessica, torn, contrived to throw a smile of glad recognition at the young man – who so far as she could tell she’d never seen before in her life – while hurrying to acknowledge and embrace her agent.

  ‘Darling,’ said her agent predictably, ‘lovely to see someone sensible. Some people . . .’

  ‘The beautiful young man
?’ asked Jessica compassionately, for she knew agents had a lot to put up with.

  ‘He’s a nightmare,’ said her agent. ‘I’m quite fond of him in a way, but he gets into scrapes and gets everyone’s back up.’

  Jessica couldn’t have cared less, but she knew that agents have to express interest in all their clients initially in case some weird chance should shoot them to the top.

  ‘But never mind him,’ said the agent. ‘How are you? I’ve been worried about you.’

  This could only be because of Mike’s defection since there had been no other untoward events in her life to give anyone cause for concern. At least she hoped there hadn’t. The anxiety which is never far distant from the creative artist stirred briefly within her. Had a director spoken disparagingly of her? Had some management company vowed to have nothing more to do with her? She suppressed these doubts and said that her agent was sweet, but had no reason to alarm herself. One of the odder aspects of this way of life, she thought, was its very openness. Nobody had any secrets. Everybody in her world seemed immediately to know what everybody else was up to. In a way it was a relief, since while it was still necessary for one’s pride’s sake to put a good face on things there was no further need for dissembling.

  ‘I won’t pretend I don’t miss him,’ she said, for although in a way she didn’t, she knew her agent wouldn’t believe her, ‘but it’s rather wonderful to have the place to myself. Whenever he made a cup of tea he’d carry two teaspoons of sugar, from wherever the sugar bowl was to wherever his cup was. We had ants in the summer,’ she added. It had occurred to her that the sugary trails were the probable reason for this. ‘And . . .’ she went on, ‘he used to scratch his balls all the time.’ This was another of the reasons she’d poured the coffee over him. As well as she knew him it would have somehow seemed indelicate to remonstrate openly with him about this habit.

  ‘I can’t stand that,’ agreed her agent. ‘It’s almost worse than nose-picking.’

  ‘He did that too,’ said Jessica.

  ‘You’re well rid of him,’ said her agent. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jessica. ‘I was just passing.’ Since she was out of her house her fear had vanished. She didn’t mind waiting for the new year, and now she couldn’t see why she should look for work when she didn’t need the money. She thought she might possibly be suffering from a previously undiagnosed claustrophobia and deter mined that if it should overwhelm her again she would consult a psychiatrist. ‘I’m going away for Christmas,’ she said, ‘so if I don’t see you before I go I’ll ring as soon as I get back.’

  She said no more about going away and her agent asked no questions: she knew the movements of her clients not by interrogating them but by listening in on the grapevine. In the course of time she would know precisely how Jessica had spent Christmas. She was not particularly curious but she knew she’d find out.

  As she left Jessica looked round for her copy of Private Eye, but it had gone. She reflected as she went off in search of another taxi that it was strange to be able to discuss with people the most intimate shortcomings of your paramour while feeling the need to conceal from them the fact that you were going to spend Christmas in a small hotel at the edge of the world.

  When Jon strolled into his usual pub the usual customers at the bar sent up the usual groan. Jon, as usual, affected to take this as friendly badinage. He was of the opinion that his beauty and his personality were such that they could arouse only jealousy in others, but was sufficiently magnanimous to excuse them.

  ‘Hi Jon,’ said one, ‘how are Kenny and Emma?’

  Jon ignored this. ‘Double brandy,’ he said to the barman. ‘I’m celebrating,’ he said to no one in particular. He was pleased, not that Jessica had recognized him, for he would have expected no less, but because fortune had been so good as to throw them together again.

  ‘Celebrating?’ asked somebody else, sneering slightly while winking at his neighbour.

  ‘Got a job,’ said Jon. He didn’t explain that this would entail hanging upside down outside a window while a deeper voice than his own extolled the virtues of a substance which, judiciously applied, would render the said window unearthly with brilliance. ‘And I’m spending Christmas with Jessica,’ he added. Until he spoke he had had no doubt that Jessica would be staying at the destination she had so determinedly ringed in black. Why else should Providence have left her copy of Private Eye for him to pick up? It was all meant, he knew. His horoscope had indicated some such happening and advised him to seize an opportunity.

  Hearing himself speak he felt a moment’s unease. Could there be any other reason why she had marked the advertisement? No, he decided, but just in case he added that the arrangements had to be finalized, taking no notice of the jeers that followed this amendment.

  He left when he had drunk his brandy, having no fondness for the company of his fellows: they had heard what he had to say and so had served their purpose.

  Anita surveyed her department with an unaccustomed sense of dissatisfaction. It had extended, as was customary in the Christmas period, into the gardening section, which had been moved downstairs until such time as the hyacinths began to spring from their bulbs and the holly and tinsel were only a dusty memory. The encroachment had started in August which even Anita, dedicated as she was to the sale of stationery, considered too early, and the buyer had been travelling the world since April. The buyer was the actual source of Anita’s present feeling of unease. She had not, considered Anita, quite achieved the right touch this season, having ordered from somewhere in the Far East a collection of rather soupily old-fashioned Christmas cards when the trend recently had been towards a more secular, jocular form of greeting. The shepherds, angels, wise men, pop-up camels, donkeys, fat-tailed sheep, etc. made her a little nauseous, reminding her of Sunday School, and she had gone so far as to argue with the buyer. ‘In the Brent Cross branch,’ the buyer had said, ‘they can’t get enough Mother and Childs.’ Anita had been disposed to correct her grammar but had refrained. She was beginning to wonder if the buyer drank. It would not be surprising with all that foreign travel to manufacturers and trade fairs.

  Over a modest lunch of quiche and salad in the staff canteen she read The Lady with concentration because she didn’t feel like talking to anyone. When she came to the small ads the word ‘Christmas’ caught her eye. I hate Christmas she thought guiltily, surprising herself, and was about to turn back to an article on quail rearing when she saw the words ‘the edge of the world’. She could get away from it all, she could go where there were no Christmas cards or Santa Clauses, no swanky buyer, nothing to remind her of work or the way that, in the end, Christmas itself always turned out to be a little disappointing. She’d never quite admitted that to herself before. She folded the magazine into her bag and when she got home to her empty flat she wrote to Eric to book a trouble-free Christmas. It was an act of defiance: she repudiated all the tinsel and glitter which had occupied the forefront of her mind for far too long, while all the work she had done had brought her insufficient credit.

  Ronald was staring with wild incomprehension at the toaster, which was stubbornly refusing to relinquish the toast. It seemed to Ronald that if it could speak it would be saying something not only rebellious but disrespectful. The thing was bent on defying him, as indeed the dishwasher had been. The kitchen was littered with two-day-old dirty dishes; his bed was unmade and his clothes unwashed. Not merely had his wife left him but the cleaning lady had given notice. The two events, he suspected, were not unconnected. He wouldn’t be surprised if his wife had bribed the cleaning lady to leave in order to spite him and make his life impossible. How was he to give his mind to his work when his home was in total disarray? The pain he felt at his wife’s dereliction was rather less acute than his discomfort, the mute hostility of the toaster more wounding than his wife’s recent coldness. In truth the cleaning lady had left when his wife left because she had worked for single gentlemen
before and had found it too onerous. Lifelong bachelors were all right, domestically competent and orderly, but deserted husbands were far too much trouble. They left everything for her to do – their beds unmade, their clothes unwashed, and they wouldn’t stack the dish washer. Often they couldn’t even control the toaster and expected her to gouge out the charcoal into which it had turned the bread, and make it better again.

  ‘Bloody women,’ said Ronald, wrenching out the electric plug from the wall. He was pleased with this decisive act. The words ‘That’ll show ’em’ were manifest in his demeanour. It was nearly time for his first patient to arrive, and as his wife wasn’t there to let her in he stood behind the curtain peering surreptitiously through the window. He had a theory that patients panicked if left too long with their finger on the bell. It made them feel rejected – a distressing sensation, as Ronald was learning to his cost.

  Having dealt with and got rid of his first patient, he had ten minutes before the second arrived. Ten minutes to somehow get together a breakfast which would sustain him through the next fifty. He believed the transference process was disturbed when his stomach rumbled. Having abandoned all hope of toast he decided on bread and butter and a lightly boiled egg, but he had left the butter too long in the fridge and when he came to apply it to the bread he found he had cut the latter too thinly, so that it adhered in crumbs to lumps of the former. Never had he seen bread and butter like it. Ronald had been cared for by his mother until the day he married his wife and as a result he couldn’t boil an egg. It was hard – both his egg and his circumstances were hard. His second patient noticed immediately he walked in that the doctor had a bit of dry egg yolk in his beard. It stayed on his mind throughout the session, seriously interfering with his free-associations. After fifty minutes it had lodged itself deeply in his subconscious and he was never quite the same again.