Free Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor Page B

there for a mild celebration, all instinctively sat up and straightened their backs. They tried to look more alert, and to forget their future.
    Mr Osmond closed the door and followed Mrs Palfrey at a distance; remembering an old, old risque anecdote, he told it to the manager,
en passant.
    Silence, almost, in the dining-room. They lowered themselves into their chairs. As they aged, the women seemed to become more like old men, and Mr Osmond became more like an old woman.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    O N a Saturday afternoon, knowing that the Major would be at Twickenham (‘Twickers’ he called it, ‘Rugger at Twickers’), Ludo went to Putney to see his mother.
    Perhaps from his father he had his sense of duty, and from his mother its sporadic quality. She still – even now – seemed to feel a little of it towards him, occasionally sent him a birthday-card of sick humour, or a funny anecdote to write into his novel: once, had pressed on him a pair of the Major’s socks she could not be bothered to mend. They were a mustard yellow. ‘Perhaps really fit only for Oxfam,’ she suggested doubtfully. ‘Oh, they’ll come in,’ he had said cheerfully, unable to hurt anyone. Even in disposing of them, he had hoped they would come in. Some tramp or drop-out might peel them off the gilded railing-points outside the Garibaldi Hotel, and be glad of them.
    ‘Just dropped in as I was passing,’ he said, when his mother opened the door of the house in Putney. (And he thought, I rather doubt if we’ve ever said anything true to one another since I was about six, and learned better.)
    He followed her up the stairs to her flat on the first floor: her rump slid from side to side as she went, but under control, not floppy. As he must not cram his mindwith useless details, he tried to ignore her appearance. He was paying a call, merely.
    The sitting-room was beautifully warm to him -warmer than Harrods, even – with focal points of heat from two electric fires, and no damp coming out from anywhere, as it always did at home, after ten minutes of the gas-fire. Used as he was to basement darkness or artificial light, he was charmed by windows filled with white sky and branches.
    ‘How’s himself?’ he asked.
    ‘He’s gone to a football match. I expect they’re all boozed by now. They stand about in the car-park, drinking out of boots.’
    ‘You can’t be serious.’
    ‘I mean, they keep their bottles in the boots of their cars. And seem to go from one to the other – like a pub-crawl.’
    ‘Ah, yes.’
    ‘It sounds rather like a point-to-point meeting.’
    ‘You talk a very strange language, Mimsie.’
    ‘Do I, darling? Then let’s talk about you instead. How is your novel coming along?’
    ‘They don’t do that. They have to be pushed a bit.’
    ‘I’m sure.’ She sat down in a sagging chair, and from it leaned forwards and began to pick things off the floor – bits of newspapers, and chocolate papers and some sewing things. A frowsty little love-nest, Ludo thought.
    ‘I really,’ she began…. ‘No, I shouldn’t say it. I should’ve said it right at the start, and I’m sure I did.
    But, not that Fm interfering … I only wonder – I did just wonder – if switching boats midstream is sensible. Oh, I really loved you being an actor. “My son’s on the stage”, I used to say, and everyone was thrilled and dying to hear more.’
    He wondered to whom she had said it: for she seemed to have no friends.
    ‘I was hardly ever on the stage once the curtain had gone up.’
    ‘But every great actor started that way. Fm sure Sir Laurence did his stint. You lack his patience and his perseverance.’ She smiled, as if to make this seem a bit of a joke.
    Ludo believed that patience and perseverance were his two strong points.
    ‘Besides,’ she added, more to the point, ‘it’s so lonely, just sitting there scribbling away, day after day. And it lacks glamour.’
    One of her favourite words. No one else he knew ever used it.