Free Guy Renton by Alec Waugh Page B

time like this. He may pretend to be pleased that he’s leaving; but it’s been a shock to him; there may be a delayed reaction: he may feel he has to do something to justify his own opinion of himself. He might do something very silly. No, he must stay here through the summer: he can take Berlitz courses in modern languages, and he can take a series of lectures at London University. We can give a party or two for him, find him some suitable new friends; we must keep him under our eyes. What’s even more important we must not let him feel he’s in disgrace. He’s very sensitive, very ready to take offence. We’ve got to be watchful, without letting him suspect he’s being watched.”
    She spoke with a firmness, a resolution that could not be denied. And indeed she was making thorough sense. Her mother’s intuition might well be right. It might be better for Franklin to stay in London. There was something always a little, if not suspect, at least questionable about the Englishman who ‘went abroad’; the suspicion that he’d gone away to get over something or to wait till a thing ‘blew over’. They’d do their best to see that Franklin had a happy summer; he’d put him up for the Hampstead Cricket Club. “Don’t worry, Mother, we’ll give him a prodigal’s homecoming,” Guy assured her.
    The evening broke up early as it tended to do when there were no guests. His father began to feel drowsy by ten o’clock; his mother followed him upstairs. Guy sat before the fire, not reading; brooding. Friday again. The eve of another match. Two more Fridays would have to pass before he could ring up Renée. From outside came the sound of a car drawing up before the house. He looked at his watch. Not eleven yet. Early for Margery to be coming back.
    He half rose, on the point of going out into the hall to open the door for her; then changed his mind. Perhaps she wanted to be alone to say good night to whoever had brought her back. He waited, but there came no sound of a key turning in the lock. Perhaps he had been mistaken. Perhaps the car had been stopping at the house next door. He picked up the evening paper and began a second attempt upon the crossword. He had filled in a missing light, a second and then a third, before he heard simultaneously the click of a key and the buzz of a self-starter. He had been right. He looked up at the clock. Five-past eleven. The good night had taken eleven minutes.
    She came into the room swinging her hat, but with her short hair smoothly plastered back into her shingle. She looked tired and depressed and very young. She started at the sight of him. “What, you up still?”
    â€œIt’s very early.”
    â€œIs it? Yes, I suppose it is.”
    Her voice was as tired as her appearance. She walked over to the sideboard where a siphon of soda stood beside a decanter of whisky. She put her hand on the decanter, then changed her mind and squirted herself out a tumblerful of soda. She drank it at a gulp.
    â€œI want your help,” he said.
    â€œIn what?”
    â€œI’ve taken a flat. I want you to help me furnish it.”
    â€œSo you’ve followed my advice and are taking Mürren seriously.” They laughed together. It was good to have a sister with whom you could talk in shorthand.

5
    In three weeks’ time, she said: before eleven, after ten. His fingers felt weak as they lifted the receiver. Suppose she had changed her mind. He longed for the sound of her voice, yet dreaded it. Suppose it were casual and offhand.
    It wasn’t: it was slow and sleepy, a “Yes, who is it?” drawled like that morning whisper of three weeks ago: a tone that in a second lost its drowsiness. “Why, darling, and on my first morning too.” She might have been in the room beside him.
    â€œYou’ve only just got back,” he said, “you can’t have got your diary filled yet.