A Wreath for Rivera

“You’re wrong, though.”

“Going back to his place?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’ll toss you for it.”

“O.K.” The other pulled his clenched hand out of his pocket. “Your squeak,” he said.

“Heads.”

“It’s tails.”

“I never get the luck.”

“I’ll ring in then and get something to eat. Relieve you in half an hour, Bob.”

They shook hands again heartily as Carlisle and Edward Manx, walking glumly towards them, turned into Coster’s Row.

Carlisle had seen Edward Manx out of the corner of her eye as she crossed the end of the cul-de-sac. Unreasoned panic took hold of her. She lengthened her stride, made a show of looking at her watch and, when he called her name, broke into a run. Her heart pounded and her mouth was dry. She had the sensation of a fugitive in a dream. She was the pursued and, since even in her sudden alarm she was confusedly aware of something in herself that frightened her, she was also the pursuer. This nightmarish conviction was intensified by the sound of his feet clattering after her and of his voice, completely familiar but angry, calling her to stop.

Her feet were leaden, he was overtaking her quite easily. Her anticipation of his seizing her from behind was so vivid that when his hand actually closed on her arm it was something of a relief. He jerked her round to face him and she was glad to feel angry.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said breathlessly.

“That’s my business,” she panted, and added defiantly, “I’m late. I’ll be late for lunch. Aunt Cile will be furious.”

“Don’t be an ass, Lisle. You ran when you saw me. You heard me call out and you kept on running. What the devil d’you mean by it?”

His heavy eyebrows were drawn together and his lower lip jutted out.

“Please let me go, Ned,” she said. “I really am late.”

“That’s utterly childish and you know it. I’m getting to the bottom of this. Come back to the flat. I want to talk to you.”

“Aunt Cile…”

“Oh for God’s sake! I’ll ring Duke’s Gate and say you’re lunching here.”

“No.”

For a moment he looked furious. He still held her arm and his fingers bit into it, hurting her. Then he said more gently: “You can’t expect me to let a thing like this pass — it’s a monstrous state of affairs. I must know what’s gone wrong. Last night, after we got back from the Metronome, I could tell there was something. Please, Lisle. Don’t let’s stand here snarling at each other. Come back to the flat.”

“I’d rather not. Honestly. I know I’m behaving queerly.”

He had slipped the palm of his hand inside her arm, pressing it against him. His hand was gentler now but she couldn’t escape it. He began to speak persuasively and she remembered how, even when they were children, she had never been able to resist his persuasiveness. “You will, Lisle, won’t you? Don’t be queer, I can’t bear all this peculiarity. Come along.”

She looked helplessly at the two men on the opposite corner, thinking vaguely that she had seen one of them before. “I wish I knew him,” she thought. “I wish I could stop and speak to him.”

They turned into Coster’s Row. “There’s some food, in the flat. It’s quite a nice flat. I want you to see it. We’ll have lunch together, shan’t we? I’m sorry I was churlish, Lisle.”

His key clicked in the lock of the blue door. They were in a small lobby. “It’s a basement flat,” he said, “but not at all bad. There’s even a garden. Down those stairs.”

“You go first,” she said. She actually wondered if that would give her a chance to bolt and if she would have the nerve to do it. He looked fixedly at her.

“I don’t believe I trust you,” he said lightly. “On you go.”

He followed close on her heels down the steep stairs and took her arm again as he reached past her and unlocked the second door. “Here we are,” he said, pushing it open. He gave her a little shove forward.

It was a large, low-ceilinged room, whitewashed and oak-beamed. French windows opened on a little yard with potted flowers and plane-trees in tubs. The furniture was modern: steel chairs with rubber-foam upholstery, a carefully planned desk, a divan bed with a scarlet cover. A rigorous still-life hung above the fireplace, the only picture in the room. The bookshelves looked as if they had been stocked completely from a Left Book Shop. It was a scrupulously tidy room.

“The oaken beams are strict stockbroker’s Tudor,” he was saying. “Completely functionless, of course, and pretty revolting. Otherwise not so bad, do you think? Sit down while I find a drink.”

She sat on the divan and only half listened to him. His belated pretence that, after all, this was a pleasant and casual encounter did nothing to reassure her. He was still angry. She took the drink he brought and found her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t carry the glass to her lips. The drink spilled. She bent her head down and took a quick gulp at it, hoping this would steady her. She rubbed furtively with her handkerchief at the splashes on the cover and knew, without looking, that he watched her.

“Shall we go in, boots and all, or wait till after lunch?” he said.