Victoria Line, Central Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

when he lived in the hotel. But they were a lot less comfortable. In the hotel he had room to rest, to relax, room to work. In the hotel he had excellent food. At home, in the future palace, he had no room. He lived from a box in their bedroom, since Vera would allow no furniture anywhere until it had been finally agreed and settled and each item tookmonths. The cooking was negligible since they had to wait for all the equipment to be installed. Vera didn’t seem interested in food, she didn’t seem to think he needed it either. She rushed to greet him on his return each day with a peck on the cheek and a sheaf of leaflets and swathes of fabric.
    ‘Oh there you are, my dear. Dearest, do you think this flower is too large. I’m not quite certain, I’m almost certain but not quite.’
    He began to try and guess what she wanted him to say, but knew that he had to give the pretence of ruminating over it, otherwise she would not be satisfied. Often, faint with tiredness and hunger after two hours of studying design, he wondered whether she might in fact be having some kind of nervous trouble that he hadn’t noticed before. Then he would banish the thought guiltily, and tell himself that he was a selfish swine to expect his young wife to have a glass of scotch ready, a meal cooking and a lively interest in his day.
    Sometimes he called at the hotel and ate before he came home. Vera never seemed to mind. Yes, of course she had plenty to eat, she made herself cups of soup and sandwiches she said vaguely.
    Joseph’s hope that they would have children was also doomed. It was a long time before he realised that Vera had been taking the contraceptive pill. All this time he had been hoping that she would tell him she had conceived.
    ‘But darling we can’t
think
of children in this beautiful house. I mean how could you have children with this wallpaper?’ Her hands caressed the wallpaper almost sensuously.
    ‘But not ever?’ gasped Joseph shocked.
    ‘Perhaps sometime,’ Vera said distantly aware she might have gone a little too far.
    Vera was twenty-eight, they had been five years married when he dared to say to her that the house was perfect. He had admired every single item, rearranged every piece of furniture with her and now he hoped that the endless business was over. To his increasing alarm he noted that she didn’t seem too anxious to spoil the kitchen by cooking, and she didn’t want to fade the colours in the sitting room by letting the light in. There was no comfortable fug in the study she had designed for him, because she begged him not to have the heating too high lest it blister the paint. His cigar smoking was done outside his own home.
    That was the unhappiest year of Joseph’s life, because he now realised that the completion of the house did not signal the start of a normal life together. Her attractive face was still bent over magazines and fabric charts. They had never entertained anyone. He had taken his mother, an elderly woman there once . . . for a drink before Sunday lunch. Vera said she couldn’t possibly cook a huge Sunday roast if they were to show the kitchen at its best.
    ‘But why do we have to show it, at its best?’ he begged.
    ‘Why spend all this time and money unless we want things at their best?’ she answered.
    He hoped that if he got her some regular help she might become more relaxed about it. Together they interviewed seventeen applicants, the wages he offered were high. Eventually she settled on a Filippino girl with as much interest in the house as she had herself. Together they cleaned and polished all day. Together Vera and the little Filippino washed woodwork, and held the fitments of glass lights in soft dusters rubbing gently till they shone. The little girl from Manilla saved every penny she earned, and drank packet soups with Vera all day to keep up her strength. At night she went to her own room, and watched a portable television. Vera had bought her this in order to