The Breaking Point Read online

  He returned to the kitchen with his brushes and palette, the turpentine and some rags, and made as much noise as possible running the taps and moving about, so as to let her know that he was having to do all the menial stuff himself. He clattered the teacup, too, and rattled the tin where she put the sugar. Not a sound, though, from the bedroom. Oh, damn it, he thought, let her stew . . .

  Back in the studio, he pottered with the final touches to the self-portrait, but concentration was difficult. Nothing worked. The thing looked dead. She had ruined his day. Finally, an hour or more before his usual time, he decided to go home. He would not trust her to clean up, though, not after last night’s neglect. She was capable of leaving everything untouched for three weeks.

  Before stacking the canvases one behind the other he stood them up, ranged them against the wall, and tried to imagine how they would look hanging in an exhibition. They hit the eye, there was no doubt about it.You couldn’t avoid them.There was something . . . well, something telling about the whole collection! He didn’t know what it was. Naturally, he couldn’t criticize his own work. But . . . that head of Madame Kaufman, for instance, the one she had said was like a fish, possibly there was some sort of shape to the mouth that . . . or was it the eyes, the rather full eyes? It was brilliant, though. He was sure it was brilliant. And, although unfinished, that self-portrait of a man asleep, it had significance.

  He smiled in fantasy, seeing himself and Edna walking into one of those small galleries off Bond Street, himself saying casually, ‘I’m told there’s some new chap got a show on here. Very controversial. The critics can’t make out whether he’s a genius or a madman.’ And Edna, ‘It must be the first time you’ve ever been inside one of these places.’ What a sense of power, what triumph! And then, when he broke it to her, the dawn of new respect in her eyes. The realization that her husband had, after all these years, achieved fame. It was the shock of surprise that he wanted. That was it! The shock of surprise . . .

  Fenton had a final glance round the familiar room. The canvases were stacked now, the easel dismantled, brushes and palette cleaned and wiped and wrapped up. If he should decide to decamp when he returned from Scotland - and he was pretty sure it was going to be the only answer, after Madame Kaufman’s idiotic behaviour - then everything was ready to move. It would only be a matter of calling a taxi, putting the gear inside, and driving off.

  He shut the window and closed the door, and, carrying his usual weekly package of what he called ‘rejects’ under his arm - discarded drawings and sketches and odds and ends - went once more to the kitchen and called through the closed door of the bedroom.

  ‘I’m off now,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be better tomorrow. See you in three weeks’ time.’

  He noticed that the envelope had disappeared from the kitchen table. She could not be as ill as all that.

  Then he heard her moving in the bedroom, and after a moment or two the door opened a few inches and she stood there, just inside. He was shocked. She looked ghastly, her face drained of colour and her hair lank and greasy, neither combed nor brushed. She had a blanket wrapped round the lower part of her, and in spite of the hot, stuffy day, and the lack of air in the basement, was wearing a thick woollen cardigan.

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ he asked with some concern.

  She shook her head.

  ‘I would if I were you,’ he said. ‘You don’t look well at all.’ He remembered the boy, still tied to the scraper above. ‘Shall I bring Johnnie down to you?’ he suggested.

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  Her eyes reminded him of an animal’s eyes in pain. He felt disturbed. It was rather dreadful, going off and leaving her like this. But what could he do? He went up the basement stairs and through the deserted front hall, and opened the front door. The boy was sitting there, humped. He couldn’t have moved since Fenton had entered the house.

  ‘Come on, Johnnie,’ he said.‘I’ll take you below to your mother.’

  The child allowed himself to be untied. He had the same sort of apathy as the woman. What a hopeless pair they were, thought Fenton; they really ought to be in somebody’s charge, in some sort of welfare home. There must be places where people like this were looked after. He carried the child downstairs and sat him in his usual chair by the kitchen table.

  ‘What about his tea?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll get it presently,’ said Madame Kaufman.

  She shuffled out of her bedroom, still wrapped in the blanket, with a package in her hands, some sort of paper parcel, tied up with string.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Some rubbish,’ she said, ‘if you would throw it away with yours. The dustmen don’t call until next week.’

  He took the package from her and waited a moment, wondering what more he could do for her.

  ‘Well,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I feel rather bad about this. Are you sure there is nothing else you want?’

  ‘No,’ she said. She didn’t even call him Mr Sims. She made no effort to smile or hold out her hand. The expression in her eyes was not even reproachful. It was mute.

  ‘I’ll send you a postcard from Scotland,’ he said, and then patted Johnnie’s head. ‘So long,’ he added - a silly expression, and one he never normally used. Then he went out of the back door, round the corner of the house and out of the gate, and so along Boulting Street, with an oppressive feeling in his heart that he had somehow behaved badly, been lacking in sympathy, and that he ought to have taken the initiative and insisted that she see a doctor.

  The September sky was overcast and the Embankment dusty, dreary. The trees in the Battersea gardens across the river had a dejected, faded, end-of-summer look. Too dull, too brown. It would be good to get away to Scotland, to breathe the clean, cold air.

  He unwrapped his package and began to throw his ‘rejects’ into the river. A head of Johnnie, very poor indeed. An attempt at the cat. A canvas that had got stained with something or other and could not be used again. Over the bridge they went and away with the tide, the canvas floating like a matchbox, white and frail. It was rather sad to watch it drift from sight.

  He walked back along the Embankment towards home, and then, before he turned to cross the road, realized that he was still carrying the paper parcel Madame Kaufman had given him. He had forgotten to throw it away with the rejects. He had been too occupied in watching the disappearance of his own debris.

  Fenton was about to toss the parcel into the river when he noticed a policeman watching him from the opposite side of the road. He was seized with an uneasy feeling that it was against the law to dispose of litter in this way. He walked on self-consciously. After he had gone a hundred yards he glanced back over his shoulder. The policeman was still staring after him. Absurd, but it made him feel quite guilty. The strong arm of the law. He continued his walk, swinging the parcel nonchalantly, humming a little tune. To hell with the river - he would dump the parcel into one of the litter bins in Chelsea Hospital gardens.

  He turned into the gardens and dropped the parcel into the first basket, on top of two or three newspapers and a pile of orange peel. No offence in that. He could see the damn fool of a bobby watching through the railings, but Fenton took good care not to show the fellow he noticed him. Anyone would think he was trying to dispose of a bomb. Then he walked swiftly home, and remembered, as he went up the stairs, that the Alhusons were coming to dinner. The routine dinner before the holiday. The thought did not bore him now as it had once. He would chat away to them both about Scotland without any sensation of being trapped and stifled. How Jack Alhuson would stare if he knew how Fenton spent his afternoons! He would not believe his ears!

  ‘Hullo, you’re early,’ said Edna, who was arranging the flowers in the drawing-room.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I cleared up everything at the office in good time. Thought I might make a start planning the itinerary. I’m looking forward to going north.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ she said. ‘I
was afraid you might be getting bored with Scotland year after year. But you don’t look jaded at all. You haven’t looked so well for years.’

  She kissed his cheek and he kissed her back, well content. He smiled as he went to look out his maps. She did not know she had a genius for a husband.

  The Alhusons had arrived and they were just sitting down to dinner when the front-door bell rang.

  ‘Who on earth’s that?’ exclaimed Edna. ‘Don’t say we asked someone else and have forgotten all about them.’

  ‘I haven’t paid the electricity bill,’ said Fenton. ‘They’ve sent round to cut us off, and we shan’t get the soufflé.’

  He paused in the middle of carving the chicken, and the Alhusons laughed.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Edna. ‘I daren’t disturb May in the kitchen. You know the bill of fare by now, it is a soufflé.’

  She came back in a few moments with a half-amused, half-puzzled expression on her face. ‘It’s not the electricity man,’ she said, ‘it’s the police.’

  ‘The police?’ repeated Fenton.

  Jack Alhuson wagged his finger. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘You’re for it this time, old boy.’

  Fenton laid down the carving knife. ‘Seriously, Edna,’ he said, ‘what do they want?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ she replied. ‘It’s an ordinary policeman, and what I assumed to be another in plain clothes. They asked to speak to the owner of the house.’

  Fenton shrugged his shoulders. ‘You carry on,’ he said to his wife. ‘I’ll see if I can get rid of them. They’ve probably come to the wrong address.’

  He went out of the dining-room into the hall, but as soon as he saw the uniformed policeman his face changed. He recognized the man who had stared after him on the Embankment.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  The man in plain clothes took the initiative.

  ‘Did you happen to walk through Chelsea Hospital gardens late this afternoon, sir?’ he inquired. Both men were watching Fenton intently, and he realized that denial would be useless.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, I did.’

  ‘You were carrying a parcel?’

  ‘I believe I was.’

  ‘Did you put the parcel in a litter basket by the Embankment entrance, sir?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Would you object to telling us what was in the parcel?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I can put the question another way, sir. Could you tell us where you obtained the parcel?’

  Fenton hesitated.What were they driving at? He did not care for their method of interrogation.

  ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you,’ he said. ‘It’s not an offence to put rubbish in a litter basket, is it?’

  ‘Not ordinary rubbish,’ said the man in plain clothes.

  Fenton looked from one to the other.Their faces were serious.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’ he said.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Do you know what was in the parcel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean the policeman here - I remember passing him on the beat - actually followed me, and took the parcel after I had dropped it in the bin?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘What an extraordinary thing to do. I should have thought he would have been better employed doing his regular job.’

  ‘It happens to be his regular job to keep an eye on people who behave in a suspicious manner.’

  Fenton began to get annoyed. ‘There was nothing suspicious in my behaviour whatsoever,’ he declared. ‘It so happens that I had been clearing up odds and ends in my office this afternoon, and it’s rather a fad of mine to throw rubbish in the river on my way home.Very often I feed the gulls too. Today I was about to throw in my usual packet when I noticed the officer here glance in my direction. It occurred to me that perhaps it’s illegal to throw rubbish in the river, so I decided to put it in the litter basket instead.’

  The two men continued to stare at him.

  ‘You’ve just stated,’ said the man in plain clothes, ‘that you didn’t know what was in the parcel, and now you state that it was odds and ends from the office. Which statement is true?’

  Fenton began to feel hunted.

  ‘Both statements are true,’ he snapped. ‘The people at the office wrapped the parcel up for me today, and I didn’t know what they had put in it. Sometimes they put in stale biscuits for the gulls, and then I undo it and throw the crumbs to the birds on my way home, as I told you.’

  It wouldn’t do, though. Their set faces said so, and he supposed it sounded a thin enough tale - a middle-aged man collecting rubbish so that he could throw it in the river on his way home from the office, like a small boy throwing twigs from a bridge to see them float out on the other side. But it was the best he could think of on the spur of the moment, and he would have to stick to it now. After all, it couldn’t be a criminal action - the worst they could call him was eccentric.

  The plain-clothes policeman said nothing but, ‘Read your notes, Sergeant.’

  The man in uniform took out his notebook and read aloud:

  ‘At five minutes past six today I was walking along the Embankment and I noticed a man on the opposite pavement make as though to throw a parcel in the river. He observed me looking and walked quickly on, and then glanced back over his shoulder to see if I was still watching him. His manner was suspicious. He then crossed to the entrance to Chelsea Hospital gardens and, after looking up and down in a furtive manner, dropped the parcel in the litter bin and hurried away. I went to the bin and retrieved the parcel, and then followed the man to 14 Annersley Square, which he entered. I took the parcel to the station and handed it over to the officer on duty. We examined the parcel together. It contained the body of a premature new-born infant.’

  He snapped the notebook to.

  Fenton felt all his strength ebb from him. Horror and fear merged together like a dense, overwhelming cloud, and he collapsed on to a chair.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Oh, God, what’s happened . . . ?’

  Through the cloud he saw Edna looking at him from the open door of the dining-room, with the Alhusons behind her. The man in plain clothes was saying, ‘I shall have to ask you to come down to the station and make a statement.’

  5

  Fenton sat in the Inspector’s room, with the Inspector of Police behind a desk, and the plain-clothes man, and the policeman in uniform, and someone else, a medical officer. Edna was there too - he had especially asked for Edna to be there. The Alhusons were waiting outside, but the terrible thing was the expression on Edna’s face. It was obvious that she did not believe him. Nor did the policemen.

  ‘Yes, it’s been going on for six months,’ he repeated. ‘When I say “going on”, I mean my painting has been going on, nothing else, nothing else at all . . . I was seized with the desire to paint . . . I can’t explain it. I never shall. It just came over me. And on impulse I walked in at the gate of No. 8, Boulting Street. The woman came to the door and I asked if she had a room to let, and after a few moments’ discussion she said she had - a room of her own in the basement - nothing to do with the landlord, we agreed to say nothing to the landlord. So I took possession. And I’ve been going there every afternoon for six months. I said nothing about it to my wife . . . I thought she wouldn’t understand . . .’

  He turned in despair to Edna, and she just sat there, staring at him.

  ‘I admit I’ve lied,’ he said. ‘I’ve lied to everyone. I lied at home, I lied at the office. I told them at the office I had contacts with another firm, that I went there during the afternoon, and I told my wife - bear me out, Edna - I told my wife I was either kept late at the office or I was playing bridge at the club. The truth was that I went every day to No. 8, Boulting Street. Every day.’

  He had not done anything wrong. Why did they have to stare at him? Why did Edna hold on to the arms of the chai
r?

  ‘What age is Madame Kaufman? I don’t know. About twenty-seven, I should think . . . or thirty, she could be any age . . . and she has the little boy, Johnnie . . . She is an Austrian, she has led a very sad life and her husband has left her . . . No, I never saw anyone in the house at all, no other men . . . I don’t know, I tell you . . . I don’t know. I went there to paint. I didn’t go for anything else. She’ll tell you so. She’ll tell you the truth. I’m sure she is very attached to me . . . At least, no, I don’t mean that; when I say attached I mean she is grateful for the money I pay her . . . that is, the rent, the five pounds for the room.There was absolutely nothing else between us, there couldn’t have been, it was out of the question . . . Yes, yes, of course I was ignorant of her condition. I’m not very observant . . . it wasn’t the sort of thing I would have noticed. And she did not say a word, not a word.’

  He turned again to Edna. ‘Surely you believe me?’

  She said,‘You never told me you wanted to paint.You’ve never mentioned painting, or artists, all our married life.’

  It was the frozen blue of her eyes that he could not bear.

  He said to the Inspector, ‘Can’t we go to Boulting Street now, at once? That poor soul must be in great distress. She should see a doctor, someone should be looking after her. Can’t we all go now, my wife too, so that Madame Kaufman can explain everything?’

  And, thank God, he had his way. It was agreed they should go to Boulting Street. A police car was summoned, and he and Edna and two police officers climbed into it, and the Alhusons followed behind in their car. He heard them say something to the Inspector about not wanting Mrs Fenton to be alone, the shock was too great. That was kind, of course, but there need not be any shock when he could quietly and calmly explain the whole story to her, once they got home. It was the atmosphere of the police station that made it so appalling, that made him feel guilty, a criminal.