The Paying Guests

by Sarah Waters

she tucked it in her pocket in a negligent sort of way – as if anyone, she thought, could possibly be deceived into thinking that the money was a mere formality, and not the essence, the shabby heart and kernel, of the whole affair.

Now the world seemed to her to have become so complex that its problems defied solution. There was only a chaos of conflicts of interest; the whole thing filled her with a sense of futility.

If I were to die today, she thought, and someone were to think over my life, they’d never know that moments like this, here on the Horseferry Road, between a Baptist chapel and a tobacconist’s, were the truest things in it.

She never came here without looking at the disorder of it all in a mixture of envy and despair, imagining the cool, calm, ordered place the rooms would be if they were hers.

But now I like you more than ever! Shall we be friends?’ Mrs Barber laughed. ‘I hope so, yes.’ And that was all it took. They smiled at each other across the table, and some sort of shift occurred between them.

But I think the sad fact is that I’m about as happy in my life as you are in yours. I do my best for my mother – or, I tell myself that I do. Sometimes I seem to do nothing but scold her; we cross each other like a pair of scissors. She isn’t happy, either. How could she be? I think she’s simply marking time. Well, perhaps we all are.’

What did she want? Frances couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure that she cared any more. There had been too much dancing back and forth. The night had been over-stretched: it had lost its tension.

All the time we were at the party, I was longing for you to kiss me. I don’t think I’ve longed so much for anything ever in my life. It didn’t seem strange, it didn’t seem wrong. I didn’t think of Len, not for a moment. I know it’s wicked of me, but I didn’t. It doesn’t seem anything to do with him. It doesn’t seem anything to do with anyone but us, does it?’

‘You couldn’t stop, could you? Oh, Frances, say you couldn’t. I think I’d die! I love you so much.’ ‘And I love you. But we say it, and what does it mean?’ ‘You know what it means. You know. Why do you even have to ask me?’ ‘Sometimes I think we’ve a sort of delirium.’ ‘It’s the rest of the world that has that. We’ll just have to be more careful. It doesn’t matter what time of the day we see each other, does it? What does the time matter? It doesn’t matter that it’s in secret; that just makes it more special, more ours.’

‘Perhaps she won’t patch them up,’ Frances couldn’t help but say. At that, her mother looked impatient. ‘But of course she will! She’ll make herself thoroughly unhappy if she doesn’t. No wife likes to think she hasn’t made a success of her marriage. I hope

For what, Frances asked herself, had she and Lilian done? They had allowed this passion into the house: she saw it for the first time as something unruly, something almost with a life of its own. It might have been a fugitive that the two of them had smuggled in by night, then hidden away in the attic or in the spaces behind the walls.