Letter to Sister Benedicta by Rose Tremain Read Free Book Online Page B

Wainwright” is. Today there was a ring on my doorbell (strange occurrence these days because nobody calls, knowing that if they did call, they wouldn’t know what to say to me) and when I opened the door, there on the mat stood a lean woman with faded hair calling herself Evelyn Wainwright, holding her handbag to her as if it was a china plate and might break, and asking to see Leon. I was so surprised that anyone should ask for Leon that an immediate and totally unexpected statement burst out of me. “Leon’s dead!” I said, and seeing Evelyn Wainwright’s look of disbelief, had to qualify this by stammering: “Well, when I say he’s dead, I mean he’s not absolutely dead. He could die any day.”
    It seemed only fair, after this dreadful confusion to ask the woman in. We went into the drawing-room and she sat down on the edge of the sofa, still clutching her handbag and I waited for her to explain why she had called. She stared at me, sizing me up. Then she looked round the room.
    â€œIt’s not as grand as his office, is it?” she said.
    â€œLeon’s office?”
    â€œMr Constad’s, yes.”
    â€œDo you know,” I said, “I don’t remember the office very well. He had so many. He started with a very small one in an alleyway off Fleet Street. It was over a gymnasium and you could hear people thumping about all the time.”
    After a pause, Evelyn Wainwright said: “He is ill then?”
    â€œYes, he’s very ill. He had a stroke.”
    â€œI shouldn’t have come then. You see, I didn’t believe them at Mr Constad’s office – that secretary of his – I didn’t believe he wasn’t there. I thought the secretary was hiding him and not letting me see him. I mean, they do this, the secretaries of important men: they hide them.”
    Evelyn Wainwright was moving nearer and nearer to the edge of the sofa and nearer to the edge of tears. I thought she might bump down on to her thin bottom with a wail.
    â€œWould you like a cup of tea?” I asked.
    â€œYes,” she said. And the word sounded like a click coming from the back of her throat. I got up. It’s a long time since I’ve made a cup of tea for anyone but the window-sill painters.
    â€œPlease do relax, Mrs Wainwright,” I said feebly and went to the kitchen. While I was there making the tea, I longed to peep back into the drawing-room and see if Evelyn Wainwright had let herself tumble back into the sofa. I realized that I wanted to keep the woman there until I had quite unravelled the mystery of her and discovered her connection with “the aforementioned Richard Mayhew Wainwright”, imagining that all of this was very important and would reveal to me more about the true state of Leon’s mind than anything the doctors had told me.
    When I went in with the tea, Evelyn Wainwright was standing at the french windows looking down on to the street, in the way that Leon had stood watching for Noel on the day that Noel never arrived.
    â€œTea!” I said, and she turned round with a look of surprise. Then she crossed to the sofa and perched on it again, but this time without her handbag which had fallen to the floor.
    â€œI won’t stay long,” she said.
    â€œOh,” I said; pouring the tea, “you can stay as long as you like. I expect I shall go to see Leon this afternoon, but I’ve really got nothing to do until then.”
    â€œI wouldn’t have thought of intruding on you – at a time like this. It was only that I didn’t believe them, you see. They said: ‘You can see Mr Partridge if you like,’ but I knew that Mr Partridge was young – younger than my son – and he wouldn’t have done a good job for me. So I said: ‘No, I must see Mr Constad. Mr Constad is the best. I’ve been told that he’s the best and I must have the best man or what hope do I have of