The Love Department Read online

  William Trevor

  THE LOVE DEPARTMENT

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Follow Penguin

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, in 1928, the son of a bank official, and spent his childhood in provincial Ireland. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin. Working first as a sculptor and teacher, then as an advertising copywriter, he published his first novel in 1958.

  His subsequent novels won numerous prizes, including the Hawthornden Prize, the Heinemann Fiction Prize and the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award. He was a three-times winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, for The Children of Dynmouth (1976), Fools of Fortune (1983) and Felicia’s Journey (1994), and was also shortlisted four times for the Booker Prize. His last novel was Love and Summer (2009).

  Trevor was also an acclaimed writer of short stories. His complete output was collected into two hardcover volumes by Viking Penguin in 2009. In 1999 he was awarded the prestigious David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s literary achievement, and in 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. William Trevor died in 2016.

  For Jane

  1

  Edward knew nothing about love as he sat in the back garden of St Gregory’s playing draughts with Brother Toby. He was quite content at that moment, not worried about anything, not even the fact that, yet again, Brother Toby was proving invincible. He knew nothing then of the Bolsovers, or the Bolsovers’ charwoman or James Bolsover’s enemies, or his wife’s, or of the Bolsovers’ house in Wimbledon. He knew nothing of the woman with thick, square spectacles who was to hand him, one day, a pair of wash-leather gloves; or of the lover who created havoc. He did not know that in the near future he was to say with glaring anger and in an expert way: ‘There’s no love on the hoardings of Britain, Mr Lake.’ He did not know that he was to call people the enemies of love, and know what he was talking about. Edward concentrated on the black and white discs, trying to see three moves ahead and not being able to. ‘Excuse me,’ he said suddenly. ‘I must go and wash my hands.’

  Brother Toby leaned back and smiled. Edward saw him looking around for his pipe, and heard the striking of a match as he walked away. He did not at the time consider why he had said that he must wash his hands: he did not look at them and see that they were perfectly clean, with trimmed nails and shining knuckles. He considered it afterwards, and discovered an explanation.

  ‘Overwork and strain,’ murmured Brother Edmund as he passed Edward on a linoleumed landing, referring to the condition that had brought Edward to St Gregory’s, reminding him of it in case he should imagine some other idea. Brother Edmund carried a white bowl containing cream; he said in passing that he was on his way to do some cooking.

  Edward ran a tap into a basin and wondered then if it was necessary, really, to wash his hands. ‘You must simply try,’ they had said to him, ‘to be your age,’ And then they had smiled, and packed him off to St Gregory’s. But now, as he turned the tap off, he was aware that he had become weary of the prescribed quietude; he felt better in himself. ‘I am my age again,’ said Edward. ‘I could take the posters in my stride.’

  He had feared the posters on hoardings and had said so. He had complained of orange-and-black tigers, and old women drinking tea, of aeroplanes realistically in flight, and dogs and cats, cockatoos, parrots, giraffes, motor-cars drawn up by mountain streams, farmyard fowls, tins of spaghetti. He had feared most of all the men and women who played around with cigarettes or chocolates, people who eyed one another in a peculiar manner. Men leaned forward, sticking chocolates into women’s mouths, or lighting cigarettes for them. They were the giants of the hoardings, standing in sunshine, in speed-boats or on rocks, up to their tricks. They performed on water-skis, balancing butter in the air; they ate and they smoked, they smiled over bedtime drinks or glasses of hard liquor. They had green faces or purple ones, and brown skins, and teeth as white as toothpaste.

  Edward had complained of the size of the men and women and of their colours, and of their insincere teeth. He had complained, and for his pains had found himself at St Gregory’s, a tranquil retreat, where he was trying to be his age. He quite understood that; he often felt three years old.

  The water in the basin rushed away and Edward walked slowly to his bedroom. He moved in innocence, thinking that he could not go on forever being pampered simply because strain and overwork had caused him to complain about the posters. He put a few possessions into a green canvas bag, and on this cloudy August afternoon he walked out of St Gregory’s when no one was looking.

  As he strode down the quiet road towards the shops and the sea, Edward wondered if he had been wise in this abrupt action. ‘No summer at all,’ an old man said to him, interrupting his thoughts, and Edward smiled. He bought a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate and walked by the chilly sea-front, eating and considering. ‘I shall write to Brother Edmund,’ he said. ‘I shall thank him for all his kindness.’

  Children played on the edge of the sea, dashing about, pretending to be soldiers. They fell down with cries of rage or despair, briefly simulating death. Edward understood how they felt, their irritation at being small and inept; he understood their wishing to be grown soldiers who could go their way, presenting arms whenever they felt like it and taking part in all conversation.

  Edward walked on, nodding to himself about the children, and shifting from hand to hand the green canvas bag. At the railway station he bought a platform ticket and boarded the first train he saw. He entered a lavatory, where he remained until the train reached its ultimate destination. ‘London,’ said Edward, ‘by the looks of things.’ He planned to say that his ticket had been stolen from him by a tramp, but in fact no one asked him for it.

  In an evening newspaper Edward saw that lodgings were advertised in quantity and that poorly rewarded work was available in all areas. Young gentlemen catered for, he read. Convenient. 5 gns. ‘Five guineas,’ said Edward. ‘That’s a lot.’ He turned the page, and read again. Lady Dolores Bourhardie requires another male assistant. Highly paid post, demanding intelligence, penetration and drive. Immediate interview. The title of a famous magazine followed, together with a telephone number. Edward went away and dialled it.

  After that, he walked to Clapham and accepted a room at the top of a large house. ‘You’ll be happy here,’ the landlady said. ‘This is an up-and-coming area.’ Edward smiled, but when the woman asked for five guineas in advance he had to admit that he could not manage it. He reached down for his canvas bag and began to go away. ‘Wherever are you off to?’ said the woman, and added with a sigh that rent in retrospect would have to do. ‘Have you picked up a position?’ she asked, and Edward explained that he hoped to become another male assistant to Lady Dolores Bourhardie. ‘Blimey,’ said the woman.

  Dear Brother Edmund, Edward wrote in his mind, thank you for all your kindness to me. I have come to London and am staying in good digs. The posters are not on my brain any more: I have looked at them face to face and have not gone into an odd state. All
of which is due to your wisdom and encouragement. I cannot say much else, except that I am aiming to go into the employ of Lady Dolores Bourhardie. Please give my regards to Bro. Toby and say I am extremely sorry about our game of draughts.

  Edward slept well that night, dreaming of the children playing soldiers on the beach, and of the back garden of St Gregory’s, and his time in the train lavatory. He awoke refreshed, ate a breakfast of fried tomato and egg, and spent the morning walking from Clapham to Victoria, confirming on the way that the posters were no longer a worry. In the early afternoon he entered a building in the centre of London and took a lift to the fifth floor. ‘Down at the end there,’ a woman with a tea-trolley directed him, and he thanked her.

  Edward passed through a door marked 305 and saw about him young and beautiful girls, working with typewriters, typing with all their fingers. These were girls who chattered as they worked, girls dressed gaily in the fashions of the time, with varying hair-styles. Had Edward paused long enough in Room 305, he would have discovered that they conversed on many subjects. They talked of experiences with men, of the hoodwinking of men in a harmless way, and the repulsing or encouraging of advances. They talked of evening visits to cinemas and restaurants, of clothes they had recently purchased, or clothes that some other girls had purchased, or clothes they coveted. They talked of what it might be like in the future, marriage and motherhood, a house in a suitable place, kitchen conveniences of every description. They talked of love and broken hearts and tears and happiness, but they lowered their voices when they did that, assessing the subject to be a private one. Some of them smoked as they chatted on, a few of them nibbled food: nuts and cheese, and confectionery that didn’t cause fatness.

  ‘Lady Dolores,’ said Edward, looking around him.

  ‘Not us,’ said one of the beautiful girls. ‘No, no.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Edward.

  ‘Straight ahead,’ said the girl, and smiled.

  Edward walked on, through a door marked 306, into a softly carpeted room of immense proportions, with crimson curtains that reached the carpet and matched most elegantly, Edward thought, the subtleties of a pinkly striped wallpaper. Love Conquers All! said a framed embroidery that stretched the length of one wall, the coloured letters entwined with delicate leaves and flowers, and winged Cupids at play with arrows in the four corners. Around it, gay against the pastel shades of the striped paper, were very many smaller embroideries, in red and blues, greens, mauves, purples, yellows and a few in black and white.

  Plants stood about on decorated saucers, on shelves and window-ledges and on the desks at which a number of murmuring young clerks sat. The plants were all green, ferns and palms, and exotic growths which had developed long, climbing tubers that advanced along the walls or wound their tendrils around the framed embroideries.

  ‘Lady Dolores?’ said Edward.

  ‘She’ll send for you,’ said one of the clerks in a soft voice. ‘Sit down, why don’t you?’

  Edward sat down. The clerk added:

  ‘If you’re interested, that frieze round the ceiling is by Samuel Watson.’

  Edward looked up at the carved frieze. ‘It is very lovely,’ he said, and saw one of the other clerks shake his head. Edward examined the room more closely, his eyes travelling from embroidery to embroidery, along the frieze, and up and down the curtains and the stripes of the wallpaper. After ten minutes of this, fearing that Lady Dolores might have forgotten the appointment and aware that no one had informed her of his presence, he licked his lips and said:

  ‘Where is her office?’

  The clerk who had spoken before said:

  ‘She’ll send for you, you know.’

  ‘I just wondered –’

  ‘Gifts from the grateful,’ said the clerk, pointing at the embroideries. ‘She said she liked embroideries.’

  ‘I was just wondering where her office was. I wasn’t going to –’

  ‘It’s in there, actually: beyond that archway.’

  Edward looked. Flanked by two immense rubber plants and an excess of fern and general greenery, he saw a door marked 307.

  ‘That is the hub,’ said the clerk. ‘The heart of our love department.’

  2

  Lady Dolores Bourhardie, a woman of fifty, received more letters than anyone else in England. They came from women of all kinds and ages, women who had often only two things in common: the fact that they were married and the fact that they were in distress. Lady Dolores sat all day in her own inner sanctum, a woman who was four and a half feet high but had never been classified as a dwarf. She sat among grey metal cabinets, organizing and thinking, and drawing on her gifts. She deplored the follies and the horrors she read of in the letters: she replied with sternness or with gentleness, and often with both. Why does he not realize, Lady Dolores had read, that he must make an effort? He makes no effort of any kind. His hair marks our wallpaper, and it is symptomatic, that, of a general malaise. The children have homes of their own now, and that being so I notice the details more. I am right to, I know; but how could I be happy, noticing the details?

  And again: Dear Lady Dolores, why do we quarrel over the raw meat from butchers or food from tins? We quarrel over clothes we wear. We quarrel about what food to give our dogs, how to lay a table, and if powdered coffee has a drug in it. We think of separation, but now we are old: we are in our sixties now, my husband and I.

  Young wives wrote, sad and sometimes disillusioned, fearful for their marriages. The middle-aged feared the passing of time.

  He says I’ve lost my looks. Wouldn’t you lose your looks, with children and illness and hard work? He says my face was beautiful once. He shows me photographs of us taken on the Isle of Man. He sees women in magazines and says, ‘There’s good looks for you, that woman with the dog.’ He says I should have a face-lift, but I’m frightened to have that kind of thing. They sew the skin, you know. He tells me that; they pull the skin and sew it. His sister had it done. He says if she has had it, why can’t I? He sits there, looking at me, saying I could do with a face-lift. He never stops.

  Dear Lady Dolores, a woman in Brighton had written, we are polite and civilized, we do not quarrel, nor tell a joke. We simulate preoccupation, but are preoccupied only with the mistake we made in 1940. We are like funeral mutes in this house.

  Lady Dolores had long since devoted herself entirely to her work. Three doors led from her small office: one to the luxurious place where all her clerks worked, one to her bathroom, and one to the room where she slept. Beyond the clerks’ room, in Room 305, the girls typed out replies to letters, sorting out stamped addressed envelopes and keeping the details of the department in order. Some wag had once christened these rooms the love department, which was suitable in a way, for Lady Dolores’ vocation was the preservation of love within marriage. She had powers, she said, and no one ever denied it, since she was the heart and soul of the magazine for which she wrote a weekly page, and on whose behalf she answered the letters: she had increased its circulation four-fold; her face advertised it nightly on a television network.

  Lady Dolores often wept, thinking of the letters, of marriages that had hit hard times, of women confused or lonely or cruelly treated, of women who were foolish, or cruel themselves. She wanted there to be happiness, she wanted there to be love, love given and love returned; she wanted people to be patient one with another, and generous, and even wise. There were ten million lonely women in England, Lady Dolores said, and most of them were married. When they wrote to her, she did her best: she cobbled up what there was to cobble, she advised restraint and patience.

  On this particular afternoon, while Edward Blakeston-Smith waited without, Lady Dolores smoked a cigarette and thought particularly about the women of Wimbledon. She knew something about them. She knew that many were the wives of men of business, that in the evenings their husbands returned and spoke, or did not speak, of the day they had spent. She guessed that the wives, if they were young wives, recounted a thing
or two about the children, what the children had remarked upon, or how ill-behaved they had proved themselves. Older wives, she imagined, asked for a glass of sherry and turned on the television.

  Marriages in that district continued under a strain, or ceased to continue, or continued in contentment: it was in that respect a district like many another. ‘I have walked up there,’ Lady Dolores often said aloud in the love department. ‘I have kept my eyes open in Wimbledon, yet I cannot see anything different except that the place has a windmill. The air is much the same as elsewhere.’ The air was pleasant, in fact: sharp in winter, balmy during the warmer months. Children played in Wimbledon gardens while their mothers sat and kept an eye on them, reading or sewing to pass the time. When it was cold, they kept an eye from their sitting-rooms, through double-glazed french windows.

  Lady Dolores, in moments of great anger, used to clench her teeth together, and clench her hands too, thinking of the women of Wimbledon; for although it was a district like many another, there were marriages that had suffered there and need not have suffered, and there were women rendered low.

  Lady Dolores thought of those marriages now, and felt frustration swelling in her breast. She recognized certain signs, and in order to prevent herself from losing her temper she rose and crossed the length of her office. She opened the door and spoke into the larger room outside. ‘Where’s this fellow?’ she said.

  ‘Me?’ inquired Edward.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lady Dolores.

  Edward followed the short, stout woman into her office, and closed the door behind him. ‘Hi,’ said Lady Dolores.

  ‘How do you do.’

  Lady Dolores saw before her a young man who smiled at her with such innocence that she was obliged to bite hard on her jewelled cigarette-holder, fearing for his presence in a hard world. He stood before her, with his smile and his light-blue eyes, with red cheeks and fair golden hair, informing her that he had once, without distinction, attended a university. He had come in answer to an advertisement, he said, looking for employment since he had no money. She saw that his fair hair was short and neatly combed. She approved of that.