‘It’s always both people’s.’
‘Do you hear from him nowadays?’
‘Oh yes, every so often. They’re still in Scranton. He’s out of a job. And Debbie just had another baby – that’s their third – another daughter. I can’t think how they manage. I keep trying to stop him sending any more money, even though it is for Fred. But he’s so obstinate, poor lamb, when he thinks something’s his duty. Well, from now on, I suppose he and Fred will have to work that out between them. I’m out of the picture altogether —’
There is a bleak little pause. George gives her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. ‘How about a couple of quick ones before that stew?’
‘I think that’s a positively brilliant idea!’ She laughs quite gaily. But then, as he takes the glass from her, she strokes his hand with a momentary return to pathos, ‘You’re so damned good to me, Geo.’ Her eyes fill with tears. However, he can decently pretend that he hasn’t noticed them, so he walks away.
If I’d been the one the truck hit, he says to himself, as he enters the kitchen, Jim would be right here, this very evening, walking through this doorway, carrying these two glasses. Things are as simple as that.
‘So here we are,’ Charlotte says, ‘just the two of us. Just you and me.’
They are drinking their coffee after dinner. The stew turned out quite a success, though not noticeably different from all Charlotte’s other stews; its relationship to Borneo being almost entirely literary.
‘Just the two of us,’ she repeats.
George smiles at her vaguely; not sure yet if this is a lead-in to something, or only sententious-sentimental warmth arising from the wine. They had about a bottle and a half between them.
But then, slowly, thoughtfully, as though this were a mere bit of irrelevant feminine musing, she adds, ‘I suppose, in a day or two, I must get around to cleaning out Fred’s room.’
A pause.
‘I mean, until I’ve done that, I won’t feel that everything’s really over. You have to do something, to convince yourself. You know what I mean?’
‘Yes, Charley. I think so.’
‘I shall send Fred anything he needs, of course. The rest I can store away. There’s heaps of space under the house.’
‘Are you planning to rent his room?’ George asks – because, if she is leading up to something, they may as well get to it.
‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly do that. . . . Well, not to a stranger, anyhow. One couldn’t offer him any real privacy. He’d have to be part of the family – oh dear, I must stop using that expression – it’s only force of habit. . . . Still, you understand, Geo. It would have to be someone I knew most awfully well —’
‘I can see that.’
‘You know, you and I – it’s funny – we’re really in the same boat, now. Our houses are kind of too big for us, and yet they’re too small.’
‘Depending on which way you look at it.’
‘Yes. . . . Geo darling – if I ask you something – it’s not that I’m trying to pry, or anything —’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Now that – well, now that some time has gone by – do you still feel that you want to live alone?’
‘I never wanted to live alone, Charley.’
‘Oh, I know! Forgive me. I never meant—’
‘I know you didn’t. That’s perfectly all right.’
‘Of course, I know how you must feel about that house of yours. . . . You’ve never thought of moving, have you?’
‘No – not seriously.’
‘No—’ (This is a bit wistful.) ‘I suppose you wouldn’t. I suppose – as long as you stay there – you feel closer to Jim. Isn’t that it?’
‘Maybe that’s it.’
She reaches over and gives his hand a long squeeze of deep understanding. Then, stubbing out her cigarette (brave, now, for both of them) she says brightly, ‘Would you like to get us some drinks, Geo?’
‘The dishes, first.’
‘Oh, but darling, let’s leave them, please! I’ll wash them in the morning. I mean, I’d like to. It gives me something to do, these days. There’s so little —’
‘No arguments, Charley! If you won’t help me, I’ll do them alone.’
‘Oh, Geo —!’
And now, half an hour later, they’re back in the living-room again, with fresh drinks in their hands.
‘How can you pretend you don’t love it?’ she is asking him, with a teasing coquettish reproachfulness. ‘And you miss it – you wish you were back there – you know you do!’ This is one of her favourite themes.
‘I’m not pretending anything, Charley, for Heaven’s sake! You keep ignoring the fact that I have been back there, several times; and you haven’t. . . . I’m absolutely willing to admit that I like it better every time I do go. In fact, right now, I think it’s probably the most extraordinary country in the world – because it’s such a marvellous mix-up. Everything’s changed, and yet nothing has. . . . I don’t believe I ever told you this – last year, in the middle of the summer, when Jim and I were over there, you remember, we made a trip through the Cotswolds? Well, one morning, we were on this little branch-line train, and we stopped at a village which was right out of a Tennyson poem – sleepy meadows all around, and lazy cows, and moaning doves, and immemorial elms, and the Elizabethan manor house showing through the trees. And there, on the platform, were two porters, dressed just the same way porters have been dressed since the nineteenth century. Only they were Negroes from Trinidad. And the ticket-collector at the gate was Chinese. I nearly died of joy. I mean, it was the one touch that had been lacking, all these years. It finally made the whole place perfect —’
‘I’m not sure how I should like that part of it,’ says Charlotte. Her romanticism has received a jolt, as he knew it would. Indeed, he has told this story to tease her. But she won’t be put off. She wants more. She is just in the mood for tipsy day-dreaming. ‘And then you went up North, didn’t you,’ she prompts him, ‘to look at the house you were born in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me about it!’
‘Oh, Charley – I’ve told you dozens of times!’
‘Tell me again – please, Geo!’
She is as persistent as a child; and George can seldom refuse her, especially after he’s had a few drinks.
‘It used to be a farmhouse, you know. It was built in 1649 – the year they beheaded Charles the First —’
‘1649! Oh, Geo – just think of it!’
‘There are several other farms in the neighbourhood much older than that. . . . Of course, it’s had a lot of alterations. The people who live there now – he’s a television producer in Manchester – have practically rebuilt the inside of it. Put in a new staircase and an extra bathroom and modernised the kitchen. And the other day they wrote me that they now have central heating —’
‘How horrible! There ought to be a law against ruining beautiful old houses. This craze for bringing things up to date – I suppose they’ve caught it from this bloody country.’
‘Don’t be a goose, Charley darling! The place was all but uninhabitable, the way it was. It’s built of that local stone which seems to suck up every drop of moisture in the air. And there’s plenty, in that ghastly climate. Even in summer, the walls used to be clammy; and in winter, if you went into a room where the fire hadn’t been lighted for a few days, it was cold as death. The cellar actually smelt like a tomb. Mould was always forming on the books, and the wallpaper kept peeling off, and the mounts of the pictures were spotted with damp —’
‘Whatever you say about it, darling, you always make it sound so marvellously romantic. Exactly like Wuthering Heights!’
‘Actually, it’s almost suburban, nowadays. You walk down a short lane and there you are on the main road, with buses running every twenty minutes into Manchester.’
‘But didn’t you tell me the house is on the edge of the moors?’
‘Well, yes – so it is. That’s
what’s so odd about it. It’s kind of in two worlds. . . . When you look out from the back – from the room I was born in, as a matter of fact – that view literally hasn’t changed since I was a boy. You still see hardly any houses – just the open hills, and the stone walls running over them, and a few little white-washed dots of farms. And, of course, the trees around the old farmyard were planted long, long before I was born – to shelter the house – there’s a lot of wind up there, on the ridge – great big beech trees – they make a sort of seething sound, like waves – that’s one of the earliest sounds I remember – I sometimes wonder if that’s why I always have had this thing about wanting to live near the ocean —’
Something is happening to George. To please Charley, he has started to make magic; and now the magic is taking hold of him. He is quite aware of this – but what’s the harm? It’s fun. It adds a new dimension to being drunk. Just as long as there’s no one to hear him but Charley! She is sighing deeply now with sympathy and delight; the delight of an addict, when someone else admits he’s hooked, too.
‘There’s a little pub high up on the moors, the very last house in the village – actually it’s on the old coaching road over the hills, which hardly anyone uses now. Jim and I used to go there in the evenings. It’s called The Farmer’s Boy. The bar parlour has one of those low, very heavy-looking ceilings, you know, with warped oak beams; and there’s a big open fireplace. And some foxes’ masks mounted, on the wall. And an engraving of Queen Victoria riding a pony in the Highlands —’
Charlotte is so delighted that she actually claps her hands. ‘Geo! Oh, I can just see it all!’
‘One night we were there, they stayed open extra late, because it was Jim’s birthday – that is, they shut the outside door and went right on serving drinks. We felt marvellously cosy, and we drank pints and pints of Guinness, far more than we wanted, just because it was illegal. And then there was a “character” – that was how they all described him, “oh, he’s a character, he is!” – named Rex – who was a kind of a rustic beat. He worked as a farm labourer, but only when he absolutely had to. He started talking in a very superior tone, to impress us. He told Jim, ‘You Yanks are living in a world of fantasy’! But then he got much more friendly, and when we were walking back to the inn where we were staying, absolutely plastered by this time, Rex and I discovered something in common; we both knew Newbolt’s Vitae Lampada by heart, we’d learnt it at school. So of course we began roaring out, “play up, play up, and play the game!” And when we got to the second verse, about the sands of the desert being sodden red, I said, ‘the colonel’s jammed and the gatling’s dead’, and Rex thought that was the joke of the year, and Jim sat right down on the road, and buried his face in his hands and uttered a terrible groan —’
‘You mean, he wasn’t enjoying himself?’
‘Jim, not enjoying himself? He was having the ball of his life! For a while, I thought I’d never get him out of England again. And, you know, he fell wildly in love with that pub? The rest of the house is very attractive, I must admit. There’s an upstairs sitting-room which you could really make something out of. And quite a big garden. Jim wanted us to buy it, and live there, and run it together.’
‘What a marvellous idea! Oh, what a shame you couldn’t have!’
‘Actually, it wouldn’t have been utterly impossible. We made some inquires. I think we could have persuaded them to sell. And no doubt Jim would have picked up pub-running, the way he did everything else. Of course, there’d have been an awful lot of red tape, and permits, and stuff. . . . Oh yes, we talked about it. We even used to say we’d go back this year and look into the whole thing some more —’
‘Do you think – I mean, if Jim – would you really have bought it and settled down there?’
‘Oh, who knows? We were always making plans like that. We hardly ever told other people about them, even you. Maybe that was because we knew in our hearts they were crazy. But then, again, we did do some crazy things, didn’t we? Well, we’ll never know, now. . . . Charlotte, dear, we are both in need of a drink.’
He is suddenly aware of Charlotte saying, ‘I suppose, for a man, it is different —’
(What’s different? Can he have dozed off for a couple of seconds? George shakes himself awake.)
‘— you know, I used to think that about Buddy? He could have lived anywhere. He could have travelled hundreds of miles across nowhere, and then suddenly just pitched his tent and called it somewhere, and it would have been somewhere, simply because he said so. After all, I mean, isn’t that what the pioneers all did in this country, not so long ago? It must have been in Buddy’s blood – though it certainly can’t be, any longer. Debbie would never put up with that sort of thing. . . . No, Geo, cross my heart, I am honestly not being bitchy! I wouldn’t have put up with it, either, in the long run. Women are like that – we’ve simply got to hang on to our roots. We can be transplanted, yes – but it has to be done by a man, and when he’s done it, he has to stay with us and wither – I mean water – I mean, the new roots wither if they aren’t watered —’ Her voice has thickened. Now she gives her head an abrupt shake, just as George did, a few moments ago. ‘Am I making any sense at all?’
‘Yes, Charley. Aren’t you trying to tell me you’ve decided to go back?’
‘You mean, go back Home?’
‘Are you sure it is Home, still?’
‘Oh dear – I’m not sure of anything – but – now Fred doesn’t need me any more – will you tell me, Geo, what am I doing here?’
‘You’ve got a lot of friends.’
‘Certainly I have. Friends. And they’re real dears. The Peabodys and the Garfeins, especially, and Jerry and Flora, and I am very fond of Myrna Custer. But none of them need me. There isn’t anyone who’d make me feel guilty about leaving them. . . . Now, Geo, be absolutely honest – is there anyone, anyone at all, I ought to feel guilty about leaving behind?’
There’s me. No, he refuses to say it. Such flirting is unworthy of them, even when drunk. ‘Feeling guilty’s no reason for staying, or going,’ he tells her, firmly but kindly. ‘The point is, do you want to go? If you want to go, you should go. Never mind anybody else.’
Charley nods sadly. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’
George goes into the kitchen, fixes another round. (They seem to be drinking up much faster now. This one really should be the last.) When he comes out again, she’s sitting with her hands clasped, gazing in front of her. ‘I think I shall go back, Geo. I dread it – but I’m beginning to think I really shall —’
‘Why do you dread it?’
‘In a way, I dread it. There’s Nan, for one thing —’
‘You wouldn’t have to live with her, would you?’
‘I wouldn’t have to. But I would. I’m sure I would.’
‘But, Charley – I’ve always had the impression that you loathe each other?’
‘Not exactly loathe. Anyhow, in a family, that’s not really what matters – I mean, it can be beside the point. That’s hard to explain to you, Geo, because you never had any family, did you, after you were quite young? No, I wouldn’t say loathe. Though, of course, when I first got to know Buddy – when she found out we were sleeping together, that is – Nan did rather hate me. I mean, she hated my luck. Of course, in those days, Buddy was a dreamboat. Any sister might have felt jealous. But that wasn’t the biggest part of it. What she really minded was that Buddy was a G.I. and that he was going to take me back to live in the States when we were married. Nan simply longed to come over here, you see – so many girls did, after wartime England and the shortages and everything – but she’d have died rather than admit it. She felt she was being disloyal to England, even to want to come. I do believe she’d have far sooner admitted to being jealous of me with Buddy! Isn’t that a laugh?’
‘She knows you and Buddy have split up, of course?’
‘Oh yes, I had to tell her at once, right after it happened. Otherwise, I’d have be
en so afraid she’d find out for herself, in some uncanny way, and that would have been too shaming. . . . So I wrote to her about it, and she wrote back, such a beastly quietly triumphing letter, saying now I suppose you’ll have to come back here – back to the country you deserted; that was what she implied. So of course I flew right off the handle – you know me! – and answered saying I was blissfully happy here, and that never never would I set foot on her dreary little island again. Oh, and then – I’ve never told you any of this, because it embarrassed me so – after I wrote that letter, I felt most terribly guilty, so I started sending her things; you know, delicatessen from those luxury shops in Beverly Hills, all sorts of cheeses and things in bottles and jars. As a matter of fact, living in this so-called land of plenty, I could hardly afford them! And I was such an utter idiot; I didn’t once stop to think how tactless I was being! Actually, I was playing right into Nan’s hands. I mean, she let me go on sending all this stuff for a while – which she ate, I presume – and then really torpedoed me. Asked hadn’t we heard in America that the War had been over quite some time, and that bundles for Britain were out of date?’
‘Charming creature!’
‘No, Geo – underneath all that, Nan really loves me. It’s just she wants me to see things her way. You know, she’s two years older; that meant a lot when we were children. I’ve always thought of her as being sort of like a road – I mean, she leads somewhere. With her, I’ll never lose my way. . . . Do you know what I’m trying to say?’
‘No.’
‘Well, never mind. . . . There’s another thing about going back Home – it’s the Past; and that’s all tied up with Nan, too. Sort of going back to the place where I turned off the road, do you see?’
‘No. I don’t see.’
‘But, Geo – the Past! Surely you can’t pretend you don’t know what I mean by that?’
‘The Past is just something that’s over.’
‘Oh really – how can you be so tiresome!’
‘No, Charley, I mean it. The Past is over. People make believe that it isn’t, and they show you things in museums. But that’s not the Past. You won’t find the Past in England. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’
A Single Man Page 10