Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

  I dangled my glass, empty already, from nervous fingers and watched the owner of the malicious voice as she circulated out of earshot. She was very beautiful: hair, jewellery expensive and tasteful, her dress a masterly combination of chic and casual. I envied her. Almost. Why, though, I thought sadly, does she accept James’s invitations if she despises him so much? I wondered if James knew how she really felt. Perhaps it was a game they played: he asked her, although he knew she didn’t want to come, hoping she wouldn’t; hoping she would: I didn’t know which. And she came, afraid perhaps to miss out on a Social Occasion, or knowing that James didn’t want her there; or knowing he did. I sat down, thoughtful.

  There were several chairs in the studio and they were all empty but mine. No one dared to sit; if they did that they might miss something. Or they might see themselves as I saw them, dispassionately; packed, noisy and rather silly.

  I decided to play a game. I would pinpoint the best-looking man in the room and follow him with my eyes until he turned and saw me. If I could entice him towards my chair I would buy myself a present tomorrow; if I couldn’t I would offer to wash the glasses after the last guest had gone. It was a daring game for me; a London game.

  I sat up and began to survey the room.

  ‘Hey; would you just move your chair a bit, gorgeous? You’re right in the way there.’

  Instead of retaining my cool and telling him to go to hell I leaped to my feet guiltily. Gorgeous indeed! The tall, handsome noble lord had not even looked at my face. He and I had been introduced. I remembered the purple satin of his shirt. I watched as he moved away, conscious only of the décolletée blonde at his side. As far as he was concerned I was just another statue.

  Start the game again.

  I looked around carefully, determined not to be shifted or put off again. It was strange that there should be so unattractive a selection of men present. Or was I suffering from sour grapes because none of them were mine? I tried again, leaning a little to get a better view of the far side of the studio.

  ‘It’s Laura, isn’t it?’ Someone was standing over me again. At least this one knew my name. I peered up at his face.

  He grinned. ‘We met yesterday at Solti’s preview, d’you remember?’

  I did not. ‘Really?’ I borrowed my mother’s most withering tone. One day I’ll buy myself a lorgnette; that will, I am sure, keep the whole world at bay. The young man looked suitably crestfallen and I was immediately repentant. ‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m hopeless at names.’ I shrugged, hoping he would forgive the commonplace insult which we all hand out so often.

  Amazingly he seemed to, as people do, anxious to give a second chance.

  ‘I’m John Divers,’ he commented modestly. I should have been immediately on my guard, but I was past caring. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Please could you get me another drink?’ I handed him my long-empty glass.

  I watched him push his way through the people, purposefully elbowing them aside with an enviable offhandedness. I saw Madame Malicious totter slightly to his thrust and felt myself grinning. I hoped he would come back.

  ‘You look a bit happier at last,’ James was momentarily above me, hovering, anxious. ‘For God’s sake circulate, Laura. A fine hostess you’ve turned out to be.’

  Hostess! It was the first I’d heard of it. To have heard James curse when I arrived on Thursday with my suitcase you would have thought I was the last person on God’s earth he would have allowed to act as his hostess.

  ‘Where did you dig up all these dreary people from Jimmy?’ I asked a little too loudly. I was beginning to sound like her.

  He shushed me, looking, scandalized, over his shoulder. ‘Someone’ll hear. You’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘I haven’t. I’ve only had one glass and now I’ve lost that.’ It’s true I was acting a little drunk and it wasn’t entirely deliberate. Perhaps some strange defence mechanism had come into play to give me courage or comfort.

  ‘Well, for God’s sake keep your voice down,’ James hissed and he had gone.

  I was stung by the injustice of that, as I had scarcely spoken a word all evening, but I was still enough in awe of big brother James to feel chastened and subside, miserable again, onto my chair.

  To my amazement John Divers reappeared with my glass. ‘You don’t happen to know who that ravishing dark girl over there is, do you?’ He leaned down confidentially, close to my ear. So that was it. The inevitable bucket of cold water.

  ‘I gather she’s a handful,’ I murmured sweetly, sipping my wine. ‘A nympho; I shouldn’t try your chances there unless you’re pretty hot stuff.’ It wasn’t true of course; I had no idea who the poor girl was.

  The room was becoming unbearably hot; the pale chiffon of my dress clung to me uncomfortably. I wanted to pick the skirts up round my thighs, rid myself of the horrible cloying tights and kick my shoes up towards the smoky glass skylights. High above them the summer sky was at last growing dark. For a wild moment I contemplated actually doing it. I would have to jump on a table of course; such dramatic gestures could not be practised in a dark corner, or discreetly behind a marble nude.

  What were the chances of getting away with it? Tights are not a garment one can strip off gracefully. One is too liable to fall flat on one’s face.

  I should have taken James’s advice. ‘Don’t bother with tights and don’t wear a bra with that dress,’ he had said coming in, to my acute embarrassment, as I was dressing. ‘Don’t be silly, Laura. I am your brother, so you needn’t cover up your tits. Don’t be such a prude. Nude women are my job.’ And when reluctantly I took away my hands he had been quite approving. ‘I must get you to sit for me while you’re here.’

  But in spite of his ridicule I had insisted on my bra and tights.

  I compromised now by kicking off my sandals and closing my eyes for a minute, allowing the party to revolve around me.

  ‘You know, he’s really quite talented.’ Strange how words sort themselves out and emerge from the general babble when your eyes are shut. ‘I think James is a fool to allow all these people into his studio. They might damage his stuff.’

  ‘And they’re not really interested in him as a sculptor, you can tell.’ Another voice.

  So I had two sympathizers in the room. I opened my eyes and looked around but in the tide of coming and going the owners of the voices were lost. I picked up my sandals and walked slowly across the floor.

  People were sitting on the spiral stair which led up to the small gallery bedroom, with its curtain wall. I thought of the quiet oasis I would find up there among the coats and climbed purposefully upwards.

  I had drawn back the curtain and was inside the little room before I realized there were people on the bed. Two people. One of them was Sandra, my brother’s lady. The other was not my brother. It was too late to withdraw; too late to pretend I hadn’t seen; too late for them to hide. The three of us stared at one another in stark embarrassment for a moment and then Sandra began to pull the bedspread up around her shoulders. Her dress lay tangled on the floor at my feet.

  ‘Don’t tell James,’ she said.

  I backed away, drew the curtain again and went to sit with the others for a moment on the spiral stair, resting my head against the wrought iron newel post. Below me the party raged like a forest fire. Automatically my eyes sought out James. He was standing alone for a moment, watching. Perhaps he was watching for Sandra. I pulled myself wearily to my feet and made for the kitchen.

  There too were people. Someone was bleeding profusely into me sink. ‘Can I help?’ I asked distantly, half of me still upstairs, an invisible, sick voyeur. Several pairs of eyes turned towards me.

  ‘Do you think it’s an artery?’

  ‘He did it on a glass.’

  ‘I hope James doesn’t mind; there’s blood all over the tea towel.’

  They greeted me with relief, like children who, when the game has stopped being fun any more, turn for reassurance to the nearest adult. I knew at l
east where the plasters and antiseptic were because James had stuck a chisel into his thumb the night before.

  ‘Apply pressure to the wound,’ I directed, as he had done then, bringing out the first aid kit.

  They obeyed.

  ‘Sit down so I can fix it’

  He did.

  It was really quite a bad cut. ‘It might have to be stitched.’ I recognized the purple shirt and felt foolishly even spitefully pleased. So his lordship had to recognize me in the end. ‘You really ought to see a doctor, you know.’ I glanced up and met his eye.

  He grinned, his face a little pale. ‘You’re doing fine. Thanks awfully. Silly of me.’ He laughed uncomfortably. ‘Always get a bit nervous at do’s like these.’

  You too, I thought. I would never have guessed.

  ‘Damion, darling, are you all right?’ I was elbowed out of the way by a vision in frothy lace. But Damion was now concerned more with the spillage of his blood than with dalliance with his lady. ‘Shut up, Sue. Let Laura get on with it. She’s patching me up beautifully.’ So he had even remembered my name.

  The circle of admirers watching my every move with the antiseptic was still there, morbidly curious.

  ‘Make some coffee, someone,’ I directed without looking up. ‘Damion could do with something hot.’

  Amazingly I heard the kettle being filled. Then James was there, fussing and apologetic that one of his glasses should have perpetrated the damage. I left them to it.

  Slowly the party thinned. I saw Sandra, dressed and hair immaculate, go to James and take his hand and stand on her toes to kiss his chin. For the first time that evening his face relaxed and he smiled. Then she looked across and saw me watching.

  ‘I wondered if you’d come and have some dinner with me one day.’

  I remembered his name this time: John.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It might be fun.’

  My eyes still followed Sandra and James. He had his arm around her and was talking to her with pathetic eagerness. ‘Yes, John, that would be nice.’ I smiled at him, knowing I was second best, but still happy. I rather liked his face.

  He grinned. ‘You were right about the nympho lady,’ he whispered confidentially. ‘Much too hot for me to handle.’

  ‘God, I do hate parties,’ James said when the last guest had gone. He threw himself down on the studio couch and stretched his arms high above his head. Dawn was breaking and high above the skylights tiny puffs of pink-tinged cloud were floating in the blue-black of the sky. Cigarette smoke still drifted beneath the high ceiling; the smell of it clung everywhere.

  ‘Why do you give them, then?’

  He rubbed his eyes slowly and then looked hard at his knuckles. ‘I often ask myself that.’

  ‘Do you think anyone enjoys them much?’

  He laughed. ‘I sometimes wonder. I know I used to. But now …’ He sighed.

  ‘It’s a sort of ritual, isn’t it? Everyone comes, even when they don’t want to; everyone pretends to enjoy themselves, even when they aren’t; everyone talks to the people they’d rather never see again and miss the chance of meeting the people they want to see because no one remembers, or knows, to introduce them. Relationships are made or broken and next day no one can remember why.’ I looked at him sadly.

  ‘Perhaps I give lousy parties.’ Wearily he bent to collect the glasses round his feet. ‘Do I gather you didn’t enjoy it?’

  ‘It was another party.’ I knelt to help him. ‘Sandra didn’t stay then?’

  He shook his head. ‘She often doesn’t. She has to be at work early tomorrow, poor love. I’m surprised she stayed so long.’

  ‘I expect she was enjoying herself.’ I rose, my hands full of glasses and went through to the kitchen. The bloody tea towel still lay on the table; plasters, antiseptic, coffee cups heaped anyhow around it. In the sink the tap slowly dripped, etching more deeply the groove in the stained enamel.

  ‘I’m glad you met Sandy tonight.’ James came in behind me. ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘I hardly spoke to her.’ I knew my voice sounded guarded but I couldn’t help it.

  ‘She’s a super person, Laura; one of the best.’

  ‘I shouldn’t let yourself get too fond of her, Jimmy.’ I spoke very quietly, gathering up the towel to rinse in the sink. ‘I’m sure she’s nice, but …’

  ‘But what?’ He flared up at once in her defence. ‘You know your trouble, Laura. You’re a cynic.’ His hands shook as he pushed a trayful of glasses onto the table. ‘You always look for the worst side of people. You never take them at face value.’

  I watched the red stain flowing out into the running water and gurgling away down the sink. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy,’ I said. I thought of Sandra’s surprised face and tousled hair as she sat up from the arms of another man in James’s own bed. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose it’s just the way I’m made.’ I went and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Take no notice of me. You’re right. I am a cynic and I’m afraid I always will be.’

  I went slowly back into the studio and looked around. After all, for all I knew James was well aware of what Sandra was like. Whether he did or not I had to let it rest there. I could say no more to James about it.

  I wandered over to the beautiful bronze nude and gazed at her serene expression. It was Sandra, of course. I should have recognized her. Gently I blew the cloying ash from the angle of her elbow and went to turn out the lights.

  A Stranger With No Name

  Sally paused to pick up another piece of driftwood and throw it into the bag she had dropped on the frozen sand nearby. Her back ached and her eyes were sore with the icy glare from the sea and for a minute she straightened and gazed back along the beach. Far away near the dunes she could just make out the distant figure of a man.

  Her heart leaped. Forgetting the bag she ran a few steps towards him, pushing her hair out of her eyes as the persistent stinging wind blinded her momentarily, hiding him from her. Then she stopped and waited.

  His was the first figure she had seen on the beach in three days, the first in fact since she had watched him walk away. It had to be him. She had known he would come back …

  They had been walking along the edge of the sea in the rain, watching the pock marks hammered by the shower into the heavy slate of the tide, picking among the seaweed for shells, slipping them, sandy and wet and cold into their pockets, staring out across towards the distant rocks where the smoothness of the sea humped itself into an uneasy swell. It was a lonely place, a place of solitary wheeling seabirds and infinite wind-torn skies, a place where one could dream and think; a place where one could feel free. She had been happy and at peace, linking her arm through Oliver’s, savouring the salty rain on her lips, the sting of the cold clean air on her cheeks and she had not guessed what he was thinking; there was no warning, no premonition, of the outburst which was suddenly upon her.

  ‘I can’t stand this any more, Sally! When are we going to stop coming to this dreadful place?’ He had pulled away from her, his gesture angry and impatient. ‘Don’t you ever long for company and lights and sunshine?’

  She stood for a moment unable to say a word, stunned into silence by her total surprise. Then reproachfully trying to refocus her thoughts, to understand what he was saying, she turned to him. ‘I thought you loved it here.’

  ‘I do.’ He hurled a pebble at the water. ‘It’s just that sometimes I would rather go to other places; do other things. I feel trapped in this place …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

  She couldn’t have said anything worse.

  ‘No, that’s your trouble. You don’t realize. You think everyone else is the same as you. You don’t bother to try and put yourself in their place. You adore it here, so everyone else must. You revel in introspection so you think it must be good for others too.’

  ‘Oliver! That’s not fair; you said you liked it here. You said you loved the quiet …’

  ‘Well, I’ve changed my mind. So l
et’s go! First thing tomorrow. Right?’

  And then, as though at a signal, it started; the flying words, the recriminations which had led to the bitter analyses of their oh so short marriage, both of them saying things they didn’t really mean, hurling the insults into the face of the rain.

  At least Sally hadn’t meant them …

  When they regained the cottage at last Oliver had heaped the driftwood onto the fire till it blazed and ostentatiously made himself a bed on the sofa in front of it and Sally had crept into the cold bedroom alone.

  The next morning she had been watching the cool early light slanting across the sands from the sea. She had leaned on her elbows and taken a deep breath of the salty air, watching the darting swooping flight of the terns as they skimmed the green water. They had not spoken since the night before.

  Behind her Oliver was stirring the coffee in an old saucepan on the stove, filling the kitchen with the pungent bitter smell of it.

  ‘Well, have you made up your mind? Are you coming?’ His voice, coming out of the silence, had sounded politely casual. She could hear him picking the strainer off the draining board, carrying the saucepan to the table, pouring it into the two cups.

  ‘I’m staying, Oliver.’ She did not turn.

  ‘OK. I’ll leave you the car. I shall walk up the shore to the village and pick up a bus.’

  ‘Fine.’

  They might have been discussing their plans for any day of the holiday.

  ‘Your coffee is on the table,’ he said softly and she heard him pick up his own cup and walk away into the other room. Then, at the door he hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, Sally.’ His voice was slightly muffled. ‘It’s probably not your fault.’ And the door closed behind him.

  But she had not believed him. Her knuckles were white on the edge of the window and her eyes blurred with tears as she stared at the dancing terns and still she did not move or make any attempt to call him back. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Why should last night’s row more than any other have led to this? Of course it was her fault. It had to be.