As a cabin companion she was congenial, since she was the least discontented passenger on board. At the age of seventy she had recently buried a father of ninety-eight to whom she had been a bond slave all her life. This was the first holiday that she had ever known and her cheerfulness was refreshing. Nobody else on the Latona was particularly congenial: Kate had scarcely troubled to discover their names.
‘I want my letters,’ she said.
It was her birthday, but she did not mention this in case Miss Shepheard might think herself obliged to buy some chocolates at the cruise shop. Never before in her life had she spent a birthday apart from her family; she felt unexpectedly forlorn.
They reached Skiathos in the afternoon. Mail bags were brought to the Latona and letters were distributed at the cruise office. Kate got three, from Douglas, Judith, and Bridie, and a large, ornate birthday card from Hazel. Meaning to savour them at leisure she put them, with her bathing dress, into the bucket bag and went on shore. Seclusion there might be easier to secure than it ever was on the boat, although the Wanderers were fast turning the little town into an ant heap.
After climbing steeply, through narrow streets, she came out upon a view of a woody bay, and sat down beneath the nearest olive tree. A few cruisers were already bathing on the rocky beach below. She decided to join them as soon as she had read her dear birthday letters; so far she had never gone swimming in her new expensive bathing dress. Bathing beaches were less plentiful than she had been led to expect, and jelly fish far more so.
Fishing her spectacles out of her bag she first examined Hazel’s card, in the hope that a note from Andrew might lurk inside it. None did. The stupid, tasteless thing was inscribed, in Hazel’s childish hand, with a greeting from both of them.
Men are lazy, she reminded herself, falling into a Mortimer generalization. Men are all alike. They don’t think.
She expected most pleasure from Bridie’s letter, so she saved it to the last and began with Douglas, who never had much to say.
My dear Kate,
I hope that this will duly reach you on your birthday, and that your cruise is coming up to expectations. Your postcard from Syracuse did not sound very enthusiastic, but rough weather may have accounted for that. You must let me know, when you get home, what you’d like for a present. Even if I could guess there would be no point in posting a parcel to the Sporades.
I go on very well. Mrs Piper cooks me excellent meals. All the lights on the top floor fused. I told her to get it seen to.
Otherwise there is no news. I had supper with Judith and Brian on Sunday. I did not see the children, who were in bed, but they are reported to be well. Brian and I had a slight brush. I rather think he has made a mess of a libel case we gave him. He has an unfortunate manner. If he thinks the judge an ignorant old fool he makes no attempt to conceal the fact. His conceit is likely to be a handicap to him. I can’t give him cases if he’s going to make a mess of them. He may be my son-in-law but I have the client to consider.
I gather that Cromer is off this year. They are joining Brian’s parents on the Isle of Wight. I told Judith that you were keeping August free for Cromer. I expect she’ll write to you.
I have a picture accepted at the Exhibition of Amateur Water Colourists. A sketch of the Coolins I did in Skye last year, I don’t expect you remember it? As you say, I’ve sketched the Coolins rather often.
Your loving husband: D.
The news that Cromer was off annoyed Kate so much that she hurried on to Judith’s letter. A fortnight alone with the babies had been a treat to which she had eagerly looked forward. But Judith, after an affectionate paragraph of birthday greetings, airily disposed of it. Nor was the pill much sweetened by a flattering tribute to Kate’s efficiency as a grandmother.
This means that Brian and I won’t be able to get off by ourselves and it won’t be much holiday for me, as I can’t leave the children for half an hour with Mrs Loder. She’s so nervous. She can’t manage them for toffee. There’s nobody like you, Mother, with little children. But Brian would rather go to Freshwater. He doesn’t see his parents very often.
And now I have something very upsetting to tell you. I hate to do it on your birthday, but really it’s urgent. If anything can be done at all, there’s no time to be lost.
Andrew, if you please, is throwing up his job with Mortimer and Tyndale! He says he has always hated it. He’s gone back to that daft old pipe dream of being an ‘Interior Decorator’.
He’s got a job with a firm just starting in Bruton Street. Mrs Shelmerdine is putting up the money and says that all her friends have promised to get Andrew to do their houses for them. She does have that sort of friend, I suppose. People who think it’s smart not to know what colour paint they want. And he’s not buying that house. He and Hazel are to have some kind of flat over the shop in Bruton Street.
It’s cold, thought Kate, searching in her bag for a light wrap. Although the sun blazed down upon Skiathos the shock of this letter had sent a chill through all her nerves. Impossible! she told herself, two or three times. He can’t. He mustn’t. Douglas will … Douglas doesn’t know yet. ‘There is no news,’ he said.
She read on:
Brian says it’s a crazy scheme. It’s got no security. Those smart people aren’t reliable. They won’t pay their bills, and another year they’ll all go to somebody else. Brian thinks the mistake was to put all that money up for Andrew to begin with. It gave him the wrong idea of his own importance. If he’d learnt his job the hard way, as Brian has had to do, it would have been better for him.
Father came to supper on Sunday and we said what we could, but it was no use. He’s been talked round, and he’s in one of his sentimental: ‘Ah! Youth! Youth!’ moods. He says how differently most people would shape their lives if they had Andrew’s chance to think again. A year ago, when Andrew got all that money, he was having a ‘I’m a business man and no nonsense!’ mood. He says now that too much pressure was put on Andrew. He’s had a picture accepted lately for some exhibition and I dare say he sees himself as a frustrated artist forced by his mother to be a solicitor. He says that he and Andrew are both ‘creative’ types. And he won’t write to you about it. He says he doesn’t want to spoil your holiday. But I think he’s frightened of what you’ll say when you find out. He wasn’t in a very sunny temper anyway. Brian took on a libel case for him and would have won it if the Judge hadn’t been a senile idiot, but Father doesn’t seem to realize that.
Anyway, I don’t think you should be kept in the dark, in case you can think of any way to stop Andrew making such a fool of himself.
Kate flung off her little jacket again. Rage had countered that unnatural cold. A very large dose of adrenalin was coursing through her system. The scene before her had subtly changed its hue. A faint roseate haze lay over the white houses, the blue sea and the woody hills. She was, in actual fact, seeing red. This happened to her, occasionally. Bridie’s letter, when she opened it, looked as though it was written on pink paper.
Judith says she’s writing to you about Mrs Shelmerdine getting Andrew to throw up his job. I hope you can stop it. But I want to write about something else. It’s been on the tip of my tongue for months, only I never quite dared. Now, this business of Andrew has brought me up to scratch.
Why do you let yourself be put into such a humiliating position? Why don’t you and Father behave sensibly and get a divorce?
It’s obvious that you don’t need each other. I can understand that you stuck together, for our sakes, as long as we were children, so we shouldn’t have a broken home. But there’s no need for that now.
Then he could marry Mrs S. It seems she told Andrew that Father feels he can’t ask you for his freedom, because you’ve been a good wife to him, according to your lights, though he has never been happy with you. Any move must come first from you.
I think it’s a pity that you always try to pretend nothing goes on. Does this unrealistic attitude make anybody happy? People laugh
at you about it, or else they pity you. I’m absolutely on your side, of course, but I can see that you two aren’t suited. You’re too good for him, and that’s the truth.
There! I’ve said it! I believe all we Bensons would be much happier if we could call a spade a spade.
The red tinge of fury had faded from the landscape. Bridie’s letter, though galling enough, need not be taken seriously. It was pure fantasy. Only Bridie, wallowing in Drama, could have achieved so complete a misunderstanding of the situation. Douglas and Pamela could not possibly desire a closer, more serious tie. Any conjugal strain would immediately shatter their sentimental duet. Gentle regrets there might have been – wistful sighs over ‘this sorry scheme of things’, but Kate herself was an essential third in their ridiculous game. Sometimes, when much exasperated with them, she had wryly amused herself by picturing their dismay should she die suddenly, leaving them with no excuse for delay in booking for Samarkand.
It’s funny, she decided. Really it’s very funny. Or it would be if there were anyone to share the …
Then the first blow came back at her. Andrew! His whole career! ‘There is no news.’ Oh, what a lie! He knew all the time. He knew before I went away. They arranged for it to happen like this while I was away. Oh, I’ll never forgive them! Never! So it’s all my fault because I put pressure on … why the hell must I be told what Brian thinks we should do with our money? It would do Douglas good, it would serve him right if he did have to marry her. He’d sup sorrow with the spoon of grief … old Nanny … who did she say that about? She was always saying it, whenever anyone … I believe she said I would, if I married Douglas! She never liked him, but poor Michael was dead and I wanted to get … and I did think I was in love … he’d sup sorrow with the spoon of grief after a week of married life with Pamela, and serve him right. It’s funny. But Andrew! Oh, what shall I do? What can I do?
Nothing.
The Latona gave a warning hoot. Kate collected her belongings and crept back to the harbour. There was something which she meant to buy before going on board again, but she could not remember what it was.
A kiosk displaying postcards reminded her. She had meant to buy cards at Skiathos on which to write her thanks for those dear birthday letters which she had expected to get.
4
Keritha became an ant heap as soon as the Wanderers had disembarked. Boats, on this occasion, had been available. Picnic lunches were distributed. There was a rush for an attractive-looking bathing beach. A straggle of adventurers set off up a mountain slope.
Nobody except Kate took the track which turned north and led round the island. She longed for solitude, but did not mean to go far, since she was very tired. At the ravine and the plank bridge she paused and sat down. She would rest here, eat a few of the dry sandwiches in her picnic bag, and do nothing until it was time to return to the ship. The place was cool and solitary. It would have been beautiful, had she been attuned to beauty.
She had not intended to think about those letters still lying unanswered in her cabin. It would be so much more sensible to think of something else. She sought for other topics, found none, and took refuge in the well-worn reflection that ‘it was all very natural’. It was the common lot. Children grew up and turned into strangers. That was Nature – an enemy bound to win in the end. One must not quarrel with other people for behaving very naturally, although one might never with a clear conscience behave very naturally oneself.
For half an hour she sat there, ascribing to her own discordant mood a vague sense of uneasiness which haunted the ravine as though she were not, after all, quite alone. Some invisible companion did not welcome her presence. Even the waterfall, with its persistent little commotion, seemed to be hostile. That sharp, tiny chatter sounded like a succession of unfriendly remarks which ultimately got on her nerves so much that she sought another refuge.
Round the next corner she came unexpectedly upon a long, low pleasant house set amidst garden slopes. A woman in a black dress was feeding doves upon a terrace. The scene was familiar. Edith Challoner, in a long black pinny, used to feed doves fifty years ago in the Addison Road. Kate stood watching until a square, pale face was turned her way. Gaunt and aged though it was, she knew it at once for the face of her earliest friend.
‘Edith!’
‘Why … Kate!’
‘It’s you. It is you. Not changed a bit.’
Edith came tranquilly down from the terrace, took her hand, kissed her, and said:
‘How nice! Would you like a bath?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Kate, remembering that Edith never said the expected thing.
‘But there will be plenty of time before lunch. Freddie is out catching mullet.’
‘Is he here too? This house?’
‘It’s our house. You’d much better have a bath. You’d enjoy it.’
Edith’s remarks might be unpredictable but they were never silly. Kate had not had a bath since leaving London. On the Latona there were merely showers which nobody could manipulate.
‘Well … perhaps …’
As they turned towards the house a fisherman came up from the cove with a basket of mullet. It was Freddie, and he too was very little changed. As children the Challoners had looked elderly. Now, upon the threshold of old age, some after-glow of childhood hung about them. He flinched a little when he saw Kate, but his sister said something quickly to him in Greek, whereat he smiled and said, in his turn:
‘How nice! Where is your donkey?’
She explained that she had no donkey. They were both shocked to learn that she had walked all the way.
‘If you’d told them on the quay that you were coming here, to see us, they’d have given you a donkey,’ lamented Edith.
‘I didn’t know I was going to see you.’
‘She’s just going to have her bath,’ said Edith to Freddie. ‘Tell Eugenia we have a guest to lunch.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Freddie, as though a bath was the natural prelude to any hospitality. ‘What wine do you like, Kate?’
‘I leave that to you,’ said Kate.
In the bathroom Edith produced two enormous towels and sat down in a chair by the window. A bath was apparently a social occasion and she was offering Kate her company. That had always been their custom; there had been a bathroom like this in the Challoners’ London house. Kate and Edith had often, in childhood, amused themselves by sitting at either end of a vast tiled tub, sailing fleets of boats made from half walnut shells, with matchstick masts and curved paper sails. Kate had made argosies like these for her children and her grandchildren. Slightly disconcerted she shuffled out of her clothes and climbed into the water.
‘Do you remember our walnut boats?’ she asked. ‘They were rather clever. Where did we get the idea?’
‘Mama used to make them. All the children here make them.’
The bath was extremely pleasant. Kate rested her head on a ledge, which seemed to be put there for the purpose, and relaxed. A spell which she had always felt when with the Challoners began to steal over her.
‘How long have you been here?’ she asked.
‘Oh. A long time. Ever since we came here.’
As if aware that this was inadequate Edith added:
‘We came here with Mama when Papa died, and never went away any more. This is our home. We built this house.’
‘When was that?’ asked Kate sleepily.
‘In the Spring. We came back in the Spring.’
‘It must be lovely here then.’
‘You can smell the flowers out at sea. We smelt them over the sea the day we came back.’
Kate closed her eyes and saw these wayworn travellers gliding over a laughing sea to the hyacinth slopes of Keritha.
‘To your own native shore,’ she murmured. ‘But I meant what year was it.’
‘Nineteen twenty-two. We couldn’t have come much before because one of the wars was going on.’
‘All that time. I never knew. The last I heard
of you was a paragraph in the newspaper; you’d been presented. I hadn’t the least idea you were here. I came to Keritha quite by chance. Isn’t it strange?’
‘No. Most things happen by chance. It’s strange when they don’t.’
The longer Kate considered this statement the less she found in it to refute.
‘But we do always call it strange when something happens by chance,’ she argued. ‘I suppose we don’t like to feel that so much really does. We’d sooner there was always some sort of pattern.’
‘There’s Freddie going for the wine,’ said Edith, looking out of the window. ‘We keep it down the well.’
‘Yet chance sometimes makes patterns. Think of a Kaleidoscope! Edith! Think of a Kaleidoscope!’
‘Why?’
To conduct Edith along any train of thought had always been impossible. Kate gave it up and announced that she had arrived on a cruise. This effectively shattered Edith’s tranquillity.
‘A cruise?’ she whispered. ‘Not … not a Hellenic Cruise?’
Her face was quite stiff with alarm and her tone suggested some kind of Black Mass.
‘Oh no. Anything but. It’s a cruise that goes to all the places Hellenic Cruises never go to.’
‘You mean a lot of people have come? Are they here now?’
‘They’re swarming all over the island. Don’t look so horrified. We shall all sail away again at six o’clock.’
‘They … they never came here before … those things, those cruises,’ murmured Edith in a shaken voice. ‘Forgive me if I leave you. I must go and tell Freddie.’
She hurried away. Kate, dozing in the bath, reflected that this dismay was not surprising. The Challoners might well dislike an ant heap on Keritha. They could not be expected to like people, when people had been so very unkind to them, poor things.
It was as poor things that she had ultimately come to remember them. The walnut argosies belonged to very early days. Freddie, later, had vanished to school, coming back every holiday more silent, withered, and elderly. She and Edith had, for a time, attended a neighbouring day school, where her own life had been perpetually poisoned by humiliation on her friend’s behalf.
The Forgotten Smile Page 6