‘Well?’ said Kate. ‘Well?’
‘Diabetes.’
‘Oh? Oh yes. I never thought of that. Insulin …’
‘He’s given her an injection.’
‘How bad is it? Can he get her right?’
‘He hopes so. She must be careful what she eats.’
‘I know. No sugar.’
‘He has explained all that to Eugenia. The trouble will be to find someone who can give her injections in future. We have nobody on Keritha who can.’
‘But surely … somebody here? This isn’t such a very small place.’
‘I doubt if anyone from here would come. There’s a prejudice against Keritha; our fault perhaps – we’re not very polite to strangers. We shall have to get a nurse from Athens.’
‘It isn’t very difficult. Any sensible person can learn. I can give injections. I’d have thought …’
‘You can?’
He said no more but his look was eloquent. Never before in his life, perhaps, had he stood as a suppliant.
‘Oh, Freddie! I wish I could stay. I wish I could! Just till Eugenia learns, or till you get somebody.’
‘It wouldn’t be for long, Kate. Then I’d arrange to fly you home from Athens.’
Strongly tempted, she shook her head.
‘I’m very, very sorry. I must get back … to …’
Freddie gave her a hard look. She had scarcely mentioned her family during her stay on Keritha and her hosts had asked no questions. Then he nodded and turned to go out of the garden.
‘Yorgos has taken your suitcase on board the Latona,’ he said.
‘Oh? Is it in?’
‘It came in about twenty minutes ago.’
‘When can I see Edith to say good-bye?’
‘She’s resting now. We shall start back at one o’clock. Come along, if you can, to our boat and say good-bye.’
The harbour was now crawling with a very disconsolate-looking ant heap. One cruiser, recognizing Kate, told her that a lot of people had got food poisoning in the Black Sea, nor were they receiving any treatment since the ship’s doctor had been the first to succumb to it.
On board she encountered the familiar Latona smell – a rich mixture of oil, garlic, rancid fat, sweat, and inadequate privies. She asked for her mail at the Cruise Office and was handed one letter.
It was from Andrew and her first impulse was to leave it unopened until the ship had sailed, lest it might inflict further pain. In the museum garden she had been strongly tempted to change her mind; a return to Keritha must be put quite out of her power as quickly as possible.
The idea then occurred to her that this might, after all, turn out to be a reassuring letter. The whole prospect might have altered; if the girls had flown into a needless panic, if Andrew had changed his mind, she could forgive them all in a very few minutes.
Turning into the lounge, she sank into the nearest chair and read the letter:
My dear Mother,
I find that the girls have taken it upon themselves to inform you of my decision to change my profession. It’s no business of theirs, and I didn’t intend you to be worried about it on your holiday. But, since they’ve written, you may as well hear my side of it.
I can’t stand life with Mortimer and Tyndale. It’s routine work and entirely uncreative. You can’t want me to spend my whole life doing work which I detest? I’m joining a firm which offers me work which I prefer. It’s financially sound. Father has been into all that. As far as income goes I shall be rather better off than I am with M. & T. and the prospects are infinitely better. I shan’t risk any chance of coming down on my parents for more money. I know what sacrifices you’ve already made, and I’m grateful, though they were mistaken.
The new flat will be better for Hazel. She’ll be more in her proper element. You’ve all tried to be nice to her, no doubt, but it’s quite obvious that you criticize her. She’ll never make a good little suburban housewife, on the Benson pattern. She’ll do much better being decorative and Bohemian and getting our meals from the delicatessen round the corner. That’s the way we want to live and I fail to see why we mayn’t.
To be quite frank, she’s terrified of you, Mother. You may not mean to bully her, but you do. It appears that the last time you came here you got it all out of her about the new flat, though she’d been warned not to say a word about it, and never would have, if you hadn’t scared the daylights out of her. I resent this very much, and I’d really rather you didn’t come to see her when I’m not there to back her up.
She sends you her love and a long message, which I can’t make head or tail of, about something which has gone wrong with your sewing machine. One of Hazel’s virtues is that any machine is too much for her. She doesn’t know which end of a vacuum cleaner sucks and which blows. She’s divinely undomestic, and I like her that way, so please leave her alone.
I hope you are having a pleasant holiday.
Your loving son: Andrew
For some minutes Kate sat wondering what Hazel could possibly have done to the sewing machine. She then went down to her cabin. The suitcase, which she had brought from Keritha, was already there. Smiling to herself, riding high on the exhilaration of rage released, she began to pack up all the rest of her possessions. This accomplished, she sat down with a writing block and a Biro pen. Her words flowed smoothly for she had been rehearsing them in her mind while she packed and no doubts, no fears, no scruples checked their course.
Dear Douglas,
I got your letter on Skiathos. Also birthday (?) letters from the girls. Today, at Thasos, I’ve even had one from Andrew. I enclose them all by way of reply. Read them over and compare them.
I’m staying out here longer than I originally intended. I’ve left the cruise and shall be staying for a bit on an island called Keritha, with some old friends I ran into there. I think I may have mentioned them – the Challoners, a half-Greek family who used to live in the Addison Road. I’ll put the address at the bottom of this letter.
An interruption here occurred since Miss Shepheard came in, full of news and inquiries. Upon learning that Kate meant to leave the Latona for good she looked doubtful.
‘I don’t wonder,’ she said. ‘It gets worse and worse here. But I wish you weren’t staying on that horrid island.’
‘It’s not horrid.’
‘We’ve heard stories since … it’s supposed to be dangerous. No planes can fly aver it. They get struck by lightning. Some people say they have a secret weapon there.’
‘Oh, rubbish.’
‘Some people say it’s supernatural. They …’
A hideous din, continuing for nearly a minute, made further conversation impossible. It was the gong for the first lunch. Kate had not realized that it was so late; the boat for Keritha would be off in half an hour. She went on with her letter:
Of course I’ll come home at once if there’s anything I can really do for any of you. But I shan’t write again unless you can manage, amongst you, to send me nicer letters than these. I don’t think I’ve deserved them, whatever my sins have been. Just now I’m rather tired of being a wife and mother, and anyway, I seem to have been a failure. The Challoners hardly realize that I am one, which is a bracing change. I think it would do you all no harm to pretend that you are a widower and orphans for a while. Yours ever: K.B.
This broadside she enclosed in a large envelope with all the letters which she had received. She stamped and addressed it, picturing, in high glee, the shock which Bridie’s letter would give to Douglas. Then she rang the bell.
‘No use ringing for a steward on this ship,’ Miss Shepheard reminded her.
‘I’ve got to get my suitcase taken along the quay. My friend’s boat will be starting back any minute.’
‘Then you must go to that black hole where the stewards play shove-halfpenny all day, and wave a lot of money about. Shall I post your letter? You’d better give it to me. That box upstairs never gets cleared. And what about your big white twee
d coat? It’s still hanging up in the wardrobe.’
‘Oh bother! I forgot … I shan’t need it. It’s too thick. I can’t think why I brought it.’
‘I ought to confess I took the liberty of wearing it in the Black Sea. The wind was Arctic and my clothes aren’t nearly thick enough.’
‘Well, then, you keep it for the rest of the trip. Why not? Return it to Edwardes Square when you get home. I shan’t need it till the winter. And if you would post that letter … I think you’re right about that box upstairs. Post it on shore somewhere. I’d do it on my way now if I had more time.’
Kate rushed off to wave money at the surly stewards and to notify the Cruise Office of her intentions. It was just one o’clock when she got herself and her luggage on to the jetty. The Challoner boat was already putting out but came back when she waved.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she panted, as soon as she was within earshot. ‘I’m coming back with you.’
Freddie nodded, handed her into the boat, and directed the disposal of her luggage with a fluency which startled the Latona stewards.
‘It’s only diabetes,’ announced Edith happily. ‘And he’s stopped it.’
Eugenia beamed and offered obvious congratulations.
‘She’s so glad you’re safe.’
‘The hens,’ explained Freddie, steering out of the harbour, ‘say that the Latona is an unlucky ship.’
It looked like an unlucky ship, she thought, turning to bid it farewell as they sped away. Nor was she sorry to miss the horrible meal now being eaten on board by those passengers who had escaped food poisoning.
I’m not sorry, she told herself. I’m glad. I shall never be sorry I wrote … they deserve it … they need a bombshell. ‘then he can marry Mrs S.’ … that’ll make him jump! The very last thing … of course as soon as they write and say they’re sorry I shan’t be angry any more. But they’ve got to … how soon will they … what did I say exactly? That I shouldn’t write until they … I wish I’d taken a copy. There wasn’t time. How soon? How soon? Of course they’ll write at once, but posts are slow on Keritha, coming by Zagros. I wish I … but I’m not sorry.
Thasos sank below the horizon and with it that unlucky ship.
PART THREE
BEATITUDE
There’s many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
‘O what of the world’s bane?’
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
‘O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world’s bane.’
W. B. YEATS
1
At the time when Selwyn Potter broke a table in Edwardes Square he was losing, although he did not know it, most of his university acquaintance. He had never possessed any friends. Nobody thought of him with warmth or affection, although few people actually disliked him. No malice lay behind his clumsiness and he harboured less ill-will than many who know how to make themselves superficially agreeable.
In his undergraduate days he was tolerated for his energy and his animation. He was ready to join in any spree. He could be summoned to fetch beer, run errands, or propel punts. For a dismal performance of the Antigone in the garden of a women’s college, he had contrived a stage so ingenious that the occasion was almost a success. He drew masks for a domino party which were long treasured for their charm and originality. He was generous with the very few pennies in his pocket. He gave himself so few airs that the Glanville and other scholastic trophies were generally forgotten.
On the other hand he seldom stopped talking, always arrived too early, always stayed too long, and never knew when he was not wanted. If he found a caterpillar in his salad he would say so at the top of his voice. A hint had no effect on him at all although he never resented a plain request to shut up, or to go away. He was completely insensitive to social atmosphere but free from the egotism which often accompanies a thick skin.
In appearance he was not more unprepossessing than many of his contemporaries, but his blemishes were more conspicuous. Spots and dandruff might have been overlooked; greasy curls and a paunch were not. He might be invited to many parties but no girl would accept him as her official escort if she could secure anybody else. To arrive with Selwyn was a misfortune.
His origin and background remained obscure. At a spree to which he had not been invited speculation on this point gave rise to a paper game: The Early Life of Selwyn Potter. Amongst many diverting suggestions one became proverbial in his circle: he had been found in the Umbrella Room of the British Museum and sent to the zoo by mistake, where he was reared. Eventually Dr Challoner, arguing with a colleague in the monkey house, was set right in a quotation from Crinagoras by this creature behind the bars.
Upon leaving the university he found employment in a publishing house famous for its classical editions. Since many of his former cronies were also working in London he had expected the old sprees to continue. For two years he waited hopefully for invitations. None materialized. He had been dropped, not of set purpose but because nobody needed him any more. These cronies had formed new friendships and developed other interests. They married, and the news reached him months later, since he did not read the social announcements in the newspapers and was never invited to their weddings.
This evaporation of the past saddened him but he supposed it to be a general affliction. Since he never now saw his old friends it never occurred to him that they might still be seeing one another. He was therefore as much surprised as delighted when he received, one morning, a document forwarded from his old college. His name was written at the top of it, and, below that, he read:
Lady Myers
Requests the pleasure of your company
At the marriage of her daughter
Rosemary
to
Mr Peter Hosegood
At St Paul’s Church
Sloane Terrace
On Saturday, April 29th
At two-thirty
And afterwards at the Rockford Hotel.
R.S.V.P.
69 Glastonbury Court
S.W.
A Society Wedding! He was filled with pleased excitement, for he had never been to one although he had heard of them. He had never, in fact, been to any wedding at all. Lady Myers was a stranger, and so was her daughter Rosemary, but Peter Hosegood had always been reckoned by Selwyn as an intimate friend. They had gone, with two other men, to the Orkneys, during their first long vacation.
There were three things to be done. The invitation must be answered, a present bought, and suitable raiment hired for Saturday, 29 April. The last task was the simplest; he knew where one hired clothes. Upon the other two points he consulted a Mrs Gray, an elderly woman, who worked in his firm and who was very good-natured. She told him how to word his answer and regretted that the invitation had not been printed in silver. As for a present, she suggested a lampshade and offered to choose it for him. It cost more than he could afford and seemed to be made of an old parchment Will. He thought it awful but trusted Mrs Gray to know what might be suitable for a Society Wedding Present.
It was dispatched and created considerable dismay in the Hosegood household. Mrs Hosegood, a very inefficient woman, had sent an outdated list of Peter’s friends to Lady Myers. Now the harm was done and poor old Selwyn could not be forbidden to come. The lampshade was, in any case, no worse than some of the presents received by Rosemary.
In very good time, on the appointed day, Selwyn set off for Sloane Terrace. His hired suit was a tight fit and a top hat perched uneasily on his curly pate. The sight
of several familiar faces clustered on the church steps astonished him not at all; the sight of him astonished everybody. To some it was evidence that Peter had not, after all, turned into a crashing snob. To others it was obviously one of Mrs Hosegood’s boners. Since they had all of them, by now, completely disengaged themselves from Selwyn they were able to greet him cordially, although they took care not to be photographed whilst talking to him.
‘I’ve never been to a Society Wedding before,’ he told everybody. ‘What do we do now?’
A man called Michael Brewster, who had been one of that party to the Orkneys, and who thought that this reunion had gone on for long enough, told him at last to go into the church. He did so, admiring the red carpet, and gave his name with aplomb to a reporter. Some tactful usher put him into a pew very far down the church; it was not a good place, he decided, and removed himself to a better one almost at the top.
The organ was playing a nice piece of Bach. He looked round him with the pleased curiosity which was his unconscious defence against the inclement solitude of his life. All the women, he observed, were wearing hats. There were flowers put about in unexpected places. Suddenly everyone rose. Some clergy were going down to the porch; one of them had odd-looking sleeves. Lawn sleeves? A bishop? No mitre? Everybody sat down again. A harassed woman in tight shoes titupped up the aisle to the top pew on the left-hand side. She looked quite exhausted and was making grimaces of desperation. Whispers informed him that she must be Lady Myers. What could she have been doing? Peter and another man popped out from behind a pillar and stood at attention, facing the altar. Everybody else turned to look the other way. The choir broke into full cry and all surged to their feet. The bishop and his retinue were coming back. After them came a red-faced man with a bride on his arm, all in white, with a veil frothing about, just like the brides one saw in shop windows.
The Forgotten Smile Page 9