by Barbara Pym
‘I can’t imagine you reading Victorian novels,’ said Deirdre doubtfully.
‘No, I don’t much. And here is the river, just at the bottom of the road. Isn’t that convenient?’
‘Well, it’s nice for the Boat Race, but it isn’t really a very pretty stretch of river. Would you like to walk along a little way?’
‘Yes, let’s do that.’
They walked in silence over the thick tufty grass, Deirdre a little in front of Tom as if she were showing him the way. It was beginning to get dark now and lights were showing over the other side of the water, giving a romantic continental atmosphere.
This is the place where the young men and women walk at night and are allowed a certain amount of licence, thought Tom in his detached anthropologist’s way. He pulled Deirdre towards him and almost ceremonially led her to a seat under some elderberry trees, covered with sickly-smelling creamy flowers.
‘I do love you so much,’ she said. ‘But women aren’t supposed to say that to men, are they?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ Tom had quite often had it said to him and had never been able to see why women had this almost superstitious fear of expressing their feelings in words. It made no difference in the long run, though it could sometimes be a little disturbing in the early stages of an affair, and of course they might well consider it unwise to show their hands so early in the game.
‘Because it might not be—reciprocal.’ She frowned over the technical term she had used but could feel him smiling in the dark.
‘I shouldn’t worry about that, if I were you.’
‘I suppose it’s like that French saying or whatever it is, about there being one who kisses and one who leans the cheek to be kissed,’
‘Let me set your mind at rest then,’
She was really very sweet, he thought, uncomplicated and honest; being with her took him back years and reminded him of Elaine, his first girl friend, whom he had known at home when he was eighteen. Catherine, being older, had already been too much of a personality in her own right, always wanting to make him conform to her idea of what he ought to be.
‘I suppose we ought to go back now,’ said Deirdre, sensing that he had somehow gone away from her.
‘Let’s stay a little longer,’ he said, smoothing her rough chrysanthemum-cut hair. ‘Aren’t you enjoying it?’
‘Oh yes .. ,’
The last time she had been kissed by the river was when she was with Bernard after her first meeting with Tom, she remembered. Poor Bernard, supposing he were to come along now. But it was usually in the daytime that she saw him here, coaching the sports club eight, riding his bicycle and shouting the esoteric rowing language through a megaphone.
The smell of the elder flowers reminded Tom of his childhood. There had been a bush in the garden, he supposed. Proust, he thought, that’s what Catherine would say.
They walked back slowly arm-in-arm, Tom talking about his future plans.
‘I shall go home at the end of August,’ he said, ‘and perhaps stay a few days.’
‘Yes, your mother will want to see you,’ said Deirdre dutifully.
‘I suppose she will, but she_isn’t the kind of person who shows her feelings, and my brother is there all the time,’
‘Which can’t be quite the same,’ said Deirdre warmly.
Now they were coming back to the house again and that part of the river bank where the residents took their dogs for a short run before turning in. Two figures, followed at some distance by an old fat sealyham, came towards them. They seemed to be talking about the Test Match. Tom suddenly wished he were walking with them, making manly conversation, away from the cloying sweetness of love or, better still, at home with his typewriter, working on his thesis. For the end was in sight and it was going to be finished after all. He gave Deirdre’s arm a sudden joyful squeeze and quickened pace.
‘That was Mr. Lovell and his old dog and Mr. Dulke who lives opposite,’ she said, hurrying too. ‘ I didn’t want to have to stop and talk to them.’
As they turned into the road the sound of a ‘cello came over the warm night air, playing a rounded melody, exquisitely satisfying.
‘That’s Miss Cumberledge,’ Deirdre explained. ‘She plays in an orchestra and you often hear her practising.’
They stood for a few moments listening, looking up at the sky and the television aerials silhouetted against it.
‘Almost beautiful, aren’t they,’ said Tom, pointing to them. ‘A symbol of the age we live in.’
‘So is Mrs. Lovell putting out the breakfast cereals,’ said Deirdre as they passed her neighbour’s house. They could see her through the uncurtained window, laying the table, placing coloured plastic mugs on it and in the baby’s high chair, and taking giant packets of cornflakes from the sideboard.
‘Life goes on,’ said Tom.
‘Yes, I suppose it’s comforting to see people going about their humdrum business,’ said Deirdre. At home her mother would be laying the breakfast and later her aunt would creep down to see if she had done it correctly. And they would probably go on doing this all their lives.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Life had been going on for Catherine too, as she knew that j it would. She thought of it as an old friend, or perhaps a tiresome elderly relative, pushing, knocking, clinging, but never leaving her alone, having the power to grant her moments of happiness but being very stingy with them just now. Obviously the spirit of delight in Shelley’s poem, which so rarely came, was a being of another order, possibly a beautiful young man whom Catherine could not at the moment visualize. She went about seeing editors, writing stories and articles, and in the evening read her favourite depressing poets, Hardy, Matthew Arnold and the lesser Victorians; she even found the strength to embark on a course of Dostoievsky. Often she felt the lack of that cosy woman friend with whom she might spend an afternoon at a matinée, or shopping with a pleasant gossipy tea afterwards. She seemed to know more men than women and, delightful though their company was, she imagined that they were somehow less comforting than a woman would have been.
One morning she was wandering through a large store, which she liked because of its old and respectable connections, for it was the kind of place where Tom’s mother might shop when she came up to town, or where Colonial administrators who had spent long years in the solitude of the bush might gather as in a refuge from the garishness of Oxford Street. It was not very surprising, therefore, that while strolling on the ground floor she should come upon a group of people sitting in basket chairs drinking coffee, and that among them should be Alaric Lydgate. She had thought of him several times since their first meeting, for his oddness and apparent loneliness interested and attracted her. And now here he was, sitting alone, reading a journal which, to judge from its tide, dealt with that part of Africa where he had spent his eleven years.
‘Why, it’s Mr. Lydgate!’ she exclaimed, hovering by his table. Shyness was not one of her faults and she had every intention of joining him.
‘Miss Oliphant.’ So he had remembered her name. ‘This is a pleasure. Won’t you sit down and have some coffee with me?’ A rather tentative smile was playing over the rocky Easter Island features, Catherine noticed.
More coffee was ordered and some chocolate biscuits. Catherine settled herself comfortably and took out her cigarette case.
‘What are you reading?’ she asked.
‘Oh, an article I have written,’ he said. ‘There are two misprints, most annoying. But I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested.’ He closed up the journal and put it down on a vacant chair.
‘It depends what it’s about,’ said Catherine honesdy. ‘I think you could probably help me with something I’m writing now.’
‘Do you think so?’ He glanced at her suspiciously, as if he were thinking of the trunks full of notes in his attic.
‘Yes, I’m writing a story about somebody who’s just come back from Africa. I’ve made him a big game hunter, that seems suitable for the t
ype of people who will read it. Naturally I have to make him have thoughts about the country he’s been in, and I was wondering if they were too wildly improbable.’
‘I’m afraid I should be no judge of that,’ said Alaric. ‘I shouldn’t like to say what thoughts might be in the mind of a big game hunter.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean that exactly. You see, I have him sitting in this West Kensington hotel, remembering the noise of the rain splashing down among the mangroves, or the laughing faces of the women as they brought in the yams, and really it’s the drizzly English rain and the grey shut-in faces of the elderly ladies in the lounge—do you see the idea?’
‘Only too well.’ He laughed, but without much amusement.
Too near the bone, Catherine thought, for of course it was he who had given her the idea for the story about the big game hunter in the West Kensington hotel. She had at least had the grace to change the basic circumstances a little.
‘And what happens in your story?’ he asked politely, half smiling as if he were humouring a child.
‘He meets the niece of one of the elderly ladies who comes to visit her.’
‘And then?’
Catherine looked surprised, but then realized that it was most unlikely that he would be a reader of romantic fiction. ‘ Oh, well, that is the end, really,’ she said. ‘They go for a walk in the rain and he suddenly feels that there’s something rather nice about the drizzly English rain—I haven’t finished it yet, but you can see the way it will go. But would the rain splash down among the mangroves, and would the women bring in the yams? I do like to get these things right.’
‘It is a pity,’ he began, using his favourite review phrase, ‘that others are not as accurate as you are. Contributors to the learned journals are among the worst offenders. I often find …’
But at this moment a voice interrupted him, calling his name, and Catherine noticed a leathery-looking man with the Ancient Mariner gleam in his eye bearing down upon Alaric. He was followed by a tweedy little woman of a mild, almost downtrodden, aspect. Alaric introduced the pair as Mortimer Jessop and his sister, Miss Jessop, who did not appear to have a Christian name and took no part in the conversation, which consisted of long reminiscences of events in Africa from Mortimer Jessop, interspersed with short comments from Alaric. Catherine tried to draw Miss Jessop out in the way that she considered one woman might try to draw another, with little remarks on the weather and the display of goods in the store, but it was difficult going and after a time she gave up and listened to the men’s conversation. There was a certain fascination about it although it hardly seemed to make sense.
‘… attitude of the natives,’ boomed Mortimer Jessop. ‘You remember the Resident’s comments on that one, surely? Short and to the point. To the effect that had he taken the trouble to read Crabbe’s Handing-Over report he would have found that the key was precisely where he had said it was—underneath the mat! Government had just sent troops there—that was in ‘22, of course, before your time. You realize that that was why they couldn’t take the railway through? Had to make a detour to avoid the territory, noble Savage and all that sentimental twaddle. I know what I should have done,’
‘Would you have taken the railway through, Mr. Jessop?’ asked Catherine, looking up at him.
He seemed a little taken aback. Perhaps he was used only to his sister as an audience and had not expected any comment.
‘Well, I’d have had a bash at it, as they say nowadays,’ he said with a bark of laughter.
‘I suppose we should be going now,’ said Alaric with a glance at his watch.
‘I hear you’re working at the London Office,’ said Mortimer Jessop.
‘Yes, part-time. It’s one of my days off,’ Alaric explained.
‘What do you do? Light work, I suppose—carrying trays of tea along corridors?’ said Mortimer Jessop genially. ‘Wouldn’t do for me, I’m afraid, must be in the open air. Living in Barons Court now,’ he added, as if it had some bearing on his last remark. Catherine imagined a kind of feudal spaciousness, although she knew that it was only one station beyond West Kensington.
‘I really must be going now,’ she said.
‘Oh, so should we,’ said Mortimer Jessop. ‘We’re lunching with our old friend Mrs. Bone and she usually does you pretty well—a bird more often than not. Well, Lydgate, it’s good to have run into you again.’ He made as if to go, then suddenly turned round and said to Alaric in a stage whisper, ‘By the way, who was that dwarf I saw you with on the road in ‘45?’
Catherine, who had been expecting an answer on the lines of’that was no lady, that was my wife’, was surprised to hear Alaric answer rather stiffly, ‘That was the Panti Ba himself.’
Mr. Jessop and his sister were then wafted away on a gust of laughter from the former.
There seemed to be nothing to say in answer to Alaric’s statement. Comment was difficult, perhaps impossible, certainly for herself, Catherine felt.
‘A native chief,’ Alaric explained, sensing her curiosity.
‘What very odd names they have,’ she said, gathering her things together. ‘Thank you so much for the coffee. I’m glad I came along here.’
‘Yes, it has been pleasant meeting you again,’ he said rather formally. ‘Perhaps there may be other times?’
The question hung in the air. Catherine smiled up at liim and murmured something.
‘I am going to the wine department,’ he said, ‘to get the new list.’
‘Oh, I’ve just got it. Well up to standard—I keep them to read, you see.’
‘But so do I—hanging at the side of my desk,’ Alaric said in a wondering tone.
‘So we have something in common,’ said Catherine rather primly. ‘It’s always a comfort to find that.’
And such a very odd little thing to have in common, she thought, as she waited on an island to cross over the road. It seemed a hopeful sign, though she was not quite sure of what. Were they perhaps to spend long evenings reading extracts from wine lists to each other? Something to look forward to, she thought, smiling to herself in the middle of the traffic. The hot breath of the buses was puffing round her legs and still she stood there, missing her chance ot getting across because she was so preoccupied and with such a ridiculous thing. Now there was a block and she found herself looking into a car, a large rather old-fashioned limousine, upholstered in pearl grey and with silver vases of sweet peas by the windows. The occupants, a fussily dressed little woman of a faded prettiness and a clergyman with a wispy beard, were deep in conversation. As the car moved on, Catherine saw the clergyman place his hand on the woman’s arm.
There was something a little disquieting about this, although she could not have said why. There had been nothing unsuitable or over-familiar about the gesture—obviously he was merely emphasizing some point—and yet it seemed wrong. Catherine had never seen the people in the car before and yet she felt that she ought to know who they were. A recent conversation with Mark and Digby came back to her; they had been joking about Professor Mainwaring riding in just such a car with their benefactress, Mrs. Foresight. If this was Mrs. Foresight no doubt the priest beside her was her Father Confessor. There was no reason why one should not confess one’s sins in a Daimler, she supposed, though it was probably unusual. The only thing was that the clergyman looked very much like the one who had been having tea in the garden with the Lydgates and Miss Clovis that afternoon when she and Tom had gone to visit Deirdre. Somehow that was a little puzzling. And yet, need it be? Why shouldn’t a common interest in Africa have brought them together? It had been known to do many strange things.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘I wonder if I look all right?’ Mark stepped carefully hackle wards, so that Tom and Digby could get a better view of him.
‘I can’t see anything wrong,’ said Digby, ‘but then I’m not experienced in these matters. Tom used to move in the world of débutante dances before he saw the light and detribalized himself—ask him.’<
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‘Oh, you’ll do,’ said Tom non-committally. ‘The suit seems to be quite a good fit. I suppose you’ll wear a white carnation?’
‘Yes, I suppose so, though I should really prefer something more exotic. It seems a pity that on the few occasions when men can wear flowers they have to be so uninteresting. Think how well a spray of orchids would look.’
‘My aunt will have hoped for at least two young men,’ said Tom, ‘so you must do what you can to make up for our absence. I think she was getting pretty desperate or she wouldn’t have flung her net quite so wide. My cousin is so tall, poor girl. She has large golden feet, as far as I remember.’
‘Golden feet?’ echoed Mark apprehensively.
‘Yes, I suppose she must have been wearing gold evening shoes when I last saw her.’
‘Will there be much champagne?’ asked Digby a little enviously.
‘Oh, I think so,’ said Tom. ‘Apparently the room where they’re going to dance and the courtyard at the back have been transformed into a sort of Portuguese fishing village—nets hanging all over the place and that sort of thing.’
‘That’s what you call amusing, isn’t it?’ said Digby. ‘A sort of trompe l’oeil?
‘Yes, the room couldn’t be left as it is,’ Tom agreed. ‘My aunt has asked you to dine first, hasn’t she, Mark?’
‘Yes, I hope that’s a good sign. I was thinking that only a favoured few could be asked to a proper meal, or is it because she knows my financial state and is trying to be kind?’
‘If it’s that you ought not to have accepted,’ said Digby. ‘Even anthropologists should have their pride.’
‘I told her that you were quite tall,’ said Tom. ‘I think that may be why. The most eligible socially and the tallest—I think you’ll find those are the main criteria. Have you money for a taxi?’
‘Yes, thank you. Any other hints?’
‘No, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow. There is the aftermath to be considered if you want to be absolutely correct.’