Virginia Fly is Drowning

by Angela Huth

At that moment, Virginia, at twenty, would have done anything to swop places with her plain neighbour. The sailor may not have been the most eligible of men, but at least he was a husband.

  The next wedding to reduce Virginia’s spirits was Caroline’s. That was a very grand, happy, affair: trembly prayers and the Wedding March, tear-jerking in its optimism, in a small Norman church in Hampshire. Later, hundreds of painted people squashed into a marquee that smelt sickly with gardenias; Caroline, laughing all the time, loving every moment of it.

  In a way, Virginia was pleased for Caroline. She seemed to be genuinely happy. Certainly she could describe real love. Those were the days when she still told Virginia everything.

  ‘It’s an all over feeling,’ she said. ‘When Michael’s not there, then half of me is not there either. He makes me dizzy when he comes into the room, physically dizzy. And sometimes, when I’m trying to be sensible, I find myself being quite stupid because I can’t concentrate on anything except for the fact that I love him so much. I’d do anything in the world for him. Anything. He’s the whole point of my existence. Everything’s tolerable, now, just because he’s alive.’

  ‘Look at the increasing divorce rate,’ said Virginia, who’d never felt physically dizzy at the thought of Charlie or anyone else. ‘No doubt all those people who are divorced now said much the same sort of thing in the beginning.’

  ‘Ah, but with us it’s different.’ Caroline was confident in the cliché. Her confidence irritated Virginia.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ she said.

  But in Caroline’s case it really did seem to be different, judging from the signs in her house, and the few occasions on which Virginia now talked to her. She seemed to be happy. She seemed to have a thriving married life.

  As far as Virginia was concerned, her marriage soon meant the beginning of the end of their close friendship. For a while, they kept up communications. Caroline treated Virginia to funny and explicit descriptions of childbirth. She even disclosed secrets of married sex – ‘it becomes plainer,’ she said. But within a couple of years Caroline’s husband, children, house and life took up all her time. Virginia rarely came to London and when she did, and they met, they found they had little left in common. Caroline was full of domestic chatter that bored Virginia, and there was nothing in Virginia’s life that aroused Caroline’s interest. And so, by mutual, unspoken consent, they faded from each other’s lives. Christmas cards, holiday postcards, an annual birthday present for the eldest child – Virginia’s godchild – was all that was left. Virginia regretted the passing of their friendship. It was the only satisfactory one she had ever had. Still, she felt it had been good enough to stand being renewed at some auspicious moment. When she married herself, perhaps. Then, if the fibres had not frayed too far, they could carry on where they had left off. They would be back on the same plane again, re-bound together by the fact that they both had husbands, families, and all the problems of married life which go a long way in bringing the most disparate women together.

  It was soon after the birth of Caroline’s first child – an event which had a depressing effect on Virginia – that she began to pin her marital hopes on Charlie Oakhampton Jr. She began to detect, between the emerald lines of his letters, a certain optimism for the future. Surely it wasn’t without design that he wrote in so detailed a way descriptions of his house, the American countryside, his mother, and his weekends watching baseball? If he intended Virginia to become familiar with the minutae of his life, he succeeded. And gradually it came to her, with some effort of will, that it might be quite a good sort of life – far from the idyllic British life with a comfortable, unassuming British husband that in optimistic moments she imagined might materialise one day – but an exciting change, and you could get used to anything. She liked the idea of the narrowness of American suburban life, the idea of an energetic community in which every contribution counted. She imagined herself taking part, organising, helping, being called upon. Eagerly, she conveyed her feelings to Charlie. He (strangely, she thought at the time) didn’t seem too interested in her reactions. He merely supplied her with even more details. On those occasions Virginia felt that, for the unskilled, letter writing was a bad form of communication: she had failed to express herself in a manner that he could respond to, and would have to wait till his arrival to tell him.

  From time to time her enthusiasm for this new imagined life became strangled with doubts. She would picture the loneliness, the pettiness, the feeling that, should she hate it all, there would be no escape. But, again with great mental effort, she managed to bury these doubts almost as soon as she had warning of them: and her dream of the modern kitchen with its window overlooking the station-wagon and the neighbour’s fence, Charlie eating waffles, the stacked up ice box (already she had abandoned the word Frigidaire in her mind) became a comfort to live with. It was just a matter of waiting till Charlie came to fetch her, and they could go back to Utah and put the dream into practice.

  One Easter holiday the school arranged that Virginia’s class, and the class above, should go to Switzerland-very reduced rates for fourteen nights, travel by coach. She and Mr Bluett were to be in charge.

  Virginia found Switzerland an unsatisfactory, predictable country. The views, though magnificent, were unsurprising; for all their size, the mountains were tame things with their toy chalets and handfuls of goats. There was none of the wildness she had been expecting, and hoping for. Nevertheless, the holiday was a success. She was alone in her disappointment. The children energetically enjoyed themselves and Mr Bluett observed that the English millionaires who retired to the Lake of Geneva must feel they were in the next best place to home.

  One evening, high in the mountains, after supper, Virginia and Mr Bluett went for a walk along the narrow village street. They intended to stop at the local bar for a bedtime Glühwein, but it was still not dark and the air was soft and refreshing. They both felt like walking on.

  The road, which quickly became rougher, led up the mountain, curving by the side of tall dark pine trees on one side, and a rocky precipice on the other. They walked for half an hour without speaking, and finally came to rest on a pile of tree trunks in a clearing. Before them the moon was rising in a charcoal sky. A mountain, its cap silvered with snow, glared across at them from the other side of the pass. Somewhere below Virginia could hear the dull chink of cowbells: a most melancholy sound, she thought.

  Mr Bluett, who was as sensitive to cold as he was to heat, fumbled with the strings of his anorak at his neck.

  ‘The point about all this, Virginia,’ he said, suddenly, ‘is that it should be shared with someone.’ Virginia raised her eyebrows at him but probably, in the almost-dark, he didn’t see. ‘I think all good things should be shared.’ He sniffed, and rubbed at his wavy hair with the back of his hand.

  ‘I’m not against enjoying nature by myself,’ said Virginia, feeling any reply would be inadequate. ‘I would rather that than other people’s observations.’

  ‘Ah, my dear girl, you are young. You can never have been in love, never have shared an early morning on the sea with someone, or a sunset in the Highlands. If you had, you wouldn’t feel like you do.’ He banged at his pocket for cigarettes. ‘In the old days, you know, not so many years ago, Derek and I would run a couple of miles every morning before breakfast. Gym shoes in the dew, skinny vests with numbers on them from our racing days. I was twenty-six, I remember. Derek was nineteen. Our lucky numbers. We’d get back, a lather of sweat, shower down and take turns to make breakfast. Bacon and eggs. Then I was in trim for the day. A hundred vaults couldn’t daunt me. In those days, I’d enjoy the whole day at school, lousy pupils or not, just thinking of the evening. You never came to our place, did you? We had a nice little cottage. Beams. You should come some time, though it’s gone a bit to seed now Derek’s left.’ He let a shaft of smoke curl up over his face. ‘He would have liked this, Derek. He liked moons over mountains and all that stuff. Oh well, there’s
no use getting morbid, is there? Had we better be on our way back?’

  The confidences seemed to have exhausted him. They walked back to the village slowly, in silence again. Virginia, who had always imagined Mr Bluett to be a conventional bachelor living alone, re-organised her mind to this new picture of him with his ex-lover Derek. People were not in the habit of confiding in her: she felt flattered and full of understanding. Here was someone in a predicament every bit as sharp as her own, someone who was able to slap down feelings of self-pity as they surged upon him, and yet who was not able altogether to abandon remembrance of things past. It was admirable, the concealing of his loneliness: some people were good at disguise. Virginia condemned herself for never having guessed that beneath the cheerful exterior of her fellow teacher there lived a profoundly unhappy man.

  Back at the chalet hotel – it was cold now and they were glad to return to its warmth and light – Virginia bought a bottle of wine which they drank in front of an open fire. They spoke of the school, their pupils, the staff, the events of this holiday. But just before they parted to go to bed, Mr Bluett, with some embarrassment this time, referred to their former conversation.

  ‘Forgive me, Virginia,’ he said, ‘if earlier on I inflicted you with some of myself. I am not in favour of unburdening, but sometimes we are weak and cause our friends to suffer.’ He gave a small, formal bow to cover his confusion, and was gone before Virginia could protest.

  Later, in her small pine room, Virginia sat on the bed in the dark thinking of the middle-aged, homosexual gym master. Outside the open windows she could see a pair of almost identical mountains looming in the sky, dark shapes against darkness. She thought of Charlie – no, he wouldn’t do. She couldn’t pretend to herself. There was no one else to imagine.

  ‘Damn you, Mr Bluett,’ she said, out loud, lying back on the bed, still dressed. Then, suddenly, overcome by an unaccountable sadness, she indulged in a thing she rarely let herself do. She began to cry.

  When the professor asked her to marry him, that late spring morning of her thirty-second year, all these incidents, from their different times in her past, came simultaneously back to her. They seemed to stretch out before her, brightly coloured materials on a market stall. She had the feeling that within a few years this stall would be dismantled: she would have to get up and go elsewhere with nothing to show for herself except for these old remnants of the past. So far, all signs of hope had been false alarms. Disillusioned still further, could she guarantee not to become bitter, bleak, introvert and hopeless?

  Here the professor was offering an alternative – a life she had never imagined, hoped for or wanted. But she was cursed with a mind that fell into pictures at any suggestion. With the professor’s question in the air, she at once began to imagine her life with him. An easy, shaggy life it would be: music, musical friends – for the most part much older than Virginia – moving about the country listening to him lecture, learning from him, laughing with him, knowing when to leave him to his taciturn moods. He would be kind, gentle, thoughtful: remembering through her youth his first wife, perhaps. Maybe they would have a child to replace Gretta.

  Then Virginia thought of her nine years of teaching: there would be no more school, no more queuing for the bus in the rain, dissecting dandelions, or setting the Monday painting composition. She would forget the average times of Mr Fly’s runs to the station, and the annoyance of Mrs Fly’s way of chipping at her egg. Maybe even the dreaded man with the black moustache would leave her in peace once she had a husband.

  Aware of all these things, Virginia opened her eyes. The professor had waited a long time, very patiently. He looked neither hopeful nor pessimistic, but a little solemn.

  ‘Thank you, Professor,’ said Virginia. ‘I would like to be your wife.’ The professor scooped up one of her hands in his and put it to his mouth. He kissed it.

  ‘For God’s sake, you can’t go on calling me Professor now.’ He was almost smiling.

  ‘That’s how I shall always think of you.’

  ‘Whatever you like, for heaven’s sake.’ He lowered his head on to her knee. Virginia touched the coarse, grey hair. Strange: she had never thought of touching it before: never imagined it or desired it. Why did it smell slightly resinous, like pine trees? ‘I think it could be a good thing. What do you think?’

  ‘Excellent.’ Virginia had heard her own voice so many times, say ‘excellent’ in that precise way. Red chalk at the end of an essay. ‘Excellent, Louise, Mary, Sarah, Jemima …’ Excellent. But the professor didn’t seem to notice. He raised his head again.

  ‘We will go in for no vulgar celebrations,’ he said. ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ If they went on agreeing as easily as this for the rest of their lives, what happiness.

  ‘What is the need? All this call for celebration, cracking of champagne bottles. Unless, that is, you think I am being mean?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Virginia laughed.

  ‘At some time we will have to get down to the unromantic business of making plans.’

  ‘Perhaps we could marry at the end of the summer term?’ suggested Virginia. ‘It begins in two days’ time.’

  ‘There is no hurry. We have both waited so many years.’ He stroked her hand. ‘I was always inarticulate on the subject of love, Virginia Fly, particularly if I meant it. And now I am quite out of practice, as you can see. But you may be sure I would not have asked you to be my wife had not my heart been in it. I cannot guarantee to be an ideal husband – my God, I’m so old for a start …’

  He sat quite still, for a moment, waiting, and then Virginia flung herself into his arms. They rubbed their cheeks, their heads together: swayed back and forth, and murmured things. Then the professor remembered the business of the day: he had to give a lecture in Reading, and time was getting on. Virginia was forced to put back on her new clothes, which reminded her briefly of the horrors of the night before. The professor observed her with affection as she stood in his warm untidy room, a pale, thin creature savaged by the bright colours she wore.

  ‘Beautiful, but out of character,’ he murmured. ‘I liked best your governess look. That is what I am used to. Now, I must hurry. Let me take you to your train.’

  He insisted, now that she was to be his wife, on buying her a first-class ticket. At the barrier, he bowed to her, out of habit, kissed her on the forehead, and hurried away to his lecture. Alone in the carriage, Virginia began to wonder what she had done.

  Chapter 10

  The summer term began. With a small band of amethysts and pearls round her finger, Virginia’s status was heightened in the eyes of her pupils. They had never been more obedient, willing, friendly. Every Monday the painting composition turned into The Wedding Day – pink-faced brides awash with white poster paint dresses, doll-like bridesmaids carrying bunches of flowers tall as themselves, red-trousered grooms waving stunted arms and splitting their faces with grins.

  At break times the children whispered in corners, pooled their money, added and re-added, planning The Present. Nature lessons turned into questions on the facts of human life, a subject which seemed to stimulate them far more than the ways of the amoeba.

  ‘Miss Fly, how soon will you be getting a baby after you come out of the church?’

  ‘Will you like sleeping in the same bed as your husband even when he’s very new?’

  ‘Will you think of us sometimes even when he’s kissing you?’

  Virginia answered their questions as well as she could. Flattered by their interest, she had never regarded them with more affection. The image of them, heads bent low over books, sun shining on bare arms, stamped itself on her mind. She would miss them. She would miss, too, the classroom: its familiar chipped paint, dented linoleum floor, the wall of paintings, the shelf of rough clay models, the chorus of squeaking chairs, the wild flowers and specimen leaves and the dreadful poster of Stone Age Man in England, presented by one of the school governors. This room had been her refuge
for nine years, the place she had felt most safe, most in command. To leave it for ever would be a wrench, chilly, difficult.

  Virginia and the professor, in these last few weeks before marriage, settled down to some sort of a routine. On Tuesday evenings Virginia would go to London to see him. Usually they would go to a concert or a theatre, have dinner, and Virginia would catch the last train home. On Saturday afternoons the professor would come to Acacia Avenue, spend the night, and return home on Sunday after tea. On such occasions Mrs Fly allowed them little time alone together, such was her enthusiasm to hear exhaustive details about their future. The professor found her tiresome almost beyond endurance, but for Virginia’s sake remained infinitely polite and courteous, thus locking himself more firmly in her claustrophobic affection.

  When they had time, they made plans. One afternoon, when Mrs Fly was out on one of her little errands, the professor let himself into Virginia’s bedroom. She was on her knees, turning out cupboards. The professor lowered himself on to the candlewick bedspread. Virginia, glancing at him, was aware of the difference between him and the man she had always imagined would storm her window and possess her. With an effort, she cast such stupid thoughts aside, and turned to a pile of concert programmes.

  ‘Ah! You have kept all those.’ The discovery of her hoard seemed significant to the professor.

  ‘Yes. I throw practically nothing away.’ She remembered Charlie’s letters and photograph flaring in the boiler.

  ‘It must be an omen. They must have meant something to you.’ It was difficult to tell if the professor was teasing.

  ‘They reminded me of all the things we’ve been to hear.’

  ‘Together.’

  ‘Together,’ Virginia agreed. He was so easy to please, the professor, sometimes.

  ‘Come here a moment.’ Virginia went towards him on her knees. He put his arm on her shoulder. ‘I think we should buy ourselves a cottage in the Welsh mountains for weekends and holidays and our old age. Would you like that?’