Friends and Lovers
Page 30
He looked at the faces of the hurrying crowd around him, wondering curiously what lay behind these masks. It seemed the same kind of crowd which had jostled past him last Sunday. Then he had been happy and confident, and they had appeared to him to be as carefree as himself. Now he realised they hid the knowledge of death and suffering as well as the experience of joy and life. It was strange how a human being could forget that so easily, perhaps because individual man tended to think that his experiences were in some way unique. He would admit that others had sorrow or happiness too, but not in this way, or at this time, or even to such a degree; for this was the mark of his individuality. It was the reason, for instance, that a man who had never known any serious illness and who entered a hospital for the first time in his life was shocked and amazed to discover that there were so many rooms in so many long corridors, so many wards with endless rows of beds, all filled with suffering. And not only during these days when he knew pain too, but during the days that went before and the days that came after, when he was well and unthinking of pain. Before, he did not allow himself to imagine, and afterwards, he tried very hard not to remember that the suffering was always there. For only by forgetting unhappiness and by concentrating on hope could a man struggle through his life. The determined optimist or the potential suicide: there was only that choice.
A train roared with express speed into the station. A man caught David’s arm roughly, and pulled him from the edge of the platform as the train rushed past and the air sucked round their bodies.
“Bit too close there,” the man said. He watched David’s haggard face carefully.
David nodded.
The man released his grip on David’s arm and moved away. Probably it was only by chance that the young chap had walked so near the edge of the platform as the express came through the station, but for a moment it had looked like one of those suicides you read about in the papers. The man, middle-aged, mildly prosperous, judging from his neat blue suit and well-fed body, turned at a polite distance to look at that young chap again. He was all right now: the young fool was keeping a reasonable distance from the edge; he was standing still, too, as if he had got a bit of a shock. Here was their train, anyway.
David, suddenly recovering from the paralysis which had attacked him as the express had disappeared with its high whistle into the dark circle of tunnel, moved forward to board the train with the crowd. The man in the blue suit followed him, found a seat, and, after one last glance at the chap who had nearly got himself killed, opened his newspaper. He had almost begun reading it while he was waiting on the platform. Good job he hadn’t.
David, grasping the chromium rail by which he stood, felt the reaction strike him. What a damned silly thing to do, he thought. He could feel, even now, the rush of the train bearing down on the platform, the violent breath of wind which pulled at him as that middle-aged man had held him by the arm. He hadn’t even thanked the man properly; but it was only now that he fully realised the danger and only now that he could be properly grateful. He looked at his taut hand grasping the rail, sensed the tenseness of his body. “Well, you are still here,” he told himself, “and all in one piece.” He must be one of the determined optimists of this world after all, for there was relief in his words.
* * *
He telephoned Penny from Paddington. The maid at Baker House was not very forthcoming. It was too late for any messages to be delivered to any room. Too late. Against the rules. Too late. She wasted more time and energy in telling him about the rules of the house than she would have done in going to fetch Penelope.
He caught his train with a minute to spare, settled himself gloomily in the corner seat of an empty compartment. It was unheated and draughty, and under the poor light the dusty upholstered seats looked a stained and dirty grey. He had a book with him, but he didn’t even try to read. He stared out of the window, his eyes noting the crowding shapes of the tall houses almost edging on to the railway line: the factories, made more ugly by their desolation at this time of night; the rows of poorly lit houses giving way at last to the close groups of suburban cottages and villas with their brighter windows confidently pricking the darkness. Then came the black stretches of fields and hedgerows, lengthening as the houses became more scattered, until the shapeless shadows of the night blotted out distance and outline. The country became anonymous, and the window was a dark mirror reflecting his white, set face and the dim compartment behind him.
On Sunday he had looked at these same fields. On Sunday his father had been alive. “We both knew that some day soon...” Margaret had said tonight. Yes, we both knew, and our minds were prepared. But sudden death was always a grim shock, for its swiftness proved to those who survived how insecure life was. That was something one’s mind was never fully prepared to face. And with that knowledge of insecurity there came a sense of urgency. What you valued became doubly valuable: what you possessed was to be enjoyed. Your life then became a battle against time.
He closed his eyes wearily... All right, be practical. Stop thinking of anything except the things you must arrange—and arrange in the next few days... You couldn’t even think in peace about those who had died. All right, then. Practical things. First he must arrange with George to borrow his flat for this weekend to give him a place to sleep. Then Chaundler. He had to talk to Chaundler. There was no one else to ask for advice. He was searching for a reprieve: he had decided already what must be done about Margaret, but he was still hoping that some other suggestion could be made which would be easier for him to follow. For nothing must separate Penny from him. He was not going to lose her now.
His body was tired and heavy. He was heartsick and weary. Nothing is going to separate us, he thought desperately. The train wheels under his feet caught the rhythm of his phrase mockingly. Nothing is going to separate us, nothing is going to separate us.
And nothing is, he told himself. Nothing, he added savagely. Yet the fear which had haunted him since he had talked with Margaret would not lift from his heart.
28
DECISION
David had decided against Marinelli’s tonight. For one thing, it was Saturday, when the restaurant was most crowded. And, for another, Marinelli’s was enjoying success. What had once been a delightful informality was now becoming a pattern of behaviour: the newcomers, having discovered that conversation and laughter were interchanged between various tables, made a determined habit of it. So David had chosen another restaurant in Charlotte Street, where people were less numerous and prices were more expensive. Privacy was always a luxury. Tonight, even if he could afford it less than ever, he must see Penny alone.
He glanced round the dimly lighted room when he had ordered dinner. (Penny, after one glance at the menu and its price-list, had decided she wanted only an omelette. David, avoiding her look of refusal, had added hors d’œuvre to precede the omelette, and a salad with Camembert to follow.) He was thinking that the definition of privacy had taken on a strange meaning for him. In order to sit and talk to Penny in some peace and comfort he must share her with at least thirty other people, the sound of their voices, the subdued clatter of their plates.
Penny, watching him, saw him frown suddenly as if to cover some emotion. She became aware of the deep unhappiness and strain in his face, which until this moment he had disguised very well. But, as if he felt her sudden scrutiny, the frown was forced away and his face became expressionless once more, calm and serious above the dark suit and the black tie. She stretched one arm impulsively across the small table and let her hand rest on his for a moment.
“David,” she said, and then could not say anything more. Only a few minutes ago she had almost begun to tell him her own troubles. But that would have been a mistake. He must talk first, and once he told her all his worries she could judge how much she could add to them—if at all. It began to look as if her description of job-hunting, which she had planned to make as amusing as possible in the telling, was going to be quite unnecessary.
Penny, easing the ring on her finger, felt an echo of his fear. “But you will always have me, David.”
“No matter what happens?” His eyes searched her face. His voice sounded almost desperate.
“No matter,” she said. She tried to smile. “You will always be stuck with me. Poor old David.”
He caught her hand again and held it. Gently this time, but firmly.
“Every day I am away from you I keep imagining you as I last saw you. I keep remembering how wonderful, how truly wonderful, you are. Then I meet you again, and you look the way you do, and you speak, and your eyes light up for me; and I realise that when I was thinking of you, wanting you, I never had imagined how wonderful you really are. You are better than any dreams of you.”
There was a pause. Penny’s hand stirred in his, and then relaxed.
“What were you thinking?” he asked, watching her eyes.
Penny’s colour deepened. “That I want to hear you say that just as vehemently when you are sixty.” She thought over that. “Darling, I do sound overconfident.”
David shook his head. “You haven’t even begun to know your own power over—” He stopped, released her hand.
The waiter wheeled the table of hors d’œuvre before them.
“Well,” Penny said, with pretended lightness as the waiter eventually departed, “if we are in a restaurant I suppose we may as well eat. Besides, I had no lunch today... And if we weren’t here, where else could we talk? It is cold in the streets tonight.”
David glanced at her quickly. “So you are in rebellion too?” he asked quietly.
Penny nodded. “You know, David, sometimes I feel as if we were being hounded. As if the whole world were in a conspiracy to interrupt us, or interfere with us, or even to separate us. Sometimes it is accidental, but sometimes I feel it is really done on purpose. We just are not allowed to be alone, are we? And, when you come to think of it, not one single person has tried to make things easier for us. Even our friends give us advice against marrying, against concentrating so much on each other. You can see them thinking, ‘It won’t last.’ And the nicest of them, the kindest—well, they feel sorry. David, we’ll show all of them, won’t we?”
He pushed away his plate. He said with a sudden return of bitterness, “Perhaps your friends are right. I’ve asked too much from you, and I give you too little in return.” He pushed aside the glass of water and felt its coldness spill on his hand. I’ve nothing to give, he was thinking. Nothing. And now, less than ever. Just words and waiting and talking and promises and words. “I have had a lot of decisions forced on me in the last five days, Penny.”
She kept silent while the waiter served the omelette. She thought of Margaret. I expected this, she realised, but I hoped it wouldn’t be so. Margaret...
“Let’s begin at the beginning,” she said, more calmly than she felt. “I know very little of what actually has been happening, you see. I guessed from your letters that there were difficulties.”
David began to tell her the brief story of this week. As she had hoped, the telling of it did him good.
Now he was talking about Margaret... After the funeral there had been a long discussion about her future. She had had her own proposals all ready, of course. They were the same old ideas that he should share the house in Cory’s Walk with Margaret and Florence Rawson, and be responsible mostly for its upkeep once he had a job. Margaret needed only a few years, and by that time she (and Rawson too, naturally) would have had some success, and David would not have to worry about anything. And everyone would live happily ever after. Margaret was quite confident about that.
Then David had stated frankly that a much more concrete plan was needed, something practical and not merely a vague kind of ambition. This suggestion had not been well received. So David had left them and gone back to Fenton-Stevens’s flat, which had been lent him for this week-end. The very fact that neither Margaret nor Rawson had seen the ridiculousness of this arrangement convinced him still more that it was no good discussing anything with them. And so this morning he had gone to see Margaret’s teachers at the School of Music.
He had told them exactly what he could do for Margaret. They had been understanding and frank in their turn. Margaret was a good student, but her chances as a concert pianist were highly doubtful: she was efficient, but not inspired. Besides, success would not come overnight. It was a matter of years, and even after the first success a career was not established. That was a slow, painful business. On the other hand, Margaret could complete her courses in one more year of tuition and then be qualified to teach in a school of good standing. That kind of work could be pleasant enough if you let yourself accept it: it would allow free time for her own at the piano as well as financial independence. Most musicians did combine teaching with their own work: there were few artists in any field who did not have to face that economic problem.
“Yes,” Penny said. “And what did Margaret say?”
“She doesn’t want to teach. She says that once you begin with compromises you never get rid of them.”
“I suppose you didn’t tell her what her teachers had said?”
“I could hardly do that. You can’t tell people that they would be a failure.”
Penny shook her head slowly. “I don’t know... Perhaps better now than later. Some day she will have to find out, anyway.”
“But, Penny, she wouldn’t believe me. She would think that this was only an excuse of mine to do nothing at all about her. She is a complicated problem, you know, at this moment.”
And a complicating one, Penny thought bitterly. “Frankly, as long as she has two hands and a head, I don’t see why she is so helpless. Why doesn’t she look for a job?”
David looked at her in surprise. He had never seen Penny quite so indignant. “What kind of job? She has had no training except in music.”
Penny did not reply to that. Her indignation increased.
“After all, Penny, you would not like to give up your painting for book-keeping, would you? That is, if you were in Margaret’s position and had to worry about your own future.”
“I would,” Penny said angrily. Then she restrained herself, and tried to calm her voice. “So what did Margaret decide? The year’s tuition and expenses, or a job to make her independent?”
“I wish you wouldn’t think of it that way, Penny. It only makes the whole thing more difficult for me.” He was hurt too now. The fact that he had asked himself through a sleepless night why Margaret had not the guts to look for a job, why she had to be so helpless and abandoned in a century when women could earn their own living, did not help to smooth his temper.
“Well, that’s that,” Penny said. Her voice was abrupt. She stared at David unbelievingly. She thought of several truthful things to say about Margaret, but she stopped herself in time.
“Yes,” David said gloomily, “that’s that. I can see no other way, Penny. I’ve tried thinking up plans until I felt I was going stark raving mad. It means,” he paused, and his voice became cold and emotionless, “it means that I shall have to support Margaret for a year. We have two relatives—Mother’s brothers, both married, each with families of their own. They came to the funeral, of course, and they were kind enough to make some gestures, but—well, one is a lawyer in Wales; the other is a doctor in Yorkshire. They invited Margaret to stay with them until she had decided what to do. Their wives looked quite relieved when she refused. She doesn’t want to leave London, you see.”
Penny said nothing.
“I went into the cost thorou
ghly today,” David continued, in the same cold voice. “It will take, altogether, more than half of what I earn. After a year she will be fully qualified and can teach. Anyway, she will be on her own then.”
“I wonder,” Penny said bitterly, and then wished she had not said it. For a moment they looked at each other across the table as if they were strangers.
Then David looked down at the plate of salad, and laid aside his fork.
“I don’t want coffee, either,” Penny said in a strangled voice. She knew she was unreasonable, even petulant. But it seemed to her as if David was treating his sister with more than necessary care. It paid to be helpless, Penny thought, with rising anger: if only women were sufficiently helpless, then they could always rely on men being foolish enough to rise to their defence.
Then, as she watched David pay the bill with that tight, tense expression on his face which terrified her, her anger vanished. She rose quickly, afraid that her emotions were going to make her break down in this restrained and elegant restaurant. She hurried into the street, not waiting for David, and began walking quickly away. Then she realised that she had taken the wrong direction, and halted. She stood there, with her face averted, not knowing what to do now, feeling what a fool she must look and was.
“Penny,” David said beside her. He took her arm, and held it firmly, ignoring the slight movement she had made to draw away from him. “Penny.” He kissed her. “I should have done that in the restaurant,” he said. “There isn’t any problem that a kiss can’t begin to solve.”
She laughed happily through her tears. He gave her his handkerchief, and smiled as he watched her blow her nose. Then he folded her arm through his, and they retraced their steps. “I’m sorry, Penny. I told you tonight that I’ve asked too much of you and given you too little in return. You have every right to be bitter. You would be better off if you had never met me.”
“I wouldn’t. And I’m not bitter. Not with you. Oh, David, how awful it is to feel we are hurting each other. How easily a quarrel can start. Just suddenly. Out of talk.”