Sensible Life

by Mary Wesley

  Then, as they thought the dancing was over, Felix picked up his concertina and began playing a tango.

  Sitting or crouching round the fire everybody listened as they gently revived it, poking small twigs into the embers, little scraps of furze, and they tried, for many of them were out of breath, to breathe in time to the music.

  Then it was that Freddy Ward caught Ian MacNeice’s eye and they rose to their feet and walked without speaking down onto the flat beach and began to tango. They danced holding themselves erect, wearing their hats as men do in the streets in Argentina, intimate, masculine, absorbed, weaving the threatening graceful steps. And as they danced they shed the years of war and work and love which intervened between now and their youth, when they had worked and become friends in South America, recapturing for a few minutes the fluidity of movement they had then possessed. When the music stopped their wives and children who had watched, amazed, sat silent, afraid to applaud. It was Louis the garde champêtre, lurking suspiciously in the shadows half-way up the cliff, who shouted: “Bravo! Bravo! Encore, les messieurs, encore!”

  “After that,” said Cosmo respectfully, handing a glass of wine to each performer, “one hardly dares, it seems an anti-climax to have fireworks.” Freddy Ward and Ian MacNeice, smiling rather sheepishly, said, “Fireworks? Are we to have fireworks? So that’s what you have in your mystery box. How wonderful, what fun, what a surprise!”

  People recollecting the picnic in later years remembered the surprises and how each surprise had surprised. The food, the wine, Flora’s langoustes, the jokes, Mabs and Tashie singing, Felix’s gramophone, Freddy and Ian dancing, the moonrise, and finally the rockets and Catherine wheels. We forgot we had to go back to school, they said. We forgot the General Strike, and of course next day it rained. My God, how it rained: we piled into the vedettes in pouring rain and that curious child, what was her name, can you remember, stood on the quay without a mackintosh, weeping. She can’t have been weeping for her parents; they had no time for her, they were so obsessed with one another it could almost be said they neglected her; some people actually said so. It was quite odd to see a child cry like that.

  Flora, watching the vedette chug out in the driving rain towards St. Malo, wept for Cosmo and Blanco leaving on the boat, for Felix who had already gone in his car, for the terrible discovery that she was in love with three people at the same time.

  When in old age she constantly forgot people’s names, things which had happened a week before, titles of books, the ephemera of living, Flora would brilliantly remember standing on the quay at Dinard in the driving rain, watching the launches pull away.

  There were so many travellers, such a rush to get back before the strike, that there was a supplementary boat, and both boats were overloaded and low in the water. Passengers unable to crowd into the shelter of the cabins stood shoulder to shoulder, collars turned up, hats crammed low over noses. Cosmo and Blanco had tried ridiculously to open an umbrella, but it instantly blew inside out. The umbrella’s owner had bellowed in protest while the wind whipped away their laughter.

  Her parents, who had found room in a cabin in the first boat, were out of sight as she watched the launches bounce into the choppy cross-current. Had they waved goodbye? Her view had been partially blocked by the group of porters who had brought the travellers’ luggage from their various hotels; they stood gossiping and counting their tips while Mabs and Tashie, forgetting that they were grown up, reverted to excited childhood, waving umbrellas as they shrieked into the wind: “Goodbye, goodbye, see you next holidays.”

  They had waved the same umbrellas half an hour earlier when Felix had driven away with Elizabeth. “Come and see us in England,” they had yelled. “Come and stay. Why not come and stay? Do, do come and stay!” Somehow, somewhere they had found coloured umbrellas, a rarity at that time, Mabs a green, Tashie a blue. Then, when Felix was lost to sight, they had asked Joyce Willoughby, all packed up and wearing her school uniform, for her address, as though they had been great friends, equals even, throughout the holidays.

  Flora had followed the travellers to the quay and watched them board the vedettes. Joyce had become separated from her parent and attached herself to the Leighs; Cosmo had given her a hand down to the boat. Perhaps her parents had said a perfunctory goodbye? Flora could not remember. There had once been a terrible accident with an overloaded launch, a lot of people drowned; she did not wish this to happen today. Neither Cosmo nor Blanco had waved to her; why should they? She had kept out of sight, not wishing them to see the tears coursing down her face. In age she recollected the sensation of hot tears mixing with cold rain. She remembered that perfectly.

  And she remembered the grief; it had been tempered by a despairing rage, a passion which shook her whole body as she stood in the rain.

  When the vedettes were lost to sight, disappearing in the sheeting rain, she had turned and run through the wet streets to the beach, across the sands, up the hill past the casino, past the turning to the Rue de Tours and Madame Tarasova, to the tram/train which, raising steam for its journey across the coast to St. Enogat and St. Briac, was letting off loud shrieks and whistles as it began to move. She had scrambled on board breathless, crippled by a stitch, gasping as she sought to elude her unbearable loss, her shocked realisation that she loved, was in love with Felix, Cosmo and Blanco all at once, equally.

  In old age Flora would smile, remembering the child who believed that love was for one person, for ever, for Happy Ever After.

  The conductor, working his way along the tram, swinging in and out of the compartments—“Alors, messieurs, mesdames, vos billets, s’il vous plaît”—had nearly caught her; she had no money. She moved ahead of him along the train. Since the carriages had no sides it was possible to swing out, clinging to a rail as the conductor did, and back into the next carriage; then, when you reached the carriage behind the engine, to drop off, let the train go by (it never went faster than five or six miles an hour) and rejoin it behind the conductor. Flora had watched bold boys do this but, afraid of getting crushed, had never attempted the prank herself. That day, emboldened by grief and despair, she had carried out the risky manoeuvre to the amusement of fellow passengers and the irritation of the conductor. I wish I still had that agility, she would think in age. Arrived at St. Briac she had loped across the headland, tiring a bit from the feeling that her heart had dropped in her chest and, turning to lead, lodged across her solar plexus. Her tweed skirt was soaking and its friction rubbed sore patches behind her knees.

  The tide had erased yesterday’s footprints, smoothed flat the battlemented castles, filled in the moats. The stream from the valley reached across the sand with watery fingers to where the waves cracked onto the beach with a smack and a hiss as the tide turned to come in.

  She walked the long distance towards the water and, as she walked, tried to bring back the feel of Felix’s warm hand when they had walked up the street, the taste of Blanco’s blood when she bit him, and Cosmo’s smile when he bought her an ice in St. Malo; but memory was evasive and cold.

  She crouched by the water’s edge and wrote in the sand, spelling out the names with her forefinger: Felix, Cosmo, Blanco. When I am seventeen, she had thought, I could marry Felix. He will be twenty-seven when I am seventeen. I could marry Blanco and Cosmo; they will be twenty-two. But the sea rushed in, smoothing away the names, filling her shoes with frothy, sandy water. She had stood up and screamed into the wind, “I shall, I shall, I shall.” Then the sea, egged on by the wind and the rising tide, began chivvying her along so that she took off her waterlogged shoes and stockings and ran ahead of it until she reached the high watermark. Clambering up the dune she found the remnants of the picnic and bonfire, a circle of black bits, made cold by the rain. She had crouched by the charred embers for a long time so absorbed in her grief that she did not notice the dog Tonton come and join her, nudge her with his nose before departing, puzzled, back over the cliff. In age she would not remember him that day
, nor how she found her way back to the Marjolaine; there was a gap in memory; she would suppose she got back in the tram.

  PART TWO

  EIGHTEEN

  “I FOUND IT IMPOSSIBLE to like Mrs. Trevelyan,” exclaimed Milly.

  “Who was Mrs. Trevelyan?”

  Milly and Rosa, meeting for tea at Gunters, had their memories of the Easter holiday of 1926 sparked by the recent discovery by Mabs and Tashie—it did not matter which, since the two friends were as close as sisters—that the little dressmaker Madame Tarasova, patronised by the ladies from the Hôtel Marjolaine in her cramped room above the boucherie chevaline, had set up in business in rooms above an antique shop in Beauchamp Place SW3.

  “Of course she charges a great deal more than she did in those days,” said Milly, apropos Madame Tarasova, “but the girls say she is extremely good value.”

  “I had heard she had moved to London. One of my girls, Dolly I think it was, heard it from Felix. Or it might have been Anne heard it from Felix, but more likely Dolly; she is the most interested in clothes. Felix would have told her.”

  “Why should Felix—?” Milly raised her eyebrows.

  Rosa said: “Felix took an interest in refugees about that time. The little Russian was one of those who only had a Nansen passport; he would have given her an introduction to my brother-in-law, who was concerned in such matters, when she wanted to come to England. It must have been something like that. I wasn’t suggesting that he was having dresses made.” Rosa laughed cheerfully.

  Milly joined in Rosa’s laughter. “Of course! It was Mrs. Trevelyan who had the dresses made. There is the connection of thought, why I said I found it impossible to like her. I have not thought of her for years. She spent the whole summer having clothes made to take back to India; she monopolised the woman. None of us liked her at the time, did we? I wonder why. I remember her as pretty, almost beautiful.”

  “Too preoccupied with her husband? There was something abnormal there. Neglectful of her child? You must remember the child. She left her in the hotel when she went back to England with her husband; you and I were supposed to keep an eye on her. I should like some more cakes, if I may. I don’t torment myself about my figure as you do, Milly.” Rosa signalled to a waitress. “Have an éclair, they are delicious. We should get you on a visit to Holland and plump you up.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t remember doing much for the child. How awful, Rosa. It just strikes me. Should we have done more? I can’t remember doing anything.”

  “As far as I remember,” said Rosa, as she studied the display of cakes offered by the waitress, “the child had lessons with the Tarasova woman. I suppose she got paid for it. And wasn’t she learning Italian? Something of that sort. There had been a French governess, I believe. I’ll have one of those”—Rosa pointed at the cakes—“and one of those. Thank you. I remember the child was no bother; she kept herself occupied, took people’s dogs for walks.”

  “I remember now, I asked her mother whether she wouldn’t like to eat at my table,” said Milly. “But she refused. I don’t know where or when she ate; it is awful to be so vague.”

  “She would have had some plot with the hotel servants. Children are good at that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, Rosa! I should have done more. I do feel guilty.”

  “Retrospective guilt is a pretty useless emotion.” Rosa bit into a cream cake.

  Milly thought, She is greedy. I am paying for all these cakes. I invited her.

  She wondered why she liked Rosa, whether the only reason she kept up with her was because she suspected Angus had once flirted with her, or even been in love? She felt reassured when she met Rosa on the rare occasions she visited England and saw her for what she was: fat, un-glamorous, grey-haired, in her fifties. Come to think of it, she had been pretty unglamorous in 1926 and so had her five daughters, in spite of their tremendous niceness.

  She said: “Of course I was worried sick about Cosmo going back to school and Angus driving up through England on his own. He really thought there might be a revolution or riots. I only found out recently that he had armed himself with a revolver. He was convinced the situation was serious. He insisted that I stay safe in France. Mabs, of course, was at her finishing school in Paris; it was the General Strike, if you remember.”

  “I seem to recollect it only lasted a couple of days,” said Rosa drily. “Dear Angus is such a romantic.”

  Milly wondered what form this romanticism had taken with Rosa; was retrospective jealousy as useless an emotion as retrospective guilt? “How is Felix?” she asked at an angle.

  “Still unmarried.”

  “How the girls chased him that holiday!”

  Rosa grinned: “There was an embarras de choix, the most choice your lovely Mabs and her friend.”

  “Tashie?”

  “Yes.”

  “He put Cosmo and Hubert’s noses out of joint; they were at the age when boys—”

  “Lust,” said Rosa.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. I would say awaken.”

  “I agree it sounds prettier. Are you sure you won’t have another cake? Have an ice.”

  “No, thank you.” Milly watched Rosa enjoy her cakes. No wonder she was fat and all five daughters huge. “Rosa,” she said, “is Felix your husband Jef’s son?”

  Munching, Rosa looked slantwise at Milly and as she munched she smiled. Conscious of the enormity of her question Milly flushed salmon pink.

  “No,” said Rosa, munching. “He is not.”

  And she is not going to tell me who the father is. It can’t be Angus. Angus is heavily built and fair; Felix is slight and dark. What on earth possessed me? It just popped out! The question has been lurking for years. Oh my God and I am not even drunk!

  “The Trevelyans’ child had the makings of a beauty,” said Rosa. “A wonderful mass of dark hair, generous mouth, sexy observant eyes and what eyelashes! How old was she?”

  “About ten.” Milly gratefully seized on the switch of subject. “She would be fifteen or so now. I suppose she is still at school. I believe she was to go to school.”

  “I can get you her address, if you like. You could invite her to stay in the holidays. It would be a kindness.”

  “Well—” Milly sensed a trap, attempted to reverse.

  “Shed some retrospective guilt.” Rosa sipped her China tea. “One wondered, seeing her parents, who her father was; they were both so fair. The man was almost an albino, was he not? Mr. Trevelyan.”

  “But they were utterly devoted. I mean one wondered how they ever managed to get out of bed. They—well!” Milly protested, laughing. “You must remember that.”

  “I do. Elizabeth thought they even did it during the famous picnic. The garde champêtre might have had a genuine case to arrest, instead of accusing poor Freddy of indecent exposure!” Both women laughed in reminiscence at Freddy’s discomfiture. Rosa wiped her mouth with her handkerchief. “I will send you the child’s address,” she said. “Felix went to see her at her school a couple of years ago when he was in England. He took her out to lunch. He said she was very shy, hardly uttered. I will ask him for the address.”

  “Felix?”

  “Got her address from la Tarasova; they apparently keep in touch. She has no family in England, it seems.”

  “That was kind of him.”

  “Now you will be kind, too.” Rosa snapped her bag shut. “She was in love with your Cosmo, with his friend Hubert, and Felix, ça va sans dire.”

  “In love? At ten years old! Ridiculous!”

  “I must go,” said Rosa, rising. “My love to Angus and the children. Next time the tea is on me. I hear Rumplemeyers is still very good.” She kissed Milly on both cheeks. “I will send you that address.”

  “I don’t even remember her Christian name.” Milly made a last feeble protest.

  “Oh yes you do,” said Rosa.

  Watching Rosa go, Milly thought angrily, She punished my tactlessness along with my r
etrospective jealousy. Oh damn, she thought, damn, damn and blast. She asked for the bill. Then, walking down towards Piccadilly, she thought, If she is fifteen she will be fat and spotty, fifteen is a terrible age for schoolgirls, and cheered up.

  NINETEEN

  THE SURPRISE, WHEN THE headmistress sent for her and told her that she was to be taken out by a friend of her parents, a Baron Something, was so great that Flora’s heart had given a mad jolt and not settled to its normal rhythm for several minutes. She had nodded in mute obedience when told to be ready, wearing her best uniform, at eleven-thirty on the following Sunday. She would be allowed to miss church but must be in by six. The headmistress did not show her Felix’s letter, but said kindly: “I am glad you have somebody to take you out. This friend of your parents appears to be Dutch, such an interesting responsible people. Perhaps you remember him?”

  She had murmured that she did.

  The headmistress looked at the envelope in her hand with interested disappointment. In recollection Flora realised that the envelope had been plain. The woman would have appreciated a crest; one of the girls had as guardian a minor peer who, when writing about his ward, wrote from the House of Lords, using its facilities of free writing paper and postage. These letters were always put on top of other correspondence in the headmistress’s study. The headmistress opined that the outing would make a nice change for Flora; Flora nodded.

  “It will give you something fresh to write to your parents about.”

  Flora nodded again; she particularly detested this weekly chore.

  In the intervening days Flora walked on air, or lay awake in her dormitory rehearsing the things she would tell Felix. She would make him laugh about compulsory games, the boredom of obligatory church, about the other girls’ inexplicable joy when they received their parents’ letters from Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Lahore, Peshawar, Hyderabad or Simla; how they counted the days until they came home on leave and when they had been, how inconsolably they wept at the renewed parting. Perhaps she could make her schoolmates interesting?