Reckless

by William Nicholson

  At the end was married life. Joyce, his wife, sharing a home with him. Joyce the mother of his children. This prospect filled him with joy and wonder. This was not because he was in love with Joyce: he hadn’t yet had the chance to know enough of her for that. It was because he had always pictured his life as a solitary one. This new vision of companionship was almost unbearably sweet.

  And why not? There was many a marriage built on friendship.

  He sighed a little to himself, as the warm wind rustled the leaves of the palm trees. Not exactly the thoughts of a lover. And yet there was passion enough in him, waiting for its cue to come on stage. Waiting, as it were, for permission.

  He had never in all his twenty-eight years made a romantic approach to a girl. No girl he had ever known had given him reason to think such an approach would be welcome. He had a deep horror of what he called ‘making an ass of myself’, which meant exposing himself to rejection. Like the mirrors over which his gaze slid unseeingly, he did all in his power to protect himself from meeting his own unloved image in the eyes of others.

  This left him in a dilemma. To fall in love, he had to know that he was loved. But he couldn’t know if he was loved without declaring his own hopes. And he dared not voice such hopes without the certain knowledge that they would be reciprocated.

  How to break out of this vicious circle? For some time now he had been developing a more elevated concept of friendship. It was customary to place friendship in a different class to love. Those who look to be loved are bitterly disappointed by the offer of friendship. But it struck Rupert that this was not the way life was actually lived. Most marriages settled down, surely, into what was really a friendship. Why then should friendship not evolve into marriage? If only the expected first stage could be skipped, the romance and the passion, he felt well able to offer the steady companionship that followed. It seemed to Rupert that while he might cut a comical figure as a lover, he would make a thoroughly respectable husband.

  All girls wanted husbands, didn’t they? Joyce Wedderburn must want a husband. If he presented the plan in the right way, might she not find it worth her consideration?

  Beneath this line of thinking, modest and sensible as it was, lay a secret dream that he barely dared to admit even to himself. In this dream Joyce revealed she had been nursing a lonely passion for him for years, that she adored him, that her lips ached to kiss him, that she had never dared to hope for the bliss of holding him in her arms. Were this wild dream ever to come true – his whole lanky frame shuddered with the thought of it – his heart would explode – the fiery lake of love within him would erupt – the world would melt before the force of his passion – he would, in short, fall in love.

  In the meantime, there was friendship. A tepid first stage, but manageable. The great thing was to plant the idea in Joyce’s mind, and let time do its work. He dreaded the end of the war, the return to solitary rooms in Cambridge. Why should Joyce not have a similar fear? Together, friends, companions, and one day lovers, they could face the future.

  At this point in his musings, Peter Wilson passed him, heading in the opposite direction.

  ‘Do you play golf, Rupert?’

  ‘A little,’ said Rupert.

  ‘There’s a funny old course up in the hills of Nuwara Elya, I was up there yesterday morning. The ninth hole runs right across the front of the clubhouse veranda. Par three, about a hundred and sixty yards. I played it with a five iron, all the planters and their wives watching, knocking back the John Collinses. I took one great whack at the ball, and up it went, and onto the green, and plopped into the hole. My God! What a cheer I got! Never done it before, never do it again.’

  ‘Well done, Peter,’ said Rupert.

  ‘So what do you make of Dickie’s latest? More hurry up and do nothing, eh?’

  *

  The Chinese restaurant was half empty in the early evening, as Rupert and Joyce sat down at one of the stained oilcloth-covered tables. They’d come early knowing that it filled up quickly. Both were still in uniform. They agreed to share a large plate of the Special, which consisted of fried rice, boiled eggs, and whatever was currently being cooked in the kitchen.

  ‘The remarkable thing about the Special,’ said Rupert, ‘is that it’s not special at all. If anything it’s universal. All-inclusive.’

  ‘Oh, I always have the Special,’ said Joyce. ‘I never know what I want to eat until I see it.’

  They drank green tea to start with, and then shared a bottle of the local beer. The lighting was poor in the room, and Joyce sat partly with her back to such light as there was.

  ‘Good idea, Rupert. This way we halve the cost.’

  ‘And it’s more friendly. After all, we have known each other for ages.’

  ‘Years,’ said Joyce. ‘God, this war has gone on for ever. It makes me feel so old.’

  The large greasy platter arrived with suspicious speed, mounded high with nameless lumps. They both gazed at it in awe.

  ‘I think this is what’s called fodder,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Anything’s better than the mess,’ said Joyce.

  They sipped at their beers and picked at their fried food as the restaurant filled up.

  ‘Looks like it’s going to be over soon now,’ said Rupert.

  ‘By Christmas, everyone says,’ said Joyce.

  ‘What will you do after the war?’

  ‘Help! I don’t know. Get a job, I suppose. How different everything will be.’

  ‘You don’t sound all that excited about it.’

  ‘I don’t mind admitting it,’ said Joyce. ‘I’ll miss some things. I’ll miss Dickie rushing in and out all the time.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Rupert. ‘Dickie does have a way of making you feel like you’re at the centre of the known universe.’

  ‘So what about you, Rupert? What will you do?’

  ‘Pick up where I left off before the war, I suppose. I was at Cambridge, doing a doctorate in philosophy.’

  ‘That sounds so brainy. What was it about?’

  ‘Free will. Determinism. Is everything we do really caused by things that have happened before?’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘It’s certainly not what I feel. I feel as if I make my own decisions. But when you start to look into it you find that what you want is influenced by your upbringing, your culture, your social circle. Even by the size of your nose.’

  ‘The size of your nose!’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a funny pointy nose. It’s not a beautiful nose. That’s going to influence my decisions when it comes, say, to finding a wife. No one’s going to pick me out in a beauty parade. So I have to manage some other way.’

  ‘Oh, Rupert. Don’t be so silly.’ He couldn’t make out her face very well, but her voice sounded as though she was smiling. ‘It’s a noble nose.’

  ‘My point is, if I looked like Clark Gable I would make a different set of decisions.’

  ‘So there isn’t a girlfriend waiting faithfully at home?’

  ‘Alas, no.’

  ‘Me neither. Boyfriend, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t have any trouble, Joyce,’ said Rupert. ‘Plenty of chaps would be glad to nab you.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to know where they are,’ said Joyce.

  ‘They’re probably just too shy to say so.’

  ‘Oh, bother shyness. Don’t you think it’s just the biggest swiz there is? If only everyone would just say what they wanted, life would be so much simpler.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘What do you think about friendship, Joyce?’

  ‘I’m all for it. Isn’t everybody?’

  ‘Do you think friendship can ever turn into something more?’

  ‘What, like love, you mean? Yes, of course. Happens all the time. You know Doreen in Movement Control? She was best pals with the sergeant there, and now they’re engaged to be married. Most couples start out as friends, I sho
uld say.’

  Rupert listened as she chatted on, trying to gauge whether she had any inkling that the conversation might have a personal bearing.

  ‘So what is it, you think, that makes some friendships take that next step?’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing to do with noses, I can tell you that.’

  She laughed and met his eyes, and then the laugh froze. He saw in that instant that she had suddenly understood what he wanted to say, and that she didn’t want him to say it, and was acutely, blushingly embarrassed. In the instant that followed, he in his turn was suffused with dread and humiliation at the thought that his foolhardy hopes were now exposed to the awkward stumblings of her pity.

  A silence fell. Rupert found himself entirely unable to speak. To cover his shame he took a mouthful of fried rice, and found himself unable to swallow.

  ‘Some friendships,’ said Joyce, looking down now, speaking hurriedly, ‘are much better staying as friendships, aren’t they? And really, truly, I do sometimes think that good friends are more important than boyfriends or husbands. I mean, with a boyfriend you have to fuss over them and look after them and so on, but with a friend you can be equals. You can say what you really think. And you’re not tied down, are you? You’re free. It’s like what you were saying about free will. Friends are all about free choice, aren’t they? And that makes them special.’

  As she uttered the word ‘special’ she looked at the platter between them.

  ‘Oh, Lord. We haven’t eaten very much, have we?’

  ‘It’s the monsoon,’ said Rupert. ‘The humidity takes away the appetite.’

  ‘I got caught the other day!’ Joyce gladly followed his lead into neutral territory. ‘I cantered for shelter, but I still got a soaking.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s why I was late for Dickie’s last briefing.’

  He remembered the cooks, and the monkey on a string with its frightened staring face. He could feel the misery gathering like a distant storm, swelling across the sky, casting its approaching shadow. Only his pride, and the sustaining power of good manners, kept him smiling, exchanging commonplaces, at the grease-stained table.

  Neither of them had the will to continue for long. Rupert paid the bill for both of them, brushing aside Joyce’s protests.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Good to have company once in a while.’

  He walked her back to her billet. When it was time to part she darted forward and pecked him on the cheek.

  ‘You’re so sweet, Rupert,’ she said. ‘You’ll make some lucky girl a wonderful husband.’

  Then she ran into the house.

  Rupert walked down to the lake, and stood for a long time gazing unseeingly at its dark surface. He told himself he had not been in love with Joyce, and therefore he had lost nothing. His life was just as it had been before. But why then did he want to cry? Why did he feel this dread when he looked ahead to the rest of his life?

  He didn’t cry, that night by the lake in Kandy. Instead his rational mind took charge once more. What is it you fear? he asked himself. The answer came back: loneliness. You will be lonely, he told himself. That’s just how it is. So the choice you get is what you do with your loneliness. You can call it your sickness, and let it imprison you. Or you can call it your strength, and let it set you free.

  Bats passed flickering over the water. On the island in the middle of the lake the fireflies were out in clouds. From an open window nearby came the strains of a big band, probably Radio Jakarta, the Japanese-run propaganda station. Rupert shook out a cigarette and lit it, drawing the harsh smoke deep into his lungs, feeling the nicotine calm his trembling body.

  Oh, Joyce.

  Now that she was for ever out of his reach it turned out he had been in love with her after all.

  4

  It was a warm late afternoon in early August, but for all it was high summer you didn’t get to see so much of the sun here in County Donegal. Clouds you had and more than you wanted, and rain of course. But sunshine that pricked right through your cotton pinafore dress and made your skin itch, that was special. Mary Brennan was making her way home from Clancy’s farm, carrying the can of milk for which her mother had sent her. She did not hurry on the road.

  Mary was just twelve years old and shy and quick-thinking and a little wild inside. She had an elder brother called Eamonn and an elder sister called Bridie and a mother called Mam, but no Da because he had been lost at sea just before she was born. So Mary was the baby, and everyone told Eileen Brennan she spoiled that child and Mam said the good Lord took my man but he gave me my baby, so I’ll be duly grateful thank you very much.

  You could see the sea from their cottage windows, and from the road, and from just about everywhere round Kilnacarry. Mary could see the sea now, walking back down the road from Clancy’s, the milk can bumping cold against the side of her hot leg. It was the sea where Da was lost, which made it frightening. What was it like to be lost at sea? She thought it must be like being in a mist, where you can’t tell anymore which way you’re going, except instead of ground beneath your feet there’s water.

  A low dry-stone wall ran alongside the road, and the stones of it were warm in the sun. On the other side of the wall, halfway up the slope of the hill, grew a single wych elm. It was very old and had some branches broken by the winter gales. Bridie said a man had hanged himself there and suicides went to hell, and the devil sat up in the old elm’s branches and whispered to you so you’d hang yourself too and become one of his minions for all eternity. Certainly there was something unnatural about the way it stood on the hillside like that all on its own, leaning sideways, or it was the hill that leant sideways. Maybe the devil was there now.

  On an impulse Mary climbed the stone wall and set off up the slope. Her skin was tickling in the sun and she felt bold as a banshee. At the foot of the tree she put the milk can down, snug in a crook of roots, and she looked up into the black branches and yellow-green leaves. Her heart thumped in her chest even though she didn’t believe the devil was crouched above her. But you could never be sure.

  ‘Hey, old devil man!’ she called aloud. ‘Come and get me!’

  She felt a thrill of excitement as she spoke these words, which were sinful, no question about it. Except she was only teasing the devil, she had no intention of letting him have her soul. If he jumped down out of the tree she would cry out, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph protect me!’ and the devil would be defeated.

  She wondered what it would be like to be the devil’s minion. He would make you commit sins. That was what the devil wanted from you. Then your soul was damned, unless you made a true act of contrition together with a firm intention of amendment.

  ‘Hey, old devil man!’ she called. ‘Make me do a sin!’

  She was moving round the tree trunk, staring up into the branches, and the sun suddenly dazzled her eyes. In the heart of the dazzle she thought she saw something move in the tree, but then it was gone.

  ‘Bet you can’t make me do a sin!’ she called. And to show how she wasn’t afraid of the devil she started to dance a little skipping dance. Then as she danced she flicked her frock up so she could feel the sun on her bare legs, and it was such a good game she did it some more, lifting her skirt up all the way so the devil could see her knickers. This wasn’t a sin because it was rude, and being rude to the devil was brave and good. Father Flannery had once told her when she was a little girl and afraid of the dark, ‘If you meet the devil you just give him a raspberry,’ and he’d made the raspberry sound with his lips. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ he said.

  ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ called out Mary Brennan, and turning round she hitched up her skirt and showed the devil her bum.

  Then there came a noise out of the tree and something was moving and suddenly Mary was mortally afraid. She turned and ran off down the hill and over the wall and down the road to the village. There was her mam outside the cottage bringing in the washing from the hedge, and Mary ran all the
way to press herself against her warm and comfortable body.

  ‘Why, what’s got into you, girl?’ said her mam.

  ‘I saw the devil in the witch tree,’ said Mary, gasping for breath.

  ‘The devil? And what did he say to you?’

  ‘Nothing. I ran away.’

  Her mother stroked her hair.

  ‘What a dreamy young missy it is,’ she said. ‘And did the devil drink the milk?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mary, her face muffled in her mother’s apron. ‘I forgot the milk. It’s standing by the witch tree.’

  ‘And how are we to have our tea?’

  But Mary would not go back, nor would Bridie, so Eamonn had to be fetched from the yard where he was cutting sticks for the winter woodpile. Eamonn wasn’t afraid of devils.

  The cottage was whitewashed on the outside and had three rooms: one for Bridie and Mary, one for Mam, and Eamonn slept in the kitchen. Two barrels, at the front and back, collected rainwater for washing. Drinking water came from the well. The yard was planted with King Edwards, and the laying hens scratched about between the bushes by the road. This was how home had been for as long as Mary could remember, and she loved the cottage and Kilnacarry and the bay between the two headlands that reached out into the sea, and the sea itself. But there was another feeling too, that came with the warm summer days and the long light evenings. She felt restless and itchy, the way she felt when she danced under the tree.

  While they were eating their tea Mary got into a quarrel with Bridie because Bridie said she had made a bags of getting the milk and was a baby to be seeing devils in trees. Mary didn’t take offence about forgetting the milk, but she was not a baby any more and said it was false of Bridie to say so and a lie. ‘So why are you still in pinafores?’ Bridie said, when she knew very well that Mary was waiting to grow into Bridie’s old frocks and Mam had said there wasn’t the money nor the call to go buying new for her. In this way Mary became upset because Bridie was showing up that they were poor, and that wasn’t Mam’s fault, it was on account of Da being lost at sea. And now Eamonn had to work all the hours of daylight and still life was hard and it was too bad of Bridie to make them feel this way. Mary felt hot tears of self-pity, or rather family pity, stinging her eyes and a powerful desire to pinch Bridie or cut her. She knew she had gone red and that always made her face blotchy and she hated it, but the more she minded the longer she stayed blotchy.