by Alec Waugh
“Perhaps.”
“And yet,” she said slowly, “if you’d let Graham make an ass of himself over me, you could have had Joan for yourself. She liked you. She’d have married you on the rebound. Why didn’t you let her?”
It was his turn now to shrug his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said, “that I’d have made her awfully happy.”
She smiled.
“In fact, both of us, I suppose, gave up the person that we wanted, because we cared enough for them to feel that they’d be happier elsewhere.”
“Perhaps.”
The quiet autumn twilight was darkening the room so that it was difficult for them to see the expression on each other’s faces. The red brick of the houses opposite was turning black; the sky was no longer whitened where the sharp outline of roof and chimney-stack divided it.
“And what are you going to do now?” he asked. “Are you going abroad?”
“I think so,” she said. “This place is too full of memories. I don’t believe that I could stand it. And I’ve been rather spoilt now for this sort of life. It’s not much of a show, really. I’d better find something else to do.”
“You’re getting rid of the flat?”
She nodded.
“I’m selling pretty well everything that’s in it. I don’t want to be bothered by possessions. And I don’t want to be bothered for lack of money. I shall clear a good deal on it, I expect. There are one or two quite decent things here. And I’m not going to take jewellery where it’s likely to be stolen.”
She ceased, and they sat in silence. Content to be in silence. Somewhere within a few miles of them, in the carriage of some train that was rushing southwards, alone and absorbed in each other, were those two whom they had loved; whom in their different ways they had each wanted, but whom they had renounced for lack of faith in their own ability to make them happy. With the eyes of vision they could see them in the corner of their reserved carriage. On the seat beside them would be lying the pile of magazines that they had never meant to read, but which they had bought because the purchase of papers on a railway journey was one of the things that was expected of you. Side by side, their arms about each other, the smooth surface of her cheek rested on his roughness, watching through half-closed eyes the misted countryside; they would not be talking, but their lips every now and again would meet and cling together. Why say in words what could be so much better said in kisses?
With a little shiver Gwen Lawrence lifted herself from her seat.
“It’s getting dark,” she said, “and I’ll soon be hungry. You can take me out to dinner if you like.”
“I shall be delighted.”
For a moment she rested her hand upon his shoulder.
“You’re not a bad sort, Christopher,” she said. “I don’t think I could have borne this evening with anybody else.”
On his shoulder her fingers tightened for a moment. And through the mind of each passed the same unworded thought.
“Whatever we may be, whatever we may become, we’ll always have this behind us; that with all the things for which we were too small allowed for, there was this one thing once for which we were too big.”
TO
D.
THIS PANORAMA
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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ISBN: 9781448200467
eISBN: 9781448201785
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