A Sea-Grape Tree

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘Yes, I have changed. You have come too late.’

  ‘Too late? You mean you can’t forgive me?’

  ‘I mean I don’t love you any more.’

  Will he believe it? Not he, he’s too conceited. A painful scene ensues, at the end of which he slinks away, accepting his dismissal. Next moment back he strides, masterful, passionate, won’t take no for an answer, pulls out all the stops.

  And then … and then? The great scene of reconciliation will not build itself. Alien material keeps intruding. She finds herself conducting a different dialogue; engrossed in a sparkling, caressing, magical exchange of intimacies—with Johnny.

  Johnny is waxing, the other waning: can it be? In the nick of time he has descended in his car, like an operatic god. She will mount beside him and ascend into the empyrean; will look coldly down upon all once-threatening protagonists.

  Her head begins to spin. She seizes the Air Mail block upon which so many letters to Anon have been projected, started, never sent, and scrawls on it wildly the names of these two men, stares at them, obliterates them with fierce strokes, starts again to write, stops, tears off the sheet and crumples it. It must be got rid of. She hurries into her swim suit, flings on her towelling wrap, runs down to the shore, into the sea. When she has swum quite far out, she unclenches her palm, releases the screw of paper it contains, pulls it about until there is nothing left of it but shredded membrane: a taboo object stripped of power.

  After that she goes on swimming, floating, sauntering through blue translucent water, imagining herself a specimen of some kind of marine order of creation, propelling itself in a languid, mindless rhythm, cleansed of all remains of human feeling; expecting nothing, no one; not expected anywhere, by anyone. One image continues to tie her to the land: a hut, a sea-grape tree. Round and around it, soaring, dipping, whirling on great white wings, circles the bird laughingly known as Johnny’s familiar because of its recurrent mysterious presence and behaviour: as if it carried a message it never managed to deliver. Where is Johnny? No sign of him; but he is there, at the dead centre, hidden, potent.

  Why can she not approach him as Ellie does?—Ellie who trips along for a chat and a drink almost as often as the spirit moves her and sits in contemplation, her round eyes vacant, her bow mouth fallen slightly open—a baffled, love-sick innocent. His response is benevolent and humorous, rather like that of a retriever confronted by the blandishments of an ingratiating puppy. Kindness itself, Ellie encourages her new friend to accompany her on these little visits. Perhaps she finds support in another female presence; and such is her increasingly tranced condition when exposed to Johnny, she has ceased to be able to observe, or suspect, Anemone’s own intensifying awareness of the beloved object. Indeed, there is almost nothing to observe. Almost nothing. But now and then it is as if an electric current in him started to vibrate; and then his smiles and glances show a heart-stopping intermittent something—challenge? flash of recognition? promise?—tentatively offered, rapidly withdrawn.

  Anemone agrees with Ellie: he has simply perfect manners.

  As she begins to emerge from the water, the couple of white nurses, Phil and Madge, from Port of Spain, plunge past her brusquely with a grunt for greeting, with flailing arms and violent displacements of the sea around their jaws and shoulders. Phil is a big girl with a face the colour and texture of blancmange. Madge is dark, lean, with sombre eyes and a surly voluptuous mouth. Totally wrapped up in their own affairs, they lie about all day, oiling themselves and one another and murmuring confidentially. Once, passing them, she hears one of them remark on the tail of a yawn: ‘Hey ho! I s’pose I’m fickle.’ At night they don tight-fitting dance frocks with challenging décolletage and join the crowd at Jackie’s on the hill. After one invitation Mrs Cunningham has wiped them off her list. Thoroughly bad taste they are, and man-mad to boot. The Captain neither agrees nor contradicts, but is seen to focus upon their aquatics through his binoculars. Miss Stay’s opinion is that they are well-built hard working girls who deserve their holiday; but the words ‘mortal treat’ do not escape her in connection with their charms; and once or twice their noisy passage through her premises causes her to refer in a general way to the decline of old-world courtesy and gracious manners.

  Anonyma has a dreadful dream one night. She is in a hospital ward controlled by Phil and Madge; she has dropped a cup of milk. They flounce past her saying, ‘Pick it up yourself, wipe it up yourself, busy in the men’s ward, can’t attend to you.’ She wakes up severely depressed. ‘But they really do loathe me,’ she says to Ellie later. ‘Why do they? They can’t think I’m competing.’

  ‘Take no notice, dear,’ says Elbe. ‘Treat them with contempt. They just naturally hate anyone with breeding, let alone looks. I’d like to see them trying to vamp Johnny, they’d get short shrift.’

  In fact they avoid going anywhere near Johnny, doubtless deciding that he is no use, not worth a moment’s sexual attention. When Ellie mentions them sarcastically one evening, he raises an eyebrow and says he hasn’t noticed them.

  Princess hates them with all her heart. ‘Dey don’ laf plenty,’ she says, ‘an’ deir faces so wrawng.’ She affects a haughty scowl in imitation before yelling with rude laughter. True it is that they are never seen to laugh, or even to smile. They are cruel harpies, their stone faces symbols of the heartless predatory world.

  Young Mr de Pas takes a fancy to organise a day trip in his motor boat by way of celebration of Phil’s birthday: a fishing expedition, an evening barbecue in Turtle Bay beyond the Point. Jackie is hostess; indispensable as cooks and fire-makers, Kit and Trevor go along. The Captain needs little pressing to join the party; but his wife develops a touch of migraine and requests that Anemone be spared to keep her company. The two of them spend a peaceful morning washing one another’s hair in an egg and brandy shampoo made from a special recipe handed down from Miss Stay’s granny, famous in her day for glossy raven locks. ‘I can see her now,’ says Miss Stay, ‘with all that glory flowing down her back at sixty. She could sit on it with ease.’ They agree that their rinsed hair has acquired suppleness and sheen, and smells amusingly of brandy. Harold will get a thrill, says Ellie.

  Later in the day Miss Stay appears with her Tarot pack, and withdraws with Ellie to the bedroom for her quarterly reading of the cards. When she returns alone, Ellie wears a little frown and hums one of her tunes and seems distraite. After a while she remarks that the cards are apt to be what you might call double-­faced: you must never leap to conclusions. ‘What the future holds is never a certainty, you know, or we wouldn’t have free will, which is God’s greatest gift to us. Staycie sees possibilities­­­­—sometimes­­­ nice ones, sometimes, well, the opposite. One must keep an open mind. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

  Anonyma ventures: ‘Did there seem a not nice possibility?’

  After a pause, ‘Time will tell,’ was the reply. ‘Forewarned is forearmed is what I say.’

  ‘One is often warned, inside oneself. As clear as a clear voice speaking. One chooses to ignore it.’

  ‘True,’ sighs Ellie. ‘Too true.’

  Presently she begins in a mock-doleful tremolo: ‘The gypsy war-ar-arned me …’ cries: ‘Oh, that Gracie Fields! Isn’t she unique?’, smooths away her frown, remarks: ‘That’s one of the saddest songs in the world, if you come to think of it, yet you double up laughing. What an enigma!’

  Miss Stay rejoins them for her evening drink; Ellie suggests a reading for Anemone. But the prophetess reacts evasively, saying: ‘Not yet, dearie, better wait a while’; then sensing consternation, plunges into verse: ‘Birdie wait a little longer, till the little wings are stronger.’

  ‘Staycie doesn’t mean you’re not quite—anything of a mental nature, do you, Staycie?’ Ellie is severe, reproachful.

  ‘Indeed not, no indeedy! She’s our ray of sunshine.’

  ‘Weak. I know I am,’ qu
avers the culprit.

  ‘No no. Still just a wee thought easily upset—and who can wonder? But getting steadier. More light in your aura, lovely peacock blue returning. Every day that passes steadier and steadier. It’s a joy to behold.’

  ‘Staycie sets great store on steadiness, don’t you, Staycie?’

  ‘Ah, it has stood me in good stead.’ Clapping hand to mouth, she flings her legs up with a stifled hoot. ‘The Lord be praised for the Captain’s absence! Yes, girls, I learnt soul-steadiness the hard way. I went down into the depths to dredge for it.’

  Yes, it is Miss Stay’s equipment for dealing with life’s frets and shocks. She went through fire, tempest, earthquake, heaven knows what to gain it; and now she is as mad as a March Hare and as steady as a rock. Prop and stay (ha! ha!) to many a weaker vessel, star to wandering barks, unshaken both in tolerance and loving kindness. Can it be that she is some species of angelic being in disguise; and although her racked body has accepted the travesty, it twitches and jerks with yearning to throw it off and reveal her radiant, golden-winged, as in old fairy tales and legends?

  With a swift unaccountable lift of her spirits, Anonyma says, under her breath: ‘Anything might happen.’

  ‘What was that?’ asks Ellie.

  She shakes her head, laughs. Miss Stay nods in strong approval of the laugh.

  And what did happen?

  The day ended with a gift to Anonyma, the first, from Johnny. Without warning, Johnny turned, as if—as if acknowledging, or surrendering, and possibly with a touch of irony beneath the look he bent on her: Johnny turned suddenly and gave her the taste of joy. Pure, piercing, unmistakable, astounding taste of joy.

  What happened? A late swim from Johnny’s boat by starlight and the light of Louis’s lantern, leaving Ellie to prepare supper in the hut. He swam far out, away from where she circled quietly just beyond the lantern’s soft corona. Then back he came, she watched him, thrusting through the water with powerful strokes, his great shoulders looming as he came abreast of her and passed her without a word or glance. Then suddenly he turned, swam back, swept her into his arms, gave her a kiss. Not smiling. Saying nothing. A cold, salt kiss. Cheek pressed to cheek they remained; then broke apart. The boat came gliding up on silent oars, she swam away to shore, crossed the white sands, dressed again as usual behind the hut, joined Ellie who, mixing avocado salad, exclaimed with dismay at sight of her wet hair so recently fortified with egg and brandy.

  They came out and sat on the steps, under the light of the two hanging lamps. Presently Ellie murmured: ‘Look!’ with a sharp intake of breath. Johnny was walking towards them, slowly, his arm round Louis’s shoulder, Louis’s arm around his waist: walking upright, firmly. He had changed in the boat, and wore a blue shirt open at the neck, white linen trousers. ‘You see, he can,’ breathed Ellie. ‘I knew he could. Oh, doesn’t he look gorgeous?’ Then, as they came nearer: ‘Better not seem to be watching them perhaps’; and she got up and slipped away into the kitchen. But, as if it were an everyday occurrence, or as if it were all happening in a dream, Anonyma ran forward to join them where they now stood waiting, smiling. They loomed impressively above her, matched in height, with a parallel display of strong white teeth; and from the shafts of light cast by the house lamps their eyes reflected an equal glitter. They moved into the shadow of the sea-grape tree, where without a word Louis left him propped against the trunk and vanished into the house.

  ‘Louis seems to trust you,’ said Johnny. ‘It’s a great compliment.’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite safe with me.’

  ‘Am I? Well …’ He laughed.

  ‘You won’t fall.’

  ‘No. Still, you’d better keep close.’

  She came close, and they clasped one another.

  ‘You looked so extraordinary, you and Louis.’

  ‘How, extraordinary?’

  ‘Like brothers somehow. Not brothers of today. From another age.’

  He laughed again. ‘Sort of twin monsters? Perhaps we are. Are you safe, do you suppose?’

  They kissed again. Pressed to his chest she noticed for the first time that he wore a locket or medallion on a long gold chain. Presently she said: ‘Johnny, to see you walking! I didn’t know—at least I wasn’t sure. I think I did know.’

  ‘Once in every hundred years,’ he said. ‘Like the aloe.’

  ‘I do love you, Johnny.’

  He did not reply, but covered her face with light kisses; then said: ‘Come. We won’t tempt Providence’; and walked without faltering towards his dwelling. Louis darted out noiselessly with a cane armchair into which he tumbled,’ saying: ‘A drink, Louis. And one for the lady’; and after they were brought and they were alone again: ‘Not a graceful performance. Still, it may improve. You’re wondering—if I can, why don’t I more?’

  ‘Too tiring?’ she suggested.

  ‘Not really. Well, a bit perhaps. I’m not taking any chances.’

  ‘Is it a secret?’

  ‘For the present.’

  ‘Who knows?—besides Louis and—now, me?’

  ‘Ellie, presumably. But you may have noticed, she prefers to ignore such goings-on.’

  ‘Not that exactly. She doesn’t quite dare to make it real—I suppose because she cares so much. Or perhaps she’s afraid that if it’s true, you might get up and go. What about Miss Stay?’

  ‘Oh, Staycie gave me the first shove. So she believes at least. I dare say she did.’

  ‘I thought it was Mrs Jardine—Sibyl …’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said after a pause, evasively. ‘She worked on me, of course. In her own way.’ He laughed again, abruptly.

  ‘Your wife knows?’

  ‘Not my wife.’ His smile broadened, this time not a pleasant smile. He felt for, and lit a cigarette, then continued slowly: ‘One day I shall walk up that hill and enter my own house. It may take time. But I’ll get there.’ She looked at him, startled by his expression, unable to interpret it. A slight distortion seemed to have occurred, making him look almost ugly. Then his odd wing-like eyelids lifted, he looked at her sharply out of his cold clear eyes and burst out laughing. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he said. ‘Damn it, it is my house. I planned it, paid for it. I’m Scotch, you know, I’m close, I like value for my money. My desirable residence has gone down in the world. It stinks of riff raff, parasites, squatters, and their bloody boringness. I’ll kick them out one day. I aim to, anyway.’

  ‘I haven’t seen your house, except in the distance,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘No, and you won’t either. I wouldn’t let you touch, it with a barge pole. Pity. It’s a pleasant house—or was. I’d like to show it to you. I’d like you to stay there.’ She flushed with gratified surprise. ‘I’ve got the instincts of an average householder, you know.’ He threw an ambiguous glance over his shoulder, up and down the shell-encrusted walls. ‘Do you think this rococo bijou setting really suits me?’

  ‘I suppose—not really.’

  ‘Not really quite me.’ He affected a nasal pansy drawl. Then, after a pause during which he seemed pleased to have made her laugh, he added soberly: ‘Not but what I’m grateful for it, very, very grateful. It’s been a godsend. Somewhere to be private; and space all round me. But I can’t help wondering sometimes, what’s the point.’

  ‘Won’t you ever come back to England?’

  ‘Of course I want to go back. Long to. But not unless I’m—completely independent. Which as you see I’m not.’

  ‘You will be, Johnny.’

  He shrugged; then burst out with furious impatience: ‘Every day and in every way I get better and better. Actually, I think I’m stuck for life … Why do you look at me like that?’

  ‘You make my heart ache.’

  ‘Poor you. How uncomfortable. That’s one thing I’m spared. No heart, no heartaches. See what an unpleasant chara
cter I am.’

  ‘I like unpleasant characters.’

  ‘I believe you do, I’m afraid you do. Something tells me that’s your trouble.’

  The silence that ensued was intimate and full of tension. He broke it to say quietly: ‘No. Judging from what my antennae tell me, let alone the papers, let alone our wise splendid far-seeing­­­­ politicians, the world is going blind and deaf. Millions of people will be homesick soon, you’ll see. If one can’t alter a single damn thing, one might as well stay put.’ He looked out to sea, she watched his profile. ‘Besides, I don’t fancy leaving Louis. I’m attached to him.’

  ‘It would break his heart.’

  ‘Yes. Louis has got a heart.’

  Louis appeared, carrying tall glasses brimming with amber liquid, fruit, ice, slivers of aromatic herbs and Ellie joined them, whom Johnny teased, joked with as usual. The rage, or whatever had been the pressure choking him subsided so quickly and completely it seemed that she must have dreamed that she had felt its crushing impact.

  But the beautiful buoyant strangeness continued to prevail; as if they had been lifted, for an hour or so, into a dimension of less density; as if Time had thrown a loop around them, leaving them islanded, free of its main troubled and obstructed coil.

  Once, getting up to take a cigarette from him, she stooped to blow the match out and put her lips to his hair. He stretched a hand out and held hers for a moment. Ellie did not notice.