‘I suppose she knows you can?’
‘Oh, that’s not her department! That’s routine medical stuff—massage, swimming, therapy, exercises, what have you. And plenty of pluck and grit. And patience, patience … No, no, there’s to be a miracle. She sees me in my true body, you must understand—’
‘That’s what—’ she stopped herself with a gasp.
‘She doesn’t,’ he went on, ‘permit herself to be discouraged by the abject shambling efforts of this—thing you’re lying beside.’
‘Don’t, don’t miscall yourself! You are so beautiful. You didn’t shamble. You walked upright.’
He held her more closely, as if in gratitude; and when he spoke next, he sounded content again, at ease. ‘That tree was a help. I can’t think what came over me to show off like that. It was a try-on. The idea came to me—’ He stopped.
‘When?’
‘When we were swimming, I suppose. You looked so—
I wanted to make you smile. I like the way you smile.’
‘When you surged up and kissed me? No wonder I smiled.’
‘I wanted to follow it up. Ridiculous.’
‘Not ridiculous. Wonderful. The wonderful surprise!—
I never shall forget it. From then on, everything was magical. Still is.’
All turned now to kissing, to murmured intimate exchanges, to sighs and muffled laughter; but after a while he flung his head back on the pillow; and when she put a hand up and touched his cheek, she felt it wet.
‘Johnny, you’re not sad, are you?’
‘Not really. Pretty happy really. But I wish I’d met you years ago, when I was some use.’
‘Oh darling no, it wouldn’t have done at all. For one thing, in your heyday I was a clumsy blushing idiotic flapper, too fat—you never would have looked at me. And even supposing you had, I’d have been too dazzled to cast my eyes in your direction. I must have seen your photograph. All you pilots looked like gods, you most of all, I should imagine.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ He sounded not displeased.
‘You would have made me miserable. Jealous of dozens of other bowled-over ninepins. I never could bear competition.’ She thought about the images of falling heroes—laughing, erotic, doomed, irresistible—only a blur of faces in her adolescent memory. ‘I wonder, did you ever come across the Baron?—the Red Baron?’
‘I did. In several dog fights. I was so near him once, almost as near, not quite, as you and I are now. We took a long look at one another, a good hard stare. He waved and sort of smiled. Very rum. It wasn’t long after that that someone finally got him.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Very handsome bloke. Not exactly a reassuring type. Staring eyes. Dismal, fanatical sort of expression.’
‘Like Satan in Paradise Lost.’
‘I’m not very well up in Paradise Lost. If you want to know if I dropped flowers on his grave, the answer is I did not. He’d personally shot down two of my best friends. I wanted to get him. But something went wrong. I didn’t.’
‘You mean,’ she ventured, ‘at the last moment you couldn’t?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ he said almost angrily. ‘Something happened. I might tell you some time: or I might not.’ He went on in the same clipped voice: ‘If you want to know why I’m living on, the answer is the devil only knows. I don’t.’
‘How glad how glad I am you’re living on.’
‘Well, I’m not sorry, just at this moment.’ Again she felt the upsurge of complex pressure in him—rage, frustration—die away, as it had done, just as startlingly, mysteriously, earlier in the night. A coaxing, caressing, rather shy and boyish person lay beside her, kissing her with ardour. But after a while, as if the words he had used in another context had sparked off a collapse of energy, desire—it was clear that something had gone wrong. He fell away from her on to his back saying petulantly: ‘We talked too much.’ Then after a strangled silence: ‘I wanted to make love to you, properly. I suppose you think I’m incapable.’
‘Of course I don’t think so, darling.’ She added, laughing: ‘It’s been perfectly obvious you’re not.’
‘But you did think so,’ he insisted.
‘I never thought so. Not for one moment. Quite the contrary.’
He said, with a huge despondent sigh: ‘It’s a long time since I’ve had a girl in my bed.’
‘Poor love. Don’t worry. There’s nothing to worry about. Look, it’s getting light, I shall have to go. But I’ll come again, and it will be wonderful—we can make love all night. Would you like that? Tonight?’
‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘But—’
It was her turn to say: ‘Go to sleep.’
He muttered: ‘Are you all right?’—and almost at once fell into sleep again, as if peacefully exhausted.
When, presently, she left his side, he uttered a faint, protesting, childlike sound, but did not wake. In the breaking light of dawn his face looked so remote, austere, that her heart contracted with a hitherto unknown pang. He seemed to her untouchable; as if withdrawn into a lightless realm, among the shades and ruins of his massacred generation; too far for present human love to reach him.
But throughout next day—and all the days to come—that taste of joy remained, prevailing over the turbulences of the preceding hours: the apprehensions, the nervous, part incredulous, part eager and delighted explorations into sexual intimacy; running like an electric thread, flashing at odd moments through the day’s broken texture: the morning bathe; an expedition with Trevor to the store where, from among great bales of dramatically printed cotton (stamped Made in Manchester but never seen adorning native forms) she bought dress lengths for friends and relations; bought also rolls of cotton wool in which to pack her shells and coral pieces; then drinks with the Cunninghams at sunset—Ellie a little depressed, preoccupied—or was it one’s guilty fancy?—the Captain addressing Bobby more assiduously, mock-savagely than usual. Even that phenomenon, that nocturnal Apparition, Voice, Visitor, had dwindled in recollection before one moment’s piercing, abstract certainty. There it was: one buoyant drop of insubstantial substance, breaking upon her inner firmament with the penetrative radiance of a star newly become visible, traveller from millions of light years’ spatial distance. Something entirely separate from human nature’s daily food. Something once-known—but when? forgotten, recognised again—but how? The true taste of love, perhaps.
All that day Johnny was invisible. When, at intervals, she cast her eyes in the direction of the hut, it had a look of having been vacated. The boat was gone; no sign of Louis either. A deep qualm shook her. The tree had a menacing appearance, as if stonily encroaching upon a deserted human dwelling place. Towards evening the air became more and more oppressive, impossible to breathe. Colours drained away. The sea heaved, as if about to boil over, beneath its livid surface. A storm was gathering, no doubt of that. Ellie got up and strained her eyes anxiously through the frame of greenery cut by the Captain to command the beach. Presently her frown relaxed.
‘That’s all right,’ she muttered. ‘Louis would never risk …’
In truth the boat could be seen gliding towards land. The visitor joined her, and they stood side by side in silence, watching the movements of two puppet figures on a dimly painted background. The oars were shipped, Louis was discernible, hauling on the chain until the boat, with Johnny in it, had been pulled well up towards the hut. They turned away. Ellie said abruptly:
‘It’s sad dear, almost your last evening: I thought we might have … But we’re in for a nasty storm, Harold said so at lunchtime. I’ve felt mouldy all day and Harold’s got a little black dog sitting on his shoulder. My head!—it’s fit to burst—what about yours? You won’t be frightened will you, if the thunder and lightning get very bad? I’d be happier if I knew you were safe with Staycie before the rain comes. Tropical rains
are solid as a wall, no joke to be caught in. Thank goodness it’s come tonight and not tomorrow to spoil our farewell party. Oh how I’m going to miss you! There!—that’s the first rumble. Hurry, dear.’
She hurried, pausing half-way up the rock steps for a backward look towards the bay; but her prospect was impeded by the grove of palms. They too looked sinister, leaning starkly this way and that, their crowns like shaggy decapitated heads of monsters stuck on poles.
Princess came wandering towards her, carrying her lamps early, by Miss Stay’s instructions, to the Cunninghams. She stopped to announce in a murmur, a happy event in a week’s time: the christening of her younger infant daughter.
‘And if you please I have select you for her God-mammy.’
‘What a compliment, Princess! But soon I go away.’
‘That not make matter. You give her nice present yes? before you go away?’
‘What shall I give her?’
She deliberated sombrely; then said with a nod towards her victim’s wrist: ‘Bracelet.’
‘No. I want it myself.’ It was an antique gold chain bracelet with a heart of pearls and turquoise for its clasp—a present from Anon. ‘Why should I give it to you?’
‘So when I see it,’ muttered the girl, ‘I still will think on you.’
Could there possibly be a faint element of true feeling in this preposterous suggestion?
‘I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll find a bracelet in England for your baby, and send it to you.’
Princess stood silent. A kind of film came over the full polished blackness of her eyes. Tears? Sulks? She hung her head.
‘Shall I write her name on it? What are you going to call her?’
‘Like you. I name her like you. Like Mistress Cun’ham say: No Name.’
‘You mean—Anemone?’
‘Yes, like I say. No Name.’
She glided on, not smiling.
At the top of the verandah steps Miss Stay awaited her, crying: ‘Run, run, run! All my little chickabiddies, run for shelter. Mr Bartholomew has just returned—his pilgrimage has quite refreshed his spirit. What a difference!—it’s a mortal treat to see it. Only one wee hurdle: the man was set on taking Daisy for an evening gallop; but the Lord be praised I managed to turn his thoughts. She has had her feed, poor patient animal. Tell me now, down in the bungalow, the dear ones all serene? Suffering an evening tête à tête for once I fancy—’ She broke off, sensing something unfortunate somewhere in the phrase; continued with an unfocused look of dream: ‘Mysterious are His ways, no doubt of that.’
‘You mean the Captain’s?’
Miss Stay flung back her head with a crow of wild approval. ‘You rogue, you take me up too quick! There’s no denying the words could well apply to both beloved parties.’ She heaved a sigh; her tone altered to one of solemnity compounded with evasiveness; transfixing the visitor with a ferocious spasm of the eyeballs, she continued: ‘Yes … yes … Someone was on the way. Over and over again I saw it in the cards as clear as clear … clear-hidden I should say, but no mistaking. Throwing a long shadow forward.’
‘Who was throwing a long shadow forward?’
‘You were,’ Miss Stay pronounced, for once without equivocation. ‘No need to open such great startled eyes. Long rays cast long shadows … at the point of intersection. And that is out of our hands. What changes, eh? since you landed on this doorstep, a poor lost slip of an orphan of the storm.’
‘Yes, oh yes.’ The visitor hung her head and blushed. ‘Changes for me, at least.’
‘Like a broken lily on its stem,’ murmured Miss Stay, pursuing her own train of thought; which, to deflect, the other ventured:
‘What is happening? I don’t quite know.’ It sounded feeble.
‘Lawks a mercy me! this is none of I!’ cried Miss Stay, surprisingly.
‘Well, yes, you could put it like that. Perhaps this is an enchanted isle, like Prospero’s. Perhaps I shall wake up soon.’
‘Oh, there is magic about—strong stuff—no doubt of that. Our visitors often remark upon it. Be not afraid, however … Oh, I can hear that thrilling voice of hers! We had our fill of culture, our readings from the Bard! She was a liberal education in herself. To think it was you who brought her back!—brought her along with you, all unbeknownst. But you would always be quite a catalyst, I fancy?’ She chuckled. ‘Surprising, is it not, such grand words falling from these lips! Can you guess who was at pains to tackle our vocabularies?—not least your humble servant’s despicable contributions.’
‘Yes I can guess. She never could resist a chance of improving everyone.’
‘Oh, she was a dab hand at that! But it was highly necessary—and enjoyable to boot—though when it came to the Bard, Mr Bartholomew could cap her on occasion. He misses her too—that is, when a faint chord of memory is struck at random … Ah! here comes the rain and no mistake. Rain is unusual at this time of year. Who can be the Rainmaker among us? I accused poor Mr Bartholomew, by way of a joke, of course. But he was quite offended. He thought I was referring to his little trouble. He is a sensitive man.’
‘His little trouble?’
‘Weakness of bladder, dearie, we all come to it. Dear me! what goings-on out there beyond the reef. What a display!’ In truth, apocalyptic hieroglyphs in aching violet were zigzagging at rapid intervals down the lowering horizon. ‘Let us pray that no ship is struck.’ She peered in the direction of the hut. ‘He is safe indoors, I trust.’
‘Yes, we saw the boat come back before I left the bungalow.’
‘Ah, they will be hobnobbing then, according to their fancies.’ She looked pensive. ‘All the same, that blessed chap will miss his evening dip. Then he gets blue. With a man, when moodiness sets in, we all know what is apt to follow. ’Tis a mortal shame.’ She seemed to leave a question in the air.
The rain was now so loudly crashing and drumming on the verandah roof that the visitor was obliged to shout. ‘Will it go on like this? What had I better do?’ The head of Miss Stay jerked in her direction. ‘I was going to—he asked me to pay him a visit this evening. Perhaps he won’t expect me now?’
‘Certainly he will! Certainly he is expecting you. Imagine disappointing the blessed lonely fellow! Slip along down as soon as there’s a break. Take my torch, you will find it in the cupboard in the lounge. I must hie me and have an eye to the shutters.’ Over her shoulder she called back: ‘Don’t trouble to return the torch tonight.’
The tremendous wink which accompanied these last words was doubtless due to malfunctioning of the reflex mechanism.
She took the torch, hurried into a swim suit and over it her kimono, and ran out into the cataclysmic downpour, not waiting for the promised break. When she reached the hut, she was sopping, saturated, streaming. He burst out laughing, partly with relief at her arrival, partly at sight of her grotesque appearance. Moving slowly but quite easily about the room while she stripped, he brought her his big towelling dressing gown, wrapped her in it, drew her on to his lap and went on rubbing her down. But her hair was soaking his shirt, and she peeled it off and twisted it into a turban round her head.
‘How do I look?’ she whispered against his ear.
All this time he had not said a word. She seemed to catch glimpses of him from limitless distances, and at the same time piecemeal, magnified; seeing only his eyes blazing on her, closing, opening; his lips, his hands, his flushed cheek, the dramatic outline of his head and neck when, turning for a moment, he moved a lamp beside them.
Presently they were lying on his bed. Rain rustled and chattered in the sea-grape tree, poured with a voice like a waterfall from the steep-angled roof, driving his house of shells down, down as if into some subaqueous chamber made of echoes, whispers, gleams and shadows, where, clasped together, plunged into one another’s being, they were swept again and again through drowning surges; to be thrown up at last int
o the fertile shallows of a spent flood tide.
Some time after midnight she floated back into conscious separation and awareness, and noticed that the rain had stopped. Sliding out of his arms, she opened the shutters on a night of ineffable fragrance and luminosity, so clear that the moon’s whole disk was visible in outline, with only one thin sliver of it stripped—a tilted, silver sickle caught in a net of stars.
He was awake and smiling lazily when she came back to lie beside him. The turban had long ago fallen off, and her hair stood up all over her head in a riot of damp curls.
‘Maenad,’ he said, gazing at her with brilliant eyes.
She said: ‘I’m famished. I had no supper. I came in such a hurry.’
‘You don’t say! You’ll have to forage. There is some wine in the freezer—we might drink that? and Louis whipped up something or other for you—knowing you’re always hungry.’
‘He really did?’
‘He really did. He’s fond of you. He calls you Mistress Nanomee.’
‘And Princess thinks I’m No Name. Her baby is to be christened No Name in my honour. So I shall leave a little legend in the island. Poor child!—it sounds like a sad bad story, doesn’t it?’ But she remembered suddenly: I have no name, I am but two days old. Joy is my name.
‘You won’t be forgotten,’ he said. ‘They do still make up stories here: very strange ones, Louis tells me.’
‘You,’ she said, ‘will certainly become a legend. You will always be remembered.’
All at once she was harrowed by a moment’s prevision of his fate: how he would figure in the island’s folklore long after he, the true Johnny … She lay down again beside him, clasping him close, in a passion of regret for his foreseen, eternal absence from the images of time.
‘The Great White Cast Up Man Fish,’ he said. ‘And his Virgin Bride—that’s you.’
Although he spoke so lightly, the part he allotted to her startled her: as if the very extravagance of his fantasy had enabled him, so chary of emotive words, to reach down to a level where they still lived and resonated unambiguously. The words ‘Virgin’, ‘bride’ went on tolling in her ears; she listened to them, silent, feeling suddenly depressed.
A Sea-Grape Tree Page 10