‘Maybe I will.’
‘Maybe you will.’ With a yell of laughter, she set down a lamp, clumsily plucked a white hibiscus flower, offered it, then changed her mind and stuck it behind her ear.
‘Very nice. You are a pretty girl, Princess.’
‘Yes, yes!’ She began to rock and howl. ‘But you more pretty, you the belle!’ Her eye fell speculatively on the visitor’s one ring, a pink topaz, once her grandmother’s. It seemed best to wave and hurry on, pursued by laughter, amid whose paroxysms Princess sent forth a last, plaintive, ringing cry:
‘And you smile plen’y to me. When I cheeky you not say I bad. When you go my tears fall down.’
Kit and Trevor, dressed to kill, arrive to escort her to the Cunninghams’ farewell party. She wears her best frock—white chiffon faintly patterned with roses and green leaves—to do honour to her hosts. They are among the first to arrive; and find the Captain sitting by himself at the far end of the verandah, mixing cocktails and dispensing them with concentration: also with an air that seems to be saying: Keep your distance. Between puffy lids and cheeks the colour of plums his eyes have almost disappeared. Miss Stay, in orange taffeta, springs out with Ellie from the bedroom and stands to attention behind his chair. Ellie, tightly moulded into her navy hostess gown, is at her most vivacious, trips from guest to guest, now and then tossing a remark or a look in his direction, but not approaching him. Ten o’clock. Two hours to go. Meanwhile a fragment, a facsimile of life among beings of another order must go on, with the absent loved one giving the evening, at one remove, its inexpressible significance. She is two persons, one a smooth surface, one fathomless in depth, each separate from the other.
The Lancashire couple have arrived; also Jackie with the nurses and their escorts. Young Mr de Pas enters with a whoop, crying: ‘Toot toot!’ Perhaps later on he will be persuaded to do his imitations. Someone starts the gramophone. She dances with Kit, then with Trevor: both are in high spirits, thrilled with the prospect of a change, a journey, and looking forward to her company. Young Mr de Pas ignores his surroundings totally, as usual. Staring ahead, his eyes protuberant, fixed as marbles, he proceeds, with pauses for technical, complicated footwork, round and round the floor with Jackie. His brittle shoulders and ashen-skinned archaic head rise rigidly above her nestling face of a withered English games mistress. A curious couple. They are excellent dancers, they move together in perfect rhythmic harmony. Strange, very strange. Who, to look at her, would have thought that she could glide so smoothly, silkily? She has a high colour, hard, thin, prominent features, brown untidy hair; her teeth stick out. But she has neat athletic legs, also good eyes—large, directly gazing, very blue beneath straight dark eyebrows. She glances at Anonyma without curiosity, smiles in a friendly way. Not a bad girl, Jackie: she has settled for a life of sorts: dancing eternally with Tony de Pas—perhaps, too, watching over his disastrous health; sleeping with him, presumably?
Madge and Phil have each a plump, oleaginous, jet-haired gentleman in tow, and are dancing cheek to cheek. Ellie has tripped to Mr Bartholomew with a stiff whisky, then sits beside him, holding his hand. But she continues to look anxious; her eyes keep sliding towards the Captain and dwelling on Miss Stay.
The Lancashire couple approach. He bows; Miss Cropper beams. ‘Mr Crowther,’ she says, ‘would quite appreciate the favour of a dance. Just keep on humming,’ she adds with a nod of encouragement. ‘He’ll get the drift of it.’
But he does not, or she cannot; and after a faltering shuffle across the floor they desist by mutual agreement. He has taken a fancy to her and keeps a huge paw on her arm as they withdraw to the end of the verandah. Almost at once, in a rumbling bass monotone, he launches into a narrative of his early life, its trials and tribulations, the drama of his confrontations with his alcoholic father.
‘I’d leave my bedroom door open and when I heard him come in I’d shout out: “Hypocrite! Bloody hypocrite! Hadn’t ought to live!”—meaning he should hear, you understand. Next morning he’d say, “Tom,” he’d say, “whatever did you have for soopper last night?” I’d say, “Noothing partickler.” “Didn’t you have no nightmare?” “No, not me,” I’d say. “I slept a treat all through.”’ Mr Crowther pauses to shake and heave with laughter. ‘Oh, there was woon night I recollect. Cooming back from the Social—roaring droonk he was. Shouting all down our street: “Tom you villian, you bloody villian, I’ve coom to finish you.” But first he goes to the lavatory see, that was at the bottom of the garden. I could hear him shoutin’ and carryin’ on inside and rattlin’ at the door fit to wake the whole neighb’rood. The door had got stoock on the inside see—he thought it was me a-holding it on the outside. Oh, the language!—what he’d do to my anatomy when he got out. Three quarters of an hour before he broke that long-sooffering door down and cooms forth bellowin’ like a bull to the arenia. I’d nipped up to bed see, and was shammin’ sleep. So oop he cooms. “Didn’t you hear your poor old Dad?” he says all mild and plaintive, bendin’ over me. “Shoot oop!” I says. “What do you mean disturbing me this time of night?”’ Another convulsion of genuine amusement. ‘Pore old chap. Next morning he’d coom down bright and cheerful just as if there’d been no carry-on. “Good morrow me lads,” he’d say. “Good morrow me little pigeons.” That’s what he’d call me little broothers, Les and Reg—the twins, pore little blighters, they were a burden on me. I never could leave ’im, see. He used to get playin’ with the gas mantle. He’d see faces in the carpet—worse than faces. Soom nights he’d just sit by the fire and cry, “I wish my Mary was alive.” “Shoot oop,” I’d say, “about your Mary. She’s a damn sight better off where she is.” That was me moodier. Everybody ‘ad to laugh. “I want to join ’er,” e’d moan out. Well, he got his wish. I don’t suppose she fancied seein’ ’im turn oop, poor Moodier. Funny to think of—he was only forty-four. Fine figure of a man he’d been woonce. But he was a right bastard, pore old Dad.’
Miss Cropper has rejoined them, listens reverendy, says severely: ‘Pneumonia carried him off. What else could you expect?’ and goes on to tell how Mr Crowther, orphaned at fourteen, had kept the house going, cared for his little brothers, started them in life. What a sad, dreadful childhood, what a struggle, what an example: a truly wonderful man. Indeed yes. Close on thirty years together now, after his wife—well, the least said about her the better: a privilege, every moment of it. Yes; yes indeed: Miss Cropper and the visitor gaze in womanly sympathy at one another. Mr Crowther relapses into non-communication, wearing a look of dignity and satisfaction. Driven by some mysterious compulsion to unfold his story, he has compassed his objective; he is at peace. Presently, with a glance which she cannot fathom from his sunken shrewd old eyes, he says brusquely:
‘You put me in mind of a lass I used to know.’ The glance dwells on, transfixes her for a long naked moment.
‘That’s right,’ says Miss Cropper, in matter-of-fact corroboration. ‘He had a daughter.’
He drops a heavy paw on his companion’s shoulder. ‘Coom on then, lass.’ Once more they take the floor, revolving together without strict attention to the time. Devotion, thinks the visitor: courage, pride, simplicity; above all humour, no self-pity. Remembering his life, he’d had to laugh.
She decides to join Mr Bartholomew, who sits alone, bottle beside him, glass in hand.
‘Mr Bartholomew!’
He does not respond. How blind, how deaf, is he? She takes the chair beside him; and after a while his black spectacles swivel on her and he says:
‘Admired Miranda.’
‘Thank you. You haven’t ever called me that before.’ She feels encouraged. ‘Are you fairly happy?’
‘No. What a foolish question.’
‘Can I do anything for you?’
‘No, you cannot. Unless—’ He picks up and shakes the bottle, which emits a reassuring splash. ‘Perhaps you will join me?�
� She refuses with warm thanks. He murmurs: ‘A nous autres vieux, c’est la seule consolation qui nous reste.’
‘I am going away tomorrow, Mr Bartholomew. Back to England.’
No reply. The gramophone record—a deafening foxtrot—skids to a halt, and in the comparative ensuing silence he remarks:
‘That is an abominable cacophony. It lacerates my ear drums.’
‘It is trying. You prefer—a more classical type of music?’
‘Yes. Are you a musician?’
‘Not much of one. I play the piano a little.’
‘You have not offered to play to me. No matter. Poor Clementina’s instrument is most inferior—in a shocking state. What a cruel deprivation. Chopin—Chopin is my passion. And there are certain French songs …’ His voice shakes, fades. Mastering emotion, he declares: ‘Daisy is passionately fond of music.’
She says lightly, hoping to cheer him up: ‘I shall miss all that poetry next door to me. Sometimes, not often of course, I think I could have capped you.’
After a pause he says with querulous venom: ‘So you have been mocking a defenceless old man. Spying on his harmless recreations. Listening at the keyhole. Intruding on his privacy.’
‘Never!’ she protests, appalled. ‘Never! I never mocked. I never listened at the keyhole.’ Indignation mounts. ‘How can you say such things? You make me angry. You kept me awake. You’ve been a frightful nuisance, if you want to know. I never complained.’
He seems delighted, breaks into eldritch chuckles. ‘Well, well! To think a cultivated young woman was my audience! You should have knocked: who knows? I might have let you in. What then, eh? “Enter Madam. Have no fear, I will respect your virtue. Pray, what can I do for you?” “Sir, I have come to cap you.” Oh, what a night we would have made of it! Capping and swapping . . . that’s a vulgar word now! It reminds me: I had a friend once, in my salad days. We used to frequent low haunts together, as well as certain private houses where he was enthusiastically received. He had a gift, you see …’ Again his cracked voice fades. He broods for a moment. ‘Frankie his name was, a most amusing and disreputable character. Jewish. A brilliant musician; but he chose to dissipate his talents. He was a diseur, an entertainer. Who can resist an entertainer? He could improvise … transpose into any key. Ah, magical gift!—his own compositions. They had a flavour which appealed to me; a wit—decadent, ambiguous … There was one in particular—how did it go?—it comes back to me whenever Daisy and I watch certain couples through our telescope. You didn’t know we had a telescope? Ask Daisy. Now let me see … how did it go?’
He starts to emit a toneless thread of sound.
By the seashore, perambulating,
We swapped our heartless, witless hearts:
‘A drawing room ballad—with a difference,’ he explains. ‘Let me see …’
Was it loving? or was it hating?
Was it a matter of fits and starts?
‘Nostalgic, melancholy, you see. The rest escapes me: it developed a soupçon of salacity, unsuitable for your maiden ears. Catchy, subtle tune to match: it has continued to haunt my imagination By the seashore, perambulating . . .’
‘What became of Frankie?’
‘He came to grief. He had a weakness—’ Mr Bartholomew pauses to refill his glass—‘for appetising boys.’
‘I see. Poor Frankie.’ It is time to bid farewell. ‘Goodbye, Mr Bartholomew. You will be up and away with Daisy when I leave tomorrow morning. Give my love to Daisy.’
‘I may and I may not. Where is Miss Stay? Out of respect for our good host and hostess I agreed to attend this preposterous function. But enough is enough. I am more than ready to depart. I shall be obliged if you will seek out Miss Stay and tell her so.’
‘I will. Goodbye, Mr Bartholomew. Don’t forget me.’
‘I shall have forgotten you by—let me see—the day after tomorrow.’
Before she reaches the Captain’s corner, Miss Stay has started briskly to advance, crying in rapturous greeting: ‘Ah! Our ray of sunshine! What an extra special glow tonight. You and our dear permanent lodger will have been having a most interesting chat.’
‘Very interesting. I’m afraid he hates me.’
‘Oh, hush dear! Perish the thought! Try to surround him with lashings of fight and love. He is in need of it.’
‘Well … I’ll try. But I don’t find him lovable.’
‘There you have a point, I grant you. He is not running over with the milk of human kindness. All the more reason to dispense it in full measure. To counteract, you know, what he is open to.’
‘What is he open to?’
‘Dark forces,’ declares Miss Stay, winking one eye with the unintentional effect of imparting some lewd confidence. ‘I fancy our friend went far at one time into—shall we say the Mysteries? without asking for protection. A recipe for mortal danger.’
‘You mean he’s a magician? I see he might be—a wicked old magician. Perhaps Daisy is his familiar.’
‘Oh, hush hush hush dear! A joke is a joke, but …’ Miss Stay places a leathery hand over the lips of the visitor who takes it and lays it against her cheek, saying:
‘You are an angel. I hope he’s never horrid to you.’
‘Bless you!’ Miss Stay is startled, touched. ‘Me an angel? This old scarecrow? Enough to make the angels weep, more likely! Oh, I take no notice—the poor wee shivering scared shrimp. Due to go over soon. All unprepared.’ With another convulsive wink she adds: ‘We must pray … Now I must buzz off home with him. Bye bye dearie.’
Ellie, being led out to foxtrot by Trevor, calls out: ‘Anemone, have a little chat with Harold, there’s a love. He’s feeling a bit seedy, it’s nothing much.’
‘Harold?’ She perches on a stool beside his old armchair. He gives her a rapid sketch of a smile; but he is looking far from healthy.
‘I hoped you were going to sing tonight.’
He cups his ear, saying: ‘Sorry, bit deaf, this infernal din’; and she repeats the words, which now sound singularly vapid.
‘Christ no! Not on your effing life. Nobody wants …’ His voice trails off; it sounds faintly slurred. Could he be drunk?
‘Where’s Bobby?’
‘Taken himself off. Don’t blame him. Poor old sod. Poor bleeding bugger.’
The Captain’s code of gentlemanliness seems at risk. She wishes in vain for an appropriate comment from Miss Stay to raise the low vibrations. She takes his hand and strokes it: yet another worn unsightly hand in hers, she thinks: this is the saddest—simply an old man’s powerless hand.
‘Dear Harold, I’m afraid you’re not feeling very well.’
‘Who, me? I’m fit as a flea, thanks all the same. Felt a bit wonky earlier on. Fact is m’dear went out on the tiles last night—Jackie and her chums—jolly crowd. That’s strictly on the q.t. Madam—m’lady wife’s annoyed. Don’t blame her. Not as young as I was, hach! hach! No fool like an old fool, eh? But tophole now. Fit as a flea. Enjoying m’self. Are you?’ He looks at her shyly, with affection.
‘Oh yes. It’s so sweet of you and Ellie to give this party. You take so much trouble for your guests.’
‘Not at all. A pleasure. She enjoys it.’ He adds gruffly: ‘Fact is, the girl gets lonely. We all do now and then out here, y’know. She’s only a girl.’
‘I shall miss you both. She’s been so good to me, you both have. I shall never forget the kindness. I don’t know—I simply can’t think—what I’d have done without you.’ She swallows a lump in her throat.
‘Don’t mention it. We’ll miss you too. Hope you’ll come back another year. Not often we …’ His face works; he reaches for a glass, but there is none beside him. He glares at the dancers, growls ferociously: ‘Where is she? Can’t spot her. Who’s she dancing with?’
‘Who? Ellie?’
‘No, no,’ he says
irritably. ‘That Madge.’
Next moment the dark nurse Madge, the one with the sulky sensual mouth, comes slouching up, stands before them in a characteristic stance—shoulders hunched, head poking forward, hips swaying languorously. She runs a semi-professional eye over the Captain and enquires in a sing song nasal drawl:
‘And how’s his Nibs tonight? None the worse, eh?’ With a bold glance at the visitor she adds: ‘He deserves a good spanking, he’s a naughty boy. Giving us all a fright.’ Her manner combines nonchalance with a somehow proprietary conniving air.
‘Take a pew, take a pew,’ shouts the now animated Captain. ‘Fit as a fiddle. Take a pew.’
Casting to the winds all semblance of old-world British decency, let alone courtesy, he contrives, by sheer determination, to oust his wife’s best friend from her seat beside him and to install the intruder in her place.
Ellie comes by, mutters ‘Anemone’, seizes her by the arm and draws her away from the verandah into her bedroom. It is a plain sparsely furnished room. Austere twin beds in shadow suggest a long habit of counter-erotic nuptial intimacy. Ellie flings herself down on one of them and motions the visitor to sit beside her.
‘What do you think of her?’ she says abruptly. ‘That Madge creature.’
‘She’s horrible.’
‘Isn’t she? She’s nasty.’
‘If I were you I wouldn’t have her in the house.’
‘Shall I kick her out?’ She jumps to her feet, draws herself up to all of five feet two, assuming a haughty and contemptuous expression. ‘Oh, Nemone, I’m worried. I haven’t seen you all day. I know, I know: Staycie said Johnny wanted to take you on a fishing trip, I’m so glad, did you have a happy day?’
‘Very happy.’ She feels guilt-stricken. ‘What’s the matter, darling? Is Harold—’
‘I wish I knew. What is the matter? How do you think he looks?’
‘Well … Rather tired.’
‘He’s not himself at all.’ She wanders to the dressing table, touching objects aimlessly. ‘If you want to know, he didn’t come home all night. He’s done it before. I wasn’t too worried, though I get fed up of course … But Jackie and Tony breezed in this morning before I was dressed. I’d guessed he’d been with them on an all-night binge: disgusting, isn’t it? I don’t know where they go. Still, Jackie’s not a bad sort … and men do need a bit of an outlet now and then. Anyway, what do you suppose she said? I wasn’t to worry but he’d had a little turn.’
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