Loving, Living, Party Going

by Henry Green

  And as she said this surprisingly she began to cry, not sobbing or that free flow out of a contorted face, but it was as though some miracle had occurred, as though tears were gently one by one rolling down graven image features which had stayed dry under cover for centuries, carved out of hard wood, so that these tears threatened to crack a polished surface it looked so unused to being wetted, only creamed.

  'Oh, my dear,' said Evelyn, 'you mustn't let yourself get upset about this business and besides I think you've been perfectly wonderful about it all the way through, you've hardly left her for an instant.'

  'It's not that,' she said, and she spoke as though she were not crying, her tears seemed to be quite separate from her, only a phenomenon, 'it's that I feel the whole thing is so unfair. I do know Julia is rather counting on having me with her this trip and now that Amabel has dropped out of the sky I do deeply feel I can't let her down.' This was untrue. She went on and as people will when they have just lied she began to speak out genuinely for once what she did really feel. 'What I'm so afraid of is that doctor had no idea what he was talking about, that Aunt May is very bad and that I ought to get her to hospital and I am doing nothing about it. I ought not to be here,' she said, 'but you know how it is, I thought it was just a faint and that she would come round and that after a bit of rest she would be able to go home. One thing you can be quite sure of is that she's not drunk, poor darling, she probably felt it coming over her whatever it is and took something to keep it off.' Her tears had stopped now. 'But then you see,' she went on, 'there's no way of getting her out of here though if she was really bad of course the hotel would manage it somehow you know how they are.'

  'Don't'

  'Well, there's no blinking it you know, they would if they thought she was going to die.'

  'Then oughtn't we to send for her maid whatever her name is?'

  'Yes, if she could get in. And then she has fits.'

  'Good heavens, we don't want two on our hands.'

  'She probably had one when I rang up an hour ago. I don't know what to do,' she said. 'Sorry for crying,' and she began to powder her nose.

  'I think what we are both afraid of,' said Evelyn, 'is that parcel she had and what was inside it. She never belonged to any societies for animals, did she? She never kept pigeons herself I mean?'

  'Of course not. Besides she used to shoot.'

  'You know I have absolute faith in searching out whatever it is that is really worrying one underneath what seems on the surface to be the matter with anything if you understand me, Claire, my dear. And I know in my case it was her having picked that pigeon up somewhere and then seeming so ill. She can't have bought it or she would have had it delivered, unless she got it off a barrow, but then they don't sell them on barrows. D'you see what I mean? But if she just found it dead and picked it up what did she want it for, it was so dirty? I'm sure that's what's been worrying us, but when you come to think of it, darling, there's nothing in it, is there? What is it after all? Now if it had been a goose or some other bird. No, that isn't so I don't suppose it would have been any less odd. Anyway it is definitely not a thing to worry about.'

  At this moment Max came out of her room.

  'She's better,' he said.

  'Max, dear,' said Claire, 'you've been too sweet about it all, getting her this lovely room and everything, I don't know how to thank you, it's been too kind of you.'

  'Nonsense,' he said, 'bad business. Where's Robert?'

  'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'don't ask me that. Where do you suppose, in the Bar I should think.' At this Amabel appeared in a fur coat and drew him away, and as Claire hurried back in with Evelyn she said to herself how like a man to come out as if he had settled everything and made her better just by going in.

  She was better, but they could not help feeling that she was improving only to get worse. She lay fretful and conscious, propped up in bed.

  'Why am I here?' she said.

  'Oh, Auntie May, you are ever so much better, aren't you? Now you mustn't lie there worrying, just relax?'

  'Where am I?'

  'Now don't bother your head about anything, you're quite all right and now you are going to have a nice long rest.'

  'What happened to me?'

  'You mustn't bother your head about anything like that. Nothing happened to you really, you just fainted. Now lie back and get back your strength.'

  'Excuse me,' she said, and her one eye you could see looked agitated, 'no, child I never fainted, I never have.'

  'Oh, Auntie May, how could you be so naughty, you'll upset yourself in a minute, do be careful after all. You've made us all quite anxious, well not that exactly,' she said, because those two old nannies had shaken their heads at this, 'but, of course, we were all distressed, shall we say you were not feeling quite the thing?' she said and went rambling on while her aunt, who had given up wondering and had given up listening and whose only feeling was of exhaustion as though she had been pounded for days, had enough strength left to know she had always disliked Claire, just as she had never got on with her mother.

  When they were in that room upstairs where Julia had asked him not to muss her about, Amabel's first words were 'kiss me' and this more than anything showed the difference between these two girls, not so much in temperament as in their relations with him.

  After some time she drew back and powdered her nose. He walked round and round where she was sitting as though she were a river and a bridge off which he felt impelled to jump to drown.

  'Be quiet,' she said, 'sit back.'

  He stood in front of her and she fixed him with her eyes which drew him like the glint a hundred feet beneath and called on him to throw himself over. He had always been drugged by heights and turned away experiencing that longing and demand to see again as they feel who want to jump when they look down. Her eyes were expressionless and brilliant.

  'Darling,' she said at last, 'you didn't really mean to do that to me.'

  'I was mad.'

  'I thought you of all people couldn't mean it.'

  'I didn't.'

  'Didn't what?' she said, feeling her way.

  'Mean it,' he said.

  They spoke slowly in soft voices and both of them now kept entirely still.

  'When you rang up I knew it wasn't you speaking somehow, you sounded different. Why do we have to be like this to each other?'

  'I'm the only one,' he said, 'I was mad.'

  'But why?'

  'I don't know. Mad. Mad.'

  'Don't go on telling me you were mad,' and here she raised her voice, 'no one's mad these days! What was it?'

  'This awful weather. Felt I had to get away,' he mumbled.

  'I'm sorry. But then what came between us to make you speak the way you did?'

  'I don't know. I don't.'

  'And you knew what my doctor said, I told you. If you didn't want me to come you'd only to say so. That's been the wonderful thing about us.'

  'I did want you to.'

  'We've had that pact from the very beginning, if one of us wanted to go away you could or I could without saying a word. What made you ring up like that?'

  'But I swear I wanted you to come.'

  'And then to lie to me like you did,' she said, even softer. 'To say just that you wouldn't come out to-night after you'd said you would. I'm not sure now what you did really say you upset me so.'

  'I was in an awful state,' he said.

  'Just when the doctor told me I ought to get away from this frightful weather and everything else. But all I want to do is understand. Darling, what made you do it?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Well, we're both of us free, we can do as we want but what did make you do it?'

  'Am, darling,' he said, 'don't you think you could come along,' he said, not knowing her things were packed. 'Do, darling, now, if it isn't too much. I always meant you to come.'

  'But, dear,' she said, 'what am I to believe? There's your voice over that beastly phone I wish it had neve
r been invented, saying first that you would meet me to-night when you knew you were going and then again within twenty minutes saying you wouldn't be there.'

  'The first time I didn't know whether I was going or not.'

  'Didn't you? But then was it nice to invite me when you didn't know if you would turn up? Oh, Max, when you think of what our evenings have been.'

  'I know.'

  'I sometimes wonder if you ever have known at all.'

  'I'm hopeless.'

  'But why,' she said, and pulled at her handkerchief, 'if you would only tell me so I could understand.'

  There was a pause. She was looking over her shoulder away from him. He had been dazed but he hated tears, he never found them genuine and as he thought she might be going to cry he spoke more sharply, taking the initiative.

  'Look, darling,' he said, 'it's this way. Come away with me now. Your maid can pack and follow on by aeroplane if she doesn't catch the train. Forget what I've been and let's have our lovely times over again. Darling, couldn't we?'

  'What,' she said, still looking away but not crying, 'with all these other people, whoever they are?'

  'Well, it's a bit awkward about them. We could leave them somewhere. It's really Evelyn Henderson. She's a very old friend and she's terribly badly off. I fixed it so they could all go for her really, whether I went or not.'

  She turned round, caught his eyes in the glare of hers and stamped.

  'Don't you dare,' she said and gasped. 'Don't you dare,' she said in a small voice she was so angry, 'try and put that over on me. It's Julia Wray and I've known it all along.'

  'Julia? What do you mean?'

  'What do I mean? You are mad if you think I'll swallow that,' and she laughed and spoke naturally. It was when she had herself under control that she could rule him.

  'There's nothing about Julia.... I say ...' he said and could not finish. He was under her command.

  'Well, we had the arrangement,' she said in her hard tone of voice, 'we're both free,' she was absolutely certain of him now, 'we can both do as we like.'

  'Oh, no!'

  'Yes, I know when I'm not wanted.'

  'You are. You're the point of the whole trip.'

  'You see I've come to know I can't trust a single thing you say. Max, my dear, you're hopeless and I don't know why I'm here. Try and think what you're saying.'

  'How d'you mean?'

  'Don't play the innocent. The telephone.'

  'I tell you I was mad.'

  'But you weren't, you'd thought it out.'

  He began to think, to slip out of her control and be impatient. He showed it by not looking away when they met each other's eyes. As soon as she saw this she smiled at him. It was wonderfully done. She smiled in just the way she had done when first they became intimate, in such a way that she might have been talking to him almost under her breath when they had nothing, nothing between them.

  He kissed her again. This time when she drew back she laughed.

  'How much do you really want me to come?' she said.

  He laughed.

  'No, go on, how much, tell me, you must, how much,' she said, as Julia had about her top. He looked at her, she was radiantly smiling, and again he felt lost and given over before her moods.

  He went to kiss her again and she laughed and said no, no, not before he had told her.

  'You know how much,' he said and looked so expectant as to be idiotic.

  'More than to go fishing,' she said, calling on another afternoon.

  'Yes.'

  'Even when the wind or whatever it was was just right.'

  'Of course.'

  'No,' she said and looked at him as though he meant everything to her, 'you remember, don't you, even if you had been waiting for whatever you have to wait for fishing even for weeks?'

  'I do.'

  'Do you? No, you mustn't kiss me again, I haven't nearly finished. More than Ascot week, more than going to bed or staying up and, d'you remember, on that hill when you didn't want to go home?'

  'Don't.'

  'Very well. What were we talking about before? Oh, blast you, why do you make me feel so sad?' she said and she made her eyes cloud over.

  'Darling.'

  'All right, I'm not going to be tiresome or anything like that, but I can't think what I was doing when I fell for you,' and she made way before him, making herself small.

  'I do,' he said, 'because there's nobody like you.'

  'Isn't there?'

  'Nobody like you.'

  'Is that all?' she said in her small voice. He laughed and kissed her again. This time she did not kiss him back but handed herself over.

  When he found she had nothing on underneath she stopped him at once.

  'No,' she said, 'hands off, I've just had my bath, I've just had my bath I tell you.'

  He got up and began walking round and round where she sat again. She had so wound him up that in his feeling for her as it was now he was thrown back on his grievance.

  'What were you doing last night?' he said.

  'How d'you mean?'

  'When I rang up.'

  'Oh, then! Well, I did pop out for a moment,' she said, looking long at her face in her glass.

  'Who with?'

  'We went to that cocktail club round the corner.'

  'Who's we?'

  'No, let me finish,' she said, putting more red on her lips. Her face blushed in spots where he had kissed her. 'You've made such a mess of my face. Here, hold this,' she said and gave him her mirror. His hand shook so he was no use to her. 'Darling, you mustn't get upset about little things like that. It was only Richard and you know what he is.'

  'Embassy Richard?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why him?'

  'Why not, darling?'

  'When I rang up you said Marjorie was with you.'

  'No, I didn't. You said you couldn't get on to me.'

  'I meant afterwards.'

  'Oh, then! I didn't want to tell you, that's all.'

  'It would take more than him to upset me,' he said.

  'Then what's the matter with you now?' she said sweetly.

  'Nothing's the matter.'

  'I can't understand you these days at all. Here, give me back my mirror. What shall I do?' she said, 'it is in a mess,' tilting and turning her face from side to side.

  'Well, what about it?'

  'About Richard you mean? Why, nothing. By the way, he said he was coming on your train.'

  'You didn't invite him by any chance?'

  'How could I? I'm not coming, you know, you didn't invite me. It's absurd, I can't just get packed like that at a moment's notice.'

  'Then I shan't go,' he said, turning away and going back to the window.

  She did not take much notice of this. 'But, darling,' she said, 'you can't just leave them like that when you asked them.'

  'I can. I've given old Evelyn the tickets. It's arranged.'

  'But you can't, they're your guests. You mustn't be so independent. I won't let you. Think what they'll say.'

  'I don't care.'

  'Oh, yes, you do, you must care. The whole thing's absurd,' and, forgetting she had just said she was not coming, 'it's absurd,' she said, 'you say we can't go because Richard is in the hotel and travelling on the same train.'

  They did not either of them notice the slip she had made.

  'How d'you know?' he said, turning round.

  'I don't know,' she said, looking at him, 'only he said he would be here and when he says he will be somewhere, I believe him more than when you tell me the same thing.'

  'You've seen him?'

  'Max, darling, don't be so ridiculous. I haven't set eyes on him since last night. He might be in Timbuctoo for all I care and anyway I don't know, darling. I must say, my dear, you don't seem very upset at my not coming.'

  'If you don't come, then I don't.'

  'Why must you be like this? I tell you you can't behave like that. You'll never be able to get anyone to go abroad with y
ou again.'

  'I don't care.' There was a pause. 'In any case,' he said, 'I wasn't going to go.'

  'Then why did you say what you did when you rang me up the last time?'

  'Because,' he said, finding it at last, 'because I saw with all this fog I might be with them for hours as the trains weren't running. I had to see them off, you know.' He came up to her smiling.

  'No, keep away,' she said, 'I've got to think this out.' He's such an awful liar, she thought, but already everything seemed different. 'No, I don't believe it,' she said and began to hope.

  'It's true,' he said and then she knew he was lying and did not care. All she wanted from him was something reasonable like a password which would take her along without humiliation past frontiers and into that smiling country their journey together would open in their hearts as she hoped, the promised land. Not of marriage but of any kind of happiness, not for ever but while it lasted. She knew better than to want too much of any situation and marriage she had never wanted, though often imagined, after the first three weeks. It would have been better with almost anyone else but there it was, he fascinated her and so it was for her to fascinate him.

  'Well then, supposing I did,' she said.

  'You really are going to come?'

  'I might.'

  'That's good.'

  'Is that all you are going to say about it?'

  'It's marvellous,' he said. They kissed again. Some little time later it was he who drew away.

  'Where's Embassy Richard going?'

  She lay back irritated that he had left her.

  'How should I know?'

  'I suppose that party business was too much for him. London's getting too hot to hold him,' he said.

  'You know if I'm really going to go away with you you've got to be nice to me,' she said.

  'What d'you mean?'

  'No tricks with the other girls, mind, or I'll be off home again.'

  'If you do,' he said, 'I'll go back with you.'

  'I shan't let you.'

  'I know more than to let you go off alone.'

  'That's being too silly for words,' she said. 'Why did you stop kissing me like that? And anyway, how many of those others have you kissed up here this afternoon?'

  'Now it's you are being ridiculous.'

  'Not as I know you, my dear. Oh, well, go on then and kiss them. Who cares?'