The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “I hope my next case will be in London.”

  “I do hope so. It must be dreadfully boring for you here.”

  “Oh, it’s all in the day’s work. You can’t pick and choose.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “That’s a nice frock. Suits you, that long line. I like white. Not that I wear it myself—get enough of it on duty—white, white, white—so I always go for a colour. But I always think white looks distinguished. You always notice a woman in white—I mean a well-dressed woman.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” Oh, enough, enough … She yawned elaborately, stretched. “I’m sleepy, I must go to bed. Good-night, nurse.”

  “Want to undress here and warm your toes a bit?”

  “Oh, thank you so much—it’s sweet of you—but my sister told me to look in on her.”

  “I see.”

  The blue eye screwed down, cold, speculative, obscene … Now what have you been up to? You’re not the stand-offish sort, I know you. Come on now: no flies on me either. Men! We know ’em … All after the one thing. I could tell you some spicy bits …

  Wasn’t it what I thought? Was it coarse, furtive? Was it making myself cheap and allowing liberties? Was it a passing lust that he indulged, was it something with obscene words for it?

  Quick, quick, get away …

  “Well, good-night, nurse. Have you got everything you want?” Ingratiating smile.

  “Yes, thanks. Night-night.”

  The eyes stared, dropped, fastening quickly on the newspaper … Baulked.

  Kate.

  She turned the handle and looked in. The bedside lamp was switched on, but Kate was fast asleep. She’d meant to stay awake, but sleep overcame her. She lay curled up on her side, the bedclothes tucked well round her, her face pink, childish, peaceful, pressed into the pillow, squashing her nose a little.

  Why is she so touching—what makes her so adorable?

  Nowadays, away from her own home, Kate slept soundly, taking a rest. In the bosom of her family, the broken nights, nights of light sleep—tremulous, full of queries: Did a child call out? Was it a night bird? Cattle lowing? Would that car starting up, those late loud voices wake the teething baby? … Yes? No? … Prepared to leap up in a flash, assuming calm alertness … Yes? No? … falling into thin sleep again.

  All the same she won’t like it in the morning when she finds she succumbed unawares and left the light on; and that I came in and switched it off without waking her. She’ll think there’s been a mean march stolen: she won’t like it at all.

  What luck she was asleep—married, innocent Kate. Tomorrow I shall have grown a more solid mask, there won’t be a crack in it.

  My own bedroom, my bed. She stretched out her limbs, relaxed, heavy from the hot bath. One blessing about Dad’s illness: the boiler got a late stoking, the water stayed hot all night. Safe, alone at last. Now, can I think about him, can I see what it is, what it will be? … Is he in yet, out of the dark? Is he falling asleep too, and thinking? … One or two images floated up, sharp, and gone again, bewildering: as if one had been shocked into paralysis, recovering now slowly, making a tentative sequence little by little. Or like coming round from an anaesthetic, repossessing by degrees one’s identity … Springs, long dry, beginning to stir, to flow again; the blood beginning to assert its life again; after years of unsharingness, of thinking: It isn’t so important; no hardship to do without and not feel starved, repressed … at least, not often …

  Rollo, I haven’t had a lover. There was nobody I fell in love with, I didn’t try experiments: it was never worth it. Not because I’m cold, only because of love—because I believe in it, because I thought I’d wait for it, although they said schoolgirlish, neurotic, unfriendly … It was because of you …

  I shall tell him all that. I’ll tell him He’ll say: I feel the same, it’s worth not spoiling … He’ll say: Darling, I’m so glad … If he were here now … I want him here … Once Ivor … I don’t want to think of Ivor … Once we stayed out very late on the river, we took off our clothes and bathed from the punt, he said how lovely you are, you’re so smooth and white; it was the first time seeing each other naked … Afterwards he cried a bit, why did he, it was a failure for him somehow, I had to comfort him … I won’t think about Ivor … Once I went to bed early and he came up late from reading, and when I opened my eyes there he was looking at me: his face so moved, and sort of pitying, tender, watching me sleep, and I held my arms out … We were married. Rollo’s married to Nicola …

  Why do I, I don’t want to, I won’t think about Ivor …

  Rollo’ll write me a letter. I’ll find the envelope in London, and it’ll be true, it’ll be from Rollo. What sort of writing does his hand make, will it be speaking in his voice; saying darling, saying Olivia, darling, will you …

  Yes, I’ll say … Yes. Anything you say. Yes.

  Part Two

  It was then the time began when there wasn’t any time. The journey was in the dark, going on without end or beginning, without landmarks, bearings lost: asleep? … waking? … Time whirled, throwing up in paradoxical slow motion a sign, a scene, sharp, startling, lingering as a blow over the heart. A look flared, urgently meaning something, stamping itself for ever, ever, ever … Gone, flashed away, a face in a train passing, not ever to be recovered. A voice called out, saying words—going on, on, on, eternally reverberating … fading out, a voice of tin, a hollow voice, the plain meaning lost, the echo meaningless. A voice calling out by night in a foreign station where the night train draws through, not stopping …

  There was this inward double living under amorphous impacts of dark and light mixed: that was when we were together … Not being together was a vacuum. It was an unborn place in the shadow of the time before and the time to come. It was remembering and looking forward, drawn out painfully both ways, taut like a bit of elastic … Wearing …

  There were no questions in this time. All was agreeing, answer after answer melting, lapsing into one another: “Yes” ; “Yes, darling”; “Yes”—smiling, accepting, kissing, dismissing … No argument, no discussion. No separate character any more to judge, test, learn by degrees. He was like breathing, like the heart beating—unknown, essential, mysterious. He was like the dark …

  Well, I know what it is to be in love all right … What happened to the person I was beginning to know before—going home that time, going to dine with the family at Meldon? … Suddenly, the connection snapped … I remember him well: agreeable, easy-mannered, with a kind of classflavour to his flirtatiousness and wit; friendly: and then not friendly: hostile, obstinate, on his guard … Does being in love create a new person? Did I know him then, and not now? Have I swallowed him up? Vénus toute entière … No, no! Nobody could say Rollo was a victim … Could they? … Except that he’s a bit weak and in a muddle …

  Beyond the glass casing I was in, was the weather, were the winter streets in rain, wind, fog, in the fine frosty days and nights, the mild, damp grey ones. Pictures of London winter the other side of the glass—not reaching the body; no wet ankles, muddy stockings, blown hair, cold-aching cheeks, fog-smarting eyes, throat, nose … not my usual bus-taking London winter. It was always indoors or in taxis or in his warm car; it was mostly in the safe dark, or in half-light in the deepest corner of the restaurant, as out of sight as possible. Drawn curtains, shaded lamp, or only the fire. …

  In this time there was no sequence, no development. Each time was new, was different, existing without relation to before and after; all the times were one and the same.

  The telephone rang in the morning. I was just going out.

  “Look here.” He always said that on the telephone. “What are you doing to-night?” He was always guarded on the telephone, crisp, off-hand, he never spoke for long—only to make quick arrangements. He never said anything nice.

  “Well, I was having dinner with
some people, and going to a film or something.”

  “I see.”

  “But I could get out of going—”

  “Well, I’ve got to dine in myself.”

  He was always like that on the telephone—non-committal—grudging it sounded: rather putting-off till I got accustomed and could tease.

  “Oh … It doesn’t seem much use then …”

  “I was rather wondering if we could meet afterwards? I can get away by ten. We might have supper or something? Unless you’re fixed up?”

  “I’m not fixed up. That’ll be fine.”

  It was a funny sort of half-hearted-sounding invitation …

  “Shall I pick you up somewhere or what?”

  “Well, I don’t quite know where I’ll be. I’ll have dinner with my people, you see, and not go to the film … Of course I don’t mind a bit, I’ve seen three films this week.” I had—it was all I could do. “The best thing’ll be if I come back here …” Quickly planning it all. “Call for me here.”

  “Right, I will. Ten o’clock then.”

  It sounded so very ordinary and above-board—a bleak-sounding­ sort of date. I couldn’t think at all or feel excited—not consciously. The only thing in my mind was Etty would be out; I’d have the flat to myself.

  It was supper in Simon’s studio, which is one of the things I like best. Simon cooked and Anna helped, they know about cooking like most painters. I brought some of those little cigars, they were pleased. It turned into a kind of celebration, I don’t know why; every one in good form, amusing and a bit light-headed. Adrian brought a new discovery, Ed, a boxer, very handsome and mild, with beautiful manners, absolutely charming, we all said, a fascinating character, we said. We all took Adrian aside and congratulated him on Ed; and Adrian said, the point is, my dear, his extraordinary shrewdness and capacity for irony, we must hear his stories about life in the ring. He did say a few things, a clipped mutter up in his nose, we all said absolutely fascinating … I’ve forgotten them. I got on well very with dear Ed, we held hands towards the end, very kindly, not desirously. I thought: he’s like Rollo, somehow—the power, the goodness sealed up dark in them, an unknown quantity, exciting—not spilled about all over the place, or thinned off, gone through the tops of their heads with taking little samples so often for public analysis and discussion. I saw Rollo through Ed, clear, for a moment; their separation from, magnetism for women … No comradeship there …

  Every mouthful of food and drink tasted sharp and good, and all their faces, movements vivid, absorbing, and I noticed things in the room I’d never noticed before—not really to take them in: the design on the hand-blocked grey linen curtains, a cushion worked not very well in bright wools—a pattern of shells; a small lead figure of a woman high up on a shelf, a painted jug with Wool worth flowers stuck in it, a joking sketch of Simon examining his cactuses, one or two small paintings, still lives, I’d never noticed before, a mask Colin must have done during his mask period—wherever the eye fell some mark of liveliness, some kind of wit, selection, invention—the vitality of shape, pattern, colour making an aesthetic unity—the creative hand, the individual mind mattering—the dirt, untidiness, poor materials not mattering at all. Thinking: the room lives; their rooms are dead, full of dead objects. I meant Meldon. Wondering what would Rollo think of it, what kind of rooms Nicola’d made, and Marigold …

  Colin hadn’t shaved for days, he had a butcher-blue shirt and a red scarf round his neck, no collar, he looked more like a miner, a stoker, than ever with his muscular neck, haggard pronounced features and jutting forehead with the lock of hair over it. He was explaining to us about music in relation to painting and writing, and then explaining why it was impossible to explain it. Anna was beaming quietly, her mouth open a little showing her front teeth like she always does when she’s happy, running backwards and forwards to the kitchen trying to do everything for Simon and wait on every one … Simon was very white, his eyes incandescent—flitting, darting about, then sitting in that noiseless light way of his … as if he’d been checked, as if he was patient, waiting to be gone again …

  Sometimes when I see Simon going about, he seems the only person who moves, other people fumble. I’ve noticed it coming out of cinemas. We linger and jostle down the stairs, jammed in the crowd, talking, stopping, caught up with all the other lumpish bodies and clumsy slow limbs; but Simon always goes straight forward, threading his course delicately through the jumble, and you find him standing waiting on the edge of the pavement, looking ahead of him. It’s as if he’d one of those flexible steel measuring rods slipped into his back, keeping him so upright, sheer without rigidity, balanced so neatly …

  It was nine when they said what about a film? And Anna said there’s a French film at the Academy I want to see, and I got up and said, “I must go, dears.” There was expostulation, and I said, “My cousin that none of you believe in is in bed with a feverish cold, and I swore I’d come back at nine and look after her.” Soon we were all out in the street, Simon, Colin, Adrian puffing at their cigars, Adrian in his new, enormous, black felt hat from Paris. Ed said:

  “You don’t have to go, do you?”

  “I wish I didn’t have to.” Mournfully looking at him.

  “Be a cad,” said Simon.

  “Shall I? Shall I? No, I can’t, I can’t.”

  “She can’t, it’s her trouble,” said Colin.

  Calling, “Good-bye, dears,” taking to my heels in the opposite direction. In the square I hopped into a taxi, panicky, I might be late, Simon’s clock slow, I might not have time to prepare, do things to my face … I was back at half-past nine.

  Ten. Ten-past ten. Ten-fifteen. Twenty-past ten, and a car came round into the street and stopped, and next moment the bell rang. Starting up weak in the bowels from waiting, starting downstairs in a flurry, then making myself go slow, in a calm way, opening—and there he was on the doorstep. His long, big, black car seemed to stretch from here to the pub on the corner, a notable vehicle, not one to come covering one’s tracks in.

  “Hallo! May I come in?”

  He stepped into the midget hall, his voice sounded so loud in it, sonorous, his shoulders blocked it, his head grazed Etty’s phony little chandelier. He took off his overcoat and hung it up, genial, easy, deliberate in all his movements; at home wherever he goes. He was in a dinner-jacket with a soft shirt, pleated silk, rather a shock, I had the black studio dress on.

  “How are you?” he said, going up the little stairs. “You’re looking awfully well. Sorry I’m late. This residential area is most baffling. I’ve been up and down half a dozen little streets I’ve never heard of.”

  “It is rather mythical,” I said. “It’s every taxi’s Waterloo.”

  He went into the sitting-room. “Very nice,” he said, looking round. He walked up and down, looking amused rather, looked out of the window, picked up a pink crystal elephant on the mantelpiece.

  “It’s rather a snug little nest, I’m afraid. This is all Etty’s. I just have a room upstairs. Etty’s out somewhere.”

  “Etty’s out, is she?” he said vaguely, looking at the huge, signed, fuzzy photograph on the writing-table, to Darling Et love Mona in a round fat female hand with a flourish—Etty’s dearest girl-friend. That signature gets me down sometimes, but Mona’s not bad, you never could mistake her for anything but what she is, a good-lookingish Englishwoman about thirty-five in the right hat worn not quite right, and small string of pearls, who’s divorced a husband and has one little girl called Averil. She’s always very friendly if I look in when she’s come to tea with Etty—she’s interested in Bohemian life. She once had a flutter with a Russian count, an artist …

  “Cigarette?” I said.

  “Thanks so much. I’ve got masses on me. Have one of mine. I’m afraid it’s a queer sort of time to call,” he said. “I had to dine with Marigold. She had a party and I promis
ed to do host, Sam’s away. I do hope it wasn’t a bore my coming at this hour …”

  “Not a bit. I couldn’t have dined, anyway. I was dining out too. I’ve just got back.” He wasn’t to think I’d been sitting waiting …

  “They’ve gone on to some Charity Ball affair or other. I had her permission to sneak off. I can’t stand these galas and festivals any more.” He always had rather an ornamental special style of talk.

  “You look very smart …” It was all I could think of; and not able to look at him quite, feeling stiff, self-conscious, awful … wondering: Is it a ghastly mistake? …

  “Sorry about that too,” he said. “I had to. I hate this formal clothes business, don’t you? It’s such rot … All the same it’s rather nice after the city, you know—get out of your office suit and have a bath, and feel a bit cleaner …”

  “I like changing for dinner,” I said. “At least, I should like it if I ever had occasion to … I’d like to make a long ceremonious toilette every night and appear looking fancy as the Pope. I hardly ever see the inside of an evening-dress nowadays …”

  “People don’t dress up like they used to,” he said vaguely. “At theatres and things, I mean—do they? … Much more sensible …”

  “When I came to Meldon last week was my first full-dress event for—oh, months!”

  “Was it? That was fun, that evening …” Catching each other’s eye, not knowing whether to laugh or what, looking away again … Fun indeed!

  “What you been doing since then?” I said quickly.

  “Oh, nothing much … As a matter of fact, I seem to have had rather a full week. Don’t quite know what it’s all been about. Nothing particular. It’s always the same in London, isn’t it? It’s appalling, really, if you stop and think about it.”