I kept his. I had to. But I didn’t tell him so. They weren’t lovely long ones full of everything, like mine; they were slap-dash and sketchy, and about taking exercise with perhaps one little loving sentence at the end, shamefaced looking …
I did think once or twice had he done something of this sort before and got into trouble, to be so afraid of being found out? … I suggested it, teasing, but he was upset: he said did he seem like an experienced seducer …
“Well, I’m not sure,” I said.
“No,” he said seriously. “It’s just that I could not bear it to be spoilt. The world’s so bloody, people are so revolting—you’re so precious.”
I said once, “Tell me truly, does it make you feel miserable really to be practising a deceit? Do tell me, darling. It would me.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t,” he said in his funny rueful way. “What people don’t know about can’t hurt them, can it? I’m not hurting her as long as she doesn’t find out, am I?”
“I suppose not,” I said. “Only if it was me I think I might worry. I do see how difficult it is for you,” I said, awfully understanding.
He said nothing. “You see—” he began, then stopped.
After a bit he said differently: “Women are dreadful creatures. They will want to have their cake and eat it too. It’s what they call being honest. If my wife had a lover I hope to God she wouldn’t see fit to tell me so. I call this confession and all-above-board business indecent.” Saying my wife” it didn’t seem like Nicola.
“That’s because you’d feel it was such rotten luck for the other chap to be given away,” I said. “You’d mind that almost as much as the unfaithfulness. It wouldn’t be cricket … You don’t like women really, do you?”
“There’s one or two things I quite like about them,” he said in that beginning voice, kissing my ear …
Searching back into that time, it seems confused with hiding, pretence and subterfuge, and covering our tracks … though it didn’t seem to matter then. But now I see what an odd duality it gave to life; being in love with Rollo was all-important, the times with him the only reality; yet in another way they had no existence in reality. It must have been the same for him. Our lives were occupied, arranged without each other; the actual being together had to be fitted in, mostly with difficulty, carefully spaced out and always a time limit. Etty might come back or he had to go and dine, go away for the week-end, he was delayed at the office, I had to go and see Dad … I thought once of our private debating society at Oxford—all of us b.fs. sitting on the floor in my room debating away sententiously without a ghost of a smile, the subject being: Love is the occupation of idle minds. I was against the motion … But now I saw how busy people can be without love, and once or twice I got panic: Where is the time and place for this? Where is it? Supposing Rollo were to die, my outward life wouldn’t alter one jot. Where, how should I do the crying? … I wonder how many women in England in such a situation … Their lovers killed in an accident, or dying in hospitals or something, and nothing they can do, nobody ever knows. They go to work, they cut up the children’s dinner, and choose their spring coats and go to movies with their husbands … I was always thinking something awful would happen to Rollo, he’d be snatched away from me behind an official barricade of lawful friends and relations … Because I loved him he was threatened—by life—by me—I don’t know …
Going into restaurants, one tried to be invisible; walking with one’s eyes fixed ahead, looking only at the table; then after a bit summoning courage to look round and about in a calm way. It’s so sad, because I’m so proud to be with him, so fine and handsome, I wanted to be seen and envied … I’d have liked to go to the smart places where people eat, and to theatres and dance places. He didn’t want to. Of course it wouldn’t do, he knows all those well-connected faces, they’re his world … He only wanted to be alone somewhere and make love. “Where can we go?” he’d say. “Can we go back to your room?” Sometimes I’d say, “No, I’m afraid not to-night … Mrs. Banks is staying late; or Etty’s gone without her latchkey, she’ll be back early,” rather than risk it; then he’d look gloomy, sulky nearly … cursing London and Mrs. Banks, and Etty and everybody else … I told him he had only one idea in his head … I said to tease what I wanted was a soul-mate. “You don’t, do you?” he’d say, rueful, coaxing. “And, anyway,” he’d say, “I do love talking to you. You know I do. You’re such a clever young creature … We have lovely talks, don’t we?”
We did, of course, really, lovely talks—specially in the place we always lunched on Mondays. Every Monday, without fail. I was always early, so as to be sure to get our table right at the back, in the darkest corner, almost a separate little room. Coming from the city, he was often late. I sat and smoked and had a cocktail while I waited and read my book and looked at all the glinting wine bottles, all shapes and sizes, ranged round the room on a shelf. The darkness was the chief reason why we liked it, we felt safe; that and the emptiness. I can’t think why it was so empty, considering the delicious food. Too expensive, I suppose—really beyond all bounds; but Rollo never cared what he spent on a good meal, he’d never eat anywhere inferior or female. He’s a sybarite. There’d be one or two business men, motor-car people they looked like, and an occasional guards’ officer and girl-friend, or an American, and some dark-skinned people, French, who’d come in late and lunch with the dark proprietor; friends or relations of his, I suppose, who got the left-over food. Our waiter was French, old, he looked like old Punch cartoons of Mr. Redmond, but wickeder. He called Rollo “milord.” Rollo said, “Hallo, you old villain,” and it was an understood thing the bill was roughly double what it should be, and Rollo would put the pencil through the total and pay something quite different, though still enormous. We were very happy together there, side by side at our table. Only once, just as we were going out, someone called “Rollo!” behind us, and Rollo turned and said in his easy way, “Hallo, old boy! Haven’t seen you for ages. Where’ve you been lurking?” and I strolled on to the door to wait for him, after smiling a bit the way one should, seeing out of the corner of my eye a fair, rather stout young man with a pink face and a toothbrush moustache, and a quiet cool Scotch-looking girl with amused eyes and a short neck and silver fox furs. When we got into the taxi, “Who was it?” I said, and Rollo said, “A chap I was at school with. Dickie Vulliamy. That’s his new wife. Rather nice, I thought.” … I wonder why that made me so depressed … I felt left out. They were all safe except me, she was his new wife, not his new mistress, they were against me …
Thursdays we lunched at another place, not a dark, voluptuous lunch, nice in another way. It was right off our ordinary beat, usually pretty full, but not with the people either of us knew; residential faces from S.W.1 and 3, youngish men with museum faces, one or two actors, the healthy public-school type, actresses,—real ladies, with the minimum of make-up. One got a comforting feeling there of the world being liberal-minded, cultivated, unsuspicious. Men and women could lunch together and no insinuations. The waiters were impersonal and everybody else indifferent … Even one’s relations wouldn’t have suspected one there. Behaviour was agreeable and sterilised. And good food. I thought a lot about food in that time, I was always hungry. It came nearer being a public relationship, a reality in the world there than anywhere else. Almost, the split closed up. We talked about the city and about our families. I told him stories about our childhood to amuse him. He’d explode in a roar of laughter, he liked my jokes. He asked questions about my friends, he was always curious; he said he wished he knew them, they sounded more sensible and interesting than the people he knew; but he supposed they were too highbrow for him. He’s got the most awful nonsense in his head about painters and writers; awe and suspicion and admiration, and envy and contempt all mixed up. I spoke of Ivor, too; it was odd how he seemed to understand how it had all come about—he’s very intuitive, and never will judge, never blame. He
was sorry for us both … Oh, Rollo, you’re so tender-hearted … Magnanimous … Occasionally he spoke of Nicola too, but in a semi-impersonal, detached way, indulgent—how much she’d minded about the baby, such a blow for her, poor sweet—things like that … He seemed to assume nothing could be expected of her after such a catastrophe, it excused any mood or collapse. I didn’t say why doesn’t she pull herself together and try again, of course, because of not being able to bear to envisage that … him getting her with child … I preferred to assume—I mean I assume—I’m sure—a child’s out of the question now, they don’t sleep together any more, it’s not a marriage … A beautiful protected doll is in his house, not a wife …
He never spoke of his own feelings about the baby, he never has; just said once, of course it didn’t affect a man in the same way … I don’t think he knows himself how much he minds; it’s obvious to me. When I said once how I’d love a child of his … I only said it once, never again, it made him worried and depressed. “Oh, darling, it wouldn’t do …” His children must be legitimate, they must have the orthodox upbringing and inheri …
Occasionally after lunch he’d decide he needn’t go back to the city, and we’d drive to Richmond Park. First he’d ring up his house and get his car driven to the nearest parking place, with Lucy in it. We’d come out after allowing enough time, and there would be the car and Lucy sitting inside, all perked up, knowing what was coming. It was a relief to see that shrewish, anxiety-gnawed female throw etiquette and responsibility to the winds, and re-dog herself and go screeching after rabbits. Even to me she relaxed her fixed antagonism and bounded up on to the seat afterwards beside me with quite an amiable indifference. We’d walk a bit over the grass, and see the deer in the spacious silent blue-misted drives; it was sunny and still the times we went; hoar-frost on the bracken.
Driving back he’d say: “Is there nowhere we can go?” … He suggested a hotel, and I wouldn’t. Then he said couldn’t we take a room, why didn’t I let him rent a flat for me or something. But, no, I said, no … In his heart of hearts I don’t believe he wanted to either. I didn’t want even the shadow of a situation the world recognises and tolerates as long as it’s sub rosa, decent, discreet; that means a word in the ear, a wink, an eye at a keyhole … My idea being we were too fine for the world, our love should have no dealings whatsoever with its coarseness, I’d spurn the least foothold … What was my idea, what was it really? We must be honest … Was it that thing he said women do … wanting to have their cake and eat it? … It may have been I wanted to assure myself I was in between still, not choosing more patently than I must against Simon … Not that Simon would ever have known or ever minded in the least whom I chose, what I did … How surprised he’d be to know he’s a sort of mystical private touchstone to me of—of some perfectly indefinite indefinable kind of behaviour … spiritual, if the word can be whispered … He wouldn’t like it at all.
Of course I had dreams of being Rollo’s wife … Sometimes we’d say, “If we were married,” but in a pretending way, or joking about how it would be … He always knowing what he wanted and intended, I suppose; I being content, I suppose, with a kind of permanent dream, keeping it intact from interference by reality … One must face facts … I think that’s how it was.
Lord, I was happy! … Never so happy. Happy for the first time in my life.
No … It wasn’t exactly being happy … We asked each other so many times … “Oh, yes. Are you?” “Yes, yes, of course I am.” He didn’t by any means always have a happy face … only just at moments, afterwards, peaceful, utterly relaxed; or when I made him laugh … I see I was more actually happy than he … more capacity for it, I suppose; a happy nature, as they say … Then of course I wasn’t having a double life to deal with in the same way. What do people mean about being happy, there’s so much talk about it, as if it was the one aim and motive—far from it; it doesn’t affect anything, as far as I can see, it isn’t the desire for happiness that moves people to do what they do. …
I suppose Simon’s a happy person; not from trying to be—he never tries to be or do anything … An inherent quality—a kind of unconscious living at the centre, a magnetism without aim or intellectual pretension … Simon seems to cause an extremely delicate electric current to flow between people when he’s there; they’re all drawn in, but he’s just one degree removed from it all, he doesn’t need anything from anybody … He’s like Radox bath salts, diffusing oxygen, stimulating and refreshing … Dear Simon.
He said more than once, “Darling, don’t care too much about me, will you?”
“Don’t you want me to love you then?” I said.
“Yes, yes, I do, terribly. Only you mustn’t sort of think too much of me, will you? I’m not much good, and mind you remember it. Don’t expect a lot of me, will you? I’ve never been any use to any one …” He was always running himself down, warning me, not in an emotional way, quite matter-of-fact, laconic, almost—not exactly—evasive; as if he wanted to dismiss himself, shrug off the responsibility of being himself …
Not like me. When he said so often, “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever known,” I thought, “I expect I am.” I never contradicted … I did say once I was a coward, though.
When I try to think over it, the times we were alone together weren’t so very many. After a bit I began to think the walls and windows were full of eyes when he came back to Etty’s. There was his big car, and twice he put down cigarettes and forgot them, one burn on the sitting-room mantelpiece, one on the table by my bed. Mrs. Banks said what had come over me, was I in love … and then I began to suspect she didn’t go home, but watched from the pub window on the corner. I dare say it was only my imagination, or even if it wasn’t she’d never have breathed a word, she’d be delighted to encourage both Etty and me to have lovers, she’s all for a good time and no Paul Prys or Mrs. Grundys, she thinks it’s deplorable the halfhearted spinsterish finicky way we live. But all the same, I began to hate and fear her small sharp Cockney eye, I thought of her nosing in my room for signs … The house always seemed to me so weighted after he’d gone with his strong male physical life … I made more and more excuses for not taking him back.
He didn’t come there any more, I don’t think, after we’d had our week-end together. The week-end was the end of the first stage.
It must have been January. Extraordinary to think it wasn’t till then we managed it. There was always some reason that prevented it; his week-ends were so booked, he’s very popula … And then Nicola of course. But in January she went off to Switzerland for three weeks. Marigold and Sam had gone too, and George and a good many of his circle. Altogether the air was less thick with his friends and relations and he felt safer, had more time for me … What a pity it was never the other way about. I’m always accessible, waiting for him.
He called for me with the car on Saturday morning. Etty’d gone away the evening before, I’d told Mrs. Banks not to bother to come. The sun was coming out; it was mild weather, my favourite kind. When he turned up about ten I was making coffee. He poked about in the kitchen, very cheerful. He said he was hungry so I sent him out for a couple of sausages and fried them for him. That delighted him. “You are a domestic little creature, aren’t you?” I suppose he’d never seen a woman put on a kettle or use a frying-pan in his life, it moved him: like Marigold—romantic about the simple life … we sat on the kitchen table together and drank our coffee and felt light-hearted. It was a happy start. I felt specially well and pretty that day, everything was without effort. We drove to his club to get some money, and I sat outside the important-looking door and felt it was quite all right, I belonged where I was, I’d be equal to any one who came out down those steps. One young man with an O.E. tie did come out, he glanced in at me, I smiled at him, and he at me—recognising Rollo’s car, I thought—saying to himself, “She looks all right, wonder who she is …?” Rollo came out, running down the steps—he di
dn’t often hurry, nearly always deliberate, on the heavy side, and said, “Darling, come along in and have a drink. There’s nobody about.” He took me to the room for the lady guests of members and we sank in vieux rose brocade arm-chairs with jade green walls panelled and decorated with plaster bunches of trophies and gilt-framed mirrors around us, and the ceiling above us bulging with fat moulding, and in the discreet expensive spaciousness we drank champagne cocktails and talked in the kind of voices that come over people in clubs. I heard the ping-tock of a game of squash going on somewhere underneath.
“It’s quite lively in this room round about six and onward,” he said.
“Really?” I said. It didn’t seem likely.
“Yes. You know—chaps and their girl-friends …” I saw wholesome young chaps and nice, well-brought-up pretty girls sitting together, talking in their pleasant, arrogant, standard voices about dances and horses and house-parties; temperately smoking and drinking cocktails, mildly flirtatious or just jolly good friends … Well, why not? I was jealous, really …
He ordered two more champagne cocktails and went to cash a cheque. I looked at the Bystander.
He was rather a long time, and I began to feel muffled, weighed down by thick stuffs and silence. I thought: He’ll never come back; and when he did his figure seemed to come at me from very far away, dream-like and dwindled, making his way back along a tunnel … I dare say it was champagne at eleven in the morning. I remember the waiter’s face who brought the drinks—pale, with high cheekbones and fine features, faintly smiling, as if Rollo was a favourite.
It was such a heavenly day. We seemed to float out of London on the sun—champagne again, I suppose. We had no plans except to make for the coast and wander till we found somewhere we liked. It was one of those days when all the landscape seems built up of intersecting planes of light and shadow; the tree trunks’ silvery shafts wired with gold and copper, violet transparency in between the boughs. The hills looked insubstantial, as if you could put your hand through them. The damp roads flashed kingfisher blue. I remember a line of washing in a cottage garden—such colours, scarlet, mustard, sky-blue shifts, petticoats—all worn under grey and black clothes, I expect—extraordinary. I remember light dazzling on rooks’ wings as they flew up; and an ilex-grove at a crossroads, and red brick Queen Anne houses on the outskirts of old villages—nothing more fitting, more serene, could ever be invented. Oh, I was happy that day. I kept saying: “Look! …” The air was like April. It smelt of primroses, I said.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 17