Women eating by themselves look shockingly greedy.
After lunch, a bus to the park. She travelled on top, and began to think about cheese. Cheese. Cheese! CHEESE!! The lump in her bag seemed to shout it at her, her salivary glands began to ache. Sometimes she mastered the craving till she got to her bench in the park. Sometimes it was all gone before he’d taken her penny and punched her ticket. And then, more … more … MORE … began the clamour of her gnawing, perverse palate. Once or twice it couldn’t be endured, she went on up as far as Selfridge’s and bought some more.
She walked as far as one of the benches near the water; for this was her one actively remaining pleasure: to see water. This, too, was a craving, a demented appetite; not an aesthetic pleasure. If not to be in sight of it, to dream of it by day and by night, seeing it cool, willow-shaded, still at twilight; or slipping polished, smooth-necked, obsidian-coloured over weirs to rise again beneath in a shudder of unearthly green-lit beaten-up whiteness. Oh, to lie in such waters of life, to watch the smooth column sliding down, down over one for ever, drowning one, dissolving all in that pure winnowed effervescence … Fresh, fresh … to be fresh; to be washed clean, light as air … To be a fish, cold in ribbony weeds. To swim far out, to cease from swimming and be rocked, cradled in soundless waves.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley.
Nice … nice … light and fresh. Brook: a nice word.
Dark brown is the river, golden is the sand … Dark brown good, merciful, washing the golden, sterile sand. Pure ablution …
They fed her on pancakes of yellow tide foam. Oh, delicious. Airy mouthfuls, crisp and tasteless. If only I could taste them …
She wore every day a plain dress of bluish-green crêpe. Red and yellow were lurid, scorching. She must be clothed in a colour like water, like the sea.
In the park the grass was brown and sere, the leaves dry, like leaves cut out of metal. Apart from the children, and the obvious but unaggressive foreign element—tourists up from the provinces, bareheaded student bands from Northern Europe—the park seemed populated by seasonal derelicts and eccentrics: muttering, bearded men, emaciated elderly women tripping on matchstick legs, in long full skirts with braid, Edwardian jackets, perched toques with Parma violets, fragments of feather boa; beings leading antique barrel-shaped asthmatic dogs; bearing parrots and cockatoos upon their shoulders; bird-headed creatures feeding the birds.
Sometimes she found an empty bench, sometimes she and the others sat side by side in silence, occasionally someone spoke to her, and once started was unable to stop; the dam of isolation down, the spate let loose.
One day it was a middle-aged man in a grey serge suit, stiff collar, black boots with bulbous toecaps. On his watch-chain hung some kind of club badge of brotherhood. His forehead was graven in savage furrows, and beneath its ploughed prominence a pair of small, deep-set, panic-stricken grey eyes scurried and hid under shuddering lids. He looked feeble, ill. After a few furtive blinks and glances he put his feet up violently on the bench and seemed to doze. Soon he jumped up as violently, sat down again, began to talk. A dead monotone poured compulsively, impersonally from his lips. After some time it became clear that his topic was motor-cars. Cars. Cars. Oil consumption, tyres, steering, accelerator, plugs … On and on he muttered, blinking, shuddering, glancing at her sideways, saying Riley, Wolseley, Austin, Ford, Vauxhall, saying engine trouble, saying …
“My nerves are bad,” he said suddenly. “I’ve been advised to take a sea voyage. Now could one take a car to Egypt, for instance?” He stared at her in wild surmise. “But then,” he said, “what about the passport difficulty?”
The passport difficulty… She saw it looming mountainous, insuperable in his head, a mystic menace, blocking the light of reason. “Behold me!” implored his frantic eye. “Allow me to cast myself upon you.”
After a while he became easier. His rigid lids relaxed, his voice took on a normal variation. He spoke of the bad times, deploring unemployment.
“One needs something to lean on nowadays,” he said.
“I suppose one does.”
“You look as if you’d had a lot of trouble.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think I have.”
“Your face is young, but you’ve got some grey hairs, if I don’t mistake; my sight’s not very good.” He moved closer.
Now I must get away, remove his spar.
“Personally,” he said after a silence, “I’ve found religion a great consolation.”
“Have you?” Now, at once another second and it would be too late. She got up. “Well, I must be getting on.”
He drew something swiftly from his pocket. “One moment,” he said. “Please accept this. Yes, really … I’d be pleased … I’ve plenty more. I frequently carry them about … They’re a great help, I find.”
Half expecting some token of an embarrassingly symbolic nature, she looked at her palm and found a gun-metal penknife, thickly embossed with lettering and devices. Upon one side she read: The Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Heb. 4-12, above a representation of an open Bible. Upon the other side: For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul. Matt. 16-26, and a picture of a globe.
“I came up to go to the Motor Show,” he said, relapsing. “But I find I’m previous. I shall go next week. I shall look out for you there.”
Another time a woman leading by the hand a pale child came and sat down beside her. He carried a little basket with some toys in it, and he was dressed in his best: a miniature coat and cap over a white pullover and white shorts, all home-made, neat and clean as a pin. He sat in silence beside the woman, holding the basket on his lap, not investigating it. From time to time the woman stooped forward and kissed him. He remained unresponsive. Only child, doubtless, one of those crushed into early apathy by the excessive embraces, bouncings, loud, wild crowings of relations: by the oppression of the crease in his pants, the damp brush concealed in a bag, whisked out at the corner to brush up his pretty curls; finicky over his food, segregated from common people’s children … There she was, taking off his cap, touching up his fine silvery curls with her fingers: just as I thought. At this he turned his head and looked up at her, but blankly. His large blue eyes travelled on and rested without inquiry on Olivia. Delicate-featured, beautiful almost. The woman watched him eagerly, looked at Olivia, smiled.
“How old is he?”
“He’s three … He doesn’t know it, but he’s going to the hospital.” Composed, pleasant, superior, parlour-maidish voice. “He’s got something the matter with his brain. Yes. Fits. Yes. Two a week he gets. Oh, yes, he suffers. He screams something cruel in the fits. Ever since he was fifteen months. The doctors are very interested in him, they want him in for observation. Only a miracle can save him, the doctors say. They say unless there’s a miracle he can’t live more than another year. Talk? Oh, yes, he can talk—says anything. But he doesn’t care to talk. He’s so good. When he’s going to have one of his fits, he says to me, ‘Mammie, I’ll be dood.’ Yes, he’s taking his toys, but he doesn’t care to play. He wants to be working all the time, if you see what I mean. He’s too forward, that’s his trouble. Oh, yes, he’s my only one.” Her voice continued conversational, her pleasant face seemed without stress or grief. “I’d like to have him home for Christmas,” she said, “but I don’t know … Oh, yes, thank you, of course, we hope so too.”
Custom? Lack of imagination? Indifference? A noble reasonableness? Christian resignation? Was that it? … A little martyr in the home—soon to be a little angel in heaven? Not lost, but gone before, gone to the Better Home … A first-class cross, one with particular prestige attached … And then, the doctors were so interested … But then that way she had of wat
ching him, of suddenly kissing him, not emotionally, but protectively: a helpless half-automatic gesture, it seemed, expressing—what?
Well, let’s hope the doctors … Well, what can I do anyway? Offer a card, my address, do drop me a line … Send a wreath later, with deepest sympathy? …
Nothing to be done. Merely one of millions of atoms, doomed a little sooner than some millions of others … that was the way to look at it. It doesn’t really matter. Human beings are all in a bad way, we are in a bad way … It’s to be expected.
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, miss. Say bye-bye to the lady, dear.”
To and fro near where she habitually sat passed a young man every day. Tall, gaunt, fair; shabby grey flannels, shirt unbuttoned at the neck, books under his arm. On he drove in a shambling, unconscious way, the wide world in his head confusing him, causing him to trip on the edges of pavements, to knock up against chairs and people. His fierce excitable eye poured unfocused light. A trial to friends, an anxiety to parents. He talked too much, he trusted everybody, incurably expecting from human nature some behaviour that would not occur; crying then, “Traitors! Swine!”; next turning cynic, thanking God with mirthless barks of laughter for a sense of humour … Losing his way five times a day, forgetting errands; trying his eyes till the small hours in a wretched light; frying himself a sausage a day on the gas ring, his digestion suffering; tossing sleepless on his lodging-house bed … When winter came he caught a bad cold. He drank the smutty milk out of the bottle on the doorstep and turned his face to the wall. When it was night he felt lonely. He got up, and having no dressing-gown wrapped himself in the plush tablecloth and looked out of the window at the lights of London. He thought about being unloved and about the sufferings of humanity, and wept. She bought him a muffler. “You must wrap up.” So he did. He wore it always, right through the summer. She befriended him and he liked her, but soon he passed on, away from her: she was not what he sought. Nobody would be that. There was no comfort in him. He was of the breed of Jocelyn; of that one who came one night to Jocelyn’s door. James was turning into something like that, walking through France, secretively filling up his copybook … There seemed to be a good many of them striding about Europe, looking thin. Not safe, conformist young men. Perhaps more important than Dickie Vulliamy … or Rollo.
About five she left the park. On her way home she stopped at a snack bar and bought sandwiches for her supper. Sometimes she had a glass of ginger beer. Oh, delicious! More, more …
The evenings were bad, were very bad. She had a bath, washing with the cake of Wright’s Coal Tar Soap she’d bought, because she remembered from childhood its pungent unsweet smell. The Martins had used it and smelt of it when they didn’t smell of indiarubber, the guinea-pigs or bull’s eyes. She went to bed, her sandwiches beside her. Ham was food. She never sickened of it. Oh, for a long savoury dinner! … Game … Welsh rarebit … If only there were someone to bring me iced soup; or one lamb cutlet … Impossible to face cooking for oneself …
She was no longer so thin: it must be growing, getting enough nourishment. Her breasts hurt. She fancied her figure changing perceptibly. When do one’s clothes begin to get too tight? … She remembered Kate unfamiliar and touching in a grey maternity frock with white ruffles. Such dignities will not be for me. To be rid, to be rid, to be rid of this … To be not sick … I should be hanging on doors, lifting wardrobes and pianos, trying to fall downstairs, doing everything I can … Instead, day after day, inert, she rested, strolled, sank down in chairs, crawled to the bathroom, fell into bed again: protecting herself against her own designs against Nature, lowering herself unresistingly to a vegetable standard: A maggoty, spoiling vegetable … I don’t weep, I don’t fret. I regulate my life; I hope only as a marrow might hope for sun and rain: a dull tenacious clinging.
In bed she read her old Oxford copies of Victorian novelists. Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, Mansfield Park, Fillette—on, on … The characters so out of date, so vital, lived in her with a feverish, almost repellently heightened activity and importance, more real for their remoteness.
Sometimes a flash pierced her: I bear Rollo’s child. Soon gone again. Or a good dream woke her exultant, haunting her with shapes and sounds of transcendental beauty. Nightly, the dreams crowded: voluptuous, or straightforwardly sensual dreams about Rollo—but not always Rollo; faces and fears from childhood or adolescence, long forgotten or suppressed; dramas in sequence, intricate conspiracies; those water images with swans and water-lilies; and a host more cloudy symbols. …
A fortnight went by alone in London. The telephone never rang, and Rollo didn’t write again.
IV
A bad afternoon. The park was airless. The sky was clouding from the west, saffron-tinged: the fine spell would have broken before night. There would be thunder and then the rain would come down. She was restless, waiting for the change, unable to breathe. Figures passing to and fro, or sitting on benches in the distance looked diminished, flat and lifeless in a sinister way, like figures in a nightmare. She left the dry railed spaces, the lurid trees, and hailed a taxi. Thank God, I needn’t stint yet. Taxis, ginger beer, ham sandwiches—the remainder of Rollo’s journey money supplied them all.
Too limp to climb as far as her own room, she lay down on the sofa in the sitting-room. Alas, alack, my aching back is near to crack I feel so slack … The tag rang in her head, over and over again. Invented hundreds of years ago, when we had measles, when I was ten … The room looked unfresh, neglected. No flowers. Smuts on the window-sill; to-morrow I must pull myself together and dust properly. Must make a resolution to be more energetic. Another ten days and Etty would be back. Anna too, surely, soon. Anna’ll be appalled at this fix. She never wanted a child. Even to discuss childbirth in a physical way upsets her. She’s neurotic; she’d drown herself rather than face it. I must avoid her, or she’ll avoid me. There was a gulf fixed, and on one side of it were women with child; on the other, men, childless women. She was alone on the one side. On the other, Anna, Simon, Colin, all of them, walked away from her with averted heads, estranged …
The sharp ping of the front-door bell went through her, twisting in her chest like a probe … Who? … Was he back, had he come? It rang again. She went down and opened the door, and there was Lady Spencer.
“Lady Spencer …” Come for me.
“Ah, Olivia … Something told me I should find you in.”
Yes, there she was … looking just as I’ve always known she would some time or other on my doorstep. A large hat of thin black straw swept with grey ostrich feathers was attached to the summit of her coiffure; her gown of black flowered chiffon, broken up with chains, ruffles, pearls, flowed about her ankles. Lavender kid gloves, a grey silk parasol. Her eyes were steady, ice-blue: dictator’s eyes, fanatically self-confident, without appeal.
“Do come in.” In spite of herself the conciliatory smile beginning. “How lovely to—” No …
“May I come in? Just for a very short time.” The tone was pleasant, but all-concealing; the old cordial note one’s ear was tuned for absent.
“I’d no idea you were in London.” Her guilty voice trailed off. Unable to look anywhere, she led the way to the sitting-room. Lady Spencer lowered herself in a stately way upon the sofa. Olivia sat down on the edge of a chair … Keep my back to the light.
“Will you have a cigarette? Oh, I’m afraid there aren’t any. I think there are some upstairs. I’ll just go …” And be alone for a minute, compose myself, dash a bit of rouge on.
“No, no, I never smoke, thank you.”
“Nor do I much.” One whiff, you know, in my present condition and I’m finished …
“What a charming little house.” Peeling off her lavender gloves, Lady Spencer looked about her.
“Yes, isn’t it? Etty’s abroad.”
“Are you alone then?”
“Yes, for the moment. I�
�m going away in about another week, I expect.”
“I suppose your work kept you?” For the first time a note of sympathy crept in: Lady Spencer’s respect for the breadwinner.
“No, I’m not working really …” Trapped, trapped … She said rapidly, “Are you in London for long?”
“It’s a little uncertain.” Lady Spencer folded her gloves, looked away. “I brought my poor John up three weeks ago—for treatment. It’s a horrid time to be in London, but we so hope it’s doing him good—he’s such a clever, charming man, we have such faith in him—and then it will be well worth while, won’t it?” There was perceptible uncertainty behind her emphasis. She’s really as muddled as Marigold … She doesn’t know how to begin. But she will, soon.
“I’m so sorry. I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Thank you, Olivia, we hope not. We don’t know yet … but there seems every prospect of alleviation if not cure … so that’s a lot to be thankful for, isn’t it? Besides, we’re very comfortable where we are. Rollo’s so very sweetly lent us his lovely house.”
“Oh, has he?” So that’s who it was on the telephone: of course: the family butler: who used to give us pink throat pastilles when Marigold took us into the pantry.
“Rollo is away till the middle of the month.”
“Is he? … They both are, I suppose.”
“Yes, they both are.”
“How’s Marigold?”
“Marigold is well. She’s just gone to Venice.” Lady Britton basking on the Lido …
Silence fell. The noise of her pulses seemed to Olivia to drum in the room. Lady Spencer loosened a gold chain round her throat, as if oppressed.
The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels) Page 28