The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “It looked awfully different last time,” he said. “That was fun that evening, wasn’t it, darling?”

  “Oh, wasn’t it fun?”

  “This Simon’s a myth to me. You all talk about him, and I’m told this is his house, but I don’t really believe he exists.”

  “That’s his portrait.”

  He went slowly over to the fireplace and looked at the head of Simon hanging above it. Billy had done it years ago, in black outline, and tones of green and yellow.

  “It’s not really the kind of portrait I understand, darling, but I’m sure he’s a fascinating chap.”

  “It’s exactly like him.” She crossed the room and stood beside him and stared up at it. “He’s ill,” she said.

  “Badly?”

  “Yes, very badly. Typhoid fever. Still, he’s better. I had a card from Anna yesterday—they’re in the South of France. She says his temperature’s gone down. As soon as he can travel, she’s going to bring him here to convalesce.”

  An exciting thing to look forward to—living in his own house with Simon, helping to look after him, getting to know him better. He would be the necessary, the sufficient focus, the stepping-stone over into autumn. He would shift this deadlock, this meaninglessness. After he comes, I shall see what to do …

  “Will you be here?” said Rollo, looking away.

  “I expect so—for a bit, anyway.” The thought of Simon always made him oddly sulky, depressed, suspicious. “It’s something to look forward to.” He was silent, staring at the window, his mouth moodily pouting. She added: “But I suppose I must think about trying for another job soon. I’m sure I don’t know what.”

  He looked miserable.

  “What shall I do, Rollo? Try for a job in the chorus? Too old—and I can’t sing or dance. I might be a mannequin perhaps—if I had any influence … I suppose you don’t know any smart society dressmakers with a vacancy?”

  Where is the crystal element we were to bathe in without fear? Rollo, look at me I … I planned it to be beautiful and simple: a night together in this house where we were once so happy; the last perhaps; but that was to be revealed to us …

  “Or I might get a walk-on in a film. I saw Ivor about a fortnight ago—did I tell you? He seemed to think he was in with some film magnate. He might give me an introduction.”

  Propped on top of the long, low, yellow-painted bookshelf was a picture of Anna’s, unfinished; hay-cart, field, elms, the spire in the distance; a summer landscape. A long time ago, an old story … Will she finish it in the winter? She never can finish things.

  He was wandering about all over the room. Restless. Something on his mind.

  Remember I love you.

  “Rollo darling, if you’d like me to be in London I will be. I needn’t be here when they come back. I’d rather be near you than anything, of course. But it’s not as if you—as if we managed to be together very often, is it? And I haven’t much life of my own in between—now—to fill up.” I’ve given up seeing most people; they all think of me as remote now, under a glass case, not mingling with them. They’re bored with me. “At least,” she added, “if Anna and Simon weren’t there.”

  But less than a year ago these fragments flowed over from such richness and fullness that no emptiness existed, not one empty cranny.

  He went on pacing about, not coming near her.

  “Darling, you must do as you like,” he said heavily … as if I were badgering him.

  Oh, stop walking about! … She straightened herself with a jerk, said briskly:

  “Let’s go up and open the bedroom windows. Try and get this stuffiness out.”

  She slipped her hand through his arm as they went upstairs. Melt, melt, come close, look at me, give me one kiss, then I can speak.

  A high, thin, street-corner soprano started again in her head, going on as it if had all day: Let our affair—be a gay thing …

  “Oh, my precious,” she said rapidly, “I have missed you.”

  “Have you, darling?” He gripped her close to him for a second. “So have I.”

  But when they got upstairs he loosened his arm, her hand dropped down … or I took it away.

  They went first into her bedroom. She threw up the window, looked about her. In the corner was the low, narrow, rather tumble-down bed with its red and white cotton patchwork quilt. She said, smiling:

  “We couldn’t share it all night with much comfort. You’ll have to have the spare room next door.”

  “I don’t mind where I sleep,” he said agreeably.

  He said that. The accommodating guest.

  She said quickly:

  “It doesn’t seem so stuffy in here.”

  “No, I don’t think it does.”

  “Why does everything look so bleak? Is it just a mood?”

  She leaned her elbows on the window sill and looked out. Anything rather than see this different room with the different person standing in it, dejected, unresponsive; where we stood, in the dark light, that hot afternoon, blind tapping, bees burning in the rosemary. She lowered her eyes to the straggling grey bushes growing under the sitting-room windows. Two blue-tits were threading noiselessly in and out of them, pecking and flitting.

  “It’s a rotten sort of day,” he said. “Liverish, I think.”

  A peevish weather, hostile to ma … I’m back in the blind alley again, where the fresh air can’t blow; where vagrants nose in the dust-bins, drag out the cods’ heads … What’s to be done? How can we stay here?

  “What about a walk?” she said, turning round to look at him.

  He exclaimed under his breath, took a sudden step towards her, and said:

  “Why are you pale?”

  “Am I? I’m always pale.”

  “No … you’re different.”

  “I’m sorry I don’t look pretty for you.” She rubbed her cheeks, laughed shakily. “I meant to … haven’t been feeling too lively.”

  She felt him stiffen, refusing a demand on sympathy—suspecting blame attached.

  “But you’re all right now, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m fine.”

  “Please to be.”

  He has enough illness with that creature …

  “Everybody seems to be a bit sickly. It’s a sign of the times.”

  “Oh, don’t be biblical!” he said plaintive, irritable. “I can’t bear that sort of thing.”

  An ordinary plain-thinking chap … She laughed briefly, saying:

  “You’re all right, anyway, aren’t you? You haven’t lost your Austrian tan. I suppose all the open air you’ve had since ground it in nicely.”

  “Yes, I feel remarkably fit, I must say. I’ve had a jolly good summer, really …” He broke off, added, “As regards—”

  Stopped uncertainly.

  “Look,” she said. “You can just see the river. I don’t think we’ll walk that way, though, do you? It looks so chilly.”

  “It does, rather.”

  “Do you remember that night on the mountains when you could smell water?”

  She smiled at him.

  “Yes.” He smiled too; put his arm round her. “That was a lovely night, wasn’t it, darling?”

  He aims at tenderness … They leaned together. Now … Rollo, don’t go away again. She tried to speak. Rollo, listen … Her throat closed, aching. Not a word would come. He gave her a little pat and dropped his arm again. Lady Spencer who had momentarily dwindled, presided once more, as she had all day … He didn’t let me know he was back for nearly a week.

  “Shall I make a fire in the sitting-room? That would make it perk up, wouldn’t it?”

  He loved a blazing fire.

  “Olivia …” He looked round the room, as if trapped. “Let’s not stay here.”

  “All right,” she said quickly
, quickly. “D’you mean—go back to London?” A pit seemed to open in her diaphragm.

  “No. No. I want us to be together. At least if you do. Only not here. It’s so incredibly uncheerful. There’s something wrong with it.”

  “How do you mean wrong?” He feels it too, then … But it’s nonsense—Simon’s getting better.

  “It’s got a funny sort of feeling, hasn’t it? I noticed it before—a sort of feeling I wouldn’t like to be alone in it. I suppose it’s all bunk, but one does get like that sometimes about places. I’m sorry, darling, if it’s a disappointment. Let’s go somewhere not gloomy. D’you mind?”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “I can’t think of anywhere. Can you?”

  “No. I can’t think of anywhere not gloomy.”

  She began closing the shutters.

  “What about that little pub place where we went and had drinks that night—where that German chap sang? That seemed nice, didn’t it? Shall we go and see what it looks like to-day?”

  “The Wreath of May,” she said. “Yes, it seemed cosy. All right, let’s try there.”

  She fastened the green wooden shutters. The little square room sank into sad monochrome. They went downstairs, locked up the house, went out. The car was under the chestnut trees by the pond.

  “That’s not a very appetising bit of water,” he said.

  They got in, backed and drove away down the rutty track.

  She looked back. It was a small white house with green shutters and a leaded roof, set in a piece of neglected lawn: dismal, unwelcoming. Nothing special about it except the ragged thorn hedge all round. The shrine was broken, the genius had departed.

  There was nobody about at the Wreath of May. They went into the garden by the wooden gate. Ghosts of the summer evening haunted her: motor bikes roaring up, stopping, roaring away again, the groups beneath the apple trees, the cheerful, loud, male voices from the bar. Now all was deserted. There was a ladder set up against the apple tree, three or four mongrel chickens pecking in the damp grass, a blue-painted, peeling garden table with a pool of wet on it; still a few roses on the neat standard bushes. She looked across the hedge at the tall plantation of poplars, alders and willows growing all together—where the owl had flown out; and Colin held forth about trees … When she looked at the house, she noticed things she hadn’t noticed before: only one wing was old, the rest was shoddy pseudo-old-world, with thin, poor thatching. Rollo pulled open a glass-panelled garden door in the side of the old wing, and stooping they went into a dark musty parlour with thick sagging beams in the low ceiling. He was just able to stand upright on the hearth.

  “But I couldn’t anywhere else,” he said. “Look.” He went and stood under the middle beam, his head bowed; he seemed to be bearing the weight of the ceiling on his nape. They laughed.

  “What a smell! … Damp? Mice?”

  He strolled about with his head down, set a tiny child’s rocking­-chair rocking, tapped on the oak panelling.

  “Seems solid,” he said. “Fearfully old, I suppose. Shall we have tea, darling?”

  “I don’t think tea would be very nice here, do you?” “Plenty of seating accommodation, anyway.” The tenebrous space was choked up with hard-looking brown arm-chairs; probably a cheap lot bought up all together in a sale. He pulled two forward in front of the fireplace. A sallow, thin woman wearing a white blouse and a choker of large pink pearl beads appeared suddenly in the doorway from the garden, looking startled and suspicious.

  “Do you want anything?” she said.

  “Bring me twenty Player’s, would you, please?” he said in his easy take-your-orders way. “And I’d like this fire lit.”

  She looked stubborn, hostile.

  “We don’t generally light fires at this time of year. Not unless visitors ask specially.”

  “I am asking specially,” he said slightly raising his voice. “Will you please have this fire lit? We may be staying the night or we may not.”

  Without another word she disappeared. Now we’ve antagonised her. A horrid beginning.

  “Bloody woman,” he said. “God, these British innkeepers …”

  Presently a large plump country wench in bedraggled black uniform and cap appeared from another door with cigarettes. She knelt down, put a match to the sticks, blew on it, her hips and haunches swelling out immense as she bent forward. When she got up again, Olivia said, smiling at her: “Thank you so much.” Somebody here must be on our side …

  She said huskily in broad Oxfordshire:

  “Please would you like tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She continued ploddingly, carrying out instructions:

  “Please, will you be taking dinner?”

  “What could you give us if we did?” said Rollo, amused.

  “Don’t know, sir.”

  “Could you catch us some nice trout?”

  “No, sir.” She began to wriggle and squirm, her face congested, dementedly coy. “She says you can ’ave a chicking roasted if you arst now,” she whispered.

  “We’ll stay for dinner,” said Rollo, lighting a cigarette.

  “Shall we, darling? We’ll have a chicken. Mind it’s a nice fat one.”

  She vanished with a sidelong lurch.

  Olivia met his smiling eye, and smiled. He’d had to win over the girl, to right the balance. He must have friends around him, devotion, eager service.

  The fire burned up brightly. He put on a few lumps of coal from the scuttle.

  “This isn’t too bad, is it, darling?” he said. “We’ll have a drink soon.”

  They could hear the girl loudly singing and stumping about in some room the other side of the wall. He got up and locked the garden door, drew a short checked cotton curtain across the glass, opened a narrow inside door, saw that it led into a brick-paved bit of passage, shut it again.

  “There,” he said. “If anybody wants to come in they’ll have to come that way and we’ll hear their fairy footfall.”

  He came back, sat down, pulled her out of her chair on to his knee.

  “Oh, darling, this is nice,” he said, sighing. He began to kiss her.

  Was it all to be as before then, after all? Dismissing, agreeing, accepting … the apt, familiar, responsive bodies smoothing all out, lubricating the stiff opposing heads? … Would the block of misery begin to dissolve into rich slackness, to drain away like noiseless smooth dark water into a tunnel? … All as before, the recipe unfailing, as before … She murmured:

  “Rollo, there’s so much to say.”

  “Don’t say it now.”

  “You do know what a lot there is to say?”

  He sighed. “Yes,” burying his face against her breast. “Perhaps … Is there? I don’t know. Oh, darling, I have wanted you.”

  But presently he stopped kissing her. My fault, I can’t … She slid down from his knee on to the dirty black wool rug in front of the fire, fed the flames with another coal or two.

  He felt in his pocket and drew out a little box.

  “Darling, I saw this somewhere yesterday. I thought you might fancy it …”

  It was a platinum bracelet watch with a minute oblong face set in diamonds.

  “Oh, how exquisite!” another present for Nicola. “Rollo, you shouldn’t …”

  “You haven’t got one, have you, darling?”

  “No, indeed.” She slipped it on. “It’s much too grand for me. I don’t know myself.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  She stared at it, elegant and expensive on her wrist. What would this have fetched? …

  “Is it a good-bye present?” she said, staring.

  “What do you mean?” His voice was flat, guarded.

  “I don’t know—it looks like one …” But she laughed quickly, as if laughing off a fo
olish slip of the tongue. It wasn’t the right way to begin.

  “Now,” she said, “I’ll tell you the time by my beautiful new watch. It’s just on six. What about a drink? You go and have one—and bring me one back. A gin and lime. Double.”

  He got up and unlocked the door, and went away.

  She sat on by the fire, and was clear in her mind.

  We mustn’t remember Remember I love you—we mustn’t speak on that scale. When we were in that world we were not in the world. When he spoke such truth, under the chestnuts at the Gasthaus table, standing by the lake-watching window, seeing light and water mingle, then he was not true to himself. We all say things at times we don’t mean: or even if we mean, can never manage to adapt to our fixed arrangements: unwieldy shapes, looming too large, impracticable, best put away entirely … It would be a shame to hold him to all that. We must face facts: he was beyond himself: we were translated. Life in the world is what must go on; not that other life. If we went back we wouldn’t find the rocket, but the sodden end of burnt-out stick.

  He’s an ordinary chap, he insists, and he likes a quiet life. He’s afraid of me now, because I had a victory. I got too far … like taking advantage of a person when he’s drunk. He’s been thinking the best thing to do is to avoid me for a bit, till things have settled down. All be as before love …

  Perhaps an evening, even a night, together now and then, when it’s not too difficult. Because that’s turned out a most satisfactory arrangement …

  We don’t live by lakes and under clipped chestnuts, but in the streets where the eyes, ambushed, come out on stalks as we pass; in the illicit rooms where eyes are glued to keyholes.

  Well, that’s how it is.

  Lady Spencer, your son … I mustn’t let you down.

  He came back with a whisky and soda in one hand and her drink in the other. He looked much more lively.

  “Sorry I’ve been so long, darling. There was a comic commercial traveller bloke in the bar, and we had one together. Funny life these chaps have—rather interesting—I wouldn’t mind it at all … The old girl’s quite amiable now. Once she got a double gin inside her she cheered up no end. She’s not so bad, really.” Genial, expansive patronage … Why not be jolly? “Drink up your little drink, darling, and have another. You’ll feel better.”