The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  Sometimes he did get on to a thing quick like that … Intuitive … Secretive too—not giving a sign …

  “I can’t explain,” she said. “Everything fell together.” The moment when the catch slips at last and the jack-in-the-box flies out. “Watching water always makes me psychic … There was a sort of annunciation—by proxy.” She laughed. “Most extraordinary. Women do sometimes seem to appear in a sort of foreshadowing aura of pregnancy. I’ve never known it happen to an expectant papa.”

  His shoulders went up. After a silence, she said:

  “Were you going to tell me? Or was I to have a glorious surprise?”

  “I did mean to tell you,” he muttered, still with his back to her. “I was going to—of course. But when I saw you I didn’t know how to. Especially after you’d told me”

  “About my own little attempt. Very awkward for you, I do see.” She was shaken with a moment’s violent laughter. “Poor Rollo! A bit more than you’d bargained for.”

  He turned round on her with a furious suppressed shout: “Don’t!” And again there was silence.

  “You must admit I’m making it easy for you,” she said. “I always hoped I would.”

  He sat down suddenly in the arm-chair, put his head in his hands, looked helpless; got up again. She said:

  “It’s not my business, but did you know before we went abroad?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “But you knew the day you left me.”

  “Yes.”

  That, of course, was the letter he’d read by the lake, under the red sun-umbrella … What did she say? How did she put it?

  “So you felt you must hurry back to her.”

  “She didn’t ask me to. “He hunched his big, heavy shoulders in sullen defensiveness like an animal. “She said not to think of coming home on her account … She’d got to be in bed for a bit as a precaution—it would be so dull for me … She did hope I was having a lovely holiday …” The harsh struggle in his voice shocked her: self-contempt, bitterness, rage, appeal … Poor Rollo … It’s not my place to pity him …

  “What a good thing you took my advice and went to Salzburg for your letters.”

  He said stiffly:

  “It was.”

  “How wonderfully you mask your emotions! What did you actually feel when you left me?”

  “I don’t know. I just felt I’d got to get away.”

  She burst out laughing.

  “Hurrah! It’s a safe bet—men feeling they’ve got to get away.” Women prefer to stick around and make something happen next. “What did you do? Dash to her bedside?”

  He waited before answering. He’d like to strangle me.

  “I went to see her, yes. I left her down there at her home—she wasn’t allowed to move for a bi … Then I came back to London.” He sank down again in the chair, pushing his hair up with both hands. In contrast with his usual well-groomed appearance he looked startlingly dishevelled. Everything’s comparative: Simon’s always dishevelled. “I meant to stay in London,” he said helplessly; “but I couldn’t. I went off to Ireland. I tried to write to you …”

  She sat down too, leaning forward in her chair, staring at the fire. The scene looked cosy and domestic. She said:

  “Well, it’s all worked out like they tell you in Woman’s World. A husband may stray, but home ties are strongest, and if you hang on he’ll come back. It’s the Other Woman who gets had for a mug.”

  He drew in a painful breath. He’s really in torture—almost more than he can bear … Though I’m not making a scene.

  “I must tell you another funny thing,” she said. “That night I told you about—I ran into Ivor. He was with me all the time. Wasn’t it killing. I didn’t actually explain the situation, but he was tremendously tactful and helpful. And at the end of it all, what do you think? He suggested setting up together again.”

  He got up violently and strode two steps to the window. Feeling he must get away … He pulled apart the curtain … He’s going to … dropped it again. He came back, and said flatly, utterly embracing his inadequacy:

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise. It’s so much better to get things straight. It’s been so. ludicrously pointless for ages, really, hasn’t it?”

  “Has it?” he said in the same voice.

  “Well, I mean the only point was—” Her throat closed.

  What was swelling in her frightened her—so black, so boiling and gigantic. “The only point for you was—wasn’t it?—difficulties which one must presume are over.” She went on more and more rapidly, in a high-pitched voice: “It’ll be rather a relief, don’t you think? One does prefer to be blameless—it’s so much less trouble. It gets so wearing, always the worry of being found out. It isn’t worth it—honestly, is it? I’m sure you agree. You never know who’ll find out and start a bit of blackmail or something.”

  He stared at her, his eyes fixed and bright, dangerous. But he can’t stop me. “One would simply hate her to find out in her present state. Supposing somebody sent her an anonymous letter or something—”

  “Oh, rot I” he said angrily. Making a bid for temperance … not liking sweeping statements ever, always pulling me up … She cried furiously:

  “It isn’t rot and how dare you say so! The world’s full of blackmailers and don’t I know it! I’m going to steer clear of you!”

  He made a blind, bull-like half-turn again. He’s off—I’ll stop his game.

  “Good-bye!” she said insanely. She pushed past him, pushing him roughly with all her weight, made a dash for the curtain, and was on the dark slippery path, running.

  Where shall I go? Which way shall I start off? This way was the river … and that … and along there, beyond the field. The river was everywhere. He’ll think I’ve gone to throw myself in, what a predicament for him … How dark, I can’t find the road; the wind, what a wind, a gale, I hadn’t noticed; the wind from the Atlantic, the equinoctial gale. When it died down for a moment a sound came after it like giant tumbrils rolling and snarling in caverns in the sky. What a night to be out, how pathetic, a heroine’s night in a film: Way Down East, Lilian Gish to the rapids … Well, I might … Into the boiling plunge of the weir pool … But I won’t. Do I walk all night or what? I’ve got no money, will he stumble after me, shouting my name? …

  She started to walk along the road. Growing accustomed now to the moonless dark she began to distinguish outlines of objects—the lines of pollarded willows bordering the road, a five-barred gate in the hedge. She climbed up and sat on the top bar. The wind rushing against her blew her head clean and empty, clean and thin as a sieve. She jumped down from the gate on the farther side, and set off across the meadow, but aimlessly now, knowing that after a bit she would go back. A dark object loomed up in her path. It moved sideways. A horse. Good gracious. I can’t go running into horses. What’s it like to be a horse, standing up and breathing in the dark for hours? The field grew full of large quadrupeds advancing unseen upon her. She turned and hurried back towards the gate, lost it, went up and down in panic along the hedge looking for it. Her foot slipped, she went down heavily, sprawling in the ditch. Icy water gripped her ankles.

  I’ve fallen down in a muddy wet ditch, I’ve twisted my leg, my stockings are soaked, the mud’s on my knees, in my nails …

  She thought she heard a shout. My name … Or did I fancy it? …

  Next moment she found she was an arm’s length from the gate. She got over. Rollo was on the other side.

  “Is that you?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He took her by the shoulders, holding her hard, not lovingly. He said hoarsely:

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” He was trembling. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  “I don’t know what to do …” She began to weep.

 
“Comeback.”

  “I ran into a horse …”

  He put his hand through her arm. Bending their heads forward against the wind, they began to walk back together down the road.

  The woman in the blouse came out from somewhere and met them at the foot of the staircase, saying:

  “Been for a blow?”

  “Yes,” they said, smiling.

  “Not an extra special night for a stroll. Still, it freshens you up … Could I trouble you to sign the register, if it’s not troubling you …”

  “Oh, yes,” he said; and to Olivia: “You go on up.”

  She went upstairs and down the passage. He caught her up by the bedroom door.

  “What name did you sign?”

  “Smith,” he said. “Disappointment for her.”

  She sat down on the bed and he took off her mud-caked soaking stockings and rubbed her feet. She examined the dirty hem of her frock and took it off and hung it up.

  “Better let it dry and brush it off to-morrow.”

  She went over to the washstand, poured out warm water from the can and washed her hands. The water became stained pale-brown and she stood and held her hands in it, staring at them, stock-still, her head sunk over the basin.

  He went on sitting on the bed, bowed forward with his palms propping his forehead. After a bit he looked up and saw her standing the other side of the room, bowed over the wash-basin, in her white slip, with bare legs and arms. He got up quickly, with a stifled exclamation, and came over and led her away.

  “You’d better get to bed,” he said.

  “All right.”

  “Where’s your nightdress?”

  “In my suitcase.”

  He got it out and slipped it on over her head. He said not to bother about her teeth, and turned back the bedclothes, and she got into the cold bed and lay down.

  “Could we have separate rooms?” she said.

  He was silent; then said miserably:

  “All right—if you like. Only it’s a bit awkward now going and asking … Still, I will …”

  “No, don’t, never mind, you couldn’t”

  They spoke very low, because of the noiseless couple the other side of the wall.

  “Do you mind too horribly me being here?” he said in a broken voice.

  “No.”

  “Anyway, we’ve got separate beds.” A brief laugh came out of him.

  “Yes. It’s all right.”

  He sat down on the other bed, facing her. Dead beat he looks; poor Rollo.

  After a while he said bitterly:

  “Well, I always told you I wasn’t any good, didn’t I? I told you I’d let you down.”

  “I’ll get over it. It’s my own fault for taking things too seriously. And for believing what you said. I just feel a fool. If I’d had the sense of a mouse I’d have known it couldn’t be true.”

  “What couldn’t be true?” he said hesitatingly.

  They went on speaking very quietly, not raising their voices at all.

  “I suppose I had no business to ask, anyway—and you thought a lie would be easier. Keep me quiet. Anything for a quiet life!” She smiled. He was looking at her in an uneasy, doubtful way … He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about …” I mean when I asked you if you and she … and you said, no, never now.”

  He exclaimed again under his breath, in that helpless hard-pressed way.

  “But it was true,” he wrenched out. “When I said it, it was true. I don’t think I’d have told you a lie about that … I was always more or less honest when you asked me things.

  … Only how could I come panting up to tell you—” He stopped, struggling painfully. “I mean—when it stopped being true, I couldn’t exactly come posting to tell you …”

  “When did it stop being true?”

  “Oh … I don’t know. After that …”

  “About the time I went to live in Jocelyn’s flat?”

  “Yes—perhaps … I suppose so. About then.”

  About the time he was in such tremendous spirits—so loving to me in that new way I noticed: more spoiling, more attentive. And yet, somehow remote. In fact, just as husbands are supposed to behave to their wives when they’re up to no good on the sly. Probably the way he’d behaved to Nicola when he started the affair with me. Playing a double game both ways: a ticklish position. Only an equable voluptuous non-moral temperament such as his could have coped with so successfully.

  “I see,” she said.

  “I couldn’t very well come dashing along to tell you,” he repeated.

  “I see it was awkward for you.” Poor Rollo, what an embarrassing conversation for him, really in ghastly taste. “I know what you feel about telling being indecent. And then I suppose your maxim came in useful—‘what people don’t know about can’t hurt them.’”

  He shook his head.

  “You see …” he began, stopped, his breath sighing out slowly.

  “What?” This was the third time he’d begun like that and stopped. It had always been when the talk turned on Nicola.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She changed. When we married,” he said with a great effort, “she wasn’t in love with me. I knew it. She’d always been in love with another chap.”

  “Archie?”

  “Yes, Archie … how did you know? … He went all out after her and then … he sort of backed out. It’s a favourite little trick of his.” His voice grew harsh, as it had at Meldon,’ talking of his cousin. “She had the hell of a time … She takes things terribly to heart … and she can’t sort of express herself … She agreed to marry me on the understanding—I’d sort of be there—you know—she could rely on me … As long as she wanted me about I wouldn’t snap out of it. It worked fairly well for a bit … and then—” He stopped, swallowed.

  “Then there was this baby business. It sort of upset her, you know. Everything seemed a failure all round … she got into a sort of state—”

  “Poor girl …” Yes, I see … Now one must accept her as real, as human and suffering.

  “Well, then—I got a bit gloomy myself. I’d sort of hoped she’d … I didn’t see what to do … And then I met you, and all that started … I thought it wouldn’t make any difference to her one way or another, whether she knew or not. I honestly didn’t. But I don’t know … gradually it did seem to make a difference …”

  “You mean she knows?”

  “No, no. At least—you know—sort of subconscious business perhaps. I was different, I suppose.” He looked embarrassed. “She may have felt I was—sort of moving away from her and that made her—sort of want me not to. I suppose she’d never thought I would … Anyway,” he said, horribly uncomfortable, “she began to want to try again …”

  “She fell in love with you.”

  “I suppose she did—a bit. It sort of seemed like it.” His embarrassment was profound. He added: “One does sort of hear of it happening, doesn’t one?”

  “It was what you’d always wanted and longed for.”

  “Yes.” But that was tactless, he saw. He tried again. “But …” He gave it up.

  “And that’s why you were so happy last spring?”

  “I wasn’t happy. At least—”

  “Didn’t I tell you you had a lucky life?”

  Once during that time he’d said in soft, grateful amazement: “Everything seems to come my way …” That’s what he’d meant. Two women in love with him. Two separate intimacies not overlapping at all, both successful: it was what he needed—what suited best his virility and secretiveness. It was all quite clear.

  Well, that’s how it is, there it is …

  “Then things suddenly went wrong again—with her,” he said. “At least I thought so—but the reason was this thing starting—the baby. You know, it sort of makes women
close up inside themselves, doesn’t it? I didn’t realise, and she wouldn’t tell me till she was sure …”

  That was when he’d been so moody and dispirited.

  “When she wanted to go home instead of going to Ireland with you?”

  “Yes.”

  And that’s why we went to Austria …

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he said, ruffing his hair up, sighing heavily. “You may not believe it, but I loathed playing this sort of double game. I couldn’t give you up, I simply couldn’t. I knew I ought to … A year before—I’d have said it was the only thing I wanted—to get things right with her … But you went and got so terribly important …” His voice shook.

  Well, that’s something, of course …

  He said, overcome:

  “And all I’ve done is to muck you up.” a Oh, well …” she said. “It can’t be helped. It’s just one of those things. … As a matter of fact, I really did have it in mind to suggest to you we’d better—bring it to an end. I couldn’t see any future for us—it seemed to be a blind-alley after all—and I didn’t want it to get messy and fag-endish. Only it seemed so difficult to say it. … I meant to have a different kind of parting. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean it to be hideous. I really do want you to be happy—and have a nice baby.”

  “You mean, you don’t want ever to see me again?”

  She said in a light, simple way:

  “I really don’t think I could, you know.” What with Nicola having him and a child, and a home and everything … The contrast would be too denuding; I should behave badly.

  After a long time, he said slowly:

  “I see … Very, well, then.”

  There was nothing more to say in quiet voices in this bedroom. She turned over and lay with her face to the wall. He undid his suitcase and got out his pyjamas and sponge-bag, and undressed and switched off the light, and got into bed. Everything he did was done in a resigned, noiseless way like a child who is in disgrace and attempts by obedient, unobtrusive behaviour to reinstate itself.

  They lay quietly in their beds, not hearing each other breathe. He stirred one or twice, then turned over on his side. She knew he was turned towards her.