The Weather in the Streets (The Olivia Curtis Novels)

by Rosamond Lehmann

  “I hear Jocelyn’s gone to China.”

  “Yes.”

  It would have been a drop of comfort to have Jocelyn in England.

  Then he said:

  “My dear, how’s Rollo? It was too shattering, that accident. Marigold was beside herself—I happened to be dining with her that night.”

  “Rollo Spencer? Oh, he’s all right now, I think. I heard he’d made a marvellous recovery.”

  She moved away and went downstairs.

  In the small back room on the ground floor she saw James leaning up against the mantelpiece deep in conversation with another young man, absorbed and grave. Something clicked in her head, photographing them: James on his own, in his own world. He didn’t see her, and she went upstairs again.

  She saw Anna sitting quietly in a corner talking to her old friend, Desmond Fellowes. She was all right still. Everybody was looking after her, being kind and tactful … She doesn’t look well: faded, parchment-coloured, not a bit young any more, not pretty at all. She hadn’t bothered to have her hair washed or properly cut; it looked dull and ragged … Was it merely one’s own knowledge of her suffering which seemed to remove and isolate her; or would a stranger also see her as it were behind a veil, scarcely in the room at all?

  Colin came up with a tankard in his hand.

  “Smell this,” he said. His lock of hair was over his eyes.

  “Gin.”

  “It smells of thyme. Do you notice? Did you know gin smelt of thyme?”

  He went away, carrying the tankard round the room, holding it under people’s noses, saying, “Did you know gin smelt of thyme?”

  Presently he came back, and said:

  “There’s been a mistake. Have you noticed?”

  “What mistake?” He looks quite mad.

  “He’s not dead, I’ve discovered. He was in this room a moment ago, didn’t you see him?” He gave a sudden loud shout of “Simon!”

  She stood paralysed.

  “No, Colin, no …”

  “A resurrection,” he said. “I must let them know.”

  He went on, but next moment his purpose seemed to desert him. He turned on his heel and disappeared down the stairs.

  Adrian joined her. The anguish left by Colin began to relax, and she said, smiling:

  “Well, was it any good?”

  He said a little mournfully, amused at himself:

  “Not an unequivocal success, I must admit.” He wasn’t nearly so drunk now. “The distressing thing is, my dear, he was really very boring as it turned out. A moron. I’ve noticed it goes with those eyelids.”

  “The young seem to have taken charge to-night, don’t they? Although they’re in a marked minority. I feel like a chorus of elders. I keep on wanting to say things like, Gather ye roses, and si jeunesse savait …”

  “I’m renouncing parties,” he said. “I’m thirty-three. It’s time to think of one’s dignity.”

  “We’re in an awkward patch again, I suppose. Just on the turn …”

  He looked across the room at the ebullient group still swarming on and over the settee or reclining upon the floor.

  “How extraordinarily self-centred they seem,” he said, with a note of indignation. “Does that strike you? Entirely wrapped up in themselves.”

  “They’re beginning to fall in love and get biffs on their egos, and that sort of thing … It is very absorbing.” … She watched them. “I don’t know if it’s a delusion, but they seem much more vigorous and confident than we were. Happier.”

  “I loathe the young,” he said grumpily. “Selfish, silly little beasts. I’m damned if I see why they should make one feel inferior.”

  Amanda came swimming up to him, her head on one side, holding her arms out towards him—affected, ingenuous, coaxing.

  “Adrian, dance with me …”

  “With the greatest of pleasure, my dear Amanda.”

  I never knew Adrian could blush.

  He put his arm round her and side-stepped off with her. Olivia heard her say in her sweet, fluting voice:

  “I like dancing with you, Adrian. You’re just the right height for me.”

  “Yes, my dear, yes, it’s perfectly charming.”

  “I adore dancing, don’t you?”

  “I adore it, my dear. Just a second … I can’t quite catch the tune … Ah! … Here we go.”

  Bashfully smirking, holding her gingerly, he lunged into the stream of dancers; gradually assuming a softened bland expression, on the foolish side, but happy. A nestling look stole over them, as a couple.

  Desmond Fellowes touched her arm, and said:

  “Anna sent me to fetch you.”

  He disappeared, and she went to Anna: still sitting smiling in her corner. Anna said:

  “I’d like to go now. I’m a bit tired. Will you come back with me?”

  “To the flat?”

  “No. To Sallows. I don’t want to stay in London. I must go back. Colin said earlier on he’d drive me, but I doubt if he’s fit to… I’ll drive. Could you come?”

  “Of course, Anna. I’d love to. If you’d stop a second at Etty’s and let me pick up a thing or two.”

  “Pick up several things, in case you feel like staying on some time … Would you try and collect Colin? I must say a word to Mrs. Cunningham.”

  She went away to find Colin, her heart lifting in relief and anticipation, in spite of dread.

  Now I shall be made to feel again … An operation without anaesthetic is going to take place. Going back to Sallows. You’re quite tough enough, you can stand it … Anna’s asked something at last.

  After the first shock, there’d been no forward movement, nothing to disperse the element like a pea-soup fog that had come down and covered all. When the news came, like ghosts they had all drifted together for a bit, wandering about from place to place all over London, keeping together so as not to be alone, now and then letting fall a word, casually, about Simon, more often saying ordinary things. In fact, we talked a lot—even more than usual; not wishing to be too long silent. There wasn’t any difference in the things we said … I only had one collapse, when Colin came round … Clinging to each other … After that we blew our noses and went out to join Adrian at a pub for lunch … Out of kindness, Colin had rung up old Cora Maxwell, and asked her to join them. They’d sat in the pub, and Billy had joined them too, and then Ed. In the evening they all went on in a party to the Plaza.

  The next few days had rather overpoweringly starred Cora and featured Billy—Cora bedraggled and shaky, her orange hair flaunting incongruously above her ruined hulk of a face; Billy outstandingly drunk, making intricate symbolic maps and diagrams in red and blue chalk on the tablecloth. But Cora went on the water wagon for two days as a gesture to Simon. Her grief was tremendous and grotesque. Having to deal with her and Billy added a surrealist dream element, and sometimes they laughed a lot.

  A few abnormal days and they then settled back. Everybody made careful preparations for managing without Simon. After all, he’d never been very close to any of them, never a familiar figure in daily life, so there was no great wrench or necessity for practical reorganisation. Colin wired to Anna should he come out, but she wired back, No. He had the key of Simon’s studio, and he went and looked through the unfinished canvasses and stacked them tidily. Nearly everybody remembered owing Simon money.

  III

  Anna drove, and Adrian, who had turned up and jumped into the car at the last minute, sat beside her. Olivia and Colin were in the back. The more the merrier. We’ll break in all together on Simon’s house.

  A cold sleety rain began to fall as they came out of London. Colin’s old car was draughty. Adrian was now in bubbling spirits, at the height of talkative amiability. Olivia saw Anna glance round at him once in affectionate amusement, grateful to him for being exactly the
same as ever. Probably that was one of the worst hardships of her state—everybody putting on a behaviour for her. Even not to do so, which was one’s own aim, involved something of effort and self-consciousness, obvious to her no doubt. But Adrian remained himself, whether Simon was in the world or no. He’d do Anna good.

  “I see no reason, my dear,” he was saying, “for not falling in love with her. She’s attractive, intelligent, amusing—and obviously pretty keen on me, my dear. She simply came up to me and made the most charming, graceful, spontaneous advances—didn’t she, Olivia? Olivia can bear witness.”

  “She’s a fascinating character,” said Anna, quietly smiling.

  Adrian said she had one of those ravishing slightly pug faces, if you know what I mean, my dear … As for her figure! … they went on talking about Amanda.

  Flattened in a corner with his coat-collar turned up to his nose, Colin woke perfectly clear again in the head from a brief stupor and broke in:

  “Can’t you see she’s no good? Can’t you see? Doomed. In despair already. No hope for her.” His deep musical voice with its echoing note seemed to toll Amanda’s fate. “Now, that other one,” he continued, “Pamela, Desmond’s niece—do you understand how wonderful she is?—do you? I suppose you don’t …”

  “Did you give her a kiss, Colin?” said Adrian.

  “She does look a pet, I must say,” said Olivia soothingly.

  “Pet!” He snorted. “Now there is a really happy character! … Something developed without a trace of damage in the process. A freak, if you like: but what a miracle! Don’t you see it? Don’t you admire it? No! How sweet, we’ll all say, what a nice friendly girl … And we’ll all fall in love with that grisly Amanda, designed to hate us and make us wretched.”

  “She doesn’t hate me,” said Adrian tenderly. He went on: “The point is, my dear, my conception of love differs from that of most people, and I should very much like to explain it to her, because I’ve a feeling I should strike a kindred chord. ‘Amanda, my dear, I’m different.’ … Rather a ticklish thing to say …”

  “In the gentlemanly style,” said Anna, “but perhaps just a shade banal.” One could tell her broad delighted grin was stretching from ear to ear in the dark.

  “Now, my dear Anna, you mustn’t laugh if I say my conception is idyllic. What I should very much like to do, my dear, is to offer her my friendship and affection. I’ll tell you roughly the kind of thing I had in mind. To begin with, a light but delicious lunch, possibly at the Ritz, my dear—then hire something absolutely slap-up from the Daimler hire and simply motor out into the country. Possibly holding hands under the rug … Tea, my dear, at some country house with charming friends—possibly your house, Anna. In fact, I think almost certainly … Then towards evening we should undoubtedly arrive at some Cathedral town—”

  “I did that once,” called out Olivia.

  “If you did, Olivia, I dare swear your experience was not what ours would be. We’d stroll in the Close, Anna—look at the west door, I dare say—possibly sit down on a bench, and have just a little quite ordinary conversation. Between you and me, my dear, I’m not absolutely sure conversation’s her strong suit, but I shouldn’t mind that in the least. For instance, I might say: Look at that funny old woman with a string bag, Amanda—remarks of that, to reassure her.”

  “I see,” said Anna gravely.

  “What does she need reassuring about?” said Colin.

  “Supper,” continued Adrian. “Well, you can imagine supper. I dare say we would wash it down with a bottle of burgundy, or something of that sort After that we’d begin to feel deliriously sleepy from the long drive. We’d go upstairs. I’d have quietly booked an excellent bedroom for her and a small very uncomfortable dressing-room for myself. ‘Amanda, my dear, good-night, God bless you,’ I’d say, raising her hand to my lips …” He paused: added uncertainly, “What do you suppose she’d say?”

  “Adrian, don’t go,” pleaded Anna.

  “In the event, my dear, of her saying that, I’d simply say, ‘Oh, Amanda …’ and slip into bed beside her without another word. We should fall asleep almost as soon as our heads touched the pillow.”

  “Like two children.”

  “Exactly, my dear.”

  Suddenly Anna gave a choke, a snort; her shoulders shook; she burst into a deep, prolonged chuckle. Peals of laughter went up all round the car, Adrian joining in after a moment.

  We can still laugh, still have good times.

  They were far into the country now. The cold rain was left behind, and they travelled under a high travelling sky of intense freezing starlight and dark cloud patches edged with incandescence from a waning brilliant moon. An Arctic sky.

  “Another twenty minutes and we’ll be there,” murmured Colin.

  “Yes.”

  He put out his hand and took hers in a reassuring grasp. She moved closer to him.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said. “It’s just the same.”

  She nodded, unable to trust herself with words. Dying’s a part of living, Colin had said when he came round to find me: remember that. Not its utter cancellation … Besides, see things in proportion, do: another trick of time and our dust, ours too, will be blowing away with his.

  They lay back silent, leaning close together; and soon Anna turned off the road down the winding lane; then the halt while Adrian got out and opened the white gate; the awkward turn through on to the cart road, the bumpy quarter of a mile. Anna drove the car into the barn, and they got out and went into Simon’s house, where everything was exactly the same.

  IV

  Anna knelt down and blew up the embers in the sitting-room grate. The logs came to life in a moment.

  “I told Mrs. Woodley to come in and see to it as late as possible,” she said. “Also to stoke up the boiler.”

  “D’you mean I can have a bath?” said Olivia. “Good egg.”

  “I knew you’d want to stew yourself before you got into bed,” said Anna.

  Then she’d planned it, I was expected.

  “My dear,” said Adrian, “would it be etiquette to ask one favour?”

  “Gin and whisky in the usual place,” said Anna. “You might put the kettle on. I’ll make a hot toddy. What about you, Olivia? I’m chilly.”

  She whisked out of the room upstairs; came down again with an old coat of Simon’s over her shoulders—a shepherd’s jacket, lined with fleece, he’d brought back years ago from Palestine or somewhere.

  They sat in front of the fire and ate bread and cheese and nuts and bananas and drank their drinks and talked about the party.

  He was there and not there, for everybody, for nobody, as he always had been.

  It was past five o’clock when they went up to bed.

  Anna got sheets and Olivia helped her make up the camp-bed for Adrian in Colin’s room. Olivia’s own bed was already prepared, with the stone hot-water bottle in it. She had a bath in the tiny green-blistered bathroom in the middle of the steam, among the hissing, snorting pipes and the towels frayed and yellow with age and bad washing, and the cracked shaving mirror with the frame made by Anna of South of France shells.

  She went to her own room, drew aside the thin linen curtain—Colin’s first attempt during his far-off hand-blocked fabrics period—and looked out of the window. There was the pear tree, quite bare, its wide, curving aerial leap silhouetted dramatically in moonlight. A wind of the upper air, hollow-sounding, vast yet without menace, swung all the elm tops together. A queer night … Where the uncut grass lipped the patch of shaven lawn was a line of light, like phosphorus from a breaking wave. We stood here and Rollo said, “Let’s go away, there’s something wrong”: the day Simon was dying. Was it Rollo’s mood or Simon’s death that had made the dark oppression that day, the sense of virtue draining away? It wasn’t so any more, in spite of cold and darkness: all was restored
.

  What he gave us can never be taken away. He so enriched us that we can but be the happier. We must value life more because he lived. Think that …

  There was a tap on the door, and Colin came in.

  “Are you all right now?” he said.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Do you see it’s all right?”

  She nodded.

  Since that time when Colin came round he had been solicitous for her. They had shared a new intimacy. It was impossible to imagine being closer to a human being. I’ll never be uneasy with him any more; he won’t ever say again with hostile bitterness and contempt: “Olivia laughs at us all.” … This is the best one can have probably: affection, confidence, understanding like iron; this willing, exact, unemotional giving of oneself away. Yet we shall never particularly want to be together …

  He came over to the window and stood beside her, looking out.

  “Dying’s so insidious,” he said, speaking softly out towards the night. “It’s so easy. Death’s catching. We must steer clear of it … Look at us all going about breathing it in at every pore because he caught it … Carrying death about with us.”

  This is a lecture. He thinks I’m pretty rocky still—need watching­. It’s because of what I said when he came round—the thing he said was unpardonable, which he made me swear to unthink … that Simon was the sacrifice … Meaning all the guilt and corruption, the sickness … Dad, Rollo … me … We didn’t die—not us: it was Simon, the innocent one … I was overwrought.

  “We’ve all got too much death in us,” he said. “A sight too much without him helping.”

  “He was more alive than any one, wasn’t he?” she said eagerly. “Nearer the source …”

  He brooded, his face dark and bony, marked with pits of shadow in the light of the one lamp.

  “He was,” he said at last. “But not of life. Though they’re so mixed …” He fell silent again.

  She waited for what he would say next, hearing the shriek and rumble of a goods train from across the valley, the other side of the river.