'But, Stephen, it's only monogamous people who can fall in love — I mean, really.' She felt she was doing pretty well, with this conversation, though her voice was shaking. 'We romantics need obstacles. What could be a greater one?'
'Death?' said Stephen, surprising her.
'Or old age? You see, if I had been Susan's age, if I had been… then I don't think morality would have done so well. There would have been nights of bliss and then wallowing in apologies to his wife.'
Stephen put his arm around her. This was a pretty complex action. For one thing, it was an arm (like hers) that easily went around a friend in tears. Once it had comforted Elizabeth, weeping bitterly because Joshua had chosen someone else. It was an arm that went easily around his children. But the arm would rather not have gone around this particular person: it was her arm that should go around him. When he assumed this brotherly role, he relinquished reliable Sarah. Never had a supporting, a friendly arm so clearly conveyed: And now I am alone. But she knew she could expect words of kindness and consolation. A complicated kind of noblesse oblige would dictate them.
'There's just one little thing you are overlooking, Sarah. AIDS.'
The arrival of that word, like the arrival of the disease itself, has the power to jolt any conversation into a different key. In this case, laughter. While she was thinking that church bells warning of plague must often enough have tolled across these fields, and this was just another instalment of the story, she had to laugh, and said, 'Oh, that is a consolation. That makes everything all right. And anyway, it's ridiculous. Me — AIDS.'
'But, Sarah,' said he, enjoying, as she could see, her genuine indignation, 'we have been living in a dream world. The one thing I wasn't going to say to Susan was, But I couldn't possibly have AIDS because I've been chaste. For various reasons I don't propose to go into… because one doesn't say that to a woman, '
'No.'
'But imagine it. A beautiful young thing, all maidenly hesitation, the bashfulness of true love, appears in your bed, ready to flee away at a cross word, but the next thing, she is enquiring efficiently about condoms and one's attitudes towards oral sex. I did allow myself to say, But, Susan, you really don't have to worry about me, and she said, What makes you think you don't have to worry about me? I've been working in and around New York theatres for five years… it does take the romance out of the thing.' She was laughing. He was observing this, she could see, with relief. 'Do you realize how lucky we were, Sarah — us lot?'
'How kind of you to include me in your lot.'
'Pre-AIDS. Post-AIDS. That's the point. We were liberated from the old moralities. Guilt was never more than a mild flick of the whip.'
'We were still romantic. We talked about being in love, not having sex.'
'We didn't worry all that much about pregnancy… and I never knew anyone with VD. Did you?'
'No, I don't think so. I don't remember anyone saying, I think I've got syph.'
'There you are. Paradise. We lived in paradise and didn't know it. But these young things, they have more in common with our grandparents and great-grandparents than with us. Ridden with fear, poor things. Well, for my part, I wonder if it's worth it.'
'You're telling me that when Susan arrives in your bed tonight you're going to say, I don't think it's worth it, run along back to your bed little Susan, there's a good girl?'
'Well — no. But, Sarah, I know absolutely what she meant by There's no conviction in it.'
'But, Stephen, you won't be feeling like this for long. Just as I quite soon will return to being a severe elderly woman, and I'll say about other people's follies, Really, how tiresome.'
'So you keep saying.'
'Yes, I do. I have to.'
'Anyway, I was never much good at pain. I simply cannot put up with it.' As if he were talking about a fractured knee or a headache, and not a brutal fist slamming again and again into one's heart.
'There's only one thing we can all rely on. Thank God. What we feel one year won't be what we feel the next.'
They sat on in silence, knowing their thoughts ran on parallel lines.
At midday they walked to the house, passing a shady glade full of children, fifteen or so, Stephen's among them. Recent fiction has taught that a tribe of children may only be seen as potential savages capable of any barbarism, but it was hard to associate these with anything much more than the friendly waves and smiles they were offering the adults. Stephen sent his offspring and their friends a lofty wave of the arm, as to a distant shore. James's face, as he followed the two with his eyes, was thoughtful, brave, and stubborn too. So he had looked at his mother and, today, at the ash tree. The two were thinking, as adults do, with discomfort, it was just as well that between the mental landscapes those youngsters knew and their own lay such gulfs of experience that the children could have no notion of all the effort that would be demanded of them. Out of sight of the children, out of sight of the house, Stephen unexpectedly stopped and put brotherly arms around her. 'Sarah, I don't think you begin to know what you've meant to me… ' He let her go, without looking at her, as if any emotions he might find on her face were bound to be too much.
In the room where a buffet meal waited for them, Henry was already seated, with Susan. Henry at once got up and leaned over Sarah to demand in a rough voice that this time did not mock itself, 'Sarah, where have you been?'
Sarah was watching how Susan smiled at Stephen, whose returning smile held ingredients that she must find contradictory. For one thing, it was clear that Stephen was more 'in love' — but why the quotes? — than he let on. His whole body was flattered, was pleased, and seemed to be sending messages, of its own accord, to Susan's. But his face was full of ironies and was saying, Don't come too close. What he said aloud was, 'Slept well?' She giggled delightfully, blushed, but looked confused.
'Sarah,' Henry was saying, in the same voice, 'what are you going to do this afternoon?'
'I'm going into the town to the hairdresser.' She smiled, she hoped, nonchalantly at this man whom she loved — oh yes, she did, for the invisible weavers were doing their work well — and her heart was babbling, 'I love you,' as she offered him a plate of healthy country bread.
'The hairdresser!'
'And what are you going to do?' she enquired, though she had been determined not to ask.
'I'm doing a couple of hours with the musicians. They were a bit ragged last night. I'll be there from three till five.' He made it a question.
'If I've finished, I'll come.' She was thinking that nothing would induce her to be there and, with equal force, that nothing could keep her away.
Later, having done with the hairdresser, she took a taxi back and went straight to the theatre area. Henry was leaning moodily against the edge of the musicians' platform. He had his hands pushed deep into his pockets, and he seemed tired and discouraged. He was pale. He was ill. The musicians were coming from the shrubs that screened the new building. Henry had seen her, for now he remarked, 'Be still my heart' — not to her, but to the trees and the sky. He at once parodied himself, going into a pose like Romeo's under Juliet's balcony, on one knee with arms outstretched. On his feet again, he was unable to prevent himself sending her a long and wretched look, but parodied that too, by intensifying it to the point of ludicrousness. She had to laugh, even while dissolving into sweet nostalgia for long-lost shores.
When the music rehearsal was done, he came to her and had just said, 'Let's go and walk,' when she saw Benjamin coming purposefully towards them.
'Here's your admirer,' said Henry, surprising her, for she did not know he had noticed Benjamin's attentions, and plunging her into loss as he ran off, swiping at a shrub as he went, and jumping over another.
Sarah could not help being thrilled by Henry's jealousy, though he was off the mark. You may fall into liking, as you do into love, though it is a less common surrender. It is easy to confuse one with the other. Benjamin had fallen into liking with her, on first sight, just as she and Stephe
n had done with each other at that first meeting in the restaurant. Could she say she had equally fallen into liking with him? No; she had only to make the comparison. Which is not to say she did not like him well enough.
He advanced towards her, seeming out of place in his formally elegant white. His face had warmed as he looked at her, but almost at once his eyes had moved on behind her to the great trees enclosing the circle of emerald lawn, where the musicians in their pale floaty dresses were drifting towards shrubs that hid the rehearsal rooms. Now his face was that of a young boy listening to a magic tale. Benjamin had fallen in love with the theatre, with the arts. Having determined to take advantage of casual theatre manners and mores, he kissed her heartily on both cheeks, and seemed pleased with himself for achieving this freedom. As for her she was envying him his state of pleasurable intoxication. Yet such were the influences of recent experience, she was examining the handsome face for signs of grief or even of anxiety. There were none. Was she sure about that? No. Should she not at least be wondering why this man ensconced in his so satisfactory and — surely? — satisfying life had succumbed to the theatre and its intoxications? (O, for the life of a Gypsy, O!) What lacks might there be in that life of his? She did not know. How little we do know about what goes on inside our nearest friends, let alone agreeable acquaintances — she was damned if she was going to give the name friend to Benjamin and call Stephen a friend. Roy Strether, her good friend, a friend of fifteen years, was going through hell, and she knew it and he knew that she knew it, but apart from Mary, who else in the company had any idea of what went on inside that so friendly and competent fellow? Who of the people in this house had any idea about Stephen? Certainly not his wife. Sally would probably say later of this time that it had been one of the worst in her life. She had hinted something of the kind, half laughing, to Sarah. But of the people who had worked with her every day for weeks, who gave Sally's loss much thought? Mary looked terrible: much more than was due to worry over her mother.
They walked slowly to the house, while she told him about this new production here, and the new members of the cast. She listened, or tried to, for her thoughts would go straying off, while he told her about the Edinburgh Festival. Thus they reached the house, and it was time for the early buffet supper, for soon the play would begin.
The two young women from the town, Alison and Shirley, were there that evening, large, calm, blonde, with red cheeks, as healthy as apples, shedding pleased and maternal smiles on the hectic scene. First nights were not new to them. As for Elizabeth, she might as well have been saying aloud, This sort of thing is to be expected; it is the theatre after all… and she smiled at Susan while handing her a plate of summer pudding. 'You really are so good, Susan,' everyone heard her say. 'You're such a wonderful Julie.' This to remind her of what she was doing here, in this house — Elizabeth's house.
Benjamin left Sarah to talk to Stephen, and the two men stood side by side conversing, holding glasses of wine and waving away food. They were for that time inside their roles as patrons of the arts, for if they were not thinking this, were too modest, even feeling privileged to assist all these talented beings, then others, watching them, had to think: the money men — and we are all dependent on their decisions.
Henry came to Sarah and said in a low voice, 'Sarah, I've had a fax from Millicent. She is coming tomorrow. With Joseph. She'll see tomorrow night's performance, and then we'll both be off.'
'A change of plan?'
'Yes. Elizabeth very kindly invited her to stay a few days, and we said we would, but — well, we're leaving the day after tomorrow, and then we're going to drive around France for a couple of weeks.'
She said nothing and could not look at him.
'So that's how it is, Sarah,' he said, putting down an untouched plate of food. 'And now I'm going out to see how the audience is coming along.'
He went. Soon the players followed him.
Stephen, Sarah, and Benjamin stood on the steps to watch the audience leave their cars and wandered over the grass towards the theatre. It was a perfect evening. Wispy gold clouds floated high in the west, and quiet trees were outlined against them. Birds robustly quarrelled in the shrubs. With nearly an hour to go, the seats were already nearly full.
Sarah saw her brother Hal, Anne, Briony and Nell get out of their car. She had not expected them. He had come from work and wore the dark suit he used for his afternoons in Harley Street. His women wore floral dresses, their fair hair glittered with this evening's sun. For all of them an excursion into Sarah's life was a holiday: for the parents, from hard work; and the girls after all did spend a good part of their lives in an office and a laboratory. Where was Joyce?
Sarah waved at her brother, who granted her an allowance of his confident self in a measured palm-forward salute, like royalty, but because he didn't flutter his fingers he seemed to bestow blessings: light could easily be streaming from that palm towards the three on the steps. Through a gap in the hedge she watched him advance to the front row. She saw a large light black ball being borne shorewards on the frothy crest of a slow wave. He stepped lightly, his head level, his eyes staring straight ahead, and the look on his face was one Sarah had been studying all her life, though it was not a look, in fact, that repaid study: with his full cheeks, his slightly pouting mouth, his protuberant eyeballs, he was like a ship's figurehead. She had often thought he was like a drugged or a hypnotized man. It was his body that expressed absolute assurance, an impervious self-satisfaction. A mystery: he had always been a mystery to her. Where had he got it from, this self-assurance? Where in him was it located? Having reached the front row, he removed the Reserved signs on some chairs — he had not reserved seats — and sat down, assuming his women would arrange themselves. There he sat, the large soft black ball beached, while around him frothed the flowery wave.
In the front row, critics from London were taking their seats, some with a characteristic look of doing the occasion a favour by being there at all, others sliding furtively along the rows, in case they were observed and someone might come to talk to them, thus compromising their integrity. The audience softly chatted, admiring the sky, the gardens, the house.
Henry escorted Stephen, Sarah, and Benjamin to wish the players well. They took with them goodwill faxes from Bill in New York and from Molly in Oregon. 'Thinking of you all tonight.' 'I wish I was with you.' The new, raw building was crammed with people now and already filled with… it is a matter of opinion with what. But the place was no longer an echoing vacuum.
The four took their places, right at the back.
Experienced eyes assessed the critics. Only two of the first-rank ones were here. Elizabeth had been heard thanking them in ringing tones for being so very kind. The others were second-rank, or apprentices, among them Roger Stent, who, having looked cautiously for Sonia and found her, gave her a severe and unsmiling nod, like a judge before opening the day's case. She gave him an 'up yours' sign back, meant to be noticed. The critics were all one of two kinds: theatre critics, who would judge from that point of view, or music critics, here because Queen's Gift had a reputation for its music and its Entertainments, who knew nothing about stage production. None was equipped to judge this hybrid. The audience was another matter, for they at once showed they liked the piece and understood, and when the troubadour music began they applauded, to show they did not find it strange. For one thing, the programme devoted a full page to this kind of music: its history, its origins in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its Arab influences, its instruments, adapted from Arab originals, its unexpected emergence so many centuries later in the music of Julie Vairon, who — it was safe to assume — could never have heard it.
But that music was in the second act, and the two main theatre critics left after the first, because of driving back to London or catching their train. They both had the affronted put-upon look of critics who have wasted their time. Sarah joked that their pieces would certainly include the phrase 'an insipid piece
,' and Mary added, '"Faux exotica,'" and Roy, '"Unfortunately an exotic background will not save this banal play from failure."'
The rest of the theatre critics left at the end of the second act, so they would not know about the limpid other-worldly music of the third act, which transcended, even repudiated, the personal. 'Do you know what?' said Mary. 'I bet every one of their pieces will be headed: "She Was Poor but She Was Honest.'" 'Or,' suggested Roy, '"I can't get away to marry you today — my wife won't let me."' The music critics all stayed to the end.
But the audience stood to applaud, and for them, at least, Julie Vairon was a success, if not as much as it had been in France.
Meanwhile Sarah's attention was being distracted, because during the second act she saw Joyce with her friend Betty and an unknown youth standing near the gap in the hibiscus hedge which was the entrance to the theatre. They had the look of children listening outside a door to the grown-ups talking. Easy to reconstruct what must have happened. Joyce had been invited — no, begged — with the exasperated end-of-tether voices she did hear from her family, to accompany them on their jaunt to Aunt Sarah's play, had refused, but had told Betty, who had said they might as well go. The three had hitchhiked. Even now, when hitching was so risky, Joyce begged lifts, usually from lorry drivers accosted in the forecourts of petrol stations. Joyce had recounted tales of near-disaster, with the timid smile she did offer to adults, partly to find out what the world of authority thought. Sarah had not previously had more than a glimpse of Betty, but now here she was, in full view. The three young people made their way around the back of the seated crowd, Joyce on tiptoe, Betty with bravado, the young man expecting to be accosted and thrown out. Betty plumped herself down on a grassy slope, the two sat by her and Joyce sent frantic waves and smiles to her aunt.
Betty was a large girl, and she sat with fat blue-jeaned thighs spread in front of her, arms crossed on great unsupported breasts. On her face was a look of sour scepticism: you aren't going to put anything across me. The face was large and plain and coarse. Her black hair straggled greasily. Joyce seemed even more of a sad waif beside her, for it was at once evident that Betty mothered her. The young man, who sat apart from the women, was very thin, pallid, limp, with a long bony neck. His hands were thin enough to see through, and his face was covered in red blotches.
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