The Twyborn Affair

by Patrick White

  ‘You can be sure we’ll take the necessary steps, Mrs Vatats …’ E. Boyd Golson’s pores oozed visible enthusiasm.

  Madame Vatatzes lowered her eyes. It was less likely that she should recognise a man who had whizzed past her in a motor-car. She was simply embarrassed by Curly’s native crudity. At the same time Mrs Golson’s mind could not help reverting to their conversation of earlier. Was it that Madame Vatatzes, behind her silence and her modest expression, sat testing, categorising, perhaps even enjoying, the smell of a man? Mrs Golson was at once shocked by her own disgusting thought, even though it had been forced on her by this new acquaintance.

  ‘… do something about it at the soonest …’ It seemed to Curly’s wife that his suit fitted him far too snugly, that he was straining at the seams, cracking, almost stuttering with enthusiasm and the formation of a plan to ease Madame Vatatzes’ distress.‘… only thing—Teakle’s gone into Toulon by train with some cove he’s palled up with at the old hotel.’

  ‘Then I must make other arrangements. I must hire a cab. I must go home,’ Madame Vatatzes, again in some distress, insisted.

  ‘And so you shall, dear lady,’ E. Boyd Golson assured her. ‘I’ll drive you there myself.’

  ‘That is so kind. Only three or four kilometres along the road to Les Sailles,’ Madame Vatatzes informed him. ‘Normally, I walk it. We both walk it—in cool weather.’

  ‘You can rely on me, madam, to drive you to the frontier if necessary.’

  This was an event Joan Golson had not bargained for. Again she had the impression of straining tweed, bursting flesh, and worse still, her late father-in-law’s professional hands dealing with a bolt of calico. The thought of entrusting her precious jewel to Curly’s gallantry was almost more than she could bear.

  ‘Oh, do take care!’ she gasped. ‘Don’t talk too much! My husband’s inclined to be a reckless driver.’

  She stood pleating the skin above her nose, inside their encrustation of rings her white hands plump and helpless at her waist.

  ‘Nobody else has ever complained about my driving. If you feel that way, Joanie, come along for the spin. Lay a restraining hand on my arm whenever you think it necessary.’

  ‘Oh dear, no! In such a wind—and when was my poor advice ever taken?’

  She laughed, and so did Curly.

  Then Madame Vatatzes advanced, and again thanked Mrs Golson for her kindness. ‘Without you, everything might have been so much more disagreeable.’ The young woman’s handshake was so frank in its expression of warmth that Mrs Golson’s rings were driven into her.

  Their visitant was going. She was leaving on Curly’s tweedy arm. Joanie had not allowed herself the last delicious spasm of a glance into Madame Vatatzes’ eyes. She knew she was sulking, a silly schoolgirl standing in the doorway, no doubt looking white about the gills as she watched them down the corridor. That ratty little fur the girl was wearing! For a mad instant Joanie contemplated tearing her sables off the gilded chair-back where she had hung them, rushing down the grey expanse of corridor, to arrive before the lift door opened, and fling her furs round the girl’s shoulders, not so much to spite Curly as to offer a token of her own passion.

  But mercifully she did nothing so foolish, and the door of the cage opened, and Madame Vatatzes turned to wave, not with a flutter of the hand as one might have expected, but with the whole arm, describing a lovely, leisurely arc. At this distance one could not distinguish the eyes, but the smile opened in the terracotta face. Mrs Golson was glad she could not see the eyes; they troubled memory, and with it most of the certainties of life.

  The Golsons did not investigate each other, unless surreptitiously, till the following morning, for Joan had taken a sleeping draught (‘too mild to be habit-forming’) and Curly was exhausted by too much unexpected excitement, and finally, too much champagne.

  Over breakfast, tea and assiette anglaise for Curly, chocolate for Joan (‘only one cup—so rich the spoon stands up in the stuff’) each wondered how best to re-open the situation of the evening before. When Joan was peeved, he knew too well, she might stay peeved for a day or two; while she could not have borne Curly’s boots trampling the most refined and complex sentiments of any she had experienced.

  It was Mrs Golson, however, who opened the attack, and brutally. ‘I do hope the poor thing wasn’t cold—motoring—and only that little balding fur.’

  Curly had to laugh. ‘You don’t suppose, precious, that I let her freeze—that I didn’t put an arm round her—on our reckless drive.’

  His lips looked quite revolting under the blandishment of fat ham.

  ‘You’re so heavy, darling, in your humour. I prefer you when you’re natural.’ Mrs Golson’s pout had a chocolate stain in one comer; she could not know about that, only the dob of chocolate on the bosom of her négligée, with which she was now trying to deal.

  ‘You delivered her safe and sound, I take it. Did they ask you in? You were away so long for such a short distance.’

  ‘We had some conversation on the doorstep. The French don’t ask you in.’

  ‘He’s not French—and she’s English—not quite, but sort of.’

  ‘Well, the old bloke’s something foreign—and nutty as a fruit-cake.’

  ‘Greek, to be precise. I had it from the English Tea-room.’

  ‘Well, foreign. And nutty.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything—on the reckless drive?’

  ‘What would she tell me? We talked a bit—as you do with a woman—an attractive one.’

  ‘I’d have thought her rather too mannish for your taste.’ It pained Mrs Golson deeply to have to make this accusation.

  ‘She was decent,’ he said, forking into his mouth a sliver of red beef from the depleted serving dish.

  ‘The house, anyway, is most attractive.’

  ‘The house? You know it?’

  It seemed to Mrs Golson that her whole ethos, the knowing and the not knowing, the necessary lies and the half-truths, was threatened by her unfortunate lapse.

  Then she had another of her brainwaves. ‘She told me about it; She described it,’ she muttered, ‘and it sounded charming. Pink. Slightly dilapidated …’ She went through a whole catalogue for the garden, as Madame Vatatzes herself would never have done, her garden as familiar as the ratty stone-marten stole; but Curly, who never noticed gardens, would not be aware of her subterfuge.

  As indeed he wasn’t. ‘The gate’ll fall down if they don’t do something about it,’ he declared like any practical Australian male (the elderly refined Greek, Monsieur Vatatzes, would certainly give no thought to the matter as, seated on the piano-stool, he dashed off duets with his charming wife).

  ‘“Crimson Cottage”!’ Curly snorted, and opened Le Petit Niçois, which he did on principle, as part of the morning ritual, while unable to read what was inside. ‘Did you know there’s a war brewing? I bet you didn’t, Joanie treasure!’

  She was outraged. ‘Of course I did! I have it from the English Tea-room that war is inevitable. Kaiser Wilhelm’s determined to have one. The French will resist. The English will come to their assistance—though the French don’t count on it. So Miss Clitheroe says.’

  ‘Where does that put us—as Australians?’

  Mrs Golson hesitated. ‘I expect Australia will do the right thing, provided it doesn’t go against good sense.’

  ‘But us Golsons!’ Curly insisted.

  ‘Do we count?’ Joanie answered.

  For an instant they looked at each other, trying to decide.

  Then Curly ventured, ‘I don’t want it to look as though we’re doing a skedaddle, Joan dear, but I can’t see it ’ud be practical to let the Simla sail without us.’

  ‘Yes, darling, I know it would only be sensible to catch the Simla.’ Agitation and the division of loyalties caused Mrs Golson to lash her rather large thighs around each other inside the peach chiffon négligée. ‘At least you might investigate—run over to Marseille with Teakle and pay a de
posit on the cabin.’

  Play for time, play for time … Surely there would be a letter of thanks? too much to hope for an invitation? at least a formal call when the ankle allows. Even if they missed the Simla her passionate desire to renew acquaintance with Madame Vatatzes convinced Mrs Golson that she was ready to face the passions of war—a war which in any case was only rumoured and too remote from the Golsons to affect their actual lives.

  When Curly said, ‘You can be sure I’ve paid the deposit. It only remains to clinch the deal. And that’s what I’m going to do. It wouldn’t be reasonable, Joanie, if I didn’t.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking down her front into the jabot in beige Brussels in which the dollop of chocolate had lodged, ‘you are a man of course, and your attitude is that of a man. Don’t think I don’t appreciate you, darling.’ She raised her head and aimed a ravaged smile, while stroking the necklaces of Venus in the plump throat which he admired and she deplored. ‘But as a foolish romantic woman I can’t help thinking of all the people—the little people—that femme de chamber Joséphine, honest old Teakle remaining behind in poor England—even the abominably superior Miss Clitheroe—all those we’d be running away from and leaving to be swallowed up by a war;’ then when she had risen, and executed a figure or two in peach chiffon, ‘the Vatatzes too—that old man and his young wife—who don’t belong anywhere, it seems—but will be caught—subjected to all the terrors—the horrors.’

  Mrs Golson had never thought like this before. She could not help feeling impressed by her own illumination.

  And Curly was so proud of Joanie. He would have liked to bed her if he hadn’t decided to run over to Marseille and make sure of their passage to Sydney—‘home’, as opposed to Joanie’s ‘Home’, where the shops were, the real, Bond Street ones, not Golsons’ Emporium.

  Joan Golson thought she had probably lost. She would be carried back out of the iridescence into a congealing of life, from which only Eadie Twyborn had rescued her at brief moments. And she had neglected Eadie. That letter she had started and never got down to writing. But what could one say when all was surmise, suspicion, doubt, or dream? One would never be able to conclude, never live out the promises.

  15 March

  The extraordinary coincidence of yesterday! That it had to happen—my ankle is nothing, a slight twist, today barely noticeable—but it had to happen: one of those coincidences of which my life, I believe any life, is composed—in this case so that Mrs Golson might appear as I sat outside the hotel garden, surrounded by onlookers offering their formal French sympathy, which falls short of practical assistance. Oh, we Australians are pretty good in a crisis! For once I’m not speaking ironically. Joanie did not know it, but I could have fallen on her bosom as she raised me up and led me into that pretentious Hôtel des Splendeurs et Misères des Golsons Internationals. The sticky sweets of le goüter—les gäteaux et le porto, not forgetting le Massenet, all around us.

  What, I wonder, would have happened if I had thrown myself amongst the sables, the brooches, my face burrowing into that Medici frill, or deeper, into the powdered cleavage? Would I have given Eadie cause for jealousy? (They say that women are not the worst bitches.)

  To give Mrs Golson her due, she showed greater kindness and consideration than I’ve known in years. As I sat in their gilt ‘salon’ I could have enjoyed a good cry—but kept it cold—and rightly so. All that about taking off my shoe—herself itching to undo the strap. I could not very well have had Joanie Golson pawing at what has always been my worst feature.

  That old pair of shoes I gave Joséphine—she said they were big, too big for her mother, her sister’s fiancé had tried and almost got them on. Joséphine was always candid, except in giving notice. You could have knocked me over when I saw her scuttling down the corridor at the Splendeurs et Misères des Ligures. Can’t blame her for wanting the extra money and thinking us stingy, all foreigners are believed to be rolling in money. However, that did not prevent me wanting to do her some small form of physical violence as she scuttled off and turned the corner, showing distinct signs of paint. Is Joséphine perhaps also something of a whore? If she is, I can hardly accuse her.

  No, I am not. Though the ring I wear may be part of a disguise, my natural lust has never, unless in fantasy and dream, overstepped the bounds of fidelity. And where there is true love, true lust can surely be allowed?

  Anyway, Joséphine who gave notice, and who may or may not be a whore, has been dismissed even from my best memories since she scuttled down the corridor.

  The smell of a man—that really shocked poor Joan Golson. It came out. I couldn’t help it. In spite of her appearance she’s probably refined. Her private tastes would prevent her being titillated by what can be a devastating stench. Not that Eadie can’t devastate in that old coat and skirt which will last for ever and which would stand up on its own thanks to compost, food-droppings, and hair from the Australian terriers which climb on her when she has passed out on the library sofa after lunch.

  But can tart herself up and be a credit to the Judge on any of those social occasions which women married to the Law are allowed to grace. She has her distinction to fall back on, features, the carriage of a head, which even her enemies (lawyers’ wives always ready to prosecute) interpret as aristocratic. Eadie in her tarnished gold brocade, the sable hem and bordered sleeves (moth-eaten to anyone who has looked as closely as her child has) but impressive to others, imperial (not surprising she gave birth to a Byzantine empress—or hetaira, according to how you size things up) wearing the few ancestral rings (scrubbed of garden soil with a toothbrush before receptions) and her father’s signet. It must have been the General’s signet which caught the eye of Joanie Sweat-Free Golson. Which led to the corked-on moustache. And drinks in the winter garden at the Hotel Australia.

  I must write to that poor cow J.G., thank her for her kindness, which I like to think was more than the steamed-up passion some women seem able to generate for another—as opposed to the freemasonry (so necessary) which also exists, along with trustful feminine affection.

  I admire women, and would like to love them—but it isn’t always possible. (Angelos, I believe, both admired and loved Anna, but only lusts after me—the hetaira, and Empress Eudoxia in name.)

  Poor Joan, I think, does not love her husband, but like that legion of wives, needs him. After apologising for his cigar smoke and his Australianness, how she glared when he came in. The Joan Golsons of this world spend their lives brooding over accents.

  I don’t think I ever set eyes on E. Boyd Golson in the past, only indirectly through the conversation of Eadie and the Judge. I could not have heard about him from Joan because I was either away at boarding school or, after the night of the corked-on moustache, hiding under the hydrangeas whenever she came. Eadie would call, ‘Joan’s here. Where are you, darling? Aren’t you a silly old shy thing! Our friend wants to see you.’ It made you burrow deeper into the hydrangeas, into the smell of mould and slaters. After that historic night I couldn’t bear her. (‘You’ll have to understand, Joanie, we have a brumby for a child. It must be my fault, Edward would not have got a brumby on any other woman.’ Giggle giggle, and the brumby is soon the least of their preoccupations.)

  When here was E. Boyd Golson in the flesh, or I should say, his Harris tweeds, his Jermyn Street boots, his bay rum, with a lingering of Havana cigar and Armagnac—every inch a well-appointed gentleman of means. That he was incidentally an Australian would not have mattered to those who, unlike his wife, care for men. Curly Golson is both pretty awful and rather exciting—to those who care. That I might have cared, wrecked poor Joanie’s evening. While Curly cracked, and bulged, and shone—stimulated by his encounter with a female.

  Again, I must not be a bitch. I’m sure he loves and serves his wife. Does she deserve it? That is another question.

  All the way back along the road to Les Sailles in the Austin car he was as full of gallantry as I can imagine a bull moose in the mating
season. I almost reached up and touched the horns, velvety but strong, sprouting out of Curly’s tweed cap.

  Our conversation:

  C.: You know, the first time I saw you I thought, damn shame, but I’d never be able to talk to that lady. She’s French, or something.

  E.: [regrettably as arch as C.] Was there another time?

  C.: The time I nearly ran you down—or Teakle, that’s our man. When you were out walking with your husband …

  E.: That time … Well, I do perhaps remember. But vaguely. Other cars have almost run us down. Angelos becomes excited talking. We have so much to discuss. And walk too far out.

  C.: [glum] Mrs Golson and I sometimes hardly talk for days—unless about what there is for dinner—or whether we ought to get our boots mended.

  E.: Really? [Pause] That’s sad, isn’t it?

  C.: Never thought of it as anything but normal.

  E.: Still sad.

  Oh, the Australian emptiness! At this point I couldn’t help laughing, and that made it sadder still. My brutality—wanting to get my own back as we were thrown against each other all the way along the atrocious road through the pinède, the ruts reminiscent of those approaching Mittagong. Once, cracking, he edged an arm around me and a rut allowed me to edge him off. Hypocritically. When I could have enjoyed his Harris shoulder.

  The difference between the sexes is no worse than their appalling similarity …

  Just after that, after mounting the rise, the bull moose straining at the wheel, we burst out upon ‘Crimson Cottage’. And there was Angelos standing on the doorstep. I could see he must have run out fifty times, wondering whether his ‘wife’ had been crushed by some vehicle, raped by a peasant, or abducted by a rich man like the one now fetching her back in a motor.

  Yet when we descended from this monstrous machine, and he had staggered down the path, almost tripping over rosemary and wormwood, which do disregard the bounds of garden aesthetics, as A., loaded with brandy, oversteps social decency, these two incongruous males, the gallant Curly and my lovingly licentious Greek, fell upon each other, I’m sure only from relief at finding male company.