by Jean Rhys
‘What a gigantic suitcase,’ he said. ‘I have my motorbike here, but I suppose I’d better leave it. We’ll take a cab.’
It was getting dark when we reached the cottage, which stood by itself on rising ground. There were two elm trees in a field near the veranda, but the country looked bare, with low, grassy hills.
As we walked up the path through the garden I could hear Julian laughing and a girl talking, her voice very high and excited, though she put on a calm, haughty expression as we came into the room. Her dress was red, and she wore several coloured glass bangles which tinkled when she moved.
Marston said, ‘This is Frankie. You’ve met the great Julian, of course.’
Well, I knew Frankie Morell by sight, but as she didn’t say anything about it I didn’t either. We smiled at each other cautiously, falsely.
The table was laid for four people. The room looked comfortable but there were no flowers. I had expected that they would have it full of flowers. However, there were some sprays of honeysuckle in a green jug in my bedroom and Marston, standing in the doorway, said, ‘I walked miles to get you that honeysuckle this morning. I thought about you all the time I was picking it.’
‘Don’t be long,’ he said. ‘We’re all very hungry.’
We ate ham and salad and drank perry. It went to my head a bit. Julian talked about his job which he seemed to dislike. He was the music critic of one of the daily papers. ‘It’s a scandal. One’s forced to down the right people and praise the wrong people.’
‘Forced?’ said Marston.
‘Well, they drop very strong hints.’
‘I’ll take the plates away,’ Frankie told me. ‘You can start tomorrow. Not one of the local women will do a thing for us. We’ve only been here a fortnight, but they’ve got up a hate you wouldn’t believe. Julian says he almost faints when he thinks of it. I say, why think of it?’
When she came back she turned the lamp out. Down there it was very still. The two trees outside did not move, or the moon.
Julian lay on the sofa and I was looking at his face and his hair when Marston put his arms round me and kissed me. But I watched Julian and listened to him whistling – stopping, laughing, beginning again.
‘What was that music?’ I said, and Frankie answered in a patronizing voice, ‘Tristan, second act duet.’
‘I’ve never been to that opera.’
I had never been to any opera. All the same, I could imagine it. I could imagine myself in a box, wearing a moonlight-blue dress and silver shoes, and when the lights went up everybody asking, ‘Who’s that lovely girl in that box?’ But it must happen quickly or it will be too late.
Marston squeezed my hand. ‘Very fine performance, Julian,’ he said, ‘very fine. Now forgive me, my dears, I must leave you. All this emotion –’
Julian lighted the lamp, took a book from the shelf and began to read.
Frankie blew on the nails of one hand and polished them on the edge of the other. Her nails were nice – of course, you could get a manicure for a bob then – but her hands were large and too white for her face. ‘I’ve seen you at the Apple Tree, surely.’ The Apple Tree was a night club in Greek Street.
‘Oh yes, often.’
‘But you’ve cut your hair. I wanted to cut mine, but Julian asked me not to. He begged me not to. Didn’t you, Julian?’
Julian did not answer.
‘He said he’d lose his strength if I cut my hair.’
Julian turned over a page and went on reading.
‘This is not a bad spot, is it?’ Frankie said. ‘Not one of those places where the ceiling’s on top of your head and you’ve got to walk four miles in the dark to the lavatory. There are two other bedrooms besides the one Marston gave you. Come and have a look at them. You can change over if you want to. We’ll never tear Julian away from his book. It’s about the biological inferiority of women. That’s what you told me, Julian, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, go away,’ Julian said.
We ended up in her room, where she produced some head and figure studies, photographs.
‘Do you like these? Do you know this man? He says I’m the best model he’s ever had. He says I’m far and away the best model in London.’
‘Beautiful. Lovely photographs.’
But Frankie, sitting on the big bed, said, ‘Aren’t people swine? Julian says I never think. He’s wrong, sometimes I think quite a lot. The other day I spent a long time trying to decide which were worse – men or women.’
‘I wonder.’
‘Women are worse.’
She had long, calm black hair, drawn away from her face and hanging smoothly almost to her waist, and a calm, clear little voice and a calm, haughty expression.
‘They’ll kick your face to bits if you let them. And shriek with laughter at the damage. But I’m not going to let them – oh no . . . Marston’s always talking about you,’ she said. ‘He’s very fond of you, poor old Marston. Do you know that picture as you go into his studio – in the entrance place? What’s he say it is?’
‘The Apotheosis of Lust.’
‘Yes, the Apotheosis of Lust. I have to laugh when I think of that, for some reason. Poor old Andy Marston . . . But I don’t know why I should say “Poor old Andy Marston”. He’ll always have one penny to tinkle against another. His family’s very wealthy, you know.’
‘He makes me go cold.’
I thought, ‘Why did I say that?’ Because I like Marston.
‘So that’s how you feel about him, is it?’ She seemed pleased, as if she had heard something she wanted to hear, had been waiting to hear.
‘Are you tired?’ Marston said.
I was looking out of the bedroom window at some sheep feeding in the field where the elm trees grew.
‘A bit,’ I said. ‘A bit very.’
His mouth drooped, disappointed.
‘Oh, Marston, thank you for asking me down here. It’s lovely to get away from London; it’s like a dream.’
‘A dream, my God! However, when it comes to dreams, why shouldn’t they be pleasant?’
He sat down on the windowsill.
‘The great Julian’s not so bad, is he?’
‘Why do you call him the great Julian? As if you were gibing at him.’
‘Gibing at him? Good Lord, far be it from me to gibe at him. He is the great Julian. He’s going to be very important, so far as an English musician can be important. He’s horribly conceited, though. Not about his music, of course – he’s conceited about his personal charm. I can’t think why. He’s a very ordinary type really. You see that nose and mouth and hear that voice all over the place. You rather dislike him, don’t you?’
‘Do I?’
‘Of course you do. Have you forgotten how annoyed you were when I told you that he’d have to see a female before he could consent to live at close quarters with her for two weeks? You were quite spirited about it, I thought. Don’t say that was only a flash in the pan, you poor devil of a female, female, female, in a country where females are only tolerated at best! What’s going to become of you, Miss Petronella Gray, living in a bed-sitting room in Torrington Square, with no money, no background and no nous? . . . Is Petronella your real name?’
‘Yes.’
‘You worry me, whatever your name is. I bet it isn’t Gray.’
I thought, ‘What does it matter? If you knew how bloody my home was you wouldn’t be surprised that I wanted to change my name and forget all about it.’
I said, not looking at him, ‘I was called after my grandmother – Julia Petronella.’
‘Oh, you’ve got a grandmother, have you? Fancy that! Now, for Heaven’s sake don’t put on that expression. Take my advice and grow another skin or two and sharpen your claws before it’s too late. Before it’s too late, mark those words. If you don’t, you’re going to have a hell of a time.’
‘So that I long for death?’
He looked startled. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘It was o
nly the first thing that came into my head from nowhere. I was joking.’
When he did not answer, ‘Well, good night,’ I said. ‘Sleep tight.’
‘I shan’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I shall probably have to listen to those two for quite a time yet. When they’re amorous they’re noisy and when they fight it’s worse. She goes for him with a pen-knife. Mind you, she only does that because he likes it, but her good nature is a pretence. She’s a bitch really. Shut your door and you won’t hear anything. Will you be sad tomorrow?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Don’t look as if you’d lost a shilling and found a sixpence then,’ he said, and went out.
That’s the way they always talk. ‘You look as if you’d lost a shilling and found sixpence,’ they say; ‘You look very perky, I hardly recognized you,’ they say; ‘Look gay,’ they say. ‘My dear Petronella, I have an entirely new idea of you. I’m going to paint you out in the opulent square. So can you wear something gay tomorrow afternoon? Not one of those drab affairs you usually clothe yourself in. Gay – do you know the meaning of the word? Think about it, it’s very important.’
The things you remember . . .
Once, left alone in a very ornate studio, I went up to a plaster cast – the head of a man, one of those Greek heads – and kissed it, because it was so beautiful. Its mouth felt warm, not cold. It was smiling. When I kissed it the room went dead silent and I was frightened. I told Estelle about this one day. ‘Does that sound mad?’ She didn’t laugh. She said, ‘Who hasn’t kissed a picture or a photograph and suddenly been frightened?’
The music Julian had been whistling was tormenting me. That, and the blind eyes of the plaster cast, and the way the sun shone on the black iron bedstead in my room in Torrington Square on fine days. The bars of the bedstead grin at me. Sometimes I count the knobs on the chest of drawers three times over. ‘One of those drab affairs! . . .’
I began to talk to Julian in my head. Was it to Julian? ‘I’m not like that. I’m not at all like that. They’re trying to make me like that, but I’m not like that.’
After a while I took a pencil and paper and wrote, ‘I love Julian. Julian, I kissed you once, but you didn’t know.’
I folded the paper several times and hid it under some clothes in my suitcase. Then I went to bed and slept at once.
Where our path joined the main road there were some cottages. As Marston and I came back from our walk next morning we passed two women in their gardens, which were full of lupins and poppies. They looked at us sullenly, as though they disliked us. When Marston said ‘Good morning’, they did not answer.
‘Surly, priggish brutes,’ he muttered, ‘but that’s how they are.’
The grass round our cottage was long and trampled in places. There were no flowers.
‘They’re back,’ Marston said. ‘There’s the motorbike.’
They came out on to the veranda, very spruce; Frankie in her red frock with her hair tied up in a red and blue handkerchief, Julian wearing a brown coat over a blue shirt and shabby grey trousers like Marston’s. Very gay, I thought. (Gay – do you know the meaning of the word?)
‘What’s the matter with you, Marston?’ Julian said. ‘You look frightful.’
‘You do seem a bit upset,’ Frankie said. ‘What happened? Do tell.’
‘Don’t tell her anything,’ said Marston. ‘I’m going to dress up too. Why should I be the only one in this resplendent assembly with a torn shirt and stained bags? Wait till you see what I’ve got – and I don’t mean what you mean.’
‘Let’s get the food ready,’ Frankie said to me.
The kitchen table was covered with things they had brought from Cheltenham, and there were several bottles of white wine cooling in a bucket of water in the corner.
‘What have you done to Marston?’
‘Nothing. What on earth do you mean?’
Nothing had happened. We were sitting under a tree, looking at a field of corn, and Marston put his head in my lap and then a man came along and yelled at us. I said, ‘What do you think we’re doing to your corn? Can’t we even look at your corn?’ But Marston only mumbled, ‘I’m fearfully sorry. I’m dreadfully sorry’, and so on. And then we went walking along the main road in the sun, not talking much because I was hating him.
‘Nothing happened,’ I said.
‘Oh well, it’s a pity, because Julian’s in a bad mood today. However, don’t take any notice of him. Don’t start a row whatever you do, just smooth it over.
‘Look at the lovely bit of steak I got,’ she said. ‘Marston says he can’t touch any meat except cold ham, I ask you, and he does the cooling. Cold ham and risotto, risotto and cold ham. And curried eggs. That’s what we’ve been living on ever since we came down here.’
When we went in with the food they had finished a bottle of wine. Julian said, ‘Here’s luck to the ruddy citizens I saw this morning. May they be flourishing and producing offspring exactly like themselves, but far, far worse, long after we are all in our dishonoured graves.’
Marston was now wearing black silk pyjamas with a pattern of red and green dragons. His long, thin neck and sad face looked extraordinary above this get-up. Frankie and I glanced at each other and giggled. Julian scowled at me.
Marston went over to the mirror. ‘Never mind,’ he said softly to his reflection, ‘never mind, never mind.’
‘It’s ham and salad again,’ Frankie said. ‘But I’ve got some prunes.’
The table was near the window. A hot, white glare shone in our eyes. We tried pulling the blinds down, but one got stuck and we went on eating in the glare.
Then Frankie talked about the steak again. ‘You must have your first bite tonight, Marston.’
‘It won’t be my first bite,’ Marston said. ‘I’ve been persuaded to taste beef before.’
‘Oh, you never told me that. No likee?’
‘I thought it would taste like sweat,’ Marston said, ‘and it did.’
Frankie looked annoyed. ‘The trouble with you people is that you try to put other people off just because you don’t fancy a thing. If you’d just not like it and leave it at that, but you don’t rest till you’ve put everybody else off.’
‘Oh God, let’s get tight,’ Julian said. ‘There are bottles and bottles of wine in the kitchen. Cooling, I hope.’
‘We’ll get them,’ Frankie said, ‘we’ll get them.’
Frankie sat on the kitchen table. ‘I think Julian’s spoiling for a fight. Let him calm down a bit . . . you’re staving Marston off, aren’t you? And he doesn’t like it; he’s very disconsolate. You’ve got to be careful of these people, they can be as hard as nails.’
Far away a dog barked, a cock crew, somebody was sawing wood. I hardly noticed what she had said because again it came, that feeling of happiness, the fish-in-water feeling, so that I couldn’t even remember having been unhappy.
Frankie started on a long story about a man called Petersen who had written a play about Northern gods and goddesses and Yggdrasil.
‘I thought Yggdrasil was a girl, but it seems it’s a tree.’
Marston and Julian and all that lot had taken Petersen up, she said. They used to ask him out and make him drunk. Then he would take his clothes off and dance about and if he did not do it somebody would be sure to say, ‘What’s the matter? Why don’t you perform?’ But as soon as he got really sordid they had dropped him like a hot brick. He simply disappeared.
‘I met an old boy who knew him and asked what had happened. The old boy said, “A gigantic maw has swallowed Petersen . . .” Maw, what a word! It reminds me of Julian’s mother – she’s a maw if you like. Well, I’d better take these bottles along now.’
So we took the four bottles out of the bucket and went back into the sitting-room. It was still hot and glaring, but not quite so bad as it had been.
‘Now it’s my turn to make a speech,’ said Marston. ‘But you must drink, pretty creatures, drink.’ He filled out glasses and I dran
k mine quickly. He filled it up again.
‘My speech,’ he said, ‘my speech . . . Let’s drink to afternoon, the best of all times. Cruel morning is past, fearful, unpredictable, lonely night is yet to come. Here’s to heartrending afternoon . . . I will now recite a poem. It’s hackneyed and pawed about, like so many other things, but beautiful. “C’est bien la pire peine de ne savoir pourquoi –”’
He stopped and began to cry. We all looked at him. Nobody laughed; nobody knew what to say. I felt shut in by the glare.
Marston blew his nose, wiped his eyes and gabbled on: ‘“Pourquoi, sans amour et sans haine, Mon coeur a tant de peine . . .”’
‘“Sans amour” is right,’ Julian said, staring at me. I looked back into his eyes.
‘“But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,”’ Marston went on, ‘“Though we prayed you, Paid you, brayed you. In a mortar – for you could not, Sweet.”’
‘The motorbike was altogether a bit of luck,’ Frankie said. ‘Julian had a fight with a man on the bus going in. I thought he’d have a fit.’
‘Fight?’ Julian said. ‘I never fight. I’m frightened.’
He was still staring at me.
‘Well then, you were very rude.’
‘I’m never rude, either,’ Julian said. ‘I’m far too frightened ever to be rude! I suffer in silence.’
‘I shouldn’t do that if I were you,’ I said. The wine was making me giddy. So was the glare, and the way he was looking at me.
‘What’s this young creature up to?’ he said. ‘I can’t quite make her out.’
‘Ruddy respectable citizens never can.’
‘Ha-hah,’ Frankie said. ‘One in the eye for you, Julian. You’re always going on about respectable people, but you know you are respectable, whatever you say and whatever you do and you’ll be respectable till you die, however you die, and that way you miss something, believe it or not.’
‘You keep out of this, Phoenician,’ Julian said. ‘You’ve got nothing to say. Retire under the table, because that’s where I like you best.’
Frankie crawled under the table. She darted her head out now and again, pretending to bite his legs, and every time she did that he would shiver and scream.