The Transit of Venus

by Shirley Hazzard

  When he heard her typing he made a pretext to stand awhile by her desk. There was something nearly sexual in this, like the relation of tenor to accompanist, she seated and subsidiary, he standing and commanding. She faintly sweetly smelt of talcum or shampoo.

  Her fingers, grubby from carbon, unnerved by his proximity, turned six copies to scrub at an error. A Style Manual—what style could there conceivably be in all this?—was open to instructions of inane and infinite tedium. I have the honour to be, sir, Your Excellency's humble and obedient. On the surface of the desk there was a dusting of molted rubber over the clawings and droppings of a score of previous, vanished secretary-birds.

  Excellence and honour. With less satisfaction, he wondered, Why do they put up with this?

  He all but placed his hand on her brown velvet shoulder. Could very nearly feel the smooth life curve into his palm—and at that instant would have let her off, wished her safe from all his harm, while she was so anxiously, innocently bent to her rubbishy task.

  "That one is of prime importance," he said. "The rest can wait."

  From his room he heard her storming the keys, the rip of the roller, arpeggios of sentences, the andante of an indented passage.

  A distraught exclamation for a false note. It was curious that a machine could reproduce the anxiety of the person operating it.

  The imagined globe of her velours shoulder stayed, palpable, in his hand still .cupped to its contour.

  Evening rose like dawn. The city inhaled it like a breath of immense relief. A wave of excitement lifted Christian from desk to window—where the metropolis once more lay helpless and expectant under a dusk phenomenal as an eclipse. A cautious man would have looked through special glasses, or through a hole cut in cardboard. With the naked eye, Christian gazed. He was one who could still see the sky. Who knew his Yeats. His Freud.

  Not for nothing were these names prefaced by the possessive pronoun.

  He was tempted to ask her outright to go to dinner with him. But no, not outright, and not the first evening. Let a decent interval elapse, and hope the weather would hold. There was prodigality in this—they had so little time. In thought he said "they"—and could not think unjustified this newly possessive pronoun.

  The following day was hot. The city opened all its windows as Christian rode to work in his car. Down to tower'd Camelot. As if by assignation, she wore the dress of the cornflowers—was it?—and her hair down. He had heard that girls were ironing their hair that year, in order to wear it long and flat, but did not think that would apply to her. It would not be possible to do this oneself—perhaps their mothers did it for them. He tried to picture the little kitchen at Dulwich, neat as a new pin, the mother shapeless in flowered apron, and she with her head laid on the ironing board. It was like an execution.

  It was a simple matter to detain her after work. There was no difficulty in manufacturing a crisis—most crises in that place being manufactured ones—by retarding some memorandum into the afternoon. When she came back at two from her hasty sandwich (he assumed the sandwich, noted the haste), he struck. At six they were alone, he attentively reading over, she pounding. He got up, went to the gents' to spruce. He ran water, ran a comb, ran a critical eye.

  Smiled into a square of quicksilver that was cracked from side to side. Walking back along the inert grey arteries, he could hear the machine still racing, like a heart.

  He had plumped for the magisterial assertion: "I am going to drive you home." Had of course hoped she wouldn't look quite so bowled over. "Let's face it"—with this interpolation Christian habitually reproved a widespread tendency to shirk—"we're going to be another half-hour here, at least. Might as well"—foregone conclusion—"have a bite of dinner somewhere, then I'll drive you."

  He thought he detected slight equivocation—he would not call it suspicion—mingling with her astonishment. She must be pleased, however, even thrilled. A girl who passed her days turning carbons would welcome any diversion. Your Excellency's humble and obedient.

  Not that he regarded himself as any diversion.

  "You are kind," she said, without causing him a qualm.

  She was in the car at his side. They were crossing a river, the river, after Chablis and Dover sole. It was by no means dark.

  Ahead, the smooth common was an innocence of late cricket balls and unleashed terriers and elderly couples safely benched. (The hanky-panky would come later, with nightfall.) The trees, though; he had never felt it before—such trees, like clouds, like screens, like great bouquets. She was doing this: first cornflowers, now trees.

  Light-winged Dryad, beechen green, Rima the bird-girl that was her type, the constant nymph what was her name Tess of the—no, not that: Tessa. All this at Clapham.

  He would have liked to stop the car, there and then, just to look at the trees, and would have taken her in his arms almost incidentally. But the decent interval must elapse. She had said so little, everything correct and nothing foolish. She was quite still, and looked at the evening and the trees, her head tipped towards the seat-back though not reclining. They drove on, along suburban avenues for which he felt the kindliness one summons for a boy-hood friend who has not prospered.

  "You turn left at the college/'

  He turned.

  "It's along here on the right. This one."

  He had been confident of a row of demoralized asters, three front steps, a porch of frosted glass glumly bulging from brick. And could not have been more irritated if she had deliberately deceived him.

  Not that the house was grand: a pretty house, white but eighteenth-century, banked with fuchsia along a brief crescent of raked gravel.

  But it was a house, precisely, of the sort he and Grace had looked at and decided they could not afford.

  Every window was lit. It was like a party house described in a novel: "ablaze." (Christian himself preferred to switch lights off when not in use.) Or it was a ship, festive and stately with all her canvas up and pennants fluttering. On the ground floor a silk curtain belled through French windows, like a spinnaker.

  He pulled up at the door. The car turned shabby in the glow from the house. He remembered plastic toys on the back seat.

  "You'll come in." She was almost social on her own territory.

  "I'll be getting back. It's late." He was being rude, but the house was a menace. He could feel the father's eye on him, see himself blinking in the lights, shown up as if at a police station. I must warn you that anything you say will be.

  Even so, heard himself announce, "Another time." And boldly leaned across her lap to manage the door, laying his hand over her own ineffectual grip as if sealing a contract.

  "Up and push," he said. Then, "Give it a good bang."

  A Scots terrier scrambled down the steps to her, all muzzle and paws and sprout of tail. He heard her say, "Here, Hoots. Here, Hootsie," in a kind of ecstasy.

  He withdrew to town in confusion. He had been prepared for his role, genial but restrained, master of the situation in the modest house of the begonias and new-pin kitchen; helping them over their natural diffidence. Had even been ready for a possible Socialist brother whose surly challenges could be gracefully debunked. But distinctly not prepared for the equalizing properties of Lowestoft, Regency, bound editions, a faded but valuable Samarkand; and, perhaps, attributed-to-Hoppner over the original fireplace.

  He disliked, moreover, the sensation of the narrow squeak.

  He could not help associating his present impetuosity with his first encounter with Grace. Was there not, in fact, a recognized condition called the Cophetua Complex? Or had he made that up?

  Reaching home, he put in a call to Grace. This, which should have been a help, was not. A neighbour had dropped in, it was too late to bring the boys to the phone, just one second I have to turn something off. Jeremy had been sceptical about the authentic Round Table, which they had paid to see that morning, and Hugh had sulked.

  "Anything going on at the office?"

  "
This dust-up in Africa's got us jumping. Then there's always the secretary of state. And we're short-handed as usual. They've given me a temporary."

  "Miss Mellish got away, then?"

  "There'll be chaos by the time she gets back."

  He put the phone down and took off his shoes. Blinds were down, to protect the fading chintz. On the closed piano, Grace's music lay folded. He could see the House of Ware, its white sails crowding. The girl bending, the doorway lit like a stage. Her face and hands active with love as she reached to the dog scrabbling at her ankles, her knees. He could hear her speaking, in her voice of an articulate doe; he could feel the very burr in the animal's coarse coat. He could scarcely wait for tomorrow.

  Next morning Christian stowed the toys away in the trunk of the car. The weather was holding, the decent interval elapsing. A Friday sense of near-abandon enlivened the department, as if something other than an English weekend lay ahead. There was a lull, even in Africa, where crocodiles idled on sluggish waters between walls of motionless bamboos.

  The sight of Cordelia Ware in pink printed flowers dispelled the defeat of Dulwich, exorcising the spectre of Detective-Inspector Father.

  Only Elphinstone had a cold. Elphinstone was flying to an important conference in Brussels that evening, and was concerned about effects of cabin pressure on the ears.

  Christian stood by Elphinstone's desk. "All set?"

  Elphinstone coughed. At first phlegmlessly, like faulty ignition, the engine turning over and over till it caught. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket in a flurry of lint.

  Christian turned away and looked at two framed photographs hung beside the map on the wall: Elphinstone's grandfather in diplomatic dress; and a weeding party of British residents once organized by Elphinstone at the English cemetery on Capri.

  The map was so old that India was pink.

  At last Elphinstone replied. "I have no problem." He said the word "problem" with sardonic emphasis to make clear he knew it for an Americanism.

  "You know I'm on call tomorrow." Christian was duty officer for the weekend. "If anything blows up."

  Elphinstone was all sympathy. "You're not having much of a summer. I must say. Losing your weekend/' He raised the clotted handkerchief to his face and looked at Christian over it, like a bandit. "And working late."

  Christian took his eyes off the trowels, grins, and brandished dandelions of the English cemetery, and stared Elphinstone down.

  "Not to worry."

  When Christian went out, Elphinstone hawked once more into his handkerchief, and spread it to dry on the window-sill.

  In innocence of this, in all innocence, Cordelia Ware glanced up from her scruffy papers as Christian came through—her look a refreshing contrast to Elphinstone's. Christian sat at his desk signing papers and vengefully slinging them into boxes. He felt rage, and some triumph. Elphinstone's eyes above the bandanna had been something to see. An incompetent, an intolerable fool imposed on us, let's face it, because his grandfather negotiated a disastrous treaty in 1908. God, if the public only knew.

  The afternoon wore on, wore out. Steadily relieved of the ballast of early departures, the entire floor became airy, buoyant. Miss Ware—Cordelia—brought him the incoming. The lull persisted, extending over continents, taking the wind out of Africa's sails. The official boom swung ineffectually to and fro in the global Doldrums.

  There were copies for information, and the text of a ministerial speech which would not now be delivered owing to altered circumstances. There were papers marked PUS, for the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, on which action was neither contemplated nor required. There was a postcard of the rocks at Etretat from Miss Mellish: Hope all goes well.

  "Mellish is in Monet country."

  "She sent me one too." She handed it to him. The same rocks: I forgot to mention, just leave the filing for my return.

  They stood, each holding a card, ticket-of-leave, with time running out.

  He could not be mistaken in this stillness. The phone rang.

  It was an opposite number in a parallel department. "Look here, Thrale. We're not getting the picture on the Brussels meeting."

  "What more do you want? We're sending one of our best people."

  "No reflection on your nest, old boy. Merely a matter of communication." The word "communication" was given the arch inflection Elphinstone had conferred on "problem."

  Grimacing to the girl, Christian waved the receiver in a show of exasperation. He had never committed improprieties with Miss Mellish. He was in a fever for the day to end, or begin. The voice twanged on, irresistibly drawn to jargon but unwilling to take the blame.

  With impatient ball-point Christian scored, on the blotter, the outline of the colored postcard, his carnet de bal.

  All at once she was saying, "If there's nothing more," and holding her handbag. She had a scarlet cardigan over her arm and was mouthing Good-bye, Mr. Thrale. It had never occurred to him that she would of her own accord leave promptly. Before he could get the phone down she was gone; and in the corridor nowhere to be seen.

  He lost his head completely and strode out to stop the lift.

  Only Elphinstone was poised between the lift doors, ready to plunge. Elphinstone grinned at Christian over his shoulder, and raised his fingers in a Victory sign. He might have been making a parachute jump. As he disappeared his hand went to his heart, fumbling for the rip cord.

  Back in his office, Christian stood at the window where it had all begun. He was unsure of what he had intended, but definitely not this prospect of brooding through a failed evening. On a last clan-gour of filing cabinets and desk drawers, the office fell silent. All across London, girls were gliding in and out of cars, and younger men were leaning over saying, "Up and push." Couples were lifting trays and calling, "You bring the ice," and the garden furniture from Harrods was outdoors at last.

  Only Christian stood disconsolate by his office casement.

  Had it not been for the crimson sweater, he might not have spotted her. She was crossing the street below, walking slow and heading for the park. Or, it could be, for the Underground—but one does not walk that way toward a train, lifting one's head to the sky and hitching one's woolly casually over a shoulder. She had slim legs and little flat shoes; and, like all her movements, her walk was charming.

  He left the web, he left the loom. In three paces was at his desk slamming drawers and snatching pen and spectacles. He retained enough presence of mind to grab up an envelope of weekend documents as a prop.

  When, in the street, he had her in view, he held back in imaginary relish of the sweetness of it. Stalking her, he knew an assurance of happiness such as he had seldom felt as an adult and which was incompatible with childhood. Christian had been in love as a lad, then as a young man ready to take a wife. But not as now when, quite out of any context, representing no forces other than those beyond his control, he watched Cordelia Ware in a frenzy of tenderness, confused between worship and condescension.

  He overtook her as she was turning into the park. And was the soul of amiable surprise: No Dulwich? She explained, the evening was so beautiful, and the park. They passed through the gateway together. They were drifting past banks of iridescent flowers and among cornelian trees. They crossed a bridge and sat on a bench alone. The office envelope, whose wadded warm sensation had grown repugnantly alive in Christian's hand, was stationed on his other side like an overzealous accomplice.

  Here there was a vast repose, the earth all grass and the sky all heaven; although waterfowl were squabbling over the flung crusts and a newspaper was carried past with an atrocious headline. Somewhere overhead, Elphinstone was safely airborne, swallowing hard to protect his ears and taking an extra mint from the proffered dish to be on the safe side.

  She sat straight, not in a gym-class way, with her fingers inter-twined on her crossed knee. And, with the evening on her hair and her pale skin, was all light. She was looking at him, grave and listening. Like the Muse: patient
, but accessible only to those acting in good faith.

  "Will you dine with me?" It was his most humble speech to her yet.

  Pink flowers rose on her printed breast. "If that is all right," she said.

  He did not know how to treat that appeal to his authority, and let it pass. Anything now seemed possible. The whole world, like the weekend, lay before them. He had not forgotten how she had once spent the night in town with a friend. Even at the time he had filed that info for possible future use.

  "Won't they expect you at home?"

  "I'll telephone."

  He did not wish to learn what she would say. To hell with Inspectre Father. They would sit between grass and sky while the light lasted, and later he would take her to dinner at a little place off Duke of York Street where one went on red-letter days.

  He had cashed a cheque that morning.

  The limitless expansion of likelihood shed new tolerance on every mortal thing: the subdued honkings of human enterprise that reached them from the road, the screech of an intemperate fowl almost at their feet, the couple on the nearby grass whose undulations beneath a spread mackintosh were like some lewd wink in their own direction; the iron dukes and stone admirals fixed atop pedestals and columns. All were appropriate to this earth, even the Guardsmen in their vermilion Mao jackets and Afro busbies, and the distant reticulation of a rising skyscraper against whose erection Christian had lately signed a petition.

  Christian was removed from pettiness, as one is only by immeasurable happiness or grief. His preoccupation with importance had unfitted him for greatness: he was a man of vicarious consequence only; but in those moments understood the large hearts of heroes.

  In this mood the evening passed. Christian took Cordelia's arm at the first green light and did not release it until they reached the restaurant. Over dinner he talked of Spain, where she had never been—"Let's face it, Madrid is the Prado"—and the Hebrides, where she had. He discovered that the house at Dulwich had belonged to her grandfather, and that she had three brothers, and an uncle deafened by too much quinine during a decade in Bengal. In addition to the Scottie there was a fringed cat called Ruffles.