School for Love

by Olivia Manning

  ‘Shall I ask Mr Jewel to come and see you?’ Felix asked mischievously. Miss Bohun replied with composure: ‘There’s no need. He knows he will be very welcome any time he cares to drop in.’

  To-day Felix found Mr Jewel sitting out on a wooden seat in the paved, tree-planted square that was overlooked on three sides by hospital windows. The sun felt very strong here, but Mr Jewel, in an old shrunken tussore suit, sat blinking contentedly in the hottest corner of the yard. As soon as Felix arrived he started talking. Nowadays he was always full of the gossip of his companions in the ward, the young policemen, suffering from dysentery or bullet wounds, who came and went. This usually related to the growing tension in Palestine and the belief that one day soon there would be a special shot, a special bomb explosion – not the sort of thing that happened every day, but something significant – and, as Mr Jewel put it, ‘all hell’ud be let loose.’ He often swore he had heard shots at night out in the dark spaces of the Russian Compound. Last night in the silent sleeping hours there had suddenly been the ringing of a telephone and then footsteps hurrying along the stone corridors. Just when everyone was half asleep again, the ambulance had swung into the courtyard. ‘What happened last night?’ he had asked the nurses in the morning. They told him a Government official driving up late from Tel-Aviv had been caught in an ambush.

  ‘Shot through the shoulder,’ said Mr Jewel with sombre relish. ‘If they get many more of ’em, they’ll be turning me out. They’ll want my bed; it stands to reason. Anyway I can’t stay here for ever.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Felix put a test question.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Mr Jewel and Felix was certain he knew he could not return to Miss Bohun’s.

  Felix said suddenly: ‘There’s another lady in the house now.’

  ‘What!’ said Mr Jewel loudly, ‘not in my attic?’

  It was as though the attic had become a joke they both understood, but Felix was glad to evade a reply that told him more than: ‘Oh, no; she’s not in the attic.’

  Mr Jewel gave a shout of laughter: ‘So she’s let the front room, has she?’

  Felix said: ‘Well, Miss Bohun wants her to leave, and she says she won’t.’

  ‘She won’t, eh? Good for her.’ Mr Jewel seemed to think the matter a tremendous joke, but Felix remained serious.

  ‘This lady’s called Mrs Ellis and she’s very nice. She’s a widow. Her husband was a rear-gunner and he was killed and she’s going to have a baby. Miss Bohun promised to let her have the whole house in the autumn. Now Miss Bohun wants her to go so she can get in another lady. But it’s not funny, Mr Jewel, it’s not fair. I said: “If Mrs Ellis goes, I go.”’

  ‘Did you!’ Mr Jewel sobered at once, the first person to take this declaration as it was meant to be taken.

  ‘Yes, but Mrs Ellis just pushed me out of the door and now Miss Bohun won’t speak to me.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you,’ said Mr Jewel comfortingly.

  ‘But why is she like this? Why is she so beastly to Mrs Ellis?’

  Mr Jewel shook his head: ‘Ah, she’ll get over it.’

  ‘She made Frau Leszno go and . . .’ but Felix had to pause unable to make the further point that she had made Mr Jewel go, too.

  ‘Well, Frau Leszno was a mean-spirited creature, I’d’ve got rid of her myself. But Miss Bohun – she’s not a bad sort, you know. Not a bad sort.’

  Felix remained silent. His feelings about Miss Bohun were changing – or, rather, not so much changing, he felt, as appearing out of a cloud of illusion. He could not agree that Miss Bohun was not a bad sort. He said:

  ‘If it weren’t silly to speak of people being wicked, I’d say she was wicked.’

  ‘Ar, no,’ Mr Jewel shook his head again, ‘to be wicked you’ve got to have wicked intentions. Now, can you say she’s got wicked intentions? Can you?’

  Felix did not reply. He felt no confidence in Miss Bohun’s intentions. He wondered why Mr Jewel should condemn Frau Leszno and yet stand up so stoutly for Miss Bohun. Somewhere in his mind he found himself suspecting the single-mindedness of Mr Jewel’s loyalty. Miss Bohun had, after all, power to take him back or reject him. Felix put this suspicion aside almost at once, but he was left with the conviction that Mr Jewel was rather simple; perhaps he was simple because he was old. It seemed clear to Felix, from some of the things he had heard his mother and Mr Jewel say, that they had grown up in a simpler world; and, being simpler, a world in which hypocrisy had had things all its own way. But it didn’t have things all its own way with Mrs Ellis and Felix. Oh no! They were young and knowing; they saw through Miss Bohun. This satisfactory conclusion, now reached, was jolted rather askew by Mr Jewel’s next remark:

  ‘The trouble with her,’ he said, ‘is that no one’s ever loved her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Felix; that was, of course, a new aspect of the case, but he could not consider it with much sympathy. ‘Probably her own fault,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know as love always goes to the most deserving.’

  ‘Well, then, why hasn’t anyone loved her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you love her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  Felix opened his mouth to say: ‘Because she doesn’t love me,’ but he thought that sounded childish: he wasn’t a baby that had to be loved, so he said: ‘She was kind to me; she gave me a home. Perhaps I would have – well, liked her, anyway – but I don’t think she wanted me to. I’m not sure that’s what she wants.’

  ‘What else could she want?’

  Felix did not know. On reflection he had to admit that Miss Bohun was beyond the range of his understanding. ‘Perhaps she isn’t a hypocrite,’ he said. ‘Or, perhaps . . .’ and here he felt he was being really profound, ‘perhaps she is and she doesn’t know.’

  Mr Jewel drew his eyebrows together and was about to make some comment when the luncheon bell rang and he got up hastily. ‘Mustn’t miss me grub,’ he said.

  As Mr Jewel went into the hospital, Mrs Ellis came out and was unable to pretend she did not see Felix at the door. She said: ‘Hello,’ without enthusiasm.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘To get a meal somewhere.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘I think you’d better not. Children nowadays seem to be so easily corrupted.’

  ‘I didn’t tell her anything . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know there was anything to tell.’ Mrs Ellis turned and started walking to the gate, but she did not prevent Felix from following her.

  ‘I didn’t say there was anything to tell.’ Felix was bewildered and wretched at this blame being put upon him. ‘Do let me come with you!’

  ‘Oh!’ she made a small, petulant movement that suddenly made him see her not as the experienced grownup he had always supposed her to be, but a girl; someone not much more grown-up than he was himself. He realised that, under her confident manner, life was probably as difficult for her as for him. He felt sorry for her. ‘Please let me come,’ he said.

  She replied crossly: ‘All right.’ He did not know whether she was cross with him or merely wrapped up in herself and her pregnancy. She looked ill and tired. As they walked down through the crowded, hot main road her face grew damp and strained.

  He said anxiously: ‘You won’t leave the house, will you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t please the old bitch.’

  After that neither of them spoke until they reached the restaurant door, then she said: ‘You can come in if you like.’

  Another time Felix would have been delighted by this invitation, but now, feeling himself unwanted, he followed only because convinced that it was not his fault his friendship with Mrs Ellis had gone wrong: if he stayed with her long enough, the situation might be explained to her, he might justify himself, her anger might be dispelled and everything be as it had been before. But Mrs Ellis showed no sign of doing the one thing that might start the process – directly a
ccusing him. She looked at the menu blankly: there was only the controlled-price meal with very little choice: she ordered, not consulting Felix. When the waiter went off, Felix tried to start a discussion that should have interested them both: ‘Mr Jewel says that no one loves Miss Bohun.’

  ‘Are you expecting me to contradict that statement?’

  ‘No, but I mean – he thinks that’s what’s wrong with her.’

  Mrs Ellis gave an acid little laugh; she started fumbling in her bag for her cigarettes and matches, murmuring as she did so, not very distinctly:

  ‘And we are put on earth a little space,

  That we may learn to bear the beams of love.’

  Felix leant towards her and said: ‘What did you say?’ She laughed again, more pleasantly: ‘Don’t you know that poem? I thought everyone learnt it at school,’ and as she put her matches and her squashed packet of Camels on the table, she recited:

  ‘Look on the rising sun – there God does live,

  And gives His light, and gives His heat away;

  And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive

  Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

  ‘And we are put on earth a little space,

  That we may learn to bear the beams of love . . .’

  Noticing his troubled, puzzled face, she broke off and said: ‘Don’t you know it?’

  ‘No. Do go on. I don’t know any poetry. My mother didn’t like it much. She once said it was nonsense.’

  ‘Oh!’ her tone and expression implied she was not going to be drawn into any further criticism of his mother; she said in an offhand way: ‘Well, that piece is something more than sense.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I suppose it means that life is a sort of school for love.’

  ‘But is it a . . . what you said?’ After a pause, he repeated self-consciously: ‘A school for love?’

  She shrugged her shoulders but would not speak. She swallowed in her throat: he thought her eyes were aswim but she shut them so quickly, he could not tell for sure. He felt completely mystified. He wondered if his experience could ever widen enough to bring within his understanding anyone who behaved and talked as Mrs Ellis did. One thing he did know, it would be useless to ask her for an explanation of herself.

  At last he ventured to beg: ‘Please recite it again,’ but she shook her head and lit a cigarette. Knowing her obstinacy, he could only revert to Miss Bohun.

  ‘Do you think that’s what’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mrs Ellis put out her match with irritable decision. ‘If it is, she’s past saving now. She’s a frustrated, spiteful, power-mad old so-and-so. No amount of love could unpack that bundle of neuroses.’

  Felix sighed unhappily. He felt Mrs Ellis’s to be an extreme judgment: he was worried by her anger and the violence of emotion he felt beneath it. His mother had shown him nothing like this. In reaction he found himself about to repeat Mr Jewel’s words: ‘Miss Bohun’s not a bad sort, really,’ but he stopped himself, feeling that that was not true either.

  After luncheon they went down to the bar below. The counter was shut: the small room was hot and stuffy and smelt of stale tobacco smoke, but it was somewhere to sit out of the afternoon heat. She said to Felix: ‘What about your lessons?’

  He said: ‘I haven’t anything much.’

  ‘And what about Faro?’

  ‘She’ll be all right. Maria always feeds her.’

  Mrs Ellis settled in a corner to read a book called Put Out More Flags and to smoke her way through her cigarettes. Felix read a shabby copy of the Palestine Post someone had left on the floor. He could not bring himself to leave Mrs Ellis, and when at last she decided it was tea-time he trailed after her to a tea-shop. After that they wandered slowly about the streets as the shops closed and the lights came on through the delicately coloured summer twilight. Now that the black-out was lifted, the streets were alive after dark and the café gardens were packed with people. Mrs Ellis took Felix to a large garden behind Zion Circus and bought wine for herself and lemonade for him.

  ‘Aren’t you going to the Innsbruck?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m rather tired of it.’

  Felix’s heart leapt as though the fact that she was tired of the Innsbruck should reconcile her to him, but she showed no more interest in him and it was clear she was indifferent to his company. They were sitting near some coloured electric lights so she was able to read her book again; she seemed to find it funny, but when Felix urged her to tell him the jokes, she ignored him. At last she said: ‘Shouldn’t you go back to supper?’

  He would not move. He said: ‘I’m not really hungry.’

  ‘Well,’ she said with resignation, ‘I suppose we can get something here.’ She ordered an omelette for each of them.

  Mrs Ellis finished her book and there was nothing to do, yet they sat around doing nothing until nearly eleven o’clock: then they walked home slowly. Felix, reflecting on the complete emptiness of the day that, despite her company, had stupefied him with boredom, supposed even that was better than not seeing her at all. When they got back to the house and she was about to enter her room, he tried to pin her down to another similar day.

  He said: ‘I say, what time are you going out to-morrow?’

  ‘My dear boy, how on earth do I know?’ She closed the door on him before he could speak again.

  When he got into his own room he saw that Faro was not lying, as she always lay, on his bed. There was no dent on the counterpane and when he touched it, no warmth. He felt a sudden premonition of loss that was the more acute because of the frightening justice of its happening on this very day when he had left her so long alone. But perhaps she had merely grown tired of waiting for him. He had to find her. He could not sleep if he did not find her. He leant from the window calling her name. There was no rustle or movement in the garden below. He ran downstairs and looked for her in the room. She was not there. Then he went out in the pale starlight and found his way around the garden. He sensed the emptiness of her absence. He knew she was not there. He felt acute fear at the thought she might have run away, that she might have been stolen, that she might be dead. At last in despair he returned to his room and lay in bed, tensed and listening for any noise that might mean her return. At the back of his fear there was a desolation of guilt. He had been told that Siamese cats could not live without love – and since Mrs Ellis’s arrival he had often forgotten Faro. He imagined her feeling deserted, suffering as he had suffered when his mother died. He was desolated in pity and self-accusation.

  He slept at last, but woke early with the sense of some unbearable misery weighing upon him. As soon as Miss Bohun appeared at breakfast he said at once: ‘I can’t find Faro.’

  She said: ‘I must speak seriously to you, Felix. Yesterday you did not come in for lunch, tea or dinner. I was very . . .’

  He interrupted her to ask: ‘Where is Faro?’

  ‘If you ask politely, I will be happy to reply.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Bohun, please, where is Faro?’

  ‘She has gone,’ said Miss Bohun, brightly informative, taking her seat at the table.

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘I have given her away.’

  ‘But you can’t,’ Felix found it difficult to speak. He stammered painfully: ‘You didn’t say anything . . .’

  ‘Did I have to say anything? You forget Faro is my cat.’

  Felix, not knowing what to say, stood at the table, gazing at Miss Bohun with an expression of such dismay that an explanation seemed to be forced from her: ‘She’s gone to Madame Sarkis, who has a male Siamese. She’ll come to no harm and one day perhaps, if you’re a sensible boy, we’ll have her back again.’

  ‘Where does Madame Sarkis live?’

  ‘Sit down, Felix,’ there was an appeal in her voice to which he refused to listen. ‘I’ll take you to see her if . . .’

  As Felix started over towards the door, Miss Bohun raised her voice:
‘Sit down and have your breakfast.’ He took no notice. ‘Felix!’ she suddenly paused him with a command and then changed her tone. ‘Really, it is too bad. This is my house, but you’d think I was a nobody. Mrs Ellis refuses to leave when I ask her to go; you don’t come in for your meals; you don’t warn me – food is wasted. Now your breakfast – there’s a fried egg, too. All the trouble of running this house and yet I’m treated like a mere – a mere housekeeper. Now, don’t be a silly boy. You forget Faro is a cat, and a female. She’s coming into season.’

  Felix, paused by the table, turned on her a mystified face. He could feel no reassurance in her change of tone: he was fearful and filled with distrust. For a moment, seeing her sitting there calmly and running at will through the gamut of her tones of command, exasperation, self-pity and disapproval, he was suddenly certain of her falsity. His faith in her as a human being had gone and he could believe her to be capable of anything – perhaps even of cruelty to Faro or indifference were Faro suffering. He remembered suddenly the burning rats in the cage and an agony of apprehension seized him – but Miss Bohun, flicking up her eyelids in a momentary glance, saw only his bewilderment and she said with satisfaction:

  ‘There! You see, you don’t know what I mean by “coming into season”. You think you’re so clever, but really you’re only an ignorant little boy. You don’t know anything. Now have your breakfast.’

  With a quick movement Felix got out of the room into the courtyard and closed the door after him. It had been in his mind to ask Nikky about Madame Sarkis, but he was afraid to stop so near the house for fear Miss Bohun caught him. He hurried out to the road and then made his way at a half-run to the Innsbruck, where he might get Madame Sarkis’s address from one of Nikky’s friends. There was no one there. He could, he supposed, ask Mr Posthorn at the Educational Offices, but he was due there for a lesson that morning so he could not risk being caught. He decided to try the General Post Office, where he stood in a queue for twenty minutes before he reached the counter.