by Alec Waugh
“Why didn’t you want me to read that book?” she asked.
He laughed outright.
“That’s one of the things that maybe I’ll tell you one day.”
It was the answer she had half expected. But she did not drop her glance. I’ve got to ask him, she thought. I’ve got to force the issue. It isn’t a woman’s job. But I can’t twiddle my thumbs while the whole thing falls to pieces.
“It was funny about that book,” she said. “In a certain way it reminded me of us.”
He started then. Her remark was so out of keeping with the whole, conduct of their relations together. Except when they were actually making love, they had never talked of love. He was startled; a little nervous too.
“In what way did it remind you.”
“Those letters. The way he used to write her when he got home, letters he never referred to when they met.”
“Oh, that?”
He said it on a laugh. He looked relieved. His relief surprised her.
“You look as though you thought I was referring to something else.”
“Perhaps I did.”
“But what else could there be?”
“That’s another of the things that I may tell you one day.”
He was smiling once again; his teasing half-smile, with his composure back again. His composure puzzled her. His reply as well. For he had not denied that there had been that likeness.
“But you did see a resemblance?” she insisted.
Again he laughed.
“There’s usually a parallel in every novel.”
Helplessly she met that smile. About them the noise of the cocktail party was working to its pitch. Another minute and some one would have joined them, a hostess would be insisting on an introduction. If it was to be said, it had to be said quickly. He was angry with her. He must be. Otherwise, how could he behave like this? Yet, what, what had she done? He couldn’t be jealous. He could not possibly be jealous. Could anyone have said anything? But what could anyone have said? Could he be angry still about those letters? Surely he couldn’t be. Yet it might be that. She’d never had her chance to put things right. She’d never been alone with him. He might still be nourishing a grievance, he’d been so hurt by that Jersey girl. He didn’t trust women, was ready to believe the worst. It might be that. I’ve got to put it right, now, right away, she thought.
“It’s funny about letters,” she said quickly. “When one’s not writing, when there’s no need for writing them, no occasion for it, one thinks of the letters one’ll write when the occasion comes. When you were here, all the time before you went away, I used to plan the letters that I’d write. I used to think of such amusing things to say. There’s so much I wanted to explain that I never could explain in words. Besides, you were doing all the talking. ‘I’ll wait till he’s away,’ I thought. I almost looked forward to your going away. So that I could write to you. And then when you were away, somehow I couldn’t write. It was ridiculous, but there it was. And because I couldn’t write the letters that I’d wanted to write, I wouldn’t write any others. That’s why I scarcely wrote. It was silly of me, but that was why.”
She paused, breathless; scanning his face, flushing, half ashamed of herself, thinking, I shouldn’t have said that: it was weak of me. She was making herself cheap. It wasn’t a woman’s business to explain herself. Yes, but she had to say it. She couldn’t stand on false pride. He had to be told. Now he’d understand, now it would be all right between them.
“I was so afraid you’d misunderstood, that you’d be hurt,” she hurried on. “I’ve been so worried I’ve never had a chance, a real chance, to explain. I’d thought …”
She stopped, flushing. She couldn’t go on. It was too shaming. He’d despise her. She was being hysterical, emotional. She must keep her dignity. Men set so much store by that; on keeping up one’s chin; behaving like a man.
“You understand now, don’t you?” she blurted out.
He laughed; a light and casual laugh.
“But, silly, what are you worrying about? I always under-stood.”
“But I thought…”
Again he laughed.
“I knew how it was. Those first few days, when memory’s fresh, one finds oneself writing every second hour. But later, it’s different. I felt the same myself. How often did I write after I reached New York? And as I was going north, you couldn’t write during those first few days. And when the time came when you could have written, well, I know how you were feeling. Wasn’t I feeling just the same myself?”
“But, Barclay …”
She stared helplessly. He was smiling at her in the teasing, affectionate way with which she was so heartbreakingly familiar : the smile that had been the prelude to so many close-locked hours; that had been almost a secret sign between them. Yet now, as he stood there looking down at her, he might have been a stranger: he might have been in another continent. Oh, it was hopeless.
And there across the room was Kitty waving to him.
“Go along,” she said. “You’re wanted.”
From a chair beside the window, Mrs. Trevor was watching the young couple.
“Of course I won’t deny,” she was asserting, “that from one point of view I am just a little disappointed. I had thought, I had hoped … well, you know what you said yourself about him and Mavis, they made such a handsome couple. At the same time, yes, I realize now, seeing those two together, that he and Mavis—no, of course it would have been impossible. I see that now. One has only to look at them to see what a perfect match they are, the complement of one another—what’s that phrase you come across in books?—two people being born for one another. And of course that’s where Mavis comes in, because Miss Bruce is very charming, and vivacious, and I’m sure she’s very clever, but she is, well, she never seems to realize that there are older people in the room, and she doesn’t seem to care what she says. I know it’s the fashion now for young girls to drink, and I know that American girls are different from English girls—all that living in flats instead of houses, and half their friends’ mothers having been through divorce courts—as I say, considering everything, I think she’s charming, yes, quite charming; yet even so, when I compare the kind of home and upbringing that a girl like Mavis has had, well, I can’t help feeling relieved that Mavis isn’t going to be married to someone who looks as though he had been born for someone like Miss Bruce.”
“You couldn’t be more right.”
“You think that? I’m so glad you think that. It’s curious, isn’t it, what a difference being in love makes to a man. Barclay doesn’t look the same person. That’s what makes it so hard for a girl. She meets a man; she gets to know him; she thinks she knows him inside out. Then suddenly he meets another girl. And she sees that he’s a completely different person. She wonders who this stranger is. That’s what’s so difficult for a girl. What I mean to say …”
But Mary had ceased to listen.
Across the room J. B. was standing by the bar. She walked across to him.
“Why don’t we dance?” she said.
He only needed the most slight encouragement. He had been brought up in a dancing period, when at every possible moment rugs had been rolled back and gramophones turned on. Since his arrival in Rodney, half the cocktail parties had become informal dances. He was a good dancer too. Like most fat men, he had a sense of rhythm. He was a good enough dancer to be able to speak deprecatingly of his dancing.
“It must be a bore for you, dancing with an old fogy like myself. I can’t do any of the fancy steps. Just look at those kids. Look at Kitty: young Barclay’s just as bad. Have you ever seen anything like it, ever?”
She never had. It was not dancing at all—in the sense that dancing meant a series of rhythmical movements in which two people moved as one. It was a series of intricate steps danced by each partner regardless of the other’s time and movements. Occasionally they would be holding hands: occasionally they would swing each other outward
s and then together: at times they would face each other, she bowing and genuflecting while he, with high raised hands and palms spread upwards, appeared to be invoking heaven. Sometimes they would advance together side by side. But a great deal of the time they were back to back, two or three feet apart, bending, bowing, sweeping their fingers along the ground, raising them above their heads. It was a Congo dance. It was graceless. Yet it seemed clearly to be the greatest fun. They roared with laughter, shouted, goading each other on. She had never seen Barclay dance like this before. Just as she had never seen him dive and somersault as he had on the yacht. It was a new side of him. He seemed such a schoolboy: which of course was what he was. Twenty-three. He was just a kid.
It did not matter. Of course it did not matter. They were just children playing. It made no difference as far as they were concerned, he and she. There was something very different, altogether different, between herself and him. She had only to dance with him to reassure herself of that.
In the music’s interval she moved across to him. She said nothing. She half-opened her arms. The gramophone had begun again: “Side By Side “—one of their theme songs. “Whenever I hear this tune, I’ll think of this,” he’d said. It was in the shadow of a car that he’d said that: a car parked under a mango tree, a bare fifty yards from a lit verandah. Next day he’d bought that record. How often had it not played to them across a twilit cabin.
“This of all tunes,” he said.
She made no answer. She was not going to let words come between them. She had an experiment to make. She had to know. She had to make quite certain.
She pressed the little finger of her left hand against his shoulder. As she relaxed its pressure, she substituted the pressure of her thumb. It was a game long ago played between them, and long ago perfected. “We’ve got to be careful when we dance together, very careful,” they’d agreed. It would have been so easy, so dangerously easy, to draw close, to forget as they danced that there existed in the world any people beside themselves. They had to be wary, very wary, if they were to make of their dancing the courtship that their nerves demanded.
In terms of caution they had evolved this game; dancing with a full foot between them, his right arm very lightly on her waist, her left hand on his shoulder, but her right arm limp against her side. Their shoulders scarcely touched. Yet they were so in tune with one another that a touch alone was sufficient to send the blood pounding in trebled pressure along their arteries. With a series of slight contacts, of carefully graduated contacts, they could play themselves into a mood when they had only to be alone for a brief second....
Gently she leant her shoulder against his. Gently his shoulder returned the pressure, following her move in this game that they had played in so many companies. The three middle fingers of his hands contracted beneath her shoulder-blades. It was he who was taking the lead now. She closed her eyes. She sighed. It was all right. How could she have ever doubted? It was just as it had always been. In her, in both of them, was waking that same madness, that same frenzy that woke between them in the long ritual of courtship. She could feel the electricity in his finger-tips. It was with an effort that she kept her fist unclenched as her arm swung loosely at her side. Yes, it was all right.
Five minutes alone with him. That was all she needed. Five minutes alone with him, and they would be back on their old carefree footing. Himself and Kitty! They were only kids. He had found a playfellow. The Rodney gossips might not realize that. But then they did not know what Barclay was like when he was in love. She knew. She could tell the difference. There was nothing between those two. Five minutes would put the whole thing right. That dance had told her that. Five minutes : that was all she needed.
17
The noise in the bar was loudening. Voices were raised. Glasses were lifted in farewell toasts. Another twenty minutes, and the Lady Grenville would be steaming eastwards to Barbados. There was always a crowd for the sailing of a Lady boat. There was a particularly large crowd today. It was the close of the Bruces’ visit.
“Not that it is goodbye,” he was insisting. “I’ve taken a fancy to this little island, and back home they’ve got a saying, ‘What J. B. fancies, you can mark down as his.’ ”
His remarks were addressed in general to that section of the room that he had engaged for his goodbye party. Which meant in essence practically the entire room. He had invited not only all those who had entertained him on the island, but all those with whom he had come into any contact there. It was his first real party, and he was doing it on a scale appropriate to the man of whom it was said at home that if he’d taken a fancy to a thing, that thing was as good as his.
He cast a benign glance over the room: over its Tudor decorations, the heavy armorial designs of its glass windows, the swinging cast-iron lanterns, the dark panelling, the wide-open fireplace, the thick damask curtain; at the three rows of tables with their plates of cocktail savouries, anchovy canapés, biscuits with salmon caviare, potato chips, almonds, olives, asparagus tips wrapped in brown bread and butter; celery stuffed with Roquefort cheese; the saucer-shaped cocktail glasses—satisfying himself that the dishes were half full: proof that the savouries were appreciated and the supply maintained ; making sure that no glass was empty.
His benignity even included a group of passengers on the opposite side of the door; tourists who were making the round trip and clearly regarded a three weeks’ cruise in terms of alcoholic relaxation. There were seven of them, five men, two women. The men were collarless, their shirt-sleeves rolled up. The women had their heads swathed turbanwise in the bright handkerchiefs which in Martinique the native women knot into peaked head-dresses. They were debating at the top of their voices the respective merits of Martinique and Cuban rum.
“It’s smoother in Martinique, it’s stronger, and it’s cheaper. You can’t get away from that. No, sir, you cannot get away from that.”
“But that’s just the point. It’s too smooth, it’s too strong. I like something that I can sip, that I can go on sipping.”
“That was what you were doing, wasn’t it.”
“I know. But think how I felt next morning.”
“If you’re going to bring things like that up against the island …”
They were arguing, but they were manifestly in the best of tempers.
J. B. included them in his smile of benign concern. They were not his guests, but he felt responsible for their good cheer. He had provided the background for them. They could not have made quite so merry in an empty room.
“Yes, sir,” he announced, “I can see that this little island and J. B. have started on a long liaison.”
He rotated his head slowly, his smile resting upon table after table, as though he were making of his announcement a personal tribute to each and every guest. But to Mary, sitting at his side, there was no doubt, no doubt at all, as to whom his announcement was directed. He turned to her and he dropped his voice.
“You don’t need telling, do you, what decided me?”
They were the words, almost identically, that Barclay had used on that high hill road barely a year ago. She half-closed her eyes. She could recall so clearly the whole incongruity of the moment: the midday glare, the car parked in the runnel of a dusty road, Barclay’s flushed face. Poor boy, she had thought. I must be kind to him.
Poor boy indeed. How superior she had felt, how confident, how completely in control of the situation. It didn’t seem possible that that could have been a bare year ago, that in one year the roles could have been reversed so completely. Poor boy indeed.
“I’ll tell them back home that I’ve fallen for an island. But that’ll be only half the truth,” J. B. was saying.
His knee under the table was resting against hers. He pressed it gently. She smiled at him. She had the same feeling again of confidence, of being superior to, of being in control of a situation, only now without any feeling of responsibility. It was all so very simple. There was here none of the intensity of
youth: that strained and tortured look that had touched her protective instincts, that had made her feel “I must be kind to him. Youth can be hurt so easily.” This was a game played by a middle-aged schoolboy. His life was a settled thing. He was in a groove from which he could not be shifted. He was past the intensity, the impulsiveness of youth. Boyishness was not youth. His heart had hardened: he wore the armour of complacence, worldly success, assurance; of self-familiarity: he was a man who could not surprise himself.
There were some women, no doubt, who would find attractive that mingling of boyishness and worldliness : who would be ready enough to play that particular game with him. And . no doubt it would be fun enough. There would be no heart-pangs to it. It would be a game, bearing the same relationship to the tragic and lovely quality of love that boyishness bore to youth. You wouldn’t with J. B. find yourself at the end of a year looking back to the moment that in retrospect was seen to mark the start, thinking, “Can there ever have been a time when I felt in control of the situation?” It would be nice to be the kind of woman who could let herself sink into that kind of game with some one like J. B.
Two tables down, Barclay was waving a hand towards the bar, trying to catch a steward’s eye. He was acting as J. B.’s aide-de-campe, acting the part extremely well. Clearly he enjoyed the role. He was smiling and his eyes were bright. He had none of the nervousness that affects so many men when they assume the role of host: none of the shyness in company that affects so many men who can be admirable company when they are alone. He was leaning forward across the table, breaking into a conversation, interjecting a remark, raising a laugh, returning to the talk at his own table. A stranger passing, pausing for a moment’s scrutiny, could not have failed to notice him, to recognize him as the most distinct personality in the room. Had there ever been a time when he had sat nervous and awkward at her side, trying to lead her out of a general conversation into a duologue? She blinked, she shook her head. What was the use of setting herself that kind of question? During this last month she had set herself so many questions.