No Truce with Time

by Alec Waugh

  “So don’t be surprised, any one of you,” J. B. was saying, “when a cable arrives saying, ‘Arriving Friday!’ ”

  This remark, as all his other remarks, was addressed to the room at large, but it was meant for herself alone.

  She smiled.

  “It mustn’t be too long,” she said.

  But she was not thinking of his return. Her eyes were on the clock. In a quarter of an hour the bugle would sound along the decks. The familiar “All visitors ashore “would echo through bar and lounges. Ten minutes, and they would be standing on the quay. There would be a hoot of the siren; the bustle with ropes and gang planks. For days now she had counted the hours to this moment: the moment of the Bruces’ sailing, when she would be alone again with Barclay. She’d know then, she’d know for certain. Not that she had any doubt.

  18

  There are native girls to sing “Aloha”; there are paper streamers and wreaths of flowers, when the long liners sail from Honolulu. It is part of a parade, part of a tourist programme. When ships leave Tahiti, there is no such organized farewell. There may be a crowd of girls with wreaths and strings of shells, laughing and crying and shouting messages; there may be small bands of straw-hatted youths strumming on guitars. It will be noisy, picturesque, a little sad. Or it may be that the ship will steal out quietly on a sunny morning with scarcely a figure waving from the quay. It depends upon who is sailing. The Tahitians will not organize their emotions. But that is the Pacific: that is among Polynesians, among a free-born people. In the West Indies there is no such atmosphere. The tourist does not identify himself with the native life. The natives are a background. He does not think of the island as being theirs. Indeed it is not theirs. It is not a part of them. Their instincts are rooted in the Guinea Coast from which there ancestors were shipped. They are alien to the Caribbean. Their music has its heart in Africa. It is a Congo rhythm that you hear across the hills at night. The natives crowd to the quay when a ship sails, when a ship docks. They wear bright clothes. They laugh. They shout. They chatter amongst themselves. They wave to passengers, to the officers, the crew. They seem in the forefront of the picture. They seem to be the picture. Yet it is not in terms of native life that the tourist in retrospect finds himself remembering Trinidad, St. Kitts and Martinique.

  The traveller returned from the Pacific will describe the differences between the New Hebrides and the Paumotu archipelago in terms of the difference between the Melanesian and the Polynesian stock. And indeed it is in the difference between the soft straight-haired, lazy type that Gauguin painted and the harsh, vindictive negroid type of the West Pacific that the difference between those two groups of islands lies. It is not like that in the Caribbean. It is by his white friends, the life of his white friends, their houses, their clubs, their sports, that the tourist differentiates between St. Lucia and El Santo.

  Rupert Brooke watching the Southern Cross sink over the horizon wrote wistfully to his friends in England of “the dear brown people “to whom he had said goodbye for ever. But to Mary, looking up at the Lady Grenville as she drew slowly out into the bay, it would never have occurred that among the causes contributory to J. B.’s sadness could be included a feeling of affection for the chattering darkies that lined the sheds.

  Not that her thoughts, her curiosity, were concerned particularly with Mr. Bruce. It was Kitty that she was watching, Kitty, who with her hand through her father’s arm was waving gaily to her friends; shouting final messages, turning to her father, whispering some remark, bursting out with laughter; Kitty so completely in her role of the popular debutante waving goodbye to the island where she had made a good impression, that it was hard to believe that she could be anything more than that, that real emotions were at war beneath that conventional facade. Could she be quite so casual if this leaving meant anything?

  Mary looked at Barclay. He was waving his hand, he was shouting messages, his friendliness was a match for Kitty’s. But was he really as indifferently affectionate as he seemed? Was his heart heavy? Were his nerves in shreds?

  She looked sideways, thoughtfully at him as they walked away together from the quay. She was nervous, and excited, with a pleasant kind of excitedness, rather like a golfer’s as he stands on the first tee. Everything depended on the next few minutes. “He’s got to be handled with kid gloves,” she told herself.

  It was close on noon. The sun was nearing its peak. For a week now there had been no rain. The sky was a pale filtered blue. The dust lay thickly in the deep runnels of the streets. Ragged natives slept movelessly in the shaded colonnades of the high verandahs. Barefooted urchins shuffled their feet along the pavements.

  “It’s hot. Let’s have an ice,” she said.

  It was emptyish in the Lido. Most of the club members had returned to their homes, jaded after their goodbye party. It would not be till well after twelve that the coloured clientèle arrived.

  The proprietress, a vast and shapeless half-caste, fixed them with a registering but incurious stare.

  “I suppose she knows,” thought Mary.

  She supposed, when it came to that, that everyone in Rodney knew. Gossiping about the whites was the chief amusement in the coloured cafés. That was why natives were so anxious to work as servants, not in any spirit of calculation, not for blackmail, simply out of pride; so that they could make an effective contribution to the store of gossip, producing some titbit of information that might be woven into a calypso. There probably was not a native in El Santo who did not know about her and Barclay.

  It was funny that; and the funniest thing was that there wouldn’t be a white person in El Santo who would believe that gossip if he overheard it. It was one of the unquestioned, unwritten laws of island life that you never believed a word a native told you.

  Yes, you know, she thought, as she moved across to a corner table, conscious of that registering, incurious stare; knew, too, that since Barclay’s return there had been no bathing-parties on the launch, no night drives along the beach, no parking of a grey-green Chrysler. That fat mulatto knew it, as everyone in the island knew it. She was thinking now, as everyone in the island must be thinking; ‘ Well, so the American’s gone, will she be able to get him back?’ Yes, that was what the proprietress was thinking; what that old man buying groceries was thinking; what that girl turning the pages of a magazine was thinking. “She’s gone. They’re alone. Will she get him back?” That’s what they were saying to each other.

  It was a knowledge that, to her surprise, she did not find unpleasant. She did not feel that she was being spied upon. She felt, on the contrary, that she was being encouraged; they were hoping she would succeed, that she would displace the foreigner, the intervener. She had the same feeling of confidence that a football side gets playing before its own supporters. I’m going to win. It’s all right now, she thought.

  Reassuringly there came back to her that same sense of power, of control over a situation, that she had felt all those months ago when Barclay had blurted out that astonishing admission on the dusty high hill road. She knew exactly what it was she had to do. She smiled, she put her hand on his.

  “Don’t worry. These things pass,” she said.

  It was said on a note of friendliness, of sympathy, as though it were a friend hitting him on the back with a “Come along, old fellow, let’s drink it off.” There was no suggestion of the discarded lover manœuvring for an opening.

  He looked up quickly, and as his eyes met hers there came into them for the first time since his return a sense of genuine awareness of her.

  “You’re pretty nice,” he said.

  There was a pause. He smiled, and his eyes were fond.

  “I suppose that by any lucky chance you don’t happen to be free this afternoon?” he said: “It would be fun if we could go out for a swim. We ought, you know, to do something about exercising away all those cocktails.”

  19

  She sighed, a long low sigh; a sigh that came gently, tranquilly from the dep
ths of happiness so complete that it was a kind of death. She opened her eyes. She smiled, She lifted her hand, drew it in a slow caress along his cheek. He was raised upon his elbow. His hair was tousled, one lock falling forward over a damp, flushed forehead. A circlet of sunlight cut across his shoulder. She lowered her hand, let her fingers run slowly along his shoulder, down his arm. Round the small of his wrist her fingers tightened. What a narrow wrist! She could span it between thumb and forefinger. You wouldn’t have thought there was such power there. She loosened her hold, let her hand fall on to his, her palm resting against his knuckles.

  He smiled at her.

  “You’re marvellous,” he said.

  She closed her eyes. Another minute and that cloak of words would be about her; those consoling words that would cancel the longing, the frustration of all those weeks; the words of adoration that would restore her peace of spirit, just as a few moments past that frenzy of caresses had restored her peace of body.

  “There’s no one like you. There couldn’t be. You’re marvellous. There isn’t any other word for it.”

  She sighed. Now it had come at last, those weeks of anxiety, of suspense, seemed justified, seemed worth while. Now that peace had been restored, she wondered how she could ever have doubted, ever felt uncertain. A minute or two ago, with his arms about her, she could not believe she had ever crossed that long parched desert. She was back where she belonged. There had been no interval, no separation. It was only yesterday that they had anchored the little yacht on that last afternoon but one in Petite Anse. This day and that other day were links in a long, long chain. How could she have ever doubted it?

  “It’s a miracle,” he was saying. “I didn’t know anything like this would happen. One reads about things in books. One never thinks they could happen in real life.”

  A miracle. Yes, that was what it was, that after all these weeks they could step back so easily; into the past.

  “I felt so worried about it all at first. I was happy, of course, desperately happy. Yet at the same time I couldn’t help worrying. I knew you were marvellous. But I didn’t realize you could be quite so marvellous.”

  To herself she laughed. Miracle. Marvellous. Yes, they were the only words that could describe this peace, this rapture. Into his voice had come again those deep rich tones that were only there in moments such as these, tones that only she had heard, for whose sound she had been so lonely.

  “If only I’d known, it would have been so much easier; I’d have been spared so many worries. And it did in a way spoil those last hours, that last day anyhow. It should have been the happiest hour of my life. But it couldn’t be, because of you.”

  Bubblingly his voice ran on.

  She was scarcely listening to what he said. It was the sound of his voice, the richness of those tones that mattered. As long as there was that richness in his voice, then all was well between them. It was as through a mist that she heard him saying, “How could I be happy, really happy, not knowing that you’d be so marvellous about it all?” that she heard him asking, “How did you come to be so marvellous?”

  “I was so worried, so desperately worried,” he was saying.

  She sighed happily, drowsily.

  “Darling, that was silly of you,” she said.

  “Of course it was. I see that now. But how could I have known it then.”

  “Known what?”

  “That you’d be so marvellous about everything. That you would take it the way you have.”

  “Take what, and in what way.”

  “The whole situation.”

  “Darling, what are you saying?”

  “Nothing. Everything. That you’re a marvel, that covers everything.”

  “Then go on saying that.”

  He laughed, that gay light-hearted laugh she loved so; a laugh that was the expression of youth, of adventure, of un-reflecting action, that made her feel life itself, the whole process of living, was a gay and careless thing.

  “To be able to take it the way you have,” he said.

  “Take what, my darling? I still don’t understand you.”

  “Don’t you? I think you do. If you didn’t understand, you couldn’t have taken it like that. When I think of what I went through that last night …”

  “Darling, but what last night?”

  “The last night on board.”

  “On the Lady Howard.”

  ‘ The Lady Howard ?’’

  “The ship I came back here on. It should have been the happiest moment of my life, coming back here in the way I was. But it couldn’t be. How could it, when I knew that you’d be the first person that I’d see?”

  She stared at him, puzzled.

  “What are you trying to say?” she asked.

  “Nothing that you don’t know already. You must know how I’ve felt. You couldn’t have behaved the way you did, unless you had known. But I was frightened. I don’t mind admitting that; not now. I knew you’d behave well. I didn’t think that you’d make scenes, the kind of scene one reads about. You aren’t that kind of person. All the same, it was going to be difficult, I realized that. It was such a different return from the one that we’d expected. And even though you hadn’t written much—why should you have written, after all?—I felt that it must be awkward, that first explanation anyway. And then when I found that there wasn’t any need for an explanation, that you understood straightaway—I suppose that was what happened, wasn’t it? You guessed straightaway.”

  “Guessed what?”

  “About me and Kitty.”

  “You and Kitty.”

  “There’s something, isn’t there, that shows in one’s face. It’s like love at first sight. In the same way that two people recognize a certain thing in one another, later on other people recognize it in them; a kind of aura, isn’t there?”

  She made no reply. She stared at him incredulously. It can’t be true, she thought. I can’t be hearing this. She did not trust herself to speak. Her face was in the shadow. He couldn’t, thank heaven, see the expression of her face. Her hands clasped beneath her head, her nails biting into her palms, she stared at him, as with a boyish, an incredibly boyish expression on his face he chattered on like a schoolboy recounting some exploit he was proud of, like some traveller describing a danger he had escaped, relishing in retrospect the memory of his own fear, looking back from the security of harbour to the stormy waters he has passed.

  “I knew, of course, that you would understand in the long run,” he was gabbling on. “After all, we knew, didn’t we, that something like this would happen some time, that I’d go away, that I’d marry. I used to wonder how it would seem looking back on this. You know, in a way I rather looked forward to that time. We’d be such good friends, I thought. All this would be such a bond. I only hoped that the break would come when I was a long way off, that it would be something I could tell you in a letter.

  “And then when I met Kitty, I must say it rather spoilt things. It ought to have been all so happy. And it was so happy really. Yet at the same time, there was that worry about you. I pretended not to notice it. I even managed to make myself believe that I was happy. But I wasn’t, I know that by comparing how I felt then with how I felt this morning. Not that I felt happy this morning. I felt wretched, naturally. At saying goodbye to her, I mean. But that was different. You can be wretched yet happy within yourself. And you can be happy yet wretched within yourself. And though I was wretched this morning I was happy within myself. I’ve got you to thank for that,” he said.

  It isn’t true, it can’t be true, she thought.

  “I can’t tell you what it meant having you there this morning, understanding,” he went on. “The way you said ‘ Don’t worry. These things pass.’ I knew that you’d been through this yourself. You must have been. Though you’ve never told me anything—why haven’t you? Won’t you tell me some time, the first time you were in love, the first time you felt like burning boats for anyone? There was such a time, wasn
’t there?”

  “Oh yes, there was such a time.”

  “We could compare notes, then, couldn’t we?”

  “Yes, we could do that.”

  “It would make another bond between us. Not that we need bonds, do we? We are so close. I’ve never felt so close to anyone as I did to you this morning. It seemed so easy to say ‘Can’t you come out in the yacht this afternoon?’

  Not that I expected this to happen. How could I have? I never imagined, never dreamed that anything like this could happen again. I thought all that was over, for ever. That’s what’s such a miracle. That this could happen, and so naturally. It ought to seem very wrong, with Kitty only those few hours away. But it doesn’t, somehow. It seems right, and natural. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

  She smiled. She nodded. She agreed, yes it was very funny.

  “I suppose the thing is, that this is something altogether different. Rather more like friendship. So that falling in love, so that somebody like Kitty doesn’t make any real difference to it. Do you think it could be that?”

  “I dare say it could.”

  “It would be rather nice, wouldn’t it, if it was. It would give one such a jolly ‘ for ever ’ feeling. As though whatever happened, we could go on being friends. Do you think it is going to be like that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you think so? I’m so glad. I think so too. It’s such heaven here with you. Of course, when Kitty’s actually here one couldn’t … at least“He paused, then laughed, in a way shamefacedly. “It sounds an awful thing to say, but even if Kitty were here, well … This is such an altogether different thing.”

  No, she thought. It can’t be true. I’m not hearing this.

  No, she repeated, no, it can’t be true. She was standing on the verandah of her bungalow, her hands tight-clenched upon the railing. It was close on six; the sun low in the west was lighting the peaked outline of Diamond Rock. A faint orange-shot mist hung over Martinique. Westwards the twin Pitons of St. Lucia lifted their high-cut cones against the sunset. Another minute, and the sun would have touched the grey rim of the horizon. A few minutes more, and the mist over Martinique would have lost its yellow, would have changed into a grey-green lilac, absorbing the clear-cut outlines of the Rock. Another minute, and the Pitons would be no longer visible against a darkening sky. A minute or two more, and the Lady Grenville would have cast her anchor before Bridgetown, with the boatmen shouting, with the negroes clambering on to the upper deck; diving for pennies, the white soles of their feet contrasting with the burnished roughness of their ankles. Bridgetown with its masts and shipping, the curve of the river, the Da Costa warehouse, the majestic mangoes; Bridgetown and the countryside behind; the long flat plains, the seas of sugar-cane; the stone-built plantation houses; the stone-built windmills; the churches with their absurd look of an English village. Bridgetown and the long broad road along the beach; the white sand of the Aquatic; the foxtrots across the water. Bridgetown and a hotel verandah; the lights of the anchored liner; the garden scents; jasmin, “Lady of the Night.”