Brief Encounter

by Alec Waugh

  They stood in silence while Graham said grace.

  ‘Why couldn’t we have grace in Latin?’ Alistair said. ‘They do at Winchester.’

  ‘Do you think Ilse would understand it.’

  ‘She could guess, couldn’t she?’

  ‘Perhaps I know more Latin than either of you two,’ she said; as perhaps she did, thought Anna. Ilse was always surprising her.

  After lunch Graham went back to his crossword puzzle, and the boys to their sham battle with the catapult and model aeroplane. Anna arranged a deck chair in the shadow of the copper beach. She had brought out the weekly review section of the Sunday Times, but let it drop forward on her knees.

  Her hands clasped behind her head, she resumed her reverie. That last and final meeting had been so different from the others. It had been so unexpected. It had been a warm and sunny day; no question of the George and Dragon. She had known when the day began that they would be lunching on a seat in the Cathedral close. She had taken special care over the lunch. The brown loaf, the thin sliver of smoked ham on the cream cheese, the figs. She had made an occasion of it. She had meant it to be special and that was what he had said about it, that it was special, that she was a special person. And they had talked so cosily, so friendly. This is wonderful, she had thought. I’m building up bit by bit the most intimate, the most personal friendship in my life. We shall go on meeting Wednesday after Wednesday, either picnicking on a seat in the close, or taking a cheese salad in the George and Dragon; just that one hour together, neither more nor less, and at the end of the day, as an appendix there’ll be that 20 minutes in the station waiting room; those 80 minutes will give a purpose and a direction to my entire week. I shall be resolved to make the most of them. I shall think up amusing things to tell him. I shall think of questions that I want to ask him; each week we should grow closer to one another. That’s how she had planned it and then suddenly that van had gone by announcing the performance of a mystery play and he had made his incredible, outrageous suggestion that they should ‘play hookey’ as he called it, and she had thought ‘why not?’ And everything had changed, had become closer, more intimate, more romantic and in the last analysis impossible so that at the end of the day she had rung up Lucy Parfitt to explain that she would have to change her day.

  It had been a wrench, a stab, a sense of sickening hurt, but with what relief, with what self-justification had she not hung up. She had done the right thing, she had done the only thing: there was a point at which you could withdraw, but that point once passed there was no withdrawing. You were committed. They had been growing too close, far too close during that long crowded afternoon. They had passed through so many moods. They had talked about his not having children. Then unexpectedly because their talk had been so intimate, she had felt embarrassed with him. She had become suddenly silent. ‘You seemed to go a long way away,’ he had said. She had known, as he had, but she had not wanted to explain herself. Then the boat train had roared through the station. The express train that had introduced them to one another. Its passing had reminded her that their afternoon had only a few minutes left. ‘I’m sorry,’ she had said. ‘I hadn’t meant to be disagreeable.’ But she hasn’t been disagreeable, he had assured her. She couldn’t be if she tried. She had shaken her head. She had been disagreeable. She knew she had. It was one thing to close a window. It was quite another to slam it down on someone’s fingers.

  It was then that he had said, ‘You’ve no idea how terribly nice you are.’ ‘You’ve said something like that before,’ she had said. ‘I wasn’t sure that you had heard,’ he had answered.

  It had been a ridiculous conversation, but no, it hadn’t been. Because of what they were feeling, the words they used did not really matter. It was the feeling behind their words that mattered. And what was ridiculous was this, that they should only be meeting for these stolen moments with the station announcer interrupting them, every other minute; and then there had been the announcement of his train; the train that would take him in the direction opposite. ‘You’ve got to go,’ she had said, ‘you’ll miss your train,’ and then she had talked all that nonsense about his bringing his wife over to dinner, as though either of them had wanted that. And she had got up, she had walked towards the subway. ‘Go,’ she had said, ‘go.’ She had raised her hand, she had put it against his chest, had pushed him. He had taken her hand, he had raised it to his lips: how soft his lips had been, how soft, how warm. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he had said. ‘It will be all right.’ What had he meant by that? How could it be all right? How could anything be all right, with those trains carrying them in opposite directions. Another minute and he would miss his train. He began to run, he did not turn to wave. His train was coming in. She could not see his platform. She could not tell into which carriage he had got. And then before he could wave out of his window, her train had come in, shutting out his from hers, and by the time she had got into her compartment, his train had drawn out, and she was staring at an empty platform. Next week, she had thought, next week. And here now was that next week already started, with no Wednesday to look forward to, with no Wednesday ever to look forward to. Each week a vacuum, for him and her. An endless vacuum. And why, why, why?

  She had returned home in a daze. And there had been Graham and the boys playing their new stock exchange game. She had stood in the doorway, watching them and then Graham had looked up from the floor, and instead of the usual welcome that she got from him, on her return there had been his rather puzzled statement that Dolly Messitor had seen her at the mystery play that afternoon. Dolly Messitor of all people. How much had she seen. What had she guessed. Dolly Messitor hadn’t the sense to understand the half of what she saw. Graham didn’t seem perturbed. He had accepted her explanation, but all the same it was surprising that when she should have been working in her citizens’ bureau, she had watched a public entertainment. It was so unlike her to have done a thing like that: to have gone out to a show when she should have been in an office.

  Presumably Dolly had been at the other end of the auditorium: that was a piece of luck. Dolly was not even completely certain that she had recognized her. She might have lied her way out of it. But that would have been a risk. It rarely paid one to tell lies. One was so likely to be caught out. She might have made some reference to the mystery play and then someone would have said, ‘But when did you see that?’ She had read in novels of characters being petrified. That was how she felt. What a lucky escape. Never, never again. She had had her warning. There was a point where you could draw back: that point once passed, there was no drawing back. She had reached that point. She had learnt her lesson. What a relief, what a sense of self righteousness she had felt when she hung up. Never again, she had vowed, never, never again.

  But that was four and a half days ago. She had not realized how empty, how dreary a vacuum could be. What had she to look forward. Her life with Graham, and the boys, her cosy friendly life extending ad infinitum. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year: no change: the boys growing up: she and Graham growing middle-aged then old: the children marrying: then grandchildren; with the same pattern being repeated: that was how it would be. No change, no change.

  When she had woken on Thursday morning, that was the prospect that had faced her. On Friday it had been the same, so had it been on Saturday: so had it been this morning. So would it be tomorrow and for all the tomorrows that awaited her.

  And that’s how it would be for her doctor, but not quite yet. The curtain would not descend on his looking forwardness till Wednesday afternoon when he did not find her in her bureau; till Wednesday evening when he did not find her at the station. He was living still in the same paradise that she had inherited last week. That was the curious paradox about it all. He did not know what she had decided.

  How she envied him and his being able to look forward to next Wednesday, as she had done last week. Why could she not be living in it still.

  She rose r
estlessly from her deck chair. She strolled across the garden to where the boys were still occupied with their game. It had held them for a week now almost. It could not last much longer. Soon they would lose interest: abruptly, inevocably: and she and Graham would have to find something else. For the moment, though, they were happy with their toy, thank heaven.

  She went back to the TV room. Graham was still busy with his crossword puzzle. How could he give up so much time to it. But then Sunday had to be a different day for him. He did not get any time for crosswords during the week.

  She smiled with fondness at the sight of him. He really was a schoolboy still.

  ‘How is it working out?’ she asked.

  He smiled. ‘The way it always does. I keep telling myself that one day I’ll get a whole one right, but somehow I never get around to it.’ He paused. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘do you think that Alistair’s old enough for chess?’

  ‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.’

  ‘My father gave me a set when I was 10.’

  ‘Did you care for the game?’

  ‘I can’t say I did. But everyone says that it’s a great training for the intelligence.’

  ‘You seem to have managed very well without it.’

  ‘But then Alistair’s different from me. Alistair’s more like you. Analytical. If you follow me?’

  ‘I don’t know that I do.’

  ‘There was this chap at the Rotary lunch last week. I thought I mentioned it; perhaps I didn’t. “Measurement of intelligence” that was the name of the talk he gave us. Apparently you can tell whether somebody’s marked out for intelligence at an, oh, very early age—chess helps, he said.’

  ‘Am I really very analytical,’ Anna asked.

  Graham did not appear to notice what she had said. He was still following his own train of thought. ‘Hal Patterson got a set for his own boy,’ he said. ‘Went out that very afternoon and bought it. Franklin’s boy is quite a tiger at chess already. But then he’s 12.’

  Anna in her turn was following the train of her own thoughts. ‘Analytical. That makes me sound so cold,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’m cold.’

  Graham in his turn was still following his own train of thought. ‘I was wondering whether you couldn’t get Alistair a set on Wednesday when you go into Winchester.’

  ‘But Wednesday …’ she checked: hadn’t she told him that she wouldn’t be going into Winchester on Wednesday. Surely she had told him. But perhaps he hadn’t listened. That’s what happened so often in a family. Husbands and wives didn’t hear what the other said. Listened with only the half of their attention. ‘I never heard you telling me what that Rotarian was saying about chess.’

  ‘A growing boy ought to play chess,’ he was continuing. ‘It really is educational.’

  ‘O.K.,’ she said. ‘O.K. I’ll fix it.’ She’d see that he got his set somehow. Analytical, she thought. I’m not analytical. I’m not cold. My doctor would never say that I was analytical.

  X

  Graham made his own breakfast every morning. A very light one. Orange juice, cornflakes, with milk; tea and toast with marmalade. He had it in the TV room. Anna had her breakfast, a solid English meal with Ilse and the boys half an hour later. They were usually settling down to it when Graham put his head round the doorway to say ‘goodbye’. On the Wednesday morning he reminded Anna about the chess set. ‘I won’t forget,’ she said.

  It was only to get the chess set that she was going into Winchester. At least that was what she told herself. She was not going to the office. She was not going back on that decision. She had told Lucy Parfitt that she was not coming to the office and she wasn’t. Very likely she would not be expected there or wanted. Lucy had made other arrangements. She would go into Winchester in her own good time. She would not take her lunch in with her. But she would be around in the close by one o’clock. If her doctor happened to be there, that would be well and good.

  It was a bright sunny day. It would probably become what the English called a ‘scorcher’, and what the Neapolitans called ‘not too hot’. She had put on when she woke up as she always did on Wednesday, a dark blue coat and skirt—an office outfit. But she did not feel in the mood for an office outfit.

  She felt in the mood for pants. Why not! She felt free in pants. She wanted to feel free today. It was for her a ‘bunking off’ day. With a laugh, she unzipped her skirt, let it fall to the floor, stepped over it. She possessed a pair of sage green pants. That was more in her mood. She turned round slowly before the glass. She liked herself in pants. Her legs were long and slim. She had changed so much since her scugnizzi days. She passed her hands slowly over her stomach. She stood upon the scales. 119 lbs. The same weight that she had been for twenty years; no wonder that she looked the same as she had then. She had a white and green blouse with a wide collar and loose sleeves, that buttoned at the wrist. It was almost new. She had bought it because it had reminded her of her ‘courting nightie’. The blouse went with her mood. She did not put on her hat. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair.

  The boys seemed happy enough. They had got tired of their war game. They were now building a miniature steel-framework garage for their clockwork toys. It was a relief that they could play the same games together. They did not notice that she was late in leaving: they did not notice that she was wearing pants. It was strange the things they did not notice and the things they did: the things that they remembered and the things that they forgot. They lived in a world of their own.

  She reached Winchester soon after twelve.

  By ten to one she was on her usual seat. I’d like to see him wend his way through the crowd, she thought. I’d like to see him before he sees me. I’ve not done that before. I don’t know by which road he comes. I don’t know which way to look. When I came out from the bureau last week, he was already there, waiting for me by the wall. This time…

  But this time again, she was taken off her guard. As on that second time there was a voice at her side, interrupting her reverie. ‘So you’re here already.’

  The voice came from a small roadster. He was sitting smiling at its wheel. ‘Jump in,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we bound?’ she asked.

  ‘Anywhere you’d like.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘My idea was an inn called the Fox and Hounds.’

  ‘And where might that be?’

  ‘A village called Padstone. About ten miles away. When I’ve played cricket there, I thought it would be very pleasant to sit out there at one of the tables over a pint of beer. What about that?’

  ‘I can’t see why not. What about this car?’

  ‘I borrowed it from the clinic.’

  ‘Even though it wasn’t raining.’

  ‘Even though it wasn’t raining.’

  The sun was warm upon her face; but a breeze cooled its heat. It was a fast, well sprung car. They were soon outside the city limits: in less than five minutes they were in the open country. It was one of those days on which the English climate makes amends for all its winter injuries. ‘What a change from Saturday,’ she said.

  ‘Indeed. Indeed.’

  ‘What happened to your cricket match?’

  ‘It was cancelled just after breakfast.’

  ‘Ours wasn’t till well after lunch.’

  ‘Didn’t it rain all the time?’

  ‘Steadily from Friday night.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Their secretary was a sergeant-major type. Stands on his dignity. No decision can be taken in his absence. He’s a carrier. He was out on a mission and got delayed by rain.’

  ‘So you went out there all the same?’

  ‘Of course. Graham is punctilious. If a match is booked for half past two, he says, you have to be on the ground by quarter past …’

  ‘He’s quite right, of course.’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  ‘You must have had a dreary time.’

  ‘As a matter
of fact we had a rather good one. Graham’s good at making the best of a bad job. They all had an extra half pint at the Crown before they started; then we had tea at our place.’

  ‘So they all went away in a good temper.’

  ‘Had the time of their life they said. I think they meant it.’

  She found it quite easy to bring Graham into the conversation. She had no sense of false shame, of guilt. Graham was her life. There was nothing she could not say to her doctor about her life. She could be completely open with him. That was the whole point of being with him, the magic of it. She could be herself: as she had never been before, with anyone. ‘Here we are,’ he said. It was a typical south country inn with a signboard of a huntsman, with his hounds. A couple of tables were set outside. There were backless settees in front of them.

  ‘We might sit there,’ he said.

  ‘We might indeed.’

  She swung her legs over the side of the car.

  ‘I like your pants,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad. They were put on for you.’

  She walked by his side into the bar. ‘You have brought your lunch,’ he said.

  ‘That’s not my lunch,’ she said.

  ‘What’s in that bulky package?’

  ‘A chess set.’

  ‘Whoever for?’

  ‘My elder son.’

  ‘Does he play chess?’

  ‘Not yet. This is an experiment to teach him leadership.’

  They leant against the bar. ‘Shall we start with beer?’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘As you haven’t brought a lunch, there’ll be a rather limited choice of things to eat.’

  ‘Bread and cheese will be fine for me.’

  They took their plates and tankards out on to the porch.

  ‘Do you play chess?’ she asked.

  ‘I used to play four-handed chess on cricket tours.’

  ‘How on earth’s that played?’

  ‘I’ll show you: have you got a chess board in that packet?’

  ‘I have.’