by Alec Waugh
She was at the station much earlier than she had ever been before. She had to if her doctor was going to get his car back in time. She ordered herself a cup of tea.
‘I’ve got some nice bath buns,’ Mrs. Harris said.
‘Really fresh?’
‘Of course they’re really fresh.’
‘That means that they’ll be fattening.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that. If you were our Beryle now you’d have to.’
Anna sipped her tea and munched her buns. The waiting room was rather empty. The announcer’s voice kept breaking through such noise as those few passengers managed to make. ‘The train now approaching Platform 1 is the express boat train not stopping at this station.’ Was it only four weeks since she had heard that announcement for the first time. Everything had started with that announcement. A whole new life had begun for her. She could see that boy running out with his paper aeroplane; could remember herself dragging him back from the line; could feel that sharp stab of pain as the grit went in her eye. How it had hurt. How firm but how gentle at the same time had been her doctor’s hand upon her elbow.
The train roared through. A matter of thirty seconds.
How would you commit suicide she had asked her doctor. Yes, a train would be the easiest way; the quickest, the least painful.
He must be on his platform now. She had placed herself so that she could not see through the waiting room door. ‘The train now approaching Platform 2 is the 13.18 for Basingstoke, Woking and Waterloo.’ It was fascinating to know that he was hearing that, such a small number of yards away. She could hear the sound of it approaching. It was coming to a halt. It had halted. He would be opening the door now of his carriage.
‘The train approaching Platform No. 1 is the 18.21 for Shenley, Eastleigh and Southampton.’ She rose to her feet. Her train was in the station now. It cut out the view of his. She could walk out now on to the platform. She opened a carriage door; as she took a corner seat, she could see his train pulling out. I can look now, she thought, perhaps catch one last glimpse of him. I shan’t have broken my promise. This time has been different; altogether different from the other times. She opened the window. She leant out, she craned her neck. Surely he would look out too. He would not be able to resist the temptation, to take one last look for her, as she was taking a last look for him. He must be looking out; he must, he must, he must.
He wasn’t though. One by one the carriages went by. His face was not at any of the windows. Had he missed his train? It was possible. Would it matter if he had. She did not suppose it would. Would Melanie be worried, would Melanie be anxious? She did not suppose she would. She was not a fussing wife. Would she be jealous? Jealous of what? It was a marriage that had come to terms with itself. A going-their-own-ways marriage. It was all right: of course it was all right. He had been punctilious in keeping to his bargain. That was the English way.
Hadn’t she after seventeen years got adjusted to the English way?
She leant back against the cushions, her mind abroad. She could not quite realize yet that this had happened. That what had happened? It was so different from anything that she had imagined happening. She had wondered sometimes if she would ever fall in love again. Most women did, from what she had heard and read. A second belated spring. A falling in love perhaps with someone much younger than herself. Young men did fall in love with women older than themselves. It would be hard to resist if anything like that should happen. She would have to be very firm with herself. He would be full of ideals, most likely. She would have to prevent him from ruining his life and hers. She remembered that play Young Woodley and that other play Tea and Sympathy. Something like that might happen. Nobody got off scot free. She would have to be on her guard.
Or she might fall in love with somebody quite unsuitable, somebody rather common, a waiter, a chauffeur, a steward on a ship; possibly a man of colour: someone who would be very touchy: who would think she was ashamed of him and perhaps she would be: somebody towards whom she would have a sense of guilt: an awkward, uncomfortable relationship.
Or perhaps she might have an instantaneous, inexplicable overmastering physical passion for some man. Something that would sweep her off her feet. There were she suspected sides of her that had never been touched. The grand passion that poets wrote about was something she had never known. She had been attracted by Graham. She had enjoyed making love to him. She still did. But those deep, shattering transports, she had read about: those she had never known. And she believed that with her warm Southern nature she was capable of knowing it. Some women were incapable of that kind of feeling. ‘And I’m very glad I’m one of them,’ she had heard such women say. Yet she had heard other women—the women who were capable of that emotion say, ‘I wouldn’t go through it again for anything in the world, but if I hadn’t known it, I’d have thought my life half-lived.’
She had felt half envious of such women and she had felt that it was in the cards that some such experience might come to her. On the whole, she had hoped it wouldn’t.
She had foreseen such possibilities, but what had happened had been completely different. The peace of it, that was what had astonished her, the utter peace of it, the sense of having found herself at last. In novels she had read of heroines saying, ‘I’m his. He has made me his.’ On the contrary in this present case, she would be saying, ‘I’m his; because he has made me mine.’ And that was a difference, a deep and subtle difference.
XI
She arrived home to find Graham at work in the playroom, fixing up the train system.
‘I’ve brought the chess set, you see,’ she said.
‘Fine, fine.’ He was so absorbed in his task that he scarcely noticed her. He stretched out his hand, and took the box. As he did so he saw that she was wearing pants.
‘That’s a very informal costume for an office,’ he remarked.
‘My office isn’t as formal as yours. I think that it’s a good way of making my clients feel at ease.’
‘Perhaps it is, yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Where are the boys?’
‘They’re in the kitchen; Ilse’s baking a coffee cake. They are helping her by licking the bowl. You’ve caught the sun, I see.’
‘I have?’
‘You look as if you have been loafing out of doors all day instead of slogging away in a dreary office.’
‘I always take my lunch out by the cathedral if it’s sunny.’
‘Looks as though it had been a long lunch.’
‘It wasn’t, not at all; it wasn’t. I don’t take long lunches.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest you were malingering.’
‘I know you didn’t, it’s just … and oh it isn’t a dreary office at all. It isn’t a grand office like yours, but we do important work in it. It’s not a dreary office, but after several hours there listening to fractious clients, I do need to get out into the clean air when I can. That hour’s break means a lot to me.’
‘Of course it does, of course.’
‘And it is August you must remember: the sun was hot today, and then the wind: it’s the wind combined with the sun that burns one.’
‘Of course, of course.’
He had returned his attention to the railway system. She walked over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. Yes, she had caught the sun: how many hours had she spent in the sun, and without a hat on.
She’d have to start watching things like this. What a lot of lies she would find herself having to tell: she would have to be careful that they were good lies. The fewer lies one told the better. She hated telling lies; but for his sake, she would have to tell them. It was a small thing to have to do for him. There was nothing she would not do for him.
The telephone rang from the hall.
‘I’ll answer it,’ she called.
‘Anna Jesson here,’ she said.
‘Oh, Anna, good. I’m glad I’ve got you. It’s Grace here. Grace from the Bureau
. I’m sorry to bother you at home. I knew, of course, that you weren’t coming in today, but something worrying happened. It’s that woman that takes up so much of your time. Her name’s slipped my memory.’
‘Mrs. Gaines.’
‘Yes, that’s it. Mrs. Gaines. She was round this morning. She insisted on seeing you. She wouldn’t see anyone but you. I told her you weren’t coming in today. I asked her if she had made an appointment. “No,” she said, “but Mrs. Jesson said I could always come in if I was in any trouble.”’
‘Did she say what her trouble was?’
‘No, but it’s the usual trouble, husband trouble, I suppose.’
‘Wouldn’t she tell you what it was?’
‘No. She said that you knew her problem, that Wednesday was your day: that she knew that: that she had been waiting all the week for Wednesday.’
‘You told her I’d changed my day.’
‘Yes, I told her that: that you had decided to change your day. She wanted to know if you’d be in tomorrow. I said I couldn’t tell. But that I was sure that you would be in later in the week. “Then I’ll come in tomorrow,” she said. I couldn’t promise her that you’d be in tomorrow. “All the same,” she said, “I’ll come.” I begged her to let me know if there was anyway that I could be of help. But she was adamant. You understand her problem. Nobody else could do.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll be in tomorrow. I’m sorry to have been a nuisance.’
‘You haven’t. We knew that you weren’t coming in. You’d given us a week’s warning.’
‘I know but all the same, one hates letting anybody down. Good night, Grace, thanks for calling.’
She stood silent by the telephone. Her eyes closed. A sense of guilt oppressed her. It wasn’t her fault, and yet it was her fault. She warned the office, but she hadn’t warned Mrs. Gaines. The wretched creature had relied on her and she had failed her. All the week she had been waiting for her. She had not realized that the poor woman set so much store on her being there. But she had. She had relied on me, she thought, and I betrayed her trust.
From the playroom Graham was calling out.
‘Did I hear you mentioning Mrs. Gaines?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What’s her trouble.’
‘I don’t know. She came round after I left the office.’
‘But I thought you never left the office till it closed.’
‘I don’t usually but I left early today to get the chess set.’
‘I see.’
‘In fact I had a very casual day. Sitting too long in the sun at lunchtime and leaving early to do my duty as a mother.’
They laughed together. Had she been short with him, had she snapped at him ten minutes ago. If she had, it was the first prickings of a guilty conscience. The lies she had had to tell: the lies she would have to tell, if she was going to go on seeing her doctor. And she was going to go on seeing him. There was no doubt of that. It was true what they said that up till a certain point there was a chance of drawing back. That point once passed, there was no drawing back.
The Maigret series on the box was over. It had been followed by one on Sherlock Holmes. Ilse had greatly enjoyed the first two instalments, so had Graham, but this evening he was not in the mood.
‘I don’t think I’ll join you,’ he said. ‘I want to look at that chess set. I’ve got a book about chess upstairs. I’d refresh my memory of some of the simpler openings so that I can show them to Alistair.’
‘I thought you didn’t care about the game,’ said Anna.
‘I don’t. But it’ll be fun showing them to Alistair.’
‘You can show them to me at the same time. I barely know the moves.’
He set out the board on the dining table.
‘Now this is the classic opening; with the king’s pawn. Let’s see what the book has to say.’
He read the opening pages of the book. He appeared absorbed in it.
‘I think you are going to have more fun out of this game than the boys are.’
He laughed. ‘Isn’t that the way it usually is with nursery toys. I think I get as much fun out of that railway system as they do. Now do you know the mate in three moves?’
‘Isn’t it called fool’s mate?’
‘No, that’s the mate in two moves. This is the scholar’s mate.’
She watched him set out the gambit.
‘It’s easy to guard against that surely?’
‘It’s easy when you know it. That’s the point about chess. Everything is easy when you know it. The trouble is that there’s so much to remember. You forget the half of it. Then you are checkmated before you know where you are.’
‘Have you ever …?’ she checked. She was about to ask him if he had ever played four-handed chess. But what a question to have asked. To what an interrogation it would have led. How had she learnt about four-handed chess? Who had told her about it? How indeed? Who indeed? How careful she would have to be. What a lachet she would have to place upon her tongue.
‘Have you ever …’ she had begun. She checked. He had looked up. She changed her tack; abruptly, desperately, saying the first thing that came into her head.
‘Have you ever,’ she asked, ‘had a love affair with a married woman?’
‘What a thing to ask.’
‘A very natural thing. You were 27 when you met me. You must have had several love affairs. Was one of them with a married woman?’
‘Well …’ he hesitated.
‘Come on, now,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me.’
‘You’ve never asked me that before.’
‘That’s why I’m asking you now.’
‘But why?’
‘I’m curious.’
‘But why?’
She improvised. Once again she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I was reading about that film of Edna O’Brien’s. XYZ. It’s about the confusions of a love affair with a married man. It was told mostly from the woman’s point of view. I was wondering about it from the man’s, about the kind of mess in which he found himself.’
‘I see.’
The ball’s in my court, she thought. I’ve got out of that fix: I must avoid another.
‘You must have had several affairs before you met me.’
‘Several’s a big word.’
‘Surely not too big a one.’
‘It’s twenty years ago, remember.’
‘What difference does that make?’
‘Everything was less permissive then. There was no pill, remember.’
‘It’s hard to remember now that there was a time without it.’
‘Almost as hard as to have believed then that there ever could be such a thing.’
‘In Italy, well, in Italy they don’t even now allow it yet.’
‘Besides, twenty years ago, life in a place like Shenley was very different from life in a place like London. Everything was very quiet over the weekends, and at weekends I myself was playing cricket in the summer and rugby football in the winter.’
‘Graham, you’re avoiding the point. You must have had at least one affair with a married woman.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I did.’
‘Tell me about it, all about it. How old was she?’
‘About my age.’
‘And how old was that?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘Only a little time then before you met me.’
‘A very little time.’
‘How did you meet her?’
‘On a tour.’
‘What kind of a tour?’
‘A Horizon tour, to Yugoslavia.’
‘How long a tour?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘What time of year?’
‘April, between the football and the cricket seasons.’
‘Did you go alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she?’
‘She was with a party; seven of them in all, young mixed sexes. She was
supposed to be the chaperon.’
‘What was she like?’
‘How do you mean what was she like?’
‘Dark, blonde, tall, plump.’
‘She was a redhead.’
‘Oh.’
‘She was slim, rather tall, with lovely legs.’
‘You almost make me jealous. Was she smart?’
‘In what way smart?’
‘Was she well dressed?’
‘Yes, very.’
‘She was well off, then.’
‘Quite. Her husband was an auctioneer.’
‘Was she fashionable?’
‘She wasn’t in the social columns. An auctioneer’s wife doesn’t cut much ice with the gossip columnists.’
‘But was she elegant?’
‘Oh yes, she was elegant all right.’
‘How did you come to meet her?’
‘Have you ever been on one of those tours?’
‘You know I haven’t.’
‘Well, you can guess how it is. Most of the unattached tourists go there in the hope of having an affair. It’s the ideal situation, propinquity, opportunity. You’re in each other’s company all day long, and when the tour ends you go your separate ways.’
‘Did it start right away?’
‘Almost right away. We recognized each other from the start. We had a rather stupid tour director. He made us a pompous speech about how we were under his command; that we must be punctual. Anybody who wasn’t punctual would get left behind. And “you can imagine,” he said, “what it’s like to be left behind in a communist country, with no local currency, nor speaking the local language.” He was out to frighten us. She and I caught each other’s eye. We gave each other a conspiratorial wink. We knew that we’d be amused by the same tilings. That evening we had a drink together. We knew that we’d made up our minds about each other.’
‘How soon did it begin?’
‘On the third night.’
‘She had to give the illusion of being wooed and yielding.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And it was good?’
‘It was extremely good.’
‘The best you’d ever had.’
‘The best I’d ever had.’
‘So good that when you got towards the end of the second week you felt it was too good to say goodbye to.’