Sir!' She Said

by Alec Waugh

  Gavin waiting at the side fidgeted with his tie nervously. It was a bold move, almost a reckless move: as reckless as his own attempt at the tenth hole to win the match out of hand. Perhaps it would have the same result.

  There was a nerve-charged silence as the American addressed the ball, as his club swung back, as its head cracked on the indiarubber; a moment of utter silence as the thousand eyes of the crowd watched the flight of the white swallow; the swift rise against the pale blue of the sky; the slow dip into the dark shadows of the pines; a moment of completest silence; then there was a loud burst of clapping: a burst that was continued; that paused, only to break out louder, as it was seen that the ball had not only cleared the stream but had rolled some thirty yards beyond it. It was a drive of close upon three hundred yards; such a drive as only a big golfer can produce and only rarely. The American watched his shot; then with a smile on his mouth he walked away from the tee. The smile was eloquent. “Beat that,” it said.

  In that moment Todd came as near to losing his head as he ever had during his golfing career: he felt as though he were being dared: dared to carry that stream, to press his shot in a desperate attempt to outdrive his opponent. And it would be madness to attempt it. He knew that. He knew he could not outdrive Merivale, and in the attempt to do so he would, as likely as not, drive off the fairway into the stream. It would be madness to attempt the shot. Far better to play short on to the near side of the stream, and by an accurately laid approach shot fluster his opponent into a mistake. It was an advantage to play your second shot before the other man. He knew how often a big drive lost a man a hole.

  Squarely, ironically he met with his own smile his opponent’s half smile. Moving slightly to the left he teed his ball. Anyone knowing his play would realise that he was going to play short. He knew what kind of whispers would be going on behind him; knew how the refusal to accept the challenge of that big drive would be accepted as an admission of failure. The knowledge that that was being whispered increased the feeling of defiant confidence that the refusal to be dared had brought him. He’ld show them.

  There was very little applause for Todd’s drive. It was an anti-climax to the American’s big hit. But through Todd it sent a thrill of pride. The ball had gone almost exactly where he had meant it to. Two hundred and fifty yards and down the fairway. His next stroke would leave the ball properly placed for an approach shot. With luck he should hole out in four. Certainly he would manage it in five. As he walked down the course for the first time since that wretched shot at the tenth tee, he felt confident, spurred with the will to conquer. He felt no nervousness as he addressed the ball. He was playing within himself.

  This time there was a burst of applause as the ball flew straight towards the hole, stopping some thirty yards from the green, on grass so smooth that you could almost have used a putter on it.

  Merivale watched the shot anxiously. There was no real reason for him to be anxious. He was virtually a stroke ahead. He should be on the green with his next shot. But his opponent’s refusal to be flustered had flustered him. As he addressed the ball ideas that would not ordinarily have occurred to him, fretted him like mosquitoes.

  There was a steep bank on the far side of the green. He became suddenly afraid of hitting into it. There was no reason why he should have been afraid. But he found himself remembering that his drive had carried much further than he had thought it would. He had the wind behind him. If his drive had carried further, might not his approach as well? “I mustn’t hit too hard,” he thought, as his club swung back.

  The thought as his club swung down made him check, made him hold back. The sliced ball curved short and sideways. As he watched it a panic laid hold on the American. He was behind his opponent; he would have to play the third shot first. Unless he got well on the green and near the hole, his chances of winning the hole were slight. He was a hundred yards away. “Whatever happens,” he thought, “I must hit hard enough. I mustn’t fall short. I mustn’t make that mistake again.” He wondered which club to use. He took out a mashie: changed it for a cleek, then took his mashie out again. “I mustn’t play short,” he thought.

  He didn’t. The ball hit true and straight and hard, flew thirty yards beyond the green to bury itself in the thick grass of the bank beyond. Todd, standing a few yards off, knew that beyond doubting the hole and the match were his.

  Chapter XIV

  Fair Game

  The news of Todd’s victory, shouted by newsboys down the length of Bond Street, reached Prew Catholic’s establishment in Brooke Street shortly after three o’clock. A client had come in with a newspaper under his arm.

  “Please may I have a look at it?” Jean had said.

  She turned quickly to the stop press column. Julia watching her closely saw her face flush with excitement as she read: “Todd won, two and one,” noted the eager pitch to her voice as she exclaimed, “He’s won, oh, I am so glad!”

  Never had she heard that voice so animated before.

  She looked at Jean curiously after the client had left the shop. “Do you care as much as all that “she asked, “about his winning?”

  Jean laughed.

  “It’s silly of me, isn’t it?” she said.

  It was a light-hearted laugh into which went all the pride and delight of happiness. The laugh hurt Julia. It reminded her. Yes, that was how one could laugh at the start; when love was budding; when for love’s sake all life seemed lovely: when every one you passed in the street seemed happy, friendly, kind; when behind every cloud-strewn sky you knew that a sun was shining. It was not till later when you saw every face that passed you as harassed and inimical; when on the edge of every sun-drenched sky you suspected that clouds were waiting; when you would still say, “yes, it’s silly, isn’t it,” and laugh as you said it, but with bitterness in your laugh. It was later that that came. And a perverse longing to compare the state she knew with the state she had forgotten, made her ask further questions. “Do you like him as much as all that?” she asked.

  As Jean answered a fond and brooding look came into her face.

  “That’s how I must have looked once,” thought Julia as she listened.

  “It’s strange,” Jean was saying. “There are people one’s known for years; one thinks one knows them inside out; one knows who their people are, what their incomes are; who their friends are; what they think on this subject and on that. And then suddenly you meet somebody you know nothing about at all, who he is, what he is, where he comes from, and yet you feel that you’ve known him all your life: you can talk to him as though you hadn’t a secret in the world from one another. And you know that you haven’t known those other people at all. That they’ve been strangers to you all the time. You to them, and they to you. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

  She spoke with her head averted as though she were speaking to herself.

  “And what’s going to happen about it?” Julia asked.

  Jean shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” neither a pedestrian nor house in sight. “Perhaps if we went a little further on.” He went a little further and at a cross-roads a mile distant, met an A.A. man, who told him that Andervale Road was on the other side of Ewell. “I couldn’t really direct you from here, though, sir,” he said. “You’d better go back to Ewell and ask there.”

  They went back to Ewell. Their previous mis-informant was no longer in the main street.

  “Now, tell me,” the lad asked his successor, “are you a local policeman?”

  “No, sir, I’m from Woolwich Arsenal.”

  The lad drove on to draw up against the pavement opposite a public-house. In a minute three policemen had converged upon him. “You can’t park here,” they said. “This isn’t a parking place.”

  “But I don’t want to park. I want to find out where the place is that I’m going to.”

  “Epsom’s over there.”

  “But I don’t want Epsom.”

  “Not want Epsom?”

  “I w
ant Andervale Road.”

  “Andervale Road?” The three policeman looked blankly at one another. One of them produced a map. “This is the best way to the grand stand,” he said.

  “But I want Andervale Road.”

  “Ah, Andervale Road.” The three policemen leant over the map. A gust of wind, a rain-laden gust of wind, blew it back into their faces. “Perhaps, after all,” they said, “you’d better go back into that pub and ask.”

  “And how late are we now?” asked Melanie, as cared for were concerned. When people argued on the line of “How would you like that to happen to your own sister or your own daughter or your own son?” they weren’t following a fair line of argument. You tried to protect the people that you loved. You never wanted them to run risks you would be prepared to run yourself. When people asked you, “What would you do if you were in my position?” you never answered honestly. You told them not what you would do, but what you wanted them to do. Perhaps she was being foolish in attempting to watch Melanie, to guard her against experiences she had not shirked herself: that she did not regret: that had become a part of her: that she had learnt a lesson from. Only. . .

  What was it? That you did not want the people you loved to learn that lesson? Or rather you did not want them to learn it in quite that way? You wanted your learning of it to suffice for both. What was the use of experience if you could not spare others pain through it. Was there any need for Melanie to have to learn that lesson for herself. However disenchanted you might be about life yourself, however you might believe it to be a matter of bargaining, of compensation, of one thing being cancelled by another, of one thing being precluded by another; however convinced you might be of the impossibility of anything being had both ways, you continued to believe that to every rule there must be an exception; that it need not always be like that; that to just one person it might be vouchsafed to have the cake and eat it. Was it just silliness to pray that for Melanie it need not be as it had for her, as in all probability for Jean it was going to be. Was it illogical of her, knowing as she did that she would not be pitying Jean, but envying her that evening; that while she herself was changing at the flat for her dinner with Leon Carstairs she would be picturing Jean as she stood before her rows of dresses in her wardrobe, wondering excitedly what she should wear for the dinner with which Todd was to celebrate his victory: wondering which dress he would prefer her in; aglow with happiness, pride, anticipation: just as she herself had done: as she wondered if she ever would again.

  With her mind cast three years back, Julia dressed that evening. But for Jean there was no cautioning, no counselling voice out of the past. No whisper, “Why be excited, why fuss yourself? Once before it was like this.”

  It never had been. There had been men in her life: men she had liked: men she had been fond of, men she had been thrilled by: but never before had she had this feeling of going out to meet her fate, never before as she looked at her reflection in the glass had she had the sensation of taking a farewell of the person that stared back at her.

  “I shall never see you again,” she thought. “This evening when I return it will be a different person that will be smiling back at me.” Never before as she turned round the room before she left it, for a last look to see if she had forgotten anything, had she had the feeling that she was leaving behind her something that she would never have again; that when she returned, the bed, the chairs, the photographs, the absurd china ornaments along the mantelpiece, the cats, the dogs, the rabbits, would look on her as a stranger.

  Which was ridiculous, she told herself. Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. She had no reason for thinking Gavin Todd was in love with her. She did not even know that she was in love with him. All the way to St. James’ she kept telling herself how ridiculous it was. But in spite of her arguments her heart was beating and her mouth was dry, and the trees in Hyde Park were greener than she had ever seen them; the banks of flowers were more richly coloured, and there was happiness in the faces of the soldiers who loitered by Rotten Row; and the great cars were purring softly up Constitution Hill, and an amber sunset gilded the chimney-stack on St. George’s Hospital. Never had the world seemed lovelier; nor the people in it happier, kinder, gentler.

  She was nervous, though, as she climbed the stairs to Gavin’s flat, as she stood before the mirror in his bedroom, patting down the coiled hair around her ears; as she looked at the cloaks laid out along the bed, appraising their quality, guessing at the people who had worn them; as she followed the butler down the passage to the drawing-room.

  The moment she was in the room, however, the nervousness was banished. She could not feel nervous with a man like Gavin. He had such complete confidence in her that she had confidence in herself. She had wondered what she should say to him, how she should congratulate him, but there had been no need for her to worry. The moment she was with him she had again that feeling of having known him all her life, so that it was the easiest thing in the world to say, “I am so glad you won. I’d so hoped you would.”

  Nor did it sound conventional as she said it. Nor did it sound conventional when he answered :

  “I had to win. I wanted to throw this party.” Before she had been in the room thirty seconds she knew that she was going to enjoy herself. There was no mauvais quart d’heure. Talk went easily, in an atmosphere of victory: of congratulation. She was introduced to a youngish man whose name she did not catch, but to whom she found herself talking without embarrassment. How could she feel embarrassed when every few minutes Gavin was turning towards her, smiling at her, encouraging her?

  It was the same afterwards at dinner. Gavin had not placed her next to him. For a moment the omission piqued her. The next it pleased her. His not placing her next to him was a singling of her out. She met his smile happily and turned to talk to the man beside her, confident and light-hearted. There were eight of them, the right number for a round table. At times conversation could be general, at times it could be split up into duologues. The stage management was good. The food was good. The wine was good. There were no gaps between the courses. You were not conscious of the butler’s presence. It was the kind of party that you could scarcely have helped enjoy. Though even as she enjoyed it, Jean could not help wishing with one part of herself that it were less well done, that that feminine side of Gavin’s nature which had made him diffident in their first meetings should make him capable of performing a woman’s function. The very efficiency of this dinner was a proof of how little a woman could do for Gavin, of how little he needed a wife: or rather of how little he felt the need for a wife. For he did need one: his very two-handedness, his apparent self-containedness was a proof of that. He had been led by it into a self-centred, self-sufficiency that would deepen as time advanced; that would throw up a barrier between the world and him.

  “I could do a lot for him,” she thought, looking at him with a protective fondness.

  For Jean it was a happy hour. The sensation of nervousness returned to her, however, when she was sitting with the other women in the drawing-room. Two of them were married women. And in the presence of married women she never felt completely at her ease. Between them and her was the barrier of experience; a barrier of which one was the more conscious in that its existence was ignored. It would have been easier, Jean felt, in the old days when the innocence of the unmarried was assumed; when a latch was placed upon the tongue: when there were certain things that could not be said before young persons. To-day there was not such reticence.

  The conversation had turned to a police court case that was receiving at the moment a great deal of publicity: the case of a woman who for thirteen years had masqueraded as a man, marrying and apparently keeping a wife happy. They were discussing the case intimately; in the way that only experienced people could discuss it. The tone of the conversation assumed experience on the part of each of the four women. Thirty years ago innocence was assumed in every unmarried person; now it was assumed in no one over seventeen.
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  The conversation set Jean Ryland at a disadvantage. She disliked having to pretend to an experience she lacked. She was resentful, in the presence of these women who were more truly women than she was herself. She felt like a schoolgirl and despised herself for feeling one. It was not her fault, she thought angrily, that none of the men who had proposed to her had been able to persuade her that she wanted to spend the whole of her life with them; or that none of the men who had attracted her had attracted her enough. Or was it her fault? Was it that she was not attractive enough to attract the men by whom she could have been thrilled, transported into ecstasy? Was it her fault? She felt despondent, unsure of herself, wretched; she longed for the men to come in from the dining-room. She wanted to feel Gavin’s smile upon her, to feel its warmth, to be comforted by it, reassured and strengthened: to have her faith in herself restored to her.

  Her heart beat quickly with relief when she heard the opening of the dining-room door: the murmur of talk in the hall: the turning of the handle. It was to her as she had hoped that Gavin turned, and in his eyes and on his mouth was that smile that was half a caress. In a second her wretchedness, her doubting of herself were banished. It was silly of her to think like that. She was attractive enough to Gavin. What else mattered? And she smiled back at him, waiting for him to come across to her, to sit beside her and tell her in words all that had been said behind that smile.

  But he did not come, and just as she had been grateful to him at dinner for not placing her next to him, she was grateful to him for not coming across to her. His not coming was a singling out of her. Had she been a casual acquaintance he most certainly would have come.