by Nina Bawden
The shy, doubtful question, “How are you, darling? Feeling better?”
The anxious eyes watching me, then sliding away from something they saw in mine.
“Yes, thank you. Did you have a good day?”
“So, so. Maggie’s little mare foaled this afternoon. An enchanting little creature, colour of a toffee apple. If you feel like it to-morrow, you must come and look at her.”
“I’d like to.”
“Sherry?”
“Yes, please.”
“Did you have a rest?”
“For a little while. But I couldn’t sleep.”
He gave a ghost of a grin. “Worried about your heart again?”
“No,” I lied. When I lay down my pulse beat in my throat like a machine. Up to now I had always been healthy; any sign of illness frightened me.
James frowned. “Harriet, try not to think about it. Cole says there’s nothing wrong and he knows his job.”
“My heart bumps all the time. He’s never listened to it, so how does he know it doesn’t?”
“Well … why not wait for a little and see if it clears up?”
I said tartly, “The only victor, under that system, is death.” He laughed. For a moment we were easy and natural together. Then he came across to my chair to give me my drink; as he bent over me his shadow grew behind him on the wall to something gross, disfigured and horrible. Watching it, I shrank away from him; he put down my glass without touching me and went back to his chair on the other side of the hearth.
We watched television. We drank and talked. We were strangers and worse than strangers; enemies, pretending neutrality. At night we lay, rigid, in the same bed, each sharply aware of the other’s wakeful movements, feigning sleep. This morning, when I woke, he had breakfasted and gone from the house, leaving no message for me.
Maggie’s suggestion that we should drive to the lake had been accepted merely as a device to fend off the long loneliness of the day. I was suspicious of scenery; other people’s appreciation of nature had always sounded shrill and pretentious to me. But the border country had beauty even for unreceptive eyes. To-day I found in it a new, serene delight. In the valleys the hills were round and gentle, the land as tamed as Southern England. Only up in the hills were you aware that this was a country where man was an intruder with only a temporary tenancy. These were the oldest mountains in the world; the centuries passed over them like rain. Standing on their green heights, you knew the meaning of silence and great age; you could hear the tramp of feudal armies.
I said, “This is lovely country. I’m glad you brought me here.”
She squinted at me with her cold, mermaid’s eyes. “Yes.” She sounded impatient. “Can you hear the gulls?”
Their clamour rose distantly over the brow of the hill. We climbed up the track, our faces brushed delicately with rain. We came upon the lake as she had said, quite suddenly; the seagulls screamed their warning into the empty sky. There were thousands of them, rising above their tiny island in the middle of the lake like pieces of paper caught in a sudden vortex of air, making a noise like the rattles people take to a football game. As we stood quiet by the shore, they settled, blue-grey wings folding with a caress against white bodies, black heads dramatic against pale plumage.
She said, “Can you see the chicks? They nest here every year.”
I could see nothing except earth and spikey grass. Then a tiny scrap of lighter brown moved against the brown island, the chick was one of hundreds, thousands, they crowded together, jostling for a place on the half-submerged sanctuary. The chicks were quite big, half the size of the parent birds, but they did not appear to swim or fly.
“How long do they stay here?”
Fascinated, I peered across the water. A gull flew close by us and I could see the curved, cruel beak.
She did not answer. She was crouching on her haunches, staring with intent eyes at the brown and silver surface of the lake. I repeated the question; this time she must have heard me speak but not the sense of what I said, because she turned her head and looked at me, dull-eyed. Then she returned silently to her remote contemplation; half amused, I sat by her side and watched the island, indulgently accepting her chosen isolation.
The wind drove the water over white rocks to our feet. The gulls forgot our presence and went about their business, squabbling and crying and swooping low over the water. The sky darkened and the wind blew cold. My heart was pounding from the climb; I pulled back my leather glove and felt for the racing pulse. The faintness and irregularity worried me. I contemplated my body with misgiving.
I touched Maggie on the arm. “We must go back. It’s going to rain.”
She got up at once but with a curious lack of response, as if she were obeying an inner voice, not mine. Her eyes were hazy and distant. “I used to come here a lot before Mummy died.” Her voice was stilted.
“Oh,” I said carefully. “Can you swim here in the summer? Or is it too cold?”
She looked vague. “I don’t know.”
We walked slowly down the track. My legs felt heavy and lumpish; the blood sang in my head.
She said suddenly, “Can I come with you to Paris?” She gave me a sidelong look, almost sly. “I feel so safe with you.”
“Safe? What a funny thing to say.” I was only half listening, I hugged my coat collar round my neck.
“It isn’t funny.” A rosy colour burned suddenly in her cheeks. Her eyes were very bright and looked, not at me, but at some point beyond my shoulder. She spoke in a low, rapid voice, almost whispering, although we were alone on the wide, windy mountain.
“Please. Please don’t leave me. It isn’t safe, you know it isn’t safe, don’t you?”
She was trembling with excitement. The words tumbled out in a flood of garbled, unconnected phrases; she was trying to express something that so far had been only a hidden nightmare in her mind. What she said had all the terror and unreality of a dream at the moment before waking. She was afraid. She was terribly afraid. I must not go away and leave her alone, she would not be safe. At one point she put her hand to her head in a helpless gesture. “You don’t understand, do you? I know what I want to say, but something comes into my head and makes it muddled.” She gave me an odd look, wild and shy like a hunted creature. “It’s like someone interfering with the wireless waves. Perhaps they don’t want me to tell you.”
Her eyes were wide and blank and full of terror. I watched her with dismay, knowing that I was far too receptive to hysteria, just now, to be able to help her.
I tried. “Maggie, dear Maggie, no one wants to harm you. Don’t you see, this is just something you’ve imagined, a game you’ve been playing? It’s not real at all.…”
It sounded soothing and reasonable; for a moment she looked calmer. Then she said, “I feel as if I am alone on a bridge and there is no safe place at all.”
I was appalled; the words so perfectly echoed my own private fear. Up to now it had been, like the witch in the cupboard, sensibly acknowledged or fearfully ignored. Now, with her sad, anxious cry, it burst the boundaries of daytime sense and became a formless terror, a sweating, animal alarm.
“Maggie, tell me what it is that frightens you. Otherwise I can’t help you.”
She spoke with a quick blankness as if suddenly she saw all the implications of her fear and wished to hide them from me. “What frightens me? I don’t know. Truly, I don’t know. Only please take me with you.”
The request was spoken lightly, coaxingly, and she brushed her hand against mine with gentle blandishment. In her voice there was no evidence of what I felt was true: that she was now behaving with deliberate calm, to spare me. The change, from the dreadful frenzy of her outburst to the simplicity of a child begging for a treat, was startling and complete. Bewildered and uneasy, I took my cue from her.
“It would be fun, wouldn’t it? Have you been abroad before?”
“Once, with Granny. We stayed in Brittany. But it was just like the English se
aside.”
“Paris would be different. We’ll ask Daddy when we get home.”
She breathed sharply and looked away. Then, turning, she smiled happily and rosily.
“If you ask him, he’ll let me go.” She gave a small skip of excitement like a little girl. Her beauty and her pleasure were infinitely touching; I loved her suddenly and sharply so that I wanted to touch her face and her hair. But she ran, laughing, down the empty mountain and waited for me by the car.
James said doubtfully, “I suppose she can go, if you really want her.” His eyes were puzzled. “Why do you want to take her?”
“She might enjoy it.”
“I suppose she might.” He smiled wryly. “At least it means that if you take her, you’ll come back.”
My heart turned over. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
He watched me sombrely. “How could I be sure?”
We caught the evening plane to Paris. James came with us to London and we lunched with my mother. I had been apprehensive about the meeting, it had seemed destined to be artificial and unreal. As a result I was excessively gratified to find her friendly and pleased to see us. The lunch was a qualified success.
We talked about the weather and my trip to Paris.
She said, “What a shame you couldn’t go together. Still, I suppose there’s a lot to do on the farm. We can’t all leave our jobs at a moment’s notice. Harriet is a very lucky girl. I don’t think she knows how lucky she is.”
It annoyed me to be referred to in the third person. “I don’t see why I should apologise for being lucky.”
James grinned at her. “She’s deserved it, poor girl. She’s had a hideous time.”
His tone was indulgent and I saw my mother bridle. “No doubt. But not everyone who deserves a holiday can have one. There’s a young woman living in the house opposite mine. She has two small babies and she’s just come out of hospital after a very terrible operation. She can’t afford any help in the house, let alone a holiday.”
Her voice was loud and angry. When she had finished speaking, she pursed her mouth in a complacent way and wriggled her shoulders as she always did when she had said something unanswerable. She was one of those people who are able to gain a curious moral advantage from reporting the misfortunes of others. She had a sinking fund, as it were, of the poor, the sick, the crippled: there was always someone whose history, aptly applied, could be relied upon to deflate her luckier listeners, make them feel mean and shabby. To do so was not her intention; on this occasion she did not grudge me my holiday. She was genuinely moved by misfortune and injustice; it was regrettable that her quite sincere emotion should make her seem sometimes silly and spiteful.
I looked anxiously at James but he had not misunderstood her. His mouth twitched a little but his eyes were kind.
“I’m sure Harriet appreciates her good fortune,” he said softly, and glanced at me.
She was disarmed. “I’m sure she does.” She smiled fondly at us both. “Dear Harriet, I am so glad I’ve met your nice husband at last. It’s wonderful to see you both so happy.…”
The waiter brought the coffee and Maggie went to the cloakroom. As soon as she had gone, my mother leaned across the table. “What a lovely girl. So beautiful, and with such nice, natural manners. So many girls of that age are so muscular, all bulges and spots. And they look so unfeminine in those dreadful school uniforms. Harriet looked just like a pudding. Maggie is enchanting, you must be very proud of her.”
She accepted a cigarette and went on archly, “I shouldn’t think you’ll have her on your hands very long. With that face and figure, she’ll marry young.” She surveyed the marriage market with the speculative enjoyment of the older woman. “So many girls stay at school far too long. They get married much older than they used to. I was married at eighteen and my husband was only twenty-two. I’m sure the happiest marriages are the young ones.”
James was gallant. “I’m sure yours would have been happy at any age.” She fluttered like a girl and puffed awkwardly at her cigarette. Then she said thoughtfully, “Of course some young girls need marriage. It gives them stability. I should think Maggie is one of them.”
“Why do you say that?” James was looking at her oddly, I thought. She flushed.
“Oh, I don’t know. It was a silly thing to say, but then I’m a silly woman, as Harriet will tell you.”
When it was time to go, she hugged me awkwardly and pushed a small package into my hand. She was incapable of showing emotion gracefully; the present, she said, was of no value, just a few handkerchiefs because I was always borrowing other people’s. She got into the taxi before I had time to thank her, nodding and beaming at the window, waving a plump, gloved hand, and she was borne away into the stream of traffic. Later, opening the package in the plane, I found six lawn squares, beautifully embroidered. She had given up fine sewing years ago because it strained her eyes; my present must have taken weeks of aching, delicate work.
We had half an hour to wait at the air terminal. Through the glass door behind the luggage bays we could see the coaches standing in line, each with a flight number on the back. Maggie went to buy magazines from a bookstall. Left alone, James and I were stilted and polite with each other; although we stood close together, our shoulders almost touching, it was as though the grey channel already lay between us.
“Have you got everything? Currency, traveller’s cheques, passport?”
I opened my handbag and examined my wallet. “Yes. I’ll send you a postcard when we get there.”
“Only if you think of it. I won’t be hurt if you don’t.”
“All right. Would you like me to ring you?”
“If you want to. It’s expensive, of course.… I can find out from the airport that the plane has landed safely.”
“You’ll be all right, won’t you? Janet is going to cook for you. She’ll see to everything, light the fire in the evening.…” There seemed nothing to talk about except the trivial arrangements made for his comfort.
“I know. It’s not necessary, really. I can cook quite well. I don’t mind being alone.”
I said accusingly, “You’ll be glad to be rid of me. To make an end of those long, dreary evenings.…”
Stung in his pride, he seized, first, on the unimportant issue. “Were they so dreary? I’m sorry.” Then, “I didn’t want to be rid of you. You didn’t want me. Remember?”
A couple walked up to the luggage bay. Their shoulders were spotted with confetti, they held themselves stiffly in their new clothes, talking in high, wary voices. Shyly, out of sight of the official, they held hands.
Beyond the glass door, the rain streamed down like a curtain.
I said, “Do you think they’ll be happy? Are people happier if they marry young?”
It was easier to drift into stupidity and anger than to preserve a surface amity: I had meant to hurt him.
“I have no idea.” Wounded, he retreated into pomposity. His face was buttoned up behind a bright, fake smile. He stood very upright, very military, a little more handsome than the rest of his kind, wearing his clipped moustache like a badge of office. Only in his eyes could you see his humanity, the hurt, romantic soul. Resentfully, I saw his love for me as hypocritical sentimentality, a kind of sloppiness.
“When you were married before—you were young, then. Were you happy?”
“At the time I thought so.”
“You went to Paris with her, didn’t you? Was it wonderful or did she make you miserable?”
Crimson to his ears, he stared at his shoes. He could not bear scenes in public.
“Why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you say she was an awful creature, that she made you desperately unhappy? Oh—I’m not jealous, there’s another reason, and you know what it is, don’t you? Go on, say it. It wouldn’t cost you much except your stupid sense of honour. You’re such a gentleman, it’s almost a joke.”
His sad eyes stared at me. “Would it really make you happier if I attac
ked her? If I were so disloyal?” His voice was low and strained. “Darling, can’t you take me on trust?”
“It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? So simple—just to trust you. Only believe and thou shalt see, that Christ is all in all to thee. You need so much faith for that.…”
“Harriet, you’re not well. Not fit to travel.”
“I’m all right. Just hysterical. Have you got a handkerchief?”
He produced one from his pocket and I blew my nose.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he said miserably.
“Quite sure.”
Nervously he touched my hand. “Sweetheart, try to trust me. You’re not insecure, you only feel you are. Try not to be too afraid of me.”
The words fell bleakly between us. Silently I cried, “But I have every reason to be afraid of you.” Over the loudspeaker a clear and cultured voice announced our flight number. Maggie joined us, glossy magazines clasped to her breast. Her eyes were darting with excitement.
“I bought some boiled sweets. The man in the shop said that if you have something to suck on the plane it stops your ears buzzing.”
She twisted on her heel, her coat skirts swirled about her. People were filing through the glass door towards the coach. Now, at the moment of parting, I felt reality like a sword thrust. It was too late to make amends, too late for everything.