Only by assiduous questioning thrown into her back did David learn that Mary at first had not understood Gage’s predominance. Certainly he was an intellectual, certainly he gave the impression that for every hour they had spent on the opera he had given a day, but this hardly seemed a reason for the breathless drive that compelled the most egotistic into subservient silence. Only when, to her surprise, he showed a personal interest in her, he sat with her through a grand social evening and accompanied her back to her room, did people blurt out the stories of his success, in Italy, Australia, Japan, his influence, the dazzling performances he would mount at the Met, the Scala. Mary had mocked, ‘What’s he doing with a twopenny ha’penny university production then?’
They’d look slyly at her as if she were catching them out, or acted overly stupid, and then report his dictum: ‘You learn more of stage drama from Semele than from The Ring or Otello, because in Handel it’s implicit only.’
She acquired a nasal timbre as she quoted.
Gage had taken three weeks out of his high life to produce them, because he was interested, they said, in art, not in Gage. The world could wait for him. This unshowy extremist had earned, and he was not yet forty, the respect of the international circuit, could subdue divas, hand out patronage, recognize and promote the talented, and here he walked amongst them, a god on earth, blowing his nose, making a pass at this English singer, bringing in every New York critic to marvel at his first night.
The plaudits of the journalists were so lavish that it seemed momentarily certain that Semele could be sent unchanged out on a world circuit, but the total effect was lost inside a fortnight. Once the company went on tour, Gage had disappeared to his next engagement, the scenery did not travel well, began to disintegrate, there was illness in the cast, Fenster handed over to a deputy, the orchestra began to break up, arrangements were seen to be uncertain; even the funds ran out, in spite of rescue attempts. The university people in New York were great, fought to keep the company together, but they had their own concerns and too much effort and money had been spent earlier and a crack-up was inevitable. The girl’s voice broke as she talked; from the stiff back David could learn nothing, but he heard her tragedy plainly.
He could understand why she would not move from the window. She had taken a stance there, in the first place, out of nervousness and once in situ found herself able to talk to him, express her failure. David wanted her back, in the chair, comfortably, but was afraid to make the proposal. His hesitation seemed ludicrous once she had begun to talk easily about the opera, once she had caught his interest without playing too blatantly on emotions, but now, as she spoke her disappointment, the faceless narration was only too proper. It kept him at a distance so that she was capable of confession.
Yet he hated the gap. When he knew all, they would still not have touched physically; the constraint between them would be greater because of what she said, her manner of saying it.
‘Aren’t you getting tired, standing there?’
‘No, I’m all right.’
He had been surprised at his own quietude. It had appeared to him as she progressed with her narration that his professional interest had cooled his emotions. That could not be true; any next sentence might club him down, shred his carapace of disinterest. He asked his questions to keep her talking, that was important, but he could not, by thought at least, prise her away from that rectangle of light.
‘Where was Gage, then?’ he asked.
‘He’d gone off to the West Coast.’
‘Did he keep in touch with you?’
‘No.’
‘Not at all?’
‘No.’
She had steadied her tone. He paused again, uncertain of the form his inquisition must assume, unwilling to dam the trickle finally.
‘Was that the sort of man he was?’
For a second he thought she’d turn round, but she did not. Her obstinacy seemed ludicrous; he ought to walk across and spin her. He did not.
Without much difficulty she repeated the information she had already given. Gage was intense, but ungaudy, sombre. When he talked his voice, rarely raised, rapid, carried immense weight; he knew his mind, a wide universe. His reputation was enormous, but he refused to be diverted by publicity. He hardly slept. He crept round in his sneakers, black trousers, sweatshirt, small linen or velvet jacket, and altered every preconception. An iconoclast, he revered each facet of tradition. Once he had made his decision, his certainty was so substantial that he saw no need to shout it from the housetops. Mary spoke of his patience, his galvanic effect, his huge conviction.
‘And you were his mistress?’
The hiatus stretched, stretched; David’s breath came short.
‘We had sex,’ she said, ‘three times over three weeks. It didn’t seem important to him. Or so it seems now.’
‘When?’ David snapped at her.
Again she described the brilliance of the first few performances. The low, shame-shocked voice sketched again preparations, parties, the enthusiasm of pundits, the intoxication of the professors, and her precious place in the centre of animation; stimulated beyond measure, delighted in herself, a cynosure, the scintillating stranger, she had known that the world bowed to her, envied her, was hers for picking.
Mary was no fool, David knew. She had experience of performance and achievement; her head would not have been turned without reason. These bits and pieces of sentences made him understand, even participate in, the bright solidity of success.
‘And we fell into bed together.’
‘You were not drunk?’
‘Not with alcohol.’ She filled her lungs. ‘And he was strange. I don’t think he liked women much, but he was taken out of himself. It was hard to tell. He wasn’t on the same planet that I was.’
‘But it was more than once?’
‘Three times.’
‘And then?’ David could barely breathe.
‘He switched off. I don’t think he was particularly attached to women, but for a few days he did just consider marrying an English girl, pregnant by somebody else. But then he went on to his next thing.’ The sentences seemed translated from a foreign idiom.
Zeus had become himself again, in divinity, in these sentences torn from her.
‘And you?’
Now she turned round, came across the room, stood momentarily by the chair she had vacated, her right hand reaching down, touching nothing, and then sat. She lifted a blotched face.
‘I wanted to marry him.’
David shuffled back, away from her, stationed himself behind the end of the table, crushed.
‘He was overwhelming. He was a genius.’ She seemed to plead for David’s agreement. ‘Perhaps the fact that I was having such a success turned my head.’ Her fingers reached for reason in the air. ‘Perhaps, I’ve gone over this afterwards, over and over, I thought he would put me in the way of a career. That wasn’t deliberate at the time. I’m sure of that. It was just that he was so different. Remarkable. Powerful.’
‘And physically?’ He dragged the question up from his bitterness.
‘Not very tall. Strong-looking. With this nice, curly hair.’ She looked up, suddenly, eyes open blue. ‘He wasn’t as attractive as you really. I don’t think so. Not in appearance.’
‘But?’
She stared at him in dislike.
‘And he just went away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know he was going?’
‘It was always understood that once we were established, he’d dash off for his jamboree, he called it, in San Francisco. But he went before I, before . . . I thought he’d . . .’
‘He left you no note, no explanation?’
‘No.’
‘You expected to hear from him? When he arrived?’
‘I hoped so. Yes.’
‘And you did not?’
She did not answer; there was no need. She bowed her head, keeping herself to herself in humiliation.
&n
bsp; ‘What about some tea?’ he asked. It was 5.30; they had talked for over an hour.
‘I was shattered. I couldn’t eat. I felt sick all the time. It affected my singing. People were kind, especially Katie, promising me things, that he’d come back, that, that. It only took me a week to realize. I hoped he’d . . . I kept waiting.’
‘And then you were stranded?’
‘The schedule began to break, and that, that . . . There was no work for me there.’
‘Liz Falconer’s scheme didn’t come to anything?’
‘No. She never even appeared. Cancelled everything, they say. But you just imagine us, performing like hell so somebody somewhere would take us up. Nothing happened. We did no worse than when the critics were all over us. But it was Red they were praising. I understand that now. For all the effect we had, we might have been singing in the street.’
‘Yes.’
‘I rang my mother and told her I was coming home.’
‘Why didn’t you phone me, Mary?’
‘How could I? After the way I’d treated . . .’
Subdued anger was directed away from him, towards the hearth.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘Come and help me get the tea ready.’
‘You do it.’
He grasped it then, the extent of her effort. She was the husk of herself. This hour and a quarter had killed her beyond all politeness.
‘You can have salmon sandwiches or ham,’ he said.
‘You choose.’
‘I will.’
David felt glad to be in the kitchen, trembling, doing tasks not beyond him, cutting bread thin, making sure the best china was spotless. When he brought in the crockery, the cutlery, he noted she had not moved, that she sat, eyes wide open, in her chair, staid and stable. He arranged Mrs Stiles’s saffron buns on a doyley on a plate. Twenty minutes had passed by the time he finally carried in the teapot.
‘At long last,’ he said. ‘It’s salmon. Made to your taste.’ He carried over a stool which he placed in front of her, and lifted her feet on to it. She allowed the advance. Next he arranged a small table by her chair, handed her napkin, plate and knife, poured out her tea. She accepted a sandwich, moistened her lips, gave no thanks.
‘Eat up,’ he ordered.
She smiled, thin as water, across at him, tried a small bite.
‘To your satisfaction?’
She nodded, incapable of speech. When she had masticated the sandwich, slowly, without appetite, in misery, he, watching her covertly, gave her a minute’s grace before he carried the plate across. When she refused, he pressed her, and she yielded.
‘We’ve got to build you up,’ he said, and went unanswered.
Mary drank a second cup of tea, crumbled and ate one of her mother’s cakes. David had lapsed into bleak, uncompanionable silence and was glad in the end to ask if she wanted more. She had removed her legs from the stool.
‘No, thanks. That was lovely.’
Small victory sounded in the two sentences. While he was outside washing the dishes he heard her go upstairs, presumably to the lavatory, and then almost immediately come down. He had hoped she would look about, in and out of the bedrooms, but she disappointed him. Clearing the kitchen put off his return to the dining room.
He found her again at the window.
‘Those bulbs have done well,’ he said. ‘Those you set in the tubs. Narcissi.’
She returned to her seat and he opposite.
‘I’ve not asked you a word about yourself,’ she said. ‘It’s been nothing but me and my foolery.’ She skirmished with the last word.
‘First things first.’
‘Tell me.’ Her voice lacked power, powerfully.
He described his time with the Trent Quartet, delineating the characters, making her smile at Barton’s old womanliness, Wilkinson’s domestic yoke, Fred’s dignified homosexuality. From time to time she threw in a question as she would have done in the old days, and he relaxed, but she would then reassume the complicated stiffness of pose which kept him uncertain. He did not give up; he outlined technical difficulties in the Shostakovich, in Britten’s Third, then sketched concert organizers, discomfort in dressing rooms, audiences, the chances of the Trent’s becoming professional.
‘How did you manage for white shirts for the concerts?’ she asked so feebly he wondered if he were inventing the conversation for himself.
‘My mother bought me three, and kept them laundered.’
That seemed a confession of weakness.
‘I did the rest. Honestly. Washing machine on every Wednesday and every weekend. I’m quite an expert with the iron.’
She dismissed the trivialities with a short sweep of the arm, violently energetic within the context of her immobility.
‘How have you been?’ she asked.
‘Pretty healthy really. Usual coughs and colds.’
‘I didn’t mean like that.’
As soon as she had posed the first question he knew intensely how he had been. This afternoon he had hedged himself, disciplined himself to be her friend and host and now she came out with this demand. Depression winded him like a kick.
‘Pretty bloody,’ he answered.
‘But you kept working?’
‘To the best of my ability. I was lucky in that I had interesting things to do. If I’d been at a factory bench . . .’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Sometimes, even so, it was so painful it stopped me practising, but mostly I could stagger on, not very fast, not very straight.’ He tried to keep his voice light. ‘I wished sometimes I had an animal, a cat to sit on my knee, or a dog to take for a walk. Of course, for weeks I kept hoping, looking out for the postman, telling myself the transatlantic mail service had slipped up.’
‘You must have . . .?’ she faltered.
‘In the end. Yes. I realized something was seriously wrong.’
‘I’m sorry. It was awful, David.’ She groped outwards. She was crying, soundlessly.
‘Come back to me, Mary,’ he said, off balance.
The imperative passed without effect. He had decided that she was not going to answer, that he must toss his cap again into the fearful ring, when she spoke.
‘Do you mean that?’
He did not know; in his dizzy distress he had no landmarks except for this central pointer: he must take her.
‘Yes. I wouldn’t say it otherwise.’ That sounded weakly, unconvincing even to him. ‘I want you back.’
She said nothing, but her posture hinted of hope. She did not deny him, repel him with stiffness. She was listening.
‘Come home,’ he said. He remembered a catchword of his father’s from some radio show. His all was subsumed under ham acting, comedians’ foolery, half-forgotten ephemerality. The gaiety of nations.
‘I have,’ she said.
‘For good?’
‘You don’t want me.’ Silent crying began again; rolling of tears etched her grief into him.
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I love you.’
‘But look what I’ve done to you.’ Her voice was strong, letting him get away with nothing, checking his banalities.
‘I want you here.’
‘David.’ She stopped, as if to make sure her argument was clear before she put it. ‘You’ll never be able to forget what I’ve done to you. It’ll always be there, in your mind, whether you say anything or not. It will fester. I acted abominably. How can you say . . .?’
‘I’ve said it.’ Strongly, upstanding.
‘That’s sentimental.’
The schoolmaster answered, on top of his class.
‘Expressing more emotion than the situation warrants,’ he said, mock-pedantically. ‘Allow me to think otherwise.’ He checked her with his hand. ‘Argument is not going to change my mind. Do you want to come back?’
‘Yes. If you’ll . . . I think so.’
Her face, tear-stricken, was turned away from him. Was this wholehearted? He did not know, but he cro
uched, on his right heel like a miner again, by her chair.
‘You won’t be able to forget what I’ve done, will you?’
‘I’m not perfect. No. I expect what you say is right enough, but it hardly seems worth wasting energy on just now.’
‘It’s no use starting off forgetting these things.’
‘You’ll be telling me next,’ he said, flaring, ‘that I only took you back because I didn’t much care one way or the other about what had happened.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I know you didn’t. But what you don’t realize is how glad I am to see you sitting in this room, telling me you’re going to stay.’
As soon as he established it in words it became the truth. A powerful sense of, at present, satisfaction rather than exhilaration gripped him, expressed by his monosyllable ‘glad’. He could not define it, or defend it. Perhaps, these disclaimers darted, flitted at him sharp, resisted temptations, his pride had been temporarily bandaged, in so far that he had no longer to go about saying ‘My wife has left me for another man.’ It did not feel like this. He could not quite disturb the universe, even shake the street and his bent legs were beginning to hurt, but his conviction grew, strong, huge, deepening, not overwhelming yet, but near flood level. Dangerous, yes, all that. But right, right. Correct. Just.
The telephone shrilled. Both started.
For a moment he thought he should ignore its insistence, but could not. He smiled apologetically at his wife.
Anna Talbot asked how he had found Mary. Her impudence astounded, half angered him. He kept his voice low. ‘She’s here with me now.’
He could not listen to the welter of her answering, apologetic sentences. In the end she seemed to shout.
‘You mean she’s back for good?’
‘I hope so.’
Valley of Decision Page 23