WELCOME STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  Louise smiled and stretched out an arm to Guy. ‘My darling, how good you are to us.’

  He came over to her and again inspected her back. ‘Shall I rub oil on for you?’

  ‘After tea, my sweet.’

  Alice picked up the copy of Asmodée and began to read again. Louise went to the table and poured tea. Guy eased himself into a deck chair. ‘Ben had some idea we might all go on a walking holiday together. What do you think? I expect your mother would look after the children.’

  The holiday resolved itself into a long weekend to be taken in October, as Guy and Louise were committed to a summer holiday with the children in August. Alice agreed to the proposal because she could not envisage a future which stretched as far as October. They were to walk in the Chilterns. Too much time would be wasted in travelling were they to go to Offa’s Dyke. ‘Leave that for another year,’ Louise said. ‘When we have more time.’ Alice marvelled that they could take the circumstances of their lives so much for granted. Why, in October, let alone another year . . . She was still seeing Ivor more often than she had dared to hope.

  He would never know how attractive he would have found her had Louise cast no shadow. There were moments when she seemed to emerge and stand on her own; and, since on these occasions he experienced a certain unease, he guessed that there might have been something he would have sought in her. But these glimpses came too rarely for him ever to forget that she was Louise’s sister. He was fascinated by the variety of emotions which could be roused simply by being in her company-pain, pleasure, the desire for revenge and a deep, secret merriment. There seemed infinite possibilities to choose from at the end of every stroll in the park or along the banks of the river, or as the last notes of a concert died away. The important thing was not to settle for any one of them. Their affair would then become like any other and he was not short of that kind of satisfaction. He had already told her he had two mistresses.

  One mistress would have been a matter for concern. There being two, she could only assume that neither contented him. Indeed, he must be very discontented since, in spite of having two mistresses, he sought her company so often. But it troubled her that there was no suggestion of their becoming lovers. Gordon had not become her lover because he was married. Was she always to be involved with men who, for one reason or another, did not seek to have their way with her?

  ‘Don’t you find me attractive?’ she teased him.

  ‘You know that I do.’

  ‘Is it because of Louise? I don’t mind that. I’m used to being second to Louise.’

  ‘I could never be sure of my motives, Alice. Believe me, I’m not usually so scrupulous. But I don’t think I have ever made love to anyone as an act of revenge.’

  ‘That sounds very lofty – not a bit like you.’

  He laughed. She was never sure how serious he was about anything. But however he had answered, it would have made little difference, since she would have used it as grounds for hope. Had he told her that he hated her, she would have thought: now, that is a good sign because it shows real feeling; and the fact that he had to tell me is even better; we are drawn together by this hate.

  But although he never told her that he hated her, he did occasionally display an anger which seemed to surprise himself as much as her. Once, when she had been talking about Claire, whom he had never met, he said savagely, ‘The Fairley sisters are the three sirens. You lure men with false promises while you ensnare them in your moral net.’ He spoke as though there was something inherently wrong in morality.

  ‘You think your way of life is the only way, don’t you?’ he said. ‘It’s not true. Each person is a kind of exploration, the discovery of an alien culture.’

  Sometimes he frightened her; but was it possible that he, too, could be frightened? ‘Are you afraid of making love to me, is that it? Do you think I would change you into a frog?’

  ‘No, a husband.’

  She made no reply, and he said impatiently, ‘You are too honest for your own good, Alice. You should protest more.’

  ‘I wouldn’t insist on marriage if you didn’t want it.’

  ‘Oh no! But you would look at me with those grave, steady eyes offering freedom – “leave me when you will . . .” I can’t imagine a more potent weapon.’

  ‘I never think of myself as having weapons.’

  ‘No? Yet you are very expert with those eyes.’

  ‘What nonsense you do talk! But I can’t argue with you, I’m not incisive like you. You have no difficulty keeping company with your ideas; while I’m always pursuing mine; just when I think I’ve grasped one, I see it from another angle. And so it goes on.’

  ‘That is most endearing and will see you through life very well.’

  He was on the defensive: she had turned him into a mortal! ‘There now,’ she said, ‘and I thought you were a separate creation; while it turns out you’re just a person with a strong sense of self¬preservation.’

  ‘That was rather good for someone who has to fumble after her thoughts.’

  When she was not with him, she went over and over such conversations, elaborating them while she prepared minutes or filed reports; they echoed in her mind when she went to the cinema so that she could not talk sensibly about whatever film she had seen. There was no one in the world but Ivor. He was round every street corner, on the end of the telephone whenever it rang at home or at the office; above all, he was in her dreams.

  She dreamt one night of a house which stood by a lake whose waters mirrored it without a single ripple breaking the image. The next day she experienced such pain and longing that she could not remain still and was constantly finding an excuse to leave her office to walk in the corridor, or to run down the front stairs and up the back stairs, anything to release the tension which built up whenever her limbs were inactive. In the evening, she walked through the streets into Holland Park. That night, she wrote a poem about the dream and by containing her experience within a framework of rhyme and rhythm, a pattern of formal phrases, the pain became more manageable.

  So long the house has stood secure

  Insensitive to storm and fire

  The still lake water, crystal pure,

  Mirrors a peace beyond desire;

  Amid the dusty, twilit trees

  The nightingale no longer sings

  And strain and stress and long unease

  Have years since fled on cobweb wings.

  But now, across the cloistered lawn,

  A wind comes thrusting from the sea,

  As barbed and bitter as the thorn

  That draws the blood of agony;

  The bay tree bends compliant back

  Before the invader’s dancing lash;

  The house, new-twisted on the rack,

  Awakens as the cymbals clash.

  The flames of dawn consume the night

  And chaos strides within the gate,

  The house in terror turns to fight,

  In anguish knows it is too late;

  And knowing, smiles, and hears once more

  The tender, final agony,

  Through broken glass and splintered door,

  The nightingale’s sweet litany.

  Later, looking at the poem, she saw that it told her much about the intensity of her need for love, but very little about Ivor. It could have been inspired by another man, and seemed to foreshadow a time when there would be no Ivor.

  ‘He will take me,’ she thought. ‘He must. And I will have had something Louise didn’t have.’ Until now, she had always thought of herself as being without a shred of jealousy of Louise.

  It was more than Ivor which was at stake. It was her chance of happiness. And happiness? Happiness was the secret of Kashmir, of that world beyond the dim curtain of the present, a world brilliant with all the colours of the spectrum whose citizens lived in an eternal now. She saw Ivor as her pass to cross this frontier; through him she would leave behind the sepia world of absence and unanswered need.


  The only person in whom she confided during this time was Irene, who had problems of her own. Irene listened, wincing, to Alice’s account of her latest encounter with Ivor.

  ‘I admire you for actually saying these things to him.’

  ‘You mean you wouldn’t have done?’ Alice was quick to sense disapproval.

  ‘I think it’s more that I couldn’t bring myself to let him see my feelings.’

  ‘You think I have cheapened myself?’

  ‘Honestly, I really do admire you.’

  ‘You make me feel I have done something awful.’

  ‘I think you are very brave.’

  ‘I don’t want to be brave. I want love.’

  ‘Oh, really!’ Irene pressed her fingers against her lips. Her face looked pinched. ‘I’m sorry, Alice. I’m afraid I’m not being much help to you.’

  Alice saw Ben on several occasions. He had taken to calling in on Louise and Guy in the evening, and when Alice was out in the garden, hoping for a few minutes alone, he would join her. He seemed to understand that she was deeply unhappy. But his behaviour was more unpredictable than ever. At one moment he would surprise her by his sensitivity, the next he would be abrasive or irritatingly obtuse. He could accept her ill-humour with wry tolerance, and then become unexpectedly hurt by some casual-comment she had not intended to be taken seriously.

  ‘I can’t cope with you being so touchy,’ she told him one evening.

  ‘What else can’t you cope with, Alice?’

  He was standing beside her, and now he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. She cried out, scarcely knowing for what.

  ‘Alice, tell me . . .’

  But she pulled away from him and ran into the house.

  The day before, Ivor had failed to meet her in the evening. She had waited for an hour outside the café where they were to have had supper, then she had found a telephone box and dialled his home number. The line had been engaged. She had dialled several times with the same result.

  Days went by, then he telephoned her at the office and asked her to lunch with him. When they met, she was immediately aware of a difference in him. He looked at her as though it was much longer ago that they had last met and he spoke in the light insulting manner in which an acquaintanceship can sometimes be disclaimed, without regard for conviction. In the café, he said casually, ‘I’m sorry about the other evening. But I had to work late.’

  ‘You could have telephoned.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled, creating an opening for her. ‘So?’

  She made no reply, unwilling to be forced into a move of his choosing. But later, when they were walking in St James’s Park, she said, ‘I don’t suppose there is any point in going on, is there?’

  ‘Probably not.’ He was deliberately cheerful; but she noticed that he was limping badly. It was a hot day. Perhaps the heat had upset him.

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to do without you,’ she said gently.

  They stood on the bridge where he had once taken Louise’s hand. He said, ‘You will manage well enough. Underneath all that uncertainty, there is a very strong-willed person. You will get what you want from life, Alice.’

  ‘I don’t recognise myself when you talk about me.’

  ‘That is because you like to think of yourself as gentle and malleable.’

  ‘I think you are the most hurtful person I have ever known.’

  ‘When it comes to hurting, I can’t hold a candle to a Fairley.’

  So, it was Louise to whom he was talking! And it was Louise, no doubt, who had fuelled what fire there had been in their relationship.

  ‘Now what have I said?’ he asked, studying her face.

  She turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s a stupid remark, when obviously something matters very much.’

  ‘But not me!’ she shouted. People turned from feeding the ducks to look at them. ‘It’s not me that matters, is it?’

  For a moment, he was touched and made a movement towards her. Then he checked himself. If he tried to make amends, another situation, more potentially harmful, would soon arise and he was beginning to lose his way in this labyrinth into which he had allowed himself to be lured. He said, ‘I don’t think I am very good at these farewells that go on and on like the last chords of a Beethoven symphony.’

  She pushed past him roughly, so that he overbalanced and had to cling to the railings of the bridge to support himself. A woman standing near by said to her companion, ‘What a way to behave – and to a cripple!’

  Alice, walking beneath the arch of plane trees, was already playing the game so dear to women of constructing an ending which she could have borne. If only we could have talked it over like civilised people and decided between us that it would not have worked; if only we could both have come out of it feeling enriched; if only we could have remained friends; if only, if only. . . . But what bearable ending was there when two people were free and still did not choose each other? He would probably go back to his flat and listen to music that evening, taking deep breaths of relief that it was all over. Or perhaps it didn’t even matter that much? He would listen to music and think of Louise. While she, Alice, would compose letters to him which she would never send. And would walk through the leaden streets, or stare from the office window, wondering despairingly if this was all, all there was ever going to be.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jacov came back from an all-night party and sat reading the paper. It was August and the room was hot and stuffy. He found this unpleasant, but it did not occur to him to open a window. There was a report on a speech by Herbert Morrison about the latest economic crisis. Although Mr Morrison contrived to sound quite jaunty about it all, it was doubtful whether his comments would give much joy to anyone. ‘Even the little homely things matter,’ Jacov read. ‘Get more than ever out of your garden and allotments. Bottle and preserve all you can. If you can, raise poultry. Step up salvage, save paper, save pig food, save . . .’ Jacov turned to another page. India and Pakistan had come into being at midnight on August 14th – or should it be the 15th? How confusing for the Indians. While all the celebrations were going on, Moslems and Hindus were engaged in killing one another. He turned to the book page where there was a muted appreciation of The Judge’s Story by Charles Morgan; on the opposite page there was a less than respectful review of a play which he had produced at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. He was pleased to note that most of the blame had been laid where it belonged, on the ample shoulders of the leading lady. He put the paper down and went to the radiogram, found a record of Scheherazade and poured himself a brandy. The music was just beginning to work its magic when there was a banging on the front door. The woman with the gauze scarf tied over hair curlers contrived a certain Byzantine elegance and when she spoke it was without any hint of aggression. ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Her eyes dwelt wearily on the brandy glass. ‘Obviously you don’t. Then I must tell you that it is just after six.’ Jacov could not decide whether she thought it was early or late for brandy; but it was clear to him that she did not like Rimsky Korsakov.

  ‘No, Mr Vaseline,’ she said slowly, as though speaking to the very hard of hearing. ‘It is music I don’t like. I am tone deaf. It is a misfortune, but then none of us is perfect. And at six o’clock in the morning, as well as being tone deaf, I am not very tolerant.’

  ‘I will turn it off.’

  ‘Thank you. I hoped you would.’

  They bowed to each other and she departed.

  Jacov finished the brandy, standing by the window looking down at a postman who had paused while emptying a pillar-box to talk to a road sweeper. He envied them this brief companionship. Usually, he slept most of the morning; but six o’clock was too late to begin sleeping. He had no idea what else could be done with the morning hours, since music was not allowed. He decided to breakfast at Lyons all-night café near Westminster Bridge.

  As he walked along Victoria Street, he realised that one of the re
asons he had felt he must get out was that she had called him Mr Vaseline. The people in Pratts Farm Road, Shepherd’s Bush, where he had lived when he was a schoolboy, had spoken of ‘the Vaseline family’. It was already beginning to get warm and would develop into one of those long, enervating summer days: days on which Alice and her friend Daphne would practise tennis shots in the Fairleys’ garden and Katia would sulk because she had not been asked to join them. His mother would say, ‘You do not want to run about red as a lobster like a peasant’; while the twins would play the gramophone as loud as they pleased and the Fairleys would not complain. The twins were alive and in Canada; he must write to them. And Alice. Alice worked just off Parliament Square. He must ask her to lunch with him – sometime when he could be sure he would be up by lunchtime. He would take her to The Ivy, she would enjoy that. Did she know that he and Louise were lovers? He suspected not. ‘No one must ever know about this,’ Louise constantly insisted. ‘I don’t want people to gossip and make fun of Guy.’

  Once, when he had not seen her for a long time and was angry, he had said, ‘It might be simplest to give them nothing to gossip about.’

  She had answered almost as though it were a matter in which he was not involved, ‘I couldn’t go on . . . I just couldn’t go on without this.’

  ‘You could leave Guy and marry me.’

  ‘And what should we do with the hours when we weren’t in bed, Jacov?’

  ‘I should be at the theatre.’

  ‘You are very selfish. What a good thing it’s Guy whom I love!’

  He came to Parliament Square, which looked quite provincial at this time in the morning, and crossed Whitehall without any assistance from the policeman on traffic duty.

  He went into the Lyons opposite the Houses of Parliament where he was immediately rammed by a trolley of dirty crockery pushed by a large, moist woman in an overall. ‘It’s ’elp yourself, luv,’ she said, when he sat down. She abandoned the trolley momentarily to smear a grey cloth over the surface of the table. Jacov took a tray and inspected the dishes on offer, rejected congealed poached eggs in favour of baked beans on toast.