WELCOME STRANGER

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘Of course, he is quite distraught,’ Jeannie told Alice and the other occupants of the room. ‘And I feel devastatingly sorry for him, poor lamb. But it would be quite wrong for me to turn down this wonderful opportunity of going to Kenya. And now that I’ve given up my flat, there is nothing to prevent me staying there for quite a while if I like it. So it wouldn’t be right for us to be tied by an engagement. I think I did manage to make him see that.’

  Alice felt her hard-won control slipping. ‘He’ll probably find someone else,’ she said.

  ‘I should like to think so.’ But plainly this was not an idea which could be entertained seriously.

  ‘And, anyway, you can’t have loved him much or you wouldn’t have given Kenya a second’s thought.’

  Jeannie trained her radiance like a searchlight on Alice. ‘And what have you been doing with yourself?’

  ‘Playing tennis.’

  ‘As long as it’s tennis and not another man. The last time I saw you so thin was during the Gordon affair. You’re like me, of course, you are so warm. Though I never lose weight. In fact, I thrive on emotional ferment. I would rather have an unhappy love affair than be uninvolved.’ Her manner made it clear that unhappy love affairs existed only in the realm of speculation: Jeannie never entered the field unless she was assured of success.

  When she talked about her various men friends, however, her conversation related more to the places to which they had escorted her than to the warmth of feeling they had aroused. The externals of Jeannie’s life were going to be interesting. She would dine at fashionable restaurants, visit exciting places, have useful contacts all over the world. Perhaps in her forties one might begin to suspect that nothing much was happening inside her. But by that time there would be a new way to travel excitingly, the fashionable restaurants would be different, and the useful contacts of another type. To this extent, Jeannie would always be adaptable. She was also eminently practical and would never stretch beyond her reach.

  Perhaps I accept defeat too easily, Alice thought, dazzled by Jeannie’s confidence. I should have telephoned Ivor. He might have expected it. I could still do it. If I can get away from Jeannie soon, I might even . . .

  ‘What time do you have to get to work?’ Jeannie asked, seeing Alice studying her wrist watch.

  ‘Half-past nine. On two days we start at nine, and on three at half-past. But there’s talk of our starting at nine each day in exchange for having all Saturday mornings off.’

  ‘I don’t know how you stand it! This darling specialist I worked for was so marvellous about time off. I could go and get my hair done – or slip out to the shops. And, of course, it is quite the nicest part of London.’

  ‘I like being near St James’s Park.’

  ‘But, my dear, I was just off Wigmore Street! Anyone who is anyone shops in Wigmore Street at some time or another. Not that I’m a bit of a snob. Quite the contrary, in fact. There was a dear old road sweeper with whom I became great chums. I liked those old characters much more than some of the dowager duchesses who came and wasted dear Jamie’s time.’

  Alice, remembering that Jeannie had referred to the Commodore as Roddy, wondered if she had really called her employer Jamie.

  A woman crossed the street to the gardens in the centre of the square, walking with that mixture of care and inattention peculiar to the very old to whom the business of putting one foot before the other is of more concern than oncoming traffic. She unlocked the gate, after some little trouble, and went into the gardens. ‘She goes there every morning and just sits,’ Jeannie said. ‘Sometimes she reads a book and sometimes she doesn’t even do that.’

  Whereas I have played tennis, am breakfasting with a friend, and shall soon be on my way to the office, Alice thought. Jeannie will go shopping and buy a frock, then she will lunch in this new restaurant a friend has told her about, and in the evening she will come with me to the Open Air Theatre. Although the frock may not be quite what is needed for Kenya and my office will definitely be boring, the restaurant may be a disappointment, and the seats at the theatre too hard, we shall have had something to show for our day. Yet the woman sitting in the shade of the plane trees looked as contented as the Buddha.

  ‘And she can’t be hard up because she has lived in the square all her life; and she has seven children and umpteen grandchildren all of whom seem to be doing very well for themselves,’ Jeannie said. ‘I had a chat with her one day. Her family is spread out all over the world; but she has hardly travelled at all! Can you imagine it! She could have gone anywhere and done anything!’

  ‘I think having seven children and umpteen grandchildren counts for quite a lot! In fact, when you are old, I should think it counts for more than anything else.’

  ‘But it is so important to take one’s opportunities. That’s why I’m going to Kenya, although it means breaking with Dougal.’ Jeannie liked to have a moral justification readily to hand for her actions.

  Alice, unimpressed, said, ‘Wasn’t Dougal an opportunity?’

  ‘There will be plenty of men in Kenya.’ She looked at the woman whom she seemed to regard as some sort of challenge. ‘At least you would think she could hobble as far as Harrods!’

  ‘She probably feels she has earned her rest.’

  ‘She may have done, Alice, I don’t deny that. But one should never give in. Plenty of women of her age go on cruises. They do everything for you. From the moment you arrive at Victoria everything is taken care of, and you don’t see your luggage again until you go to your cabin.’

  ‘A girl at our office went by sea to southern Italy this year. They took her luggage at Victoria and she didn’t ever see it again.’

  ‘Some cheap little travel firm, I expect. Not the P & O Line.’

  ‘Any sort of travel would seem luxury after a troopship, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘To say nothing of that awful journey to the desert!’ Jeannie looked down at her freckled, golden arms. ‘I used to think there were some little creases and crevices in my body that would harbour grains of sand for ever more.’

  ‘Do you have any news of Madeleine or Gwenda?’

  ‘Gwenda married a Wog. Didn’t you know? I can’t think what her life can be like now that the Egyptians have turned so nasty.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed Egypt, though, would you?’

  ‘It was the best time of my life!’ Jeannie, taken aback by her own spontaneity, added, ‘But one must never look back. That is why I am so keen to go to Kenya.’ A thought struck her. ‘Why don’t you come? It’s a marvellous climate and women have a wonderful time out there.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it.’

  ‘But you should. England is pretty drear, isn’t it? We’ve gone back centuries. I never wanted for necessities when I was a child, and I don’t suppose you did, either. But now the only people who can live comfortably are the ones who trade on the black market. And as long as we’ve got this socialist government, things won’t get any better.’

  If I don’t see Ivor again, I shall never get any better, Alice thought. She made her excuses and hurried out in search of a telephone box. When she found one, she realised she had no idea what she was going to say. She walked on. Ivor lived in this area. Several times in the past weeks she had walked by his flat, hoping for a glimpse of him. She had looked up at the windows, willing them to reveal something of the life within. Gradually, she had realised how little she knew about him. She had very little to feed on; and misery needs fuelling as much as ardour. Lately, misery had begun to lose its edge. But this meeting with Jeannie had agitated the pain.

  As she walked down Victoria Street the pace of the city was quickening. In Strutton Ground, the market holders had already set up their stalls, and one man was taking stockings out of a suitcase while his companion drew the attention of passers-by to rolls of parachute silk. Nearby a policeman stood with his hands behind his back, neither looking for nor anticipating trouble. A crawling bus disgorged passengers while the conductor re
pelled boarders. It was very hot and petrol fumes hung on the still air. People with anxious faces darted amid the surging traffic, hurrying, hurrying, driven by the need to be driven. And there, at the entrance to Strutton Ground, blocking the narrow pavement while people pushed to get past them, were Ivor and a woman. They were quarrelling. Short and dark, her ample bosom plumped up with rage, she stood with feet slightly apart, fists clenched. The fighting pose suited her so well it must surely be habitual. And the little chopping gestures of his hands as he dismissed whatever she was saying seemed as well practised. They were as careless of censure as of any inconvenience they might cause others. There was a kind of rapacity in the way they prolonged their quarrel, as though they could not have enough of it. One sensed, in the fervour with which they attacked each other, that greed was an essential element in this relationship. A climax was reached, and suddenly it was all over. They looked with amused contempt at the passers-by, and then made their way to a stall where they joined forces in provoking the vendor of parachute silk.

  So that is that! Alice thought as she walked slowly up Victoria Street. Light sparked on glass; steps rang hard on pavements. Near Caxton Hall demolition men were at work and bricks fell in showers of dust and grit. She clenched her hands, hating this jagged city.

  ‘You are late,’ Mr Hadow informed her with satisfaction.

  ‘I got involved in an argument. One that was none of my business.’

  Claire finished washing the breakfast dishes, looking at Heather through the window. Heather, an exemplary godmother, was playing with the children in the garden. It was Claire’s belief that children should never be made to do anything. She could not help but observe, however, that Heather was allowing them more freedom than she herself would have done. Of course, she would never have issued a direct instruction; but she would have explained why sitting on the grass at this time of the morning was not advisable. Advice, when given by Claire, was meant to be followed. She had always been an anxious, unadaptable child who turned counsel into an absolute rule of conduct. Only recently her mother had laughingly reminded her how once, when they were visiting their aunt’s house, Alice had closed a window because the rain was coming in, and Claire had cried out, ‘They have to be open because that’s how we found them!’

  In a few minutes, a neighbour would call to take Vanessa and Hilary to spend the day with her own children, so that Claire and Heather could have a few hours to themselves. Claire, who had been looking forward to this, was chilled by the fleeting nature of time. She had always needed to possess her joys, and since they, too, tended to be transitory, the only way she could do this was to satisfy herself of their endless repetition. As a child, she must be assured that another party invitation was sitting on the mantelpiece; that before the last chorus rang out across the sand, plans had been made for another Crusader camp; that the next meeting had been arranged before she parted from a girl friend . . . But now, all that she could be sure of was a morning and an afternoon which would pass all too soon: the following morning, Heather would leave. She had been home for three weeks and had only managed to spend four days with Claire and Terence. UNRRA had closed down in June; but next week Heather would start work with another relief organisation in Germany. ‘I wouldn’t ever come back to England for good now,’ she had said.

  Once, Claire would have taken her trouble to God, praying fervently – and loudly – in their bedroom at the top of the house in Pratts Farm Road, while Alice tried to distract her by humming noisily or banging dressing-table drawers. On one such occasion, when rebuked, Alice had said, ‘I can’t stand all this “Well, here we are again, God, what are we going to make of today’s load of rubbish . . .” ’

  ‘Don’t you believe God answers prayer?’

  ‘I don’t know what I believe.’

  This was not good enough for Claire, who needed a strong framework in which to live. For a time, religion had provided that framework, and then the Force which moved in the great void in which her little structure was erected had ceased to tolerate it. The icy winds of loss and doubt had crushed it to matchsticks. The business of reconstruction was painful, the enterprise too hazardous, the risk of another failure beyond bearing. While Alice would live in that necessary tension between belief and unbelief, Claire must search for a structure which was so strong that no Power could threaten it. The best remedy, of course, was to cease to believe in the Power. But the void was still there. As she meticulously scoured the kitchen sink, she felt small, fragile, absurd.

  The neighbour came round the side of the house and greeted Heather. ‘Perhaps if you came down to the front gate with me they would go more calmly,’ she suggested, as they put the children in the pushchair which Terence had constructed, and which Heather privately thought resembled a miniature tumbril. ‘They don’t separate very well.’ But, in Heather’s cheerful presence, the children suffered themselves to be trundled away without protest. Heather returned to the kitchen and found Claire tearful.

  ‘It’s only for a few hours,’ she said, imagining it to be the children’s departure which had occasioned this grief. No wonder the poor little mites couldn’t separate!

  ‘I wish you weren’t going.’ Claire strove to sound as if this was something less than complete tragedy, while despair opened up a well in the pit of her stomach. Heather was good with the twins and helpful about the house, but this was not what had made Claire feel so much less burdened over the last few days: it was the absence of effort. She tried all the time with Terence and the children; from the moment she got up until she dropped exhausted into bed, she slaved at being a good wife and mother. Whereas with Heather she had been so happily at ease that the tasks she had had to perform had seemed to be done by magic, so unaware had she been of busy hands and brisk feet. She said, ‘I don’t have any other women to . . . not any!’

  ‘You’ve got Alice. You and she were always so close.’

  ‘Not any more. Alice gets on better with Louise, now.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got Terence. He may not be another woman, but he must count for something.’ Heather had been jealous when Claire married, and there was still a need for vengeance of which she was immediately ashamed.

  ‘You don’t understand about marriage.’ Claire spoke in the superior manner she adopted only too readily, as though referring to a state experienced by only a few. ‘Marriages have to be made. It’s the making that is tiring.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’ Heather was to be married in November. ‘Any other useful tips while you’re about it?’

  Claire had been affronted when Heather told her that she was getting married. ‘You, married!’ she had said. If Heather was so faithless, who would keep the memory of their past affection green? Now, she studied her friend thoughtfully. Heather’s madcap mischievousness had been all very well at school, but she seemed to have grown into her angularities rather than out of them. It was possible, no doubt, for tall, ungainly women to make good marriages, but the odds must surely be against it.

  Claire said, ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘We’ll manage. We’ve been living together for quite a while. I’m not fussed about getting married; but we both love children and we don’t want ours to have to grow up explaining how enlightened their parents are!’

  Claire seemed to see her friend across a great chasm. Intellectually, she applauded Heather’s matter-of-fact attitude to morality, yet at the same time she was rent with grief and desolation. The tears which she had been holding back erupted like lava from the subterranean depths of her despair. Heather, realising this was no ordinary weepiness occasioned by the demands of motherhood and the strains of housekeeping, rushed to put her arms round her; and not for the first time Claire flinched from her friend’s impetuosity. But the involuntary stiffening passed without notice amid the frenzy of her sobs, so Heather continued to hold her until at last Claire relaxed against her shoulder. ‘Now, what is this all about?’ she asked gently.

  �
��I miss Daddy so much . . .’ Claire needed to identify a single cause as explanation for all her troubles; and the death of her father had long served this purpose.

  Heather accepted this, though she put a rather different construction on it than Claire. ‘It happened at the wrong time for you,’ she said. It had been apparent at school that Claire did not find the growing up process easy; and on her father’s death she had been robbed of the time needed to work through her adolescence. She seemed to have moved into the adult world while remaining in many ways a child.

  ‘And after your father died, there was Uncle Harry of blessed memory, wasn’t there?’ Heather recalled. ‘We fell out over him. I still think he was a bad influence on you, quite apart from his being a bit lecherous. You were always saying he taught you to try to live more like him, and see what you could do without. Maybe you discarded too much? I know I’m a fine one to talk, being a natural heathen, but your religion used to mean a lot to you, and if it helped you . . .’

  ‘He’s the God of the Gaps, I’ve learnt that now. And what gaps science hasn’t filled, Marx has.’

  ‘All right, so God’s gone away. But what about those games you and Alice used to play? Will you make up stories like that for your children?’

  ‘It was wrong, all that imagining. Uncle Harry taught me that. I’m not going to have my children growing up in a dream world. And you know what Freud says about fairy stories!’

  ‘Lordy, lordy. There must be something between the Epistle to the Ephesians and Das Kapital you can give them for a bedtime story!’