by Alec Waugh
I greatly enjoyed her letters. That summer two friends of mine, Elma and Lennox Napier to whom I have referred already, settled here. I gave them letters of introduction to the Peronnes. Eileen always wrote of them.
What a lot they would have to tell me on their return. But when would that be? 1933 was passing and still no news of their return.
Eileen continued to be a regular correspondent. ‘It’s such a relief to have someone to write to who can take some interest in the things I’m doing. It brings them to life for me. I keep saying to myself “This’ll make Alec chuckle”: and I need something like that, you know, to keep me chuckling. One has to have someone to share one’s jokes with.’
Did that mean, I wondered, that she couldn’t share them with Raymond ? Was he taking his Dominican experiment too seriously for chuckles? He was, clearly, very busy. He had decided to start canning oranges and bananas, and was importing machinery from Canada.
‘“Why not from America?” I ask him, but he’s caught that “Buy British” tag. Do the Canadians think of themselves as British where business is concerned ?’
Was a petulant note stealing into her letters? When I mentioned that mutual friends of ours had produced an infant, she wrote, ‘Some people have all the luck.’ I presumed that she was trying to have a child, but without success. Would Raymond worry ? I doubted it. Perhaps in second sons there is a special antipaternal bloc, an unphiloprogenitive complex. Not having inherited themselves, yet having been brought out in an atmosphere of inheritance, they form a defensive mechanism against jealousy. Trained and resolved not to resent first a brother’s then a nephew’s better fortune, they do not want their sons to be subjected to ambitions they cannot themselves realise. I had noticed how often second sons in the aristocracy became homosexuals. Was this, subconsciously, a reaction against the occupancy of a second place. Perhaps Raymond was secretly glad that Eileen had not become pregnant. Was he also glad of this excuse for keeping out of England ? Was Raymond’s absorption in the fortunes of this rainsoaked paradise the expression of a self-defensive mechanism ? He was certainly whole-hearted in his resolve to prove that an estate there could be a profitable investment.
‘Can you credit this,’ wrote Eileen, ‘but my lord and master has bought up a large lime plantation in the north, at Portsmouth, where as you know the capital should have been, but there was too much malaria. I won’t question that it’s a good plantation, but you have to take a launch to get there. It’s a four-hour trip. It’s not worth going there, unless you spend the night; that means having a house there, so he’s converting a ramshackle shed. It’s a dreary place, no social life whatsoever: and the malaria’s still there. He’s also enlarged our own plantation here. Mangoes this time. He’s setting up a mango factory.’
As the autumn passed, the note of detached incredulity was underlined in Eileen’s letters. ‘What next?’ she wrote. ‘That’s more than I can guess. But I can tell you what’s come last, arrowroot. It’s making a lot of money in St Vincent, so my Lord and Master has decided to launch it here.’
The satiric note was now apparent. References to her ‘Lord and Master’ became more frequent. She was becoming, too, ironic about the life they led. ‘Last week,’ she wrote, ‘I went to Barbados to have a tooth stopped. There’s no real dentist here. I used to feel cheated by my defective teeth. I’d picture myself with snarlers at the age of forty, but now I’m really grateful to these wretched fangs. It gave me a chance to get away, to see real shops and to meet new people. In Barbados they’re already beginning to make plans for their Christmas visitors and tourists. No such luck for us. What have we got to attract the tourist? scenery seen through rain, that’s all. The same people in the club in January as there were in June; the same talk; gossip about GH, about the AG’s capacity, or rather incapacity for rum; about Mrs Jones’ car being parked for two hours yesterday afternoon outside the Paz . . . you know the kind of thing. I enjoyed it for the first six months; a place where everyone knows everyone makes every piece of tittle-tattle shine, but oh, for something really new; I’m tempted to do something really outrageous, to give them something to gossip over, make a pass at the Archdeacon’s daughter for example … When are you coming out ? When, when, when …’
It was a question that I was beginning to ask myself. I was anxious to see them again. I also, for professional reasons, wanted to have a second look at Dominica. On my next visit to New York I contrived to persuade an editor to send me down there to do a piece about the carnival.
My ship dropped anchor early. To my surprise the sky was cloudless. The mountains glistened and the ochre-yellow houses along the waterfront glowed in the morning sunlight. It was good to be back, to be importuned by voracious boatmen, avid for my custom, who introduced themselves with the cognomina of film stars. ‘Mr Robert Taylor, I look after you,’ ‘Clark Gable, sir, your man, that’s me.’ And it was good, very good, to be welcomed by Raymond on the jetty. He looked very well, slim and tanned, at peace with himself and with the world around him.
As we drove through the town, I looked eagerly from left to right. ‘It doesn’t look any different,’ I said.
‘Did you expect it to, in five years, with a depression on?’
We swung right onto the Imperial Road. Once out of the town the colour dazzled me.
‘I hadn’t expected it to be so bright,’ I said.
‘Perhaps it’s the first time you’ve seen it in the sun.’
Perhaps it was. ‘I was only here for a week,’ I said.
‘You should be luckier this time, in two weeks.’
He told me his tentative plans for those two weeks. A cocktail party the following evening to re-meet old friends. ‘Iris will be in from her convent for the weekend.’ A picnic on the Sunday. On the Monday a dinner at GH. On the Thursday I was to go out to the Napier’s, returning to Overdale on the Sunday. Next day we’d come into Roseau for the carnival. ‘That’s the framework. It gives you plenty of spare time to fit in whatever you may need for that article.’
‘It all sounds fine by me.’
‘And here we are,’ he said.
Photographs in black and white had given me no real impression of the house’s charm. They had not told me how the white wood shone and how the red and purple of the bougainvillea stood out against it, nor how the lichen-stained grey stone of the crumbled windmill give it dignity.
‘You made a good choice,’ I said.
‘I knew right away that it was right. As one always does with that kind of thing. The daemon that guided Socrates.’
Eileen had heard the car and stood at the head of the steps to welcome me. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton blouse, white with a flowered pattern and a dark blue skirt, cut short below the knees. Her legs were bare and she was wearing sandals. She was not as tanned as I had expected. ‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘welcome.’ She looked at the grandfather clock, beside the door. ‘Half-past ten. Too early for the first punch, I’m afraid.’
‘Much too early.’
‘Why don’t you let Raymond show you round his factory? By the time he’s finished, you’ll have earned one.’
By the time we were through it was half-past twelve. ‘We lunch at quarter past,’ Raymond told me. ‘That gives us time for two of Eileen’s punches.’ She made them on the classic formula, one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak, with nutmeg scattered on the surface. They were rich and sweet and cold, creating their own euphoria.
‘Did you ever see Polly ?’ I asked Eileen.
‘Of course.’
‘Polly’, the sequal to The Beggar’s Opera, had been put on in London in 1923. Eileen had been between husbands then: no doubt with many beaux, taking her to all the shows that were necessary for a Bright Young Person. Polly had run for eight months. ‘You remember that opening scene ?’
She answered by quoting it. ‘Rum, Jamica Rum, ‘tis the one commodity that reconciles me to this barbarous climate.’
‘How do you fin
d the climate now ?’ I asked.
‘Doesn’t looking at Eileen answer that ?’
She certainly looked well enough. I had only seen her once before, though that once had covered a twenty-four-hour stretch; at first she had been desperately on edge, gulping at her drink, treating her cigarettes as though they were martinis, then later in the day, radiant and transfigured with all her problems solved. Neither had been the real ‘she’. But then what was the real ‘she’? How often do we know ourselves to be ourselves ? How often are we not filling the series of roles that chance has cast for us ? At any rate she seemed to be cast now in a rôle that suited her.
At lunch she was an easy hostess: noticing what one lacked, not pressing on one more than one really needed. She contributed to the talk without monopolising it. She was full, naturally, of enquiries about England.
‘Tell me everything about everyone,’ she said. Yet she did not appear envious of her friends; she did not talk as though she missed that life too desperately.
‘Of course there are things one misses here. But think of the things you get.’
‘What are the things you miss ?’
‘Music, that more than anything; plays; I loved the theatre, and all that goes with music and the theatre; all the talk about what’s coming on, gossip about stars, who’s in love with whom; which manager is in the money; hearing things at first hand, being behind the scene. Every party in London’s an adventure. London’s an adventure. London’s the centre of the world. Everything sooner or later comes there, everything and everyone. Yes, one misses that.’
‘What takes the place of that ?’
‘The place itself. Its beauty; the warmth; the family feeling of all of us being in the same show together.’
‘What about the rain?’
‘There’s not really as much rain as one is told. It’s terrible, at times, I know. Days and days of it; everything wringing wet. The fruit rotted, the flowers draggled; yet somehow it’s the link that binds us all. You were in the war. You know how much better it was in France than it was in England. You shared the danger and the mud.’
‘How much of the year do you plan to stay here ?’
‘How can I tell ? As long as we spend a good share of it, I shan’t grumble.’
She spoke contentedly; yet I sensed, though I could not define, an air of restlessness, of uncertainty, of questioning self-doubt. There was something not quite right.
‘How about Iris?’ I asked, ‘won’t she have to spend a good deal of time in England ? Aren’t you thinking of sending her to a University, or somewhere in Paris or Switzerland to be finished off? How old is she now, fifteen?’
‘Not quite. She can afford to spend two more years at least here; and in two years a lot can happen. There’ll be air travel soon; then she can come back every holiday—not only in the summer.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting her.’
‘She’s looking forward to meeting you. She reads a lot. You’ll be the first author that she’s met. She’ll probably bore you blue with questions. “Tell me how you write, Mr Waugh, on a typewriter or by hand ? Who is your favourite author?” You know the kind of thing.’
I knew the kind of thing extremely well and was prepared for it. But it was not like that at all. Iris was an enchanting creature; blonde, blue eyed, with a fresh complexion that was barely tanned. Her hair, as was the mode then among young teenagers, was cut in a fringe with coils about her ears. Her legs were slim and straight. She was slightly over five feet tall. She looked sixteen at least. Her breasts jutted against her blouse. Her hips were rounded. She must have become used by now to males in the street following her with their eyes. But she was not in the least self-conscious. She was outgiving without being forward.
As I had been warned, she was full of questions. ‘You are the first novelist I’ve met,’ she said.
‘What about Elma Napier?’
‘She doesn’t count; she lives here. Tell me about Rebecca West.’
‘That’s a lot to ask. She’s a complex character.’
‘Of course, but what’s she like. Beautiful?’
‘Very striking. Her friends call her Panther.’
‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know her well enough.’
‘I see.’ She paused. ‘Panther, yes, I can picture somebody with the nickname Panther.’
‘Berta Ruck, in one of her novels, described her voice as one of the loveliest she had ever heard.’
‘Berta Ruck; I used to dote on her when I was young.’
When I was young. I had the restraint not to smile.
‘Berta’s one of my best friends. We help each other with our stories. She’ll tell me that her hero plays Rugby football; she’ll send me her MS and say “in chapter five, half a page about the football match in which he plays.” ’
‘How does she repay you ?’
‘I send a description of a party. “I want my heroine to feel over-dressed; what would make her feel that way in that kind of party.?” ’
‘I see.’
‘Who else do you read ?’ I asked.
‘Rosamund Lehmann, Sylvia Thompson.’
‘I’ve only met Rosamund Lehmann once.’
‘Is she as beautiful as she looks in her photographs ?’
‘Even more.’
‘And Sylvia Thompson?’
‘Two years ago I crossed in the same liner. She’s very lovely too: in every way,’ I added.
Iris sighed. ‘It must be wonderful to meet all these wonderful people.’
‘They don’t all seem so wonderful when you know them.’
‘I’d like to meet them.’
‘You will if you want to.’
‘What, out here?’
‘You aren’t going to stay here all your life.’
‘Aren’t I? Where am-I going then?’
‘To a finishing school, to Oxford aren’t you?’
‘That, oh yes, but that’s a century away.’
Fours years a century, and the couple of years ago when she had doted on Berta Ruck belonged to the days when she was young. I was fascinated by her. Not having a sister, I had seen very little of young girls.
Eileen and Raymond had left me alone on the verandah with her. I sipped a Barbadian rum and water while she drew on a coca-cola through a straw. She sat on a cushion, leaning back against the balustrade, her legs crossed beneath her.
‘Have you any plans for yourself when you’re grown up ?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘It’s no good making plans. Things happen suddenly, and you make the best of them. My daddy never saw me. I’ve got the letters he wrote to mummy from the front. “How wonderful that we are going to have a baby. Do I want a girl or a boy? Either way I know it will be wonderful.” That was the last letter that he ever wrote. The same thing happened to Uncle Raymond’s brother. He never saw his son. Three years ago I had never heard of Dominica. Now it is my home. You can’t look ahead.’
‘But you have, surely, to make your plans as though they weren’t going to be interfered with ? You’d never do anything, would you, if you said, “What’s the good of arranging a tennis party, it might rain.” ’
‘And that’s what always seems to happen here. You make a new party frock: and a rainstorm soaks it.’
‘Yet you have to assume that it won’t rain.’
‘You’re right. One has to. Even in Dominica.’
She said it with a laugh. She could take it with a laugh. What was one rain-spoilt afternoon to her? She was so very young, there were so many afternoons ahead.
That night at dinner Iris was full of her plans for Carnival. She was going to ‘run mask’ with a troup of school friends; a dozen of them were going to put white cotton stockings on their arms to conceal their colour: to powder their faces with flour, mask their eyes; their skirts and blouses were to be striped green and red and orange: black stockings and white shoes: sashes advertising Shillingford’s diagonally across their chests: the
y would take it in turns to strum their quota of three banjos; they had memorised the calypsos. Shillingford’s were to renew their vigour every other hour on the hour with cokes and hot dogs. They were to start at ten; at six they were to report back to the convent. Then with their faces cleaned they could rejoin their parents.
‘When I was here five years ago, the streets had to be cleared at six,’ I told them.
The year before there had been trouble. Old scores had been paid off; a body with a knife in its back had been found on the waterside. ‘That’s over now, or at least we hope it is,’ said Raymond. ‘We’re having dinner at the Airds’; then we’ll go out on the streets for the last two hours. You musn’t miss the last leap. At the last stroke of twelve everyone leaps to his feet, arms on high. One terrific yell; then silence.’
On the Wednesday afternoon Raymond drove me to the Napiers’: I was to be back at Overdale on the Sunday in time for dinner. On the Monday evening we were to go into Roseau. We were staying at the Paz. ‘I need an hour’s rest at least every two hours,’ Raymond said.
‘My first year,’ Eileen said, ‘I stayed on the streets all the time. At least that’s what I planned to do. But of course I couldn’t. I had to have rests. That meant going into bars. Oh, what a head I had next morning!’
Two years earlier I had spent Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I had had an apartment then in Jackson Square, which had been a very useful rallying point. I had settled a number of scores of back hospitality. It had been a big occasion. I expected this to be an even bigger one.
On the Sunday afternoon I was back at Overdale soon after five. Before I had been in the house three minutes, I was aware of a changed atmosphere. Although Roseau was a bare six miles away, and we should be carrying only a handbag each, I had expected to find a restless sense of imminent departure. On the contrary I found a strange serenity. Raymond and Eileen were sitting on the verandah. He was reading poetry to her. There were no drinks beside them. I had heard him read poetry before. I had enjoyed his mellifluous, sing-song way of reading that had stressed and accentuated the rhythm and the rhymes; it had been the fashion when he was at Oxford to break the lines, never giving iambics their full value; reading poetry as though it were prose. Raymond, on the contrary, whenever the actual meaning of the poem permitted, half paused at the end of the line. You found yourself waiting for the rhyme.