Jerusalem the Golden

by Margaret Drabble

  And while they talked, Clara found time to watch, and to check up on who was there. Apart from herself and Peter and the four performers, there was a man from the BBC called Lionel, who was connected in some way with the show – director, she thought, or producer, or possibly both. There was another man whose name she had not caught, but who might have been Margarita Cassell’s husband. There was also an astonishingly pretty boy, who was quite clearly an actor; she worked this out for herself and felt clever, and then reflected that in the circumstances the deduction was not truly brilliant. He too seemed to be connected with Margarita Cassell. He was so pretty that Clara could hardly take her eyes off him, although it would clearly have been more profitable to pay her attentions to Samuel Wisden, who was handsome enough, without being excessively, exclusively so. And then there was Sebastian Denham’s daughter. In view of all the other men in the room, Clara paid no attention at all to Sebastian Denham’s daughter, apart from wondering whether she had heard her name aright, for she seemed to be called Clelia: the name, at first hearing, was so uncannily like Clara that Clara dispensed with the notion that she might have misheard the initial consonant, and that the girl might be supposed to be called Dahlia. Clelia was a name with which she had no acquaintance. She did not think it likely that she would ever need to use it, so she was not unduly uneasy about her ignorance.

  On the other hand, as time wore on, she did begin to feel mildly uneasy about her claims to existence in that dressing room. She wondered, in short, if she and Peter ought to go. Nobody else seemed to be going, and Peter’s friendship with his poet seemed to be, fortunately, at least as intimate as he had claimed, but she did feel that they ought not to spend the evening there. She wondered if anyone might want to put the room to its true purpose, and undress in it. She did not see why anyone should want to undress, as everyone was quite respectably clothed; nobody was wearing anything outlandish and embarrassing, like a dinner jacket. The only person who might have been thought to be uncomfortably or unsuitably dressed was Miss Cassell, whose dress was even more amazing off stage than on, but then it was not even her dressing room; her dressing room was next door. Moreover, she showed no inclination to change her dress; she clearly enjoyed its extravagance, and leaned right forward from time to time to make sure that no one missed the magnificence of her bosom. And Clara, whenever she managed to wrench her gaze away from the beautiful young man, found it resting itself inevitably upon those two tight pale mounds, and the deep powdery yawning cave between them. She had never before seen such a dress upon anyone with a right to wear one, and the combination of natural and unnatural gifts was quite startling; she suddenly saw what all those other women had been aiming at in their strapless gowns and their deep cleavages with their large chests and their thin collar bones. And she understood the other women, because it was an effect worth taking a few risks for.

  She did not want to go. She wanted to stay there, and hear them talk about poetry and money, and about how Eric Harley got more for being on ‘The Spoken Word’ series on ITV than he’d made out of a year’s writing. After a few minutes, somebody suggested opening a bottle of champagne, and then somebody else said that it might be better to go down to the pub before closing time, and she hoped that they would go to the pub, because she did not feel that she could stay and drink their champagne, even if it was offered to her. Although it would have been nice to have been obliged to drink a glass of champagne in a dressing room. She could not recollect that she had ever tasted champagne, and she liked the thought of its spiritual flavour. However, as so often happened, the gathering, threatened with action, started to show signs of breaking up; Margarita Cassell said that she had to go to the pub anyway as she had to meet a friend there, Eric Harley also claimed a friend in the pub, and the Lionel man said he had to go home, and put on his coat and went. Then Clelia Denham, who had hitherto spoken not a word, rose to her feet and said, ‘I’ll be off too.’ Clara began to feel slightly alarmed, not because she had any interest in Clelia, but because she did not like this desertion of the evening and she was afraid that if enough people went Peter would decide to go too. She thought she could rely on Samuel’s inclinations, but then on the other hand he might have other fish to fry. So she was quite relieved when Clelia’s father said, ‘Don’t go, Clelia, come and have a drink. I’ll give you a lift home if you hang on for half an hour. And I promised to have a word with Maurice. Not more than half an hour.’

  Clelia looked at her watch. She appeared to be slightly, very slightly annoyed. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you down there.’ And she went.

  Clara was also relieved by the universal assumption that there was only one pub to be visited; she had always had a horror of ending up, by some misunderstanding, in the wrong and empty and unfashionable place. She could not quite see why the pub, relentlessly nameless, should be so clearly recognized by everyone there as an obvious destination, as she had not yet grasped the principle that nearly every theatre has its own pub. There was no reason why she should have grasped it. She had no experience of such things. But when she and Peter and Samuel and Eric made their way down the wooden, broken staircase, and through the dark warren of small rooms full of light switches, and out through the stage door, she could see that it would have been difficult to miss the correct pub. Because it was part of the theatre: the other half of the theatre. And it was full of the theatre audience, and the stage management, and of unmistakable actors and actresses; even the Lionel man, who had departed so resolutely, was there having a quick whisky. And Clelia was there, leaning on the bar, snapping her fingers at the barman. She ordered herself a drink. Clara was impressed; she had never in her life dared to buy herself a drink. Somewhere, in the depths of her heart, she feared that if she were to ask a man in a public house for a gin and tonic, he would spit in her eye or call the police or laugh at her or rape her on the spot. She could not overcome this fear, and it was too shameful to confess. She did not mind drinking, and accepted Samuel Wisden’s offer of a drink with pleasure, but she looked at Clelia Denham’s back with initial stirrings of respect.

  Eric’s friend, after a few moments, turned up; he was a high-powered school teacher, and he provoked a new and somewhat repetitive discussion of the poetry reading. Clara listened, but she spent more of her time watching. She noted, with satisfaction, the lovely entrance of Margarita Cassell, who arrived with one arm through her husband’s and the other through the arm of the pretty young man; in the sombre Victorian gloom her dress and her wide cold neck shone with a pale and striking colour. And her voice preceded her and welled out from her, deep and vibrant and delightful: an instrument of sound rather than of communication. She and her entourage established themselves within speaking distance of Samuel’s group; they talked, and from time to time a remark was flung across the gap between the two parties. Clara could not help noticing that although Margarita relinquished her husband’s arm fairly promptly (as soon, in fact, as he had been dispatched to order drinks) she instantly took hold of the boy’s hand, and kept a firm though flippant grasp upon it, almost as though she did not dare to let him roam loose upon the pub floor. Clara found this sight cheering, disturbing, and exciting. She wondered if in such circles such an act meant something or nothing, and then concluded that nothing, anywhere, in any circle, meant nothing.

  After a while, it occurred to her to wonder what had happened to Clelia Denham and her independent drink. She looked round for her, and there she was, talking to a completely disconnected man, and looking, from time to time, at her watch. There was still no sign of her father. Clara looked at her more closely, and wondered, as soon as she did so, why she had not bothered to look at her before, because she repaid inspection. She still looked rather restless and annoyed – sullen, almost, Clara might have thought, if the word had not implied a heaviness that was not there. She was listening very intently to the disconnected man, with her head on one side; from time to time she would nod, or speak, but not at length. Her fac
e, though not noticeably beautiful, had a hard, fine outline, and a shape very much its own; wedge-shaped, one might have called it, though it would have been hard to say which part composed a wedge. And her hair fell in a solid heavy piece, straight-edged, stopping sharply midway between chin and shoulder; it was dark, and it had a weight that made it look as though it were well cut, though it was not. It looked, as the hair of Japanese children looks, as though it might be composed of wood and not of hair, so distinct were its outlines, so uniform and massy its swing. She seemed to be wearing no make-up, and her clothes were bizarre, though in no way ostentatious; her skirt was very short, and made of black velvet, and over it she wore a long maroon jacket with brass buttons and epaulettes. They were not fashionable garments, but they spoke of confidence; Clara felt, suddenly, that her own outfit, though quite becoming and unexceptionable, lacked nerve. She was in truth so unsure of her own taste that she restricted herself to wearing the most negative, unassertively simple things that she could find; the principle was, she knew, sound in itself, and her face quite good enough to appear to advantage above a grey wool jersey, but nevertheless, watching Clelia Denham, she felt that there were fashionable flights quite within her style that she had never yet had the courage or the knowledge to attempt.

  When Clelia abandoned her stranger and joined Clara’s own conversational cluster, Clara was pleased, and would have liked to have spoken to her, but could not think of anything to say. So she listened. Samuel Wisden seemed to know her quite well, for when she arrived he embarked upon some complicated discussion of some third party called Robert, who had, it emerged, recently pulled off some coup of some deeply obscure nature. The point was whether this would be bad or good for Robert. Samuel seemed to think that it would be bad for him, but Clelia took the line that without this unexpected stroke of success poor Robert would merely have gone from bad to worse. ‘Look,’ she said from time to time, ‘don’t think I’m saying he deserves it, God knows he’s the last person to deserve anything, I know quite well what ought to happen to him, I really think he’s quite shocking, and quite, quite indefensible, but I really can’t help liking him, I keep telling myself how awful he is, and then every time I see him I can feel this stupid great smile spreading all over my face. Because he’s so nice, he really is nice, you can’t deny it. And now this has happened he’s even nicer. And since all he is is nice, then he might as well be it, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t agree with your basic premise,’ said Samuel. ‘I don’t think he’s nice.’

  ‘Oh well then,’ said Clelia, spreading her hands in eloquent yet modest emphasis, ‘in that case I can’t see why you even bother to think about him.’

  ‘Well, one can’t help thinking about him,’ said Samuel. ‘Especially in view of this new thing …’

  And so they went on. Clara was highly impressed by the way in which the plight of Robert was gradually turned into a public discussion; Peter, Eric Harley and his friend, and finally she herself were all drawn into the debate, and found themselves talking at some length about the psychological and philosophical basis of the plight, which Clelia had somehow managed to convey to them in a classic structural sense, as a case far removed from the contaminations of the inconveniently unknown personality upon which it rested. Clara thought such transpositions implied a high intelligence, as well as a hopeful generosity of communication, and she watched with increasing attention. She began to realize that she was in the presence of the kind of thing for which she had been searching for years, some nameless class or quality, some element which she had glimpsed often enough, but which she had rarely at such close quarters encountered. A kind of excitement filled her, not unlike the excitement more frequently experienced, of love. And rarer than love. Because Clara had always supposed that such people as Clelia, so strange, so lovely, so clever, so undismaying, must somewhere exist, but she had never yet seen quite such a promising, hopeful example: and she had begun to think that she had created herself, through her own imagination, the whole genre. She had wanted such people to exist, so dressed, so independent, so involved; she had needed them, so she had presupposed them. And here, as she slowly realized, was a woman who was the thing that she had presupposed. She stood, and watched the felicity of her own invention, and experienced the satisfaction of her recognition.

  Sebastian Denham did not turn up. When closing time was announced, Clelia broke off in mid-sentence, looked at her watch, and said, ‘Oh hell, what about my father, he’s forgotten me.’

  She said it very crossly, but to herself. And as though she had expected to be forgotten.

  ‘I’ll drive you home,’ said Samuel.

  ‘I thought you lived in Dulwich,’ said Clelia.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ said Samuel.

  ‘What’s the point of saying you’ll drive me home then?’ she said.

  ‘Well, I would,’ said Samuel.

  ‘You know you wouldn’t,’ said Clelia. ‘Anyway, I’ll go on the bus. As a matter of fact I’m rather glad he forgot me, he gets horribly depressed by these readings. And since he’s forgotten me, I can call in on Colin on the way back.’

  ‘How is Colin?’ said Samuel, eagerly, implying heaven knows how many possible afflictions; Clara thought they were in for another elaborate dissection, but Clelia seemed not to be interested in Colin, for she said very absent-mindedly, ‘Oh, he’s fine, thanks. More or less fine.’ Clara was disappointed. But Clelia immediately made up for this reticence by a far more enticing comment; she started to tie her black head square on, and said, ‘Well, I must go, I must get back to the baby. They simply have no idea about that baby, I’ve got into such a state that I hardly dare leave the house.’

  ‘How is the baby?’ said Samuel, with an eagerness only slightly less marked than that with which he had greeted the names of Robert and Colin.

  ‘Oh it’s all right,’ said Clelia. ‘But it’s teething. And nobody else wakes up for it in the night. So I never like to stay out after they’ve gone to bed. And Mama’s taken to going to bed at nine o’clock these days, she hates Martin so violently. It’s pathetic, really. Excuse me, I must go to the Ladies’.’

  ‘I’ll go to the Ladies’ too,’ said Clara. She had been wondering where it was for the last hour, and had been unable to see it; she was as diffident about asking for Ladies’ Rooms as she was about ordering drinks. So she followed Clelia into the varnished depths of the pub, her mind full of a host of suppositions about Robert, Colin, Martin and the inexplicable baby; she was aware of an emotional situation of unparalleled density and complexity, of some dark morass of intrigue. And she had been, over the last few years, rejecting simplification after simplification solely in the hope of discovering just such a spirit of confusion. She was surprised by some of the elements of the confusion: she had never suspected that a mention of a vague baby could cast such a strange light upon a person. Nor had she expected that mothers and fathers would feature in any profitable way. Babies, mothers and fathers had hitherto been for her the very symbols of dull simplicity. She saw that she had been wrong about them, and possibly therefore about other relations of life.

  The Ladies’ Room was through two doors, down half a flight of stairs, through a yard, and up another half flight of stairs. She would never have managed to find it alone, as it was inadequately sign-posted. She envied Clelia her certainty, and wondered whether knowledge or instinct had led her directly there. There were two water closets; Clara hurried, because she did not want Clelia to leave before her, but when she emerged Clelia was still there, dragging a comb somewhat roughly through her thick hair. The comb was encountering some resistance. Clara combed her own hair, and powdered her nose. She wanted to speak, but could not think what to say. Clelia did not speak. Finally, seeing the moment evade her, in some misery, Clara said, ‘And do you write poetry too?’ because it seemed an interesting question, and one that must at least be answered. And it was answered. Clelia, staring at herself with some dislike in the mirror, said,
‘I certainly do not.’ And her tone, as she said this, could only have been called, and in quite simple, inescapable terms, rude. She spoke rudely.

  Clara was taken aback. Rudeness was somehow not what she had expected. Flippancy perhaps, coolness more possibly, disinterest almost certainly, but not rudeness. She was dismayed: half of her, more than half of her wished to withdraw quietly and quickly away from such offence. But at the same time, she was saying to herself, really, I did not deserve it, there was nothing wrong with my question, there is no reason why I should not ask her a question, she does not know me, I am younger than she is, she has no right to be rude. And she heard herself saying, to her own surprise: