by Henry Green
‘Careful with the lemonade,’ they said to her. ‘It’s poison. I ought to know, I made it.’
‘Isn’t your grandfather wonderful? I’m so proud he came.’
‘Sweet for us that Edgey asked you.’
‘Do try one of these.’
Elizabeth simpered at the girls about, accepted all they offered with small cries.
‘What of your Daise,’ a student began. ‘Will she like company?’
Liz took this up.
‘What does one, I mean it isn’t possible, is it? Animals you know. There’s no way, can there be? But you see all I’m trying to say is, you may never tell, and not only with pigs when everything’s told, you can’t be sure of human beings, either?’
Sebastian hurried to the rescue.
‘Surely this much could be assumed,’ he said, unaffected and serious, in his lecturer’s voice. ‘That where waste occurs, and, mark you, waste as such, in normal times, is not so bad a thing, it can represent no more than the effect of a high standard of life, then, in those conditions, isn’t it better that what waste may naturally exist should be diverted to a guise in which those who cause the self same waste may employ it to replace what has been wasted? I’m afraid I’ve got a bit involved, you know. In other words, if you are in a position to be able to afford not to eat potatoes in their jackets, why not feed the peelings to pigs?’
‘But that’s what happens, surely, Mr Birt,’ one of them objected.
‘Daisy doesn’t have all,’ he said. ‘The rest goes to pig farms, I agree, but here we touch on what might be termed the ethics of political economy. I wouldn’t exactly recommend your using this in exam papers, but I do put it forward that, if there is waste, then you should keep your own pigs. Clean up so to speak, behind.’
‘Then what are they going to eat on pig farms?’
‘But, surely, that is the affair of the State?’ he asked. ‘A mass feeding of swine should not be haphazard. The surplus of a hundred thousand State factories must be made up into balanced pig foods.’
‘And what if the pigs don’t like?’
‘They will. That is the purpose of the State,’ he said.
‘But how can you tell, which is my whole point, don’t you see?’ Elizabeth rushed in. ‘You never know with animals, or anyone.’
‘Yet, Liz,’ he explained patiently, ‘the one goes thin, the other complains aloud, and both go thin.’
‘Oh it’s not only food, I wouldn’t be so silly, there’s lots of things people are as silent as animals over. In what way is any single person sure how a certain matter will turn out?’ She told him this with such intensity that he grew cautious. ‘Whether they will like it, or no?’ she explained, about their sharing the cottage with Gapa.
‘I’m not sure I follow,’ he said, as well he might.
‘Wouldn’t you say that was like a man, all over?’ she exclaimed, favouring the girls about with a delighted smile. ‘Why it’s quite simple.’ Then she sheered off again. ‘If you had to cook for someone, you’d soon learn,’ she said. ‘There need be no question of waste in the least. What does count is what’s available. Don’t you see how? Suppose I know my grandfather likes prawns and I can only get shrimps. As a matter of fact,’ she elaborated to the students, ‘he adores a prawn tea,’ pretending that she invariably arranged his meals every day. ‘But very likely I can only manage the other. What’s the difference? Why, shrimps give him a pain.’ Then she had an urge to be open with them. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she went on, ‘I had a breakdown at work, you may have heard, and I haven’t seemed able to do a great lot lately. Oh, Gapa’s been marvellous, hasn’t he, Seb? He’s cooked for all of us,’ she said, to underline the special, though as yet unpublicised, relationship between her and the young man. ‘Of course, it’s not a mere matter of food and cooking. There’s everything comes into this. Someone wanted to know whether Daisy would like all the other pigs on either side. Well, what about us? Who can say if we shall like? D’you see what’s back of my mind?’
She gave Sebastian a piercing glance. Some of the students had already had enough, were discussing other topics.
‘My point was, dear, you would feel better if what you had to support was nourished on your left overs,’ Sebastian said.
‘That’s not so,’ she cried. ‘How about children?’
‘When they’re nursed, it exactly bears out my point.’
‘I don’t think we need go into biological details here,’ she said. ‘Anyway, after six months or so they’re weaned, surely? No, but when children are growing up. You don’t give them your leavings then.’
‘We were on the subject of pigs,’ he insisted.
‘You will, sometimes, be so dense, well pigheaded,’ she archly complained. ‘Oh my dears, what must you think of us?’ she asked the girls who, for the most part, had long ceased to pay attention. ‘You know Gapa’s notion, about what he might decide to do,’ she said with a loaded look at everyone, which even Sebastian did not seem to understand. ‘The last one, of course. What he suggested to Miss Edge just now? Well, could anything be better?’ She referred to Mr Rock’s unexpected offer to give talks on pigs. ‘To hold you know what,’ she ended, to make it doubly plain she meant their cottage.
‘Isn’t it splendid Mr Rock’s to teach about Daisy,’ one of the students took her up, innocent as the day, obviously under the impression that she was opening a fresh topic.
‘Why whoever told you that, then?’ Elizabeth asked, delighted at what she took to be confirmation.
‘Oh everyone knows. Don’t they, girls?’
‘Sebastian, did you hear? Isn’t it marvellous?’ Miss Rock crowed. ‘You see? It means Miss Edge must have thought of our plan first.’ In such a way the granddaughter both claimed the idea for her very own and assumed Edge’s acquiescence, thus wilfully ignoring the heights, or depths, of gossip prevalent amongst these children.
Miss Edge, when the gramophone stopped a second time, once more found herself the centre of a slightly panting group plying her with invitations. She shooed them off towards the buffet, and stalked to the dais that she might rest herself. She had not gone far before she perceived Mr Rock up there again, alone, as though lionised. She paused. But, after all, it would be too absurd if the man’s presence hindered one of the Principals taking her rightful place. So she glided over despite him.
With an acute struggle against his old joints, he rose to this approach.
‘My congratulations, ma’am,’ he said. ‘A memorable sight we have tonight.’
‘My dear Mr Rock. Sweet indeed to bother.’
‘I trust your exertions will permit, later, your partnering an old man.’
‘My dear Sir, how could I forget? I shall hold you to it.’
In no time they were seated side by side, Miss Edge delicately inclined towards the sage. Her eyes roved over the Hall of her girls, in stiff pairs as if bereft at this interruption of music. He, for his part, looked on the old fashioned dancing pumps he wore, while he leaned in her direction to minimise the deafness.
‘Takes me quite back to my young days,’ he persisted.
‘And mine, if you please,’ she countered.
In this he lied, however. It was true the more distant past now made a sharper picture; the time at school, hard work, then six months chasing girls and finally the signal triumph; but he was concentrated now on his granddaughter, on how best to approach Miss Edge.
‘I do know a little about these things. It is your powers of organisation, if I may say so, which I especially applaud,’ he said.
‘You understand our Tamashas are traditional,’ the lady condescended. ‘They run themselves. All Baker and I must do, is to watch that there are no departures.’
Departures? Escapes? Was this a reference to poor Mary, he wondered?
‘Ah, the sudden, the unexpected,’ he tested her.
The sudden, she asked herself? Could he be aiming at that unfortunate child? The whole trouble really was, too many k
new about Merode and Mary.
‘The odious deviations from what is usual,’ she corrected, dashing him a glance. ‘One of the things we should provide here is memories, which is why I strive for the repetitive. It is a minor function, of course, in a great Place like this, but we must send them out so they can look back on the small pleasures shared. I dare say there are several reunion parties to celebrate Founder’s Day in many a State Recreation Room this self same moment. You know, it is not long since that Baker and I were privileged by the State to create the Institute out of a void. Believe me, Mr Rock, it was a vacuum indeed when we first came. But already our old girls would be distressed to hear of change in any shape.’
‘It is a sadness in old age,’ he agreed. ‘One’s contemporaries die. One can no longer share one’s youth.’
‘Ah, you have lived the lonely life,’ she said.
Now what could she mean? He wondered. He waited.
‘But there have been compensations, surely?’ she continued. ‘Of course, no-one can speak for another, life has at least taught me that, I hope. Yet to remain on in this beautiful Place, as a reward for great work well done, must be a remarkable privilege I cannot help feeling.’
‘One has a pride in achievement,’ he answered, to show that he, at any rate, need not be modest. ‘Still, old age is a lonely condition, as you’ll find in due course, Miss Edge.’
What could the wily old man be hinting, she impatiently asked under her breath?
‘Yet you do have company,’ she insisted.
He reminded himself to be careful. Doubtless she intended a sly reference to his habit of speech with certain students when they strolled down to the cottage.
‘Not the life shared, memories in common,’ he brought out, conscious of his deep, pathetic tones.
‘But your granddaughter?’
‘She’s only here when ill.’
‘I have noticed, Mr Rock, how much improved she seems in herself.’
Now, what was she after? Was this to be the clean sweep, to rid herself of Elizabeth and him at the single, Machiavellian stroke.
‘I wish I could think so, ma’am,’ he said, with anxious care.
‘Just look at Moira,’ Miss Edge then changed the subject without warning. The old man wildly raised his head, in guilt. ‘Really she stares out of those great eyes of hers as though she were going to be ill.’
He said not a word. Did these two blockheaded Principals never have any idea of the strains and stresses, he wondered? And what was all this about sickness? He kept his face a blank for the child’s sake.
‘Yes, I’m sure she’s ever so much better.’
‘Moira, ma’am?’
‘No, your granddaughter Elizabeth, naturally. Tell me, what are your plans for her?’ This was to come out into the open with a vengeance, he thought.
‘It is in the hands of the doctor, of course,’ he replied, with a sidelong glance.
‘Sick notes seem quite to govern all our decisions these days,’ Miss Edge agreed, to abandon the subject. She fell silent, the better to watch her girls at rest.
This silence made the old man increasingly nervous.
Then, with no further word exchanged, the Principal made a sign to Inglefield, who at once restarted the gramophone.
The crowd of girls in white poured back. Even before they were in one another’s arms they twirled in doorways.
This music was heavy, stupendous for Mr Rock.
‘May I have my honour now, ma’am?’ he enquired.
‘How kind,’ she answered. ‘But I wonder if I might rest a little.’
‘I never knew you had trouble with your eyes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘How blind’, was what he had heard.
‘Kind,’ Miss Edge shouted, with a brilliant, fixed smile at her circling throng of children. It will be such a tiresome bore if I have to try to make him hear above this perfectly heavenly valse, she thought.
‘You did not catch what I said. Only Tired, want to Rest a minute,’ she explained in a great voice.
Why must Moira watch him like it, as if he had done her injury, he asked himself? The foolish little intriguer. She was perilous. Because Edge who had noticed already, might end by getting it into her narrow skull.
Then, at that precise moment, Elizabeth came just below, dancing, as he thought, in a manner which could not be permissible in any era, so as to flaunt the fact of Sebastian no doubt. He assumed an idiot look of pride, in the way he could the swill man’s cry, and turned towards Miss Edge to note her reaction. He saw she had not bothered to see them, which was a relief, though at the same time he resented the culpable blindness. Perhaps she is really having trouble with her eyes, as I with my ears, he wondered.
Edge may have sensed he watched, because she swung her head round with a dry smile.
‘The dears,’ she said. ‘They must and shall enjoy themselves.’
Now the music was in full flood he could not be sure of what he heard. When he thought he caught what had been said, he was often wrong; and the few times he was confident he had the sense, he still knew he hardly ever did have it when, as now, under a difficulty. So he assumed she was speaking of Liz.
‘Thanks to you, the time of her life,’ he assured Miss Edge.
Why cannot the sad man realise I will not be bothered tonight with individuals, she asked herself?
‘There must not be a child who does not take a happy memory of this away in her, for the rest of her days,’ she answered.
‘And so they ought,’ he agreed stoutly, leaving the Principal in ignorance as to whether he had heard.
Another silence fell between them. But there was a deal he had to tell her yet. He was determined to have it out. Accordingly he tried to bring the conversation back somewhere near the more immediate topics.
‘Is this correct, what I hear about pigsties, like mushrooms after rain, over the magnificent grounds?’ he asked.
‘Why, whoever gave you that idea, Mr Rock?’
‘A flat idea? I don’t quite follow, ma’am.’
Really, the man was intolerable. It was indeed time for him to go where he could be properly looked after with his deafness and everything, she thought.
‘I never question a decision of my Superiors,’ she reproved. ‘No, I asked how you had learned?’ She yelled this at an ear. He took it in.
‘Amazing the way things get about a community such as ours, ma’am,’ he replied. She wondered at his effrontery, that he should claim kinship with their Work. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘of course I have given a hand with the swill in the past, and now, I suppose, you will want all of it for yourselves? But to tell you the truth, ma’am, time has lain a bit heavy on my hands. In fact I don’t know that I’ve been pulling my weight. It is a privilege to lead my existence,’ he said with an irony just sufficiently controlled to escape her notice. ‘What I had wondered, since you don’t seem to be too keen that I should give them a few plain talks on pigs, was whether I could not, after all, work up a little course of lectures on what I may have done. Something along the lines of the joy, and reward, of achievement,’ he ended in great bitterness, effectively disguised behind a mandarin smile.
Of all bores, Miss Edge moaned to herself, the persistent ones are worst. He could not have appreciated then, what she had told him on this very subject in the Sanctum.
‘Well,’ she said genially. ‘Well! That will need thinking over. But how lucky for the Girls.’
‘No trouble at all,’ he lied at random.
‘Shall we leave it till tomorrow, Mr Rock?’ she suggested. ‘I hardly feel, just at the crux of our little Jollification, that we can give your project the attention it deserves.’
‘Whatever you say, ma’am,’ he agreed. At least Elizabeth could hardly now make out that he had not explored every avenue, he told himself.
Soon after, he got up and left Miss Edge. The lady was so obviously lost in happy contemplation of her charges. And he felt he had done enough. Honour was satisfied, he thought.<
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Perhaps forty minutes later, Edge was joined on the dais by her colleague who declared she could dance no longer, and sat herself heavily down, to fan a cheek with a lace bordered black and white handkerchief.
‘It is excellent, dear, quite excellent,’ she cried.
‘I think so, Baker,’ Miss Edge answered, in an exalted mood again.
‘What a good notion of yours, Mabel, to ask the Rocks,’ Baker, full of enthusiasm, gaily cried above the music. ‘It will give those two so much pleasure later, when they get home,’ she added.
‘I did no such thing,’ her colleague said, but did not seem to pay attention.
‘The old man really cuts quite a distinguished figure,’ Baker insisted, to all appearances not having taken in Edge’s negligent reply, perhaps because of this great spring tide of music.
‘Nevertheless,’ Edge enquired, ‘what was it led you to ask them, Hermione?’
‘I?’ Miss Baker demanded. ‘I never invited anyone, dear.’
Edge leaned over her colleague in one swift movement, as though to peer up Baker’s nostrils.
‘Then you mean they are here unasked?’ she hissed. ‘Oh no, Hermione, not that, for it would be too much.’
‘I didn’t,’ Baker promised. They looked wildly at one another. ‘Now careful, Mabel,’ she went on. ‘We don’t wish to make ourselves conspicuous.’
‘But this is preposterous persecution. It could even be wicked.’
‘Mabel don’t, I beg of you. Just when we were so enjoying ourselves. If you could only catch sight of your expression, dear. We shall have everyone look our way in a minute.’
‘Hermione, they shall leave at once,’ Miss Edge proposed.
‘To brazen themselves like this,’ Baker hastily agreed. ‘Why, it’s wrong.’