Alone in his room, the door locked, he read his letters to Daphne. It took hours. He did not see how he could send them: suppose they were intercepted? Suppose her husband … no, he would give them to her himself. When? Just as soon as the war’s enormous damage had been absorbed and everything had settled down.
He met Donald, who was already well up the ladder that would take him into politics. He visited Jack Reeves, and Jack came to him for a weekend. He joined a club and played some modest and likeable cricket. And he married Helen Gage, who had been a landgirl and enjoyed it: he could see, when he told her how he had longed for the end of the war, she did not understand, though she said she had too. She was a pretty, healthy young woman, tough and strong after her years of hard labour, and his mother was delighted. She had been afraid he would not marry, or marry late, she had not known why, but that had been her secret dread. She had been afraid of another silent man thrown out by war, a man who could not speak of what he had known. James was not communicative: he did not have much to say about India. But in the ordinary affairs of life he was easy enough – normal. His wife would not have to wake in the night beside a man thrashing about in a nightmare.
He told Helen that he had had a fling in Cape Town and that a child had resulted. She was married. When travelling was easier, he was going out to see. In fact, he had gone up to London to ask about travelling within a week of getting home. There wouldn’t be air travel for ordinary people for some time, or only for people who could pull strings: did he have strings to pull? No, so he would have to wait. It was not only the soldiers and airmen who were still coming home as the ships became available but everybody was on the move or wanted to be, after years of being stuck because of the war, or because of new jobs abroad. He could reckon on a good wait. Months, no: years, more like it.
It had already been years. He had learned how to wait. Love like theirs would keep, existing as it did out of time. There would be Daphne’s white arms welcoming him and the years in between would be forgotten.
Helen asked him how old his love child would be by now. Generous of her to use the word, and he kissed her for it, before telling her the exact age: years, months, days. Helen had had no cause until now for so much as a moment’s doubt: this was her first shock and it was a bad one. She had touched something deep and dangerous, and she knew it: this was like one of those doors you carelessly open in a dream and find a house, a world, a landscape, wider, larger, brighter or darker than the one you know. Almost, she broke off the engagement then and there. His face as he told her was one she had not seen before, set, inward-looking, into a world she was not going to share. This moment put in high relief other feelings she had had about James, not easily articulated. She did not try now. She thought, But I’ve got him, haven’t I? She hasn’t. He says he loves me. And she certainly was very fond of him. She had had her adventures too. Wartime is productive of ‘flings’, not to mention broken hearts. Her heart had not been broken, or anything like it, but one of the men she had loved, if briefly, had been killed in Normandy. She knew she had got over it, but while she confessed to James, she broke down, much to her surprise, and wept, finding herself enclosed in his arms. She was weeping not so much for a man but for lost men, her lover, her brother (lost at sea), a cousin (at Tobruk), and then there was a friend, a fireman, killed in the Blitz – unlived lives.
He comforted her, she him, but she knew that something was biting at his heart she was not going to know about. How old? ‘Nearly six – five years, eleven months, ten days.’
A wedding, restricted by post-war shortages.
They did everything right. Every Sunday they went to lunch with James’s parents, and they visited her parents, who lived far away, in Scotland, for holidays. They had a child, a girl, named Deirdre, because of James Stephens’ poem about the Irish queen. Helen liked this poem but joked that it was asking a lot for their little girl to be as beautiful as that. But Deirdre was pretty enough.
Eight years after the war ended James told Helen he was going to South Africa. He could have gone before, but that would have meant a ship, and he would never set foot on a ship again – never. It had to be the air, and when they could afford it. She knew there was no point in minding. He never mentioned his other child unless she asked, but then he promptly told her, ‘He is seven years, three months, ten days,’ or whatever it was. Sometimes she checked just to see if that invisible calendar was still running there, in him, marking … but she did not know what. This was not merely a question of a child’s exact age.
James’s plane descended at Khartoum, Lake Victoria, Johannesburg, with leisurely time at each for refuelling, restocking. This cumbersome trip seemed to him miraculous, when he remembered that other voyage. Then Cape Town, spread out over its hills, surrounded by sea. He found a modest hotel from where he could look down at the sea, the now innocent sea, full of ships, one being a passenger liner sparkling with new paint. Then he put a thick paper parcel under his arm and walked up through streets he remembered not at all to what he did remember, the two ample houses side by side in a street of gardened houses. On the gate where there should have been the name Wright, was the unknown Williams. The gate post for next door was still Stubbs. He retreated across the street to stand under an oak, and he looked for a long time at Daphne’s house, which in his memory lived as zones of intensity, the little room he had been given, Daphne’s bedroom, and the stoep, all else being dark. On to the verandah – the stoep – came an old woman, with a book. She sat in a grass chair, put on dark glasses, and gazed down at the sea. There was no sign of other life. Then he as carefully examined Betty’s house, of which he remembered only the garden. He could see movement through the windows that opened off the verandah. A maid? A black woman with a white headscarf. But he couldn’t see her properly. He moved across the street, cautiously pushed open the gate, and stood under the tree which he remembered spreading over trestles, full of food and drink, and a crush of people – soldiers. The companion tree in the other garden would live in his mind for ever because of the two beautiful young women, one dark, one fair, standing in grass, under it, wearing flowery wrappers.
Someone had come on to the Stubbs’s verandah. A tall woman. She shaded her eyes to peer at him and came slowly down the steps towards him. He did not know her. She stopped a few paces off, let her hand fall, and looked forward to have a good look. Then she straightened and stood, arms loose by her side, in a pose it did seem he remembered. A tall thin woman. She wore a short well-fitting blue and yellow dress in small geometrical patterns, with a narrow gold-edged belt, and some little gold beads. Her face was thin and sunburned and her dark hair was waved in neat ridges. On one thin wrist hung a gold bangle. Yes, now he knew – it was the bangle – this was Betty. She spoke: ‘What are you doing here?’
This question seemed to him so absurd he only smiled. He thought that the stern face – she was like a headmistress, or the manager of something – almost smiled in response, but then she frowned.
‘James – it is James? – then you must go away.’
‘Where is Daphne?’
At this there was a pause, and then a quick expulsion of breath – the sigh of someone who has been holding it. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Where is she?’
She came a step closer. He was thinking, already afflicted with anguish, that this tall dry uncharming woman had been that lovely creature he remembered as all dark flowing hair and loose soft gowns.
‘I must see Daphne.’
‘I told you, she’s not here.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She doesn’t live here now.’
‘I can see that. It’s on the gate. Is she in Cape Town?’
A tiny hesitation. ‘No.’
So, she was lying. ‘I could find out where she lives.’ This was not a threat, but a reminder to himself that he was not dependent on her for information.
She was agitated now, she actually raised those brown thin forearms, pressing
the long dry hands to her chest. ‘James,’ she said, urgent, appealing, afraid. ‘You mustn’t do this. Why are you doing this? Do you want to ruin her life? Do you want to break up her marriage? She has three children now.’
‘One of them is mine.’
She did not seem inclined to dispute it. ‘You just turn up like this, turn up, as if it’s nothing, you just arrive and …’
‘I want to see my son. He’s going to have a birthday, his twelfth birthday.’ And he recited his son’s exact age, years, months, days.
She closed her eyes. Her lids were white against the tan of her face. She was breathing deep: she was shocked. He waited until she opened them. Betty had deep brown eyes, he remembered, brown kind eyes in a smiling lightly tanned face: he had thought of her as ‘a nutbrown maid’. Well, there were the eyes, and there were tears in them. Not unkind, no, they were still kind.
‘James, do you want to ruin Daphne’s life?’
‘No. I love her.’
‘That’s what you’ll do if you go on with this.’
‘I want my son.’
‘But you must see …’ She stopped. That sigh again, almost a gasp. Oh, yes, she was frightened all right. But she was on guard, fighting: she was protecting her friend.
‘Do you still see her?’
‘Of course. She’s my best pal.’
He produced his great lump of parcel: the letters. He held it out.
‘What is that?’
‘My letters. I’ve written to her, you see. I’ve always written to her. In the war there was the censorship. Then I didn’t want to – cause trouble. So I brought them.’
She didn’t take them from him.
He stood obdurately there, holding out the parcel: the force of his demand caused her hand to come towards it. She hesitated, then took it. ‘Will you give them to her?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you promise?’
They stared at each other, then her gaze lowered to the parcel.
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘My son,’ he urged, ‘It’s my son. I think of him … yes, all the time. Perhaps he will come and visit us in England?’
‘You’re mad. Yes, you’re mad. Yes, you are.’
But she held the parcel against her chest.
‘You’ve promised,’ he said.
She backed a couple of steps, then turned and ran for it, but over her shoulder she said, ‘Wait, just wait there.’
He waited. He did not look at all at the verandah where the old woman now read her book, the dark glasses pushed up to her forehead.
After a good twenty minutes, the maid emerged from inside the house, white apron, white headscarf, a worried face. She stopped in front of him and held out a large envelope. There she stood while he tore open the envelope. She was peering to see what she could. From inside the house came a voice from the invisible Betty. ‘Evelyn, Evelyn, I want you.’
Taking her time, her eyes never leaving the envelope, the maid turned and went off, sending back slow thoughtful looks over her shoulder.
Inside the envelope was a sheet of writing paper and scrawled on it, ‘Please, please, go away. Go away now. Please. Don’t hurt her. This is your boy.’
A photograph, a decent size for a casual snap, of a boy of about eight, standing by himself, legs apart, smiling. This picture was like one of himself, James, at about the same age. Black and white of course, so you couldn’t see what colour his eyes were. But if the rest was like James, then why not the eyes? And Daphne had blue eyes.
He took his time putting the photograph back, and then the sheet of paper. He stood smartly to attention and saluted the invisible Betty, who was watching him, he knew. He went off down the street, slowly, keeping in the shadows from the trees, as he had learned to do in India where the heat struck and burned, was not kindly, as it was here.
It was late morning, a fine Cape day, and over the famous mountain thin loose cloud lay, white and shiny. The famous tablecloth. Down he went, sending distracted looks to the sea shimmering peaceably there. He walked clumsily, people were staring. He sat on a bench in some public place but then got up and walked on, found another, sat down, pulled out the photograph and looked at it, for a long time.
He could not stay still. He began aimless fast walking, and found himself in some kind of market, where under trees long trestles were laden with every kind of dried fruit: peaches, apricots, pears, plums, apples, yards and yards of them, every trestle with its attendant woman, who was black or brown, at least, not white. Fruit pale yellow, burnt umber, purple, black; fruit red and pale brown and gold and rosy and green. Some was crystallised, colours glowing though a frosty white crust. A vision of plenty. He picked up a greengage, put it in his mouth, heard a shout from the vendor, realised he had to buy, and bought a couple of pounds of mixed crystallised fruit. ‘Helen will like this,’ he thought.
Off he walked, went up streets and down them. They were full of people, but he did not see them. He sat on benches and looked at the photograph of the boy who might just as well be himself, at that age, put back the photograph, walked on. His feet had the devil in them, he could not keep still. Dusk came. He was in streets that smelled spicy and hot: it was the Malay quarter, but Cape Town in his mind did not define itself in areas, it was a spreading smiling city, a Cape of Good Hope, radiating welcome, like the stamps he had as a child. He saw a stall, bought a sticky bun, ate it, standing up, while the Coloured man told him he had to pay for it. Oh, yes, that must be Afrikaans, he supposed, and gave the man a fistful of money. Then it was dark and he was in a public garden and he saw a bench and at once fell on it and bent sideways in a tight clench of his whole body. Pain had finally overcome him. He was afraid of crying out, and of people coming, so he stayed not moving, aching all over because of the tension of his position.
He was thinking of Betty, in her unlikable smart matron’s dress. That scene was already in the past, gone, and if he did not choose to remember it, it was non-existent. Why was that realer than the one he loved to see in his mind’s eye, the two beautiful women under the tree? Because it was more recent? Both were bright scenes, whose every detail he could recall: one of them, to him, was the truth. And he was thinking of Daphne, somewhere in this city, perhaps not more than five minutes’ walk away. Yet nothing and no one could be more distant. Nearer to him were his memories of her.
He became aware that someone else was on the bench. He did not look up.
She, however, was looking at him: Annette Rogers, who had finished her shift at the Fairview Hotel, a good hotel, and was interrupting her progress home as she did every evening on this bench. Her situation at home was to say the least unsatisfactory, and before she could face it, she needed to strengthen herself. This man here, was he ill? His face was white, his lips pale, from compression, his eyes were closed, and everything about him was tense and awkward. ‘He must be stiff in that position,’ she thought, and leaned forward and said, ‘Hey, excuse me, I don’t want to butt in, but are you ill?’
He shook his head, not opening his eyes.
She moved closer and lifted his tense hand which went limp in hers. It was cold. It was a fine warm evening. She continued to hold his hand, trying to take his pulse without his noticing. But he did notice and said, ‘I’m all right.’
All right he evidently was not.
Unhappiness was something she was used to: you could say she had a talent for it. She began examining him for clues. His clothes were good: now, that was a really smart jacket, it must have cost a bit. His trousers were of fine cloth. His shirt – no, he wasn’t short of enough for a meal. But his face, it was simply awful, perhaps it was a death, if it wasn’t money … she moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder. Then something about him licensed her to put her other arm under his head. She was cradling him, hardly knowing how it happened. She was now getting anxious on her own account. Her jealous husband – suppose he chanced to come by and see her holding another man: she could count on a fe
w bruises to pay for that. But she continued to cuddle this unknown man, and said, ‘Hey, listen, don’t let yourself go like this, it only makes it worse.’
He opened his eyes: blue, a strong blue even in this dusking light.
He said, ‘You see, I’m not living my own life. It’s not my real life. I shouldn’t be living the way I do.’
This complaint may be made, or thought, by all kinds of people; demands on Fate, or on God, that are everything from the reasonable to the preposterous; (‘Oh, I wish I’d never been born!’ ‘I wish I’d been an aristocrat in the eighteenth century.’ ‘I wish I hadn’t been born a cripple.’) but the most frequently heard is the one instantly recognised by Annette Rogers. It made perfect sense to her. Her life certainly wouldn’t include a violent husband, a senile mother, and two out-of-control teenage children. Her life – but she had several variants of her dream – her favourite life was a little house right on the edge of the sea, like those you could see if you took a trip out of Cape Town, and she would live there with a man whose features she did not specify, though she knew he was kind. A kind man, and they would live there quietly, in good humour, and eat fish, grow vegetables and have fruit trees.
‘To know you’re living the wrong life, not your own life, that is a terrible thing.’ And now he began to weep, dry sobs, while she sat holding him together. She had to get herself back home, she had to, otherwise she was going to catch it, oh, yes, she could count on that. But she did not desert her post.
The Grandmothers Page 30