The Camberwell Beauty

by V. S. Pritchett

In the morning he was startled to hear Sonia’s voice saying to him in her stage voice: ‘Send her some flowers. Ask her to dinner.’

  So he sent the flowers and when Rachel rang to thank him he asked her to dinner—at a restaurant.

  ‘Your house. My house,’ he said. ‘Two dogs.’

  There was a long silence and he could hear her breath bristling.

  ‘Yes, I think it has to be somewhere else,’ she said. And added: ‘As you say, we have a problem.’

  And after this dinner and the next, she said:

  ‘There are so many problems. I don’t really know you.’

  They talked all summer and people who came regularly to the restaurant made up stories about them and were quite put out when in October they stopped coming. All the proprietor had heard was that they had sold their houses-in fact he knew what they’d got for them. The proprietor had bought Sonia’s dog. There was a terrier, too, he said, but he didn’t know what had happened to that.

  The Rescue

  After the bad spring, the first two or three weeks of that summer turned on a sudden blaze and the pain went out of Mother’s shoulder, and she let me buy the shortest mini-skirt in town. My tall brother and his taller friend George came down from Cambridge with beards like barley, and when I went out with them my golden hair seemed to flow from shop window to shop window as we walked by. The sunlight sparkled like the cymbals and trumpets of a regimental band in the park, celebrating a triumph. And it was a time of victory in our family, especially for Mother. Why had we got a Socialist mayor at last? Why had the Council given in after years of speeches, committee meetings, votes and letters to the papers and agreed to turn the lake in the park into a lido? Who was behind all this but Mother? On top of this, there was the annual pageant; she ran that, too.

  ‘You ought to take a rest,’ people said to her. There was always someone at the door—people rushed in to see her while she sat at the typewriter, made her lists, jumped to the telephone.

  ‘Get on!’ she would call to us. ‘Get on with it. Don’t stop.’ She was short, stout and bouncing-born to rule.

  This year she was putting on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table-nothing to do with the history of the town, but pageants were an annual holiday for Mother. Instead of bossing the Council, she would take a breath for a day or two, then start organizing the past. I was to be one of Guinevere’s ladies. Every day, new bundles of plastic shields, helmets, spears, swords and dresses were dumped in the house, so that there was hardly room to sit down. And when my brother and George came, they added Africa to it; thump, boom and howls came off the records, and they larked about, dressing-up in robes and swinging swords at each other.

  Get on? We would have done that much faster but for the people she brought in to help. She rarely came home without some new adherent; her strong glasses picked them out as she raced down the street on her short legs or looked out of the car window. She caught people suddenly, as a frog catches flies, and digested them without a blink. Just at our busiest time she brought home the slowest young man in the town, a real plague called Ellis, a boy of twenty. He worked in the library; I had often seen him there when she sent me for books on the costumes of King Arthur’s time.

  ‘We want him for advice,’ Mother said. Ellis was Advice in person. Once he was in the house we could not get rid of him; he sat among the helmets on one of the sofas, gazing at Mother, worshipping her, and, between long silences, uttering deep opinions that came up from his boots. In this hot weather he wore a thick suit, a waistcoat, and woollen socks. Having got him for advice, Mother never listened to him. The only thing I ever remember her saying to him was, ‘Why don’t you take your jacket off?’ We said she’d brought him home to get him to undress.

  ‘Your boy friend is in there,’ we’d say when she came in with a new pile of costumes for the procession.

  ‘Tell Ellis to count these,’ she said.

  I would go up to him, shake my long hair from one shoulder to the other and say, ‘For you. To count.’

  One evening I accidentally let out our secret joke about him: ‘Count these, Lancelot.’

  Ellis ignored this. He lived for opinion, not for action.

  The Lancelot joke had started because soon after Ellis had adopted us, Mother lost the man who was going to take the part of Lancelot in the pageant. ‘Every year an accident,’ Mother said. ‘That is life.’

  This year’s Lancelot had been knocked off his bicycle by a dog and had broken his ankle.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ George said. ‘You’ve got a Lancelot here. Promote Ellis.’

  Mother ignored this but kept on worrying about her difficulty for days.

  ‘Ellis for Lancelot,’ we kept on at her.

  ‘Don’t be malicious,’ Mother said, at her typewriter. ‘He lives alone in lodgings.’

  What was the real Lancelot like? Tall, I thought, with a fair beard and cool blue Cambridge eyes, like George’s. But George said, ‘Don’t be a nit. Arthur’s knights were dwarfs. Bad food in the Middle Ages made everyone short.’

  Perhaps he was right. Our Lancelot was a stump, not more than five feet two inches high, with a low forehead and heavy arms. His habit of uttering opinions was a way of making himself seem taller. He hauled up his views from some deep mine inside him and as they came up he stood on tiptoe and his chest swelled and, ignoring us, he unloaded them like coals for Mother alone.

  Our joke did not make Ellis wince or laugh. Rather, it made him grow in importance and gaze even more profoundly at Mother, labouring at something he would sooner or later bring out, and when Mother came in and said she had found someone exactly fitted for the part, we saw Ellis looking scornfully at us and even more admiringly at Mother.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said. ‘If you had asked me, I would have had to refuse.’

  ‘Refuse Mother!’ We were amazed.

  On principle,’ he said.

  We were putting the helmets into boxes and we stopped.

  ‘He was an adulterer,’ Ellis said.

  We all laughed, except Mother.

  ‘It happens to be a fact,’ Ellis said.

  ‘But-,’ we all shouted together. We were soon at it, shouting about history, art and life, love and sex.

  ‘Let him speak,’ said Mother, getting on with her work.

  ‘It has nothing to do with history,’ he said. ‘If I had my way, I would pass a law making adultery illegal. If a man or woman committed it, they would be brought to the courts, tried, fined two hundred pounds, and imprisoned for two years.’

  ‘Why two hundred?’ my brother said.

  ‘Back to the Middle Ages,’ said George. ‘You say you’re not influenced by history!’

  ‘And when they came out of jail, I would have them branded on the back of the hand.’

  ‘With the letter “A” like in Nathaniel Hawthorne,’ I said. I had read him that term at school.

  Ellis looked at me and for the first time smiled, congratulating me for having read the book.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘You mean you’d make Lancelot march in the pageant wearing a letter “A” on his hand?’ George said. ‘Yes,’ said Ellis.

  ‘You’d make it fashionable,’ said my brother.

  ‘Anyone like to join the club?’ said George, dancing about and waving his hands. ‘I’ve got my “Á”. I see you’ve got yours. What about it?’

  Because George did this and to show I was on his side and to make him take notice of me instead of going off with my brother all the time, I went to the desk by the window and drew a large ‘A’ on the back of my hand.

  ‘Look,’ I said, showing my hand to all of them. ‘“A”.’

  ‘You won’t get that off in a hurry, my girl – it’s marking ink,’ said Mother. George looked coldly at me.

  The strange thing was that, having uttered his thoughts and seeing us make fun of them, Ellis went flat and bewildered. He looked at Mother in appeal. He sat back on the sofa, astonished at
the ruin of his ideas.

  ‘Do you think it would make it popular?’ he asked Mother simply.

  Mother was holding up a red robe against George. ‘Is this too long for Kate Mason?’ she said. ‘I haven’t been listening.’ And to be kind to Ellis she changed the subject and said to him: ‘The mayor’s opening the lido tomorrow, three o’clock. Bring your trunks.’

  It is strange to see adoration harden into fear. Ellis seemed to step back to the shadows of his lodgings suddenly, away from us.

  ‘I can’t get off from the library tomorrow/ he said.

  A simple statement, of course, but a contradiction of Mother’s order. She was not used to being refused anything. She put the robe down. 'I will speak to Mrs. Lowkes,’ Mother said. Mrs. Lowkes was the librarian and when Mother said ‘speak’ she meant she would require Mrs. Lowkes to do as she was told.

  One shock leads to another. Ellis stood up and looked fiercely at me and obstinately at Mother. ‘I haven’t got a suit,’ he said.

  ‘There are plenty here,’ said Mother.

  ‘I can’t swim,’ said Ellis, drawing on hidden capital.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Mother. ‘We’ll teach you.’

  Ellis moved back towards the door of the room.

  ‘No one can teach me,’ he said, heaving up a load of pride into his chest. ‘I hate water. My father was a sailor. He couldn’t swim. He drowned.’

  ‘How awful,’ I said. He turned to me and said: ‘He left my mother. She died.’

  Until now we had never thought of Ellis as a member of a family. We hadn’t even thought of him as being human, except in a general way. Seeing he had silenced us, he added information that built up the tragic distinction of his family. ‘Very few sailors can swim,’ he said. ‘They are fatalists.’

  Ellis, our fatalist!

  Mother saved us. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘There’ll be a crowd there tomorrow.’

  But having made his stand, Ellis got even bolder with Mother. ‘I don’t like crowds,’ he said. ‘They’ll ruin the lake.’

  Her adorer was telling her that she was wrong – she who had fought for eight years to get the lido for the town! He was defying her and was appealing to me.

  Mother was at her sewing machine. ‘You mustn’t hate so many things, Ellis,’ she said.

  After he left I said: ‘He looked as though he was going to cry.’

  ‘No. His eyes just swell up when he looks at you,’ my brother said.

  ‘I’ll say!’ said George.

  I knew that. Ellis had very large eyes and they did swell whenever he saw me come into the library. I used to make up questions about books until I made him leave his desk and say, ‘I’ll get that book for you.’

  I used to have a special look that said, ‘You can do better than that,’ or ‘Why do you do what you are told?’ And I had another, very long look that said, ‘I know that when you are saying things to Mother you are really saying them to me. You are frightened of me.’ And I would run my forefinger slowly down the edge of his desk as we talked. At sixteen, a girl likes to see what a young man will do. I hung about while other people came to the desk because I could see I was embarrassing him. Then I went off. Once when I turned round as I got to the door and caught him looking at me he dropped five books he had in his hands. There was a noise that made everyone stare. A thrilling noise, like a tyre-burst.

  Mother got her way with the librarian, of course. Ellis was forced to come with us to the lake. As Socialists, she said, it was our duty to see that all mankind was happy. We drove to the park gate, left the car, and walked the last two hundred yards across the grass. George and my brother ran on fast to get into the water. I raced with them—for I liked giving Ellis a distant view of myself-and left him and Mother dawdling behind. Ellis had the bathing trunks under his arm; the bundle looked like a book he was going to read. Presently Mother broke into a trot to make up for lost time, talking as she ran. Ellis trotted, too.

  ‘I can’t run in these shoes. I’ve ricked my shoulder,’ said Mother as she puffed up to me. She sat on a stone bench on the stretch of concrete where the diving board and the newly built changing rooms were. She shook her shoulder to get her breath back and as she gazed at the lido she said: ‘Have you ever seen anything so wonderful?’

  I went off and got changed. The lake was a sight! I don’t exaggerate. There were thousands of people – well, no, hundreds – in the water already, others queueing up at the gate, and others lined up two deep to get at the diving board. A flag was flying over one of the buildings. For years the lake, which is large and with willows hanging over the far bank, was simply ornamental and empty except for a few ducks quacking on it. Now it was striped with bodies near the water’s edge and farther out there were hundreds of what looked like coconuts – the heads of the swimmers. Half the town was there.

  Ellis’s first words were: ‘They’ve smashed it up.’ A good description. Usually still or rippling, the water was now like a splintered mirror and there was scarcely a yard between any of the people – at any rate, not near the shore.

  ‘A mob,’ Ellis said, opining.

  Mother said: ‘Ellis, you mustn’t be a snob.’

  Ellis heaved up a thought. ‘I prefer nature,’ he said.

  ‘But people are nature, Ellis,’ Mother said.

  Ellis was taken aback. He frowned. One more opinion had been ruined. His love for Mother had gone.

  ‘Come on,’ said Mother to Ellis, taking off her glasses and greedy for the water. ‘Get your things off.’ And she went off to change. I had already changed, as I have said, and was made to stand guard over Ellis who did not move. I saw he was plotting to slip away when we had gone in.

  ‘I took a walk here last night. I often go for a walk,’ he said quietly to me. ‘It was still light. No one was about—only a dog. You could see every branch, every leaf of the trees reflected in the water, going down and down and down.’

  ‘It’s only ten feet deep in the middle,’ I said.

  ‘Ten feet!’ he said and stepped back, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

  He was disappointed with me when I laughed.

  There were shouts from the diving board where a very thin man with his trunks flapping on his bones was bouncing up and down; then up went his heels. George and my brother followed him. I was longing to go. At last Mother came out, bulging in her old-fashioned black suit-an embarrassing sight. ‘Please get into the water quick,’ I wanted to say to her. But she waited to say to Ellis, ‘Why haven’t you changed?’

  Ellis gave her a lover’s last pleading look and then went off miserably.

  ‘He is scared,’ I said. ‘He thinks he’ll sink through to Australia.’

  ‘Look after him and see he goes in,’ said Mother who was off at once to the diving board. She went in with a thump and a man said: ‘Wait for the tidal wave on the other side.’

  I was tired of waiting, but when Ellis came out, changed, I cheated. ‘Good,’ I said and left him.

  I was soon in the water. George and my brother were swimming out beyond the thick crowd along the shore. Mother was following them and I raced after them.

  ‘Where’s Ellis?’ shouted Mother when I caught up.

  ‘He’s back there.’

  ‘You oughtn’t to leave him like that. It’s selfish.’ ‘He can’t swim.’

  ‘Teach him,’ Mother said. ‘I’ll be along in a minute.’ Mother was always on at me about my selfishness. So after a while I swam back and waded through the crowd.

  ‘Good!’ I shouted.

  Ellis was in, all right. He was standing scarcely waist-deep in the brown water. It was strange to see only half of Ellis; it made him seem more human. People bumped into him and every time this half-Ellis was bumped he turned his head as if to say a few words. He was standing lost, as puzzled as a bust by what was going on around him. Then his arm moved; he scooped up some water in his hand and had a look at it, as if to say something about water to anyo
ne near. But since everyone was tumbling and splashing about him, he glumly tipped the handful of water back. When he saw me, he waded back three yards to the rocky bank, with the sudden vainglory of one baptised late in life, and got out. He stood with the water pouring off his thick white body and making a pool around him. He had the furtive look of one who has done half his duty. I had done mine. I left him and went off to the diving board.

  The crowd was still pouring in at the gate. The queues for the high-diving platform and the diving board were long and busy. I joined one of them and looked out for Mother and after a long wait I saw her. She was coming in. You couldn’t miss her black suit in the crowd, and when she got to the shallow water she stood up, looking for Ellis. Then she ducked under, somersaulted and tumbled about like a kid. She was enjoying herself. Someone turned round and saw her bottom and gave it a slap. I wished she wouldn’t make an exhibition of herself, but no one in the water noticed her much. They were all packed together, splashing.

  I went for the high-diving platform. On my way up the crowded ladder, where people were so slow, I looked again for Mother and Ellis. I didn’t see her at first, but I saw him. He was still standing on the bank, dripping, with three or four youths near by. He was touching one or two of them on their arms, to make them listen to him. They nodded and turned away. Then he pulled at them again and started pointing. I got slowly higher up the ladder. Ellis had not got the attention of the group and his opinions were increasing. He was still pointing. Presently his shoulders straightened and his chest filled out; an enormous opinion was coming out of him-one that made them draw away, gaping shiftily at one another. And then I saw Mother. I saw her face as she rolled over on her back in the water. Her mouth was open and her face was dirty at the lips and both her legs came up in the air. Her eyes were closed. A girl next to me on the ladder said: ‘Look—that woman down there is in trouble. She’s drowning.’

  Although there were several people only a yard or so away from her—two of them were actually throwing a ball over her-no one paid any attention. I pushed my way back down the ladder and then I saw Ellis turn and shout to the group that had moved back to consider her. I saw him step down in the water and wade towards her. He was alongside her, trying to get his arms round her body. She rolled out of them and then I saw mud on her feet. He was wrestling with her and calling to a man to hold her, but the man’s hand slithered. Then Ellis at last got her by the slippery waist, blew out his chest, and in a struggling lunge lifted her, heaved her, blundered with her, dragging her to the bank.