After Julius (32 page)

Why did almost everything she said sound like an accusation instead of an appeal? Because that was what hopeless appeals turned into. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I expect you came
down here meaning to tell me about it, and I made it difficult for you somehow. That would be very like two people with good intentions and different requirements, wouldn’t it? I drank too
much: inhibitions are much more than convenient when one gets old: they’re vital. You – or anyone else – would lose me without them. I expect tomorrow I shall feel terribly
ashamed of myself, and one of these years we’ll both be laughing about it.’ She tried to smile, but it hurt her face like sticking plaster on a cut, and she looked again at the freckles
on the backs of her hands – only this time she did not hide them.

‘Bed,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s high time we both got some sleep. It must be awfully late.’

He had been standing at the foot of her bed, and she wanted him to go now, without any gestures of affection – or pity. But he came round to her, picked up one of her limp hands, and
kissed it. She shut her eyes and endured this kindness in a man’s world. Then he went, and the instant he shut her door, she turned off her light, and the dark, like an airless, salt sea,
engulfed her. In all these years while she had been growing old, she had not learned what to outgrow. When she suffered pain, fear, or any misery, her age became meaningless; she was a child, a
young woman, in the wrong body: her throat ached as it had always done before tears; her reason vanished and the same, crying question recurred; tears scalded, sobs racked, injustice rankled, pity
was too close for comfort: she could have been six, or sixteen: not, surely, nearly sixty. But the side-tearing, inescapable joke was that she
was
nearly sixty. Too old for what she wanted
from her life. She suddenly remembered Julius, that last morning –
crying
because he was too old to fight, and the conscious cruelty with which she had said: ‘There’s
nothing
you
can do.’ So he had gone quietly off to do something he thought he could do and died in the process. She knew a bit what he felt like, now, she thought. Perhaps
she
should devote herself to other people: perhaps that would fill her bleak mind and the ache, like a burn, in her heart? The thought made her suddenly so weary that she felt she never wanted to move
again.

Like everyone, she supposed, at some time in their lives, she just wanted to be unconscious for ever – starting now. She turned slowly on to her side, drew up her knees, wrapped her arms
round her own body – her position for sleep, which occurred almost before she had finished moving.

She was very late indeed for breakfast, but she managed it: both her daughters would have thought it very odd if she failed to appear, and though appearances – so far
from being a refuge – were something more like a painful brace, she felt that any kind of dignity was impossible without them.

Cressy and Felix were at the breakfast table. The Sunday papers had not arrived; he was smoking and drinking coffee and Cressy was peeling a pear. They both looked up as she came into the room,
and she nerved herself for one of her daughter’s sub-penetrating remarks about her appearance – this morning, noticeably worn – and his tactful protective kindness, but nothing of
the kind happened. Instead, Cressy said:

‘Mrs Hanwell’s made masses of delicious kedgeree – do have some or she’ll think we don’t like it.’

She couldn’t face food. Helping herself to an enormous cup of black coffee, she said: ‘I drank far too much last night for my age. Got the wrong kind of hangover for kedgeree.’
Then, seeing their empty places at table, she added: ‘Emma and Daniel will eat it up.’

‘They seem to have gone to London. Emma took my car last night. She left a note in my room. Said she’d ring you up later today.’ She was peeling the pear like an expert
waiter.

‘I hope they didn’t have a frightful drive. Oh no – the fog wasn’t so bad, was it?’

‘The forecast is bad today, though,’ said Felix. ‘Fog
and
frost. In view of the fact that I’ve promised my friend to take over his job from midnight tonight, I
think I’d better start back in the light.’

‘He’s kindly offered me a lift,’ said Cressy. ‘Have this?’ She was holding out an elegant glistening quarter of pear.

Mrs Hanwell came in with the papers, just as Esme was accepting this gift, and wondering with vague misgivings whether her daughter had noticed what had been going on, and was trying to be
particularly kind. The idea produced mixed feelings – none of them comforting.

Mrs Hanwell had examined the sideboard, and discovered the remaining mole-hill of kedgeree. Esme explained about Emma and Mr Brick having had to go to London, but this only made Mrs Hanwell
sniff.

‘Won’t Hanwell like it?’ asked Cressy.

Mrs Hanwell looked at her reproachfully. ‘Fish turns him: except for the odd pilchard he’s never abided fish.’

‘Whiskey will be pleased though.’

‘He won’t touch rice; and give him a bit of hard-boiled egg and he only plays with it.’

‘Never mind,’ said Esme. ‘I’ll have it for supper: you know I can’t resist your kedgeree. You and I will eat it up and then it won’t be a waste.’

‘It will be a wicked waste if we don’t, Mrs Grace,’ said Mrs Hanwell, who only called Esme anything when she was disapproving of her (‘madam’ was one stage worse),
but she relented enough to take Esme’s cup and pour her more coffee, remarking as she set it on the table, ‘You’re looking peaky yourself – I doubt if warmed-up food will be
much use to you by this evening,’ and on this dark note she left the room.

‘She’s furious at Em going off without telling her,’ said Cressy.

Esme picked up a newspaper without the slightest curiosity about its contents. ‘They did go off rather suddenly,’ she said.

Cressy leaned forward with another section of pear. ‘I’m afraid that was my fault. I gathered from Em that Dan was horrified by the scene last night. I do apologize for my part of
that.’

Esme looked up to meet her daughter’s anxious and melting eye, and thought: ‘She really
is
very beautiful,’ at the same moment as she felt her own eyes fill with tears
(‘I can’t stand anyone being nice to me – not yet’). ‘That’s all right, darling,’ she said as steadily as she could and buried herself in the paper.
Perhaps, she thought, unable to see the print, perhaps we shall become friends at last – perhaps
all
relationships change, not just the ones that hurt like . . .

‘Cigarette?’ said Felix. She shook her head. After a decent interval, she found her handkerchief and blew her nose a little.

‘Fur trousers will be worn this Christmas,’ said Cressy dreamily. ‘I’d love to go about as half a leopard: a leopard woman: mock, of course, but you couldn’t tell
by candlelight. That shows you spots don’t camouflage the shape, doesn’t it?’

‘Does it?’ said Felix. There was such a complete silence that Esme looked up from her paper.

‘Wasn’t Major Hawkes a
dream
last night?’ said Cressy rather quickly. ‘I do think he’s one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. His mind is like a very
good
junk shop – you know, crammed with marvellous things you’ve never thought of wanting, but once you see them!’

‘He’s a dear,’ said Esme absently. ‘But you and Emma have always been naughty about him,’ she added, remembering what they were talking about.

‘Well, we shouldn’t have been. He’s mad about you, too. I think the only reason he doesn’t propose to you is pride. He’s so much poorer than you that he’d
think it dishonourable.’

Esme, looking at her, suddenly realized that Felix was doing the same.

‘All I meant,’ said Cressy who seemed unhinged by their joint attention, ‘is that if you want to marry him, you have our consent. Em’s and mine I mean. I think it would
be a splendid arrangement.’

That was when she knew. Without the slightest warning – absolutely at once. It was as though somebody had hit her very hard on the back of the head, and instead of becoming unconscious,
she stopped noticing anything she had been noticing before, and was made aware of one, new fact; was jolted, dislocated into a piece of entirely new knowledge which spread and bled over everything.
It wasn’t a steep slope any more: it was another twenty years of sand – changing colour with the days and nights but always, always feeling the same. ‘I’ll walk beside you
through the passing years’ – that song had been fashionable when she had not been alone, but she had never liked it – had never even disliked it enough to find it funny. In two
years’ time, without anybody walking beside her, she would be only sixty. Desolation – warded off by illogical preservation of health and frenzied obsessions with any trivia in reach .
. . A feeling of helpless terror, like the beginning of drowning, was succeeded by all the evidence edited, linked like film. He had gone to Battle with Cressy; had offered to go with her and Brian
last night; had come back hours late; had tried to tell
her
something last night; but she, she had been too wrapped in the courage of her own convictions to listen, to have saved herself the
final humiliation. Now that she could see nothing else, she felt she must have been mad not to see it. Her own daughter! Why not? Perhaps that, too, would be a splendid arrangement. A feeling of
hatred for her daughter came – and went.

Felix was speaking: ‘. . . what frightful nonsense you talk.’

And Cressy answering like a child (she was no child!), ‘I don’t!’

She said: ‘At my age, one has to make one’s own arrangements: they can’t be made for one.’ That was splendid, too. A splendid answer – considering everything.
Which, she suddenly realized, Cressy couldn’t be doing, or she wouldn’t have said that in the first place. She
didn’t know
. Earlier this morning, she would have thought she
was already so unhappy that this couldn’t matter; now it seemed to make – not all the difference in the world – but a difference.

‘You and your age,’ said Cressy affectionately: ‘you know perfectly well you’re marvellous for it.’ She got up from the table. ‘If Felix wants to be off, I
think I’d better pack.’

About an hour and a half later, they left, in his car. She spent that time, which seemed both long and crowded, trying to keep unobtrusively out of their way – particularly out of his way.
She didn’t want his confidence – or couldn’t stand it. She tried to mollify Mrs Hanwell, but Hanwell was having some castle puddings in the kitchen and wearing his Sunday suit, in
which, for some reason, he seemed unable to bend his knees at all. He started violently when she went into the kitchen, and half a castle pudding rolled slowly down his rigid legs on to the floor,
pounced on by Mrs Hanwell – like a fat little cat.

‘There,’ she said, brushing him down with a tea towel as though he was only his suit. ‘There! I told you golden syrup was silly on Sundays. He doesn’t like Sundays
– doesn’t even care for newspapers unless there’s a war, which leaves him under my feet all day . . .’

Some things stayed the same. She explained about being alone for lunch, and suggested the kedgeree for it. The steak and kidney puddings were on, she was told, but they would heat up nicely
during the week. She knew, for Hanwell’s sake, she must go, but Mrs Hanwell was sorry she had been cross about the kedgeree, which made her want to go on talking. Did she realize that Miss
Emma had gone to London
again
without a single one of her winter vests? She’d come down in one, because Mrs Hanwell had washed it on Saturday morning, but now it was lying in her
drawer with the other three. It was much worse to leave vests off than never to start them. Men or no men, you couldn’t go taking off all your underclothes in winter. She knew men nowadays
expected the moon, but people had been known to pass away from taking off their vests . . .

She got away in the end and went to fetch the papers from the dining-room, decided that this was the safest room to be in, and, very slowly, cleared the breakfast table. She was longing for them
to go now, and they seemed to be taking an age about packing. She heard him coming down the stairs, and hastily opened the hatch into the kitchen.

He came into the room, saw the hatch and Mrs Hanwell’s hands receiving crockery; stood waiting a moment, and then very quietly said: ‘Esme?’

She pretended not to hear: she felt him watching her and for a second she wanted to scream at him: ‘Get out! Shut up! Don’t try to put anything right or be honest with me –
just go!’ but just then Cressy came down, wearing a dark-green Austrian jacket over her yellow sweater. She clicked her fingers and said: ‘My music!’ and went to get it, but Mrs
Hanwell put her head through the hatch and said what about the eggs and tomato chutney for Miss Emma, if they were going to take them she’d get them but if they weren’t she’d let
them lie. They’d take them. Felix said he would get the car. Mrs Hanwell said she’d pop up for the vests – she’d found a carrier for them: the departure, like most, was
assuming the frenetic unnecessary flurry that characterized the end of so many week-ends. It was never nice when people went, she reminded herself; there was always the moment of walking back into
an empty room, and feeling that the house was too big. She tried pretending that it would just be like that.

They all met again in the hall: farewells exchanged: nothing about why Cressy had to get to London so early: he simply thanked her and said he’d enjoyed himself, hesitated, put a hand on
her arm and turned away. Cressy unexpectedly kissed her: she was wearing a delicious scent, but then she usually was. Mrs Hanwell had disappeared. ‘I’ll ring you,’ said Cressy. An
icy wind into the hall: his car was running. He opened the door for her and she climbed in. ‘Good-bye!’ ‘Good-bye,’ he said. ‘Good-bye,’ her mouth ached with
smiling.

She watched them round the bend of the drive, listened as they slowed down and eased into the lane and she shut the door before she could not hear them any more. Cressy’s scent was still
in the air; she walked away from it into the drawing-room with its log fire, berries arranged in an urn, and her desk, neatly crammed with letters she had already answered.