Love Again (33 page)

‘He that loveth is devoid of all reason. But: One hour of downright love is worth a lifetime of dully living on.’

‘Do you believe that, Sarah? I don’t think I do. The way I feel now I’d give a good deal to be dully living on.’

‘Ah, but you’re forgetting: the poet was talking about love. Not grief. After all, it is possible to be in love without wishing you were dead.’

‘I suppose I was forgetting that.’

He went off to see the new building in use, and she sat down discreetly at the back, keeping an empty seat for whoever would choose to sit in it. Just behind her, a pink mallow spread branches where flowers perched like silk-paper butterflies. Beside it grew a yellow rose. All around spread the lively green of the lawn. It was all so charming, so balanced, so English, this setting for the new production. But Julie could never have prospered here in this sun, on this soil. And here they could not expect what no one had planned for in France: the hundreds crowding up through the pines, and the turkey oaks and the cedars and the olives and the untamed rocks, like spies or thieves—the effect that had given
Julie Vairon
in France its special charm.

It began. The four young officers in their glamorous uniforms (there were three extras now, justified and paid for by success) stepped up onto the stage, where the two women waited. But these were not the mother and daughter of a few weeks before. This Julie seemed to flash and flame. Sally had not put on the flesh she needed to be the stately matron. The scarlet dress had been taken in, and she had been padded out, but she was tall, quite slender, and this
gave her admonitions and exhortations to her daughter an edge of rivalry, for it was impossible to believe the young officers did not find her as attractive as her daughter. Interesting, but not what had been intended.

Otherwise it all went on as before. Paul courted Julie to the accompaniment of the insipid ballad. Sylvie Vairon wept as her plans for her daughter were swept away by passion. The cicadas were absent, but a thrush sang from a hawthorn as the lovers fled. Then, the south of France, because the programme said it was. No, there was no doubt Julie did better on that warm red soil, in the southern forest. It was not that the tale became bathos, though these sad loves had to balance on that edge, rather that the English setting itself seemed a criticism of the girl. In the south of France, Martinique was only a thought or a sea’s breath away, but here it was a tropical island, with associations of Captain Cook and South Sea hedonism (never mind that it was the wrong ocean), and Julie and her mother could only have the look of misplaced Victorians, just as the sentimental ballad at once earned appreciative laughter because of associations that had nothing to do with Julie. Who in this audience had not had grandparents or great-grandparents (remembered perhaps because of yellowing sheet music in a drawer or 78 records) attentive around a piano where some young lady played the ‘Indian Love Lyrics’ or ‘The Road to Mandalay’? In Belles Rivières the girl was at odds with her society, certainly, but she was a not too distant cousin of Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Genlis, a daughter of George Sand; but here the passionate girl had to evoke comparisons with the Brontës, though their lives seemed for ever shrouded in grey rain. This audience was not lost in the tale like the other audience, crowding in the forests where the story had happened, the sounds of the river filling pauses in the music when the cicadas did not.

Henry slipped into the seat beside her and at once muttered, ‘It’s a flop.’

‘Nonsense,’ said reliable Sarah. ‘It’s different, that’s all.’

‘Oh yes, you can say that. My God, it’s different.’

During the third act a calm northern twilight distanced the tale, the unearthly insinuations of Julie’s late music filled the spaces between the trees. Somewhere close, blackbirds sang goodbye to the day. The moon, in its last quarter, rose up over the black trees on a high arc, a mildewed wafer with a decayed edge, but as they turned away from the sun, it was a golden moon, only a little asymmetrical, that shone conventionally on Julie’s death. Then starlings swooped squealing about the house that held up its many chimneys dark into the sequined sky, and Henry said—but he was feeling better—that he was going to claim extra money for unforeseen stage effects. ‘And danger money too,’ he murmured, his lips at her ear, and for the space of a second they were in the place of sweet intimacy that knows nothing of grief. Then the applause began, enthusiastic but not wild, as in France.

Beyond the theatre, their house standing solidly behind them, and beside a yew carved into a griffin, were Stephen and Elizabeth, absolutely inside their roles as rich patrons of the arts. They accepted congratulations from innumerable people, friends and relations and friends of relations and their good humour had the slightest edge on it, because of the dicey nature of this enterprise of theirs, which could turn up failures as easily as it did successes. Against a dark hedge not far away, quite by herself, stood Susan, already in her own clothes, tight black trousers, black silk singlet, silver jewellery, black shoes described as ‘medieval’ and probably not far off what was worn centuries ago in this house. She watched the pair, host and hostess, and her eyes glistened with the sincerest tears. This girl had made her way up from a dingy little house on the edge of Birmingham, and for her the scene was an apotheosis of glamour.

There was to be a reception for the company in the town, arranged by a local society funding the arts. Stephen and Elizabeth had said the company must go. ‘We don’t have to go, but you do.
Sorry, but that’s how it is,’ said Elizabeth, with the jovial ruthlessness we all expect of the upper classes. ‘We depend on goodwill. Without local goodwill we couldn’t last a season.’

A coach stood waiting.

Sarah stood in the black shadow of a shrub, enjoying invisibility, but Henry came up and said in a low voice, ‘Sarah, I’m going to get drunk.’

‘I think that is a pity.’

‘Another time, another place, Sarah.’

‘Henry, this is the other time and place.’

The cry of ‘Sarah!’ he then let out was far from self-parody, but with the second ‘Sarah’ he was already mocking himself.

She had already turned away, noting that the legendary small voice, never more reliable than when giving bad news, was telling her: No, that’s it, finally and for ever.

‘Well, good night, then,’ she said, her voice steady but only just, and walked past Susan, whose face shone with tears as she stood by herself in the moonlight. ‘Isn’t it
beautiful
?’ she demanded wildly of Sarah. ‘Isn’t it all absolutely
beautiful
?’

And Sarah watched how Stephen went into the house by himself, for Elizabeth had separated herself from him to become half of that other couple, Elizabeth and Norah, who were walking away somewhere by themselves.

In the coach, Sarah sat by Mary Ford, who was going to take photographs at the reception. ‘A pity,’ mused Mary, ‘that we couldn’t have had Bill and Susan. Perfect casting.’ Mary was not looking as well as she might: her mother was rapidly getting worse. The doctor said she should be in a home, but Mary was putting it off. ‘One day it will be me,’ she remarked.

‘And me,’ said Sarah.

At the reception Sarah behaved well, just like all the rest of the company, talking as long as she had to with anyone who wanted to talk to her, and she stood to be photographed with what seemed like
infinite numbers of local people, all of them in love with the arts. Henry appeared, already tight but hiding it, sending her imploring but grieving looks, and only half histrionic, and then he disappeared with a smile that set fire to the air between them. Well, to hell with him. Susan was surrounded by men, as she was always bound to be, and had the look of a valuable thing conscious it might be stolen if she for one moment relaxed her guard.

Sarah was sitting in the coach, by herself, when Andrew came to lean over the seat in front of her and, with a smile that made no attempt to mask anger, said, ‘You made sure I wasn’t going to be in the house.’

‘I had nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements.’

He did not believe her. Rightly, for if she had said to Elizabeth…Still smiling, his arms folded on the back of the seat, those pale blue eyes of his hard, he said, ‘Why not, Sarah Durham? Just tell me why not. You’re a fool.’ He gave that short laugh that is earned by wilful stupidity. Then he removed his folded arms from the seat, regarded her steadily, not smiling, and disappeared. She saw him walk past the window of the coach as it set off. He turned to give her a look that shortened her breath. Well, yes, she probably was crazy, at that.

Sarah never took sleeping pills, or sedatives, did not drink to achieve sleep or numbness. Tonight she wished she did. Stood at the window of her room knowing that Henry was three doors away and might, if he wished, come to her room. But he would not, because he had made sure he would be drunk. And if his wife had not announced she was arriving and bringing his child? An interesting question, which she did not feel equipped to answer. She stood by the window and watched the moonlight carve black shadows on the lawn. In the hollow of her shoulder, above her left breast, was centred an ache, an emptiness. A head was lying there, and she shut her eyes and put a hand over the place. Grey light was filling the bushes, and the birds had awakened, when at last she slept a little. Ghostly lips kissed hers. A ghost’s arms held her. When she woke and went
to the window it was still early, though sunlight lay everywhere. The astonishing summer was continuing, as if this were not England.

Two men appeared beyond a low hedge that interrupted, with a stile, a path leading to a field where horses stood absorbing the sun. They were large, slow-moving men, who stopped to admire or evaluate the horses. The scene could easily have a frame around it, to join others of the same kind hanging on the walls of this house. They went strolling around and among the horses, stopped to talk, strolled on, patted one horse, slapped the rump of another, went over to a hedge to look at something or other, came back. This went on for a good half hour, while the sunlight strengthened and the roses in the bed below Sarah’s window glowed more confidently with every minute. Now the men were coming towards the house. They halted to examine the trunk of a beech, walked around it, advanced again, bent over a bush that, from the look of it, was growing in the wrong place, straightened, and stood facing each other, talking. This conversation too lasted for some minutes. Again they came on, towards the stile, and halted. Behind them a woman came out of the trees, carrying a saddle, going towards the horses. It was Elizabeth, her red head scarf like a tiny sail against all the green. Her voice rang out: ‘Beauty, Beauty, Beauty…’ A tall black mare raised its head, whinnied, and stepped towards her to take titbits from her hand. Her hand was gentling its ears. The men had swung round at the sound of her voice, and now turned around again, still talking. First one, then the other, stepped over the stile. They were walking with a steady assurance on this earth they owned, or ordered. One of the men was Stephen. They both wore earth-coloured clothes, and their trousers were pushed into their boots. They carried…what were they? Sticks? No, Stephen had a stick, the other man a riding switch. They stopped, conferred, and went off to one side, into a little apple orchard. There they walked about, studying the trees and at one point apparently disagreeing about one of them, for first Stephen doubtfully shook a branch, and then the
other man pointed with his whip approving, or so it looked, at a satisfactory amount of apples. From the field behind them came Elizabeth’s ringing voice: she was shouting endearments at her horse, which did not feel like being saddled. It was backing and even rearing, the black glossy mane flinging about like the fringe on a dancer’s shawl.

Now Stephen’s face was in focus. The men were about fifty yards away. He looked ordinary and even cheerful, certainly good-humoured. The other’s face was large and red, emphasized with black brows. Not a face she wanted to be any closer to than she was. He had a lowering defensive stare and shot out gloomy looks to either side of him, as if enemies might be lurking among the trees.

The men stood facing each other again, on a gravel path. The voices rose and fell, but she could not hear the words. They gave an appearance of holding their ground against each other. Elizabeth had got on the horse and was cantering around the field, encouraging and calming the beast, and this sounded almost like a song, or a chant. ‘There, there you are, there
Beauty
, now
Beauty
, there’s my girl
Beauty
, there’s a good girl, there’s
Beauty
, now come on, calm down, gently there
Beauty
.’

The two men now took off fast into a wood and there walked around a very old oak that had a branch propped on a stick, stopped, and walked around the other way. They were disagreeing. A peaceable argument lasted for quite a time, and then they returned to the path. Now Sarah could see that the black-browed man’s face was red because it was meshed with fine lines, his nose had the lumpy glare of a drinker’s nose, and he seemed swollen with unhealthy blood. They stood talking. Nothing could seem more amiable than this long, leisurely chat. At last the riding whip lifted in a careless goodbye, the man nodded at Stephen, and he strode off back towards Elizabeth. At the hedge he stopped, bent to look at something on the sunny grass, and stamped once, twice, swivelling his heel on whatever it was, to make sure it was well and truly
ground out of life. Then he went on, head lowered, riding crop at the ready. He vaulted heavily over the stile. Elizabeth was crooning at her horse and patting it to keep it patient. The man picked up a saddle from where he had left it in the grass to talk to Stephen, flung it on a brown horse, fastened it, climbed heavily on it, and then he and Elizabeth turned their horses’ heads towards a far hedge. Stephen stood alone on the gravel path and gazed over the hedge at the scene of his wife and the neighbour talking as they rode slowly off together.