Sunflower (36 page)

‘Did he? I’m sorry I didn’t see him.’

‘George said he didn’t think you saw anybody. Said your eyes were like stars and you just floated. With Francis Pitt, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Seen much of him lately?’

‘A bit. You see he’s in trouble. His best friend’s dying. And he wants company. I go up to lunch with him nearly every day.’

‘Is he nice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Straight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you really like him?’

‘Yes. But we’re just friends. Nothing but friends. I lunched with him today. We’re just friends.’

‘That’s just what I’ve always objected to about lunch. One’s apt to be just friends. I always say lunch isn’t worth the trouble of dressing for it. You can do as much with two dinners or one supper as you can with five lunches.’

‘But Maxi, it isn’t like that. I wouldn’t try to make anything happen. It wouldn’t seem right. And anyway, I don’t care if nothing ever happens. This is different. So long as I can see him …’ She turned way and fumbled on the table for her powder puff.

‘Oh!’ breathed Maxine in consternation. ‘You would take it like that, wouldn’t you?’

There was a pause. Sunflower said, ‘People aren’t talking, are they?’

‘A bit.’

Insincerely she muttered, ‘Horrid of them.’ For the first time in her life she glowed at the thought that she was being gossiped about. It was better that she should be embraced by Francis Pitt in the imagination of others than nowhere at all.

‘Hasn’t he said anything at all?’

Sunflower shook her head.

‘Do you think he cares for you?’

‘Yes. I’m almost sure.’

‘I wonder why he doesn’t come across? Do you think there’s a Reason?’

‘I’ve thought sometimes there might be a Reason.’

‘If it’s a Reason you’ll get him all right. You’re so lovely. You needn’t worry. But I wish there wasn’t so much of this lunch business. It’s so much easier to make things happen at night.’

‘But I tell you I don’t want to make things happen. It would spoil it: I want to stand back and let it happen.’

‘My dear, I know just how you feel. Isn’t it awful when it makes you come over all religious like that! I do hope it’ll be all right, I do hope it’ll be all right, I do hope—you’re sure he really is nice?’

‘I’m quite sure.’

‘I do want you to have a bit of luck after all you’ve been through with that old beast. Do … do you think he’d marry?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Sunflower, you ought to try for that. Don’t be too good-natured. You’re far too soft. Not that I mean you’ve ever done it with anybody but Essington. But you’re soft about everything. It’s made me sick sometimes, the way you’ve let girls copy your best dresses that wouldn’t have given you a loan of their lipsticks. Don’t be a silly girl over this. You don’t know how good it is afterwards. After you’ve got through all this stage you’re in now. There’s something after that. Sunflower, I’m happy. I really am happy, and I didn’t think I ever would be again.’

‘You did go through an awful time with Jerry.’

They stared at each other palely, shaking their heads.

‘Without so much as a by-your-leave,’ said Maxine.

‘I often wonder if they never think.’

‘I don’t suppose they ever do.’

Sunflower turned back to her dressing-table and fiddled with the jars and bottles.

‘Maxi, dear.’

‘Yes, old Sunflower.’

‘There’s something I’d like to ask you, only …’

‘My dear, we’ve slept in the same bed in the old days and used the same hairbrush when mine wore out. There isn’t anything you can’t ask me.’

‘Well … does George mind about the others?’

‘Oh, that. Well, I don’t suppose he actually cheers when he thinks about them, but I don’t think he does think about them much. Men don’t nowadays. They’re much more sensible. They realise that unless we were born twins with our husbands, which would be incest, which is horrid, there’s bound to be a few mistakes while you’re waiting round. Anyway it doesn’t seem to worry him. Except Jerry. He wouldn’t like me to see Jerry.’

‘Do you ever run across Jerry now?’

‘Once in a blue moon. At Ciro’s. And the Fifty-Fifty. Always with a girl. Different girls. He doesn’t ever seem to keep a girl long. Not longer than three months.’

‘Well, you were with him much longer than that.’

‘A year and ten days. October the third, October the thirteenth. Friday the thirteenth it was that day I came round to you.’

‘You don’t care for him any more, do you?’

‘Oh no. I can think of him now without crying. And look right across the room at him as cool as a cucumber and bow. I’m always so glad George is good-looking when I see Jerry. He’s better looking than Jerry, you know, really. You think George is good-looking, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes, he’s very handsome.’

‘You wouldn’t say he looked Jewish, would you?’

‘Oh, no, not really. A Spanish type, I’d call George.’

‘Mind you, I’m glad George is a Jew. It’s a good thing to marry a Jew. They don’t look on their wives and children as being something they let themselves in for when they were silly, like how a lot of Christians do. But I don’t see any sense in anybody looking like a Jew, just because they are a Jew, do you? I mean, it isn’t necessary, is it? But then George doesn’t look Jewish. You’re quite right, he’s a Spanish type. But anyway he doesn’t mind about the others, not so that it matters. You see he’s fond of me. And if they’re fond of you they never think of it.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know it … And you see … by the time baby grows up it’ll be forgotten. It’s funny how people forget one. I’ll be forgotten in no time. Why, the doorkeeper downstairs didn’t know me tonight, though I played here for six months for you in “Ashes of Roses". You see, I’m not like you. You’re News. You always were from the start.’

‘Oh, but I’m not so much News as I used to be. People aren’t taking half the notice of me they did.’

‘Never took more, my dear. And small wonder after this performance.’

‘But I’m dropping out! I’m dropping out more and more every year. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘Noticed nothing! Everybody’s crazy about you. Why, the paragraphs you get all the time.’

‘Oh, but I’m bound to drop out at my age!’

‘Nonsense! Oh … I see. Well, dear, I see what you mean. I think you’re right. Maybe your paragraphs are more about your work and less about you. I think you’re right. In ten or fifteen years nobody won’t ever remember a thing about you and Essington. Not a thing.’

‘I don’t think they will,’ said Sunflower; and fell to fooling again with the jars and bottles on her tables.

‘Maxi…’

‘What is it?’

‘Is it really so bad having a baby? I mean, does it really hurt such a lot?’

‘Well, yes and no. You can’t call it a picnic. But then what I say is you get something for it. Think of the people that are operated on for appendicitis and this and that and have all that pain and all that expense and three weeks spent in bed and nothing to show for it. That makes having a baby seem more sensible, doesn’t it? And anyway it’s awfully interesting. Sunflower, you can’t think how interesting it is. I mean it makes you think. It’s all so queer. I mean, one day the baby’s you, it’s just a part of you. And then there it is, on the other side of the room, with its own ideas about things and making a noise. Well, you know, that’s wonderful. I dare say I don’t make it sound anything, because I’m not one of your talky birds, but really it is quite wonderful.’

‘Oh, it must be.’

‘And you know there is something queer about the whole business. Really there is. Don’t you think it’s extraordinary that a baby shouldn’t look like its father, even though its father is its father, which George certainly was? Will you tell me how science can explain that? I tell you it’s all very mysterious. But, oh Christ, it does tear you to pieces. Sunflower, you haven’t any idea of the things that happen to babies, the things that are let happen to them. You couldn’t believe it. Just take this business of whooping cough that baby’s just had. Do you know that poor child used to get black in the face? And it’s really dangerous. Baby might have died. I tell you that he might have died. And the whole thing’s so badly managed. Did you know that a boy baby can rupture himself as easy as anything just crying? And then they let them have things like whooping cough that make them cry. Is that sensible? And it’s like that all the time. People talk as if having babies were dull and settling down. It isn’t a bit like that. You have to stand between them and the bloody silly universe all the time.’

‘It must be lovely. I mean, you must feel you are doing something.’

‘Oh, yes. And the pain isn’t really so frightful. And if they’re nice they’re awfully good to you while it’s coming. George was a dear all the time. Home every night as early as could be. And when I was silly and thought I might die he didn’t scold me and say I wouldn’t, but just held me tight and then I felt that anyway I’d been so happy with him these eighteen months that if I did die it would all have been worthwhile. Oh, Sunflower, George is a white man. He really is a white man.’

‘I know he is. I didn’t worry a bit about you after I saw him at the Registry Office. I said to myself, “Well, Maxi’s all right for the rest of her life”. Use my powder, dear.’

‘Thank you, darling. I am a silly to go on this way. But you know what it is. I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again. This is a lovely powder. It’s a mixture isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Bayard’s Naturelle and Favot’s Blanche. They go well together because the one’s too sticky and the other’s too light. But it’s too white for you. You’re so lovely and creamy.’

‘Oh, my dear, who wouldn’t rather be you!’

‘Get on with you. And kiss me, Maxi, dear.’

‘Mm. You sweet thing. And there’s the call for beginners. We have had a show. Give me another kiss. Oh, my God, how you’re shaking! Why, your heart’s killing you!’

‘I’m like that all the time.’

‘You … you’re quite sure he’s nice?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘You do hear of him picking people up and dropping them.’

‘Well, I haven’t noticed anything of the sort. I shouldn’t think it was true. He’s awfully kind. Fatherly. But I can understand how it might get about he is like that. You see, there aren’t many people who’d understand him. They’d fail him. He does take a lot of understanding. And then he’d get through most people very soon, because he’s so clever. Not many people could keep up with him. I quite see how the story might get about.’

‘Well, you ought to know. You’re used to clever people. I never got on with them. Well, goodbye, dear. I hope to God you’re going to be happy. Send me a telegram if anything happens. And thank you so much for all you sent baby. He loved them.’

‘I’ll be along to see him some time this week, I expect.’

‘You don’t want to go tying yourself up with engagements just now, my dear. Leave yourself free. We’ll expect you when we see you. Well, here’s goodbye again. It’s funny … Somehow I wish you didn’t care for him quite so much. But it’ll be all right. You’re so lovely, you’d get any man you wanted. And you wouldn’t lose him, either, which is more. Oh, it’ll be all right. Or the man’s mad …’

When she got home the house seemed to be dreaming a dream about itself, to be giving an invisible party, as London houses often do by night. The black cat, Sambo, lay curled up like a soft dark ammonite on the bottom step of the staircase, instead of being in his basket down in the kitchen, which never should have happened to such a godfearing tom had there not been strange comings and goings to disturb his habits. The chest and table in the hall had more than usually that air which all old furniture usually has, of being taciturn as a good servant is, never speaking in the presence of its masters, never saying as much as it knows at any time; the dull highlights on the lacquer seemed like respectful and vigilant eyes. She sank down on the step by Sambo, and lifted him into her lap. He snapped open one eye and with the flip of an ear thanked her for nothing; for though she might be the talk of the town she was not Cook, who is the arbiter of cream. She murmured to herself, smiling because she was pervaded by a pleasure, aloud because she was light-hearted with fatigue, ‘My cat, my funny cat, my house, my funny house.’ Though for years she had poured nearly all her private energies into the business of making this a beautiful place, she suddenly felt, quite without pain, almost flippantly, a sense of detachment from it. She looked at the letters which lay waiting for her on the table and didn’t want to open any of them, since it seemed impossible that anything in this house could really be relevant to her, though there was one packet, which looked like a cheap weekly paper, which she would have liked to take away and tear up, because it was such an ugly acid violet-pink. But that could wait, that would wait. Sitting and stroking Sambo, she fell half-asleep, she had silly thoughts. It seemed to her that if she went upstairs and opened any of the doors, she would find people sitting in the room, not speaking, not moving, not able to do anything when she came in save arch long waxen necks and turn rose-and-lily waxen faces with a condoning expression, because they were but waxen people such as dwell in shop windows and could not become flesh and blood till she had given up this fantastic practice, which condemned the whole world to unreality, of living in this house which was a stranger to her. But she must not doze like this, she must keep awake, she must keep awake at any cost. She set down Sambo and wandered upstairs, partly because she feared she would sleep if she were still, partly because she had that impulse to range round the house that one has when all the furniture is packed up and the vans are coming in an hour.

But she felt ashamed of her callousness about the house when she went into her Chinese room. It was hers, it was perfect. There were the Ming figures on the mantelpiece, the two old men with staves who had been on a journey, there was the princess who had not needed to go on a journey because she was royal and had been born with peace in her heart, as she had been born with fine bones in her body. There was the vase that was grey, nothing but grey; but surely the thought of far-off hills, which are blue, had crossed the mind of the potter who made it. There was the wallpaper where the little old mandarin drank his tea for his private pleasure in the house among the willows, and only a few inches away looked out of his sedan chair in the procession which he had joined for the public good, and a few inches further on than that walked up the temple steps to worship the gods whose will it is that in private and public things alike there should be decorum; being, as a sage must be, everywhere in the whole range of life in the same moment of time. This room was a miracle. The wallpaper had been made four hundred years later than the figures, and the vase had come into being somewhere in between them. She had bid for the Ming figures at Christie’s, she had found the vase in the must of a shop in Pimlico, she had unrolled the wallpaper and seen its pattern through tears when she had strayed into the lumber room in the villa at Settignano as a refuge from the sandstorm of Essington’s irritation, for that was one of the many places which he had disliked at sight, but lingered on at interminably, because of his mysterious preference for disliking things. Yet because of an inclination towards harmony which had been built in them by their makers, these things, made far apart in time and gathered together on no principle but that they had struck her as pretty, made a room which was a whole as a gem is a whole, as a flawless emerald is a whole. It had an enduring beauty, it had gone on being a calm and beautiful place; no matter how cross Essington was, no matter how badly she acted, it would go on being beautiful for her so that she could enjoy it when she was quite old. She should not so bitterly miscall her life up to the present. There had been this room in it, there had been moments of a beauty like the beauty of this room, moments when Essington was kind, or was not there. The time had not all been wasted.