The Complete Short Stories (13 page)

‘Nonsense,’ said
Désirée, ‘he often writes a marvellous sonnet before shaving in the morning.’

‘Sybil may be right,’
said Barry. ‘I owe poetry all the time I can give.’

‘Are you tired, Sybil?’
said Désirée. ‘Why are you sighing like that; are you all right?’

Later, Sybil gave up the
struggle and wearily said, ‘Very good,’ or ‘Nice rhythm’ after each poem. And
even the guilt of condoning Désirée’s ‘marvellous … wonderful’ was less than
the guilt of her isolated mind. She did not know then that the price of
allowing false opinions was the gradual loss of one’s capacity for forming true
ones.

Not every morning, but
at least twice during each visit Sybil would wake to hear the row in progress.
The nanny, who brought her early tea, made large eyes and tiptoed warily. Sybil
would have her bath, splashing a lot to drown the noise of the quarrel.
Downstairs, the battle of voices descended, filled every room and corridor.
When, on the worst occasions, the sound of shattering glass broke through the
storm, Sybil would know that Barry was smashing up Désirée’s dressing-table;
and would wonder how Désirée always managed to replace her crystal bowls, since
goods of that type were now scarce, and why she bothered to do so. Sybil would
always find the two girls of Barry’s former marriage standing side by side on the
lawn frankly gazing up at the violent bedroom window. The nanny would cart off
Désirée’s baby for a far-away walk. Sybil would likewise disappear for the
morning.

The first time this
happened, Désirée told her later, ‘I’m afraid you unsettle Barry.’

‘What do you mean?’ said
Sybil.

Désirée dabbed her
watery eyes and blew her nose. ‘Well, of
course,
it stands to reason,
Sybil, you’re out to attract Barry. And he’s only a man. I know you do it
unconsciously,
but …’

‘I can’t stand this sort
of thing. I shall leave right away,’ Sybil said. ‘No, Sybil, no. Don’t make a
thing
of it. Barry needs you. You’re the only person in the Colony who can really
talk to him about his poetry.

‘Understand,’ said Sybil
on that first occasion, ‘I am not at all interested in your husband. I think he’s
an all-round third-rater. That is my opinion.

Désirée looked savage. ‘Barry,’
she shouted, ‘has made a fortune out of passion-fruit juice in eight years. He
has sold four thousand copies of
Home Thoughts
on his own initiative.

It was like a game for
three players. According to the rules, she was to be in love, unconsciously,
with Barry, and tortured by the contemplation of Désirée’s married bliss. She
felt too old to join in, just at that moment.

Barry came to her room
while she was packing. ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘We need you. And after all, we are
only human. What’s a row? These quarrels only happen in the best marriages. And
I can’t for the life of me think how it started.’

‘What a beautiful house. What a magnificent
estate,’ said Sybil’s hostess.

‘Yes,’ said Sybil, ‘it
was the grandest in the Colony.’

‘Were the owners
frightfully grand?’

‘Well, they were rich,
of course.’

‘I can see that. What a
beautiful interior. I adore those lovely old oil lamps. I suppose you didn’t
have electricity?’

‘Yes, there was electric
light in all the rooms. But my friends preferred the oil-lamp tradition for the
dining-room. You see, it was a copy of an old Dutch house.

‘Absolutely charming.’

The reel came to an end.
The lights went up and everyone shifted in their chairs.

‘What were those large
red flowers?’ said the elderly lady.

‘Flamboyants.’

‘Magnificent,’ said her
hostess. ‘Don’t you miss the colours, Sybil?’

‘No, I don’t, actually.
There was too much of it for me.

‘You didn’t care for the
bright colours?’ said the young man, leaning forward eagerly.

Sybil smiled at him.

‘I liked the bit where
those little lizards were playing among the stones. That was an excellent shot,’
said her host. He was adjusting the last spool.

‘I rather
liked
that
handsome blond fellow,’ said her hostess, as if the point had been in debate. ‘Was
he the passion-fruiter?’

‘He was the manager,’
said Sybil.

‘Oh yes, you told me. He
was in a shooting affair, did you say?’

‘Yes, it was
unfortunate.

‘Poor young man. It
sounds quite a dangerous place. I suppose the sun and everything …’

‘It was dangerous for
some people. It depended.’

‘The blacks look happy
enough. Did you have any trouble with them in those days?’

‘No,’ said Sybil, ‘only
with the whites.’ Everyone laughed.

‘Right,’ said her host. ‘Lights
out, please.’

Sybil soon perceived the real cause of the
Westons’ quarrels. It differed from their explanations: they were both, they
said, so much in love, so jealous of each other’s relations with the opposite
sex.

‘Barry was furious,’
said Désirée one day, ‘— weren’t you, Barry? —because I smiled, merely smiled,
at Carter.’

‘I’ll have it out with
Carter,’ muttered Barry. ‘He’s always hanging round Désirée.’

David Carter was their
manager. Sybil was so foolish as once to say, ‘Oh surely David wouldn’t—’

‘Oh wouldn’t he?’ said
Désirée.

‘Oh wouldn’t he?’ said
Barry.

Possibly they did not
themselves know the real cause of their quarrels. These occurred on mornings
when Barry had decided to lounge in bed and write poetry. Désirée, anxious that
the passion-fruit business should continue to expand, longed for him to be at
his office in the factory at eight o’clock each morning, by which time all
other enterprising men in the Colony were at work. But Barry spoke more and
more of retiring and devoting his time to his poems. When he lay abed, pen in
hand, worrying a sonnet, Désirée would sulk and bang doors. The household knew
that the row was on. ‘Quiet! Don’t you see I’m trying to think,’ he would
shout.
‘I
suggest,’ she would reply, ‘you go to the library if you want
to write.’ It was evident that her greed and his vanity, facing each other in
growling antipathy, were too terrible for either to face. Instead, the names of
David Carter and Sybil would fly between them, consoling them, pepping-up and
propagating the myth of their mutual attraction.

‘Rolling your eyes at
Carter in the orchard. Don’t think I didn’t notice.’

‘Carter? That’s funny. I
can easily keep Carter in his place. But while we’re on the subject, what about
you with Sybil? You sat up late enough with her last night after I’d gone to
bed.’

Sometimes he not only
smashed the crystal bowls, he hurled them through the window.

In the exhausted
afternoon Barry would explain, ‘Désirée was upset —weren’t you, Désirée? —
because of you, Sybil. It’s understandable. We shouldn’t stay up late talking
after Désirée has gone to bed. You’re a little devil in your way, Sybil.’

‘Oh well,’ said Sybil
obligingly, ‘that’s how it is.’

She became tired of the
game. When, in the evenings, Barry’s voice boomed forth with sonorous
significance as befits a hallowed subject, she no longer thought of herself as
an objective observer. She had tired of the game because she was now more than
nominally committed to it. She ceased to be bored by the Westons; she began to
hate them.

‘What I don’t
understand,’ said Barry, ‘is why my poems are ignored back in England. I’ve
sold over four thousand of the book out here. Feature articles about me have
appeared in all the papers out here; remind me to show you them. But I can’t
get a single notice in London. When I send a poem to any of the magazines I don’t
even get a reply.’

‘They are engaged in a
war,’ Sybil said.

‘But they still publish
poetry. Poetry so-called. Utter rubbish, all of it. You can’t understand the
stuff.’

‘Yours is too good for
them,’ said Sybil. To a delicate ear her tone might have resembled the stab of
a pin stuck into a waxen image.

‘That’s a fact, between
ourselves,’ said Barry. ‘I shouldn’t say it, but that’s the answer.

Barry was overweight, square and dark. His
face had lines, as of anxiety or stomach trouble. David Carter, when he passed,
cool and fair through the house, was quite a change.

‘England is finished,’
said Barry. ‘It’s degenerate.

‘I wonder,’ said Sybil, ‘you
have the heart to go on writing so cheerily about the English towns and
countryside.’ Now, now, Sybil, she thought; business is business, and the
nostalgic English scene is what the colonists want. This visit must be my last.
I shall not come again.

‘Ah, that,’ Barry was saying,
‘was the England I remember. The good old country. But now, I’m afraid, it’s
decadent. After the war it will be no more than …’

Désirée would have the
servants into the drawing-room every morning to give them their orders for the
day. ‘I believe in keeping up home standards,’ said Désirée, whose parents were
hotel managers. Sybil was not sure where Désirée had got the idea of herding
all the domestics into her presence each morning. Perhaps it was some
family-prayer assembly in her ancestral memory, or possibly it had been some
hotel-staff custom which prompted her to ‘have in the servants’ and instruct
them beyond their capacity. These half-domesticated peasants and erstwhile
smallfarmers stood, bare-footed and woolly-cropped, in clumsy postures on
Désirée’s carpet. In pidgin dialect which they largely failed to comprehend,
she enunciated the duties of each one. Only Sybil and David Carter knew that
the natives’ name for Désirée was, translated, ‘Bad Hen’. Désirée complained
much about their stupidity, but she enjoyed this morning palaver as Barry
relished his poetry.

‘Carter writes poetry
too,’ said Barry with a laugh one day.

Désirée shrieked. ‘Poetry!
Oh, Barry, you can’t call that stuff
poetry.

‘It is frightful,’ Barry
said, ‘but the poor fellow doesn’t know it.’

‘I should like to see
it,’ Sybil said.

‘You aren’t interested
in Carter by any chance, Sybil?’ said Désirée.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Personally, I mean.’

‘Well, I think he’s all
right.’

‘Be honest, Sybil,’ said
Barry. Sybil felt extremely irritated. He so often appealed for frankness in
others, as if by right; was so dishonest with himself ‘Be honest, Sybil — you’re
after David Carter.’

‘He’s handsome,’ Sybil
said.

‘You haven’t a chance,’
said Barry. ‘He’s mad keen on Désirée. And anyway, Sybil, you don’t want a
beginner.’

‘You want a mature man
in a good position,’ said Désirée. ‘The life you’re living isn’t natural for a
girl. I’ve been noticing,’ she said, ‘you and Carter being matey together out
on the farm.’

Towards the end of her
stay David Carter produced his verses for Sybil to read. She thought them
interesting but unpractised. She told him so, and was disappointed that he did
not take this as a reasonable criticism. He was very angry. ‘Of course,’ she
said, ‘your poetry is far better than Barry’s.’ This failed to appease David.
After a while, when she was meeting him in the town where she lived, she began
to praise his poems, persuading herself that he was fairly talented.

She met him whenever he
could get away. She sent excuses in answer to Désirée’s pressing invitations.
For different reasons, both Sybil and David were anxious to keep their meetings
secret from the Westons. Sybil did not want the affair mythologized and
gossiped about. For David’s part, he valued his job in the flourishing
passion-fruit concern. He had confided to Sybil his hope, one day, to have the
whole business under his control. He might even buy Barry out. ‘I know far more
about it than he does. He’s getting more and more bound up with his poetry, and
paying next to no attention to the business. I’m just waiting.’ He is, Sybil
remarked to herself on hearing this, a true poet all right.

David reported that the
quarrels between Désirée and Barry were becoming more violent, that the
possibility of Barry’s resigning from business to devote his time to poetry was
haunting Désirée. ‘Why don’t you come, Désirée wrote, ‘and talk to Barry about
his poetry? Why don’t you come and see us now? What have we done? Poor Sybil,
all alone in the world, you ought to be married. David Carter follows me all
over the place, it’s most embarrassing, you know how furious Barry gets. Well,
I suppose that’s the cost of having a devoted husband.’ Perhaps, thought Sybil,
she senses that David is my lover.

One day she went down
with flu. David turned up unexpectedly and proposed marriage. He clung to her
with violent, large hands. She alone, he said, understood his ambitions, his
art, himself. Within a year or two they could, together, take over the
passion-fruit plantation.

‘Sh-sh, Ariadne will
hear you.’ Ariadne was out, in fact. David looked at her somewhat wildly. ‘We
must be married,’ he said.

Sybil’s affair with
David Carter was over, from her point of view, almost before it had started.
She had engaged in it as an act of virtue done against the grain, and for a
brief time it had absolved her from the reproach of her sexlessness.

‘I’m waiting for an
answer.’ By his tone, he seemed to suspect what the answer would be.

‘Oh, David, I was just
about to write to you. We really must put an end to this. As for marriage,
well, I’m not cut out for it at all.’

He stooped over her bed
and dung to her. ‘You’ll catch my flu,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she
said, to get rid of him.

When he had gone she
wrote him her letter, sipping lemon juice to ease her throat. She noticed he
had brought for her, and left on the floor of the stoep, six bottles of Weston’s
Passion-fruit Juice. He will soon get over the affair, she thought, he has
still got his obsession with the passion-fruit business.