She was dressed for the street, wearing a long loose coat that swung pleasantly as she turned to smile at him. Her escape seemed not to have impressed her much. On Kit the effect of seeing her was like that of a violent blow in the diaphragm, uncomplicated by pleasure of any kind.
“Good afternoon,” he said. Aiming at a pointed formality, he ejected it like an insult.
Her smile disappeared. It was the only alteration in her face that anger allowed him to notice. “Good afternoon. Forgive me for delaying you.” She prepared to walk on.
Kit made a half-gesture towards his hat; but it never arrived, nor did the frigidly polite formula on his tongue take shape. He found them inadequate. What he wanted was a scene. He discovered in some astonishment that he had no intention of leaving without one. I can’t behave like this, he told himself; and was pleased, in a hot and painful way, by the certainty that he would.
“It really isn’t a very good idea,” he said, “to go to sleep in the middle of the road.”
In the first moment of meeting, Christie had gone rather white. Now the colour returned, with interest, to her face; she thrust her hands into the pockets of her loose coat, and planted her feet apart. “This is a private drive. If you hadn’t been tearing along as if it were the Kingston by-pass, you’d have had room to pull up.”
“I did pull up, or you wouldn’t be here. But it helps if the pedestrian makes some contribution.”
“Yes, I expect so. Don’t let me keep you; I know you never have any time to waste.”
Kit had reached a stage when even this was not sufficient to dislodge him. “If you’d ever seen a really bad road smash,” he said, “you’d be more careful.”
“I have seen one. … My father and mother were both killed in it.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” said Kit inaccurately. He was, in point of fact, furious with her for taking such a low advantage. As there seemed nothing to add to this, he said at last, “Well, I’ll say good-bye.”
“That made you look rather an ass, didn’t it?” she remarked as he was moving to go. “I thought it would. That’s why I made it up.”
Kit stopped in his tracks and, when he could speak, said, “Well, my God.”
“You looked so silly and smug, I had to get some sort of a rise out of you. Now do go home.”
Kit drew in a sharp breath through his nose. He wanted, quite simply, to get his hands on her and beat her. Being normally even-tempered, he was somewhat shattered by the experience. He stared at her, his face setting. The girl took a backward step which brought her up against the laurels at the side of the drive.
“I’m not frightened,” she said.
Slowly, Kit’s years of cultivated restraint reasserted themselves. He said at last, with deadly calm, “Possibly you might like to let me know, before you go, what you propose to tell your aunt about last night. She appears not to know that I called. It might be an advantage if we both stuck to the same lie.”
She looked up quickly, forgetting for a moment to be defiant. “But she was asleep.”
“But you happened not to mention whether you’d told her I was coming.”
“Oh.”
“And, incidentally”—Kit’s voice shook a little—he was out of breath—“old people, and people with weak hearts, sleep very lightly.” He paused, and added in a rush, “You’d better remember that—another time.”
“What do you mean, I’d better remember it?”
“What do you suppose?”
She stared up at him; he saw her hand clenched round the gloves she was carrying. But they were both still, and during this pause the distorting lens of anger was removed for a moment from Kit’s eyes. He saw that she was shaking, and that her face had the hopeless naughtiness of a child’s who dares not stop and let the accumulated reaction burst. It was a mood he was able to interpret, since it was his own.
He found that he was slightly sick: his head felt light, and he had the sensation, generally, of having been the scene of some explosion whose wreckage he had not had time to view. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“So I should hope,” said Christie unfairly. But her voice sounded miserable, and without conviction.
“I didn’t mean what I said then.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t have said it.”
“Come here a minute.”
“No. I won’t, let me go. How can you be so absolutely beastly and then think you can just kiss me as if nothing had happened?”
“Keep still. Who said I was going to kiss you as if nothing had happened?”
In a little while there was a necessary pause, during which, at the same moment, Christie said, “But what was the matter with you?” and Kit said, “What made you do it? That’s what I can’t make out.”
“Do what, walk in the road?”
“Are you crazy? Walk away without speaking to me when I came.”
“Was that what you were annoyed about?”
“You’re incredible. You thought I’d like it?”
“I suppose I can’t have thought.”
“Well, then, why?”
“Oh, it was silly. It doesn’t matter now. … I never thought of you minding like this. It was only—you’d been rather sweet before, and I was afraid of you being different in the morning. So you were.”
In her embarrassment she was twisting a handful of his hair, which she happened to be holding, tighter and tighter; but Kit did not notice it. After a while she looked up at him, and let the piece of hair go.
“What is it, sweet?”
“Nothing,” said Kit abruptly, and kissed her to hide his face.
“But, my precious, you are funny. Didn’t you think it would probably be something like that?”
“No. I—”
“Well, what did you think?”
With overdone casualness, Kit remarked, “It was all a storm in a teacup. You get touchy when you’ve given yourself away.”
She moved her face back from his. “But don’t be silly, you’re a man.”
“What has that got to do with it?”
“You don’t have to feel that sort of thing. That’s what I’m supposed to feel.”
Kit, who was feeling foolish, merely kissed her.
“I’ve been a cow,” she said suddenly, with a crack in her voice. “You always make me feel a cow. I can’t get used to you being so much nicer than any one else.”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake—”
“I’ve been beastly to you. I’ve made you unhappy. I wish I were dead.”
Her voice shook with passionate sincerity. Moved but bewildered, Kit embraced her. To be in her emotional neighbourhood gave him the sensation of wandering among a medley of shining objects in a thick fog. It excited more than it exasperated him. She clung to him, murmuring remorse and love.
“How are we going to meet again?” he said.
They began discussing plans. He would come to her room through the garden on his way back from his next night call, or she was to dial for him on the telephone in the hall after the house was asleep. There would be no need to say anything, he explained; she could tap on the mouthpiece and he would know who it was.
“Yes. We’ll do that. That will be lovely.” Her voice was absent.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. We’ll fix it like that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll see everything’s all right.”
“Of course, I know. I was only thinking—I’d like to meet you in the day somewhere, and—and talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Just talk to you.”
He stroked her hair, not answering because he was both touched and taken by surprise. She went on, “I could be out for about an hour.”
The concreteness of this brought him down to the ground. It was impossible; the town was a small one, he and his car were known everywhere.
“You don’t want to,” she said.
“You know I do. But in a job like mine every one knows me by
sight. You’d be surprised how many people will know you too by now. People in a place like this have nothing to do but talk. I doubt if we could get far enough away in the time we’d have. You see, I could hardly drive you out from here.”
“No. Of course. It was a mad idea anyway. Don’t bother about it.”
“We’ll have to leave that part for a bit, I think. Which night will you ring for me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“It’ll be better if we fix it up now.”
“I’d rather wait a bit.”
“Why?”
“Oh, because … Darling, don’t be angry with me, or anything, will you?”
“Of course I won’t.”
“I’m not going to see you again.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said affectionately, and rumpled her hair. She remained oddly unresponsive. Suddenly it was borne in upon him that she meant what she said.
“But why?” he asked. “What have I done?”
“I’ll have to leave this week. I’ll have to get back to my job.”
“How can you? What about your aunt; she’ll be terribly upset.” Amidst his own confusion, this really meant something to him.
“She’ll have a nurse. Pedlow won’t mind, now, if it means getting rid of me.”
“You don’t ask if I mind.”
“You’ll be all right if I go now. Just kiss me.”
He kissed her, and she yielded with her usual completeness, as innocent of wantonness as she was of reserve. It gave to her responses a kind of inevitability. With her, he seemed to take in some long-needed element, as simple as water or oxygen, and the weariness of years relaxed in him.
“Why do you want to leave me?” he said. A thought went through him like a bitter taste. “Have you got some one else?”
“Oh, don’t be such an ass.” She drew in her breath with a little hiss of exasperation. Her hands pushed at him, jerkily, as if she were trying to push in her words. “Can’t you see? I won’t have you creeping about and lying. You’re different; do you think I don’t take anything in? It would make me sick to see you. And I might put up with that if I didn’t know it would make you sick too. You’d hate me for it. You have hated me for it, already. Haven’t you?”
Kit lacked practice in the routine evasion. He said, “Only when you weren’t there.”
“That’s what’s important.”
He was made ashamed by the truth of this, and sought escape from it in rebellion. His mind went back over the last years, and the effort with which he had carried himself through them, seemed barren and sterile. He thought of a procession of future years like the last, in which he would grow old, set and censorious.
“Oh, God,” he said aloud. “What does it matter?”
She stepped back. “Yes. I thought sooner or later it would come down to that.”
“Christie, I didn’t—”
“Oh, yes, you did. You couldn’t not be honest if you tried. It would be hell for you. Always having to pretend it was good and beautiful and we could really be something to each other, and making excuses and sneaking about in the dark. The first time just happened, that was fun, but to live like that … You’d be a lot better off with some woman where you could put the money on the mantelpiece and go bawdy and forget all about it. Why don’t you? You’d be happier that way.”
He stood looking at her, astonished, hurt and slightly shocked. He could only say at last, conventionally, “You wouldn’t talk like that if you knew anything about it.”
As if he had not spoken, she said, “Well, good-bye.”
“Christie—please.” He made an uncertain movement to take her back into his arms. She struck his hand away; he saw, now, that there were tears in her eyes. “Let me alone. I tell you, I don’t want you, I don’t want to see you any more. Go back to your … Oh, go to hell.”
Her place was empty. A branch of laurel swung back behind her, stinging his face. He caught and broke it, and pushing through after her, found himself alone in the hollow underbrush of the plantation, dried twigs and weeds under his feet, and the skeleton insides of the bushes arching over his head. Everything was very still. He perceived for the first time that a thrush was singing; with meditative pleasure it repeated a like phrase, stopped to consider it, and tried it over again. An insect hummed somewhere, filling the pauses between. The sun splintered through leaves into his eyes. He became aware of Christie’s receding feet passing from the grass to the gravel of a path, and of his own breathing, which in the silence sounded discordant and noisy.
His car was waiting, looking patient and unexpected, like a friend one has forgotten one promised to meet. He got in, and by a reflex born of long habit, flicked open the notebook in which he noted his work. It turned back at Miss Heath’s name and the entry, “Visit last night.” He stared at it for a moment, then added, in the appropriate space, “Visit, Thursday, 2.30 P.M.”
CHAPTER 6
JANET SAT ON THE edge of her wooden chair, looking round the hall. Beside her Peggy Leach’s place was empty; she had gone over to talk to some people a couple of rows in front. Janet could see the group of them all standing up: two young men in plus-fours and a plump girl with a high colour and a yellow jersey. They were telling Peggy some desperately exciting news; Peggy was congratulating them, jubilant, looking quickly from one to the other. Her gloves were on the empty chair at Janet’s side. Every one was circulating, greeting people, comparing notes, waving sometimes across distant stretches of the hall. There was a platform at the far end, with a couple of rush chairs on it looking neglected, as if they did not expect to be attended to for some time.
On each side of Janet were women, deep in conversations of their own. Those on the left were youngish and looked like school games-mistresses. They were hatless, and gave the impression of encouraging each other brightly, like people not quite at ease. The three on the right were older, the committee type. They carried papers and periodicals, and were having a long, earnest consultation. Looking round her, Janet seemed to herself the only solitary person there. It made her feel conspicuous and uncomfortable. Occasionally some one would glance her way, as they searched the hall for somebody else. When this happened she looked away quickly, or pretended to be getting something out of her bag. She had never moved among large gatherings of people; the surge and impact of so many personalities made her feel exposed and on edge. She thought of the silk house-coat she was making, and wished herself at home, doing something planned and predictable, sheltered by the frame she had built for herself, a defence she had gradually grown to take for granted as a snail might the pink smooth lining of its shell.
Peggy was coming towards her, down the central gangway. Janet felt relieved; to have some one to talk to would make her feel less different from the rest. Then she saw that the healthy girl and the young man in plus-fours were coming too. As she watched, Peggy was pointing her out to them. They looked enormously self-assured, friendly and expectant.
Quickly and almost unconsciously, as one tightens one’s coat against a draught, Janet assembled a social smile, a gracious manner, and prepared a pleasant, noncommittal remark about the number of people who were there. She felt suddenly vulnerable, as if a trusted mackintosh had begun to let in the rain. Confusedly she sensed that a structure of conventions and taboos whose safety she had scarcely thought about, like the lock on her front door, had somehow become uncertain. She did not examine the feeling; consciously, she registered the fact that the girl’s hair was untidy, and her voice a little too loud.
They arrived, filling up the empty space between Janet and the games-mistresses. At once they were all emphatically present, in the midst of her; it was like being shoved into a swimming pool from behind when one had intended to walk down the steps. The introductions were over before Janet had had time to recover from their impact; she only took in the fact that the stockier of the two young men was married to the girl, and that Peggy had introduced every one by Christian names.
&n
bsp; They asked Janet if it was the first Group meeting she had been to. She said it was, and produced the social remark she had had in mind about the fullness of the hall. She felt pressingly anxious to establish herself as a visitor, an onlooker, some one who has come to approve in a friendly but detached way. With her smile, her manner, her way of sitting and glancing about, she drew round herself a delicate little fence, composed of the small recognized symbols which the people to whom she was used—Kit, for instance—might be expected not to ignore.
The married ones were called Bill and Shirley, the lanky boy Timmie; their surnames never emerged. Bill and Shirley said they must talk to her properly, and displacing Peggy, surrounded her, one on each side. They devoted themselves to encouraging her. She was probably feeling pretty queer, they said, a bit of a fish out of water. They had themselves the first time. They knew now that it was part of the resistance they had been putting up. They expected she must be putting up a bit herself. Peggy had explained to them that she was a reserved sort of person; that always made it more difficult. But didn’t she think, really, that reserve was a form of Selfishness? (Selfishness was one of a set of words to which they gave clearly defined capital letters.) When you had learned to Share with a few people, you realized you couldn’t keep yourself to yourself. In a way it was stealing, keeping what didn’t really belong to you.
“I don’t think so,” said Janet. “Not necessarily.” She had not thought about it at all; the words were a defensive gesture, like the closing of one’s eyes against a dust storm. It was all quite impossible; it was like sitting down to play bridge, and finding out after the game had started that it was strip-poker and every one supposed you had known. She gave a quick casual glance, which she felt to be a hunted stare, at the platform, hoping that some one would mount it and enforce silence. A group of young men stood at the bottom of the steps, looking busy and about to organize; at odd moments one of them would make a start towards the platform, but always came back to say something at the last minute.