Stephen and Louise: they drove away through the yellowing trees at forty mph towards London and the airport and Rome.
As I went to bed that night, I wondered why social events are for me such a sea of blood, sweat and tears, from which I salvage perhaps two floating words, set afloat by a providence which will not let me drown with empty hands.
4
The Move
I SPENT A couple of hours in Stratford with Tony and his friend the following day. His friend was a spear-carrier. Stratford was pretty, with a smell of falling poplar leaves down by Clopton bridge. We had drinks at the Duck and I heard a lot of gossip about this and that and John Connell, and a lot of theatrical jokes about missed cues, forgotten lines, and other hilarious topics. Tony seemed gloomy and depressed, largely I think because of a gloomy painter we met who was painting backcloths for the theatre and bewailing his wasted talent. He kept saying, ‘Oh, I had illusions once.’ I was quite impressed by how well-known and well-anecdoted John appeared to be: even I carried an aura of vicarious theatrical OK-ness through being the sister of the woman to whose husband he was best man. If you see what I mean. John was evidently somewhat of a legend-maker, always behaving outrageously on and off stage, falling asleep when he had nothing to say and so forth. I suppose I must be jealous of people like that because I got sick of hearing about him, especially as nobody had ever seen him do any of these remarkable things, but merely knew other people who had seen him. Somebody hinted that he was having an affair with an Eurasian nightclub singer, but somebody else swore that he was constantly seen with a tall and fashionable deb. I really couldn’t work up much curiosity after the first halfpint or so. And I began to get positively bored when Tony started going on about Stephen. ‘The trouble with that man is that he’s dead from the neck down,’ he kept saying, to anyone who wanted to hear, in aggressively virile tones. I began to feel annoyed with him once more for what he had done to Gill. Also, some latent sense of loyalty to Louise made me reluctant to hear such things said in public on the day after her marriage. I wondered how far they had got. To Rome? Not yet, perhaps.
In the end I had had enough of Tony and was glad to leave. I caught a convenient bus home, and we went through the fields and past the trees: the seasons had a lovely rhythm and I had none at all. As we went I thought about Louise and Stephen and John, and my thoughts became gradually clearer, somehow harmonized by the colour of the corn and the sound of the trees brushing their branches against the upstairs windows of the bus. I remembered the first and only other time when I had ever seen them all three together. It had seemed significant even at the time, but I had thought it was significant only as itself, for what it was to me, then, in my life. It had been only a few months earlier, in May or June, while I was working for Finals at Oxford. It was a Saturday morning: I was sitting in the college library with a great pile of books and a few pieces of file-paper trying to make notes on something when Simone came in. I gave her a faded smile and looked down again but she came over to me and said, ‘There’s your sister and two men wandering around looking for you downstairs. I showed them to your room.’
‘Who?’ I said, incredulously.
‘Your sister and two men.’
‘How the hell did they get in?’
‘I don’t know.’ Simone was being offhand about the situation.
‘Oh damn,’ I said. ‘I’d just got so nicely settled down.’
‘Don’t go then,’ said Simone.
By this time everyone was looking up from their books and staring at us, which didn’t trouble her, though it troubled me, so I got up to go. I wanted to take all my books with me, as it had taken me hours to assemble them, so I had to write slips out for each one of them, under the eye of the librarian, who must
As I went to bed that night, I wondered why social events are for me such a sea of blood, sweat and tears, from which I salvage perhaps two floating words, set afloat by a providence which will not let me drown with empty hands.
4
The Move
I SPENT A couple of hours in Stratford with Tony and his friend the following day. His friend was a spear-carrier. Stratford was pretty, with a smell of falling poplar leaves down by Clopton bridge. We had drinks at the Duck and I heard a lot of gossip about this and that and John Connell, and a lot of theatrical jokes about missed cues, forgotten lines, and other hilarious topics. Tony seemed gloomy and depressed, largely I think because of a gloomy painter we met who was painting backcloths for the theatre and bewailing his wasted talent. He kept saying, ‘Oh, I had illusions once.’ I was quite impressed by how well-known and well-anecdoted John appeared to be: even I carried an aura of vicarious theatrical OK-ness through being the sister of the woman to whose husband he was best man. If you see what I mean. John was evidently somewhat of a legend-maker, always behaving outrageously on and off stage, falling asleep when he had nothing to say and so forth. I suppose I must be jealous of people like that because I got sick of hearing about him, especially as nobody had ever seen him do any of these remarkable things, but merely knew other people who had seen him. Somebody hinted that he was having an affair with an Eurasian nightclub singer, but somebody else swore that he was constantly seen with a tall and fashionable deb. I really couldn’t work up much curiosity after the first halfpint or so. And I began to get positively bored when Tony started going on about Stephen. ‘The trouble with that man is that he’s dead from the neck down,’ he kept saying, to anyone who wanted to hear, in aggressively virile tones. I began to feel annoyed with him once more for what he had done to Gill. Also, some latent sense of loyalty to Louise made me reluctant to hear such things said in public on the day after her marriage. I wondered how far they had got. To Rome? Not yet, perhaps.
In the end I had had enough of Tony and was glad to leave. I caught a convenient bus home, and we went through the fields and past the trees: the seasons had a lovely rhythm and I had none at all. As we went I thought about Louise and Stephen and John, and my thoughts became gradually clearer, somehow harmonized by the colour of the corn and the sound of the trees brushing their branches against the upstairs windows of the bus. I remembered the first and only other time when I had ever seen them all three together. It had seemed significant even at the time, but I had thought it was significant only as itself, for what it was to me, then, in my life. It had been only a few months earlier, in May or June, while I was working for Finals at Oxford. It was a Saturday morning: I was sitting in the college library with a great pile of books and a few pieces of file-paper trying to make notes on something when Simone came in. I gave her a faded smile and looked down again but she came over to me and said, ‘There’s your sister and two men wandering around looking for you downstairs. I showed them to your room.’
‘Who?’ I said, incredulously.
‘Your sister and two men.’
‘How the hell did they get in?’
‘I don’t know.’ Simone was being offhand about the situation.
‘Oh damn,’ I said. ‘I’d just got so nicely settled down.’
‘Don’t go then,’ said Simone.
By this time everyone was looking up from their books and staring at us, which didn’t trouble her, though it troubled me, so I got up to go. I wanted to take all my books with me, as it had taken me hours to assemble them, so I had to write slips out for each one of them, under the eye of the librarian, who must
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