65 Short Stories

  ‘Have a little more brandy,’ he said. ‘Try to pull yourself together, darling. You can’t do Knobby any good by getting in such a state.’

  With a sudden gesture she sprang to her feet and pushed him aside. She gave him a look of hatred.

  ‘Go away, Tom. I don’t want your sympathy. I want to be left alone.’

  She walked swiftly over to an arm-chair and threw herself down in it She flung back her head and her poor white face was wrenched into a grimace of agony.

  ‘Oh, it’s not fair,’ she moaned. ‘What’s to become of me now? Oh, God, I wish I were dead.’

  ‘Violet’

  His voice quavered with pain. He was very nearly crying too. She stamped her foot impatiently.

  ‘Go away, I tell you. Go away.’

  He started. He stared at her and suddenly gasped. A shudder passed through his great bulk. He took a step towards her and stopped, but his eyes never left her white, tortured face; he stared as though he saw in it something that appalled him. Then he dropped his head and without a word walked out of the room. He went into a little sitting-room they had at the back, but seldom used, and sank heavily into a chair. He thought. Presently the gong sounded for dinner. He had not had his bath. He gave his hands a glance. He could not be bothered to wash them. He walked slowly into the dining-room. He told the boy to go and tell Violet that dinner was ready. The boy came back and said she did not want any.

  ‘All right. Let me have mine then,’ said Saffary.

  He sent Violet in a plate of soup and a piece of toast, and when the fish was served he put some on a plate for her and gave it to the boy. But the boy came back with it at once.

  ‘Mem, she say no wantchee,’ he said.

  Saffary ate his dinner alone. He ate from habit, solidly, through the familiar courses. He drank a bottle of beer. When he had finished the boy brought him a cup of coffee and he lit a cheroot. Saffary sat still till he had finished it. He thought. At last he got up and went back into the large veranda which was where they always sat. Violet was still huddled in the chair in which he had left her. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them when she heard him come. He took a light chair and sat down in front of her.

  ‘What was Knobby to you, Violet?’ he said.

  She gave a slight start. She turned away her eyes, but did not speak.

  ‘I can’t quite make out why you should have been so frightfully upset by the news of his death.’

  ‘It was an awful shock.’

  ‘Of course. But it seems very strange that anyone should go simply to pieces over the death of a friend.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ she said.

  She could hardly speak the words and he saw that her lips were trembling. ‘I’ve never heard you call him Hal. Even his wife called him Knobby.’

  She did not say anything. Her eyes, heavy with grief, were fixed on vacancy. ‘Look at me, Violet’

  She turned her head slightly and listlessly gazed at him.

  Was he your lover?’

  She closed her eyes and tears flowed from them. Her mouth was strangely twisted.

  ‘Haven’t you got anything to say at all?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You must answer me, Violet’

  ‘I’m not fit to talk to you now,’ she moaned. ‘How can you be so heartless?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t feel very sympathetic at the moment. We must get this straight now Would you like a drink of water?’

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  ‘Then answer my question.’

  ‘You have no right to ask it. It’s insulting.’

  Do you ask me to believe that a woman like you who hears of the death of someone she knew is going to faint dead away and then, when she comes to, is going to cry like that? Why, one wouldn’t be so upset over the death of one’s only child. When we heard of your mother’s death you cried of course, anyone would, and I know you were utterly miserable, but you came to me for comfort and you said you didn’t know what you’d have done without me.’

  ‘This was so frightfully sudden.’

  ‘Your mother’s death was sudden, too.’

  ‘Naturally I was very fond of Knobby.’

  ‘How fond? So fond that when you heard he was dead you didn’t know and you didn’t care what you said? Why did you say it wasn’t fair? Why did you say, “What’s going to become of me now?”?’

  She sighed deeply. She turned her head this way and that like a sheep trying to avoid the hands of the butcher.

  ‘You musn’t take me for an utter fool, Violet. I tell you it’s impossible that you should be so shattered by the blow if there hadn’t been something between you.’

  ‘Well, if you think that, why do you torture me with questions?’

  ‘My dear, it’s no good shilly-shallying. We can’t go on like this. What d’you think I’m feeling?’

  She looked at him when he said this. She hadn’t thought of him at all. She had been too much absorbed in her own misery to be concerned with his. ‘I’m so tired,’ she sighed.

  He leaned forward and roughly seized her wrist

  ‘Speak,’ he cried.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘And what about me? D’you think you’re not hurting me? How can you have the heart to let me suffer like this?’

  He let go of her arm and sprang to his feet. He walked to the end of the room and back again. It looked as though the movement had suddenly roused him to fury. He caught her by the shoulders and dragged her to her feet He shook her. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth I’ll kill you,’ he cried.

  ‘I wish you would,’ she said.

  ‘He was your lover?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You swine.’

  With one hand still on her shoulder so that she could not move he swung back his other arm and with a flat palm struck her repeatedly, with all his strength, on the side of her face. She quivered under the blows, but did not flinch or cry out He struck her again and again. All at once he felt her strangely inert, he let go of her and she sank unconscious to the floor. Fear seized him. He bent down and touched her, calling her name. She did not move. He lifted her up and put her back into the chair from which a little while before he had pulled her. The brandy that had been brought when first she fainted was still in the room and he fetched it and tried to force it down her throat She choked and it spilt over her chin and neck. One side of her pale face was livid from the blows of his heavy hand. She sighed a little and opened her eyes. He held the glass again to her lips, supporting her head, and she sipped a little of the neat spirit He looked at her with penitent, anxious eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Violet I didn’t mean to do that I’m dreadfully ashamed of myself. I never thought I could sink so low as to hit a woman.’

  Though she was feeling very weak and her face was hurting, the flicker of a smile crossed her lips. Poor Tom. He did say things like that He felt like that And how scandalized he would be if you asked him why a man shouldn’t hit a woman. But Saffary, seeing the wan smile, put it down to her indomitable courage. By God, she’s a plucky little woman, he thought. Game isn’t the word. ‘Give me a cigarette,’ she said.

  He took one out of his case and put it in her mouth. He made two or three ineffectual attempts to strike his lighter. It would not work.

  ‘Hadn’t you better get a match?’ she said.

  For the moment she had forgotten her heart-rending grief and was faintly amused at the situation. He took a box from the table and held the lighted match to her cigarette. She inhaled the first puff with a sense of infinite relief

  ‘I can’t tell you how ashamed I am, Violet,’ he said. ‘I’m disgusted with myself I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. It was very natural. Why don’t you have a drink? It’ll do you good.’

  Without a word, his shoulders all hunched up as though the burden that oppressed him were material, he helped himself to a brandy
and soda. Then, still silent, he sat down. She watched the blue smoke curl into the air. ‘What are you going to do?’ she said at last.

  He gave a weary gesture of despair.

  ‘We’ll talk about that tomorrow. You’re not in a fit state tonight. As soon as you’ve finished your cigarette you’d better go to bed.’

  ‘You know so much, you’d better know everything.’

  ‘Not now, Violet.’

  ‘Yes, now’

  She began to speak. He heard her words, but could hardly make sense of them. He felt like a man who has built himself a house with loving care and thought to live in it all his life, and then, he does not understand why, sees the housebreakers come and with their picks and heavy hammers destroy it room by room, till what was a fair dwelling-place is only a heap of rubble. What made it so awful was that it was Knobby Clarke who had done this thing. They had come to the F.M.S. on the same ship and had worked at first on the same estate. They call the young planter a creeper and you can tell him in the streets of Singapore by his double felt hat and his khaki coat turned up at the wrists. Callow youths who saunter about staring and are inveigled by wily Chinese into buying worthless truck from Birmingham which they send home as Eastern curios, sit in the lounges of cheap hotels drinking innumerable stengahs, and after an evening at the pictures get into rickshaws and finish the night in the Chinese quarter. Tom and Knobby were inseparable. Tom, a big, powerful fellow, simple, very honest, hard-working; and Knobby, ungainly, but curiously attractive, with his deep-set eyes, hollow cheeks, and large humorous mouth. It was Knobby who made the jokes and Tom who laughed at them. Tom married first. He met Violet when he went on leave. The daughter of a doctor killed in the war, she was governess in the house of some people who lived in the same place as his father. He fell in love with her because she was alone in the world, and his tender heart was touched by the thought of the drab life that lay before her. But Knobby married, because Tom had and he felt lost without him, a girl who had come East to spend the winter with relations. Enid Clarke had been very pretty then in her blonde way, and full-face she was pretty still, though her skin, once so clear and fresh, was already faded; but she had a very weak, small, insignificant chin and in profile reminded you of a sheep. She had pretty flaxen hair, straight, because in the heat it would not keep its wave, and china-blue eyes. Though but twenty-six, she had already a tired look. A year after marriage she had a baby, but it died when only two years old. It was after this that Tom Saffary managed to get Knobby the post of manager of the estate next his own. The two men pleasantly resumed their old familiarity, and their wives, who till then had not known one another very well, soon made friends. They copied one another’s frocks and lent one another servants and crockery when they gave a party. The four of them met every day. They went everywhere together. Tom Saffary thought it grand.

  The strange thing was that Violet and Knobby Clarke lived on those terms of close intimacy for three years before they fell in love with one another. Neither saw love approaching. Neither suspected that in the pleasure each took in the other’s company there was anything more than the casual friendship of two persons thrown together by the circumstances of life. To be together gave them no particular happiness, but merely a quiet sense of comfort. If by chance a day passed without their meeting they felt unaccountably bored. That seemed very natural. They played games together. They danced together. They chaffed one another. The revelation came to them by what looked like pure accident. They had all been to a dance at the club and were driving home in Saffary’s car. The Clarkes’s estate was on the way and he was dropping them at their bungalow. Violet and Knobby sat in the back. He had had a good deal to drink, but was not drunk; their hands touched by chance, and he took hers and held it. They did not speak. They were all tired. But suddenly the exhilaration of the champagne left him and he was cold sober. They knew in a flash that they were madly in love with one another and at the same moment they realized they had never been in love before. When they reached the Clarkes’s Tom said:

  ‘You’d better hop in beside me, Violet.’

  ‘I’m too exhausted to move,’ she said.

  Her legs seemed so weak that she thought she would never be able to stand. When they met next day neither referred to what had happened, but each knew that something inevitable had passed. They behaved to one another as they had always done, they continued to behave so for weeks, but they felt that everything was different. At last flesh and blood could stand it no longer and they became lovers. But the physical tie seemed to them the least important element in their relation, and indeed their way of living made it impossible for them, except very seldom, to enjoy any intimate connexion. It was enough that they saw one another, though in the company of others, every day; a glance, a touch of the hand, assured them of their love, and that was all that mattered. The sexual act was no more than an affirmation of the union of their souls.

  They very seldom talked of Tom or Enid. If sometimes they laughed together at their foibles it was not unkindly. It might have seemed odd to them to realize how completely these two people whom they saw so constantly had ceased to matter to them if they had given them enough thought to consider the matter. Their relations with them fell into the routine of life that nobody notices, like shaving oneself, dressing, and eating three meals a day. They felt tenderly towards them. They even took pains to please them, as you would with a bed-ridden invalid, because their own happiness was so great that in charity they must do what they could for others less fortunate. They had no scruples. They were too much absorbed in one another to be touched even for a moment by remorse. Beauty now excitingly kindled the pleasant humdrum life they had led so long.

  But then an event took place that filled them with consternation. The company for which Tom worked entered into negotiations to buy extensive rubber plantations in British North Borneo and invited Tom to manage them.

  It was a better job than his present one, with a higher salary, and since he would have assistants under him he would not have to work so hard. Saffary welcomed the offer. Both Clarke and Saffary were due for leave and the two couples had arranged to travel home together. They had already booked their passages. This changed everything. Tom would not be able to get away for at least a year. By the time the Clarkes came back the Saffarys would be settled in Borneo. It did not take Violet and Knobby long to decide that there was only one thing to do. They had been willing enough to go on as they were, notwithstanding the hindrance to the enjoyment of their love, when they were certain of seeing one another continually; they felt that they had endless time before them and the future was coloured with a happiness that seemed to have no limit; but neither could suffer for an instant the thought of separation. They made up their minds to run away together, and then it seemed to them on a sudden that every day that passed before they could be together always and all the time was a day lost. Their love took another guise. It flamed into a devouring passion that left them no emotion to waste on others. They cared little for the pain they must cause Tom and Enid. It was unfortunate, but inevitable. They made their plans deliberately. Knobby on the pretence of business would go to Singapore and Violet, telling Tom that she was going to spend a week with friends on an estate down the line, would join him there. They would go over to Java and thence take ship to Sydney. In Sydney Knobby would look for a job. When Violet told Tom that the Mackenzies had asked her to spend a few days with them, he was pleased.

  ‘That’s grand. I think you want a change, darling,’ he said. I’ve fancied you’ve been looking a bit peaked lately.’

  He stroked her cheek affectionately. The gesture stabbed her heart.

  ‘You’ve always been awfully good to me, Tom,’ she said, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  ‘Well, that’s the least I could be. You’re the best little woman in the world.’

  ‘Have you been happy with me these eight years?’

  ‘Frightfully’

  ‘Well, that’s somet
hing, isn’t it? No one can ever take that away from you.’ She told herself that he was the kind of man who would soon console himself He liked women for themselves and it would not be long after he had regained his freedom before he found someone that he would wish to marry. And he would be just as happy with his new wife as he had been with her. Perhaps he would marry Enid. Enid was one of those dependent little things that somewhat exasperated her and she did not think her capable of deep feeling. Her vanity would be hurt; her heart would not be broken. But now that the die was cast, everything settled and the day fixed, she had a qualm. Remorse beset her. She wished that it had been possible not to cause those two people such fearful distress. She faltered.

  ‘We’ve had a very good time here, Tom,’ she said. ‘I wonder if it’s wise to leave it all. We’re giving up a certainty for we don’t know what.’

  ‘My dear child, it’s a chance in a million and much better money.’

  ‘Money isn’t everything. There’s happiness.’

  ‘I know that, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be just as happy in B.N.B. And besides, there was no alternative. I’m not my own master. The directors want me to go and I must, and that’s all there is to it.’

  She sighed. There was no alternative for her either. She shrugged her shoulders. It was hateful to cause others pain; sometimes you couldn’t help yourself Tom meant no more to her than the casual man on the voyage out who was civil to you: it was absurd that she should be asked to sacrifice her life for him.

  The Clarkes were due to sail for England in a fortnight and this determined the date of their elopement. The days passed. Violet was restless and excited. She looked forward with a joy that was almost painful to the peace that she anticipated when they were once on board the ship and could begin the life which she was sure would give her at last perfect happiness.

  She began to pack. The friends she was supposed to be going to stay with entertained a good deal and this gave her an excuse to take quite a lot of luggage. She was starting next day. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and Tom was making his round of the estate. One of the boys came to her room and told her that Mrs Clarke was there and at the same moment she heard Enid calling her. Quickly closing the lid of her trunk, she went out on to the veranda. To her astonishment Enid came up to her, flung her arms round her neck and kissed her eagerly. She looked at Enid and saw her cheeks, usually pale, were flushed and that her eyes were shining. Enid burst into tears.