They worked feverishly against time, filling their pockets with the smoldering, sodden rice.
“You’ll tell me if I’m bad, won’t you?” said Maria suddenly.
“What do you mean?” said Niall.
“At the theater, if I’m bad in my part,” said Maria.
“Of course,” said Niall, “but you won’t be bad. You couldn’t be bad in anything.”
He crammed the remains of the pudding into the cloth cap that was too big for him.
“Couldn’t I?” said Maria. “Are you sure?”
She looked at him standing there, lanky and pale, his pockets and the frightful cap bulging with rice pudding.
“Oh, Niall,” she said, “I’m glad you came, more glad than anything on earth.”
They went into the street. It was raining, and they had borrowed the landlady’s umbrella. They held it between them, and the gusty wind blew it about like a metronome. Niall went on telling Maria about Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson did not seem important anymore. He was nothing but a pathetic old man with a drooping mustache.
“Has he a nickname?” asked Maria. “Surely all masters have a nickname?”
“We call him Long Chops,” said Niall. “But that’s nothing to do with his mustache. It’s to do with something else.”
“I meant to tell you,” said Maria, “our landlady’s name is Florrie Rogers.”
“What of it?” said Niall.
“Well, it’s awfully funny,” said Maria.
They emptied their rice pudding into the gutter outside the theater.
“Here’s the money for your seat,” said Maria. “You’ll be very early. You’ll have to sit and wait for ages.”
“I don’t mind,” said Niall. “I’ll stand in the foyer and see if people come in with rice pudding on their shoes. Besides, I shan’t be lonely. It’s like coming home.”
“What’s like coming home?” said Maria.
“Being in the theater,” he said, “and being with you. Knowing that when the curtain goes up one of us is there.”
“You’d better give me the umbrella,” she said; “it would look silly for you to walk into the foyer carrying an umbrella.”
She took it from him, and smiled.
“What a bore,” she said. “You’ve grown as tall as me.”
“I don’t think I’ve grown,” said Niall. “I think it’s you who have grown smaller in some way.”
“No,” said Maria, “it’s you that’s grown. And your voice has gone all cracked and queer. It’s nicer. I like it.”
She pushed against the stage door with the end of the wet umbrella.
“You had better wait here for me afterwards,” she said. “The man is awfully strict about letting people in. If anyone asks who you are, say you are waiting for Miss Delaney.”
“I could pretend I wanted your autograph,” said Niall.
“Yes,” said Maria, “pretend that, anyway.”
It’s queer, she thought, as she swung through the door, this morning I was unhappy and nervous and I hated the theater. Now I’m happy. Now I’m not nervous anymore. And I love the theater, I love it more than anything. She clattered down the stone stairs singing, trailing the wet umbrella. And Niall, sitting in a corner seat in the front of the upper circle, talking to no one, felt a strange warmth steal over him and hold him, as he watched the members of the orchestra come in and take their places.
Because, although they had told him at school that he did not like music and that he could not play the piano, already there was something whispering in his head, a snatch of melody, half-heard and half-forgotten; and it was all mixed up with that first violin there, tuning his fiddle, and the hot, musty, drafty smell of the theater itself, and the knowledge that someone he knew and loved, like Mama once, like Maria now, was sitting before a mirror in a dressing room at the back of the stage there, putting make-up on her face.
9
“They came and fetched you, didn’t they?” said Celia. “You did not have long together.”
“We had two days,” said Maria.
Two days… It was always like that, forever afterwards, throughout the years. Niall turning up sometime, somewhere, and being with her. Never for very long. Only for snatches of time. She could never remember where they went, or what they did, or what happened; the only thing she knew was that they were always happy.
Being irritable, being tired, and all the endless worries of problems and plans, none of this mattered anymore when he was with her. He brought with him always a funny kind of peace, and with the peace a strange sense of stimulation. So that when she was with Niall she was rested and excited, both at once.
Never a day passed that she did not think of him at some moment. I must tell Niall that, he would laugh, he would understand. And weeks would pass and she would not see him. Then, suddenly, for no reason and without warning, he would turn up. She would return, exhausted perhaps after a long rehearsal, or having had a row with someone, or the day having gone against her for no reason, and Niall would be sitting there, deep in the armchair, saying nothing, looking up at her and smiling. Her hair needed doing, there would be no powder on her face, and she would be wearing a dress she hated anyway and must give away, but these things would be forgotten in a moment because Niall was there and Niall was part of her and it was like being alone.
“It was Pappy’s fault,” said Celia. “The Headmaster cabled to Pappy and told him Niall had run away, and Pappy cabled back saying, ‘Try the Theater Royal, Liverpool.’ Truda guessed you would have gone to Maria.”
“That was the only unkind action I ever knew Pappy to do in all his life,” said Niall.
“He hated doing it,” said Celia. “He called Truda into the sitting room—we were in Melbourne at the time, there was a heatwave—and he said to Truda, ‘The boy’s bolted. What the devil am I to do?’ ”
Celia remembered how they had to have the fans on all the time. There was one above the door, and another at the far end of the room to make a draft. There was an idea that if you shut the windows and drew the curtains, but kept the fans on full blast, the room kept cool. It was not true. It made the room hotter. Pappy sat about all day in pajamas drinking ginger ale.
“My darling,” he said to Celia, “I shall have to give up. I can’t cope any longer. I hate these people and I hate the country. And, anyway, my voice is going. I shall have to give up.”
He always said this. It did not mean anything. It was part of the ritual of a farewell tour. Only a few months back they had been in New York in a snowstorm, and he had said the same things about America and Americans. His voice was always going. He was never going to sing again. He was not going to sing that night.
“Ring up the theater, my darling,” he would say. “Tell them I’m not going down tonight. I’m very ill. I’m starting a nervous breakdown.”
“Yes, Pappy,” she said, but of course she took no notice at all. She went on drawing imaginary people in her sketchbook, and Pappy went on drinking ginger ale.
The cable came, she remembered, in the middle of the afternoon, and Pappy burst out laughing at first, and threw the piece of paper across the table to Celia.
“Good for Niall,” he said. “I would never have thought he had the guts to do it.”
But she had been anxious at once. She had visions of Niall lying in a ditch somewhere, murdered, or else he had been beaten, beaten unjustly by a brute of a headmaster, or perhaps stoned by the other boys.
“We must tell Truda at once,” she said. “Truda will know what to do.”
And Pappy had just laughed. He had gone on drinking his ginger ale and rocking with laughter.
“What’s the betting he turns up here in six weeks’ time?” he said. “Good for Niall. I never did think much of that damn school, anyway.”
But Truda knew at once that Niall had gone to Maria.
“He’ll be at Liverpool,” she said firmly, putting on the thin, firm mouth that both Celia and Pappy knew too well. “You mu
st cable the school that they’ll find him at the theater in Liverpool. That’s where Maria is this week. I’ve got a list of dates in my room.”
“Why should he go to Liverpool?” said Pappy. “Good God, if I was a boy and had run away from school, I’m damned if I should run to a place like Liverpool.”
“It’s Maria,” said Truda. “He’ll always go to Maria, now his mother’s gone. I know him. I know him better than anyone.”
Celia glanced at Pappy. The mention of Mama always did something to him. He stopped laughing, and drinking ginger ale. He looked heavily at Truda, and his body seemed to sag, so that he looked older suddenly and tired.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s beyond me. What am I expected to do about it over here, the other side of the ruddy globe? André.”
And he shouted for André, for André too must be told about it, about Niall’s running away, and not only André, but the waiter when the waiter came, and the chambermaid, and of course everyone down at the theater. He would make a wonderful story, exaggerated but good to tell, about his bright boy of a stepson running away from school.
“It’s no good calling for André,” said Truda, her mouth tight. “What you’ve got to do is to tell the school to get in touch with that theater in Liverpool. They must fetch him away. That’s where he is, in Liverpool.”
“Let him stay then,” said Pappy, “if he’s happy there. He might get a job with the orchestra, playing the piano.”
“His mother wanted him to go to school,” said Truda. “The theater is no place for a boy of his age. He has to have his schooling. You know that.”
Pappy looked across at Celia and pulled a face.
“I suppose we have to do what she tells us,” he said. “Run down and get me a cable form, my darling.”
And Celia went downstairs to the reception desk in the hall of the hotel, and all the time she kept thinking of Niall running to Maria in Liverpool. Niall was her brother, not Maria’s. Why did Niall have to run to Maria? And, anyway, why couldn’t they all be here together? Why was everything so different, so insecure, that had once been permanent and solid? She went upstairs with the cable form, and through the half-open door she heard Truda talking to Pappy.
“I’ve wanted to speak my mind for some time,” she was saying. “Now that I’ve spoken about the boy, I can speak about Celia too. It’s not right, Mr. Delaney, dragging her around from place to place like this. She should be having a proper education, and mixing with other children. It was different when she was a little girl and her mother was alive, and the three of them were together. But she’s a growing girl now. She needs the companionship of other girls her own age.”
Pappy had turned round and was facing Truda. Celia, watching through the half-open door, saw the lost, frightened expression in his eyes.
“I know,” he said, “but what am I to do? She’s all I have left. I can’t let her go. If I ever let her go I shall crack up. If she ever leaves me I shall go to pieces.”
“It’s spoiling her life,” said Truda. “I’m warning you. It’s spoiling her life. You’re giving her too much responsibility. You’re trying to put an old head on young shoulders. She’ll suffer for it. Not you, Mr. Delaney. She’ll suffer for it.”
“Haven’t I suffered?” said Pappy. And he went on looking at Truda with that terrible lost look in his eyes. Then he pulled himself together; he poured out another glass of ginger ale.
“She’s seeing the world,” he said. “The child is seeing the world, and that’s an education in itself. Better than anything she would get in a school. I tell you what we’ll do, Truda. We’ll advertise for a governess. That’s the answer. A good, all-round governess. And we’ll look round for some other girls to come and have tea. That’s it. We’ll ask some children to tea.”
He smiled, then he patted Truda on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Truda. I’ll arrange something. And I’ll send the cable to the school. I’ll tell that Headmaster chap to look for the boy in Liverpool. You’re right, of course. He mustn’t hang about a theater. All right for Maria, she has a job of work to do. No good to the boy. That’s all right. Don’t worry, Truda.”
Celia waited a moment, and then went into the sitting room.
“Here’s your cable form,” she said. They both turned and looked at her and nobody said anything, and there was not a sound except the whirring of the fans.
Celia went away down the passage, and locked herself in the lavatory, and instead of reading the book she kept there, she sat down on the seat and began to cry. She kept seeing Pappy with his lost face saying to Truda, “I can’t let her go. If she ever goes I shall crack up. If she ever leaves me I shall go to pieces.”
And she would never leave him, never. But how was he spoiling her life? What did Truda mean? Was she missing something? Was she? The things that other girls did at school, like playing hockey, writing notes and hiding them, laughing, pushing each other over? She had no wish to do any of those things. She just wanted to stay with Pappy. But if only one of the others could be with her, if only Niall or Maria could be there too so that there was someone young…
“How did Niall get back?” said Celia. “Did one of the masters arrive from the school and take him away? I’ve forgotten.”
“They sent the padre,” said Niall, “the chap who used to take the services in the chapel. He had sandy hair, and used to make us laugh. He loved the theater. That’s why the head beak sent him. He wasn’t a fool, he knew what he was doing.”
“He took us out to tea, before you caught the train,” said Maria, “and he kept telling us funny stories all through tea so that we had no time to think.”
Many years later, in London, he had come to see her at the theater. He had been in front, and had sent a note round asking if he could pay his respects to her, and she had said yes, very bored, wondering who on earth it was going to be. She was tired, she wanted to get away early; and as soon as he appeared she recognized him, the round-faced padre with the sandy hair, but it was not sandy anymore, it was white. Niall was not in London. And they had sat there in her dressing room, talking about Niall, and she forgot she was tired.
“He bought us chocolates at the tea shop,” said Niall, “an enormous box with a scarlet ribbon. You tore off the ribbon at once and put it in your hair. It looked wonderful.”
“Showing off,” said Celia. “I bet she was showing off. She hoped the padre would fall in love with her and let Niall stay.”
“You’re jealous,” said Maria. “You’re still jealous after all these years. You wish that you had been with us up in Liverpool.”
Niall was hungry in the night. He had always been one of those boys who were hungry at the wrong times. A good breakfast or a heavy lunch was wasted upon him. He would eat nothing. And then suddenly, at three in the afternoon or at three in the morning he would want a kipper, or a great plate of sausages. He would be so hungry that he would want to eat the doorknobs.
“We crept downstairs to the larder, do you remember?” said Maria. “The kitchen smelled of cat, and Mrs. Rogers. Her shoes were in the fender.”
“Strapped ones,” said Niall, “bursting at the seams. They stank.”
“There was some cheese,” said Maria, “and half a loaf of bread, and a jar of paste. We took it up to my bedroom, and you came and lay on my bed in your vest and drawers because you hadn’t any pajamas.”
Niall had been cold. He was always a cold boy. Always shivering, his feet like blocks of ice. Often since he had lain beside her, cold and shivering, and she had to put blankets on the bed, or rugs, once even a great heavy carpet, because of Niall being cold. Dragging a carpet between them, hysterical, choking with laughter, and heaving it on a bed.
“There was a Bible on the table beside the bed,” said Niall “We lit two candles and read it together. We did that thing of opening it at random and whatever we saw had to be a symbol of the future.”
“I do it still,” said Maria. “I’m al
ways doing it. I do it before a first night. But it never works. The last time it was, ‘And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes.’ It just didn’t mean a thing.”
“You can cheat a bit,” said Niall. “If you open the last half of the Bible it’s the New Testament. The New Testament is better. You get things like ‘There shall be no more fear.’ ”
“I wonder what you got that night in Liverpool?” said Celia. “I don’t suppose you remember, either of you.”
Maria shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s too long ago.”
Niall said nothing. He remembered, though. He could see again the flickering, greasy candle in the green china candlestick. One of the candles much shorter than the other, with a blob of grease at the top beside the wick. And Maria putting a blanket round his shoulders because of the cold, tucking it round his middle, and she herself warm and cozy in flowered pajamas, girl’s pajamas that did up at the side, and they had to speak in whispers because of Mrs. Rogers in the room next door. He was eating bread and paste, with the cheese on top of the paste, and they opened the Bible, and it was the Song of Solomon, and the verse was “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he feedeth among the lilies.”
“That’s you,” said Maria. “But you aren’t among the lilies. You are sitting here in bed with me, eating bread and paste.”
She began to laugh and she had to stuff her handkerchief in her mouth because of Mrs. Rogers. Niall pretended to laugh with her, but in reality his mind did a somersault and jumped ahead. He saw Maria dancing through the years, living for the moment, caring for no one much and for nothing in particular, troubles slipping from her shoulders, soon forgotten; and he himself trailing after her like a distant shadow, always a step or two behind, always a little in the dark. It was midnight and she was warm, and tomorrow was another day. But tomorrow, thought Niall, something will happen. They will trace me from the school, and I shall have to go back again.
And he was right. The padre came. It was useless protesting. He had no money, Maria could not keep him. So back he went again, the padre lighting up a pipe in the corner of the smoking carriage, and Niall leaned from the window waving, watching Maria who stood at the far end of the platform, with the scarlet ribbon from the chocolate box tied round her hair.