It was an odd experience to be hurt by the pain of other people. And Charles had been near to breaking-point today. There was still the ritual of the Sunday supper. The day was not yet done. What was it Freada had said, once, with her great streak of common sense, her truth, her honesty? “I like that Charles. He is a good man. And she is going to make him suffer horribly.”
Niall, angry and irritated at the accusation, denied it hotly at the time.
“Why should she? She loves Charles very much.”
Freada had looked at him and smiled. And then she sighed, patting him on the shoulder.
“Your Maria love?” she said. “My poor boy, she doesn’t begin to know the meaning of the word. Nor do you.”
If Freada really believed that, it meant that Niall and Maria were shallow, without depth? It meant that their emotions were trivial, trifling things, carried to no purpose, shed without a cause? In a sense, he felt it could be true about Maria; but not about himself. Surely, not about himself? It was strangely insulting to be told that you knew nothing about love. Worse than to be accused of lack of humor. If you knew nothing about love, why were you unhappy for no reason? Why that waking in the small hours, with an unquiet spirit, fearful and afraid? Why the dragging despair because of a gray day, because of falling leaves, because of winter? And why the upswing of a riotous mood, the surging zest for folly, that came so swiftly, and went again too soon? All this he had hurled at the realistic Freada, as he sat upon a bed, drinking cognac out of a tooth-glass, angry, reproachful; while she combed her pale, dyed hair before the mirror and dropped ash upon the floor. “Oh, those feelings,” she said. “You don’t take any notice of those. They are due to glands.”
All right, then. Everything was due to glands. Laughter at midnight, the color in a crowd, the sun behind a hill, the smell of water. Shakespeare was glands, and Charlie Chaplin.
He had leaned forward excitedly, spilling the cognac; and a letter had fallen out of his pocket from Maria.
“The trouble for you,” said Freada, “was that the Almighty went adrift when He made both of you. You ought to have shared the same parents and been twins.”
Freada would have agreed with Charles about the parasites…
It was worth while sending a telegram to Freada out in Italy, where she had settled the last few years in that dreary villa on a lake, sending him picture postcards of blue skies and blossom which never materialized when he stayed with her, because it always rained; it was worth sending a telegram to Freada and asking, “Am I a parasite?” She would laugh her deep, indulgent laugh and answer, “Yes.”
Parasitic upon Freada once; until he had learned to walk alone and to do without her. Freada, tragicomic, like an unpruned willow waving in the breeze, pretending not to mind, shaking her handkerchief to him from the end of the long platform at the Gare du Nord, in a last gesture of farewell. He had returned to her less and less as the years passed; there had really been nothing to go for anymore.
The tragedy of life, thought Niall, brushing his hair with the ebony brush and too few bristles that Pappy had given him on his twenty-first birthday, was not that people died; but that they died to you. All people died to Niall, except Maria. Therefore Charles was right. I live and feed upon Maria, thought Niall, in her I have my being, I lie embedded deep in the guts of her, and I can’t escape because I don’t want to escape, ever… ever…
Which, when you came to think of it, had quite a Cole Porter touch to it.
Deep in the guts. But the errand boys who liked his tunes would not understand it when they whistled. Nor would the old lady in Fontainebleau who had accused him of making immorality delicious. Well, it was something. To have made immorality delicious to one old, slightly deaf French lady who had always hated dance music was, when all was said and done, no small achievement.
This, dear God, was his contribution to the universe. Take it or leave it. Not for Niall the joys of Paradise, perhaps; but at least not the pangs of Purgatory. A small place, possibly, outside the Golden Gates.
Someone from a newspaper had telephoned him the other day. “Mr. Delaney, we are running a series shortly in our paper, ‘What Success has done for Me.’ Can we have your contribution?” No, they could not have his contribution. All success had done for him was to make it impossible to pay his super-tax. “But what is your recipe, Mr. Delaney, for the short road to success?” Mr. Delaney had no recipe.
Success. Well, what did it mean, to him? Supposing he had answered the newspaper and spoken the truth? A song burning in his head for two days until he had written it down, when he was purged; when he was free again. Until the next pain came. And the performance was repeated. The disillusion came when the songs were plugged upon the air, moaned by crooners, whispered by wailing women, clanged by orchestras, hummed by housemaids; so that what had been once his little private pain became, to put it bluntly, everyone’s diarrhea. Which was cheapening, and intolerable. Negroes offered thousands for the rights to sing his songs. God! the checks that had rolled in from colored crooners. Too many checks, all in one year. Niall had to attend conferences in the City with hard-faced men round desks, all because of some little song that had come into his head one afternoon, when lying on his back in the sun. How to escape? Travel. He could always travel.
But where? And with whom? Besides, once he had bought a ticket, and found himself a ship, or a plane, there were still things like passports and the Customs, the anxiety of wondering who to tip and why. Take a house in Rio? But whom would he invite to stay? If he took a house in Rio the local inhabitants would call. The local inhabitants would invite him to dinner, and he would be forced to pack up and escape again. Mr. Delaney never dines; Mr. Delaney never plays bridge; Mr. Delaney does not care for racehorses, for yachts, for glamour girls. What in the name of thunder does Mr. Delaney care for? Damn all, and there you had it. What a waste of time it was to be a man of simple tastes. A shake down in London, a hut beside the sea. A leaky boat that always needed painting and which, if the truth be known, he could not sail. Turn his back upon the world, and give his money to the poor? His back was always turned upon the world, and the poor had most of his money, anyhow. It was always possible to become a monk. There would be peace inside a monastery. But what about all the other monks, and all the prayers? Vespers and Benediction. He would not mind wearing a robe and sandals and a broad straw hat, and taking a fork and digging in a garden; but the business of kneeling at 5 a.m. would get him down. And meditating on Christ’s wounds. Though, actually, he could meditate on anything. The Abbot, or whoever ran the monastery, would never know. He could lie in his little cell all day and meditate upon Maria. But if that was all he would achieve by going into a monastery, why not stay where he was? Ah! well—there was always tomorrow. Niall put his change in his pocket. The lucky threepenny bit, the stub of a pencil, the key of the car, the small St. Christopher. And one day, he thought, everything will be worthwhile, because I shall write a concerto which will fail.
It will be the failure of all time, but I shall not mind. It will take months and months of toil, and the labor pains will be intense, but that will be the whole point of the procedure. One day, the concerto…
The gong for supper sounded. Niall switched off the bedroom light. Down the passage from the nursery wing came the sound of Maria’s children, shouting and laughing.
“We were very young, we were very merry,
We had ridden back and forth all night upon a ferry.”
The question was, what now?
20
I am getting awfully tired of this old housecoat, thought Maria. But then I say that every weekend, and I never do anything about it. It was such a simple matter, too, to walk into a shop and get another. The trouble was, that she had got into the habit of not bothering about what she kept at Farthings. Anything would do for Farthings. The same thing applied to the bedroom curtains. Those curtains had been hanging in her bedroom ever since they had come to Farthings. Practically the whole of he
r married life. Of course, during the war it had been impossible to get curtains. But that was not the point. The point was that she was continually buying things for the flat in London, new covers for the chairs, new rugs, bits of china, a lovely mirror only the other day to go over the mantelpiece in the sitting room, and never did she bring anything to Farthings. Niall would say it was psychological. Niall would say the reason she took an interest in the flat was because it was hers alone. She rented it, she paid for it, the whole upkeep of the flat came from the money she earned by her own work; but Farthings belonged to Charles. She was a guest at Farthings. At the flat she was at home. Yet Farthings had been her home, too, at the beginning. They had planned the rooms together, she and Charles. The younger children had been born here, in this bedroom. Once she had planted tulips in the garden. There had been tennis parties on Sunday afternoons. Iced coffee, and great jugs of lemonade. Shortbread, and scones. She wore a white linen frock that buttoned down the side, and the last four buttons were always left undone, so that her legs could sunburn above the knee.
Then, little by little, the interest that had been seemed to slip away. It was easy to blame everything upon the war. Charles away. Herself away. Farthings a home to both of them in patches. But the war was over, Charles had slipped back into the old routine. And not Maria… The trouble was—and she poured some OMY essence into the bath and ran the water, a bath before dinner was essential, even if it was Sunday supper, they must all wait for her, what did it matter—the trouble was that as one grew older—no, as time passed, as time went on, one’s own personal life became more important. Which was another way of saying one became more selfish.
Things were irritating now that were not irritating once. Like rattling doors. Like hard pillows. Like tepid food. Like people who were bores. Bores… There were far too many people who were bores. Not Charles, of course. She loved Charles, she loved him very much—but… His appearance, for one thing, was not what it had been once. That extra weight. Why did he not do something about that weight? It was not exactly a tummy, but all over. What was more, and this was something she scarcely admitted even to herself, he was slightly deaf. Only one ear. The left one. The war, probably, something to do with guns, but still… Men had no business to let themselves get set. Why could they not do exercises before breakfast? Give up potatoes? Stop drinking beer? If she let herself get set, where would she be? Out on her ear… Out, my dear. We don’t want you. There are plenty of youngsters coming on who can step into your shoes. She stepped into the bath, and it was hot and good, and someone—Polly, she supposed—had put a cake of Morny soap into the bracket.
No, the real bore was her father-in-law, old Lord Wyndham, who simply would not die. He had no business to go on living, at eighty-one. Poor old man, he got no enjoyment out of it. It would be so much simpler for him, and for everybody else, if he just faded away. He was so deaf now that he could not even hear the clocks ticking, and as he spent most of his time in a wheeled chair it could not matter whether it was half-past two or half-past twelve. Coldhammer had been taken over by the Agricultural people during the war, and had not yet been handed back, and the poor old couple had been living in that dingy dower house, with a few retainers, ever since. The death duties would be appalling, naturally, when he did go. And what with taxation, and servant difficulties, and everything else, she and Charles would never be able to live at Coldhammer, which in many ways was a great relief, because the place was like a morgue. The point was, that Charles had given up so much time, and trouble, and thought, to dealing with the estate, and with the people, and with the whole district, that he really deserved to be called Lord Wyndham… Marie lathered herself all over with Morny soap, and then leaned back in the bath, and relaxed, and closed her eyes.
The smell of scented soap had made her sick once, before somebody was born. She forgot which child. It was not Caroline. Cigarettes with Caroline. Charles would smoke in the bedroom, and then stub it out under her nose with profound remorse. It was a wretched habit, smoking in a bedroom. She had broken him of that in the first year, thank heaven.
But that was something else that happened as one grew older—as time went on. It was such a relief to have a bedroom to oneself. At the flat she could walk about naked if she chose, her face covered in grease, her hair in a turban, whistling, humming, talking to herself, the wireless turned on; she could go to bed at three in the morning if she wanted to, and read or not, just as she pleased, and switch off the light when she felt inclined.
At Farthings they still kept to the routine of twin beds. And Charles liked to settle early, he did not care for the wireless, or for the light. She would lie in the darkness, not tired, but wide awake; and she was always aware of the humped back of Charles, asleep. It made an irritation. He might have been any man lying there, a stranger. Actually, a stranger would have made it more exciting. What was the point of having a man in your bedroom if all he could do was to turn his back and sleep? Not that she wanted him to do anything else, but in a way it was an insult. The turned back reminded her of the various other backs that had not been turned. Which was a depressing thought; because it meant she was beginning to live in the past.
Backs That Were Never Turned. The Reminiscences of Maria Delaney… No, it was not depressing. It was funny. She must remember to tell Niall after supper, when Charles was out of the room. And Celia, too. Not that Celia mattered, but she was inclined to be governessy. The conversation would lead to an argument which no one but themselves would understand. Maria and Niall.
“I’ll tell you who probably did show his back…”
“Who?”
“So-and-So.”
“You are entirely wrong. He never did. I used to wish he would…”
In the war one was always lying huddled against someone’s back. That communal thing of dressing gowns in passages. In the first raids one went out from the flat onto a central landing, and everyone took it in turns to make cocoa or tea. Midnight feasts in the dorm. Then with the last raids, the buzz-bombs and the rockets, one just stayed quietly in one’s flat and did not make tea at all. One wanted a drink instead. Until the person who had been fire-watching came down the fire escape, and in at the back door. The person was usually Niall. Why could he never get a hat that fitted properly? That awful strap. If a bomb had ever struck the building they would have gone to glory. She had once coaxed a little fire in the sitting room and invited Niall to put it out for practice. He had set to work, not a smile on his face, very earnest. The stirrup pump would not function, it made the most fearful rude noises at the bottom of the bucket. And because at that time everyone was nervy and rather highly strung she had not seen the humor of it at all, but had lost her temper. “Do you realize that the population of London are depending on you? That it is this gross sort of inefficiency that may make us lose the war?”
“It’s the pump,” said Niall. “They’ve given me a dud pump.”
“Nonsense. A bad workman blames his tools.”
And they had sat for an hour in silence, while he tried to dismantle the pump. Not a joke. Not a smile. They had hated each other.
The absurd lost intimacy of wartime days and nights… How wrong was it, Maria wondered, and whose fault, that the years which had brought so much distress, and loss, and hardship to so many people, had brought to her, and to Niall also, nothing but undiminishing success? Perhaps that was one of the things that Charles begrudged them both. Perhaps that was why he had called them parasites. For Maria the war had meant a succession of plays that had run for eighteen months. For Niall it had meant a series of songs that everybody sang. People at home, people in factories; pilots in bombers, going backwards and forwards to Berlin. They whistled and sang them for a fortnight and then forgot them; and then he wrote another one, and they whistled that instead. It was not blood and tears, it was not even sweat. It was the minimum of creative effort, but it worked.
Would it have been better, Maria wondered, as the water trickled over her, i
f she had played in failure after failure; if she had left the stage and driven a tractor in the fields? To have been successful while other people died; to have been a popular actress coining money and applause while other women stood at benches; did Charles, in his secret heart, sometimes despise her?
More hot water, turn on the tap, let it gush, let it flow. If one lay still in a bath for more than five minutes the water became strangely chill. And more OMY essence, so that the scent of it filled the steamy air. Where was she? Yes, the war…
There used to be an independence to the day. Never knowing, in the morning, how it would end at eventide. Who would appear. What forgotten friend would come knocking at the door. Plans would be erratic, unfulfilled. Leaving notes, “Back in half an hour,” pinned to the front door. Going forth, a basket on the arm, and wearing slacks, to shop in Shepherd Market. Why in slacks? Because, in a sense, it was still pretence. It was Red Indians, it was Cavaliers, it was freedom… The freedom of no ties, no set arrangements. The freedom of having no one upon the conscience who might be waiting, back at home. The children parked safely in the country. Except for those periodic visits to the dentist; when, escorted to and fro by Polly, they descended upon the flat for a breathless morning, and were away again, to safety, by three-fifteen. They always came when Maria was dressing, or when she was lying in the bath, as now. It meant leaping from the bath, dripping wet. Snatching a towel, and opening the door.
“Darlings! How are you?”
Little peaky faces, staring at her; and little beady eyes, staring at Mummy’s flat, where nobody but Mummy ever stayed. Maria did not mind their beady eyes, but she was bored by Polly.
“Mother looks very comfortable, doesn’t she, children? We would like to be up here, keeping Mummy company.”
Perhaps they would. But Mummy did not want them.