Tamar, looking up, keeping her lucid eyes fixed upon Gerard, reached out and grasped the mantelpiece with one hand, her small fingernails aligned beside a black soapstone seal who lived there. Gerard, whose tastes though quiet were eclectic, had collected a few pieces of Eskimo sculpture. She looked at the seal, which she was fond of, but did not touch it. It was slouched in such an elegant way, its plump shoulder turning, its doggy head raised. So far from judging Gerard, Tamar was feeling pure love for him, the quiet gentle free peaceful flow of communication which may be had with an old wise friend in whom one knows there is no malice, only thoughtful good will, and with whom one may stand in silence.
‘I want to give you something,’ said Gerard, and for an instant he thought of giving her the black Eskimo seal. But he knew he would regret the gift. He liked the seal too much himself.
Tamar, looking happy at last, said, ‘Gerard, look, don’t think I’m dotty – I’d like, I’d really like – something to wear – something of yours – something old you might be throwing out – a glove or a scarf or – something you’ve worn, you know – like a favour, or –’
‘To carry on your lance?’
‘Yes, yes –’
‘That’s brilliant, I know exactly!’ Gerard went out into the hall and returned at once with his college scarf. ‘Here, my old college scarf – you’ll be wearing my colours!’ He draped the scarf round her neck.
‘Oh – can you spare it?’
‘Of course, I can always get another! You can see how ancient this one is.’
‘Oh, I’m delighted – now I won’t be afraid – thank you so much!’
She drew the ends of the scarf down over her breasts to her waist, pulling at them and laughing. Gerard, laughing too, thought how quaint of her to see herself as a young knight going into battle wearing my favour! How touching. She is an odd child.
The door opened and Patricia and Violet came in.
As soon as her mother entered the room Tamar went out, as a light goes out. She was extinguished. The sparkling mischievous look, a rare look for her, vanished in a second, her face closed up, and the quiet free connection with Gerard was instantly cut off. Tamar now, wearing, Gerard thought, a mask which was so habitual that it could scarcely be so called, looked aloof, composed, withdrawn. Not betraying anxiety, she looked solemnly and attentively at her mother.
The cousins, seen together, had some slight resemblance. Gerard’s father and Gerard’s uncle Ben, especially as they appeared in some old photos which Gerard had discovered in the house in Bristol when he was clearing it out before it was sold, had looked alike when young. Patricia and Violet, it now seemed to him, carried the ghost or aura of this resemblance in a certain intentness of stare, the firm neat assertive mouth and the resolute ‘brave’ look. Only in Gerard’s father and in Ben this alert look had been humorous and ironical, whereas in their offspring it was more opinionated and stern, in Violet’s case aggressive. Pat was taller and stouter, with a plump face and a large chin, Violet altogether leaner and more shapely. Both wore above the nose the vertical lines of a permanent frown. They were now looking accusingly at Gerard and Tamar, whom they suspected of plotting something. Gerard, looking at them, felt his face twitch with pain. Among the old photos he had found some which he had taken of Grey. Of course he had destroyed them at once. Sad that one hastens to destroy, for fear of suffering, the mementoes of love. It had also occurred to Gerard as he looked at the photos of Ben, as a boy, as a youth, that his father had probably felt guilty about his younger brother, about not having tried to rescue him, sought him out and helped him more, about having accepted too easily and too soon the idea of him as a ‘hopeless crazy fellow’ with which Gerard had grown up. Perhaps that too was something which he ought to have talked over with his father. Now however Gerard was thinking about Grey and how he used to spread out one long wing in a kind of salute, flirting his scarlet tail, and gazing so consciously and so solemnly into Gerard’s eyes.
Gerard, sensing Tamar’s slight movement beside him, knew that now she just wanted to get away. She did not like hearing her mother talk to other people, especially not to Pat and Gerard.
Violet, peering myopically under her long fringe and holding her large round blue-rimmed spectacles in her hand, said to Tamar, ‘What’s that old thing you’ve got round your neck, is it a scarf?’
‘Yes, it’s Gerard’s college scarf, he’s just given it to me.’
‘You can’t wear a man’s scarf.’
‘Yes, I can! All college scarves are like this anyway.’
‘But you weren’t at Gerard’s college. It looks as if it needs a good wash.’
Tamar’s face expressed dismay at the idea of this sacrilegious deGeraldisation of her trophy. Gerard thought, God knows what that scarf smells of by now, it’s never been washed in its life!
‘I don’t think college scarves ever get washed,’ said Gerard, ‘it would destroy the patina. I don’t think that scarf would like to be washed.’ I sound just like Jenkin, he thought. The image of Jenkin, suddenly superimposed on that of Grey, cheered him up.
‘This college piety makes me shudder,’ said Pat.
‘Did you like the new decorations?’ Gerard asked Violet.
‘Must have cost a packet.’
‘It was Gideon’s idea,’ said Pat. ‘He’s so good with colours. There’s lots of space up there, when we bring in our furniture and some of the Bristol stuff it’ll be quite civilised – and if we reorganise the whole house we can get everything in.’
‘I don’t want everything in,’ said Gerard. ‘And I wish Gideon would leave the rockery alone.’
Tamar was still fidgeting. Patricia and Violet were patting their hair into shape and smoothing down their clothes with identical gestures.
‘Pat says you’re going to move up there and let them have the rest of the house,’ said Violet.
‘That’s news to me!’
‘I think it would be very sensible. This place is far too big for one person. My flat would just about fit into this room. And I think you should sell the Bristol furniture, some of it’s very valuable. Stop looking at your watch, Tamar, it’s rude.’
‘I think we should give some of the Bristol furniture to Violet,’ said Gerard to his sister, after his guests had departed. Violet had refused to let him pay for a taxi.
‘She dropped a hint about that upstairs! There’s no room in her rabbit hutch, she’d spoil those nice things, they’d be covered with old newspapers and teapot rings and plastic bags. We might give her some of the kitchen stuff. But she wouldn’t take it anyway. She just plays the poor relation for all it’s worth. She wants to make us feel guilty.’
‘She succeeds. I wish we could do something for Tamar.’
‘So you keep saying, but it’s no good, Tamar’s got a death wish. She can’t even get around to cleaning the flat! Violet never got over that swinging adolescence, she still dreams she’s twenty and it’s all before her and Tamar never happened. Tamar has never seemed to her entirely real, just a nasty hurtful ghost. She’s made Tamar feel like a ghost. Tamar’s fading away, one day she’ll be as thin as a needle, the next day she’ll be gone.’
‘No –!’
Gideon Fairfax came in, bland, calm, curly-haired, red-lipped, with his clever pretty exquisitely shaven rosy youthful face. His shirt tonight, with his dark suit, was a glowing blueish green. He dyed his shirts himself. Gerard could never make out why his polite pleasant cultivated brother-in-law irritated him so much.
‘Has she gone? I’ve been lurking.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Pat. ‘All the same I’d like to have her figure.’
‘Gideon, I wish you’d leave the rockery alone!’ said Gerard.
‘My dear Gerard, the thing about a rockery is that it cannot be left alone, left alone it becomes all messy and earthy and Victorian and eventually vanishes, it’s a perpetual challenge. I only weeded it and removed some stones and put in some plants, it’ll be a picture next year
.’
‘Gideon is an artist,’ said Pat.
‘And I see you destroyed all those ash saplings.’
‘My dear, they get everywhere.’
‘I like them everywhere.’
Gideon was of course not an artist, not even an art historian, he was simply someone who could not help making money. His tastes did not always coincide with Gerard’s, but Gerard had to admit that Gideon, beside understanding the market, did really like pictures.
‘How’s Leonard getting on at Cornell?’ Leonard Fairfax was studying art history in America. Patricia and Gideon had long been worried in case Leonard were to fall in love with Tamar. There had been no sign of this however.
‘I saw him in New York. He’s started to play baseball!’
‘Good God!’
‘A pity that Lomas boy fell through for Tamar,’ said Patricia. ‘She doesn’t seem to be interested in sex at all. Or she could be homosexual. I didn’t at all like her passion for Jean Cambus. Thank heaven she won’t be seeing her again!’
‘Did you get the Klimt?’ Gerard asked Gideon.
‘Alas, no!’
‘Did Gerard send you?’ said Jean.
Tamar hesitated.
‘Come, deal justly with me!’
Tamar smiled. She said, ‘Well, he encouraged me. I wanted to come anyway – only I was afraid to.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought you mightn’t want to see me.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because you might want to cut off all contact with us.’
‘I like your “us” – so you count as one of the gang!’
‘No, not really – but I thought it might upset you –’
‘Embarrass me, accuse me?’
‘No, no –’ Tamar blushed because something like that had been in her mind. ‘Jean, don’t be so strict! You’re not cross with me for coming, are you?’
‘No, my dear child, of course not, I’m just curious. So you’re not the bearer of a message from anybody?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Why did Gerard want you to come?’
‘Nothing special, just to keep contact.’
‘So you’re to report back to Gerard?’
‘He never said that!’ It was true that he had never said it, but of course he would want a report. Tamar realised she should have expected just these questions – and now she was close to telling lies.
Their meeting had been awkward. Tamar, after reflecting carefully about how to proceed, had rung up from a telephone box in Camberwell about four o’clock on a Saturday, saying she was near and could she come. Jean said yes. When Tamar came through the front door there had not been the usual kiss, just a quick handshake. Jean had led the way to the back room which was full of bookshelves with a divan up against the books and a door to the garden. Jean was wearing a dressing gown. The divan was covered with an old faded cotton counterpane on top of which were two handsome dresses. Tamar took off her coat, keeping Gerard’s scarf about her neck. The sky had become darker since her arrival and now it was raining. Outside the little lawn was strewn with leaves, the yellow chrysanthemums, fading to brown, drooping against their windblown sticks. The room was cold and felt derelict and unlived in, the floor echoed, the house felt dusty and damp. Tamar thought, it’s a senseless house, and her heart sank.
‘Well, I’ll let you off,’ said Jean. ‘I know you’re a good girl. I’m glad to see you.’ She added, ‘In case you’re wondering, he’s not here.’
There was a slight pause. There were so many things which could not be uttered, it was necessary to reflect. Jean said, ‘God, how dark it’s got, I’ll put the light on.’ She switched on a dim centre light which seemed to make the room darker. They were sitting opposite to each other on upright chairs, as in an interview between a social worker and a client. Tamar looked down at the nails in the unpainted wooden boards.
‘How’s Oxford?’
Tamar startled, said, ‘I’m not at Oxford, I’m working for a publisher.’ It seemed amazing that Jean was so out of touch, so far away.
‘But why –?’
‘My mother was in debt.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me?’
‘My mother wouldn’t accept money.’
‘I’m not offering it to her, I’m offering it to you! Are you stupid, can’t you grow up? She wants to isolate you, she wants to ruin you.’
‘Not really – she loves me.’ Tamar could see what it was like for her mother in whose wounded heart there was indeed hatred, hatred for Tamar, but somehow love too.
‘I’ll go and see her.’
‘No, no, she’s against you anyway, she’s jealous because I’m fond of you.’
‘God, how wicked human beings can be. I’ll think of something.’
Tamar could not help wishing that some quick magic could mend it all. Why couldn’t money solve everything? Money here seemed to glow with rationality, sense, justice, almost virtue. But it was impossible. Tamar could not either leave her mother or save her. It was like something awful in a fairy tale. The money to pay the debts could only come from Tamar’s work. No other money would do. There was no place here for common sense or reasonable compromise. Tamar’s ordeal would not make Violet happy or grateful. Yet anything else was unthinkable.
‘My father will think of something,’ said Jean. ‘You’ll just have to tell a few lies. Tamar, don’t look like that, I’ll smack you!’
‘What pretty dresses,’ said Tamar, pointing to the bed.
‘All right, change the subject, but I won’t tolerate this repulsive sacrifice. I’ve just bought these, I was just going to try them on.’ Jean jumped up, threw off her dressing gown, revealing herself in a short white petticoat and black suspenders and black stockings. In this attire she might conventionally have resembled an adornment of an old-fashioned nightclub, but to Tamar’s eyes she looked more like a pirate, a soldier, like a Greek soldier, someone striding forth, her stockings become boots, the lace of her petticoat the permitted embellishment of a crack regiment. Her face too, so pale, almost white, with its thin sharply contoured aquiline nose, looked like that of a young commander, perhaps a sultan, portrayed in profile by an Indian miniaturist. Her bare shoulders, her arms, her glimpsed thigh, were white too, delicate transparent skin faintly marbled here and there with little blue veins. Her dark hair, curving with her head, glowed bluish. Tamar had never seen her look so splendid, so young and strong, so, in spite of her pallor, glittering with health. Tamar sighed.
Hands rising into sleeves, Jean swiftly slid into one of the dresses, then adjusted it for display. It was a straight grey feathery-light silk dress with a high oriental collar and a design of gentian-blue leaves. The exquisite dress, caressing Jean’s slimness, also looked to Tamar like some sort of angelic uniform. She exclaimed.
‘Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it. But Tamar, you must learn to dress! I should have taken you in hand long ago. It’s time you gave up those insipid girlie blouses and skirts and those little low-heeled shoes that look like slippers. Get a decent dress that says something, with a shape and a definite colour, not those muddy browns and pale greens. You’re pretty, and if you dress smartly you’ll look pretty. Do try this one on and see how nice it looks on you, please do, you can just slip off your jacket.’
Jean had pulled off her silk dress and Tamar was taking off her jacket when Crimond came in. The first thing Jean said to him was, ‘You’re back early.’
Crimond looked startled, even dismayed, at seeing Tamar. Tamar, blushing, resumed her jacket and made a dive for her coat and her bag. Jean put on her dressing gown.
Tamar said, ‘I must go.’
Jean said, ‘Don’t go, stay and have some tea.’
‘No, no, I must be off, I hadn’t realised how late it was.’ She made for the door which Crimond, with a slight inclination of his head, held open for her.
Jean went with her to the front door. ‘Thank you for coming, child, come again. We’ll fix
that other matter up somehow.’ Tamar was still putting on her coat. The door closed promptly behind her.
Jean went back to the room where Crimond was sitting on the divan. He said, ‘That girl was wearing the scarf of my college.’
‘I suppose it’s Gerard’s,’ said Jean, looking warily at Crimond. Sometimes she was afraid of him.
‘Or your husband’s. Did he send her?’
‘No, of course not! It was her own idea.’
‘I don’t believe that. Or did you arrange it? You didn’t say she was coming.’
‘I didn’t know! She rang up after you’d gone, she said she was nearby and could she call.’
‘You were upset that I’d come back early.’
‘No –’
‘If I hadn’t seen her would you have told me she’d been with you?’
‘Well –’
‘Tell me the truth, Jean.’
‘Yes, I’d have told you. But I knew you’d hate it and imagine it was a plot! It wasn’t a plot! She’s a poor harmless little girl, she’s not part of their thing. Why are you so suspicious, why are you so insecure?’
‘Insecure! You ask a dangerous question. You told her to come again, and there was something you’d fix up. What was it?’
‘I want to give her money so that she can stay on at Oxford.’
‘You can send her a cheque. I don’t want you to see her. Your husband sent her as a little ambassador of bourgeois morality. She came as a spy. Did you take her downstairs?’
‘No.’
‘Did you kiss her?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you usually?’
‘Just in a social way –’
‘Why not today?’
‘Because we both felt awkward –’
‘You were embarrassed, you blushed in front of that inquisitive little person, you felt yourself in the wrong before her, that’s why they sent her. She’s in love with you, isn’t she?’