‘According to Tamar, they’re all out in the garden in their nighties,’ said Rose.
‘Well, we could send up a rocket or two, there isn’t time for the whole lot, everybody wants to go home!’
Gulliver, realising that he might soon be dangerously drunk, had already proposed that he should leave, forgetting that the letting off of fireworks was the purpose of the evening.
‘Where’s Tamar?’ said Jenkin.
‘In the kitchen helping Pat wash up!’ said Rose.
‘Where’s Duncan?’ said Gerard.
‘Drinking whisky in your study.’
‘I rather hoped Tamar would take charge of him tonight,’ said Gerard, ‘but she’s so withdrawn.’
‘She probably wants another heart-to-heart with you!’ said Rose.
‘At any rate Duncan started on Perrier. Do you think that was Tamar’s influence?’
‘Look, we must have our fireworks,’ said Jenkin, ‘I’ll start, you just herd them out. Don’t forget the torches and sparklers.’
Jenkin, anxious not to have his programme curtailed by Gerard, had already set off the Golden Rains and several Roman Candles and a Peacock Fountain before the whole company, wearing their overcoats, had ambled or stumbled out into the garden. Everyone was given a torch, a bunch of sparklers and a box of matches. The sparklers, little metal sticks to be held in the hand while the ignited end spitted brilliant sparks, were to provide audience participation and, during intervals between the ‘pieces’, extra light. However some of the guests dropped their sparklers on the grass (Gull and Lily) or absently put them in their pocket (Duncan) or were too haughty (Pat and Violet) or too shy (Tamar) to ignite them. Rose and Gerard dutifully, and Gideon with a great deal of facetious to-do, set light to theirs at intervals and waved them about, revealing the rather dazed faces of their fellow guests in the very bright very white light of the sizzling sparks. Fireworks were, to keep them all in countenance, still to be seen glowing and ascending here and there from distant gardens where children were late to bed or adults still at play. Looking up in a moment of darkness Rose saw, in the upper windows of the house next door, the faces of children looking out. She lit another sparkler, held it up to reveal herself, and waved to the children. Dazzled by the glare, she could not see whether they waved back. Gerard had never made friends with these children, and they were strangers to Rose.
Jenkin had now reached the penultimate stage, which was the catherine wheels. The rockets came last. He had nailed three large wheels onto three posts set back near (but not too near) the walnut tree, the highest post in the centre. As he went round with his torch checking the three contraptions the others, who had provided murmurs, even cries, of admiration for the earlier events, fell silent, and it was for a moment dark in the garden. One or two torches, momently switched on, illumined feet, some sensibly, some foolishly clad, and patches of wet trampled frosty grass. The air was becoming very cold, noses felt frozen, and those without gloves buried their hands deep in their pockets. Gulliver, badly wanting another drink, was supporting himself by a hand on Lily’s shoulder.
Suddenly, almost simultaneously, the big catherine wheels became alive, turning for a moment or two quite slowly, then accelerating into huge dazzling circles of fire which uttered a terrifying burning noise as of an inferno. Everybody gasped suitably, and indeed the sight and the sound were not only impressive but frightening. No one fidgeted, all stood still, staring open-mouthed and tense at the three great fiery circles.
Lily, who had been silent for some time in a self-concentrated state of quiet drunkenness, suddenly said, close to Gulliver’s ear, ‘Why are they called catherine wheels?’
Gulliver, startled out of his own intoxicated meditation, replied, ‘Saint Catherine was martyred on a wheel.’
‘What?’
‘Saint Catherine was martyred on a wheel, tortured, killed.’
‘How on a wheel, what did it do to her?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gulliver, annoyed by this irrelevant and somehow improper disturbance, ‘I believe it was turned over a lot of spikes or something.’
Lily pondered for a moment. Then she turned and went back toward the house. Gulliver, deprived of her support, sat down abruptly upon the grass.
The catherine wheels began at last, saddeningly to their spellbound watchers, to slow down, then one after the other gradually to go out, spurting a few last bursts of fiery angry sparks, then for a few moments continuing to turn, glowing dimly, then burnt out and blackened, upon their posts. There was a general sigh.
Showman Jenkin, determined not to lose his audience, immediately set off the first of the rockets.
Gerard, who had seen Lily slip off and not return, decided it was time to go and see if she was all right. He moved quietly away as the others were gazing up at a drifting constellation of different coloured stars.
Lily, after she left the scene, had blundered in through the drawing room doors, finding herself behind the heavy curtains which threatened to suffocate her. She struggled in panic, in darkness, losing her sense of direction, trying to find either the middle or the ends of the heavy clinging curtains. At last she blundered out into the candle-lit room and hurried through it so as to get further away from the garden. She went to the lavatory, and turning on the light, saw her mottled face in the mirror for the first time. She took refuge in the dining room and sat down beside the little low rickety table upon which she and Gulliver had perched their plates when having dinner or supper or whatever it was. Alcohol can open the dark gates of the unconscious and through this orifice there flooded upon Lily, in the name of Saint Catherine, a phantom host of memories of her Catholic mother, who had been much given to imploring the aid of various helpful saints. Lily often thought about her grandmother, but very rarely about her mother. Now, with the accusing memories, came awful guilt and remorse. Her mother had believed in hell. Why had Lily rejected and abandoned her poor mother who had died drunk and alone in terror of eternal flames? Why was her mother not alive now so that Lily could run to comfort her? Mixed with these thoughts about her mother’s suffering came pious images, horrible to Lily as a child, of Saint Sebastian shot full of arrows, Saint Lawrence roasted on a grid. And of course Jesus, slowly tortured to death by crucifixion. Then it occurred to Lily that the three posts of the catherine wheels were like the three crosses of Calvary. She burst into tears. Gerard came in.
The rockets were now going up in quick succession, rushing up so suddenly, so violently, so dangerously, with a hissing tearing whistling sound, tearing the dark air, up and up so high, and then the achieved efflorescence which came with a wonderful sense of relief, of a kind of peaceful or happy or glorious death, an explosion of golden bullets or a fountain of jagged stars, like the self-giving benediction of an amorous god. Other rockets in other gardens were flying up too, quick, quick, as if the mad licensed festival were nearing its end and, under pain of some doom, all must now be done quickly. The air was full of explosions. Rose thought, war sounds like this. To rest her dazzled eyes she stopped looking up and saw for a moment in the light of a match Jenkin’s entranced delighted face, his lips parted, his eyes round with excitement. What is he celebrating, she wondered, what god, what vision, what golden secret desire? A shower of particularly long-lasting starlets showed her the other upturned faces, Gideon’s laughing with rapture, Pat’s calmly pleased, Gulliver’s childishly gleeful. Duncan looked melancholy but quiet, his big head tilted back, his dark mane sweeping his coat collar. Violet’s face startled Rose, it was radiant with some intense emotion, determination or despair or hate. Tamar, standing just behind her, was not visible. Rose then noticed that Gerard and Lily were missing.
‘I wish I was dead,’ said Lily. ‘I’m good for nothing. ‘I’m rotten, I’m wicked.’
Gerard, sitting next to her at the table, said, ‘Stop it, Lily, I won’t have you saying such untrue things in this house!’
‘My accountant says my money’s running out.’
>
‘I’m sure it isn’t, it must be invested.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know what invested is. Oh I’m so unhappy, and I can’t be happy.’
‘Of course you can, I know you can. You can help other people.’
‘I hate other people, I hate myself, I can’t trust anyone, nobody cares about me –’
‘Oh stop it! Of course people care, I care for example. If you’re worried about your money or anything you can always come to me.’
‘Can I?’ said Lily in amazement. She dried her tears on the soft billowy sleeve of her dress, the front of which was stained with red wine. She turned to Gerard a drunken ravaged face crazy with relief and said suddenly, ‘I’ve always wanted to look at these pictures, I’ve never been able to, they look so nice.’
‘We can look at them now,’ said Gerard. They got up and he lifted a candle. ‘There’s a butterfly, there’s a snail, there’s a beetle flying, there’s a frog, the Japanese like frogs, there’s a girl washing her hair…’
The noise outside was becoming louder and louder. Gideon was exclaiming with pleasure, Violet’s eyes were shining, her mouth was open, Patricia’s hands were at her face. Why do they like those awful terrifying sounds, thought Rose. Do I like them? Perhaps I do. Oh where is Gerard? She saw Gulliver turning away and gliding in long strides towards the house.
Gulliver opened the dining room door and saw Gerard holding a candle up beside one of the pictures which Lily was looking at. Gulliver felt an uncomfortable pain in his diaphragm. It was a feeling he had not had for some time. He recognised it as jealousy. But why, for whom, of whom, about what? He closed the door again.
A great flight of rockets suddenly flew upward. Then from quite nearby came a long series of deafening explosions, much louder than anything which they had heard yet. They covered their ears. Patricia cried out, ‘That’s not fireworks, it can’t be, it must be bombs, it’s terrorists!’
‘No!’ cried Jenkin in ecstasy, ‘it’s the party at the French Embassy!’
Rose had gone into the house. She went to the dining room and turned the light on.
As the light of the rockets went out and the echo of the explosions ceased, Duncan moved over to where Tamar was standing, and extended his hand quietly sideways towards her, and for a moment her small hand clasped his.
‘Jenkin didn’t send those flowers,’ said Rose, ‘I asked him – and I’m sure Duncan didn’t.’
‘I’m glad Duncan came, that was Tamar’s doing. She thought her visit to him wasn’t a success, but evidently it was!’
The guests had gone, Patricia and Gideon had retired, Rose and Gerard were sitting in the drawing room beside the glowing remains of the open fire, holding glasses of whisky and soda. The candles, carefully secured in their candlesticks by Rose, had burnt down in an orderly manner and were extinguished. Electric lamps now made the room bright and calm.
‘Did you talk to Duncan?’ asked Rose.
‘Scarcely. He told me one thing. He said Tamar had broken a teapot!’
‘You mean when she visited him? Hot? Full of tea?’
‘I don’t think so, it was when she was trying to tidy up his kitchen, she knocked it off a shelf. Duncan didn’t seem to mind, he thought it was a joke, he became helpless with laughter when he was telling me!’
‘Hysteria, drink. It can’t have been a joke for poor Tamar who was trying to help. I can picture Duncan’s kitchen, rather like Violet’s! I assume he didn’t say anything about Jean and Crimond.’
‘No. I think he’ll talk to me, but not yet.’
‘What are we going to do about Crimond, I mean about the book?’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Gerard impatiently. He felt that ‘the others’ were steadily pushing him toward some sort of confrontation with Crimond, some sort of showdown. He hated showdowns. On the other hand, he didn’t want anyone else messing round with Crimond, if anyone dealt with Crimond it had to be him. But he disliked the prospect extremely.
Rose, reading his mind, said, ‘It needn’t be a fight! We can reasonably ask for a progress report! All this time he’s had our money and not even sent a postcard to say thanks, book getting on! Anyway it’s time we called a meeting of the committee.’
‘Yes, yes. I’ll call it. You know, Gulliver still hasn’t found a job.’
‘I think Gulliver was wearing make-up.’
‘Rose, I’m tired, you’re tired. Off you go.’
Rose felt a little drunk and very disinclined to go home. She had frightened herself this evening, had been deeply disturbed by her ridiculous and unworthy feelings of jealousy about Lily and Tamar. Am I to grieve if he even looks at another woman, do I, I, then feel so insecure? Yes. After all these years I am absolutely without defence, I can be broken in an instant. Nothing whatever binds him to the relation that we have now, he is scarcely aware of it as a state of affairs that can change, or indeed as a state of affairs at all! I suppose it’s good that he takes me so much for granted, she thought, but just that also means that I have no rights. Rights? So now she was thinking about rights! She could imagine Gerard’s reaction to any language of that sort! But I must talk to him, she thought, I must tell him, I must, oh it sounds so weak and spiritless, ask him to reassure me. But how can I put it, and what can he say? I must be open and sincere. But what do I want? What I want now is not to go home but to go to Gerard’s bed and lie with him until the world ends. Can I tell him that? Does he know?
‘Don’t ring for a taxi,’ she said, ‘I’ll get one easily if I just walk to the end of the road. Don’t bother to come.’
‘Of course I’ll come! Where the hell did Pat put my coat?’
Out in the street when the taxi stopped and its door was open, Gerard kissed Rose on the lips as he often did and she put her arms round his neck as she often did.
Tamar left the office early that evening. She had got used to the office, although the head of the firm called her ‘Totsy’, and one of her female colleagues had lectured her on her clothes. The unattached young men liked her and teased her but made no advances. She was going to see Duncan. A note from him had suggested she should come again, and she had rung up and arranged to come.
In the situation into which Gerard had prompted her to enter, Tamar had felt herself in the role of a slave-girl who, without any special relation with either, was to bring the hero and the heroine together. She was, in this, to be unnoticed and unrewarded, a mere tool. Looking back later she realised that she had never believed that she could in any way assist that reconciliation, but had simply believed in Gerard’s belief and felt pleased (so there was some pleasure in it) to be chosen. Something however had happened now to complicate her task. She was not sure when exactly it had happened: perhaps when Duncan had cried ‘Stop!’ and led her by the hand back to the sofa, or just after that when they were sitting on the sofa looking at each other, or possibly later on that night when she was at home in her bedroom thinking about Duncan and his huge head and mane and his gentle quizzical clever look. She certainly could not put it that she had fallen in love with him, that was, because of the difference in their ages and his status in her life, entirely impossible. But her feelings of sympathy, her desire to help and heal, were intensified, she thought about him more and could recognise stirrings of a sexual nature. Tamar was not dismayed. No one knew of this, mild and harmless after all, condition and no one would ever know. She had had similar vague feelings when she was younger in equally unviable situations, for a master at school, for Leonard Fairfax, for Jean, even for Gerard, and knew that these things were innocent, could be concealed and suppressed, and would pass. She had felt some acute anxiety at the Guy Fawkes party, wondering if he would come, then when he came feeling both pleasure and a sort of fear which prompted her to avoid him, ‘sliding round the house like a cat’, as Patricia had put it. When in the dark, at the end, he took hold of her hand and squeezed it Tamar had felt a warm impulse of joy. They exchanged no words and left separately soon after. R
eflecting later upon this incident she was touched by his, as she saw it, desire to reassure her. She had decided not to go to see him unless positively invited. When the invitation came she was pleased, but wondered whether it were not prompted by some sort of now necessary politeness.
Something else had happened to Tamar in the interim; she had received a large cheque from Joel Kowitz in New York, coming, he said, although he had signed it himself, from a Jewish Educational Foundation. Tamar knew that the cheque was prompted by Jean and did not believe in the Educational Foundation. She opened the envelope at breakfast watched, as was usual when she was opening her letters, by her mother. Violet snatched the cheque and would have torn it up, only Tamar snatched it back, promising that she would return it to Joel, which she would have done in any case. After she had posted it back to him with a suitably grateful letter she found herself wondering why she had not paid the cheque into her bank and snapped her fingers at her mother. But of course she could not do that. She reflected on the reasons, wondering if they were good ones. When Tamar had decided that she must give up Oxford she had set herself to it as to a dedicated task, a duty, something absolutely inevitable. To think it didn’t have to be so would have been agonising. Violet had set out and Tamar had studied the details of the financial position. It was very serious. Violet could not get work, Uncle Matthew was dead, Tamar’s job was urgently necessary to reassure the bank manager. Tamar understood why her mother would not accept help. Nor did she forget Violet’s cry of ‘I’ve done enough for you!’ It was a matter of honour.
Duncan’s flat, on this occasion, looked different. Three lamps were on in the drawing room and a fire was burning in the grate. The room, though still dusty, was tidy, and some of the stacked-up books had found their way back onto shelves. The kitchen, which Duncan had shown to Tamar as soon as she arrived, was a bit cleaner and more orderly, though Duncan had not been able to dominate a by now inherent chaos.