Friends and Lovers

  “Sorry.”

  Something in David’s voice made Fenton-Stevens twist round in his chair to look at him. George dropped his book and rose, upsetting the tankard which he had placed on the floor near his feet.

  “Damnation,” he said, and pulled his handkerchief out of the cuff of his sleeve, and dropped it over the spreading pool of beer. “Lucky there wasn’t much left,” he said. “Revolting mess.” He crossed over to the window. “Nothing much to see out there.”

  “No.”

  “Come over to the fire. Have some beer. Chuck that book away. I don’t feel like working much, either. It is difficult today, when we had all the arrangements made for that picnic on Inchnamurren. Besides, we worked enough yesterday to make up for any old day off the chain. So let’s enjoy ourselves. Come along.”

  They went back to the fireplace together. George kicked the sodden handkerchief out of sight behind the pile of logs on the broad, flagstoned hearth. He threw a chunk of wood on the low embers of the fire.

  “That will cheer the place up,” he said. “God, imagine having to sit before a fire in July. We might as well be in Greenland.”

  David rested his hand against the carved stone panel above the fireplace and stared down at the flickering small tongues of flame lapping round the logs. Then he became aware of George’s puzzled interest. He searched for something to say. The noise from the music-room was now at the hilarious stage: Chris and his cousin were happily boring holes off-centre on some records, and playing them from that new axis.

  David said, “How many records do you think those blockheads have ruined? Or doesn’t it matter?”

  George thought for a moment, and then moved quickly towards the door. “If they’ve touched any of mine I’ll knock their brains out. What they have of them.”

  When he returned to the room he looked pleased with his persuasive efforts. “They’ve decided to go down to visit Captain MacLean’s cottage, so we shall have peace for a couple of hours. The Washboard Beaters and Red Nichols and the new Gershwin are still intact. They were experimenting on Wagner, thank God.”

  “Not the Meistersinger or Tristan, I hope.”

  “No, they were concentrating on the Valkyrie and the Rhine maidens.”

  “Symbolic, perhaps.”

  George looked at him blankly, and then laughed. “Revolt against women? You are probably right. Chris is at the vulnerable stage, as you call it. If you stayed for the Twelfth, when all the girls arrive on the scene, you’d be amused by his contortions. He is fascinated by them and he is afraid of them, all at the same time. Oh, chuck away that book and draw your chair up, David. It isn’t a good working day. Pity about the picnic. And the Lorrimers leave tomorrow, so it is off altogether. Probably would have been an awful bore, anyway. Flies in the tea and midges down the back of your neck.”

  David said nothing. He was wondering if Penelope Lorrimer felt any of this strange disappointment which had angered him all day. And then he reminded himself once more that she had probably forgotten all about him by this time. Girls, if you could believe what you read—and how else were you able to find out about them when they all looked as if life were a very simple affair?—girls did not brood over what might be or what might not. Perhaps they did not know what they wanted out of life when they were young. And that was a pity, because when they were young they had poetry in their life: they had intensity and emotion. Later they lost that warmth: they so often became more like a passage of elegant prose, amusing or thoughtful, but always with the poetry in them well under control. So well controlled sometimes that it had died. Which was more than a pity.

  “Penny for them,” George said. Then, as David looked startled and did not reply, he repeated, “I said a penny for your thoughts.”

  David drew a deep breath. If he had met any other pretty girl last week would he now be behaving in this fantastic way? Possibly, for the island was a magic place and he had been bewitched. Yet, probably not. He had seen plenty of pretty girls. But last week he had seen Penny.

  “I was thinking about a topic which men never discuss,” he said.

  George looked startled. “Just what could that be?” “Women.”

  George stopped worrying about David. This was the old David back again, true to form.

  “I was thinking,” David continued, “about Chris and his agonies in sex. He hasn’t learned to hide them yet. You and I have. But that doesn’t mean we have lost all our uncertainties or fears. We are still afraid of being laughed at. Because, I suppose, we feel we are choosing by emotion, and we have been told often enough that that is wrong. Yet, frankly, I don’t see how else we can choose: meeting a girl you like is an emotional experience, isn’t it? Reason has nothing to do with it unless you are a fishlike individual. At a time when we have enough hot blood to enjoy life fully we are surrounded by a conspiracy of age to settle the rules and regulations as if love were a game or a business. It isn’t. It’s a state of being. With it you’re alive. Without it you exist.”

  “Here!” George said, in alarm. He had never heard David talk this way before: he was too damned serious, even if he kept a smile on his lips and a light tone in his voice. “I say, David, you aren’t still worrying about Eleanor, are you? As her brother I can frankly say that she isn’t worth much worry.”

  “Good God, no!” David was vehement enough to be believed this time. It was true. Eleanor had now become a period piece. Last night he had even torn up the verses which he had written to celebrate his disillusionment and unhappiness over that affair. Last night he had read them, and their imitation. Verlaine had only made him acutely embarrassed. Tripe garnished with the brains of calf-love. It had been a lucky escape for him when Eleanor had decided there was more fun in the world than one man could offer. Eleanor, that little nitwit? “Good God, no,” he repeated.

  “Oh, she isn’t a bad scout really,” George said, rising automatically to the defence of his family. “But she wouldn’t have done at all. You were too serious about it.”

  “That’s the trouble.” David wasn’t thinking of Eleanor Fenton-Stevens now. “When do you know whether you should be serious or not serious about a girl? You don’t, in fact. Either you have to pass her by altogether or take the chance of being serious.”

  “Well, don’t take being serious about a girl too seriously,” George suggested. “After all, a man knows he can’t marry until his career is well established. But there’s no ban on following your fancy when you are still at the unmarriageable stage.”

  “Thanks,” David said dryly, “but I’ve no taste for camp-followers. That has about as much satisfaction as pouring your favourite wine into a public drinking-cup. Or helping yourself to strawberries and cream on a plate still greasy from bacon and eggs. How would you enjoy food served that way, George?”

  “You needn’t argue from extremes,” George said placidly. “I wasn’t talking about camp-followers.”

  “It is only a difference of degree, not of kind. What else are women who serve round the same smiles and kisses to several men? They have got a price too, you know, in theatre tickets and flowers and chocolates and dinners you buy them. You and five other chaps.”

  “Look, David, you can’t expect a pretty girl to sit at home and not go out. And you can’t expect one chap to have the cash to take her out every night in the style to which she has accustomed herself. If she is pretty and amusing you are damned lucky to be allowed to form up in the queue.”

  “The true richness of experience.”

  “Don’t be so damned sarcastic,” George said irritably. “Besides, you know damned well that you like a pretty girl as much as the next man. You run a mile from the unattractive ones. I’ve seen you, old boy. In fact, it was only last week that I said, when we were arguing, that after all a plain girl often had rather a good brain. And you said that the trouble was we didn’t sleep with brains.”

  “My trouble is that I know what I want. If I don’t make excuses for liking Brahms or Chopin why s
hould I make excuses for liking beauty in women? That’s the trouble: I know what I like, and I don’t often find it. That’s all.”

  George searched in his pocket for his pipe, and filled it thoughtfully from a pouch whose striped colours matched the college tie he was wearing. (George had only two ties for day wear which did not belong to school, college, or his five clubs: a grey one for weddings and a black one for funerals.)

  “Well,” he said, with resignation, “you can’t find everything in one woman. It takes all kinds to make experience. If you have several girls, or even a succession of girls if your conscience is squeamish about playing several fish at a time, you’ll end your life by having had everything. What more do you want?”

  “Nothing. Except that I don’t think that is the way to get everything.” David looked at him speculatively, and decided to risk going on. “Really, George, you have got to admit that if people put as much thought and concentration into their sex lives as they do into their careers there would be a good deal more happiness in middle age. After all, why shouldn’t we make a real effort to have a successful love life? We aren’t eunuchs, and we may as well admit that.”

  “Hardly. But you can’t rationalise like that, David. A job or a career can be planned. But love can’t.”

  “No career is certain of success. We work and hope and aim for something; and often we get it. But we wouldn’t have a chance of getting it if we hadn’t done our best. For instance, if a man works hard at medical school he will probably be a good doctor some day; but no man becomes a doctor by just wishing to be one. That’s the point I am making. All I am saying is that if we looked at love that way we might have a better chance of success in it. And the proof that a lot of us aren’t successful in it is not very hard to find. How many burst-up marriages do you know, George? Isn’t it all a damned waste of energy and emotion?”

  George considered the fire thoughtfully. He said at last, “But we do think and worry about sex all the time. And where does it get us? Certainly not the sure success you believe in. Look, I bet sixty per cent of the human race think about sex and love more often than they think of anything else.”

  “Ninety per cent,” David said, “if you take into account all the disguised approaches.”

  “All right. Ninety per cent think about it, or purposely avoid thinking about it. And where does that get us?”

  “Just thinking about it isn’t a real solution. Surely there’s a happy medium somewhere, George, between those who think about sex too much, like some French politician with his string of mistresses, and those who avoid thinking about it and try to convert everyone else to be the same as they are. Surely it wasn’t meant to be abused by fools or cowards.”

  George frowned. And then he gave up trying to answer and said, “I see old MacIntyre’s words are taking root.”

  “What do you mean?” David asked quickly.

  “All that stuff he told you about living a complete life. Why, a week ago you sat on that very chair and told me that if a man was serious about his career he had no time to worry about women. Now you have reached the opinion that if love were taken as seriously as a career it would be a damned sight better for all of us. You aren’t by any chance thinking of taking your own advice, are you?”

  David laughed, and bent down to pick up his beer-mug from the floor. “It’s only talk,” he said, “talk for a grey day and a warm fireside. Besides,” he went on, his voice suddenly casual, “even if a man had an idea of how to be happy though young, in what way could he manage it? Tell me, George, suppose you found that Kitty, or Dorothy, or Phyllis, was just the girl you wanted for life, what would you do? No, old boy, no jokes. This is a serious question—at least, an interesting one. Would you make the effort to keep her, or would you just let her slip away because you knew it might be years before you were making enough to get married?”

  George stared. “Heaven help us if we got into that fix. Better not let yourself fall in love—seriously, that is—until you can afford it. If you believe in arranging your love life that would certainly be the first thing to remember.” He thought over that for a moment, and then added, “Here’s to the pretty girls who won’t take us seriously until we can afford it! Come on, drink up, David!”

  “No more for me at the moment, thanks,” David said, as he looked moodily at the fire. Then he roused himself, and said briskly, “What I need is a walk. Coming?”

  “In this weather? No, thank you. I’ll supply you with aspirin and a hot toddy when you get back.” George settled himself comfortably in his armchair, picked up a magazine, and began to inspect the lovelies of London so invitingly displaying their charms.

  David paused behind him, glanced over his shoulder. “Studying the disguised approach, I see.”

  Fenton-Stevens pointed to one photograph. “Not bad,” he said appraisingly. He studied the name underneath. “Good Lord, I’m supposed to know that girl. Well, the photographer certainly earned his money.”

  David looked critically at an ethereal blonde in her off-shoulder evening dress. “Not bad at all,” he agreed. “One more struggle and the lady will be free.”

  George was smiling as the door closed behind David. Thank Heaven, David was himself again. For a moment or two there, in that last half hour, George had begun to worry about him. A walk would probably do him good: liver or something.

  * * *

  David followed the path which led him through the gardens on to the moors. There it became a narrow track, a thin ribbon of bleached red gravel, skirting the edge of the granite cliffs through knee-high heather and low blackberry bushes. To his right was the sea in its grim grey mood. On his left were the rising hills, their crests still hidden by cloud. The mist along the sea-edge had lifted and given way to a drizzling rain.

  There had been no help from George, he thought. But then he had not asked for direct advice. In any case, what good would it have done? Every man had his own idea about life and what he wanted out of it. Happiness, yes: that was the general ambition. We all wanted to win happiness, but we all found very different ways of trying to reach it. Life wasn’t a neat, single track like this path along the cliffs. It was more like a twisting road shut in by high hedges, so that the view ahead was seldom clear—a road constantly broken by side-roads, with no signposts, either, to help you out. For direction you had to depend on your own questions and answers.

  He wasn’t even putting this question in his own mind openly to himself. He was disguising it with arguments and generalisations. The whole thing was ridiculous, anyway. People did not behave this way. Or perhaps they did, and kept it as their own secret. Certainly he had never felt like this before. That was what worried him most. His mind might keep telling him it was all ridiculous, an exaggeration, a delusion. But he didn’t believe it. All right, you want to see her again, he admitted.

  But how?

  That, he suddenly realised, was the real problem that was worrying him. He halted then, and stood for many minutes with the strong wind whipping his soaking raincoat around his legs. He stood listening to the strong, heavy blows of the waves against the cliff, falling away in front of him into the surging force of water. The perpetual thunder silenced even the high screams of the seagulls. Out to sea there was the long, dark shape of Inchnamurren.

  He stared at it; then he turned away abruptly and started back towards the Lodge.

  7

  DAVID MAKES UP HIS MIND

  That night, after the others had gone to bed, David Bosworth wrote two letters. The first was to his sister Margaret:

  Dear Meg,

  I shall definitely be home about the 8th of August, as we arranged. Work has been going quite well, and we have been fairly lucky in weather, so that I’ve collected a decent enough tan and stretched the old muscles over a hill or two. The boys are responding to wild curses, and I feel I’ve earned my money with them. I only hope Lady F.S. remembers that some people really need cash, and will send me the cheque in time to bring home as a tr
ophy. Then you can have your holiday before summer gives way to mists and mellow fruitfulness. I wish you could persuade Father to go with you. But if he doesn’t feel strong enough for the journey, then it is probably better to let him stay in London with me.

  Sorry to hear that you have all been sweltering for the last month. But two weeks...

  Here David stopped and considered. He had been six weeks up here. Meg would count them, comparing the difference subconsciously. She would also think of these six weeks as pure holiday: she didn’t consider that tutoring was work. At least, she had never admitted it. He remembered her last letter. How lucky he was... to have such a marvellous holiday in such a marvellous place... London was hateful at the moment; the heat-wave magnified all noise, and Father objected to the piano... He wasn’t too well, and this made things difficult... She felt too exhausted in any case, after nursing an invalid, housekeeping, and cooking, to enjoy playing the piano, far less teaching it to children.

  David carefully erased the words “two weeks.”

  But a holiday in Cornwall will cheer you up. I’ll look after Father and finish the rest of my reading.

  Tell Father I have some weird tales for him. I have been collecting them from one of the local chieftains, Captain MacLean by name. Did you know about the MacLeans? They are very proud, it seems. At the time of the Flood they snubbed Noah and had a boat of their own.

  I discovered some unusual Gaelic music, pentatonic and strangely sad. Lots of songs about the sea, naturally. The sea dirges are only to be sung by women, as if men weren’t supposed to get melancholy about all the drowned sailors. Good psychology this, however, considering the men had to do the sailing. They are allowed the reiving songs, though; all about the wine and women waiting for them on the mainland. (Can’t imagine what wine they drank in this part of the world, unless it was something like a mead made from heather honey. Sounds hardly worth reiving for.) I’ll try to get a copy of these songs for you on my way south.