Let Me Alone (26 page)

It soon became apparent that Matthew’s carefully laid plans had miscarried again. It was strange what a demon of inefficiency always stalked alongside his most elaborate scheming.

The steward looked up their berth numbers which turned out to be widely separated. Matthew had been allotted a share in a deck cabin with three other men; Anna was to share with another woman, somewhere in the bowels of the ship. Imagine the way Matthew had been looking forward to getting Anna to himself in a small cabin, and you realize the extent of the disaster for him.

He was infuriated. He stopped quite still, blocking up the narrow passage where they happened to be. He was almost bursting with rage. He clenched his fists: his eyes
went hot and dangerous: and he would not listen to the steward who was explaining that the boat was very crowded and that many married people were obliged to separate.

‘It’s a mistake,’ he said, in a tone of loud indignation. ‘A preposterous mistake. My cabin was booked long ago.’

He stood with clenched fists, blocking up the way. The steward watched him with a helpless face. Anna winced in discomfort and tried to urge him along. Was he going to stand there for ever? People were waiting to pass. Suddenly there came a thump. Matthew had snatched his bag from the steward and dropped it on the floor. He turned round in solemn wrath.

‘I shall go to the chief steward,’ he said. ‘I refuse to be put upon in this disgraceful manner.’ Whereupon he marched off, in a fine fume of indignation.

Anna followed behind, not knowing what else to do.

The chief steward, or whoever it was who had the final word in these matters, was sitting behind a table. He was a big, red-faced Scotchman, rather bossy and overbearing.

‘Well, what can I do for you?’ he began largely, seeing the irate Matthew bearing down upon him. He began by being lordly and condescending towards the complaint. ‘But, my dear sir, there is nothing I can do. The boat is as full as an egg.’ He smiled in a curious spiteful way, showing his teeth like a dog that wants a fight.

‘You must do something. I insist on having the matter put right.’ Matthew was furious. But he was on his dignity in front of the Scotchman, very much the Government Official before the paid employee of a shipping company. ‘It’s a disgrace to the line.’ He stared hotly at the other man. ‘I demand to be given proper accommodation!’

As Matthew became angrier and more official, Anna
became more and more uncomfortable. The Scotchman sat behind his table, secure, with the smirking, unpleasant smile on his red face.

‘Don’t you hear what I say?’ Matthew exploded, beginning to bluster.

But the other only sat there, as it were behind the security of his position, and looked back at Matthew with the insolent smile on his face and a nasty glint in his eye.

‘I won’t stand it!’ Matthew’s hands were jerking dangerously.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to,’ came from the Scotchman.

Anna watched the two men: Matthew, whose ungovernable rages she knew and despised: the other, whose bossiness was stronger than his anger, and his caution stronger still. She realized that the Scotchman was more dangerous than Matthew. He was sure of his backing. And though he might have the devil’s own temper, he would never lose sight of caution. Whereas Matthew’s rages were incontinence, pure and simple.

She took hold of his sleeve.

‘Come along,’ she said, in her cold way, that subdued him. ‘It’s no good arguing.’ And she walked him off, stiffly, feeling as though she had a vicious dog on the end of her chain.

For the moment she had him under control, all right. But her paramountcy was very precarious.

So Anna went to the cabin which she was sharing in the depths of the ship, near the ladies’ bathrooms, where it was dark and stuffy, with a hot curious smell of oil and steamy salt water. She was truly thankful to have been let off sharing a cabin with Matthew. It seemed as though the Lord were on her side in this respect.

She was getting used to scenes like this with Matthew.
He seemed always to be making them. And she was always looking on, hiding her chilly discomfort under a disdainful front, and marching him off, if possible, before very much harm had been done. She felt rather ashamed of her association with him. And her nerves were very much on edge.

To calm herself, she pottered about in the cramped little cubicle, which was dismal in spite of the burning light, unpacking a few things and tidying her hair. Then up she went, through the tunnel-like passages, past groups of excited people, up to the crowded deck, and so into the light of day again.

Here was a great to-do. People with luggage; people with children; people angry, cheerful, flustered, calm; people in a hurry; people with nothing to do. People hung over the rail, watching what went on. Or they called out jokingly to each other. Or they stood in groups talking to their friends and getting in the way. A man on shore was playing ancient tunes on a battered old fiddle –
Auld Lang Syne
and out-of-date English songs,
Tipperary
and the old war songs – to please the English people. Occasionally someone threw him a coin over the side, and he scrambled for it with the men who sold carpets and binoculars and deck-chairs. There was a queer, unreal, excited feeling in the air.

Anna looked round for Rex Findlay. But of course she couldn’t see him. Impossible to find anyone in this confusion. She walked aimlessly towards the stern of the boat, pushing through the chattering crowd. And then she saw him, smoking a cigarette near the door of the wireless cabin, where there was a little quietude. He seemed to have found a quiet space for himself in the midst of the lively, excitable muddle.

‘So you have really appeared,’ Findlay was saying to her. She moved towards him. He stood with the cigarette drooped carelessly from the ends of his fingers, intent on the casual and yet close observation of the scene. And his mouth had the peculiar pale smile, like an emotional sign which only she could interpret. For a moment, she felt the new thrill in her blood as she looked at him, watching his mouth. She wondered what he was thinking. He spoke so unrevealingly. They stood and looked at the crowd.

‘Are you glad to be going out East?’ she asked, smiling, and glancing at his face. He took a puff at his cigarette. She watched him inhale the smoke and blow it out slowly, so very slowly, between his wide, smooth lips. Still she waited for him, and still he made no response.

‘Are you glad?’ she urged. ‘Do you want to go?’

He shrugged his shoulders this time: and contracted the corners of his mouth in a dubious way. Then he went back to his irresponsible, rather roguish smile.

‘It gives one to think. It gives one furiously to think,’ he said, looking round at the people.

‘It does indeed,’ laughed Anna. And she too threw bright glances of mockery at their fellow-passengers. She understood that he was disparaging them.

The muddle on board sorted itself out by degrees as the voyage began. But the boat was very crowded, so there still remained a certain confusion. Naturally, the chief steward had a down on Matthew and Anna. He was able to inflict on them various minor discomforts. Owing to the number of passengers, meals were served in two relays: the Kavans were drafted into the second division amongst the young bachelors and the less important folk, where the food was always scrappy and cold. And they
were obliged to sit at an inferior table, right at the edge of the saloon. These things annoyed Matthew exceedingly. He took them as so many direct insults, aimed at him, personally; which, in a way, they were. And he went about in a fever of resentment, airing his grievances on every occasion, suitable or not.

The weather was rather bad at first. Anna felt that all her life she would remember the cold, grey, heavy weather, the weird, purgatorial existence on the slowly heaving ship, evening coming on, and the cold vista of deck—like a nightmare hospital ward – with rows of prone, shrouded figures, and someone passing and passing, lurching and staggering as from a wound. There was a bull on board, travelling in a great crate near the stern. And the smell of this animal, and of its sickness, and the look of its evil, reddish eye, inflamed with insane, villainous resentment, peering out of the wooden crate under the shock of shaggy, curly hair – so like a certain type of man – were also things that she would never forget.

As they neared Port Said the storms cleared off and the sun came out again like a god stepping up the sky, stepping out of the heavily-heaving waves. The spirit of the ship changed. From being a hospital ward the deck became a playground. Children ran and shouted everywhere. There was a feverish outburst of dancing and deck games.

Matthew and Anna went ashore with the Bretts and a number of other acquaintances whom Matthew had collected. A new side of Matthew’s character had been appearing lately on the ship. He had come out as a social success. Perhaps ‘success’ is rather an over-statement. But he certainly seemed to get on very well. Especially with the ladies. There was something of the ladies’ man
about him, now that he was with his own kind – really rather lady-killing. But all perfectly innocuous, unexceptionable. He never went further than a sort of chaste badinage, touched now and then with just a trace of wistfulness. He was like a polite schoolboy, so cheerful and neat and nicely mannered, hanging round the ladies and feeding on the sweets of their appreciation. He fetched books and cushions for them, played games with them and allowed them to win, told innocently naughty stories that made them giggle, and played with their children. All this without losing for a moment his strange, stiff, wooden inhumanness. And occasionally, just once in a while, he allowed the pathetic look of reverence to appear; so appealing. He did so love the maternal, Madonna quality in a woman, which Anna, of course, conspicuously lacked. He wanted to bow down and worship it. And the ladies were all in a flutter of motherliness over him.

With the men he didn’t get on quite so well. He tried to be a jolly good fellow, and drank with them in the bar. But it didn’t quite go down. There was always a false note ringing somewhere. His fellow males rather edged away from him, not hostile exactly, but faintly contemptuous, as though they despised his methods. Perhaps they thought him unmanly.

And Anna, a regular fish out of water, watched all these goings-on with straight, astonished eyes, feeling thoroughly lost.

She was a bit disappointed herself over young Findlay. She had hoped so much from him in a vague, indefinite, untranslatable way. But nothing materialized. She saw quite a lot of him. He lent her books and sat beside her and walked with her; the endless, monotonous prowl
round and round the deck. He was charming and amusing. But elusive. They never seemed to get any further.

And, most disheartening aspect of the case, he seemed quite unaware that there was any further to get. He was perfectly happy just strolling and chatting carelessly with Anna. But she felt any other fairly intelligent, fairly attractive girl would have done equally well.

However, Rex Findlay came ashore with them at Port Said. He was a little bit eccentric in his dress, going about without a coat in his soft woollen cardigans, smoky blues, and russets, so soft and close, like a bird’s plumage, now that the weather was warmer. The strait-laced matrons and the formal, stiff-collared Britishers turned up their noses.

‘So slovenly,’ they murmured. And thought it bad for British prestige. If his dress was casual his morals probably were too – so they implied.

The young man himself was rather amused. Of course, he was quite aware of the general opinion. And equally, of course, he didn’t care a straw. Like a tall, elegant bird, with his firm, smooth, smoke-coloured breast, he stepped delicately up and down, amongst the drab, conventional flock. He decked himself out, when he felt inclined, and carelessly flaunted his soft-toned splendours, rather like a high-stepping, whimsical bird.

Upon Port Said a bright sun shone. Anna went ashore pleased and smiling. Findlay walked beside her. They were all dining together. How firm, how pleasant was the solid land! In the warm African winter sunshine she went ashore, to the noisy, vivid town, she smelled the East and felt the quality of the sun, the faces thronging about were dark and fantastic, everywhere was the intense novelty of a new continent, full of unexpected sights and
sounds. She sensed the proximity of the East, it seemed to await her with heavy significance behind the town. In the dusty air came the strange suggestion, the light was the winter outpouring of a fiercer sun, the crude scarlets and blues and the white dazzle of walls were the fringes and decoration of a gayer and more exotic garment.

The bells of the little two-horse carriage jingled as they drove. Anna looked gaily at everything, Findlay included. But he was rather bird-like and remote. She was conscious of his softly glowing breast.

‘Isn’t it fun?’ she said to him.

‘Yes,’ he said. But he did not come near. He seemed to have flown off blithely to the top of a tree.

The driving, and the dinner at the hotel that evening passed rapidly, like a dream. Anna felt dazzled. She saw only the faces of the natives, the new glow of colour. But sometimes she glanced at Findlay’s face, which was the one that pleased her.

As the evening went on, she was aware of some intention fixed upon her. Someone was willing her. Some secret, silent influence was centred upon her, urging her, intently, in some unknown direction. She looked up and met the blue eyes of Matthew fastened upon her.

‘The East begins here,’ he said to her, when the party broke up, and she found herself suddenly stranded, alone with him in one of the jingling carriages. She looked, and saw the black, domed sky arching over her head. And her heart dilated; she felt the great black dome in her heart. She sat under the stars, worshipping them. Her heart opened and grew vast, until the whole sky with all its stars began to pour into her, a mysterious flood of star-strung darkness. She wanted to receive the night sky into her heart. But Matthew sat beside her, an intruder,
weighing upon her. His hard, round head was like a stone lying on her heart. He was insentient, and he weighed her down. She wanted to escape him. But he sat beside her like a stone, immovable, senseless, assailing her with the blind, indestructible, stony weapon of his obstinate will. If only she could get away from him to be alone with the starry night.