Odd Girl Out (33 page)

‘We what?’

‘Behave naturally, I suppose.’

‘Behaving naturally, would be me kissing you when I felt like it, and you don’t mean that, do you?’

Anne looked at her nervously. She seems to want to
quarrel
with me! she thought incredulously. ‘No: of course I don’t mean that. But Edmund
is
very fond of you, and he
is
coming home, and he always makes a sort of celebration of that. He’ll think I don’t care, if he feels I haven’t taken any trouble, even if he didn’t give us much
notice.’

‘And you do care, don’t you?’

Anne went to her where she was stooped upon the kitchen floor sweeping the broken pieces of the pudding-basin very slowly into the dustpan. She put her hands on Arabella’s shoulders, and
pulled her up. When standing, Arabella was far taller than she, and now her arms were stretched above her round Arabella’s neck. ‘I don’t know
what
I feel. All I know is
that we’ve got to try and make everything normal and unsurprising.
You
know what I mean.’

After Len’s visit, Arabella certainly did. She bent to kiss Anne and for a second each wanted the other very badly, but because this feeling was mutual, it was possible for them to feel
like that and stop feeling like it.

Arabella said, ‘You’re perfectly right, of course! We
will
do it all together.’

At this moment, Ariadne trotted into the kitchen with a shrew in her mouth. ‘A really rotten contribution,’ Arabella said, expertly prising open Ariadne’s jaws and taking the
shrew from her. ‘They simply make you sick or thin. A bad example to your children,’ she scolded, putting the shrew into the rubbish bin, while Ariadne watched with burning
resentment.

So they picked the raspberries, made the fish salad, put the
œufs en gelée
into the fridge and made a large, rambling rose arrangement for the sitting-room. At the end of
this there was still no sign of Edmund.

‘Perhaps we’d better have baths and change. Wear that lovely white trouser suit you bought in London.’ (Mrs Gregory had carefully washed and stretched it and ironed it until it
was almost as good as new.)

‘Oh no. I’m sick of it. I’ll find something.’

‘I love you in it.’

‘I’ll find something.’

But Anne had bathed and had changed far faster than Arabella, and as Edmund had still not arrived, she turned up in Arabella’s bedroom to persist so much about the trouser suit that
Arabella thought, what the hell, and agreed to wear it. He probably won’t remember it even, she thought: in her experience, few men actually remembered clothes.

She had been sick again while having her bath, and when Anne suggested that she make her Martini with cucumber juice, etc., Arabella said that she would, but that what
she
wanted was some
brandy. Anne, wearing a navy-blue voile dress with an enormous white collar, looked far more as she had when Arabella first saw her. But then, they had spent the last five weeks in shorts, in
jeans, in bathing dresses and in nothing at all.

One reason why she decided upon the trouser suit was that it was very comfortable: and she felt the need of that. She had washed her hair because being sick made her feel so dirty, and now she
thought that some make-up would be a good thing. Make-up, for Arabella, was rather a taking-up-action-stations affair. It buoyed her up: made her feel that she could not cry because her mascara
would smudge and she would look silly when she felt least like it. She also used a great deal of scent. She lined her eyes with pale grey, brushed her eyelashes with several layers of black,
plucked her eyebrows which she kept rather thin and arched, and put on a dark, clear, rather greasy lipstick. She drank the brandy that Anne brought up to her while she was doing this, and as Anne
stayed to watch her make up she said, ‘You see, I
am
trying: dressing up for the returning traveller.’

They both heard his car at the same moment, before it had turned into the drive. They looked at each other with some mute, passionate appeal for support, and then Anne went downstairs to greet
her husband.

Arabella heard distant apologies for his lateness – something about having to fetch the car in London – and Anne’s laughing disclaimer that it didn’t matter in the least.
She heard something about Anne saying Sunday traffic was awful, and they moved out of earshot; to get drinks, Arabella thought. Better get on with it, she said to herself, and, finishing her
brandy, went down with the glass in her hand.

When she entered the sitting-room, Edmund and Anne were raising their glasses to each other, and both turned to her as she stood in the doorway.

Anne felt nothing but tremendous relief at the sight of her: she had discovered that she was truly glad to be seeing darling Edmund again: she also realized, seeing her, that she also loved
Arabella. She had the two people she loved most in the world present. She finished her drink and felt wonderful.

The moment that he saw Arabella, Edmund realized that the last few weeks with their adventures – sexual and otherwise -made not one whit of difference. She is wearing that suit on purpose,
he thought, with mounting excitement: it must mean that she, too, feels as I do: that parting made no difference at all – has simply accentuated what had not time to be resolved before.

‘My dear Arabella,’ he said, with what he felt to be admirable aplomb, ‘how wonderful you look. Have a drink quickly, and catch us up.’

‘I’ve had one already – so it is not a question of catching up but, yes, I would like another.’

As she moved towards him, expecting a cousinly kiss from Edmund, she noticed his knuckles white round his glass and moved aside.

‘Arabella, for reasons best known to herself, is drinking brandy,’ Anne said.

‘Wicked Arbell.’ It came out without his meaning it to or thinking about it.

‘
Arbell?
’

‘I told Edmund once that sometimes I am called that.’ Arabella took the cigarette she did not want from Edmund and moved away from him.

‘You never told
me?
’

‘Dear Anne, you never asked me. I think I did, though. There’s no secret about it – no secret at all.’

She went through the motions of explaining this arrangement of her name while Edmund got himself and Anne Martinis, and Arabella her brandy.

‘Tell us about Greece,’ Anne said.

‘Greece was extraordinary, and now I am home, seems quite unreal.’ Edmund looked so frantically round the room when he said this, that Anne asked, ‘Nothing has been changed
here: is that nice – or nasty?’

‘Oh – nice, of course. What coming home should be,’ he said mechanically, and trying not to remember Arabella by the lake. She wouldn’t be
wearing
that suit if she
didn’t care, he thought. We must both be very careful: the evening must go with its usual swing – if that is the word for it.

They ate in the kitchen: Edmund duly admired and deplored the kittens. ‘I hope they haven’t been allowed to monopolize your room?’ he asked Arabella, who answered, ‘Oh
no, we managed quite well. But now they are sleeping in the scullery.’

At dinner, Edmund talked disjointedly, and rather boringly, about Greece. About every twenty minutes, he recollected himself and asked what sort of time they had been having. The answers to
this, mostly given by Anne, were dull and satisfactory. She had been ill. She was getting better. Arabella had looked after her like an angel (she said this not looking at Arabella). Dr Travers had
now pronounced her fit for general society. Len had been down for a night.

‘Oh?’ Edmund said. Then turning to Arabella: What did you think of her?
I’m
quite sure she’s a lesbian. Not that I mind that in the least,’ he added
generously. ‘I simply think Anne is too blind, or too partisan or whatever, to realize it.’

‘Edmund,’ Anne said, as she had always said when this topic arose, ‘what on earth makes you think that? I told you about Gordon. It was terrible for her. She never got over it.
I do think it is frightfully unfair, if women are faithful to one love in their lives, and he dies, they should be branded lesbian just because they get on with their work alone.’

‘I’ve told you, I’m not against lesbians: I think they’re probably rather exciting. All I’ve ever said, is that I think Len is one. What do you think?’

Arabella, with no hesitation, answered, ‘I think you’re wrong. I don’t think she is one. But I don’t think it is a very easy category to put people into or out
of.’

Here was a silence. Edmund spooned up the rest of his raspberries; he felt that at all costs he could not embark upon a serious argument with Arabella. He felt too violently about her, and was
too confounded at discovering this to do more than exchange practicalities or platitudes.

It is always easy to lower the level of any conversation, and as, on this occasion, nobody had the nerve or desire to elevate it, it transpired that by the time they got to coffee nobody had
anything at all to say.

Music, as so often, was the way out. Edmund suggested it: he was wondering how on earth he was going to manage a credible night in bed with Anne, and he decided that a great deal of drink and
loud enough music would let him out. For tonight. The next day – or indeed any days to follow – he simply could not bear to contemplate. So they listened to sixteen Scarlatti sonatas.
During this time, they all drank a good deal, Edmund more than both women put together, and far more than he usually drank. Anne noticed this in the end, with a small, half protesting, half
indulgent smile. It was the indulgence that he didn’t like, Edmund thought, supposing that he had never really noticed it before, forgetting that it had been one of Anne’s attributes he
had basked in. It made him feel as though he was a child; hardly old enough to make up his own mind, or with nothing serious to make up his mind about. By God, that was wrong.

‘Darling, as you’re still convalescent, oughtn’t you to go to bed?’ He realized that he had to be careful how he said ‘convalescent’.

‘Well – fairly soon – I’ll just put the kittens to bed, or rather shut them up in the scullery for the night.’

Arabella said at once, ‘I’ll do that.’

‘No, darling, you stay and talk to Edmund: I’ve got to leave some supper for Ariadne as well.’ And she moved with her small, light steps out of the room.

Anne, thank God, always shut doors behind her: it was a lifelong habit, and had nothing to do with privacy or the time of year. Edmund looked at Arabella. She was sitting on the arm of the big
armchair, one foot swinging, a single lock of hair hiding part of her face.

‘Arabella!’ he began – but she interrupted him in a resolutely childish voice:

‘One of the kittens – the stripey one – hasn’t the slightest idea of what size it is. It thinks it is a tiger, and we should all be in a state of terror.’

‘If you knew how much I’ve wanted you,’ for he was confused enough one way and another to feel that if he wanted her so desperately
now,
he
must
have been wanting
her all the time in Greece without realizing it. It was one of the many things of this kind that people say to each other that are neither true, nor untrue.

Arabella looked as though it was untrue.
‘Wanted
me?’ she asked, conveying at the same time astonishment and complete incredulity.

‘Oh more than that – I – ’He had an inspiration: ‘I’m going to find some dance music on the radio, so that I can hold you in my arms and we’ll be
dancing if Anne comes back.’

Before she could say anything, he had turned the knob, and – just like a play – actually found some dance music at once. He turned to her: she had risen defensively and was looking
at him rather as though she was at bay. I mustn’t frighten her, he thought, as he remembered more exactly how she had made him feel. She is very very young, compared with me: must keep
remembering that. ‘It is you who have caught me,’ he said, holding out his hand to her. ‘Not I you.’

She put her – very cold – hand into his, and he drew her to him and began to dance, hardly moving on the carpet. He bent to kiss her neck; she smelled of the scent he had forgotten
and now remembered – it obscured her own smell that he knew he had loved and could not now remember. Her dancing with him, her total passivity, her not speaking or kissing him back or even
looking at him, made everything seem like a dream. He touched the little square end of her chin with his hand and tilted it up to him, so that for a second their eyes did meet: her eyes seemed
enormous and they looked at him as though she was blind. ‘Darling Arbell. Don’t be so frightened; there is nothing to be afraid of. I will look after you: you must love me a little too,
or you wouldn’t be wearing what you are wearing. I won’t rush you. I want you too much to risk anything.’

The dance changed from the Blues to a quickstep: far more difficult to dance upon a carpet, and not suited at all to his mood. But he could not bear to let her go: he was an old-fashioned
dancer, but in spite of this, she followed him perfectly – her body melting, but like ice, in his arms. If she was happy – or more sure of herself – she would be humming this
tune, or at least the catch phrase of it, ‘That’s why the lady is a tramp’, but she made no sound, and seemed almost to be shrinking – or to be becoming more insubstantial
with each movement they made.

Anne came into the room towards the end of the piece. ‘That’s why the lady is a tramp,’ she sang. ‘You
do
look good at it: a pair of pros.’

Instantly, Edmund felt a fool. Better than being caught out, as it were, but in his state, only just.

Anne went on, ‘Isn’t it a pity they don’t seem to invent dances for three people?’

Arabella slipped from Edmund’s arms. ‘You dance with him: it’s your turn.’

But the quickstep came to an end as Anne advanced into the room towards Edmund, to be followed by something much newer.

‘You dance this without touching people,’ Arabella said, and began dancing – not with Edmund, but rather at him. Edmund tried to respond, but he neither knew nor wanted to know
how to – and Anne, who had reached him by now, put herself firmly into his grasp. Together, they danced, but the music was not right for either of them, and they soon abandoned the mutually
self-conscious efforts they had both made. At once, Arabella stopped, and they all three stood, with the music going on, as though they had all become frozen in some ludicrous TV advertisement.