The Ballad and the Source (47 page)

Miss Stay was saying:

‘My mother was a beauty. It was a mortal treat to see her dressed for the ball or it might be the opera. How she came to bring forth such an object as yours truly is one of life's enigmas. But she made the best of it! I never lacked for maternal love. “Now Clemmie never forget you have your own appeal,” she'd say. As Ellie mentioned I was a seventh child. All the rest stillborn or died young.
Povera Mama mia!
The only one to reach maturity was little Clementina. The last of the line. Just a skinny ginger now. Just a stringy featherless old fowl.'

‘Hey Hey Hey! Cheer up, old dear!' shouted the Captain. ‘Never say die! Tell me your past I'll tell you mine I don't think! There's life in the old dog yet y'know! Plenty of
staying
power!'

‘Oh Harold, what a
shocking
pun. Don't mind him Staycie dear, he's in one of his naughty moods.'

‘Aha?' cried Miss Stay in strong appreciation. ‘A joke! What a mortal treat it is to be among dearest chums and pass the joke around! And I know the Captain! He would never take advantage of a woman's thoughtless word. He's the perfect gentleman for all his wicked ways.'

‘Take advantage?—never! Pure in thought word and deed—that's me!'

‘And we are past all that, are we not, Captain dear? Casting sheep's eyes … canoodling in the moonlight. All our youthful peccadilloes, all behind us. No more beaux for Miss Clementina. Just an old stay-at-home, that's what she is, contented with her lot.'

‘What what? Another pun? Didn't you hear my lady wife? Punning strictly forbidden on these premises.'

‘Oh, and it slipped off my tongue quite unawares!' marvelled Miss Stay. ‘It's a shame I do declare to be taken up so quick. And it was nothing but a case of tit for tat.'

‘Let you off lightly this time. Shilling in the collecting box, Temperance mission to sailors. Come on, come on!' He extended a puffy hirsute paw with a tremor in it.

‘I'm sorry to tell you, Mrs …' said Mrs Cunningham gracefully lighting a cigarette, ‘my spouse has somewhat of the bully in him. If you had had the misfortune to be married to such a brute for over twenty years you would know better than to try anything in the nature of—well, tit for tat. That would never answer. His ideal is the slave woman.'

‘That's right! Give 'em stick! They thrive on it.'

‘Will you listen to the man? Fawning—crawling on hands and knees—that is his notion of a woman's place. Ladies, are we to take it lying down?'

‘Abser-lutely! Ver-ry nicely put! Ask nothing better! Hach hach hach!'

Miss Stay collapsed, gripping her bowed head in both horny hands, uttering moans expressive of mingled protest and delight. Perhaps acknowledging a limit to permitted badinage, the Captain heaved himself up and seized his walking stick.

‘Ah well! Time for my constitutional. Just chunter along to the store—stocks need replenishing I fancy. So long girls, chin chin! Don't get into mischief. Any bridge tonight?'

Not waiting for an answer, he took a large canvas bag from a peg on the wall, whistled to his dog, went limping down the verandah steps and disappeared.

‘Don't be late. Supper will spoil,' his wife called after him; adding after a moment: ‘He won't have heard. He's getting very deaf.' She sighed. ‘It's a problem how to tempt his appetite. He simply
pecks.
You wouldn't credit it in such a powerful build of man. It's the drink, I fear me. Would you call him a very heavy drinker, Staycie?'

Miss Stay gave herself pause before declaring upon a note compounded of the staunch and the judicial: ‘I would say the Captain is partial to his drink. Exceptionally partial. But never have I seen him what you might truly call the worse. Never! What that man can put down while keeping on his legs is a mortal marvel. Sometimes with a drinking man the liver takes its toll. My own dear father succumbed—oh dear dear dear! Mark my words, Ellie, drink will never get the better of the Captain. All honour to you for your care of him. All the same, the man must be blessed with a champion specimen of liver.'

‘Well. . . I keep out of his way some mornings,' objected Mrs Cunningham, smoothing away a little frown with the tips of her plump tapering fingers. ‘He's a bit on the morose side.'

‘Take no notice!' cried her friend. ‘The man's leg might be playing him up dear, remember that. No—by and large, I do declare, if it came to matrimony I would never boggle at a drinking man. There's a masculine appeal …What says our visitor? Would she agree?'

‘Well … I haven't much experience of—of drinking men. They can be a bit—a bit boring, don't you think? They repeat themselves … or want to quarrel, or …'

‘Ah, when the dividing line is crossed!—that is another story.' Spasmodic twitches registered her sense of the need for delicate discrimination. Gazing towards the shore, Ellie murmured, as one speaking on the verge of sleep:

‘Oh, I take no notice. That's married life, isn't it? —give and take. His leg does play him up. I wish he had more to occupy his mind—he gets so restless. But men are restless aren't they? —more so than women. It's their nature.'

‘Ah, women are the givers, that's the way of it. They were created to apply the balm.'

‘Well, not always they don't.' A light mischievous chuckle issued from the throat of Mrs Cunningham. ‘I do rub him up the wrong way now and then. On purpose.'

‘A calculated risk!' declared Miss Stay.

‘He's somewhat primitive.' The chuckle came again. ‘I often recall what Mummy said to me when we got engaged. “Well Ellie,” she said, “you are taking on a man with hidden depths. He's a man to put the woman he has chosen on a pedestal. Should she topple off she'd rue the day.”'

‘Oh, you'd never do that dear! Never!'

‘Well, I'd never be a doormat. He knew that from the beginning.'

‘The man worships you.'

Still reminiscent, Mrs Cunningham continued:

‘I was a flirt, I must confess. I
could not
make my mind up.'

‘So many admirers!'

‘Ah well. . . Everyone spoilt me. And with Harold there was the age difference. But Mummy thought that was all to the good. You see,'—addressing the visitor—‘she kept it from me but she knew her days were numbered. She wanted to see me settled.'

‘Security for her one ewe lamb!'

‘Oh, security? Sometimes I wonder about security—where is it? The more we seek it the more … But yes, that was her idea. So we had a very quiet wedding. And afterwards she said with such a smile: “Now Ellie, remember, when the Call comes I'm ready.”' Her face worked, her voice failed, went on shakily: ‘That was the first hint, to prepare me, but I didn't take it in. Harold knew, she'd told him, but he'd promised her not to break it to me suddenly. He simply adored Mummy … and we shared the nursing right to the very end. Three months and she was gone. He was wonderful, I will say. Of course she's very often with me—oh! very often. I tell it by the perfume she leaves—white roses, her favourites. And I sometimes think her going when she did was for the best. It would have grieved her when no grandchild came along. Believe it or not, Mrs … I haven't a single relative in the wide wide world, apart from a second cousin somewhere. It's the same on Harold's side. We're a pair of lone lorn orphans.' After a pause she added: ‘Not that Harold ever wanted children.'

‘Oh, as to that dear you must not repine. It was God's will for you in this life.'

‘Oh, no doubt it was meant. I was delicate as a girl. Harold said from the first he'd never let me risk it. And starting married life out East … Oh, that was such a jolly life! Waited on hand and foot—so much going on, such a cheery crowd, always someone dropping in, dances galore, theatricals … I had some lovely friends. The war put paid to that gay life, of course. Harold threw up his job, he was getting to the top, and back we came. We both did our bit. After he went out to France in the REs I worked in a canteen, all through. It was hard, but there were some jolly times, so much
esprit de corps.
I daresay you were still in the schoolroom Mrs …'

Her voice ran down, she yawned, lapsed into silence. The rocking chair creaked, creaked. The visitor's hand started again to make scarcely perceptible movements on her lap, simulating rapid writing.
Now now steady on,
wrote the hand,
come come keep smiling smile awhile this is called free association very therapeutic. What on earth is going on where am I who are they??? Come come no crying now take
a deep breath it'll all come right I am so lonely nonsense nonsense
s
tick to facts observe surroundings observe Miss Stay she's
made of clay dried clay and wire she wears a shingle cap pink silk
net with strings tied beneath her scrawny chin why does she does
she never take it off is it functional to tether a wig perhaps is it
a wig such a curious colour or is it meant to add the final piquant
touch??? I made one observation on the boat elderly people look a sad sad sight asleep puffing their lips out sagging so down in the mouth down and out done for LOST PROPERTY NO ONE WILL EVER CLAIM IT now stop that don't be like Bobby morbid think about lovely sleep sleep that knits up the ravelled sleep and forgetting forgetting think about children asleep—at
home in their sleep drowned fathoms deep exposed and safe like
fruit and flowers under glass think about water lilies on dark water
now folds the lily think of moss-feather cocooning birds' nests think of chestnuts cream-dappled golden-brown moulded firm into hard
green caskets lined with whitest softest spun silk substance DELICIOUS SIGHT that's better hold on to that dwell on things beautiful indifferent that lizard now those palm trees tossing in the moonlight leaning all together mop heads edged with silver lifting falling
. . .
Those women are asleep I think not noticing me thank goodness shall I write my dream down no I can't let's see if I remember it.
She closed her eyes. Her hand lay still. Last night's dream pieced itself together.

A vast seashore flashed open suddenly: abstract of loved, played-on shores of childhood, the tide far out, cobbles and shingle sloping to tawny sand with ripples in its surface, the light strange, sunless. A girl on a pony galloping from nowhere, a girl with long fair plaits, recognised but different; and the pony half-familiar. Riding, almost flying, with joyful expectation, to reach the sea. Then girl and pony vanish; there is no more buoyant riding, no more shining sea. A hateful shrubbery builds up before her, undergrowth choked with dull dusty spiny thick-fleshed plants and shrubs; everything parched, starving, thirsty. A voice calls: ‘Look at the tree!' And there, all at once, in the midst of that poisoned vegetable obstruction the tree appears, tall, slender, delicate as in a Japanese print. Its crown breaks out in blossom, snowy, rose-flushed. It shoots a branch out, and on this branch a bird: a bird with a jewelled crest and iridescent feathers. A Bird of Paradise. A voice says: ‘Love Bird!' She stretches out a hand. It bends its head and pecks with a cruel beak; vanishes. A voice says: ‘This tree must be cut down. It's dead.' She cries out: ‘No! No!'—starts up awake, in terror.

Appalled all over again, she opened her eyes, looked wildly round to find Miss Stay gazing at her from the depths of hooded eye-sockets and murmuring:

‘It's a mortal treat to see a fair woman in this corner of the globe. I love to see a fair-skinned woman. Lovers galore on her travels, I'll be bound!'

‘Wait till the gay lads see you!' cried Mrs Cunningham with a light laugh. ‘Not that they're … but they do appreciate artistic types. Trevor will want to photograph you, as sure as eggs. And you'll be a treat for Johnny. Between you and I, Johnny is my dream lover. But you'll cut me out, I fear me.'

‘Oh no … I'm not … you're quite wrong, I'm not … I haven't been feeling very well …'

Tears spurted uncontrollably, streamed down her face. Mrs Cunningham leaned forward and gently dabbed at them with a tiny lace-edged handkerchief.

‘What a shame dear. I thought you seemed a wee bit down. Not that you look it. All she needs is making a bit of fuss of, doesn't she Staycie? We'll see to it you'll soon pick up.'

‘Thank you. Very kind … I'm sorry to be so …'

‘Say something, Staycie!' cried Mrs Cunningham surprisingly.

Miss Stay said nothing, but remained with her head sunk on her chest as if in meditation. Her curious contours seemed to alter, to become stilled, imposing. Presently she shook her head dejectedly, uttered a deep sigh. In the ensuing silence something seemed to be concluded. The visitor wiped away the last of her tears and felt her throat unlock. Mrs Cunningham started to hum the dance tune that came floating, throbbing down from the hill across the bay; broke off to remark:

‘That tune is packed with sex. It makes me feel quite funny.'

‘Packed with sex it is!' agreed her friend with fervour. ‘Ah, there'll be some canoodling going on up there, no doubt of that! There's a time to dance, a time to—a time for all things in God's blessed world. But give me one of the old songs dear for personal choice.
Annie Laurie
now, or
Barbara Allen.
'Twould be a mortal treat to hear your sweet true voice.'

But Mrs Cunningham stopped humming and said almost with indignation: ‘No, Staycie, no. I've forgotten
all
my songs. I'm quite ashamed to hear myself. You may not credit it, my dear, but once upon a time I was urged, positively urged, to take up a professional career. Mr Barstow was all for it—Rex Barstow, my teacher, you may have heard of him. A musician to his finger tips and such a charming man. When I broke it to him I was getting married he went quite speechless. The veins in his forehead stood out—I was startled. He was a married man, getting on for fifty. I always felt somehow there wasn't much sympathy between his wife and him.'