The Bazaar and Other Stories (32 page)

¹¹
He collected, he indexed aesthetic experience, though
rapture had never flowered in his precise mind.

Benjie saw no reason to change his shirt: how much simpler it was
to avoid his mother. He left the hotel and made for the market
square, where he stared at objects aggressively. He was twelve, man
enough to feel an angry vacuity: he hoped never to cross the English
Channel again. Kicking an apple drearily past the stalls till it rolled
under an old Renault parked by the kerb, he missed Tom’s company.
He sidled into a garage yard and stood silently watching two silent
mechanics: here his contempt for the French lifted a little. With an
obscure feeling of outrage he saw his mother, her pink nightdress
slipping off her shoulder, running her hand up Tom’s stiff arm,
saying: “You won’t.” The voluptuous delicacy of women, embodied
in her, antagonised him: he would rather have had a grim aunt who
scrubbed his ears. Wait till I am in the army, Benjie thought.

Two nuns streamed past with a sanctimonious bustle. Avoiding
their stuffy skirts, Benjie walked head on into Theodore, coming
from the cathedral, eupeptic,

¹²
bland.

“Hullo,” Theodore said. “Do you know what’s been decided?”
“The car won’t be ready,” Benjie said, with some triumph.
“Tut,” Theodore said. “However . . .” They unwillingly turned,

together, up a cobbled side street.

 

“You’re pretty bored, are you?” said Theodore.

 

“Well, there’s nothing to do, much.”

 

Theodore expanded a quick smile that Benjie, walking with eyes

on the cobbles, doggedly, felt. “Cricket?” said Theodore. “Trains?
Other chaps? Or what? Why not have left you behind? She likes
having you round, what?”

“She thinks because it’s my holidays . . .”

shoulders and shook his forelock back. Theodore with the smile in
his tone went on: “And Tom quite a father too, in his way.”

 

“She’s very devoted.”

 

Benjie, striding with his fists in his pockets, wriggled his

“I dunno,” said Benjie, “I’ve never had one.”

 

“Still, you’ve a lot in common.”

 

“He hasn’t got much time, much . . . Gosh,” Benjie said, “these

nuns here. What they must sweep up.”

 

“Still, you’re a lucky boy.”

 

Benjie was one of the dumb, for whom there is no escape.

Striking his heels heavily on the cobbles, he looked from side to
side, like someone under arrest. But the street was all doors and walls
with no alley to escape up: it ran into the

“Gosh,” said Benjie, “I’ve got to get a shirt.”
grande rue
opposite the
hotel. The cathedral bell rang for noon with iron insistence, drum
ming dull echoes through the air, while smells of cooking curled out
of the doors. “One thing, there is always lunch,” said Theodore.
“Which breaks the day up, doesn’t it . . .” He went on: “Another
thing about being my age: you don’t bore me as much as I bore you
. . . I think now I’ll go and find an aperitif. There won’t be lunch, I
think, till your mother’s down.”

The day got really sultry before lunch was over. They had the
nearest window in the restaurant opened: what air there was came
through and fanned Antonia’s arms. She

¹³
Story Scene
W
hen Leonard Osten got home, about half-past six,
the whole place looked unnaturally tidied up. To start with, his old
mackintosh and his knapsack were gone from the hall rack – he
missed their smell before he saw they were gone. The old dog’s lead

 

– there was no dog now – and the golf balls were also gone from the
brass tray; the entrance lobby smelled of nothing but wax. Len hung
his hat on its peg and went thoughtfully in.
¹

In the livingroom, the coalite

²
fire quivered in a full glare of
electric light. All Rene’s picture papers were stacked on the window
seat: work basket, generally gulping open, was latched primly. The
chintz covers on the armchairs and the settee had been tucked in so
tight, without a wrinkle, that it did not seem proper to sit down.
The circular oak table shone like a polish advertisement: on it had
appeared a pottery bowl with flame tulips growing out of a bed of
moss – Rene must have been out for these, for she did not raise
bulbs. Len touched the tip of a tulip with the tip of his finger to
make certain this was a real flower, not wax. Then he looked round
for his pipe. But the things he liked to find at his elbow had been
tidied away. He went round the room, and was just opening his
mouth to shout to know where the pipe was when his nose led him
to it, on a corner shelf.

So he lit up, pacific. Now he’d come on the pipe, he had time to
be struck by these preparations for Flora. Flora was his cousin. Rene
must have been killing herself, getting the house so pretty – “at”
Flora, no doubt, but for Flora as well. Seeing what an event was
being made of Flora, he kicked himself for having brought nothing
back – olives, chocolates, a pineapple. Rene would think nothing of
him. He must see what the local shops could put up.

Len did not sit down; he hitched one heel on the brick kerb of
the fire and looked round – liking to think that Flora would soon be
here. She would think they had got a nice place – and so they had.

Rene had been perfectly civil but not warm to Len’s family. He
had not many relations, and she had put up coolly with those he
had. She had been a little sniffy about the sound of Flora – an
unmarried cousin, in business, did not sound to her much. But that
evening the Ostens met Flora in London, Rene must have been more
impressed then she showed. Flora was, now, a highly successful
woman, with plenty of style and with money to spend: her manner
with waiters when she ordered the cocktails had made Rene at least
flicker an eye. On the short train journey home, after that first
meeting, Rene had said: “Len, she seems years older than you.”
Then: “She’s not a bit like the rest of your family.” Then, lastly, with
her slow provocative smile: “If you and she really did grow up
together, I wonder Flora didn’t teach you more.”

In fact, over the second round of cocktails in the Louis Seize
lounge of Flora’s London hotel, Rene had gone so far as to ask Flora
to come on a visit – or rather, she had asked Flora to ask herself. Any
move from Rene to another girl was so rare, Len did hope Flora
would follow up. She did: she wrote and asked herself for this
weekend. Len had seen too little of Flora since his marriage; now he
felt old times were beginning again. Rene said: “She’ll find it quiet
down here.”

“Flora lives at top speed; she’ll like taking it easy.”

They lived twenty miles from London, one of those spreading
places round an old village, on a main line. Trains emptied the
men into London every morning – except such men as Alec, lucky
enough to have local businesses. Len had added: “Flora likes any
thing. And we’ll have Alec round – he and she get on like houses;
they always did.”

To this Rene had said nothing; she had seemed to be having one
of her silent fits. Len, taken down a little, came to form the idea that
Rene was “off” the idea of Flora’s coming.

The telephone was at the foot of the stairs. Just as Len got to it,
he heard Rene run quickly across her room; she pulled her door
open and called down rather sharply: “Len? What’s the matter?”
³
So it touched and cheered
him, now he got home this evening, to find the place
en fête
for Flora.
What a good girl Rene was, for all she did not say. Where was she?
Changing her dress? She must be pretty tired. He was starting
upstairs to find her when it struck him that now would be the time
to give Alec a ring. They ought to fix something up for tomorrow
evening and, quite likely, Sunday afternoon. Apart from this
question of entertaining Flora, it was high time Alec
did
look in
again. If Alec had not been such an old friend, Len’s best friend (he
had been best man at the wedding), you might have thought he had
started giving the house a miss. Len had already commented once or
twice that it seemed an age since Alec had dropped in, but Rene said
the
⁴
garage kept Alec busy.
⁵

“Matter? I thought I’d give Alec a ring.”

 

“No, don’t,” Rene said. She came downstairs, put her hand on his
chest and pushed him away from the telephone. While Len, startled,
looked down at her hand on his chest, she withdrew it as though he
were a jellyfish. She smiled oddly, not raising her eyes, then walked
ahead of him into the livingroom. “Oh, all right, then,” Len said. He
always made slow adjustments; when he had to think, he thought
with a slow cautious intensity that brought his thick dark eyebrows
gradually down. In his mind he would drag a matter kindly about till
he grew familiar with it. His face, with the long upper lip, was open,
quizzical, pleasant. Flora had told him once he had button eyes, like
a bear. He said, as he followed Rene into the livingroom: “You’ve got
everything looking very nice.”

 

Slight and straight in her red dress,
⁶
Rene was standing away back
near the recessed curtains – as though she wanted nobody in this
room.
⁷
She looked tensed up – she
had
overdone herself. She was a
small pale woman with an Undine face – a face that for all its
delicate curves and shadows could be stubborn and cryptic. She had
a broad forehead, soft hair, rather heavy eyelids; her eyebrows rose
at the outer tips, like wings. Something humble in Len, rare in his
type, made him not try to break her mystery down. She was serene
and teasing; she made very few friends. They had been married
three years. Her compliance (whatever she thought) with his way of
life, and her dependence, made her satisfy him. Till he fell in love
with Rene, Len had never thought about marriage; his life (except
for Flora) had been among other men, so what he and Rene married
were, he now took marriage to be.
⁸
In the evenings, he came home
to her with a rapture that nothing in his stolid slowness expressed.

 

“It looks fine,” he said. “Flora’ll be – ”

 

“Oh, you did notice?”

 

“It hit me in the eye.”

 

“Things have to do that,” she said, “or you never notice at all.”
“Sorry. Look here, take it easy: you’re tired.”

 

She put a hand on the wireless cabinet, as though to steady
herself: she licked her lips before any word came out. “I wonder,” she
said, “if you ever have any notion what I get tired
of
. For months I’ve

 

– please listen: no, don’t just stare at me,
listen
– this can’t go on, Len.
I can’t go on any more.”

 

Her voice stopped. Len felt his face change, as though it knew
more than he did. He stooped quickly and knocked his pipe out into
the fire. “You’ll feel better after supper,” he said.

 

“You don’t understand. Don’t you really know what I mean?”

 

“No, I must say I don’t,” he said with a touch of sharpness. “You
make this sort of fuss whenever you get tired. Why don’t we have
supper?”

 

“When you don’t notice and don’t notice,” she said, “you some
times make me feel I shall go mad. Why, Alec – ”

 

“What do you mean, Alec?”

 

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I and Alec – ”

 

“Look, leave Alec out of this.”

 

“But that’s what I mean. It’s Alec I’m going to.”

 

Len frowned; he frowned slowly down at his wristwatch, then
turned to compare his wristwatch with the clock. He saw the door
was ajar, walked slowly across the room and shut it. Rene’s hand was
still resting on the wireless cabinet: he saw the cabinet shake. “Look
out, you’ll have that thing over,” he said. After that he began to refill
his pipe. An idiot immovability gripped his face and his mind. With
a jerk he pulled his lower lip, which with his jaw was hanging
heavily down. At last he heard himself say: “I don’t know what you
are saying. It doesn’t mean anything.” He paused, puzzled, to rub
the pad of his thumb against the brick edge of the chimneypiece. “If
it did mean anything,” he said with more decision, “you would not
be saying it
now
.”

 

“It’s got to be said sometime.”

 

“But Flora’s coming to stay.”

 

Rene left the wireless cabinet: she put up a hand slowly, and
slowly raised from her forehead a wave of mouse-coloured hair. “
Are
you mad?” she said. “Are you not, not normal, really? I nearly kill
myself, trying to tell you: all you say then is, ‘Flora’s coming to
stay.’ ”

 

His face lit up with obstinacy. “
You
know Flora’s coming: you got
the house nice.” Pipe in hand, he made a gesture and said: “You got
those tulips.”

 

“Yes. But that was this morning.”

 

He repeated loudly: “I don’t know what you’re saying. Where do
you get this from? We’ve not
seen
Alec for weeks.”

 

She said: “
You
haven’t seen him . . . ”

 

While this sank in
⁹
Len’s silence, she walked down the room, past
him: she gave him a strange veiled altered look as she passed. She
went and leaned with her back to another wall, as though she had
to have something behind her. He said: “You can’t mean Alec . . . ”

 

“Things like this do happen.”

 

“Not to us.”

 

“You wouldn’t notice,” she said. “It’s been awful lately, keeping on
here with you. I don’t mean I’ve got it in on you, Len: you’ve been
good to me. But it can’t go on any more.”

 

The heat of the coalite fire got insupportable. Len pulled open a
curtain, unscrewed
¹⁰
a casement window and thrust out his head and
shoulders into the dark. Lights from houses back to back with his
garden shone through the trees. The village clock struck seven; he
heard a train come roaring out of the cutting. The lawns and
orchards gave off their familiar wintry smell. He had been born, and
grown up, in this place: from birth he had heard those distant trains,
that clock. He heaved himself back into the room and said: “I don’t
believe about Alec.”