The Sea Change (8 page)

She was almost in tears – he must have lost his temper. He started to lie to her and she looked relieved. As they left the house, she left her centre long enough to say: ‘Poor Em.
You should have told me you had to re-write the whole act: it must have been awful for you.’

In the taxi she said: ‘Well, the least I can do is to find you a new secretary.’ And he took her blue-gloved hand feeling deeply ashamed at the appearance of nobility – brittle
and blistering on her face.

The day had worn itself into something of a calm – the sky skim milk, the river watered half-ripe wheat; the plane trees along the Embankment whose new leaves had been washed and tossed
all the day were fresh and still and golden green – and the starlings like clouds of black ash – fled to their noisy and uncomfortable night in Trafalgar Square. The Fairbrothers gave
their party three floors up in a suite looking on to these sights, but the suite was so packed with the blurring agitation of social intercourse that they might not have been there. The party was
about show business: almost everyone there had something to do with it, and he thought that this would be apparent to any odd member of an audience. The women were better dressed – on the
whole – than the average English party. They had certainly made the most – and in some cases too much – of themselves; their eyes and mouths designed to be seen at a distance,
their hair and their hands well groomed, their feet beautifully shod: they wore real scent and a lot of it; artificial jewellery and a lot of that: ingeniously cut brassieres or none at all. A few
of them had poodles, which, like their handbags, were either very large or very small, and their voices, at whatever volume, were meant to be heard. The men might have been more difficult to place.
Sick men, prosperous men, crafty men, nervous men; men who looked as though they ate too much; men who looked as though they never slept; men who kept and understood their bodies like a well-tuned
car. Men who hoped they were somebody else; men who wished they were not: men looking for an opportunity; men escaping from responsibility. Men who made things; men who took things; men who broke
things. Men who had nothing to gain; and men who had nothing to lose. Their difference from other groups of men was the immediate and thorough knowledge that they had about each other’s
careers. Success or failure could not be concealed from one another, or, indeed, from anybody else: they had almost all had their bad luck, bad taste, or bad judgment confirmed in public: some of
them had been on a financial switchback for years; many of them had some startling ability, and there were a few artists.

Lillian was soon swallowed up, and he stood repeatedly refusing a drink and exchanging minima with the immediate throng. The room had a feeling of pressure about it – apart from scents it
smelled mysteriously of cold summer food, although he could not see any: there was the usual methylated haze of smoke above the hats and heads, and there was noise spilling, cramming, flooding the
room with the windows open like sluices to let some of it out. His hostess had given him some soft drink – the glass was cold and sticky in his hands – she was asking about Lillian, and
he looked distractedly round for Lillian to come and give an account of herself. She was talking to a man whose face he knew and a girl whom he didn’t. The girl was certainly an odd member of
the audience: very young; listening; wearing a cotton dress and a white cardigan and noticeably out of place. Lillian had caught his eye – he indicated her position in the room to Mamie
Fairbrother, and they moved towards it. Arriving, he remembered that the man’s name was George (George
what
?) and exchanged a cautious greeting with him. Lillian and Mamie were well
away, and as he turned from them he caught the girl looking at him with an expression of such solemn, open enquiry that he nearly smiled. Then Lillian said: This is Miss Young. She wants to be
somebody’s secretary, so I’ve told her to come and see you tomorrow morning.’

4

ALBERTA

T
OMORROW
morning I am going to be interviewed by Emmanuel Joyce. He is a playwright, and I met his wife at a party last
night – on my second day in London. He wants a secretary to go to New York and Mrs Joyce seemed to think I might be suitable. She was awfully nice to me, and I saw him for a moment: I was
wondering what on earth I had expected a playwright to look like, and he noticed me and nearly laughed . . . It would be a wonderful chance – travelling and meeting interesting people, if
only Papa won’t be nervous about it. He gets nervous at such extraordinary points – he says himself that there’s nothing reliable about his fears. But Aunt Topsy’ll want me
to go (after all it was her idea that I should do a secretarial course) and we shall play at me being Emma, and she being Miss Taylor, and Papa, whether he likes it or not, will be Mr Woodhouse. In
the end he’ll laugh and agree, and then he won’t say anything more – just leave anxious notes in my bedroom: ‘Wash grapes before eating them.’ ‘Do not look at
Goya’s war drawings alone: they may make you too sad.’ That was when darling Uncle Vin took me to Paris. Papa doesn’t mind me going about with him in spite of his being an actor
(apart from being his brother anyway) because he always plays clergymen (although he sometimes plays wicked men dressed
up
as clergymen in spy films which Papa doesn’t see because he
hates the cinema and there isn’t one nearer than Dorchester) and Papa simply says that clergymen in plays help to make the Church an integral part of people’s lives so Uncle Vin is
helping quite as much, and more interestingly, than
he
is preaching to about forty people. I can’t think what he’ll say about New York or Mr and Mrs Joyce. But perhaps when they
know that this would be my first job they won’t take me. Uncle Vin says there is an awful lot of never jam today in the theatre. I must go to sleep. We had the most lovely morning shopping,
and I bought all my presents for home. A scarf for Aunt Topsy, and six butterflies from a shop in the Strand for Clem, and a magnifying glass for Humphrey, and a false beard for Serena because she
hates being a girl (Uncle Vin was terribly helpful about that), and a diary for Mary because she’s got to the copying stage and wants to imitate me, and a marble egg to keep his hands cold
for Papa. Then Uncle Vin gave me a marvellous lunch in a restaurant (hors d’oeuvres, lobster, and Camembert cheese) and let me choose a gramophone record for a late birthday present. I chose
Sir Thomas Beecham conducting the fortieth symphony of Mozart – the other side is the Jupiter – and Uncle Vin said jolly good choice. Then he took me out to a huge party at the Savoy
Hotel, and that’s where I met the Joyces. (The party was simply filled with famous people, but unfortunately I didn’t know who most of them were.) Now I must wash my cardigan for
tomorrow.

Wednesday. Uncle Vin offered to take me, and I said I didn’t want the Joyces to think I was a child, and he drew in his chin and went away without a word. In the end I went to his room. He
was in his dressing gown playing ‘If You Were the Only Girl in the World’ on the piano with a cigarette drooping out of his mouth. I apologized handsomely (he said that) and we arranged
to meet at a place called Notting Hill Gate which he said was near the Joyces’ house. Well – then I went. I wore my tidy skirt and the white shirt that Aunt T. made for Mary and
didn’t fit her. Uncle Vin explained about buses and waved me off with his fingers crossed.

A man opened the door: he seemed surprised to see me, but I told him why I’d come, and then he asked me to wait in the drawing room (which we walked straight into) and he went upstairs. It
was a long narrow room, very smart and full of precious things that matched each other – not at all like home or Uncle Vin’s. I got rather nervous, and after a bit Mr Joyce came down.
He is a little man, not much taller than me, and he looked tired, I thought, and if he wasn’t so famous I would have thought he was embarrassed. I had been sitting down, we both stood and
then we both sat and nobody said anything. Then, instead of asking the questions which I had expected, he said: ‘A good secretary has to have a sense of proportion for somebody else. Have you
got one for yourself?’ Then he smiled, and said: ‘Don’t bother to answer; it’s my business to decide that about you. Tell me why you want to be a secretary.’

So I told him about Papa, and Clem not getting a scholarship, and Humphrey wanting to go to Oxford and Aunt Topsy having used her money up on Serena going to Switzerland for her wretched chest,
and Mary being what Papa calls an unknown quantity and Papa not being allowed a cheque book by Aunt Topsy because of inflation which she says he doesn’t understand, and Aunt Topsy giving me a
course in shorthand and typing. I’d thought then that I’d help Papa, but he’d said that although as a daughter I had become a necessity, that he constantly appreciated, as his
secretary I would be a luxury that he could not afford. So I’d come to London to look for a job. That made it clear that I hadn’t had one before.

‘You are the eldest?’

I told him my age, and it didn’t seem to surprise him which was a comfort. He asked me if I had had anything to do with the theatre, and I told him about Uncle Vin. Then he asked me if
I’d been abroad, and I told him about Paris and Uncle Vin again. Then the man who had opened the front door came downstairs, and said that someone called Sol wanted a word with him. He went,
telling the man to tell me about die job. He seemed rather shy and took a long time telling me, and he was so vague I didn’t understand him much. In the middle Mr Joyce came back and listened
for a bit, and then interrupted saying that he’d like me to work for him so never mind, Jimmy, tell her later. They both smiled and I did too, because I liked how they were. Then Mr Joyce was
staring at me and asked my Christian name. I told him. There was an odd silence as though I’d said something wrong – then he asked me if I had any other names and I told him the other
one, and said I absolutely refused to be called it. They both smiled, and Mr Joyce said out of the question, he wouldn’t even call a hen that, but would I mind if he thought of a name for me
and they all called me by it, but I would have the right to veto. I thanked him and tried to remember exactly what veto meant, but then Mrs Joyce came in and the subject was changed because she
hadn’t got money to pay for her taxi. The man Jimmy asked for my address and telephone number and I gave him Uncle Vin’s and left. Mr Joyce shook hands with me and called me Miss Young
and then Mrs Joyce did the same: she was wearing beautiful gloves but her rings hurt through them.

CHAPTER II

1

LILLIAN

I
NEVER
feel more alone than on the day that I leave a country. I should like to leave lacerated by my departure from one
place, and throbbing with the adventure of discovery or return to another. I should like the last day to be spent with all those people who haven’t seen enough of me while I’m here
recognizing their regret – ringing up, trying to have lunch with me, and in the end sitting on my bed while I finish packing – filled with affectionate, envious speculation about where
I am going. I would like more friends to come down to the airport with us and we would all be very gay with champagne to conceal our feelings: they would wave to me at take-off – people
do
do that for personal reasons with just a bit of waving to the aeroplane thrown in – and I would not simply be part of the aeroplane, but Lillian Joyce waving back to particular
people and then settling in my seat, unstrapping my belt and looking forward to my welcome at the other end of the journey. I have been on so many journeys: I must have watched hundreds of
greetings that I would have liked: faces like a sunburst; two people literally running into one; the kind where they walk off together asking questions and squeezing arms, stop for a moment, and
laugh before they walk on. Em once met me like that – in Geneva: I was over halfway having Sarah, and we were going to see a doctor because my back which ached all the time I was pregnant got
so much worse, and he was supposed to be a great authority on kidneys. Em had been on an exhausting journey for the opening of one of his plays in Denmark, and then came straight to Geneva to meet
me. Aeroplanes made me feel as though I was having jaundice then, and what with the sickness and my back I got off the plane feeling like a queasy barrel. Somehow, he managed to join me in the
Customs. He came straight over and put his arms round me and his hands on the small of my back, and as he touched me the pain melted so suddenly that I thought I was going to float from the ground,
and Sarah gave a little leap on the instant: he felt it, and said: ‘What a welcome – like meeting Elizabeth.’ That was such a meeting that I didn’t care when the doctor
looked gloomy and said the same things as all the other doctors: that I shouldn’t be having a child; that I must expect to feel more and more sick, and my back to feel like breaking in two
– a long list of things I mustn’t eat and the usual injunctions about leading a very quiet life. He couldn’t know that compared to now I’d never led a life at all; that I
didn’t care what I felt like so long as the machinery of my body was working and Sarah was being made. The thought of her life was such a centre of strength that I never cared – even
during the last long weeks – about the continuous sickness and pain and my possible – I told Em afterwards, probable – death. I lived that time: in the beginning as months; then
weeks, and in the end I was aware of an hour in my life, but it was all without impatience or fear.