Through Streets Broad and Narrow (16 page)

As gale-driven spume sweeps flotsam into high places, the laughter swept him into the high esteem which had hitherto been nearly inaccessible despite his discretion on previous occasions. He saw these sagacious, perennially bored senators glancing at one another with approval, and heard the General approaching Palgrave in the club lavatory about “putting that young fellow up.” “Got any family, d'you know?”

And of course Palgrave from his own point of view could not advantageously say “no,” or “some,” so before the evening ended it was arranged that John's name should be put in the ballot book for the New Year election, when, provided no one objected to the admission of a medical student, the first in the history of the club, his membership was assured.

Palgrave spent the night there but John returned to his rooms and, although it was very late, packed his bags ready for the return home to Anglesey on the day following.

In the morning he telephoned Dymphna at the flat and when she told him she was willing to stay in Dublin for the day, delayed his departure for a further twenty-four hours.

They lunched in the Country Shop in Stephen's Green and ate steak and kidney pudding and the extra-special potato cakes spread with creamery butter. Then they took the tram which runs alongside the road in its own railed-off track to Howth Head and hired a boat to row across to Ireland's Eye.

There was a good wind blowing seeding spray from the hummocks of green water. This salt fusillade splashed Dymphna's hair, which blew out short and framed her face until the hairline was revealed as a black pointed widow's cap. He found it hard to row for the sight of her sprawling there in the stern, in one of Wilfred Broyle's sweaters, taking it all in as a bird of the sea rides gales and waves; cold of feather, hot of heart, never involved; but fishing or calling, diving, swallowing or swimming from moment to moment from the instant of its birth to its solitary death.

She shouted things to him; though he could not hear them he knew that they were facetious and that she was happy. He sensed most clearly that momentarily he was resolving for her the dilemma which unconsciously drove her, the search for the simplicity on which she could depend and the vitality which could praise her. He thought, I should be smoking a pipe, too, and square my jaw a little. It's a pity my arms aren't thicker and that if it weren't for the rowing I should be shivering with cold. He also thought that she must have done this dozens of times with the others and been bored stiff at the end of it. I at least can think and talk. She may know that I see her more beautiful than ever they could and can convey it.

When they reached the sand of the island's eastern beach they waded out and drew up the boat in the freezing water. The island rose from sand through small dunes to a high hill beyond which was shallow cliff traversed by a steep path. They went down this into the raging sunlight of early evening. The water beneath them was opaque with cold and blueness, rays caught its ripples like flames and the seaweed hung like grottoes of serpents from the hard grey rock.

Dymphna said, “We'll swim in this. Last bathe of summer.”

“It's December.”

“First bathe of next, then.”

They took off their clothes a few yards apart and she ran in off the tiny bouldered beach. But he dived from a rock without daring to look at her from some memory of Victoria and the lake. Dymphna was a woman, not a girl; it was not the mystery of her in this sense which prevented him, it was not because she would have minded, for he knew that she wanted him to do so. It was because of his desire which, like a starving leopard fastened within reach of satisfaction, may throttle itself in its attempt to get free. If once I look in this, he thought, see the water clothing her legs, creeping up, flaring like wings from her shoulders when she runs forward, the flames of this winter sun falling from her wrists and arms, I'll remember it as I remember Victoria. But it will be worse now because I know what it is to be dry in the mouth, to ache physically, to find everything but the thought of possessing her drier than a tomb.

So they swam quickly together and he saw nothing but a body distorted into pale flatnesses as blue as plaice bellies, legs foreshortened and jointless in the trick of the reflection as they found their depth again and ran to their clothes. He dried her back with his vest and chafed her feet with his hands as the sun went down and frigid indigo shadows crept forward from each spicule of grass over the sand dunes. Then they ran round the island and lay down in a hollow, kissing the salt in one another's lips and cheeks until their shivering sent them back across the tide race to the village.

They ate brown buttered bread in Mooney's Bar with a dozen oysters and a pint of porter each, then they trammed back to Fitzwilliam Square to make coffee in the flat.

He said, “In four years I'll be qualified. We could be engaged in a year or so. We could even marry before I qualified.”

“It's far too soon,” she said as always. “Heavens, you're only twenty-two and I'm only nineteen.”

“It's quite old enough if we love one another. I'd do even better if I was married. I'll work like a black with Groarke.” And he wished he hadn't mentioned him.

“Mike wants me to marry him, too,” she said.

“Would you?”

“I'm marrying no one yet,” she said, “I've only just started.”

“Started what?”

“Everything. My course, life, being young and yet out of eternal control. You're all so serious, all of you, all wanting to get married all the time. Mummy and Daddy didn't get married until they were nearly thirty. They'd both lots of affairs, they knew what they were doing.”

“Are they happy?”

“Of course not. Who is after twenty years of it? It's all the more reason for putting it off.”

“But I want to marry you, desperately. Dymphna, I'll make a wonderful life for us both. We'd always have enough money and we'll both get more one day. I'd live anywhere you wanted, Ireland or England; a doctor can always earn a living.”

“How dreadful it all sounds—like a magazine story. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone earning their living for me. If I married at all I'd want someone with it already earned, a vet, say, with a colossal country practice or someone with an estate, here or abroad.”

“Like Collins, I suppose.”

“He's not serious and anyway he's not in love with me. He's got dozens, thank goodness.”

“If you loved him you'd want to marry him.”

“I wouldn't fall in love with Collins,” she said, teasing him by use of the surname.

“What about me?” he said, hearing the familiar pulse in his ears as he waited. “Your letter,” he went on in order to stop himself trembling. “You said you missed me a lot.”

“So I did.”

“Well, d'you love me then?” God, what a silly question when what he meant was, Do you ever see me as I saw you today, as I always see you. Like a precious vase, a spirit between heaven and earth, a body sweeter than opium and movements like music, a face which, however you're looking, falls into a beauty as astonishing as beauty.

“How would I know?” she said. “Aren't you a dreary old thing—asking, asking, asking.”

“But you must know. If you miss people, that can be love. If you keep wanting to be with them. If you enjoy oysters and kisses with them, if you get dreadfully bored when they don't come. If you like their dancing, smiling, talking, thinking of you, returning to find you. All that can be love. You must know.”

“Can I help it if I don't?”

“Well, d'you feel any of these things for me?”

“Some of them, sometimes.”

“And the others, too?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Which one most?”

“Oh,” she said sitting down on the divan, lolling back on it, “you're all tremendous. I think I love you all. Wasn't it grand today, the spray and swim? Those luscious oysters.”

He was watching her.

“Don't be sombong,” she said. “Why d'you think all the time? Mario doesn't, nor Bill Collins, but you and Mike, you're terrible thinkers.”

He pushed her back and lay beside her. The dreadful, repetitive, inconclusive, pattern of their love-making began again. The gas fire popped and hissed, the clock ticked on. They grew pale and wet, breathless and exhausted, as they had done so many times before.

John thought, Why don't I spend the night and have done with it? Someone else will sooner or later. Perhaps if I take her she will love me, perhaps women never respect a virgin as I am. But she seemed to know his thoughts; a sudden physical prudence crept into her, quiet laughter at the very moment of his decision overcoming his resolve before it became final. They went arm in arm down the stairs.

She only said, “Write to me and don't be gloomy again next term. You can't blame me for wanting to be young while I am young, can you? Mummy says not to waste a minute of it.”

If the others can do it, I can too, John told himself. She's not a person to talk to. There's nothing there yet. I may want to marry her because I never want anyone else to have someone
whom only I can fully appreciate. I will never tire of her. It's not a question of having her for life, it's a question of having life for her. But if I've got to play this dreadful game with all the others until I can get her, I'll play it until the end.

The next day he took the Holyhead mail boat and, arriving in Holyhead, found nobody waiting to meet him despite his earlier telegram. He rang up from the station hotel and Nanny answered. She sounded very flustered.

He said, “Why has nobody come? Are they on their way or has the car broken down?”

“No, dear, it's just that they're all so busy with Christmas so near and—”

“But dammit. Poo, that's why I thought they'd be sure to meet me at least at Christmas time. Did they get my telegram about the exam results and everything?”

“Yes, dear, you did do well, didn't you? But you see, with Mr. Greenbloom and his friend here—”

“Greenbloom?”

“He's been here a week, came up in some big car with Mr. Boscawen-Jones. I can't stop now, dear. They'll all be in for lunch any minute, and you know what your mother is when she's hungry.”

“Can't you get me Geoffrey or Mick?” he begged.

“There's only yer father in and he's busy at his desk for Mr. Greenbloom.”

“Father's no good. I want to know what's happening. He'll only muddle me. Where
is
everybody?”

“You'd better get a bus, pet,” she repeated. “All the cars are out. Mr. Geoffrey's gone off to Llantrysant with Mr. Llewellyn, Mr. Greenbloom's with your mother—Llanerchymedd, Mr. Michael's gone over to see the Bishop at Bangor.”

“Good God, what's it all about, Poo?”

“It's Mr. Greenbloom's ideas. I really don't know how we're going to get any Christmas at all. You'd best get the bus, dear. I'll keep back a hot lunch for you, but I can't talk any longer now.”

When he got home the drive was full of cars. Greenbloom's
old 4½-litre Bentley limousine took up most of the space; beside it was Michael's drunken-looking Singer sagging on its springs, the family Ford and Geoffrey's van covered with advertisements. “The Farmer's Friend, Agent for Egg Poult Laying Mixture, Beefeater Cattle Cake and Baconmaker Bran.”

Drawn up in the space before the garage at the near end of the drive were two other vehicles: a green open lorry and a charabanc labelled PRIVATE. The lorry carried a small cement-mixer, a crane, several lengths of chain and many pickaxes and shovels. At the far end was a padlocked wooden box painted red and labelled HIGH EXPLOSIVES, KEEP OUT.

The charabanc was locked, but by touring its windows John was able to see that the place of the seats had been taken by draughtsman's boards on which were spread maps and blueprints, rulers, theodolites, dividers, compasses and books of reference.

Carrying his bag, he ran up the steps to the terrace and in at the front door. There was no one in the dining-room, but the noise of a dozen or more people in high conclave on the other side of the drawing-room door was plainly audible.

No one saw him at first. There were two or three young men in dungarees, patched jackets and Wellington boots with their backs to the door, talking to Geoffrey about local geography, a beautiful girl with egg-yolk hair and blue eyes wearing slacks and an alpine jersey talking to Michael, and at the far end, ranged round the fire on the sofa and armchairs, the remainder of the family: George and Mary, Melanie, Father looking bewildered, Mother sitting on the nursing chair with her legs wide apart and Greenbloom himself with his friend Boscawen-Jones.

These two occupied the centre of the room, standing right in front of the blazing fire with glasses of whiskey in their hands, and a little table in front of them on which stood decanter and syphons.

Boscawen-Jones, whom everyone called Jane, was hardly recognizable; in the five years which had passed since John had last seen him he had grown immensely stout and wore his greying black hair in a full bang across the right-hand temple. He wore spectacles of the type in which the thick tortoise-shell bridge runs directly into the lens' frames so that he seemed at
first glance to have a permanent meditative frown. His short round neck was enclosed in a narrow dog-collar surmounting a pleated stock with black mother-of-pearl buttons set in the centre.

Beside him Greenbloom looked as lean as a mediaeval heretic. He was most conventionally dressed in a businessman's blue pinstripe with a finely spotted tie, black shoes and socks. His hair, however, was exactly down to his ears; a short bob swept back unparted from the forehead and lightly oiled, the white strands from the temples gleaming in the lamplight like an uncurled Georgian wig.

He was not talking but swilling the whiskey round in his glass and listening to his friend who was speaking to no one in particular with the pleasurably abstracted gaze of someone who is talking on a full glass.