A Few Days in the Country (8 page)

All at once I felt oppressed and angry. People telling you sad stories! But then Marion Alston looked over at me, and somehow I was confused. Perhaps it was the effect of the firelight, or the darkness, or the silence, but I seemed to catch sight of a surprising strength of spirit in her. I wondered if, minutes before, when I was so resentful, she hadn't been offering, rather than asking for, help.

‘My husband and I were divorced recently, and I don't seem to be very well.'

This statement was roughly the length of Pericles' funeral oration when compared with my total silence on the subject with my closest friends and relations.

Marion said nothing. I began to feel humiliated. Had I been mistaken in my intuition of her strength? Was she as speechless as I had been? She was older than me, about fifteen years older. (How dreadful! She had actually had to survive fifteen years longer than…)

‘I don't seem to know what to do next,' I said.

‘No. But at least you will have a better idea of what not to do.'

‘You mean—poor Cliff and June?'

‘And the Byrnes, and Colin and me.'

‘You've come through,' I said. ‘Anyone can see. But the others…The circumstances are so different, I don't…'

‘Nevertheless,' Marion said, ‘there aren't unlimited roads out of these situations.'

What did she mean? I said, ‘You came through.'

She picked up a burning cinder with the tongs and threw it back on the fire. ‘Yes. But a few years ago I'd have served as a warning to anyone. Though it mightn't have been all that obvious at first sight.'

‘How?' I insisted. I felt shameless, but I had to know what she knew.

‘I was very gay, but there just wasn't much of a person to be any more. Nothing mattered, though, so that didn't matter either. I had no reason not to be bright. I went to too many parties, and sometimes drank too much. I carefully had no time to think or read. Some of the music and pictures and plays and books I'd admired for years turned morbid and dull, but it didn't matter.'

‘What were you doing?'

‘Congratulating myself on my survival, I suppose. At the time I didn't see how little it amounted to.'

‘And did you meet Colin then?' I thought, There's always a stock solution to other people's problems—in this case, another man.

She shook her head. ‘This was years before I knew him.'

Outside on the landing there were voices, and the chinking of teacups. Mrs Byrne came in trundling the trolley, and her husband and Colin Alston followed.

‘What timing!' they said. ‘Teatime! We knew when to get back.'

‘How's that fire? Oh, George, I thought you'd look after it while I was resting this afternoon.'

‘Aye, well…I'd better get on with the leaves after tea,' said George Byrne, lowering himself into his large easy chair for the remainder of the day.

‘We know all about that,' said his wife, handing round cups and plates.

‘You were both extremely wise to stay in all afternoon,' Colin told Marion and me, standing over us. ‘I have never seen a more cheerless sight than that stretch of water out there.' He tugged at his beard, smiled down nervously, then sat beside us to talk about painting, his foot tapping relentlessly all the while.

We all parted friends. It was left that I should get in touch with the Alstons when I returned to London. While Colin paid their account next morning, I stood with Marion watching for the taxi. She buttoned her coat up.

I tried to make a joke of it by laughing a bit, but I had to say, in a low voice, ‘For heaven's sake, Marion, don't go without telling me the end of your story. Yesterday you had to stop halfway. I still don't know what to do.' I despised myself as I would have despised one of my patients, now that I was this new person. My tact, my finesse, my hobnailed boots, astonished me, but speak I would and did.

Marion looked through the door and away from the house. She seemed grave. ‘If it was anything simple, Philippa, would Colin be like this? I don't know what happened. I changed. I could never remember how.'

I watched her.

She said, ‘In any case, if I could tell you, if it could be contained in a sentence, it would no longer be true. It would alter. Neither of us would understand. There are some—apprehensions—that are loaned out occasionally and withdrawn as soon as used. Do you…?'

I waited.

She said, ‘People do come through. It helps to want to.'

I was not pleased.

They drove away by taxi to the station, and I stood with the Byrnes on the step and waved. After that I went straight out and bought a soft lemon-coloured lamb for the baby, and some postcards. Mrs Byrne gave me June's address and I wrapped up the parcel, and wrote the cards to my mother and father, though I would probably reach home before they arrived. I sent cheques to Edinburgh for theatre tickets for the following week. And, lastly, I wrote a letter to Nick to say goodbye and wish him well.

When I had posted all this, I walked back from town to the North Sea. Coming up the drive empty-handed, I saw Mr Byrne in the doorway looking out at the leaves. I called to him, ‘What about a joint attack? There are two rakes here. If you start over that side, and I start here, we could make a great clearance by teatime. And it's dry, and there's hardly any wind.'

‘You're right!' he exclaimed. ‘It's the day I've been waiting for!' And he dashed for the rakes and brought mine across, loping over the drifts. ‘These leaves are a sore point with Mrs Byrne, you know. This'll surprise her. Och, anyway, there's nothing like a bit of exercise if there's a body to keep you company.'

This is childish, I thought angrily. This is stupid. And I didn't want to do it, any more than I'd wanted to move all morning, or write that letter, or buy that lamb, or sign my name. What a way to try to make life bearable! Who
had
that woman thought she was—the priestess of Apollo delivering oracles?

Still, we kept on, and we swept up the leaves.

6

The Cornucopia

Julia Holt was never impressed. Not being impressed, indeed, was one of the chief things about her. Any new friend who ran to her with news, like a pup prancing up with a mouldy bone between its teeth, learned this. The new friend, as it were, fell back a step or two in an effort to bring the whole of Julia into focus again, while Julia looked knowing and laughed, almost accusing her of lying.

Protestations—‘But, Julia, I
am
flying round the world with Toby'—were beside the point. Julia hadn't doubted it for an instant. She doubted
nothing
.
Yes
, Harry had been elected captain of his school.
Yes
, Grace had won first prize in the lottery.
All right
, the stars of the Old Vic touring company had accepted invitations to Edna's party, and
yes
, Nancy and Stewart were dining with the governor-general.
Okay. All right. Very well.

‘You knew already, Julia! Someone told you!'

But no one had. And yet there was no mistaking Julia's extreme lack of interest in world tours and vice-regal dinners. Her lovely eyes roamed the most distant prospect available to them, moved, dully persecuted, across the skyline from east to west. No concert pianist obliged to support herself by rearing chickens, rounding them up for the night, could have seemed more disengaged than she. It was dispiriting to Julia's new friend. Caught up by the thrilling news just delivered—to Julia
first
, before everyone—she was not sufficiently detached to find comfort in the thought that this tone of voice brought out the buried Australian in Julia.

Up at the end of every remark her voice went, in that unconsciously tentative way that makes the most affirmative statement sound like a question. It is irritating when people seem not absolutely certain even of their own names.

No, but
if
Julia
did
believe and still looked so amused and pitying, it could only mean that she had secrets beside which her new friend's offerings were paltry indeed. Her friend felt discontented, dashed. What was the use? What was life all about, anyway?

Then, just at this awful moment, wonderfully, Julia noticed and declared the most spontaneous and tremendous admiration for, say, her new friend's nylon stockings, her hand-stitched gloves, her gold earrings or the colour of her hair.

This free gift of herself was so unexpected that it threw Julia's friend off balance. With a shrill little laugh she protested and wriggled and twisted her admired hands and legs, like a tiny pampered lapdog yapping fiendishly and chasing her own tail.

This sort of incident, which occurred over and over in Julia's life, always featured one of her Grade II friends. Her
equal
, Grade I friends were, without exception, notable people who had hung in society's sky long before Julia herself was hailed by astronomers. These Grade II girls were, strictly speaking, protégées, the hoity-toity daughters of earthy butchers, or pretty secretaries living in two-bedroomed bungalows, learning about etiquette and hygiene and make-up from teenagers' weeklies. They married young men who'd left school at fifteen and entered insurance offices and finance companies, studying their product—money—from the ground up. Now, to the astonishment of relations and old neighbours, these youthful couples were rich.

Julia Holt had belonged to this caste once herself, but uncanny natural qualities, ten years' advantage in age, and Ralph's exceptional flair for finance had put her in a category of her own. She was an example to them all.

What inspired the Grade II protégées was the impossibility of impressing Julia. Her sophistication was immense. The odd smart aleck would sometimes throw names and words at her in an exasperated attempt to wrench a reaction: Tolstoy, Chartres, Frank Lloyd Wright, mother, Casals, concentration camps, the Parthenon, love, Gandhi, bomb, the Marx Brothers…

One of Julia's eyebrows disposed of them all. She was like a bronze idol, impervious to life's trials. The possibility that her imperviousness might extend into the territory of life's joys occurred to no one. For the second most striking thing about Julia was the amount of happiness she possessed. (It was usual to think of Julia's happiness as something owned, rather than experienced.) She wore it like an aphrodisiac.

Julia and Ralph Holt…Regarding their wealth, they would only say in a modest fashion, ‘Well, we'll always have three meals a day.' Modesty in regard to their marriage, however, which was a legend in Sydney society, would have seemed hypocritical. The Holts were generous with their private life, displaying, discussing, analysing it with humanity and wit. Even Ralph, a man with many large transactions on his mind and not a conversationalist at all, took time off to contribute a description. Together he and Julia sang a kind of hymn to their happiness.

Ralph Holt was remarkable as any man must be to leave school at fifteen and turn from farm boy to delivery boy to office boy to millionaire at the age of forty. Now money, Julia, and their two sons were his entire life. While his family naturally came first, he did
feel
for money: it was his Rosetta Stone.

(The boys, Peter and Paul, were twins, aged nine. Ralph doted on them. Julia doted, too, she
worshipped
them: it was just that she saw their defects rather clearly. Julia had never
wanted
children. Her life had been perfect. Who but a fool would have tried to improve on it? But there was some mischance. She was pregnant and Ralph wanted a son. To call that period of her existence nightmarish, ghastly beyond belief, would be a ludicrous understatement. Only Ralph and her doctor had the least inkling of what her feelings were then, and they had sworn to forget the episode forever.)

Ralph's great appeal for his fellow man was that, though he was rich, he treated everyone the same. He wasn't a bit arrogant. He never bullied. Away from head office he was goodnatured, easily led, easily diverted, even soft. He evinced the universal balloon-like simplicity that humans display when temporarily bereft of their vocations. Unplugged from his niche in the gymnasium of circumstance, he was like a horse in an aeroplane.

It was Ralph's boast that good luck hadn't altered him, but in connection with money one gradual change
had
overtaken him. Whereas in his youth he had spent carelessly, he was now inclined to go through the house at night switching off lights. He'd been known to walk in the rain rather than hail a taxi, and there was the story Julia told against him about a box of cakes.

Valerie Turner, a Grade III girlfriend of Julia's, one of the disciples, had been deputed to buy and deliver some cake from the patisserie. Before she reached the shop she was knocked down by a car on a pedestrian crossing, and she had to send Julia an apology from hospital. She felt awful about inconveniencing Julia, but her leg had been hurt and the doctor insisted she stay in bed. So what could she do?

‘Don't worry! I'll call Ralph,' Julia said. ‘He can get one of the juniors to collect them and then bring them home himself this evening.'

When Ralph walked in the door with the cake box, his eyebrows were up among his hair, and his mouth was wide open with the pressure of throttled speech just waiting for Julia's presence for release.

‘What do you think these things cost? I used to
like
them. What do they think they're made of? What do they think
we're
made of? It's just eating money!'

Ralph had no time for games or hobbies. He read the financial papers. He understood world affairs insofar as they affected the stock markets, and prayed for governments to rise and fall to the advantage of his company's holdings. He was mildly indifferent to his personal appearance, feeling no pressure to spend inordinately on clothes. The arts embarrassed him the way churches did. Julia could take an interest in both as long as
he
was not invited to watch male ballet dancers cavorting like a lot of ——, or to be earbashed by some lecherous old ——. (Ralph rarely used unpleasant language.)