Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing (22 page)

“You scare me with my own wild hopes!” She turned on him a shy smile. “But … well … yes, a whole self, the creation of it, and perhaps that has very little to do, dear Miss Hare, with whether one marries or not, strangely enough.” Once more Mrs. Stevens held the pause, and they waited for the final word. But she lifted her head then and said simply,

“The interview has come to an end, and you as well as I must begin to feel as if we had made rather a long journey.” Mrs. Stevens had become just a little formal, as if she were suddenly shy before the farewells. “Well,” she said, as Peter and Jenny rose to go, collecting handbags and briefcases, pencils and pads, “I never did answer your question about changes of style, did I?”

“I think perhaps you did,” Peter answered with a smile.

“I shall wake in the night in a sweat, remembering all the nonsense I’ve talked.”

“No you won’t,” he teased. “Now and then I have had the impression that you broke the sound barrier.”

“Did I really?” F. Hilary Stevens asked hopefully. “But I didn’t hear any horrifying boom—no windows broken, I trust?”

“I am stretching out my hand through one,” Peter said, as his hand was firmly clasped in hers, ice cold he noticed. How well she concealed her nerves!

“And Miss Hare,” she turned then a shade anxiously to Jenny, “I hope you have not felt badgered.”

The word was so unexpected that Jenny laughed, “For some odd reason you’ve given me courage,” she said, “courage to be myself, to do what I want to do!”

“Have I really? How pleasant a thought, and how did I do that, I wonder? By rousing The Old Harry, eh?” She looked at Jenny quizzically.

“Maybe—maybe because you have dared so greatly to be
your
self.”

“Pish tush! You’re a dear girl,” she said, delighted. “Now off with you both before we spoil this minuet of politeness with some rude word!” And with that characteristic send-off, they found themselves outside the blue door, heard it close behind them as the porch light was turned on, and they stood for a moment, circled round by the unfamiliar dark, in its pool of light, and exchanged a look of understanding and triumph.

Epilogue: Mar

During the night, fog crept in.

Hilary woke late to a hushed, milky world, glad to be spared the brilliant light, and to move rather more slowly than usual about the morning chores; even Sirenica felt the change in atmosphere, and had curled herself up in a tight ball in the rocking chair, one paw over her nose. Hilary stood looking down on that pool of peace for a long moment, tasting the silence. Then she went into the big room where it was rather sad and lonely as if the fog had crept in. The daffodils had shriveled at the edges: there was the dead smell of the ash in the fireplace, and bits and pieces of the interview sloshed about in her mind, flotsam and jetsam, not yet absorbed, not yet settled down. It would take an effort to renew this stale world.

“What now?” young Hilary prodded

“Can’t we just exist for a day?”

“Too depressing. Invent something.”

“The silver needs cleaning. We could go out and do some transplanting.” Even young Hilary was aware that work was out of the question, but the garden, yes.

She pulled on rubber boots and a heavy jacket over corduroy slacks—the comfort of old clothes, the relief of not being “on show” for anyone today!—opened the door, took a deep breath of the chill air, and looked about her.

Amazing how this small world changed in the changing weather. The apple trees loomed up like strangers through the whiteness, their trunks black and sweating. What was so familiar had become mysterious. It might be Japan, she thought, observing with delight the condensation of bright drops of water on a branch of apple blossom. It all seemed to be poised there waiting for a shift in the wind. Very quietly she closed the door and stepped out.

And soon she was on her knees, tearing out weeds, throwing them into the little cart at her side, too absorbed to look up or to notice how often they landed on the ground. Her heart pumped away like a fierce animal inside her. It was good to be alive.

There Mar found her, as he had hoped he would, a streak of mud across her cheek, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

“Hi.”

She looked up, startled. The boy could be as silent as a cat “It’s you, is it?” Seeing him, a weight fell away, and with the relief of it, she teased, “Well, is it yesterday or today?”

“I went sailing. When I came back it was dark, but that car was still there. They stayed a long time.”

“They certainly did, but it was my fault. I got on a talking jag, bent their ears back, I expect. When they left I was as empty as the bottle of Scotch we finished off. But I’m all right now. Give me a hand up!”

She stood there, looking at him. “A good day for a walk on the moors—we might get lost in the fog,” she said, “pretend we’re somewhere else, in a different world.”

With Mar’s coming, the tide which had ebbed so low, was rising. She felt actually refreshed; she began to know the relief after a great effort is over. It would never have to be done again.

They walked side by side in a companionable silence, as if that necessary silence were reknitting all the little delicate threads that bound them together, threads that twenty-four hours had torn apart. Every now and then Hilary glanced at the boy, noting that the day alone with the sea had washed away some of the darkness round his eyes.

“Messing about in boats seems to have been good for the soul.”

“Mmm,” he smiled. “And what about the interview? Was that good for the soul?”

She shrugged. “Yes, I think it was,” then threw her cigarette down on a rock, stamped it out, and stood there looking down at it, a frown like a wince crossing her face. “Of course any attempt to utter the truth about art is bound to boomerang. All I can think of now is all I left out, what a blundering mess I made of it, trying to be clear.… Oh well,” she turned back to the road, walking fast. “They did really seem to care. No one’s come along to ask this sort of question before.”

It was Mar’s turn to look quizzically at her.

“I found it exciting. I saw things happen right there. Things happened to them and to me.”

“I bet they did!”

“I doubt if I said anything very illuminating, all told. But in the deeps of the night, I sensed a book rising. I got hold of something about my mother, a flash of recognition. Oh, they stirred me up all right!”

They had come out to the edge of the quarry, where a smooth-topped stone cliff dropped about ten feet to perfectly still dark green water. The other side, where a few thin birches had sprung up among the stones, was just discernible through the fog, as if drawn in pencil.

“You like getting stirred up,” Mar said somberly. “I hate it.” He kicked a pebble over the edge and watched it fall and a concentric ripple widen out where it had struck.

“That depends.…”

“On what?” He stood there looking down at the water with his intense absent-minded look.

Hilary saw it, but she was also entranced by the scene, by the shape of the quarry in this unreal light. “Poussin,” she murmured. “All it needs is a few nymphs.”

“Who’s Poussin?”

“An eighteenth-century French painter who put imaginary classic ruins down in a French landscape and peopled them with classical figures. You’re so illiterate!”

“You can’t expect me to know everything,” he said crossly. “Besides,” he added, thrusting out his chin, “I like to see things as they are. I don’t like the idea of those nymphs of yours. The quarry’s O.K. as it is.”

“If you’re going to be cross, let’s walk.” She had gone quite a piece before she realized that he was not with her, and then turned back, came back to stand beside him, her hands thrust into her pockets. She stood there watching him throw pebbles in one after another, so the circles crossed each other. Finally she stooped to pick up a rock and hurl it into the delicate, interwoven pattern on the surface of the water. It made a great splash.

“Oh well,” Mar turned and left. “Have it your way!”

“Sometimes,” she said, “getting stirred up breaks a pattern. That can be useful. I admit it’s not comfortable, exactly;”

“Ugly and devastating,” he muttered.

They walked up the road toward the moors, and again let the silence take over. Hilary admonished herself to keep still, for an hour if need be. After all, he had held back whatever it was for twenty-four hours. But she was aware, as they left the dirt road and began to climb a narrow path through blueberry bushes and around boulders, Mar taking the lead, that every now and then he shot a glance at her over his shoulder. What was it he found so hard to tell her now, after all they had exchanged in the last weeks? What harm had come to him?

“I’ve got to stop a minute, Mar. I’m out of breath.” She leaned against a huge granite boulder glad of its roughness and strength along her back. They had been climbing fast. For a second everything blurred, then as Mar’s closed face came into focus again, she smiled. There was no response.

“You’re always making dark things light,” he said, tearing off a piece of lichen and examining it with care, “Things are not clear like you make them.”

“What have I made light that is dark?”

“Feeling …, I mean.…”

“Well, come out with it!” she said impatiently. “What’s back of all this? I’m at sea.”

Mar crumpled up the lichen in his hand and threw it away. “Forget it.” He trudged on toward the moors, his head bent. “Let’s walk.”

This time there was no drawing together of the separate threads. It was an empty silence. Hilary walked alone behind him, smelling the dank bitter earth smell, picking a laurel leaf to squeeze between her finger and thumb, to breathe in the aromatic sweetness of it, deliberately leaving Mar alone in his separate silence, pretending not to be troubled by it.

Up here on the moors, a wasteland of bushes and rocks, the fog was thinning. Waves of air moved about; every now and then they caught a glimpse of swollen, metal-gray sea below, a thin line of foam lacing itself against taffy-colored rock, and then it blurred out and all was soft gray nothingness again.

Mar had stopped to watch. He offered Hilary a cigarette, lit it, and took one himself. “Well, …” he let the word float off, but it was clearly an opening.

“Tell me,” Hilary said gently. “Please tell me.” For surely this had been going on long enough, and she had to know what was what. “Tell me about the dark,” she said. “I’d better learn.”

Mar held his breath as if he were going under water. Then it was spoken, quickly in a flat voice. “I went to Gloucester. Got drunk in one of those bars. Spent the night with a sailor in a crumby hotel. When I woke up in the morning, he had gone, and stolen my wallet.” When Hilary had nothing to say to this, he added, “Oh, I was stirred up all right!” He imitated her tone with bitter sarcasm.

Hilary knew now that she had expected this. It came as no surprise. But it came nevertheless with the force of shock. She could not like what she had heard. And she was afraid. Feeling his watchful eyes on her, she managed to say, “Well, sooner or later you had to face it.”

“Face what?” His voice sounded like a muffled scream. “Face what, damn it? And don’t say, ‘face yourself’! I’m sick and tired of facing myself. I’ve been doing that for months, and it’s got me nowhere!” He turned on her the force of all he had held back. “You made it all seem so pretty … love, feeling, all that hogwash. What do you know about it, really?”

“Very little, I expect,” she said drily. “But I have my ideas.”

“Love, wholeness, poetry,” he sneered.

“Lust, humiliation, self-punishment. Do you think I know nothing about
them?
Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs! You make a Hell of a mess, and somehow out of it you learn something about your own inner disorder.” The tone was harsh. She could not help it. She was upset.

“Just as I said. You’re an optimist!” He faced her now, ice cold in his rage. “That sailor has been sleeping around, and stealing, I suppose, since he was fifteen. What has
he
learned? He
likes
it, Hilary!”

“He used you for what you were worth to him. What did you use him for?”

For a second Hilary took the violence in Mar’s eyes. She had seen it once before. She knew how close to the surface it always was in him, in herself too. And she withstood that look and waited. Then, with a bewildered gesture, as if he were waking out of a dream, Mar rubbed his forehead with one hand. His shoulders drooped.

“What did I use him for? A way out, … a way out,” he repeated in a muffled voice. Then he walked on, picking laurel leaves off angrily, one after another, and throwing them down. Hilary followed in silence, not able to speak even if she had wanted to. She had too much to think about, to take in, to cope with, herself. This was it, she knew.

“I suppose you think I’ve learned my lesson. I suppose you think I’ll never do it again!”

“How did it look to you out there in the boat?”

“Not what you think,” he said. Then with harsh emphasis, “I felt starved. I wanted more!”

“More punishment, eh?”

“Danger, excitement, the unknown person—unlike me—conquest by sheer physical need, clean of any feeling except that. I wanted more, I tell you!”

Hilary sat down, not so much because she had to, as because she wanted to stop, to stay put. The moment felt crucial. Just as well, she thought grimly, to be seated firmly on rock.

“I’m not asking for your help,” he said. “Get that through your head,” and walked off to stand on the edge of an old cellar hole, peering down into it, his hands in his pockets.

Yet he had wanted to tell her, she thought—why? To test the limits? To discover that whatever he did, whatever he might become, he would not be shut out?

Hilary was afraid of her own anger, the old enemy, the irrational power which might at any moment shake her and break through the tension between them, but in a disastrous way. She didn’t understand why she felt so angry, why she felt so upset and at sixes and sevens with herself and with him. She would have liked to run away, run back down the path, get right away from Mar and from all he had told her, have a strong drink, read a detective story, lie down and forget it. That is what she would have liked to do.