Odd Girl Out (30 page)

‘What are we having for dinner?’

‘I thought, quite a lot of champagne, and then some smoked trout.’

‘I’m a bit tired.’

‘We’ll have it in bed.’

By now, Arabella had taken to having her baths at night in Anne’s bathroom. Embarrassment about their naked selves had ceased between them. Each had a reason for envying – or
admiring – the other. As Arabella got into bed with Anne (it was Thursday by now) she said, ‘Are you missing Edmund? I mean, your sex life and all that?’

‘The funny thing is, that I don’t think I am.’ Anne laughed radier nervously after this remark, and then said, ‘It’s extraordinary. Sometimes I wish
you
were
a man.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know exactly. I suppose because I enjoy our life together so much that I don’t want – I mean – I wish there wasn’t a stopping point.’

‘There isn’t one, really.’

Arabella turned out the single light remaining in the room. ‘I can make you feel wonderful: I can’t give you a child, but you don’t want that.’

‘No – I don’t want – ’ Anne began, and then Arabella started to kiss her and her whole body responded to her mouth being kissed. Arabella kissed her mouth, and then
her breasts – in between, she said how lovely they were – and as her hands moved down over Anne’s body there was nothing but the most sensitive excitement.

‘You taste like moss down here,’ Arabella said, and Anne reached, overcame, and was ready for the next peak of pleasure. ‘I love you,’ Arabella said, at exactly the right
moment. Anne was lost, in love, in feeling, in the perfect balance of equality. Arabella would not be doing any of this unless she wanted to: Anne could abandon herself to Arabella’s desires
without question. She did not know what Arabella expected of her in return; in one sense she had the uncertain passivity of a virgin, but when Arabella made her cry out from her extreme joy, she
flung her arms round her lover and heard Arabella utter a sound of both triumph and gratitude, followed by a long, shuddering sigh of contentment.

They lay then in complete silence until the last tremor of each body was spent, and then Arabella whispered, ‘Do you love me, Anne?
Do
you?’ And Anne, with arms still round
her – and not to break whatever this spell was – whispered back, ‘I
do
love you – with all my – ’ but here Arabella covered her mouth with a hand, and
then they kissed once more: to Anne, it was the most gende, the most loving kiss that she had ever given or received in her life. Then they slept.

Edmund was away, in fact, for just over five weeks. This was partly because he twice got stuck on islands owing to bad weather conditions, and got once, but once and for all,
most thoroughly stuck with his opposite number in Athens. Mr Andros was a jolly, even frenetically friendly man, but the consequence of this was that his life was spent on several levels at once.
Business was his pleasure, and women were his relaxation, and he seemed to have more than his fair share of both. Whenever Edmund went to meet him, his telephone rang without stopping: whenever
they met outside Mr Andros’s office, a wealth of social and emotional intercourse intervened. Mr Andros combined the inability to say ‘no’ to absolutely everyone, with an immense
interest in plans, possibilities, alternatives and conspiracies: if arrangements fell through, which they frequently did, he hardly noticed it, so bent was he on what they would or might be doing
whatever happened to anything. Once, in desperation, Edmund visited his house, where he met a melancholy wife and two children: she had no idea where her husband was, and seemed surprised that this
should in the least surprise Edmund. Mr Andros was perpetually concerned that Edmund should be enjoying himself, and went to considerable and various lengths to secure this state, or, at least, to
give it the maximum chance. But Mr Andros’s life was so enriched by the complexities of friends and/or business acquaintances who simply did not reply to letters, who were never where they
had said they would be, and whose telephones, when they had them, broke down the moment that they were subject to common usage, that it did not strike him as the least astonishing that Edmund
should fail to effect any concrete business. ‘That is how it goes.
How
it goesl One spends three-quarters of the life in uncertainty and the last quarter in despair. So – one
must remain unmoved. Life will most certainly continue – excuse please while I make this call, and we will then have some kind of good dinner when we have located where
are
my friends
who so much want to meet you if only they can be found. You will see. All simply cannot turn out for the worst.’ But Edmund was simply anxious for anything to turn out at all. If he found a
suitable site for building, he could not find or deal with the owners: if he found a villa, it always seemed uncertain whether the people who were reputed to own it actually did, or whether they
were making, or had made, other arrangements. Once he was shown a whole island: no water on it, but a small and very beautiful place. This might be bought for hardly any money at all, Mr Andros
said, but he did not know for how much, and whoever owned it seemed unattainable. In the end, Edmund abandoned himself to making lists of places, houses, islands, beaches and people. He also found
that the life in Greece was extraordinarily enjoyable; amusing, restful, zestful and easy. When he thought of returning home, it was to a – by now – distant decision, that lost none of
its horror by its distance: and his natural disinclination to make decisions was encouraged more in this country than any he had ever been to. One night he got very drunk with Mr Andros and told
him that he had two women in his life. Mr Andros politely concealed his lack of astonishment at this, and said that this was the lot of all men. In his opinion, he said, some three hours later of
his opinions, the only way to deal with this was to marry as well as possible for the children and family life and to have the right kind of girl on the side for one’s amusement and pleasure.
This, he said, was not at all difficult: most women here were glad of respectability and children, and for the rest, if Edmund did not mind him saying so, there were plenty of attractive foreigners
whose attitude was entirely different. Edmund found that he less and less minded Mr Andros saying such things. He concealed from him the fact that he had no children, since they seemed to rank
diplomatically high in Andros’s estimation. But he enjoyed the partial confidence, and the fact that Mr Andros clearly thought the more of him for his infidelity. ‘It is natural. For
us, it is a part: for women it must be all, or they are bad women with whom one would not wish a permanent alliance.’ The family came first, although the day-to-day order would seem to be
sporadic. Edmund, very drunk, agreed with him. Mr Andros took him tenderly back to his hotel and put him in the charge of the excellent night porter. Next day, Edmund, with a hangover, sent two
more cables, to his office and his home. ‘Unable return. Deals not yet completed.’ And: ‘Desperately sorry. Business here far more complex than originally envisaged.’ This
last cable arrived indecipherably mangled at Mulberry Lodge.

‘Beeznis more
what?
’ Anne and Arabella hung over the telegram together and laughed, and tried again and gave it up.

One of the best things, Anne thought, about their relationship, was the way in which Arabella, at least, never seemed to load it with anything. By anything she meant the extraordinary and
wonderful nights that sometimes they spent. The days were so good, that Anne did not mind the sometimes part of the nights at all. If it happened, it happened, and whether it did or not, their days
were filled with the most active intimacy. She taught Arabella something about cooking, and also about novels; Arabella showed her her favourite music and imparted to each day a holiday air.
Sometimes Anne’s illness overcame her, and she had simply to lie in bed, throat and glands aching, with a fever and a headache. Then the sweetness of Arabella came into its own. She looked
after Anne; she looked after the house; she betrayed none of the irritable impatience that all men – even Edmund, Anne reflected – would have betrayed to her. Between them, they decided
to write to the solicitors who sent Arabella her money when she asked her mother for it. They wrote the letter for hours, until it came out in the shortest, most business-like manner. Arabella
wished simply to know whether her father had left her anything absolutely, either in the form of investments or actual capital.

The weather continued to be fine: they began eating artichokes. They went for a picnic on the river, in the punt that Edmund had bought when they moved there but hardly ever used. They went
about midday, and returned late. By now, they had become completely easy with each other. Nobody had ever made Anne proud of her breasts, until she realized that Arabella actually envied them.

‘What shall we do when Edmund does come back?’ Anne had asked that evening.

‘Wait and see
how
he comes back. There is nothing to worry about: we don’t have to lie to one another.’

Anne began to say, ‘But what else could we do?’ when Arabella started to make love to her, and she couldn’t and didn’t want to say anything.

Arabella did most of, if not all, the driving to Henley or Maidenhead for supplies. ‘There is no reason why you should ever leave,’ Anne said one evening. Arabella had not replied to
this. She had had an answer from the solicitors to the effect that their only instructions from the Princess Radamacz were to pay her five hundred a year. They had not handled her family’s
estate, and therefore could not give her any further information. Five hundred! But she had paid that man with his rubber gloves a hundred and fifty and thought nothing of it. She started to think
about being independent – possibly with a dependant. Nothing added up at all. Everything, she imagined, might be changed by what Edmund felt about the whole situation.

A letter came from Clara telling her that she absolutely must join the yacht by the end of the month, as there had, in fact, been delays in refitting her, and so everybody had been stuck in a
villa at Cannes. She also sent her a cheque for five hundred pounds (‘And for goodness’ sake buy yourself some reasonable cruising clothes’) and a note authorizing Arabella to
take the jewels left by Clara with Cartier on her last visit to London and bring them to Cannes. Her first-class air ticket – open, not dated – was also enclosed. These communications
set up a miserable conflict in Arabella. Anne quickly realized this, and it was not long before she was shown the letter and ticket. The note for Cartier, Arabella kept to herself. She did not
quite know why she did this, and she determined not to try and find out. When Anne had helped her to stop feeling too awful about Clara, she managed to write a short note back. ‘Edmund is
still away,’ it went. ‘Anne has glandular fever (which I may very well have caught from her), so I cannot possibly come out to you until it is known I am not infectious.’ This,
she knew, would get Clara, who was terrified of any infection, even common colds, and glandular fever would fill her with alarm and abhorrence. In fact a cable arrived within two days: ‘On no
account leave country until clear of infection,’ it ran. So that was that.

‘Now you can stop worrying, darling Arabella,’ Anne said gaily.

They were in the greenhouse, and she was potting up the tomato seedlings – now a good three inches high. Arabella was helping by cracking up bits of broken pots to put in the bottom of
unbroken ones for drainage, as Anne had explained to her. Together, they had mixed up the potting mixture – Anne made her own brand – in a wheelbarrow. The greenhouse, whose top windows
and door were open, smelled, none the less, of bruised tomato leaves, damp earth and a sweet fruity aroma that came, perhaps, from the early ripening nectarines on its main wall. Mr Leaf had
painted the top windows with greeny-white paint: he had done it very badly, like a child painting in a rage, so that the corners of panes were bare and the middles streaky. Bees came in and out
like sightseers – nothing much here, let’s move on – funny, it smelled all right from a distance. The light was either aqueous, or shot with the brilliant streaks of sun that
shone in the bright blue sky.

‘Shall I half fill some pots now?’ Arabella asked.

‘You can do the whole thing if you like.’

‘Oh no! I’d be afraid to. I might kill the poor things.’

‘You’ve got to learn. Supposing I take a turn for the worse half-way through this, what would happen to the seedlings?’

‘All right.’

Arabella watched carefully while Anne showed her how to prise out a seedling with a knife, so gently that it came out with all its roots intact, put it into a half-filled pot and then sprinkle
and press more earth round it.

When she had done one, she said, ‘I used to be perfecdy happy doing this entirely by myself: now I can’t really imagine feeling perfecdy happy doing anything without you.’

Arabella looked pleased and at the same time nervous. Anne, who was, by now, acutely sensitive to almost anything connected with Arabella, put down her flower pot and knelt beside her on the
greenhouse floor.

‘What is it? You’re worrying about something. Is it this wretched business of feeling you have to go on the yacht? Is it Clara you’re worrying about? Because, even if I
can’t, I’m sure that Edmund can cope with her – if he really tries.’

‘Supposing he doesn’t
want
to try?’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

Arabella turned away. ‘If you can’t see that, I can’t explain to you.’

Anne
could
see, but she very much didn’t want to. The implications of Edmund’s return were, literally, beyond her. What she tried to feel – and generally succeeded in
feeling – was that she and Edmund loved each other, she and Arabella loved each other, so surely, unless Edmund took a positive dislike to Arabella (which he had shown no signs of doing
before he went away),
surely
things must work out somehow?

As though Arabella could read her thoughts, she now said, ‘It depends what he – what Edmund asks. And then what he feels.’