The Sea Change (34 page)

Jimmy did not answer; Lillian had gone into the house. As Emmanuel held out the packet, Jimmy burst out: ‘I should think you’ve enough letters of your own without opening other
people’s!’ He did not take the packet. Then he added: ‘It’s extraordinary that I shouldn’t be expected to have any privacy at all.’

‘Sorry, Jimmy. I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it, or of course I wouldn’t have opened them.’

But they had known each other too well for this kind of lie: Jimmy said: ‘You know damn well that you never stopped to think what I might feel.’ For the first time they looked at
each other. Jimmy had never in his life been like this to him, and as their eyes met he saw Jimmy realizing this; a flicker of astonishment marked the resentment in Jimmy’s eyes and
disappeared as he turned to his anger again for support, saying: ‘I suppose you think that because you pay for the pictures . . .’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Jimmy, I think nothing of the kind. Idle curiosity – that’s all.’ Lying made him angrier. He slammed the packet down on to the parapet between
them, and stood up: he could never relinquish the small picture now. He turned towards the house, and as he did so, she came out of it.

‘Mrs Joyce said there were some letters for me. And she said that my photographs had arrived from America.’

‘They have.’ Jimmy did not turn his head, but she looked at him and said: ‘Are you satisfied with them?’

‘Ask Mr Joyce: I haven’t looked.’

She looked inquiringly at both of them – sensed something – he felt her retreat, and quickly held out her letters. ‘The pictures are very good. Jimmy is angry with me because I
opened the packet and it was addressed to him.’

‘Oh,’ she flushed slightly: Jimmy still didn’t turn round.

Then, in spite of himself, he said: ‘Jimmy seems to think that pictures of you are his personal property, when really, if they belong to anybody, they belong to you.’

‘They’re nothing to do with
me
,’ she said cheerfully: ‘Surely they were taken for Clemency?’

Jimmy said suddenly: ‘Has he opened
your
letters?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Of course not.’

She and he said this at once, and Jimmy echoed satirically: ‘Of course not.’

There was the uncomfortable pause which occurs when lack of proportion becomes manifest; then she put her letters into the pocket of her cotton skirt, and said: ‘Mrs Joyce has prepared the
lunch. Shall we leave the pictures now, and go to bathe?’

It struck him, walking down to the beach with her, that Jimmy had not even realized clearly the cause of his own anger – that
she
had certainly no idea of it: it was almost possible
after these two conclusions to imagine that he had been wrong – that Jimmy was sulking on general, harmless grounds. He took the opportunity to apologize again to Jimmy with more truth in his
apology. It was accepted.

2

ALBERTA

Darling Uncle Vin,

You are quite right, and what Papa says about life consisting of ranges of molehills is true also: I had forgotten it, as usual, because sometimes one draws far too near a molehill. I will write
to Papa forthwith: I am merely charging up energy in agreeing with and thanking you. As you say, the whole question turns on whether I am good enough. I realized suddenly, yesterday, that I am
learning a good deal, which was cheering, as I had been in despair. But yesterday Mr Joyce read some of the play with me (I have been working with Jimmy, learning to walk and speak and stand still
and listen) and I had thought that the part was getting further and further away, but after one false start I read it much more easily, and didn’t get a sore throat or a thumping heart or
feel breathless and unreal –
so
– perhaps I shall be suitable in the end. What you say about the salary is staggering, Uncle Vin. Do you think, if I bought him one, Papa would
use a little car instead of his awful old bicycle? Or do you think that that would constitute an even greater danger? If you do, at least I could buy him an ageless mackintosh like you have and
have some of the draughts in his study stopped up which he has always said would need a team of experts from London. Which do you think would be best for him? It seems extraordinary to think that I
could ever earn enough to do anything so
old
with my money – but perhaps this is all some kind of dream – if you saw this island you would see what I mean. It’s something
to do with everything in my life having changed, except, in some way, me inside it. It should be ‘I’, I think. I must say that Charlotte Brontë did not write nearly such good
English as Jane Austen. Oh, by the way, I quite understand what you say about telling Papa myself, and not hiding behind you – that this is the wrong way of telling things: I should have told
you this earlier, or perhaps I don’t need to at all, but you know what a hotbed of misunderstanding letters can be – literature has taught me that, at least.

I’m so sorry that you didn’t get the part of the card-sharper in the film, what bad luck, it would have made a change – still, I expect it will be very peaceful being the Rev.
Clamber in
The Unashamed
, and it will help you with the instalments on your Mixmaster, and your portable canoe.

I have got quite sunburned, although nothing like Mr Joyce or Jimmy, but at least I’ve passed the shrimp colours and don’t burn any more and my swimming has improved immeasurably.
Some photographs of me for the play that were taken in New York have arrived; they are very like me, but I don’t think they can be much good, as they seemed to make everybody rather cross. I
was hoping that they would be rather glamorous, but I daresay that that was not possible in my case (Jimmy said that the man was a first-class photographer). I will remember what you say about a
hare’s foot, but at the moment that seems a distant piece of equipment. Jimmy is extremely interesting about acting – both sensible and arresting, and it certainly won’t be his
fault if I am no good. I wish you could be in the play too. What a good idea, it does not smack of corruption as you are a much better actor than I shall ever be an actress.

I have written to Papa, and it was not difficult at all. Only – now that the envelope is lying beside me with his name and address on it – I wish that I was the letter and going
there. It was never an address before – even when I went to Paris with Uncle Vin – it was here and home, and now I feel very far away. June is one of the best months at home: grass up
to your knees, hedges high and strung with wild roses; buttercups like money in the fields; thick dew in the mornings, a smell of honey and heather on the heath and the bees seem to dance in the
air. All the Junes I have ever known there seem to have become one time, so that I don’t seem to have any particular age in my memories, and everything I remember seems always to have been
happening. Picnics, adventures with the brothers, waiting up for a ghost, putting a hen in Aunt T.’s cupboard, trying to tame a toad; hot stilted afternoons with Lady Gorge’s nieces,
walking round her garden, asking names, saying what we had been given for Christmas and what we would do when we were grown up; the atmosphere of cautious competition, the marvellous tea and our
riotous escape to play what Lady Gorge described to Papa as a very rough and dirty game; reading to Serena in the apple tree – she always liked sad stories and cried nearly all the time;
evening walks with Papa when somehow whatever we talked about touched me and touched something else, so that I remember most clearly the tone of his voice, the feeling that he was giving me
something that it was worth my trying to understand, and the smoothing of the ripe grasses against my legs . . . loving him, I love to remember the reasons for it. I’ve never thought of
spending years of my life away from him, which perhaps I shall do – but it doesn’t matter how far I am or for how long because I can always remember that he is there – steady and
gentle and true, I’ve thought very carefully about those three words, and they are the best I can find to describe him. The other side of it not mattering – which may be a piece of
grandiloquence due to this being my diary – is that I just wish that I was with him
now
. I just wish that.

One thing I am learning is the difference between family life and living with other people: the latter is a much more groundless affair, so that sometimes one has to seek reasons for it, and
then they seem to be outside reasons like money and work and things to be done. Things are not always easy here, but I don’t understand what makes the difficulties. I thought that perhaps
either Jimmy or Mr Joyce had decided that I was unsuitable for Clemency and that the other one didn’t agree. Reading the play with Mr J. made me think of this. Half way through, Jimmy joined
us – he didn’t interrupt by saying anything but the kind of way that Mr J. had been listening stopped – like the lights going out – and I couldn’t read properly any
more. I tried, because I felt it was wrong for me to become hopeless the moment Jimmy arrived, but it was no use, and when I stopped I saw that Mr J. was staring at the ground looking very sad and
Jimmy was staring at him, but he didn’t look sad, he just had a kind of violence in his face.

Stopping, seeing their faces, I had an extraordinary feeling – almost a smell, like gunpowder after an explosion, only there hadn’t been one: I thought that perhaps we were before
it, and without knowing why, I said: ‘What is to become of all this?’

They both looked at me then, and seeing that they were not startled and had no ignorance in their faces, I thought: ‘They
know
that something is wrong, and they’re aware of
disaster, but they are not avoiding it or telling me,’ and I wanted to say that I would not do what they wanted, but I couldn’t speak, so I left them. I left the house and went out,
starting for the port: I had such a longing for home that without thinking I ran nearly all the way, but when I got to the Post Office, it was too late and shut. Then I saw Julius walking slowly
along reading a huge book, and without looking up, he stopped and waited until I caught up with him. We both went and had an orange drink although we hadn’t any money, but the man never minds
when we pay, and Julius took an envelope out of his
Outline of History
and said: ‘I was going to bring this up to you when you had finished your acting work,’ and it was a letter
from Papa. We finished our drinks and went up the hill of the village where I knew that they wouldn’t find me. Julius said: ‘I wish to read today but I do not mind your silent
company,’ and I felt exactly the same, so we went past the houses up a gully where there was a fig tree with enough shade for two people and I read the letter. I read it twice and the second
time I could hardly see his beautiful clear writing. Julius looked up and said: ‘I hope no member of your family has died?’ and when I said no, he apologized most courteously, and said
that it had not occurred to him that letters could otherwise distress people, and went on reading. It was not simply that I was so glad to hear from him: it was that I could understand so much from
what he wrote. I knew then that he had known that I was concealing things, that he trusted me about the concealments, that he had even foreseen the difficulties and differences which would occur
for me; he did not say any of this in outside words – simply made it plain that he had used his thought for me rightly – putting any of his concern into the future.

At the end of the letter, he had written out his full blessing to me.

There were no birds, no clouds, no movement of the shadow from the tree, but a yellow and black and white butterfly – the largest I have ever seen – was silently examining the figs
on the lower branches of our shade: Julius was watching it too, and said: ‘Do you think it remembers when it was a caterpillar? Would you like me to catch it for you?’ I said no,
because it had such a short life anyway, and he said that I shouldn’t be too sure of that – supposing an hour for us was a year for a butterfly – and then he was off on one of his
immense calculations in Greek. I felt so calm and happy about the letter that I was hungry, and asked him whether he liked figs, but he only said: ‘I prefer condensed milk,’ and went on
reading. So I picked some figs and a leaf to put them on and ate them very slowly and carefully, and then went to sleep.

When I went back it was about five o’clock. Mr Joyce was by himself on the terrace, sitting at a small table with paper in front of him, but he didn’t seem to be writing anything. He
looked up and said ‘Alberta!’ as though I’d been away for days, and I began to feel rather ashamed of having simply run away without saying anything in the morning. He asked me if
I wanted anything to eat, and said that the others had gone for a long walk with donkeys; he didn’t say anything about the morning. I got some bread and cheese and olives and we both had a
glass of wine and he smoked and we didn’t talk much, until he asked me whether I would do his letters with him which had been piling up slowly ever since we got here. It took him a long time
to find the letters, as he had been opening them himself since we came to the island and they were all stuffed in various pockets of his clothes. In the end he said, well, we had quite enough to be
going on with, and dictated in his rapid quiet dictating voice – I have got quite used to it, although I still find the people we have to write to extraordinary. Then, when I folded my
notebook and stood up, he said: ‘You aren’t going to type indoors on such a beautiful evening surely?’ so I brought my typewriter out on to the terrace, and after I had done some
of the letters I looked up and he was smiling at me and said: ‘Were you going to say this morning that you didn’t want to play Clemency?’ and I said yes: I didn’t say any
more, and after waiting a moment, he said: ‘But I think you’ve changed your mind since then – haven’t you?’ I told him that I had decided not to come to any decision
about it, but what did he think? Or Jimmy? He thought for a bit, and then said that he’d come to much the same decision as me – not to make one. He explained that there were many other
factors besides getting Clemency right, and that he’d been considering our leaving Greece a little sooner than we had planned and all going to London before New York. Then he said that he
felt I should have the opportunity of talking to my father and that Mrs Joyce wanted to make inquiries about buying a house in the country. I told him that I had written to Papa, although he would
not have got the letter yet, but the prospect of going home before we went to America added to the feeling Papa’s letter had given me. I looked out over the sea which was absolutely calm and
the colours of a delphinium, and thought that I would bathe when I had finished the letters. Then Mr J. laughed and said did I think that there would be a pretty house in Dorset for him to buy? I
said that I would write to Aunt Topsy and inquire, but he said no don’t it was really no more than an idle thought. Then I finished the letters. Samples – to a lady who wished to call
her champion Boxer puppy Emmanuel Joyce: another who wanted to spend three months with him telling him the story of her life in order that he should make a play of it. A club who wanted him to talk
to them about Renaissance drama and poetry for two and a half hours with lantern slides ‘and other expenses’ provided. Two girls who wanted to be his secretary. A furious man who was
collecting copies of a certain play of Mr J.’s and burning them as he went. He had got to one hundred and twenty-two copies and wished to know how many more there were. Another lady who said
he looked awfully like somebody she had met on a boat in the Red Sea once and was he? Then there were the ordinary business ones – asking for material, or asking for permission to act or
reproduce scenes or bits of plays. Mr J. is tremendously patient and brief with the mad ones, but as he said nearly all his letters were variations on a negative theme. At the end he said he knew
that these weren’t all the letters, but he couldn’t find any more, but would I make a note of Friedmann in my book, and if the letter didn’t turn up, we would have to write to
him.