The Complete Short Stories Part 4

'Thanks. I'm sure it's quite correct. I'll send a cheque.'

'You have stolen that bird, I know,' said Aunt Sarah that afternoon, giving the cage a shove.

'No,' said Daphne, 'I paid for it.'

In the spring of 1947 Linda died of a disease of the blood. At the funeral a short man of about forty-five introduced himself to Daphne. He was Martin Grindy, the barrister who had been Linda's lover.

He gave Daphne his card. 'Would you come some time and talk about Linda?'

'Yes, of course.

'Next week?'

'Well, I'm teaching. But when school breaks up I'll write to you.' She wrote during the Easter holidays, and met him for lunch a few days later.

He said, 'I miss Linda.'

'Yes, I'm sure you must.

'The trouble is, you see, I'm a married man.'

She thought him attractive and understood why Linda had always felt urgently about keeping her appointments with him.

In the summer she started to replace Linda as Martin's lover. They met in London at weekends and more frequently in the summer holidays.

Daphne was teaching at a private school in Henley. She lived with Pooh-bah and a middle-aged housekeeper whom they had persuaded into service, the old servant, Clara, having died, and Aunt Sarah having been removed to a nursing home.

Mole had married, and Daphne missed his frequent visits, and the long drives in his car. Until she met Martin Grindy her life was enlivened only by the visiting art master at the school, who came down twice a week.

Martin's wife, several years older than he, lived in Surrey and was always ill with a nervous complaint.

'There's no question of a divorce,' Martin said. 'My wife's against it on religious grounds, and though I myself don't share these principles I feel a personal obligation towards her.'

'Oh, I see.'

They spent their time in his flat in Kensington. There was a heatwave. They bathed in the Serpentine.

Sometimes, if his wife was specially ill, he would be summoned to the country. Daphne stayed alone in the flat or wandered round the shops.

'This year,' said Martin, 'she has been more ill than usual. But next year, if she's better, I hope to take you to Austria.'

'Next year,' she said, 'I am supposed to be returning to Africa.'

Earlier Chakata had written, 'Old Tuys has had a stroke. He is up now, but very feeble in his mind.' Since then, he had seemed less keen on Daphne's return. Daphne thought this odd, for previously he had been wont to write when sending her news of the farm, 'You will see many changes when you return,' or, when mentioning affairs at the dorp, 'There's a new doctor. You'll like him.' But in his last letter he said, 'There have been changes in the educational system. You will find many changes if you return.' Sometimes she thought Chakata was merely becoming forgetful. 'I'm trying to make the most of my stay in England,' she wrote, 'but travelling is very expensive. I doubt if I shall see anything of Europe before my return.' Chakata, in his next letter, did not touch on the question. He said, 'Old Tuys just sits about on the stoep. Poor old chap, he is incapable of harm now. He is rather pathetic on the whole.'

At the end of the summer Daphne's lover took his wife to Torquay. Daphne wandered about Kensington alone for a few days, then went back to Pooh-bah. She took him for walks. She asked him to lend her some money so that she might spend a week in Paris. He replied that he didn't really see the necessity. Next day the housekeeper told her of a man in the village who would give her thirty pounds for the poodle. Daphne had grown fond of the dog. She refused the offer, then wrote to her lover in Torquay to ask him to lend her the money to go to Paris. She received a postcard from Martin, with no mention of her request. 'Will be back in London 1st week October,' he wrote on the card.

Term started at the beginning of October. That week Martin's wife turned up and demanded of Pooh-bah Daphne's whereabouts. She was directed to the school, and on confronting Daphne there, made a scene.

Later, the headmistress was highly offensive to Daphne, who straight-way resigned. The headmistress relented, for she was short of staff. 'I am only thinking of the girls,' she explained. Hugh, the visiting art master, suggested to Daphne that she might find a better job in London. She left that night. Pooh-bah was furious. 'Who's going to attend to things on Mrs Vesey's day off?' Daphne realized why he had not wished her to go to Paris.

'You could marry her,' Daphne suggested. 'Then she'd be on duty all the time.'

He did this in fact, within a month. Daphne settled in a room in Bayswater, poorly furnished for the price; but on the other hand the landlady was willing to take the poodle.

Martin Grindy traced her to that place.

'I don't like your wife,' she said.

'I'm afraid she got hold of your letter. What can I give you? What can I do for you? What can I possibly say?'

Besides teaching art to schoolchildren, Hugh Fuller painted. He took Daphne to his studio in Earl's Court, where she sat and reflectively pulled the stuffing even further out of the torn upholstery of the armchair.

Quite decidedly, she said, she would not come and live with him, but she hoped they would always be friends.

He thought he had made a mistake in putting the proposition to her before making love, so he made moves to repair his error.

Daphne screamed. He looked surprised.

'You see,' she explained, 'I've got nerves, frightfully, at the moment.

He took her frequently to Soho, and sometimes to parties where, for the first time, she entered a world in the existence of which she had previously disbelieved. Here the poets did have long hair, and painters wore beards, and what was more, two of the men wore bracelets and earrings. One group of four girls lived all together in two rooms with a huge old negress. Among Hugh's acquaintance were those who looked upon him with scorn for his art teaching, those who considered this activity harmless in view of his lack of talent, and those who admired him for his industry as much as his generosity.

Daphne found this company very relaxing to her nerves.

No one asked her the usual questions about Africa, and what was more surprising, no one made advances to her, not even Hugh. Daphne was teaching at a Council school. On half-holidays in spring she would sometimes meet Hugh and his friends, and regardless of the staring streets, would straggle with them along the pavements, leap on and off buses, to the current art show. There, it was clear to Daphne that Hugh's friends occupied a world which she could never penetrate. But she came to be more knowing about pictures. It may have been the art master in Hugh, as one of his friends suggested, but he loved to inform Daphne as to form, line, light, ma.s.ses, pigments.

Her cousin Mole looked her up one day. He told her that Michael, the silly son of that Greta Ca.s.se at Regent's Park, had married a woman ten years his senior, and was emigrating to the Colony. Daphne was affected with an attack of longing for the Colony, more dire than any of those bouts of homesickness which she had yet experienced.

'I shall have to go back there soon,' she said to Mole. 'I've saved enough for the fare. It's a good thought to know I can go any time I please.'

One night Daphne and Hugh were drinking in a pub in Soho with his friends, when suddenly there fell a hush. Daphne looked round to see why everyone's eyes were on a slight very dark man in his early forties, who had just entered the bar. After a moment, everyone started talking again, some giggled, and continued to glance at the man who had come in.

'That's Ralph Mercer,' one of Hugh's friends whispered to Daphne.

'Who?'

'Ralph Mercer, the novelist. He was at school with Hugh, I believe. Rather a popular writer.'

'Oh, I see,' said Daphne, 'he looks as if he might be popular.'

Hugh was collecting drinks at the bar. The novelist saw him, and they spoke together for a while. Presently Hugh brought him to be introduced. The novelist sat next to Daphne. 'You remind me of someone I used to know from Africa,' he said.

'I come from Africa,' said Daphne.

Hugh asked him, 'Often come here?'

'No, it was just, you know, I was pa.s.sing....'

One of the girls chuckled, a deep masculine sound. 'A whim,' she said. When he had gone Hugh said, 'He's rather sweet, isn't he, considering how famous ...'

'Did you hear him,' said an oldish man, 'when he said, "Speaking as an artist Rather funny, that, I thought.'

'Well, he is an artist in the sense,' said Hugh, 'that-' But his words were obliterated by the others' derision.

A few days later Hugh said to Daphne, 'I've heard from Ralph Mercer.'

'Who?'

'That novelist we met in the pub. He writes to know if I'll give him your address.'

'Why's that, do you think?'

'He likes you, I suppose.'

'Is he married?'

'No. He lives with his mother. Actually I've sent him your address. Do you mind?'

'Yes, I do. I'm not a name and address to be pa.s.sed round. I'm afraid I don't wish to see you again.'

'You know,' said Hugh, 'I'm glad it never came to an affair between us. You see, Daphne, I'm not entirely a woman's man.'

'I don't know what to say,' she said.

'I hope you will like Ralph Mercer. He's very well-off. Very interesting, too.'

'I shall refuse to see him,' said Daphne.

Her a.s.sociation with Ralph Mercer lasted two years. Her infatuation was as gluttonous as her status as his mistress was high among the few writers and numerous film people who kept him company. She had a grey-carpeted flat in Hampstead, with the best and latest Swedish furniture. Ralph's male friends wooed her, telephoned all day, came with flowers and theatre tickets.

For the first three months Ralph was with her constantly. She told him of her childhood, of Chakata, the farm, the dorp, Donald Cloete, the affair of Old Tuys. He demanded more and more. 'I need to know your entire background, every detail. Love is an expedition of discovery into unexplored territory.' To Daphne this approach had such force of originality that it sharpened her memory. She remembered incidents which had been latent for fifteen years or more. She sensed the sort of thing that delighted him; the feud, for instance, between Old Tuys and Chakata; revenge and honour. One day after receiving a letter from Chakata she was able to tell him the last sentence of Donald Cloete's story: he had died of drink. She offered him this humble contribution with pride, for it showed that she, too, though no novelist, possessed a sense of character and destiny. 'Always,' she said, 'I would ask him was he drunk or sober, and he always told the truth.' Later in the day, when the thought of Donald's death came suddenly to her mind, she cried for a s.p.a.ce.

News came that Mrs Chakata had followed Donald to the grave, and for the same cause. Daphne lad this information on the altar. The novelist was less impressed than on the former occasion. 'Old Tuys has been done out of his revenge,' Daphne added for good measure, although she was aware that Old Tuys had been silly and senile since his stroke. One of her friends in the Colony had written to say that Mrs Chakata had long since ceased to have the pistol by her side: 'Old Tuys takes no notice of her. He's forgotten what it was all about.'

'Death has cheated Old Tuys,' said Daphne.

'Very melodramatic,' he commented.

Ralph began to disappear for days and weeks without warning. In a panic, Daphne would telephone to his mother. 'I don't know where he is,' Mrs Mercer would say. 'Really, dear, he's like that. It's very trying.'

Much later, his mother was to tell Daphne, 'I love my son, but quite honestly I don't like him.' Mrs Mercer was an intensely religious woman. Ralph loved his mother but did not like her. He was frequently seized by nervy compulsions and superst.i.tions.

'I must,' said Ralph, 'write. I need solitude to write. That is why I go away.

'Oh, I see,' said Daphne.

'If you say that again I'll hit you.' And though she did not repeat the words, he did, just then, hit her.

Afterwards she said, 'If only you would say goodbye before you leave I wouldn't mind so much. It's the suddenness that upsets me.

'All right then. I'm going away tonight.'

'Where are you going? Where?'

'Why,' he said, 'don't you go back to Africa?'

'I don't want to.' Her obsession with Ralph had made Africa seem a remote completed thing.

His next book was more successful than any he had written. The film was in preparation. He told Daphne he adored her really, and he quite saw that he led her a h.e.l.l of a life. That was what it meant to be tied up with an artist, he was afraid.

'It's worth it,' Daphne said, 'and I think I can help you in some ways.

He thought so too just at that moment, for it occurred to him that his latest book was all of it written during his a.s.sociation with Daphne. 'I think we should get married,' he said.

Next day he left the fiat and went abroad. Now, after two years her pa.s.sion for him was not diminished, neither were her misery and dread.

Three weeks later he wrote from his mother's address to suggest that she moved out of the flat. He would make a settlement.

She telephoned to his mother's house. 'He won't speak to you,' his mother said. 'I'm ashamed of him, to tell the truth.'

Daphne took a taxi to the house.

'He's upstairs writing,' his mother said. 'He's going away somewhere else tomorrow. I hope he stays away, to tell the truth.'

'I must see him,' said Daphne.

His mother said, 'He makes me literally ill. I'm too old for this sort of thing, my dear. G.o.d bless you.

She went and called upstairs, 'Ralph, come down a moment, please. She waited till she heard his footsteps on the stars, then she disappeared quickly.

'Go away,' said Ralph to Daphne. 'Go away and leave me in peace.

3.

Daphne arrived in the Colony during the rainy season. The rains made Chakata's rheumatism bad. He talked a lot about his rheumatism, would question her about England without listening to her replies.

'The West End is badly bombed,' she said.

'It gets me in the groin when I turn in bed,' he answered. Various neighbours looked in to see Daphne. The young had married, and some who called were new to her.

'There's a chap out from England farming over at the south, says he knows you, said Chakata. 'Name Cash, I think.'