The Complete Short Stories Part 8

At home, thought Sybil, it would not be such a slur. Her final appeal for a permit to travel to England had just been dismissed. The environment mauled her weakness. 'I think I'm going to have a cold,' she said, shivering.

'Go straight to bed, dear.' Ariadne called for black Elijah and bade him prepare some lemon juice. But the cold did not materialize.

She returned with flu, however, from her first visit to the Westons. Her 1936 Ford V8 had broken down on the road and she had waited three chilly hours before another car had appeared.

'You must get a decent car,' said the chemist's wife, who came to console her. 'These old crocks simply won't stand up to the roads out here.'

Sybil shivered and held her peace. Nevertheless, she returned to the Westons at mid-term.

Desiree's invitations were pressing, almost desperate. Again and again Sybil went in obedience to them. The Westons were a magnetic field.

There was a routine attached to her arrival. The elegant wicker chair was always set for her in the same position on the stoep. The same cushions, it seemed, were always piled in exactly the same way.

'What will you drink, Sybil? Are you comfy there, Sybil? We're going to give you a wonderful time, Sybil.' She was their little orphan, she supposed. She sat, with very dark gla.s.ses, contemplating the couple. 'We've planned - haven't we, Barry? - a surprise for you, Sybil.'

'We've planned - haven't we, Desiree? - a marvellous trip ... a croc hunt ... hippo ...'

Sybil sips her gin and lime. Facing her on the wicker sofa, Desiree and her husband sit side by side. They gaze at Sybil affectionately, 'Take off your smoked gla.s.ses, Sybil, the sun's nearly gone.' Sybil takes them off. The couple hold hands. They peck kisses at each other, and presently, outrageously, they are entwined in a long erotic embrace in the course of which Barry once or twice regards Sybil from the corner of his eye. Barry disengages himself and sits with his arm about his wife; she snuggles up to him. Why, thinks Sybil, is this performance being staged? 'Sybil is shocked,' Barry remarks. She sips her drink, and reflects that a public display between man and wife somehow is more shocking than are courting couples in parks and doorways. 'We're very much in love with each other,' Barry explains, squeezing his wife. And Sybil wonders what is wrong with their marriage since obviously something is wrong. The couple kiss again. Am I dreaming this? Sybil asks herself.

Even on her first visit Sybil knew definitely there was something wrong with the marriage. She thought of herself, at first, as an objective observer, and was even amused when she understood they had chosen her to be their sort of Victim of Expiation. On occasions when other guests were present she noted that the love scenes did not take place. Instead, the couple tended to snub Sybil before their friends. 'Poor little Sybil, she lives all alone and is a teacher, and hasn't many friends. We have her here to stay as often as possible.' The people would look uneasily at Sybil, and would smile. 'But you must have heaps of friends,' they would say politely. Sybil came to realize she was an object of the Westons' resentment, and that, nevertheless, they found her indispensable.

Ariadne returned from Cairo. 'You always look washed out when you've been staying at the Westons',' she told Sybil eventually. 'I suppose it's due to the late parties and lots of drinks.'

'I suppose so.

Desiree wrote continually. 'Do come, Barry needs you. He needs your advice about some sonnets.' Sybil tore up these letters quickly, but usually went. Not because her discomfort was necessary to their wellbeing, but because it was somehow necessary to her own. The act of visiting the Westons alleviated her sense of guilt.

I believe, she thought, they must discern my abnormality. How could they have guessed? She was always cautious when they dropped questions about her private life. But one's closest secrets have a subtle way of communicating themselves to the resentful vigilance of opposite types. I do believe, she thought, that heart speaks unto heart, and deep calleth unto deep. But rarely in clear language. There is a misunderstanding here. They imagine their demonstrations of erotic bliss will torment my frigid soul, and so far they are right. But the reason for my pain is not envy. Really, it is boredom.

Her Ford V8 rattled across country. How bored, she thought, I am going to be by their married tableau! How pleased, exultant, they will be! These thoughts consoled her, they were an offering to the G.o.ds.

'Are you comfy, Sybil?'

She sipped her gin and lime. 'Yes, thanks.'

His pet name for Desiree was Dearie. 'Kiss me, Dearie,' he said.

'There, Baddy,' his wife said to Barry, snuggling close to him and squinting at Sybil.

'I say, Sybil,' Barry said as he smoothed down his hair, 'you ought to get married again. You're missing such a lot.'

'Yes, Sybil,' said Desiree, 'you should either marry or enter a convent, one or the other.'

'I don't see why,' Sybil said, 'I should fit into a tidy category.

'Well, you're neither one thing nor another - is she, honeybunch?'

True enough, thought Sybil, and that is why I'm laid out on the altar of boredom.

'Or get yourself a boyfriend,' said Desiree. 'It would be good for you.'

'You're wasting your best years,' said Barry.

'Are you comfy there, Sybil? ... We want you to enjoy yourself here. Any time you want to bring a boyfriend, we're broadminded - aren't we, Baddy?'

'Kiss me, Dearie,' he said.

Desiree took his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed lipstick from his mouth. He jerked his head away and said to Sybil, 'Pa.s.s your gla.s.s.'

Desiree looked at her reflection in the gla.s.s of the french windows and said, 'Sybil's too intellectual, that's her trouble.' She patted her hair, then looked at Sybil with an old childish enmity.

After dinner Barry would read his poems. Usually, he said, 'I'm not going to be an egotist tonight. I'm not going to read my poems.' And usually Desiree would cry, 'Oh do, Barry, do.' Always, eventually, he did. 'Marvellous,' Desiree would comment, 'wonderful.' By the third night of her visits, the farcical aspect of it all would lose its fascination for Sybil, and boredom would fill her near to bursting point, like gas in a balloon. To relieve the strain, she would sigh deeply from time to time. Barry was too engrossed in his own voice to notice this, but Desiree was watching. At first Sybil worded her comments tactfully. 'I think you should devote more of your time to your verses,' she said. And, since he looked puzzled, added, 'You owe it to poetry if you write it.'

'Nonsense,' said Desiree, 'he often writes a marvellous sonnet before shaving in the morning.'

'Sybil may be right,' said Barry. 'I owe poetry all the time I can give.'

'Are you tired, Sybil?' said Desiree. 'Why are you sighing like that; are you all right?'

Later, Sybil gave up the struggle and wearily said, 'Very good,' or 'Nice rhythm' after each poem. And even the guilt of condoning Desiree's 'marvellous ... wonderful' was less than the guilt of her isolated mind. She did not know then that the price of allowing false opinions was the gradual loss of one's capacity for forming true ones.

Not every morning, but at least twice during each visit Sybil would wake to hear the row in progress. The nanny, who brought her early tea, made large eyes and tiptoed warily. Sybil would have her bath, splashing a lot to drown the noise of the quarrel. Downstairs, the battle of voices descended, filled every room and corridor. When, on the worst occasions, the sound of shattering gla.s.s broke through the storm, Sybil would know that Barry was smashing up Desiree's dressing-table; and would wonder how Desiree always managed to replace her crystal bowls, since goods of that type were now scarce, and why she bothered to do so. Sybil would always find the two girls of Barry's former marriage standing side by side on the lawn frankly gazing up at the violent bedroom window. The nanny would cart off Desiree's baby for a far-away walk. Sybil would likewise disappear for the morning.

The first time this happened, Desiree told her later, 'I'm afraid you unsettle Barry.'

'What do you mean?' said Sybil.

Desiree dabbed her watery eyes and blew her nose. 'Well, of course, it stands to reason, Sybil, you're out to attract Barry. And he's only a man. I know you do it unconsciously, but ...'

'I can't stand this sort of thing. I shall leave right away,' Sybil said. 'No, Sybil, no. Don't make a thing of it. Barry needs you. You're the only person in the Colony who can really talk to him about his poetry.

'Understand,' said Sybil on that first occasion, 'I am not at all interested in your husband. I think he's an all-round third-rater. That is my opinion.

Desiree looked savage. 'Barry,' she shouted, 'has made a fortune out of pa.s.sion-fruit juice in eight years. He has sold four thousand copies of Home Thoughts on his own initiative.

It was like a game for three players. According to the rules, she was to be in love, unconsciously, with Barry, and tortured by the contemplation of Desiree's married bliss. She felt too old to join in, just at that moment.

Barry came to her room while she was packing. 'Don't go,' he said. 'We need you. And after all, we are only human. What's a row? These quarrels only happen in the best marriages. And I can't for the life of me think how it started.'

'What a beautiful house. What a magnificent estate,' said Sybil's hostess.

'Yes,' said Sybil, 'it was the grandest in the Colony.'

'Were the owners frightfully grand?'

'Well, they were rich, of course.'

'I can see that. What a beautiful interior. I adore those lovely old oil lamps. I suppose you didn't have electricity?'

'Yes, there was electric light in all the rooms. But my friends preferred the oil-lamp tradition for the dining-room. You see, it was a copy of an old Dutch house.

'Absolutely charming.'

The reel came to an end. The lights went up and everyone shifted in their chairs.

'What were those large red flowers?' said the elderly lady.

'Flamboyants.'

'Magnificent,' said her hostess. 'Don't you miss the colours, Sybil?'

'No, I don't, actually. There was too much of it for me.

'You didn't care for the bright colours?' said the young man, leaning forward eagerly.

Sybil smiled at him.

'I liked the bit where those little lizards were playing among the stones. That was an excellent shot,' said her host. He was adjusting the last spool.

'I rather liked that handsome blond fellow,' said her hostess, as if the point had been in debate. 'Was he the pa.s.sion-fruiter?'

'He was the manager,' said Sybil.

'Oh yes, you told me. He was in a shooting affair, did you say?'

'Yes, it was unfortunate.

'Poor young man. It sounds quite a dangerous place. I suppose the sun and everything ...'

'It was dangerous for some people. It depended.'

'The blacks look happy enough. Did you have any trouble with them in those days?'

'No,' said Sybil, 'only with the whites.' Everyone laughed.

'Right,' said her host. 'Lights out, please.'

Sybil soon perceived the real cause of the Westons' quarrels. It differed from their explanations: they were both, they said, so much in love, so jealous of each other's relations with the opposite s.e.x.

'Barry was furious,' said Desiree one day, '- weren't you, Barry? -because I smiled, merely smiled, at Carter.'

'I'll have it out with Carter,' muttered Barry. 'He's always hanging round Desiree.'

David Carter was their manager. Sybil was so foolish as once to say, 'Oh surely David wouldn't-'

'Oh wouldn't he?' said Desiree.

'Oh wouldn't he?' said Barry.

Possibly they did not themselves know the real cause of their quarrels. These occurred on mornings when Barry had decided to lounge in bed and write poetry. Desiree, anxious that the pa.s.sion-fruit business should continue to expand, longed for him to be at his office in the factory at eight o'clock each morning, by which time all other enterprising men in the Colony were at work. But Barry spoke more and more of retiring and devoting his time to his poems. When he lay abed, pen in hand, worrying a sonnet, Desiree would sulk and bang doors. The household knew that the row was on. 'Quiet! Don't you see I'm trying to think,' he would shout. 'I suggest,' she would reply, 'you go to the library if you want to write.' It was evident that her greed and his vanity, facing each other in growling antipathy, were too terrible for either to face. Instead, the names of David Carter and Sybil would fly between them, consoling them, pepping-up and propagating the myth of their mutual attraction.

'Rolling your eyes at Carter in the orchard. Don't think I didn't notice.'

'Carter? That's funny. I can easily keep Carter in his place. But while we're on the subject, what about you with Sybil? You sat up late enough with her last night after I'd gone to bed.'

Sometimes he not only smashed the crystal bowls, he hurled them through the window.

In the exhausted afternoon Barry would explain, 'Desiree was upset -weren't you, Desiree? - because of you, Sybil. It's understandable. We shouldn't stay up late talking after Desiree has gone to bed. You're a little devil in your way, Sybil.'

'Oh well,' said Sybil obligingly, 'that's how it is.'

She became tired of the game. When, in the evenings, Barry's voice boomed forth with sonorous significance as befits a hallowed subject, she no longer thought of herself as an objective observer. She had tired of the game because she was now more than nominally committed to it. She ceased to be bored by the Westons; she began to hate them.

'What I don't understand,' said Barry, 'is why my poems are ignored back in England. I've sold over four thousand of the book out here. Feature articles about me have appeared in all the papers out here; remind me to show you them. But I can't get a single notice in London. When I send a poem to any of the magazines I don't even get a reply.'

'They are engaged in a war,' Sybil said.

'But they still publish poetry. Poetry so-called. Utter rubbish, all of it. You can't understand the stuff.'

'Yours is too good for them,' said Sybil. To a delicate ear her tone might have resembled the stab of a pin stuck into a waxen image.

'That's a fact, between ourselves,' said Barry. 'I shouldn't say it, but that's the answer.

Barry was overweight, square and dark. His face had lines, as of anxiety or stomach trouble. David Carter, when he pa.s.sed, cool and fair through the house, was quite a change.

'England is finished,' said Barry. 'It's degenerate.

'I wonder,' said Sybil, 'you have the heart to go on writing so cheerily about the English towns and countryside.' Now, now, Sybil, she thought; business is business, and the nostalgic English scene is what the colonists want. This visit must be my last. I shall not come again.

'Ah, that,' Barry was saying, 'was the England I remember. The good old country. But now, I'm afraid, it's decadent. After the war it will be no more than ...'

Desiree would have the servants into the drawing-room every morning to give them their orders for the day. 'I believe in keeping up home standards,' said Desiree, whose parents were hotel managers. Sybil was not sure where Desiree had got the idea of herding all the domestics into her presence each morning. Perhaps it was some family-prayer a.s.sembly in her ancestral memory, or possibly it had been some hotel-staff custom which prompted her to 'have in the servants' and instruct them beyond their capacity. These half-domesticated peasants and erstwhile smallfarmers stood, bare-footed and woolly-cropped, in clumsy postures on Desiree's carpet. In pidgin dialect which they largely failed to comprehend, she enunciated the duties of each one. Only Sybil and David Carter knew that the natives' name for Desiree was, translated, 'Bad Hen'. Desiree complained much about their stupidity, but she enjoyed this morning palaver as Barry relished his poetry.

'Carter writes poetry too,' said Barry with a laugh one day.

Desiree shrieked. 'Poetry! Oh, Barry, you can't call that stuff poetry.

'It is frightful,' Barry said, 'but the poor fellow doesn't know it.'

'I should like to see it,' Sybil said.

'You aren't interested in Carter by any chance, Sybil?' said Desiree.

'How do you mean?'

'Personally, I mean.'

'Well, I think he's all right.'