Unreasonably, she felt deprived by Alan’s bashfulness. When she noticed the gardens coming to life again, she told Charles they must go in and visit the water-birds.
‘Which water-birds?’ he asked.
‘Those on the pond in the middle of the gardens.’
‘Oh!’ He smiled, but made no other comment.
As they passed the palms that stood sentinel at the gate, she said: ‘In this country even the trees are required to imitate columns.’
‘Don’t you think the first columns were meant to imitate trees?’
‘I suppose they were. How clever you are! When you’ve taken your degree, will you become an archaeologist?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ve really no idea.’
His vagueness perplexed her. Every other young man known to her had seen the future as a struggle for life, and had prepared his means of livelihood long before he reached the age of twenty. If Charles were unconcerned in this, then his background must be very different from hers. There was something unfamiliar in him – the unfamiliarity of the rich, the more than rich; but she would not question him. He did not ask her about her family and upbringing, and did not speak of his own.
Their sense of likeness astonished them. It resembled magic. They felt themselves held in a spellbound condition which they feared to injure. Although she could not pin down any overt point of resemblance, Harriet at times imagined he was the person most like her in the world, her mirror image.
Fearful that some revelation should break this enchantment, they instinctively suppressed their disparities. Their conversations were sporadic and strained; and often they would walk round the gardens without a word.
In spite of the war, the cold, the shortage of food and hope, the spring was beginning again with small red shoots on the wistaria and buds on the apricot trees. Threads of green, rising from seeds that had lain all the previous summer invisible, like dust among the dust, were already putting out minute leaves, each of its own pattern. Harriet listened for the noise of children and birds, but there was no noise. As they advanced under the trees, the quiet grew more dense.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’ she asked.
He nodded and before she could speak again, they came out to the clearing. It was the same pond, filled by the winter rain. The sun broke through and dappled the water. On the sandy verge the iron chairs stood tilted to right and left. All the properties were there, but it was a stage without life. There were no children, no birds, no grown-ups, no old man to collect the small coins. The water was still. The air silent.
‘Where are they all? What has happened to the birds?’
He gave his brief derisive laugh: ‘What do you think?’
She wondered if her dismay had amused him, but he did not look amused. His smile was almost vindictive, as though she had hurt him and now was hurt in her turn. She said nothing. She shut herself off in silence, refusing to betray any emotion at all. They passed through the thicket to the formal gardens of the Zappion. The sunlight was cold; the low-cut shrubs offered no protection from the wind. Clouds, black with snow, were coming up out of the sea. At the end of the garden the monstrous columns of the temple of Olympian Zeus flashed against the heavy sky.
Harriet came to a stop and said: ‘I won’t go any further. I should get back. I have some work to do.’
Contrite, Charles said: ‘Come and have tea with me first,’ speaking as though this suggestion would put everything right.
‘No. I’d better go to the office.’ Harriet turned and walked back with her mind made up.
In sight of the Grande Bretagne, Charles said: ‘Must you go in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do come and have tea!’
She did not reply, but when they reached the office entrance, she walked on with him to his hotel.
The Corinthian was still new enough to look opulent. Its modernity had remained modern because no one had time these days to outdate it. The foyer, with its plum-red carpet and heavy, square-cut chairs, had strips of neon secreted behind the cornices. The main light came from the showcases, emptied now of everything except jewellery, which no one felt inclined to buy.
Though crowded with refugees and service-men, the hotel maintained such standards as it could, and was one of the few places where young Greek women might meet unchaperoned.
Several Greek girls sat at the walnut tables, some with fiancés on leave from the front. Harriet, following Charles through the plum-red gloom, noticed Archie Callard taking tea with Cookson. She caught Callard’s glance, saw him look at Charles, then turn and murmur to Cookson who, staring pointedly in a different direction, grimaced with unreal amusement.
Seated beside Charles, she asked him: ‘Do you see much of Cookson?’
‘I see him occasionally. He sometimes gives me supper.’
‘Has he ever invited you to one of his small and rather curious parties?’
‘No. Does he give small curious parties? What happens at them? How are they curious?’
She was paused by the innocence of Charles’s inquiry and, not attempting to answer, asked instead: ‘How do you come to know Pinkrose?’
A slow and quizzical smile spread over Charles’s face. ‘He was my tutor. Surely you don’t imagine I go to curious parties with Pinkrose!’
She blushed and did not reply, but after a moment said: ‘If you dislike me so much, why do you want to see me?’
His smile went at once. A concerned and wondering expression took its place. He moved towards her and was about to speak when Guy’s voice came in an anguished cry across the foyer: ‘Darling!’
Charles started away. Guy, his glasses askew, his hair ruffled by the wind, his arms stretched round an untidy mass of papers, was hastening towards them, his whole natural disorder exaggerated by the heedlessness of misery. Something was wrong. Imagining he had sought her out to accuse her, Harriet sat motionless; but it was nothing like that. Reaching the table, he let the books and papers drop in a heap and said: ‘What do you think has happened?’
She shook her head.
‘Pinkrose has stopped the show.’
‘What show?’
‘Why, the revue, of course. The show we did at Tatoi. He forbids a second performance.’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘He says it’s indecent. We were rehearsing at the School when the boy from the Information Office brought a letter. He said he had received complaints about the revue and could not let the School be used for rehearsals. Also, he could not let Alan Frewen, Yakimov or me take any further part in it. As though it could go on without us!’
Harriet pulled herself out of her confusion and said: ‘The trouble must be Maria Marten. Couldn’t you leave it out?’
‘But Maria Marten’s the chief attraction. Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone wants to see it. Yakimov’s performance was the success of the show. We’ve already sold most of the tickets.’
‘I am sorry.’ Harriet wished she could say more, but Guy had taken himself and his activities so far beyond her ambience, she could only wonder why he had brought his anxiety to her. She glanced up at Charles who had risen and now stood looking troubled, until Guy, as though seeing him for the first time, said: ‘Hello.’
Charles said: ‘Won’t you have some tea?’
‘Yes. I’d like some.’
Guy pulled up a chair and took over the conversation, unaware that they could have any topic of interest other than the revue and the calamitous ban Pinkrose had placed on it.