‘How could I ever say in that bungalow that the algebra teacher laid me down on a tent and then was sick? Yet I can say it now to you, a thing I’ve never told another soul.’
The door slid open and a woman wearing a blue hat, a smiling, red-faced woman, asked if the vacant seats were taken. In a voice that amazed Carruthers further Miss Fanshawe told her to go away.
‘Well, really!’ said the woman.
‘Leave us in peace, for God’s sake!’ shrieked Miss Fanshawe, and the woman, her smile all gone, backed into the corridor. Miss Fanshawe rose and shut the door again.
‘It’s different in that bungalow by the sea,’ she then quite quietly remarked, as though no red-faced woman had backed away astonished. ‘Not like an American Bar in Copenhagen or the Hotel Excelsior in Madrid. Along the walls the coloured geese stretch out their necks, the brass is polished and in its place. Inch by inch oppression fills the air. On the chintz covers in the sitting-room there’s a pattern of small wild roses, the stair-carpet’s full of fading lupins. To W.J. Fanshawe on the occasion of his retirement, says the plaque on the clock on the sitting-room mantelpiece, from his friends in the Prudential. The clock has a gold-coloured face and four black pillars of ersatz materiaclass="underline" it hasn’t chimed since 1958. At night, not far away, the sea tumbles about, seeming too real to be true. The seagulls shriek when I walk on the beach, and when I look at them I think they’re crying out with happiness.’
He began to speak, only to speak her name, for there was nothing else he could think of to say. He changed his mind and said nothing at all.
‘Who would take me from it now? Who, Carruthers? What freckled waiter or teacher of algebra? What assistant in a shop, what bank-clerk, postman, salesman of cosmetics? They see a figure walking in the wind, discs of thick glass on her eyes, breasts as flat as paper. Her movement’s awkward, they say, and when she’s close enough they raise their hats and turn away: they mean no harm.’
‘I see,’ he said.
‘In the bungalow I’m frightened of both of them: all my life I’ve been afraid of them. When I was small and wasn’t pretty they made the best of things, and longed that I should be clever instead. “Read to us, Dora,” my father would say, rubbing his hands together when he came in from his office. And I would try to read. “Spell merchant” my father would urge as though his life depended upon it, and the letters would become jumbled in my mind. Can you see it, Carruthers, a child with glasses and an awkward way of walking and two angry figures, like vultures, unforgiving? They’d exchange a glance, turning their eyes away from me as though in shame. “Not bright,” they’d think. “Not bright, to make up for the other.” ’
‘How horrid, Miss Fanshawe.’
‘No, no. After all, was it nice for them that their single child should be a gawky creature who blushed when people spoke? How could they help themselves, any more than your mother can?’
‘Still, my mother –’
‘ “Going to the pictures?” he said the last time I was home. “What on earth are you doing that for?” And then she got the newspaper which gave the programme that was showing. “Tarzan and the Apemen”, she read out. “My dear, at your age!” I wanted to sit in the dark for an hour or two, not having to talk about the term at Ashleigh Court. But how could I say that to them? I felt the redness coming in my face. “For children surely,” my father said, “a film like that.” And then he laughed. “Dora’s made a mistake,” my mother explained, and she laughed too.’
‘And did you go, Miss Fanshawe?’
‘Go?’
‘To Tarzan and the Apemen?’
‘No, I didn’t go. I don’t possess courage like that: as soon as I enter the door of the bungalow I can feel their disappointment and I’m terrified all over again. I’ve thought of not going back but I haven’t even the courage for that: they’ve sucked everything out of me. D’you understand?’
‘Well –’
‘Why is God so cruel that we leave the ugly school and travel together to a greater ugliness when we could travel to something nice?’
‘Nice, Miss Fanshawe? Nice?’
‘You know what I mean, Carruthers.’
He shook his head. Again he turned it away from her, looking at the window, wretchedly now.
‘Of course you do,’ her voice said, ‘if you think about it.’
‘I really –’
‘Funny our birthdays being close together!’ Her mood was gayer suddenly. He turned to look at her and saw she was smiling. He smiled also.
‘I’ve dreamed this train went on for ever,’ she said, ‘on and on until at last you stopped engaging passengers and waiters in fantastic conversation. “I’m better now,” you said, and then you went to sleep. And when you woke I gave you liquorice allsorts. “I understand,” I said: “it doesn’t matter.” ’
‘I know I’ve been very bad to you, Miss Fanshawe. I’m sorry –’
‘I’ve dreamed of us together in my parents’ bungalow, of my parents dead and buried and your thin mother gone too, and Ashleigh Court a thing of the nightmare past. I’ve seen us walking over the beaches together, you growing up, me cooking for you and mending your clothes and knitting you pullovers. I’ve brought you fresh brown eggs and made you apple dumplings. I’ve watched you smile over crispy chops.’
‘Miss Fanshawe –’
‘I’m telling you about a dream in which ordinary things are marvellous. Tea tastes nicer and the green of the grass is a fresher green than you’ve ever noticed before, and the air is rosy, and happiness runs about. I would take you to a cinema on a Saturday afternoon and we would buy chips on the way home and no one would mind. We’d sit by the fire and say whatever we liked to one another. And you would no longer steal things or tell lies, because you’d have no need to. Nor would you mock an unpretty undermatron.’
‘Miss Fanshawe, I – I’m feeling tired. I think I’d like to read.’
‘Why should they have a child and then destroy it? Why should your mother not love you because your face is like your father’s face?’
‘My mother –’
‘Your mother’s a disgrace,’ she cried in sudden, new emotion. ‘What life is it for a child to drag around hotels and lovers, a piece of extra luggage, alone, unloved?’
‘It’s not too bad. I get quite used to it –’
‘Why can He not strike them dead?’ she whispered. ‘Why can’t He make it possible? By some small miracle, surely to God?’
He wasn’t looking at her. He heard her weeping and listened to the sound, not knowing what to do.
‘You’re a sorrowful mess, Carruthers,’ she whispered. ‘Yet you need not be.’
‘Please. Please, Miss Fanshawe –’
‘You’d be a different kind of person and so would I. You’d have my love, I’d care about the damage that’s been done to you. You wouldn’t come to a bad end: I’d see to that.’
He didn’t want to turn his head again. He didn’t want to see her, but in spite of that he found himself looking at her. She, too, was gazing at him, tears streaming on her cheeks. He spoke slowly and with as much firmness as he could gather together.
‘What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, Miss Fanshawe.’
‘The waiter said that you were mad. Am I crazy too? Can people go mad like that, for a little while, on a train? Out of loneliness and locked-up love? Or desperation?’
‘I’m sure it has nothing to do with madness, Miss Fanshawe –’
‘The sand blows on to my face, and sometimes into my eyes. In my bedroom I shake it from my sandals. I murmur in the sitting-room. “Really, Dora,” my mother says, and my father sucks his breath in. On Sunday mornings we walk to church, all three of us. I go again, on my own, to Evensong: I find that nice. And yet I’m glad when it’s time to go back to Ashleigh Court. Are you ever glad, Carruthers?’