‘We are not,’ said Emma.
‘I shall write the words and he will write the music. Think of something, a pop song only needs one line.’
‘What about - what about - “It’s only me.”’
‘It’s only me?’
‘Yes. There’s two snails on a leaf, one on each side. Then one comes round the leaf and says to the other one, “It’s only me.”’
‘Must they be snails?’ said Tom after a moment’s thought.
‘I see them as snails,’ Adam said firmly.
‘I think it’s brilliant,’ said Tom.
Mrs Osmore asked Emma how he was enjoying Ennistone. Emma said it was a very interesting place.
‘You’re Irish, Mr Taylor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh I know. The sorrows of Ireland! You must feel such resentment against us for still occupying your country.’
Emma smiled sweetly.
‘Is that Tom McCaffrey?’ said Pearl.
‘Yes.’
‘He’s grown up.’
‘He’s not as pretty as he used to be,’ said Diane, who had funny feelings about Tom.
‘How are things at Belmont?’ Pearl asked Ruby.
‘Bad.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the fox. The fox does it.’ This was a piece of old gipsy folklore.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Diane.
‘It will come to bad things.’
‘I suppose you’re going to see Professor Rozanov?’ Diane said to Pearl. ‘Will he give you your severance pay?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Jobs are hard to get these days.’
‘Luckily I don’t need one.’
‘Don’t be touchy.’
‘Are you going to see him now?’ asked Ruby.
‘Not now.’
‘Tomorrow? Isn’t it funny that he’s back at the old house at Hare Lane?’ said Diane. ‘Where are you spending the night? The Royal Hotel, I suppose?’
Pearl blushed scarlet. Rozanov had not told her or Hattie that he was coming to Ennistone. She had supposed him safely far away in California. If he were to see her …. Aflame with guilt, she looked round the clear brilliantly coloured scene. She said, ‘I must go, I’ve got to telephone, nice to have seen you.’ And she turned and ran for the exit.
‘What do you suppose — ’ began Diane.
‘Here’s Madam,’ said Ruby.
She still sometimes referred to Alex in this way.
It had begun to rain.
‘Put your umbrella up, you’re getting wet,’ said Tom to Emma.
‘You go and get dressed, you’re shivering with cold.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Well, I am, looking at you.’
‘I say, there’s George.’
Emma, who had put his umbrella up, put it down again.
George, dressed in black swimming-trunks, was standing absolutely still on the edge of the pool. He was looking into the distance and thinking. He had woken up this morning and once again heard the birds uttering human speech. Then he had thought it was Stella, speaking outside on the stairs, only there was no one there. He went into the garden and saw a fish swimming in a tree, only it was a memory of a dream which had somehow got loose. He rang up the Ennistone Rooms and found out that John Robert had engaged a room. He went to the library to find out exactly what had happened to Schlick, but he could find no book about Schlick.
As he came out to the pool he had seen Diane, seen her see him, and seen her turn away slowly and go. He wanted, in a way, very much to go to Diane, to be in that familiar room, to smell her cigarettes and hold her hand, just that. But he was afraid to go to her. He must not, now, make himself weak, gentle, consoled. He almost felt he could have wept in that room holding her hand. There was in George something that was not himself, something puny, even pathetic, a little miserable bedraggled animal which disturbed him with its whimpering. He would, if he could, kill that mean frightened little animal. Against it now he summoned up his world-resentment, his sense of cosmic injustice, his hatred of his enemies, and his old valuable contempt for women. The rain beat down upon his hair, making it even darker and flattening it in to his head. The rain rolled over his brown body, brown as all the heliotropic Ennistonian swimmers were. The rain studded his body with bright points.
Valerie Cossom, looking at him from across the grey pitted water, constrained her heart with her hand, and stiffened her mind by trying to think about the party line. She had never spoken to George. She wondered if she ever would.
‘Introduce me to George.’
‘No.’
‘You’re afraid.’
‘Oh Emma —’
‘I shall introduce myself, now.’
‘You don’t know - stop - oh all right.’
Tom, nearly naked, and Emma, fully clothed and getting very wet since he had not reopened his umbrella, advanced along one side of the pool, then set off along the next toward George, who was standing by himself, the rain, now sharp and biting, having driven most of the swimmers back into the water.
George became aware of an approach, then of Tom, and very slightly turned his head.
‘George - hello — ’
George kept his head slightly turned, his wide-apart eyes slewed round toward his brother but not looking at him. Tom had an odd impression, rather like a memory, of a madman in a cupboard. He felt intensely, what he had in the past more vaguely felt, George’s uncanny quality, unpleasant like the smell of a ghost.
Tom went on, ‘George, I’d like you to meet my friend, Emmanuel Scarlett-Taylor.’
George said nothing. He moved his body. Tom flinched. Then George, still without looking directly at Tom, took hold of Tom’s adjacent arm, squeezed it for a moment extremely hard, then pushed him away with the palm of his hand, turning as he did so to his previous posture of contemplation.
Tom moved back, cannoned into Emma, turned smartly and led Emma away.
‘Damn you.’
‘Sorry — ’
‘You see what he’s like. Or rather you don’t.’
‘Well, what is he like?’
‘Oh fuck him. I’m getting bloody cold. I’m going in to dress.’
Tom, hurrying to the changing-rooms and now shuddering with cold, could feel his arm burning from George’s vicious grip. He could also feel the flat sensation of the palm of George’s hand upon his shoulder. As he turned into the door he saw farther down, just entering the Promenade, the back views of Anthea Eastcote and Hector Gaines. He found the key which would release his clothes from the locker, and felt, for a moment, a storm of emotion inside his peace-loving breast.
On the Promenade Anthea Eastcote and Hector Gaines were drinking coffee. Anthea had put on her round tinted glasses. She was really rather short-sighted, and skilfully concealed the fact. She had however seen Tom smile and had pretended not to. She felt upset about this now. She was very fond of Tom, whom she had known since they were tiny children, not of course in love; it was just that sometimes he seemed a little too cheerfully at home with the prospect of never possessing her.
Hector Gaines, agonizingly aware of Anthea’s breasts, now safe and snug inside her tight mauve sweater, was telling himself that he was thirty-four and she was twenty-one, and that he had finished his work on Gideon Parke and ought to go to Aberdeen to see his mother, whose loving letters never complained about his infrequent visits.
Brian McCaffrey, also vividly aware of Anthea Eastcote’s breasts, came up to the counter to order his coffee and Adam’s special of pineapple juice and Coca-Cola. He greeted Anthea, whom of course he knew well since she too was a Friend, and Hector, whom he knew slightly.
He said to Anthea, ‘How’s your uncle Bill? Someone said he was a bit off colour.’
‘Oh he’s fine. Hello, Adam, what are you doing, being a tree?’
Adam, who was standing with his arms spread out, said, ‘No, I’m drying my wings.’