Love Again

by Doris Lessing

  The second week of rehearsals would be spent on Act Two. This meant that Bill Collins relinquished first place to Andrew Stead, or Rémy. Hardly possible for Bill to become invisible, though it seemed he was modestly trying to be, sitting by himself out of the way in a corner, or by Sarah. For a day or so it seemed that Bill’s looks and sexiness were going to make the second, the great love improbable. But then, slowly, it became clear that Andrew knew what he was doing.

  Sarah telephoned Stephen and said, ‘You should come and take a look at the gaucho; he’s wonderful.’

  She could hear him breathing, an intimate sound, as if they had their arms around each other. ‘Really, he’s got it all. To begin with I thought he was going to be too hard and macho, but he was using that deliberately. He’s the youngest son, remember. Now he’s got that slightly over-the-top cockiness—oh, sorry!’ But he did not laugh, only gave a sort of grunt. ‘You know, a young man over-compensating. An easy sexual assurance—that’s Paul. But Rémy has something deeper than that. Being in love with Julie proves to himself and his family that he’s grown up. He has a marvellous masculinity, quite unlike the beautiful lieutenant, but he hasn’t come by it easily. He sees Julie walking through the trees in the Rostand park, and you can positively see him becoming a grown-up man at that moment. Do you realize you haven’t said a word? Are you all right, Stephen?’

  ‘Well, Sarah, apart from being crazy, yes, I’m all right. And thank you for not saying, But aren’t we all.’

  ‘But I was thinking it.’ It was at this moment that she knew it would be hard to tell Stephen she had fallen in love. No matter how briefly or lightly.

  ‘I’ve discovered what my trouble is—why I find rehearsals so difficult. It’s this business of mixing reality and illusion, it undermines me.’

  And now she was astonished and could not say anything.

  ‘Are you there, Sarah?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t know what I mean, because you are so sensible.’

  ‘You are saying that your being in love with Julie is real, while a play about her is illusion?’

  Silence. Then, ‘Is that so hard to understand?’ As she did not speak, ‘It’s the music as well. It really turns me inside out, I don’t know why. I’m quite terrified of when they start rehearsing with the singers.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming to any more rehearsals? Because I miss you.’

  ‘Do you, Sarah? Thank you for that. Of course I shall come; one shouldn’t simply give up.’

  Stephen’s chair remained empty. Bill was in it most of that week. This intimacy of theirs, how pleasant it was. Instant intimacy, and she had the gift too. You could say it is the great modern talent. Watching the people of a hundred years ago working out their lives, it was like a little dance of fowl. Ornamental fowl, of course. Formality. But formality makes us uneasy; we see it as an insult to sincerity.

  It was not going to be easy to make the casually moving, easy-mannered people of now hold themselves, walk, sit down, stand up, in the right way. Henry called a special rehearsal. ‘You all look as if you were wearing jeans,’ he said. ‘But we are wearing jeans,’ they said, making the point that not until they put on the old clothes could they be expected to conduct themselves properly. But Henry wasn’t having that. ‘You—Molly—you’ve had your mother nagging at you all your life to keep a straight back, hold yourself properly, comme il faut. Now do it.’ And Molly, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that left shoulders and neck bare, her hair tied in a knot to get it off her skin because of the heat, tried to move as if she wore corsets and a long skirt. For two hours Henry kept them at it: they stood, they sat, they walked, and again and again got up from chairs—this company in their jeans, their singlets, their sports shoes, with their natural instinct to slouch. ‘By the time we get to the dress rehearsal it will be too late,’ said Henry. ‘We’ve got to get it right now.’ Some did better than others. The gaucho apologized, said he would practise at home, and retired to watch the others. Bill Collins soon was showing them all how. He explained modestly that he had been a dancer, and the first thing he had learned was not to walk slumping into his hips. Sarah watched him—but they all did—walk across those bare and dusty boards as if he were held upright in a tight uniform. Every line of him was conscious of itself, and when he turned his head with a smile, or bent over an empty chair to kiss an invisible hand, he made a gift of himself to them all. The marvellous arrogance of it, protested Sarah to herself, as her heart beat, and did not doubt the other women felt the same. To be as handsome as that—it was not a joke, it should surely impose obligations, the first of them being not to use himself as he did. Well, thought Sarah, and who is talking? Had she the right? She hadn’t been too bad herself…oh yes, indeed she remembered walking across a room knowing that everyone watched her, holding herself as if filled to the brim with a precious and dangerous fluid. Young girls do this, when they first discover their power: luckily most do not know how much they have. What can be more entertaining than to watch some grub of a girl, thirteen years old or so, astonished when a man (old as far as she is concerned) starts to stammer and go red, shows the nervous aggression that goes with an unwelcome attraction. What’s all this? she thinks, and then is seized with illumination. Her wings burst forth, and she walks smiling across a room, reckless with power. And this condition can last until middle age deflates her. Sarah did not want to think about all that. She had closed the doors on it long ago. Why had she? She could sum it all up with Stephen’s ‘You’re a romantic, Sarah!’…And then there had been Joyce, as good as a chastity belt. But the loss of ‘all that’ she had come to terms with long ago. She had been attractive and, like Julie, always had people in love with her. Basta. She could not afford this new feeling of loss, of anguish. She glanced at her forearm, bare because of the heat, shapely still but drying out, seeing it simultaneously as it was now and as it had been then. This body of hers, in which she was living comfortably enough, seemed accompanied by another, her young body, shaped in a kind of ectoplasm. She was not going to remember or think about it, and that was the end of it.

  But she did think about Bill. When he sat beside her they chatted nicely about any number of things, but particularly about him. Often, his childhood, mostly in a good school in England: as she had thought, he had come from a solid middle-class family. Often, too, he was in that or this school in the States: good schools, for he had been privileged financially if not emotionally. Sometimes there were holidays with both parents, undergone for his sake, since they were divorced. These had not been a success. And he talked a lot about his mother.

  Sarah reflected that this easy understanding was the same as the one you enjoy with a child, until, let’s say, the age of eleven. Children you have known all their lives—like her brother’s girls. (Not Joyce, who had always been on a different wavelength: you did not have a relationship with her as much as with her anxious and timid smile.) It is the pleasantest of relationships, a simple friendship, a sweetness. With early adolescence it may disappear, it seems overnight, and while the adult mourns, the child forgets, for she, he, is fighting for self-definition, cannot afford this absolute trust and openness. And who was she enjoying it with again? Bill Collins, a man of twenty-six or so, who so much loved his mother.

  But the special understanding was being submerged in a group elation that was like a Jacuzzi, currents of feeling swirling around, stinging, slapping, bubbling. The group temperature was rising fast, as it was bound to do, to culminate in the euphoria of the first night, after all not such a long way ahead.

  Henry, when he dropped into his chair by Sarah’s, or rather flung himself into it, was all jokes. He liked this play—if it could be called a play. He liked the cast—well, he had chosen it. He adored the music and the words Sarah had chosen to accord with it. And he was glad Julie herself was not around, because he was very much afraid he would adore her too. And here he rolled up his eyes and for a moment was a clown in love
.

  Richard Service, or Philippe, often sat by Sarah. He was a modest man, serious, full of surprises, for since he was unable to make a living entirely in the theatre, he worked as well as a lecturer in an agricultural college: his father, a farmer, had insisted he must not rely on the theatre. Sarah joked that he saw Julie as a farm girl, for he had said Julie had been brought up in one forest and lived to the end of her life in another. Why had she committed suicide? As much that she did not want to live in a town as that she was afraid of domesticity. He argued about this too with Sally, for these two often sat together, talking. Sally said in those days everyone was still close to the land one way or another, and what ailed Julie was that she was a woman. At least, Sally said, the girl had the sense not to become an actress. ‘Look at me. There aren’t so many parts for a fat black woman,’ she announced, laughing and sighing. ‘No, not so many.’ What Richard and Sally talked about most was their children. Both had three. Sally’s eldest daughter looked after the two smaller ones when her mother was working. Sally never mentioned a husband. She had wanted this girl to stick it out at school and then go to college, but she was threatening to leave school and take her chances. ‘She’s a fool,’ said Sally. ‘I tell her, You’re a real fool, girl. In ten years’ time you’ll think it was the worst thing you ever did. But you can’t talk to them at that age. Any more than Julie’s mother could make her listen.’ Richard’s fifteen-year-old had ‘dropped out’ but been persuaded to try again. His ‘dropping out’, on that level of income, was hardly the same as Sally’s daughter’s. It was infinitely touching, the friendship of these two, with their differences. They had for each other a humorous gentleness—a respect? was it curiosity too?—precisely because of these differences.

  In that second week, ‘Rémy’s week’, Andrew Stead did not have much time for sitting about. He was busy making himself over from a man you could barely imagine without his horse to Rémy, in one of the heartbreaking transformations one may watch when an actor subdues one personality, using something that looks like a ferocious discipline (though perhaps it is more like a submission, all sensitive patience, a kind of listening?), to another that might very well be the opposite of his own. Andrew remarked that he liked being Rémy, for he was always typecast, and in one film after another he was gangster, crook, cowboy, cop, rancher. And that was because in the very first film he had done he was an outlaw, stealing horses. And so what was he doing here? Ten years ago, he had been at Cannes for the film festival, where a film he was in had won a prize, and he had spent a day in the seductive country behind the coast, visiting the ancient hill towns, and by chance had found himself in a town, Belle-Rivières, where there was a music festival. He had heard Julie Vairon’s music and did not think much about it, until later, when he could not get it out of his head. It was the ‘troubadour’ music that had got to him. His agent had sent him Julie Vairon, and he had turned down a film to do it. No, it was very far from his usual line, and perhaps he wasn’t up to it…but there was a side benefit—could he call it a benefit, though? He was being thoroughly unsettled. He was wondering now how much he had become ‘typecast’ in his life as well. Hard to remember now much about what he had been like before the age of nineteen and his first film: he had positively fallen into it, only chance he had become an actor. Yes, he was a Texan, but that didn’t mean he necessarily had to spend his life as a cowboy. ‘“’Orses and dogs is not vittles and drink to me”,’ he quoted, and was pleased that though she guessed Dickens, she did not know it was David Copperfield and he had to tell her. ‘Despite appearances, it ain’t necessarily so.’

  He was not a man one could easily imagine needing reassurance, and when he did arrive in the chair beside Sarah, she did not offer it. How differently people did sit in that chair. Bill sat back, balanced, alert, hands palm down on his thighs, chatting to her while that handsome face of his was always ready to offer to anyone looking his way the smiles he was so good at.

  Henry could hardly be said ever to sit, if by that word is meant a submission to relaxation.

  Sally sat with her large body filling the space allotted to it, calm as a monument.

  Molly was not much there, because she was seldom offstage. If she did arrive beside Sarah for a moment, it was to express vigorous disapprobation of Julie, who needed her head examined. ‘She screwed up her whole life for love’—and the violence here made Sarah follow Molly’s gaze to Bill, a usually limpid, candid, and even innocent gaze, now clouded by self-doubt. Thank God, said Molly McGuire, that she was living now and not then.

  As for Andrew, he sat loosely, his muscular hands relaxed on the chair’s arms, exactly as that lean hard body of his was relaxed, on principle and by training. He watched her calmly, with those pale blue eyes of his that were no longer inflamed by the altitudes of north-west Argentina. He seemed to be waiting for something from her. What? He made her uncomfortable, forced her to examine her role here, in her chair, always ready to provision anyone who needed it with praise and reassurance. Was she being insincere? She believed not. She did think the company very good, and Henry admirable. Her own work was not bad at all. But sometimes Andrew reminded her of Stephen, who had the same way of sitting in judgement. It was a masculine judgement: they were both men who would never dispense themselves in charm or an appeal to be liked. She was also remembering that both of these, by chance, had been at a ten-years-ago festival in the south of France, and both had ‘fallen for’ Julie’s music.

  But the music was not here, and its lack was being felt more every hour. Sarah observed how Andrew, in the middle of a scene with Molly, suddenly broke off, asking Henry if he could do the scene again, then doing it again, and finally coming to a stop with a shrug and a shake of the head. Henry and Andrew went to one side to confer. While they talked, the scene was arrested, like a film still, emphasizing the animation of these two men. Henry came to Sarah and explained that Andrew could not get the ‘feel’ of the piece, could not find his pace. And he was not the only one who complained. ‘But no one’s going to get it until we have the music.’ ‘I know, but never mind, just do it, Sarah. Come out and demonstrate.’

  Sarah complied. After all, she had been rehearsing plays and ‘entertainments’ for years. As she walked forward to take her place, she caught herself thinking she was pleased she had taken trouble with her appearance that morning. She was wearing a dark blue working outfit, but in a silky-looking material, and had for some reason put on big silver earrings and elegant shoes.

  In this scene, words and phrases spoken by the two lovers were taken up by the musicians and sung, almost like a part-song, words said and words sung in counterpoint.

  As my lover you must leave me,

  All the world applauds your choice.

  But you’re my friend and you should stay.

  A friend does not his friend betray,

  Giving pain is for the lover,

  A friend does not a friend betray.

  The words had come from Julie’s journals. This man loves me and so it is in order for him to stab me to the heart, and if he actually did stab or shoot me, French law could easily acquit him; it would be a crime passionnel. But he is my friend. My only friend. I have no other friend. Friends are not applauded when they betray each other.

  The song would be sung by the three girls, with the counter-tenor holding the words lover and friend in long notes not unlike the groaning shawm, underlining the young high fresh voices in their conventional reproach.

  What Julie was saying to Rémy was, ‘You love me, you are my lover, but not a soul in the world will condemn you for obeying your father and abandoning me. But if I were your friend and you betrayed me, you would be condemned by everyone.’

  Rémy was saying, ‘But I am your friend. You’ll see that I am your friend. I’ll prove it. You think that I am abandoning you, but I never will.’

  Julie says, ‘Ah, but you’re my lover, and that cancels the friend.’

  Sarah’s voice was a small one,
but it was sweet and true. Long ago when she was a student in Montpellier, there had been talk of training it, but instead she studied music for a year. She was confident she would not disgrace herself. When she began, ‘As my lover you must leave me…,’ she felt as if she had stepped out from a shadow into the light, and from her passive role, sitting there, always observing, into performer. Hardly new for her, taking command, showing how parts should be played or songs sung, but she had not done anything of the kind here, with this company. She was conscious of the silence in the hall, and how they all watched her and were surprised at this revelation, Sarah so assured and so accomplished. She felt herself full of strength and of pleasure. Oh yes, she did like it, she was liking it too much, being admired by this particular assembly of people.

  When she had finished there was light applause, and Bill called out ‘Bravo’ and stood up to clap, so that he would be noticed. She made a mock curtsey to him, and a general one to everybody. Then she called them to order by lightly clapping her hands.

  Henry came forward, because he had understood there was a need.

  Now, when she sang the verses again, Henry supplied the counter-tenor’s friend and lover. He could not resist slightly exaggerating, so that his voice was a low yell, like an unknown instrument from an exotic shore, and it was very funny. They had to laugh. The four, Sarah, Henry, Andrew, and Molly laughed staggering into each other’s arms, where they embraced. They sobered as Henry clapped his hands.

  This time it ‘worked’. The counterpoint of friend and lover was not funny but added a depth and darkness to the verses.

  And now Molly began her speech. ‘You love me, you’re my lover, but not a soul in the world…,’ and Henry came in with lover. Sarah followed, singing, ‘As my lover you must leave me,’ and when Molly reached, ‘But if I were your friend…,’ Henry sang, or perhaps groaned, friend, and Sarah sang the last couplet against Molly’s, ‘Giving pain is for the lover…,’ and repeated it while Andrew began, ‘But I am your friend…’ and so on.