Giant's Bread

by Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, Agatha

  Both Joe and Vernon were elated.

  ‘Do you think I’ll ever do anything, Joe? Really do anything, I mean.’

  Vernon sounded dispirited.

  ‘Why not?’ said Joe valiantly.

  ‘I don’t know. Everything I’ve done just lately is rotten. I started all right. But now I’m stale as stale. I’m tired before I start.’

  ‘I suppose that’s because you work all day.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  He was silent for a minute or two and then said:

  ‘It’ll be wonderful meeting Radmaager. He’s one of the only men who write what I call music. I wish I could talk to him about what I really think – but it would be such awful cheek.’

  The party was of an informal character. Sebastian had a large studio, empty save for a dais, a grand piano and a large quantity of cushions thrown down at random about the floor. At one end was a hastily put trestle table and on this were piled viands of all descriptions.

  You collected what you wanted and then pitched your cushion. When Joe and Vernon arrived a girl was dancing – a small red-haired girl with a lithe, sinewy body. Her dancing was ugly but alluring.

  She finished to loud applause and leapt down from the dais.

  ‘Bravo, Anita,’ said Sebastian. ‘Now then, Vernon and Joe, have you got what you want? That’s right. You’d better sink down gracefully by Jane. This is Jane.’

  They sank down as bidden. Jane was a tall creature with a beautiful body and a mass of very dark brown hair coiled low on her neck. Her face was too broad for beauty and her chin too sharp. Her eyes were deep set and green. She was about thirty, Vernon thought. He found her disconcerting, but attractive.

  Joe began to talk to her eagerly. Her enthusiasm for sculpture had been waning of late. She had always had a high soprano voice and she was now coquetting with the idea of becoming an opera singer.

  Jane Harding listened sympathetically enough, emitting a faintly amused monosyllable from time to time. Finally she said:

  ‘If you like to come round to my flat, I’ll try your voice, and I can tell you in two minutes just what your voice is good for.’

  ‘Would you really? That’s awfully kind of you.’

  ‘Oh, not at all. You can trust me. You can’t trust someone who makes their living by teaching to tell you the truth.’

  Sebastian came up and said:

  ‘What about it, Jane?’

  She got up from the floor – rather a beautiful movement. Then, looking round, she said in the curt voice of command one would use to a dog:

  ‘Mr Hill.’

  A small man, rather like a white worm, bustled forward with an ingratiating twist of the body. He followed her up to the dais.

  She sang a French song Vernon had never heard before.

  ‘J’ai perdu mon amie – elle est morte

  Tout s’en va cette fois pour jamais

  Pour jamais, pour toujours elle emporte

  Le dernier des amours que j’aimais.

  ‘Pauvre nous! Rien ne m’a crie l’heure

  Ou la bas se nouait son linceuil

  On m’a dit “Elle est morte!” Et tout seul

  Je répète “Elle est morte!” Et je pleure …’

  Like most people who heard Jane Harding sing, Vernon was quite unable to criticize the voice. She created an emotional atmosphere – the voice was only an instrument. The sense of overwhelming loss, of dazed grief, the final relief of tears.

  There was applause. Sebastian murmured:

  ‘Enormous emotional power – that’s it.’

  She sang again. This time it was a Norwegian song about falling snow. There was no emotion in her voice whatsoever – it was like the white flakes of the snow – monotonous, exquisitely clear, finally dying away to silence on the last line.

  In response to applause, she sang yet a third song. Vernon sat up, suddenly alert.

  ‘I saw a fairy lady there

  With long white hands and drowning hair,

  And oh! her face was wild and sweet,

  Was sweet and wild and wild and strange and fair …’

  It was like a spell laid on the room – the sense of magic – of terrified enchantment. Jane’s face was thrust forward. Her eyes looked out, past beyond – seeing – frightened yet fascinated.

  There was a sigh as she finished. A stout burly man with white hair en brosse pushed his way to Sebastian.

  ‘Ah! my good Sebastian, I have arrived. I will talk to that young lady – at once, immediately.’

  Sebastian went with him across the room to Jane. Herr Radmaager took her by both hands. He looked at her earnestly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Your physique is good. I should say that both the digestion and the circulation were excellent. You will give me your address and I will come and see you. Is it not so?’

  Vernon thought: ‘These people are mad.’

  But he noticed that Jane Harding seemed to take it as a matter of course. She wrote down her address, talked to Radmaager for a few minutes longer, then came and rejoined Joe and Vernon.

  ‘Sebastian is a good friend,’ she remarked. ‘He knows that Herr Radmaager is looking for a Solveig for his new opera, Peer Gynt. That is why he asked me here tonight.’

  Joe got up and went to talk to Sebastian. Vernon and Jane Harding were left alone.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Vernon stammering a little. ‘That song you sang –’

  ‘Frosted snow?’

  ‘No, the last one. I – I heard it years ago – when I was a kid.’

  ‘How curious. I thought it was a family secret.’

  ‘A hospital nurse sang it to me when I broke my leg. I always loved it – but never thought I should hear it again.’

  Jane Harding said thoughtfully:

  ‘I wonder now. Could that have been my Aunt Frances?’

  ‘Yes, that was her name. Nurse Frances. Was she your aunt? What’s happened to her?’

  ‘She died a good many years ago. Diphtheria, caught from a patient.’

  ‘Oh! I’m sorry.’ He paused, hesitated, then blundered on. ‘I’ve always remembered her. She was – she was a wonderful friend to me as a kid.’

  He caught Jane’s green eyes looking at him, a steady, kindly glance, and he knew at once of whom she had reminded him the first moment he saw her. She was like Nurse Frances.

  She said quietly:

  ‘You write music, don’t you? Sebastian told me about you.’

  ‘Yes – at least I try to.’

  He stopped, hesitated again. He thought: ‘She’s terribly attractive. Do I like her? Why am I afraid of her?’

  He felt suddenly excited and exalted. He could do things – he knew he could do things …

  ‘Vernon!’

  Sebastian was calling him. He got up. Sebastian presented him to Radmaager. The great man was kindly and sympathetic.

  ‘I am interested,’ he said, ‘in what I hear about your work from my young friend here.’ He laid his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. ‘He is very astute, my young friend. In spite of his youth, he is seldom wrong. We will arrange a meeting, and you shall show me your work.’

  He moved on. Vernon was left quivering with excitement. Did he really mean it? He went back to Jane. She was smiling. Vernon sat down by her. A sudden wave of depression succeeded the exhilaration. What was the good of it all? He was tied, hand and foot, to Uncle Sydney and Birmingham. You couldn’t write music unless you gave your whole time, your whole thoughts, your whole soul to it.

  He felt injured – miserable – yearning for sympathy. If only Nell were here. Darling Nell who always understood.

  He looked up and found Jane Harding watching him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

  ‘I wish I were dead,’ said Vernon bitterly.

  Jane raised her eyebrows slightly.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you walk up to the top of this building and jump off, you can be.’

  It was hardly the answer th
at Vernon had expected. He looked up resentfully, but her cool, kindly glance disarmed him.

  ‘There’s only one thing I care about in the whole world,’ he said passionately. ‘I want to write music. I could write music. And instead of that I’m stuck in a beastly business that I hate. Grinding away day after day! It’s too sickening.’

  ‘Why do you do it if you don’t like it?’

  ‘Because I have to.’

  ‘I expect you want to really – otherwise you wouldn’t,’ said Jane indifferently.

  ‘Haven’t I told you that I want to write music more than anything else in the world?’

  ‘Then why don’t you do it?’

  ‘Because I can’t, I tell you.’

  He felt exasperated with her. She didn’t seem to understand at all. Her view on life seemed to be that if you wanted to do anything, you just went and did it.

  He began pouring out things. Abbots Puissants, the concert, his uncle’s offer, and then – Nell …

  When he had finished, she said:

  ‘You do expect life to be rather a fairy story, don’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just that. You want to be able to live in the house of your forefathers, and to marry the girl you love, and to grow immensely rich, and to be a great composer. I daresay you might manage to do one of those four things if you give your whole mind to it. But it’s not likely that you’ll have everything, you know. Life isn’t like a penny novelette.’

  He hated her for the moment. And yet, even while he hated, he was attracted. He felt again the curious emotional atmosphere that she had created when singing. He thought to himself: ‘A magnetic field, that’s what it is.’ And then again: ‘I don’t like her. I’m afraid of her.’

  A long-haired young man came up and joined them. He was a Swede, but he spoke excellent English.

  ‘Sebastian tells me that you will write the music of the future,’ he said to Vernon. ‘I have theories about the future. Time is only another dimension of space. You can move to and fro in time just as you can move to and fro in space. Half your dreams are only confused memories of the future. And as you can be separated from your dear ones in space, so you can be separated from them in time, and that is the greatest tragedy there is or can be.’

  Since he was clearly mad, Vernon paid no attention. He was not interested in theories of space and time. But Jane Harding leaned forward.

  ‘To be separated in time,’ she said. ‘I never thought of that.’

  Encouraged, the Swede went on. He talked of time, and of ultimate space, and of time one, and of time two. Whether Jane was interested or not, Vernon did not know. She looked straight in front of her and did not appear to be listening. The Swede went on to time three, and Vernon escaped.

  He joined Joe and Sebastian. Joe was being enthusiastic on the subject of Jane Harding.

  ‘I think she’s wonderful. Don’t you, Vernon? She’s asked me to go and see her. I wish I could sing like that.’

  ‘She’s an actress, not a singer,’ said Sebastian. ‘A good sort, Jane. She’s had rather a tragic life. For five years she lived with Boris Androv, the sculptor.’

  Joe glanced over in Jane’s direction with enhanced interest. Vernon felt suddenly young and crude. He could still see those enigmatical slightly mocking green eyes. He heard that amused ironical voice. ‘You do expect life to be a fairy story, don’t you?’ Hang it all, that hurt!

  And yet he had an immense desire to see her again.

  Should he ask her if he might …

  No, he couldn’t …

  Besides, he was so seldom in town …

  He heard her voice behind him – a singer’s voice, slightly husky.

  ‘Good night, Sebastian. Thank you.’

  She moved towards the door, looked over her shoulder at Vernon.

  ‘Come and see me some time,’ she said carelessly. ‘Your cousin has got my address.’

  Book Three

  Jane

  Chapter One

  1

  Jane Harding had a flat at the top of a block of mansions overlooking the river in Chelsea.

  Here, on the evening following the party, came Sebastian Levinne.

  ‘I’ve fixed it up, Jane,’ he said. ‘Radmaager is coming here to see you some time tomorrow. He prefers to do that, it seems.’

  ‘Come, tell me how you live, he cried,’ quoted Jane. ‘Well, I’m living very nicely and respectably, entirely alone! Do you want something to eat, Sebastian?’

  ‘If there is anything?’

  ‘There are scrambled eggs and mushrooms, anchovy toast and black coffee if you’ll sit here peaceably while I get them.’

  She put the cigarette box and the matches beside him and left the room. In a quarter of an hour, the meal was ready.

  ‘I like coming to see you, Jane,’ said Sebastian. ‘You never treat me as a bloated young Jew to whom only the flesh pots of the Savoy would make appeal.’

  Jane smiled without speaking.

  Presently she said: ‘I like your girl, Sebastian.’

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘Yes, Joe.’

  Sebastian said gruffly: ‘What – what do you really think of her?’

  Again Jane paused before answering.

  ‘So young,’ she said at last. ‘So terribly young.’

  Sebastian chuckled.

  ‘She’d be very angry if she heard you.’

  ‘Probably.’ After a minute she said: ‘You care for her very much, don’t you, Sebastian?’

  ‘Yes. It’s odd, isn’t it, Jane, how little all the things you’ve got matter? I’ve got practically all the things I want, except Joe, and Joe is all that matters. I can see what a fool I am, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference! What’s the difference between Joe and a hundred other girls? Very little. And yet she’s the only thing in the world that matters to me just now.’

  ‘Partly because you can’t get her.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I don’t think that’s so entirely.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘What do you think of Vernon?’ asked Sebastian, after a pause.

  Jane changed her position, shading her face from the fire.

  ‘He’s interesting,’ she said slowly, ‘partly, I think, because he is so completely unambitious.’

  ‘Unambitious, do you think?’

  ‘Yes. He wants things made easy.’

  ‘If so, he’ll never do anything in music. You want driving power for that.’

  ‘Yes, you want driving power. But music will be the power that drives him!’

  Sebastian looked up, his face alight and appreciative.

  ‘Do you know, Jane?’ he said. ‘I believe you’re right!’

  She smiled but made no answer.

  ‘I wish I knew what to make of the girl he’s engaged to,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘What is she like?’

  ‘Pretty. Some people might call it lovely – but I’d call it pretty. She does the things that other people do, and does them very sweetly. She’s not a cat. I’m afraid – yes, I am afraid now, that she definitely cares for Vernon.’

  ‘You needn’t be afraid. Your pet genius won’t be turned aside or held down. That doesn’t happen. I’m more than ever sure, every day I live, that that doesn’t happen.’

  ‘Nothing would turn you aside, Jane, but then you have got driving power.’

  ‘And yet, do you know, Sebastian, I believe I should be more easily “turned aside” as you call it, than your Vernon? I know what I want and go for it – he doesn’t know what he wants, or rather doesn’t want it, but it goes for him … And that It whatever It is, will be served – no matter at what cost.’

  ‘Cost to whom?’

  ‘Ah! I wonder …’

  Sebastian rose.

  ‘I must go. Thanks for feeding me, Jane.’

  ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for me with Radmaager. You’re a very good friend, Sebastian. And I don’t think success will ever spoil you
.’

  ‘Oh! success –’ He held out his hand.

  She laid both hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

  ‘My dear, I hope you will get your Joe. But if not I am quite sure you will get everything else!’

  2

  Herr Radmaager did not come to see Jane Harding for nearly a fortnight. He arrived without warning of any kind at half-past ten in the morning. He stumped into the flat without a word of apology and looked round the walls of the sitting-room.

  ‘It is you who have furnished and papered this? Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You live here alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you have not always lived alone?’

  ‘No.’

  Radmaager said unexpectedly:

  ‘That is good.’

  Then he said commandingly:

  ‘Come here.’

  He took her by both arms, and drew her towards the window. There he looked her over from head to foot. He pinched the flesh of her arm between finger and thumb, opened her mouth and looked down her throat, and finally put a large hand on each side of her waist.

  ‘Breathe in – good! Now out – sharply.’

  He took a tape measure out of his pocket, made her repeat the two movements, passing the tape measure round her each time. Finally he pocketed it and put it away. Neither he nor Jane seemed to see anything curious in the proceedings.

  ‘It is well,’ said Radmaager. ‘Your chest is excellent, your throat is strong. You are intelligent – since you have not interrupted me. I can find many singers with a better voice than yours – your voice is very true, very beautiful – very clear, a silver thread. But if you force it, it will go – and where will you be then, I ask you? The music you sing now is absurd – if you were not pig-headed as the devil you would not sing those roles. Yet I respect you because you are an artist.’

  He paused, then went on:

  ‘Now listen to me. My music is beautiful and it will not hurt your voice. When Ibsen created Solveig, he created the most wonderful woman character that has ever been created. My opera will stand and fall by its Solveig – and it is not sufficient to have a singer. There are Cavarossi – Mary Wontner – Jeanne Dorta – all hope to sing Solveig. But I will not have it. What are they? Unintelligent animals with marvellous vocal cords. For my Solveig I must have a perfect instrument, an instrument with intelligence. You are a young singer – as yet unknown. You shall sing at Covent Garden next year in my Peer Gynt if you satisfy me. Now listen …’