Wish Her Safe At Home

by Stephen Benatar

  I then had to say why.

  “Well... ” It appeared so obvious. She came from a cultured, wealthy family. She was lovely to look at. She’d had a tremendous success in Hollywood; won an Oscar; played opposite many of the best-known and most attractive actors (some of whom, it was thought, had carried on affairs with her) and now, on top of all of that, there were even rumours she might marry a prince.

  Champagne and Ruritania combined. Applause; celebration. A honeysuckle path, from cot to marriage bed.

  “It just isn’t fair,” I said.

  They waited. Others had made their answer several times as long. I was the one with whom the game was finishing. I fought against providing anticlimax.

  “You see, I’d really like to have been an actress. To play interesting roles, have interesting rehearsals, work with warmhearted and truly committed people. As often as possible, I mean, to be part of a close and caring company.”

  I was talking far too quickly and I knew I’d gone quite red.

  “Though I’m not sure if she’s ever actually appeared on stage.”

  There was still a silence but I simply couldn’t think of anything to add.

  “That’s all.”

  “Well, if you’re being serious about wanting to be an actress,” someone asked, “what’s stopping you? After all you’re only twenty. You’ve still got time.” She gave a sidelong glance at those around us.

  “But I don’t know any of the right people; I haven’t got connections.” I was aware they thought this very feeble.

  “Connections? The ability’s no problem?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We must find out,” they said. “An audition!”

  “What?”

  “Recite something. Anything. ‘To be or not to be: that is the question... ’”

  “Don’t be silly.” I was beginning to panic.

  “A poem, then.”

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, don’t be shy, Rachel. We think you’re probably quite good.”

  I could see they were never going to leave it. Instead they were growing more persistent. I mumbled desperately for mercy.

  “Silence, silence, everybody! Rachel’s about to recite a poem.”

  “No... No!”

  I had a choice between rushing from the room, bursting into tears or actually doing what they wanted. I whispered, before the whole party should get to hear of it, “Will just a few lines be enough?”

  “Yes, yes,” they cried, greedy for at least an ounce of flesh if they couldn’t obtain their full pound.

  So I said my few lines. I thought that I said them without expression or audibility and definitely too fast. It was the first stanza of The Lady of Shalott. From as young as nine I had experienced a fellow feeling for that lady embowered on her silent isle.

  And, somehow, this must now have shone through. Apparently I had misjudged my own performance.

  “Oh, that was good. Wasn’t that good, everyone?”

  There was much earnest clapping; they really did seem to have enjoyed it. “You aren’t just poking fun at me?” They swore they weren’t. Others—presumably because they had heard all the applause—came in from neighbouring rooms.

  “More!” they said. “More!”

  “What? Honestly?” Still nervous but not like at the start.

  “Yes, Rachel. Please.”

  “You’re sure you aren’t teasing?”

  “Of course we aren’t. That would be cruel.”

  I knew I could improve on what I’d done.

  Confidence came quickly; the more I recited the better I grew.

  “Or when the moon was overhead,

  Came two young lovers lately wed;

  ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said

  The Lady of Shalott.”

  Unfortunately, however, my memory of the poem wasn’t perfect.

  “Never mind. Just carry on. You’re doing great.”

  “Out flew the web and floated wide;

  The mirror crack’d from side to side;

  ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried

  The Lady of Shalott.”

  Now I really was projecting and making good use of my hands as well. I had known I had it in me to be an actress.

  Yet the real test lay in the final stanza—where, recumbent in a stolen boat, she drifts downriver in the moonlight, borne towards the resplendent, many-towered court of King Arthur. In her mirror she had sometimes seen the knights come riding two-by-two. (“She hath no loyal knight and true, the Lady of Shalott.”) I wanted if possible to bring the tears into people’s eyes. I finished on a quiet and wholly reverent note.

  “But Lancelot mused a little space;

  He said, ‘She has a lovely face;

  God in his mercy lend her grace,

  The Lady of Shalott.’”

  Even at school I had invariably found this a poignant end. Now my own eyes were so swimmy I couldn’t quite tell how my audience was affected. But I certainly caught sight of the odd handkerchief, heard the odd blowing of a nose.

  And one triumph led on to another. They wanted other things; just wouldn’t let me go. Finally I sang to them. They seemed beside themselves with pleasure. At last I put my hands up to my chest—returned once more to my prep-school days—revived the unexpected hit of my childhood.

  “Although when shadows fall

  I think if only...

  Somebody splendid really needed me,

  Someone affectionate and dear,

  Cares would be ended if I knew that he

  Wanted to have me near...”

  It was sheer intoxication; a wonderful prelude to what was to happen later that same evening.

  15

  I went back to the chemist’s. I wore my red dress, though this was now a little too warm for the time of year. And only the previous afternoon I’d had my hair done. It was a moment I’d been continually anticipating and, squirrel-like, had been hoarding.

  Of course, as with nearly all such moments, there was the particle of grit in the shoe, so difficult to dislodge that one almost welcomed a particle in the eye as well: in this case the haunting knowledge of a poor night’s sleep, coupled with a touch of indigestion.

  But I couldn’t have put it off. Having decided this would be the day, postponement would have seemed quite wrong. A giving in to weakness.

  I said, “Good morning. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you, madam. Yourself?”

  At first it would have been practically a relief if the lumpy, shiny-nosed girl had been there instead but as soon as we spoke I began to feel better.

  “I came in last March. You advised me I ought to settle here. Well, I’ve taken your advice!” I said this smilingly, to make sure he realized he had no need to reproach himself.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I remember.” It was very clear he didn’t.

  “I was wearing a light blue jumper with a darker blue skirt. My boat-race outfit as everybody called it! But since it wasn’t summer yet (and ne’er cast a clout till May be out— or is it may?) I naturally wore a coat over it. Camel hair. And quite a pretty little hat... black, you know, and really rather smart.” I laughed.

  He merely gave a gentle nod, boyish and abstracted; it came as no surprise that he should be the strong and silent type. That was the kind of man I often found attractive.

  But I realized I should have to help him out.

  “Though who am I to say my little hat was smart? A hostess doesn’t praise her own cooking! Besides, good sir, smartness—like beauty—is surely in the eye of the beholder?” I slightly worried that my laughter was beginning to sound foolish.

  He said: “Well, well. So you’ve lately moved to Bristol?”

  A man came in behind me.

  “Why don’t you serve this gentleman? I’m not in any hurry.”

  The man bought a large box of Kleenex and a packet of corn plasters. I took note of everything. All thoughts of indigestion and of tired
ness had completely disappeared now that things were slipping along so merrily. The customer was youngish and his jeans looked clean but he was very down at heel. Literally I mean. It wouldn’t have mattered except for one thing. He obviously hadn’t heard this: that when there was a shine on your shoes there was a melody in your heart.

  Poor man. If he’d recently purchased a tin of polish he mightn’t now be needing plasters. There was a definite connection. I pictured him out of work, keeping up a brave front—it was only in that single admittedly important detail he had failed—struggling in something like a garret to produce a masterpiece.

  It was a lovely world. I executed a few unobtrusive dance-steps which scarcely moved me from the spot. My own shoes were immaculate: high-heeled red sandals with lovely thin straps, dreamily delicate. This was the first time I had worn them.

  I had such pretty feet.

  It didn’t matter that he hadn’t recognized me.

  A woman came in. That didn’t matter either. She only wanted a packet of sanitary towels.

  Corn plasters; sanitary towels. What a funny old world it was. I was so glad I could see the humorous side of it.

  “Yes, I like it here very much,” I said as she put away her change—and before she should remember, dear heaven, that she needed toilet rolls as well! “I think Bristol must be one of the nicest towns on earth. When did you first come here yourself?”

  “Oh, about thirty years ago.” He smiled. “I came here when I married.”

  There was a stillness: the sort of stillness that exists, I believe, right in the eye of the storm. It was like being sealed in a glass cylinder at the bottom of the sea. It reminded me of when I’d caught sight of my name in the newspaper. But that had been different; now only a Houdini could possibly find his way out. With a start I became aware of myself—no expert, sadly, in escape—staring through those transparent walls at a showcard on the counter. Things happened after a Badedas bath. You might be whisked off to Camelot by a lovesick errant knight. There was the picture of a woman staring dreamily from a window, just a towel draped carelessly about her. Well, lucky her. Standing nearly naked in an illuminated bathroom with undrawn curtains she was undoubtedly a floozy; but, right then, I wouldn’t have minded changing places with her.

  She had to face no brutal truths.

  No, not brutal perhaps. Unnecessary. Insensitive. It hadn’t eluded me he might be married.

  But wait. “Ah, yes, I see. And is your wife still... ?” I corrected myself; despite the numbing quality of such a shock I hadn’t lost any of my old cunning. “And does your wife enjoy her life in Bristol?”

  “Very much so.”

  I bought a tablet of lavender soap; the same as the one I’d got here previously. I decided the Paracetamol would certainly be cheaper at Boots.

  “Have you settled nearby?” he asked.

  “Buckland Street.” It was the first name I could think of.

  “Oh, just around the corner.” That, too, seemed an unnecessary scrap of information. I definitely wouldn’t be returning here. “Then maybe we’ll be seeing something of you. Nice.”

  It was almost what he’d said before. This time I wasn’t fooled. They could make a dupe out of you once... because, after all, you were only human, you didn’t set out to be cynical. But in their arrogance they supposed that they could go on doing it, time after time after time.

  I thanked him with dignity and in a very natural manner whose slighter degree of coolness such a person could hardly be expected to appreciate. But that was good. I didn’t want him thinking his rebuff had been important.

  Outside, a few doors along, I passed the marriage bureau through which he’d probably met her. I had never understood how anybody, no matter how lonely, could be sufficiently lost to all sense of pride as to resort to that.

  But I wreaked, I thought, a rather subtle form of revenge. I went into another chemist’s shop (it wasn’t Boots) where the prices were most likely as inflated as his own. And I not only bought the Paracetamol. “Do you happen to stock Badedas?” I asked, with a merry ripple of laughter. “Because, if so, I’ll take the very largest size you have.”

  16

  Yet despite such inspired retaliation I knew I needed to cheer myself up. I recognized the signs. For the first time since coming to Bristol I felt quite low. Help! I went to the public library.

  Where I quickly began to recover. The woman at the desk might have been no older than I was but unquestionably she looked it. Someone should have told her about touching up her hair or even about the invention of contact lenses. I wanted to say, “You know, my dear, men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

  I said: “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

  I tried to convey that it was really neither here nor there but that it might still be as well to think about it. I didn’t want to hurt her.

  “Excuse me?”

  I considered adding that they only caused you trouble for the first week. Contact lenses I mean.

  I flashed her a winning smile. “Errol Flynn,” I said.

  “Oh. Books on the cinema are over there.”

  I saw that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I automatically liked her and despised her and felt sorry for her and was glad.

  “Would you know offhand if you’ve anything on Horatio Gavin?”

  “Is he connected with the cinema?”

  “Oh! You can’t be serious!”

  She led me across to the biography section. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What was that name again?”

  It was all very well—she was certainly not unpleasant but I began to feel resentful. Both on Mr. Gavin’s behalf and more obscurely on my own. Probably the fact that I now owned the house in which he’d lived entitled me to some measure of sensitivity.

  There was nothing on the shelves. “I’ll check the cards,” she said.

  This was more successful. “Ah, yes, I’ve found something! Oh? Was he a local man?”

  I answered with both relish and severity. “He lived barely half a mile from where we stand now. Why?”

  “This booklet was published by a local press. I’ll go to check if we’ve still got it.”

  After five minutes she returned empty-handed—and apparently they couldn’t even acquire it for me.

  “Well, never mind,” I said. “At least you can give me the name of the press.”

  “I’m afraid the press closed down. Several years ago.”

  “This is absurd!”

  I felt prepared to make a scene. What had started out as almost an idle enquiry had now become a matter of some urgency.

  She said: “I suppose you could try in the secondhand bookshops.” But her tone entirely lacked conviction.

  “And I could advertise too.” I had never in my life thought to advertise for anything. The words just seemed to come to me.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “I could even go to the council.” Goodness, I sounded smug. There was clearly no end to my ingenuity. She nodded a bit uncertainly and I was going to enlighten her but suddenly I didn’t want to. It was nice to have one’s little secrets; it made one feel superior. This would be something solely between Horatio and myself. Just the two of us. I smiled.

  “Well, thank you for all your help. Thank you, at least, for having tried!”

  On my way out I passed the shelves bearing the encyclopaedias. There was no mention of Horatio Gavin in Britannica but I found a few lines about him in Chambers. I felt a tremendous leap of the heart. It was like the feeling you might get on seeing a well-loved face in the crowd when you hadn’t believed that it could possibly happen.

  Gavin, Horatio (1760–1793), English social reformer associated with William Wilberforce in his campaign to eradicate slavery; died fourteen years too soon to see the longed-for abolition of the British slave trade.

  It was the shortest entry on the page, perhaps in the whole encyclopaedia, but what of that? I rushed back to the desk. “Look!” I crie
d. “Look!”

  I pointed triumphantly, realizing a little too late that I’d pushed in front of two women who’d just arrived to have their novels stamped. They stepped back and I apologized and all was sweetly smiling politeness. But although I knew it was less out of interest than a sense of duty that the librarian read the entry; although she said nothing more than, “Well, fancy—yes I’m glad you’ve found something!”; although as I walked over to the photocopier I was sure the three women were leaning their heads together in genteelly malicious gossip... none of this seemed to matter. I only felt that in some small way Horatio Gavin had been vindicated.

  But frustratingly I soon discovered that I needed help with the photocopier.

  For the third time I approached the desk.

  “Oh, incidentally, I’ve found a bar of soap here. I don’t know if anyone will claim it.”

  17

  So he was just thirty-three when he died. The same age as Jesus. I was mildly disappointed—not I regret for his own sake but simply because I’d been picturing someone a little older than myself. Yet I quickly adjusted. In the library I had already felt protective. A fine man, his name linked with William Wilberforce. Of course from the beginning I had known that he was good. But the expression “the good die young” now occurred to me with more immediacy, more poignancy, than it had ever done before—even in connection with my father, or with Paul the picture framer.

  I suddenly wished I were younger. Well, one wished that fairly often but this time I experienced a feeling of nausea. There were so seldom any second chances. I had now missed out forever.

  “Just thirty-three,” I said. I spoke aloud. The nausea had briefly brought a fine perspiration to my forehead but now I continued with the preparation of my lunch. “What on earth could you have died of at the age of thirty-three?”

  I paused again in the act of peeling a potato.

  “Well, at that time I suppose you were one of the luckier ones to live even that long.”