Wish Her Safe At Home

by Stephen Benatar

  Upstairs they spoke about arrangements for the christening and about some of the people who were likely to be there. “It will all be very dull, Rachel, but afterwards you and we and a few of our more special friends will have a bit of a knees-up to atone.” I could hardly be insensible of the magnitude of the compliment. My hand shook slightly as I poured the tea.

  “Are you expecting someone else, Miss Waring?”

  “Rachel,” corrected Roger.

  “Because you may think Thomas very advanced but he doesn’t yet handle a cup and saucer with total confidence.”

  I stared at the fourth teacup and teaplate and folded napkin. “Oh, that’s your husband’s fault. He was so busy playing the fool down there that he got me all mixed up.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I noticed it the last time too.”

  Then—maybe afraid that it might distress me having to own up to absentmindedness—she hurriedly put another question. It must have been the first thing that came into her head and, ironically, showed that even if my own mind hadn’t wandered hers at some point assuredly had.

  “Please remind me... who is Sylvia? You seemed to suggest she might be missing you.”

  Roger laughed. “Holy, fair, and wise is she.” His laugh had relieved any small suggestion of awkwardness.

  “I had forgotten that bit,” I confessed.

  “Ah, but you remembered ‘Is she kind as she is fair?’ That’s pretty good, you know.”

  “What a patronizing young man!”

  I enjoyed being able to insult him, since that naturally gave him carte blanche to insult me right back.

  But he didn’t avail himself of it. “For beauty lives with kindness,” he declaimed.

  I was beginning to giggle. “No, don’t. Please don’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you haven’t met Sylvia and you’re going to make it so that I can never look her in the eye again.”

  He giggled with me. They both did. “Then she obviously isn’t that close a friend?”

  I coloured a little and wondered how best to put things. “Well, let’s simply say I don’t think she’s quite as you’ve described her.”

  “But Rachel. You can’t quarrel with Shakespeare. Nobody can.”

  “I do beg his pardon.”

  (How he seemed to have the gift of drawing from me repartee.)

  “It appears, then, there are just two possibilities. Either when in London you saw only through a glass, darkly”—I hoped I didn’t start—“or else... ” He hesitated.

  “Yes? Or else?”

  “Or else he got the names muddled. He was describing the wrong flatmate.”

  Well, if I coloured now, it certainly wasn’t on account of any feelings of slight guilt.

  “All these compliments!” I managed to get out, eventually. “I’m really not quite used to them. But, ‘Thank ’ee kindly, sir,’ she said.” Had I been standing I might have dropped a curtsy. “Which play does it come from?”

  “I think... The Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s not a speech by the way; it’s a song.”

  I nodded. Just so long as I knew where to look for it. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

  “You’ll have to learn to sing it,” he said.

  Celia may have thought her husband was getting a little too carried away because she again changed the subject, changed it somewhat abruptly, and reverted more or less to where we’d begun. “These are such pretty cups,” she said. “I meant to mention it the last time we were here.”

  “I believe you did.”

  “Did I? Oh, it must get rather boring. Everything you have is just so pretty. So... ”

  “Attractive,” said Roger. “Pretty is such a milk-and-water word.”

  “I was going to say perfect. You must excuse us, Rachel.” This time she got it right. “It must be very bad form to enthuse all the while; at the very least a bit lacking in sophistication. But the real problem is... I seem to have fallen in love a little with your house.”

  “Well, you know you don’t have to apologize for that!” I said. “Who wants sophistication?”

  “That picture’s new, isn’t it?” asked Roger.

  I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  “We’ve been admiring it.”

  For ten or twelve seconds the three of us gazed at Horatio in silence.

  “One of these days I’ll tell you all about him,” I said.

  “Ah, is there a story, then?”

  “There most definitely is—and in more ways than one! But not for now. For now, I’m only going to say that if it wasn’t for him I myself shouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “No. I should have sold the house and gone straight back to London.”

  Then how they tried to draw it out of me! But they had met their match: I resisted every subterfuge. I had decided not to supply so much as a single hint.

  It was far better, I often thought—despite my natural inclinations— not to give everything away too quickly.

  28

  Poor sylvia. When I’d left London, August had still seemed a long way off and I’d hoped that after several months of our being apart it would probably be very pleasant to have her spend three days with me and let me show her Bristol. For after all, to begin with, we had got on rather well. But when her letter had arrived on the very morning of Roger and Celia’s visit, confirming and not cancelling (oh, how one lives in hope!), I had thought then: three days without writing, three days without privacy, three days of weighty talk and ubiquitous cigarette smoke, three days of almost endless coughing, how can I bear it? Three days of profanity and sensible down-to-earth attitudes... tainting everything. And I had wondered if I could perhaps make some excuse to save myself from such a purgatory. Any excuse—how much would it have mattered if she’d seen right through it? But as soon as I’d reflected I had felt ashamed. He wouldn’t have made one. And did a mere three days really represent such a terrible sacrifice?

  “I will be good,” I promised. “I will learn! Please don’t despair of me. It’s only that I need to have my little grumble.”

  No, I didn’t.

  “I shall be gay and full of laughter! No matter what! No one will ever know. Except you.”

  Yes. Poor Sylvia. After all that foolish trepidation of mine, when she finally arrived, latish on the Friday evening, it proved surprisingly agreeable. I felt quite remorseful and exceedingly relieved. She obviously liked the house—even if her praise was never totally unqualified and usually had to be fished for a little; she was funny about her new flatmate (although not too maliciously so and in any case when was I ever likely to meet Miss Carter again?); and with everything she said about the intrigues in her office and about some of her adventures on the underground and buses I kept thinking how very blest I was to be out of it all, how very blest I should still have been even if the blessing had been a purely negative one.

  But she—evidently—didn’t see it in quite the same light.

  “Christ! What do you do with yourself all day?” I hadn’t yet told her about the book. (I’d decided, since her arrival, that in fact I might.) “Apart from listening to the bloody Archers?” she added.

  I laughed. “Oh, I really can’t remember when I last listened to The Archers!”

  “Struth.”

  “It’s just astonishing where all the time goes.”

  “It must be.”

  “Well, first there’s the house itself of course... ”

  “All right but don’t tell me you’ve become a woman for going out and joining things. I’d never believe it. Do you mind if I smoke?”

  My goodness! At least she asked now... even if from her actions she automatically assumed the answer would be yes. Someday, even, she might become a positively reformed character.

  I passed her an ashtray; it was rather small. We’d brought our coffee upstairs—decaffeinated at this time of the evening though I cunningly didn’t m
ention that—and I’d drawn the curtains and quite softly and unobtrusively put on a divertimento... despite Roger’s having told me, almost severely, that this was not the manner in which to play classical music.

  “Nice,” she said, letting out a long sigh of contentment and, miraculously, not beginning to cough. “Although I didn’t know you went in for any of this highbrow stuff.”

  I only smiled non-committally.

  “You’d better eat some of these things,” she added abruptly. “In any case, don’t leave them by me. Obviously the time hasn’t yet come when you need to worry over calories. It’s damned unfair.”

  Besides the box of chocolates—liqueur chocolates—she had given me a roasted chicken and two bottles of wine and a tin of biscuits. I had told her she shouldn’t have done it; but had immediately resolved never to use that phrase again.

  “At least I ’ve still got a job,” she had said. “Such as it is.”

  Yet she hadn’t brought me any housewarming gift. Of course, I hadn’t let her know of anything I wanted. But on the other hand she hadn’t reminded me. It wasn’t that I was mercenary; something inexpensive would have been truly welcome if I could only have believed that she had chosen it with care. And she had spoken about getting me something. So it was rather a shame: despite my unexpected pleasure at seeing her again I still had to stop remembering what that video recorder had cost. Especially since at the moment it was money I could well have done with.

  Well, never mind. Now, before they could leave her side too finally, she quickly grabbed one of the chocolates and repeated her earlier question.

  “But what on earth do you find to do?”

  “Just this and that. I’ve made some friends, you know.”

  “Oh yes?” She bit into her chocolate and then tilted her head back to drain the rest of the liqueur. That made her cough.

  I smiled, forgivingly. “There’s a very nice chemist.”

  Following her cough she made appreciative sucking sounds and unscrewed the little label she had cast into the ashtray. “I can recommend the Benedictine!” she said, picking up her cigarette again. “Oh, not tradesmen, my dear?”

  “He says I’ve changed his life.”

  “Does he indeed? Good for him. Good for both of you.”

  “And then there’s a deceased clergyman’s wife. Widow. I had tea with her the other day. That was nice.”

  “Did you cap each other’s snippets from The Lady?”

  In earlier days I had found Sylvia’s sense of humour one of the most attractive things about her. Notwithstanding its coarseness it had seemed to me at that time the product of an enviable ability to laugh at life. At life. Not just at people.

  “Also,” I said, “a rather physical vicar who compliments me on my singing and intelligence and who all but suggested I drop in to cook him a meal.”

  “He... what?”

  “A sort of candlelit tête-à-tête. Of course I very firmly sat on that idea.”

  “Well, more fool you. And, anyway, what do you mean by physical?”

  “Sylvia, you know perfectly well what I mean by physical!” I reproved her with a laugh.

  But I had saved one of the two best things till last.

  “And then there’s a charming young couple, Roger and Celia, who’ve asked me to be godmother to their firstborn. Little Thomas. He’s a darling. And the christening’s going to be next week. A rather plush sort of affair so I’m given to believe.”

  I could see that this time, despite her every effort to conceal it, Sylvia was definitely impressed. I immediately went on to tell her what Roger had said about the probable dullness of this great occasion and followed it up with his suggested remedy. “I swear they think I’m quite as young as they are!”

  Sylvia said: “I can see why they’re so charming!”

  “And extremely nice looking. Him, especially. He’s blond, blue-eyed and very muscular. Has a sort of a sheen about him.”

  “How do you know he’s so muscular?”

  “Well, you can tell. Besides, the first time that I visited their home, I arrived a little early and he was still sunning himself in the garden.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette and I got up to fetch her a second ashtray, the only other in the house. She accepted it with a rueful grin. “Yes, I’ve almost managed to fill this one!”

  “Anyway,” I said as I sat down again, “you’re as young as you feel.”

  “Evidently.”

  “That’s going to be my motto from now on.”

  Only then did I realize that the Mozart had come to an end. I mentally sang a line or two—though not lines from Don Giovanni or The Magic Flute.

  Stay young and beautiful,

  It’s your duty to be beautiful...

  At any rate I now felt I had given Sylvia enough to be getting on with. I had decided to become enigmatic: a woman of mystery. I smiled. Roger and Celia had also been interested to hear about any new friends I might be making; and I had exercised restraint on that occasion, too. I had simply said, “None!” But this had been chiefly because I hadn’t wanted them to start feeling sidelined.

  I encouraged Sylvia to return to London matters.

  All the time she talked, however, that perky little tune was still playing inside my head, making it hard for me not to tap my foot. I hadn’t thought of it in a long while. But now I was sure that I’d remember. It would be good to have a theme song. Just like Aunt Alicia had had her theme song and had obviously—though in a rather mournful way—found it endlessly life-affirming. (I wondered if she’d sung it as repetitiously in this house as she had sung it at Neville Court.)

  And it was perfectly true of course. I’d always felt far more positive whenever I’d had a motto.

  A motto—even now that I felt so assured of happiness—could only make a very welcome extra ingredient.

  Don’t forget to do your stuff

  With some powder and a powder puff;

  Stay young and beautiful

  If you want to be loved...

  Sylvia broke off what she was saying—she must have seen me tapping and guessed I hadn’t been giving her my full attention. “Oh, I know what you’ve got on your mind,” she remarked. “You and your corny old tunes.”

  I smiled, affectionately. I said: “I remember, you saucebox, how you used to call me the Old Groaner!” But I’d heard presenters on Radio 2 use that same appellation for Bing Crosby.

  She smiled back. “Well, one of your most infuriating habits was that way you had of humming under your breath—totally out of tune and nearly always in a monotone. How it could drive me loco!”

  I didn’t follow.

  “Why did you do it, Raitch? That’s what I’d like to know. Did it seem to you melodious?”

  I laughed. “What are you saying, Sylv?” Either she was expressing herself poorly or I was being exceptionally obtuse.

  “All those boringly upbeat tunes. Why were you so tediously hooked on them? Still are, for anything I know?” She added: “Yes! I’ve just been given proof.”

  I stared at her. There could no longer be any doubt of what she meant.

  I said: “Surely it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? To try to face life with a song on your lips? Even if it can’t—not always—be a song in your heart?”

  “Oh, Christ, Raitch! Pollyanna!” She coughed then shrugged—and even chuckled. She had always been incredibly impervious to changes in the temperature.

  “Anyway,” I persisted, “why on earth do you say ‘under your breath and out of tune’? I should think I could sometimes be heard by everybody in the block. I know that Mrs. Crumbling once called me a right little songbird—those were her very words—and she wasn’t a woman exactly famous for her compliments! And,” I went on, “and... ”

  But suddenly I caught his eye—or, rather, suddenly he caught mine. I looked down at my hands; I looked up again. I made an effort.

  “And?” she prompted.

  “And... well, I’m sure yo
u don’t know what boringly upbeat little tune I had on my mind a minute ago!” He was pleased with me for thinking up this challenge and for good-humouredly accepting her assessment. (For seeming, good-humouredly, to accept her assessment!)

  “You’re forgetting, my girl, I lived with you for close on eleven years. For my sins, I might add.”

  “All right then?”

  Clearly she couldn’t have expected such tenacity. But Sylvia-like she was determined to make good her boast or at least to go down fighting. The first was an almost impossible assignment. One admired her pluck though. Even whilst being mystified by her choice.

  “Fairy tales can come trew-ew-ew,

  It can happen to yew-ew-ew,

  If you’re young at heart... ”

  She added, “Well, I’m no bloody Frank Sinatra. I only wish I was.” She gave a caustic laugh. “Not that he should go around getting too bigheaded over that.”

  Poor Sylvia. Suddenly I did understand. I didn’t know who had first called it the green-eyed monster—but they had surely been exactly right. Sylvia’s eyes were flecked with the greenest green you ever saw.

  “Yes, full marks,” I said. “You’re really very clever.”

  I had stopped my toe-tapping. (Of course, long since.) I remembered when I had seen that film and I supposed, on second thoughts, her choice hadn’t been in the least bit mystifying.

  She let out an incredulous guffaw: triumph and astonishment combined. I wanted to change the subject. I said: “Did you know that Howard Hughes once sat on the lavatory for seventy-two hours? Adventurer, playboy, filmmaker. Unbelievably handsome as well. But later... Three days, three nights, of battling with his constipation. Imagine.” I obeyed my own injunction: I imagined. “Furthermore, it probably brought on piles. Could you really call that a success story, I wonder?”