A Sea-Grape Tree

by Rosamond Lehmann

  ‘Oh, this dream you’re so mysterious about … To hell with that. But if you somehow picked up the idea that I won’t be anybody’s property you were spot on.’

  ‘Yes, I picked up the idea. What about Staycie? She’s after saving you as well,’ you told me.

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘You mean she doesn’t want to go to bed with you.’

  He uttered a sound expressive of dismay, and shook her again. ‘Shut up! The old girl means well, bless her heart; but I’m not a co-operative subject. I just don’t fancy it.’

  ‘What don’t you fancy?’

  ‘I don’t fancy living.’ There was a long silence which he finally broke by murmuring: ‘Though tonight it doesn’t seem such a bad idea. Not bad. Not bad at all.’

  Then again she was gathered into his arms; for the last time he made love to her—this time more tenderly by far, more confidently, considerately. Afterwards he said for the first and the last time: ‘I love you.’ A few tears mingled with their grateful kisses. Again she asked: ‘What are we to do?’ This time he answered: ‘I don’t know yet. I must think.’

  Daylight was breaking rapidly. Raising herself on one elbow, hand propped on cheek, she took a long deep look at him. He lay with his head thrown back, eyes half closed, only two narrow glinting curves showing beneath the lids, his expression undecipherable. There was something about it—something severe, as of one rapt in meditation, impersonally triumphant, even majestic, that made her want to catch her breath, as if he dazzled her, or frightened her. A strange, primitive, female experience of worship, of subservience, totally unfamiliar, overcame her. He seemed scarcely to be attentive when she murmured: ‘I must go now’; put on his dressing gown, combed her wild hair with his comb, collected her still damp belongings. But then he roused himself, saying ‘Listen’; and they had a conversation. He told her to come back around mid-morning: he would have a plan for the day prepared by then. A plan for them to spend the day together? Yes, he said firmly, and mind she fell in with his arrangements. No one, not Ellie, Trevor, Kit, Staycie, Bartholomew, Princess, was to be allowed to balls up this day alone together. They could whistle for her until evening and this damned farewell party. She was to run along now and have a bit of kip. He would do the same. To hear him take charge of her with such authority set the final seal upon her happiness. The day before them seemed to stretch out into eternity.

  When she looked back at the door to wave to him he was again lying motionless as an image on a bier, his great torso and long naked limbs lit by the unearthly apricot light of dawn.

  When she rejoined him she found him already seated in the stern of a trim motor boat—not Tony de Pas’s inferior outboard affair—a boat, he said vaguely, that he could sometimes lay his hands on. Louis, his massive countenance split in an ear to ear grin of amusement and delight, waited to hand her in and to shove the little craft out into deeper water. Oars, two strong sticks, bathing gear, a picnic basket, bottles were stowed in place. Johnny wore a green eye shade, and gave an approving glance to her large becoming hat tied on with a red and white cotton scarf. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘There’s a hell of a glare on the water. You don’t want to get sunstroke your last day.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To a place I know that nobody else knows. Nobody has been there since the world began. A goodish way beyond the Point. We mustn’t go too far, must we? It wouldn’t do if we ran out of gas and I never got you back: if we broke down and simply drifted on to the reef, and they waited in vain for No Name Anemone Anonyma at her farewell celebrations.’

  ‘I can row,’ she said. ‘I’m very strong.’

  ‘Let me feel. By Jove yes, what muscles, how absolutely topping! I say Boysie—may I call you Boysie?—isn’t this simply ripping?’

  He wouldn’t stop teasing her, she couldn’t stop giggling. He whistled, he steered, they watched the land receding, its conical, densely vegetated hills rising high, higher, like huge waves, viridian, violet, overtopping one another. At one moment some great fish leapt quite near the boat, and he exclaimed excitedly, wishing he had brought a rod. Nothing romantic or intimate was said. Their holiday spirits flowed through one another as if their bodies were transparent: as light-filled, as exhilarated as the blue air and sparkling hyacinthine, amethyst-streaked sea. After rounding the Point they came into choppy water. The breeze was stiff, the boat danced over little foamy white caps. He said: ‘There’s quite a current here.’ Trivial, idly-spoken words … but some trick of his voice, of the turn of his head, set going an unaccountable vibration. I know it all, she told herself. Blue blazing sky and water, rocking boat; another time, remote, remote; another, once-familiar place; a man’s voice drifting on the wind, saying those very words; a nobly proportioned head, dark ruffled hair, a high-bridged nose, full chin seen in profile, a long gold-skinned arm, a powerful-looking hand intent on steering … All as before, as once upon a time. Nothing charged with drama in the glimpse, nothing intrinsically memorable or significant; simply a momentary, total dislocation, a shock both acute and painless, compounded of acceptance and astonishment. If she had found words expressing feelings they might have been: ‘So it’s true, we do know one another very well’; yet there was nothing emotive, nothing ambiguous attached to the clear image.

  He was looking at her more attentively.

  ‘You’re very silent. Feeling seasick?’

  ‘Certainly not. But getting hungry.’

  ‘Again?!’

  ‘Well, I had no breakfast, not a bite. The storm had got everybody down. The bread was damp, the coffee was stone cold. I didn’t see Miss Stay: she went down very early to the bungalow. Mr Bartholomew was fractious. Miss Cropper had a horrible shock—a scorpion fell out of her hairbrush. I hurried to her when I heard her yell, but it gave me the creeps, I couldn’t touch it. I called Princess and she banged it and killed it with the hairbrush, looking scornful. I wish I hadn’t seen it.’

  While she chattered on, he swung the boat round, steering for the shore. It occurred to her while she watched the land approaching, how little she had been affected by the depression and disarray prevalent in the guest house: even the unnerving sight of the scorpion had barely brushed her consciousness, whereas less than three weeks ago it would have appalled her, transfixed her with yet one more symbol of the obscene threats of evil which surrounded her.

  The boat grounded gently; she stepped out barefoot into crystal water, the colour of gentians; then steadied the boat while he rolled his slacks half-way to his knees, picked up his sticks, heaved himself out and stood upright, with care, on his long, shapely, wasted legs.

  ‘There!’ he said triumphantly. ‘The bay that wanted to be visited.’

  ‘It never has been?’

  ‘Never, I told you, since the world began. Once or twice, fishing with Louis, I’ve spotted it—missed it other times. It seems to hide. It’s a present for you, darling. Anonyma Bay on the map.’

  It was a deep, shell-strewn scallop of snow-white sand, out of which grew, here and there, a thorny shrub covered with vermilion blossoms and with the huge yellow and black striped butterflies that fed on them. A feathery grove of tall bamboos ringed the beach; and further back, a tumble of dark boulders rose to a towering cliff. Over this a fall of water, at first tenuous and sheer as a scarf of silvery tissue, cascaded downwards, carving a fertile channel, thick with dripping ferns and clumps of arum lilies in its lower reaches.

  She pulled the boat up further, collected their gear; and they walked slowly across the virgin sand into the shade of the grove. He lowered himself on to a rock with a scooped-out surface, saying: ‘Even a ready-made armchair’; and she spread the canvas sheet and sat at his feet.

  They ate and drank—Louis’s lovingly packed delicacies washed down with iced rum punch, iced coffee—in happy silence, overcome by the dazzle and somnolence of high noon. Then he stretched h
imself out beside her, pulled her into his arms and went to sleep. An hour passed. He woke up smiling, kissed her, sat up, looked down at her, one eyebrow lifted.

  ‘No kip?’

  ‘Not quite. I was thinking.’ Thinking: only a few more hours together.

  ‘What about? Women never sleep.’ He yawned. ‘I was strangely sleepy.’

  ‘No wonder.’

  ‘I’d like to make love to you. What’s the matter? Why do you look like that?’

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Broody. Worried. Are you?’

  ‘Yes. No. Yes. Johnny we must talk—we must.’

  ‘Yes. Well … We must. Let’s have a swim first.’

  He was in bathing trunks under his shirt and slacks. He watched her undress, saying: ‘Oh, you are pretty. Why wear that garment? Don’t.’ But she said: ‘I’d better. There’s someone watching—look! We aren’t the first.’

  His head turned with feline swiftness following her pointing finger. Some distance back, in a patch of green grass within the grove, a white cow stood tethered to a mango tree, motionless as if painted on the landscape.

  ‘I’ll be damned!’ he said. ‘Can it be real? Has it been there all the time?’

  ‘I think we’ve dreamed it up. It looks quite benevolent.’

  ‘It’s a cow-goddess, come to bless us.’

  He let her help him, one arm around her shoulders, till he was knee-high in the water; then he plunged forward with an almighty splash, surfaced without looking back, drove on, on, on, leaving her lonely, far behind. He was a dot, bobbing, almost out of sight; and the vast expanses of empty sea and sky seemed suddenly to glare at her. Then he was tearing back, all thrashing arms and shoulders and plastered hair and streaming radiant face; swung her into his orbit, taking big breaths to say: ‘Come on—arms round my neck—hang on—take you for a ride—no sharks no barracudas—special dolphin rescue technique—more efficient—much more fun.’ Carrying her on his back as if the weight of her were nothing, he cruised out to sea again. Eyes closed, arms loosely round his neck, she let herself float onward with his measured, rhythmical, strong strokes. Once or twice he gave a shrug and a laugh and rolled her off his shoulders; then for a while they swam abreast. He played in the water as if it was his natural element, as if he could never tire; bore her along as if he would never let her flag or fall behind.

  ‘What are we doing?’ she gasped once. ‘Shall we ever get back?’

  ‘I wonder!’

  ‘Are you sure—no sharks or—?’

  ‘No, no. We’re well inside the reef. Anyway nearly all sharks are harmless.’

  ‘You’re not going to drown me, are you?’

  ‘I haven’t decided.’

  He was beside her, not smiling, staring at her. Next moment, clasped in his arms, she let herself sink down with him in a supreme embrace. Then she struggled, and shot rapidly to the surface and found herself alone, looking all round for him, suppressing panic. Long of limb and heavy as he was he came up slowly, as if reluctantly.

  ‘Frighten you?’

  ‘I can’t be frightened when I’m with you.’

  ‘But you almost were? You were?’ he said in his odd insistent way.

  ‘Well, almost. When I thought you were never coming up.’

  ‘The water’s too buoyant,’ he said vaguely.

  That was the moment when his mood of insouciance, serenity, began to change; though all he said, after a smiling glance at her, was: ‘Total immersion. Now you belong to me.’ Then: ‘I didn’t know your eyes were green.’

  ‘They’re not.’

  ‘They are. Bright green. And icy. You’re a mermaid. And oh, how pale you are. You’re tired. You’ve had enough.’

  ‘I’m not tired …’

  ‘Right! Just as you say. Back now.’

  As if in obedience to instructions he turned and started for the shore, his progress slow enough to permit her to keep only a yard or so behind him. But once they were back in the pellucid shallows, and could stand, he paused, frowning, looking all round him as if perplexed or hesitant. He waist-high, she breast-high in the water, they confronted one another. He put a hand beneath her chin and tipped her face up as if to search it closely. His light eyes seemed to hold a shadow, and to cast it over her. He kissed her—another cold salt kiss, then he started to wade for the shore with dragging steps. She hurried forward to fetch his sticks, but he said irritably: ‘No—too much trouble’; reached for the boat and tumbled into it. He said: ‘Be a good girl and fetch me a cigarette: that’s what I’d really like.’ When, having dressed in haste, she returned with all their gear he was sitting collectedly in the stern, searching the contours of the land through a pair of binoculars; which presently were offered to her and sulkily refused. He started whistling, continued his geographical survey with every appearance of intent preoccupation. She busied herself with comb, lipstick, powder, suntan cream, pulled her hat down to hide her chagrined face. In silent estrangement they sat side by side.

  ‘Why,’ she said finally, ‘do men so enjoy looking through those blasted things?’

  ‘I’ve never asked myself,’ he said mildly. ‘Do you object?’

  ‘I’ll tell you why: it’s because they so hate to look at what’s under their noses.’

  He briefly laughed, put down the offending object; then said in an altered voice:

  ‘Perhaps I’m beginning—not quite to be able to enjoy looking at you. Because of such a short time left.’ At a gesture, an indrawn breath from her he went on coldly: ‘Don’t cry. I suppose it’s all been a mistake.’

  She protested wildly, desperate to force the breakdown of his stony front; and after some time he heaved a hard-drawn sigh, put an arm round her and muttered:

  ‘I didn’t mean it to get out of hand.’

  ‘To be so important?’

  He nodded.

  ‘But it is?’

  ‘Seems to be.’

  ‘Well, that’s all that matters: that it should be important.’

  ‘I don’t like being irresponsible.’

  She lifted her head from his shoulder to study his serious face. She said:

  ‘You almost startled me. No one has ever said that to me, so far as I remember.’

  ‘Isn’t it said any more?’ he enquired in that mild tone he sometimes adopted. ‘Is it out of date? I live so retired …’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve been unlucky. Unwise, more likely.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about your life.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘If you want to tell me.’

  Her past stirred in her, all amorphous, clouded: nothing in clear narrative sequence emerged; no definite outlines or solid forms.

  ‘It’s not been very interesting or dramatic. Nobody’s ever had reason to be proud of me. I think a lot about people. Otherwise the only thing I’ve ever given much thought to is—’ He looked at her enquiringly; and she went on, feeling shamefaced:

  ‘Happiness. Personal happiness. That’s what I believed in. That’s what I was after.’

  ‘Well—what’s wrong with that? Who wants unhappiness?’ He sounded kind but cautious.

  ‘Oh!—but to put it in the forefront is disgraceful and ridiculous. Anyone will tell you it’s just a by-product of—of getting on; or, if you’re noble, service to humanity. I simply wanted a blissfully happy marriage, and lots of children.’

  He reflected. ‘It doesn’t sound too impossibly ambitious … It must be what millions of women want, even today … But you don’t believe in all that any more?’

  ‘Well, look at me!’ He did so, smiling sweetly; and she went on, the tears running down her face: ‘Oh! if you knew how frightened I am now!’

  ‘Frightened of what?’

  ‘Of—something about my proportions.’

  ‘I se
e nothing wrong with them.’

  ‘Internal, I mean. And I can’t alter them.’

  ‘You’re not saying you’re barmy or something, are you?’

  ‘You mustn’t tease. I used to think the main thing in everybody’s life was love. But it isn’t: I found that out long ago. People can manage with only a pinch of it—if that. They’re not nice people but they function. I literally can’t. I cannot live without love: without—you know, being in a state of love. A loved and loving state. Can you?’

  ‘I do,’ he muttered. ‘I told you. I’m not loving—or lovable.’ He hung his head, idly picking at a paint blister on the floor boards.

  There was a long melancholy deadlocked silence, which she broke at last to say uncertainly:

  ‘When I arrived here, I was more frightened than ever in my life. Totally frightened. Between one moment and the next I’d dropped out of the human situation—as I saw it. I had no future. Apart from despair, I was incredulous. I suppose I’d always assumed that in spite of setbacks I’d—stay on the winning side. I’ve learnt now what outcasts, exiles feel: that’s something to the good, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s something.’

  ‘You know about it too?’

  ‘About what?’ His voice was guarded.

  ‘Not being on the winning side.’

  ‘Of course. It’s better, safer. One can manage fairly well.’ He threw his head back, and the strange cut-off sound, half-groan, half laugh, which she had heard before escaped him. ‘But I’m not on any side. I don’t compete.’

  ‘You mean that you’re not greedy … I feel that when I’m with you. It makes a nice change.’

  ‘Don’t imagine,’ he said, more lightly, ‘I was putting in a selfless effort to cheer you up last night.’

  ‘And don’t you imagine I was.’

  ‘Well,’ he said contentedly, ‘you did cheer me up no end, whatever your intention was.’

  ‘You promise? You weren’t—hoping, pretending I was someone else?’