Of course the journey was an enchantment to her. The porters in their blue overalls, the loud, high conversations, of which, although she thought she knew French quite well, she did not understand a single word, the steamy, garlic-smelling heat of the French train, the delicious food, to which she was summoned by a little hurried bell, it was all from another world, like a dream.
She looked out of the window and saw chateaux, lime avenues, ponds, and villages exactly like those in the Bibliothèque Rose – she thought she must, at any moment, see Sophie in her white dress and unnaturally small black pumps cutting up goldfish, gorging herself on new bread and cream, or scratching the face of good, uncomplaining Paul. Her very stilted, very English French, got her across Paris and into the train for Perpignan without a hitch. Paris. She looked out of the window at the lighted dusky streets, and thought that never could any town have been so hauntingly beautiful.
A strange stray thought came into her head that, one day, she would come back here and be very happy, but she knew that it was not likely, Christian would never want to live in Paris. Happiness and Christian were still linked together in her mind at this time.
At Perpignan she found him in a whirl of business. Funds had been raised, a ship had been chartered, and plans were on foot for sending six thousand Spaniards out of the camps to Mexico. This entailed an enormous amount of staff work, as families (no Spaniard would think of moving without his entire family) had to be reunited from camps all over the place, assembled in a camp in Perpignan, and taken by train to the port of Cette, whence they finally embarked. The work was greatly complicated by the fact that Spanish husbands and wives do not share a surname. Christian explained all this to Linda almost before she was out of the train; he gave her an absent-minded peck on the forehead and rushed her to his office, hardly giving her time to deposit her luggage at an hotel on the way and scouting the idea that she might like a bath. He did not ask how she was or whether she had had a good journey – Christian always assumed that people were all right unless they told him to the contrary, when, except in the case of destitute, coloured, oppressed, leprous, or otherwise unattractive strangers, he would take absolutely no notice. He was really only interested in mass wretchedness, and never much cared for individual cases, however genuine their misery, while the idea that it is possible to have three square meals a day and a roof and yet be unhappy or unwell, seemed to him intolerable nonsense.
The office was a large shed with a yard round it. This yard was permanently full of refugees with mountains of luggage and quantities of children, dogs, donkeys, goats, and other appurtenances, who had just struggled over the mountains in their flight from Fascism, and were hoping that the English would be able to prevent them being put into camps. In certain cases they could be lent money, or given railway tickets enabling them to join relations in France and French Morocco, but the vast majority waited hours for an interview, only to be told that there was no hope for them. They would then, with great and heart-breaking politeness, apologize for having been a nuisance and withdraw. Spaniards have a highly developed sense of human dignity.
Linda was now introduced to Robert Parker and to Randolph Pine, a young writer who, having led a more or less playboy existence in the South of France, had gone to fight in Spain, and was now working in Perpignan from a certain feeling of responsibility towards those who had once been fellow soldiers. They seemed pleased that Linda had arrived, and were most friendly and welcoming, saying that it was nice to see a new face.
‘You must give me some work to do,’ said Linda.
‘Yes, now what can we think of for you?’ said Robert. ‘There’s masses of work, never fear, it’s just a question of finding the right kind. Can you speak Spanish?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, well, you’ll soon pick it up.’
‘I’m quite sure I shan’t,’ said Linda doubtfully.
‘What do you know about welfare work?’
‘Oh, dear, how hopeless I seem to be. Nothing, I’m afraid.’
‘Lavender will find her a job,’ said Christian, who had settled down at his table and was flapping over a card index.
‘Lavender?’
‘A girl called Lavender Davis.’
‘No! I know her quite well, she used to live near us in the country. In fact she was one of my bridesmaids.’
‘That’s it,’ said Robert, ‘she said she knew you, I’d forgotten. She’s wonderful, she really works with the Quakers in the camps, but she helps us a great deal too. There’s absolutely nothing she doesn’t know about calories and babies’ nappies, and expectant mummies, and so on, and she’s the hardest worker I’ve ever come across.’
I’ll tell you,’ said Randolph Pine, ‘what you can do. There’s a job simply waiting for you, and that is to arrange the accommodation on this ship that’s going off next week.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Robert, ‘the very thing. She can have this table and start at once.’
‘Now look,’ said Randolph. ‘I’ll show you. (What delicious scent you have, Après l’Ondée? I thought so.) Now here is a map of the ship – see – best cabins, not such good cabins, lousy cabins, and battened down under the hatches. And here is a list of the families who are going. All you have to do is to allocate each family its cabin – when you have decided which they are to have, you put the number of the cabin against the family – here – you see? And the number of the family on the cabin here, like that. Quite easy, but it takes time, and must be done so that when they arrive on the boat they will know exactly where to go with their things.’
‘But how do I decide who gets the good ones and who is battened? Awfully tricky isn’t it?’
‘Not really. The point is it’s a strictly democratic ship run on republican principles, class doesn’t enter into it. I should give decent cabins to families where there are small children or babies. Apart from that do it any way you like. Take a pin if you like. The only thing that matters is that it should be done, otherwise there’ll be a wild scramble for the best places when they get on board.’
Linda looked at the list of families. It took the form of a card index, the head of each family having a card on which was written the number and names of his dependants.
‘It doesn’t give their ages,’ said Linda. ‘How am I to know if there are young babies?’
‘That’s a point,’ said Robert. ‘How is she to?’
‘Quite easy,’ said Christian. ‘With Spaniards you can always tell. Before the war they were called either after saints or after episodes in the life of the Virgin – Anunciación, Asunción, Purificatión, Concepción, Consuelo, etc. Since the Civil War they are called Carlos after Charlie Marx, Federigo after Freddie Engels, or Estalina (very popular until the Russians let them down with a wallop), or else nice slogans like Solidaridad-Obrera, Libertad, and so on. Then you know the children are under three. Couldn’t be simpler, really.’
Lavender Davis now appeared. She was indeed the same Lavender, dowdy, healthy, and plain, wearing an English country tweed and brogues. Her short brown hair curled over her head, and she had no make-up. She greeted Linda with enthusiasm, indeed, it had always been a fiction in the Davis family that Lavender and Linda were each other’s greatest friends. Linda was delighted to see her, as one always is delighted to see a familiar face, abroad.
‘Come on,’ said Randolph, ‘now we’re all here let’s go and have a drink at the Palmarium.’
For the next weeks, until her private life began to occupy Linda’s attention, she lived in an atmosphere of alternate fascination and horror. She grew to love Perpignan, a strange little old town, so different from anything she had ever known, with its river and broad quays, its network of narrow streets, its huge wild-looking plane trees, and all around it the bleak vine-growing country of the Roussillon bursting into summery green under her very eyes. Spring came late and slowly, but when it came it was hand-in-hand with summer, and almost at once everything was baking and warm, and in the vil
lages the people danced every night on concrete dancing floors under the plane trees. At week-ends the English, unable to eradicate such a national habit, shut up the office and made for Collioure on the coast, where they bathed and sunbathed and went for Pyrenean picnics.
But all this had nothing to do with the reason for their presence in these charming surroundings – the camps. Linda went to the camps nearly every day, and they filled her soul with despair. As she could not help much in the office owing to her lack of Spanish, nor with the children, since she knew nothing about calories, she was employed as a driver, and was always on the road in a Ford van full of supplies, or of refugees, or just taking messages to and from the camps. Often she had to sit and wait for hours on end while a certain man was found and his case dealt with; she would quickly be surrounded by a perfect concourse of men talking to her in their heavy guttural French. By this time the camps were quite decently organized; there were rows of orderly though depressing huts, and the men were getting regular meals, which, if not very appetizing, did at least keep body and soul together. But the sight of these thousands of human beings, young and healthy, herded behind wire away from their womenfolk, with nothing on earth to do day after dismal day, was a recurring torture to Linda. She began to think that Uncle Matthew had been right – that abroad, where such things could happen, was indeed unutterably bloody, and that foreigners, who could inflict them upon each other, must be fiends.
One day as she sat in her van, the centre, as usual, of a crowd of Spaniards, a voice said:
‘Linda, what on earth are you doing here?’
And it was Matt.
He looked ten years older than when she had last seen him, grown up, in fact, and extremely handsome, his Radlett eyes infinitely blue in a dark-brown face.
‘I’ve seen you several times,’ he said, ‘and I thought you had been sent to fetch me away so I made off, but then I found out you are married to that Christian fellow. Was he the one you ran away from Tony with?’
‘Yes,’ said Linda. ‘I’d no idea, Matt. I thought you’d have been sure to go back to England.’
‘Well, no,’ said Matt. I’m an officer, you see – must stay with the boys.’
‘Does Mummy know you’re all right?’
‘Yes, I told her – at least if Christian posted a letter I gave him.’
‘I don’t suppose so – he’s never been known to post a letter in his life. He is funny, he might have told me.’
‘He didn’t know – I sent it under cover to a friend of mine to forward. Didn’t want any of the English to find out I was here, or they would start trying to get me home. I know.’
‘Christian wouldn’t,’ said Linda. ‘He’s all for people doing what they want to in life. You’re very thin, Matt, is there anything you’d like?’
‘Yes,’ said Matt, ‘some cigarettes and a couple of thrillers.’
After this Linda saw him most days. She told Christian, who merely grunted and said: ‘He’ll have to be got out before the world war begins. I’ll see to that,’ and she wrote and told her parents. The result was a parcel of clothes from Aunt Sadie, which Matt refused to accept, and a packing-case full of vitamin pills from Davey, which Linda did not even dare to show him. He was cheerful and full of jokes and high spirits, but then there is a difference, as Christian said, between staying in a place because you are obliged to, and staying there because you think it right. But in any case, with the Radlett family, cheerfulness was never far below the surface.
The only other cheerful prospect was the ship. It was only going to rescue from hell a few thousand of the refugees, a mere fraction of the total amount, but, at any rate, they would be rescued, and taken to a better world, with happy and useful future prospects.
When she was not driving the van Linda worked hard over the cabin arrangements, and finally got the whole thing fixed and finished in time for the embarkation.
All the English except Linda went to Cette for the great day, taking with them two M.P.s and a duchess, who had helped the enterprise in London and had come out to see the fruit of their work. Linda went over by bus to Argelès to see Matt.
‘How odd the Spanish upper classes must be,’ she said, ‘they don’t raise a finger to help their own people, but leave it all to strangers like us.’
‘You don’t know Fascists,’ Matt said, gloomily.
‘I was thinking yesterday when I was taking the Duchess round Barcarès – yes, but why an English duchess, aren’t there any Spanish ones, and, come to that, why is it nothing but English working in Perpignan? I knew several Spaniards in London, why don’t they come and help a bit? They’d be awfully useful. I suppose they speak Spanish.’
‘Fa was quite right about foreigners being fiends,’ said Matt, ‘upper-class ones are, at least. All these boys are terrific Hons, I must say.’
‘Well, I can’t see the English leaving each other in the lurch like this, even if they did belong to different parties. I think it’s shameful’
Christian and Robert came back from Cette in a cheerful mood. The arrangements had gone like clockwork, and a baby which had been born during the first half-hour on the ship was named Embarcación. It was the kind of joke Christian very much enjoyed. Robert said to Linda:
‘Did you work on any special plan when you were arranging the cabins, or how did you do it?’
‘Why? Wasn’t it all right?’
‘Perfect. Everybody had a place, and made for it. But I just wondered what you went by when you allocated the good cabins, that’s all.’
‘Well, I simply,’ said Linda, ‘gave the best cabins to the people who had Labrador on their card, because I used to have one when I was little and he was such a terrific… so sweet, you know.’
‘Ah,’ said Robert, gravely, ‘all is now explained. Labrador in Spanish happens to mean labourer. So you see under your scheme (excellent by the way, most democratic) the farm hands all found themselves in luxury while the intellectuals were battened. That’ll teach them not to be so clever. You did very well, Linda, we were all most grateful.’
‘He was such a sweet Labrador,’ said Linda dreamily. ‘I wish you could have seen him. I do miss not having pets.’
‘Can’t think why you don’t make an offer for the sangsue,’ said Robert.
One of the features of Perpignan was a leech in a bottle in the window of a chemist’s shop, with a typewritten notice saying: SI LA SANGSUE MONTE DANS LA BOUTEILLE IL FERA BEAU TEMPS. SI LA SANGSUE DESCEND – L’ORAGE.’
‘It might be nice,’ said Linda, ‘but I can’t somehow imagine her getting fond of one – too busy fussing about the weather all day, up and down, up and down – no time for human relationships.’
16
LINDA never could remember afterwards whether she had really minded when she discovered that Christian was in love with Lavender Davis, and, if so, how much. She could not at all remember her emotions at that time. Certainly wounded pride must have played a part, though perhaps less so with Linda than it would have many women, as she did not suffer from much inferiority feeling. She must have seen that the past two years, her running away from Tony, all now went for nothing – but was she stricken at the heart, was she still in love with Christian, did she suffer the ordinary pangs of jealousy? I think not.
All the same, it was not a flattering choice. Lavender had seemed for years and years, stretching back into childhood, to epitomize everything that the Radletts considered most unromantic: a keen girl guide, hockey player, tree climber, head girl at her school, rider astride. She had never lived in a dream of love; the sentiment was, quite obviously, far removed from her thoughts, although Louisa and Linda, unable to imagine that anybody could exist without some tiny spark of it, used to invent romances for Lavender – the games mistress at her school or Dr Simpson of Merlinford (of whom Louisa had made up one of her nonsense rhymes – ‘He’s doctor and king’s proctor too, and she’s in love with him but he’s in love with you’). Since those days she had trained
as a nurse and as a welfare worker, had taken a course of law and political economy, and, indeed, might have done it all, Linda saw only too well, with the express intention of fitting herself to be a mate for Christian. The result was that in their present surroundings, with her calm assured confidence in her own ability, she easily outshone poor Linda. There was no competition, it was a walkover.
Linda did not discover their love in any vulgar way – surprising a kiss, or finding them in bed together. It was all far more subtle, more dangerous than that, being quite simply borne in upon her week after week that they found perfect happiness in each other, and that Christian depended entirely on Lavender for comfort and encouragement in his work. As this work now absorbed him heart and soul, as he thought of nothing else and never relaxed for a moment, dependence upon Lavender involved the absolute exclusion of Linda. She felt uncertain what to do. She could not have it out with Christian; there was nothing tangible to have out, and, in any case, such a proceeding would have been absolutely foreign to Linda’s character. She dreaded scenes and rows more than anything else in the world, and she had no illusions about what Christian thought of her. She felt that he really rather despised her for having left Tony and her child so easily, and that, in his opinion, she took a silly, light-hearted, and superficial view of life. He liked serious, educated women, especially those who had made a study of welfare, especially Lavender. She had no desire to hear all this said. On the other hand she began to think that it would be as well for her to get away from Perpignan herself before Christian and Lavender went off together, as it seemed to her most probable that they would, wandering offhand in hand to search for and relieve other forms of human misery. Already she felt embarrassed when she was with Robert and Randolph, who were obviously very sorry for her and were always making little manoeuvres to prevent her noticing that Christian was spending every minute of the day with Lavender.
The Pursuit of Love Page 14
