Loving, Living, Party Going

by Henry Green

  'How splendid,' he said, 'of course.'

  'I got so dirty coming along. My maid will be up in a minute. Of course it will have to have a room with it and then you can come and talk to me through the door.'

  It was at this point Mr Adams left them again, unnoticed now by all, unsung.

  'Though,' she said, talking a lot for her, 'it would be funny if my bathroom was on the corridor and you had to talk from it in front of everyone.'

  'I couldn't,' he said, 'it is prowling with detectives. Is that the office? Mr Adey wants another room with a bath, one of his guests here wants to have one.'

  When Angela heard him order yet another thing in Max's name she looked guiltily round to see whether Adams had heard. She was relieved to find he was gone for she would have felt worse if it had been said in front of him. On her own as she was now it was different, she did not mind so much, for she did not know any of them at all well; when she had seen Max it had been at night in night clubs when he had usually been with Amabel. And she was so young that having Amabel with them was more exciting for her than Max alone could ever be. Amabel had her own position in London, shop girls in Northern England knew her name and what she looked like from photographs in illustrated weekly papers, in Hyderabad the colony knew the colour of her walls. So that to be with her was for Angela as much as it might be for a director of the Zoo to be taking his okapi for walks in leading strings for other zoologists to see or, as she herself would have put it, it was being grand with grand people. And if she had been nervous once she was not so any more for she felt Amabel would put them right now that she was here, she would see that Max did not abandon them. She was someone. And Amabel had asked her help so she was in league with her now. In fact her one criticism was that she thought the others were too squalid. Alex dragged them all down the most; it was absurd he could not be natural even about ordering things. It was too much he should make them embarrassed about something elementary and she almost made up her mind to say she would pay herself next time.

  'But what about your bath salts?' Alex said just as Claire and Evelyna came in from where they had been telephoning.

  'Have I packed mine?' said Claire, alive to every danger, 'how enchanting to see you darling,' she said to Amabel, wondering why she was here. 'Do they let bath salts through the customs free? Is if true there's alcohol in them to freshen up one's skin?' Amabel explained she was going to have a bath, she was asking Alex to ring up her maid to bring her crystals, and Robert Hignam offered her a drink which she refused. She never drank spirits and very little wine, she was serious about her complexion.

  Now even Miss Crevy began to notice how more than strained they had become. Alex's voice cracked when Amabel's maid could not understand about her bath salts; he kept on saying yes she is going to have a bath. Evelyn had only just greeted her and this feeling was intensified when Claire began to explain about her Auntie May and how she was so ill.

  'We have had the doctor, Robert did you pay him, what does one do about hotel doctors, Amabel, do you know, or do they put it on the bill?' She looked round and saw her husband was not listening, he was staring at Amabel. 'Yes,' she went on, 'it really is too strange, Evelyn and I can't make her out at all, it's so unlike her.' And then, more embarrassing still, she realized Amabel was not listening.

  'So here we are, my dears,' she said at large, 'stuck here without ...' – our host she was about to say and then thought better of it, it was better not to mention him, it always was. 'Without any chance to get away,' she made it into and then bit her lip; put that way Amabel might take it they were all here to escape her which of course in one sense they were, but then what could it matter when people were as rude as Amabel.

  But it was not rudeness, not positively that in her case. It is true she did not bother but then she did not expect it of others so that it was almost flattering when she did take notice. At any rate Alex was pleasantly surprised when he had put back the receiver to find Amabel thanking him before he had time to let her know her maid was coming round directly. He did not see she had done this to stop the others knowing. But he did get as far as to feel bewildered; for while he had been sure Amabel would not be coming with them he could not be certain. When she had come in so naturally he had been almost ready to believe Max had changed his plans again as only rich people can and do. Now in his conversation with her maid he had found out she had only just made up her mind to come otherwise she would have had her things packed some time ago or anyway have given orders. It might have been that Max telephoned her but that was not likely if Julia had been with him all this time. So he was embarrassed to know what he should do, whether or no he should get word to Max that Amabel was here, as it seemed likely Amabel had come unknown to Max.

  And Alex had that shock when one's thought is answered by someone present, so much so he wondered if, without knowing, he had let what he was thinking out. For what he had almost decided was to let things well alone, he had all but made up his mind he did not know enough to interfere by tipping Max the wink. But when he had been thanked for telephoning, and by her, it was so like gratitude for keeping other's secrets and for not doing what he could and should, he had no alternative but to decide that he must warn him.

  As for Amabel, she was not going to bother about the others, excepting Alex. Miss Crevy would have been surprised to learn Amabel had spoken to her only to make secrets and because she guessed the other girls would be against her coming, so that it seemed policy to make one friend at once. Also she wanted to make sure she would not be left alone with Max before she had found out how things were. Miss Crevy would have been surprised as well to learn that Amabel classed her equally with the others and lower, and with contempt as being more out for a free trip abroad because she could less afford to go if she was not taken. Amabel was a money snob. So that Amabel's silence, which Angela in her ignorance might call poise, was no more than wariness coloured by distaste for her own sex. She was here to manage Max and was not going to bother with anyone else but Alex.

  At the same time no one can be sure they know what others are thinking any more than anyone can say where someone is when they are asleep. And if behind that blank face and closed eyelids and a faint smile on closed lips they are wandering it may be in Tartary, it is their stillness which makes it all possible to one's wildest dreams.

  In her silence and in seeming unapproachable, although he realized it might be studied, and Alex admired her so much he was almost jealous of her, it seemed to him she was not unlike ground so high, so remote it had never been broken and that her outward beauty lay in that if any man had marked her with intimacy as one treads on snow, then that trace which would be left could not fail to invest him, whoever he might be, with some part of those unvulgar heights so covered, not so much of that last field of snow before any summit as of a high memory unvisited, and kept.

  He realized she always worked on him by being there and this woke him to how embarrassed they all were except for Angela and Amabel. Again he offered chairs and drinks for Claire and Evelyn but he was alone in it this time, Robert was too wary to make any move when he saw his wife was fussed.

  'Where on earth have you been, darlings?' Amabel said to them as though they were at fault, and Claire, who no longer wanted to talk about Auntie May in front of her, said 'Oh, just outside.'

  Evelyn Henderson, who was in fact the least well off of all, said to herself why does this woman always make me feel like a schoolgirl.

  If people vary at all then it can only be in the impressions they leave on others' minds, and if their turns of phrases are similar and if their rooms are done up by the same firm and, when they are women, if they go to the same shops, what is it makes them different, Evelyna asked herself and then gave the answer: money. Amabel sat there without saying anything; not, so it seemed to Evelyn, because there was anything special about her but because, by being rich or, better still, through having piled up riches in presents from young men, or both, the newspapers had p
icked her out and now there was no getting away from it, Amabel had grown to be like some beauty spot in Wales. Whether it was pretty or suited to all tastes people would come distances to see it and be satisfied when it lay before them. Amabel had been sanctified, so she thought, by constant printed references as though it was of general concern what she looked like or how beautiful she might be. But then there was no question of beauty here, Evelyn thought, because there were no features, and it could not be called poise, and then she became offensive in her thoughts of her. But Amabel had that azure glance of fame and was secure.

  She said: 'How on earth did Max ever come to take this awful room?' This was another way to ignore Claire and Evelyn, to talk to them without any mention of what they had been saying and Evelyn, when she found herself agreeing, as she did almost automatically, despised herself for playing up to her. It was a question of prestige, she thought. When you come on a famous view you feel bound to praise it as you do with some famous beauty when you see one. 'And I agree with what any well-known lovely says because she is so handsome,' she said to herself, 'it's not as if I was pretending she was not as beautiful as all that. I have to go and publicly agree with everything she says because she has said it. Really it's craven.'

  Angela, who had by now forgotten Mr Adams she was so excited at being, so she thought, in league with Amabel, tried to put in her word for Max as though she had been confided in and was a party to their intimate affairs.

  'Oh, no, poor Max,' she said, 'it's not his fault, every room is like this; of course, I don't know but I expect so.'

  'Well then,' said Amabel, 'I bet you had to order drinks,' and Alex laughed. 'When shall I ever,' she went on, 'be able to teach him how to make people comfortable,' and then was silent.

  Claire, who did not care for silences, she thought them unnatural, took up what Amabel had said about this room. While she went rattling on, blaming the directors for allowing decorations such as these and saying she could not think what Julia's uncle was about in letting them do such things, Amabel wondered again how Max would be and what he had on with Julia. She had expected to find him with these others and when she had opened the door she had been braced up to meet him. She was like someone who opens his front door expecting to step out into a gale of wind and then stays bent although he finds he has no wind to lean against, although it is still whining in the chimney and rattling windows. She knew well she could deal with Max but he was always escaping. It was while he was not there that she felt anxious and that was one reason why she had made up her mind to come along.

  Mrs Hignam was still talking. 'It is a perfectly ridiculous price to ask for rooms of this kind when you can get something really comfortable for only double at any of the best hotels. I can't understand it,' she said and was going on when Amabel, although she had already been told once, expressed what she was feeling:

  'Where has Max got to? I've been here fifteen minutes,' she said.

  Claire thought this was too rude and that anyway they were all sick of this endless thing between Amabel and Max. She would have nothing more to do with it. 'Let's go back,' she said to Evelyn and when they were outside she said 'Well, surely the poor man can call five minutes of his time his own.' As they went into Miss Fellowes' room she began to elaborate on this theme. Unaware of her aunt who had long been unaware of them and of those nannies whose training made them seem deaf and dumb at moments her voice rose and fell like a celluloid ball on the water-jet men shoot at and miss at fairs. When it fell through lack of breath Evelyn, like any paid attendant, put that ball back with an encouraging word and Claire was off again.

  No one answered Amabel and now that he was alone with Angela and her again and that her last remark reminded him he had not yet got word to Max that she was here, he suddenly felt more strongly than ever before how these girls were a different species and were quite definitely hostile. As he looked at them both, exquisitely dressed, Angela smoking and watching her smoke rings, Amabel looking at her nails like you and I gaze into crystals, as he looked at them waiting it struck him again how women always seemed to expect things, and for that matter, events even, to be brought to them for their pleasure, in white cotton gloves on plates. He determined he would do nothing, if Max had been in his place he would not have done anything or even have thought of it, and then it was too much for these two girls to expect. For he now thought Amabel had only been late as she had so often been before. He did not see why he should get Max for her. It was easier to believe her maid had been mistaken or that she had forgotten her orders to pack the things. In this way he showed how he had been taken in by Amabel, whose wish it was that she should not show haste. In this way also he showed again how impossible it is to tell what others are thinking or what, in ordinary life, brings people to do what they are doing. So he sat quiet, said nothing, and watched the bubbles in his glass.

  Through those lidded windows, the curtains so thick and heavy they seemed made of plaster on stage sets, there faintly whispered through to them in waves of sound as in summer when you are coming on a waterfall through woods and it is still unseen or, in summer, breathless in the meadows an aeroplane high up drones alternately loud then soft and low it is so high, what were shouted protests or cheering or just a hubbub of that crowd away below, all this gently came in and passed them by. All three wondered and dreaded a little perhaps in their different ways but no one said anything, there was nothing to say.

  Max and Julia, come to an end of talk and speeches, of his saying yes and of her saying no, had moved again to their window upstairs which they had opened and now they were leaning out. The crowds were singing.

  Looking down then on thousands of Smiths, thousands of Alberts, hundreds of Marys, woven tight as any office carpet or, more elegantly made, the holy Kaaba soon to set out for Mecca, with some kind of design made out of bookstalls and kiosks seen from above and through one part of that crowd having turned towards those who were singing, thus lightening the dark mass with their pale lozenged faces; observing how this design moved and was alive where in a few lanes or areas people swayed forward or back like a pattern writhing; coughing as fog caught their two throats or perhaps it was smoke from those below who had put on cigarettes or pipes, because tobacco smoke was coming up in drifts; leaning out then, so secure, from their window up above and left by their argument on terms of companionship unalloyed, Julia and Max could not but feel infinitely remote, although at the same time Julia could not fail to be remotely excited at themselves.

  When earlier on she had asked him to go down when she had heard someone scream, the crowd was now too great, indeed it was so thick it was plain they could never get out of their hotel to go home if they wanted and she was glad, everything she felt now would come right between them if only it was not hurried, and that promise of the birds which had flown under the arch she stood on would be fulfilled if only, as seemed likely, she could see sea-gulls that night on their crossing. What that promise could be she had no idea, and she did not let herself think of what she wanted, her feeling was just what she had when in a hot bath so exactly right she could not bear to wonder even. In fact she did not want anything different from how things were now this instant. She certainly did not want him to go down and get in the crowd, although its thousands of troubles and its discomfort put new heart into her.

  'You're not to go down there, even if I ask you,' she said rather loud to him. 'No one's to go down there, I tell you.'

  'What about your servant?'

  'Oh, him! Bother him!'

  For where she had at one time been nervous and had clutched at straws to fuss over, she now wanted things to stay as they were and, if put to it, she would have insisted she had asked Robert to ring the station master only so as to tease him. Also whatever there is in crowds had reached into her, for these thousands below were now working up a kind of boisterous good humour. If they had been angry individually at first at the delay, and at not being able to get in or out, they were now like sheep with go
lden tenor voices, so she was thinking, happily singing their troubles away and being good companions. What she could not tell was that those who were singing were Welshmen up for a match, and what they sang in Welsh was of the rape of a Druid's silly daughter under one of Snowdon's wilder mountains. She thought only they knew what it meant, but it sounded light-hearted.

  Also she felt encouraged and felt safe because they could not by any chance get up from below; she had seen those doors bolted, and through being above them by reason of Max having bought their room and by having money, she saw in what lay below her an example of her own way of living because they were underneath and kept there.

  'Aren't you glad you aren't down there?' she said, and he replied he wondered how it was going to be possible to get them out.

  'Have you ever been in a great crowd?' she said, because she had this feeling she must exchange and share with him.

  Down below Amabel broke into their silence by saying:

  'Well, and what about my bath, if you please?'

  Alex said: 'Good Lord, yes, haven't they done anything about it yet?' apologized, and telephoned down while Angela dutifully made comments on how impossible it was to get things done in hotels. Alex was told there was a bath to their room, it was through the bedroom and he passed this news on, and also that her maid was coming.

  When she came in she said at once, as though she was alone with Amabel: 'Oh, Madam, I had such a time, you would hardly credit it, Madam, but we got here in the car although one man did get up on the running-boards. Oh, Moddom, you can't have any idea of what it's like. Do you think it's the revolution, Madam, and I have your bath-salts unpacked and your bath is ready for you now.'

  'Shall I come with you and watch you have it?' Angela asked her, but Amabel was not having that.

  'Darling,' she said, 'look, I've something I must say to Alex.'

  As they went out and Angela was left, wishing once more her Adams was back with her again, she wondered if Amabel was going to let him see her in her bath. But surely not in front of her maid, she thought, without noticing how this would make it better in one sense, even if it could not make it right. After all, she knew them so little, she only knew Amabel as being very smart, but she had not bargained to let Alex see her in her own bath, or any other young man like that, or any man at all, and she hoped she would not have to, not for Max or anyone; it could not be expected of her. And how could Alex make compliments on how Amabel looked in a bath with her maid standing by handing her sponges, or would he make no compliments because it had happened so often before and was so ordinary? She made up her mind she would show what she thought by not going in when Amabel sent for her, and in any case she felt she never would be able to if Alex was there; she could not be by the bath in front of Alex, looking into his eyes it would be as if they had done murder, or so it seemed to her it would be to look into his eyes laid upon the woman's nakedness.