After the Act

by Winston Graham

  ‘What’s stopping you?’

  ‘The fact that I don’t know. I like her, am very fond of her, we have many aims in common.’

  She abruptly reached across. ‘I think I will have a cigarette.…’ I lit it for her. ‘I wouldn’t ever want—after seven years—I think I would not want my husband to say that about me!’

  ‘My dear, I’m trying to be honest. You asked me if I was happy. What the devil is happiness? At the moment I’m happy at the success of my play, it justifies my own existence, at the thought of all that it means. And Harriet’s a part of all that. I can’t disentangle my emotions and say this is because of her, or that is not. I’m not wildly in love with her—perhaps I never have been. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t affection, community of interest, the rest.…’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I think I ought to go soon, Morris. I have to be up early in the morning.’

  ‘Can I see you sometime tomorrow?’

  Her face was hidden in drifting smoke from the cigarette. ‘No, not tomorrow. Jules and Jackie have business in Dijon—buying a horse—and they want me with them.’

  ‘Next week then?’

  ‘Do you want that?’

  ‘Yes. If you do.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t penalise me for trying to be absolutely truthful with you. It’s a measure of my regard.’

  ‘Regard?’ She ran a long finger-nail up and down the table-cloth.

  ‘What do you want me to call it?’

  ‘At this stage—nothing.’

  ‘But you’ll come out with me again?’

  ‘… Yes.’

  Chapter Three

  When I got home Harriet was in bed with one of her backs. Like many tall slim women she had had a weakness of this sort ever since she grew out of adolescence. It was what had introduced us. The plates showed nothing, but I thought there were probably spots of osteoarthritis here and there which might not get any worse for another twenty years but short of a miracle couldn’t get any better. About once a month she had a few days in bed, for this, or for her periods, or for a minor kidney complaint.

  But it did not interfere with the workings of her active brain, and I sat beside her for a time telling her, with omissions, of Paris. When she was in bed she chain-smoked all the day—though very neatly, no ash dropped—and today the smell of tobacco almost overcame the familiar scents of Dior and Dettol.

  ‘Darling,’ said Harriet. ‘You’ve gone into one of your trances.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She smiled, thin lipped but forgiving, her face a bit masculine but attractive. I tried to remember when I had last slept with her. Last April, was it? About six weeks. It had been a sexual encounter not without love and affection. Nor was our conversation now. There was so much to talk of, so many things shared. There was so much excitement in a sudden success. Last month we had bought a country cottage near Odiham. The month before we had bought a white drop-head Alfa Romeo, housed extravagantly at a garage in George Street, and most week-ends we went down to the cottage—or when I was away Harriet drove herself down. One cannot share pleasure without sharing friendship too.

  ‘Your father rang up. Said it was about time we went to see him again.’

  ‘Did he have any news?’

  ‘No. Busy. But that’s no change. Pull back the counterpane, you’re creasing it.’

  ‘Well. I paid for it. Thank God, I can say that.’

  ‘Did you find the other way so irksome?’

  ‘Not by anything you said or did. It’s just a moral condition common to most men.’ I lifted the counterpane. ‘Even the blankets are too lush to sit on, aren’t they?’

  ‘Are you going over again?’

  ‘Where? To Paris? Yes, next week. I want Alexander Wilshere’s opinion of the translation.’

  ‘So you see I was right. It’s worth having a second opinion. But can’t you get him to send it here?’

  ‘He could, but I said I’d go over.’

  ‘Tell him to send it here. I’d like to see what he says.’

  I didn’t speak knowing it was not for argument, not wanting to wrangle now.

  She said: ‘Have you thought any more of The Humming-bird?’

  This was my next play. She must have known that this question would irritate. I had often talked over my plays and dialogue with her, but it was enormously a question of mood. Ordinarily I was tongue-tied: the act of speech dissipated the creative impulse; if I talked about it I had done it and there was nothing left. Only now and then some problem would bubble up and because of its urgency spill over into speech; then she was valuable and stimulating, wise and perceptive. But the initiative to talk had to come from me.

  I said: ‘ There’s been no time.’

  ‘It’s a pity to let this play, the trappings of it, so to speak, get in the way of your writing. I know it’s lovely to enjoy the success—and I’m as thrilled as you are about it—but the critics are obviously going to expect a lot of your next, and the longer one has to work on it …’

  ‘Half of writing is gestation,’ I said, and then got up. ‘Sometimes, Harriet, you remind me of my mother. ‘‘It’s lovely to enjoy the summer, Morris, but don’t forget the examinations. Time wasted now can never be made up.’’ ’

  She smiled, unruffled, as if my complaint conceded some victory. ‘D’you mind if I don’t get up to dinner? I’ll be all right by tomorrow, but—’

  ‘Of course. Rest is the thing. Actually I ought to see Ralph, if he’s free.’

  Ralph was free and we ate together at a place in St. Martin’s Lane.

  He said: ‘You’re looking very well, Morris. Paris suits you. Success suits you, if I may say so. You haven’t let it upset the adrenal glands.’

  A girl came into the restaurant who reminded me of Alexandra; my stomach twisted briefly. Sometimes your guts tell you things that your brain is denying.

  I switched my attention back to Ralph Diary. He too had come to look more prosperous in the last year. Small agents like Ralph, unable to attract the big fish, inevitably put their faith in a few unknown writers, give them intense personal attention and, if two or three come to the top, they swim up with them, and then, by representing the new successes, begin to attract new clients. Soon Ralph would be moving his office to a more suitable address, engaging another secretary, perhaps taking a partner.

  I wondered if it was true that success ‘suited’ me, in the way Ralph meant it. Certainly I had kept my head, refused two-thirds of the invitations that came, not allowed a new way of life to spring up overnight.

  Ralph shifted his weight and punctured the end of his cigar. ‘Do you ever think of the old times, Morris? D’you remember when we’d done the long tour of Rhesus Boy, you rewriting scenes desperately in every town, everybody in the cast determined to get it into shape; and at last we get to Brighton with a London opening only two weeks off, and after the second night at the Royal the letter from the Dunnet office saying they’d decided not to present it in London after all? I always thought the way you took that was pretty good. Many a writer would have collapsed out of sheer fatigue and despair.…’ He lit the cigar and peered at me with small twinkling brown eyes through the smoke. ‘You have to be tough to reach the top in any profession these days. Stamina’s an essential part of genius, whether you’re a four-minute miler or a composer of symphonies.’

  Unknown to me, Harriet had accepted an invitation for us to spend the week-end with the Maxwell-Smiths, a wealthy couple with a vast house in Berkshire who had scraped acquaintance with me at a dinner recently. She said she had accepted it because she needed a breath of country air, but I suspected it was all part of her quiet campaign for the social climb. Not that I blamed her: we’re all climbers in some sphere—or are clods if we’re not; but as always I slightly resented the business-manager act. Because one wrote plays one was not necessarily a long-haired dreamer incapable of directing one’s day-to-day affairs.

&nb
sp; The week-end was particularly dull, and I fumed silently through a chilly croquet match played under lowering skies, through an endless dinner and through bridge—which I hate—in an atmosphere charged with the smoke of Coronas and the fumes of Old Rarity. In the perverse way the mind has, it all seemed more oppressive and pointless against memories of the clear rain-washed air of Paris, and of glinting eyes, a low-accented voice, the challenge of personality, the prickings of desire.

  On Wednesday I flew back to Paris. Alexandra answered the telephone herself and agreed readily enough to come out with me, and we dined at the same restaurant. She seemed quieter and less forthcoming. It was perhaps the first plateau in our relationship. She had read the play and the translation and had some criticisms to make, but they were minor ones. As we were finishing dinner a young man came across.

  ‘Hullo, Sandra. Didn’t expect to see you here.’

  Speaking English, blue cashmere sweater and dark spider-leg trousers, curly hair brushed forward on the forehead, hot complexion, blue eyes.

  ‘David. I thought you were in Edinburgh.’

  ‘I got back yesterday.’

  She introduced us: David McNair. They talked happily of friends in common. I asked him to sit down but he said no thanks, he had to press on. He’d be seeing her tomorrow? Probably tomorrow, she said.

  His attitude to me had been polite but not warm.

  ‘Is this the young man?’ I asked as he left.

  She looked after his retreating form. ‘Young man?’

  ‘When I asked if you were engaged you said there was someone, but used the past tense.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, I did go about with him for a time. But there have been others too. It’s not terribly serious.’

  ‘I suspect it is to him.’

  She sighed. ‘Forget him, Morris. Look. I’m not sure about this expression on page 29. I think if you get too French you lose a sense of where the play is taking place. After all, it’s still supposed to be set in London, isn’t it?’

  I didn’t see her next day, but on the Thursday morning she rang me at the hotel.

  ‘When are you going home?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘Then we’re not meeting again?’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘I haven’t finished explaining these notes I made on the play.’

  I hesitated. What was wrong with me? The plateau had tilted: one must either slip off or continue the climb.

  ‘Meet me for lunch, then. Can you get away?’

  ‘Yes. But your plane?’

  ‘I’ll cancel it—get one this evening.’

  She came to the Scribe. The day was warmer and she was wearing a flowered silk frock and her hair down on her shoulders.

  ‘Why did you not ring me yesterday?’ she asked, almost the first words spoken.

  ‘I wanted to but … Well, there’s this young man and one thing and another. I felt—what can I offer you? I’m ten years older and tied up. Isn’t this the time to cut away before we get more involved?’

  We walked out of the hotel. The porter had a taxi, so I took it. He asked me where to, and I said just drive down somewhere towards the Ile de la Cité. We sat beside each other in the taxi.

  She said: ‘Aren’t you putting the stakes rather high?’

  ‘Am I? Well, it seems you don’t want to be left alone.’

  ‘Not by you, no.’

  ‘Then the stakes are high.’

  ‘You’re a very serious type, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not always. But in this I am. To me it’s something to be serious about.’

  ‘Yes, oh, yes. Later perhaps. But now …’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘I would have liked to take it lightly for a bit. While one got one’s bearings. You see—I’m adrift.…’

  ‘That’s what makes it serious.’

  ‘What does?’

  ‘Your being adrift. It doesn’t matter so much if only I am.’

  She took my hand and I closed mine over hers. It was almost the first affectionate contact.

  She said: ‘How often can you come over? Can we meet often?’

  ‘Quite often.’

  ‘And Harriet?’

  The name sounded different on her lips, half caressing, half abusive.

  ‘She won’t come. Not until the first night, at any rate.’

  She moved a little towards me, and I bent over and kissed her. Her lips were fresh, as if I were the first person to taste them. We stopped sharply at traffic lights, and the jerk broke us apart.

  She shook her head, half frowned, took a breath as if trying to throw something away. ‘ This really ought to be in Technicolor.…’

  ‘Well, I know … that’s what I mean. We’re on a pretty familiar track. How do we get off it, Alexandra?’

  She looked at me with expectant eyes. ‘You tell me.’

  I said: ‘Well, not by beginning a low-spirited little affair in a hired room in Montmartre—even supposing you would be willing.’

  She smiled. ‘Agreed. But that’s negative. There must be something positive to put against it.’

  ‘There is,’ I said. ‘ I love you.’

  We turned out into the boulevard, swung right and headed for Notre Dame. Her eyes had lost their light, like lamps overfull. I said to the taxi driver in French: ‘ Slower, please, there is no hurry.’

  ‘It is difficult, monsieur. The flow moves one along.’

  ‘Well, after the Ile, keep on.’

  ‘In what direction?’

  ‘Oh … as you please. Montparnasse perhaps.’

  She had opened her bag and was fumbling in it.

  ‘D’you want a cigarette?’

  ‘No … no.’ Presently she sat back without taking anything out.

  We drove across the Ile under the shadow of the great church, were blocked with traffic, moved on again.

  ‘Abelard lectured here,’ I said.

  She did not reply, and the pointless observation hung in the air.

  I kissed her again. Maybe the taxi driver was getting a fairly good view through his mirror, but if so, good luck to him. It was like kissing a flower. So I was responsible for the cynicism of a black comedy called Widow’s Peak. (‘ Restoration comedy for the twenty-first century’ one newspaper had called it.) So we are all Hydes and Jekylls, sneering at the simplicities of life and then being taken in by them, misogynists and romantics in succeeding breaths, the detached onlooker and the hungry participant.

  But where did it all lead? Within the narrowing channels of possibility, either to the affair in the hired bedroom, which I had just rejected, or to the legal obloquies of the divorce court.

  When I got home Harriet had just returned from our cottage and was edgy with me. I tried to turn the point by admiring some of the Victoriana she had bought for the cottage, but this didn’t work as well as usual; and in the end it turned out she had been ‘copped’ for speeding. Sixty-five in the thirty limit. She said sulkily that the car was fast and one didn’t notice. Harriet was one of the best drivers I have known but curiously lawless once she got behind a wheel, and this was the second time she had been caught in a year. I told her we were rich but there was no point in donating large sums to the courts; and anyway the courts would do something with her licence if she tried them too hard.

  The next day she stayed in bed and said her back was bad again. There was nothing different to see but there was some extra tenderness in the second and third dorsal vertebrae and also at the base of the spine. I suggested she should again see Cecil Mallory, whom she had consulted, on my advice, five years ago. She said oh, maybe, she’d see how it went on.

  That day I returned to the first act of The Humming-bird and kept my study. But creative work, being the hardest in the world, is the easiest prey to destructive influences. You put your mind to its task like taking a seat on a slippery pole. The balance of concentration can only be preserved by a will
power which every diversion and weakness of intention seeks to undermine.

  Altogether I wrote three pages three times and each time destroyed them. Supposing I went up to Harriet now and said: ‘ Look, darling, I’ve met somebody else.…’

  In the evening my father rang again and said he wanted to see me. Since I left medicine the occasions when we had met were so rare that I got alarmed and asked if he was ill. No, he said, dryly, he’d never felt better, but if I could spare the time to come to Winchester …

  When I consulted Harriet she said no, she was better but she didn’t want the fag. Anyway, my father looked on her as the Evil Influence in my life, so no doubt he would be able to bear her absence.

  My father had always been a strong, fit man, tireless and dauntless, but with very poor sight which had prevented him in his youth from getting the degrees he would have liked, so that his hospital appointments had come later than they should have done.

  He was a grey-haired compact man with a countryman’s complexion and pale blue eyes made bigger by the lenses, as if they were under examination, not you. But one didn’t take long to get that impression re-sorted, even if you were not his patient. In my childhood I’d been scared stiff of him. He was a martinet where hygiene was concerned, and until I went away to school I lived in a world where streptococci and staphylococci lurked in every unsterilised corner.

  I was there at seven, expecting to have an hour to kill before he turned up fresh from some medical crisis, but he was already waiting for me, spruce and tidy. And he had had his hair cut (youth-long memories of my mother’s battles with him to spare the time).

  ‘Come in, Morris. How are you? What’ll you drink?’

  ‘You look very well, Father. And home at seven! Does this mean you’re taking it easier at last?’

  ‘We’re a little better organised these days. The Civil Service mentality creeps in unawares.’

  ‘I can see that happening to you!’

  ‘Well, no. I’m one of the old guard.… Strange to reflect: it seems only a year or two since I was one of the young rebels.’ He brought back my gin and French. ‘If you’d worked in the East End, as I did as a youngster, you’d be appalled at the condition of women’s livers—alive and dead—entirely as a result of drinking that stuff. There are elements in gin which induce cirrhosis more rapidly than any other spirit.’