After the Act

by Winston Graham

  That week-end we drove down to the cottage in our big white Alfa, and Ralph came on the Sunday to discuss the revival. I knew Harriet was all for this production of the earlier play, and Ralph said it could do nothing but good; even a complete flop would not hurt Widow’s Peak; but I had this curious reluctance that I could not put a finger on. It was, of course, a less mature work than Widow’s Peak, but it had vigour and some wit.

  In the end I gave way to them, not so much because their arguments were completely persuasive as because I could find no logic in my own mind to support a refusal.

  My father’s wedding to Helen Collins was fixed for the first of September, and they were to be married at Abingdon where Sister Collins came from. It was to be in church after all. As Odiham was more or less half-way, we spent the Monday night there, and drove over for the ceremony at three on the Tuesday.

  Helen Collins’s father was an inspector of school canteens for part of Oxfordshire, and it was clear as soon as we got there that no consideration for the bridegroom’s age was going to stand in the way of their giving their only daughter the sort of wedding they considered she deserved. It was the first fine day after more than a week of constant rain, and there was a full church service with choir, photographers at the church door, and a long reception afterwards at a near-by hotel, to which about eighty people had been invited.

  I hated it all, from the moment we stepped out of our car to the moment we left; but my father as principal victim went through all this paraphernalia, all this waste of his time and his energy, with a good grace that spoke wonders for his new wife’s hold over him. I took a dislike to the whole Collins family who seemed to me noisy in a forced, unreal, nervous way just like their egregious daughter. Harriet, to my surprise, did not take this view, and either to please my father or to spite me was in her very best mood, charming and gracious and entering into the spirit of the whole charade.

  Before we left of course she spoiled it all, because the champagne she had drunk was by then beginning to have effect. She stayed on and stayed on after the happy pair had left; and while the other guests slowly trickled away, she began to slop over in suddenly conceived friendship for Mr. and Mrs. Collins and two grinning cousins. If they were ever in London they were to look us up in Spanish Place. Morris would get them complimentary seats for his play any time they cared to drop him a line. She so much admired the new Mrs. Scott that she hoped they would be close friends. It had been such tremendous fun, this wedding, because it had all been arranged with such taste and skill, hadn’t it, Morris? She was so glad to see Morris’s father happily wed because she had felt him such a lonely man since Morris’s mother died. And to such a delightful girl, Mrs. Collins, if you’ll allow me to say so.

  I got her to the car but although she slipped into the driver’s seat ahead of me she would not start the engine. ‘ It’s 66, Spanish Place, W.1., Mrs. Collins. Welbeck 0345. Ring us any time. And if you want seats for the play, Morris will get them for you. And there’ll be another one on in November, Rhesus Boy. Do look out for that. It’s an earlier play of Morris’s that was put on in the provinces but didn’t quite reach the West End. We expect it will be coming on at the Garrick, don’t we? But see Widow’s Peak first.… It’s been tremendous fun, this wedding, hasn’t it, Morris? We have so enjoyed it.’

  I said: ‘Let me drive, Harriet.’ And later: ‘We ought to be going now.’

  Eventually the ignition came somehow to be switched on and, with good wishes and bonhomie floating both ways over my misanthropic head, Harriet backed the car expertly out of the hotel car park and we were away.

  For a mile or so there was silence. It was a cloudy evening and the inevitable downpour seemed to be threatening; but there was still just enough light from the sky for me to see her mouth working, always a sign that she was strung up. I knew from experience that the small amount she had drunk would emphasise whatever normal emotions she felt; casual friendship would become close amity, admiration (often of me) would become hero worship; a minor grievance would become deep resentment; an opinion intelligently arrived at would be unintelligently and dogmatically expressed. I knew all this but for a reasonable man could make precious little allowance for it. There was something in my own temperament that could not tolerate her excess—even though I knew the cause, even though I knew she drank really so very little, even though I knew it happened so seldom.

  She switched on the sidelights and said: ‘ You behaved pretty badly today.’

  This was another tactic. Aware that I was going to criticise her, she attacked first.

  ‘I didn’t get tight on champagne and weep on the bride’s shoulder and hang about interminably afterwards drooling over everyone in sight, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I mean sitting with a grim face like an undertaker at a feast. Couldn’t you at least pretend to enjoy it?’

  ‘There was so much pretence on your side, I didn’t have to try.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she said, overtaking a lorry on a wide bend, ‘of course it had to be me—’

  ‘Well, and of course it was you!’ I said. ‘ Can’t you recognise it even in your present fuddled state!’

  ‘Fuddled state! Dear heaven, I drank a quarter of what you did!’

  ‘What does that matter! Whether you drink a pint or an egg-cupful, it’s the result that matters. You’re not twelve years old! Can’t you reason? Can’t you remember last time? Don’t you know that for you alcohol is plain poison! It transforms you at once, instantly, from a—’ I stopped. ‘Look, if you’re too drunk to drive this car properly, for God’s sake draw into the side. You only missed that kerb by half an inch.’

  She did not answer. For a moment I had been a bit startled, and wished I’d taken over at the start. We roared through a couple of villages, doing fifty-five in the thirty limit, slithered to a halt at traffic lights, accelerated on the green, leaving the other cars. The gears grunted as she got away.

  ‘I wish instead of criticising me you could see yourself sometimes, Morris. I can’t think what your father felt. His wedding day, and his only son sitting glowering at everything and everyone. I really got—got embarrassed for you.’

  This touched me on the raw. I had not enjoyed one second of the day, but was pretty sure I had disguised it from everyone but her, and she knew of it only because I had told her. I knew my father had not guessed because of his pleased handshake just before he left with his new bride.

  I said: ‘Do you mind stopping and getting out and letting me drive! It seems incredible even if it is demonstrated so often that so little drink should make you completely unreasonable and—’

  She said: ‘I’m not drunk! I’ve told you I’m not drunk. I can drive this car better than you with one hand behind my back—so kindly shut up! D’you hear! Shut up!’

  Her mouth was working again, and I thought she was near to tears. This was the worst it had ever been, and I knew she would be angry with herself and apologise in the morning.

  We were running beside the Thames. We came up behind a Mini, and ahead there was a double white line. It was that difficult time when it is not really dark enough to use headlights but dusky and growing darker with every minute. She pulled out to overtake; and I checked an impetus to snap at her to wait. Two people cannot drive a car, and I had never known her to make a serious mistake.

  We came abreast of the Mini as we reached the double line. As we overtook it, a van came round the corner, its tiny sidelights giving no warning. A head-on crash seemed certain. She swung the wheel and touched the Mini. The Alfa slewed its rear round and scraped the side of the van. We went on, over-correcting the skid. The corner was too sharp. Off the road. My head hit the soft roof as we jolted madly into the air. A bump like the kick of a gun; the windscreen hit me on the forehead; we struck a fence and the fence was not; the river glittered in the evening light; car slowed; windscreen hit me again; we had stopped.

  On a steep slant, car tilted forward. Water all round. My hea
d was singing; lights danced. Harriet had slumped over the steering wheel but now she stirred, straightened up, was sick.

  Smell of petrol. Afraid of fire. Get out. I opened my door. As far as I could see in the gathering gloom we were on the very edge of the river, front wheels over the low bank. I got out, sank inches deep in mud. Lights on the road behind but no particular sounds. Each step like taking out a squeegee and putting it back again. The back wheels were tyre deep; four ruts ran back into the dark.

  Round to her side; open the door. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said and began to hiccup, helplessly, disgustedly. I pulled her out. ‘ Not hurt,’ she said. ‘Steering-wheel hit my stomach, that’s all. So sorry.’ As I got her out she was sick again.

  People coming through the broken fence. Lights on the road—cars had stopped and switched headlights on. ‘They’re down here,’ shouted a man. And then: ‘Anyone injured?’

  Two men came towards us. My head was aching and I felt dizzy but took a step or two to meet them. Harriet leaned back against the bonnet.

  ‘Anyone hurt?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not seriously.’

  ‘You damn near went in the river. There’s a bit of a shambles back on the road. What the hell happened?’

  ‘It was a misjudgement,’ I said. ‘Is anyone—hurt—in the other cars?’

  ‘Not in the van. But there’s a man in the Mini. They’re just getting him out.’

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I can help. But first I must see …’ I went back to Harriet. ‘Are you really all right? Take a deep breath.’

  ‘… I’m all right. Except that—God, I feel terrible, Morris, I really do. I can’t—can’t just say I’m sorry. I still feel so awful as if I’d been dr-drunk for a week.…’

  The man was inspecting the Alfa Romeo. ‘You’ve made a fine mess of the front—otherwise, if we can get a tow … Phew, this mud!’

  A woman called from the road. ‘I’ve telephoned! They’re coming. A police car’s coming from Pangbourne!’

  The other man, who looked like a farm hand, said: ‘ Best come up to the road, sur. And the lady too. Shall I give you a ’and.’

  I put an arm out to Harriet and she thankfully grasped it, shaking her hair back as if to clear her head. She was still hiccupping and seemed on the verge of being sick again.

  Another man came a few yards down the grass slope to greet us. I learned later he had come from the van. ‘My cripes, if that ain’t bloody bad driving! Overtaking on a bloody double white line. My cripes, people like you ought to be strung up, mate. And if I was in charge of the laws of this land I’d take bloody good care you bloody was!’

  ‘It was a misjudgement,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see the white line in the dark.’

  ‘Cripes, you need your bloody eyes examined, you certainly do! It wasn’t nearly dark! Don’t you ever—’

  ‘Wait a m-minute,’ Harriet said, ‘you can’t ac-accuse Morris of bad driving. It wasn’t his fault at all—’

  ‘Oh, wasn’t it, missus! Well, I’d like to know whose fault it was! In one of these high-powered bloody cars—’

  ‘Because—’

  I squeezed Harriet’s arm until she was silent. ‘ We’ll have to go into that,’ I said. ‘ I’m accepting no responsibility of course. But I certainly admit as I pulled out to overtake the Mini that I didn’t see the double white line.’

  Very chivalrous, of course. But it wasn’t really that. Just as her drunkenness had been broken by the accident, so had my ill-temper. I hadn’t the least wish to take the blame; but my mind worked very quickly from the moment of the van driver’s natural mistake; and I saw Harriet, twice fined for speeding, now facing a charge of careless driving and an absolute target for any policeman who came along. Smelling of drink, hardly able to talk without slurring her syllables, her story that she had had only three glasses of champagne would be utterly disbelieved. This following her previous endorsements might result in a prison sentence or at the very least in a long disqualification. One of Harriet’s great pleasures was driving a car, and our cottage near Odiham was inaccessible any other way. If we were breaking up it was essential she should be able to get about and not be confined to the flat.

  Whereas I might very well get off with a fine.

  So I stifled Harriet and took the blame. This was more unpleasant than I had expected, for the police car from Pangbourne was quickly on the scene. Between us we did what we could for the young man in the Mini. He was unconscious and bleeding about the face. I stayed until an ambulance came and then we were driven into Pangbourne. When the police learned that we were returning from a wedding they drew the natural conclusions, and before long I was in the police station at Pangbourne being examined by a police surgeon for evidences of alcohol. That Harriet was obviously over-strung from drink did not make their suspicions any the less; and they were pretty nasty about the whole thing. Indeed I had a row with the doctor; but whatever tests he put me to I was able to fulfil without faltering. In the end he had to admit that I was as sober as he was.

  So with a good deal of cold courtesy a taxi was found for us and we were driven to London.

  Most of the way we were completely silent. Occasionally she would hiccup, and once she exclaimed bitterly: ‘It’s supposed to be funny when you hiccup, isn’t it? It’s pretty hu-humiliating tonight, and this at least is not because I’m drunk, it’s because of the kick the steering wheel gave me.’

  When we got to the flat I got her upstairs and she was nearly fainting, but I examined her and could find no injury beyond a slight bruising of the lower ribs. My own head ached vilely, more I think from the shock than from its actual impact with the windscreen, and I thought the best thing was to get her into bed with a hot drink and wait for the morning.

  I did this and in five minutes she was asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  I had heard from Charisse that rehearsals were to begin in Paris on the second and the play would open on the twenty-fourth. As Alexandra did not return until the sixteenth I had told Charisse that I should not be over until the week before the opening, which I knew would please him, since he did not like the author sitting in on rehearsals. Harriet said she would follow me and be there in time for the répétition générale, or dress rehearsal, which more or less approximates in France to the English first night.

  Harriet stayed in bed the day after the accident but seemed merely tired and upset—and bitterly self-critical. The Alfa Romeo was not so badly wrecked as we had expected, but one wheel had buckled and the front and one side were badly scratched and dented. It was not until the fifth day after the crash that I was served with a notice of intended prosecution for dangerous driving.

  I took it to Tim Dickinson. He looked it over and said: ‘What were you doing, Morris?’

  ‘To be truthful, I was talking to Harriet at the time. The corner caught me unawares. The light was very bad—that particularly difficult time just between lights.’

  ‘You’ve told your insurance company of course. Who are they?’

  ‘General Union.’

  ‘Hm. They use us sometimes on their motor cases. You might find me holding your hand in the dock even yet. Harriet wasn’t hurt?’

  ‘No, we were both pretty lucky.’

  Tim eased his stiff leg, which projected almost to my side of the desk. I felt I had now answered the question in which he was most interested; but one could never be quite certain how fond Tim really was of Harriet. In spite of a seven-year friendship I had never got to like him well. Just as the psychiatrist seeks for the underlying meaning behind speech and look, so I often found myself—perhaps defensively—applying to Tim the technique that I imagined him applying to the speech and look of others. He was a complex personality and his civilised offhand manner only filled in the depths and shallows of his nature so that they were not immediately noticeable.

  He said: ‘And you came through their tests O.K.? That’s lucky. But the wedding angle is bound to prejudice a magistrate
. If it is a case for a magistrate. How’s the young man?’

  ‘Recovering. I rang up this morning and he was not on the danger list.… I was thinking, Tim, that probably the simplest way out of this would be to plead guilty, say how distressed I was at the appalling mistake and take my medicine. This is a first offence. I’ve ten years of clean licence.’

  ‘Yes. But it isn’t as simple as that, Morris. In a case like this your insurance company will expect you to take their directions.’

  ‘And you think they won’t want me to plead guilty?’

  ‘If you’d gone in the river and only damaged a fence I’m sure they’d be quite agreeable. But they’re likely to have third-party claims—the van and the Mini, and possibly a heavy claim for damages for injury to the young man. If you plead guilty they haven’t a leg to stand on.’

  ‘How long is it likely to be before anything happens at all?’

  ‘Oh, a good while—probably a couple of months. Anyway, let me know how it goes.’

  When I told Harriet she groaned. ‘Oh, Morris, I am sorry. What a mess I’ve made of it!’

  ‘It’ll work out.’ I patted her hand. ‘ Ne te tracasse pas.’

  ‘But I must worry. Can you imagine the awful weight of guilt hanging over me?’

  ‘Why? People make errors of judgement. You’re not the first.’

  ‘But I got in such an awful temper!’

  ‘Well, so did I.’

  She brooded a minute. ‘Anyway it was wrong to let you take the blame. And it was wrong to go to Tim. I wish I’d been more definite about that. And if we had to see him, then the only possible way was to begin by telling him the truth.’

  ‘If we had we should never have kept it up elsewhere. He might have felt compelled to inform on us; I never know how these solicitors interpret their duties and their professional ethics.’

  ‘But I can’t let you stand in the dock for something I did! I don’t so much mind you signing a cheque on my behalf. But this—it isn’t possible, Morris!’