Fuel for the Flame

by Alec Waugh

  ‘Young men think of masculine good looks in terms of height and profile and broad shoulders, of being able to run the hundred yards in eleven seconds,’ she was continuing. ‘That’s why mature men are often more attractive. They know they haven’t laurels of that kind, so they make more effort to please.’

  I’m missing my point, she thought. How I chatter on. It’s always this way with me, when I’m with him. I start to talk and it comes tumbling out, all the things I’m usually reserved about. I’m not like this with other people. I’m far too shy to be. I must get back to the point, though, now I’ve started, I couldn’t begin all this again.

  ‘Young men are different,’ she said. ‘When they aren’t matinée idols, or glamorous as athletes, they think, She’ll never look at somebody like me. So they hang back; which makes it difficult for a girl. She wants them to come forward. It’s up to them to make the first move, she thinks.’

  ‘I see.’

  He smiled, a smile that warmed her. Barbara’s a lucky girl, she thought.

  6

  ‘Watch it through Henry’s eyes.’ On the first night Barbara had been held by the plot, excited to know what would happen next. Also as the G.M.’s wife she had been noting details of production and of acting. After the show she would have to pay compliments to each of the members who had contributed to the evening’s entertainment. She had been making constant mental notes. She had relaxed to the dramatic action of the play, held by it, interested, moved, but not assessing the ideas that lay behind it. Now, however, freed from the necessity of complimenting actors and producers, she gave her full attention to the play in the light of Basil’s comments. It was, she could see it now, contemporary in its implications. Perhaps Clifford Bax had deliberately chosen this theme as a parallel to the problems of his day, saying, ‘This is how it was four hundred years ago, this is how the Tudors worked it out. We can learn a lesson from it.’

  The second act opened a year later, three days after Katheryn has been unfaithful to Henry with the young courtier to whom in the first act she had been half-engaged. The King is happy, rejuvenated by love, no longer needing a stick, challenging his Lord Chancellor to a bout of archery, but already the clouds are darkening round the young Queen. Envy and prejudice are at work against her. Slowly, step by step, the King learns about her past. His fury, his indignation, had a new meaning for Barbara in the light of Basil’s exposition. She no longer saw it as the ridiculous jealousy of an ageing man. She was seeing now the ‘why’ of it. She followed closely the series of speeches with which Henry closed the act. ‘There are men who think lightly of love. I could never do that. There are men who care little what a woman does with her body and preach a foul doctrine that such matters are of no account, in a brief life and a hurrying world. Are they men at all? Am I a savage to put so much value upon chastity, or is it that I am a man through and through while they are mere half-men left high and dry by the great tides of passion, like little stagnant pools in the rocks.’

  Pawling mouthed the words, overacting, yet even so their basic dignity moved Barbara. That was how they had talked, that was how they had behaved, the young people of her generation. They had been brought up under the shadow of the atom bomb. ‘A brief life and a hurrying world.’ They had been wise to make the most of each passing moment, but there was another point of view.

  ‘Do you see what I mean?’ Basil asked, as they came out on to the veranda.

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘There are men who feel like that, who think like that, and it isn’t contemptible. Those men are not savages. In one way they are superior to us. They’ve stricter standards. It’s too bad when one of us gets mixed up with someone who has those stricter standards.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And one of the troubles is that you can’t tell until it is too late that you are dealing with someone who has these prejudices. Do you suppose that there’s a single woman in the world who hasn’t something in her life that she would hate to have known to a husband who feels like that? Is there one who hasn’t?’

  ‘Maybe there isn’t.’

  ‘And is there anything within reason that she would not do to prevent her husband finding out?’

  ‘I reckon not.’

  ‘The woman who is in danger of having that kind of thing exposed can never know a moment’s peace of mind, once she has realized that there is a danger. Everyone is vulnerable, however safe he thinks he is. Look how safe Katheryn thought herself.’ He paused. Had he said too much, had he said too little? Better to say too little than too much. Let what he had said soak in. He was in a hurry, but not all that much hurry. Let time work for him.

  A few yards away Gerald was continuing with Shelagh their interrupted conversation. ‘That’s interesting, what you were saying about a woman not setting the same store that men do upon games, and what men themselves think of as constituting manliness. I see your point, it can make a man diffident; I suppose it has in my own case; not being able to do any more the things I thought important once. I can’t help feeling that a woman would consider me incomplete, that if she ever did care for me, it would be out of maternal pity and that isn’t what I want.’

  ‘Oh, but you’re so wrong, so wrong.’ Shelagh’s voice glowed, as her heart was glowing. Her plan was working. She only needed to put things in the right way now. She had no sense of guilt. She was solving five people’s problem. She would be making each one happy, her father, her mother, Barbara, Gerald and herself. And Gerald so deserved to be made happy. He had been through so much. That wound, the complete consequent reorientation of his life; all the doubts, the self-doubt that it had bred in him.

  ‘Women don’t feel like that,’ she said. ‘You’re thinking of women in terms of how men feel about other men. They respect men for quite different reasons from those for which women respect them. You do realize that now, don’t you?’

  ‘I realize it. I hope Angus Macartney will as well.’

  ‘What’s Angus got to do with it?’

  ‘He’s in the same position as myself, games meant everything to him. He may never be as good at them again. He was a striking figure on the field. Do you remember him that day at the cricket match? He must have found it easy to understand how a girl could fall for him, but now that he’s a semi-invalid, he won’t have the same confidence in himself; you haven’t been to see him very often.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You must. All that you’ve been saying to me was meant for Angus, wasn’t it, so that I could let him know that you don’t feel any differently about him, that you won’t be any less in love with him because …’

  At that she lost her temper. ‘I wish the hell you’d get it out of your minds, all of you, that I’m in love with Angus. He’s not my type. I’ve never given him a thought. As far as I know, he’s been as indifferent to me. We’re the most casual friends. I wish …’

  The bell for the resumption rang. ‘Let’s get back to our seats,’ she said.

  Rex Sinclair standing at the bar, moved towards the door, then changed his mind. The final speech of the last act rang through his mind. He could hear Henry thundering, ‘I could half-wish that I too were some lily-livered half-man.’ Lily-livered half-man indeed. He wasn’t that. Tomorrow night would be the end. The play would be through. Iris would be his wife again; he’d see that she was his wife. He’d know how to handle her; he’d seen her for the woman that she was. She couldn’t fool him. Why see this last act through with its attempt to whitewash her. He leant across the bar. ‘A whisky soda, boy.’

  7

  The final curtain fell. There was a burst of clapping. When the cast took their encores there was a roar of applause for Iris and for Henry; applause was always enthusiastic upon these occasions, but this was exceptional. The audience had been genuinely moved.

  Basil turned to Barbara. ‘That was a telling phrase of Katheryn’s, wasn’t it? “We little thought it would end like this. We w
ere young and wild, that was all.” How surprised we all are at the way things turn out.’

  He watched her closely as he said it. During the play he had more than once glanced at her, wondering how the separate speeches were affecting her, wondering whether they were watering the seeds that he had sown. Was she seeing a parallel between herself and Katheryn, recognizing that a similar danger threatened her; married to an older man, did her own past rise accusingly? He remembered the fright on Ahmed’s face. What papers had the police found in that cousin’s house; was his own name there? What would happen if it were? He’d got to get out of here.

  At the end of each performance there was a reunion in the dance-hall of the cast and audience. Drinks and sandwiches were served, at Pearl’s expense. Once again Basil was alone with Barbara. Now was his chance. ‘It’s always the same way; eventually one gets caught out, however safe one thinks oneself. One believes one’s secret’s buried. Only one or two people know and they daren’t talk. But one is never safe. Those one or two people may not actually talk, but they’ll be unwary; they will not mention names, but they will drop clues, without knowing that they are doing it, so that someone else can put two and two together. Let’s take an example.’

  His heart was thudding; but he did not hesitate. He despised himself but he was desperate. He glanced at Julia, chattering to Shelagh. She was so loyal, so proud of her marriage and her life with him. He could not inflict shame on her.

  ‘As a hypothetical example let’s take you yourself. It is always easier if you take the example of real people. Like Katheryn, you’ve married a man older than yourself. Let’s assume that there’s been something in your past which you’d hate to have Charles know; you’re certain that he never can know, because there’s only one other person in the world who knows, one man or else one woman.’

  At the word ‘woman’ Barbara seemed to flinch; had he touched a half-healed wound, or did he fancy it? He had a thrill of victory, he was on the trail.

  ‘You think you are safe because you know that that man or woman will not speak. But there’s no greater temptation than a solitary secret. The person has to talk about it. Suppose this man or woman has talked to me about it, as though it had happened to somebody else. You know how people do, “A curious thing happened to a friend of mine,” but I’d know that she was referring to herself. It would be an intriguing incident, and I’d not forget it; but I would not be particularly curious to know who the other person was. I’d be chiefly interested in the person who had told it me. The episode would be tucked away in the back of my mind; and then you’d come out here and suddenly I’d realize that you were the other person.’

  ‘How would you know that it was me?’

  It was sharply interjected and his heart beat faster. He was on to something. He must keep his head. He must not let her suspect that he knew nothing. Let it stay vague and indeterminate.

  ‘How would I know? It’s curious how a person can give herself away; it wouldn’t be anything that would amount to proof but it would convince me beyond doubt. Suppose that the woman or man who had told me this story had referred to some special characteristic of the other person, something that was significant to the story, your way of clearing your throat, the way you hold the lobe of your ear; we all have our special characteristics. I heard the story of a man who realized who his rather was, from the way a man ate an apple, nibbling all round the skin before he started. It was an hereditary trait. He had never seen anyone eat an apple in that way before. There are so many little things. …’

  He went on talking, but he knew that she was not listening. She was following her own thoughts; she frowned and her lips were pressed tight together. He guessed what she was thinking. He was on to something right enough. He lost all sense of shame in the thrill of victory. He only went on talking so that the seeds of suspicion that he had sown could send their roots down deeper.

  ‘Everyone has certain phrases, certain expressions that are personal to themselves; suppose such an expression had been used when this person was telling me the story, then I heard you use it.’

  He checked, he had said enough. Now for the kill. He had no time to waste. Strike when the iron’s hot.

  ‘If that had happened, and if I knew what had happened, you would never know a moment’s peace of mind. Every time you met me, and you would be meeting me all the time, you would feel a quirk of fear. Every time you saw me in my cups, and I’m quite often in my cups, you would be terrified lest I should betray your secret. There is nothing, is there, that you wouldn’t do to get me out of here, nothing?’ He paused. Now, he thought, now, now.

  ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to leave this place. I’m desperate and that’s the truth. Wouldn’t it be rather smart of you to help me?’

  She did not answer. She looked him straight in the face; hatred and contempt were in her eyes, but he did not care. His spirit gloated. He’d pulled off his bluff. She swung round and walked away.

  8

  On the first night and on the last it was the camp tradition for the cast to join the audience in their costumes. Tonight, because they were changing back into their day clothes, their appearance was delayed by twenty minutes. Rex Sinclair standing by the bar watched his wife, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, pause in the doorway, looking round in triumph, waiting for her admirers to flock forward. She doesn’t know I’m here, he thought. She’ll behave as though I wasn’t. He’d see her as she really was. Not that he needed to. He knew her now for what she was. Hadn’t he seen her on the stage as Katheryn; wanton, disloyal, faithless, appealing to the sympathy of the crowd by her pretence of helplessness. What was that final phrase of hers. ‘We were young and wild, that was all.’ That was very well but hadn’t she behaved in exactly the same way after she had married Henry. Henry had seen through her, and so had he.

  She was wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, revealing her smooth white shoulders. How they had enchanted him, the first time he had fondled them; even now the sight of them made him shiver half in delight and half in anger. They weren’t really his. They were the spoil of anyone adroit enough to touch her shallow heart. He was not seeing her as Iris Sinclair but as Katheryn Howard. He watched her laughing and chattering, accepting the flattery of her admirers, holding court as Katheryn had. To hell with it, to hell with everyone. He had been drinking steadily since half past five, with only the interruption of the first two acts. He had eaten nothing except a slice of cake. He was truculent, uncontrolled. He looked round the room. He noticed Gerald Fyreman. What was he doing here? Sent out by his chief to report on how the oil men took their pleasures? He lurched across to him. ‘What did you think of it? Impressed by the peerless Katheryn?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought her excellent.’

  ‘You did, that’s grand; that’s what I wanted to hear. It’s very consoling for a husband. She convinced you, did she? Made you believe that a young delicate girl could fall in love with a man like Henry?’

  ‘I felt she might.’

  ‘That’s dandy. Let’s go and tell her so. Where is she now? Ah, yes, over there with her leading man: very appropriate. Where else should she be?’

  His voice was loud, aggressive. He scarcely knew Gerald, but he took him by the arm. Gerald had seen men in this mood before. There was no point in crossing him. He let himself be led.

  ‘Honey, here’s Gerald Fyreman,’ Sinclair said. ‘He wants to congratulate you on your performance. You convinced him that a girl of twenty could fall in love with a bloated ogre. You’re a wonderful girl, Iris, there isn’t any doubt about it. You’re wonderful too, Harry. A great guy. You’ve made a super team; that’s what everyone has been saying. You’ve been a revelation, the two of you, and what have you revealed? That a young girl can fall in love with an old man—with a fat old man into the bargain; a gross, coarse, malodorous old man. Oh yes, you showed us that. That was fine for you, Harry, wasn’t it? You were at the top of your bent. All the women in the audience were saying the
same thing, “Look at the way Iris is acting. Isn’t she convincing? Of course a young girl could fall in love with an old man, provided it was a man like Harry.” Doesn’t that build you up, old boy? All the girls will be looking at you in a new light now.’

  To start with he had spoken with a ponderous, heavy-handed affability, but his mood changed. He was angry now, and out to hurt.

  Harry interrupted.

  ‘You’re making me embarrassed. I’ll be blushing next.’

  He said it jokingly but Sinclair would not be side-tracked.

  ‘No, no, I won’t come off it; you two deserve your tribute. That’s why I brought Gerald over. That’s why I’m going to bring over every darned man inside the room, so that they can testify each and all to this new miracle. For it is a miracle, and I’ll tell you why—because Iris can’t act for toffee.’

  He turned round now and faced Gerald, ignoring the other two.

  ‘She can no more act than she can play the kind of tennis that gets you to the centre court at Wimbledon. She could only act this part because she was this part. She entered into it, she became it. She could make you believe that Katheryn Howard was in love with Henry VIII for one reason only, because she was in love with Harry Pawling. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  On that last sentence, he swung back, facing Iris.

  ‘You can’t deny it, can you?’

  There was a pause, a silence. Husband and wife looked each other in the eyes. At last, Iris thought, the show-down. Here’s where I check out. She remembered how Blanche had behaved when she had learnt of Angus’s accident. That marriage too was on the rocks. It only needed half a push. If she didn’t give it that push, somebody else would.

  ‘Deny it if you can!’ her husband shouted.

  Here goes, she thought.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I can’t deny it.’