The Twyborn Affair

by Patrick White

  ‘Ma—soffoco! Soffoco!’ he shouted.

  The blind went flackering out of sight. And he tore the window down.

  The other occupants of the compartment were too dazed to protest. They sat blinking at the inrush of light, gulping the currents of air which would surely lay them low in spite of flannel next the skin.

  The interloping couple now sat knee to knee, on the edge of the bench, facing each other, beatified by the afternoon light, the draughts of too lusty air pouring through the open window. Or were they reaching into some inner pocket of a relationship where nobody else would have known how to follow? Certainly the peasants, whether French or Gallo-Italian, were only equipped to stare. Nor did the widow’s sane mind allow her a clue. She knew only that the foreign couple (spies possibly?) were presenting some kind of sham which she could not fathom. The old man, wearing the ridiculous gilt eagle on a moiré ribbon (something to tell Monique) was no more ill than she—less so, probably, for she had begun to regurgitate the truffled pâté defoie.

  The train gradually emptied, except for a few Italians trailing towards the frontier. The widow left them for Monaco with formal protestations of goodwill.

  They arrived at sunset in a town heavy with dust and a scent of carnations after a day unusually warm for the time of year. Almost as though by arrangement they found a cab. The obstructions and frustrations of the journey were at once erased. Though he did not answer, the driver must have heard of the pension the young woman mentioned, for he slashed at his horse and started off in a direction his fare accepted as the only one.

  ‘It does exist then,’ the old man agreed. ‘I would not have believed it—“My Blue Home”!’

  ‘Any more than “Crimson Cottage”?’

  Thrown about on the back seat as the cab climbed a hill out of the embalmed town, they grew hilarious, then settled down. They must not question the nomenclature that panders to the gentility and mysterious origins of those who inhabit the Coast; to dismiss the credibility of ‘My Blue Home’ and ‘Crimson Cottage’ might have been to deny the existence of the Nicaean dynasty, the whole structure of Byzantium, including its lynch-pin the Australian hetaira.

  ‘My Blue Home’ when it appeared, was a thin edifice overlaid with pinkish stucco and fitted upon a narrow ledge carved out of the mountainside. The woodwork at least was a blistered blue, and the vista a solid azure beneath a powdering of silver cloud. In the circumstances one ignored the criss-cross of lath showing here and there in irregular patches through the stucco, and a show of grey undergarments pegged haphazardly to a clothes-line above the weeds in what had once been a garden. On the other hand, to impress those who might become depressed at signs of squalor, there was a meticulous fresco in the Greek style, of terracotta urns alternating with satyrs and their prey stencilled round the walls between the eaves and lintels of the upper windows.

  Leading her charge, the traveller bowed her head and entered.

  Like the cab at the station, the proprietress must have been waiting for them. The young woman explained that through unforeseen events she and her husband were arriving à l’improviste. There had not been time to telegraph, but she mentioned the name of a lady who had been Madame Sasso’s guest and who was a subscriber at Miss Clitheroe’s library at St Mayeul. Madame Sasso could not recall her former guest, but knew of course by repute Mademoiselle Clitheroe of the English Tea-room and Library.

  Madame Sasso smiled, and explained, ‘I spick Eenglish,’ to encourage another of the foreigners through whom she made a respectable living.

  She was composed of rounded and cylindrical forms, with a vertical arrangement of plump black buttons from the cleavage to the hem of her black dress. After giving the matter thought, she admitted to having a room vacant, which she hoped her guests might occupy until she was in a position to offer something more—convenable.

  It was a room as narrow as one would have expected in such a narrow house. It was the kind of room from which a maid might have fled without giving notice. To encourage its prospective tenants, Madame Sasso prodded the bed, which gave out somewhat discouraging sounds. The bed matched the room in narrowness, but there was an ample chair covered in a thick green material reminiscent of governesses and schoolrooms.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the young woman declared, ‘we must have it. We must sleep somewhere. My husband has been ill.’

  ‘Not seriously?’ Madame Sasso hoped; and would they pay a deposit?

  ‘If we are already here?’ the husband pointed out.

  ‘In advance then—if you would prefer it …’ Madame Sasso smiled.

  She tried to make a joke of it, but the wife was of a serious disposition; she opened her bag and brought out two or three notes as token payment.

  So they were installed: Monsieur et Madame Vatatzes—un nom grec. Madame Sasso was impressed by the old gentleman’s distinguished appearance and the beauty of his young—wife.

  Left to themselves in their narrow room the travellers spoke in whispers at first. They touched each other often and gently, as though each suspected the other might break, or even vanish.

  24th March

  Soon after our arrival at this not very savoury pension Angelos took to his bed. The awfulness of yesterday’s journey was too much for him. A. is prepared to accept this place as an asylum, in which case I do too. I realise by now we can never be separated, not by human intervention (no Golsons!) only of my own free will. There I come up against the big snag. Shall my will ever grow strong and free enough for me to face up to myself? If I wanted that. To leave my one and only lover. I don’t. I don’t.

  He snored the night away in this maid’s bed. Myself comfortable enough in the chair until he asked me to come to him. We comforted each other narrowly and fell asleep towards dawn.

  Will they hear us? The bed such a musical one, and the house, I’m sure, full of attentive ears.

  Dined alone last night as he had no appetite: little separate tables, each with its complement of bottles—pills, spa water, wine eked out from previous meals to be consumed by sour mouthfuls at those to come. Dirty napkins put away in paper envelopes. Overall a smell of thrift and cheap oil.

  Most of the guests are English (the Anglaise predominating) escaping from bronchitis, rheumatism, taxation, one or two perhaps from scandals. A few faces of mixed race—Levantines? A. would have known, too vocally to be comfortable, if he had been present. Trust A. to spot the Frangolevantini.

  He ate a splinter of fish, mostly skin, which I took to our room, then he fell asleep again …

  This morning was an improvement in every respect, though morning usually is. Looking back, my whole childhood is composed of mornings, yet I wasn’t happy by any means. The future threatens very early. This growing threat which I’ll always associate with unruly masses of purple lantana, and cats lying on hot asphalt as they died from eating too many lizards … Or was that a parent’s disgnosis?

  MOTHER: Don’t look, darling. Patches is sick from eating lizards. They somehow poison cats. We’ll take her to the vet and he’ll make her better.

  The vet didn’t. I think Eadie hated cats. We were a house of dogs. Father was a cat man, but seldom there—away on circuit, or at the club. Father never wanted his child hanging round, or was in some way afraid. Eadie wanted one constantly.

  EADIE: Don’t you love me, darling? … Then why are you avoiding me?

  Eadie’s desire to devour—when you could have devoured the stuffy Judge—his man’s smell! (This I think more than half explains my relationship with Angelos.)

  Washed smalls, then walked down into the town. A scent of jonquils, roses—flowers. A yucca flaunting last year’s brolly reminded me of home. Always these pointers. In the town the Golsons were out in force—a less showy variety because less affluent than those at St Mayeul. The ladies several years behind in their style, or else in enforced collusion with the past—putting on a brave show however, shaking their plumes, disentangling lorgnettes from lace. Elderly gentlemen in seedy
retirement: tweeds in brown or grey, all tending to turn green. With luck their tweeds will see them out. The network of veins in flushed elderly male cheeks …

  An English church, a squat Gothic in grey stone. Fine avenues at intervals. Outside their version of Miss Clitheroe’s Tea-room and Lending Library a group of pelicans and brolgas discuss, not unexpectedly, war. War may be the solution.

  Ate a delicious lunch alone on the terrace with my old darling, who had dressed, and persuaded the Sasso to let us enjoy this luxury. Madame S. is impressed by A. They always are till experiencing his rages, his not quite madness, which automatically they interpret as the real thing. First they are insulted, then frightened. May he continue to impress at ‘My Blue Home’ morally I am exhausted.

  An old servant, Marguerite, arranged a table for us in the patchy shade from an almond tree. Angelos in sentimental mood as we got through our déjeuner: a thin, rather greasy soup from last night’s fish, beignets de poisson (pieces of skin, again from last night’s fish, done in batter) something indeterminate as meat. For some reason one did not care. The bay, a breeze shaking alternate light and shade out of the branches of the almond tree, exorcised my thoughts of recent weeks—even Angelos helped.

  A. remembers our first meeting when he picked me up on the Canebière. Who picked whom? he her she him, perhaps it was he him …

  A.: Don’t you remember?

  E.: I could hardly forget. I can remember the dress I was wearing.

  A.: I can’t.

  E.: You can never remember dresses. To me they mean so much.

  A.: [for him, infinitely kind] Your vice. [He was in a stroking mood this morning.] I remember it was raining and we went to that hotel.

  E.: Because you were ashamed to take me back to yours. You weren’t quite sure what you’d got hold of.

  A.: Don’t be unkind, E. You can never resist the opportunity to be unkind.

  [Marguerite brings the fruit; she has the sly look of a dog who has just disposed of a couple of pounds of fillet beef.]

  A.: Do you know, darling, I’m sure we forgot the enema. If we wrote for it they might send it on.

  E.: If we wrote for it Madame Boieldieu might make you pay the rest of what we owe.

  A.: But I shall miss that enema. It’s unlike anything they make today.

  The damn enema notwithstanding, lunch on the terrace at ‘My Blue Home’ was an occasion I feel I shall remember. My old monster would not know it, but I could have eaten him between the courses. How is it the French can get away with pieces of fish skin done in batter? How can A., by looking at me from beneath those horny eyelids, convince me that we are wearing the purple, standing on the steps at Blachernae or Nicaea? more—that I am no longer a fiction but a real human being …

  Madame Sasso and one of her boarders, a Mrs Corbould, were seated at an accommodating round table in a small salon between kitchen offices and public rooms, discussing over their second glass of poire William and before laying out the cards, the husbands they had buried, womb complications, and decreasing incomes; it was all too personal to include les Boches. As it was around 2 a.m., the other boarders had decamped to their beds with hot-water bottles, tins of imported Bath Olivers, and indigestion, while Marguerite had descended to the lower town with whatever she could scavenge from the evening meal.

  Crimson plush and poire William were lighting the throats and cheeks of the confidential ladies when this young woman, this Madame Vatatzes burst upon them from the surrounding dark.

  ‘Mon mari, je crois, est gravement malade,’ she informed Madame Sasso, then remembering that her landlady was a linguist, ‘He is having a heart attack.’

  Madame Sasso could not have been more shocked. The announcement brought to mind a suicide in Number 17, from which it had taken her reputation several months to recover.

  ‘You are sure, madame? You are not excited?’

  Less involved, Mrs Corbould was fascinated by the openwork in the yoke of the nightdress this rather angular, flat-chested young woman had been wearing when her emotions carried her into their presence without additional covering.

  ‘Do not distract yourself, madame. We will see,’ Madame Sasso advised, herself trembling.

  ‘But I know!’ Madame Vatatzes insisted.

  Madame Sasso also insisted, pushing past the young wife to reach the maid’s room which the couple were at present occupying. From being English and discreet, Mrs Corbould did not follow, but poured herself another glass, and sat awaiting developments.

  Madame Sasso was quick to see. ‘Oui, madame, il est bien malade.’

  ‘Send for a doctor then—can’t you?’

  ‘Marguerite est partie. I dare not ask the cook. I have no other person.’ Madame Sasso parried necessity like an expert, then appeared to remember.

  She marched out, her black forms falling into place behind the padded buttons. ‘Rouse Mr Genge,’ she commanded Mrs Corbould.

  Those who knew about such things were aware that Mr Genge, a pensionnaire of some years’ standing, was in the habit of warming his blue shanks round Madame Sasso’s steamy thighs on cold nights when the propriétaire was either forgetful or charitable.

  Abandoning her poire William, Mrs Corbould rose to the occasion.

  Madame Sasso returned to the sickroom.

  Monsieur Vatatzes was lying, chin raised, his nightshirt open on a wisp of scruffy hair which his wife was stroking with one hand while holding with the other a bundle of yellow bones, not unlike, Madame Sasso observed, the claw of an elderly black cock, the kind which can be served as several courses after careful stewing.

  ‘He is coming, darling,’ Madame Vatatzes assured her husband with a tenderness Madame Sasso had not experienced before.

  ‘Who is coming?’ he asked. ‘Who?’

  ‘The doctor.’

  ‘Oh,’ he groaned. ‘Only the doctor.’

  To do something, Madame Sasso was pouring a glass of tepid water out of a carafe, when she definitely heard, ‘I have had from you, dear boy, the only happiness I’ve ever known.’

  Madame Vatatzes turned at once to the landlady. ‘Leave us, please. I think it is over.’

  Madame Sasso obeyed.

  When she had returned to her confidante she could not prevent herself laughing. ‘Poor man, he is out of his wits! Last words can often be amusing, as you, madame, will no doubt have found.’

  Mrs Corbould found the last words of Monsieur Vatatzes, if not amusing, provocative.

  Madame Sasso was pouring yet another glass of poire William when the young woman appeared again.

  ‘He is dead,’ she said, in what sounded not only a broken, but at the same time, an awakening voice.

  Still barefoot, she was wearing a long black cloak over the nightdress with the openwork yoke.

  Before the two women could go to her, to initiate her into the formal grief it is usual for widows to indulge in, Madame Vatatzes escaped from them into the night, her gait as long, loping, ungainly, as provocative as Mrs Corbould had found the openwork in a flat nightdress and the elderly Greek’s last words.

  As soon as she returned from that grotesque encounter with the woman of the suppurating bandage, she slipped off the smocked travelling garment she had been wearing over her nightdress, and after rummaging for a sheet of her best monogrammed letter parchment such as she had used weeks before in starting what became the aborted letter to Eadie Twyborn, sat down to write while her emotions, her dashed hopes, her suspicions and doubts were still seething in her. Yet hesitated before beginning, her glance directed beyond the upheaval of bosom, the delicately manicured finger-nails, the plump ineffectual hands, the rings arrayed against the grain of this expensive letter-paper. (Were the rings perhaps vulgar when compared with those of Lady Tewkes—and Eudoxia Vatatzes, despite the fact that one had caught sight of congealed egg lurking in the corner of an agate eye?)

  So she held back.

  Before writing,

  My dear Eadie,

  more sober
than on a former occasion, as was the comma more humbly inscribed than that other incised, flaunting one.)

  She continued sitting awhile to gather courage for the plunge; then:

  … What I am driven to write you will probably find preposterous, unbalanced, mad, but there comes a point in life where one has to face up to the aspirations, aberrations—failures. I’m sorry if I appear to be diverting to myself matters which concern you before anyone—well, Edward also, to some extent—but men, even fathers, are less concerned with what troubles the sensibility of wives, mistresses, children (of whatever sex). Men are complete to an extent we can never hope to be, as self-contained as those leather armchairs on which they leave their imprint …

  Here Mrs Golson again hesitated for fear of what she might dredge up from depths she had never yet explored.

  … Men are kinder than women, if also more clumsily brutal. I have never been whipped by a man as women know how to cut, dispensing pain often of an exquisite kind.

  There is this Madame Vatatzes we recently met—and her elderly husband, a Greek if you please! I cannot blame Madame Vatatzes for any of the pain she inflicted on me, in fact I believe both she and I might not have accepted this infliction as pain.

  She is in any case a radiant creature such as you before anyone, darling, would appreciate. On meeting ‘Eudoxia’ I could have eloped with her, as you too, Eadie, would have wanted, had you been here. We might have made an à trois, as they say! I would have been jealous. I would not really have wanted to share our bed of squalor with anyone else, after escaping from husbands, prudence, the past, into some northern town of damp sheets, iron bedsteads, bug-riddled walls. To lie with this divine creature, breast to breast, mouth to mouth, on the common coverlet, listening to the activity of the street below, flowing by gaslight over the wet cobbles.

  There was a moment when I would have made this mistake had I been given half an opportunity. I would have allowed myself to be destroyed not only by a love such as I had never hoped to experience, but by a war which we are told is impending, both in the newspapers, and by what is perhaps the most reliable source in this horrid town, a lady of some authority at the English Tea-room and Library …