The Sea Lady

by Margaret Drabble

  In Helsinki once (or perhaps it was in Oslo) her hotel room looking over the port had been furnished with a heavy pair of binoculars, chained by a handsome nautical fake-antique chain to a brass ring set in the ledge of the window seat. (It must have been Oslo, because of Edvard Munch, of whom she was then fleetingly in pursuit.)

  The Queen's Hotel is a little smarter than it had been in the bleak post-war austerity years, but it still has a nostalgic and old-fashioned feel to it. The bathroom is large, and the deep claw-footed bath and its verdigris-stained silver taps are original. The spacious bedroom has not yet been cut up into ill-proportioned box compartments, though it may be, in time, for the population of Ornemouth has been growing steadily since the foundation of the new university, and demand for hotel accommodation is on the increase. The fishing industry has declined, the academic industry has expanded.

  Knowledge is sadism, said Freud.

  There are no luxury binoculars here to amuse her, but there is a bowl of deep red roses, and a smooth glass decanter of sherry, accompanied by a couple of very small glasses. It is years since she saw a decanter filled with amber sherry. This is so old-fashioned that she can almost believe it is avant-garde.

  The sherry is the colour of the amber sliver of Pears soap.

  The Public Orator, from his hidden vantage point, trains his binoculars on Ailsa Kelman's window. He knows which room is hers, for he had made sure of it in person. Will she advance towards the window, and wrestle with the double glazing, and pull up the old-fashioned sash, and lean out, and expose herself to his view? He cannot see her. She may be in there, for he knows that she has checked into the hotel, and parked in the Lady's Parking Space, but she is not yet in his sights. Maybe she is changing for the reception and the dinner.

  O Ailsa, at thy window be,

  It is the true, the trysted hour...

  He is already dressed for the occasion, in the dinner jacket specified by the gilt-edged invitation.

  He scans the promenade, looking for Professor Humphrey Clark or for Dame Mary. They may be taking a turn, taking the sea air, together or separately, before the evening's programme begins. They have travelled, as he knows, on the same train. They will by now have been introduced to each other. Their interaction, for better or worse, has begun.

  He cannot see either of them.

  The Public Orator knows exactly what to expect from the current physical manifestation of Ailsa Kelman, for he had watched her live, a couple of nights ago, on television, as she presented the Plunkett Prize to Paul Burden for the book called Hermaphrodite. He had seen the cones of her iron-clad breasts in their casing of chain mail. He suspects that she is planning to wear the same armour tonight. She will have thought it not inappropriate.

  He had searched the television audience for a glimpse of Humphrey Clark, but had not been able to spot anybody who could plausibly have been him. He had feared that the Plunkett Prize ceremony might pre-empt and upstage his own little drama, but a telephone call on the following morning to his chief spy had reassured him that Professor Clark had declined an invitation to the Plunkett Prize and the Marine Hall, and had spent at least part of the evening talking university politics with Professors Roberts and Freeman at the Athenaeum.

  To Ornemouth, as the Public Orator had planned, would belong the honour and the confrontation.

  The Public Orator takes a small and cautious sip from his preparatory glass of whisky. He must take it easy, for it will be a long night.

  He lifts his binoculars again, and focuses once more on the bedroom window of Ailsa Kelman. And, as he watches, he sees her emerge from the shadowy depths of the room. He can see that she is wearing the white hotel towelling bathrobe. She advances towards the window and stands there, overlooking the hotel terrace and the geranium-planted urns and the flowerbeds and the putting green. Then, slowly, deliberately, she takes hold of either edge of the robe, one lapel in each hand, and pulls it open, to expose her naked breasts. She stands there, like a figurehead, defiantly holding her robe wide open, and breasting the swell of the seafront and the sea air and the penetration of his unseen but surely imagined gaze.

  The reception is building up its volume of chatter and clatter, as it recovers from the respectful feudal lull that had accompanied the unexpectedly early arrival of the young duke. The late father was always late, as dukes are expected to be, but his son, young Gerry, does not seem yet to have caught on to the proprieties, and had arrived when the Neptune Suite was still embarrassingly under-peopled. His chauffeur had dropped him off early, and ruthlessly abandoned him for the evening. The dutiful Vice Chancellor had been there ready and waiting to greet him, to be sure, and so had the omnipresent and omniscient Public Orator, but others of the more distinguished guests were yet to show. Luckily, Dame Mary appeared in full fig only a couple of minutes after the duke and saved their bacon. Full of fizzle and bubble and pop she had been: Gerry darling, Mary darling, Oh you naughty thing, why didn't you come to stay at the castle, I told you, Gerry darling, I need my beauty sleep, I am Cinderella these days, I need to be in my bed by midnight, and the castle is so haunted and so creaky, and last time I stayed a little mouse ran under my bed, now Mary don't tell tales, I swear to you, Gerry, a little grey mouseling, with whiskers...

  Dame Mary in her voluminous shiny royal-blue satin and jewels was a mercy, she makes enough noise to fill any gap, she's the kind of good sport who would always make things go with a swing, her hair's a strange cut and colour, people say it's cancer and chemo, but with theatre people how can you tell, and there's Lord Lanark, he's a grim-faced old stick, but people say he's a decent old boy really, but then they would say that, wouldn't they, and that's Martin Gibson, the laird of the salmon fishery, at least I think it is, or is it Professor Rickwort from Reykjavik, and that's Vice Chancellor Helen Sinclair, she's an epidemiologist, a what, an epidemiologist, she studies epidemics, at least I think that's what she is, or was, I suppose she's too busy running things to do any real work now, it's been a good thing for the town, don't you think, well, it's nice having some young people about for a change, not many young people here tonight, are there, well, you wouldn't expect them tonight, would you, this is for the top brass, for the likes of you and me.

  White, please. Thank you. She's going to sing, later. That'll be nice. Well, maybe. Do you remember that Beggar's Opera they did last year? Don't remind me, what a night, I thought I'd die, I thought I'd never get back to my bed.

  It will be a very public meeting. Humphrey had thought of sending a little note of warning round to her room, more for the sake of his own dignity than of hers, for he is sure she must have known the game and the score. But he had been unable to think of any words to express the diverse and indeed unidentifiable emotions that assailed him. It is better to meet here, in the open, surrounded by an indifferent crowd which will not know of their conjoined past. The diffusion of good manners and a habit of public behaviour will carry them through. He is a gentleman, and she is a performer. Between them, they will brazen it out. She will not cry out, or faint, or assault him, or suddenly demand forty years of back payments of alimony.

  Will she?

  She does, of course, love a public exhibition. Like Lady Caroline Lamb, on whom she had long ago written an interesting essay. Maybe it is she who has organized this whole event, in order to confront him. She is capable of anything.

  There is no shame in having once held high hopes. Or is there?

  Shame is a mystery, and a familiar.

  His throat is still sore. He swallows, nervously, as he descends the wide curving shallow-stepped floral-carpeted staircase towards the open entrance of the Neptune Suite. He had hardly been able to speak to Dame Mary in the car on the short journey to the hotel. She had been professionally sympathetic to his vocal plight, and had rummaged around in her bag for her magic opera singer's lozenges, which, she said, would do the trick at least for the evening. She had been effusive in her helpfulness, and had smelt, faintly but intimatel
y, of bacon. She knew he had seen the brown-bagged bacon burger. It was an instant bond between them.

  And there she is now, waving at him like the oldest of old friends, as though she has known him for a lifetime. And there is the duke, and the magnate, and the professor, and the bishop, and the bookseller. He is drawn into their orbit, warmly, as Dame Mary enquires after his voice, explains his speechlessness, urges on him the medicinal champagne rather than the white or the red wine, and takes care and charge of him.

  'Poor Humphrey,' says Dame Mary, with that extraordinary and slightly coarse giggle lurking playfully under her words, 'he can't talk, he's struck dumb with the honour, he's appointed me his spokesperson for the evening...' Oh, she is a comfort to him, she is his protector, this motherly woman with orange hair, he is immensely grateful to her for taking him under her wing, and she stands staunchly by his side, small but loyal, as his first wife Ailsa Kelman makes her dangerous entrance, glittering in silver sequins, sailing through the room towards him, her head held high, her carriage straight (posture, Ailsa, posture), with her silver-bangled Athenian arms outstretched for him.

  'Humphrey!' announces Ailsa dramatically, in her lower register.

  'Ailsa,' mouths Humphrey in response, as he accepts her embrace and kisses her expertly on either cheek.

  It is done, it is over. Here is the woman the sight of whose name has, for years, been a trauma to him, and he has kissed her on both cheeks.

  Dame Mary beams her approval, and takes her turn with the public kisses. The Public Orator watches silently, discreetly, from his corner by the board with the dinner placement pinned upon it.

  Little shallow springs of small talk well up and gush and bubble and course around them, happily, plentifully, as over short green grass, as Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark inspect each other with quick sideways glances, with social smiles and becks and nods. The glorious weather, the happy occasion, the auspicious signs, the year's fine results, the promising league tables ... Ailsa is practised at such encounters, but, to her quick professional eye, dinner-jacketed Humphrey seems equally at home in this gathering, and as handsome as ever, if more than a little heavier: he is tanned and genial and clean-shaven, confident and affable, a smiling public man. Maybe this will be all that there will be: a little shallow sprinkling of good will and forgetfulness. Maybe that is all that life has left: a friendly peck on the soft cheek, and then you go your way.

  It is trivial. It is without meaning. It is, perhaps, disappointing.

  Their glasses are recharged, and their little group is invaded, fragmented, re-formed. Ailsa is sucked away into another eddy, and the head of the Department of Marine Biology attaches himself to Humphrey, with talk of renewable cod fisheries and of the Ministry. Humphrey listens politely, inattentively, a little restlessly, making the odd murmur of assent, and, after a minute or two, while still showing every symptom of listening, he turns his head, as people may do at parties, to scan the room, and at that moment Ailsa also disengages her gaze from her interlocutor, and their eyes meet. Each had been looking for the other, and their eyes unmistakably meet and hold the moment. So, they both acknowledge, they have not forgotten, and they will not pretend to have forgotten. They will not take the route of denial. They will accept the challenge.

  Their eyes make this pledge, before they return to their social duties.

  The Public Orator has been standing patiently by the chart of the dining tables, waiting to usher the guests to their seats if they become confused or lost, and wondering how soon, or if ever, he will be recognized. He is a trim, neat figure, of pale complexion and of middle height, thin and precise: his hair is now a pure and snowy white, and he wears a small close-clipped white beard. He looks simultaneously distinguished and inconspicuous, scholarly and frivolous, ironic and engaging, harmless and sinister.

  The gong booms, and the guests begin to move towards him and the entrance to the Davy Jones Dining Room, some with purpose, others in the muddled, diffident way of those who do not like to seem too eager for their food. There is no High Table, and the round tables are not numbered (a practice which can cause offence) but named after local beauty spots: Ailsa Kelman is seated upon the table called Montrose, between the magnate and her first husband Humphrey Clark. The Public Orator has placed himself directly opposite the reunited couple.

  A halt in the flow of diners causes Ailsa to pause in front of the Public Orator by his blackboard of names. Interrogatively, but without recognition, she extends her hand to him and introduces herself, and he in response names himself. He says he is Alistair Macfarlane, and he gives her what she will later tell him was 'a very funny look'. But, for the moment, that is all that passes between them. A similar introduction is shortly effected between Macfarlane and Clark, but this time with manly hands extended and shaken over the table. And so they settle on to their solid Edwardian hotel dining chairs, the seventy-two guests at their nine tables, and they pick up their printed menus, and they fish out their spectacles, and they inspect, some with much appreciation, others in suspicious bewilderment, the amusing list of delicacies that is about to be offered to them. It is an entertaining and slightly surreal and cunningly planned repast, of gulls' eggs with lumpfish caviar, of renewable cod on a bed of seaweed with jewels of sea urchin, of salad of sea lettuce, of Camembert au requin.

  'We thought of roasted puffin or Solon goose,' says the Public Orator, rather loudly, to his neighbour, 'but we thought there might be an animal rights protest. And we were going to call it Captain Nemo's Banquet, but that excessively popular Disney movie about that clown fish rather spoiled our joke, and we didn't want you to think we had let our standards lapse.'

  Humphrey hears this remark, as he is intended to do, and he looks sharply at Alistair Macfarlane.

  Through the speckled turquoise gulls' eggs, Ailsa Kelman talks to the magnate, and Humphrey Clark talks to the headmistress on his right. Over the next course, he and Ailsa turn towards each other.

  She opens the conversation by pointing at his plate of mixed vegetables.

  'So you've stopped eating fish now,' she says, with a hint of accusation, as though she had seen him quite recently, as though little time had passed between them since their parting.

  Their last bitter parting, in silence and tears...

  'I prefer not to,' he whispers mildly. 'But I'm sorry to miss the sea urchin. Is it good?'

  'Have a bit of mine,' she urges, this time with confident and teasing familiarity. 'Come on, do have a mouthful. They're invertebrates, you know. No nervous systems and no notochords. They don't feel pain. Or so I'm told. They're delicious. I had them in Japan once, a whole feast of them.'

  'Well, perhaps a morsel,' he says.

  She picks up an orange fragment of flesh on her fork, and deposits it on the side of his plate. He stares at it, accepts it, eats it. She watches his face as he swallows.

  She does most of the talking, because of his throat. She chatters on, as she can. His throat is recovering, thanks to the lozenges, but it is still tender.

  A stranger, listening, would deduce, rightly, that they had known each other for years. She makes him laugh, and she laughs herself, almost to choking, at one of her own jokes. A stranger might reasonably deduce that they are delighted to see each other.

  They are laughing about her attack on his foot in the Hotel Actaeon. If they can laugh about this, they can laugh about anything.

  The Public Orator, who is not a stranger, eavesdrops on their interchanges, even while maintaining a conversation with the woman on his right. He is able to hear several conversations at once. He has that power. He would have preferred to have other powers as well, but this is the power that remains to him. He cannot hear everything she says, but he can hear enough of it to tell that she is sailing along riskily and so far gaily on a brisk breeze of double entendres and hidden allusions. He is still waiting for his moment of recognition, and he senses that it is near. And it arrives before the cheese, somewhat unexpectedly, with a hin
t of anticlimax, when one of his colleagues calls out to him from another table.

  'Sandy,' calls jovial Jim Campbell from Geology, 'Sandy, when's the singing? Is there a comfort stop coming up soon?'

  So Sandy Alistair Macfarlane Clegg is named and outed. He can see suspicion begin to dawn in the eyes of Ailsa and Humphrey. Recognition and identification and possibly denunciation will soon follow.

  Is it a game, is it a trick, is it a trap?

  Ailsa is bold, self-trained for decades in boldness, and she leans forward as the Camembert au requin and the dessert of cherries and grapes are handed round in an antiquated collegiate manner. She leans forward, her bosom pressing low over the tablecloth, her cleavage proud. She beards the impish man disguised as Alistair Macfarlane, the impostor who was once a pale-skinned serious freckled boy called Sandy Clegg.

  'Dr Macfarlane,' she says, 'would I be right in thinking that this is your home town?'

  He inclines his head slightly, in assent.

  'Would I be right in thinking,' she pursues, as he holds her interrogative gaze, 'that we have met before?'

  Again he assents, with a courtly little nod.

  'Well,' declares Ailsa, to the table at large, 'this is a surprise.'

  She looks around her, smiling inclusively, defiantly.

  'We knew each other,' she tells the duchess and the magnate and the mayor and the headmistress and the microbiologist, 'when we were children.'

  Humphrey is staring at Sandy Macfarlane Clegg with less composure than Ailsa has been able to summon. He is staring at his old friend with horror, as though he has seen Banquo's ghost at the feast. He clutches at the collar of his dinner jacket, and tugs at it, and experiences a sudden difficulty in breathing. He thinks he may be going to faint. His vision blurs, his head swims, as his childhood rises up before him in accusation. A suffocating sense of panic and defeat sweeps through his body, shaking him to the invisible core. He is speechless, and worse than speechless.