For Love Alone

by Christina Stead

  Though everyone who knew him went down to the boat to see him off, he did not invite her. The morning of his sailing she received a coloured postcard with the words, “Cheerio! See you in England. Yours, Johnny”. She had asked for the morning off. She did not dare to go to the wharf for the sailing and she knew by now that Jonathan would be ashamed of her bare bones and bad clothes, before all those girls and university men. He would walk with her in the dark streets, but not in the daylight. She had chosen a post in the Domain, where they had once sat at sunrise, and where they had seen the gunboat come in. She could see the boat sailing from there.

  It was raining. Teresa wore a light grey stockinet suit with a grey woollen pillbox cap of the same material; she had no coat or umbrella and was soon wet and bedraggled. She had washed the suit herself several times. They had confusedly heard of sending things to the cleaners at home, but they had heard of the high prices charged and would not have thought of paying them. They cleaned the men’s clothes with ammonia and soap, or else washed them and did the same with their own. This stockinet suit, so cleaned, was an extraordinary sight, something you don’t see in the streets every day. It had shrunk, and the colour had come out unevenly and run in streaks. With her high nose and forehead, Lance’s drooping cheeks, her small mouth and salty eyes, cropped hair and this brindled costume, she looked exactly like a loutish page in some medieval canvas. People stared at her and either smiled openly or looked away, ashamed. She knew what a figure she cut and yet she pushed on through the rain, her shoes going flippity-flop, the water streaming from her nose and her fingers as from a guttering. She would see the boat sail because this day was the end of her life, was the beginning of life too; in a few years she would sail, and in her heart she was aboard down there.

  At ten, in the steady downpour, she reached a tree-grown, lawny ridge in the gardens overlooking Woolloomooloo, where the great ship lay at Wharf No. 5. She could see only part of the buff upper-works as she lay, but precisely at ten-thirty the giant bulk moved slightly, amidst hooting and distant shouts, and the girl heard three-times-three from student’s throats. This ship was carrying not only Jonathan Crow but several other scholars, going to medical and art schools abroad, to Paris, London, and even to Germany, for few thought then that Hitler’s regime would last more than a month or so longer. It was a madness of the year. There came the nose of the boat, like Leviathan, and streamers already hanging limp, trailing in the water. They were off, land ties had already been broken. This made her happy, for she had a part in this going, the very first move of all the moves, that would take her abroad. She knew he was no longer shaking hands with them all, responding cheerfully to good wishes; he was already on the water, the life of the ship had claimed him. She saw the long rails black with people, and the ship was now half visible.

  At this moment, with tears and raindrops mingling on her face, she saw that the young man in a raincoat who had been standing under a near-by fig-tree for some time was coming nearer. She looked quickly at him. He raised his hat and said: “Why are you standing here looking at the boat?”

  “I’m watching it go out,” she said, looking steadfastly at the ship.

  “Do you know someone on her?”

  “Yes.”

  “A man?” hazarded the stranger.

  “Yes. A student who is going to London.”

  He looked at her for a moment before he said: “Is he your boy?”

  “No, just a friend.”

  “And why are you standing here? Does he know you are here?”

  “Yes,” lied Teresa.

  “But he can’t see you from there.”

  “Yes, he has glasses.”

  “Why didn’t you go down to the wharf?” he persisted, looking at her.

  “No, I told him I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Better not,” she said stiffly.

  “He doesn’t want people to know?”

  “No,” she said, jumping at his suggestion.

  “Did you say good-bye before, then?” asked the young man.

  “Yes.”

  “He kissed you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you won’t see him for a long time,” said the young man, sadly.

  “I’m going, too. I have to save up, though.”

  “It costs a lot,” said the young man.

  She told him: “Forty-four pounds for the boat-fare, third class, and of course I must have ten pounds to land with.”

  “You’ll get a job there?”

  “Oh, of course.”

  After some thought, the young man began to speak again and saw that Teresa was waving, for she had thought that if her young man had glasses to look at her, he would expect to see her waving.

  “Can he really see you?” the stranger said, incredulously. “It isn’t so far, with glasses!”

  “No, I s’pose not. It will be a long time, though. Won’t you be lonely?” “No.”

  “Will you write to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ask you to write to him?”

  “Yes,” she said, gladly.

  “Is he going to write to you?”

  “Yes. Every week,” she added.

  “The first letter will take a long time to get here,” said the stranger. “Three months.” He continued sorrowfully: “You will be lonely, it’s a long time.” Teresa suddenly said: “Yes, I will be lonely.”

  The boat had turned tail and was going up the harbour; she could see nothing but its name and port of registry. She turned to look at her companion. He was a fawn-coloured, middle-sized, fleshy man, young, with a soft brown hat, fawn raincoat, and black shoes. His eyes were large, long-lashed, dark-blue. He had a dawdling baritone, mournful, flat. He was dripping with rain. He stood there, half-turned towards the ship, watching its wake in a lumpish, sympathetic way. When he saw her studying him, he turned back, turned polite, and said: “I was standing here to get out of the rain. I walked all over town and all over the Domain. It’s no fun. I’m on my holiday,” and his voice was more depressed than ever. “I have a fortnight, fifteen days really they give me, and I’ve only spent seven days and I want to go back already. It’s dull, isn’t it? You wouldn’t think it would be so dull. I don’t know anyone here. Isn’t that bad? I was looking forward all the year to my holiday, thinking I’d have a good time in Sydney. I’m from Mortdale on the Illawarra line, do you know where it is?”

  “Yes,” Teresa began to move, because the boat had turned the point.

  “Don’t go yet, you’ll get wet,” said the stranger.

  “It’s been raining all morning, it won’t stop now.”

  “You don’t like to speak to me. I’m all right. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken to you. I know girls, ladies, don’t like it.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind a bit.”

  “I was just standing here, can you beat it, thinking I’d go home. I’ve got eight more days of my holiday but I’m going back. I can’t make any friends here. No one seems friendly. Don’t go yet. Or perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken to you?”

  “I’ve got to go now,” said Teresa.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the Art Gallery,” she said, pointing to the building not far away.

  “Could I come with you?”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  “What are you doing after that?”

  “I’m going back to work.”

  “How did you get time off ?”

  “I told them he was sailing.”

  “And they didn’t tell you to come back right away?”

  “I got the morning off.”

  He said: “They don’t expect you back right away then, wouldn’t you pass just a few hours with me? Don’t you want a cup of tea?—it’s nearly lunch time.” He was following her slowly, his long face convulsed. He was begging, begging, coming slowly to the edge of the tree where they both halted because the shower was heavier at that moment
. He put a hand inside his coat and pulled out a little notecase.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m all right. Here’s my licence, and that’s my photograph, George E. Smethers.”

  She carefully read the card, looked at the photograph, and then at his face. He watched her.

  “Look, wouldn’t you go to a movie with me? I don’t want anything, only your company. I just want to go to the movies with someone. I never spoke to no one,” he said, lapsing suddenly. “I’ve been here seven days and the girls don’t want to talk to you. I’m all right. I’m a counter man in a little ham-and-beef up there, on the other side of the station, in Mortdale. I saved up the whole year to come to Sydney for me holidays. They always say Sydney is lively. I never met nobody here. Yesterday, I took the train up to Arncliffe. I just took any ticket. The day before I went to the Zoo, I spoke to a couple of girls but they wouldn’t speak to me. I came back. I’ve got a room in Darlinghurst.”

  Teresa started out across the lawn, she was wet through and beginning to shiver.

  “Are you going?” said the man, following her, with an excess of despondency. “You don’t trust me.”

  “It isn’t that, but I’ve got to get back to work this afternoon.” “You don’t trust me,” said the man.

  She hesitated. He looked so uncouth. She knew she wouldn’t lose her job, but she didn’t like the flabby man. She thought, two miserable human beings. As she wavered, she saw, in a flash, herself, picking up men in the city, on the boat, anything for company, like this man, beginning to slide into cheap ways, looking for men for an hour’s conversation, anything to fight off the fear of being alone and unmated, loveless love-affairs with no conclusion, or an evil one, and the great desire to go abroad withering, her will ruined, while she was eating with strange poor boobies, dressing for hopeless men, going to the movies with failures. Impossible. This too was a symbol. And then she was afraid of him. Why was he so lonely? That was queer. He had been watching her eagerly, hoping that she was going to stay with him.

  Briskly, she said: “No, I can’t. Good-bye.” And she walked off quickly through the rain. She went into the Gallery and looked back. There he was sloping down the landscape at a distance, diagonally, in front of her, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders bent, and the rim of his hat turned down. What was he? She thought, at this hour the city is full of miserable souls wanting each other, or someone else, but we can’t take anyone at all, it’s dishonourable to take anyone but the one we want. It’s lax.

  When she got back to the office she looked like a tramp, the suit had turned all shades of grey and the lining of the hat had turned to jelly; her stockings were splashed and the toe-cap of one shoe had come unsewn. She threw away the ruined hat, dried herself as best she could and, in her shorthand book, began to calculate how many weeks, at how much a week, she must work to pay the forty-four pounds and other expenses, clothing, food, rent, in the meantime. She saw at once that she must ask for a rise in pay. She went in to Remark, the boss, and asked him for ten shillings extra. Perhaps she was worth it, or perhaps she looked so uncommonly wretched and strange that the healthy, ruddy, hot-tempered, self-made man was touched. He granted her the extra money. She went back to her office and did her calculations again.

  The next night there was a great clear sky. The girl, going up the headland, stood between the light-tender’s cottage and the Hornby light and looked at the heaving sea, thinking of the ships it carried, and at the rhinoceros-horned headlands swimming out to sea. The sky was pallid, the stars scarcely visible; in the high north-west, one after the other, two meteors burned themselves out. She felt her youth and strength, her thick hair loose on her shoulders, being quite alone, and facing the Pacific. Long ago, if she had been born a black Australian girl, she would have gone off now, paddling by herself up the coasts and daring the passage to the islands. All that was needed was a boat, and then, her lover could not have gone so far. “All the same, I’m as young, strong, and brave even if my skin is white. It’s the same sun, the same air. They didn’t marry me at fourteen, as they would have if I’d been black, I must do it myself. But do it I will.”

  Her dark heart moved over the sea with the throbbing of a ship. The ship had already passed beyond all this coast and was in new waters. “What would a man do?” thought the girl. “Would he let this accident stand between himself and his love? Would he if he loved me? No. And I am worthy of him. Nothing will stand between me and him. I will make him love me.”

  She stood there, the wind teasing her hair on her shoulders, till the last light went out in the cottage and only the steadfast Hornby light and the great ray of the South Head Lighthouse went sweeping overhead. Then she went home, planning a life of extreme hardship, to save the more. She was tormented by what she had heard this day from Miss Haviland. “Elaine, Clara, Little Redtop as he calls her, Dorothy, you don’t know her, Tamar, they were all there; it was quite a send-off. He introduced them all to his mother and he seemed a little moved when he said good-bye to Elaine and I thought he introduced her to his mother in a particular way. I met her too. Only you were not there.”

  “I didn’t want to be,” said Teresa.

  “I only realized then,” said Miss Haviland, with a pitiful smile, “how many friends he had, how much he is loved, and how we are going to miss him.”

  He had treated Teresa as an outsider, but had been proud to introduce the pretty blue-dressed graduate, Elaine, to his mother. So much the worse; she would overcome all rivals too. She buckled down to the immense task.

  22

  Still Three Years to Go

  They new in the family that she had been taking walks with a man and that he had now gone away, but as she said nothing about her affairs, friendly estrangement began between her and her relatives. At home, things were bad, they never spoke to each other. Only Kitty spoke to them all. Teresa had found out that Kitty was still in love with a married man, Bayliss, whom she had only met once, on a picnic. He had never written to her but Kitty wrote often now to her cousin Sylvia, who knew the man. Teresa found this out from Lance. Cruel insinuations flew about when Lance was angry. Lance was more comic with her, Teresa, because he knew that her man was a university graduate and Lance, still struggling in his night classes, respected the degree.

  The year had nearly gone and it was summer again, December, before she had the first letter from Jonathan Crow, who had sailed on a day in August of that year. He had written to her soon after his arrival, combining a few pages written on board ship, and a few pages written after he was housed in London.

  I went with Eugene Burt, a pal I met on the boat, to a theatre in Kingsway. We waited a long time in the rain in Sardinia Street for the show to come out and the crowd waited patiently, with monotonous, habitual patience, reading papers, eating oranges, for about an hour. Meanwhile, in the mud, thick to the ankles, in the middle of Sardinia Street, was a man dancing with his little daughter and two sons, acrobats doing tricks in the filth to amuse the crowd. They slipped and fell in the mud and took advantage of it to raise a laugh. No one saw anything wrong in it that I could see. They are poor; the poorer still, without a coat, are entitled to amuse them. The bobby didn’t interfere. Some few threw pennies, the others were indifferent. Burt and I were so sickened we nearly went away, but we, wet like the rest, waited for dry entertainment within at one-and-twopence. We threw them a couple of sixpences, the man stopped and came up to us to say: “Thank you, gentlemen, God bless you”, not “God bless me!” You have no idea of the poverty here. Wait till you come and you’ll see. Imagine, there are regular beggars who show their sores in public, and the waiters and the servants are beggars too, they all expect tips, because they are underpaid. You hear “Thank you, sir!” Sir is used everywhere by everyone to everyone. He sirs me but I’m damned if I’ll sir the next, I’ll teach them a little Australian. Yesterday, in a street off the Strand, a beggar with his ulcerated legs on view, crippled and begging everywhere, the cap in hand, the pestering and the d
isgust allowed by the boys in blue. I don’t know how I’ll stick out my two years in this misery of hunger. The English have been revolting since Wat Tyler but the People of Property are still in the saddle. I am in no mood to take it, that’s the rub. I had nowhere to go, and no money, having used up all my allowance. The first night, I went to a doss house of some sort that Burt knew of, the next day to L.S.E. to register (he’s in his second year, by the way, and showed me the ropes) and then tucker in a teashop, worse than anything we have in the way of food, and out to look for rooms. All cold, dingy. None found; so another sleepless night in the doss house, and the following day we ran to earth an old landlady of Burt’s, a yellow-faced old hag called Bagshawe, and with her a pothouse servant, they run the house. Burt and I now share one room on the first floor—back—only two floors. It’s in Marchmont Street, No. 92. Write to me there. Keep me cheered up. One taste of life here and I know I’m going to be lonesome. Some of the others said they would write, Clara, Cooper, Elaine, but I don’t know if they will. Gone and forgotten is my epitaph. Why not?

  She showed this letter only to Miss Haviland, and put it away in a box of scented wood she had bought. She answered the letter at once but had no reply to hers till another three months were out; that was in late March 1934, but after that she began to receive one letter from Jonathan by every mail, and sometimes, when he felt melancholy, two. She sometimes showed them to Miss Haviland, but generally did not and no one else ever saw them, though the family stood each one against the clock, saying slyly:

  “There’s your letter, Terry”, but preserved a silence about the affair otherwise. They expected her to wait for him to come back. They did not know he might not come back and only to the stranger in the Domain had she told her plans for sailing. His next letter said: