The treasurer in the red hat took a five-dollar note from Christine and scrabbled delicately in the box for change with long mulberry-coloured nails which did not match her hat. The woman in the baby-blue hat ticked Christine’s name off on a list and smiled at her with expert charm. No doubt she had risen to the exalted position of being allowed to sit behind the table and tick off lists on the strength of that smile. The woman in the natural straw hat, who looked like a carthorse dressed up for the summer, except that her ears did not stick out through holes in the top, searched in the cardboard boxes and gave Christine a place number and a little red card with her name on it and a safety-pin at the back. Christine pinned the card to her bosom as directed, feeling like a man who took your money in the supermarket.
The woman in the baby-blue hat, all charm, told her to go to the receiving line. Christine approached timidly and recognized Mrs Hamer in tubular brown silk, flanked by three or four other notable ladies, one of whom was Mrs Fleischman, still wearing the dress made of bits left over from the loose covers at the bungalow. She was the only one of the outriders who seemed pleased to see Christine. The others smiled, but distractedly, looking beyond her at the people coming up behind. Mrs Hamer did not smile. Her face was not made that way. She was very tall, with long pointed feet encased in patent-leather shoes which looked like the halves of over-ripe bananas. She towered over you, austere and all-powerful. It was like shaking hands with the Statue of Liberty.
Christine managed to say: ‘Thank you so much for having invited me to come’, although the invitation had meant that she had to fork out a dollar seventy-five for her lunch. Mrs Hamer murmured some regal blessing, and it was only after she had passed thankfully out of the receiving line that Christine realized that Mrs Hamer had no idea who she was.
About three hundred women were milling round the big lounge like hens in a barnyard. They were all drinking something out of the thick little glasses, but Christine could not see where they got it. With relief, she saw the black fringe and scarlet-lipped vivacity of Nancy Lee, and she edged through the crowd to her. Nancy pushed through the women who were clustered around the bar table like flies round a sore, and came back with something in a little glass for her. It was sherry, very sweet and oily and warm. Nancy and the two cheerful girls with her were wearing white name cards on their bosoms. Christine looked down at her own.
‘Why is it red?’ she asked. ‘I feel like a pariah.’
‘You’re worse than that.’ One of the cheerful girls laughed. ‘You’re a new girl. It’s your first time here isn’t it? You wait. After lunch you’ll be made to stand up so that all the girls can look at you.’
‘Oh no,’ Christine said. ‘I can’t. I’m the only one here without a hat.’
‘We’ve all been through it,’ the other girl said. ‘It’s murder. You feel everyone’s giving you the hee-haw; and if you’re fairly newly married, all these hags take a good look to see if you’re pregnant.’
‘I’m going home.’ Christine put down her glass.
‘No, you’re not.’ Nancy grabbed her arm. ‘Everyone’s going into lunch. Come on, let’s get in quick and I’ll juggle the numbers round so we can sit together.’
Several other people seemed to have done that, or else they had come with friends and been given consecutive numbers at the door. Nearly everyone was sitting next to someone they knew, which makes the lunch less of a bore, but defeated its object of bringing the girls together, because the girls just talk to their friends, and most ignored the strangers around them.
The woman next to Christine had a slim taut back with a zip fastener all the way down. That was all Christine saw of her, for she remained turned away throughout the lunch and talked to her friend on the other side about all the things she was going to cite against her husband for divorce.
The lunch was as unsuitable to the warm day as the sherry had been. It was some kind of meat served in lumps, with too little gravy and a mound of undercooked vegetables. The coloured waiters were the only men in the room, and it seemed to unhinge them. They were very slow, and they argued together a lot in corners, and by the time they reached Christine’s end of the table with the ice-cream it was only a cupful of white liquid.
‘A dollar seventy-five for this,’ Nancy said. ‘Plus paying a baby-sitter. I don’t know why we do it.’
‘Vin made me come,’ Christine said. ‘Does Art make you come too?’
‘He doesn’t, but he is in the Navy, for his sins, and I feel that the least I can do is to keep in with the top brass.’ She nodded towards the top table, where Mrs Hamer sat in the middle of a dozen rarefied women, who had had their ice-cream first, while it was still ice as well as cream.
‘Everyone talks as if the wives of senior officers did the promoting,’ Christine said. ‘I can’t see how they run a Navy that way.’
‘It isn’t exactly that, but it works the other way. If you get in wrong with one of those babies up there she’ll see to it that she talks enough about you to make them think twice before they recommend your husband for promotion.’
‘Well, but–’
‘Hush. Something is going to occur.’ Nancy sat back and closed her eyes, as the secretary of the club, a well-fed, florid woman who had given a sweaty handshake in the receiving line, rose to her feet and banged on the table with the back of a spoon.
It was just like all other meetings of women’s clubs that Christine had ever attended. The minutes were read in a flat reciting voice, and no one listened to them. There was the usual to-do about who should propose that the minutes be signed and who should second the proposal. At first no one would get up, and then suddenly three women jumped up together and began: ‘I wish to propose –’ and then looked at each other in some confusion, apologizing and saying: ‘No, no, not me’, like guests at a tennis party when there is only one court for ten people.
Our sympathy was extended to an absent mother who was in hospital in Hawaii, regrets were expressed at the loss of our valued subscriptions secretary, Mrs Jowitt, whose husband was being ordered away, congratulations were offered to two ladies who had produced little future naval officers, and our sincere thanks went out to all those ladies who so wonderfully gave their services to make the wonderful Arthritis Ball such a wonderful success. Here followed a tedious list of who had helped with the tickets, the flowers, the decorations, who had lent this and that coffee urn, and who – this was a nasty one – who had promised beforehand to help and been ‘regretfully prevented’.
Other people besides Nancy had their eyes closed by this time. Christine herself was lulled into forgetting the ordeal that the red card on her bosom presaged, when the secretary sat down to about as much applause as a tap dripping, and Mrs Hamer rose majestically to her feet, with her large hands spread flat on the table and her gaze raking the roomful of tables as if the rose on the front of her hat was a searchlight. Christine sat up. This was it.
‘Before we hear from our social secretary’ – ah, that would be it – ‘I take pleasure in introducing to you Miss …’ – she glanced down at the table – ‘Miss Mavis Harbright, who comes to us through the good offices of our member Mrs Westing’ – a cold nod down the table – ‘to give us a little talk on how to acquire the art of charm and social poise.’
‘This ought to be good.’ Nancy sat up. It was, but Christine, her ordeal only postponed, was still too nervous to enjoy fully the spectacle of an overweight and overhatted woman with a fistful of rings on her pudgy fingers telling the members of the club, who were mostly young and elegant, how they could be new women if only they would do as she did.
It was soon apparent that the good offices of our member Mrs Westing meant that the overhatted woman was a friend of Mrs Westing and had prevailed on her to get her into this galère, so that she could advertise the deportment school of which she was proud to be the principal.
Mavis Harbright worked hard. You had to give her that. She sat, she rose, she shook hands with imaginary guests, sh
e stood at an imaginary cocktail party with the weight balanced just so to enable one to swivel round and chat lightly to all comers. She paced up and down the room with her gloves on her head. One of the naval wives called out: ‘Try that with a glass of water’, but luckily, a bamboo screen by the kitchen door fell over at that moment, so no one heard her.
Miss Harbright then stood in the best position for health and beauty, telling the ladies to be sure to tilt the pelvis and lock the thighs when so doing, which brought a giggle from one of the coloured waiters, who was listening agape. Mrs Hamer’s eye was still daring the screen not to fall down again. She shifted it slightly to the left and the waiter was withered out of the room like a piece of charred newspaper. Miss Harbright demonstrated how to get in and out of a car without loss of grace or poise, and one of the girls near Christine remarked audibly that if she did it like that she would knock off that darned mushroom hat. This brought the death-ray eye of Mrs Hamer round from the kitchen door and trained it down the table to where sat the irreverent girl, whose husband now perhaps would never get that half-stripe.
Christine’s heart sank when the exponent of poise and charm sat down at last, feeling for the chair with the calves of her legs, as demonstrated, and Mrs Hamer rose once more to call upon the social secretary. It was the lady in the carthorse hat. She glanced round the room, wet her lips like a torturer, and announced that she was going to read out the names of the new girls, who would each rise as her name was called and remain standing until told to sit down, so that all the other girls could feast their eyes.
‘Mrs Adamson!’ A short fluffy girl stood up, trying to look unconcerned. She did not know how furiously she was blushing. ‘Mrs Adamson’s husband is at Main Navy, and she comes to us from El Paso, Texas.’ Everyone stared, and Mrs Adamson dropped her eyes and grew red as a beetroot, as if there were something shameful both about her husband and El Paso, Texas.
‘Mrs Dooley!’ Oh, heavens, they were doing it in alphabetical order. It might be Christine next. ‘Mrs. Dooley!’ The social secretary looked round with her mouth open. No Mrs Dooley. Poor little Mrs Adamson stood there bravely alone, like the little boy in ‘When Did You Last See Your Father?’
‘Mrs Dooley! Come along now, please!’ Someone pinched a vague, untidy girl, and she squeaked and jumped up, laughing and apologizing and quite at ease.
Everyone laughed with her. She was evidently the buffoon, who always did things wrong. It was all right for her. People knew her and liked her and laughed with her. But what if they laughed at poor Mrs Gae …
‘Mrs Gaegler!’ It sounded as silly as Christine had feared it would. Nancy dug her in the ribs, and she stood up, dropping her napkin and wishing that she had held on to her handbag, to give her something to do with her hands.
‘Mrs Gaegler’s husband is at the Arlington Annexe. Mrs Gaegler comes to us from London, England, and’ – the social secretary’s voice dropped ghoulishly – ‘she’s a bride!’
What could one do? Where could one look? Christine put her hands behind her back, realizing too late that this made her chest stick out too far, and fixed her eyes on a ventilator high up in the wall, while female stares stabbed her like darts from all over the room, and she imagined that she could hear whisperings from three hundred female tongues about this phenomenon who was a bride, and who came from London, England, and who had not got a hat. Were they asking each other if she was pregnant?
In utter ignominy, she stood straight and stiff while other names were called and other luckless girls stood up, but Christine felt all the time that every gaze was still riveted on this spectacle who came from London, England, and who had no hat and was either pregnant or too fat.
When Vinson came home that night and asked her how she had enjoyed the lunch, Christine flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears against the hard shoulder board of his jacket.
‘Here, here, what’s this?’ He led her into the living-room. ‘What’s happened? What’s all this about?’
‘Oh, Vin, it was terrible. It was awful. They made me stand up, and everybody stared at me. I’ve never felt such a fool.’ She cried so much that she slipped off the sofa and sat on the floor with her wet face jammed against his khaki trouser leg.
He was very kind to her. He tried to comfort her, but she could not make him see how awful it had been. ‘They wanted to have people get to know you, darling. You mustn’t be so self-conscious.’
‘No, no!’ she wailed. ‘They just want to make a fool of you. They all stared and whispered, and I was the only one without a hat, and all those awful women – millions of them – nothing but women – and if you’re newly married they stare at you to see if you’re pregnant.’
‘Well, honey, you don’t have to worry about that.’
‘But I am, Vin, I am!’
She did not know why she had not told him before. She had only known definitely for two days. She was going to tell him, but, hugging her delight to herself, she was half afraid to share it with him, in case he was not pleased.
He was very pleased. He was delighted. He forgot that he had said they could not afford to have a baby yet. They were very happy together, she kneeling on the floor with her arms round his waist; but when she remembered about the lunch and began to moan to him again about it, he patted her and said: ‘I’m sure there was really nothing wrong. You just feel upset and hysterical because of your condition. I’m sure they were all very kind. They’re a lovely group of women.’
‘Maybe.’ Christine stood up. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She did not think he was, but he did not want any more tears, and she did not think she could ever explain it to him.
Chapter Five
Never having been an expectant father before, Vinson treated Christine as anxiously as if she were going to have the baby at any minute. She was reminded of the day when she had sat eating sandwiches with Margaret in Green Park, and Margaret had complained that Laurie treated her as if she were a rare curio.
At first it was very pleasant to be told to put your feet up and to be made to sit idle in the living-room while Vinson cleared away the supper but after a time his solicitude grew a little irksome. He would settle her into chairs as if she were a frail old lady. When they crossed the street he would take her elbow and almost lift her on and off kerbs. He would sit gazing at her contemplatively, just as Laurie had done with Margaret, as if trying to puzzle out the secret thing inside her that he had brought about, and he was always asking her, with a puckered brow, how she felt.
She felt amazingly well, apart from the inconvenience of being sick every morning, and she wished that he would not keep asking. Her sickness worried Vinson so much, and she was so irritated by his standing outside the bathroom door and calling out: ‘Are you all right, darling?’ while she was in extremis, that after a while she took to getting up five minutes earlier and getting her retching over before he woke up.
He was so careful of her, so solicitous of her every whim, that when she spoke to him again about moving to a house with a little garden, which would be a more suitable place for a baby than the hot little apartment, he surprisingly agreed.
Christine had dreamed of a house in the country, but Washington was spreading its suburbs so far in every direction that there was no proper country within reasonable driving distance of Vinson’s office. They bought a small house in Arlington, which was simply moving from one suburb to another. Many naval officers lived in Arlington. It was a suitable place for a commander to live.
With the down payment made out of Vinson’s savings, and the instalments on the house to pay every month, Vinson said that they were now living too extravagantly and would have to economize on other things. Christine did not see why they could not use some more of Vinson’s savings to pay off their bills and to buy things she needed for the house, but Vinson was of the old-fashioned habit of mind that thinks savings are meant to be saved, not spent. Christine knew that she ought to think this was wise, but she had been brought up by Au
nt Josephine to look on money as an expendable commodity, and it seemed to her a pity not to use it until you were too old to enjoy it, or dead before you could spend it.
When Aunt Josephine had been left some money in a legacy, she had spent it all on giving Christine and her father a long holiday in Belgium. How sad it would have been if she had saved it up for the old age which she never saw. How much better that she had squandered it all on the trips to the battlefields in her long grey linen dress, the afternoon sessions of cream horns and grenadine at the Café du Port, her reckless flings at the Ostend Casino, where she sometimes got so excited that she staked on black and red at the same time, and her wild plunges at the trotting races at Breedene, where she would back any outsider because it had a noble face.
Vinson, however, did not see life that way. With the baby coming, he now had an added reason for thrift, and since the money was his Christine had to learn to follow his wishes. She tried not to spend too much on the new house. If she made a suggestion which seemed to him extravagant, Vinson was liable to say: ‘We can’t afford it. We’re already eating too high on the hog. I’m sorry, but it was you who wanted to move to a house, don’t forget, and now we’ve got to pay for it.’
Christine fought against the growing suspicion that Vinson was mean. You could not think such things about your husband. She would not let herself, but the unacknowledged thought hung about disturbingly at the back of her brain, like a child trying to get into a game where he is not wanted.
Some of the curtains from the apartment did not fit the windows of the house, and those that did were old and not bright enough for the sunny little suburban home. Vinson, chewing a pen over the monthly accounts, said that he did not see how they could afford new curtains yet, so Christine persuaded him that to buy an electric sewing-machine would not be an extravagance, but an investment, because she could then make curtains and slip covers and also clothes for the baby.
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