Nothing

by Henry Green

  “But for one to be said one is when you aren’t!”

  “Now you promised Liz darling!”

  “When I haven’t ever in my life,” the young woman persisted.

  “Darling,” Mrs. Weatherby warned with a hint of impatience.

  “Oh I know I’m a bore,” Miss Jennings cried. “How dreadful and you must please forgive! You see . . .” but yet another pair of new arrivals were making their way and as Jane advanced to meet these she gave Liz one of those long looks of love and expiation for which she was justly famous.

  Miss Jennings went after John Pomfret.

  “Where have you been all day?” she demanded when she had cornered him apart.

  “This endless work work work,” he answered.

  “Not in your own office, that I do know,” she cried.

  “Precisely,” he said. “Time was one could sit in one’s room, do all which had to be done in comparative comfort. But no longer, not now any more!”

  “And I did want you so! Must it always be like this?”

  “How d’you mean? Liz is something the matter?”

  “Just that beastly Maud Winder. She only said I was tight at Eddie’s!”

  “If she did then she’s half seas over now herself!”

  “Can the awful woman be here? I don’t see her. No John don’t be so absurd.”

  “But there,” he said of a Mrs. Winder who seemed dead sober in quiet conversation with her back to a mirror. “Tight as a coote.”

  “Well talk of the devil,” Miss Jennings exclaimed. “Really I feel that if it weren’t for Jane I ought to go up and slap that silly face. Do you honestly think she’s drunk?”

  “If she isn’t quite now, she has been,” he replied. “Something must have gone very wrong with her end of Eddie’s party which brought her to repeat what she did, if in fact she did.”

  “Oh Arthur Morris told me.”

  “What a shame old Arthur can’t be here.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And a terrible story to insinuate against a girl!”

  “Look Liz,” he implored, “forget the whole of this.”

  “You’re asking me dear?” she demanded.

  “Because I was with you Liz and you were sober as a judge.”

  “But that only makes everything all the worse.”

  “Naturally it does,” he cheerfully agreed. “And so now then?”

  “Do you truly love me?” she enquired.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Liz darling!”

  “Well perhaps I’ll just find myself able to last out,” she said. “As long as the wretched woman doesn’t dare speak to me that is. I could claw her heart right away from her flat chest.”

  “Well Liz a wonderful show of Jane’s by God eh?” a voice announced behind and she turned to find Richard Abbot. “Marvellous manager,” he went on. “Can’t imagine how she gets such details organized these days. Upon my soul it’s perfectly miraculous!”

  “I know Richard,” Miss Jennings replied with an animated look. “And to see all one’s nearest and dearest gathered in one room why it’s unique! I do admire Jane so, she’s a positive genius.”

  “Tell you what,” Mr. Abbot propounded. “A thousand pities poor old Arthur can’t be present.”

  “I’ve a wire from him in my pocket this moment wishing us all the best of good times,” John Pomfret said. “They handed it me outside.”

  “Has he telegraphed to Jane I wonder?” Liz thought aloud. “She would like it because this is her party after all.”

  “Oh the wire’s for her all right. She doesn’t know yet.”

  “Then let me take the thing along old boy,” Mr. Abbot asked in a proprietary voice. “Might buck her up a bit. Sure to be feeling a trifle nervous before the curtain rises so to speak.”

  “Why certainly,” John responded reaching into his “tails.” “I could have done that myself,” he said with a trace of irony. He handed the envelope over.

  “But I say,” Richard Abbot expostulated. “It’s been opened.”

  “I told you what was inside didn’t I old man?”

  “I mean how am I to explain to her?”

  “Just tell her it was me Richard.”

  “You opened a telegram addressed to Jane?” Miss Jennings demanded.

  “I thought there might be a bit of bad news which could keep until the party was over,” he told her in an almost insolent manner.

  “Well you can keep the damn thing, break your own good tidings,” Mr. Abbot exploded without raising his voice and handed the envelope back. “Yes by God,” he said then left them.

  “He seemed quite upset,” Mr. Pomfret remarked.

  “I’m not sure I quite like you in this mood,” she warned.

  “Oh come off your high horse Liz,” he laughed. “You know I simply can’t stand the fellow, pompous ass that the man is.”

  •

  When dinner was well under way, with servants hurrying about the round tables, John Pomfret Liz Richard Abbot and our hostess alone at theirs, the laughing and conversation everywhere at a great pitch, so Jane delighting with all her soul broke out with the following comment on what they themselves had chanced in their own chatter,

  “Oh, isn’t all this delicious my dears and doesn’t it seem only the other day that we were deep in the topic of sex instruction for each other’s children and here we are now in an argument about whether they ought to live out in rooms for freedom.”

  “Bachelors shouldn’t speak up I expect, but part of the idea was the young people might get used to living on what they earn surely?” Mr. Abbot genially enquired.

  “Darling Richard so unromantic,” Mrs. Weatherby crowed. “Don’t you remember John years ago you got in such a state and I was to make a gramophone record for your Mary, oh wouldn’t she have hated it, while in return you were to do one for Philip. Then we thought we’d advertise and have a truly immense sale to the public.”

  “And I took you to the place in Oxford Street when soon as we got inside a glass box we were tongue tied,” John added.

  They all laughed.

  “Then what did you do?” Liz demanded.

  “Why nothing of course,” Mr. Pomfret cried. “That is the whole beauty of us, we never can seem to do anything.”

  Jane dabbed at her eyes.

  “What could a woman say to a schoolboy without making him feel such a perfect fool?” she demanded ecstatically. “But I worried like mad then didn’t I John?”

  “Bet you couldn’t have,” Mr. Abbot said adoring.

  “Oh yes I did,” Jane assured him. “Tell me darlings isn’t this being such a huge success? Don’t you think it was a rather marvellous idea of mine to have them all at tables for four? As long as we insist on a general post with the coffee. You two men must start that ball rolling. Why I can hardly hear myself speak they make so terrific a racket!”

  “The greatest fun Jane,” Mr. Pomfret assured here. Indeed it would have been difficult for any such party to go better.

  “Well I was never told a thing,” Liz said.

  “Why you’re to stay here of course. I don’t intend us to move.”

  “I meant about sex Jane.”

  “No more was I,” this lady wailed.

  “And I’ve a flat of my own which I can promise hasn’t made all that difference.”

  “My dear you are between the two generations you fortunate angel! It’s these children I’m so worried over. Now John you started the argument. What d’you say to Liz?”

  “If our children were all like her we’d not need to discuss anything,” he laughed. “What’s your opinion Richard?” he asked a bit hastily.

  “Younger generation’s all right I suppose,” Mr. Abbot temporized.

  “But the sweet ones simply aren’t,” Mrs. Weatherby beamed at him. “You know my dear you’ve been a weeny shade selfish all your life not having children. Though I do love you for it.”

  �
��Know nothing about ’em,” he said.

  “Yet you should, a great goodlooking man like you! It’s unfair.”

  “When I said that, Jane, I didn’t infer every parent I’m acquainted with doesn’t come to me for advice,” he riposted.

  “Good for you Richard,” Mr. Pomfret cried. “You had us there.”

  The champagne they were drinking was plentiful.

  “And me too,” Liz claimed, as if she would not be left out.

  “In that case I expect my dears you two know far more than any of us, mothers and fathers that we are,” Mrs. Weatherby laughed. “We’re so ashamed we don’t dare ask except, though I say who shouldn’t, at some heavenly party like this.”

  “Oh no Jane,” Mr. Pomfret objected. “You go too far. Mary’s always been sweet. I’m ashamed of myself where she’s concerned.”

  “But you know very well what I didn’t mean darling,” Mrs. Weatherby cried. “Good heavens I simply never mean anything yet all my life I’ve got into such frightful trouble with my tongue.”

  “Certainly going like a house on fire,” Mr. Abbot said as he looked around the room.

  “Oh aren’t I fortunate to have such divine friends,” Jane cried. “Still, all joking apart my Philip really should take the plunge and launch off into a flat of his own.”

  “Can he afford it?” Miss Jennings wanted to be told.

  “Gracious me I only meant a little room somewhere. The poor sweet mustn’t be expected to fly before he’s able to walk should he? Darling Maud Winder who can be so naughty sometimes, her girl is on her own. They all do it now and it might have been everything for us if we had been allowed couldn’t that be so John?”

  Mrs. Weatherby found Richard Abbot gazing at her with a pleading expression.

  “What I’m trying to say,” she went on, “simply is if Philip won’t ask girls to the house then he should go somewhere they can just force themselves upon him.”

  “And if one fine day you found a mother ringing your door bell whose daughter he’d got in the family way?” Mr. Abbot asked.

  “Oh my dear don’t! But how barbarous of you Richard! Wouldn’t that be just the end! Yet I hardly think Philip could. Oh what have I said? I don’t mean what’s just slipped out at all. I’m sure he’s perfectly normal. It’s his principles you see. He’s too high principled to live!” Mrs. Weatherby turned a shy look on John Pomfret. “What d’you feel dear?” she suggested.

  “Well things are different with girls I suppose,” he said. “I think females ought to share with another woman friend.”

  “So does Maud’s Elaine.”

  “I know Jane,” Liz interrupted “but how does that alter matters? She’s no more than exchanging her mother for a girl her own age.”

  “The friend needn’t always be in,” Mrs. Weatherby said with a look of unease and distress.

  “Nor need a father or mother dear.”

  “Yes Liz how perfectly right you are as always. But I’m convinced they could arrange for one or the other to be out sometimes! Think of the horrid awkwardness of fixing that up with a parent!!”

  “It’s worse when the parent has to implore his child not to be home at certain hours,” John Pomfret said, a remark which was received in silence.

  “Awkward lives you family people do seem to lead,” Mr. Abbot propounded. They all roared their laughter.

  “How perfectly wicked of you Dick,” Mrs. Weatherby approved. Pomfret said “My trouble is I never seem to hear of any girl who wants to share a room or two, do you?”

  “Ought I d’you think?” Liz demanded.

  “My dear,” Mr. Pomfret hastened to assure her, “I didn’t—I mean I wasn’t fishing to get Mary in your flat.”

  “That just didn’t enter my head. What I meant John was, should I still continue to live alone? D’you believe that does make people talk even nowadays?”

  “How about me?” Abbot enquired heavily. “Can my reputation stand it?”

  “Now Richard,” Mrs. Weatherby remonstrated with some firmness. “Humour is not your long suit you know. I don’t think what you’re pretending a bit funny my dear.”

  “I can’t see why everything should be different for men,” Miss Jennings objected.

  “Because they’re expected to have women in and I imagine in all my innocence we’re not supposed to have men,” Jane said.

  “I know that of course,” Liz replied emptying her glass. “But I still don’t see the big blot. If there’s no more to it than low gossip then, while dreadful enough of course, should one change one’s whole life round just for that?”

  “I’d have thought there was a question of children,” Mr. Abbot explained. “Women having babies eh?”

  “Richard,” Mrs. Weatherby cried in great good humour but in a stern voice. “Do please don’t become coarse! Men can have children too can’t they?”

  “Dreadfully sorry and all that but girls do saddle themselves with the little things, have done since the start of time.”

  “Not Mary though,” Jane said.

  “No Richard’s perfectly right,” John assured them. “The danger must be greater as you yourself admitted when you confessed you’d not care to have an outraged mother at your bell, the heavy expectant daughter at her heels. After all Liz you can look after yourself.”

  “Can I?” she interjected and was ignored.

  “No what we were discussing,” Mr. Pomfret went on “was how to gently ease the fledglings from the downy nest. They have to learn to fly some time. I know Mary will be all right but Jane doesn’t want Philip a runner.”

  “Darling my boy’s not won a race in his life.”

  “Wounded bird, broken wing Jane,” Mr. Abbot explained.

  •

  The young people for Philip’s twenty firster consisted of Philip Weatherby Mary Pomfret Elaine Winder and the youth she had brought with her, Derek Wolfram. These four made up one of the round tables.

  Elaine had drawn attention to Miss Jennings to ask if her name was what it was. On being assured this could be so, she enquired whether Liz was a particular friend of any present; Philip looked at Mary, had no sign, kept silent, and Miss Winder then continued,

  “Well my children,” she said “the way some women do go on! I saw this with my own sore eyes. Mummy had taken me to a certain party. We brought along a bottle of champagne as a matter of fact which turned out to be a bit of a swindle because no one else had, in fact a woman old enough to be my grandmother just took one of vermouth. There’s nothing cheaper surely, I mean you have to pay more for orangeade don’t you? Anyway there was this person, Miss Jennings, right next me on a sofa where I’d managed to tuck myself in because there was not a soul for me about, it was one of these so called literary do’s, God no! I was listening to a conversation she was having with a type who’d sat himself down between, no friend of mine good Lord, I wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole but anyway there he was and he seemed to know her and that was that when suddenly I heard him say, ‘can’t I get you another drink’ and she mumbled something although I didn’t take particular notice at the time if you know what I mean. But to cut a long story short,” Miss Winder ended tamely, perhaps rather daunted by the degree the others were paying attention which possibly she was not always accustomed to receive, Miss Elaine Winder said “well anyway the lady was sozzled and Mummy who was in the doorway, saw her trip over the rug later and be carried off. Properly—no I don’t know it may have been rucked up and she’d caught her toe, I can’t tell, wish you’d been there Derek, Lord I had a lousy time. I say are we going to dance after?”

  •

  These round tables were large enough to allow one couple to talk without the other hearing what passed.

  Maybe it was on account of the champagne or possibly because Jane and John seemed to be rather wrapped up in one another but Dick Abbot said to Liz,

  “I say you know but you look perfectly ravishing tonight.”

  “I do?”

  “
You certainly are.”

  “Well thanks very much Richard,” she responded.

  “Makes me feel so embarrassed talking about the younger generation in front of you,” he continued. “Lord you’re a part of ’em yet we go on as if you weren’t there. Can’t think what you must make of us.”

  “You’re such a friendly person,” Miss Jennings announced. “Richard I feel so at home with you!”

  “You do? I’m honoured Liz. Nicest thing one can be told, that. But of course I haven’t the airs and graces.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by it! When I find a person’s cosy that’s all I ask. Because what are we here for? Life’s not so wonderful surely that we can afford to miss any single chance—not to help the lame dog over a stile, I don’t mean, it seems so disobliging to draw attention in that way somehow, I mean about being lame, as practically no one is except poor Arthur Morris; now where was I—oh yes what I’m trying to explain is we’ve each one of us simply got to stay careful for each other don’t you feel or we’re absolutely nothing, I mean lower than the lowest worm that crawls?”

  “Always say must respect the next man or Richard you’ve had it.”

  “But I can’t get the extraordinary phrase you used about your not having the social graces whatever that may add up to although I believe I understand quite well because of course real politeness which is only fellow feeling, isn’t it, is no more than that; all I’m trying to say, you see, is if a person’s cosy it’s perfection, true manners, what distinguishes us from animals.”

  “Jolly though when a cat curls up on one’s knee.”

  “Yes and then they go spitting in each other’s faces soon as the moon is up and they’ve found a brick wall. Oh one can’t trust them Richard, that is what’s so awful but you’ve only to look into their eyes don’t you agree, just like goats?”

  “Don’t know, you know. I’m very partial to a cat.”

  “Well take birds then. What could be sweeter than a robin redbreast yet there’s someone been studying them, did you read the book, and they’re the fiercest things alive he says, would you believe it?”