A Girl in Winter

by Philip Larkin

  “It’s smaller,” she admitted. “I did not know what to expect. I had looked in some books about England to see if I could find anything of it, but there was nothing. Really, I suppose I thought there would be—white cottages, a very old church, grass——”

  “A maypole, and everyone going hunting and eating roast beef,” Jane finished, throwing off the remark without deflecting her watchfulness. “Didn’t Robin tell you about it?”

  Katherine thought guiltily of long passages of description in English impatiently skimmed through and tossed aside. Words that baffled her she had not troubled to search out in a dictionary.

  “I had a shot at it,” Robin said. For some reason he carried an ash walkingstick with which he cut at nettles and peppery cow-parsley. “But I’m not very good at that sort of thing.”

  “Robin favours the guide-book style,” said Jane. “Although I don’t think we are in any guide-books.”

  “Jane’s favourite literature,” Robin retorted, with the nearest approach he made to sarcasm, “is written by people who travel about with a gun and a typewriter.”

  “I like to know about places.” Jane’s voice took on a curious, younger-sister note of defiance. “All you care about is the birthrate and the standard of living. I want to know what I should feel like if I lived there.”

  “You’d be bored.”

  Jane addressed herself solely to Katherine.

  “Does what you’ve seen of England fit in with what you’d read about it before you came? Of course, you’ve probably read a lot. But does it?”

  Katherine was rather bewildered at this.

  “Perhaps a little,” she said. “Not very much.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Robin. He came to a halt at the edge of the duckpond, and tucking his stick under his arm took a bread roll he had saved from breakfast out of his pocket and began breaking bits off to throw to the ducks. They hovered in an expectant semi-circle, rushing towards each new piece as it fell. “But you can connect it, you know. Take what you see now,” Jane muttered impatiently, and pulling up a grass-stalk to nibble, lounged aside to watch the ducks. Robin went on, breaking the bread neatly in his fingers. “Small fields, mainly pasture. Telegraph wires and a garage. That Empire Tea placard. And you know, don’t you, that Britain is a small country, once agricultural but now highly industrialized, relying a great deal for food on a large Empire. You see, it all links up.”

  Katherine looked at him doubtfully. The edge of his voice sounded as if the gap between his inner and outer thoughts had closed up, and that he was speaking sincerely. She wondered why. The ducks gobbled and made slapping noises.

  “That one at the back hasn’t had any,” said Jane. “Do you see? He makes little rushes but the others always get there first. Give him one to himself.”

  “He’s not trying,” said Robin. “He doesn’t really want one.”

  Nevertheless, he threw a bit, so accurately that it hit the duck on the head. Before it could realize what had happened, the crust had been gobbled up by another, streaking in with a flurry of speckled feathers.

  “Oh, give him another bit,” said Jane.

  “There’s no more.” Robin dusted his hands, and took his walking stick in hand again. “I don’t suppose he was hungry.”

  The ducks followed them hopefully as they turned away, the one that had been hit swimming with dazed dignity away from its fellows. Robin suddenly and unaccountably brought down his stick on the end of a twig that lay on the ground, causing it to leap up into the air, and then, before it had touched the ground, knocked it ten yards over a hedge, where chickens rushed towards it. “Boundary,” he said, looking at Katherine, who laughed, infected by his sudden irresponsibility. “Remember what day it is,” said Jane in mock reproof, but looked at him with a sort of futile contempt. Katherine saw them both very clearly for a moment: Robin standing erect in the sun, looking about him, bearing the stick authoritatively; Jane sallow and irritable, wanting to get back indoors. “It’s absurd,” she thought. “He’s not shy at all. But of course, why should he be?”

  They climbed a path leading through the churchyard, where flowers and seeding grasses mingled with the graves and the sound of singing came from the church. The pure light picked out the distance of woods and hills, as well as sharpening the immediate surroundings; the blue harebells, the roughness of the carved headstones, the insects half-way up the stalks of grass. At the end of the path was a wicket-gate, leading into a wide field that sloped down to the river, thickly covered with kingcups and buttercups. A few cattle stood in the shade of trees, their flanks shining, and watched the three of them pass through the gate and down the scarcely-worn path. As she walked behind the other two, Katherine noticed that the shiny flowers threw a yellow reflection upwards to the shadows of their clothes, making it seem as if they walked in a kind of splendour.

  *

  It was on the first day, too—or, at latest, the second—that they started to play tennis. Afterwards there were few days that passed without a game. Jane objected that it was far too hot, and Katherine hoped that this would separate Jane from Robin and herself, for she wanted to see how he behaved when they were alone, but when she came down after changing her shoes Jane had lounged out onto the court, and was throwing her racquet up and catching it, the strings glittering in the sun. It was obvious that she did not want to play, and Katherine admitted a fresh problem to her attention—why Jane was attaching herself to them so persistently. When she said anything, particularly to Robin, she was derisive and (as far as Katherine could tell) bored. Robin treated her politely, but with just the suspicion of off handedness that suggested that in his opinion he thought very little of her and had the whiphand. Yet though she didn’t look it, Jane must be at least four years the elder. Katherine sensed that there was a subdued conflict between them, though of course it might be only an elaborate family joke. Her ear was not quick enough yet to catch such fine shades of meaning. But since this situation existed, why should Jane prolong it by hanging about with people so much younger than herself?

  So far she did not expect an answer to such questions. All her attention was concentrated on picking up what was said.

  Before they started, Robin wound up the net. It appeared by implication that he was the best player, and so the first game was between the two girls. They went to the ends of the court and Robin stood by a net-post to call the score. As soon as she started to play, Katherine realized that she was wretchedly out of practice, and her clumsiness was aggravated by Robin’s presence. The racquet she had borrowed from Mrs. Fennel seemed unwieldy, and time after time her shots came off the wood. She tried to concentrate, knowing Jane to be an indifferent player, but only became over-enthusiastic, and lost the first two games. Then, as she made the first service of the third game, the court came suddenly into focus, and she was all at once confident. Six consecutive games went to her, giving her the set. She rejoined Robin and Jane at the sideline guiltily, wondering belatedly if she should not have allowed Jane to win a game or two more.

  Surprisingly, Jane did not seem annoyed.

  “Robin will give you a better game,” she said. “I’m going for a deckchair.”

  “Would you like to rest a bit?” asked Robin, touching the rubber grip on his racquet-handle.

  She refused, eager to see how he played. For she knew that in playing a game a person can display much of their character. To oppose her, even on the tennis-court, would force into action the personality he was concealing so well. Jane, for instance, had been quite different from what Katherine expected: not at all petulant or flashy. Instead, she had been timid and incapable of pressing an advantage until it was too late.

  So on the dark red tennis court, sunk below the garden and surrounded by high, rustling trees that glowed and rippled in the sun, Robin and Katherine faced each other and began to play, Jane sitting with hands clasped at her knees and calling the score in a clear voice, and using the family tennis-balls marked with a
purple F. Katherine determined to do her best. Clearly Robin was a better player than Jane: he hit hard and confidently, and the game was fast, for he swung the ball to and fro with long cross-shots. These kept her continually on the run and breathless. She began to panic. Robin won the first game, and the second, and also the third.

  The fourth he allowed palpably though without comment to go to her, presumably to avoid the embarrassment of a love-set. This annoyed her, and she determined to make him regret it: she had been studying his play, and now began to see where it was lacking. There was something mechanical about it. The first thing she noticed was that he invariably returned her serve to her backhand, even after she had demonstrated that it was not weak. Then she saw that he rarely looked at her before placing his shot, and that his cross-drives were largely a matter of habit. Finally, his game was limited. He never chopped or made piratical excursions to the net. His style was fast, neat, open, and unvarying.

  Once she had grasped this, it was easy to take the initiative and break up the pattern he imposed by soft centre-line serves, short returns, high lobs. This unsettled him, and he was soon rushing about as Katherine had done. After taking the score to five all she won seven-five. Jane clapped theatrically from her deckchair, a small sound in the afternoon.

  “Splendid,” she cried.

  “Here, I say,” said Robin. “What happened?” Coming up to him Katherine saw the disarrangement of his hair, his forehead wet with perspiration, and it pleased her to think she had caused it. Once more, as at the duckpond, she felt the opacity he presented to her was wearing somewhat thinner; she could sense his interest turned towards her, as a blind person might sense the switching-on of an electric fire.

  “She used her head,” said Jane.

  “You see,” said Katherine, “if I play as you play, I lose. So I play differently.”

  “Smart of you,” said Robin. “It makes all the difference. But I never could bother to think: I just swipe about.”

  “Swipe?”

  Jane explained, throwing a blazer over her shoulders, while Robin slackened the net. They went up onto the terrace where there were basket-chairs round a circular iron table. “Robin can still have his fresh air if we sit here,” she said. “I’ll fetch some lemonade. What a joke, your beating him like that.”

  “Will he be annoyed?”

  “Oh no, that would be bad manners.”

  Katherine sat down. The three weeks of her holiday, still almost untouched, receded like brilliant water. Here with the Fennels, time had a different quality from when she was at home. She could almost feel it passing slowly, luxuriously, like thick cream pouring from a silver jug. As she wasted it, it added to her. She watched Robin loop the net, and come out of the gate of the court, carrying his racquet and a box of balls; it was typical of him, she thought, to clear up after the game. In some respects he resembled the perfect butler. Oh, but he was hopelessly muddled in her mind, for as he gave a bound up the steps towards her, his delicate, wary face struck again deeply in her, and his dark half-tousled head carried itself with such simultaneous independence and attention—attention, what was more, to her—that she herself felt like a servant.

  “Staying here, are we?” he said, beginning to screw his racquet into its press. Her heart sank. She did not want to talk trivialities with him. She felt, as she had felt ever since she had first seen his photograph, that he could, if he wished, say something that would be more important to her than anything she had ever heard. What it would be she had no idea.

  “The court is very good,” she said.

  “Not too bad, is it? It’s wearing nicely.”

  Jane reappeared from the lounge, bearing on a tray the jug and glasses they had used when Katherine first arrived. “There’s still no ice,” she said. “And this is the last of the lemonade. There’s a certain amount of pith and pips and what-not settled to the bottom, but it can’t be helped. All comes from pure lemons.”

  “You didn’t strain it properly,” said Robin, holding up a glassful critically and then passing it to Katherine. “Why didn’t you use muslin?”

  “Couldn’t find any.” Jane brought a third chair to the table and sat on the other side of Katherine. “It won’t kill us. You can make the next lot, if you’re so fussy.”

  Robin smiled inattentively.

  3

  The house was surrounded by trees, and gradually she became accustomed to their continual whispering, and to many other things that had at first seemed strange. She came to know which rooms were behind which doors: Robin’s room, Jane’s room, Mr. Fennel’s study, filled with shelves of files, a set of the Stud Book and other similar volumes. These were nearly the only books in the house: the bookshelves in the lounge held only cheap novels, picked up on summer holidays, while Robin kept what few he had in his room, and Jane seemed to possess none. Katherine had glanced furtively into Robin’s room one afternoon, and noticed a small set of shelves, holding a dull assortment of accumulated birthday presents, school prizes, and books presumably self-chosen—the stories of great operas, a few paper-covered political works.

  She grew accustomed to the early morning sounds, when she was lying awake: soft treadings to and from the bathroom, Mr. Fennel’s car starting up outside. No longer was she shy of the housemaid, who usually passed some unintelligible remark to her in uncouth English when they met. She learned to be hungry enough by nine in the morning to face her breakfast.

  “Everything is very solid and comfortable,” she wrote in a letter to her best school friend. “In fact, rather like staying in a hotel. And one always feels on one’s best behaviour. There are four of them—the father and mother, whom I only see at mealtimes, but they’re very nice—and Robin and Jane. Robin is much better-looking than we’d imagined. I have a photograph I’ll show you when I come back. I wish I could describe him, but at the moment he rather mystifies me. I can’t understand why he asked me to come, because he doesn’t take any interest in me at all. Of course, he’s very polite and kind, and spends all his time with me, but you know the feeling. Like being conducted round a museum. He gives the impression of being miles away—not in a poetical sense, either. Jane is different. She must be twenty or so. She hangs about with us all the time—and does seem prepared to be friendly, but doesn’t know how to go about it. Sometimes she’s almost rude—as far as I can tell—but that’s probably just nerves. I don’t think I care much for her—and in any case I wish she’d find something better to do. If Robin and I were alone more, I might be able to find out more about him. There’s not too much time, because there’s someone else coming in my last week—a man this time. Some friend of the family.”

  Jane was a puzzle. Whatever they were doing—walking, cycling, playing tennis—she was with them, and she always seemed out of temper, but without the strength of character to propose any alteration in their plans. Robin made no comment on her presence. Gradually Katherine evolved an explanation, which was that Robin had definitely enlisted her help to deal with the visitor. It was hard to imagine him saying openly: “This girl is coming on Saturday for three weeks; will you help keep her amused, because I shall be bored stiff.” But no doubt he did make the request in more equivocal language; Katherine felt sure there was another side to Robin’s nature that might prompt such an appeal. And Jane had listlessly agreed.

  This was not a flattering solution. One day when they came in from a walk on which Jane had developed a blister and a bad temper, Katherine thought of another one: in England it would not be proper for Robin and herself to go about alone together, and Mrs. Fennel had asked her daughter discreetly to act as a chaperon. This evaded the weak point of her other idea, which was that in her opinion Jane would not give two hoots for anything Robin asked her to do. And it was much more flattering. It made her feel warm inside, even though it was probably only a meaningless English convention; the English were, after all, very formal, she remembered, having once laboriously read half a novel by Jane Austen.

  But J
ane was still a puzzle.

  One morning she brought Katherine her cup of tea. Up till then the maid had brought it regularly, and the taste of it on a clean palate had decided Katherine finally that she did not like the stuff. In fact, she had contracted the habit of pouring most of it down her washbowl when the maid had gone. Also it embarrassed her to be waited on. She tried to cover her confusion by looking as if she had just woken up.

  “Good morning, and how are you this morning?” said Jane with mechanical sarcasm. She had a dressing-gown drawn shapelessly round her, not a smart one: it looked like a relic of childhood. She put the pale blue cup and saucer on a small bedside table.

  “Oh, very well,” said Katherine, struggling up dazedly into a sitting position. As she did so a disconcerting thing happened. The corner of her pillow pressed down on the rim of the cup and neatly overturned it, flooding the table-cloth and part of the pillow and sheets with tea.

  She was speechless.

  Jane, who had turned away, looked round at the noise. “What—” she began. “Oh, glory.” She started to laugh, and once she had started seemed unable to stop. When she laughed, she resembled Robin much more and was, therefore, better-looking: the irritable expression vanished from her face and she looked attractive and carefree.

  Crimson, Katherine floundered about in an effort to kneel up. “But it’s awful—I’m so sorry. Everything is ruined——”

  Jane sat on the eiderdown, gripping the end of the bed in order to laugh better. “That’s funny,” she gurgled. “Too funny. Forgive my manners. How did you do it?”

  “But really I couldn’t help it——” Katherine stared incredulously at Jane; then, convinced of the sincerity of her laughter, calmed down. “I don’t know! First the cup was there—then it was—everywhere… But there’s nothing to laugh at!” Jane had gone off again. “The bed all ruined——”