by Nina Bawden
He looked at me half-shyly, his great, red face looming like a minor sun over his broad, astrakhan collar.
I said – I didn’t think he’d resent it – ‘Was it after that you and Georgie – I mean, was it after that you left Julia?’ I was rather touched by the story; the chivalrous young tycoon and his shy typist. Though it didn’t somehow, seem very real. Unlike Julia, neither Augustus nor Georgiana were the sort of people you could easily envisage twenty years earlier.
He said, ‘Oh – it wasn’t like that,’ and looked bothered, either because he wished he hadn’t told me or because he couldn’t, really, remember how it had been. Then he said, ‘I suppose I may have thought somebody ought to look after her,’ and guffawed in a breezy, social manner, dismissing the possibility of any more tender emotion, dismissing the ghosts of himself and his love. He said, looking out over the lake, casually avoiding my eye, ‘I remember one winter when I was a boy, we had a terrible frost and we lugged braziers onto the ice – we had them to keep frost off the apple trees – and lit fires.’
The others were on the lake now. Veronica had skated before; with red cheeks and swirling, red skirt, she looked like some idealized portrayal of winter: Jay was nervous, shivering like a dog, but Veronica held him up, encouraging him. Louise was cautious, poking at the ice and laughing breathlessly. They had made a threesome with Veronica in the middle, supporting their unsteady strokes. On the far side of the lake, Georgiana was swinging Philip in a triumphant circle. We could hear their voices and the gritty sound of their skates over the thin powdering of snow. Philip collapsed, laughing and coughing as the lake and the black trees and the white snow went on turning about him.
Augustus said, ‘This is a splendid treat for her. Having a boy to spoil. D’you think he’d like to come for a week-end some time, or a day or two in the holidays, perhaps?’
‘I expect he’d love it.’
‘His father wouldn’t mind?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘She likes children,’ he said unnecessarily.
‘Yes.’
Jay had fallen. Louise and Veronica had gone down with him; laughing, they got up, dusting the snow from their clothes. The sun had gone down behind a bank of black pines but trailing pink streaks of cloud remained in the sky. Jay was still sitting on the ice. His laughter, high-pitched, excited as Philip’s, came to us across the lake.
Augustus said, ‘He looks young to have a child that age.’
‘He’s twenty-eight. Africans marry young.’
‘I suppose so.’ He jabbed at the snow with his stick. ‘Does Veronica see much of him?’
‘No more than Julia. She’s very taken with him.’
‘He’s very likeable. But I meant, otherwise than at your house.’
‘I’ve no idea. What makes you think she does?’
‘She’s said so. She’s talked about him. Continually.’ He grinned, without amusement. ‘I gathered they’d been meeting quite a bit – at some coffee-bar or other. It sounds harmless enough, but I don’t know that Reggie would particularly care for it.’
The polite warning in his voice was clear. I said, ‘Maybe not. But I’m not Jay’s nanny, nor Veronica’s either. Julia’s looking after her.’
He said dryly, ‘Julia’s not responsible. She knows quite well how Reggie would feel if he knew, but she’s equally capable of encouraging Veronica. She’s encouraged her already, hasn’t she, bringing her round to your house so often?’
I hadn’t thought of it like that. I said, ‘Julia’s not malicious.’
‘No. But she’s a mischief-maker. Like a child – she likes to see how far she can go. It amuses her, I daresay, knowing Reggie’s feelings, to watch the situation. But she won’t stand by anything. If Reggie makes trouble, she won’t take the blame.’
‘I’m not frightened of Reggie,’ I said impatiently.
He sighed. ‘Of course not. But that’s not the point, is it?’ He looked at me. ‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong. But Reggie would think there was. He may be right or wrong – though personally I’d not be too keen on my daughter getting involved with a married black man, either. But Veronica will suffer if Reggie makes trouble.’ He smiled at me confidently. ‘I’d like you to have a word with Nbola.’
‘And say what? Keep away from my niece-by-marriage or her father will be after your black hide?’
Augustus’s smile became colder, but remained unruffled.
‘I don’t think you need put it quite like that, do you?’
Georgiana skated up to us – or floated, rather: she had the air of a human Hovercraft, skimming the ice on a cushion of air. I realized suddenly that the extraordinary grace of her movements gave credence to Shirley’s story about the Italian count. She was breathless and rosy; a faint vapour rose from her skin and misted her spectacles. ‘You shouldn’t stay out too long with your chest, dear,’ she said.
She sat on a stone bench and he bent ponderously to help her with her skates. They went towards the house together; plump Mrs Tiggy Winkle with Augustus hunched over her like some large, benevolent, asthmatic bear. The agreeable Beatrix Potter image was deceptive, though. Augustus and Reggie – and Prout and Hitler and Dr Verwoerd – were one and the same. Augustus differed from them in that he was politer, more dignified, cleverer – that bit about a married black man was a persuasive refinement neither Reggie nor Prout would have thought of – but his basic assumptions were the same. The Red Menace, the Yellow Peril, the Chosen Race – now, presumably, the Black Threat: for Augustus, too, the vast proportion of the human race were dehumanized. Even in his own country there would be the insignificant, the people-not-of-his-sort: charwomen, factory workers, bus conductors, electricians, plumbers, builders. Confident, masterful, sure of his superiority, Augustus was cut off from the majority of mankind.
I walked towards the others. Jay was limping. ‘One of these savage women has wounded me with her skate,’ he said cheerfully.
They supported him on either side and helped him into the house. Blood had soaked through his woollen sock; he sat on a chair in the hall while Louise rolled up his trouser leg and Veronica went for water and disinfectant. The cut was deep but clean. The two women knelt in front of him; Veronica held the basin while Louise bathed the cut. Dirty snow puddled round them on the polished floor. Jay winked at me. ‘I feel like a pasha, being waited on by two charming ladies,’ he said.
Veronica sat back on her heels. ‘I wish I could be a nurse,’ she said, with one of those huge sighs young girls sometimes give – fetched up from their boots, or their souls. ‘I’d rather do that than be a typist, tap-tap-tapping in some dreary office all day long.’
It was impossible to be cynical. She looked so beautiful – her cheeks glowing with cold and exercise – so young, so innocently earnest.
Louise glanced at her and said, with unsympathetic abruptness, ‘Bandages and bed-pans. You’d never stick it.’
She got up from her knees and bore the basin and the cotton-wool away to the kitchen.
Veronica flushed darkly. Jay smiled at her. ‘Why not then? It is a fine profession.’
She scowled. ‘I expect I’d be absolutely rotten at it, really. Dad says I never stick at anything.’
I said, ‘Louise was only making a silly joke.’
‘No, she wasn’t. She despises me,’ she said in a sullen voice. A large tear appeared at the corner of her eye and trickled sadly down her cheek.
Jay leaned forward and lifted her chin gently. ‘You could stick at anything if you wanted to enough.’
His manner was tender and encouraging, he spoke as to a hurt child. For a moment she continued to stick out her lower lip, looking very babyish, sulky and despairing. Then she smiled reluctantly and moved her chin so that her cheek rested against the palm of Jay’s hand. From this position she looked up at him, adoringly.
Augustus said, from the end of the hall, ‘For goodness sake girl, get up.’
The peremptory harshne
ss of his tone made his interpretation of the scene vulgarly apparent. He qualified it almost at once by adding in a forced, jocular way, ‘You ought to know better at your age, sitting on the floor in all that wet,’ but the message had got through. Veronica scrambled to her feet, her face flaming.
Augustus cleared his throat and said, to Jay, ‘Louise said you got your leg cut. I hope she’s fixed it up all right.’
Jay did not look up. He appeared to be staring intently at Augustus’s boots. ‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ he said.
If it had not been for this monstrously stupid incident, I might well have spoken to Jay. There was just enough sense in what Augustus had said; I had no desire to see the girl get into some foolish row with her father. But Augustus’s behaviour had made me angry – in fact, put me into such a white-hot rage that I could hardly be civil to him for the rest of the visit. However sensible his reasoning, it was prejudice that informed it. I saw no reason why I should pander to his grotesque vision of life.
I told Louise so, confident that she would back me up. Her attitude surprised me.
‘I don’t see why you’re so angry, Tom. I thought father was very nice today.’
‘He gave us a good lunch.’
She sighed. ‘Is it so unreasonable that he should worry about his granddaughter meeting a married man on the sly?’
‘Don’t be vulgar. She’s not been secretive about it, apparently.’
‘Hasn’t Jay?’ She looked at me in the glass – she was sitting at the dressing-table, brushing her hair before going to bed – and her lips tightened as if she had scored a point.
‘Jay doesn’t have to tell us everything he does. Is it important that he and Veronica have been meeting each other for coffee occasionally?’
She twisted round on the stool and looked at me directly.
‘Tom, tell me something. If you knew Veronica had been seeing some other friend of ours – some married Englishman, say, would you think it so unimportant?’
‘I see your point. The answer is that I would be just as embarrassed at the idea of asking him about it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No’
She gave a little laugh and said conversationally, ‘Tom, I do love you.’ The atmosphere relaxed. She picked up her brush and turned back to the glass; I stood watching her.
‘Tell me something, now. Do you think Veronica is in love with Jay?’
She frowned, as if she didn’t much like the idea. ‘She’s got to be in love with somebody. Nobody commonplace. At her age, boredom and love don’t go together.’
‘Do they at thirty-four?’
Her eyes met mine pensively. ‘Sometimes.’
I didn’t like that very much but I smiled to show a sporting spirit and put my hands on her shoulders. ‘So she loves Jay because he’s exotic and different?’
‘And because he’s black.’
I hesitated. ‘Do you really think so?’
She was hesitant too. ‘Yes – you know, once, when I was about her age I suppose, I saw a film about a white woman and a Chinese bandit. The bandit fell in love with the white woman – she was a general’s daughter, or something – and the bandit said, “would it offend you to be loved by a man of my race?” I remember it gave me a terrific thrill.…’ She glanced at me and blushed faintly. ‘I wonder – I suppose it’s the idea of condescending to someone who is stronger than you are. Like Cophetua and the beggar maid in reverse, or – or Lady Chatterley and Mellors. Yes, that’s more like it – didn’t she, really, enjoy the idea of being raped by an inferior?’
I said, stilted because embarrassed, ‘It seems a peculiar kind of sexual fantasy.’
‘Why? Isn’t sex supposed to be at the bottom of all colour feelings?’
She was staring at me, her cheeks very pink. I had meant ‘peculiar’ literally, but it seemed stupid to upset her by pointing this out.
So I said, ‘Do you think Veronica really feels like this?’
‘I was a young girl once,’ she said in an offended voice and picked up her hairbrush.
Chapter Seven
‘She just turned up one day in the coffee-bar he goes to,’ Louise said on Tuesday evening. ‘Since then, she’s gone often. She persuaded Jay to take her to the pictures the other afternoon. He thinks she’s playing truant from her classes.’
‘Why hasn’t he told us?’
‘Embarrassed, I suppose. What could he say? It’s clear she’s running after him. Little tart.’
That was unlike Louise. ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘Can’t you remember the sort of thing you did at seventeen?’ (Hanging round the local railway station for the loved one to emerge, shadowing him home, dodging with thumping heart into a shop doorway whenever he turned round.) She had told me this once; I expected her to remember it, and smile.
‘Girls aren’t shy nowadays,’ she said – darkly, like a woman of fifty. She stabbed her needle into the red sock – Jay’s – that she was darning. ‘Veronica knows what it’s all about. I daresay she carries contraceptives in her handbag.’
‘I read that article last Sunday too. We read too much. Veronica’s only a child,’ I said, with a twinge of doubt.
‘Of course you’d be taken in. You’re getting into your starry-eyed middle age,’ Louise said. There was a satisfied venom in her manner that might have been funny if she had not been clearly so angry. ‘But you can’t expect Jay to be. You can’t expect him to think of her as a child. In Africa, girls of seventeen are wives and mothers.’
‘Did he say that?’
‘More or less.’ She bit off a length of wool. She could never find a pair of scissors or a thimble. (Or stamps, or Sellotape or her fountain pen: ‘Now where has it got to,’ she would mutter distractedly, investing inaminate objects with a mysterious, malicious life.) ‘I said we had a quaint attitude towards young girls in England. We respected their virtue – at least if they belonged to the right social class – and he’d better get used to it.’
‘That was a bit mean, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’ Her voice was dry, uncertain.
‘I thought something was up.’ I should have known. The signs had all been there: the odd, strained silence when I came home late this evening, Louise’s pink-faced brusqueness at supper and Jay’s hang-dog look. He had gone unusually early to bed. ‘I might have guessed you’d had a row,’ I said, and smiled: it didn’t, really, seem very serious.
But tears stood in Louise’s eyes. ‘I’m a bitch,’ she said with sudden, sad intensity. ‘Though I didn’t mean – I was just afraid he’d get the wrong idea if she threw herself at him. He can’t be expected to know about English girls. But it went wrong. He stuck up for her, like you, and – and I got angry and he got upset.…’ She sniffed, fumbling for her handkerchief. As usual, she couldn’t find it. I threw her mine and she blew her nose and said in a deliberate, sad, little-girl voice, ‘Now I suppose he’ll hate me.’
‘Rubbish,’ I said bracingly. ‘Can I have my handkerchief back, please? Thank you.’ I looked at her, hunched-up, rednosed, tearful-eyed and sorry for herself and felt impatient, like an adult called in to settle a child’s squabble. ‘I can’t think why you started it. You know Jay.’ I thought of his hurt bewilderment and grew angry. ‘You know quite well he’s not the kind to take advantage of a silly girl.’
She bridled. ‘I simply thought,’ she said with slow, sarcastic emphasis, ‘that one of us should take some responsibility for what might happen to our sixteen-year-old niece.’
‘Seventeen.’
She sighed deeply and turned her head, presenting a cold, martyred profile.
‘You weren’t really worried about Veronica, were you?’ I said curiously.
‘Of course.’ She sat rigid, cold as marble.
Her righteous dishonesty maddened me. ‘I thought you said she could look after herself,’ I snorted triumphantly. ‘Contraceptives in her handbag!’
The suffering statue came to life. She turned on me, e
yes blazing. ‘I suppose you’re always so consistent.’
I braced myself for an onslaught of home-truths but she jumped to her feet, upsetting the small table beside her and knocking her empty coffee cup into the hearth. The breakage distracted her. Though anger bubbled up inside her like a volcanic spring all she said was. ‘Oh – oh, you—’ It was the last thing she said that evening. She reddened and rushed from the room. I heard her laying the breakfast table with a great clatter of dishes. After what seemed a suitable interval I followed and asked, in a mild, placating tone, if I could help. She didn’t answer. I said, would she like a warm drink? She tossed her head.
‘Ordeal by silence?’ I suggested. She flashed a look of cold dislike and swept past me, up the stairs. I went into the kitchen and heated milk with sugar and brandy, her favourite night-time tipple. She was already in bed when I carried it up to her, lying still as a corpse. Her hair was scraped into a white hair-net arrangement and her face was white with grease, completing the mortuary effect. I put the glass down on the night table and said, ‘Louise,’ but she didn’t move a muscle. I said, ‘There’s no arsenic in it,’ but her mouth didn’t twitch. I undressed, padded to the bathroom, came back: she still hadn’t touched the milk.
