Island in the Sun

by Alec Waugh

  “Yes.”

  “That applies to us, to you and me. We’ve got to make use of our talents. To turn four talents into eight, then in ten years time you’ll find yourself wearing armor too.”

  He said it lightly, anxious that it should not seem a sermon. You never knew what things affected a young man. You might send him a long, carefully thought out letter for his confirmation and he would forget that you had ever written it, while the casual remark of a stranger might make a deep impression. On his own tenth birthday, a schoolmaster for whom he had no personal regard had said, “What, ten today Grainger. You’re in double figures. When I’m batting and get my tenth run I say to myself ‘Now I’ve really started.’ Ten looks so much more than nine in the score book. It’s a real innings.”

  He had thought that over carefully that afternoon. He had thought it over during the days that followed. Ten looked much more than nine. He was in double figures. His innings had started. The time had come for him to work really hard.

  “So that’s what you’ve got to do, young man,” he said.

  4

  The band was playing when Grainger arrived at Government House, but only half a dozen couples were dancing. The dining room had been cleared and a buffet set under the royal portraits, but no one had patronized it yet and the drawing room was half full. Grainger looked round him, wondering which group to join. Then he saw Mavis. At the same time she noticed him. Her eyes brightened. As he walked toward her, she moved from the group that she was in.

  “Shall we dance?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Let’s talk a minute. It’s years since we saw each other.”

  It was barely a fortnight. Yet it seemed a long time to her. He was touched and warmed.

  “What have you been doing? Have you had any thrilling cases?”

  “Nothing sensational in that line. But something exciting has happened to me, personally.”

  “You’re going to be married?”

  “Heavens no, no likelihood of that. I’m going to be Attorney General.”

  “Grainger, how wonderful.”

  Her delight was too spontaneous to be feigned.

  “How marvelous for you. What a difference it’ll make. There’s nothing you can’t do now.”

  Two hours ago in his father’s dining room, he had felt he could not talk about his appointment because he had known that their reaction to it would jar upon his nerves. It would mean, he had known, something different to them from what it did to him, but he had not attempted to examine that difference. Now sitting by Mavis he knew what it was. His parents would see the event in terms of prestige and of emoluments. So did he, too, of course, but there was another aspect, in the last analysis a more important aspect of which he could not have spoken to them, but of which he could to Mavis.

  “It’s my chance to show the Santa Martans that one of their own people is as effective as any European. But I want to make it more than that, I want to create in these people a respect for law, a respect for justice. I want them to realize that the law is something that they have created themselves for their own use, for their own protection, that the law is something which they can alter themselves through their own elected representatives. They must cease to think of the law as something imposed upon them by a European master. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “There’s so much a lawyer can do. I’ve heard Americans say that that great judge of theirs in the eighteen twenties, Mr. Justice Marshall, did as much for the country as the actual framers of the Constitution by the decisions with which he interpreted and illuminated the Constitution. A single lawyer giving honest and wise decisions can create a new mentality among a people. I’ve a chance of doing that.”

  His voice was glowing. His eyes shone. In such a spirit, she felt, had knights in the high days of chivalry set out on a crusade.

  “You’ll do it,” she said. “You’ll do it.”

  “Let’s dance. We must get this party moving,” a voice was saying. It was Euan Templeton. She rose. She was grateful for the interruption. Euan had come at the right moment. Anything that followed would have been an anticlimax. She followed Euan onto the dancing floor.

  “Will you buy a house of your own when you get back?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “Not till we decide how we want to live. I don’t even know what kind of a job I’ll find. There’ll be at least two years at Oxford first. It’s a good idea to live from day to day as long as one is able to.”

  “You’re very wise.”

  They discussed his plans amicably as they danced. It was strange to remember that only a month ago there had been that thing between them. How trivial and shallow it had been. And now there was a kind of cousinship between them; they would have the same brother-in-law. Not she supposed that she would see much of Euan, when he and Jocelyn had settled down in England. If she herself went over ever, there would be an exchange of letters, a weekend invitation, a theater in London; but they would not have much to talk about once they had finished reminiscing and asking what had happened to old so-and-so.

  You couldn’t remake a friendship in a different setting. So many West Indians had told her that. You met English visitors over here, you entertained them, established friendship with them, exchanged Christmas cards, “You must come over here and see us,” they insisted. But when you went, it was always the same thing. They were away or busy; they sandwiched you between two important dates. You felt you had been a nuisance and the memory of a pleasant acquaintanceship was spoilt. It was not that the English were inhospitable, but that they had lives of their own, and whereas they fitted into one’s life here, one didn’t fit into their lives there. Noel Coward had written an amusing play Hands Across the Sea about it. Perhaps when she went back to England, she would not even bother to let Euan know. She would not like to think of his saying to Jocelyn afterward, “Mavis was a lot of fun over there, but do you think she’d contribute much to that house party we’d arranged for Ascot.” Leave things in their setting. Treat friendships as you treated love affairs. That was the wise technique.

  “I suppose your father will be retiring when he’s finished his appointment here,” she said.

  “If they consider him a success, he might be sent somewhere more important. Kenya or Malaya. He’s not old yet. He’d hate doing nothing.” The music stopped.

  “What about a drink now,” he said.

  “If you could get your guests toward the buffet, it would start things moving.”

  Mavis looked round the room. Sylvia and Maxwell were grouped with the Kellaways in the center of the drawing room. “Let’s break that up,” she said.

  She slipped her arm through Sylvia’s. “We both need champagne, at least I do. You look as though you were on the crest already.”

  “Only two swizzles before dinner. Nothing during it.”

  “Really?”

  There was a glow, an alertness about Sylvia that she had rarely seen during these last months.

  “One of the things about living in the country is that when you come in to town you do enjoy yourself,” Sylvia said. “Two years ago I was a blasé party-goer. Now I’m not.”

  Wasn’t she? Had she been? That did not square with Mavis’ recollection. Sylvia had brought a zest to parties in those old days that she herself had lacked. It was recently, not before, that Sylvia had seemed bored. Mavis remembered how limp and listless her sister had looked at the Nurses’ Dance.

  “You look as though something had happened to you since I saw you last.”

  “I can assure you nothing has.”

  She said it with a laugh, but she knew she lied. She had been transformed, rejuvenated, recreated. As the music began, she turned to Maxwell. She raised her eyebrows and he nodded. He danced superbly. His dancing was a form of courtship. He did not hold her close. But the touch of his hand upon her shoulder was electric. Each fingertip was tingling. Soon, soon she thought, we sha
ll be alone together; she sighed when the music stopped. They had not spoken as they danced. She was grateful to him for that. Words interfered with feelings. He had made no reference to the change of heart between them. She was grateful to him for that too. There was no need for words. Both knew, in the deep core of their beings.

  Sylvia looked around her. Jocelyn and Mavis were chattering with Doris Kellaway. She had no wish to join them. That evening at the club after the Governor’s cocktail party, she had felt resentful because she could not join the young people’s group on the veranda and share their gossip. She did not want to now. She had outgrown that, she had outgrown them. She looked for a group of the young married set. That was where she belonged. She felt married now, as she hadn’t then, and after all in the truest sense she hadn’t been. She hadn’t known what marriage was, the belonging to a man, possessing and possessed.

  “Let’s join the Des Voeuxes,” she said.

  “This must be a great night for you,” Mavis said to Jocelyn.

  “But of course.”

  Jocelyn smiled, aware of the dramatic irony of the moment. Yes, it was a great night for her, but not in the way that anybody guessed. She had made up her mind now. She would live in the moment, savoring a happiness which would know no tomorrow. Euan came across to her.

  “I’ve deserved this, haven’t I,” he said.

  She knew to what he referred. The dance he had just completed with the former Attorney General’s wife.

  “You’ve done your duty nobly. I was most impressed,” she said.

  He held her closely, his cheek resting against hers. He had a fresh, wholesome smell. Why was she in love with him? Or rather why did she love him? For she loved him, more than she was in love with him. She did not know him well. He was not quite real to her. Perhaps he was not quite real to himself; perhaps he had not become a real person, yet. He stood for certain things, cleanliness, decency, breeding: an essentially honest and honorable attitude to life. You could not imagine him doing anything that was not straight. He could not lie, he could not cheat. But life had not formed him yet. Perhaps that was his charm: his malleability. The knowledge that you would make an impress on him, that he would be a different person because of you.

  I shall watch him, she thought, across an ocean, follow his career, see photographs of him, note how he’s changing, what he does, thinking to myself “Perhaps it’s because of me that he’s like that.” He won’t know what I’ve done, but I shall.

  That was perhaps why one wanted to give him things, to do things for him, because he was so essentially worth while, because one day he would be a person of importance, because what one gave would be valued, would not be wasted. Wasn’t that one of the things one was so afraid of, that the gifts one gave, the gifts of value to oneself would not be valued, might just as well never have been made; were so much water poured through a sieve? He must have nothing from me that won’t add to him, she thought, nothing that he won’t be able to look back on happily, without regret, with pride. I must give him all I have, the best of me, in the best way possible.

  “Darling, I’ve an idea,” she said. “It’s hard for us to see as much of one another as we’d like, in the way we’d want. We’re so hedged round here. Couldn’t you say to your father that you’d like to see something of the bigger islands, Trinidad for example? I could tell my father that I need to have my teeth done. My dentist’s in Barbados. I could take the opportunity of going there, while you were away. Then you could get bored with Trinidad and think you’d like to see Barbados. You could arrive there while I was still there. Don’t you think that’s an ingenious scheme.”

  She had no qualms of modesty. The device would not have occurred to him. He could not know that it was the standard practice in the Caribbean, that “having ones teeth fixed in Barbados” was a joke line.

  Her parents seated across the room, noticing Euan’s face light up, turned to one another.

  “You saw that?”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “They really do seem happy together, don’t they.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about them.”

  “And Sylvia seemed happier this evening than I’ve ever seen her.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Maxwell seems satisfied with his second election speech.”

  “I’ve heard from other sources that it was very good.”

  “Do you think he will be elected?” she asked.

  “It’s not unlikely.”

  “Will that make things awkward for you?”

  “I don’t see why it should. He’ll be on the same side as I am as often as not. He’s nothing against me. At least I don’t think he has. He hasn’t gone into this to even out a score. It was only a need for self-assertion. He had his brother on his mind. That’s been his trouble all along.”

  “I think you’re right.” She paused, thoughtfully. For so long Maxwell had been a problem to her. Now, suddenly it seemed as though that problem had been solved. And Jocelyn, that was a responsibility relieved. She had always had a guilt consciousness with regard to Jocelyn. She was quit of that now. She looked at her husband fondly.

  “It’s good isn’t it, being on our own again, just the two of us.”

  5

  The invitation card had read 9.30 to 12, but it was close on one before the governor signaled to the band to play the national anthem. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Why break it up? He stood on the doorstep, bidding the guests good-night. It was a night he had looked forward to often: a night of which he and his wife had dreamed; their son’s engagement party. In a sense it was bitter that she was not here to share it with him, in another he wondered if he should not be glad; would she be happy about this marriage, would she be thinking he had acted wisely, was acting wisely. In early days they had had, he and she, the occasional flare-ups of disagreement that occur inevitably between two young people, but they had always been in accord on final issues. Would they have been here?

  The Fleurys were coming toward him now. How like her mother Jocelyn was. His heart gave a sudden quirk. He might very easily have fallen in love with Betty Erskine. She was one of the half dozen girls round whom he had woven dreams during the long nights in the trenches. It had been a shock to him when he had read of her engagement. He remembered the night well. They were in a quiet part of the line, refitting after the third battle of Ypres, where they had lost half a company in the mud of Passchendaele. There would be no more offensives for a while. He was due for leave. He had gone down to the ration dump with his runner. He had stood with a light heart waiting for the tinkle of the pack mule’s harness.

  There was a large mail for him. “You must be writin’ to yourself, sir,” the driver said. Half a dozen letters, proofs of the good time that was waiting him next month. The largest was from his father. He left it till the last. It was full of gossip. “Several local engagements,” he had read. “The one that’ll interest you most is Julian Fleury’s to Betty Erskine.”

  He had let the letter fall onto his table. It was only now, when he had lost her, that he realized how much she had meant to him, how much his hopes for the next leave had been bound up with her. How blind, how slow he had been. Julian Fleury and Betty Erskine. Julian had been wounded in May at Bullecourt, had gone home on sick leave, in the role of a wounded hero: his courtship had been framed against an English summer.

  He called his runner. “We’ll go round the line,” he said.

  It was a bleak but rainless night: the dark stretch of shell holes, lit every few moments by the flickering incandescence of a Very light matched his mood.

  Three weeks later a splinter from a chance shell tore through his thigh. As he was driven, drowsy under a shot of morphia, to the casualty clearing station, he thought of what would have happened if he and Julian could have changed roles, if he had been wounded in May and Julian in November. How little he had guessed that by a turn of fortune’s wheel, Betty’s grandchildren would be hi
s own.

  The memory of that long, numbed drive to the C.C.S. was very actual to him as he stood now on his doorstep, wishing his guests good-night. How like her mother Jocelyn was, no trace of Julian. He put his arm round her shoulder.

  “This is a very happy day for me,” he said. “When I was Euan’s age your mother was to me the ideal English girl. You look so exactly like her that you might be her. I can’t begin to tell you how happy and proud I am for Euan’s sake.”

  He tightened the pressure: to his surprise he found that his voice was trembling. She looked up quickly, hesitated, then raised herself upon her toes and, for the first time, kissed his cheek.

  “You’re a dear,” she whispered.

  There was a mist before his eyes. He did not know whose hand he was shaking next.

  6

  Mavis, standing in the courtyard, waited for Jocelyn to come through. Her parents had not been invited. It was as far as possible a young people’s party. She had come with the Fleurys.

  “You’ll probably make some date there,” Sylvia had said. She had half expected that she would herself. Parties usually led to other parties, particularly when there was a moon: suggestions had been made to her, but she had met them barely quarter way. She was preoccupied; for her the climax of the evening had come at the beginning in that talk with Grainger.

  She watched the guests file out. This might have been her party if she had played her cards cleverly. She smiled wryly. She was glad that she was not the kind of girl who played cards cleverly. She preferred to be the girl to whom a man like Grainger Morris brought the first news of his success; she was glad to be the way she was.

  7

  Back at his parents’ home Grainger sat on the veranda, tired but not sleepy, as he had sat only a few weeks earlier on the night of the Governor’s cocktail party. What would he have thought then, could he have foreseen that within five weeks this high honor would have come to him. How little he had suspected when he had left home that morning that he would be sitting here in this mood tonight. As long as he lived he would remember this evening. Looking back from ten, twenty, thirty, maybe fifty years, he would see this night as the beginning, the crucial date in his career. From what ultimate point would he look back toward this evening?