by Alec Waugh
“That sounds highly ingenious.”
“It does. I’ve never quite understood how it worked. I’ve asked a couple of doctors about it. They couldn’t help me. But my friend was confident. He told me about it more than once. He called it his death insurance policy, but the point is that when the time came, he didn’t use it. Either it didn’t work out, or he lacked the courage. At any rate he was hammered. My own belief is that he changed his mind between the taking of the first pill and the second. There was too long an interval. There’s the objection about swimming out to sea. You’d start swimming back or you’d shout for help. I believe there’s only one way to do it. Something instantaneous that gives you no time to think, jumping off a skyscraper, or taking strychnine. Think of all the people who start taking sleeping pills, but don’t take quite enough.”
“You seem to have given the matter a good deal of thought.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“I haven’t.”
The denial came from Margot. It was quite a while since she had spoken. She was a silent but an easy guest. Though she rarely spoke, she was part of the conversation. She was alert and interested, looking from one to the other as each spoke. Maxwell was pleasantly conscious of her presence, and much of the two men’s conversation was addressed to her. They treated her as a chairman.
They turned to her now, with curiosity.
“Do you mean to say that you’ve never considered the possibility of suicide: that you’ve never wondered how you would do it if you found you had to?” Archer asked.
“No. Why should I? I’ve always known that things would turn out all right.”
“Have you all that faith in your Obeah man?”
She shook her head.
“It isn’t that. It’s just that I just know.”
She was seated on the sand with her heels crossed under her. Her smile was candid. It was probably perfectly true, thought Archer, suicide never had occurred to her as a solution for her problems. She knew that things would turn out right. She was a direct, straightforward person; so straightforward that when he thought of her in terms of mystery, of dark, jungle secrets, it was his own complicated self that was seeing its reflection in a mirror. He remembered a story of Maugham’s in which a very simple woman earned the reputation of being a wit simply by telling the unvarnished truth. The truth was something that no one in fashionable circles had heard spoken for so long that they found it excruciatingly funny. Perhaps there was nothing puzzling, nothing mysterious about Margot; she only seemed strange to him because he had traveled so far from simplicity. Why should she ponder about suicide? She accepted life.
“I hope that nothing’s going to make you feel any differently,” he said.
They went back to the house after lunch. The sand flies would not let them sleep upon the sand. Archer chose a long chair on the veranda.
“I like my sleep to be unpremeditated,” he explained. “If I go to bed and make a parade of it, I stay awake. But if I take a novel to a long chair after lunch, my eyes close and I fade out peacefully.”
Margot curled up on the canvas swing seat. She could always fall asleep whenever she wanted and could stay awake as long as there was anything to stay awake for.
“I’m not as adaptable as that,” said Maxwell. “It’s a bed for me.”
But though he undressed and changed into pajamas, though he closed the jalousies, darkening the room, his brain was racing. “Something instantaneous, that gives you no time to think”; but nothing like a revolver that would carry its rebuke of proof.
A suicide that did not look like suicide. What other solution was there? Whittingham held every card. Sooner or later Whittingham must win. There was no other way of foiling him. No other kind of rain could save him. The papers were talking about war, but that was the surest proof war would not come. The man who talked about committing suicide, never did.
What a solution war would be. Many men must have welcomed the declaration of that last war. A soldier enjoyed a special sanctuary. Whittingham would stay his hand. And how easy to discover in the field of battle a fate that was instantaneous, something that did not give you time to think. There was no equivalent for that in peacetime. Unless…
He checked; a sudden idea had struck him: a loophole, a possibility: no, not a possibility, a certainty. He felt of a sudden serenely jubilant. He had the answer; the way of settling every score, with Whittingham and Boyeur, with his past, his present, and his future. Why had he not thought of it before? It was all so very simple. He closed his eyes. For the first time in four months he knew complete peace of mind.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
1
Six mornings later Maxwell woke with his mind fresh and clear. He had gone to bed at half-past nine. He had drunk two rum swizzles before dinner and nothing afterward. He had never felt better in his life. He had never felt more conscious of being alive; of being able to enjoy the fact of living.
“Live this day as if thy last”; when he had sung that hymn as a schoolboy, he had wondered whether if he had known a certain day was to be his last, he would as the writer of the hymn imagined, have spent that day in prayer and meditation and good works. Wouldn’t he rather have tried to extract from each moment the maximum of enjoyment, wouldn’t he have done or tried to do all the things he was afraid of attempting, when his deeds would have an aftermath.
At different ages he had different ideas as to what he would choose to do. At one time he had wanted to ride his father’s chestnut in the point-to-point: at another to drive the Colonial Secretary’s Jaguar in record time round the island. There was a period when he had been curious to smoke marijuana. At another he had listed the three most attractive girls upon the island, to whom he had been timid about the making of advances. On his last day he would know no such shyness; and one of the three surely would submit.
But now he had no impatience to savor pleasures he had been afraid to taste. Was there anything he wanted to do that he had not already done? He had no wish ever to get drunk again. It was not particularly amusing, and marijuana as a stimulant would probably be no more than a heightened form of alcohol, bearing the same relation to brandy that brandy bore to wine. There were a number of young women whom he found attractive; but could one of them give him a quarter of what Sylvia had done? He would much prefer on his last day to brood over his last hours with Sylvia.
He was very lucky, he told himself. Here in a last day mood, there was nothing to nag at his curiosity or envy. There was nothing for him to do, but get the maximum of enjoyment out of each familiar detail of an average day, to treat his last day as though it were any other day: but to remind himself at each moment how good each moment was. He was lucky to be able to do that.
He stood on the brink of the cold shower, hesitating, as he always did before subjecting himself to the first slightly unpleasant shock of ice cold water, reminding himself that there was little more exquisite than the moment a few seconds later when his skin was adjusted to the chill, and tingled to the sting of it; when he was loth to step from under it, it was so refreshing.
Drying himself he walked to the stairs and called down to Matilda. “Tea in five minutes.”
How good was that first morning cup of tea with a thin slice of white bread and butter, in the cool of the morning seated on a veranda with the cane fields fresh and green and sparkling, with the dew not yet dried out of them. It’s the last time, he thought. I must make the most of it.
There were no workmen at the boucan, waiting for their roll call, but he saddled his pony and rode round there all the same. How long would it be before the workmen mustered again here in the morning light? Who would read the first roll call when they did? What would they be thinking when they heard their names read by another voice? Would they miss him, would they feel guilty?
He ordered a couple of soft boiled eggs for breakfast “and fry the bacon till it’s so crisp that you can crack it.”
It was American bacon, from a tin.
He had been keeping it for an occasion. He had never realized how good bacon could be till he had eaten this kind of bacon, cooked this way. It had never tasted better than it did that morning.
“What about lunch and dinner now, Matilda.”
Lunch would be the last meal that he would eat. He had often wondered what he would order if he were a condemned man taking his last dinner.
“I’ll have cold fish soup,” he said, “an omelette: stuffed with spaghetti, and afterward a soursop ice cream. Is that O.K.?”
“Yes, sir, that O.K.”
“And then for dinner.”
It was ironic to be ordering a dinner that he would not eat.
“Not too heavy a meal,” he said. “Have we any pawpaw?”
“Yes, sir, we have pawpaw.”
“Then pawpaw first. After that some meat; pork chop perhaps.”
“Pork chop. I not think, sir: no one kill pig yesterday.”
“What about kidneys?”
“Kidneys, maybe, sir.”
“Good then, you find kidneys: grill them. Cheese afterward.”
Who, he wondered, would eat those kidneys? Who and when? Perhaps he would be eating them himself. It was not certain yet that this day was his last. That knowledge softened the sharpness of this last day feeling.
He rang up Sylvia. It would not be the last time he heard her voice, yet at the same time there was a chance it might be. That knowledge made him reluctant to hang up, made him talk with a deeper tenderness.
It had been arranged that he should come in on Sunday for rum punches at Grande Anse. He could find no excuse this time for staying out.
“Do you know that it’ll be eleven days since I’ve seen you?” he was saying.
“That isn’t my fault, is it? I’m ready to come out any time to see you.”
“Not twice in a day, darling, on the rough road.”
“I don’t see why it should have to be twice. There’s no danger, nothing’s going to happen.”
“I’ll be a better judge of that after tonight.”
“Why after tonight?”
“Boyeur’s making a speech out here.”
“He’s making speeches everywhere.”
“I know, but it’s different here. I’m going down to hear him. I want to judge the temper of the crowd.”
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“You bet I will be, with Sunday only two days off.”
“Ah, Sunday.”
“Will anyone be joining us?”
“I haven’t asked anyone. Jocelyn may have.”
“Anyhow we’ll have two cars. We needn’t stay there too long. I’ll be tired after my drive in. I’ll be needing a siesta.”
“Probably I shall be too.”
She said it with a chuckle. She wouldn’t have chuckled that way six months ago. Why must this have happened? That chuckle made his heart beat fast. It was very easy to go on talking.
“And then I’ll be coming in on Wednesday for the Leg. Co.”
“Of course. When Boyeur apologizes.”
Boyeur’s apology. How would he make it and to whom? Perhaps he wouldn’t be there. His goose might have been cooked too.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t risk it that night and stay up.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I shan’t see anything of you unless I do.”
Why am I talking like this, he thought. Pretending that next week would be like every other week. But that’s what he had to do, hadn’t he; make it look unplanned?
“I’ll probably ring you late this evening. To tell you how the meeting went. Till then, my sweet, I’m missing you.”
He stood, pensive by the line, drawing a double-edged savor from the situation. This might be the end, it might not be the end. He must behave as though it wouldn’t be. He must make the most of every second.
After breakfast Maxwell drove round to Preston’s. They discussed the temper of the village.
“They’re all right now. But heaven knows what they’ll be like tonight,” said Preston, “after that damned man’s been at them.”
“I’d thought of going down. Will you be there?”
Preston shook his head.
“I couldn’t stand it. I’d lose my temper.”
“I’ll be tempted too, but I feel I should go down, as a witness, to see the kind of thing he does say to them. It may be useful ammunition at the Leg. Co.”
Tomorrow Preston would be recounting that conversation in the club at Jamestown. He would embroider the episode. “We nearly went down together,” he would say, “but I felt that I couldn’t stomach it. I wish now I had gone down with him.”
Maxwell was outside himself, watching himself, picturing how everything he said and did, the way he looked, would be reported back to Jamestown. As he drove back to Belfontaine he pictured them in the club tomorrow, talking with lowered voices.
All day it was like that. He had never been more conscious of being alive, yet everything seemed unreal. This could not be really happening.
2
Boyeur’s meeting was fixed for half-past five: the last hour of daylight. Maxwell planned to get there shortly before six. Boyeur would have warmed up by then, so would the crowd. He sat on the veranda, watching the sun lower in the sky. He was restless and impatient. Last night he had begun a detective story. He had a hundred pages still to read. It was an exciting story but he could not concentrate upon it. He could not read a hundred pages in half an hour and if he skipped it, he would miss the clues. It was tantalizing to read a book he would not finish.
It was quarter-past five. They would have started to collect now in the square before the police station, just as they had four months ago at his first meeting, when Boyeur had sauntered into the avenue of light. Why had he done that? Why had Boyeur instigated that demonstration? He had never done Boyeur any harm. Boyeur, it was all Boyeur’s fault. It all led back to Boyeur. If Boyeur had not humiliated him, had not fired his blood… Boyeur. Boyeur. He clenched his fists…. That at least was a score that would not stay long unsettled.
He rose and paced the veranda. Twenty past five. Where would Sylvia be? At the tennis club, or waiting to start for the tennis club. He looked at the telephone in the hall. Was he never to see Sylvia again? And yet he could speak to her. The apparatus that was nailed there on the wall could bring him close to her.
He walked across to it, spun the handle, lifted the receiver. There was a babble of voices. The party line again. He hung the receiver back. He returned to the veranda. He heard the sound of a car upon the road. Was it Boyeur’s car? It was traveling fast. He craned his neck. At the turn of the road, between the palms, he saw a flash of yellow. Yes, that was Boyeur’s new M.G. How did he afford a car like that; out of union funds: out of contributions wrung from laborers? Boyeur, that cheap upstart.
His temper rose again. His fists clenched. The black blind fury that had made him as a child fling his toys across the room was on him. He could use a drink, but caution counseled him against it. There must be no taint of alcohol upon his breath. He must allow no loophole for the defense of a drunken brawl. Drink. That suggested something. The kidneys he had ordered that night for dinner. His father had always told him that you should let a young red wine breathe for an hour or so before drinking it. He’d decant a half bottle of claret and let it stand in the dining room with the stopper out.
The wine was stored in a cool stone-built basement. His father had always prided himself upon his cellar. One of his earliest memories was of being taken down with Jocelyn on Sunday mornings to decant the port. Jocelyn had stood goggling at the ritual of muslin, the silver strainer, the candle beneath the shoulder of the bottle.
“I hope the cork doesn’t break, oh, I hope the cork doesn’t break.”
She would repeat it like a chant, but he had known that she was secretly hoping that it would break.
“You were glad it broke, you were glad it broke,” he would rebuke her afterward, and
she would burst out crying. They had never got on together, he and Jocelyn.
All the port was gone now; the last bottle had been drunk on VJ day, and the cost of laying down vintage port had become prohibitive; but his father had restocked his bins with adequate table wines. He took out a half bottle of what his father had described to him as “casual claret”; transferred it as his father had taught him into a wicker basket and poured it very slowly into the decanter, watching for the thin dark line of sediment to reach the shoulder. “I shall never do this again,” he thought.
He sniffed the decanter before he placed it on the sideboard. It might be a casual claret, but it had a pleasant aroma. He wished he could have sipped it, but that might have seemed suspicious. Nothing must look suspicious.
It was twenty-five to six. Boyeur would have started speaking now, unless he was too grand to be punctual.
Maxwell crossed into the hall. The party line should be clear by now. It was. There was a silence, interrupted by a faint buzz-buzz. Then a high-pitched West Indian voice. No, mistress Sylvia was not at home. She go tennis club.
“O.K., Susan. Tell her I called. Master Maxwell. No, no message. I’ll call later. Give her my love.”
He pictured their thin scraggy little maid at the telephone. He could hear her repeating the message to Sylvia on her return. “He sends you his love, Mistress Sylvia.” When would she get that message? Half-past eight? Would she know by then? He walked to the head of the basement stairway.
