A Summer Bird-Cage (17 page)

‘PPE, I believe?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t imagine. Perversity? A passing fit of seriousness?’

‘You got a first, however?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Therefore, the clever one.’

‘Not at all. Louise would certainly have got a first too if she’d read the right subject. She got a very good second as it is, which is pretty remarkable on the amount of work she did.’

‘Indeed. Indeed.’ He smiled. ‘I hadn’t pictured such solidarity.’

‘You picture us tooth and nail?’

‘I’m sure that I picture you correctly.’

‘The clever one and the pretty one?’

I said that to embarrass him, but I didn’t succeed.

‘Only a blind man could make that mistake,’ he said, urbanely and literately, if not pedantically. I warmed to him. How could I help it?

‘I have always tried,’ I said, ‘not to be like Louise. Or at least from the age of ten onwards.’

‘You don’t admire your sister?’

‘I used to. Until I was ten.’

‘I see.’

‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’

‘No, I was an only child.’

‘How very simple for you.’

‘Not if you knew my parents.’

‘Do you know anyone who likes their parents?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘One or two. Not as many as I’d like to. Do you think it’s a tragic fact of life or a tragic fact of the English middle classes?’

‘I’d never thought of it in that light. Do you think it matters?’

‘Oh, desperately. I mean, it affects everything. Whether marriage means anything, and whether one ought to have children, and all sorts of practical things like that. Think how awful, to have a baby that didn’t like you.’

‘Are marriage and babies practical questions for you?’

‘You mean, am I considering them?’

‘That is more or less what I mean.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact I’m more than considering it. I’m definitely going to get married when my fiance gets back from Harvard.’

‘An academic?’

‘Yes, but not your line of country. Or mine. He’s a historian.’

‘So you’re going to be a don’s wife?’

‘No. I’m going to marry a don.’

‘And what will you be?’

‘How should I know? I will be what I become, I suppose.’

‘You don’t find that a problem?’

How could I tell him that it was the one thing that kept me strung together in occasionally ecstatic, occasionally panic-stricken effort, day and night, year in, year out? I was on such dubious ground already, what with asserting flat out like that that I was going to marry Francis, that one lie more or less didn’t matter, and I bravely made it.

‘Oh,’ I said grandly, ‘It’s no problem at all. It just happens. What happens to one, and what one does, one becomes. It’s simple.’

‘It sounds simple, I agree. And what about Louise? Is she, do you think, a novelist’s wife?’

I thought for a moment, and then I said, ‘I’m rather afraid that, oddly enough, that’s all she is.’

At this point the soup arrived, and we were momentarily distracted by the Parmesan cheese and the desire to eat. I was beginning to realize that I was slightly tighter than I had thought: I was feeling very gossipy, clear-headed and garrulous, and hoped I wasn’t going to say anything I would regret.

Several minutes later, during which I tried to deal discreetly with subjects like poetry, I couldn’t resist attacking the flag that he had so much earlier held out.

‘And what did you mean,’ I said, ‘by calling my sister inconstant but invariable?’

‘I wondered when you would get back to that,’ he said. ‘My words must have struck deep for you to have remembered them so accurately.’

‘I suppose they must have done. Though I really don’t know what you meant by them.’

‘Don’t you? Surely it must have occurred to somebody of your intelligence that your sister is hardly the most faithful of wives?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, bending my eyes intently on my plate, ‘as a matter of fact it hadn’t.’ I think I was blushing.

‘Oh surely,’ said Wilfred Smee, ‘my suggestion hasn’t taken you by surprise. I mean a girl like your sister and a man like Stephen, surely the consequences . . . ’

‘The consequences?’

‘I see,’ he said, rather gently, ‘that I have taken you by surprise. Would you rather not go on talking about this? It’s entirely up to you.’

‘Oh please go on,’ I said. ‘You can’t stop now.’

‘I really thought you must have been over all this in your mind as often as I have . . . ’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’ve been over a lot of things in my mind. But I hadn’t quite got to that.’

‘Then where, may I ask, had you got?’

‘Oh, just to the general oddness of the whole thing. I mean, Louise and a man like that . . . But I’d better be careful. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?’

‘His being a friend of mine doesn’t prevent him from being, as you put it, a man like that.’

‘But evidently you must think of Louise as the tiresome factor. Don’t you?’

‘In a way. I don’t know her at all, whereas I know Stephen quite well. And while it seems to me to be perfectly evident why Stephen married her, I can’t for the life of me imagine why she married
him
—especially in view of the way that she apparently intends to lead her married life.’

‘Please tell me what, precisely, you mean by that.’

‘I mean, I suppose, that she is at the moment, and has been since, I believe, before the wedding, very blatantly having an affair with John.’

‘John Connell?’

I must have known it because the information didn’t come in any way as a surprise, but rather as a confirmation of everything I had expected. Nevertheless, it took my breath away, to hear it stated like that. He simply nodded to my query, and all I could say was:

‘How odd. How very odd. I might have known it.’

‘It is odd, isn’t it? I mean, there was no need at all for her to marry Stephen. She could probably have married John if she had wanted to. It all seems unnecessarily tortuous.’

‘When you say blatantly, do you mean that everyone knows but me?’

‘A lot of people do know. She certainly makes no attempt to conceal it. In fact, she seems to display it to the world at large, as though she enjoyed the situation . . . ’

That rang a bell. ‘I’m sure,’ I said quickly, ‘that she does. It’s the sort of thing she would enjoy. She likes drama.’

‘That, of course, is one of the possible explanations.’

‘But one would hardly marry to enjoy having an affair with someone else.’

‘It does sound a little far-fetched, I agree.’

‘Not too far-fetched, though.’

‘Well, you would know.’

I raised my eyebrows at that. ‘About her, I mean,’ he explained. ‘That’s all I implied!’

‘No,’ I repeated, ‘it really isn’t too far-fetched.’

‘She’s always been like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Keen on provocation.’

‘Oh, madly. She’s one of those that enjoy it more than the real thing.’

‘The real thing?’

‘Love. That was what I meant. Love.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘When you say that a lot of people know, does that include Stephen?’

‘Oh, I think so. I don’t know how long he’s known, but he certainly knows by now.’

‘And what does he think about it?’

Wilfred smiled, a tolerant smile, which made me feel childish, but which also betrayed a deeper anxiety than I had yet suspected in him.

‘Naturally,’ he said, ‘he is more than a little disturbed. I don’t think anyone enjoys having their wife commit adultery with their closest friend.’

‘That word sends a real Old Testament chill through me,’ I said.

‘What? Adultery?’

‘Don’t say it. It sounds awful.’

‘Well, to some people it is. To Stephen, for example. It offends his high church leanings.’

‘I didn’t know he had any. How can he have, and write books like that?’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh well,’ I said, as nastily as I could, ‘I suppose you can say this for Anglicanism, that at least it’s rich and respectable. I can’t see Stephen believing in anything ridiculous, like God. He chooses to believe in something good, solid and social, like the sacrament of marriage instead.’

Wilfred must have noticed that it wasn’t really in my nature to be rude about other people’s friends, because he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sarah, I can see I’ve upset you.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve been hatching this bit of awareness for months. I’ve probably known it since their wedding-day. It has upset me, I admit it’s upset me, but I can’t think why, as I don’t think I care very much for Louise, and I don’t think I care very much about marriage, in the abstract. I can’t think why I mind so much. Perhaps it’s just a hangover from those days before I was ten. When everything she did affected me. Because I knew I’d have to do it too, one day. When my family were a part of me.’

‘You’re sure they’re not now?’

‘Well, the shock of this is almost enough to make me wonder. It is amazing, I get taken by surprise by myself in the most extraordinary ways . . . Who would have thought that an emancipated girl like me should actually feel concerned about a trivial thing like this? I almost feel it my duty not to feel concerned.’

‘Why on earth?’

‘Oh, for so many reasons. For so many principles, really. The principle of non-interference. The principle of not caring twopence about anything Louise ever says or does again. The principle of marriage not binding those who don’t want to be bound. And so on.’

‘But in practice, to use your own word, you are shocked?’

‘I suppose that must be it. My stupid cowardly little super ego at it again. If I don’t tame that nasty creature soon it will get the better of me. In fact, you know, I admire Louise for having bashed hers up so successfully. She doesn’t seem to hear any little whispers from the past ages of morality during the long night watches.’

‘Are you sure ol that? You think her conduct leaves her completely without qualms?’

I hesitated, and thus significantly belied my own response.

‘Oh, I’m quite sure. I’m sure Louise is quite above such pettiness.’

‘All magnificent ego?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s an odd ideal.’

‘Is it? That’s what I would like to be. If I understand the terms correctly, not having read Freud. But tell me, you said just now that you knew why Stephen had married Louise. Do tell me, because it’s always puzzled me . . . I should have thought he simply wasn’t the marrying type. In fact, since I’ve exposed so many nïavetés to you already, I might as well go the whole way and tell you that at one time I seriously wondered if he weren’t queer. I think that’s what anyone would guess, from reading his books. Their funny social bitchiness, if you know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do know what you mean.’

‘Tell me why he married her.’

‘I think because he loved her. He’s always been attracted by her peculiar brand of—how shall I put it—her peculiar desperateness. She’s not, in any sense, a frivolous person. Of course, she has all the obvious qualities that Stephen wouldn’t marry without—beauty, popularity, even notoriety—and then on top of it all she has this intenseness. She overdoes all her emotions. Or seems to. Stephen’s always been attracted by girls of that type—at Cambridge there was a succession of them, high-powered, pretty girls, the daughters of earls and artists, all despising life and themselves and fanatically in pursuit of happiness . . . you get the picture?’

‘What happened to them all?’ I asked, and as I asked I had a flash of intuition, and answered my own question. ‘I know what happened to them,’ I said. ‘They all met very highly-sexed men and fell in love and got reconciled to life and got married. Right?’

‘Absolutely right.’

‘And the problem in this instance is, why did Louise marry Stephen instead of the requisite highly-sexed man John?’

‘The problem is complicated by the fact that John had already abducted one of these girls, years ago. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. She calls herself Sappho Hinchcliffe.’

‘The actress?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What was she like?’

‘Oh, she was a highly intelligent girl, one of the best. I was in love with her myself. She and Stephen had a kind of morbid affection for each other . . . John always said that she felt all the emotions that Stephen was incapable of, and wh ch he wanted to write about. A sort of extended aesthetic insight. And then John became interested, and Sappho couldn’t resist him, and there was a lot of heartache right through Tripos. She and Stephen had desks immediately next to each other for nearly all the papers, and she would sit there crying and chewing her pen, and would walk out an hour early from each to go on the river with John . . . oh, what a life. It was all very romantic. I suppose it all still sounds reasonable to you, instead of absurd. I must be getting old. I can’t think of it as anything but absurd.’

‘I can see it all,’ I said. And I was thinking, but for Francis, there went I.

‘But she didn’t marry either of them.’

‘Oh no. She had a career instead. Not a very steady one, but distinguished. I see her from time to time. So does Stephen.’

‘Is she happy?’

‘Yes. Very.’

‘And you three have remained friends through all this to-do?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘That sounds a little sick to me.’

‘Sick?’

‘Unhealthy.’

‘Perhaps it was. Civilized behaviour is sick isn’t it?’

‘Is that intended to reprove me?’

‘Not really. I must confess that even I felt at times that it would be a lot better if somebody hit somebody. And now, in this present situation. I am very much concerned that somebody will.’

‘Stephen?’

‘No, I was thinking that Stephen might get hit.’

‘Oh dear. And what will happen to Louise?’

‘If she’s not careful she may well get herself into a first-class scandal.’

‘Oh, surely not. None of them are important enough for that.’

‘Well, a second-class scandal. That would be bad enough.’

‘You don’t think she might like it? Don’t you think it might be rather the kind of thing she thrives on? Like desperation?’

‘I don’t think she would really like it at all. Though she might think she might, I agree. But in the end she would find it humiliating. Though really, you know, I’m not at all concerned about her—I’m concerned about Stephen. I think he does feel humiliated, and he’s taken enough humiliation in his life. If anyone’s sick, he is—he’s what you’d call a sick man. He’s not been looking at all well recently, and I’m afraid it may break out. He never talks about Louise, and he’s not writing—he hasn’t written a word since he met her, I don’t think. His last novel came out three years ago. If you ask me, I think he’s heading for some kind of collapse. You know John went over to Paris for the weekend to see them—he told me it was pathetic to see them both, Louise as bored as hell, telling other literary men how good she thought her husband’s books were, and about this film, and wasn’t he brilliant and promising and so forth, and Stephen doing nothing but look miserable and watch her whoever she was talking to and try to overhear what she was saying—I definitely think there’s a serious danger he might collapse.’