Friends and Lovers Read online

  11

  THOUGHTS AT MIDNIGHT

  There was an air of distraction about the Lorrimer household that evening.

  Betty had come home from visiting her friend, bringing a sore throat and headache. Mrs. Lorrimer, already feeling rather sorry for herself after a particularly trying afternoon at the clinic, retired to her own room with a tray and a novel. Moira had ’phoned to say that there was some international dinner which she must attend; she would be home by ten o’clock probably.

  Charles Lorrimer, worried by Betty, annoyed by Moira, upset by the empty dinner-table, finished the sweet as quickly as possible, refused dessert, and, when Penny poured coffee for him in the drawing-room, found an excuse to go to his study. Penny watched her father march with his long, heavy stride across the hall. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and erect, so that his six feet seemed taller still. He knew that, and never slouched. Each sign of age distressed him—the spectacles which he now must have for reading, the careful diet which he was supposed to follow for stomach ulcers. How awful to get old, Penny thought, but she was pitying her father and not herself: when you are nineteen it is difficult to imagine that old age can happen to you. Somehow you believe that one day you will at last reach the nice satisfactory age of twenty-five, and that you will stay that way always.

  Penny felt pity for a full minute. And then she picked up the book which David had given her. He had written her name on the fly-leaf. Just her name. That was all. I like his handwriting, she thought She looked at it critically, holding the book out at arm’s length, her head to one side as her eyes studied it for a moment. Handwriting was so often disappointing: it didn’t match the person who wrote it, or, at least, you hadn’t thought this was the way they would write.

  She carried David’s book upstairs to her room. The house was at rest. She listened to its silence for a moment at her door, and then she went into her bedroom with a feeling of contentment and satisfaction. She had peace to think, peace to remember. She would take a long time in getting ready for bed, and she would think and remember and relax in comfort. No one asking questions. No one talking about things which didn’t interest her tonight. She undressed and slipped on a quilted dressing-gown, for the night breeze from the open window was cool, and padded downstairs in her white fur moccasins over the thick carpets to the bathroom on the floor below. She had a long bath, with two squares of jasmine bath-salts crumbled into the water as a gesture of extravagant luxury. Back in her own room again, she brushed her hair (and decided to let it grow longer: much more romantic), tied it with sea-blue ribbon to match her nightgown, and even read ten pages of her new book.

  Then Moira arrived. She looked tired and angry. Probably Father had had a thing or two to say.

  “There’s a draught,” Penny said, looking pointedly at the billowing red-and-white-striped curtains. Moira came in and closed the door. “Had a good time?”

  “Rotten,” Moira said. She sat down on a chair with more relief than grace. “Nothing but stairs and steps and stairs all day. Edinburgh was not built for sightseeing.”

  “Couldn’t you get away earlier than this?”

  “Someone had to look after them. Joan Taylor just disappeared with the Americans.” Moira looked angrily at her sister’s amused face. “If your legs and feet felt the way mine do you wouldn’t think it was so funny either.”

  “Was there a dance after dinner?”

  “If you can call it that. A Frenchman sat down at the piano and gave us ‘le jazz hot.’ And then I was pump-handled all over the floor, or given a demonstration in the crouch style.”

  “Never mind,” Penny said soothingly. “It may have been trying for your feet, but it is awfully good experience for Geneva—when you get there.”

  “At this moment,” Moira said, “I don’t want to see Geneva ever. I’ve no international understanding left.”

  Penny rose now and came forward to her sister. “Come on,” she said. “Better get to bed. I’ll run a bath for you, and you can use my bath-salts.”

  Moira didn’t move. “If you have left any,” she said crossly. “The whole place simply reeks with jasmine. Besides, I didn’t come in here to tell you about how tired I am. I’ve a question or two to ask you. Just how, Miss Lorrimer, do you get away with it?”

  “With what?”

  “Don’t look so innocent. I saw you this afternoon. At the Castle.”

  “Did you? Well, what’s the harm in that? All visitors are taken to the Castle.”

  “To admire the view. But I didn’t notice either of you doing much view-admiring.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. He called here this morning, invited us all to lunch, and I was the only one free to act as guide for the afternoon. That’s all.”

  “So that’s all. Why, he looked as if he was going to put his arms round you.”

  “He did not,” Penny said furiously.

  “Just like a soldier with a shopgirl.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Penny said, and tried to laugh. Moira, she thought, had such a wonderful talent for spoiling everything merely by discussing it.

  But Moira had not finished. “This evening,” she said, in a voice that was much too smooth and charming, “Jimmy Russell came over to talk to me for a moment. He is running the tennis-club dance on Friday, and wanted me to bring you along. He said, ‘I see your sister is now in circulation.’ I could have hit him over the head. He is the wildest medical we have had for years; and that’s something.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Well, he knows you. He saw you today. He had red hair and a wide grin.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes, oh!” Moira said. “Whatever possessed you to go to a tavern like that? What would Mummy say if any of her friends had seen you?”

  “There is nothing wrong with the place. It has very good food, and a lot of men enjoying it. That’s all.”

  Moira was silent for a moment. “Men,” she said scornfully, still thinking of Jimmy Russell. “Imagine his absolute cheek! It just shows you that you have got to be so awfully careful.”

  And you take good care that I am, Penny thought angrily: you are worse than Mother sometimes, as if you wished I were still fourteen years old. She looked at Moira quickly as this new idea came to her mind. No good challenging Moira, though. Moira had always excellent reasons for behaving as she did, even if they weren’t the real reasons.

  Moira sensed that her sister was amused about something. “But you’ve got to be,” she said sharply. “How do you know that this David Bosworth isn’t another Jimmy Russell?”

  Penny laughed. “Poor old Dr. Russell. You make him sound a monster. Fascinating.”

  “Loathsome, I call it. Like that Italian today. These men shouldn’t be allowed out without their keepers.”

  “What Italian?” At last, Penny thought, the conversation is being turned.

  “Another self-appointed Romeo,” Moira said airily, with all the superior wisdom of her full twenty years. “The older I get the more I find out that men deserve the worst being thought of them.”

  “And how does that fit in with your International Understanding?”

  Moira noticed her sister’s smile, and her voice sharpened. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to try a little international good will instead of enjoying yourself.”

  “Well,” Penny couldn’t resist saying, “David Bosworth is English.”

  “Englishmen don’t count. Nor Americans. The hard work is with real foreigners. Today I was absolutely exhausted by them.”

  “Cheer up, Moira; they probably were exhausted by you.”

  Moira rose. “We are not amused,” she said, as coldly as the Widow of Windsor. “I did my best, anyway. Besides, I am not particularly difficult. We have been sensibly brought up, and that makes us very simple to understand.”

  I wonder, Penny thought, I wonder if that kind of simplicity doesn’t cover a mass of thwarted emotions... On the surface it seemed so controlled; underneath there were d
oubts and fears. “I wonder,” she said, “if girls like you and me can ever make a man happy. Unless we start re-educating ourselves, of course.”

  Moira stared at her. “What absolute bilge you talk sometimes,” she said sharply. “We have both been stuffed full of education. If any re-education is needed, men can start it on themselves.” She moved to the door, slowly, as if she were thinking about something, and then paused there for a moment. She said in a hushed voice, “I was talking to Joan Taylor about Italy. And, do you know, she says a young girl—a pretty one, that is—with a tight skirt can’t walk down a street in Rome without being—being nipped. Yes, she swears it’s true. She was there last Easter, you know. She said she came home all black and blue behind. Can you imagine?”

  Penny began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny? It is absolutely indecent.”

  “Painful too, I should think. But where was her powerful tennis forehand? Didn’t she slap a few faces?”

  “How could she? Think of the scandal in the street. Besides, she often did not know who had done it. In fact, once she turned round like a whirlwind, and the man raised his hat and smiled sweetly. What do you think of that? Who is it that has got to be re-educated there? Penny, stop laughing!”

  Penny regained enough control to say, “Well, I think when Geneva sends you on a mission into Italy you’d better invest in a bustle.” The laughter began to break down her voice again. “Put it on your expense account. Call it your International Underpinning.”

  “You shouldn’t joke like that about it. And you shouldn’t laugh at your own jokes, anyway, when they are so bad.”

  “The worse they are the better I like them,” Penny said cheerfully. “If you won’t take my advice, why not ask Mother?” she added mischievously.

  At that moment Mrs. Lorrimer’s voice said, “Penny, you are waking the whole household. You should have been asleep long ago.” The door opened, and Mrs. Lorrimer, in her marabou-trimmed gown and a boudoir cap which covered her hair entirely, entered. “Moira, what are you doing here? You should have been in bed by this time. It is almost midnight. Did I hear that you wanted my advice about something?”

  “Oh, I was wondering about the colour of my new dance frock,” Moira said quickly.

  “We can discuss that at breakfast,” Mrs. Lorrimer said. “Now to bed with you.” She turned to leave the room. “Good night, Penelope,” she said severely, as she went into the hall.

  Moira looked angrily at Penny, who had caught up a cushion and, holding it behind her back, was limping ostentatiously round the room. “Good night, Mother,” Penny called. She ignored her sister’s undignified face-twisting, and said, much too gently, “Good night, my sweet.” The door closed with a satisfactory bang.

  “Moira!” her mother said warningly. And then the murmur of voices and the footsteps died away.

  Penny threw the cushion back on to the bed, went to the window, pulled the curtains aside, and leaned on her elbows as she stood at the sill to watch the night sky. At least, she was thinking, I know how to deal with Moira. For tomorrow Moira would start her little side remarks. She would begin to hum, “There is a tavern in the town, in the town,” or talk about “castle walls old in story,” until Penny became a bundle of raw temper and Mother would start asking what was wrong. But now, Penny thought, if she starts any little hidden references I’ll start limping. Poor old Moira, how easily her leg was pulled! Joan Taylor had certainly pulled it very hard this time.

  Penny looked at the sky. Navy blue with a hint of rich purple, she decided. The soft wisps of cloud travelled over the stars, hiding and then revealing them as the night wind drove on. There was the Plough, and there the Pointers at the edge of its blade; and then a space of sky, and then the brilliance of the North Star. So that was the north, and down there was the south, and four hundred miles south was London. London. She kept repeating the magic name.

  She would live in Bloomsbury. She would walk about the streets, and look and look, and never have too much of looking. She would see strange things, and eat strange foods, and meet strange people. She would have a room of her own, a room of her own where no one would come unless she invited them. She would choose her own friends.

  And, of course, she would work; she would be able to paint and think of painting without Moira and Betty and Mother all pulling her away from it. No more interruptions unless she wanted to be interrupted. And if she could get working well enough, perhaps there would be some success, just a little one, and that would be enough to start her. London would be the gateway to a whole new world. She would travel. She could live on an island in the Mediterranean; she could paint in a small village high among the Alps. She would see Paris and New York and Vienna. She would see Everywhere. London was the gateway, and she was standing at it. She shivered with happiness.

  Perhaps, also, the air was cold. She stopped looking at the North Star, pulled her shoulders back into the room, and drew the curtains together. She removed the quilted dressing-gown, stood for a moment looking at herself very seriously in the long dressing-table mirror. Then she freed her arms from the shoulder-straps of her nightdress, and let it fall in its quick satin shimmer to her feet. Now she looked at herself critically, turning slowly round to study the curve of her shoulders, the shape of her back, her slender, taut waistline, her smooth round hips. The line of tan, ending so abruptly at her neck and arms, made her skin seem whiter. When I go to the Mediterranean, she thought, I’ll have a tan that goes all over, and no white bands of flesh. I’ll lie in the sun and feel my backbone melt. I’ll wear thin clothes and feel my body breathe: no more sweaters and tweed skirts, and not ever pneumonia.

  She raised her arms, gently, gracefully... Women look their best with their arms above their heads, she decided. The Greeks had known that. So had the inventors of ballet. She took a slow dance step forward, let one shoulder droop and her waist’s curve be emphasised; and then slowly drew her body erect again. Women can be lovely, she thought. And why not? If nature had meant us to be ugly she would have made us so, with no waist or curves or soft lines flowing into each other. She would have made us squares or cubes with thick, grey skin: much more practical for living, if she had wanted us to be practical. She shouldn’t have made us this way if she did not want us to be admired. And if we can’t find pleasure in the way we look, then we are hypocrites, and we don’t deserve to be made this way; we might as well look like an intelligent rhinoceros.

  She stopped being Pavlova, and tried to imitate the Venus de Milo. But it was difficult to hold that double twist of the body for any length of time. I bet the model could have brained the sculptor with his own chisel, Penny thought, as she dropped the pose.

  She strayed away from the mirror and went over to the bookcase. She searched for the atlas in its bottom shelf, and turned the pages quickly until she found “London and the Southern Counties.” It wasn’t there: it must be farther north than she had thought. She tried “London and the Midland Counties,” and found it. She measured carefully with thumb and forefinger and consulted the scale of miles. Why, Oxford was quite near London, nearer than she had imagined. About seventy miles roughly. That was nothing at all!

  She sneezed suddenly, and realised her body was chilled. It was difficult to be romantic in a cold climate: the Greeks would never have produced their sculptors if they had inhabited Iceland. She rose, put out the light quickly, and slid into bed. She lay there a moment, remembering that she had forgotten to open the curtains. “Oh, damn!” she said, and got out of bed, and ran quickly over to draw them apart. Now she could fall asleep looking at the stars.

  The linen sheets were cold. It was like bathing in a mountain stream. After the first shivering shock it was pleasant to stretch her body and feel the cool, clear water slip over her. Then she became practical again, but not practical enough to get out of bed once more for the abandoned nightgown lying in front of the mirror, and she curled up and hugged herself to get warm. She was too excited to sleep. She would t
hink about today. It had been a good day. She lay, tightly curled up in the cold, narrow bed, and thought about everything that had happened in the order that it had happened. She had reached the restaurant episode, when the growing warmth of the bed relaxed her body. She stretched out her legs slowly, feeling wonderfully comfortable and content. To be continued, she thought drowsily. What a very poor Scheherazade she would make, not even waiting for the dawn of day. She yawned, smiled, fell asleep, all in the same delightful minute.

  * * *

  The train from Scotland pulled into the last station on its long journey, and halted with a final deep-drawn breath. The carriage doors were flung wide open and left hanging on the hinge. The passengers straggled over the broad platform. They moved stiffly, as if the long rest in the train had exhausted them. The electric lamps, suspended high overhead from the enormous vault of soot-stained glass, cast a bleak light on the tired faces to make them lined and haggard. “Another lot of perishers come ’ome from their ’olidays,” one porter said to his mate, as he rolled a heavy milk-can towards his trolly. He grinned when a well-dressed man jumped nervously out of the way as the can rattled ominously near. Out of the side of his mouth he said, “Gawd, Jim, ain’t they the walking dead?” There was no malice in his voice, but rather a comic lack of sympathy.

  David, following on the heels of the nervous gentleman, grinned too. This was London all right. Same old voices, same old smell of soot and smoke, same old feeling that the air had been breathed a thousand times before it reach his lungs. He had forgotten how warm it could be at midnight when even the breezes were tepid, and the callous lights in the station increased the feeling of heat and exhaustion. Everyone looked as if he needed a holiday. Those who had been spending an evening in town—the girls, with their flimsy dresses, funny hats, bright red lips, and their thin-shouldered young men—were white and listless, and did not even try to recapture the crisp gaiety they had felt at six o’clock in the evening. Those who were returning from the country were beginning to walk more briskly, as if to assert that they at least were healthy, but the tan on their faces now gave an appearance of incipient jaundice. It must be the lighting, David thought, as he glanced at himself in the fly-spotted mirror of a chocolate slot-machine and noticed the lines under his eyes, too: we can’t all have kidney trouble. Back to civilisation... Loch Innish was in another planet.