A Garden of Trees (19 page)

“I must change,” I said.

“What about Marius?” she said.

“Marius, apparently, is none of our responsibility.”

“You must wear Peter's tails,” she said. “He is wearing his dinner jacket.”

“Marius is God's responsibility.”

“Do you want a bath?” she said.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then I don't. That is your responsibility.”

She led me through to Peter's room. “These are his shirts and his ties,” she said. “Is there anything else that you want?”

“Love,” I said. “But that is my responsibility.”

“You'll have to do the best you can,” she said.

“I am,” I said.

“I mean, I hope his collars fit.”

“That is his stud's responsibility.”

“Hurry then.”

“This is where it all started,” I said. “In a garden of trees.” She went out and closed the bedroom door behind her.

At the party we had some difficulty in finding Peter. He was in the kitchen playing French cricket with the cook. We got him back to where they were dancing. “Why on earth are you wearing tails?” he said.

“I had to borrow them,” I said.

“They look rather moth-eaten.”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything interesting in the pockets?”

“There are some very peculiar things,” I said.

“Do let's see. Why, those are my things!” he said.

“Yes.”

“I say, that is a peculiar thing.”

We followed Annabelle into a gilded room where glasses reflected the tops of bodies and feet were shuffling in a wedged parade. A group of men detached themselves from a pillar like clothes being taken off a hook in the wall, and clustered round Annabelle. She was leaning away from them, quietly. “Annabelle looks so precarious,” Peter said.

She was turning from one to another of them, cautiously, and every now and then they touched her, and she was holding her hands in front of her, holding a handkerchief, holding herself in, looking exposed and fragile in her dress with her eyes flickering and her mouth half failing and her arms and shoulders outrageous in the light. “Annabelle is like a lamp-post,” Peter said.

“Is everyone in love with her?”

“They are all dogs,” Peter said.

“I am in love with her.”

“And I am the dog in the manger,” Peter said.

She went to dance with a wooden-faced man in his uniform. She danced with her hand entwined in the folds of her skirt and her head turned sideways looking down towards the floor. There was the rustle of silk and the smell of lavender. The man was stiff and Annabelle seemed caught up to him like a child in the arms of a wicked uncle. “They are all leg-lifters and tail-waggers,” Peter said: “and Annabelle is a tree.”

At the end of the dance she came back to us and the man rejoined the group and they were talking about Peter and Peter was restless. Annabelle looked anxious pushing her hair behind her ears. When the music began again I asked her to dance and we waltzed away narrowly between obstacles of knees.

A smell of lavender, the memory of bundled bags that hang in dressers, her movements exaggerated, the curve of her back steady but herself circling with no ordinary grace, the violence and energy always there from the downlooking eyes, the lashes enormous, the mouth open to teeth and tongue and the neck parted in down-hanging curls which were soft and fair, the unseen movements beneath my hand revolving determinedly, the body always bending away from me, swaying as if eager to swing from control. I laughed.

She stopped. “Why do you laugh?” she said.

“You waltz like a boxer,” I said.

She straightened herself and we began again and she let her skirt go so that it swung out and away from us and she held herself so that I saw beyond her and we made huge circles on the floor like a tide. We became balanced like a top with her uprightness clutched by my hand at her waist and her ribs not breathing, controlled and spinning; and then it happened as one always wants it to happen, we became quite still while the room was revolving round us, we became quite alone while the crowd was only colours, we became quite together while the huge skirt enfolded us on the top of the turning earth.

“You waltz very well,” I said.

“I always do,” she said.

We were standing then, and Peter came up to us surreptitiously. “There is a ridiculous man here who wants to fight me,” he said.

“Where?” I said.

“Yes where?” Peter said, looking round.

“He's gone to take off his glasses,” someone said.

“But he doesn't wear glasses,” Peter said.

“He wears them in his eyes.”

“It gets more and more like Oedipus,” Peter whispered. He was prowling round laughing craftily to himself.

“Why does he want to fight you?” I said.

“He says it's not good enough. I don't know what he means. He's a huge man.”

“He heard you calling him a dog lifting its leg at a lamp-post,” someone said; “You really can't blame him.”

“I don't,” Peter said.

“I mean you can't blame him for getting angry.” The someone turned out to be Freddie Naylor. He looked rather angry himself.

It did not seem to be important. The gilded room was emptying as people wandered to the bar. I wanted to go on dancing with Annabelle, but the patterns of the evening had become indistinct and it was no use objecting to the inconsequence of dreams. We had come to a party and now we had to go and fight a man in the street and it all seemed the same. I did not want to think. Annabelle was unperturbed and Peter was muttering in a language that appeared to be Greek. “Do you know Greek?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

The wooden man was standing by the door. He looked like a gander. “I would be glad if you would come along with me Freddie,” he said.

“Right you are,” Freddie said. We trooped to the door. “Perhaps this man has married his mother,” Peter said. As we went down the stairs we met a large woman who was our hostess. “Peter,” she called, “I shall want you for supper.” “I shall leave instructions with the cook,” Peter said. The hostess shrieked with laugher. “Perhaps that is his mother,” I said. “If it is,” Peter said, “she has got a bit mixed up.”

Out in the street it was dreadfully cold. “Do you know,” Peter said, “that in Africa they eat the hearts of men fallen in battle?” “I thought it was their livers,” I said. “This happens to be Oxford Square,” Freddie Naylor said. “I am glad to hear it,” Peter said. Annabelle had followed us and we were laughing and trying to keep ourselves warm and I was pleased that she was not anxious as I had feared. “This is really more like Hamlet,” I said. The hostess came out on the balcony above us and began yelling, “What are you playing? What are you up to?” and Peter shouted, “Act five scene two Mrs. Ludgrove.” “I have never heard of it,” the hostess yelled. “Watch out then Mrs. Ludgrove for they have poisoned your wine,” Peter shouted. We were laughing a great deal, but it was sad because the wooden-faced man was so serious. “When you have quite finished,” he said.

We went round the corner where we could not be seen. “I don't see how we're going to stop this,” I said. “Neither do I,” Peter said. “But it is so ridiculous,” I said. “I know,” Peter said. “And it is my fault, and I am sorry, but it is no use apologizing until afterwards, and if he wants to fight I must because I am no pacifist.” “But can you box?” I said. “Oh yes,” Peter said, “I can box.”

The wooden man took off his jacket and handed it to Freddie, and Peter stood morosely in the flopping clothes. The man looked solid and was rolling up his sleeves. Peter was pushing his toes around on the pavement. Now I became anxious, and more than ever surprised at Annabelle. “But can he box?” I said to her. “Oh yes,” she said. “He can box.”

The odd thing was that he could. The man advanced upon him and Peter took his hands out of his pockets and as the man swung at him he ducked and in a flash had his hands up and was bounding up and down most professionally, snorting and making faces as boxers do. The man looked so surprised that he stopped for a moment and Peter stopped too, and then the man tried another swing and Peter took it on the shoulder and there he was bounding away again with his chin tucked down and his elbows in having hit the man hard three times in the ribs. This time the man was so surprised that he fell down. I was so surprised, too, that I could not even laugh at Peter's professional faces, which were very funny. Peter had stopped, and the man was sitting winded on the pavement, and then Peter went up to him and held out his hand. “Why,” the man said, “you can box!”

“Yes,” Peter said. “And I am very sorry that I said those stupid things.”

“I never knew you could box,” the man said. “I always thought you were a . . . ”

“I know,” Peter said. “And that is why it would not have been any good apologizing before.”

“Well I must apologize too,” the man said.

“Thank you,” Peter said. He helped the man up. “You must never take anything I say seriously,” he said, “because I never say any serious thing.”

“Right you are,” the man said. They picked up his coat and then went off side by side up the street like two unbeaten batsmen retiring in a cricket match. Freddie Naylor followed like a disgruntled bowler.

In the lamplight Annabelle looked faintly smug. We had quite forgotten the cold. “It is outrageous that Peter can box,” I said.

“Why?” she said.

“I suppose he gets a lot of practice when he waltzes with you,” I said.

“Don't you approve?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “but you are not the sort of people who can box.” We began to walk back towards the house.

“Of course he is terribly ashamed of it,” she said. “He hates beating people and he always does beat people and then he has a conscience. It would be so much nicer for him if he lost.”

“What else does he do?”

“He does everything like that very well, he was always the captain of everything, I don't think it's wrong to approve of that, do you?”

“No,” I said.

“Of course he's a fool to fight people, but in a way the people seem to be much happier if he does. I used to hate it once, but now I think perhaps it is the best thing for him to do. It is so much nicer for everyone else, even if he does not feel nice but ashamed himself.”

“Do you mean it is a charitable act for him to pick quarrels and to punch people on the nose?”

“He doesn't pick quarrels really, you know, quarrels always happen if you get people feeling things, and the way he deals with them is at least as good as anyone else's way, and in practice even better, it seems, and in any case he only punches them on the chest. Those men at the party all started off hating him, you see, and now they will not. You will find that when we get in.”

“And what do you do,” I said, “when everyone starts off loving you?”

“I will box you any day of the week,” she said.

“Good,” I said.

“But you shouldn't say good.”

“Yes, because I would beat you. And what else can you do?”

“I can run faster than you,” she said.

“You can't,” I said.

“I will race you to the cross-roads,” she said.

“I will give you twenty yards start,” I said.

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Twenty yards start or I don't race.”

“I tell you I can beat you.”

“I am the fastest runner in the world,” I said.

She went a short distance up the road. She took off her shoes and tucked up the skirt of her dress. “Give me your shoes,” I said. She threw them to me. She looked like a girl in an Edwardian bathing dress. “Right,” I said; “Go!”

She ran very fast. I kept behind her for a bit and her bare feet flashed noiselessly and she did not move her arms at all. She was like a bird and her skirt was blowing loose behind her and her hair streaming back in the wind and as she flew the quick beat of her legs jerked her softly like wings. She, too, was very professional. Just short of the cross-roads I passed her as she screamed, “Damn,” and made a grab at me and afterwards I felt very ill.

“Damn this dress damn,” she said.

“I think I am going to be sick,” I said.

“I am so furious so furious I know I could beat you without this dress.”

“No,” I said.

“I'll take off this dress and race you back,” she said.

“Darling Annabelle,” I said.

“I am not feeling sick in the slightest.”

“It is you who should be pleased to have been beaten,” I said.

“Yes it is different being beaten by you,” she said.

“Darling Annabelle.”

“I mean it is terrible with someone who . . . ”

“Yes,” I said.

“I will beat you some time,” she said.

“You won't,” I said.

“How funny that you can run too,” she said.

“It is I who am pleased.”

“Look, I have cut my foot.”

“Darling Annabelle,” I said.

Back at the party I went to find Peter. Annabelle had gone to get sticking plaster for her foot. I found Peter in the bar. He left the little group of guardsmen and came over to me. “I am the long lost brother,” he said, “the bloody old prodigal son.”

“It was copy-book stuff,” I said.

“But I felt such a fool.”

“I suppose that's not a bad thing to feel.”

“No,” he said. “I say, are you going to be sick?”

“Yes,” I said.

“The awful thing is that they are really so nice. Why are you going to be sick?”

“I have been racing Annabelle,” I said.

“She always races people. I have got to play squash with them on Wednesday. She beats people and then they worship her and it is very bad for her really.”