Friends and Lovers (9 page)

“You needn’t argue from extremes,” George said placidly.

“I wasn’t talking about camp-followers.”

“It is only a difference of degree, not of kind. What else are women who serve round the same smiles and kisses to several men? They have got a price too, you know, in theatre tickets and flowers and chocolates and dinners you buy them. You and five other chaps.”

“Look, David, you can’t expect a pretty girl to sit at home and not go out.

And you can’t expect one chap to have the cash to take her out every night in the style to which she has accustomed herself. If she is pretty and amusing you are damned lucky to be allowed to form up in the queue.”

“The true richness of experience.”

“Don’t be so damned sarcastic,” George said irritably.

“Besides, you know damned well that you like a pretty girl as much as the next man.

You run a mile from the unattractive ones. I’ve seen you, old boy. In fact, it was only last week that I said, when we were arguing, that after all a plain girl often had rather a good brain. And you said that the trouble was we didn’t sleep with brains.”

“My trouble is that I know what I want. If I don’t make excuses for liking Brahms or Chopin why should I make excuses for liking beauty in women?

That’s the trouble: I know what I like, and I don’t often find it. That’s all.”

George searched in his pocket for his pipe, and filled it thoughtfully from a pouch whose striped colours matched the college tie he was wearing. (George had only two ties for day wear which did not belong to school, college, or his five clubs: a grey one for weddings and a black one for funerals. ) “Well,” he said, with resignation, ‘you can’t find everything in one woman.

It takes all kinds to make experience. If you have several girls, or even a succession of girls if your conscience is squeamish about playing several fish at a time, you’ll end your life by having had everything. What more do you want?”

“Nothing. Except that I don’t think that is the way to get everything.” David looked at him speculatively, and decided to risk going on.

“Really, George, you have got to admit that if people put as much thought and concentration into their sex lives as they do into their careers there would be a good deal more happiness in middle age. After all, why shouldn’t we make a real effort to have a successful love life? We aren’t eunuchs, and we may as well admit that.”

“Hardly. But you can’t rationalize like that, David. A job or a career can be planned. But love can’t.”

“No career is certain of success. We work and hope and aim for something; and often we get it. But we wouldn’t have a chance of getting it if we hadn’t done our best. For instance, if a man works hard at medical school he will probably be a good doctor some day; but no man becomes a doctor by just wishing to be one. That’s the point I am making. All I am saying is that if we looked at love that way we might have a better chance of success in it.

And the proof that a lot of us aren’t successful in it is not very hard to find.

How many burst-up marriages do you know, George? Isn’t it all a damned waste of energy and emotion?”

George considered the fire thoughtfully. He said at last, “But we do think and worry about sex all the time. And where does it get us? Certainly not the sure success you believe in.

Look, I bet sixty per cent of the human race 1. 1. think about sex and love more often than they think of anything else.” “Ninety per cent,” David said, ‘if you take into account all the disguised approaches.”

“All right. Ninety per cent think about it, or purposely avoid thinking about it. And where does that get us?”

“Just thinking about it isn’t a real solution. Surely there’s a happy medium somewhere, George, between those who think about sex too much, like some French politician with his string of mistresses, and those who avoid thinking about it and try to convert every one else to be the same as they are.

Surely it wasn’t meant to be abused by fools or cowards.”

George frowned. And then he gave up trying to answer and said, “I see old MacLntyre’s words are taking root.” “What do you mean?” David asked quickly.

“All that stuff he told you about living a complete life. Why, a week ago you sat on that very chair and told me that if a man was serious about his career he had no time to worry about women. Now you have reached the opinion that if love were taken as seriously as a career it would be damned sight better for all of us. You aren’t by any chance thinking of taking your own advice, are you?”

David laughed, and bent down to pick up his beer-mug from the floor.

“It’s only talk,” he said, ‘talk for a grey day and a warm fireside.

Besides,” he went on, his voice suddenly casual, ‘even if a man had an idea of how to be happy though young, in what way could he manage it? Tell me, George, suppose you found that Kitty, or Dorothy, or Phyllis, was just the girl you wanted for life, what would you do?

No, old boy, no jokes. This is a serious question—at least, an interesting one. Would you make the effort to keep her, or would you just let her slip away because you knew it might be years before you were making enough to get married?”

George stared.

“Heaven help us if we got into that fix. Better not let yourself fall in love—seriously, that is—until you can afford it. If you believe in arranging your love life that would certainly be the first thing to remember.” He thought over that for a moment, and then added, “Here’s to the pretty girls who won’t take us seriously until we can afford it! Come on, drink up, David!”

“No more for me at the moment, thanks,” David said, as he looked moodily at the fire. Then he roused himself, and said briskly, “What I need is a walk. Coming?”

“In this weather? No, thank you. I’ll supply you with aspirin and a hot toddy when you get back.” George settled himself comfortably in his armchair, picked up a magazine, and began to inspect the lovelies of London so invitingly displaying their charms.

David paused behind him, glanced over his shoulder. “Studying the disguised approach, I see.”

Fenton-Stevens pointed to one photograph.

“Not bad,” he said appraisingly. He studied the name underneath.

“Good Lord, I’m supposed to know that girl. Well, the photographer certainly earned his money.”

David looked critically at an ethereal blonde in her off-shoulder evening dress.

“Not bad at all,” he agreed.

“One more struggle and the lady will be free.”

George was smiling as the door dosed behind David. Thank Heaven, David was himself again. For a moment or two there, in that last half-hour, George had begun to worry about him. A walk would probably do him good: liver or something.

David followed the path which led him through the gardens on to the moors.

There it became a narrow track, a thin ribbon of bleached red gravel, skirting the edge of the granite cliffs through knee-high heather and low blaeberry bushes. To his right was the sea in its grim grey mood. On his left were the rising hills, their crests still hidden by cloud. The mist along the sea-edge had lifted and given way to a drizzling rain.

There had been no help from George, he thought. But then he had not asked for direct advice. In any case, what good would it have done?

Every man had his own idea about life and what he wanted out of it.

Happiness, yes: that was the general ambition. We all wanted to win happiness, but we all found very different ways of trying to reach it. Life wasn’t a neat, single track like this path along the cliffs.

It was more like a twisting road shut in by high hedges, so that the view ahead was seldom clear a road constantly broken by side-roads, with no signposts, either, to help you out. For direction you had to depend on your own questions and answers.

He wasn’t even putting this question in his own mind openly to himself. He was disguising it with arguments and generalizations. The whole thing was ridiculous, anyway. People did not behave this way.

Or perhaps they did, and kept it as their own secret. Certainly he had never felt like this before. That was what worried him most. His mind might keep telling him it was all ridiculous, an exaggeration, a delusion. But he didn’t believe it. All right, you want to see her again, he admitted.

But how?

That, he suddenly realized, was the real problem that was worrying him. He halted then, and stood for many minutes with the strong wind whipping his soaking raincoat around his legs. He stood listening to the strong, heavy blows of the waves against the cliff, falling away in front of him into the surging force of water. The perpetual thunder silenced even the high screams of the seagulls. Out to sea there was the long, dark shape of Inchnamurren.

He stared at it; then he turned away abruptly and started back towards the Lodge.

Chapter Seven.

DAVID MAKES UP HIS MIND.

That night, after the others had gone to bed, David Bosworth wrote two letters. The first was to his sister Margaret: dear meg, I shall definitely be home about the 8th of August, as we arranged.

Work has been going quite well, and we have been fairly lucky in weather, so that I’ve collected a decent enough tan and stretched the old muscles over a hill or two. The boys are responding to wild curses, and I feel I’ve earned my money with them. I only hope Lady F. -S. remembers that some people really need cash, and will send me the cheque in time to bring home as a trophy. Then you can have your holiday before summer gives way to mists and mellow fruitfulness. I wish you could persuade Father to go with you.

But if he doesn’t feel strong enough for the journey, then it is probably better to let him stay in London with me.

Sorry to hear that you have all been sweltering for the last month.

But two weeks ..

Here David stopped and considered. He had been six weeks up here. Meg would count them, comparing the difference subconsciously. She would also think of these six weeks as pure holiday: she didn’t consider that tutoring was work.

At least, she had never admitted it. He remembered her last letter. How lucky he was . to have such a marvelous holiday in such a marvelous place.

London was hateful at the moment; the heat-wave magnified all noise, and Father objected to the piano … He wasn’t too well, and this made things difficult … She felt too exhausted in any case, after nursing an invalid, housekeeping, and cooking, to enjoy playing the piano, far less teaching it to children.. David carefully erased the words ‘two weeks.”

But a holiday in Cornwall will cheer you up. I’ll look after Father and finish the rest of my reading.

Tell Father I have some weird tales for him. I have been collecting them from one of the local chieftains, Captain Ma clean by name. Did you know about the Ma cleans They are very proud, it seems. At the time of the Flood they snubbed Noah and had a boat of their own.

I discovered some unusual Gaelic music, pent atonic and strangely sad.

Lots of songs about the sea, naturally. The sea dirges are only to be sung by women, as if men weren’t supposed to get melancholy about all the drowned sailors. Good psychology this, however, considering the men had to do the sailing. They are allowed the reiving songs, though; all about the wine and women waiting for them on the mainland. (Can’t imagine what wine they drank in this part of the world, unless it was something like a mead made from heather honey. Sounds hardly worth reiving for. ) I’ll try to get a copy of these songs for you on my way south.

We called on Dr. MacLntyre some days ago on his island stronghold. He is quite remarkable. And he was most kind.

Again David paused. Better not mention the Lorrimers at all.

Love to Father and yourself. Expect me when you see me. Trains are far away from this wild region, and I’ll probably miss at least one connexion when I do reach a railway line. It takes almost as long to reach London from here as if I were travelling from Munich. (There are language difficulties too.

Yours,

He read the letter over carefully. If it gave the impression of rather more fun and games than work that couldn’t be helped. Damned if he was going to start writing Margaret’s kind of letters. If she enjoyed writing letters with a neat pin-prick in every third sentence, then that was her loss. He wondered, as he folded the stiff sheet of notepaper and slipped it into one of the Lodge’s excellent envelopes, just what she would say if she were to open it and read, “The weather is putrid. The boys are howling dervishes.

George is as good-natured as ever, but even that virtue can get on your nerves when there is nothing much else to go with it. I get no real time for my own work. I’ll be glad when I get back to London’s hot pavements and can be my own master again. If it weren’t for your holiday in Cornwall I would not be here now scrabbling for some extra cash to pay for it.”

He smiled grimly, wrote the address”—Miss. Bosworth, 7 Cory’s Walk, Chiswick, London, W.4’—and then allowed himself to crash the stamp on with his clenched fist.

His second letter was to Dr. MacLntyre, a kind of bread-and-butter letter saying how much he had enjoyed the visit, and that he was sorry the visit to Inchnamurren had been cancelled to-day. That part was simple to write. But the next paragraph took more time: I promised to bring your granddaughter a book today— the new edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins—but now I must send it to her, and I find that I haven’t her address. I wonder if you would be so kind as to give it to Captain Ma clean when he takes this note across to you?

My thanks again for a memorable day. I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you next year when you come south for that visit to Oxford … Yes, it was all right, he decided, as he balanced the envelope in his hand.

The reference to Penelope was fairly negligible. And he had a copy of that book, brought with him among the others he had packed in Oxford.

He left the letter to his sister on the hall table, where the outgoing post was collected. But the letter to Dr. MacLntyre was carried upstairs to his room. Tomorrow morning he would take it down to Ma clean cottage.

He slept badly, but he could always blame that on his cold.