The Sea Change (36 page)

She just isn’t the kind of girl for a routine seduction – that’s all – it wouldn’t happen to her unless she mistook it for something else: and that wouldn’t
happen unless she was deliberately misled. But I can’t say I find these conclusions exactly restful, and when I knew she was to spend the morning reading the play with him, I couldn’t
keep away. I’d got involved with going down to the port with Lillian, but I made an excuse without worrying too much if it was a good one, and came back. That walk, if you’re worrying,
is murder in the sun – it seems to go on and on, and I had time to remember all the hot marching I’d done in the Army – only then you never seemed to be going to anything, you
were just going – forward they liked to say.

I was a fool to go back: she was reading quite quietly, and he was listening in the way he has that makes you think nobody has ever done it before, but when she saw me she tried to raise her
voice, his attention snapped, and I thought, ‘Now – if he’s innocent, he’ll be angry – now I’ll know,’ and waited for him to lash out as I’ve seen
him do to people who’ve succeeded in interrupting him when he’s working. But he didn’t: he glanced at me – tried to look at her and stared at the ground, and she stopped,
and said something that for a moment made me think she knew everything about us – we hardly had time to stare at her before she had gone. I would have gone after her, but he got to his feet
and then stood, listening, as I was, to her footsteps running on the stones outside. He said: ‘She’s gone’: he said it stupidly – as though it was what he was thinking and
he was not sure what it meant. Then he said: ‘What on
earth
do you think you are doing barging in like that? I keep out of your frequent sessions with her – I should have thought
you’d know better than to interrupt my rehearsal?’ But it was all a tremendous effort – it didn’t wash. I said: ‘I think it’s time we talked.’

‘My dear Jimmy, we’ve been talking for years. Can’t you think of any new means of communication?’

‘Not with you I can’t. I want to ask you one or two questions.’

‘Are they pertinent?’

‘I don’t know or care. I just have to ask them – that’s all.’

He sat down and it made him look very small: I had to remember her face a few minutes ago to get on with it.

‘Are you interested in that girl?’

He said at once: ‘Naturally. I would hardly be risking her in a leading part if I wasn’t.’ I was going to interrupt, but he went on: ‘Although, at this rate, I
don’t think I shall be called upon to take the risk.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you are making it so clear to her that you and I have different methods for preparing her that she will be confused and embarrassed into giving up the whole project. I
shouldn’t blame her at all if she did that now.’

‘Look – you know as well as I do that we’ve worked together for nine years and our methods have never seemed different until now. It would be queer if they were, seeing that
you’ve taught me. The confusion is not coming out of that, and that wasn’t the kind of interest I was asking you about.’

‘Are you implying that I have other, more personal interests in her?’

‘Yes I am! And I’m not implying it, I’m asking a straight question: I’m not even asking any more – I know!’

He was so still that he looked as though he didn’t breathe. Then, he said: ‘What do you know?’

‘You’re in love with her. I know that because I’ve seen it so many times before; I know the signs. You aren’t writing, you don’t sleep, you hardly exist unless
she’s around. It’s all very well at the moment, because you can see her every day, and it isn’t easy for you to be alone with her. Remember Virginia? It was just like this then.
All right – so you’re in love with her. But what about
her
? She’s nineteen – she probably hasn’t been in love with anyone – may not even have been kissed,
she’s led such a secluded life with that family of hers in the back of beyond. You come along and change her whole life – everything is new and glamorous – she travels, she has
clothes, she gets the opportunity most girls would give their eyes for – and all because of you. So far she’s taken the whole thing very well – she enjoys it, but she
doesn’t seem to have let it go to her head. I call that a remarkable dignity – do you remember what that Miriam creature was like after you picked her up? But if you make a pass at her,
she doesn’t stand a chance. She’s not old enough, or spoiled enough to do things by halves – she’ll be madly in love with you – there’ll be nothing she
wouldn’t do. So then, what? We go to New York – we go into rehearsal; the normal publicity starts up. She’ll have the double strain of doing the part and being in love with you.
Sometimes this will make her act twice as well – sometimes it won’t. Then there’ll be more publicity – you’ll never get away from that. They’ll never come out
into the open – just the usual sly little cracks – she’ll be hurt and angry, then she’ll be hurt and frightened, and finally – and by this time it will have got back
to her family, she’ll be hurt and ashamed. And then there’s Lillian. Have you thought about her, at all? You should have – you ought to know the pattern by now. To begin with,
when she kicks up, you’ll be clever enough to blind the girl into thinking it’s certainly not her fault, and probably not yours. We’ll have the whole neurotic story of
Lillian’s neurotic life trotted out, and everybody will be terribly sorry for everybody else – excepting Lillian. All this time that girl will be playing eight times a week not counting
any other public appearances and the gossip columns will really be minding your business for you. You’ll find it harder and harder to see her alone, and all the time they’ll be saying
things – about her, and about you – comparing your interest in her with your interest in various back numbers – mentioning your age and hers whenever possible – they might
even get Mary what’s-her-name to give the kind of interview they can blow up into an article, ‘My Six Weeks with Emmanuel Joyce’, if she’s hard up and still feels the way
she did last time I saw her. Lillian will be ill – the girl will be living on tranquillizers and pep pills and out of all this, at some point, you’ll start to write another play. When
you get really stuck into it, you’ll ease out of the whole situation: you’ll take Lillian away somewhere to recover and you’ll write, and
she
will be nicely left with a
dazzling career and a broken heart.’

I’d run out of breath and felt my heart pounding about, but there had been no choice about what I’d said to him. He had sat like a stone, with his eyes fixed on me and no expression
in them that I could recognize or label. I stared back at him until I couldn’t bear his silence any more and said: ‘It’s only because I’ve seen it so many times before that
I know all this.’

After what seemed a long time, he said: ‘And this is what “having a private life” has meant to you all these years.’

‘I haven’t blamed you; I’m not blaming you now. How can I know what is right for you?’

‘But you’ve known that that kind of “private life” was not for you.’

‘I don’t remember thinking about that. I just feel now that it wouldn’t be right for her.’

There was another long silence, and then he said: ‘You are quite right, of course. And everything you’ve said has been quite true: there is no argument.’ He fell silent again;
then suddenly he yawned, and after it he looked utterly exhausted. Then he blinked, shook himself and tried to smile at me. ‘You make me feel my years – or rather my wasted
age.’

‘I didn’t mean to do that.’ I wanted to be gentle now, and felt awkward – but he said heavily: ‘Oh yes, you did. The whole exercise would have been wasted if you
hadn’t made me feel that.’

‘Then you do agree about it?’

‘Agree that I have no business to seduce Alberta, encourage her to love me and then abandon her? I do agree. For what it is worth, I entirely agree with you – it is out of the
question. Now you know that I know that: will that do?’

I said: ‘Of course.’ I didn’t feel at all good about him. I was just about to go, when he roused himself to ask: ‘Is this the first time that you’ve felt like this
about me – and anyone else?’

I nodded. That’s what I mean about not blaming you. Hell, that sounds awful, I just mean it’s been your business and theirs and certainly not mine. They weren’t the same sort
of girl as Alberta to start with – that’s all.’ I didn’t want to pursue this, but he went on: ‘You feel that she is not someone who should have casual and
irresponsible passes made at her by
anyone
– is that it?’

I didn’t reply at once, and he repeated more sharply: ‘Is that it? Or do you make exceptions below a certain age?’

‘It’s not a question of making exceptions, and I don’t feel that she can’t look after herself at all: I don’t feel that most people would meet with any response:
you would; that’s what I mean.’

He regarded me steadily – he still looked sick. ‘And if she doesn’t do the part, you still feel that?’

‘I do – yes.’

He got to his feet. ‘Right – Jimmy – that’s about all, I think.’ He looked about him as though he was trying to think of some place to go and made for the house. At
least I knew better than to follow him.

When Lillian came back with plans for an afternoon expedition I told her he’d gone to his room. She went up and came down a few minutes later: ‘He’s asleep! He’s lying on
his face with his head under his arm – that usually means he has a headache. Did he say he had one?’

‘He said he was tired. How about you and I take the donkeys and leave him to sleep?’ So we did just that.

We went to look at a little church Lillian had found, built fairly high up in the village. When we got there, she sent the donkeys away, because she said she couldn’t talk to me with the
donkey man there. There were old women with white cloths round their heads sweeping in and outside the church which was very small indeed. The inside was entirely covered with paintings of people
with rather sad, simple faces, but the whole effect wasn’t simple at all. Lillian loved it – she said it was like being inside a casket of jewels. There was a wooden gallery at one end
and I climbed up it. That gave me a shock. All around the walls were sacks – open at the top and stuffed with human bones; I knew they were human because of the skulls. I told Lillian who was
unexpectedly calm about it, and said yes, she had been told that some favoured people were allowed to keep their family’s bones in the church when they had been buried for long enough. She
said she thought it was a friendly idea, and I discovered that I hadn’t really thought about it at all, and she was right. ‘You’re just a mass of preconceived notions, darling
Jimmy,’ she said and we both liked her saying it.

After the church, we wandered slowly down through the paths and streets to the port again, but got lost, and found a small square with a café running along one side of it. There were two
old trees growing out of the stones and we sat at a table under one and had a drink, and then, eventually, lunch.

‘Well,’ I said; ‘how’s your energy?’

She said: ‘I’m storing it up. I’ve thought what to do with it, you see.’

‘
Have
you?’ She didn’t answer, so I said: ‘What are you going to do, Lillian?’

She had her elbows on the table; now she held her face with her hands as though to keep it steady and spoke rather fast.

‘I’m going to
find
this house in England, and furnish it, and stock the garden and learn to drive a car again and to be nicer to Em’s theatrical friends so that they
will all want to come and stay and he won’t feel cut off. I’m going to concentrate on this – on somewhere steady for our future – and not think about the past so much.
I’m going to take up the piano again, and unpack all my books after all these years: I thought I might even buy a pair of Labradors – they need not worry Em if he doesn’t have
them in his study – I thought I might breed them – try to get really good at it. Really stop the kind of thinking I do as I am, and try to have some kind of life, if I can find the
right place to have it in.’

‘What made you come to all this?’

‘It started with Em offering me the house. He doesn’t really want one – it was a gesture, you know. No – it started with his making me remember something good before
Sarah: that’s what I’ve found so difficult, you see – to remember anything good properly before her. Or perhaps it was something that Alberta said – honestly, Jimmy, I just
don’t know – all those things, I think, and probably more; this is a beautiful place to accumulate in.’

‘What did she say to you?’

‘Are you curious about that? She said: “I’m so sorry that you lost your daughter” . . .’ Her eyes had filled with tears, but they stayed in her eyes.
‘That’s all. But she said it in the kind of way that didn’t detach Sarah’s death from everything else – for me, I mean. Isn’t it odd? She touched it in exactly
the right way and I found it didn’t feel the same as I had always thought it would. That’s a step, isn’t it?’

‘Sure. You like her, don’t you?’

She smiled, and a tear fell on to the table. ‘Not as much as you do, Jimmy, but I do like her. That brings me to something else.’

‘Don’t rush yourself: the last time we had lunch was in London.’

‘So it was. It wasn’t nearly as nice as today. Jimmy. You asked me in New York to help in any way that I could about Alberta being tried for Clemency. I haven’t helped much,
because there haven’t been many ways that I could, but what you really meant was “don’t sabotage” and I haven’t, have I?’

‘You certainly haven’t.’

‘Well – you
could
help me about having the house in England, and you could certainly sabotage it. Don’t you think it would be a good thing if Em had a home somewhere to
live and work in between trips?’

Remembering what he had said about it that night on the terrace, I said: ‘I think it would be a very good thing if
you
had one.’

‘I wouldn’t want it without him.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant it would be especially good for you. I don’t think he minds where he is – it depends what he is doing there.’