The Watch Tower (16 page)

Felix had sometimes said, with a puzzled expression, ‘If we did have a bit of time and money to spare, you wouldn’t want to go to the races, or the dogs. You wouldn’t go round to the Beach and Pines for some beers, or play poker.’

She had done all these things, but let it pass. Laura looked down and picked at a loose thread in her grey pleated skirt, found wanting. But since he was kindly this day, she said, ‘There are other things though.’

‘Are there?
Are
there?’ Genuinely baffled, Felix rubbed his bristly chin, trying to think. ‘What? You mean going to the Australia for champagne? Buying fur coats and dresses?’

He remembered other women and what had pleased them. The few barmaids he had known had seemed satisfied with cosy cheerful rooms, drinks, dresses and races. Wealthy women, he assumed, wanted more expensive versions of the same things. What Laura could mean or think she wanted, he was at a loss to guess. But slowly, as she explained and he began to comprehend what she was suggesting, his eyes
withdrew from hers, without moving from them, to a series of inner visions:
Mr
.
Felix Shaw
,
well-known man-about-town
,
at the first night of—

Since he took no action, however, and failed to become overnight a new Mr. Felix Shaw, the elevated pictures Laura had fooled him into believing turned out to have been a swindle. From standing staring, naïvely taken with this revelation of his possibilities, he turned, jaundiced, back to his ledgers, and when he and Laura had worked to a standstill at night, and had half an hour before going to bed in which to realise that they were bored to the edge of insanity by figures, artificial flowers and vacuum cleaners, he would complain peevishly of his isolation. She had driven away all his old pals. If she was like any other woman they would be out at the trots or the dogs, having a good time.

Still, still—
Then
,
he would be more content than he could dream of now. He was only bored, only lonely (probably) just as she was. When their friends said, ‘Felix, come fishing this weekend!’ or if she could say, ‘Look, two tickets for the Old Vic tonight!’ Felix would thaw with delight. He only wanted to be thought for, entertained, coddled, treated kindly (probably). She wanted to do it. He wanted to be popular. She wanted him to be.

From what she could discern (Felix kept the books locked up), the factory was running well and sales were increasing, so any minute, she had thought, it would be
(there was an automatic pause here for scaling down: the truth always seems excessive) possible and a good thing, very nice, if they could—decide to live. Much of that extra work was self-inflicted. Laura had felt her nerves straining, all but spent, for that instant when not Felix exactly but things, the omnipresent, terrible, invisible examiner, would call, ‘Enough!’

Now—

She stared at the table, dully understanding that that absolutely vital relief was as far away as it had ever been. Instead there were to be new burdens, new strivings, new sets of books, new unreasonable reasons for silence and labour and putting her down with his eyes with that amazing look of arrogance.

‘No!’ she said aloud. ‘No! she said to the waiting table. She felt a sudden tearing sensation as if half the contents of her head had been violently catapulted off from her. Like someone pushing through dense bush, she went to her bedroom, tugged on a coat and grabbed a handbag. No one was about. She went swiftly outside, and up the path to the street.

It was one of those magnificent days that people are inclined to think unique, perhaps the most exquisite they are ever destined to see, a day to wring superstitious vows from any who wander into it with untroubled eyes. They will remember this unearthly radiance for ever! (They forget the regularity of days fit for trumpets and angels.) On the ferry, Laura sat
outside staring fixedly at nothing.

The city looked tawdry, dirty, flimsy as a fun-fair, grit falling from half-demolished buildings, deserted scaffolding rising above those still under construction. It was Saturday and the shops had all closed at twelve; the streets were emptying rapidly. Neon signs hung low overhead from low awnings and stretched into the diminishing distance—a printed roof of glowing signs in queer off-reds, pinks, yellows, blues and greens, mis-spelling lunatic messages with demented jocularity, letters jumping, flashing and changing, messages from things to no one, silently chattering over the blighted streets.

Laura walked down Pitt Street from the Quay to Central Station. She walked back down Elizabeth Street to Hunter Street, down Hunter Street to George Street, along that thoroughfare to Bathurst Street, up Bathurst to Castlereagh, along Castlereagh to King, down King to Pitt, along Pitt to Market, up Market and along Castlereagh to King, down King, along Pitt, up Market.

She could not make her feet stop walking. She yearned to stop. But if she ever did, how could she make it appear ordinary to other people? And what else was there to do in life? What alternative? If the other aimless strollers knew the screaming emptiness of her head, if she stood still forever on a corner, what would happen? If she lay down in the gutter, or broke
things that did not belong to her, what would they do? Would anyone come?

She yearned to stop. She had walked for hours. But her feet bore her on past every terminus. Her thoughts and the impressions received by her senses were fragmentary and disordered.

Late in the afternoon, with the reflex of someone falling who snatches hopelessly at a dry branch growing from rock, she found herself halted and saved. A grey man in a bundle of clothes had sold her a newspaper, and stood waiting for his money. Laura fumbled in her bag, clamping the paper under one arm. Shaking, her legs giving under her, she dropped a few coins into the dirty outstretched hand of her saviour.

The clockwork spell dissolved. No longer driven, she crossed the street and taking a few steps into Hyde Park sank down onto the grass. Some of the wooden seats set further back in the park had single occupants, sexless derelicts slumped in the dying afternoon sun, unnoticeable as rocks.

On the cool grass, Laura opened her paper, and it was only now, when she began to look for work and a place to live, that she comprehended even obliquely what she had allowed to happen to herself. Little by little she had resigned away the trust she had been given to be herself—out of pity, from a desire for peace at any price, thinking nothing really lost, anyway, by her silent acquiescence, not noticing the contradiction
since all was so unconscious, that believing herself invulnerable to change, she hoped for a change in Felix. Silence was the least harmful course she could take, she had decided: she could think her thoughts. Since she had reserved the right to do this—think her thoughts in silence, while offering no resistance outwardly to Felix’s version of herself, life and the world—how could she be damaged?

She read advertisements. Her head began to feel hollow and deep and without boundaries, as if a pebble tossed in her mind would fall for ever. What did she know? What did she
know
?
No box, chocolate or artificial flower factory wanted help. She had no references. She had no school certificates. A most tremendous inertia which sprang from the paralysis of a will too long suppressed shackled her. She could do nothing. The habit of living each day as it came, grateful, after it had passed, for any hours that gave even the appearance of concord, had rendered her incapable of forethought. She had achieved this state with much painless suffering, committing murder by proxy.

In truth, at the deepest level, she did not know what to do, and knew what she would do.

Meantime she reasoned in a rapid and flickering series of reflections that she could not apply for these jobs, anyway, till Monday morning. Nor could she rent a room with five shillings, which was all she had, and
Elsie Trent at the factory said people bought the
Herald
at four o’clock in the morning in their efforts to find accommodation, so strenuous was the competition for living-space.

It was becoming clearer and clearer that circumstances made any action impossible. She had no choice but to resign herself to the unchangeableness of her existence. Yes, the more she understood this, the more she felt almost a grim satisfaction, a burning self-righteousness. Very well then! She had tried. A sort of anger that felt like strength flared briefly. Very well!

Felix and Clare sat at the kitchen table eating dinner.

‘Oh, hullo. There you are.’ Felix looked up mildly from his book. ‘Are you going to have some food? There’s some left, isn’t there?’ He turned to Clare.

‘Yes.’ She and Laura exchanged bleached glances.

‘I had to get out of the house for a while. I don’t know what came over me. Just for a change. I only went to town.’

Felix’s pleasant expression somehow affected her breathing. She hurried a few steps into his office, dropped her coat and bag on the divan and returned to sit down at the table.

‘Ah.’ Felix looked up mildly again, his dark-brown eyes faintly enquiring, his smile a little deaf-looking. ‘How did you get on?’

‘I only walked about.’

Having registered courteous astonishment, he
turned back to his book, and the kitchen was so quiet that Laura could barely swallow for fear of being overheard. She and Clare looked down, silent, sick, not daring not to eat. Felix chewed with his mouth open, sucked at his food, mused over his book.

Laying down his knife and fork finally he read on for a few moments and then lifted his head with signal innocence. ‘Should I be waiting here for anything else?’

‘Yes, yes. There’s fruit salad and ice cream in the fridge.’ Laura began to resume control of her kitchen.

Throughout this course, and while he ate biscuits and cheese and they all drank coffee, Felix read and no one spoke. No one ever did, of course, unless he did, granting an amnesty. (‘It’s hard to read when other people are gossiping just twelve inches away,’ Laura sometimes said. ‘He doesn’t get much chance to look at his paper.’)

While the dishes were washed Felix remained in the kitchen reading, and then all three moved together to the sitting-room where they sat till bedtime, reading. Felix spoke a few words about the factory, but he was supra-naturally mild and pleasant and easy. Laura and her sister avoided conversation entirely even during his single absence from the room. The china Bluebeard stood over the seated semicircle of three.

Later in the big double bed, Felix read till midnight then went straight to sleep having uttered no word of any particular significance and certainly none of
reproach.

‘Thank God! Thank God!’ Laura muttered thanksgiving without ceasing all morning long on Sunday as she cleaned the house. Everything had blown over. No repercussions. Yet she felt so shriven and strange to herself that she might have come back from a long illness. ‘But thank God, thank God!’

Clare helped about the house, washing floors and paint-work, and Saturday’s jobs were gradually overtaken. Everything was going to be all right. Laura had finished hanging sheets and towels on the inconspicuous lines at the sides of the garden when some strangers stopped up in the street and stood, evidently admiring the house. One man appeared to be making a speech; the other man and woman paid attention.

Here was a scene Laura had often visualised: strangers ecstatic and envious staring at their lovely house with its unparalleled views and embroidered verandahs and low window-sills with flowers reaching up to them. She half-loved these people on the instant. How nice they were, and of what judgement!

The orator opened the gate and ushered his audience in; the three strolled down the steps.

Felix!—In her mind Laura was calling him to greet their visitors. Stirred and excited as she always was at the astonishing approach of other English-speaking natives, she hesitated a moment longer before running round to tell Felix. It could be a mistake, a public-opinion poll, anything. It always had been.

‘Miss Shaw? You
are
the daughter of the house, I take it?’ The leader had spotted her and now advanced with outstretched hand. His hair was black and shiny. He was tall and well-dressed and had the disarming manner of a born salesman.

‘
Mrs
.
Shaw.’ Laura smiled apologetically, anxiously, half-whispered. Now she hoped to be rewarded with a cry of: ‘Good news!’

‘Of course, of course! Mrs. Shaw—’ he gave the impression of a slight bow, ‘may I introduce Mr. and Mrs. Terry. Remember,’ he added, when she failed to respond, ‘I told your husband about them yesterday afternoon.’

‘Oh! How do you do.’

Mrs. Terry had a white flowery hat on; Mr. Terry was even taller than the other man, and very brown and thin. They were old enough to be Laura’s parents. They looked kindly at her.

‘We’ve come to see your lovely home.’ Mrs. Terry smiled under her shady hat.

‘Well, do you mind if we—start looking round, Mrs. Shaw? I think I’ve got you a couple of very interested buyers.’

There was a longish pause.

‘I’ll get my husband first, if you’ll wait. He’s in the front garden.’

‘Oh, have they come?’ Felix stuck the fork in the ground and rested his foot on it. He wiped his face with
his forearm. ‘Phew!—Well, I better put in an appearance, I guess. I thought,’ he said amiably, ‘that I’d just get someone to take the house off our hands. You don’t think too much of it, do you? I mean, you don’t care what happens to it, do you? Eh?’

Laura stared away past him to the harshly glittering harbour. She looked out at it from under her raised hand, and through narrowed eyes, for the sun was dazzling. There were a lot of boats about.

Everything looked black in all this sun.

Five days later Felix decided not to sell the house.

Oriel Carter-Wright said, ‘And then the bomb fell. A minute or two later I saw that my brother was dead.’ Oriel said, ‘Paris.’ She said, ‘Oxford. History.’ She said, ‘I’ll drive home from Singapore.’

Oriel said, ‘I’ll stand again at the next General Election, I trust, for another constituency.’ And very often and warmly, Oriel laughed. She had travelled all over the world taking jobs of every description, at all levels. There could be no question of being in competition with so exotic and temporary a being, so although she was sometimes looked at shyly, and with defensive cynicism, she was generally considered a feature in this government office. Having been labelled ‘different’, Oriel might thereafter have spoken in Hindi for all the attention the actual matter of her conversation received. For it was ‘different’ conversation, hard to
fathom, not to be taken seriously. This was what came of her having, one girl remarked sympathetically, a trained mind. But they did like to stare and stare at her white, flawless, flower-like complexion, at her dark-blue eyes and wavy dark-brown hair.