22

The dining room at Farthings was long and narrow. The table was mahogany, with leaves that lifted at either end, and the chairs were mahogany too, with straight, stiff backs, and narrow spindle legs. The carpet was gray, deeper than the soft gray of the walls. There was never a log fire in the dining room, only an electric fire, turned on and off before and after meals, burning with a single bar. Once, in a careless mood, Maria had toasted a kipper before the bar. The oily fat from the smoking kipper splashed and sizzled onto the pure, unstained steel of the fire, and, in spite of Polly’s rubbing with a cloth, the marks had never entirely disappeared.

They remained still, the only stains on the clean and unblemished room. Never a room to dream in, never a room in which to browse and talk. The ritual of the Sunday supper lay spread upon the serving table behind Charles’s chair. Soup, in green earthenware pots, with little handles, stood upon heated soup plates; these last a tribute to courtesy alone, because the policy was to drink the soup straight from the earthenware pots, thus saving the washing-up of extra plates. A cold chicken, garnished about with parsley to make color; some sausage rolls; the remains of the luncheon joint shrunken in size since midday; these, and a vegetable dish filled with baked potatoes wrapped in a napkin, were among the more substantial offerings to the feast. There was, of course, the salad. An open tart (fruit of Polly’s bottling) and a trifle, and a great slab of blue Danish cheese.

Niall noticed, with relief, that the bottle of claret stood uncorked, but apparently as yet unwarmed, upon the sideboard; he noticed too that the bottle of London gin to which he and Maria had helped themselves before going up to change, and which they had left two-thirds full, was now empty. Charles, who waited always for his wine and never mixed a cocktail except for guests, had therefore finished it. Niall glanced at Charles out of the corner of one eye, but Charles, with his back turned, was sharpening the carving knife on steel, preparatory to work upon the chicken. Polly stood at his side, ready to hand the plates. Celia, seated already at the table, was unrolling her napkin from its silver ring. It was the ring she always used, but as she put it down upon the table Niall noticed that she stared at it, thoughtfully, as if she posed the ring a question.

The last of the bathwater ebbed away down the waste pipe outside the window. Maria could be heard moving in her bedroom overhead. Nobody spoke. Charles continued carving at the chicken. The puppy scratched at the door, and Celia, rising instinctively to let him in, paused halfway, hovering, uncertain, and glanced over her shoulder at the figure carving by the sideboard.

“What about the pup?” she said. “Shall I let him in?”

Charles could not have heard her, for he did not answer; and looking anxiously and indecisively at Niall, Celia opened the door. The puppy sidled in, and, worming its way across the room, crawled beneath the table.

“Who wants the breast?” asked Charles, surprisingly.

Now if the three of us had been alone, thought Niall, or if Charles had been Maria, this would be the moment for a merry quip, and the mood for supper set. I always want the breast, and get it far too seldom. But not tonight. To quip tonight was but to court disaster. Anyway, it was not for Niall to express a wish. He waited upon Celia.

“I would love a wing if you can spare one, Charles,” she said, speaking rather too quickly, her cheeks flushing, “and perhaps a sausage roll. A small one.”

It was unlike Charles to carve the second course before he had sat down to his soup. Nothing tonight, though, was as it should be. The ritual was upset. Only Polly remained blank and unaware. She came with the little tray, handing round pots of soup. Yet even she found something was at fault. She paused a moment, her head on one side, like a puzzled sparrow. Then she smiled.

“I have forgotten to turn on Grand Hotel,” she said.

She handed the last of the soup, and darting to the portable wireless in the corner of the dining room switched on the knob. The volume was much too loud. A throaty tenor split the air with pain. Niall winced, his eye on Charles. Polly had the sense to turn the knob over to the left, and the tenor subsided, his voice hardly above a whisper. For him, if not for those who listened, the Temple Bells Were Ringing. Still, the sound drugged feeling and helped to break the silence. The tenor was like another guest to supper, but less effort.

And soup, Niall thought, reveals the character. Celia takes hers out of a spoon, as Truda taught us all three to do, but she does not pour it into her plate, she spoons it from the pot, a wartime custom. Polly takes hers in tiny sips, one finger crooked. Each time she sips she puts the pot down onto the plate, then lifts it up again. In the old days the three of us would have called this mincy manners. Charles, like the man he was, like all the Wyndhams probably from the beginning of time, brought up since boyhood to massive great tureens handed by footmen, emptied his soup into a plate, oblivious of the washing-up, and spooned it sideways, tipping up his plate. Whereas I, thought Niall, I alone am greedy; and he put his mouth to the pot and drank the soup down in gulps.

The tenor sang “Pale hands I love” as Maria came at last into the room. She had dressed in a hurry, she wore nothing, Niall knew, under her dressing gown affair, which was velvet and the color of old gold. She wore it every Sunday, that and a jeweled belt he had brought her once from Paris. He wondered why it was that she always looked lovelier like this, with a comb run through her hair, and a smattering of powder, than when she took trouble, and dressed formally, for grand occasions. He wondered if it was oddity with him, approaching perversion, or the familiarity of years of love and knowledge that made him want her most when a little rumpled as she was now, or drowsy on first waking, or greasy with her hair in pins, her make-up wiped away.

“Oh! Am I late?” she asked, her eyes wide. “I am so sorry.” And she sat down in her chair at the end of the table opposite to Charles, and her voice was the voice of innocence, of the person who has not heard the gong, who does not know the time of supper. And this then, decided Niall, is to be the motif for tonight; this is the chosen role, we are all back again to Mary Rose, the ethereal one, the lost child on the island. Whether it works with Charles or not remains to be seen. Because time is all-urgent, time is getting short.

“Supper has always been at eight o’clock,” said Charles, “all these years, at your demand. It was at eight tonight.”

We are all lined up, thought Niall. We are under starter’s orders. The point is, how does Maria eat her soup? Does she sip, or tip? I’ve never noticed. It probably depends upon the mood. Maria took the green earthenware pot in both her hands. She held the pot lovingly, the warmth of the soup came to her, and she sniffed it, to see what it would be. Then she drank it from the pot, still holding it in both her hands, but she drank slowly, thoughtfully, not in great gulps like Niall. She looked across the table at him and saw him watching her intently, with a smile. She smiled back at him, because it was Niall, but puzzled too, not sure why he was smiling. Had she done something wrong? Or was it the tune? Was there some code significance in the tune that she had not remembered? Pale hands I love, beside the Shalimar. Where was Shalimar? What lovely, sensuous visions it conjured, anyway, despite the sickly tenor and the honeyed words. A river warm and limpid, the color of Chartreuse. The thing was, why had she never done a tour in India? There was always India. Rajahs, and moonstones, bathing in asses’ milk. Women in purdah. Or in suttee. Or in something… She looked round the table. The silence was oppressive. Somebody else must grapple with it. Not Maria.

“The children were so funny in the bath, Mummy,” said Polly, rising from the table, collecting the pots of soup. “They said, ‘I wonder if Mummy and Uncle Niall still have a bath together, as they must have done when they were little, and if Mummy gets angry when the soap goes in her eyes.’ ” She laughed merrily at the children’s jest, and waited for comment. What an awfully stupid remark to make just at this moment, thought Celia wretchedly, and how very nearly it is the sort of remark I might have made myself, forgetting, or not minding, with the three of us alone.

“I can’t remember, can you,” said Niall briskly, “when all three of us last plunged into a bath? Maria was always selfish with the water. She wanted to have it all to herself. But I remember soaping Celia’s bottom. It was nice and squidgy, full of dimples. Would you take my soup plate, Polly?”

“Less than the Dust.” So sang the tenor now. And very apropos, to judge from Charles’s set expression. Less than the dust beneath his chariot wheels. Niall was less than the dust. Everyone was less than the dust. And Charles, cracking the whip in the chariot, rode above it.

The second course was served without further quotation from the children. Niall was given a long, lean thigh of chicken. Oh, well, a thigh could serve its purpose, but would Charles ever warm the claret? Would he, which was more important still, ever serve the claret?

Charles was occupied at the moment in handing round the salad. Anyone could hand the salad. The claret was up to Charles. If there was one thing that Niall could not do, it was to pour out the claret in Charles’s house. Onto the thigh instead. Do justice to the thigh.

Polly had the wishbone. Later on, there would be hell to pay, in all probability, with that same wishbone. She would pick it clean, then hand it to Maria. “Does Mummy want a wish? If Mummy could have her heart’s desire, what would Mummy wish?” Danger lay in the wishbone. Why could not Charles have kept it for himself?

Maria had all the breast. She ate it with unconcern. It was wasted on her. Charles ate the other wing. Well, it was his bird, when all was said and done, and he deserved it. Maria looked up after helping herself to salad.

“Aren’t we going to have anything to drink?” she said.

Mary Rose it was. But rather a grumpy, pouting Mary Rose. Left in the cherry tree too long by Simon without sustenance.

In the same grim silence, Charles approached the sideboard. He poured the claret. No question of warming it now. Celia and Polly both refused, greatly to Niall’s relief; Polly with her usual breathless laugh when offered alcohol, “Oh, no, Mr. Wyndham, not for me. I have to face tomorrow.”

“So have we all,” said Charles.

That was a poser. That was a hit below the belt. Even Mary Rose, her eyes a misty blue and full of dreams, registered interrogation. Niall saw her flash a look across the table at her husband, a wary, doubtful look; then she relapsed once more into her role.

Attack is the best form of defense. Somebody was always saying that. Montgomery or Slim. Niall had heard it on the wireless several times, during the war. He wondered if the method would apply tonight. Supposing he leaned forward to his host and said, “Look here, what is all this? Where do we stand?” Would Charles stare blankly back at him, nonplussed? The old days were best. The old lost days of duels. A wineglass shivering to fragments. A wine stain down a lace cravat. A hand on the hilt of a sword. Tomorrow? Yes, at dawn… Meanwhile, you did nothing. You attacked the thigh of chicken. You drank your claret and found it much too chill, too sour. A fair Communion wine. Charles, groping in the cellarette after his second gin, had passed over the pre-war stock from Berry Brothers, and had brought out something else. One of those vinegar vintages, marked twelve-and-six. No matter. Let it go… Celia found a caterpillar in the salad, and hid it swiftly under an outside leaf. Mrs. Banks was not so thorough after all. It was so easy to clean a lettuce, if you rinsed it well. Examined every leaf, then rinsed, then shook the whole thing in a clean, damp cloth. A good thing the caterpillar had been on her plate and not Maria’s. Maria would have said, “Oh, God—look at this,” and somehow, this evening, that kind of remark would not have been in place.

If only somebody would talk and break the silence; but in an easy way. The children would have helped. The children would have prattled on, unconscious. No one could create an atmosphere when there were children. It was at this moment that the announcer in Grand Hotel chose to tell his listeners that the orchestra would play a selection from the dance tunes of Niall Delaney. Polly looked up from her wishbone with a wide, bright smile. “Oh, how nice,” she said. “Now we shall all be pleased.” All perhaps but Niall Delaney. Jesus, how ill-timed.

“It’s rather hard,” said Niall aloud, “to hear one’s mistakes in public. A writer, after all, can forget about them, once he has returned his proofs. Not so the composer of dud songs.”

“You mustn’t say that, Mr. Niall,” said Polly. “You always will belittle yourself. I’m sure you do know, really, how popular they are. You ought to hear Mrs. Banks in the kitchen washing up. Even her voice can’t spoil them! Ah, this is my favorite.”

It was everybody else’s favorite too, five years ago. Why bring it back? Why not let it die, in the limbo of lost moods? Anyway, the fools were taking it too fast. That awful bouncy rhythm… Nine in the morning, it had been, the sun streaming through the window of his room, and, so unexpectedly for him at that hour, the energy of all the world on waking; with the song in his head. He had gone to the piano and played the sound of it, and then had rung Maria.

“What is it? What do you want?” Her voice heavy with sleep. She hated the telephone before half-past ten.

“Listen. I want you to hear something.”

“No.”

“Don’t madden me. Listen.”

He had played the song half a dozen times, and then lifted the receiver again, and he had known how she was looking, with the turban round her head, and the eye-pads on her eyes.

“Yes, but it should not do that at the end,” she had said. “It should do this.” And she sang the last bar so that it went up at the end, instead of down, and of course that was what he had meant all the time.

“You mean like this? Hold on, while I put the telephone on the piano.”

He had played it again, going up, as she wanted it; and he sat on the piano stool, laughing, with the receiver tucked between his head and his shoulder, a mad, cramped position, like a ventriloquist’s dummy, while she hummed the tune down the receiver into his ear.

“Well, now may I go to sleep again?”

“Yes, if you can.”

That had been the fun of the mood, for five minutes, for ten minutes, for one hour perhaps, at most. Then it went. Then it belonged to the crooners. To Mrs. Banks, to Polly… He would have liked to get up and switch the wireless off, the business was ill-judged, lacking in taste. It was as though he, Niall, had deliberately told the producer of Grand Hotel to play these songs just now, as an insult to Charles. A modern flinging of the gauntlet. I can do this. What can you do?

“Yes,” said Charles slowly, “that is my favorite too.”

Which, thought Niall, is the sort of thing that makes me want to get up from the table, and go out of the room, and drive to the sea and find my leaky boat and sail it to perdition. Because the look in Charles’s eyes as he said that is a thing I can never forget.

“Thank you, Charles,” said Niall. And split a baked potato.

Here was the chance, thought Celia. Here was the chance to make everything all right. A bond between us all. Bring Charles into the fold. It was the fault of each one of us, shutting Charles outside. Maria had never realized it. She had not understood. Her mind had always been a child’s mind, questing, curious, full of mirrors, reflecting other people. She had not thought about you, Charles, simply because children never think. If the moment could be held, simply by the bond of Niall’s music, everything might yet come clear. But Polly blundered in.

“The boy was so funny on the walk this afternoon,” she said. “He asked me, ‘Polly, when we are grown up, shall we be clever and famous like Mummy and Uncle Niall?’ That depends on you, I told him. Little boys don’t become famous who bite their nails.”

“I bit mine to the quick until I was nineteen,” said Niall.

“Eighteen,” said Maria.

She knew who stopped him too. She stared at him, stonily, across the table. And now it’s gone, thought Celia, the moment. We have missed the chance. Charles filled his glass with claret and said nothing.

“Besides,” continued Polly, “you don’t just become clever and famous by sitting back and doing nothing. That’s what I told the boy. Mummy would like to spend more time in her home, with you children and Daddy, but Mummy has to work in London, at the theater. And do you know what he said to that? He said: ‘She doesn’t have to work. She could just be our Mummy.’ It was really rather sweet.”

She sipped her glass of water, crooking her finger, smiling at Maria. I can’t make up my mind, thought Niall, whether Polly is a criminal, cunning and dangerous, ripe for the Old Bailey; or just so bloody stupid that it would be kindness to wring her neck and spare the world more pain.

“I think,” said Celia bravely, “that the thing to tell the children is this. Being famous is awfully unimportant. What is important is to like the thing you do. Whether it is acting, or composing, or gardening, or being a plumber, you must like the thing you do.”

“Does that apply to marriage?” enquired Charles.

Celia had blundered worse than Polly. Niall saw her bite her lip.

“I don’t think Polly was discussing marriage, Charles,” she said.

“No,” said Charles, “but my son and heir obviously was.”

It is a pity I’m not a brilliant conversationalist, thought Niall; one of those flamboyant creatures who toss phrases into the air like pancakes, and whip them back and forth across the table. This would be my chance. Steer the conversation into broad, wide channels, and from thence into the realm of abstract thought. Every word a gem. Marriage, my dear Charles, is like a feather bed. For some the down, for some the pointed quill. Open up the mattress and the whole thing stinks…

“Is there any breast left?” asked Maria.

“I’m sorry,” answered Charles, “you’ve had it all.”

Well, that was one way out of it. And saved the brain much effort.

“What I always mean to do,” continued Polly, “is to get a book and write down all the funny things the children say.”

“Why get a book when you remember them so well?” asked Niall.

Maria got up from her chair and wandered to the serving table. She dug a fork into the trifle, wrecking the surface. She tasted it, and made a bitter face, and put back the fork belonging to the apple tart. Having spoiled the appearance of the third course, she came back again to the table with an orange. The only orange. She dug her teeth into it, spitting out the skin. If this was a different sort of party, reflected Niall, now would be the moment to start a questionnaire, the kind of questionnaire we play when we’re alone. Where is the best place to kiss a person whom you love? It depends upon the person. Must you know them well? Not well enough. Oh, well, in that case, probably the neck. Beneath the left ear. And travel downwards. Or, as you became more intimate, upon the ankle. The ankle? Why the ankle? Maria flipped a pip across the table. It hit Niall in the eye. I wish, he thought, that I could tell her what I’m thinking now. It would shatter Mary Rose, and we could laugh.

“I am afraid,” said Polly, watching Maria’s orange, “that I forgot to put any sherry in the trifle.”

Charles rose, and began collecting the plates. Niall helped himself to a slab of Danish cheese. Celia took trifle, to spare the offended Polly. Besides, the apple tart would be wanted for tomorrow.

“It’s quite a job remembering everything,” said Polly, “and really Mrs. Banks is not much help. She only puts the bare rations on the grocery order. I don’t know where we’d be if I didn’t put on my thinking cap each Monday.”

Monday, thought Niall, was a day to be avoided. Heaven help the world on Mondays.

Charles gave himself neither sweet nor cheese. He broke off the edge of a biscuit, staring steadily at the silver candlesticks, and then poured out for himself the last of the claret. The dregs. The draft was potent. His face, though heavy nowadays, was usually without great color, and brown, from being mostly out of doors. Now it reddened, and the veins appeared. His hand played with his glass.

“Well,” he said slowly, “and what conclusion did you reach this afternoon?” Nobody answered. Polly glanced up, surprised.

“You’ve had half a day,” he continued, “to consider quietly whether I was right or wrong.” The bravest of the three took up the challenge.

“Right about what?” asked Maria.

“Right,” said Charles, “about your being parasites.”

He lit a cigar, and leaned back in his chair. Thank the Lord, thought Niall, the dud claret has blurred his feeling. Charles won’t suffer while the claret lasts. The announcer on the wireless said good-bye to Grand Hotel. The orchestra played themselves out, and vanished.

“Does anybody want the serial?” asked Polly. Charles waved his hand. Like a well-trained hound, she understood his signal. She got up, and switched the wireless off.

“I don’t know that we discussed it,” said Maria, biting her orange, “we talked of so many other things. We always do.”

“We had a curious afternoon,” said Niall. “We all three of us plunged back into the past. We remembered lots of things we thought forgotten. Or, if not forgotten, buried.”

“Once upon a time,” said Charles, “in my official position as magistrate of this district, I was obliged to attend an exhumation. The opening of the grave was unattractive. And the body smelled.”

“The smells of unknown people, dead or alive, are never attractive,” said Niall, “but one’s own smell, and the smell of those you love, can have a curious charm. And a certain value too. I think we found it so, this afternoon.”

Charles drew at his cigar. Niall lit a cigarette. Celia listened to her own anxious, beating heart. Maria ate her orange.

“Indeed,” said Charles. “And what value did you extract from your dead past?”

“Only what I’ve always suspected,” said Niall; “that you travel full circle, like the world upon its axis, and return to the same place from where you started. It’s very simple.”

“Yes,” said Celia, “I feel that too. But there’s more to it than that. There’s a reason why we have to do it. Even if we do come back to the starting place, we’ve acquired something on the way. A sort of knowledge. A sense of understanding.”

“I think you are both quite wrong,” said Maria, “I don’t feel that at all. I am not back where I started from, I have reached some other place. And I have got there through my own effort, and my own will. There is no going back. There is only going forward.”

“Really?” said Charles. “And may one ask, to what?”

Polly, who had glanced from one to the other of us, with a bright yet bewildered look, snatched at her chance to join the conversation.

“We all hope Mummy will go forward to another big success when her present play comes off,” she said. “That is what Mummy hopes too.”

Pleased with her discretion, she began to stack the plates upon the tray, ready for clearing. It was close to her moment for departure. Sunday supper, yes; but tactfully, she left when Mrs. Banks opened the door and handed in the tray of coffee. Daddy and Mummy liked their coffee to themselves. And Mrs. Banks liked help with the dirty dishes.

“Success,” said Niall, “really did not come into our discussion. Like fame, as Celia said just now, it’s so very unimportant. Too often it can be a millstone round the neck. Success stories, too, in our particular walk of life, are always very boring. Once anyone is launched, there is no story. Maria’s success story would be lists of plays. My own, a string of tunes. They could not matter less.”

“What, then, in your opinion, does matter?” enquired Charles.

“I don’t know,” said Niall, “and I never have. I wish to God I did.”

Mrs. Banks opened the door, and stood motionless, bearing the tray of coffee. Polly took it from her. The door closed again.

“I will tell you what matters,” said Charles. “It matters to have principles, to have standards, to have ideals. It matters to have faith, and a belief. It matters very much if you love a woman, and a woman loves a man, and you marry, and you breed children, and you share each other’s lives, and you grow old together, and you lie buried in the same grave. It matters even more if the man loves the wrong woman, and the woman loves the wrong man, and the two come from different worlds that just won’t mix, that won’t turn into one world, belonging to both. Because when that happens, a man goes adrift and is lost, and his ideals and illusions and traditions get lost too. There is nothing much to live for anymore. So he chucks his hand in. He says to himself, ‘Why bother? The woman I love does not believe in any of the things that I believe in. Therefore I may as well stop believing in them too. I also can lower standards.’ ”

He took the cup of coffee that Polly had placed beside him, and stirred it with the spoon. There was no need to stir. There was no sugar in the coffee.

“Please, Charles,” said Celia, “don’t talk like that. I can’t bear to hear you talk like that.”

“I could not bear it,” said Charles, “when I began to think like that. Which was quite some little while ago. I’m used to it now.”

“Charles,” said Niall, “I’m bad at putting points across, but I think you have the whole thing out of focus, out of line. You talk of different worlds. Our world, Maria’s, and mine, is different from yours, and always has been; but only on the surface. We have our traditions too. We have our standards. But we look at them from another angle. Just as a Frenchman, say, sees things another way to a Dutchman, to an Italian. It does not mean that the two don’t mix. Don’t get along together.”

“I quite agree,” said Charles, “but as I have never asked a Frenchman, or a Dutchman, or an Italian to share my life with me, you evade the point at issue.”

“What is the point at issue?” asked Maria.

“I think,” said Polly, standing by the door, “if you don’t mind, that I will say good night now, and go along and help Mrs. Banks with the washing-up.” She flashed a smile at us and went.

“The point at issue,” answered Charles, “is whether you give, in life, or whether you take. If you take, there comes a time when you suck the giver dry, just as you, Maria, at the minute have sucked the last of that orange. And the outlook, for the taker, becomes grim. The outlook for the giver is equally grim, because he has practically no feeling left. But he has enough determination to decide one thing. And that is not to waste the little feeling that remains.”

The ash from his cigar fell in the coffee saucer. It lay in a spot of liquid, and turned soggy brown.

“Quite frankly,” said Maria, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” said Charles, “that we have all come to a parting of the ways.”

“Have you had too much claret?” asked Maria.

Not enough, thought Niall. Charles has not had enough. If there could have been but half a bottle more, Charles would not suffer. Nobody need suffer. We would only have thick heads tomorrow morning. Whereas now…

“No,” said Charles, “I have only had enough to loosen the tongue, which happens to have been tied too many years. This afternoon, while you three were raking up the past, I came to a decision. Quite a simple one. People take it every day. But as it will affect the three of you, you may as well be told.”

“I came to a decision too,” said Niall swiftly. “We possibly all three did, in our various ways. You asked me just now what mattered in life. I lied when I said I did not know. It matters to write good music. I have never done it yet, I probably never will. But I want to try. I want to go away and try. So whatever you were deciding on your walk in the rain, you can safely count me out of your calculations. I shan’t be here, Charles. It will mean one parasite the less.”

Charles did not answer. He pulled slowly at his cigar.

“I feel very apologetic,” said Celia, “for coming so often at weekends. Somehow, after Pappy died, I began to look upon it as my home. Especially in the war. And being with the children. It made such a difference, knowing children. But now I’m really settling down into those rooms at Hampstead, it will be different, quite different. I’m going to do what I’ve never had time to do before. I’m going to write. I’m going to draw.”

Charles went on gazing at the silver candlesticks.

“Business was down again last week,” said Maria. “I very much doubt if the play will go on running into the spring. It’s years, isn’t it, since we took a holiday together? It’s quite absurd, but there are lots of places I’ve never even seen. We could go away, Charles, when the play comes off. Would you like that? Would it make you happy?”

Charles laid his cigar down on his plate, and folded his dinner napkin.

“A very charming suggestion,” he said. “The only thing wrong with it is that it comes too late.”

Too late for the concerto, too late to write good music and not bad? Too late to draw, too late to put those stories into print? Too late to make a home, to settle down, to love the children?

“Tomorrow,” said Charles, “I propose doing the business through the right channels. Getting a lawyer to write you a proper letter.”

“A letter?” said Maria. “A letter about what?”

“A letter asking you to give me a divorce,” said Charles.

We none of us spoke. We stared at Charles, perplexed. That was the voice I did not hear, thought Celia, the voice the other end of the line. That was what made me uneasy, that was what made me afraid. That and the way he pushed the pantry door with his foot.

Too late, thought Niall, too late for Charles as well. And he knows it. The parasites have done their work.

“Divorce you?” said Maria. “What do you mean, divorce you? I don’t want to divorce you. I love you very much.”

“That is too bad, isn’t it?” said Charles. “You should have told me so more often. No use telling me now, when it does not interest me to listen. You see, I happen to be in love with someone else.”

Niall looked across the table at Maria. She was no longer Mary Rose, she was no longer anyone. She was the little girl who, nearly thirty years before, had stood at the back of the stalls and watched Mama upon the stage. She had watched Mama, and then turned to the mirrors on the wall, and the gestures that she copied were borrowed, not her own; the hands were the hands of another, so was the smile, so were the dancing feet. The eyes were the eyes of a child who lived in a world of fantasy, of masks, and faces, and scarlet hanging curtains; a child who when she was shown real life became bewildered, frightened, lost.

“No,” said Maria, “No…”

She got up, and stood looking at Charles, with her hands clasped. The part of an injured wife was one she had never played.