13

In the old days there had been many family picnics at the farm and it had been at one of these that Carson had first met Barbara’s parents. He had gone home to Maryland for summer vacation, between his sophomore and junior year at Princeton, and in his pocket had been a letter from her, inviting him to come to Burketown for the second weekend in June. He remembered it now, as he sat alone in his hotel room in London, just back from the movies.

It had turned out to be an American movie, and disappointing, but he had sat through it anyway, and afterward he had walked back along the streets in the late English twilight, encountering the bold London whores, some haggard and some beautiful, who approached him imperiously and shrugged when he turned his eyes away from them, who laughed and spoke loudly as he passed. He had walked past Hyde Park slowly, watching the late, slow strollers there, and turning north, had got lost briefly in a maze of little angular streets but had finally found his way to his hotel. Now it was nine o’clock, but the sky was still light, and from his open window he could hear the distant sound of trains as they steamed into the great glass vault of Paddington Station. Perhaps, he thought, it was the train sounds that reminded him of that other summer, the train ride south from Princeton with Barbara’s letter in his pocket. Still, it seemed to him now that London trains had a different sound from the trains at home; London whistles were higher-pitched and their wheels sounded more fretful than lonesome. They had, he thought, a nervous, impatient sound, different from the steady, reassuring rhythm of the Pennsylvania Railroad heading south to Washington.

He remembered the summer vacation train, the vestibules crowded with suitcases, portable typewriters, tennis rackets and lacrosse sticks, and the heady noise in the club car where everyone gathered, jammed together, sweating, shouting above the noise of other shouting, and the way the atmosphere in the club car changed when the Bryn Mawr girls got on. You could tell, he had always said, a Bryn Mawr girl by her hair. Her hair was always smooth and shining, precisely parted on the left, so sleek and perfectly in place that she seemed to be wearing an invisible hair net. And her skin, too, was smooth, and her voice was smooth and expressionless as she talked of Gide, Bergson and Russian novels. But he had had no eye for the Bryn Mawr girls that summer because in his pocket there had been the letter from Barbara Woodcock. And he would be heading north to see her again in two weeks’ time.

He had arrived at the farm on Saturday. Though Barbara had told him a great deal about the farm and had often described the house, he had been unprepared for what he saw. When the house first came into view around the corner of the bumpy road, it had reminded him, suddenly, of a Mississippi side-wheeler, painted white, set adrift among the rhododendrons, which were then in full bloom. A Mississippi side-wheeler, floating serenely among purple, white and scarlet-dotted waves; and yet, as more of it appeared, the house lost its resemblance to a boat. With jutting ells, its patchwork of styles and contours, it resembled absolutely nothing in the world that he had ever seen. Barbara had come running down the steps. ‘Welcome to the farm!’ she had said.

That afternoon there had been a picnic. It was like no picnic he had ever been to. They had crossed the lake behind the house in boats, and on the opposite shore, in front of the guesthouse on a wide, flat stretch of grass, the picnic had been spread upon a large white tablecloth. They sat on canvas cushions in the grass and John, the Woodcocks’ houseman, made cocktails and passed them on a silver tray. Carson had never been to a picnic where cocktails had been passed and where, presently, solid silver knives and forks were placed, wrapped in heavy linen napkins, beside china plates while a Negro chef in a white coat cooked steaks above an open charcoal fire. He remembered the huge, icy bowls of salads and the steaming loaves of herb bread and the yellow ears of corn pierced with silver skewers and the small silver pitchers of melted butter, and during the meal, there had been iced champagne in tall, crystal glasses with silver stems. ‘The champagne is in your honour,’ Barbara had whispered to him.

He remembered Barbara’s mother most vividly from that afternoon. He had thought her a rather pretty woman, with a clear and youthful face and beautifully arranged white hair, and after the meal, when coffee was poured, she had beckoned him to come and have his coffee beside her. ‘Come talk to me, Mr. Greer,’ she had said, lifting her hand to him from where she sat and letting a tinkling cascade of thin silver bracelets run down her arm. He sat beside her, and as she talked, she lifted a palm fan from her lap and fanned herself, and he remembered the soft, pleasant fragrance of her perfume that stirred in the little breeze she created for them both.

‘You’re from Chevy Chase, Barbara tells me,’ she had said.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘It’s a lovely town. One of the loveliest suburbs, I think, of Washington. Tell me, was the weather warm when you left?’

‘Yes, ma’am, quite warm,’ he said. ‘You know Washington.’

‘Oh, indeed I do!’ Edith said. ‘But it’s a beautiful city. Tell me, don’t you think this is a pleasant spot for picnics—here, by the water? Pleasant, and lovely and cool?’

‘Oh, I do, Mrs. Woodcock,’ he had said. ‘Very pleasant. Yes, a beautiful spot for picnics. And, I might add, a beautiful picnic, too.’

‘Why, thank you!’ She gestured around her with a fan. ‘This side of the lake is quite different from the other side, where the house is, have you noticed? We’ve tried to keep it this way, nice and rustic. We’ve just let the trees go wild over here, and this strip of grass, where we’re sitting now, is never mowed. We have it cut once or twice during the summer, just to keep the brush down around our picnic place, but otherwise this side of the lake is just as Mother Nature made it.’

‘Is there a road between here and the house?’ he asked.

‘Just an old wood road. Do you know our New England wood roads? The woods, all around here, are crisscrossed with wood roads. If you take a walk through these woods, you’ll keep coming on them. They twist and wind around, through the woods. Woodcutters used them, years ago, and along all of them are the old stone walls. Sometimes I marvel at the stamina our New England ancestors must have had to build so many stone walls! They must have been extraordinary people, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Indeed they must have been.’

‘Some of the old roads we’ve cleared for bridle paths, for the horses. But not all. We always say that there are only two ways to get here, where we are now, from the house. And that’s by boat or by horseback! Oh, of course, they’ve driven in here with trucks and things, when we built this little guesthouse. But actually, the two best ways to get here are by boat or on horseback.’

‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ he said.

‘Thank you. We love it. Tell me, Mr. Greer,’ she said, smiling, ‘what are you studying at Princeton?’

‘Well, I plan to major in history,’ Carson told her.

‘History! Now isn’t that interesting! I don’t know whether Barbara told you or not, but my father was chairman of the History Department at Brown University.’

‘Yes, I believe Barbara mentioned it to me,’ he said.

‘Yes. It’s a pity my father is no longer living, because you would have enjoyed talking to him, I’m sure. He was a remarkable man, a true scholar. At his time, he was considered one of the best in his field.’

‘Is that so,’ Carson said.

‘Yes.’ She smiled again. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll find me rather poor at history. You see, I was brought up—in Providence—in, well, perhaps you’d call it the Old World way. My father thought that it was unnecessary for a woman to have a college education, though, of course, he considered it essential for a man. So history—except for a smattering of ancient history in boarding school—is a subject I’ve never really studied. Strange, isn’t it? That a history professor’s daughter should never have studied history? Well, all I can say is that I know you would have enjoyed my father.’

‘Yes, I’m sure I would have, ma’am,’ Carson said.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘do you enjoy Princeton?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Very much indeed. It’s a fine school.’

She laughed lightly. ‘I’m afraid you’ll find the loyalties are split in this family, Mr. Greer,’ she said. ‘My loyalties are, of course, to Brown. But Barbara’s father and most of his family are Yale. However,’ she said, ‘we shall try not to be too unfair toward Princeton while you are here!’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, smiling.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘you roomed with our cousin Woody, didn’t you?’

He felt his face redden slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘For one term.’

‘I thought that was what Barbara said.’

‘Things got—’ he hesitated. ‘Things got sort of switched around. They—well, you know how a dean’s office is. Changing things around. They switched us around, gave us new room-mates.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Well, to be perfectly frank, if I were designing a college, I’d design it so that no one had a room-mate. I mean, I think it’s difficult to share a room, and try to study with another person, don’t you? I think individual rooms would be far, far pleasanter. At the school I went to, for instance, there were individual rooms.’

‘Well,’ Carson said, ‘I think it all depends.’

‘Of course. It does depend.’ She raised her eyes and looked around at the others. ‘I was sorry Woody and his mother and father couldn’t come to our little picnic today. Woody hasn’t been feeling well.’

‘So—so I’ve heard,’ Carson said.

‘But he’s actually feeling much, much better. Did you meet Woody’s mother and father, ever, at Princeton?’

‘No, I never did,’ Carson said.

‘They’re both very dear people and we’re terribly fond of them. Leighton deWinter, Woody’s father, is a lawyer. He has an excellent legal mind. He does most of the legal work for our little company. And Mary-Adams, Woody’s mother, is an absolute angel of a person. She was Mary-Adams Woodcock, my husband’s cousin. Tell me,’ she said; turning to him with a bright smile, ‘does this family confuse you—so many cousins?’

He laughed politely. ‘Well, ma’am, you have more cousins than I do,’ he said.

‘Well, it’s really very simple. There were two brothers—my husband’s father and another brother, William, who is no longer living. William had two children, Mary-Adams and William, Junior. William, Junior, was killed, very sadly, in the last war, but you’ve met his wife, Victoria, today. My husband’s father had only one son, my husband. So there it is! That’s everyone! Simple isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I see now.’

‘Two members of the family whom you haven’t met are my husband’s parents, Barbara’s grandparents. They live in town and they’re both, I’m afraid, quite elderly, so they don’t come on our little picnics any more. But you must meet them. Perhaps, if you have a chance tomorrow, Barbara will drive you in to town to meet them.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I hope I’ll have a chance to do that.’

‘Of course,’ she said, frowning, ‘they’re difficult. I mean, they’re quite old. They’re both in their eighties, and old people are—well, difficult, sometimes, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ he said.

‘Yes. And sometimes—I’m thinking of Barbara’s grandfather particularly—they say things that—that they don’t mean. Things that don’t sound kind. But, I suppose we must forgive old people for that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said.

She looked up. ‘Well, here’s Barbara. I’ve bored you long enough, I’m sure, with talk of family.’

‘Not at all, Mrs. Woodcock!’ he protested earnestly.

‘You’re very kind,’ she said. ‘Now run along, the two of you. Barbara, take Mr. Greer for a walk along the lake, along the old wood road. I’ve been telling him about the old wood roads that are all through here.’

‘I’ve certainly enjoyed talking to you, Mrs. Woodcock,’ Carson said, standing up. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for asking me up this weekend.’

‘We’re delighted. Now run along, both of you, and have your walk. It will help you digest your lunch,’ she said.

He and Barbara walked side by side across the grass and when they reached the protective shelter of the trees he took her hand.

‘Well?’ she said eagerly, ‘Did you charm her off her pins?’

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘I tried.’

‘What did she talk to you about? What questions did she ask you? You were talking for hours!’

‘Well, we talked about your family and how they fixed up the guesthouse, and—’

‘But what questions? Didn’t she give you the third degree?’

‘No, not really,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That’s good. That means the research was satisfactory.’

‘What research?’

‘I think you’ve been looked into,’ she said. ‘By my grandfather. He likes to keep tabs on what all of us do. When he heard you were coming up here, he got to work. I’m sure he got a full report—on you, your family, everything about you.’

He had been startled to hear this. ‘Is all that so important?’ he asked her. ‘Would things like that really make any difference?’

She laughed. ‘Not with you!’ she said. ‘Obviously, you’ve passed the test! He’s put a little “O.K.” next to your name! As long as that’s happened, it’s not important at all.’

‘What a funny thing,’ he said.

‘You don’t know my grandfather,’ she said.

‘Your mother said we ought to try to see him tomorrow.’

‘Well, let’s not try,’ she said. ‘If he calls us, of course we’ll have to. But let’s hope he won’t. I’d like to spare you that ordeal.’

‘Is it such an ordeal?’

‘He’s the patriarch,’ she said. ‘In this family we indulge in ancestor-worship—especially the living ancestors, like him. He’s the monster everyone’s terrified of. He terrifies me, too. He makes all the rules.’

‘I see,’ he said.

‘But I know he’ll like you, so there’s nothing to worry about. Mother liked you, and that’s the first thing.’

‘Do you think she did, Barbara?’ he asked her.

She laughed gaily, tossing her head. ‘Oh, I could tell!’ she said. ‘I could tell she liked you. I could tell by the expression on her face!’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, of course! Of course. She adores you. She thinks you’re the handsomest, most charming young man she ever met! And do you know why, Carson? Do you know why?’

‘No. Tell me why?’

‘Because you just kept nodding politely and smiling and letting her do all the talking! You idiot, didn’t you know that’s the only way in the world to charm a girl’s mother?’ With her hand still in his she circled his waist with her arm, drawing him closer, and for a moment he felt unsteady and almost deliriously happy, thinking he might very easily collapse on his knees to the ground. ‘You were wonderful!’ she said, and they walked very slowly, kicking the dried leaves and twigs with their toes under the deep green shade of the trees, saying nothing, and he looked upward, into the branches above, feeling tears in his eyes.

And a few moments later he stopped her, turned her toward him, and kissed her. She looked at him wordlessly, her face grave and anxious, for a long time. Then they continued slowly, arm in arm, along the path through the trees, saying nothing.

Presently they came to a spot of open sunlight and she separated herself from him, ran across the grass, and lay down on her back, looking up and laughing. She reached for a long blade of grass and placed it between her teeth and the folds of her white cotton dress lay all along the contours of her body. ‘Do I look like the constant nymph?’ she asked him.

‘Better,’ he said.

‘Better than Joan Fontaine? Really?’

‘Much better,’ he said. He knelt beside her.

‘That’s nice to hear,’ she said. ‘Say it again.’

‘Much better,’ he said.

She put her head on one side. ‘I’m worried about my morals,’ she said.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you know why?’

‘Well, perhaps.’

‘I do worry. It scares me. What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said huskily.

‘I know right from wrong,’ she said.

‘So do I.’

‘I know you do. But that doesn’t help. Does it?’

‘Not much,’ he said.

‘We can’t get married,’ she said. ‘We’re too young.’

‘I know.’

‘No one would hear of it, would they? Your family or my family? It’s quite impossible …’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we’re in love.’

‘Yes,’ he said. And, bending over her so that her face was in his shadow, he said huskily, ‘I adore you.’

She looked up at him. ‘What a funny thing to say!’

‘I adore you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because—’ she shivered slightly. ‘Because—I don’t know. If you had said, “I love you,” I wouldn’t have been surprised.’

‘But adoring,’ he said, ‘is more.’

‘I know,’ she said faintly. ‘And it’s just what—just what I wanted you to say.’ And now there were tears in her eyes.

‘Barbara—’

‘We’ve got to get back,’ she said. Abruptly she stood up. ‘If we don’t get back soon, they’ll start looking for us.’

He stood up also and they started back through the woods toward the picnic.

Just before they reached the edge of the clearing where the family was gathered, she stopped him with her hand. ‘Carson?’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘You do love me, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it’s mature love, isn’t it? Grown-up love, not like children.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She breathed deeply, ‘Yes. I think so, too.’ And then: ‘Carson—’

‘Yes?’

She pointed. ‘The guesthouse. There’s—there’s a key to it.’

He whispered, ‘Is there?’

‘Yes. Tonight, we could go there.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

They were not looking at each other, and after a moment he said, ‘When?’

‘When?’

‘I mean, what time?’

‘Whatever time,’ she said. ‘Whatever time—is best.’

‘You mean when people are—’

‘Yes, when the house is quiet.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘Walk down to the lake and take one of the canoes.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She looked at him doubtfully. ‘Unless—’

‘No,’ he said, trying to make his voice sound casual. ‘No, let’s do that.’

‘All right,’ she said.

Then, quickly, they started across the grass toward the others.

Late that afternoon he had gone to the pool alone for a swim. As he went down the stone steps he saw Peggy Woodcock. She sat on the tip of the diving board, trailing her feet in the blue water. At fourteen she had been thin and gangly, with legs and arms that seemed too long for the rest of her body. She was wearing, he remembered, a black two-piece bathing suit the top portion of which still appeared to be unnecessary; and her boyish face, shoulders and arms seemed to be composed of one continuous freckle. She had looked like a girl made of tortoise shell and her short dark hair stood out in damp, angry points all round her head. She was smoking a cigarette, dropping her ashes into the pool. ‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ Carson said.

With a stiff-fingered gesture she drew the cigarette to her lips, frowned, sucked in on it, and immediately exhaled a noisy stream of smoke. Another ash fell and disintegrated in the water.

‘Been smoking long?’ Carson asked her, smiling.

‘Three years,’ she said, not looking at him but scowling at the surface of the pool. ‘It’s a filthy habit.’

He said nothing. After a moment, she said, ‘I know what you’re wondering.’

‘Really? What?’ he asked.

‘You’re wondering why my hair looks the way it does.’

‘I wasn’t, really,’ he said. ‘But now that you mention it, why does it?’

‘It’s a butch haircut that’s growing out,’ she said.

‘Oh, I see.’

‘I gave myself a butch haircut. Mother had a conniption! My God!’ she said, and laughed. ‘But there’s nothing she can do now except wait for it to grow out.’

He sat down at the edge of the pool. ‘That was a nice picnic today,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Did you think so?’

‘Yes. Very nice.’

‘Ha!’ she said.

‘Why? What was wrong with it?’

‘Conspicuous consumption!’ she said.

Oh?’

‘Yes. Haven’t you read Thorstein Veblen for God’s sake?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t say as I have.’

‘Ye gods!’ she said. ‘Well, he’s just about God, if you ask me. I mean, what about all that champagne, and all the servants and things? I mean, ye gods, how conspicuous can you get at a picnic? The trouble with this family is,’ she said, ‘is that nobody feels any obligation to wealth. Now, in my opinion, wealth imposes a duty and an obligation on the wealthy, and if you’re just going to waste it, and fritter it, then it ought to revert to the poor. And things like these picnics of Mother’s, well, just how leisure-class-ish can you get?’

‘I see,’ he said.

She flipped one leg over the diving board and settled herself facing him. ‘Where’s Barbara?’ she asked.

‘In the house. Changing her clothes.’

‘Aha!’ she said. ‘You see what I mean? There’s an example? What’s she changing her clothes for, for God’s sake? What’s wrong with the dress she had on? Do you see what I mean?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not quite.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘Barbara and I have completely incompatible ideologies.’

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘But of course. Now she seems to feel that wealth is to be enjoyed, that’s all. Whatever comes, she accepts. She’s a very accepting sort of person. Talk about, “she spins not, neither does she reap,” ye gods! That’s Barbara all right. Now I, on the other hand, firmly believe that those of us who are born into this world more fortunate than others have a heightened obligation to our fellow man. I mean we should work, produce, contribute in order to deserve the luxuries we’ve got! Not just laze around all day and be fed like a fish. Ye gods!’

‘In other words,’ Carson said, ‘the money should only go to those who work for it.’

‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘My personal theory is that those who have the money have got to work to keep it. If they can’t, then it should be distributed among those who can work. So I’m not a Communist. In fact I think my theory’s far more advanced. I call myself a dynamic capitalist. Dynamic means active. I think that under our capitalistic system it should be worked out that only those who produce according to their means get to keep their means. If they produce, it means more employment and better living conditions for the working classes. But the thing we’ve got to get rid of is the sponges. Do you see what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so.’

‘What do you think of my theory?’

‘Well, I’d have to give it some thought,’ he said.

‘Yes. Of course it’s highly revolutionary and unheard of, but I’m planning to write a book on it and make it all very clear,’ she said. She took a final pull on her cigarette, spat out the smoke, and tossed the butt into the grass. ‘You’re positively loony about Barbara, aren’t you?’

He smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am.’

Peggy shrugged. ‘It’s not surprising,’ she said. ‘Most men are.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Men turn to jelly over Barbara. It’s easy to see why. It’s because she’s beautiful, is why it is. She’s the pretty one and I’m not, why deny it? Personally, I’d rather be as I am. I think self-awareness is a very important quality in a person, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Yes. Barbara’s beautiful all right. But the trouble with Barbara is she’s a sponge about that, too.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sponge. Just sits there and soaks it up. Now my theory about wealth and advantages might be extended to physical beauty, too. Because beauty is a kind of wealth, too, isn’t it? Beauty—and intellect—things like that, things some people have and others don’t? Well, my theory is that beautiful people ought to deliver, too.’

He laughed softly.

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I mean I think people who are beautiful ought to work harder because of it! But not Barbara. No, she just sits back and accepts, and accepts.’

‘You mean you think she’s selfish?’

‘No, not selfish actually. But lazy. Ye gods, she’s the laziest girl in town, the laziest girl in the world. Ye gods, you’ve never seen a girl so lazy as my sister! And it’s having looks and luxury that’s made her that way, if you ask me. Now, I didn’t always feel this Way.’

‘Oh?’

‘No. Up until about a year ago I used to absolutely worship Barbara. Oh, of course, I still do. I think she’s absolutely wonderful and kind and generous—generous most of the time—and I have the highest respect for her. But I used to worship her, literally, like she was some goddess or something! I mean I literally wanted to model my life on hers! But then I started reading some mythology, about goddesses and all, about the kind of person I thought Barbara was. And I suddenly realised that all those goddesses had to work to stay goddesses! They didn’t just laze around on Olympus all the time. They went out and rescued some starving mariner, or something! Now of course Barbara thinks I’m looney and acts hurt when I say, ye gods, do something for your fellow man! She’s definitely not the rescue-a-starving-mariner type. She wouldn’t decide to give somebody the gift of fire. But, oh well,’ she shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’ll be good for her. If you agree with my theories, perhaps you’re just the sort of person Barbara needs. Have you got a coffin nail?’

He had come down to the pool wearing only his trunks. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t bring any with me,’ he said.

‘Skip it,’ she said. ‘I only smoke Murads anyways, and nobody else ever does.’ She stood up abruptly, raised her arms above her head, sprang, and performed a neat little jacknife into the water. She came to the surface and swam to the side of the pool, next to where he was sitting, and rested her arms on the smooth concrete ledge. She looked up at him, her short-cropped hair plastered smooth against her skull. ‘You were Woody’s room-mate, weren’t you?’ she asked.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘He didn’t come to the picnic,’ she said. ‘Woody’s having trouble coping.’

‘Is that so?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was sick. Did you hear about that?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did.’

‘Sick,’ she said, ‘or that’s what they say. Actually, he tried to commit sewer-pipe with his bathrobe cord. Did you know that?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘But don’t you ever dare mention those words around this family,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to be the deepest, darkest secret. Instead, we say, “He was sick.”

‘I understand,’ he said.

‘How did you and Woody get along?’ she asked him.

‘Oh, I always liked Woody,’ he said.

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Hmm. Well, I like him all right I guess. Ye gods, he’s my cousin so I suppose I’ve got to like him. But he bothers me. I mean I’m worried about him. Not Barbara, though. He and Barbara are the same age and they’ve always been thick as thieves. When they were little they used to play together constantly. But I mean constantly. And you should have seen what they played! Dolls, and dress-up, and house. Woody used to dress up in girls’ clothes, what do you think of that? And then they’d have secrets—secrets all the time. Ye gods. Well, in my opinion what Woody has turned into is a morphodite.’

‘A what?’

‘A morphodite. Don’t you know what a morphodite is, for God’s sake?’

‘Well, I think I know what you mean. But where did you pick up that word?’

‘In Freud, for God’s sake. Haven’t you ever read Freud?’

‘Have you?’ he asked her.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘perhaps I haven’t read all of Freud. But Daddy’s got all the books right in our own library, and besides everybody at the school I go to knows about Freud. I’m really surprised you’ve never heard of him.’

‘Oh, I’ve heard of him,’ he said, amused. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of him all right.’

‘Well, the morphodite business is on every other page, practically. I mean it’s all right there, in black and white. But of course!’

‘I’ll have to look it up,’ he said.

She sighed sadly. ‘Well, of course Woody’s being analaysed. They’re having him analysed and analysed. They’ve got a doctor that charges thirty dollars for every hour, just for talking to Woody. But I could analyse him,’ she said, ‘for a lot cheaper than that.’ She ducked her head under the water briefly and came up dripping, ‘Mother complex,’ she said. ‘That’s Woody’s trouble. Woody’s got a mother who’s an absolute creep, and I mean it. I mean she used to think it was cute when he dressed up in girls’ clothes! Can you feature that? And after he did—you know—did what he tried to do, at Christmas time—after that Woody cried a lot. I mean he kept crying. So you know what Aunt Mary-Adams told my mother she did? Got into bed with him and rocked him, to comfort him! I mean, now really. How creepy can a grown woman get?’

He had said nothing because, once again, he had begun to feel very sad. And he remembered again the curious cobweb of feelings, tightly spun and taut as piano wires, and invisible, that had seemed to stretch everywhere within the walls of that room at college, and the tender treading between these wires, and the feeling of choking. He sighed and tried not to look at Peggy’s small brown face that gazed intently at him from the water.

Suddenly Peggy reached out and grabbed his bare foot with her wet hand. ‘Come on in the water!’ she said.

‘No thanks. Not just yet—’

‘Come on!’ Bracing her feet against the wall of the pool she had begun to pull him and, for a skinny girl, she was remarkably strong.

‘Hey!’ he yelled.

But she laughed and cried, ‘Come on, you coward!’ and pulled him into the pool.

‘We’ll have a race!’ she said.

He had raced her for four laps of the pool then, and had won, but not by much. And when the race was over and he stood at the shallow end, panting, shaking his dripping hair out of his eyes, he had felt quite relieved to see Barbara coming down the path in her suit—to his rescue, as it were.

‘Hey!’ he called to her. ‘Come rescue a starving mariner!’ and he glanced at Peggy, who looked glum.

Lying now on his bed in London in the darkening room, smoking a cigarette, with no lights on, he tried to remember and reconstruct the rest of that day so many years ago and miles away. Strangely enough, though they had met late at night at the guesthouse, the details surrounding that meeting had grown fuzzy with time. He could not, for example, remember whether he or she had got there first. And he could not remember taking one of the canoes across the lake, though of course he must have done so. He could not remember what, if anything, they had said to each other when they had met in the darkness, nor what she had worn. It seemed, now, trying to remember it, as though suddenly they had appeared together on the veranda from nowhere, and the only vivid moments that stood out now were disconnected ones, fragments of time, little flashes of the picture—as though he himself had been standing somewhere a short distance away and watching his image move with Barbara. He saw her, for instance, clearly, reaching for the key in the pocket of her skirt and pushing open the door of the guesthouse. And he saw them both enter. He remembered the damp, stale smell of unused rooms that had assailed them inside and he saw her go to a window and open it, letting in fresh air. They had turned on a light, he remembered, for he could see them both clearly, smoking cigarettes, sitting in chairs and talking, he was sure, about nothing at all. Their cigarettes, too, had been damp with summer and had burned slowly, and his thoughts had moved slowly with the weariness of anticipation. ‘So this is a rendezvous!’ she had said. ‘I’ve always wanted to know!’ And somehow the light had been extinguished and the cigarettes had been stubbed out, and he remembered her saying uncertainly, ‘Carson? We are sure, aren’t we?’ And he told her yes, that they were sure.

And a little later, in a small voice, she had said, ‘Carson, I don’t know anything! Truly I don’t. I’m a little frightened, I might as well tell you. I really don’t know anything. So you won’t—so you’ll remember, won’t you? That I don’t know anything?’

And he had told her that there was nothing to be frightened of, although, indeed, he knew very little himself. And he had given her another cigarette then, and lighted it for her, struck blind by the sight of her face in the blaze of the match. And they both smoked that cigarette in silence, passing it like a cup of courage between them. Then the cigarette was gone.

And then, much later, she had said, ‘Oh, darling. Will it show? Will it show in my face? I’ve heard that it shows in your face? When I look at my mother now, will she know? Will it show?’

And he assured her that no, it would not show in her face.

And then he remembered waking, much later, and seeing her across the room. She stood looking out the window, a slender silhouette in the light that was the barest beginning of morning. He had called to her softly but she had turned to him and said, ‘We’d better go now, darling—it’s getting light.’

A few weeks later there had been a letter from her:

Dearest,

I am so happy and love you so much, and I do not regret anything, no, nothing—not one part of it, ever. Why should I? Do not ask me a question like that, Carson! I would do it again, now, tonight, and without the slighest, tiny doubt and this is because I love you, it must be. And do not worry because I am not p. I will not say that I wasn’t frightened because I was. Awfully. I thought if something happens what will I do? Only run away, far away, as far as I can go because there is no one I could bear to tell about it here—no one, not Mother, Father, anyone. They expect me to be more than I am. Or maybe it is me who expects me to be more than I am. Remember I told you how I daydream? This is what I daydream about the most …

You see, my darling, I am such a coward. I have always been a coward, and I want you to know this about me since you said we will be married some day. And I know some day we will. I want you to know how cowardly I am and perhaps that is even why I love you. Because I am weak and you are strong, because I am a coward and you are brave. How simple!

All my love,

B.

They had not gone to her grandparents’ house that weekend in June. Grandfather Woodcock had been too ill to see them. That was the year that seasonal changes had begun to affect him, and each fluctuation of New England weather brought on new coughing spells and sent him to bed.

As it turned out, Carson did not meet Barbara’s grandfather until several years later.

In between had come Barbara’s year in Hawaii and his own two slow and uneventful years in the stateside Army. He had gone up to the farm on leave from his base in Louisiana—with the end of his Army career just two months away—and they had started making plans to announce their engagement. In fact, he had almost forgotten that he was supposed to meet Barbara’s grandfather when Mrs. Zaretsky telephoned to say that the old gentleman expected him. He had gone to the old house on Prospect Avenue wearing his Second Lieutenant’s uniform, with his brass and his shoes especially polished for the occasion.

Mrs. Zaretsky met him at the door and ushered him inside. ‘Speak up good and loud when you talk to him,’ she had warned him in the hall. ‘Don’t worry about her, though. She’s got ears like a fox.’

Mr. and Mrs. Preston Woodcock, Senior, sat side by side in the turret-shaped bay window of the living room, bathed in the oleograph radiance of sunlight through stained glass. Their chairs were close together as though, from time to time, each one liked to reach out and touch the other. Of the two, Mr. Woodcock was clearly the more frail. His long face was cavernous and ruined, transversed with ridges and arroyos. His eyes, set in craters beneath jutting white eyebrows, were almost colourless. He wore pyjamas, slippers and a heavy bathrobe. A crocheted afghan lay across his knees and an ancient yellow cat lay asleep on his lap. Still, enough remained of Mr. Woodcock to make Carson realise that he had once been an imposing man. This fact appeared, first of all, in his handshake; when Carson took his hand the old man’s grip was firm. His voice, too, was surprisingly hard and clear. ‘How do you do, young man?’ Mr. Woodcock said.

‘How do you do, sir?’

He turned to Mrs. Woodcock. ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ he said.

She held out her hand. And, as Barbara had instructed him to do, he bowed slightly, took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

‘Won’t you sit down, Mr. Greer?’ Mrs. Woodcock said.

He sat in the window seat, facing them. For several moments, there was silence. Periodically, Mr. Woodcock’s hand moved to stroke the cat’s back. The gold signet ring on his little finger caught the sun as he first ruffled, then smoothed, the cat’s crackling yellow fur. The cat purred noisily. Carson looked around the room.

His first impression of the room was that it was very dirty. The winter sunlight, pouring in through filmed and rain-streaked coloured panes, was cruel to it. It revealed the dust that covered everything. Dust hung from the fringed lampshades; it furred the dry petals of the straw flowers that sprouted, in a stiff arrangement, from a blackened silver vase; it rolled and gathered in kittens beneath the chairs and tables. Suspended in the stained glass window from rusty chains were planters which held two huge and drooping Boston ferns, and dust covered the leaves of these like a fine, October frost. The room smelled of dust and antiseptics, rubbing alcohol and medicines that stood in sticky bottles on a tray at Grandfather Woodcock’s side. Housekeeping appeared to have been abandoned long ago, and now every effort was devoted to the preservation of the two relics who occupied the house.

Presently Mr. Woodcock spoke again. ‘Young man,’ he asked, ‘have you settled on a career for yourself?’

Barbara had warned him, ‘Don’t let him talk you into going into the paper business!’ So Carson mentioned several offers of jobs he had received and that he was considering. Among them was the offer made by the Locustville Chemical Company.

Grandfather Woodcock looked up. ‘Locustville Chemical?’ he said. ‘It’s a good place. An excellent place, excellently managed. I know a great many of the men there, including Harvey Kendall.’

Carson had said that, after all, he had several months during which to decide, and that he was weighing all his offers carefully.

‘Don’t put it off too long,’ the old man said. ‘They say man wants but little here below. That’s horse manure. Man wants a damn lot, everything he can get his hands on.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Carson said.

‘So don’t put it off. If you put things off, someone will get there ahead of you. Of the offers you’ve got, Locustville Chemical is the best. Take it. That’s my advice.’

A few minutes later the interview ended. But Carson remembered it a week later when a letter arrived from Mr. Kendall, the president of Locustville Chemical. He had heard of Carson’s interest in the company; he hoped Carson would give the company’s offer his serious consideration; there were a number of other applicants for the position, so he hoped Carson would reach a decision soon. He mentioned, also, a slightly higher salary than had been discussed before.

It was really Barbara’s grandfather, then, who had made him decide to take the job. He had never told Barbara this. At the time, he hadn’t thought that it was important. Since then, he had not been so sure. It was Barbara’s grandfather, actually, who had brought him last night to London, and who had separated them through so many other journeys. Often in the past, when she had complained of Locustville and the trips and the life they were leading, he had thought of telling her, but he never had. There was no point, really, in trying to blame her, or her family; it had been his own decision, he had made it. At the time, it had not been possible to look ahead. Of course it was never possible to look ahead.

He wondered what would have happened if it had been possible to look ahead, to see himself, years from the day Kendall’s letter arrived, to see himself lying on this bed, in this hotel room, hearing these night sounds, thinking these night thoughts. ‘And here you are,’ he would say to the picture as he turned to it in the imaginary album. ‘This is London, summer, 1958. You have come to sell American paint to British automobile manufacturers. You look as though you’ve been through a lot, and you have. You’ve been through four promotions, three salary increases, a number of birthday parties, and two prescription changes for your reading glasses, your eyes having grown weak and unreliable from reading reports and memoranda and watching television. You will surely develop lung cancer if you don’t switch to filter cigarettes. You have survived many angers. You even had a brush with the law a while back when you were stopped for speeding on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but—a true salesman—you talked yourself out of a ticket. Your forehead is wider than it once was, but the mind inside it is perhaps a little narrower, shrunk by habit and corseted by duty. Your gut sags somewhat, but the paraphernalia inside it still manages to churn lustily upon occasion. Once, when your wife’s complaints about your job seemed more than you could take, you offered her a divorce, which she refused, which pleased you secretly. Since then, with the help of a few rules, things have not gone too badly with you both. Once, in a nightmare, you dreamed you read your own obituary. It was buried in the paper and the headline, in small type, said: ‘Carson V. Greer Dies; Was Paint Salesman,’ and when you woke you were not sure whether it was the announcement of your death, or the words that followed, that shocked you more … Your tennis serve is good, but it is doubtful whether you could still snap out a lateral pass. You have fathered two children and you own, free and clear, a pretty little house in Locustville. What do you think of yourself?’ He wondered what his answer might have been.

But it was foolish to wonder. So many things had changed. Grandfather Woodcock had died, Barbara’s family had changed. He and Barbara themselves had changed. There were no more family picnics at the farm. The farm had changed. No one used the little guesthouse any more.

They had used the guesthouse, though. They had gone there several times again that first summer, and the next one, and the summer after that. And they had gone to several other places as well. He couldn’t remember them all any more, or their sequence, or the details of each. But he could remember that they had been very happy in all those places, and for a long time. It was strange to have forgotten so much of that long time because it was really not so long ago, though it seemed to be. It was because of the way time hurried on It was funny, the way those days seemed to have flown away, and it was sad because he could not remember when they had begun to go or imagine where they had gone.