A Circle of Friends Read online

  Suddenly she laughed. ‘What a terrible mess I’m making of this shoe.’ She tore out some stitches and began again.

  ‘Does Adam love someone else?’

  Her head jerked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, really, Henrietta, you heard what I said.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘There isn’t another woman?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘He’s not queer, is he?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s ever been in love, though. I don’t think he knows what it’s like.’

  ‘Would he marry you, if you were free?’

  ‘I really haven’t asked him.’

  ‘But would he, do you think? I mean, you do care, don’t you?’

  ‘Would you marry me, if I asked you to?’

  ‘If you really wanted me to. I think you’d be most unwise to ask me, though.’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t think Adam’s quite so selflessly passive as you are, dear. Anyway, that’s something it’s never entered my head to worry about.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You think it’s all so easy,’ she said, and there was a sudden tartness in her voice. ‘But life’s not like that, Martin, honestly it isn’t. Marrying and being unmarried—it’s all very complicated. It’s got awfully little to do with being in love and having sex and things. Sometimes, anyway. I don’t want to be unmarried. I think my marriage is perfectly all right as it is. Well, not perfectly, of course, but then nobody’s is.’

  ‘What would Freddy say if he knew you were in love with Adam? Does he know?’

  ‘Of course not. And why do you assume I am? I haven’t said so. I think things are just about as good as they’re ever likely to be the way they are. I’ve got you and Freddy and Adam. You’re all very different. I’m kept very busy.’

  She was so obviously, sweetly, lying to stop herself breaking down and crying to drown the whole house. I got up and went over to where she sat by the window, sewing those stupid Persian slippers to my trousers.

  ‘It’s too awful, isn’t it?’ I said.

  She looked up at me, her eyes full of tears.

  ‘Not really. One can always manage. It would be nicer if he would be nicer, that’s all.’

  ‘He’s frightened of falling in love with you,’ I said. ‘Look what happened to me.’

  ‘Poor Martin.’

  I knelt down beside her and took her hands and said, ‘What about poor Henrietta?’

  ‘It’s all so stupid,’ she said. ‘Why did you have to bring it all up?’ And she burst into tears.

  I gave her my shoulder to cry on. My knees wept too, but with pity and gladly. I comforted and consoled her as best I could.

  It was in the middle of this comfort and consolation that Freddy walked in.

  On the evening of that day the husband went back to London, giving the wife to understand that he would not return. The co-respondent also left the same evening.

  The petition was presented on October 14th, alleging adultery from July.

  So I had to play Tom Thumb after all. It was terribly short notice. Mom wanted to cancel the whole thing, but the rest of us voted her down. Of course we didn’t have any idea of what was going on. Pop just said he had to hurry back to London that evening to sign a contract with someone, and he wished us luck and promised he’d be down next day to see the performance. He even watched a bit of the rehearsal and said he thought it looked pretty good. He’d hardly gone to the station when Martin got a phone call to say that his mother was dying, and of course he had to leave at once. He seemed pretty calm about it, actually.

  ‘Lawrence, you’re going to have to be Tom Thumb,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid something’s happened at home. I have to leave right away.’

  ‘You can’t possibly,’ I said. ‘It’s quite out of the question.’ Naturally, I didn’t know it was anything important.

  ‘I’m afraid he must,’ she said. ‘If you pack very fast, Martin, you can get the seven-twenty. You can get dinner on it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Martin. ‘I’m frightfully sorry, Lawrence,’ He blushed. ‘You’ll be much better than me. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Martin,’ I said.

  ‘So am I. Goodbye, everyone.’

  He looked rather shaken, yet he was jolly calm. He went back towards the house. She said, ‘Howard, would you mind awfully taking Martin to the station?’

  And then—well, we got on with the play.

  Anne said, ‘Jesus, can you learn it in time?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  And there was just chaos for the next twenty-four hours. I was sorriest about Martin going because it meant the play wouldn’t be as good as I’d hoped for Pop. The twins had to take over my little roles, and obviously I was terribly under-rehearsed as Tom. Only he never showed up. Of course I didn’t know why at the time, and I thought it was absolutely disgraceful, and said so. She told me to shush, but I did think it was pretty bad. I mean, when your own family’s put on a show, the least you can do is actually to turn up for it. And anyway, I wanted to know what he thought of it. There wasn’t anyone else professional for miles around. I wanted a really serious comment on it from someone. I felt very let down by Pop.

  Actually, the play was a great success, in spite of everything. David Bailey discharged the cannon too early in the battle scene (we’d got some thunderflashes, but they had to be let off outside, of course, and his idiot brother gave him the wrong cue), but as everyone in the audience was scared out of his wits, it passed off all right, and no one noticed the brief hiatus on the stage. It was just before my duel with Adam, and we were both pretty confident, and we quickly acted as though we were expecting it. Adam ad-libbed some line about hearing the distant cannon’s roar, and we just went ahead. The worst performance on the night was Mom’s, which surprised me. She was dreadfully nervous and forgot several of her lines. She kept apologising too, which made it all much worse. There just wasn’t room back stage for apologies.

  Afterwards we had a terrific party, with dancing in the drawing-room with the carpet rolled back. We’d raised twenty-three pounds ten shillings from the village, which was a huge amount, when you think how small Charncot is. People had come from neighbouring villages, too, of course. And some of our so-called friends from round about had turned up, hoping it would be a disaster, only it wasn’t, and they had to pretend they’d thought all along that it would be good, which was quite funny. We did get most of the laughs we wanted, and really very few we hadn’t expected. Mom said the party afterwards cost her far more than we’d raised for the village hall, but Anne said she’d’ve given the party some time during the course of the summer, anyway, so what the hell. Mom was very strange and red in the face. I thought it was because she’d not enjoyed the actual performance as much as she’d expected. I assumed she was still getting over her stage-fright.

  During the party Lucy and I wandered away from the others into the garden. We both had glasses of champagne, and I swiped a bottle three-quarters full as we left. It was rather cold out, with a wind. We sat on the swing-seat under the copper-beech, and I put my arm round her.

  ‘It’s jolly chilly,’ she said, so I held her more closely. She still shivered, though.

  ‘I know what,’ I said. ‘Let’s put the cover on and then we’ll be warm and no one will be able to see us.’

  She giggled and said, ‘I’m not sure if that sounds all right.’

  ‘One should always take precautions,’ I said, hoping she knew what I meant. I’d been carrying a thing round for six months, actually, on the off chance.

  I don’t know whether she understood or not, exactly. She didn’t say anything and anyway I was heaving the canvas over the back of the swing-seat.

  ‘Don’t strain yourself, will you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m saving that for later,’ I said. I suppose it was the champagne. Usually I hated people making suggestive remarks.

  ‘Now, n
ow,’ said Lucy. I could hardly see her in the dark under the tree.

  When I’d got the cover half on, she said, ‘That’ll do. The wind doesn’t get at me now.’

  I sat down beside her and we began to neck a bit. We had some more champagne and a cigarette each.

  ‘I think you’re terribly clever, Lawrence,’ she said. ‘I mean, I can’t imagine anyone else being able to take over the part like that. Not in that short time.’

  ‘Oh, I knew it all by heart, producing it, you see.’

  ‘Will you go into the theatre, like your father?’

  ‘I might. I don’t know. I’ll see. It was pretty bad of him not to come tonight, don’t you think?’

  ‘You and your parents,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have any ambitions?’

  ‘Oh yes. I want to be—I want to be sort of free, you know. I want to do hundreds of things, not just one thing. I want to go everywhere and see everything and do everything and——’

  ‘Gosh. Tim’s going to be a chartered accountant.’

  ‘I’d hate that,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t bear to be just one thing all my life. I want——’ But I didn’t seem to be able to express it. It was the champagne, I thought.

  ‘You’re very original, Lawrence,’ she said.

  I could hardly see her, but my heart began to beat very hard, and I pressed her shoulder, and then I began to kiss her. At first she responded as usual, politely, then she began to try and push me away, and then when I was gentler, she began to relax. I’d never felt all over a girl’s body before. I couldn’t think of anything to say. She was feeling all over me, too.

  I got up and pulled the rest of the cover over the seat, then crawled back under it to Lucy. I’d undone my trousers, and she was a bit surprised when I put her hand there.

  ‘I don’t think we should go any further,’ she whispered, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. She gave a sort of sigh when I told her it was perfectly safe. It was quite difficult, because the swing-seat would bucket about like a small boat in a storm, but that made us go slowly and laugh. It was the first time for both of us, and I’d heard that the first time was never very good, but it seemed all right to me. She said it was better than she’d expected, too. It was funny, I felt very happy with her, though I knew I wasn’t in love with her or anything. We spent about an hour out there, afterwards, talking about everything—what we felt about life and wanted to do and all that sort of thing. Then Howard discovered us. It had to be him. We were respectably dressed by then, though, and we heard him coming. He’d seen the champagne bottle glinting in the moonlight. We’d knocked it over, swinging on the seat, and it had fizzed out all over the grass.

  ‘My, my,’ he said. ‘Young love à l’anglais. Excuse me, please, but you’re wanted inside to say goodbye to Mrs Bailey.’

  She went upstairs to tidy up, using the lift. I went into the drawing-room and got a very woollen kiss from Mrs Bailey, who was disgustingly tight, I thought.

  Later that night, after the party, I went to her room and she let me in. This time we were both properly naked, which was better, but I hadn’t got another thing, so we had to be terribly careful. Also the bed seemed awfully squeaky, and her bedroom was next door to Anne’s. We were pretty tired, too. I went to sleep in the bed with her, and I only just got back to my own room before Mrs Fuller came round with the early morning tea. Lucy and Tim had to leave after lunch—their mother was taking them to Scotland, to shoot, I think.

  Of course there weren’t any serious reviews in any of the papers the next week. In fact, there weren’t any serious local papers, and only one of them said anything at all.

  PLAY AFTER FETE AT CHARNCOT

  After the successful fete at Charncot on Saturday, a play was given in the Village Hall, by kind permission of the Parish Council, chairman, Mr E. T. Harrison. It was Henry Fielding’s ‘Tom Thump’ and it was produced by Lawrence Grigson. He himself played the role of Thump at very short notice and gave an excellent rendition. Mrs Grigson was very good as Huncamuncaca, as was Miss Anne Grigson as the giantess Glumdalca. Adam Livingstone made a very amusing Grizzle, and the pert Queen was most ably handled by Lucy McCarthy. Tim MacCarthy was first class as the King, and George Van Dieman was equally good as Noodle. Marcia Van Dieman played Mustapha and Cleora with great verve, and Michael and David Bailey could not have been bettered as Doodle, Foodle, Ghost34, Parson, Merlin, Bailiff and Follower. The sets by Tim Macarthy were very attractive, and David Bailey was a most competent stage manager. Altogether it was a most amusing and enjoyable evening. £23—10s. was raised towards the repair of the roof of the village hall. Mr E. T. Harrison proposed a vote of thanks to all concerned, which was thoroughly deserved.

  It seemed a shame, as Lucy said, only to do it once, but Mom said once was quite enough. I was exhausted afterwards, and everyone was pretty snappish. We had a row with Mr Harrison because we didn’t get the set down on Sunday morning, as we’d promised (we were all asleep), and frankly I couldn’t have been more pleased when everyone went away and left us as we were before. Only Martin wasn’t there, then, of course. It was rather lonely. I wished Lucy had stayed. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I used to go for long rides with Anne across the country, but we hardly ever said anything to each other. I couldn’t tell her about Lucy and me. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could tell your sister.

  Sometimes I used to ride alone, all day. I’d start after breakfast and stop at a pub somewhere for lunch. They were awful, the pubs, damp and smelling of stale beer, and all they had was old pies and packets of Smith’s Crisps. But eating like that meant I could stay away for hours at a time. I don’t know what it was I was staying away from—I just wanted to be by myself. At home I felt so impatient with everything I couldn’t even read. I could hardly even sit down for more than two minutes. I wanted to get away altogether, I decided, to do something quite new. I didn’t want to go back to school, I didn’t care whether or not I got into Cambridge. I was sick of school things—ridiculous sporting contests and amateur music and everyone thinking he was God just because he was a house prefect. I couldn’t have cared less whether I was made a prefect or not, though as it happened I was, at Christmas.

  It was awfully empty and dull at home. One day she sat looking very solemn all through lunch, then she said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  We shrugged at each other and followed her into the drawing-room. She stood in front of the fire and said, ‘Your father and I have decided not to go on living together.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Anne went very pale.

  ‘He’s decided he wants to divorce me.’

  ‘But he can’t!’ said Anne. Then there was a pause, and then she said, ‘I mean, you haven’t done anything. Have you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I haven’t. But your father thinks I have. I won’t tell you who it is he suspects me of having had an affair with, because he may change his mind about it all. But we won’t be living together any more. I’m going to stay here and your father’s going to stay in New York.’

  It was very peculiar hearing her talk about ‘your father’ and ‘having an affair’. None of it seemed to mean anything.

  ‘Well, really,’ I said.

  ‘Does he want to marry someone else?’ said Anne.

  ‘I expect so. He hasn’t told me. But there wouldn’t be much point otherwise, would there?’

  ‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘is it really all necessary? It sounds terribly sordid, the whole thing.’

  ‘Well, it’s not my fault. I didn’t start it.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Anne. ‘What kind of an attitude is that?’

  Mom went bright red. I must say I thought Anne needn’t have put it quite like that. I didn’t really want to discuss it any further. It didn’t seem at all real, as I said.

  ‘Is that why Martin went away in such a hurry?’ said Anne.

  ‘Well, now you’ve guessed,’ said Mom. ‘Yes, it was. His mother wasn’t ill. But your father s
aid what he thought, so Martin couldn’t possibly stay.’

  ‘And that’s why Pop didn’t come to the play,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

  It hadn’t even occurred to me that Martin and she could have been —— It was crazy. I didn’t want to think about it.

  Anne said, ‘Does all this mean we’re going to live in different places or anything?’ She was trying to sound casual, but I could see she was actually terribly upset.

  ‘I think you’re both old enough to decide for yourselves what you want to do. Naturally, we both want to see you as much as possible. Some arrangement will be made. If necessary, the court will have to decide.’

  ‘The court?’ said Anne. ‘Do you mean I have to do whatever some lousy judge says?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I’ve never been divorced before.’ She gave a ghastly sort of laugh. Neither Anne nor I smiled. ‘Nothing’s going to happen for ages. For the time being you’re both going to stay here, and we’ll let you know about next holidays later.’

  ‘Very kind of you, I’m sure,’ said Anne, and burst into tears. She rushed out of the room.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mom. ‘I knew it would be awful telling you. But I couldn’t ask anyone else to do it.’ She looked as though she was about to cry herself. I thought I might, too. I didn’t understand anything that was going on.

  ‘It all seems a terrible mess,’ I said.

  Anne was absolutely impossible for the whole of the rest of the holidays. She hardly spoke a polite word to Mom and refused to discuss the divorce with me. Not that I wanted to discuss it much myself, but I did think we ought to decide together about where to spend Christmas.

  ‘You can spend it wherever you choose’ was all she said.

  Going back to school was rather a relief after all that. Charncot was awfully gloomy and Pop never wrote and explained it to me from his angle. At least at school there were people to talk to. I found I’d got quite interested in English, too, and my essay on Fielding, with special attention to Tom Thumb, of course, got an Alpha/Beta, which wasn’t bad. I wasn’t quite as bored as usual. I kept thinking about Lucy. We wrote to each other once or twice, but neither of us could keep it up—it seemed so terribly false. I mean, I’d enjoyed the sex and so had she, but I couldn’t pretend for two seconds that I was in love with her or had ever been. I think she must have felt the same. I tried to avoid Tim as much as possible. If I’d seen Lucy again, I don’t know what I’d’ve done. I don’t think I’d’ve had sex with her again, though. It would have seemed really too cold-blooded. But of course you don’t have sex in cold blood, so maybe it would have happened after all. I don’t know. I felt rather ashamed of our performance on the swing-seat. We didn’t really know anything about each other, and that seemed all wrong. I might have liked her if I’d got to know her, but I thought probably not. I didn’t seem to have a real feeling about anyone at all.