Good Behaviour (15 page)

Richard didn’t argue. He turned the car and drove away from the sea and up the hill to our cousins’ house as though he had
been that way before.

A woman who looked neither a servant nor a friend opened the door: ‘Miss Enid’s above in the bed playing a game of snap with
Mister Hamish. I don’t know would she come down. She’s not so well herself.’ She turned away discouragingly.

With his unquestioning acceptance of being welcome anywhere Richard followed her into the house. ‘Oh, go and ask them if they
want these crabs.’ He spoke as if to a servant of his own and she succumbed, almost pleasantly, to his authority. He looked
back, compelling us to join him.

Hubert and I knew the room where we waited too well for curiosity. We were familiar with its splitting marquetry, its dusty
famille rose and verte, its blistered Chinese wallpaper, since miserable childish hours. The window that hung out like a great
tongue above the boat quay had been our only entertainment and reprieve from games with an incomplete set of ivory dominoes
when we waited for Mummie. Mummie kept hold of a tenuous connection and cousinship as she conned
and considered the ever more damaged and neglected pieces and prints. Cousin Enid would never sell – but she might bequeath.

This evening Richard walked across to the window, staring down, absorbed and pleased, into the quiet empty boats as though
he saw an open box full of toys.

The woman came back: ‘Miss Enid can’t come down. Mister Hamish is losing and he mustn’t be upset. I’m to take the crabs, dirty
things – I hate crabs.’

Crabs, the Cancer sign, I thought, no luck about them. Endless work, picking out the live-boiled flesh from the dead men’s
fingers.

As we turned, all three together, from the window breast, a sound above checked and held us waiting. It was a knocking, a
stick knocking on floorboards, gentle, querulous, then louder, doubling taps, hammer strokes on coffin lids – or do they screw
down the dead? If we had been children we might have held hands, squeezing out fear, not running away.

The woman turned back to us as if she sensed some unreasonable questioning: ‘Ah, don’t mind that noise at all – she must have
beat him in the finish. He’ll kill her someday with that old stick if she won’t give up winning.’ She laughed at the absurdity
of her joke. I hesitated before I echoed her laugh, and the boys waited before they echoed mine.

We fled the house to sit close together in the big car. Our youth commanded its powers; our youth was immeasurable, we knew;
but for a passing moment a shiver had left us defenceless.

‘Drinks soon … come to the bar,’ they said, as we hurried apart to change for dinner. My gold dress dipped to the floor at
the
back. A palmful of Richard’s scent behind my ears, yes, and the insides of my arms. I smiled alone, and laid my cheek to them
before I picked up my toothglass and tore along the corridor. In Richard’s room they filled my glass to the top with champagne.

‘Steady,’ Hubert said, when Richard filled it again, ‘we don’t want the girl unconscious.’

‘Don’t we?’ Richard answered gently. And I thought, in a second of delight, how he might watch me sleeping.

After dinner, sitting together in the library, I felt in my new distance of happiness that Mummie had grown smaller, meaner,
of no account. When we heard the men leaving the diningroom I rose to my feet – light as a bird, I felt young as the morning.

‘Must you look so majestic, darling?’ She sighed, considering the word and her tapestry as she cuddled her little body closer
into her little chair. I must have heard, or I shouldn’t remember, but at that moment she could have called me a wardress
and spoiled nothing for me. Soon I would be dancing. Again my feet would skim the floor. Earlier in the day they had scarcely
printed their bare soles on the sand. I was so glad now, levitating in happiness, that my breath alone could have held me
off the ground.

We danced, much as usual. Oddly a sort of restraint was on me; it suited with his night-club shuffle, and his hooded, unspeaking
look. It was a prelude to a meeting. Were we both afraid? Afraid together? It was beyond delight.

When they went out on a last rat-hunt with Papa and the dogs, I ran upstairs so fast that the flame of my candle rushed backwards
in the wind of my going. Every summer night smelt
like Christmas when you put a hand behind the candle flame and blew it out. Safety matches always on the po cupboard beside
your bed. How often had I struck a match and lit a candle to sit up and read a good detective story, refusing all impious
thoughts. Not tonight.

Alone now I unhooked my gold dress and let it fall sumptuously round my feet. I unhooked my deep bust bodice too, and my bosoms
puffed out at me as though filled with proven yeast, alas. No matter. Flat in bed, I would be more like a swan on water. Leaning
towards my glorified eyes in the mirror I could have kissed my image. No curlers. No face cream. My nightdress, all on the
bias, clung to me like scales to a fish, to a mermaid. Quite literally, my appearance took my own breath away.

I got into bed; I spread my hands on the sheets, I arranged and rearranged myself on the pillows; a nesting swan is beautiful
too. Moths pelted against the window panes. Tiny flies met and dispersed and met again at the candle flame. As no man likes
an over-eager girl, I had a book with a finger between the pages for a pretence at reading when the door should open.

I heard the dogs and Papa and the boys come back into the house – vague affectionate voices talking to the dogs, not to each
other. Pauses. Were they lighting candles? Steps on the stairs. My heart turned over. They passed my door. My heart turned
back again. I debated whether or not to blow out my candle. No. Better leave it – how could I be reading in darkness? I would
put the book down, finger still between the pages. ‘Richard?’ Whispering, I rehearsed the inflexion for my voice. I must not
expect him too soon. Hardly before Papa went to bed. Would Papa ever go to bed? He could be
so late. Not tonight, for once; please God, let him go to bed early.

The whole night bloomed for me as the door handle was turning. In the moment before he came in I owned the world. The moment
after he came in, a kind of practical reality subdued my mood. He came across to my bed and sat down, near my feet. ‘What
are you reading?’ He spoke in quite a loud voice.

‘Shs.’ I leaned towards him and put my hand across his mouth. When I did so I got an odd feeling that he was nearly laughing.
It didn’t seem right to me.

‘Oh, don’t put it out,’ he said quickly, when I blew at the candle.

‘Papa,’ I whispered.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’

There was a longish pause while he took off his dressing-gown. He got into bed beside me as coolly as if he were stepping
into a boat. Then he gave a childish kind of bounce, setting the springs screaming and vibrating. He pulled a pillow away
from me and stirred about and settled down as if for a good night’s sleep. I longed for something to say. He spoke first.

‘You have such enormous bosoms.’ His voice came from a distance in place and time, but still far too loud. ‘Shall I lay my
head on one of them just to see what it’s like?’

Why did I have to think then of the Mrs Brock game? I denied the thought.

‘Yes, you may.’ I felt the weight of his head, and I saw the line of his cheek and neck. A ravishing content flooded me. I
wanted this. I lay still beside him.

‘It’s a bit hot,’ he said after a minute. I turned towards him.
He must guess. ‘I really must
NOT
touch you,’ he said quickly. ‘We’d regret it always, wouldn’t we, Piglet? Wouldn’t we?’

I could hardly endure the thought that through his chivalry, not through my own faultless behaviour, I had made a lucky escape.
I felt cherished and defrauded. ‘Yes. We’d hate ourselves.’

‘Let’s talk about something else now,’ he said, back on his pillow.

‘What about?’

‘Oh, anything – Hubert, for instance.’

Perhaps Hubert was the closest thing in both our lives, but now I would rather have talked about Richard and me – and why
not? Here he was in my bed, the bed I still sleep in.

‘What do you like about him?’

I turned on my other side. I didn’t flounce. I just turned over.

‘You’re such a big girl,’ he complained. ‘Why do you have to flounce about like that? Every time you move you tilt the bed
over.’

‘What about getting back to your own room?’ I strangled back the hurt in my voice. It was growing more and more like games
some girls played in Number Six Dorm.

‘Can’t. Not till the Major’s gone to bed, can I? He
is
late.’ Plaintive was how he sounded now.

That was when I heard Papa. He was so dextrous with his wooden leg, but on the stairs you couldn’t help knowing about it.
He had a way of throwing his weight onto his good leg, and pausing a moment.

‘Does he ever come in to say goodnight?’ Richard asked much too loudly in one of the pauses. I think he wanted everything
to be more frightening. Again I put my hand across
his mouth. He sat up in bed, making the springs scream. I could feel him swing his feet out to the floor, and the bed sag
back to me as he left it. ‘Can’t find these slippers.’ He struck a match, even before Papa had passed the door. I was so tense
I could hear myself creak. ‘It’s all right now.’ He was listening. I heard Papa shut the door of his dressingroom. When I
looked round Richard was standing over me. His dressing-gown was belted like a vice round his waist, but it was open from
the neck to a long narrow nakedness of dark, faraway skin. I didn’t understand how or why he should look so malign and light-hearted.
And so friendly. He bent down and kissed me on both eyelids. ‘Sleep well,’ he whispered.

‘And you,’ I managed.

My anger and anxiety at the appalling noise he made getting back to his room suffocated and choked down a different sense
in me: one of absolute loss. But we had both known how to behave. We had behaved beautifully. No pain lasts. And another thing:
I can never look on myself as a deprived, inexperienced girl. I’ve had a man in my bed. I suppose I could say I’ve had a lover.
I like to call it that. I do call it that.

The next morning, with Mummie and Papa, I stood about in floods of sunlight on the steps, or wandered back to the dark hall
while maids carried down suitcases and coats and parcels and armfuls of forgotten unpacked possessions for Richard and Hubert
to stow in the car. At last the car was packed. There was a pause while they put on their camel’s-hair coats.

‘Good sort of coat,’ Papa commented. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘From kind Mrs Jaeger.’ Hubert’s little joke sounded confidential; just for Papa. Their good manners sustained them; they
showed no impatience to be off. The engine throbbed its great heart out, splendidly ready for the journey; still they delayed,
although we had no more goodbyes to exchange. Nobody kissed. Nobody shook hands. At last they were gone. We looked after them
for a minute as they went down the drive. Eleven o’clock in the morning, and no shadows on the grass. The trees stood up shadowless,
neat and clear as tin trees in a child’s zoo. Horses moved between them. We were thrown out of balance by the leave-taking.
We were late for
anything we had to do; we had nothing to do, nothing to catch up on. Mummie was making for the studio, but without vigour,
when Breda came back to say the young gentlemen had left parcels for us in the library.

‘P
IG
’ was written on mine. Inside was a Jaeger coat like theirs – outsize. Love and trust repossessed me. A case of Heidsieck
for Papa. ‘What a dear boy,’ he said, when he had ascertained the year. A huge illustrated gardening book for Mummie. ‘How
very
sweet. I’m afraid quite useless.’ Presents always disgusted her a little.

I carried my coat away, upstairs to my bedroom, and there on my dressing-table, a square, squat, tremendously tidy little
parcel waited for me. ‘Pig. Pig-wig. Piglet’ written on it. A jewel? A ring perhaps? I could hardly breathe. It was rose geranium
for the bath, strong and fragrant and straight from Floris. But four times that morning he had written my name.

By the next day I had established in my own mind a sober, blessed state of hope. The day they had left had been, after all,
quite endurable. Then I fattened out my least memories, slyly building up a future. And why not? I thought on the following
afternoon as I bicycled powerfully along towards the dressmaker to have my new coat let out, before Mummie could tell me it
was straining at the armholes. The dear dress-maker’s interest and admiration were comforting and unrestrained. But the size
of the alteration required depressed me a little. Only when alone could I feel a small cherished person.

I held on to this minuscule vision of myself as I pedalled homewards, past pale rushy fields and gold fields empty of their
corn stooks. The further time and distance separated me from the actual Richard, the more certainly I could hold his image
in my mind. I trembled and leaned yearningly over my handlebars, thinking how sometime again I would run with him on the sand,
and another time he would come into my bed, and another time …

I was utterly possessed by happiness when I left my bicycle in the yard and went into the house by the back door, passing
the warm cavernous kitchen and going along the flagged passages to the swing door and the front of the house. I know I have
never breathed in the same way since that evening, since I went through that door, walking on a full sweet breath of happiness,
its volume contained within me.

At the distant end of the hall the door stood open to the steps and the quiet evening. Papa and Mummie stood together in the
wide doorway. She had the handle of a flat basket over her arm. With the secateurs in her other hand she snipped, meticulously
splitting up the stems of late roses. I hoped to get up the stairs before she saw me. I had the humour of love to preserve.
But Papa called me over.