Authors: Unknown
THE next week was a busy one for Jan. Almost every day the Eurasian dressmaker came to fit new dresses, or deliver some shirts she had copied for Brad. The house had to be cleaned from end to end and the portable bath brightened with the only paint on hand—a sage green. The “bathroom”, a cubicle attached as an afterthought to the back of the house and never used by Jan or Phil, abounded with spiders and scorpions, but as Brad refused to bathe anywhere else it had to be decontaminated and whitewashed. Jan managed to buy a mirror to replace the tarnished square on the wall.
In the evenings Phil helped with the needlework. After cocktails the crowd moved off to the club without Jan, and the two women passed quiet hours together and retired early. Even Charles, who liked to look in for an hour after dinner if there was a chance of finding Jan at home, gave the house a miss this week.
On Wednesday afternoon Phil had been standing by in the lab. for the results of a blood test, when Charles came over carrying a steel chair.
“Never stand when you needn’t,” he said. “I thought you’d learned that by now.”
“It isn’t for long.” She knelt on the cold leather seat.
“I suppose you’re aware you’re looking like death?” he said.
“Blame the blue light. It’s merciless. I don’t know how you stand it for hours on end.”
It was like Charles to come unequivocally to the point. “When did you last see Julian?”
“On Sunday. I . . . imagine he’ll be sailing soon.”
“Why should you?”
“The plantation. There’ll be trouble if he neglects it much longer.”
“He doesn’t care.”
“Of course he cares.” Her glance shifted from the rack of test tubes on the desk in front of them to Charles’ aquiline features. “His trees are his whole existence. Anything else is by the way.”
“Except you. You’re making a frightful blunder, Phil, embittering both of you for ever. Is it fair that he should suffer for something of which he’s entirely ignorant? Where’s your sense of justice?”
She shrugged. “Passed over to his camp, Charles?”
“I met him last night at the club. He’s coming to my house for dinner tonight. At least, he didn’t say no.”
“That’s . . . rotten of you.” Her face was fine-drawn and shadowed.
“My dear, you’re seeing caddishness where none exists. We shan’t talk about you. Since the first night he hasn’t once mentioned you to me. I invited him because he’s a man who can’t drink himself stupid or make do with another woman. He’s too brutally alive.” He could see that she wasn’t listening, and added with blunt emphasis, “You’re heading for a breakdown.”
Phil waited silently for the card of details, and when Boyd brought it she took it straight to the surgery and handed it to Kevin. From there she went to the rest-room and discarded her overall. She washed and made-up at the swing mirror which stood upon a white enamelled table.
It was no good. Her time at Port Andrew was tapering inevitably to its close. She would like to board a vessel this instant and make for the horizon, leaving the pain and destruction where they belonged.
Strangely, like an omen, a letter for Phil had appeared in the hall rack since lunch time. The overseas mail often came late in the day. She read the suave note from the Cape Town lawyer—no allusion to his betrayal of her whereabouts to Julian—and placed the cheque in her bag. She was equipped for a year of wandering.
Jan’s husband reached town late on Thursday night. In her bedroom, Phil heard the car and the sudden reverberation of Jan’s bedroom door. The two seemed to have fused in the corridor. Jan muttered several muffled and agonized endearments and, after an interval, the man laughed: “Jan, you idiot. I’ve made you filthy!”
Phil had been reading in a chair. She jumped up from it, cast off her wrap and slipped into bed. Her mind kept travelling back to those sounds outside her door and the intimate murmurs from the kitchen. They were forty and still in love. Their life together had honesty ... and blessed security.
Setting out for the Institute the following morning she saw the mud-coated car still loaded with Brad’s gear. He and Jan would have a wonderful day pitching out the rubbish and hiding away his tent and holdall.
That evening Jan was full of Saturday’s party; a house party, for Brad loved to entertain in his own home. Charles, who had driven Phil from the Institute, popped in to shake hands with Brad and have a drink.
“Tomorrow at seven-thirty,” Jan told him gaily, “in honour of my returned spouse.”
“Tomorrow? I’d kept open Sunday for you. I’ve a guest tomorrow.”
“Bring him along.”
Charles hesitated, glad that Phil had gone to her bath. “It’s Julian.”
“Oh. He doesn’t seem to dog our Phil any more. He only comes when she’s out. I thought he hated your hide.”
“Not exactly. He’s interested in tropical medicine—and we’ve driven out to the Institute a couple of times.”
“Well, be sure to break into the party some time tomorrow night, won’t you, but bring Julian at your own risk.”
Charles and Brad patted each other’s shoulders, and Jan laughed from pure happiness. Charles strode back to his car, the frown of self-accusation and worry settling back even before he had switched on the ignition.
He kept thinking, if that bitch Sonya had never met Phil... It was through me they met, my fault that Sonya grew jealous. I could have appeased her—if I hadn’t been half in love with Phil. I gained from the woman’s disappearance, but what about Phil? What has she ever got out of anything but a filthy deal?
After breakfast on Saturday, Jan and Phil went shopping. Brad started out with them, but the sight of other men directing their cars towards the polo ground was too much for him.
Jan said, “Put us down at the shops and go. If we’re tired we’ll cadge a lift.”
“No, dear, I'll do the cadging.” And Brad virtuously got out of the car. A minute later he stepped into another, and had the audacity to wave as he sped past his wife.
Jan grinned. “He’s had the best out of this old bus, the humbug.”
When, eventually, the car wheezed them back home, a light lunch was ready and Brad was waiting. It puzzled him how anyone could spend more than five minutes in Port Andrew’s shopping centre.
From mid-afternoon the dinner occupied Jan. The cook-boy had been known to wade through three courses without mishap, but for tonight she had planned five, and she meant to have them, perfectly cooked and perfectly served.
Hors d’oeuvres
were easy; they came from tins. Fish was tricky, especially the sauce, but the savoury and roast presented the most ticklish tasks. The oven was small and eccentric.
By six, all but the last-minute preparations had been achieved. Because the boys were busy, Jan and Phil used the bath cubicle and returned to their rooms to dress.
The heat of the kitchen had withered Phil’s energies; the bath brought out the usual sweat. Alarmingly spent, she sank into her wicker chair. Shakily, she stretched over and lit the lamp, and then put on her stockings. The dampness of her skin made it difficult to pull on her dress, and when at last it was smooth and fastened she felt sick with the struggle. To rub on rouge and lipstick was an ordeal.
“Brad’s poured you a drink,” Jan said, when Phil came into the lounge. “A strong one, like mine. Soak it up.”
The whisky did help; it stopped the trembling and put a smile on her lips. She admired Jan’s emerald and white gown, and told Brad that he should always wear an evening suit—it made him so handsome.
People began to arrive, and the women to exclaim over the flowers. Talk and laughter and blankets of smoke. Phil kept hoping that the next car would bring Charles, but at a quarter to eight they drifted in to dinner, and she realized with a dull shock that he wasn’t coming.
She couldn’t eat. Her table companions conversed with her and jested, and her answers, in a light, strengthless voice, appeared to satisfy. The meal hung on interminably. Toasts were the excuse to drink more, and yet more. This was going to become one of those orgies that guests recall with relish. A party wasn’t a party unless you got cockeyed and flirted with someone’s wife. And they took some getting cockeyed, these seasoned drinkers of the Coast.
In the general move, Phil went outside. The veranda filled and couples wandered down into the garden. From the open gateway, she looked up the avenue to the line of cars.
Another car tacked on the motley crocodile and a man got out. Tall enough for Julian, but lacking his width of shoulder. Would she ever get over the stupidity of longing for all men to be Julian?
She recognized Charles and hurried to meet him. Oddly, he slowed.
“We’ve had dinner,” she said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come at all.”
He had halted and bent his head towards her. In strained tones he asked: “Afraid? Why?”
“The drink and the noise. You make me forget them.” There was a pause.
“Phil,” he said, “I came to see you, not for the party. Come and sit in the car.”
She let him take her arm. “I don’t like your voice, Charles.” Panic surged into her own. “Is it Julian? He’s hurt?”
“No ... yes. Not physically.”
He tucked in her dress and slammed the door. When he was beside her, a hand on the wheel, she saw him more clearly. He looked hard and drawn, as if he had just told a patient he had six months to live. Somehow she held back, waiting.
“I don’t know if I planned it or not,” he said, “but it was bound to happen if Julian and I saw much of each other. We’ve met every night this week.”
“Yes?”
“I did tell you he was having dinner with me on Wednesday? Well, he came again this evening. At first I intended to make you a third. I suppose I cherished vague notions of throwing down a glove between you and leaving you to fight it out. Jan’s party vetoed that, but I’d already invited Julian.”
“Please go on.”
“My house-partner is away for the week-end, so there were just the two of us. I had you on my mind so much that it seemed he must know . . . because, of course, you were even more tangibly in his thoughts.”
“But, Charles . ..”
“That’s the sort of person you are, Phil.” He smiled at her. “We had a meal, and carried our drinks into my workroom to observe some cultures. After a while he became interested in an elevation of the Institute which hangs on the wall. I pointed out the dormitories, and then found myself saying: That end room was Phil’s. We’ve removed the iron staircase since she fell from the balcony.’ ”
Her throat made a clicking sound, but nothing more.
Charles ended: “Julian said queerly, ‘She fell the whole length from the upper floor?’ Well ... the wall was down and I plunged. I had to do it, Phil. I said, ‘Yes, that’s how she lost the baby.’ ”
“Oh, Charles!—in a dead little whisper.
She felt his arm about her and rested against his shoulder. He held her till the numbness lessened and she trembled with the renewed impact of pain, Julian’s pain.
“How could you do that to him, Charles?”
He suppressed a spurt of triumph. “I was right. You’d told him nothing because you’d convinced yourself that he wasn’t conditioned for suffering, that he couldn’t stand the anguish of knowing.”
“But the shock! What did he do?”
“Looked shot away for a bit, then he drained his drink and said good night. I came straight here.”
“Will he have gone to the club?”
“I suppose so. Where else could he be alone, but in his room?"
“I can’t bear to think of what he’s enduring. Charles, I must go to him.”
“Yes, my dear,” he said at once. “You must.”
The notes of a flute came thin and plaintive through the window. Charles shut them out with the rear of his engine, and they drove the couple of blocks to the club.
“I won’t come in with you, Phil. Would you like me to wait?”
“No.” As she tried to smile a nerve jerked at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I hope so. I’m sure this is for the best, my dear.”
She left him and hastened along the drive and up the steps. There were fewer familiar faces in the lounge, for most of her acquaintances were at Jan’s. A few men lolled at the bar and one of them called to her to come and have a drink. She shook her head and entered the small reception office. She consulted the key-board for the number of Julian’s room. Fifteen; with a brass key on the hook below the number. Did that mean Julian had not yet returned?
Swiftly she lifted the key and backed out. She passed the bar, travelled the passage to the stairs at a casual pace, and quickened till she reached the upper landing. Another endless corridor. Yes, this was the room. She tapped, heard nothing, and fitted the key into the lock.
She stole in and shut the door, pausing with one hand over her hammering heart to stare at the small tongue of light in the lamp. Perhaps it was a club custom to leave a glimmer in each bedroom. Such a bare, impersonal apartment; a netted bed and teak wardrobe and chest, a table near the window with two hard chairs pushed up, a grass mat and a rattan lounger. Half an inch of Julian’s valise, the one into which she had shed tears while helping to pack, peeped from under the hem of the bedcover.
Feeling her knees weaken, she crossed and sat at the shadowy end of the lounger. Where could Julian be if not here or dulling his wounds with drink at the bar? Supposing he stayed out all night. Supposing a thousand things. A throttled sob forced from her throat.
His step, when it came, was spiritless. As she had done half an hour ago, he shut the door and leaned back on it for a moment. His face terrified her into stillness. Instinctively, she knew that he had walked fast and far, and found no relief. Before she could move he was at the chest, getting out a bottle and a glass. He hadn’t seen her. The glass filled and he set it down on the table without tasting it. He dragged out one of the dining-chairs and dropped into it.
His fist slipped over the table and his forehead went down upon his sleeve. For a second she remained steely with the control she had imposed upon herself. Then she was on her feet at his side, extending a hand to touch him.