Love, Again

No — twice), Remy's father (Oscar Friend, who, however forceful he was onstage, in life was a shy man, usually in a corner with a book), and also Remy's brother, George White. In life there were four brothers, all older than Remy, and very likely it was that weight of seniority crushing him down that made loving Julie essential to him. Theatre economics dictated one brother. This meant that Remy's love seemed less determined by Destiny (the family) than in life, more of a romantic choice (the puppet strings invisible), though since George White had read the journals and knew about the four brothers, he did try to suggest forceful sibling pressure. In Philippe's establishment there had been twenty or so printers, apprentices, and sales people, and it was not possible that their various reactions did not affect Julie. The interior of the print shop was only mentioned in the programme notes. Philippe and Julie conducted their courtship in the public square (a park bench). Once only was the attitude of Philippe's employees shown, and that was when his manager (George White) came with a message from the shop, which enabled his frigid attitude to Julie, and her correct politeness to him, to suggest all the rest.

It was when it came to the townspeople that the audience would have to use their imaginations most. Julie's life had been cursed by the suspicious surveillance of the citizens. They stared at her in the streets and muttered imprecations if they came on her by chance (or design) in the forest. George White represented these invisible people. (He complained that all his parts were of disapproving people, but he adored Julie.) It would all go better in France, because Jean-Pierre had promised a crowd of extras.

On Friday the music arrived, in the shape of a countertenor and three girls and the musicians. The instruments were a guitar, a flute, a lute, a shawm, and a viola — the vielle of other times. The play, which without the music had been 'too much', 'over the top', 'pastiche', and 'a weepy' — this last was Bill, when thoughtfully passing Kleenex to Molly — changed, distancing itself from tears. The story told on this stage, or rather in this dull church hall, where the thick beam of sunlight picked out a scene or a character, became an aspect of the music. In the drawing room in Martinique, the conventional ballad, whose function was to show off Julie's charms to the young officers, when accompanied by the music which had in counterpoint phrases from Julie's 'second period', now commented, and even cruelly, on the period itself and made it as remote as Elizabethan players dancing the minuet at Queen's Gift. The company was disconcerted by this shift from the personal, and even dismayed. Molly McGuire — as Molly — actually burst into tears. 'What was it all for, then?' she demanded. 'What was the point of them going through all that? What for?'

'A good question,' said Bill quietly, showing — as he often did — how far he could be from the 'young jay' of Stephen's criticism. And he put his arm around Molly to comfort her, nicely, like a brother.

As the story moved on, more and more did it seem that the sufferings and heartbreaks were a rather conventional accompaniment to her troubadour songs and, then, the late music, when angels or devils chanted of impermanence.

'A very good question,' said Henry to Sarah, at the end of the rehearsal, as if Molly had only just that moment wept and questioned. 'Well, did you know all that was going to happen?'

'Yes, but not that it would happen so well.'

'Yes,' he said. He was sitting, for once, in the chair near hers, leaning back, conditionally at rest, and he regarded her with those intelligent dark eyes that so often seemed prepared to see much worse than what in fact they were seeing. Now, however, they were wet.

'I didn't write the music,' said Sarah.

'Oh, I don't know about that,' he said lightly, jumping up and away. 'I don't know about that at all. All I know is, the old black magic's got me by the throat.'

On the Saturday there was a dress rehearsal. And now, at last, Julie Vairon was all there. Particularly was Julie present. Molly's long dark smooth hair, looped up and braided, spoke of unwelcome social disciplines. Her eyes behind long dark lashes seemed black, with a gleam of Africa. She had a feral air, for her formal movements had in them, only just controlled, the impatience which said she found propriety all but impossible. Julie had come to life, and Sarah heard Stephen, who had forced himself to come, let out a breath. 'Good God, it isn't possible.'

It was all going to be a success. It 'worked'.

'It all works, it's great, just fantastic,' said Henry, striding about. 'Bless you, Sarah' — and they embraced, theatre fashion.

When Bill came to embrace her — an absolute dream in his uniform — with 'Sarah, it's lovely, I had no idea,' she found herself muttering, Little bitch, and she moved away from the embrace. She watched the young man go from woman to woman, kiss, kiss, kiss, and then how he moved off and stood aloof, as if he drew an invisible circle around himself: keep off.

They were now all parting, until they met again in France.

There was the usual reluctance to part. They had become a family, they said. 'All the good things about a family, none of the heartaches,' said Sally. She had insisted her own situation was not all that different from Sylvie's. 'No, I am not a mother hoping to marry my daughter off to a rich man, but my daughter, she could give Julie points.' She was desperate, though she laughed, and Richard Service, standing by her, put his arm around her. These two were friends — real friends, sitting together whenever they could, talking for hours. An unlikely couple, though.

Unable to bring themselves to part, they all went out to supper after the dress rehearsal. Stephen sat next to Molly, who had shed Julie with her clothes. He was trying to find in her the girl who had enchanted him for three hours that afternoon, and she knew it, and was sweet to him, while her eyes seldom left Bill. As for Sarah, she was determined not to look at Bill at all, and more or less succeeded. This had the effect of making him nervous, and he tried to get her attention by sending her winning looks.

As they stood on the pavement saying goodbye, kisses all around (but Sarah well out of reach of Bill's), Stephen said to Sarah that he wanted her to come and stay for a couple of days, before France. 'If you haven't got anything better to do.' This was so much like him she had to laugh, though he did not see why. As if it were likely that an invitation to his house (or perhaps she should say Elizabeth's) would not seem to nearly everyone in the world like drawing a lucky ticket.

That night Bill telephoned her for advice about the delivery of one of his lines. He must know he did it well, and know that she knew he did. Her heart thumped, making her even more angry than she was. She sat hugging the receiver and giving professional advice. That she was more angry with herself than with him goes without saying.

The other person who telephoned her was Henry. They now enjoyed the pleasantest relationship in the world, easy, joky, intimate. He sent himself up, saying, 'Sarah, I have a problem — yes, a problem… I can't deal with it. I'm not as happy as I might be — yes, you could put it like that… about what Julie writes about Remy. You know, they'd only met a couple of days ago, for Christ's sake.'

'You mean, Why is it when I see your face? — and so on?'

'Particularly and so on. You'd expect her to be singing her little heart out about the guy, but what she sings is, Why is it when I see your face, I see it sad, alone. You look back at me across the years and you are quite alone… well, Sarah?'

'It's all in her journals.'

'They've just fallen in love.'

'Wait, I've got them here.' She read aloud: 'Why is it when we have only just begun to love each other and he is talking of how we will live together for the vest of our lives I pick up my pencil to draw his face and I can't draw it full of happiness, as I've seen it, but sad, so terribly sad. It is the face of a lonely man, he is alone, this man. No matter how hard I try to draw him the way he is when he looks at me, I can't do it, that other face puts itself on the page.'

'What did happen to Remy? No, I haven't read the journals. I decided not to. I didn't want to mix it.'

'Three years after he was sent off to the Ivory Coast as a soldier by his family, he came back to marry the daughter of a local landowner. He came secretly to see Julie. They wept together all night. Then he married and had a family.'

'Did they meet after that?'

'If so, it isn't recorded. She did see him at public occasions, though. She said he wasn't happy.'

'A sad story,' said Henry, apparently trying out the phrase.

'I thought it was agreed it is a sad story.'