Love, Again

look… ' No, that was not in Remy's character. Or the person who had tinted the picture of the seductress (the studio which developed the photograph could not have been in Belles Rivieres, more likely Marseilles or Avignon, for if anyone in Belles Rivieres had caught sight of it then…) — had that person painted in the ribbon? Now, when you examined the thing carefully, and even with a magnifying glass (Sarah did this, switching on a strong light), you could not see if the ribbon had been painted in afterwards, the photograph was so dulled, the tinting had been so clumsy. Had Julie painted in the ribbon after being given the photograph? It was easier to imagine it had been done afterwards, because it was hard to connect the young woman dissolved in love sitting half dressed on the rock with the red ribbon that was a statement of such a different kind. Or was she identifying with the doll she had buried in the forest in Martinique, which had a red ribbon around its neck, as a memento of the guillotine? If so, the only word for that was sick.

Sarah was examining the photograph as if it were a clue in a mystery story, but presumably Stephen had been staring at it for years. It was the picture that he had hung on his wall, though. Where had he found the photograph? It should be in the museum. Stephen had stolen it, and now Sarah stole it. She tacked it beside the Cezanne picture of the haughty young Harlequin and the serious youth who had put on the clown's costume to accompany his friend to Mardi Gras. She put the portrait of the fashionable beauty into a drawer.

Andrew wrote:

Dear Sarah Durham,

Since I wrote I have been engaged to be married.

My sister said to me, Why do you always have to act yourself? This on an occasion I will leave you to imagine.

I said to her: ***** XXXXX!..????

She said to me, Be your age.

I said to her, But that's the trouble.

So I proposed to Helen. Your compatriot. She said Americans are solemn and don't know how to have fun. Helen was working as a stable hand at the ranch near here. It is a ranch where people come to ride and eat and have sex. Helen does allow I am a good stud. She says I work at it. 'Why do Americans always have to work at everything?' she wants to know. I said, You can't buck the work ethic. So I proposed to Bella. She is a Texan like me. For three months Bella and my sister have been discussing the how-to's. House or apartment? In Tucson — Dallas — San Antonio? Natural childbirth? How many? and how many films shall I be permitted a year? How should I change my image? They say I am stereotyped. They never talk about happiness, and I would not dare to mention joy. Joy? Who she?

I've learned one thing. My image was right from the start. They got my size all right. So I lit out. As you see. It is lonely here.

Andrew.

Poste Restante, Cordoba, Argentina.

Sarah wrote to Cordoba, Argentina, intending a temperate correspondence, but by the time her letter reached Argentina he was in Peru. Her letter was forwarded there, but his letter in reply, a passionate love letter in which he several times called her Betty (his stepmother?), arrived when she was in Stockholm for the opening of Julie Vairon, and by the time she got round to answering, the problems seemed insuperable. Where was she to address the letter? Should she sign the letter, Much love, Betty?

By the end of the year, this was the situation in The Green Bird: Meetings were no longer held in the upstairs office but in a rehearsal room large enough to accommodate everyone, for now the theatre seemed full of talented and attractive young people, one of whom had been heard asking, 'Who is she?' — meaning Mary Ford. 'I think she was one of the people who started The Green Bird.'

Sonia dominated everything. She was incandescent with accomplishment, with the discovery of her own cleverness. Her impatient confident young voice and her bright bush of hair, now in an Afro (she wanted to identify with black people and their sufferings), seemed to be in every part of the theatre at once. Virginia, known as 'Sonia's shadow', was always near her. None of the Founding Four had been much in the theatre. Roy's wife had returned to him on condition that he 'worked on' their marriage, and this had meant a family holiday. She was pregnant. He was thinking of accepting a job in another theatre. He said it was bad enough being married to a militant feminist, without having to spend his working days with another. Mary had taken weeks off to spend time with her mother, who was, as a result, better again. If Mary spent all her time at home, the old lady would have a new lease of life. Mary could not afford to do this but might do part time at the theatre and find work to do at home. She was in fact adapting Meredith's The Egoist for the stage, which novel Sonia had read with approval, saying it was a useful addition to feminist propaganda. Sarah was travelling a good deal, to discuss Julie Vairon and, even more, The Lucky Piece, which out of Britain was called, simply, Julie. Already Julie was playing triumphantly in a dozen cities in Europe and — the demand for beautiful but doomed or damaged girls being gluttonous and insatiable — she would soon be in a dozen more and was about to conquer the United States, as the advance bookings showed. Julie Vairon was certainly being appreciated, but by smaller and more discriminating audiences and in fewer places. In short, Julie had become, like Miss Saigon, the latest in the long list of gratifying female fatalities, and it was easy for people hearing the two stories, Julie Vairon's and Julie's, to believe that from Martinique had come two interesting and beautiful girls to try their chances in France. Sisters, perhaps?

Sarah was pleased she was kept on the move. She needed to move, did not want to start yet on the new and better translation of Julie's journals, for which she had a contract. The time was not yet, it would be too dangerous, she must recover completely first.

Often she and Patrick travelled together, and this new phase of their friendship was the pleasantest part of the new regime in The Green Bird. Patrick was as full of newly acquired confidence as Sonia. He was no longer an enfant terrible and had given up his outrageous and gallant clothes because of Sonia's criticisms. 'You are middle-aged, for God's sake,' she had said. 'Grow up.' Sonia had furiously attacked Sarah, Mary, and Roy for babying him. 'Why did you?' she accused. Patrick defended them, saying he had enjoyed being babied, but Sonia wouldn't have it. Enjoyable conversations had taken place between the Four, where Patrick had said his musical was his adolescent act of defiance, enabling him to grow up and become emotionally independent of them, but these had gone on behind Sonia's back. A good deal did go on behind her back and, they agreed, probably always would. Unless her style — her character — changed, surely unlikely. She would never understand why. She was the chief provider of gossip in The Green Bird, particularly her war with Roger Stent. He had confessed he adored her. Would she live with him? She had replied that while she quite fancied his body, the problem was his mind. 'I couldn't face waking up beside you in the mornings.' What could he do to change her opinion of him? he asked, like a knight of old prepared to overcome obstacles for his lady. 'You could stop being a theatre critic for a start. You are as ignorant as a toad.' He confessed his dilemma to her. If he didn't write negative theatre criticism he would lose his job. That was why he had rubbished Julie Vairon. In fact he had enjoyed it. 'How do you know? You never even saw the third act.' She refused to see his difficulties: she had been immediately successful in the first job she had after leaving university. But though pure chance had made him one of the Young Turks, without them what would he be? Merely one of the hundreds of literary hopefuls in London. He was full of conflict. The raucous jeering tone of the Young Turks had now become how people recognized him, but in fact he was a good-natured young man who longed to be a serious critic. Should he write a novel? He was now well known enough to be sure the thing would be reviewed. But how could he write a novel when all his evenings were spent seeing plays? All Sonia said was, 'Oh, for Christ's sake, just get another job.' He asked if he could come and work at The Green Bird. What qualifications did he have? she demanded, and suggested a course in theatre history. His pride would not let him do this. Besides, it would certainly lose him his job. Sonia told him to grow up — as she had Patrick. Meanwhile everyone waited for the next instalment of the drama, confident that Virginia would keep them informed.

The Founding Four met sometimes in 'their' cafe, which had been taken over by 'the children'. Not that they would have dreamed of using this pet name to their faces. For one thing, they had to discuss why it was