Nathan had brought some food, too. He had been skilful as ever in finding the glasses, the plates; everything was set for lunch. Ruth got Clara back to sleep again, but precariously, clutching a ragged crust.
Harvey said very little. He had closed the notebook he was working on, and unnaturally tidied his papers; his pens were arranged neatly, and everything on his writing-table looked put-away. He sat looking at the floor between his feet.
Nathan announced, ‘I just had to come. I had nothing else to do. It’s a long time since I had a holiday.’
‘And Edward, how’s Edward?’ Ruth said.
‘Don’t you hear from Edward?’
‘Yes of course,’ said Ruth, and Harvey said the same.
Nathan opened his big travel pack and brought out yet more food purchases that he had picked up on the way: cheese, wine, pate and a bottle of Framboise. He left the pack open while he took them to the table. Inside was a muddle of clothes and spare shoes, but Harvey noticed the edges of Christmas-wrapped parcels sticking up from the bottom of the pack. My God, he has come for Christmas. Harvey looked at Ruth: did she invite him? Ruth fluttered about with her thanks and her chatter.
‘Are you off to Paris for Christmas?’ Harvey enquired. This was his first meeting with Nathan since the holiday in Italy when Harvey had abandoned his party on the
‘I’ve come mainly to visit Clara for Christmas,’ said Nathan. He was lifting the baby out of the carry-cot.
‘Let her sleep,’ Harvey said.
‘Oh, Nathan must stay over Christmas,’ Ruth said. ‘Paris will be crowded. And dreadfully expensive.’ She added, ‘Nathan is a marvellous cook.’
‘So I have heard.’
Ruth didn’t notice, or affected not to notice, a look of empty desperation on Harvey’s face; a pallor, a cornered look; his lips were parted, his eyes were focusing only on some anguished thought. And he was, in fact, suddenly aghast: What am I doing with these people around me? Who asked this fool to come and join us for Christmas? What do I need with Christmas, and Ruth, and a baby and a bloody little youth who needs a holiday? Why did I buy that chateau if not for Ruth and the baby to get out of my way? He looked at his writing-table, and panicked.
‘I’m going out, I’ll just fetch my coat,’ he said, thumping upstairs two at a time.
‘Harvey, what’s the matter?’ said Ruth when he appeared again with his sheepskin jacket, his woollen hat. Rain had started to splash down with foul eagerness.
‘Don’t you want lunch?’ she said.
‘Excuse me. I’m studious,’ said Harvey, as he left the cottage. The car door slammed. The starter wouldn’t work at first try. The sound of Harvey working and working at the starter became ever more furious until finally he was off.
When he came back in the evening the little house was deserted, all cleaned up. He poured himself a whisky, sat down and started to think of Effie. She was different from Ruth, almost a race apart. Ruth was kind, or comparatively so. Effie wasn’t comparatively anything, certainly not kind. She was absolutely fascinating. Harvey remembered Effie at parties, her beauty, part of which was a quick-witted merriment. How could two sisters be so physically alike and yet so totally different? At any moment Ruth might come in and reproach him for not having the Christmas spirit. Effie would never do that. Ruth was thoroughly bourgeois by nature; Effie, anarchistic, aristocratic. I miss Effie, I miss her a lot, Harvey told himself. The sound of Ruth’s little car coming down the drive, slowly in the mist, chimed with his thought as would the stroke of eight if there was a clock in the room. He looked at his watch, eight o’clock precisely. She had come to fetch him for dinner; three dinner-places set out on the table of the elegant room in the chateau, and the baby swinging in a hammock set up in a corner.
Ruth came in. ‘You know, Harvey,’ she said, ‘I think you might be nicer to Nathan. After all, it’s Christmas time. He’s come all this way, and one should have the Christmas spirit.’
Nathan was there, at the chateau, settled in for Christmas. Harvey thought: I should have told him to go. I should have said I wanted Ruth and the baby to myself for Christmas. Why didn’t I? —Because I don’t want them to myself. I don’t want them enough; not basically.
Ruth looked happy, having said her say. No need to say any more. I can’t hold these women, Harvey thought. Neither Effie nor Ruth. My mind isn’t on them enough, and they resent it, just as I resent it when they put something else before me, a person, an idea. Yes, it’s understandable.
He swallowed down a drink and put on his coat.
‘Nathan thinks it was marvellous of you to buy the chateau just to make me comfortable with Clara,’ said Ruth.
‘I bought it for myself, too, you know. I always thought I might acquire it.’
‘Nathan has been reading the
‘He did his homework, you mean. He must think I’m some sort of monster. In return for hospitality he thinks he has to discuss my subject.’
‘He’s polite. Besides, it’s my subject too, now,’ said Ruth.
‘Why?’ said Harvey. ‘Because I’ve put you in the chateau?’
He thought, on the way through the misty trees that lined the long drive, They think I’m such a bore that I have to bribe them to come and play the part of comforters.
He made himself cheerful at the chateau; he poured drinks. In his anxiety to avoid the subject of
‘Any news of Effie?’
God, I’ve said the wrong thing. Both Nathan and Ruth looked, for a moment, startled, uncomfortable; both,
