to where the wild bees had their nests and then the bears and things would break open the nests to eat the honey and so the birds could eat the honey too. Henrietta was explaining to Kate how there were loops and voids in the space-time continuum so that although it might take you only fifty years to reach the centre of the galaxy in your space craft, thousands of years would have passed here when you got back. ('I don't think I quite understand,' said Kate.)
Octavian, who had been discussing with Paula the prospects of reform in the trade union movement, was now anxiously asking her if she felt well, since she had eaten practically no lunch, Ducane and Barbara were flirting together in French, a language which Ducane spoke well and enjoyed any chance of showing off.
Mary, who got up to help Casie at various points during the meal, was left, as often happened, in a conversational vacuum. She liked this, feeling at such moments a sort of maternal sense of ownership towards the group of chattering persons all round her. Casie was now putting fruit and cheese on to the table. Octavian was reaching for the decanter of claret. Everyone was drinking wine except the twins who were drinking Tizer and Paula who was drinking water. Mary began to observe the face of her son who was sitting opposite to her.
Pierce too, seated between Edward and Kate, had no one to talk to. He was watching with fierce concentration the conversation between Barbara and John Ducane. Mary thought, I hope no one else is noticing him. He is looking so intense and strange. Then she thought, Oh dear, something is going to happen.
'Quand est que to vas me donner petit concert de Mozart?' 'Jamais, puisque to he le merites pas!' 'Et pourquoi, petite egoiste?' 'To n'y comprends rien a la musique, toi.' 'To vas m'enseigner, alors.' 'To seras docile?' 'Mais our, manually oiseau!' 'Et qu'est que to vas me donner en retour?' 'Dix baisers.' 'C'est pas assez.' 'Mille baisers alors!' Pierce got up abruptly, scraping his chair noisily back over the paved floor of the hall. The chair fell over backwards with a crash. Pierce walked to the front door and went out through it, slamming the door behind him. There was a startled silence. 'Public school manners,' said Casie. Mary began to rise. Both Uncle Theo on one side and John Ducane on the other put out restraining hands. Mary sat down again. Uncle Theo said to Edward, 'Do go on telling me about dolphins.' Kate started to say, 'Don't worry, Mary dear – ' quietly through the Kitchen out into the garaen .1 he garden was hot, brooding, and quiet, even the cuckoo was silent in the afternoon heat. Mary began to walk up the pebble path, brushing the plump veronica bushes with her hand. The bushes exuded heat and silence. She passed through the gate in the wall. It was not in her mind to look for Pierce. She knew he would have started to run once he was outside the front door. He would be half way to the graveyard by now, and there, buried in the ivy, he could lie hidden even if she were to follow him. In any case she had nothing to say to her son and she had already stopped thinking about him. His tormented nerves had wrought upon her nerves, and it was the sudden burden of her own nebulous and uncertain anguish which had made her rise from the table. I am making a complete ass of myself, thought Mary, and it's getting worse too. I'm not eighteen. I just must not give way to these vague emotional storms of self-pity. It isn't as if there was anything definite the matter. There's nothing the matter at all. She walked up the enclosed funnel of the lane through the smell of hot moss and reached the little wood and sat down on the tree trunk, kicking a hole for her feet in the dead leaves. Perhaps I need a holiday, she thought, perhaps it's as simple as that. Sometimes I just feel so shut in, with all those people and they've all got something while I've got nothing. I really ought to try to get some sort of proper job. But I suppose they do need me here, the children need me. When the twins are grown up I shall take a teacher's training course and have quite a different sort of life. Then she thought, is this really all I have to look forward to, is this what I have to comfort myself with? Years more of managing someone else's house and then a job as a school teacher? But my wants are huge, my desires are rapacious, I want love, I want the splendour and violence of love, and I want it now, I want someone of my own. Oh Willy, Willy, Willy. A shadow moved in the dappled light. Mary looked up. It was John Ducane. In a flurry she rose to her feet; Mary was very fond of Ducane and admired him, but as Kate had quite accurately said she was a little afraid of him. 'Oh, John ' 'Mary, do sit down. Please forgive me for having followed you., She sat down again, and he sat beside her, perched sideways on the log, regarding her. 'Mary, I'm so sorry. I feel what happened was my fault. I behaved in a silly insensitive way. I do hope you aren't upset.' Upset – I'm frantic, thought Mary. I'm frenzied, I'm desperate. She said, 'No, no, don't worry. I'm afraid Pierce behaved abominably. I do hope Barbara wasn't too hurt.' 'No, she was very sensible about it,' said Ducane. 'I'm afraid I hadn't realized, well, quite how serious things were. I'll be more tactful in future. Please don't you be distressed. These young people have got to suffer, we can't save them from it – ' Damn their sufferings, thought Mary. She said, 'Yes. Of course they have great powers of recovery.' Mary thought suddenly, this is an abomination, sitting here and having this conventional conversation when I feel so desperate and deprived and torn inside. She thought, is there nothing I can do about it? Then there seemed to be only one thing she could do about it and she did it forthwith. She burst into a storm of tears. 'Good heavens!' said John Ducane. He took out a large clean handkerchief, unfolded it, and handed it to Mary who buried her face in it. After a minute or two, as the tears abated a little and she began to blow her nose on the handkerchief he touched her shoulder very gently, not exactly patting it but as if to remind her of his presence. 'Is it about Pierce?' 'No, no,' said Mary. 'I'm not really worried about Pierce. It's about me.' 'What? Tell me.' 'It's about Willy.! 'What about Willy? You're not frightened that he –?' 'No. I've never thought that Willy was likely to kill himself. The utterea words surpriseu net. ЈICL uinuscu LCIiuci agitation had not the relentless finality of her older loves. Yet it was beginning to fill the whole of her consciousness and it was, it must be, the deep cause of these sudden storms of misery. Ducane took the information gravely and thoughtfully, as if Mary were a client explaining her case. He said after a moment, 'My feeling is that I'm glad of this because it can't fail to do Willy good. What does he feel about it? Does he know?' 'Oh, he knows. As for what he feels – you know Willy as well as I do. How can one discover what he feels?' 'I thought he might perhaps behave – quite differently with you?' 'No, no. We seem to know each other well but I think that's just because I parade my feelings. He's affectionate, detached, passive, absolutely passive.' 'He's never told you about that place?' 'He's never talked about himself at all.' 'Are you going to see him now?' 'No. He said not to come today. You know how he is.' 'I know how he is,' said Ducane, 'and I can see he's not a convenient man to be in love with. But let's think, let's think.'
