The Sea, the Sea

redemption of her love for him, a new family, a new world. She had only to open her eyes and stretch out her hand and say yes. There were vast liberating forces pent up somewhere which were bound to break out. It was just a matter of waiting and keeping her here and letting time enlighten her will.

I had given her breakfast and tried to talk to her and to explain what I have just written here, only she kept saying that she wanted to go home. Her ringed eyes and puffy face and the unnerving languor of her bearing made me wonder if she were not really ill, and whether I should call a doctor. Then, more exasperated than pitying, I wondered if I could not better serve my cause by being brusque, and I left her rather abruptly, and then was sorry. I was standing beside the bead curtain and touching it, uncertain what to do next, when I heard a sudden loud outburst of laughter from down below, followed by some part-singing with a female voice.

I ran down to the kitchen. Rosina was sitting on the table swinging her legs and being (there is no other word for it) worshipped by Gilbert and Titus. She was wearing a dark grey very fine check, very smart lightweight coat and skirt and a white silk blouse and very long wrinkled white high-heeled boots. Her glossy glowing dark hair had been cut or piled by a clever hairdresser into a rounded segmented composition which looked both complex and casual. (Horace would have liked it.) Her intense animal face was blazing with health and vitality and feral curiosity. She was entirely in control of a situation where the other two, perhaps as a result of prolonged strain, had now broken down into helpless crazy giggling and fou rire. My appearance provoked another outburst of slightly hysterical laughter, and they all spontaneously broke into song again. They sang in round, and showed no sign of stopping, an Italian catch whose words I can remember since Titus and Gilbert had been singing it obsessively in the preceding days. Titus taught it to Gilbert and now Rosina had got it too. It went Eravamo tredici, siamo rimasti dodici, sei facevano rima, e sei facevan’ pima-poma-pima- poma. God knows what it was supposed to be about. Singing is of course a form of aggression. The wet open mouths and glistening teeth of the singers are ardent to devour the victim-hearer. Singers crave hearers as animals crave their prey. Intoxicated by their own voices they now roared it out, round and round, Gilbert’s fruity baritone, Titus’s pseudo-Neapolitan tenor and Rosina’s strong rather harsh contralto. I shouted ‘Stop! Stop! Stop that bloody row!’ But they went on singing at me, their bright eyes, moist with laughter, fixed upon me, waving their arms in time to the tune; until at last they wearied, stopped, and went off into another crazy laughing fit.

I sat on a chair and watched them.

Coherent at last, Rosina said, wiping her eyes, ‘Charles, you’re so funny, you are an endless source of amusement to your friends. I hear you’ve got your lady-love here, hidden away upstairs! You really are priceless!’

‘Why the hell did you have to tell her?’ I said to Gilbert and Titus.

Gilbert, attempting unsuccessfully to erase the laughter wrinkles from his face, avoided my look. He started rolling and swinging his eyes.

Titus said rather sulkily, ‘You didn’t say not to tell.’ Then he caught Rosina’s eye and beamed.

Gilbert had of course met Rosina before and knew her slightly. He had hitherto regarded her with the prudish hostility which some male homosexuals instinctively feel towards very feminine predatory women (whereas with gentle sweet women such as Lizzie they got on very well). However he seemed now to have suffered an instant conversion. Titus was simply a boy absolutely thrilled to see a famous actress in the flesh and to find that she not only noticed him but appreciated the charms of his youth. They kept eyeing each other, he shyly, she with bold amusement. Titus’s appearance had profited, as Gilbert’s had, from sun and sea. His reddish blond hair had been burnished and enlivened into a halo of fine wire, and his shirt, scarcely buttoned, showed the glowing skin and blazing red curls of his chest. His trousers were rolled up to reveal long elegant bronzed legs. He was barefoot. The scarred lip gave a twisted male force to his pretty mouth. Rosina was at her sleekest, delighted and amused by her exercise of power. As she held court, her piercing cross-eyed glance kept moving encouragingly from one of the bemused enthralled men and back again. They seemed to be quite dazed by her attractions. It was certainly a change from the increasingly charnel house atmosphere of Shruff End.

‘What do you want, Rosina?’

‘What do you mean, “What do you want?” What a way to greet a visitor. “What do you want?” ’ She mimicked me. ‘What sort of a question is that?’

The other two roared with laughter. They seemed to find everything Rosina said vastly clever and funny.

‘Why are you here?’

‘Can’t you make an effort to be civil to an old friend?’

‘I’m not in a social mood.’

‘So I see. Yet you already have two charming guests, in fact three guests, including lady-love. All right, I’m not angling for an invitation to stay. I think this is the nastiest meanest most unpleasant house I’ve ever entered.’

‘It has bad vibes,’ said Titus.

‘You can say that again,’ said Gilbert.

They were ganging up against me.

‘But is your funny lady really upstairs? Whatever are you going to do with her? You know, you promised to tell me what was going on in your interesting love life, only of course I ought to know by now that you don’t keep promises. Anyway I decided I’d come and see how you were getting along. I’ve been working hard and I thought I needed a holiday. I’m at the Raven Hotel again, I like it there, I like the bay and those extraordinary boulders. And the food is excellent, not your style.’

‘I hope you have a pleasant stay at the Raven Hotel.’

‘The most amazing rumours about you are circulating in London.’

‘I’m sure everyone is fascinated.’

‘Well, they’re not actually. I had to start a few rumours myself to keep your memory a bit greenish. They’ve forgotten you already. You were pretty old hat when you were still with us, now you’re ancient history. The young people have never heard of you, Charles. You’re exploded, you’re not even a myth. I can see it now, Charles dear, you’re old. Where’s all that charm we used to go on about? It was nothing but power really. Now you’ve lost your power you’ve lost your charm. No wonder you have to make do with a Bearded Lady.’

‘Just buzz off, Rosina, will you?’

‘But what’s happening, Charles? I’m mad with curiosity. I gather from these two that she’s a sort of prisoner here. May I go up and poke her through the bars?’

‘Rosina, please-’

‘But, Charles, what are you up to? There’s a husband in the case, isn’t there, if I remember? Not that husbands ever worried you much. But you can’t be going to carry her off, you can’t want to marry her! Really, you are becoming ridiculous. You were never ridiculous in the old days. You used to have dignity and style.’

Titus and Gilbert, less amused, were looking embarrassed and studying the great slate flagstones of the kitchen floor.

‘I’ll see you to the road, Rosina. Is your car out there?’

‘Oh, I don’t want to go yet. I want to sing some more. Who’s pretty-boy?’ She indicated Titus.

‘That is my son Titus.’

Titus frowned and stroked his scarred lip. Gilbert raised his eyebrows, Rosina changed colour, shot me a quick look of piercing malignancy, then laughed. ‘Well, well-All right, I’ll go. My car’s outside. You may escort me to it. Goodbye, you two, I enjoyed the sing-song.’ She marched out of the kitchen swinging her handbag and I followed.

Rosina walked straight out of the front door and across the causeway without looking back. I followed her as far as her horrible red car.

There she turned on me, her vixen face pointed with rage. ‘Is that boy really your son?’

‘Well, no, I’ve sort of taken him on. I always wanted a son. He’s their son, he’s the adopted son-of-of Hartley and her husband.’

‘I see. I might have known it was a stupid joke. For one moment I thought perhaps-what are you going to do about that woman? You can’t collect a half-crazy female at this stage of her life. You can’t keep her like a mad thing on a chain. Or have I got it all wrong?’

‘She’s not a prisoner. She loves me. She’s just been brainwashed. ’