A Severed Head

'Of course we would,' I said. 'It's an occasion for champagne. Come as soon as you can. Tell Georgie I'm very pleased with you both!'

'Thanks, Martin,' said Alexander. 'I thought you'd blow me out of the water.'

'Admit you're a fast worker!'

I heard Alexander's relieved laugh at the other end. 'I knew what I wanted for once.'

I replaced the receiver and stood there by the table staring out at the black uncurtained garden. It had stopped raining and in the silence I could hear the water dripping from the magnolia. Antonia came in.

She saw my face and said, 'Christ, what is it?'

'My dear brother Alexander is getting married to Georgie Hands.'

'No!' said Antonia. Struck by the vehemence of that no, its tone of utter bewildered rejection, I looked at her face. It had become in an instant a wrinkled mask of pain. Antonia minded.

I said, 'Well, I expect it's all for the best. You ought to be pleased. It removes temptations from my path.'

Antonia drew her breath in sharply as if for an exclamation. But she said nothing. She turned her head away and I thought for a moment that she was going to burst into tears. I was surprised at her reaction. She must have laid more store than I realized by her tender sentimental friendship with my brother. But of course she was in an over-excited state.

I said, 'I asked them to come round now to drink some champagne. They're at Gloucester Road. They should be arriving in a few minutes. I hope that's all right by you.'

'You asked them round now?' said Antonia. Her face, screwed up with distress and anger, was positively ugly. 'You perfect fool! Have you no consideration? I'm going out.' She turned to the door.

'Dear Antonia,' I said, 'don't be cross with me. I didn't know you'd mind. I should have asked you. I'll entertain them alone if you like. But do please stay.'

She stared at me for a moment almost with hatred. Then she left the room, clapping the door sharply to behind her. I heard her feet going heavily up the stairs. I waited, mastering a physical pain of jealousy so severe that it almost doubled me up. The bell rang. I went out into the hall.

Wrapped in their big overcoats, against the damp blue night whose air blew warm and fragrant in through the doorway, they stood tall and indistinguishably close together. 'Come in, you disgraceful pair,' I said.

They entered in silence and I helped them off with their coats. Alexander was wearing a stiff smile which must have been a duplicate of my own. I led the way into the drawing-room and by the fireplace we spread out and looked at each other's faces. It was, for all three, an effort. The shock was extreme. I could see Georgie trying to control a grimacing smile which kept returning. She was not able to prevent the blood from rushing visibly to redden her two cheeks. After the first quick glance she avoided my eye. Alexander watched us both tensely, ruefully; but he had, and could not conceal, the air of a successful man.

'Well, Martin,' he said, 'so you forgive us?'

'Of course, lunatics,' I said. 'There's nothing to forgive.' I went forward and kissed Georgie on her burning cheek. It was not easy. I felt her shiver. I shook Alexander by the hand. I said, 'You're bloody lucky.'

'I know it,' he said humbly, and cast a quick look at Georgie. He added, 'Life can be very sudden, can't it? But the fastest things are often the surest things. Once we got the idea we needed little convincing!'

I had no desire for these sentiments and confidences. I wanted to get past the moment of hearing Georgie's voice. I turned and said to her more roughly than I had intended, 'Come on, Georgie, speak up. It's only your old friend Martin. So my headlong brother carried you off?'

'Yes,' said Georgie in a low tone, still not looking at me.

'Well, you're lucky too,' I said. 'Come and sit by the fire and we'll all have some champagne. And you can stop looking as if you'd been caught stealing the till.' I plucked Georgie's sleeve and drew her to the sofa. This time I was really magnificent. They both sat down.

Alexander said, 'We'll soon stop looking hangdog. We're terribly glad we've told you. Where's Antonia? Have you told her?'

'Yes, indeed,' I said. 'She's delighted too. She's just powdering her nose. She'll be down in a minute.' I hoped this was true.

Georgie was looking at Alexander. She stretched out her long legs in a deliberate attempt to relax. Her breath came slowly and deeply. She was thinner and paler, wearing a black tweed pinafore dress with a high-necked striped blouse. Her hair, cascaded on top and carefully pinned, was immaculate. She seemed, with so much neatness, beautifully older. Alexander, with a cautious veiled tenderness, returned her look. The sense of my exclusion was for a moment almost unbearable; and I had a sudden repetition of an impression which I had had before in relation to Palmer and Antonia. They simply wanted me out of the way. I had to be somehow, tenderly, carefully, lovingly, but relentlessly dealt with before they could pass me by and get on with their lives together.

Georgie at last had steadily turned to look up at me and our eyes met. Hers were big, intense, troubled, yet full of a vitality which might at any moment shamelessly declare itself as happiness. God knows what she saw in mine. In that interchange she could not help, very briefly, now that she had a hold upon her emotions, exhibiting, almost flaunting before me, her new sense of her freedom. She had said that without freedom she would not exist. No wonder I had lost her. I went to fetch the champagne.

As I returned with bottles and glasses I became aware that Antonia was quietly descending the stairs. She had changed her dress and put on a good deal of make-up. She had evidently decided not to go out. When she saw me she paused a moment, gave me a sombre hostile look, and then proceeded slowly to the drawing-room door. I opened it for her and followed her in. The other two, who were sitting together on the sofa and ostentatiously not talking to each other, rose.

I caught a glimpse over her shoulder of Alexander's face. His features were drawn together as if focusing to a point. The moment passed.

'Well, what a lovely surprise!' said Antonia, her voice a little higher than usual. She was the least under control of the four of us.

'I hope we have your blessing,' said Alexander in a low submissive voice. He stooped towards her.

'My most hearty blessing!' said Antonia. 'Can blessings be hearty? My blessing anyway. Let me kiss the child.' She kissed Georgie, who stared and gripped Antonia's arm as the kiss descended on her cheek. I poured out the champagne.

Alexander and Georgie were exchanging looks. We raised our glasses and I said, 'Let me be the one to say, a happy ending to a strange tale! From Antonia and Martin, to Georgie and Alexander, love and good wishes and congratulations!' Rather awkwardly we clicked the glasses and drank.

I poured out some more. Everybody was needing the stuff and we drank it like addicts. During this ritual there was a curious silence, all of us staring about at each other. I looked at Alexander. His face, seeming a little harder and absurdly young, had the crazy dazed look which is born of reckless behaviour or happiness. He had turned now to look at Antonia and I saw his features focus once again, drawn out to a fine point of provocative appeal. Georgie, not looking at him, was leaning very slightly in his direction as if responding to a magnetic pull. Their bodies were already acquainted. Georgie was gazing up at me now with a fugitive distressed smile well under control, keeping her glass steady at her lips. Drink always restored her. Antonia, holding her glass away from her in one hand in an Egyptian attitude, was staring at Alexander. Her mouth drooped. I noticed the rouge on her cheeks and how elderly she had become. But after all I had become elderly myself. I reflected that we were two aged parents wishing the young people well.

To end the silence which had gone on too long I said to Georgie, 'How smart you're looking! Quite the up-to-date girl.'

Georgie smiled, Antonia sighed, we all fidgeted a little, and Alexander murmured, 'There was a young man of Pitlochry, Kissed an up-to-date girl in the rockery …'

Still desperately kicking the conversation along I said, 'And talking of Pitlochry, where are you off to for your honeymoon?'

Alexander hesitated. He said, 'New York, actually,' and looked at Georgie. I looked at her too. She looked down into her glass.

We were all silenced again. That had been an unlucky move and I could see Georgie's averted face stiffen and grow burning red.

I said hastily, 'How nice. And where will you live? Mainly at Rembers? Or up in town?'

'Both, I expect,' said Alexander. 'But we certainly intend to inhabit Rembers properly, not just at week-ends.' He answered vaguely conscious of Georgie's mounting distress.

'That will be good for Rembers,' I said. 'It's a house that loves people. It will be good for it to have a real family in it, to have children there again.'

As I said this and promptly wished it unsaid, I heard Georgie draw a sharp breath. She closed her eyes and two tears rolled suddenly down her cheeks.

Antonia heard the indrawn breath and turned her head. She saw Georgie's face. Then she said Oh, her mouth worked, her brow reddened, and her own eyes, like two great wells, were instantly overflowing. She bowed her head over the glass which she was holding stiffly in front of her and her tears fell into the champagne. Georgie had covered her face with her handkerchief. I looked at Alexander and Alexander looked at me. After all, for better and worse we had known each other a long time.