'Oh, but it's a compliment,' she said.
He put his hand inside her elbow. This hand both took possession of Sarah and said it was prepared to relinquish her at the smallest sign that it was taking too much for granted. Sarah, from the world of the theatre, laughed, put her arms around him, and kissed him on both cheeks, one, two. He at once went bright red. He was pleased, though.
'Sarah, I really am so glad to see you here. Don't ever think I'm not.'
Why should she think such a thing?
Apparently he still felt she needed essential instruction. Again he took her arm, this time with confident masculine proprietorship, which she enjoyed (she was prepared to concede) more than perhaps she ought. They walked slowly through gardens and shrubberies, and past long warm reddish brick walls where roses sent out waves of scent. Late May: the roses were early.
Stephen said he hoped that she, Sarah, and the whole company would give Elizabeth credit for all the work she had done. It was she who had persuaded artistic friends in Paris to get Julie Vairon's pictures exhibited. It was she who had approached the television people to make a documentary. Elizabeth was a generous woman, he insisted.
They walked on grass between two hedges of beech, whose attribute is to remind you, when in full healthy green, that it will hold its own through long winters, withstanding gales, frost, anything at all nature chooses to throw at it, never losing so much as a russet leaf. A beech hedge, whether it likes it or not, makes statements of confidence. It refuses pathos.
'She is always generous,' he said again, and, feeling she was being prompted, she asked, 'What does she make of — well, of you and Julie?' But it was the wrong question, for his face said he had already answered her. Disappointment in her made him relinquish her arm, and she, disappointed in her turn, insisted, 'She would admit that one may be jealous of a… ' She could not bring herself to say, 'a dead woman', for it was too brutal. Instead she said, '… of a ghost?' A foolish, harmless word.
'I don't think she would admit to anything so irrational.'
They had strolled on a good few yards through air that was a mix of warm dry scents all making claims on her memory, when she remarked, 'For one thing, you can't compete with a… dead woman.' It was not easy to use that word.
He stopped and turned to look close into her face. 'You say that as if you knew all about jealousy.'
'Did I? I suppose I did.' And hearing in retrospect how she had spoken, she was discomfited. She was off balance. Meanwhile his eyes, green but — seen so close — as full of variegations as the surface of a cut olivine, green specked with black and grey, were full on her face. Trying to laugh, she said, 'I remember saying to myself, That's it, never again, I'll never feel jealousy again.' She knew her voice was full of resentment.
'So you were generous too?'
'If you want to make it generosity… I thought of it as self-preservation. I know one thing — funny that I haven't thought of it for ages: but you can kill yourself with jealousy.' She was trying to make her voice light and humorous. She failed.
'You said to whoever it was, Bless you, my child, run off to your little amusements, what we have is so strong it can't affect our marriage?'
'It wasn't my marriage. It was later than that. And I certainly never said, Run along! On the contrary, that was it — finished!' She was surprising herself by the cold anger in her voice. 'I could never say it couldn't affect a marriage or anything else. It was a question of… '
'Well?' he demanded, and gripped her elbows in large and confident hands. The strength of those hands spoke direct to her, reminding her… His eyes, those interesting pebbles so close to her own, seemed to her now to be tinged with — was that anxiety?
Violent needs conflicted in her. One was to comfort and heal, for she always felt he emanated an appeal, a need: she had never been more aware than now that he guarded a hurt place. But it seemed her own need was stronger, for what burst out of her was: 'Pride. It was pride.' And she was surprised — if she could be more surprised than she had already become, seeing what was revealed of a forgotten past — at the violence in the word. What's the matter with me? she was asking herself, while she withstood the pressure of those uncompromising eyes. 'Of course it was pride. Do you imagine I'd keep a man who wanted someone else?'
She, Sarah — that is, the Sarah of today — had not spoken these words. Some long ago Sarah had said them. It was getting harder every second to stand there between Stephen's hands and sustain that long close examination. She felt ashamed, and her face burned.
'You are talking like the kind of woman you seem determined not to be — to seem to be.'
'What kind of woman?'
'A love woman,' he said. 'A woman who takes her stand on love.'
'Well,' said she, attempting humour again, but with no success, 'I do seem to remember something of the kind.' And was about to walk away from the situation, when he tightened his grip on her elbows.
'Wait, you always run away.'
'But it was all a long time ago… All right, then, I'll try. Do you remember Julie's journals — yes I know you don't like them. When she was writing about her master printer, she said, And there will inevitably come that night when I know it is not me, Julie, he is holding in his arms, but the wife of the chemist or thefarmer's daughter who brought the eggs that afternoon. I'd rather die. And of course, she did.' Her voice was full of defiance. 'Immature — that's what our Julie was. A mature woman knows that if her husband chooses to fancy the chemist's wife or the girl who is driving the Express delivery cart, and fucks them in her stead, well, it's just one of those things.'
'And vice versa, I think.' He smiled. 'The husband knows he is holding in his arms the stable boy, because his wife is?'
'That's your — his affair.'
'Well, well, well,' he said, full of sardonic relish. He let her go. And as they walked on, while the essences of flower and leaf meandered past their faces, 'And that marriage of yours? I really am curious. That little way of yours, all passion spent, amuse yourself, my children, while I benevolently look on.' This was not spiteful, or even resentfuclass="underline" he laughed, a bark of sceptical laughter, but gave her the look of a friend.
Sarah fought to become that Sarah who was able benevolently to look on.
'It lasted ten years. Then he died.' Now she believed that the younger Sarah had taken herself off, back into some dark corner. 'I don't look back on my pursuit of love after that with much admiration for myself. I was so immature, you see. I was never prepared to settle for the sensible — you know, a widow with two young children should look for a father for her children.'
He snorted a kind of amusement. Then, 'A real romantic. Who would have thought it? Well, actually, yes, I did, I really did.'
'And I am walking on a lovely afternoon with a man who is besotted, may I use that word? — with a phantom.'
'She is no phantom,' he said gravely.
In front of them the shrubs were thinning: an open space was imminent, showing through the branches.