Love, Again

Sarah made sure she was in her room when the coach returned, bringing the members of the company who had not been delivered to the hotels.

Under her door came an envelope. 'Sarah. Why not? You never look at me. You never see me. I could kill you for it. I'm drunk. Andrew.'

Having scarcely slept the night before she slept at once. Dreams need not go by contraries. Her dreams that night could not have been more to the point, scenes from a farce, men and women running in and out of doors, wrong rooms, right rooms, a joker changing numbers on doors, cries of indignation and laughter, a girl sitting on a bed noisily weeping, head flung back, black hair streaming, a finger pointed in accusation at…

Since the company had returned from Stratford so late, they were not in the breakfast room when Sarah got there. She left it as Henry came in and said 'Sarah… ' but she went into the interior of the house, to escape him, not replying. There she saw Stephen climbing a small back staircase, again with the three boys, and they all carried an assortment of tools. He stopped on the landing and called down, 'We are about to have a lesson in basic plumbing.'

'It is the business of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan,' she quoted. At this the three young heads turned quickly, from three different levels of the stair, looking down at her, each face wearing that delighted but half- scared smile children accustomed to authoritarian rule use to salute rebellion. She was being insubordinate, they felt, but this must define their schools, not their parents.

Stephen said, 'Nonsense. Everyone should know how the machinery of a house works. But there's quite a decent bench under some beeches if you follow the path we were on yesterday and then turn right.'

The two younger boys pounded up the stairs, giggling. James stopped on the landing and then lifted his head to gaze out of the window there. He did this in the way one uses to check up on something, or greet someone. At any rate, he was lost to the world for a long minute, and then Stephen came back, seemed to hesitate, then put his hand on his son's shoulder. 'Come along, old chap.'

James slowly came out of his contemplation, smiled, and went with his father up the stairs. Sarah quickly ran up to the landing, and saw out of the window an enormous ash, waving its arms in the morning sunlight.

Then she followed instructions and, a good way from the house, found a wooden bench under old beeches. She sat canopied by warm green. A green thought in a green shade. At least the weather continued good: not an observation to be made lightly on a day a play was to be presented in the open.

She contemplated the old house. Its bulk dwarfed the ash tree, James's familiar, which had a look of standing on guard. From here, nearly a mile away, the green masses merely stirred and trembled, drawing in or repelling black specks, presumably rooks. She had been there an hour or so when Stephen came. He sat down beside her and at once said, 'She came into my room last night.'

'Julie?'

'I wouldn't exactly say that.'

She nibbled a grass stem and waited.

'I couldn't have brought myself to go to her.'

'No.' When he did not go on, she enquired, 'Well?'

'You mean, how did I acquit myself?'

'No, I did not mean that.'

'I have to report that I surprised myself. And I gave her a pleasant surprise or two, I am sure. A good time — as they put it over there.' She said nothing, and now he turned a hard critical grin full on her. 'You mean that was not what you meant? But women wait for us to fall down — oh, forgive me.'

'Speaking for myself — no.'

'Perhaps I shall marry her. Yes, why not?' he mused.

'Oh, congratulations. Oh, brilliant.'

'Why not? She lisps about the wonderful life here.'

'Elizabeth doesn't seem to her an impediment?'

'I don't think she really sees Elizabeth. I suspect she thinks Elizabeth is not pretty enough to count.'

'I remember being the same. I was rather younger than Susan, though.'

'Yes. She's juvenile. Yes, I'd say that was the word for her. Anyway, Elizabeth wouldn't be an impediment, would she, if I decided to… ' All this in the hard angry voice she did occasionally hear from him. 'Could Elizabeth really complain? She could marry Norah.' And then that personality left him, in a deep breath that let out, it seemed, all the anger. His voice lowered into incredulous, admiring, tender awe. 'It's the youth of her — that young body.'

Sarah could not speak. She had been thinking, far too often, I shall never again hold a young man's body in my arms. Never. And it had seemed to her the most terrible sentence Time could deal her.

'But, Sarah… ' He saw her face averted, put his hand to it, and turned it towards him. He calmly regarded the tears spilling down her face. 'But, Sarah, the point is, it's a young body. Two a penny. Any time. She's not… ' Here he let his hand slide away, making it a caress, consoling, tender, as you would for a child. He looked at the wet on his hand and frowned at it. 'All the same, if I married her, what bliss, for a time.'

'And then you'd have the pleasure of watching her fall in love with someone her age, while she was ever so kind to you.'

'Exactly. You put it so… But last night I was asking myself… she really is sweet, I'm not saying she isn't. But is it worth it? To hold Julie's hand is worth more than all of last night.'

Is.

She said, making her voice steady, 'Although Henry is in love with me — he really is — '

'I had noticed. Give me credit.'

'Although he knows I am crazy about him, he hasn't come to my room.'

'His wife, I suppose.' As she did not reply, 'You don't understand, Sarah. For a monogamous man to fall in love — it's terrible.'

'But, Stephen, it's only monogamous people who can fall in love — I mean, really.' She felt she was doing pretty well, with this conversation, though her voice was shaking. 'We romantics need obstacles. What could be a greater one?'

'Death?' said Stephen, surprising her.

'Or old age? You see, if I had been Susan's age, if I had been… then I don't think morality would have done so well. There would have been nights of bliss and then wallowing in apologies to his wife.'

Stephen put his arm around her. This was a pretty complex action. For one thing, it was an arm (like hers) that easily went around a friend in tears. Once it had comforted Elizabeth, weeping bitterly because Joshua had chosen someone else. It was an arm that went easily around his children. But the arm would rather not have gone around this particular person: it was her arm that should go around him. When he assumed this brotherly role, he relinquished reliable Sarah. Never had a supporting, a friendly arm so clearly conveyed: And now I am alone. But she knew she could expect words of kindness and consolation. A complicated kind of noblesse oblige would dictate them.

'There's just one little thing you are overlooking, Sarah. AIDS.'

The arrival of that word, like the arrival of the disease itself, has the power to jolt any conversation into a different key. In this case, laughter. While she was thinking that church bells warning of plague must often enough have tolled across these fields, and this was just another instalment of the story, she had to laugh, and said, 'Oh, that is a consolation. That makes everything all right. And anyway, it's ridiculous. Me — AIDS.'

'But, Sarah,' said he, enjoying, as she could see, her genuine indignation, 'we have been living in a dream world. The one thing I wasn't going to say to Susan was, But I couldn't possibly have AIDS because I've been chaste. For various reasons I don't propose to go into… because one doesn't say that to a woman, '