And it was only the theatre, after all.
'It's only the theatre,' said Mary, ending their silence and sounding miserable.
Now, finally, they had to decide whether to put Julie Vairon on in London. But it seemed this decision had already been made, for they hardly discussed it.
'Now,' said Sarah to Patrick, 'let's have it.'
Patrick stood before them, grinning. Full of affection, yes, but fuller of a cheeky guiltiness.
'Sarah… guess what… you'll never guess… you'll have to shoot yourself… well, shoot me, then… We can't have victim heroines any more — remember? Do you remember? Well… ' And here he hesitated on the brink, gave Sonia a look of comic despair, plunged on, 'How do you like the idea of a musical?'
'A musical!' protested Stephen.
'Oh, don't tell me,' said Roy, in a fury. 'There's this pathetic little half-caste from Martinique who falls in love with the handsome lieutenant. He ditches her. She earns her living doing the can-can in Cannes. There she is seen by the patrician Rémy — '
'Too complicated,' said Patrick airily.
'No Rémy?' said Stephen.
'No Rémy. She has a child by Paul. She puts her in a convent with the nuns. Julie earns her living as a singer. The master printer wants to make an honest woman of her — '
'But she commits suicide because of…?' enquired Sarah.
'Because she knows the townspeople will never forgive her, or forgive him for marrying her. If he marries her she will ruin his life. There's a great scene where the citizens sing they will boycott his business and bring him to bankruptcy. They won't have that whore Julie. She leaves a suicide note: Remember my Minou! She flings herself under a train. Just like you know who. Last scene: the master printer and Minou, already a nubile nymph sought in marriage by a handsome young lieutenant.'
'You're joking,' said Stephen.
'He's not joking,' said Sonia, sounding huffy. From this it could be seen she was involved with this musical.
'I'm not joking,' said Patrick. 'The libretto is written.'
'You've written it?'
'I've written it.'
'Is she allowed any intelligence?' asked Roy.
'Of course not,' said Sarah.
'I expected you and Stephen to be much more cross than you are,' said Patrick, obviously disappointed.
'Well,' said Stephen, 'I'm off.'
'Well,' said Sarah, also getting up, 'when is this masterpiece going to be put on?'
'We have to get the music written,' said Sonia.
'Not Julie's?' asked Mary.
'We are thinking of using one of the troubadour songs as a theme song. Not the words, of course. You know. "If this song of mine is a sad one…" It's a torch song, really.'
'So what words?' enquired Sarah.
Mary said, 'I love you, I love you.'
'Very good,' said Patrick. 'Brilliant. All right. Sneer if you like. It's possible they'll premiere it in Belles Rivieres the year after next.'
'The bad will drive out the good,' remarked Stephen. 'It always does.'
'Oh thanks, thanks a lot,' said Patrick.
'Let's wait and see,' said Mary. 'They aren't going to let our Julie go if it's successful next year.'
'Honestly,' said Sonia, 'I don't think you people should start panicking. It hasn't happened yet.'
'No, but it's going to,' said Patrick. 'And there's something else. My Julie's going to be called The Lucky Piece… no, wait — I found it by chance. The lucky piece is early-nineteenth-century slang. It means the child of a mistress who has been left well set up by her boyfriends. Well, no one could say that Julie's mother wasn't living in clover.'
The meeting ended early, and a long sunlit evening lay ahead. Stephen and Sarah walked for a while in Regent's Park. Stephen said he was going to visit his brother in Shropshire. After that he might visit friends in Wales. She recognized his need to move. If it were not that she had so much to do in the theatre, she would be buying an aeroplane ticket to almost anywhere.
There was no way of putting off what faced her. She sat and thought how already the family would be speeding along French roads that were dusty and burned by this summer's sun. As soon as the car stopped, the little boy would be in his father's arms. In fact one could be sure that during the three weeks they were in France, whenever the car was not actually in motion, Joseph would be held by Henry. Meanwhile her body sent inconsistent messages. For instance, that sensation of need in the hollow of her left shoulder demanded that a head should lie there… was it Henry's head? Often it seemed to her it was an infant newly born, and naked, a soft hot nakedness, and her hand pressing it close protected a helplessness much greater than could be encompassed by this one small creature. An infinite vulnerability lay there: Sarah herself, who was both infant and what sheltered the infant. When a hot wanting woke Sarah from a dream she knew had been about Henry, the face that dazzled behind her lids was Joseph's, a bright cheeky greedy smile announc- ing that it would grab everything it could. And then, an intimate and loving smile — Henry's, and both of these wraiths disappeared as her hand went to the soft hollow, and she was filled with a wild and cherishing love.
In her diary, page after page was filled with entries like 'Emptiness.' 'Pain.' 'It is such a weight — I can't carry it.' 'Wild grief.' 'Storms of longing.' 'When will it end?' 'I can't stand this pain.' 'My heart hurts so much.' 'It hurts.'
To whom was she writing these messages like letters in bottles entrusted to the sea? No one would read them. And if someone did, the words would make sense only if this someone had experienced this pain, this grief. For as she herself looked at the words pain, grief, anguish, and so forth, they were words on a page and she had to fill them with the emotions they represented. Why then put them on a page at all? It occurred to her she was engaged in that occupation common to (even diagnostic of?) our times: she was bearing witness.
She stopped writing 'I did not know this degree of misery could exist,' and her diary reverted to: 'Worked with Sonia and Patrick all day on the costumes.' 'Worked with Mary.' 'Mary says she saw Sonia and Roger Stent having dinner together in The Pelican. Sonia doesn't know we know.' 'Patrick has gone to visit Jean-Pierre about The Lucky Piece.' 'Sonia and I worked all day on… '
In fact she was doing half the work she usually did. She woke in the morning with a groan and often sank back into… if it was a landscape of grief, then at least it was not the same as the one she inhabited awake. If at home, she might sleep all afternoon, work a little, be asleep by ten. Sometimes she dragged herself out of bed in the morning and got back into it by mid-morning. Normally she slept lightly, with pleasure, her dreams an entertainment and often a source of information. Now she crawled into sleep which was both a refuge and a threat, to get rid of the pain — a physical anguish — in her heart.
She was also observing her symptoms with curiosity, none of them — surely? — necessarily a symptom of love.
Worst of all, she was bad-tempered, might snap and snarl suddenly, without warning, as if she only just managed an even keel, but the slightest demand, or even a too-loud voice, was enough to tip her over. She wanted to make unkind and sarcastic remarks. Normally not particularly critical, she was critical of everything.