Mrs. Thompson's voice broke in upon my thoughts. "When I was a little girl, I always used to imagine the Sire de Maletroit's door was somewhere around here. I loved to wander around, looking for adventures."
The little car smelled of leather and tobacco and scent; my thighs began to register Eva's body again. I was in Warley riding in a car to the theatre; Dufton was far away, Dufton was dead, dead, dead.
"Did you find any adventures?" I asked Mrs. Thompson. My face was against Eva's hair.
"Once a little boy kissed me," she said. "An awful little tough with red hair. He just grabbed me and kissed me. Then he hit me and ran away. I've been attached to the neighbourhood ever since.
"That man," said Bob gravely, "is today the richest in Warley. He has never looked at another woman since that fateful encounter. Everyone thinks him hard and unapproachable, caring only for money and power. But sometimes, sitting alone in his Georgian mansion right at T'Top, he remembers that winsome little girl, half angel and half bird, and tears soften his flinty eyes ... It's rather touching, really, like Dante and Beatrice."
He drew the car to a stop outside the theatre. "Dante had a wife and a large family," Cedric said mildly.
"You win," said Bob, getting out of the car. "It's a beautiful story nevertheless."
Mrs. Thompson said nothing, but smiled at Bob.
The theatre had a façade of glaring white concrete and a big illuminated sign over the entrance. Its lower-case lettering made the theatre look like a night club, which I assume was the impression that had been aimed at. The auditorium smelled of sawdust and paint and chalk. It was decorated in cream and grey with the usual picture-frame stage; the atmosphere was somehow educational; though I can't be sure whether this wasn't due to its schoolroom smell. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the audience; I'd half expected the theatre to be full of people like Bob and Eva, being determinedly witty and theatrical at the top of their voices.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the play either. It had run for three years during the war; I'd missed it, being in Stalag 1000 at the time it was produced. It dealt with a very charming upper-middle-class family the members of which nearly committed adultery, nearly made a fortune, nearly made an unwise marriage, nearly missed their true vocation and so on, everything being made right in the end by the wise old grandmother who, rather daringly for this kind of play, spoke the prologue and epilogue swaying to and fro on her rocking chair and fiddling about with a piece of knitting to break up her speeches.
I enjoyed it for the same reason that people enjoy Mrs. Dale's Diary - the characters belonged to the income group which I wanted to belong to, it was like being an invisible spectator of life in one of the big houses on Eagle Road. It was all very soothing, right down to the comic servants with hearts of gold. (Nanny offered Master her life's savings when it seemed that he was going bankrupt and I distinctly heard a woman behind me sniffling back her tears.)
It was halfway through Act I that I saw Susan for the first time. She was the youngest daughter, the gay, innocent girl who nearly breaks her heart over an older man - at least, that's how the Warley Clarion put it. I remember her first line. "Oh hell and death, I'm late! Morning, Mummy pet." The swear words of course had been picked up from the Older Man, a debonair, greying composer; he used them when his new symphony wouldn't come right, this being a sure sign of his extreme sophistication and wickedness.
She had a young fresh voice and the accent of a good finishing school. She was supposed to be sixteen in that play, but she had none of the puppy-fat and slight clumsiness of that age and I judged her to be about nineteen. She couldn't act very well, but for me she brought the whole silly play to life. Not that the part needed to be acted; it was tailored to fit any pretty young girl with a proper mastery of the broad a and narrow u . What appealed to me most about her was that she was conventionally pretty. Black shoulder-length hair, large round hazel eyes, neat nose and mouth, dimples - she was like the girl in the American advertisements who is always being given a Hamilton watch or Cannon Percale (whatever that is) sheets or a Nash Airflyte Eight. She might have been the sister of the girl I'd seen outside Sylvia's Café.
Charles and I once worked out a grading scheme for women, having noticed that the more money a man had, the better looking was his wife. We even typed out a schedule, the Lampton-Lufford Report on Love. There was an appendix with Sex Summaries. I remember that a Grade One woman gave one such a marvellous time in bed that it was just as well that all Grade One husbands had inherited fortunes, because they couldn't possibly have had any strength to spare for earning money. And Grade Four men were awarded a little extra with each promotion (Oh dahling I'm so glad the Directors are appreciating you at last, she said with her eyes misty) and Grade Nine of course only indulged on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
The grades corresponded, naturally, with the incomes of husband or fiancé, running from One, for millionaires and film stars and dictators - anyone with an income over Ł20,000 in fact - to Twelve for those under Ł350 and not likely to get any more. Charles and I belonged to Grade Seven, which was for the Ł600 and over deputy and assistant head group; we really belonged to the grade below, but the point of the whole scheme was that husbands were chosen as much on eventual as actual salary, a certain level of intelligence being taken for granted in women above Grade Ten standard. Our schedule didn't work out perfectly, of course: sometimes men in Grade Seven would have Grade Three wives, women capable of acquiring Ł5000-a-year men, and self-made Grade Three men would have Grade Ten wives whom they'd been hooked by before they'd made their pile. But the Grade Seven men generally lost their wives to lovers who really understood and appreciated them or, worse still, had to endure them grumbling about money for the rest of their lives; and the Grade Three men generally got Grade Three mistresses. This no doubt all seems very cynical but the fact is that Charles and I could eventually work out husbands' incomes to the nearest fifty pounds. There was a time when the accuracy of our system profoundly depressed me. (That was when my horizon was bounded by Dufton and the NALGO National Charter.) I knew that I was equally lovable and a damned sight more handsome than the Glittering Zombie, a young man with sleek black hair, a shiny red face and a gold Rolex Oyster, gold signet ring, gold cigarette lighter and gold cigarette case; but, not having a father who was a bookmaker, I could hope for a Grade Six wife at the best and he would automatically attract a Grade Three.
Susan was Grade Two - if not One - whether or not she had any money; but I had a shrewd idea that she'd qualify for the grade financially as well as sexually. To be quite fair to myself, this wasn't the only reason that I was excited by her, that the genteel commonplaces of the play seemed profoundly poetic, that it seemed at any moment there'd be an annunciation which would transform existence into what it ought to be, hold, as it were, to its bargain the happiness which Warley had promised me. And I should have felt exactly the same if I'd been an honest simple type to whom the whole idea of grading women was beastly cynicism. She was so young and innocent that it nearly broke my heart; in a queer but pleasurable way it actually hurt me to look at her. If flesh had a taste, hers, I imagine, would be like new milk. I fell in love with her at first sight. I use the conventional phrase like a grammalogue in shorthand, to express in a small space all the emotions she evoked in me.