Colonel Julian and Other Stories (24 page)

‘Oh! Clara, you promised. You always come.'

‘I know; but I'm tired, and I don't feel like coming and there it is.'

‘The Williamsons will never let you get away with it,' her sister said. ‘They'll drag you by force.'

‘I'll see about this song,' she said. ‘What did he say it was?'

‘He says it's a Christmas song. You'll never get away with it. They'll never let you.'

She went down into the shop. Every day people came into the shop for songs whose names they did not know. ‘It goes like this,' they would say, ‘or it goes like that.' They would try humming a few notes and she would take it up from them; it was always something popular, and in the end, with practice, it was never very difficult.

A young man in a brown overcoat with a brown felt hat and an umbrella stood by the sheet-music counter. He took off his hat when she came up to him.

‘There was a song I wanted——'

‘A carol?' she said.

‘No, a song,' he said. ‘A Christmas song.'

He was very nervous and kept rolling the ferrule of the umbrella on the floor linoleum. He wetted his lips and would not look at her.

‘If you could remember the words?'

‘I'm afraid I can't.'

‘How does it go? Would you know that?'

He opened his mouth either as if to begin singing a few notes or to say something. But nothing happened and he began biting his lip instead.

‘If you could remember a word or two,' she said. ‘Is it a new song?'

‘You see, I think it's German,' he said.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Perhaps it's by Schubert?'

‘It sounds awfully silly, but I simply don't know. We only heard it once,' he said.

He seemed about to put on his hat. He ground the ferrule of the umbrella into the linoleum. Sometimes it happened that people were too shy even to hum the notes of the song they wanted, and suddenly she said:

‘Would you care to come upstairs? We might find it there.'

Upstairs in the music-room she sang the first bars of one or two songs by Schubert. She sat at the piano and he stood respectfully at a distance, leaning on the umbrella, too shy to interrupt her. She sang a song by Brahms and he listened hopefully. She asked him if these were the songs, but he shook his head, and finally, after she had sung another song by Schubert, he blurted out:

‘You see, it isn't actually a Christmas song. It is, and it isn't. It's more that it makes you think of Christmas——'

‘Is it a love song?'

‘Yes.'

She sang another song by Schubert; but it was not the one he wanted; and at last she stood up. ‘You see, there are so many love songs——'

‘Yes, I know, but this one is rather different somehow.'

‘Couldn't you bring her in?' she said. ‘Perhaps she would remember?'

‘Oh! no,' he said. ‘I wanted to find it without that.'

They went downstairs and several times on the way down he thanked her for singing. ‘You sing beautifully,' he said. ‘You would have liked this song.'

‘Come in again if you think of it,' she said. ‘If you can only think of two or three bars.'

Nervously he fumbled with the umbrella and then quickly put on his hat and then as quickly took it off again. He thanked her for being so kind, raising his hat a second time. Outside the shop he put up the umbrella too sharply, and a breeze, catching it, twisted him on the bright pavement and bore him out of sight.

Rain fell gently all evening and customers came in and shook wet hats on bright pianos. She walked about trying to think of the song the young man wanted. Songs by Schubert went through her head and became mixed with the sound of carols from gramophone cubicles and she was glad when the shop had closed.

Effie began racing about in her underclothes, getting ready for the party. ‘Clara, you can't mean it that you're not coming.'

‘I do mean it. I'm always bored and they really don't want me.'

‘They love you.'

‘I can't help it. I made up my mind last year. I never enjoy it, and they'll be better without me.'

‘They won't let you get away with it,' Effie said. ‘I warn you they'll come and fetch you.'

At eight o'clock her father and mother drove off with Effie in the Ford. She went down through the shop and unbolted the front door and let them out into the street. ‘The stars
are shining,' her mother said. ‘It's getting colder.' She stood for a second or two in the doorway, looking up at the stars and thinking that perhaps, after all, there was a touch of frost in the air.

‘Get ready!' Effie called from the car. ‘You know what the Williamsons are!' and laughed with high infectious scales so that her mother and father began laughing too.

After the car had driven away she bolted the door and switched off the front shop bell. She went upstairs and put on her dressing-gown and tried to think once again of the song the young man had wanted. She played over several songs on the piano, singing them softly.

At nine o'clock something was thrown against the sidestreet window and she heard Freddy Williamson bawling:

‘Who isn't coming to the party? Open the window.'

She went to the window and pulled back the curtain and stood looking down. Freddy Williamson stood in the street below and threw his driving gloves at her.

‘Get dressed! Come on!'

She opened the window.

‘Freddy, be quiet. People can hear.'

‘I want them to hear. Who isn't coming to whose party? I want them to hear.'

He threw the driving gloves up at the window again.

‘Everybody is insulted!' he said. ‘Come on.'

‘Please,' she said.

‘Let me in then!' he bawled. ‘Let me come up and talk to you.'

‘All right,' she said.

She went downstairs and let him in through the shop and he came up to the music room, shivering, stamping enormous feet. ‘Getting colder,' he kept saying. ‘Getting colder.'

‘You should put on an overcoat,' she said.

‘Never wear one,' he said. ‘Can't bear to be stuffed up.'

‘Then don't grumble because you're starved to death.'

He stamped up and down the room, a square-boned young man with enormous lips and pink flesh and small poodle-like eyes, pausing now and then to rub his hands before the fire.

‘The Mater sends orders you're to come back with me,' he said, ‘and she absolutely won't take no for an answer.'

‘I'm not coming,' she said.

‘Of course you're coming! I'll have a drink while you get ready.'

‘I'll pour you a drink,' she said, ‘but I'm not coming. What will you have?'

‘Gin,' he said. ‘Clara, sometimes you're the most awful bind.'

She poured the drink, not answering. Freddy Williamson lifted the glass and said:

‘Sorry, didn't mean that. Happy Christmas. Good old Clara.'

‘Happy Christmas,' she said.

‘Good old Clara. Come on, let's have one for Christmas.'

Freddy Williamson put clumsy hands across her shoulders, kissing her with lips rather like those of a heavy wet dog.

‘Good old Clara,' he said again. ‘Good old girl.'

Songs kept crossing and recrossing her mind, bewildering her into moments of dreamy distraction. She had the feeling of trying to grasp something that was floating away.

‘Don't stand there like a dream,' Freddy Williamson said. ‘Put some clothes on. Come on.'

‘I'm going to tie up Christmas presents and then go to bed.'

‘Oh! Come on, Clara, come on. Millions of chaps are there, waiting.'

She stood dreamily in the centre of the room, thinking of the ardent shy young man who could not remember the song.

‘You're such a dream,' Freddy Williamson said. ‘You just stand there. You've got to snap out of yourself.'

Suddenly he pressed himself against her in attitudes of muscular, heavier love, grasping her about the waist, partly lifting her from the floor, his lips wet on her face.

‘Come on, Clara,' he kept saying, ‘let the blinds up. Can't keep the blinds down for ever.'

‘Is it a big party?'

‘Come on, let the blinds up,' he said.

‘How can I come to the party if you keep holding me here?'

‘Let the blinds up and come to the party too,' he said. ‘Eh?'

‘No,' she said.

‘Well, one more kiss,' he said. He smacked at her lips with his heavy dog-like mouth, pressing her body backwards. ‘Good old Clara. All you got to do is let yourself go. Come on—let the blinds up. Good old Clara.'

‘All right. Let me get my things on,' she said. ‘Get yourself another drink while you're waiting.'

‘Fair enough. Good old Clara.'

While she went away to dress he drank gin and stumped about the room. She came back in her black coat with a black and crimson scarf on her head and Freddy Williamson said: ‘Whizzo. That's better. Good old Clara,' and kissed her again, running clumsy ruffling hands over her face and neck and hair.

When they went downstairs someone was tapping lightly on the glass of the street door. ‘Police for the car,' Freddy Williamson said. ‘No lights or some damn thing,' but when she opened the door it was the young man who could not remember the song. He stood there already raising his hat:

‘I'm terribly sorry. Oh! you're going out. Excuse me.'

‘Did you remember it?' she said.

‘Some of it,' he said. ‘The words.'

‘Come in a moment,' she said.

He came in from the street and she shut the door. It was dark in the shop, and he did not seem so nervous. He began to say: ‘It goes rather like this—I can't remember it all. But something like this—
Leise flehen meine Lieder
—
Liebchen, komm zu mir
——'

‘It is by Schubert,' she said.

She went across the shop and sat down at one of the pianos and began to sing it for him. She heard him say, ‘That's it. That's the one,' and Freddy Williamson fidgeted with the latch of the shop door as he kept one hand on it, impatient to go.

‘It's very beautiful,' the young man said. ‘It's not a Christmas song, but somehow——'

Freddy Williamson stamped noisily into the street, and a second or two later she heard him start up the car. The door-catch rattled where he had left it open and a current of cold air blew into the dark shop.

She had broken off her singing because, after the first verse, she could not remember the words.
Softly plead my songs
——
Loved one, come to me
—— she was not sure how it went after that.

‘I'm sorry I can't remember the rest,' she said.

‘It's very kind of you,' he said. The door irritated her by banging on its catch. She went over and shut it and out in the street Freddy Williamson blew impatiently on the horn of the car.

‘Was it the record you wanted?' she said. ‘There is a very good one——'

‘If it's not too much trouble.'

‘I think I can find it,' she said. ‘I'll put on the light.'

As she looked for the record and found it, she sang the first few bars of it again. ‘There is great tenderness in it,' she began to say. ‘Such a wonderful tenderness,' but suddenly it seemed as if the young man was embarrassed. He began fumbling in his pocket-book for his money, but she said, ‘Oh! no. Pay after Christmas. Pay any time,' and at the same moment Freddy Williamson opened the door of the shop and said:

‘What goes on? After hours, after hours. Come on.'

‘I'm just coming,' she said.

‘I'll say good night,' the young man said. ‘I'm very grateful. I wish you a Happy Christmas.'

‘Happy Christmas,' she said.

Outside the stars were green and sharp in a sky without wind; the street had dried except for dark prints of frost on pavements.

‘Damn cool,' Freddy Williamson kept saying. ‘Damn cool.'

He drove rather fast, silent and a little sulky, out towards the high ground overlooking the river. Rain had been falling everywhere through all the first weeks of December and now as the car came out on the valley edge she could see below her a great pattern of winter floodwater, the hedgerows cutting it into rectangular lakes glittering with green and yellow lights from towns on the far side.

‘I'd have told him to go to hell,' Freddy Williamson said. ‘I call it damn cool. Damn cool.'

‘See the floods,' she said. ‘There'll be skating.'

‘The damn cheek people have,' Freddy Williamson said. ‘Damn cheek.'

He drove the car with sulky abandon into the gravel drive of the big Edwardian house. Dead chestnut leaves swished away on all sides, harsh and brittle, and she could see frost white on the edges of the big lawn.

‘One before we go in,' Freddy Williamson said. She turned away her mouth but he caught it with clumsy haste, like a dog seizing a bird. ‘Good old Clara. Let the blinds up. It's Christmas Eve.'

‘Put the car away and I'll wait for you,' she said.

‘Fair enough,' he said. ‘Anything you say. Good old Clara. Damn glad you came.'

She got out of the car and stood for a few moments looking down the valley. She bent down and put her hands on the grass. Frost was crisp and hard already, and she could see it sparkling brightly on tree branches and on rain-soaked stems of dead flowers. It made her breath glisten in the house-lights coming across the lawn. It seemed to be glittering even on the long wide floodwaters, so that she almost persuaded herself the valley was one great river of ice already, wonderfully transformed.

Standing there, she thought of the young man, with his shy ardent manner, his umbrella and his raised hat. The song he had not been able to remember began to go through her head again—
Softly plead my songs
——
Loved one, come to me
——; but at that moment Freddy Williamson came blundering up the drive and seized her once again like a hungry dog.