I'll Never Be Young Again (13 page)

They treated me like one of themselves, but Jake would always stand alone. He would never change. It was all very difficult. I did not want to have to think about it.

We all went in to lunch. I asked the steward if he had seen Jake. He said he had had his food early and had finished some time ago. That was all right then, and I did not have to keep looking to the door in case he should come in. Perhaps he’d be up on the bridge all the afternoon. Carrie and I were going to take rugs and the gramophone on the top deck. We had found a place behind one of the launches swung on the davits. I sat next to her at lunch. I put my hand under the table and felt for her. She did not mind. Nobody else saw. I did not care much if they did. She talked all the time, and said a heap of idiotic things about the beauty of the mountains and how she loved nature, and she’d like to settle in Europe and never go back to America again. This started an argument from the rest of the crowd, and they were all against her. I don’t know why she had to say all this. Just for the sake of talking, I suppose. It did not impress me much. When anyone talked about beauty in that way I knew they were doing it for effect. Perhaps she wanted me to think she was intelligent. She had only to open her mouth to show me she was not. Why didn’t she just rely on her looks? Nobody expected her to be clever. I did not, anyway. The dark girl Mary had more sense, but then she had to have something to make you forget she wasn’t pretty.

After lunch we went up on deck and lay there all the afternoon. Bill joined us for a while and then he drifted away. He had his camera with him, but he did not seem to make Carrie laugh as much as he had the afternoon before.

The others were reading on another part of the deck under the awning. There were not a great many people near us. Still no sign of Jake. Carrie lay on her side pretending to sleep again. I lay and looked at her, and put on different gramophone records when she asked me.

I don’t know what sort of scenery we passed through, it all looked alike. Narrow channels of water between high cliffs.These were the fjords.

‘If you’ve seen one you’ve seen the lot,’ said Carrie, and I agreed with her.Yet I had not felt like that when I was up in the mountains with Jake. There the smallest patch of colour on the smooth untrodden snow had been a thing of wonder, and the winding paths through the trees, and the white streams and the falls had made us rein in our horses with the words unspoken on our lips. I supposed I had been in a different mood. Carrie shook her hair and I blew cigarette smoke into the air.

She sang, and then she prodded me in the arm - ‘You’re letting the machine run down; what are you thinking about?’ she said.

We got to Balholm about seven in the evening. It was a much larger place than Gudvangen. There was quite a big village here, and an hotel. It was not shut in, either. The fjord stretched away from it like a lake. The mountains looked blue in the distance. The sun shone on the water and the light was wonderful. I liked Balholm. Matty came over and found us.

‘We’re all going ashore,’ he said, ‘we can get dinner at the hotel and then explore afterwards. The boat doesn’t leave again until after midnight. Then we get to Vadheim in the morning. Sounds like a good party, Carrie.’

‘Come on, chaps,’ she said.

‘I’d better go and hunt up Jake,’ I said.

‘Yes - bring him along too.’

I found Jake below in our cabin. He smiled and seemed pleased to see me. His smile hurt me somehow; I rushed into conversation before I had time to think of reproaching myself for anything.

‘Hullo!’ I said.‘Where have you hidden yourself all day? Listen, we’re going ashore. You must come too. There’s an hotel at Balholm where we can get dinner. It looks a good place, doesn’t it? What about it?’

‘I’ll come,’ he said.

‘Splendid.’ I washed my hands in the basin for no reason except that it gave me something to do.

‘I say,’ I began, suddenly remembering the morning, ‘give me some cash, will you? It’s hell being without anything.’

‘Sure - take this.’ He gave me his pocket-book.

‘No - I shan’t want all that.’ I took a note and some change.

Then we went up on deck. The party was waiting in the crowd by the gangway. They smiled when they saw Jake.

‘So glad you’re coming along too,’ said Mary.

I looked at Jake as though to say: ‘There, you see, they do like you - they do want you to be one of us.’ It was nice of Mary to say that. I wanted it to be a good party with everyone getting on fine with everyone else. When we got ashore some of them went to arrange about the dinner in the hotel. Jake went, too. Carrie hung back. She wanted to see if there were anything she liked in the little shops.

‘Oh! look at that jersey,’ she said. ‘My! I’m crazy over that. Isn’t it just too cunning for words? I wonder if it’s dear.’

‘We’ll go in and ask,’ I said. When we got inside she became enthusiastic over a cap to match. There was a silver bangle too. I bought the lot. Thank God I had enough money.

‘Are you going to give me all these?’ she asked, with big eyes, and putting on a baby voice.

‘Anything else?’ I said.

‘Oh! I’ve plenty here. I think you’re swell,’ she said.

She leant on my arm and we went along to the hotel to find the others. They were all sitting at a table. The room was rather crowded. Carrie went on with her baby stuff.

‘Look what I’ve got,’ she said. She held up the jumper and the cap, she had the bangle on her wrist.

‘Enter the original gold-digger and her baby boy,’ said Bill.

The others laughed. Jake didn’t say anything and I didn’t look at him. I hoped everyone would keep talking and there wouldn’t be any silences.

Bill was in high spirits, which was a relief. He kept the laughter going. Matty was in good form, too. Mary’s brother was not so good. I think he was worrying about the bill. There was a lot to eat and drink, and I suppose he was afraid the waiter would think it was his party. I wasn’t going to worry. Jake was grand over things like that. The pair of them could settle up together.

The waiter brought cocktails that tasted of lemon, and afterwards I found there was too much gin in them.We all had about three each and then white wine that was corked. Carrie asked for champagne, but nobody took any notice. Everyone’s faces seemed to be in a haze. I imagined they all felt the same as I did. It was a great party now it had got going.

‘Can’t we see about getting hold of cars and driving somewhere? ’ said Bill.

‘No,’ said Mary, ‘let’s stay here and dance.’

‘Have you forgotten your bathing stunt?’ asked Matty.

‘No - it’s not warm enough to bathe.’

‘Let’s go in cars as Bill said.’

‘I’m crazy to drive anywhere,’ said Carrie; ‘what about you?’

‘Oh! I’ll do anything,’ I said.

Mary turned to her brother. ‘You’re the boss of this crowd,’ she said, ‘you go and see what you can find in the shape of an automobile.’

People at other tables were looking in our direction. We were making a devil of a row.

‘My! Look at that woman in the peach-coloured gown,’ screamed Carrie. ‘Doesn’t she look as if she came out of the Ark?’

We all laughed. I fell over the table, I laughed so much. It wasn’t a bit funny either.

‘Let’s start a chorus, boys,’ said Matty. ‘Come on - one - two - three - “I want somebody to Lo-o-ve . . .” ’

We joined in on different keys. It was the most appalling sound. We swayed from side to side in time to the music.

‘Hullo - where’s your pal gone?’ said Bill. I looked about for Jake. He had disappeared.

‘Oh! hell, don’t worry about him,’ I said, ‘let’s carry on with the chorus.’

A waiter came over and asked us to stop. We yelled with laughter and told him to go away.

Mary’s brother waved to us from the door.

‘Come on,’ he shouted, ‘there are carriages outside. I couldn’t get any cars.’

We all got up noisily from the table. Carrie seized hold of my hand.

‘We don’t want to go with them,’ she whispered, ‘let them start without us. You wait for me here while I go in the cloakroom. ’

I felt queer. I leant against a pillar in the dining-room. I’d be all right once I was out in the air. Drinking was no good with me. I heard the others shouting for us outside the hotel, and there was a sound of carriages moving off, and Mary laughing. I wondered who had paid the bill. There was no sign of Jake anywhere. I did not see why I should bother about him. He had probably gone with the others, anyway. Carrie came out of the cloakroom.

‘Have they gone?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Come on.’

There was one donkey-cart left, and a driver.

‘Here, we don’t want you,’ I said to him. Carrie laughed, and we climbed into the cart.

‘Where shall we go?’ I said.

‘Up there, where that little path leads into the woods,’ she said.

We could not see which way the others had gone. I took the reins and touched the donkey with the whip. He set off at quite a rattling pace. Carrie leaned against me and her hair blew about in the air. She did not bother about her cap. The sun had gone now, and the white light bathed everything. There seemed to be a mist over the water though, and against the mountains.

We could see the yellow lights of our anchored steamer. She looked as if she were painted on the water. The path went on. I did not see where I was going. I did not see anything. I heard my heart thumping and I could scarcely hold the reins, because my hands trembled. I didn’t know how I was feeling. Then the path turned into the woods. It was darker here.The donkey went more slowly now; he was climbing a steep part of the track. There was grass all around us. The trees grew very thick, it was almost difficult to see.

‘Gee - I’m scared,’ said Carrie.

I put my arm round her and she felt for my hand, but I was holding the reins. I stopped the cart by the side of the track. The donkey began to nibble at the grass.

‘Here,’ whispered Carrie, ‘I guess there’ll be people around here.’

‘No, there won’t,’ I said.

I didn’t care if there were. I knew it did not matter, anyway. I went on kissing her. She took the reins out of my hand. There wasn’t a sound of the others. They were miles away by now.

‘Say, what sort of a party is this?’ said Carrie suddenly.

I took hold of her hands - I knew she did not mind. I looked round at the close trees.

‘Here - let’s get out of the cart,’ I said.

 

The steamer sounded her siren just before midnight. We had to take the donkey carriage back to the hotel and join the rest of the passenger crowd on the landing-stage.

I don’t know what had happened to our party. Perhaps they had gone on board by an earlier boat. We crossed in the launch with a bunch of Germans. They were all a little drunk and very sentimental, their arms round each other’s shoulders, singing folk songs. I was dead sober. I thought how contemptible we must all seem sitting huddled together in the chugging launch, passing rapidly over the still water to the steamer with her glaring lights. The siren kept shrieking into the air, and the sound of it drummed so hard into my ears that I covered them with my hands knowing as I did so that it would help me not at all, and that this hideous sound was one which would be remembered. It was like the hooter of a merry-go-round at a fair. There ought to be swing-boats, and booths, and litter of paper everywhere and empty beer-bottles, and hot bodies pressing against each other tired from the day, and drunken breath on one’s face. All these would have been part of the screaming siren and the throaty voices of the Germans.

Instead of which there was the calm unruffled water, and the grave mountains bathing in a white light, and a glimpse of virgin snow in the hollow of those mountains.

We were all wrong, we ought not to have been there at all. The German women were ugly, their dresses bursting across their large breasts, and grease at the corner of their noses. I felt they had been good-looking earlier in the evening, but now nothing remained to them but the last trace of powder smudged on their faces which they would not even bother to wipe away. The German men leant against them and peered down their necks and fondled their hands, and it was incredible to think they were being attractive to one another.

They looked at us, and we looked at them, and I knew we were alike and our smiles were the same, and we had all gone ashore to do the same thing.

Carrie had put the jumper on over her dress. She had put it on in a hurry, and it hung wrong, bunching out at the back. She had powdered her face without a glass and it was like a white mask of powder against her red hair, blowing anyhow over her eyes, and the lipstick was too thick on her lower lip.

She looked like a clown at a circus. She kept trying to join in singing with the Germans, and bursting into little high shrieks of laughter that jarred for no reason that I could tell, and then seeing I was silent she pressed close against me and whispered ‘Baby’, and fumbled about with her hands.

I wanted to be alone. I did not care to speak to anyone or listen to anyone. I wanted to be somewhere where there would not be a sound or a whisper of people, where there would be nothing but the peace of the mountains and the tremor of a white stream, and lying on my back looking up at the sky, and the ashes of a dead wood fire at my feet, and the still forms of the two horses standing under the trees.

The launch drew alongside the steamer, and we went up the gangway to the lower deck. The whole crowd of us wandered along to the smoking-room, Carrie still laughing excitedly, and clinging on to my arm. We found the rest of her party on stools round the bar. They waved and shouted when they saw us. Bill had Mary’s hat on his head, and he was pulling faces and speaking in a high squeaky voice, pretending to be a woman, while Mary’s brother had balanced his spectacles on his nose and sat with his hands folded, giving an imitation of a curate. Everyone thought everyone else was being terribly funny. Matty stood with his arm round Mary’s waist and his face against hers. I saw Mary smile at Carrie as though to ask a question, and Carrie smiled and nodded back. I could imagine she would go along to Mary’s cabin later, and they would giggle together and tell each other everything.