The Ballad and the Source (48 page)

Uncoordinated sounds broke from the lips of Miss Stay, acknowledging a strong man's struggle for self-mastery.

‘Round fifty is a tricky age for men, so I believe,' continued Mrs Cunningham reflectively. ‘They have their funny time. I do sometimes wonder was he partial?—or could I have made good on the concert platform? But Mummy wouldn't hear of it. She felt I'd never stand the strain.'

‘Ah, as to that, a mother would know best. Instinct would be her guide. She would sense the weakness—'

‘I was never
weak.
'
Petulance gave an edge to Mrs Cunningham's voice.

‘Oh, morals are not in question, dearie! My meaning is, she would sense that the good fairies round the cradle had not bestowed one gift—the stamina, you know—to cling to the top of the tree against all comers. Dear, it was all for the best.'

‘Well, it was Fate,' decided Mrs Cunningham. ‘Everything is Fate, I think, don't you?'

‘And therefore for the best!'

‘Oh Staycie you are silly sometimes!' exclaimed her friend. ‘What about the Bad Fairy? Seems to me she pops up at every christening.'

‘Ah, there's a deep thought! What a deep thought you have uttered, Ellie. To tangle the skein and set us to the unravelling. What would life be without the challenge of it? Take it from me, girls, take it from this old bag of bones fit for nothing but the jumble sale, all for the best should be our theme song. Our trials and tribulations are just our schooling time, just our opportunity to learn our lessons. Just the Divine Plan for us.'

After a pause Mrs Cunningham remarked on a brighter note that we shall know one day.

They went on rocking, rocking. The visitor tested with caution the new element of peace and forgetting in which she seemed suddenly to move. Presently, as if arrested by some invisible beam, she intercepted the eyes of Miss Stay, like sunken wells with a star in their veiled depths, dwelling on her as if from a great distance. A deep voice issuing from her throat pronounced:

‘Trust your unhappiness as you loved your happiness and great
good will come to you and greater freedom.'

Then Princess glided into view, murmuring unintelligibly; whereat Miss Stay came to, struck her forehead and exclaimed: ‘My Ancient of Days awaits me! Not to speak of new arrivals shortly to appear. Ellie I declare you are a siren. Linger longer Lucy is your theme song. I must stop my ears and wend my weary way.'

With a violent stamp of her black plimsolls she shot from her chair, executed a military salute, covered the length of the verandah in three loping strides, and was gone.

Mrs Cunningham burst into merry laughter. ‘She's forgotten all about you! You stay here, don't dream of moving. Between you and I, dear old Carlotta isn't the best of cooks: Staycie doesn't notice. I was so spoilt in the East myself, I shouldn't criticise. But if Mr Bartholomew saw you dining alone he'd be likely to invite you to join him. He's the soul of courtesy but he can be a wee bit difficult. Do keep me company. My lord and master won't be back till—there's no knowing when. My guess is he'll end up with Jackie and her crew. They make a fuss of him.'

A handbell vigorously swung resounded from above.

‘That's Staycie, take no notice. Poor Staycie, poor old darling. Isn't she priceless? That woman is a treasure.'

‘She keeps reminding me of someone …'

‘Fancy that! I would have been inclined to suppose that Staycie was unique.'

‘Something in her turns of phrase, the same sort of picturesque vocabulary.'

‘How well you put it! Picturesque is the very word.'

‘Someone called Auntie Mack.'

‘Fancy! Your Auntie, was she?'

‘No, no relation. I only saw her once. I was about eight or nine I think. I haven't thought of her for years. Once, one afternoon; but she made a great impression. She seemed not quite real, like a pantomime character: a sort of witch, but a kind unfrightening comic one. I imagine a child might be—startled by Miss Stay. But fascinated.'

‘Anybody might be. Staycie's outward form is quite a handicap. Her reflexes have simply gone to pot. You've heard of St Vitus's Dance?—it's something of the sort, brought on by shock. There's some grisly skeletons in poor Staycie's cupboard: madness, suicide, heaven knows what. I've never liked to probe, and personal troubles are what she never mentions. She's a lesson to us all.'

‘Yes, indeed.' Indeed yes. Never mention personal troubles. Pack up your skeletons and smile, smile, smile.

‘I don't know if you realise she's Guided.'

‘Guided?'

‘By Spirit. Entirely guided by Spirit. By her Voices. She's spoken through—when people come to her in trouble. She's never got anything for me, but then I'm not in trouble. If I ever were, I'm sure she'd give me guidance. That was a Message she gave you just before she left, it wasn't Staycie speaking. I tell you in case you were a wee bit puzzled. I believe it's the one Voice only nowadays.' The visitor remaining speechless, her hostess chirruped on. ‘About trusting you know, and better times to come. I couldn't help listening. I thought it was so helpful.'

‘Oh yes, it was, I thought so too. I—'

‘Don't worry dear, I'm not inquisitive, nor is Staycie. Likely as not she wasn't aware of what came through. But I can tell you've had a nasty knock. You must just look forward, like she said. Maybe it was meant, your coming to this lost corner of the world.
Don't
think me nosy but it does seem strange you turning up alone, a bonny lass like you. We do mostly get couples, one sort or another.'

Dragging up words from a once more stiffening throat, the visitor said:

‘I didn't intend to come alone. But at the last minute I got a message—' With a painful grin she added—‘Not Staycie's kind. A telegram. Delivered to my cabin. “Change of plans.”'

‘Change of plans?'

‘At the very last moment. We were going away together. He decided against it, I suppose, I don't know why, he didn't say … The shock was …'

‘No explanation?'

‘No. Just: “
Breakdown. Forgive. Will write.
”'

‘Breakdown?'

‘It's a word he uses when—when our plans go wrong. I've heard nothing since.'

Stunned silence for a full half minute; after which broken words and phrases, such as cad, brute, men are all the same, much better off without, a woman's pride … issued from her shocked and sympathetic hostess; who presently enquired:

‘You aren't his wife, dear?'

‘No, going to be. At least that was the idea. He's got a wife. He'd left her, more or less, before we met.'

‘A married man, oh dear! Well, my advice is you forget him. He's not worth another thought. Playing fast and loose like that with two women—I dare say more than two.' This unwelcome thought, which had crossed the visitor's mind, caused her to flush darkly. ‘Harold would say he ought to be horsewhipped. So he ought!'

‘You're so kind. It's such a relief to talk to someone. On that nightmare boat I stayed in my cabin the first days. But when it got warmer I couldn't. So I stayed on deck in a long chair and pretended to be ill. But there was a Colonel on board, a widower, he was very persistent—'

‘You mean he was attentive?'

‘Very. It was just curiosity I think. He said I was enigmatic. In the end he proposed to me.'

‘Well!
Didn't that cheer you up?'

Remembering the Colonel's conversation and appearance she violently shook her head.

‘Some would say it's the greatest honour a man can do a woman. Still, if you couldn't fancy him …'

‘I expect I ought to have been more grateful.'

Nonsense talk, schoolroom talk, Girl's Own Paper talk, out-moded code of chivalry and gentlemanly behaviour talk. But comforting. Let the cad appear and be horsewhipped—yes, by Harold. The image rose and a spasm of laughter shook her.

‘Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn dear, but I hope and trust you'll have nothing more to do with him, not if he comes crawling on bended knee, as no doubt he will.'

A moment's mad conviction seized her of Mrs Cunningham's exceptional wisdom and prophetic insight. With an effort she rejected it, saying, but on a more cheerful note: ‘It doesn't seem somehow quite in character. Let's not talk about me any more. Tell me about Miss Stay—her Voices.'

‘Her Voices, well … She keeps quiet about them, or people would flock to her from far and wide. Or on the contrary she says they would have her certified. Not so very long ago she'd have been burnt as a witch, you know, like Joan of Arc. As it is she's had to pay and pay: gifts of the Spirit always have to be paid for, so she says. She can
see
as well as hear, you know. We had oh! such a lovely boy, a bull terrier, Sammy his name was, short for Samson. He died peacefully of old age but we broke our hearts. He's buried down there among his favourite bushes, where he hid his bones. Staycie looked in some days later and she saw him come in as usual, looking so frisky and rejuvenated, and shove his old head into my lap as he always did, then settle down by Harold's chair. I believed her of course, it seemed only natural, but Harold nearly had a fit. He thought we were—well, worse than barmy, wicked—playing monkey tricks with that precious animal sleeping quietly in his grave—pretending to
raise
him, or something of the sort. Staycie got round him in the end, she always can, he does respect her. In fact I think in his heart of hearts he longs to
believe.
Staycie's so clever with his prejudices. You may be wondering from the way I talk why ever I married the man.'

‘No, no, not at all. Why people marry is so …'

‘Yes, isn't it? A mystery. Not like anything else.'

‘Besides, prejudices make for variety in people. Your husband might be less interesting without his prejudices.'

‘Oh, you think he's interesting, I
am
so glad. He's a nice man, but his moods do give me the pip sometimes. Some people he can
not
abide. Nothing will shake him once he's taken a scunner.'

‘I do hope he'll manage to abide me.'

‘Good gracious, I should think so! He loves a woman with style … though come to think of it, style doesn't always answer. A most distanguay woman turned up here, I think I told you, not long after we came out—what was her name?—it's on the tip of my tongue, I never remember names. Well, anyway—she was quite elderly, very frail, weak heart. In fact, she died here. She and Staycie struck up an intimate friendship. Harold
could not
be in the same room—like some people are about cats. She had strange eyes that seemed to stare right through you—that's what he couldn't stand. No wonder, I told him, with a murky aura such as his.'

‘How did he take that?'

‘Oh I can always coax him back into a good temper if I go too far. Or nearly always.' She chuckled. ‘Marriage is nine-tenths habit, don't you think? I sometimes wonder, if Harold should pass on before me, how could I break myself of saying “we”? That's marriage in a nutshell.'

‘Yes,' said the visitor faintly, thinking: that, in a nutshell, is not the love affair. When ‘we' can be ‘we' in private only, or only in certain social circumstances, girders are lacking to keep the erosions in time's structures sufficiently repaired; thinking also that if you go travelling, you find the world choc a bloc with co-habitations no less improbable than the union of the Captain and his mate. Day after day, year after year, lasting a lifetime. Beloved wife, beloved husband, when the terminal, very sad and trying illness comes to be rounded off with due ceremony in the obituary column. Sensible dull faithful couples, mutually tolerant, without pitched-up expectations. This bird-witted, this faded pre-war girl with her musical comedy airs and graces, pretty, pert, chaste, provocative, would never be a candidate for bitter sexual dislocation.

Presently Mrs Cunningham yawned and said:

‘I'm getting a bit peckish. What about you? I tell you what—let's run down and take pot luck with Johnny, shall we? Why don't we? I'd like you to meet him.'

‘He may not want to meet me.'

‘Oh yes, he's sure to. Any friend of mine he welcomes. I quite often pop down of an evening when I know Jackie's entertaining. Louis's a wonderful cook. Come on, let's hurry.'

Skirting the palm tree grove that fringed one side of the bay, they emerged upon the beach—upon that crescent of dazzling­­­­ coral powder, sifted with sand, with pounded mother of pearl, scattered with black driftwood, with ribbons of dry parchment-coloured seaweed, with broken palm shells, crab shells, with papery slivers of bamboo and other brine-bleached shards and skeletons, all frozen beneath the moon's full incandescent eye. Presently they pause just clear of the water's filmy verge, where the last crystal shallows and blue-rinsed transparencies slide in, dissolve, spilling over and over again a whispered breath, a lacy ruffle. They look towards that striking image in the middle distance: a hut, a sea-grape tree, moulded and spectrally illumined, netted in hard, snaking­­­, blue-black shadows; the whole complex standing out in stereoscopic relief, with that air it has already started to create of mystifying weight and meaning. At the heart of it glows the amber effulgence of a lit lamp.

The visitor removes her sandals, feels the soft furry tingle of midget waves expiring round her feet. The other lifts her head and calls a long high-pitched
coo-oo-ee.
Silence; then an owl's hoot answers. ‘That's him,' she says. ‘It means All Clear'; and they start to walk towards Johnny's improbable dwelling. ‘It's not just anybody I'd introduce, but he'll take to you. You have repose. Noisy people are what he cannot bear—loud voices, horse play. That lot Jackie collects up there—he can't abide them. And Jackie's as jerky and restless as a puppet on a string. I've mentioned he's the love of my life—it's the truth. He doesn't love me back of course, but he puts up with me. He's very kind. As I said before, I
hope
I shan't be jealous.'