The Birdcage (4 page)

“Did he get what he wanted? The gondolier?”

“A good question.”

“Are you going to answer it?”

“Of course.” Peter Ash sipped at his peach
frulata
. “He did, and he didn’t.”

To their right two American girls sat with their feet stretched out on the chairs of another table. One of them was telling her companion how to deal with French students. “You can fool them so easily,” she said. “All they want is to give you a drink, and be seen talking to you.” Peter Ash considered where to start. He said, “I had dinner at the Locanda. It seemed somehow hardly worthwhile to look for somewhere new when I was on my own. I tried the
fritto misto
, but it turned out to be mostly polyps. Then I came on here to listen to the symphony concert. It was a very pleasant change, I must say, to have something a little more serious than ‘Ciao, Bambina’. Not that anybody in the Piazza set fire to a ship.” (Norah Palmer had already, at breakfast, given him an account of the Arena di Verona’s realistic production of
La Gioconda
, in which a ship was burned on stage.) “I drank a couple of coffees and a little Kummel. It seemed ridiculously early to go to bed when the concert was over.”

One of the American girls had spent three days in Florence, camping out. “Dave says it’s the best piece of real estate in the city,” she told her companion. “And they use it for a camping site. Imagine!” Peter Ash said, “I thought I would stroll for a while, but it’s so easy to get lost. So I confined myself to the Merceria and thereabouts. I noticed a number of gondolas tied up under a bridge, with
the gondoliers sitting about nearby. They looked
respectable
enough. Aren’t they licensed or something, like
taxi-drivers
? I asked one with a moustache how much he would charge for an hour. He said three thousand lire”

“About two pounds.”

“Thirty-five shillings.”

“It’s still a waste of money.”

“Gondolas are known to be expensive. After all, for half the year, the men are out of work.”

“There’s a tariff. You could have asked to see it.”

“It was too dark.”

“Where did you go?”

“I said I would leave it to him. Perhaps that was unwise, but it seemed a good idea at the time. We crossed the Grand Canal. The man said something about San Giorgo. After a while, we were in a large, clear stretch of water.”

“The Giudecca Canal.”

“It seemed very wide for a canal. Some small lagoon, I thought. When we were in the middle of it, the man stopped rowing.”

The two American girls had been joined by two
American
boys, dressed alike in T-shirts and chino pants, coiffed alike with crew-cuts that only inadequately thatched their bumpy heads. The boys looked to be fifteen years old, the girls at least twenty-two. Peter Ash judged that they were all probably the same age—nineteen or twenty. “He demanded all the money I had to take me back again,” he said.

“Peter! How much did you have. I warned you never to take too much out with you.”

“Twenty thousand, in two ten-thousand notes. Since the gondolier spoke no English, and none of our Italian lessons at Morley College had allowed for this sort of
situation, it was some time before I understood him.”

Norah Palmer did not speak. She found that she was
excited
, she did not know why. It was something odd,
something
that affected her sexually, as when a man’s knee touches yours under the table, and, although you do not care for the man, you do not move away. She did not
understand
this feeling, and found that she could not dismiss it. She wished that Peter Ash would continue with his story, but he sipped his
frulata
, tantalizing her. She gave in. “Do go on, darling,” she said. “I’m fascinated.”

“The question was what to do. As his meaning became clearer to me, I discovered that, although it was dark, and I was alone in the middle of a very large stretch of water, I was not at all afraid. He was larger than I. Older, of course, but larger. I was curious; that’s all. I wanted to know how I would react. I watched myself; I couldn’t wait to find out. And do you know, my dear, I found that I became
extremely
English about the whole thing. I’d never have thought that, would you?”

“English?”

“The primmest of the prim. I behaved like a Victorian spinster with an impertinent footman. I sat bolt upright on the cushions, and told him to take me straight back to St. Mark’s
at once
. I said I should give him the price we’d agreed, and not a lira more. I even said I’d take his number, but I don’t think he understood me—perhaps he didn’t have one; it certainly wasn’t painted on the gondola. I told him I was an excellent swimmer, but I had to go into French to say that. What is’swim’ in Italian? ‘Natare’? The word wouldn’t come. Anyway, I said I didn’t particularly want to swim ashore, but that I was quite prepared to do so, if I had to. It would be embarrassing to walk through the streets all wet, but he wouldn’t get even his three thousand if I did.”

“It sounds very brave to me,” said Norah Palmer.

“Well … yes … I think it was really, but all in this rather prissy way, I’m afraid. He asked me how much money I had, but of course I wouldn’t tell him. I think he only wanted it as a bargaining figure, because then he said he’d take me back for twenty thousand, and threw in
something
about his wife and children, and needing the money. I got very triumphant at that, because then I knew I’d won. He came down from twenty thousand to fifteen, and then ten, and then seven, but I just stayed where I was at three, getting primmer and primmer, until at last he threw a fit of sulks, and started rowing again. I said,” San Marco, “to remind him of where I wanted to go, but in the event he didn’t take me all the way to the
vaporetto
stop, but to a landing-stage a little farther up the Grand Canal.” A pause. The two American boys had ordered beer, and were
reading
the European edition of the
New York Herald Tribune
. “Now comes the anti-climax,” Peter Ash said. “He let me ashore, and I was so determined to be proper, and pay him his fare in spite of his bad behaviour, that I gave him one of my two ten-thousand notes, and said sternly that I wanted seven thousand change. Whereupon, he pushed smartly away from the landing-stage, and went on up the canal, laughing at me. I could hardly shout after him—or chase him without a boat of my own—and of course there weren’t any policemen around, or anybody else for that matter. So in the end, you see, he had me, and all that primness was wasted.”

“Yes,” Norah Palmer said. “Yes, I suppose it was rather a let-down.” She did not know what she had expected, but, whatever it was, she had been disappointed. Flat. She hadn’t of course,
wanted
Peter Ash to have been beaten up. She had known from the beginning that nothing like that could have happened, since here he manifestly was, opposite her,
unscarred
.
He had behaved with courage and intelligence. It would have been very foolish of him to have fought the gondolier. They would both have ended in the water, and Peter’s new lightweight suit would have been ruined. Besides, these people almost certainly carried knives. Just for the moment, behind her eyes, she saw the two of them struggling, close together, the gondola rocking … a knife … Peter falls, half in, half out … his throat stretched back over the edge … terrible dark blood making roses in the water … the mouths of fish … polyps…. She felt sick. “I don’t think I want to finish this coffee,” she said. “Should we move on? There’s so much to do today.”

What she did not know was that there was one aspect of this affair that Peter Ash had not mentioned.

A
t first Norah Palmer did not at all see that they must break the cage. “But we have such a sensible relationship,” she said. “It seems absurd to break it now, when we have achieved a real understanding.”

It was difficult to explain. Peter Ash did not feel able to tell her the real reason for his decision. He found that he could not say, “Because you do not respect my talent.” When he said that to himself, it sounded petty. Anyway, her not respecting his talent, he now saw, was only a
symptom
of something deeper. If he had said, “Because you do not respect my talent,” to Norah Palmer she might easily have replied, “But, darling, of course I respect your talent. I always have.” Then what would he have done? He would have had to remind her of what she had said that afternoon at Quadri’s, and a fine fool he would have sounded doing it. He foresaw her incredulity that he should have taken her seriously, perhaps her denial that she had said such a thing at all. So then it would be over; his rebellion would be over, and they would go on as before. Something obstinate in Peter Ash’s mind would not allow that. He had made his decision; he would not allow argument to unmake it. There would be trouble; it would all be a great bore, but he would face that, so he would. Meanwhile, all he could say to Norah Palmer was that he wanted his freedom, and the more he repeated it, the sillier it sounded, and the sillier
it sounded, the more resentful and the more determined Peter Ash became.

It was a warm evening. The windows were open, and the sound of the traffic in Beaufort Street, bound for
Battersea
Bridge, came up to smother the ends of sentences, forcing him to repeat what sounded only too
melodramatic
, even said the once. Peter Ash and Norah Palmer had been back an hour. They had switched on the refrigerator and the immersion heater, made themselves a pot of tea, read the letters Mrs. Halliday had left in order on the mantel, slit the wrappers of the magazines, and then
suddenly
(apropos, as far as Norah Palmer could tell, of nothing at all) Peter Ash had come out with this
extraordinary
decision. Norah Palmer had difficulty in taking it in. First there was the shock of hearing it, then the
numbness
that follows a shock, then the refusal to believe, then the “Why?”, and when he could not or would not tell her, the attempt to find an explanation for herself, fishing about in the old, children’s game of “If you won’t tell me, then will you answer Yes or No while I guess?”

She knew that she had given him no reason to be jealous, even if jealousy had any place in such a sensible
relationship
as theirs. And surely they knew each other well enough now for him to be sure that
she
would never be jealous? Norah Palmer was not a jealous person; she never had been; it was not part of her nature. She kept no sort of watch on Peter Ash. They usually did let each other know when each would be home late and that sort of domestic thing, because it made the business of planning meals so much easier; it was a simple point of consideration. But Peter Ash knew well enough that there were no strings on him. As a matter of fact, Norah Palmer was always telling him that he ought to get out much more than he did.

Peter Ash didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted his freedom.

Perhaps there was someone else? Someone he had met at work? If so——

Peter Ash felt that there was nothing to be gained in going over all this. He did not see that either of them
enjoyed
doing so. He wanted his freedom; that was all.

But it had to be talked out. They had always talked things out like reasonable human beings.

Though her cheeks were flushed and her throat dry, Norah Palmer forced herself to be reasonable. She was a tolerant person; Peter Ash knew that. The way of life they had worked out between them was far too valuable to be sacrificed to intolerance. If Peter Ash felt that he would like to … to spend occasional nights away from the flat, that was something Norah Palmer could understand. She did not say that she wouldn’t mind. Probably she
would
mind, but she would know that her minding was irrational, and she would try to control it. When they had first decided to set up house together, after having slept
together
at week-ends for almost a year, Peter Ash had been frank with her about his past life. She had gone into this relationship with her eyes open, and the consequence of that was that she knew how to shut them if necessary.

Peter Ash, redder than she, the tips of his ears glowing, said that wasn’t it at all. He just wanted his freedom.

Peter Ash sat. Norah Palmer walked. She found that talking things out was easier if she did not have to look at him. She supposed that it was possible that he had become obsessed with somebody
Vénus toute entière a sa proie attachée
and all that. She didn’t want to sound flip about it. If that had happened, he couldn’t really be enjoying it any more than she was enjoying…. Well! The point was that she begged him, implored him to keep a grip on himself.
They both knew from their own experience of life (and there were plenty of examples in literature, from
Touchstone
to the Baron de Charlus) how disastrous the
obsession
of someone middle-aged for someone young could be. Peter Ash was thirty-nine. One knew that this was the time of life when men and women were most susceptible, when they most needed the reassurance of being wanted—physically wanted—of being thought sexually attractive. She knew how easy it was at that age to become obsessed with the idea of youth itself. One never
feels
older; the wrinkling and the sagging and the swelling, all the marks of ageing that are not yet
so
pronounced, but seem to point to what will obscenely happen, these feel like some terrible disguise that is being fitted over one’s still young—one’s still essentially
young
—self. So one reaches back to youth, and sometimes the only way of possessing it is physically to possess, to
have
some younger person. But it was
self-deception
; Peter Ash must know that. The more one gave in to such an obsession, the more one could be hurt by it. Oh, it might
seem
to work for a time. There are plenty of pretty young people who are looking for a father—his mouth twitched at one corner: “An elder brother,” she said. But it never lasted.

Peter Ash said that he knew the dangers of that sort of thing as well as Norah Palmer did. If there had been any question of such an obsession, she would have noticed it before. He himself was too cold to be easily vulnerable, as she should know by now. He found the topic distasteful, and irrelevant. His mind was made up. He wanted his
freedom
.

There was a knock at the front door of the flat. Mrs. Halliday, the house-keeper, who lived in the basement, said, “I knew you was back because I saw the taxi. But I thought I’d give you a little bit of time to get settled like.
Having a nice cup of tea, are you? That’s right. I brought the birds.”

She carried a large cage of the sort that may sometimes be seen, filled with stuffed birds, to announce the coming of Spring Fashions to the windows of
chi-chi
Department Stores. The cages in the windows of stores are usually of wicker. This was of brass, highly polished and lacquered, and had been bought at Liberty’s by Peter Ash. It contained two lovebirds. They were called Fred and Lucy. Mrs. Halliday, whose brother kept a pet-shop, had herself given them to Peter Ash and Norah Palmer, after the flat’s
previous
daily had left, and they had asked her to come in four mornings a week at five shillings an hour to clean.

“I might have brought them this morning, when I was in,” she said. “Everything all right, is it? I opened the windows to let the air in. It gets very fusty in here, you know.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Halliday.”

“Only they wouldn’t have enjoyed it, not if I’d left them on their little lones all day. They like a bit of company. It’s only natural.” She took the cage into the kitchen, and hung it up near the window. “Chatter! They’d chatter away, you can’t imagine, to me and Chucky. Got the milk, then, did you? I put it in the fridge.”

“Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs. Halliday?”

“Not if it’s that Foo Long. Anyway, I’ve had mine. They’ve gone to Majorca downstairs. Went yesterday. It’s amazing where people do go nowadays, isn’t it? Of course there’s the money for it. It’s not like it was before the war.” She lingered by the door. “No, I won’t stay,” she said. One of the lovebirds in the kitchen gave a chirrup. Mrs. Halliday said indulgently, “Ah, that Fred!
He
knows you’re back,” and was gone.

Norah Palmer said, “I could go away for a while, if you
like. Say, for a week, while you think things over?”

“Where would you go?”

“To my club.”

It was too silly. It was Edwardian. Only it was worse—it was Edwardian with the roles reversed. To her club! He was prepared to put up with any inconvenience, but not to be made to look a fool. Peter Ash said, “I think this has gone far enough. I’m going out.”

Without him, the room seemed frighteningly empty.

*

To make a decision is only the beginning of a process in time, and it is not isolated. Probably there have been other decisions behind it; certainly there will be other decisions beyond it. Decision must become action, and, since one lives in the world, each action touches people and things beyond oneself.

Peter Ash had made a decision. Norah Palmer had accepted it. What choice had she? They were sensible people. They were not married. They had no children. They were not one flesh; they were independent beings. She had neither a legal, nor a moral claim on him. They had lived together because they had liked each other, and had found living together convenient. When, even in one of them, like changed to dislike, and convenience became inconvenience, the only honest way was to cease to live together.

So decisions followed from that decision. The flat in Beaufort Street—they had to decide about that. They had it on a 21-year lease, of which there were fifteen years to run. The lease was in Peter Ash’s name, and he had paid for it. Therefore he would remain in the flat, and take over
payment
of the full rent, and Norah Palmer would move. When she had found a place of her own, they would divide the goods they had so far owned in common.

But here was a complication. Norah Palmer would find a place of her own, but it was not Norah Palmer who had decided their affair must end. Norah Palmer had accepted the decision, but to accept is not the same as to initiate action. A week passed, two weeks, three, and she was not gone. Peter Ash began to believe that Norah Palmer was not trying to find a place of her own.

They continued to share a bed; it seemed the sensible thing to do, since both had long ago discovered that when they lay apart in the flat, they did not sleep. Now their little habitual intimacies became embarrassments. Peter Ash still brought Norah Palmer a cup of tea in bed every morning, but he kissed neither her eyelids nor her nose to waken her. To have done so would have been hypocritical, he
considered
, but not doing so felt unusual and wrong.
Conversation
between them became an exercise in neutrality, each public appearance an exercise in deception. It was well known among their friends that Peter Ash and Norah Palmer went everywhere together, so they continued to be asked everywhere together. When Norah Palmer should have found a place of her own, then their friends might be told that Peter Ash and Norah Palmer did not any longer go necessarily together—that one might (indeed, for at least a while, must) have egg with mayonnaise and bacon with kidneys. When that time came, Peter Ash and Norah Palmer might have to sit down together sensibly, and divide their friends, as they divided their furniture, by mutual agreement. Meanwhile they kept up a front, so as to avoid embarrassment.

“I suppose you haven’t found anywhere to live yet?” said Peter Ash to Norah Palmer, after three weeks had gone uncomfortably by.

“Not yet,” said Norah Palmer to Peter Ash. “I’ll let you know when I have.” Next day she phoned him at rehearsal
to say that she would be home late; she was off to Notting Hill to look at a flat. “What was it like?” Peter Ash said with an appearance of neutrality at supper that night. “Oh, quite unsuitable,” said Norah Palmer. He wondered whether she had been to Notting Hill at all.

Peter Ash never bought an evening paper. He said he was prepared to wait for his news until
The Guardian
printed it, and what
The Guardian
did not print was more likely to be gossip than news. If war broke out, he would hear it on the radio, or somebody would tell him.
The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Spectator, Time and Tide, The Times Literary Supplement, The Listener, Encounter, The London Magazine
, and three Sunday papers—nobody could accuse Peter Ash of not keeping up with things; he saw no reason to add an evening paper to that list. No reason until now. He bought both the London evening papers. He bought
The Times
on Thursdays, when London flats and maisonettes appear among the advertisements of property for sale or rent. He behaved as if
he
were looking for a flat. He marked all the advertisements of flats he considered might suit Norah Palmer, and he left the papers lying about. “We seem to be accumulating an awful lot of newspapers,” Norah Palmer said. “Can’t you bundle some of them up, and leave them downstairs for the dustmen?”

Peter Ash said, “I get them for you. How do you expect to find a flat if you don’t look?”

“I am looking.”

“I see no signs of it.”

“Do you want to come with me?”

An honest answer to that question would have been “Yes”. Peter Ash did not make it. He wondered whether it might not be kinder in the long run simply to ask Norah Palmer to go—to leave
his
flat within a fixed time. He had the right; she gave him no credit for not using it. If she
were forced to find a flat, she’d find one quickly enough. He said, “I marked three in the
Standard
you might try.”