The Dividing Stream (17 page)

‘‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, shutting the book and pulling across the elastic which kept it closed; but she spoke without either friendliness or forgiveness. For the first time for many years she had found herself detesting another human being, and the discovery had frightened her. She tried to be pleasant: ‘‘But it was nice of you to say you liked my work. Not that it’s up to very much, I realize that now.’’

The attempted gesture at once renewed his self-confidence, since he was too little perceptive to recognize the dislike that lay behind it. ‘‘ May I”—he leant forward eagerly, his brown hands clasped as if in entreaty—‘‘may I— could I possibly have that sketch of the two sleeping boys? May I?’’ he cajoled with all the charm of which he was capable. ‘‘ Please?’’

She looked aside and down, as if she were examining some slightly repulsive insect on the floor; then she looked up at him, but that same expression did not leave her face: ‘‘No, I’m sorry. That’s something I’d rather not give.’’

‘‘Oh, not give——’’ he misunderstood her.

‘‘Or sell. I’m sorry.’’ She gave a strange, breathless chuckle as she added: ‘‘Perhaps when I’m dead Karen will give—or sell—it to you. That’s if you really want it.’’

‘‘But of course I really want it.’’

She shrugged her shoulders and went out on to the balcony, where she soon fell asleep in a deck-chair, her arms hanging limply to the ground.

‘‘You mustn’t mind Mother,’’ Karen said. ‘‘ She’s got very old this last year or so.’’ Once again her hand felt the bone of Ross’s shoulder through his thin khaki tunic. ‘‘I’m sorry she was so rude to you, but she’s like that now. You mustn’t take any notice of her. You know what old people are.’’ She gave a small shudder. ‘‘Oh, I think it’s terrible to get like that.’’

‘‘Terrible?’’ He looked up at her, a sharpness in his voice making her withdraw her hand hastily. ‘‘I don’t feel that about your mother. I don’t think that at all. She’s very much all there.’’

‘‘You don’t know her,’’ Karen sighed. ‘‘She’s so irritable—and disagreeable. I lose all patience.’’

‘‘How can you say that?’’ Colin put in angrily. ‘‘It’s not fair. It’s not fair,’’ he repeated, because he could think of nothing else to say.

‘‘Very chivalrous,’’ Karen laughed, without concern. She looked at her small sapphire-and-diamond watch on her wrist: ‘‘If we’re going to meet Chris and von Arbach at the bathing-pool for a drink we’d better go now.’’

‘‘Oh, those two!’’ Ross said with contempt. ‘‘ Doesn’t Maskell realize what’s going on? The man must be an idiot.’’

‘‘Of course not. Nothing
is
going on. Chris and Béngt are good friends——’’

‘‘Let’s face it, von Arbach is nothing better than a gigolo. Chris pays for everything.’’

‘‘Only until his allowance comes through.’’

‘‘Anyway it’s quite obvious that the pair of them——’’

‘‘
Prenez garde à l’enfant
,’’ Karen put in hurriedly. She had continued to use this phrase even when Colin and Pamela had obviously surpassed her in command of the French language.

‘‘He looks as if he knew all the answers,’’ Frank said drily, causing Colin to blush with resentment at what he took to be a taunt. The boy considered for a moment and then, sitting straight up in bed, his fine dark hair on end, stammered out angrily:

‘‘If you mean that they sleep together, that’s obvious.’’

‘‘Colin!’’ Karen exclaimed; but when Frank Ross laughed, she laughed too.

‘‘What did I say?’’ Frank said; and then, his amiability suddenly freezing into contempt, he added with barely parted lips: ‘‘You have a well-educated step-son. I must congratulate you.’’

‘‘You’re not going to lie in bed all day, are you?’’ Karen asked Colin, who had tumbled back on to the pillows as soon as he had delivered his outburst, and now lay with his burning face turned away from them towards the wall. ‘‘ The doctor said you must get about as much as you could. You must practise with the crutches.’’

‘‘The boys are going to carry me down to the river bank, when they bathe,’’ Colin answered in an almost inaudible voice.

‘‘Carry you! How can they carry you?’’

‘‘By making a chair with their hands. They’ve often done it.’’

‘‘Hew useful to have two coolies at your beck and call,’’ Frank put in; he was standing by the two Italians and he now lowered a hand, without saying anything, and made a move for Enzo; one, two, three pieces were taken from the board. Rodolfo was furious.

‘‘But you must learn to use the crutches,’’ Karen pursued. ‘‘ It’s so lazy to be carried everywhere.’’

‘‘I have tried to use them. But it hurts.’’

‘‘The doctor said it was bound to hurt to begin with, with a fracture so high up. It’s just one of those things. You must grin and bear it. Don’t you agree, Frank?’’

Ross shrugged his shoulders as if Colin’s welfare were something with which he could hardly be expected to concern himself.

‘‘Don’t you agree?’’ Karen pursued, as if it gave her a secret pleasure to humiliate her step-child before the man she now knew that she loved. ‘‘ It’s no use his mollycoddling himself. He must make an effort with the crutches. Of course it will be uncomfortable to begin with, but he must just put up with that.’’

Frank glanced at her for a moment and then said in his slightly staccato voice: ‘‘Why do you keep saying the things you think I should like you to say? That sort of remark isn’t in your character—it’s in mine.’’

Karen had never been able to parry Ross’s verbal thrusts, and perhaps, secretly, she really enjoyed them. With those she loved two attitudes alone were possible to her; to humiliate or be humiliated. Only Nicko’s father had escaped this general rule. ‘‘ I don’t understand,’’ she contented herself with saying.

‘‘You’re not very bright,’’ he jeered, but he had taken her by the wrist and that was enough for her. She deliberately stood close to him so that his bare thigh touched hers through her light summer clothing. ‘‘Shall we go?’’

‘‘Yes, we’re terribly late,’’ she sighed. ‘‘Good-bye, Colin.’’

‘‘Good-bye,’’ Frank said; he flicked at one of the boy’s ears with a forefinger, a gesture which, intended to be playful, in fact caused pain.

‘‘Now don’t pretend that hurt,’’ Karen said, seeing how Colin pulled a face. ‘‘Good-bye.… Good-bye,’’ she repeated, when the boy did not answer.

‘‘Good-bye.’’

Enzo had looked up at Karen expectantly when he saw that she was about to go; but she had forgotten about him and Rodolfo, and went out without giving either of them a glance.

‘‘G
RANNY
,’’ Colin said softly, and then louder: ‘‘Granny! I say, Granny!’’

As if she were about to have a convulsion, the old woman opened her eyes, shook her head three or four times from side to side, snorted, and took gulp after gulp of air.

‘‘Granny … what’s the matter? Aren’t you well? … Granny!’’

‘‘Oh, it’s you, it’s you,’’ she said, her agitation all at once stilled. ‘‘I was asleep. You gave me a surprise, that’s all. The sun had moved, and when I opened my eyes, it was shining right into them. I’m sorry.’’

‘‘Enzo and Rodolfo are going to take me down to the river. They’re going to carry me as they did yesterday. I just wanted to tell you in case you wondered what had become of us.’’

‘‘That was very thoughtful of you, very thoughtful,’’ she said, unpinning the ugly garnet brooch, set in Victorian silver, which fastened her lace collar, and then pinning it on again, in precisely the same spot, with trembling, disobedient fingers. ‘‘Take Pamela, there’s a good boy.’’

‘‘Pamela?’’

‘‘Yes, I think she’d like to go. I think she may have been feeling a little out of things these last few days. You and the boys, it’s natural you should want to do things together. But it’s lonely for her, on her own, and you and she have been friends for such a long time.’’

Colin felt ashamed, realizing for the first time that he had been neglecting his sister.

‘‘Anyway, ask her,’’ Mrs. Bennett said. ‘‘ No harm done in asking,’’ she added drowsily, her eyes already closing. Her jaw dropped, revealing two rows of astonishingly unstopped, undecayed teeth; she was once more asleep.

Pamela was cutting out some material from a pattern on the floor, and at first pretended, from pride, to be reluctant to join them.

‘‘I ought to finish this,’’ she said. ‘‘Lena’s coming this afternoon and she’s going to bring her sewing-machine for me to use. I’ve cut it badly,’’ she added with the frankness which was at once one of her more endearing and her least comfortable qualities. ‘‘The scissors slipped here. It was to be a night-dress for Miss Preston—for a Christmas present.’’

‘‘Miss Preston?’’

‘‘She’s the music-mistress,’’ she answered, blushing. ‘‘Don’t you remember—you and she argued about Richard Strauss at the school concert? She was awfully cross with you. You did say some silly things.’’

‘‘So did she.’’

‘‘I think I’ll leave it to Lena to finish the cutting-out. I’m glad she’s forgiven us. She says that the boy-friend, Commino whatever-it-is, has a surprise for you.’’

‘‘A surprise?’’

‘‘Oh, I expect it’s a present of some kind,’’ Pamela returned drily. ‘‘Everyone seems to be giving you presents just because of your leg.… Let’s go.’’

At the Trinità Bridge Enzo and Rodolfo were both so puffed from carrying Colin that, placing him like a ventriloquist’s dummy on the stone balustrade, they decided to have a rest. Pamela indicated that she could take a turn as coolie, but they laughed at the suggestion; they were not tired, only hot, Rodolfo explained in French, and to show what he meant, he drew away the shirt which stuck, drenched with perspiration, to Enzo’s broad back and shoulders. At the same moment three other youths, dressed in the same shorts, khaki shirts, and plimsolls, brushed deliberately close against the two English children, gave Rodolfo a push from behind, elbowed Enzo, and hurried on, flinging a series of ribald obscenities at the quartet. Rodolfo sprinted after them, Enzo followed slower. The Tunisian tripped up one from behind, and butted a second, so that the skin split apart over his nose as if it were an over-ripe banana, while the Florentine punched the third systematically in the belly. It was a neat exhibition of street-fighting but one which filled the two English children with fear and dismay.

‘‘Get someone to stop them,’’ Colin said. ‘‘ Do something. Do something, Pamela. They’ll be hurt. Don’t you see, I can’t move. Do something!’’

Pamela had covered her face with her hands.

‘‘Pamela!’’ her brother shrieked at her.

When she next looked up, Enzo was sauntering back to them, with Rodolfo behind, while two of the youths were carrying away the third as if he were a corpse. Enzo massaged his bruised knuckles, smiling broadly at the same time; a bubble of blood swelled at his eyebrow, elongated itself, and splashed downward on to his plimsoll.

‘‘You’ve hurt yourself,’’ Colin said in English; he pointed.

‘‘
Niente
.’’

‘‘
Mais pourquoi? Pourquoi tout ça
?’’ Pamela asked.

‘‘They were making fun of us,’’ Rodolfo explained. He used an obscenity to describe their opponents.

‘‘What sort of fun?’’

‘‘Oh, because we know you, because you are our friends.’’

‘‘Then you fought—you fought because of us?’’ Colin said with a mingling of pleasure and alarm.

‘‘What does it matter?’’ Enzo said in Italian; he now appeared to be embarrassed and to wish to forget the matter. ‘‘
Andiamo
.’’

But Rodolfo said: ‘‘
Nous sommes amis, Toujours amis. À l’éternité
.’’ He put out a hand and shook, first Pamela’s hand, then Colin’s. He loved to make such gestures. ‘‘
Amis
,’’ he said again.

‘‘
Andiamo
,’’ Enzo repeated.

When Colin had been deposited in a cool place beside the river, the two Italians hurriedly stripped behind a sweet-corn plantation, chattering excitedly to each other, and then emerged, Rodolfo in a grey woollen slip, Enzo in a pair of elastic-topped pants which left little of his physique unrevealed. Rodolfo at once made the inevitable allusion to the indecency of his friend’s dress, causing Enzo and Pamela to blush simultaneously. This fact, too, he did not omit to point out; he was on top of his form.

‘‘I wonder if he’s right for Enzo,’’ Pamela said, when the two Italians were half-way across the Arno in a race which Rodolfo had suggested in order to impress his two English friends.

‘‘How do you mean—right?’’

‘‘Oh, he’s persuaded Enzo that he’s a complete fool, and that can’t be good, can it?’’

‘‘I like Enzo best,’’ Colin said. But it was already more than liking; he would never confess it to anyone, least of all to the Florentine, and he attempted to conceal it from himself, but he was already committed to Enzo to the last farthing of his intense, but reticent emotions. At night he lay awake imagining absurd, magazine-story predicaments from which he rescued the Florentine by his courage and love; yet he knew, in his heart of hearts, that if anyone rescued anyone else, it would be the Florentine who would rescue him. He was feeble, he was cowardly, and there was nothing he could ever do to prove his love; that was the bitterest part. ‘‘But Rodolfo’s nice,’’ he added.

‘‘Yes, one can’t help liking him. But I can never really forget that he once stole that fountain pen.’’

Colin considered. ‘‘Stealing is bad, I suppose. But I wonder if it’s really as bad as——’’ He broke off and said no more.

‘‘As what?’’

‘‘Oh, I don’t know.’’ He was juggling with two stones. ‘‘But now that we know somebody, really know somebody who is a—is a thief, it seems much less awful. I don’t really mind. I think I could steal myself.’’

‘‘Colin!’’

‘‘If I was in need. Or for someone else, someone for whom it mattered. Perhaps Rodolfo stole for Enzo,’’ he suddenly said, with the enthusiasm of a new discovery. ‘‘Enzo’s terribly poor, you know. I’m sure that was it. And in that case I think it was a good thing to do, I don’t think Rodolfo was at all to blame. I admire him for having the courage.… Oh, here they are. And Enzo has won.’’

Standing waist-deep in the yellow, scurfy water, the two Italians argued, Rodolfo accusing his friend of cheating because he had not touched some particular stone at the other side of the river. ‘‘He doesn’t like losing,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘Oh, I wish I could go in! It seems so silly to get into a bathing-costume and then do nothing but lie around in the sun.’’