The Honeyed Peace (15 page)

The stewardess turned out the overhead lights in the plane and one by one the small reading lights on the walls went off and presently the plane was dark. The bright greyish night gleamed in through the windows. Two of the men from Washington snored weakly and one of the Air Force sergeants snored very loudly as if he liked snoring and was going to do as much of it as he wanted. Then the snoring became a part of the plane sounds, and everything was quiet. The woman slept in a twisted sideways heap. The lieutenant straightened his legs and settled himself without haste to sleep until morning.

In sleep his face was even more square and brooding. He was not dreaming; it could not be a dream because it was always the same now when he slept. It was as if he went to a certain place to sleep. This place was an enormous darkness; it moved a little but it was not made of air or water, it was solid and he was under it; lying or floating, in no pain, pursued by nothing, but fixed in absolute aloneness in the weight of the dark. He lay there every night, and every night he was trapped in it forever, and every morning when he woke he felt an astonished relief, though he did not remember why.

The man shifted uneasily and found his face ten inches from the woman's face. She had turned towards him in her sleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked pale, tired, and a little ill. Her mouth was wonderfully soft. The man was not quite awake and he looked at this face he had not expected to see and thought, She's lonely. He was thinking better than he would have done had he been awake and protected by a long habit of not noticing and not thinking. She's sick lonely, he thought. He leaned towards those soft lips, waiting and needing to be kissed. Then he woke enough to remember where he was, and stopped himself, shocked, and thought, God, if I'd done it she'd probably have called out and there'd have been a hell of a goings-on. He turned away from her and let his body relax, and slept again.

The plane skidded a little in the wind; it seemed to be forcing itself powerfully through walls of cloud. The people in the plane slept or held themselves quietly. The plane began to smell close, smelling of bodies and night and old cigarette smoke.

The woman felt a hand on her hair. The hand was not gentle; it pressed down the rumpled curly dark hair and stroked once from her forehead back to the nape of her neck. She woke completely but did not move, being too startled and confused to understand what had happened. The hand now left her hair and with harsh assurance rested on her breast; she could feel it through the thin tweed of her coat. She wondered whether she was dreaming this; it was so unlikely that she must be dreaming it, and in the dark plane she could not see the hand. She looked over at the man and saw his face as a yellowish blur. He was asleep. The hand held and demanded her. They certainly come back odd, she thought, with a kind of shaky laugh in her mind.

The hand insisted and suddenly, to her amazement and to her shame, she knew that she wanted to lie against him, she wanted him to put his arms around her and hold her entirely, with this silent ownership. She wanted him to wake and hold her and kiss her. It did not matter who she was or who he was, and the other people in the plane did not matter. They were here together in the night and this incredible thing had happened and she did not want to stop it. She turned to him. When she moved the man sighed, still sleeping, and his hand fell from her, rested a moment in her lap, and then slowly dragged back, as if of its own will, and lay flat along his side. She waited, watching him, and her eyes woke him. He saw the woman's troubled, sad, somehow questioning face and the soft lips that asked to be kissed. He drew her as close to him as he could, but there was something between them, though he was too sleepy to notice what it was, and he kissed her. He kissed her as if they had already made love, taking all that went before for granted. Having waked in other places, and not known exactly what had happened, only knowing there was someone to kiss, he did not feel surprised now. Lovely lips, he thought happily. Then he saw that this thing digging into his side was the arm of a chair and then he knew where he was. The woman had pulled away from him and from his owning arm and his assured possessive mouth.

'I'm Kate Merlin,' she whispered. She sounded panic-stricken.

The man laughed softly. He did not see what anyone's name had to do with it. 'I'm John Hanley,' he said.

'How do you do?' she said and felt both ridiculous and mad and suddenly laughed too.

'Let's get rid of this obstruction,' he said.

The woman was frightened. He took everything so calmly; did he imagine that she always kissed the man sitting next to her on the night plane from Miami? The lieutenant worked at the arm of the chair until he discovered how to get it loose. He laid it on the floor in front of his feet. She was leaning forward and away from him, not knowing what to say in order to explain to him that she really wasn't a woman who could be kissed on planes, in case that happened to be a well-known category of woman.

He said nothing; that was evidently his speciality, she thought. He got everywhere without opening his mouth. He simply collected her, as if she belonged to him and could not have any other idea herself. He brought her close, raised her head so that it was comfortable for him, and kissed her. The harsh and certain hand held her as before.

This is fine, the man thought. It was part of the fine time in Miami and part of the fine time that would follow. He seemed to have a lot of luck; but why not? Sometimes you did have luck, and he had felt all along that this leave was going to be wonderful. Now he would kiss this unknown soft woman, and then they would go to sleep. There was nothing else they could do on a plane, which was a pity, but it was foolish to worry about something you couldn't have. You might have been sitting next to the Air Force, he thought with amusement, and what would you have then? She smelled of gardenias and her hair was like feathers against his cheek. He leaned forward to kiss her again, feeling warm and melted and unhurried and happy.

'How did you know?' the woman said. She seemed to have trouble speaking.

'Know what?'

'That you could kiss me?'

Oh, God, he thought, we're going to have to talk about it.

'I didn't know anything,' he said. 'I didn't plan anything.'

'Who are you?' She didn't mean that; she meant, How did it happen?

'Nobody,' he said with conviction. 'Absolutely nobody. Who are you?'

'I don't know,' she said.

'Don't let it worry you,' he said. He was beginning to feel impatient with this aimless talk. 'Aren't we having a fine time?'

She took in her breath, rigid with distaste. So that was what it was. Come on, baby, give us a kiss; isn't this fun? Oh,
Lord
, she thought, what have I gotten into now? She wanted to say to him, I have never done anything like this in my life. She wanted him to appreciate that this was rare and therefore important; it had to be alone of its kind, or she could not accept it.

The man again used silence, which he handled far better than words, and again he allowed his body to make what explanations seemed necessary. She felt herself helpless and glad to be helpless. But she could not let him think her only a willing woman; how would she face him in the morning if that was all he understood?

'You see ...' she began.

He kissed her so that she would not talk and he said, with his lips moving very lightly against hers, 'It's all right.'

She took that as she needed it, making it mean everything she wanted him to think. She was still amazed but she was full of delight. She felt there had been nothing in her life but talk and reasons and the talk had been wrong and the reasons proved pointless: here was something that had happened at once, by itself, without a beginning, and it was right because it was like magic.

The man pressed her head against his shoulder, pulled her gently sideways to make her comfortable, leaned his head against the chair-back, and prepared to sleep. He felt contented, but if he went on kissing her much longer, since there was nothing further he could do about her now, it might get to be thwarted and wearing. It had been good and now it was time to sleep. He kissed the top of her head, remembering her, and said, 'Sleep well.'

Long ragged grey clouds disordered the sky. The moon was like an illuminated target in a shooting-gallery, moving steadily always ahead of them. The plane was colder now and one of the Air Force sergeants coughed himself awake, swore, blew his nose, sighed or grunted, shifted his position, and went back to sleep. The stewardess wondered whether she ought to make an inspection tour of her passengers and decided they were all right. The stewardess was reading a novel about society people in a country house in England.

The woman lay easily against the stiff serge-uniformed shoulder and let her mind float in a warm dream of pleasure. She did not love this man but she loved how she felt, she loved this aliveness and this hope. Now she made plans that were like those faultless daydreams in which one is always beautiful and the heroine and every day is more replete with miracles than the next. He would stay in New York, at her house perhaps, since she was alone. Or would it be better if they went to a hotel so that there would be nothing to remind her of her ordinary life? They would find new odd little places to eat, and funny places along Broadway to dance, they would walk in the Park. Some day he would have to go back where he came from, and she would go back to her work, but they would have this now and it was more than she had ever hoped for or imagined.

The plane circled the field at Washington and seemed to plunge on to the runway. The thump of the wheels striking the cement runway woke the man. He sat up and stared about him.

'Put the chair arm back,' the woman whispered. 'Good morning.' She did not want the stewardess to look at her with a smile or a question. His hair must be very soft; she would like to touch it, but not now. She looked at him with loving intimate eyes and the man looked at her, quite stupidly, as if he had never seen her before.

'The chair arm,' she said again.

The man grinned and picked up the chair arm and fitted it back into its place. Then he turned to the woman and his face was merry, almost jovial.

'Sleep well?' he said.

'I didn't sleep.' She had not imagined his face so gay, as if he were laughing at them both; she had not imagined his voice so matter of fact.

'Too bad. Well,' he said, 'I think I'll go and stretch my legs. Coming?'

'No, thank you,' she said, terrified now.

The Air Force sergeants jostled each other getting out of the plane. One of them called to the stewardess, 'Don't leave without us, honey.' They laughed and crossed the cement runway, to the airport building, tugging at their clothes, tightening their belts, as if they had just come out of a wrestling match.

The men with brief-cases took their hats and coats from the stewardess and thanked her in grey voices for a pleasant journey, and walked away quickly like people afraid of being late to the office.

In the front seat, Kate Merlin sat alone and listened to the stewardess talking with some of the ground crew; their voices were very bright and awake for this hour of the morning. Kate Merlin felt cold and a little sick, but she would not let herself think about it. She did not know this man enough to do any thinking.

Then he was back beside her and the stewardess was moving down the aisle, like a nurse taking temperatures in a hospital ward, to see that they were all properly strapped in for the take-off.

They fastened their seat-belts again and the plane climbed into the mauve-grey early morning sky.

'Do I remember you said your name was Kate Merlin?'

'Yes.'

'Think of that.'

How did he say it? she wondered. How?

He was evidently not going to say anything more right now. She looked out the window and her hands were cold. The man was thinking. Well, that's funny. Funny how things happen. He had remembered the night, clearly, while he was walking in front of the airport building in Washington. It had seemed strange to him then, but now it seemed less strange. Being an artist, he told himself, they're all a little queer. He had never met an artist before but he was ready to believe that they were not like other people. And being so rich too, he thought; that would make her even odder. Her husband, but his name wasn't Merlin, was terrifically rich. He'd read about them: their names, like many other names, appeared to be a sort of capital asset - like bonds, jewels, or real estate - of the New York columnists. Her husband had inherited millions and owned a famous stable and plane factories or some kind of factories. Thomas Sterling Hamilton, that was his name. It seemed peculiar, her being a successful painter, when her husband was rich and she didn't need to.

'I've read about you,' he remarked.

I have read nothing about you, she thought. What am I supposed to say: You have the advantage of me, sir.

'I even remember one,' he said in a pleased voice. 'It said something about how your clients, or whatever you call them, were glad to pay thousands for your portraits because you always made them look dangerous. It said that was probably even more flattering than looking beautiful. The women, that is. I wonder where I read it.'

It was sickening. It must have been a paragraph in some cheap gossip column. She would surely have been called a society portrait painter and there would be a bit about Thomas and his money.

'What does a painter do during the war?' he asked.

'Paints,' she said. Then it sounded too selfish, and though she was ashamed to be justifying herself to this man, she said quickly, 'I don't know how to do anything but paint. I give the money to the Russian Relief or the Chinese Relief or the Red Cross, things; like that. It seems the most useful thing I can do, since I'm only trained as a painter.' She stopped, horrified at what she had done. What had made her go into a whining explanation, currying favour with this man so he would see what a splendid citizen she really was?

'That's fine.' The civilians were all busy as bird dogs for the war, as he knew, and it was fine of them and all that but it embarrassed ) him to hear about it. He felt they expected him to be personally grateful and he was not grateful, he did not care what anybody did; he wasn't running this war. Then he thought, this isn't at all like last night. He looked at the woman and saw that she looked even better in the morning. It was amazing how a woman could sit up all night in a plane and look so neat and attractive. He felt his beard rough on his face and his eyes were sticky. She looked delicious, and then he remembered how soft she had been in his arms and he wondered what to do about it now.