Love, Again

As she parked the car, she saw Stephen and the three boys walking away from the house. They carried spades, crowbars, a jump-drill. Elizabeth stood in a large vegetable garden with a young man who was presumably a gardener. He wore jeans and a red singlet. She was still in her riding clothes — green shirt, olive green breeches — and the red scarf confined her hair. Her pink cheeks flamed. She held one edge of a plant catalogue and the young man another. Both were alive with enjoyment of their task. Elizabeth invited Sarah to admire the garden, and she did. Then Sarah saw Stephen and the boys a good way off near a cottage or small house that had no roof. Presumably its forlorn look was temporary, for as Sarah came up, she saw Stephen was standing over a deep hole, levering with a crowbar at a stone that obstructed the insertion of a new gatepost. The three boys stood watching their father. The stone came loose, Stephen stood back, the younger boys lifted the stone out. On an indication from Stephen, the three politely greeted her. Over their sunny blond heads Stephen gave her a smile that said he was pleased she was there.

A large squat post lay on the grass, obviously salvaged. It was oak, weathered like elephant's hide, and newly soaked in creosote. Now Stephen and the eldest boy, James, lifted it and slid it into the hole. All four gathered up the stones that had packed the bottom of the discarded post, which was splintering and rotten, and when the new post stood in a bed of stones, the boys took up spades and filled the hole and trampled the loose earth hard. The job was finished. James said to his father, 'Mother said we must be home by twelve. She says we must do our homework.'

'Off you go, then. Don't forget the tools. Put them away properly.'

The three boys put the heavy tools over their shoulders and marched towards the house, knowing they were being watched. Stephen put the discarded post over his shoulder, balanced it with one hand, and they too walked towards the house.

'I am making sure they have all the physical skills I have,' he said, as if she had criticized him.

'You mean, in case they have to earn their livings as workmen?'

'Who knows, these days?'

'Who was that man you were talking to this morning?'

'I was wondering what you'd made of him. Yes. Well. That's Joshua. He's our neighbour. He's leased some of our fields. We were discussing renewing the lease for next year.' A pause. 'He was the chap Elizabeth wanted to marry.' He gave her plenty of time to absorb the implications of this, and even shot her a glance or two, to watch her doing it. 'It's a pity. Elizabeth would have enjoyed being a marchioness. Lady Elizabeth. He's extremely rich. Much richer than I am. And his marriage is not too successful, so he would have done better to take Elizabeth. As it has turned out.'

'There's no accounting for tastes.'

'They have a lot in common. Race horses — that's his line. And Elizabeth is good at horses. But she took me. If she'd got Joshua, then she'd have been absolutely in the right place.' Now they were nearing the house. 'Poor Elizabeth. How can I grudge her Norah? It wouldn't be fair, she thinks, to have married me and then given short measure by taking on Joshua again. Though I'm sure he wouldn't say no. But Norah — that's within the limits of fair play.' He stopped and lowered the post so one end rested on the ground, the other supported in a large strong hand which could easily have been a workman's. His clothes were old and work-worn. He smelled of working sweat. He was looking judiciously at the house. 'A nice house,' he remarked.

'No one could disagree.'

'Do you think that girl sees me separately from the house?'

'Do you mean, does Susan love you for yourself alone? Of course not.'

'And you?'

'You forget I knew you long before I saw the house.'

They stood in a country silence. Birds. An insect or two. A jet droning far overhead. A tractor at work some fields away.

'Did you know Susan is thinking of marrying me? What do you have to say about that?'

'Oh — fantasies.'

'But suppose I am thinking about marrying her?' He hefted the post again, and they went to where wood was stacked, ready for the winter. He added the wormy old post to the pile and brushed his hands together. 'Anyway, it's ridiculous. I'm possessed by the ridiculous. At night I find myself waking up and laughing. Can you beat that, Sarah? Something's going on… ' He stood facing her, his eyes holding hers. 'Sarah, somewhere or other I'm burned out.' She did not know what to say. 'Finished,' he said, turning away.

Unfortunately, when apparitions from the places behind the closed doors, truthful moments, arrive in ordinary life, they seem so at odds with probability they tend to be ignored. Bad taste. Exaggeration. Melodrama. They are, quite simply, of a different texture and cannot be accommodated. Besides, today he seemed as full of vitality and health as Elizabeth.

She walked into the little town, along shady country roads. She lunched alone in a hotel and thought what a pleasure it could be to do this, reminding herself there would come a time when she would again enjoy doing things by herself, not feeling that a part of her had been ripped off because Henry was not there. She walked around streets that seemed as if they had no one in them, because there was no chance of bumping into Henry. She was back at the house about tea time, and there were Elizabeth and Norah under a chestnut, with a well-laden tea table between them. They waved at her to join them. She did so, knowing that competent Elizabeth would see this as an opportunity to gain useful information. The two women were usually far from alike, for Norah was appealing and devoted, like an affectionate dog, and even when she wore a linen coat-dress, as she did now, her clothes seemed soft and maternal, yet when they turned their faces towards her, sharpened by anticipation, they seemed like sisters being offered a nice treat. Sarah accepted cups of tea and chattered about Belles Rivieres, particularly about the handsome and dramatic Jean-Pierre, so French and so clever, and about minor rivalries in Belles Rivieres' town council over Julie Vairon. She described the three hotels, Les Collines Rouges, the house Julie had lived in, and the museum. She said that Cezanne had lived and worked not far away, and saw how the name pleased them, a signpost in unfamiliar territory. She talked about everything and everyone except Molly, though she knew Elizabeth was much too shrewd not to suspect something like Molly. She entertained them well, to their profit and to her own, because it was useful to have the emotional turmoil of Belles Rivieres diminished to a few mostly humorous anecdotes.

Shadows had taken over the lawn when the three boys appeared in the trees, and Elizabeth clapped her hands and called, 'Go and get your baths and have your suppers. They are in the refrigerator.'

It was too pleasant sitting here to go inside, and they sat on under the big tree, drinking sherry in the twilight.

'You'll have supper with us, of course,' stated Elizabeth. Stephen was not mentioned, and again Sarah reminded herself that he had a complicated life with a thousand obligations and connections.

They ate at leisure in the little room next to the kitchen, and it was quite dark outside when the boys appeared. They wore short red dressing gowns and were brushed, and they smelled of soap. These fair creatures with their transparent skins, their clear blue eyes, their diffident charm, had even more the look of angels who had chosen to grace an earthly choir.

'Have you had your baths? Yes, I can see you have. Well done. Did you eat your suppers? Good. Well, it's going to be a big day tomorrow. This is the calm before the storm. Put yourselves to bed.' They came to her, one after another, and she planted efficient kisses on three offered cheeks. 'Off you go, then.'

And off they went, with decorum, to the door, where suddenly they became children, in a flurry of little squeaks and giggles. The door banged shut after them, and their crashing race up the stairs shook the walls.

Boys will be boys, said Elizabeth's smile, and she sighed with satisfaction. Norah's sigh echoed hers, a long expiring breath that was a confession of sorrow. Elizabeth glanced sharply at Norah, who bravely smiled, but with a small grimace. Childless Norah. Elizabeth patted her friend briskly on her shoulder and gave her a chin-up smile. Norah sat quiet for a moment, then got up and began clearing away plates.

The door opened and James stood there. He was looking at his mother.

'What is it?' demanded Elizabeth, and as he did not speak, but hesitated, holding on to the door handle, 'Well, what do you want?'

That he had come for something, that he wanted something, was plain, for those blue eyes were full of a question, but after a moment he said, 'Nothing.'

'Then run along,' she said, not unkindly.

Again the door shut behind him, but this time quietly. Almost at once he came back. He stood staring at his mother. 'What is it, James?' she said. He did not go and he did not speak. There was something like a battle of wills between the two pairs of eyes. Then James seemed to shrink, but when he turned away he was stubbornly holding himself together.

Sarah made sure she was in her room when the coach returned, bringing the members of the company who had not been delivered to the hotels.

Under her door came an envelope. 'Sarah. Why not? You never look at me. You never see me. I could kill you for it. I'm drunk. Andrew.'

Having scarcely slept the night before she slept at once. Dreams need not go by contraries. Her dreams that night could not have been more to the point, scenes from a farce, men and women running in and out of doors, wrong rooms, right rooms, a joker changing numbers on doors, cries of indignation and laughter, a girl sitting on a bed noisily weeping, head flung back, black hair streaming, a finger pointed in accusation at…

Since the company had returned from Stratford so late, they were not in the breakfast room when Sarah got there. She left it as Henry came in and said 'Sarah… ' but she went into the interior of the house, to escape him, not replying. There she saw Stephen climbing a small back staircase, again with the three boys, and they all carried an assortment of tools. He stopped on the landing and called down, 'We are about to have a lesson in basic plumbing.'

'It is the business of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan,' she quoted. At this the three young heads turned quickly, from three different levels of the stair, looking down at her, each face wearing that delighted but half- scared smile children accustomed to authoritarian rule use to salute rebellion. She was being insubordinate, they felt, but this must define their schools, not their parents.

Stephen said, 'Nonsense. Everyone should know how the machinery of a house works. But there's quite a decent bench under some beeches if you follow the path we were on yesterday and then turn right.'

The two younger boys pounded up the stairs, giggling. James stopped on the landing and then lifted his head to gaze out of the window there. He did this in the way one uses to check up on something, or greet someone. At any rate, he was lost to the world for a long minute, and then Stephen came back, seemed to hesitate, then put his hand on his son's shoulder. 'Come along, old chap.'

James slowly came out of his contemplation, smiled, and went with his father up the stairs. Sarah quickly ran up to the landing, and saw out of the window an enormous ash, waving its arms in the morning sunlight.

Then she followed instructions and, a good way from the house, found a wooden bench under old beeches. She sat canopied by warm green. A green thought in a green shade. At least the weather continued good: not an observation to be made lightly on a day a play was to be presented in the open.

She contemplated the old house. Its bulk dwarfed the ash tree, James's familiar, which had a look of standing on guard. From here, nearly a mile away, the green masses merely stirred and trembled, drawing in or repelling black specks, presumably rooks. She had been there an hour or so when Stephen came. He sat down beside her and at once said, 'She came into my room last night.'

'Julie?'

'I wouldn't exactly say that.'

She nibbled a grass stem and waited.

'I couldn't have brought myself to go to her.'

'No.' When he did not go on, she enquired, 'Well?'

'You mean, how did I acquit myself?'

'No, I did not mean that.'

'I have to report that I surprised myself. And I gave her a pleasant surprise or two, I am sure. A good time — as they put it over there.' She said nothing, and now he turned a hard critical grin full on her. 'You mean that was not what you meant? But women wait for us to fall down — oh, forgive me.'

'Speaking for myself — no.'

'Perhaps I shall marry her. Yes, why not?' he mused.

'Oh, congratulations. Oh, brilliant.'

'Why not? She lisps about the wonderful life here.'

'Elizabeth doesn't seem to her an impediment?'

'I don't think she really sees Elizabeth. I suspect she thinks Elizabeth is not pretty enough to count.'

'I remember being the same. I was rather younger than Susan, though.'

'Yes. She's juvenile. Yes, I'd say that was the word for her. Anyway, Elizabeth wouldn't be an impediment, would she, if I decided to… ' All this in the hard angry voice she did occasionally hear from him. 'Could Elizabeth really complain? She could marry Norah.' And then that personality left him, in a deep breath that let out, it seemed, all the anger. His voice lowered into incredulous, admiring, tender awe. 'It's the youth of her — that young body.'

Sarah could not speak. She had been thinking, far too often, I shall never again hold a young man's body in my arms. Never. And it had seemed to her the most terrible sentence Time could deal her.

'But, Sarah… ' He saw her face averted, put his hand to it, and turned it towards him. He calmly regarded the tears spilling down her face. 'But, Sarah, the point is, it's a young body. Two a penny. Any time. She's not… ' Here he let his hand slide away, making it a caress, consoling, tender, as you would for a child. He looked at the wet on his hand and frowned at it. 'All the same, if I married her, what bliss, for a time.'

'And then you'd have the pleasure of watching her fall in love with someone her age, while she was ever so kind to you.'

'Exactly. You put it so… But last night I was asking myself… she really is sweet, I'm not saying she isn't. But is it worth it? To hold Julie's hand is worth more than all of last night.'

Is.

She said, making her voice steady, 'Although Henry is in love with me — he really is — '

'I had noticed. Give me credit.'

'Although he knows I am crazy about him, he hasn't come to my room.'

'His wife, I suppose.' As she did not reply, 'You don't understand, Sarah. For a monogamous man to fall in love — it's terrible.'

'But, Stephen, it's only monogamous people who can fall in love — I mean, really.' She felt she was doing pretty well, with this conversation, though her voice was shaking. 'We romantics need obstacles. What could be a greater one?'

'Death?' said Stephen, surprising her.

'Or old age? You see, if I had been Susan's age, if I had been… then I don't think morality would have done so well. There would have been nights of bliss and then wallowing in apologies to his wife.'

Stephen put his arm around her. This was a pretty complex action. For one thing, it was an arm (like hers) that easily went around a friend in tears. Once it had comforted Elizabeth, weeping bitterly because Joshua had chosen someone else. It was an arm that went easily around his children. But the arm would rather not have gone around this particular person: it was her arm that should go around him. When he assumed this brotherly role, he relinquished reliable Sarah. Never had a supporting, a friendly arm so clearly conveyed: And now I am alone. But she knew she could expect words of kindness and consolation. A complicated kind of noblesse oblige would dictate them.

'There's just one little thing you are overlooking, Sarah. AIDS.'

The arrival of that word, like the arrival of the disease itself, has the power to jolt any conversation into a different key. In this case, laughter. While she was thinking that church bells warning of plague must often enough have tolled across these fields, and this was just another instalment of the story, she had to laugh, and said, 'Oh, that is a consolation. That makes everything all right. And anyway, it's ridiculous. Me — AIDS.'

'But, Sarah,' said he, enjoying, as she could see, her genuine indignation, 'we have been living in a dream world. The one thing I wasn't going to say to Susan was, But I couldn't possibly have AIDS because I've been chaste. For various reasons I don't propose to go into… because one doesn't say that to a woman, '

'No.'

'But imagine it. A beautiful young thing, all maidenly hesitation, the bashfulness of true love, appears in your bed, ready to flee away at a cross word, but the next thing, she is enquiring efficiently about condoms and one's attitudes towards oral sex. I did allow myself to say, But, Susan, you really don't have to worry about me, and she said, What makes you think you don't have to worry about me? I've been working in and around New York theatres for five years… it does take the romance out of the thing.' She was laughing. He was observing this, she could see, with relief. 'Do you realize how lucky we were, Sarah — us lot?'

'How kind of you to include me in your lot.'

'Pre-AIDS. Post-AIDS. That's the point. We were liberated from the old moralities. Guilt was never more than a mild flick of the whip.'

'We were still romantic. We talked about being in love, not having sex.'

'We didn't worry all that much about pregnancy… and I never knew anyone with VD. Did you?'

'No, I don't think so. I don't remember anyone saying, I think I've got syph.'

'There you are. Paradise. We lived in paradise and didn't know it. But these young things, they have more in common with our grandparents and great-grandparents than with us. Ridden with fear, poor things. Well, for my part, I wonder if it's worth it.'

'You're telling me that when Susan arrives in your bed tonight you're going to say, I don't think it's worth it, run along back to your bed little Susan, there's a good girl?'

'Well — no. But, Sarah, I know absolutely what she meant by There's no conviction in it.'

'But, Stephen, you won't be feeling like this for long. Just as I quite soon will return to being a severe elderly woman, and I'll say about other people's follies, Really, how tiresome.'

'So you keep saying.'

'Yes, I do. I have to.'

'Anyway, I was never much good at pain. I simply cannot put up with it.' As if he were talking about a fractured knee or a headache, and not a brutal fist slamming again and again into one's heart.

'There's only one thing we can all rely on. Thank God. What we feel one year won't be what we feel the next.'

They sat on in silence, knowing their thoughts ran on parallel lines.

At midday they walked to the house, passing a shady glade full of children, fifteen or so, Stephen's among them. Recent fiction has taught that a tribe of children may only be seen as potential savages capable of any barbarism, but it was hard to associate these with anything much more than the friendly waves and smiles they were offering the adults. Stephen sent his offspring and their friends a lofty wave of the arm, as to a distant shore. James's face, as he followed the two with his eyes, was thoughtful, brave, and stubborn too. So he had looked at his mother and, today, at the ash tree. The two were thinking, as adults do, with discomfort, it was just as well that between the mental landscapes those youngsters knew and their own lay such gulfs of experience that the children could have no notion of all the effort that would be demanded of them. Out of sight of the children, out of sight of the house, Stephen unexpectedly stopped and put brotherly arms around her. 'Sarah, I don't think you begin to know what you've meant to me… ' He let her go, without looking at her, as if any emotions he might find on her face were bound to be too much.

In the room where a buffet meal waited for them, Henry was already seated, with Susan. Henry at once got up and leaned over Sarah to demand in a rough voice that this time did not mock itself, 'Sarah, where have you been?'

Sarah was watching how Susan smiled at Stephen, whose returning smile held ingredients that she must find contradictory. For one thing, it was clear that Stephen was more 'in love' — but why the quotes? — than he let on. His whole body was flattered, was pleased, and seemed to be sending messages, of its own accord, to Susan's. But his face was full of ironies and was saying, Don't come too close. What he said aloud was, 'Slept well?' She giggled delightfully, blushed, but looked confused.

'Sarah,' Henry was saying, in the same voice, 'what are you going to do this afternoon?'

'I'm going into the town to the hairdresser.' She smiled, she hoped, nonchalantly at this man whom she loved — oh yes, she did, for the invisible weavers were doing their work well — and her heart was babbling, 'I love you,' as she offered him a plate of healthy country bread.

'The hairdresser!'

'And what are you going to do?' she enquired, though she had been determined not to ask.

'I'm doing a couple of hours with the musicians. They were a bit ragged last night. I'll be there from three till five.' He made it a question.

'If I've finished, I'll come.' She was thinking that nothing would induce her to be there and, with equal force, that nothing could keep her away.

Later, having done with the hairdresser, she took a taxi back and went straight to the theatre area. Henry was leaning moodily against the edge of the musicians' platform. He had his hands pushed deep into his pockets, and he seemed tired and discouraged. He was pale. He was ill. The musicians were coming from the shrubs that screened the new building. Henry had seen her, for now he remarked, 'Be still my heart' — not to her, but to the trees and the sky. He at once parodied himself, going into a pose like Romeo's under Juliet's balcony, on one knee with arms outstretched. On his feet again, he was unable to prevent himself sending her a long and wretched look, but parodied that too, by intensifying it to the point of ludicrousness. She had to laugh, even while dissolving into sweet nostalgia for long-lost shores.

When the music rehearsal was done, he came to her and had just said, 'Let's go and walk,' when she saw Benjamin coming purposefully towards them.

'Here's your admirer,' said Henry, surprising her, for she did not know he had noticed Benjamin's attentions, and plunging her into loss as he ran off, swiping at a shrub as he went, and jumping over another.

Sarah could not help being thrilled by Henry's jealousy, though he was off the mark. You may fall into liking, as you do into love, though it is a less common surrender. It is easy to confuse one with the other. Benjamin had fallen into liking with her, on first sight, just as she and Stephen had done with each other at that first meeting in the restaurant. Could she say she had equally fallen into liking with him? No; she had only to make the comparison. Which is not to say she did not like him well enough.

He advanced towards her, seeming out of place in his formally elegant white. His face had warmed as he looked at her, but almost at once his eyes had moved on behind her to the great trees enclosing the circle of emerald lawn, where the musicians in their pale floaty dresses were drifting towards shrubs that hid the rehearsal rooms. Now his face was that of a young boy listening to a magic tale. Benjamin had fallen in love with the theatre, with the arts. Having determined to take advantage of casual theatre manners and mores, he kissed her heartily on both cheeks, and seemed pleased with himself for achieving this freedom. As for her she was envying him his state of pleasurable intoxication. Yet such were the influences of recent experience, she was examining the handsome face for signs of grief or even of anxiety. There were none. Was she sure about that? No. Should she not at least be wondering why this man ensconced in his so satisfactory and — surely? — satisfying life had succumbed to the theatre and its intoxications? (O, for the life of a Gypsy, O!) What lacks might there be in that life of his? She did not know. How little we do know about what goes on inside our nearest friends, let alone agreeable acquaintances — she was damned if she was going to give the name friend to Benjamin and call Stephen a friend. Roy Strether, her good friend, a friend of fifteen years, was going through hell, and she knew it and he knew that she knew it, but apart from Mary, who else in the company had any idea of what went on inside that so friendly and competent fellow? Who of the people in this house had any idea about Stephen? Certainly not his wife. Sally would probably say later of this time that it had been one of the worst in her life. She had hinted something of the kind, half laughing, to Sarah. But of the people who had worked with her every day for weeks, who gave Sally's loss much thought? Mary looked terrible: much more than was due to worry over her mother.

They walked slowly to the house, while she told him about this new production here, and the new members of the cast. She listened, or tried to, for her thoughts would go straying off, while he told her about the Edinburgh Festival. Thus they reached the house, and it was time for the early buffet supper, for soon the play would begin.

The two young women from the town, Alison and Shirley, were there that evening, large, calm, blonde, with red cheeks, as healthy as apples, shedding pleased and maternal smiles on the hectic scene. First nights were not new to them. As for Elizabeth, she might as well have been saying aloud, This sort of thing is to be expected; it is the theatre after all… and she smiled at Susan while handing her a plate of summer pudding. 'You really are so good, Susan,' everyone heard her say. 'You're such a wonderful Julie.' This to remind her of what she was doing here, in this house — Elizabeth's house.

Benjamin left Sarah to talk to Stephen, and the two men stood side by side conversing, holding glasses of wine and waving away food. They were for that time inside their roles as patrons of the arts, for if they were not thinking this, were too modest, even feeling privileged to assist all these talented beings, then others, watching them, had to think: the money men — and we are all dependent on their decisions.

Henry came to Sarah and said in a low voice, 'Sarah, I've had a fax from Millicent. She is coming tomorrow. With Joseph. She'll see tomorrow night's performance, and then we'll both be off.'

'A change of plan?'

'Yes. Elizabeth very kindly invited her to stay a few days, and we said we would, but — well, we're leaving the day after tomorrow, and then we're going to drive around France for a couple of weeks.'

She said nothing and could not look at him.

'So that's how it is, Sarah,' he said, putting down an untouched plate of food. 'And now I'm going out to see how the audience is coming along.'

He went. Soon the players followed him.

Stephen, Sarah, and Benjamin stood on the steps to watch the audience leave their cars and wandered over the grass towards the theatre. It was a perfect evening. Wispy gold clouds floated high in the west, and quiet trees were outlined against them. Birds robustly quarrelled in the shrubs. With nearly an hour to go, the seats were already nearly full.

Sarah saw her brother Hal, Anne, Briony and Nell get out of their car. She had not expected them. He had come from work and wore the dark suit he used for his afternoons in Harley Street. His women wore floral dresses, their fair hair glittered with this evening's sun. For all of them an excursion into Sarah's life was a holiday: for the parents, from hard work; and the girls after all did spend a good part of their lives in an office and a laboratory. Where was Joyce?

Sarah waved at her brother, who granted her an allowance of his confident self in a measured palm-forward salute, like royalty, but because he didn't flutter his fingers he seemed to bestow blessings: light could easily be streaming from that palm towards the three on the steps. Through a gap in the hedge she watched him advance to the front row. She saw a large light black ball being borne shorewards on the frothy crest of a slow wave. He stepped lightly, his head level, his eyes staring straight ahead, and the look on his face was one Sarah had been studying all her life, though it was not a look, in fact, that repaid study: with his full cheeks, his slightly pouting mouth, his protuberant eyeballs, he was like a ship's figurehead. She had often thought he was like a drugged or a hypnotized man. It was his body that expressed absolute assurance, an impervious self-satisfaction. A mystery: he had always been a mystery to her. Where had he got it from, this self-assurance? Where in him was it located? Having reached the front row, he removed the Reserved signs on some chairs — he had not reserved seats — and sat down, assuming his women would arrange themselves. There he sat, the large soft black ball beached, while around him frothed the flowery wave.

In the front row, critics from London were taking their seats, some with a characteristic look of doing the occasion a favour by being there at all, others sliding furtively along the rows, in case they were observed and someone might come to talk to them, thus compromising their integrity. The audience softly chatted, admiring the sky, the gardens, the house.

Henry escorted Stephen, Sarah, and Benjamin to wish the players well. They took with them goodwill faxes from Bill in New York and from Molly in Oregon. 'Thinking of you all tonight.' 'I wish I was with you.' The new, raw building was crammed with people now and already filled with… it is a matter of opinion with what. But the place was no longer an echoing vacuum.

The four took their places, right at the back.

Experienced eyes assessed the critics. Only two of the first-rank ones were here. Elizabeth had been heard thanking them in ringing tones for being so very kind. The others were second-rank, or apprentices, among them Roger Stent, who, having looked cautiously for Sonia and found her, gave her a severe and unsmiling nod, like a judge before opening the day's case. She gave him an 'up yours' sign back, meant to be noticed. The critics were all one of two kinds: theatre critics, who would judge from that point of view, or music critics, here because Queen's Gift had a reputation for its music and its Entertainments, who knew nothing about stage production. None was equipped to judge this hybrid. The audience was another matter, for they at once showed they liked the piece and understood, and when the troubadour music began they applauded, to show they did not find it strange. For one thing, the programme devoted a full page to this kind of music: its history, its origins in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its Arab influences, its instruments, adapted from Arab originals, its unexpected emergence so many centuries later in the music of Julie Vairon, who — it was safe to assume — could never have heard it.

But that music was in the second act, and the two main theatre critics left after the first, because of driving back to London or catching their train. They both had the affronted put-upon look of critics who have wasted their time. Sarah joked that their pieces would certainly include the phrase 'an insipid piece,' and Mary added, '"Faux exotica,'" and Roy, '"Unfortunately an exotic background will not save this banal play from failure."'

The rest of the theatre critics left at the end of the second act, so they would not know about the limpid other-worldly music of the third act, which transcended, even repudiated, the personal. 'Do you know what?' said Mary. 'I bet every one of their pieces will be headed: "She Was Poor but She Was Honest.'" 'Or,' suggested Roy, '"I can't get away to marry you today — my wife won't let me."' The music critics all stayed to the end.

But the audience stood to applaud, and for them, at least, Julie Vairon was a success, if not as much as it had been in France.

Meanwhile Sarah's attention was being distracted, because during the second act she saw Joyce with her friend Betty and an unknown youth standing near the gap in the hibiscus hedge which was the entrance to the theatre. They had the look of children listening outside a door to the grown-ups talking. Easy to reconstruct what must have happened. Joyce had been invited — no, begged — with the exasperated end-of-tether voices she did hear from her family, to accompany them on their jaunt to Aunt Sarah's play, had refused, but had told Betty, who had said they might as well go. The three had hitchhiked. Even now, when hitching was so risky, Joyce begged lifts, usually from lorry drivers accosted in the forecourts of petrol stations. Joyce had recounted tales of near-disaster, with the timid smile she did offer to adults, partly to find out what the world of authority thought. Sarah had not previously had more than a glimpse of Betty, but now here she was, in full view. The three young people made their way around the back of the seated crowd, Joyce on tiptoe, Betty with bravado, the young man expecting to be accosted and thrown out. Betty plumped herself down on a grassy slope, the two sat by her and Joyce sent frantic waves and smiles to her aunt.

Betty was a large girl, and she sat with fat blue-jeaned thighs spread in front of her, arms crossed on great unsupported breasts. On her face was a look of sour scepticism: you aren't going to put anything across me. The face was large and plain and coarse. Her black hair straggled greasily. Joyce seemed even more of a sad waif beside her, for it was at once evident that Betty mothered her. The young man, who sat apart from the women, was very thin, pallid, limp, with a long bony neck. His hands were thin enough to see through, and his face was covered in red blotches.

During the applause when the play ended, the three disappeared.

An informal party for the company and neighbours had been arranged on the side of the house away from the theatre. Long tables held wine and cakes. Behind these the two pretty blonde girls, Shirley and Alison, served while Elizabeth and Norah, with Stephen, welcomed guests. The audience streamed away to the cars and coaches that would take them to the town or to London, but about two hundred people stood about on the lawn. Hal appeared and went straight up to Stephen, introducing himself not as Sarah's brother but as Dr Millgreen. Stephen did not know who he was but behaved as if this was a great honour for him. Hal refused a glass of wine, saying he had to return to London because he must be at his hospital early, said in a kindly way to his sister, 'Very nice, Sarah,' and went off, not looking to see if Anne, Briony, and Nell followed, or if they might perhaps like a glass of wine. From the other side of the lawn he did look back, apparently to approve the house, for he was wearing his professional look of a generalized benevolence. Various people hastened up to him and to Anne. For a moment he stood in a group of colleagues, or patients, or friends, a figure of kindly authority. It occurred to Sarah that just as she had never seen much more of Stephen than his Julie side (his dark and concealed side), so she saw nothing of the social life of her brother and her sister-in-law. Formal parties were not in her line, and their friends were not in her line either. But possibly there were a good many people who knew this eminent Dr Millgreen, and his clever doctor wife, Anne, and their two pretty daughters, as a likeable family. They might perhaps remark if they remembered, 'A pity about that girl of theirs. A bit of a handful apparently.'

Just as Sarah was thinking that she should ask Hal and Anne about Joyce, the family got into their car and drove off. So she went on talking, as it was her part to do, with anyone who wished to talk to her. Yes, she had found it rewarding to work on this play — if you could call it that — but there were two authors, and Stephen Ellington-Smith, their host, would have a lot to say about it too. This went on for an hour or so, and the dusk had settled in the trees and shrubs when she heard a young man say with a laugh that he had been accosted after the performance as he came out of the new building by a couple of girls who were offering the male members of the cast a blow-job for ten pounds a time. It was Sandy Grears, talking to George White. Sarah at once went up to them and said, 'I'm afraid one of the girls was probably my niece. I suppose you don't know where they went?' She was finding it hard to appear calm, because the thought of Henry — who would have been in the new building with the others — anywhere near a paid-for blow-job was too painful almost to bear, like a grotesque sexual joke directed at oneself. The two young men at once adjusted their manner, from one appropriate to laughing at a couple of slags to one sympathizing with the relative of a problem child. George said he thought it was likely the girls were in The Old Fox in the town, for it was the only place open in the evenings. He offered to take Sarah there. Sandy went off, and this enabled Sarah to ask if there had been a young man with the girls. Yes, there had. George hesitated; he could have said more, but Sarah decided not to ask. She found it hard to believe that Sandy went in for blow-jobs offered by unhealthy youths, but one never knew. She was surprised she felt a genuine pang — an aesthetic one — that anyone who had enjoyed (for once an absolutely accurate word) the beautiful Bill Collins could even think of a blow-job with that poor derelict.

On the way to town she told George about Joyce, and he was suitably sympathetic. His own sister was a problem. She was anorexic, sometimes suicidal, and it had all been going on for years. Once again, here was the unwelcome shift of perspective when a colleague's private life (never more than the backdrop to the life you know them in, their working life, their real life, so you prefer to think) comes forward and you are made to know with what difficulty and how precariously this friend maintains independence from that matrix the family. George for a time had had this sister living with him and his wife, but then it all got too much when the children were born. Now, unfortunately, she was in and out of hospital. Sarah and George then exchanged the lines of that conversation which takes place more and more often, to the effect that for every whole, competent, earning person are every day more of the people who cannot cope with life and have to be supported, financially or emotionally. The two went on to wonder if there were really more, or perhaps it was only that they were more visible because of our (after all quite recently adopted) view that disadvantaged people are infinitely redeemable. And what about those people who are seen as whole, healthy, independent, 'viable', but in fact are dependent on others? Sarah of course was thinking here of her brother, for what would he be without that drained-of-blood person his wife?

The Old Fox called itself a wine bar, but it was a restaurant with a bar and loud music, and so full they could not see the other side of the room. Then, suddenly, there Joyce was. A group of young people squeezed themselves around a table, drinking. This was a far from disreputable place, and Joyce's group was the only doubtful element in it. Sarah, who was now faced with the necessity of doing something, but not knowing what, was saved by Joyce, who was pushing her way through the crowd with cries of 'It's my Auntie Sarah.' She was holding a tumbler of whisky above her head for safety. Standing in front of her aunt and reeking of whisky, Joyce chattered about the lovely play. She did not look at George White. It had not been more than a mild twilight when the play ended, but perhaps she did not look, on principle, at possible customers.

'How are you going to get home?' asked Sarah.

'Oh, we'll manage. We got ourselves here, didn't we?'

The two adults stood listening while the poor child offered the smart phrases that were obligatory when she was near her friends. 'No dis, Auntie, but you're right out, we've nuff carn, we're safe.' Translated: No disrespect, but you're worrying about nothing, we've got lots of money, we're okay. Meanwhile her gaze moved continually to the door as new people came in. Clearly she knew this place well. Her smile, as always, seemed fixed. Her eyes were all pupil. Drugs enlarge pupils. Like the dark. Or like love.

George caught sight of someone he knew. He moved off. After all, the company had been here for three days and this was the place for the youth of the town. At once he was surrounded: he was amiable, good-looking, always popular.

'Joyce,' said Sarah, lowering her voice. 'Are you remembering all the things we tell you?'

Joyce's eyes moved about evasively, and she said brightly, 'Oh, Sarah, of course we do; you're right out.'

'What's this about your offering blow-jobs to all and sundry?'

At this the beautiful eyes swivelled desperately. 'Who told you? I didn't… I never… please, Auntie… ' Then, recovering herself, she quoted (who — Betty?), 'But that's what men are like. That's all they care about; give them a good blow-job and they are satisfied.' And she looked proudly at Sarah to see how this bit of worldly wisdom was going down.

Sarah watched those pretty lips struggle to offer her a smile and said, 'Oh Joyce, do have some common sense.'

'Oh we do, I promise. But it's brass, you see. The trouble is, brass.' Then, unable to bear it another minute, she waved her thin and grubby hand not six inches from Sarah's face, saw she was misjudging distances, squinted, and retreated backwards, crying, 'Later on… later on… ' Meaning goodbye, goodbye. She wriggled off into the crowd to rejoin her friends.

At the bar sat Andrew, on a stool, drinking. Feeling that he was being looked at, Andrew turned and stared at her. Then, deliberately, he turned back to the woman on the stool next to his — smart, middle-aged, flattered by him. Then he could not stand it and swung about, steadied himself, for he was tight, and came over to her. 'I don't have a car,' he said. 'If I borrowed one, would you…?' George appeared. 'No, I see you wouldn't,' and Andrew stalked back to the bar.

'A pretty dramatic character, our Andrew,' commented George.

'Yes.'

'I wouldn't like him as an enemy.'

Men, if not women, saw Andrew as dangerous.

'Come on, I'll take you back.'

She sat silent in the car as it sped through moonlit lanes, thinking for the thousandth time that there must be something sensible they could do about Joyce.

'Are you thinking that there must be some solution if only you could think of it?'

'Yes.'

'I thought you were.'

He did not stop the engine when she got out. Off he went, back to the wine bar, leaving her outside the now dark house. It was twelve, late for these parts. On a bench by some shrubs sat a tense and watchful figure. She walked towards Henry. As Susan had seemed earlier with Stephen: Henry was reeling her in on a line. She sat by him. He at once moved over so they touched all the way from shoulders to feet.

'Where have you been?'

She heard herself sigh: it meant, How irrelevant.

'Benjamin was looking for you. He's gone to bed.'

Her mind was spinning out its rhetoric: How often are two people in love with each other at the same time? Hardly ever. Usually, one turns the cheek… What she did say aloud, quite evenly and creditably, though her heart was thudding so he must feel it, was, 'There is always that moment with Americans when one feels thoroughly decadent. You can know someone for years, and then there it is. Good wholesome ethical Americans, tricky and decadent Europeans. Just like a Henry James novel.'

'If I had ever read Henry James.'

'In your heart of hearts you think of me as immoral.'

'I don't want to know what you think of me.'

'Good. And now I'm going to bed.' She got up, and he grabbed her hand. Pulling her hand away from his hand tore out great slabs of her heart. So it felt. He leaped up. He held her, still did not kiss her mouth, but his lips touched her cheek, sending fire all through her (sending what?), and her lips were on his hair. Soft hair…

'Good night,' she said briskly, and went upstairs.

She sat at her window, utterly overthrown. The sky was full of moonlight, so she saw as her sight cleared. Words welled up in her. She found herself sitting (with her eyes shut, for the moonlight was too empty and heartless), feeling the sweet touch of his hair on her mouth, while she muttered, 'God, how I did love you, my little brother, how I did love you.' Astonishment pulled her eyes open. But it was not now she could attend to what the words were telling her. She lay on her bed and wept, most bitterly. Well, that was better than what lay in wait for her. Tears and even bitter tears are not the country of grief.

She woke late, was late at the breakfast table. Stephen had come in to look for his sons, for he wanted them to have a shooting lesson. Benjamin sat over coffee. He had been waiting for her. It was his turn to look ironical: he believed her to have been kept late in town by attractive temptations. Henry came in, just after she did, poured coffee, brought the cup and himself to the chair next to hers. He did not look at her. She did not look at him.

Benjamin said, 'I've got to leave at two, if I'm going to catch my plane.'

Stephen said, 'Then I suggest Sarah shows you around the place a bit.'

Benjamin said, 'If Sarah's got time.'

'Of course I've got time,' said Sarah, but it was after a pause, for she did not immediately hear him.

'And Henry, perhaps you and your wife would have dinner with us? It's not too bad at The Blue Boar. The show'11 be over by ten, and we can be in town by half past.'

'We'd love to,' said Henry. 'It might be a bit late for Joseph, but he'll manage. He's used to late nights.'

Stephen had not thought the child would be at the dinner, and now he remarked, 'I'm sure Norah would keep an eye on him for you.'

'I don't think he'd let me go. He hasn't seen me for a month.'

'Just as you think best. I'll book. And Sarah — you too, of course.'

Here his boys appeared, and he said to them, 'Come on, then, there's good chaps. Run and get the target.'

The four went off.

Sarah found she could not drink her coffee. Her mouth was already bitter with loss. She said to Benjamin, 'Shall we go?' Benjamin stood up, and this tall and solid man, in his immaculate, impeccable, improbably perfect creamy linen, succeeded in making the delightful old room seem shabby. He enquired too politely of Henry, 'Do you want to join us?'

'I've got things to do,' said Henry.

Benjamin and Sarah set off to stroll around the estate. They took paths as they came to them, sat on benches to admire views, found a field with horses in it, a dozen or so lazing under a willow near a stream. The horses watched the two to see if they were bearing titbits, then lost interest. A field yellow with grain and so smooth it seemed to invite them to stroke it slanted to a sheet of blue sky. In an enormous shed, or workshop, a harvester like an infinitely magnified insect stood throbbing while two young men in smart blue overalls leaned over it with cans of oil.

This is the last day, the last day — beat through Sarah. Landscape, sky, horses, and harvester were all Henry, Henry. The shocking egotism of love had emptied her of anything but Henry. She told herself that Benjamin deserved at least politeness, and tried to chat suitably, but she knew that her words kept fading into inattention, and then silence.

Benjamin began to entertain her, remembering how successful this had been in Belles Rivieres, with 'projects'.

'How does this grab you, Sarah? A Kashmiri lake, an exact replica, with houseboats, musicians, the boatmen imported from Kashmir. It'll be in Oregon. Plenty of water — we need the right kind of lake.'

'It certainly grabs me,' said Sarah, knowing she sounded indifferent.

'Good. And what about a development of a machine that emits negative ions? It hangs from a moveable stand so you can push it from room to room. Dust is attracted to it and falls into a flat tray under the machine. After an hour or so there is very little dust in the air.'

'That one certainly grabs me. No housework.'

'It was my wife's idea. She was working for a firm that makes ionizers. She's a physicist. She's developing the machine.'

'You can sell me one any time.'

'I'll get her to send you one.'

'Was the Kashmiri lake your wife's idea?'

'We had the idea together. We were in Kashmir three years ago — before all the fighting, that kind of thing. I put it to a hotel group we are interested in, and they liked it.'

'You sound as if you think it is a little frivolous.'

'Perhaps I did, at first. But my ideas about what is frivolous and what isn't seem to have changed.' Here he would have liked to exchange with her a look deeper than words, but she could not afford to let her eyes meet his. Swords seemed to stab into her eyes, which might easily dissolve and flow down her cheeks.

They walked towards a group of trees from where voices and an occasional gunshot emanated. They stood among trees and looked down into a glade. In the middle of this grassy space stood a thick wooden post, which, because of the times we live in, had to make them think of a man or woman with bandaged eyes, waiting to be shot. Rather old- fashioned? Did a post belong to an older and more formal, even more civilized, time? On the post was nailed a homemade target. Some yards away from it, below them but to the left, were Stephen, his three sons, two other boys, and two girls.

Against an oak tree leaned an assortment of guns. The scene was remarkable because of its combination of the casual and even amateur — the home-made target and Stephen's and the children's clothes — and the strict rituals of the shooting.

The children stood in a group a few paces behind a boy who was holding a gun: he had just finished his turn and was taking it back to the little armoury by the tree. They were restraining the two red setters who were excitedly moving about, their tails sweeping the grass. The child whose turn had come to shoot was being led by Stephen to the tree, where a weapon suitable for his age and degree of skill was carefully chosen. Every movement was monitored by Stephen: barrel tilted down, hold it like this, walk like this. When the boy was in place at the point they shot from, Stephen stood just behind him and a little to one side, issuing instructions, though what he said could not be heard from this distance. The boy carefully raised the rifle, aimed, shot. A black hole appeared on the target, slightly off centre of the bull's-eye. 'Well done' was probably said, for the boy joined the group, looking pleased.

Now a girl of about twelve went with Stephen to the tree. She chose a rifle, without guidance, strolled to the right place with Stephen, who was much less careful with her than with the boy, then aimed, then fired. Apparently it was a bull's-eye, for the target didn't change. The children emitted appreciative cries, and Stephen laid his hand briefly on her shoulder. The dogs barked and bounded. She rejoined the group, and another boy, Edward, Stephen's youngest, went to the tree with his father. What he was handed seemed to be an air gun. This time Stephen monitored every little movement: position of the forward hand, set of the left shoulder… of the right shoulder… position of the head… of the feet. Intense concentration. The shot appeared as a black hole on the edge of the white square with its concentric rings. The group was so hard at work no one noticed the two watchers, who moved on.

'I would like to think we took as much trouble teaching our children to shoot. I suppose it shows ignorance, but why do they need to know how to shoot in this green and peaceful land?'

'It's a social skill.'

'And the girls too?'

'One has to remember whom a girl might marry — I'm quoting.'

Benjamin duly smiled.

'You see, there would never have been any need for my daughter to learn to shoot.' As he seemed puzzled: 'We aren't aristocrats.'

'But surely it might come in useful? Didn't you say she lives in California?'

'Not this kind of shooting. Those children will never shoot at anything that isn't pheasant or grouse or deer. If there isn't a war, that is.'

'I have to confess there are times when this country seems an anachronism.'

'When I visit your Kashmiri lake in Oregon I'll remind you of that.'

He laughed. She was so far from laughing she could have fallen and lain weeping on the grass. They finished the tour and then he said he might as well be off. She accompanied him to his car. Guilt caused her to be effusive. She could hear herself making conversation, but she hardly knew what. He said he would be in England again in November. Off he roared in his powerful car. To the airport. Then to California. To the pleasurable work of financing attractive ideas and then watching them become realities. A modern magician.