Benjamin Black - The Silver Swan

But why had her jealousy been stirred by seeing the woman with the silver-haired man? It should have been the opposite; she should have been glad to know that the woman was in love with someone else and not with the Doctor. It was confusing.

She wished she had someone to talk to about all this. She could not mention any of it to Billy-she could just imagine what Billy would say. She had not told him about Dr. Kreutz. He would not understand, and besides, it was her secret.

LESLIE WHITE HAD GIVEN PHOEBE A PHONE NUMBER WHERE SHE could contact him, which he hoped- sincerely , as he said-that she would do, soon. And, to her surprise, she did. She knew she could expect nothing from him but trouble. But perhaps trouble was precisely what she wanted. When he answered the phone and she said her name he seemed not at all surprised. She supposed it had never crossed his mind that she would not call, that any girl would not call him, the silver-haired Leslie White. He was staying in temporary digs, he told her, "due to a contretemps on the domestic front." He said that his wife had thrown him out of the house, for reasons that he did not specify. She liked his frankness. She supposed it was due to the fact of his being English. No Irishman, she knew, would admit so lightly, so gaily, almost, to having been kicked out of the family home by his wife. When she said this to him he pretended to be surprised and fascinated, as if it were some piece of anthropological lore she had imparted. It was one of the tricks he had, to put on a show of astonished interest at the most mundane of observations-"Gosh, that's amazing!"-and even though she knew it was a trick, still it pleased her. She was taken by his boyishness, or his pretense of it. He had a repertoire of exclamations- gosh, crikey, crumbs -that she supposed he had got from Billy Bunter books or the like, for these words and his way of tossing them about so casually were the stuff of public-school life, and Leslie White, she felt sure, had never seen the inside, or possibly even the outside, of such an institution.

He took her for tea to the Grafton Café, above the cinema. They had a table by the window looking down on Grafton Street. It was Saturday and the street was busy with shoppers. After the thunderstorms of the previous day the fine weather had returned, and below them the sun was making inky shadows from the awnings above the shops. Leslie wore a light-brown corduroy suit today, and suede shoes, and sported a silver kerchief in his top pocket to match his silver cravat and, of course, his silver hair. "How he admires himself," she thought with faint amusement, "it's almost lovable, his self-love." She was surprised to be here with him. He was, she very well knew, what the nuns at her convent school used to warn against, a "bad companion," and his company was certainly an "occasion of sin." The truth was, she was not sure why she had called him in the first place. She was not in the habit of phoning up men she barely knew; but then, she was not in the habit of phoning men, known or not, and men did not phone her, at least not the kind of man that Leslie White so obviously was.

She smoked a cigarette and gazed into the street. She could feel him studying her. He asked: "Do you always wear black?"

"I don't know. Do I? It's required at the shop, and I suppose I've got into the habit."

He laughed. "'Habit' is about right."

She raised an eyebrow. "You think I look like a nun?"

"I didn't say that, did I?"

"I haven't much interest in clothes, I'm afraid."

He smiled to himself as at a private joke.

"I hope you don't mind my saying," he said, "but you don't really look or sound like a shopgirl, either."

"Oh? What do I look and sound like?"

"Hmm. Let me think." He put his head on one side and narrowed his eyes and considered her from brow to foot. She suffered his scrutiny with unruffled calm. She was wearing a black skirt and a black sweater and cardigan; her only adornment was a loop of pearls which had been her mother's, that is, Sarah's. She had no doubt that Leslie White would be interested to know-"Golly, I should say so!"-that the pearls were genuine, and quite valuable. He was still looking her up and down and rubbing a hand judiciously back and forth on the side of his chin. "I would guess you were," he said, "a well-brought-up and very proper young lady."

"Can't girls who serve in shops be proper?"

"Not the ones of my acquaintance, darling. Why are you slumming?"

From anyone else this would have been offensive, and she knew he was trying to provoke; but she could not take him seriously enough to be provoked, or offended, by anything he might say. She turned her head and looked him full in the face and in her turn asked: "Why is your wife so angry at you?"

He stared for a second and then laughed. "I'm afraid I did give her cause."

"Was Laura Swan part of the cause?"

He straightened slowly on the chair, uncoiling his long, skinny frame, and she thought he was about to get up and leave. Instead, he cleared his throat and reached for her cigarette case on the table and opened it and helped himself to a cigarette, which he lit with her lighter. He was frowning. She noted how he held the cigarette affectedly between the second and third fingers of his left hand.

"You're quite a girl, aren't you?" he said.

"You mean, quite a shopgirl?"

He flinched in pretend pain, smiling wryly. "Touché."

The waitress was hovering. Leslie asked of Phoebe if she wanted anything more but she said no, and leaned down and delved in her handbag in search of her purse.

"Let me," he said, bringing out his wallet.

"No!" It had come out too sharply, and made him blink. "No," she said again, more gently, "I'd like to, really. I want to."

"Well, thank you."

She passed a coin to the girl and told her she need not bring back the change. They stood up from the table. She was aware of that awkward moment when a decision must be made. If they parted now, she knew she would never see him again, not because she did not want to, not because she was indifferent to him, but in obedience to an unformulated and yet iron-clad convention. She did not look at him but busied herself in putting away her purse. "Would you like," she asked, "to go for a walk with me?"

THEY STROLLED ALONG ST. STEPHEN'S GREEN. THEY CAUGHT THE FRAgrance from the flower beds inside and, from closer by, the sharp, almost animal scent of privet with the sun strong on it. The tiny leaves of bushes thronging behind the railings were of an intense bottle green, and each leaf looked as if it had been individually and lovingly polished. Sometimes the beauty of things, ordinary things-those unseen flowers, this burnished foliage, the honeyed sunlight on the pavement at her feet-pressed in upon her urgently while at the same time the things themselves seemed to hold back, at one remove, as if there were an invisible barrier between her and the world. She could see and smell and touch and hear, but somehow she could hardly feel at all.

Leslie, who must have been brooding on it for some time, said, "Yes, I'm afraid Laura was indeed the trouble, or a largish part of it." He sucked in his breath sharply between his teeth as if he had felt a blast of icy wind. He walked with his hands in his pockets. He had the way of walking of so many tall, thin men, his shoulders drooping back and his pelvis thrust out; she liked this boneless, sinuous gait. "That wasn't her real name, you know," he said, seeming faintly aggrieved and eager to expose a petty piece of fraudulence. "That was just an invention. Deirdre Hunt, she was called."

"Yes."

"Oh-you knew?" She nodded. "Yes, of course," he went on, sounding more aggrieved than ever, "and you knew she was married, too, I remember. To a fellow by the name of Billy. Poor chump."