John Davis - A Woman Involved

‘Oh, yes … Well, thank you, Mr Morgan, they’re lovely roses and I’m very flattered,’ she had replied, ‘but as it happens I am engaged to be married.’

This was terrible news. ‘ Married? When?’

‘At the end of this term, Mr Morgan.’

‘This is very depressing news, Miss Valentine. But where is this painfully fortunate man?’

‘In Grenada. That’s a small island in the Caribbean, you mightn’t have heard of it.’

Relief. ‘Certainly. A spice island. You grow nutmeg.’

‘Correct! Most people think it’s a city in Spain.’

‘So did I, but when I heard you speak at the Debating Society last night, I made enquiries about you, then looked up Grenada in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so I would impress you over dinner. I know all about Grenada, Gross National Product, per capita income, birth rate, electricity problems, the works.’

She smiled. ‘I am impressed, Mr Morgan. But I’m afraid dinner together wouldn’t be appropriate, because I’m getting married in three months’ time.’

‘On the contrary, all the more urgency about this dinner, Miss Valentine. Because I’m going back to sea in three months’ time and I think it highly important that we have the opportunity to consider each other before then, because it’s a crystal-clear case of love at first sight, Miss Valentine. I’ve never resorted to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a florist in the same context before …’

And, oh, why, why had they not done it? Why, after three glorious months of love and laughter and absolute happiness, that made them want to dance in the streets, that made the whole world seem a bowl of cherries and terribly amusing, happiness that made the whole world laugh with them, and envy them, happiness that gave them daydreams in the middle of lectures, that gave them the giggles every night as he smuggled her up to his digs past his landlady (House Rules: No Visitors of Opposite Gender, No Drink, No Cooking for Visitors, No Curries, No Music, No Pets, No Confabulations, By Order, Mrs Garvey), happiness that made them make love all night when they should have been cramming for final examinations, the happiness of talking talking talking about everything under the sun, and the rapture, rapture, of each other’s bodies – oh why, at the end of those three glorious months, when the examinations had somehow been written and passed (though not with the flying colours expected of both of them), why had they not just walked into the nearest registry office and married and lived joyously ever after? – Oh how different the world would have been.

But, they had not. Because she was a Catholic and she wanted a proper church wedding, with her family around her. So they had flown back to Grenada for their last few days together, to introduce him to her parents and tell them that their darling daughter was going to live in darkest England for the rest of her life. They were going to be married on his next leave, four months hence. Then he had gone back to sea in his goddam submarine.

He had never seen her again.

It was that shark story that had finally made up his mind to go back to Grenada, after five long years. Janet Nicols had looked him up on her last visit to England, and the tale had come out.

So now here he sat in a dark aeroplane, staring out of the window at the moonlight, at long last doing what he had so often dreamt of doing, flying across the Atlantic to try to see the woman he had once loved so madly. He had no idea what was going to happen. He had not told anybody he was coming, not even Janet Nicols. He did not know if he would set eyes on Anna, even from a distance. Maybe she would refuse to see him. And now that he was actually doing it at last, fulfilling his dream, he was not even sure what he wanted to happen. Did he really still love her so madly? Or was she just a dream? And if so, was it not best that he just keep her as that, his lovely dream-girl? When you’re lying in your lonely bunk in your submarine, or sitting in your lonely farmhouse drinking whisky in front of the fire, home is the sailor home from the sea but the home is empty, it is easy to be sure that you still love her with all your heart, you are even glad to be sad, thinking of what might have been – but now that he had finally made up his mind to go, he was not so sure. It was unreal. He was very excited, but wasn’t all this foolishness? What the hell are you doing? he asked himself many times that long night – why are you flying halfway round the world just for the chance of seeing, of only glimpsing maybe, the woman who once loved you and left you and married another man? What right have you got to try to interfere with her marriage now? What makes you think you’ve got a chance? The shark story? Because Janet Nicols cautiously admitted, under cross-examination, that Anna’s marriage to Max had not been going well? But had Janet said that Anna ever spoke of him? No. Indeed, Janet had said that Anna would never leave Max because she was a devout Catholic, marriage is for better or worse … What makes you think she’ll even want to see you? So, what foolishness is this? – and now that you are actually on this aeroplane at last, are you even sure you really still love her? Don’t you really prefer to be free to be glad to be sad? … Don’t you even resent her, for breaking your heart? …

Many times in that long, unreal night it was like that. But then, a little later, it was different again. Because you had another dream about her, he said. Because she came to you again, and she was beautiful and smiling, and you felt her whole loveliness pressed against you again, and you smelt her scent and you looked into her lovely eyes and oh God yes you still loved her, and oh yes she still loved you, and when you woke up your heart was breaking and you desperately tried to go back to sleep, to be with her again. And for days afterwards you could not stop thinking about her, and there was such yearning …

And then the sun came up, glorious and red and gold, and the Caribbean was born below him, the turquoise waters, and the reefs, and the white beaches, and the palms, and he glimpsed again the golden girl; this was her part of the world, where she lived, he glimpsed her hair swirling across her laughing face as she ran across the white sands into his arms, he felt her warm-cool body against him, and he knew that he did still love her, that she was in his blood. He was very excited when the plane began its descent and the island of Grenada came up out of the sea, mauve and brooding in the sun, the blue sea fading to turquoise around it; and his heart was beating deliciously, and he knew he still loved her.

There had been a revolution here since his last visit, a coup by the New Jewel Movement; there were some tattered posters proclaiming its glory and he saw Cuban soldiers around Pearls airfield, but otherwise it was just like he remembered: the sun shining big and bright, the sky so blue; everything so green, the air fragrant with spices: it was a beautiful day to be doing the wonderful thing he had yearned to do for so long. He was grinning inside with excitement as he strode into the hot airport building, he wanted to smile at everybody, and he loved every black face. He rented a car. It seemed he remembered everything, and he loved every mile of the road into town. This was her island in the sun … He was grinning when he turned his car into the gates of the Victoria Hotel.

It was somewhat run-down, and he did not remember it like that, but he did not care. He checked in, carried his bag to his room. It was unreal, and beautifully real. The gardens out there beyond his balcony, the bar, palms, the beach beyond, the sparkling sea. Her sea. He showered, and shaved carefully. He looked at his face in the mirror. How much change would she see? There were no grey hairs yet – and most of his colleagues had plenty of those. He brushed his teeth thoroughly. Then he did not know what to do with himself.