Henry Green: Loving, Living, Party Going

‘I’m going to get him along.’

‘But have you thought at all? I mean does anyone want him?’ she said.

‘Oh, rather, lots of questions for him, ask Alex.’

‘Is that you, Richard?’ he said, ‘I say, come along and have a drink. Come on,’ and he gave their room number.

‘You aren’t really going to ask him about that letter are you?’ Miss Crevy said to Alex. ‘It may embarrass him terribly, you know.’

‘It may,’ Alex said, ‘but he’d rather we did, I think.’

‘But it’s not something to be proud of, is it? I’d have said he would hate it. Isn’t it rather hitting a man when he’s down?’ and she said this in such a way, stressing the word ‘man’, that made it sound as though everyone kicked, bit, and hit women when they were down.

‘Oh, I agree with you, it is,’ Alex said, ‘but you see he’ll enjoy it, he’d be sorry if we didn’t, but if you like we won’t say anything, we’ll let him start it on his own. He enjoys it you see. I’ll bet you he’ll bring it up himself within five minutes.’

‘Then I think it’s revolting.’

‘Darling,’ Julia said to her, still hoping Max and Amabel would quarrel about him, ‘it’s because like when one is shy about something one simply can’t stop talking about it. And besides he wants everyone he meets to tell him it’s all right.’

‘Well,’ Max said to Amabel, as though she had been speaking for Angela Crevy, ‘here he is now, we’ll see,’ and at that he came in.

Mr Richard Cumberland was not unlike Alex and when he spoke his manner was much the same. He said, ‘Why, hullo, my old dears,’ and shook hands all round. If he could he took each hand in one of his, if only one was offered, then he took hold with both hands. He did not shake, he pressed as though to make secrets he would never keep, as though to embrace each private thought you had and to let you know he shared it with you and would share it again with anyone he met. As against this, when he spoke it was never to less than three people. It may have been tact, or that he was circumspect, but he paid no attention to Amabel.

‘You’ve all heard about my little bit of trouble,’ he said, ‘well the town’s too hot to hold me now. You know I put that thing in all the papers about my not being able to come to something or other, well they all made such a fuss you’d never believe so I thought it was time for little Richard to say good-bye for now and here I am.’

‘What a pity,’ Alex said, ‘what a pity.’

‘You don’t sound very glad all of you to see me.’

‘My dear, I couldn’t be more pleased in every way, you must know that, only we had such arguments about who did send that announcement to the papers and I said all through it had been you so…’

‘Oh no Alex, excuse me you never did,’ Miss Crevy said, ‘just the opposite really, you know. You always said someone else had sent it.’

‘There you are,’ Alex said to him, ‘it’s been like this the whole time and there you’ve been not three minutes away, my dear, and we never know.’

‘I say, Richard,’ said Max, ‘where are you aiming for?’

‘Why?’ he said, smiling round at all of them.

‘Why don’t you come with us?’

‘D’you all really mean it?’ he said, ‘well, yes, I might.’

‘That’s fixed then,’ said Max and fixed it was.

So for anything in the world, it seemed to Julia, it was most like that afternoon when Miss Fellowes had said let’s take the child to a matinee, when she had never yet gone to the theatre, it was so wonderful to see Max planning as he must be doing, to keep Amabel occupied with someone for herself. So like when you were small and they brought children over to play with you and you wanted to play on your own then someone, as they hardly ever did, came along and took them off so you could do what you wanted. And as she hoped this party would be, if she could get a hold of Max, it would be as though she could take him back into her life from where it had started and show it to him for them to share in a much more exciting thing of their own, artichokes, pigeons and all, she thought and laughed aloud.

‘But weren’t you going anywhere?’ Amabel said to Richard, only she looked at Max.

‘I can go where I was going afterwards,’ he said to all of them and smiled.

London,

1931–1938