William Maugham - Theatre

‘The bloody fool. Fancy me being taken in like that. Thank God, I got out of it all right. He’s such an ass, I don’t suppose he began to see what I was getting at.’ But that frozen smile disconcerted her. ‘He may have suspected, he couldn’t have been certain, and afterwards he must have been pretty sure he’d made a mistake. My God, the rot I talked. It seemed to go down all right, I must say. Lucky I caught on when I did. In another minute I’d have had me dress off. That wouldn’t have been so damned easy to laugh away.’

Julia began to titter. The situation was mortifying of course, he had made a damned fool of her, but if you had any sense of humour you could hardly help seeing that there was a funny side to it. She was sorry that there was nobody to whom she could tell it; even if it was against herself it would make a good story. What she couldn’t get over was that she had fallen for the comedy of undying passion that he had played all those years; for of course it was just a pose; he liked to see himself as the constant adorer, and the last thing he wanted, apparently, was to have his constancy rewarded.

‘Bluffed me, he did, completely bluffed me.’

But an idea occurred to Julia and she ceased to smile. When a woman’s amorous advances are declined by a man she is apt to draw one of two conclusions; one is that he is homosexual and the other is that he is impotent. Julia reflectively lit a cigarette. She asked herself if Charles had used his devotion to her as a cover to distract attention from his real inclinations. But she shook her head. If he had been homosexual she would surely have had some hint of it; after all, in society since the war they talked of practically nothing else. Of course it was quite possible he was impotent. She reckoned out his age. Poor Charles. She smiled again. And if that were the case it was he, not she, who had been placed in an embarrassing and even ridiculous position. He must have been scared stiff, poor lamb. Obviously it wasn’t the sort of thing a man liked to tell a woman, especially if he were madly in love with her; the more she thought of it the more probable she considered the explanation. She began to feel very sorry for him, almost maternal in fact.

‘I know what I’ll do,’ she said, as she began to undress, ‘I’ll send him a huge bunch of white lilies tomorrow.’

JULIA lay awake next morning for some time before she rang her bell. She thought. When she reflected on her adventure of the previous night she could not but be pleased that she had shown so much presence of mind. It was hardly true to say that she had snatched victory from defeat, but looking upon it as a strategic retreat her conduct had been masterly. She was notwithstanding ill at ease. There might be yet another explanation for Charles’s singular behaviour. It was possible that he did not desire her because she was not desirable. The notion had crossed her mind in the night, and though she had at once dismissed it as highly improbable, there was no denying it, at that hour of the morning it had a nasty look. She rang. As a rule, since Michael often came in while Julia had breakfast, Evie when she had drawn the curtains handed her a mirror and a comb, her powder and lipstick. On this occasion, instead of running the comb rapidly through her hair and giving her face a perfunctory dab with the puff, Julia took some trouble. She painted her lips with care and put on some rouge; she arranged her hair.

‘Speaking without passion or prejudice,’ she said, still looking at herself in the glass, when Evie placed the breakfast tray on her bed, ‘would you say I was by way of being a good-looking woman, Evie?’

‘I must know what I’m letting myself in for before answering that question.’

‘You old bitch,’ said Julia.

‘You’re no beauty, you know.’

‘No great actress ever has been.’

‘When you’re all dolled up posh like you was last night, and got the light be’ind you, I’ve seen worse, you know.’

(‘Fat lot of good it did me last night.’) ‘What I want to say is, if I really set my mind on getting off with a man, d’you think I could?’

‘Knowing what men are, I wouldn’t be surprised. Who d’you want to get off with now?’

‘Nobody. I was only talking generally.’

Evie sniffed and drew her forefinger along her nostrils.

‘Don’t sniff like that. If your nose wants blowing, blow it.’

Julia ate her boiled egg slowly. She was busy with her thoughts. She looked at Evie. Funny-looking old thing of course, but one never knew.

‘Tell me, Evie, do men ever try to pick you up in the street?’

‘Me? I’d like to see ’em try.’

‘So would I, to tell you the truth. Women are always telling me how men follow them in the street and if they stop and look in at a shop window come up and try to catch their eye. Sometimes they have an awful bother getting rid of them.’

‘Disgusting, I call it.’

‘I don’t know about that. It’s rather flattering. You know, it’s a most extraordinary thing, no one ever follows me in the street. I don’t remember a man ever having tried to pick me up.’

‘Oh well, you walk along Edgware Road one evening. You’ll get picked up all right.’

‘I shouldn’t know what to do if I was.’

‘Call a policeman,’ said Evie grimly.

‘I know a girl who was looking in a shop window in Bond Street, a hat shop, and a man came up and asked her if she’d like a hat. I’d love one, she said, and they went in and she chose one and gave her name and address, he paid for it on the nail, and then she said, thank you so much, and walked out while he was waiting for the change.’

‘That’s what she told you.’ Evie’s sniff was sceptical. She gave Julia a puzzled look. ‘What’s the idea?’

‘Oh, nothing. I was only wondering why in point of fact I never have been accosted by a man. It’s not as if I had no sex appeal.’

But had she? She made up her mind to put the matter to the test.

That afternoon, when she had had her sleep, she got up, made up a little more than usual, and without calling Evie put on a dress that was neither plain nor obviously expensive and a red straw hat with a wide brim.

‘I don’t want to look like a tart,’ she said as she looked at herself in the glass. ‘On the other hand I don’t want to look too respectable.’

She tiptoed down the stairs so that no one should hear her and closed the door softly behind her. She was a trifle nervous, but pleasantly excited; she felt that she was doing something rather shocking. She walked through Connaught Square into the Edgware Road. It was about five o’clock. There was a dense line of buses, taxis and lorries; bicyclists dangerously threaded their way through the traffic. The pavements were thronged. She sauntered slowly north. At first she walked with her eyes straight in front of her, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but soon realized that this was useless. She must look at people if she wanted them to look at her. Two or three times when she saw half a dozen persons gazing at a shop window she paused and gazed too, but none of them took any notice of her. She strolled on. People passed her in one direction and another. They seemed in a hurry. No one paid any attention to her. When she saw a man alone coming towards her she gave him a bold stare, but he passed on with a blank face. It occurred to her that her expression was too severe, and she let a slight smile hover on her lips. Two or three men thought she was smiling at them and quickly averted their gaze. She looked back as one of them passed her and he looked back too, but catching her eye he hurried on. She felt a trifle snubbed and decided not to look round again. She walked on and on. She had always heard that the London crowd was the best behaved in the world, but really its behaviour on this occasion was unconscionable.