Роберт Эйкман - The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

Lotus wore a black shirt buttoned to the neck, and a white linen coat and skirt, expensive, fashionable, and likely to remain clean for one day only, or for less. Alone among the women she wore silk stockings, and her shoes had the air of being specially made for her. By daylight, Griselda thought her lovelier than ever. Standing in the doorway with the dark passage behind her, she surveyed the party with her bright green eyes, looking through Barney, and over Peggy, until she saw Kynaston slightly concealed behind Guillaume.

‘Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘let us lead the way together.’

She looked like ‘Harper’s Bazaar’, but she walked like Boadicea. In fact, she could probably outwalk all of them, except Griselda, and (if the walk were far enough off the map) Peggy Potter.

On the Number Seven bus, Lotus sat with Kynaston in an empty front seat; Peggy with Barney; Monica with Guillaume; Griselda with Florence; and Lena by herself, peeling a large pear with a larger clasp knife, which had been dangling from her belt. There was no seat for Freddy, who volunteered to stand inside; where, the others being all outside, he paid all the fares. Monica and Guillaume travelled in silence. At the bus stop Monica had brought her knitting from the discoloured circular reticule in which it travelled, and had resumed work, hardly ceasing even in order to climb the stairs of the vehicle. She was producing a small tightly knitted object, the colour of a brown-green lizard, more brown than green. Guillaume seemed lost in sad thoughts.

‘He suffers a great deal,’ said Florence to Griselda, regarding with apparent fondness the blotchy back of his scalp. Her voice was sweet and quiet.

‘Why?’ asked Griselda.

Lena stopped peeling for a moment and cocked a faun-like ear.

‘He is a disappointed man.’

Lena resumed peeling.

‘Why?’

‘He is disappointed in the world. He is disappointed in himself.’

‘Can nothing be done?’

‘I do what I can. But I sometimes think he’s disappointed in me.’

‘That’s absurd. I mean I’m sure he isn’t.’

‘I am too small a thing really to enter into him.’

‘How long have you been together?’

Lena had finished peeling and begun eating, cutting the soft ripe flesh into precise sectors.

‘Twelve years. Since I was nineteen. He has been my life.’

‘I know how you feel.’

Lena glanced at Griselda sharply. Florence gazed at her for a moment, then said: ‘These picnics! Why do we go on them?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Griselda. ‘It’s my first.’

‘I wonder how many of us really enjoy them . . . I mean really. You know what I mean by enjoyment?’ She looked solemn, and a little timorous.

‘Yes,’ said Griselda. ‘I know what you mean by enjoyment.’

In the front seat, Lotus, early in the day though it was, laid her beautiful golden-red head gently on Kynaston’s shoulder; who squirmed slightly, then appeared to resign himself. The bus had only reached Holborn Viaduct. Barney and Peggy were talking about tactile values. Lena shut her big shining knife with a loud snap, and reattached the weapon to her person.

On the train they were unable to find a compartment to themselves and they had to pack in with a couple travelling from one side of London to the other, in order to spend the day with a married daughter. Even without Freddy, who was queueing for tickets, it was very congested on such a hot day. Monica’s knitting needles became entangled from time to time in the male stranger’s watch-chain.

‘Yuman personality,’ said the male stranger to the female stranger. ‘It’s sacred. You can’t get past that.’

‘We’re all as we’re made,’ said the female stranger.

‘No system of Government will change yuman personality.’

‘Either way it’s the same.’

‘Yuman personality is sacred.’

‘It bloody well isn’t,’ interjected Barney. ‘You try being a nigger in the deep south.’

‘Kindly refrain from using foul language in the presence of my wife,’ said the male stranger.

‘Behave yourself, Barney,’ said Lotus. ‘Or you can go home.’

‘No offence,’ said the male stranger. ‘Not really.’

‘ I am offended,’ said Lotus.

‘I should think so too,’ said the female stranger. ‘Dirty Yid!’

Barney, so easy and self-possessed before Lotus had joined them, flushed slightly, but said nothing. Peggy threw Griselda a glance of unsatisfactory anticipations fulfilled.

Freddy only managed to race up the torrid platform and hurl himself amongst them just as the train started. There seemed nowhere for him to sit but the floor; with which, however, he professed himself quite content.

The embarrassment, discomfort, and tension were little relieved by Lena producing a thin pocket book from one of the breast pockets of her shirt and commencing to make some small drawings.

‘Anti-semitism is so unnecessary, don’t you think?’ said Florence quietly to Griselda, as the train puffed up the incline to Bethnal Green. ‘I know it’s one of the things he feels particularly. Though he doesn’t say so, I know it.’

‘Is he a Jew?’

‘Oh no. He feels with all who suffer. The people everywhere.’

‘Look at that,’ said the male stranger, savagely indicating Bethnal Green. ‘Shocking.’ He glowered accusation at the misjudged Barney.

‘What does Lotus live on?’ asked Griselda in an undertone.

‘She’s an heiress.’

‘Then what’s she doing in Juvenal Court? I’m sure you know what I mean.

‘She likes living with artists. Also she’s in love with Geoffrey and he’s not in love with her. It’s her way of ever seeing him.’

‘Are you sure Geoffrey’s not in love with her?’ It was difficult to believe that any man could resist Lotus’s beauty, passion, imperiousness, and riches. Moreover, she was holding Geoffrey’s hand at that very moment.

‘Quite sure. You can tell because he refuses to let her keep him. That’s a sure sign with Geoffrey. Though he’s weak of course, he refuses to be kept by anyone he’s not in love with.’

‘Have you known Geoffrey for long?’

‘He lived in Juvenal Court for two years; when he was teaching the recorder you know.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Everyone likes Geoffrey. He’s weak, but sweet.’

‘Like that nauseating tea,’ said Lena quietly.

‘Florence,’ said Guillaume across the compartment. ‘Look at the sunlight on the windows of that gasworks.’

‘Yes, darling. Beautiful.’

‘If only it could be made as sunny and glittering within.’ He seemed more troubled than ever.

‘People like you and me don’t know how the factory workers live,’ observed the male stranger, disentagling Monica’s wool from the lower part of his braces.

‘What the hell’s the good of going somewhere as lovely as Epping Forest,’ soliloquized Lena in her clear voice, ‘without a man to ravish one?’

After that the strangers fell silent until the next station, at which they alighted.

At Chingford, under Kynaston’s direction, they struck up the road to the Royal Forest Hotel, then descended to Connaught Water. Kynaston and Lotus still walked ahead, their easy efficient movements a pleasure to watch. Had she not known them, Griselda might have taken them for gods descended to Essex earth. The rest of them advanced en masse, two of the number knowing the others hardly at all, the rest knowing them perhaps too well. Peggy was conserving her energy, as if a range of mountains would have to be crossed before nightfall. Lena slouched with her hands in her pockets; but her slouch was somehow electric.

‘Do you see how the water catches the reflection of the willows?’ said Guillaume to Florence.