Fuel for the Flame Page 16

  ‘One day I’ll take my revenge upon some man for all I went through then,’ she said. ‘I’ll be exigent, tyrannical, capricious: I’ll exert my power to the limit; I’ll exult in it, I’ll enjoy his suffering. I’ll …’ she paused. She smiled. ‘How different we are, you and I. You’re sweet and gentle. You’ll be kind to men and men’ll use you. We always get our opposites, don’t they say? You’ll get some man with hatred in his heart, who’ll feel life’s cheated him and take it out on you. I talk all the time. You don’t say anything. Will there be anybody there tonight you care a damn about? Have you met no one yet?’

  ‘I haven’t had much time.’

  ‘Things happen quickly in the Orient, and you’re not caged as I am. I have to be, oh, so very circumspect. If I were to go to a hot spot it would be in the Guardian next morning. I can’t see anyone who’s not on the Residency calling list. Think how that limits me, and all the people that I must be gracious to, those dark-skinned men. I hate them all, don’t you?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t.’

  ‘You haven’t been here long enough. You will.’

  ‘They seem to me like anybody else, inside themselves.’

  ‘Are they? Maybe they are. But there’s the outside, and the smell, don’t you hate their smell?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed it.’

  ‘Shelagh, how can you say that? Haven’t you danced with them?’

  ‘I thought they danced very well, much better than our men do, more rhythm, more alive.’

  ‘You’re hopeless.’

  She said it with a laugh, a very friendly laugh. Shelagh had never met anyone like her, anyone so intolerant, so argumentative, so prejudiced, yet with no one had she ever felt so at ease. Lila’s intolerance, her readiness to look for and find the weak point in everyone, endeared her to Shelagh, making her feel that she was specially privileged, selected out of all the world. It was no tribute to be admired by someone who liked everyone. She had never felt so liked before; had never felt it was so worth while to be herself. If she wasn’t the way she was, Lila would be finding fault with her, spotting the Achilles heel, as she did with nearly everyone.

  ‘The Chinese don’t like the way we smell,’ Shelagh said.

  ‘I’m not surprised, they’re an older race. They understand food. You never feel ill after a Chinese banquet. I wouldn’t mind having a Chinese fall in love with me.’

  ‘I’m told they are wonderful.’

  ‘You find out and tell me. It’s as much as my life’s worth to make experiments of that kind.’

  ‘I’ll look for one tonight,’ said Shelagh.

  She lay back on the long chair, her hands clasped under her head, looking at the ceiling. ‘What about the A.D.C.?’ she asked.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Doesn’t he attract you?’

  ‘Heavens, no.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘What’s right with him? He’s not a person. He’s everything he ought to be. Typical of the right public school: the right clothes, the right accent, the right manners, the right interests, the right friends. If there was only one thing that wasn’t right about him! Surely you felt that, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve hardly met him.’

  ‘How many times have you met him?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Exactly. That proves what I said. He makes no impression. Twice, and you’ve hardly met him. With a real man … why, heavens, you know him before you’ve even met him, by the way he’s looked at you across a room. You talk to our young man this evening. You see if I’m not right.’

  Shelagh did not answer. She was looking at the ceiling, wondering what the evening held, whether she would meet tonight the man who would change her life for her. ‘I suppose that men are just like us,’ she said. ‘That all over Kuala Prang at his moment there are bachelors wondering if they’ll meet the dream of their lives tonight.’

  2

  A mile away Aunt Ladda was instructing Annetta as to her comportment.

  ‘You will stand between Mrs. Studholme and myself. I shall be on your right. The guests will be announced by the A.D.C. If the guest is a European or an American, you will shake his or her hand. If a Karaki, you will give the traditional welcome, your hands raised together before your face. You will bend slightly forward. My nephew will be the last arrival. Guests have been invited for nine o’clock. Prince Rhya will arrive at half past nine. The national anthem will be played as he comes up the stairs. When you are presented to him, you will bend forward sufficiently low for your head to be below the level of his head. When the presentations are complete, the ball will open. You will dance the first dance with Mr. Studholme. When the dance is finished, he will bring you to where I am sitting and will talk to you till the music for the second dance begins. My nephew will dance the second dance with you.

  ‘We shall remain together, you and I, throughout the evening. The various gentlemen who will ask you to dance with them, will present themselves first to me. That will prevent the possibility of any awkward occurrences. Someone who is not entitled to dance with you might introduce himself.’

  ‘But suppose there was someone I should like to dance with whom you don’t know.’

  ‘That could not happen. I have examined our list of guests. I know personally or by sight everyone whom it is possible for you to know.’

  ‘But suppose …’ Annetta checked. There was no point in raising difficulties on grounds of principle. As a fiancée she must behave as a Karaki would. Once she was married, she would be free. She had not so very long to wait.

  ’ Your partner after each dance will bring you back to me,’ Aunt Ladda continued. ‘If one of them should invite you to the buffet, you are to refuse. If you are thirsty, he can fetch you a glass of lime juice and bring it to you where you are sitting with me. We shall take supper with the Studholmes and with my nephew. At supper champagne will be served. Except at supper you should not drink anything but lime juice. At the end of the evening, we shall leave directly after my nephew.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said.

  3

  Muriel Studholme turned to Annetta with a smile. ‘Are you feeling nervous?’ She shook her head.

  ‘It’s funny, but that’s one of the things I never am.’

  She was too excited to be nervous. The experience was too novel. Standing at the head of a broad stairway between the wife of Queen Elizabeth’s representative and the sister of the King of Karak she would watch one by one the strangers, who would one day be her husband’s subjects, during the next half-hour. They were now no more than names and faces, but within a few months they would have become personalities, men whom she would trust or distrust, regarding as her foes or friends. These were to be her courtiers; they and the women at their sides.

  ‘Does this remind you of your coming-out?’ Mrs. Studholme asked her.

  ‘I never had a coming-out.’

  ‘You weren’t presented?’

  ‘Heavens, no. I don’t come from that kind of world.’ She said it with a complete absence of self-consciousness. She did not feel that not having had a London season, not having ‘made her bob’ to royalty was anything to be ashamed of. She had not been born into that kind of world and that was all there was to it. Which was, Muriel Studholme reflected, one of the things about England that foreigners failed to recognize. The English were class-conscious because class and caste existed in England, and because they existed the English could accept them without embarrassment. They had never believed men were born equal and in the liturgy of their established church had prayed for succour ‘in that state of life into which it had pleased God to call them’. A girl like Annetta Marsh would very likely make far fewer mistakes on being transported to the grandeur of a throne than an ex-débutante who had had a foot in each world and was not quite sure where she belonged.

  ‘Here comes the first relay,’ she said.

  The music for the second dance began, Kenneth Stud
holme rose and bowed. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said.

  Prince Rhya came across the floor. Annetta rose to greet him. She remembered the first time that they had danced. During that dance she had recognized that he would become her lover. This dance would bring them back to one another.

  As always when she was dancing with a man much shorter than herself, she turned toward Rhya sideways, with her right arm hanging at her side, but he stretched across and took her right hand in his, turning her so that she was facing him.

  It did not seem right at all. She felt ridiculous, staring over his head at the other dancers. I must look like a giraffe, she thought. Their steps did not fit. Why was he dancing in this way when they had always before danced her way? They had always danced so well together. Did he feel that that other way of dancing was too casual here in Karak? Her spirits sank. It was the first time that she had been in his arms since she arrived. There was no electricity. Was this failure on the dance floor a warning of what would happen to them now that they had altered their relationship, now that they were on an official basis towards each other? If they could not as dancers get back to their old intimacy, what was going to happen to them as lovers?

  She started to make conversation.

  ‘It’s strange to think that tomorrow you’ll be in that monastery.’

  4

  Angus Macartney looked slowly round him. He had booked the dance with Lila Hare. He did not see her anywhere. He hesitated. He would like to sit out this dance in the buffet with a glass of whisky, but he could not be impolite to the Chief’s stepdaughter. He strolled through the series of small drawing-rooms. She was not there. He went out on to the terrace. Not there either. He had every excuse for going to the buffet. Again he hesitated. He wondered if she was trying to cut his dance. She had looked singularly ungracious when he had asked her. His pride was roused. She couldn’t get away with this. If she had hidden in the powder-room, he’d wait outside till she appeared.

  He had to wait several minutes. From the look on her face, when she saw him standing there, he guessed that he had been right and that she had meant to cut his dance. Cheek, he thought, confounded cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘A strap came undone.’

  He smiled wryly. A strap indeed. That old excuse. He said nothing. He put his hand under her elbow and led her to the ballroom.

  She closed her eyes. She did not want to look at him. She had dreaded this moment all the evening, had dreaded it before the evening started. She knew he would ask her for a dance. She knew she could not refuse. She had to remember her position. Perhaps if she did not look at him. …

  It was a slow foxtrot; the rhythm beat wooingly along her nerves. He moved with a supple grace. He did not hold her close, but from the pressure of his hand upon her shoulder she was conscious of his taut, lean movements. Anger and resentment were in his heart, and there was anger and resentment in his dancing. So she had thought she would cut her dance with him? He would show her that he was not a type to be trifled with. His steps were not elaborate, but they were varied, alternating short steps with strides, fast steps with slow. He danced to subjugate her so that she could have no will of her own, so that she would be docile and responsive, obedient to his caprices. He did not speak, he concentrated upon his dancing and the slim rounded body in his arms, dominating, subduing it, yet at the same time making it vibrant with the music’s rhythm.

  No one had ever danced with her like this before. Middle-aged married men had pressed her close against them when their wives weren’t looking. Young men had made a kind of love to her while they danced. At times she had responded to their courtship, feeling a premonition of the excitement she would know one day. Young men had whispered in her ear, their cheeks close against hers, but never had she known anything like this lean fierce dominance of her will and movements, so that she felt simultaneously a slave and a princess. Though she was dominated by this dancing, she had inspired it. She was a victim, yet triumphant. She had never felt weaker, she had never felt more powerful. She had no will of her own, yet she had never been more conscious of herself. Never had she felt more alive.

  The music stopped. She could not speak, he did not speak. His hand under her elbow, he led her out on to the terrace and across the grass. She made no effort to resist. She could not have resisted. At the same time she had the exultant sensation of walking on her own volition to meet adventure. He stopped in the shadow of a banyan tree, out of sight of the house. There was no moon but the sky was cloudless, lit with innumerable stars. The air was rich with the white sweet-scented ‘flower of the night’. He put his hand under her chin and raised her face to his. She had the sensation of every bone in her body being turned to water.

  Supper was over. Annetta and Shelagh went together to the powder-room. Shelagh had been sitting across the table and Annetta had not had a chance of speaking to her. It was the first time they had met since their plane had grounded.

  ‘Let’s dawdle a minute or two,’ Annetta said. ‘There’s so much I want to ask you.’

  As she listened to Shelagh’s recital of her doings during the last two weeks, Annetta felt a twinge of envy. It was good to be without responsibilities.

  ‘I must come out to see you soon,’ she said. ‘I want to get to know your stepmother. She looks charming, and I want to see what an oil camp’s like. I could use a little freedom too. While I’m in Kuala Prang I’m watched every second. But Kassaya would be like a foreign country. I could be myself there.’

  That was going to be her problem in the future: how to be herself in a world of strangers.

  5

  Shelagh stood in the doorway, looking round her. Everyone seemed to have a partner. She turned to the small drawing-room annex. The A.D.C. was seated beside Barbara. There was a rapt expression on his face, the kind of expression that she had seen in films, but never in real life. It could only mean one thing. He was in love. She stared, fascinated. So that was why Lila found him dull, because he was in love: because he was giving so much of himself to one person that he had nothing left over for acquaintances. He was talking intently, rapidly. She wished she could hear what he was saying, she wished she could see Barbara’s face so that she could guess at what effect this flood of words was having. She forgot that Barbara was her stepmother. She saw her as a character in a play, a woman with whom a man was in love. Did her face wear a look that bore any relation to that on Gerald’s? She had not thought of Gerald as being particularly good-looking. Lila had dismissed him as a type. But now he was transfigured. He looked radiant. One day a man will look at me like that, she thought. A man who has seemed ordinary, like everybody else, will suddenly become a god, because of me. She watched, in a trance. Gerald was still talking fast. Barbara could not have said a word. What was he saying? Then suddenly, the spell was broken. A man came from behind Gerald, stood before Barbara, bowed, claiming her for the dance. As she rose, Gerald blinked, as though he were coming out of a dream, as in fact he was. Barbara and the other man moved away, and Gerald remained standing there. The light had left his face. Pity for him touched her heart. He couldn’t dance, because of his wound. It was his fate to stand aside: to make way for other men. Poor dear, she thought, and walked across to him.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit this out with you?’ she said. ‘No, I don’t want anything to drink, only to rest and talk.’

  She looked at him with a new awareness. Before, when they had been together, she had made conventional conversation about personalities, about local interests. But now, moved by what she had seen, by the revelation of what he really was, she broke through the barrier.

  ‘You must feel resentful against Cyprus on a night like this,’ she said.

  He looked surprised, then smiled. ‘You can’t expect me to be grateful, can you?’

  ‘Everyone says how terrible it is, your not being able to play cricket, and I’m sure it is, but not being able to dance seems even worse. It would be for me, but then it would be different for me, being a g
irl. Which is the worse?’

  She was talking fast, the words tumbling over one another. She looked up at him eagerly, expectantly, anxious to know what he was really like, to share his confidence.

  He laughed. ‘I tell you what is really worst, though it’s not easy to find words for it, it’s … well … I never know how people are expecting me to take it. They want to say something and they don’t know what to say because they don’t know how I feel. They are awkward with me and that makes me awkward with them. I always know that the moment I go out of a room, people are going to start discussing me.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve felt that too?’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘Yes. After that car smash—you heard about it, didn’t you?’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘You don’t need my telling how terrible that was. I dream about it still. It’s something I’ll never get out of my mind altogether. The scar will stay, but the worst thing … oh, I could say to myself, “This awful thing has happened. But if you brood over it you’ll go mad.” I could have coped with that. But having everybody fussing, wanting to talk, yet not knowing what to say: making me feel self-conscious. It’s just the way you said. Knowing the moment the door closes after you they’ll start discussing you.’