appeared. She was wearing a very soft, simple dinner dress in
cream-coloured silk crepe-de-chine. Its over-skirt, falling a
little below the knee, was split in front and decorated with
bands of drawn threadwork. The elbow-length sleeves were
lace-fringed and the bodice buttoned down to a gold-clasped
belt. Her plain, high-heeled shoes were ivory kid and her
only jewellery was a pair of pendant earrings in the form of
tiny, articulated, gold fishes - which I guessed to be Indian and
her pearl engagement ring. Apart from the ring, I had
never seen any of this before, and for a few seconds, as she
walked down the length of the bar, I simply stared at her,
with no outward sign of recognition, so that Mr Steinberg
was unprepared as she came up to us, smiling, touched the
back of my hand with one finger and murmured, 'Wach auf,
mein Lieber.' Thereupon she closed her eyes and shook her
head in a little pantomime of sudden awakening, while the
fishes, dancing, seemed to scatter a scent of jasmine about
her.
'Well, well,' said Mr Steinberg, shaking her hand as he was
introduced. 'Well, well; that's a lovely gown you're wearing.'
'How nice of you!' answered Kathe. 'It's fancy dress,
actually. I'm supposed to be a fly in the milk.'
'Let's settle for a blackbird in the snow,' said Mr Steinberg.
Over dinner at the Hyde Park Hotel her style, though there
was nothing in the least false or insincere about it, became
subtly modified, yet so naturally that no one - least of all I
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- could have felt it to be in any way assumed. Nor was it.
Rather, she had simply pulled out another stop; or (one
might say), appreciating a certain alteration in the light,
had changed the lens through which she observed her cornpany.
Gently, and feeling her way, she teased Mr Steinberg
and led him on to tease her. She drew him into talk about
Philadelphia, about his visits to Europe and about his ceramic
collection. Once, in replying to him at some little length,
she leant forward and, unconsciously as it seemed, laid a
hand for emphasis on his wrist, withdrawing it a second or
two later with a tiny hint of embarrassment in her manner,
like one recollecting herself after being carried away by the
warmth and sincerity of the moment. In all the circumstances
no reasonable person could have expected Mr Steinberg
to live up to his name. Nor was the credit for not overlooking
his other two guests entirely his. Kathe's skill included
giving him every chance to remember them.
'I'm glad to see you don't go in for counting calories,' he
said, as Kathe finished the very last of her lemon meringue
pie and helped herself to two mint chocolates from the
little tray offered her by the waiter. 'I guess you enjoy cooking,
too? Is she a good cook?' he asked me smiling. 'Did
you check that out?'
'Alan hasn't had a chance to find out about that yet,' answered
Kathe. 'I'm looking forward to showing him. I hope
I'll be able to show you, too, before very much longer.'
'I can't wait,' replied Mr Steinberg. 'But tell me, how
soon are you figuring on getting married? What's the setup?
I can believe you don't want to delay any more than
you have to, do you?' he added, turning to me.
The excellent food and wine, my fellow-feeling and respect
for Mr S., his kindness to Tony (in whose way dinners like
this came even more rarely than in mine) and the success of
the punchbowl (which would beyond doubt have repercussions,
for Mr Steinberg was very well-connected in the
American ceramics world) had all had their effect. I was in
no mood for reticence and at this moment Mr Steinberg,
who had made it clear enough that in his eyes Kathe and I
were as nice a couple as he had met in his life, seemed the
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perfect confidant. Omitting, of course, any mention of my
mother or of Kathe's enigmatic crise de nerfs, I told him of
my frustration, ending 'I know most people wouldn't feel
there was much to be impatient about, but I just wish I knew
how we could get it done quicker, that's all.'
'And tell me, had you planned on going away anywhere?'
asked Mr Steinberg, sipping his Remy Martin and swilling it
round and round the glass.
'I doubt I can really take any more time off. There's the
business to look after, you see.'
Mr Steinberg paused, looking into the glass and nodding
reflectively. Then he said, 'Well, Alan, I don't know whether
this idea's going to appeal to you at all. I understand all
you've said very well, believe me. I married the first Mrs
Steinberg in three days flat from the evening we met. Tell
me, do you and Katy have American visas?'
'Well, no, but that's not really -'
'I guess maybe that could be fixed. Here's what I have to
suggest. You could fly to America and get married the day
after to-morrow.'
'Well, it's most kind of you to make such a helpful suggestion,
Morgan, but I think there'd be practical difficulties -'
'Wait a minute, now, Alan, wait a minute.' He raised a
hand, then removed his glasses and polished them with a
little mauve-coloured, silicone-treated tissue which he drew
out of a packet in his pocket; an habitual piece of business,
I suspected, designed to ward off interruptions and command
full attention. At length he went on,
'Here's my idea. You needn't spend any time apart at all.
I've got a little place in Florida. It's nothing special - just a
frame house I inherited a few years back and never got around
to selling. But it's furnished, after a fashion, and there's a
respectable black lady lives there for free and keeps it in
order. She was my aunt's housekeeper and I just let her stay
on. It's a good working arrangement. Now I don't want you
to get any wrong ideas - this is no luxury apartment and it
isn't even in vacation territory. It's not on the ocean. It's in
Gainesville - that's well to the north, kind of in the centre;
no beaches, and all of three hundred and fifty miles from
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Miami, I guess. But you're very welcome to use it. Look, I've
got an old college friend, Joe Mettner, at the embassy in
Grosvenor Square. As a matter of fact I was having lunch
with him two days ago. Why don't I -' He paused a moment,
thinking.
'Are you free to-morrow morning?' he asked.
'Yes, Morgan, perfectly, only I can't help thinking -'
But as usual there was no stopping Mr Steinberg. 'Fine,
fine. Only, you see, this has got to be fixed to-morrow. I have
to be in Ro-middley on Friday afternoon, and that's important.
Are you familiar with Ro-middley, Alan?'
'I've been there - not for some time, though.'
'Do you know the wall paintings in the house of Livia on
the Palatine?'
'Yes, I remember them well.'
'Aren't those really beautiful?' said Mr Steinberg. 'Gee!
But getting ba
ck to business, Alan, I was saying why don't I
take you both round to meet Joe to-morrow morning and I
guess he'll arrange the visas? They'll have to be limited for
the duration of your stay, of course, but in the circumstances
that's no problem.'
'Well, it's awfully kind of you, Morgan, but -'
'Wait, Alan. I'm not done. I should very much appreciate
it if you'd allow me to make a contribution towards the airline
tickets, by way of a wedding present. I can give you a
letter to an acquaintance of mine, Don MacMahon, who
happens to be a Justice of the Peace. If you've both got your
passports with you and we can get our ducks in a row tomorrow,
there's no reason why you shouldn't fly to-morrow
night or Friday, and Don'll marry you Saturday. Now
wouldn't that be a real American contribution to British
welfare?'
The idea fairly took my breath away. Quickly, I thought
it over for snags, but could see none. Earlier that very day
I had been longing for a fait accompli. Here it was, on a
plate. Mr Steinberg had clearly got the bit between his
teeth and was feeling that this was Pennsylvania's chance to
show England a thing or two. His offer was most generous
and, after the discontent I had expressed, to refuse it would
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look all but pusillanimous. The marriage would be perfectly
legal, and with regard to local opinion at home would appear
in a better light than any registry office affair. 'We were married
abroad - in America, actually, where we happened to
be at the invitation of a business friend of mine.' We could
be back in a week. I had a bank account in London and could
get some traveller's cheques to-morrow. Anyway, my credit
cards would be valid in America. It put me in mind of Milton.
'He took a journey into the country; no body about him
certainly knowing the reason. Home he returns a married
man that went out a batchelor.'
'What do you think of my little suggestion, young lady?'
asked Mr Steinberg.
Kathe, looking up from her plate, on which she had been
folding her empty chocolate envelopes into two, four and
eight with a pretence of unconcern, seemed almost overcome
with emotion. After a few moments she answered
'If Alan would like it, I think it would be wonderful. It's so
very kind of you.'
'What d'you think, Tony?' I asked, still playing for time.
'I think you've got a good friend, and if it were me I
shouldn't hesitate.'
'I won't. Morgan, thank you very very much indeed.'
'O.K., then that's settled,' said Mr Steinberg comfortably.
Til cable Don - wait, maybe I can call him: it's - let's see,
quarter of ten, that's quarter of five - well, I'll cable Buttercup,
anyway -'
'Buttercup?'
'The black lady. 'Tell her to expect you. She's a real nice
lady.'
14
CENTRAL Florida. A country, like Connemara, half water
and half land, much of it grassless. An overwhelming humidity
and a blazing sun, with every building screened against
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the insects and artificially cooled against the heat outside. A
profusion of brilliant blooms - hibiscus, poinsettias, canna
lilies; papery sprays of purple-leaved bougainvillea trailing
over walls and wistaria flowering wild along the roadside. I
could recognize the black-and-crimson cardinal finches,
bigger and burlier than bullfinch, greenfinch or yellowhammer.
On some of the innumerable swamps and patches
of open water were flocks of white ibis, wading step by delicate
step on long, red legs; and black anhingas squatting,
like cormorants, on stumps a few feet above the surface, their
wings displayed, like those of fantastic, heraldic creatures, to
dry in the heat. Below and beside the long, straight roads lay
ditches of water, wide and steep-banked, and beyond these,
brown, coarse-grassed fields, with patches of bare earth and
clumps of trees from whose branches hung long curtains and
trailing ropes of Spanish moss. No breeze ever seemed to
stir this grey, mournful vegetation, born of heat and damp,
and its listless heaviness imparted itself - or so I felt - to
everything else - to speech, energy, time and will-power. I
wondered how it had affected Pedro de Aviles. The Spaniards
had had no air-conditioning or refrigeration. They had just
had the insects, the Spanish moss and their own consuming
greed for gain.
Nevertheless, despite the heat (how it struck! like an intangible,
resistant screen as we got off the plane at Miami),
the long journey and the troubled stomachs that usually go
with sudden changes of climate, it was a happy arrival stimulating
and exciting, as arrivals in strange countries
ought to be. The black taxi-driver who took us from the little
airport at Gainesville was as friendly and communicative as
taxi-drivers commonly are to newcomers eager for information,
and seemed flattered that we - for whatever reason had
chosen to visit what he called 'the other Florida'. He
knew 'Judge MacMahon' (or said he did) and drove us
slowly ('Guess you'd like to have a look around') across the
town, through back-streets of old, wooden dwellings lying
behind the electric-signed rows of shops and snack-bars
along the main streets. There appeared to be no tended gardens,
but the houses were surrounded (and even, in some
157
cases, covered) by such a riot of trees, creepers and huge
flowers that the idea of deliberate horticulture seemed almost
out of place. Gainesville is a university town, and I saw
several white-boarded, ramshackle dwellings, with low
flights of steps leading up to peeling verandahs, which had
evidently become students' 'pads'. One bore a notice which
said, 'You are now approaching Squalor Holler. Slow Down.
This Means Y'all.'
Mr MacMahon and his wife, however, did not live in
Squalor Holler, but in a large, ugly and very luxurious house
a little way out of town. This, too, had no garden, but was
surrounded by a fairly large area of trees and shrubs above a
stream, in a steep-banked gully, which they referred to as
'the creek'. They had, of course, been told by Mr Steinberg
to expect us and could not have been more hospitable. They
mixed iced drinks, put their bathroom and shower at our
disposal and gave us an excellent meal. No one, however
weary, could fail to have been moved by their genuine kindness
and solicitude, especially for Kathe, who was exhausted
by the long night-flight, the wait at Miami airport and the
heat. She was glad enough to fall in with Mrs MacMahon's
insistence that she should go upstairs and 'take a nap'; and
while she did so, I explained our circumstances more fully
for us to be married the next day. In the early evening
he got out his
car and himself drove us to our 'frame house'.
Mr Steinberg had been right in describing it as nothing
special. It consisted of about two-and-a-half rooms up and
the same down, and was made entirely of wood. To footsteps
it resounded like a drum, and everything creaked. The
furniture was sparse and well-worn. But the place was sound
enough and had a refrigerator, bath, shower and electric
cooker. The beds were comfortable and the neighbourhood
quiet.
The 'respectable black lady', Buttercup (I never heard her
second name), was also expecting us. I suppose I had unconsciously
envisaged someone smiling and plump, in a
check apron, with very white teeth and a red bandana. Buttercup,
in fact, was gaunt, large-eyed and life-abraded, at
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one and the same time civil and withdrawn. She gave the
impression of having suffered a good deal: but not, I think,
from colour prejudice, segregation or even material hardship;
more likely from family troubles of one kind or another;
but I never learned. She corroborated almost everything we
said to her, so that one could not help wondering how much
she had understood; and was clearly more concerned to
avoid doing anything unacceptable than to waste energy on
the impossible task of discovering what these foreigners
might actually want her to perform. However, I was not, in
any case, thinking of her as a servant, and when we had
asked all the questions we could think of about the whereabouts
of things both in and out of doors, from fuse-boxes
to the post office, we were ready enough to fall in with her
idea that if it was all the same to us, she would sleep out
during our short visit, but come in daily. I tipped her twenty
dollars, which her respectability did not prevent her from
accepting with alacrity, and said we would look after ourselves
and be happy for her to do as she pleased.
The truth is that I have very little heart to recall in detail
those first few days in Gainesville - the form of marriage
conducted for us by the kindly judge and our exploration of
the dull town and the spacious and slightly less dull university
campus. These things are clouded by the recollection of
a trouble which, despite its outcome, still hurts deeply in
memory. Nineteen days from that on which I had first met
Kathe, the time had come to consummate our marriage. I
failed to do so - not once or twice, but repeatedly, until the
waters of frustration and misery closed over my head.
I recall an old man, a friend of our family, once telling me
that what he remembered most vividly about the 1914-18
war was the frightening realization, upon reaching the front,
that here all lifelong assumptions - the safety and predictability
one had always taken for granted and come to rely
upon - did not apply. Continuous danger and uncertainty
altered the very eyes through which one saw the world and
affected everything one thought and did. A few years later
I heard a man who had worked down a coal-mine say almost
exactly the same thing. That great area of life dominated
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by Aphrodite - the area of sexual passion - is very similar;
or so it has often seemed to me. What is it like? It is like a
deep wood at night, through which virtually everyone has
to pass; everyone, that is, who lives to grow up. There are no
generally-accepted rules. Certainly there are paths - wellbeaten
paths - and many are able to keep to them uneventfully,
or at any rate to look as though they were doing so,
and to appear, outwardly, to know what they are doing.
Some - how deliberately and how much in control of themselves
none can tell - leave them, calling out that they have
found better; and others fall in behind, while the rest shout
angrily that they ought to come back and desist from such
foolish and dangerous goings-on. Some sit down on the
outskirts of the wood, preferring not to venture at all into so
frightening a place; and several of these are nevertheless
attacked and injured by wild beasts. Everywhere is confusion
and tumult - people calling to one another in encouragement,
reproach or desperation; would-be leaders
shouting follow them - they know a sure track; people who
have decided to break away and are stumbling against
others, or simply falling down in the dark among nettles and
brambles. In glades, fires are burning, giving out warmth and