The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [100]
When they settled back on the grass, with about a yard between them, Eddie pulled out his twenty packet of Players. The cigarettes looked battered. "Look what you've done, too!" he said. But he lit one: threads of smoke began to swim from his nostrils; the match he blew out sputtered cold in the moss. When he had finished the cigarette he made a grave in the moss and buried the stump alive—but before this, several healing minutes had passed. "Well, darling," he said, in his natural light intonation, "you must have had Anna tell you Eddie is so neurotic."
"Is that a thing she says?"
"You ought to know: you've been with her half a year."
"I don't always listen."
"You ought to: sometimes she's so right.... Look, let's see ourselves in the distance, then we shall think, how happy they are! We're young; this is spring; this is a wood. In some sort of way or other we love each other, and our lives are before us—God pity us! Do you hear the birds?"
"I don't hear very many."
"No, there are not very many. But you must hear them—play the game my way. What do you smell?"
"Burnt moss, and all the rest of the woods."
"And what burnt the moss?"
"Oh, Eddie... your cigarette."
"Yes, my cigarette I smoked in the woods beside you—you darling girl. No no, you mustn't sigh. Look at us sitting under this old oak. Please strike me a match: I am going to smoke again, but you mustn't, you are still too young to. I have ideals, like Dickie. We don't take you into bars, and we love you to give us pious morbid thoughts. These violets ought to be in your hair—oh, Primavera, Primavera, why do they make you wear that beastly reefer coat? Give me your hand—"
"—No."
"Then look at your own hand. You and I are enough to break anyone's heart—how can we not break our own? We are as drowned in this wood as though we were in the sea. So of course we are happy: how can we not be happy? Remember this when I've caught my train tonight."
"Tonight? Oh, but I thought—"
"I've got to be in the office on time tomorrow. So what a good thing we are happy now."
"But—"
"There's not any but."
"Mrs. Heccomb will be so disappointed."
"Yes, I can't sleep in her lovely boxroom again. We shan't wake tomorrow under the same roof."
"I can't believe that you will have come and gone."
"Check up with Daphne: she will tell you for certain."
"Oh, please, Eddie, don't—"
"Why must I not? We must keep up something, you know."
"Don't say we're happy with that awful smile."
"I never mean how I'm smiling."
"Can we walk somewhere else?"
Following uphill dog paths, parting hazels, crossing thickets upright, they reached the ridge of the woods. From here, they could see out. The sun, striking down the slope of trees, glittered over the film of green-white buds: a gummy smell was drawn out in the warm afternoon haze. To the south, the chalk-blue sea, to the north, the bare smooth down: they saw, too, the gleam of the railway line. In spirit, the two of them rose to the top of life like bubbles. Eddie drew her arm through his; Portia leaned her head on his shoulder and stood in the sun by him with her eyes shut.
On the top of the bus, riding into Southstone, Eddie pulled shreds of moss and a few iridescent bud scales from Portia's hair. He ran a comb through his hair, then passed her the comb. His collar was crumpled; their shoes were muddy; they were both of them hatless; Portia wore no gloves. For the Pavilion they would not be smart enough. But as the Southstone bus rolled along the sea front, they both felt very gay; they enjoyed this ride in the large light lurching glass box. Eddie chainsmoked; Portia put down the window near her and leaned out with her elbow over the top. Sea air blew on her forehead; she borrowed his comb again. As the bus changed gear at the foot of Southstone hill they looked at a clock and saw it was only five—but that gave them time for tea before the others should come.
"I tried to ask Daphne what made one feel matey."
"Well, you were a fish: whatever made you do that?"
"Do you know, I once thought, at a party, that Mr. Bursely was rather like you?"