The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [111]
"Portia's down there, writing to Major Brutt."
"And if you go down, you'll feel you will have to say, 'Well, Portia, how are you getting on with your letter to Major Brutt?'"
"No, I shouldn't see the least necessity to."
"Well, Portia would look up until you did. Now, Major Brutt having sent me those carnations is just the sort of thing that Portia really enjoys," said Anna, sitting down by the dressing-table, unrolling and putting on a pair of silk stockings. "Yes, it often does seem to me that you and I are not natural. But I also say to myself, well, who is natural, then?"
Having put his glass down on the carpet, Thomas boldly swung his legs up on to the bed and stretched out on the immaculate quilt. "I don't think that bath has done you much good," he said. "Or is this the way you talk most of the time? We so seldom talk; we're so seldom together."
"I must be tired; I do feel rather unreal. As I keep saying, all I want is to dress."
"Well, do dress. Why can't you just dress and why can't I just lie? We don't have to keep on saying anything. However much of a monster you may be, I feel more natural with you than I feel with more natural people—if there are such things. Must you put on those beastly green suede shoes?"
"Yes, because the others aren't unpacked. How hot the afternoon sun is," said Anna, drawing the curtains behind the dressing-table. "All the time we were there, I kept imagining England coolish and grey, and now we land into this inferno of glare."
"I expect the weather will break. You don't much like anything, do you?"
"No, nothing," said Anna, smiling her nice fat malign smile. She finished dressing in the gloom of the curtains, through whose yellows and pinks the afternoon sun beat. The vibration of traffic came through the shut window, through the stiff chintz folds. She gave one more look at Thomas and said: "I suppose you do know that that ruins my quilt?"
"It can go to the cleaners."
"The point is, it has just come back from there.... How do you think Portia is?"
Thomas, who had just lighted a cigarette (the worst thing for a headache) said: "She says she's enjoying the spring."
"Now whatever makes her do that? Little girls of her age don't just enjoy weather. Someone must have been fussing her up."
"She may not have been enjoying the spring really, but just felt she must say something polite. I suppose it's possible she enjoyed Seale—in which case, we might have left her there longer."
"No, if she's to be with us she's got to be with us, darling. Besides, her lessons begin on Monday. If she's not enjoying the spring (and I can't make out if your impression was that she wasn't or that she was) there must be something wrong with her, and you had better find out what it is. You know she will never talk to me. If someone's let her down that would be Eddie, of course."
Thomas reached down to knock ash off into his empty glass. "Anyhow, it's high time the lid was put on that. I don't know why we have let it go so far."
"Oh, it's stationary: it's been like that for months. Evidently you don't know what Eddie is. He doesn't have to go far with anybody to fail them: he can let anyone down at any stage. And what do you expect me to say or do? There are limits to what one can say to people and it isn't really a question of doing anything. Anyhow, she's your sister. As for speaking to Eddie, you must know how touchy he is with me. And she and I feel so shy, and shyness makes one so brutal.... No, poor little Eddie's not a ravening lion."
"No, he's not a lion."
"Don't be malicious, Thomas."
Glad, however, to find herself dressed again, Anna gave herself a sort of contented shake inside her green dress, like a bird shaking itself back into its preened feathers. She looked for her case and lighted a cigarette, then came over to sit on the bed by Thomas. Rolling his head round, he at once pulled her head down to pillow level. "All the same," said Anna, after the kiss, sitting up and moulding back with her fingers the one smooth curl along the nape of her neck, "I do think you'll have to get off that quilt." While she went back to the dressing-table to screw the caps back on to her pots and bottles Thomas rose and, meticulous and gloomy, tried to smooth the creases out of the satin. "After tea," he announced, "Portia and I are going for a turn in the park."