he was very much in favour of recreational activities, and said that men had been kept alive in lifeboats by playing guessing games. The two of them would stand there, a little unsteadily as the raft tilted from side to side in the gentle swell, and Tony would lift his weights while Sonya did a simple
barre
, using two crates piled one on top of the other.
Tony never talked much. He would do his exercises, or fish, or scrub out the galley, or perform any of the other jobs Arthur would think up for us, his blue eyes always a little anxious, as if each activity took up the whole of his attention and left none over for conversation. If one of us were to appeal to him in discussion he would say, “Well, I don’t know really,” and the discussion would roll past him while he was still sorting out his ideas. (In this he did not resemble Hunter, who regarded ideas of any sort as not concerning him.)Only Sonya would have the patience to wait for Tony. “He’s a nice boy,” she would say, “and I don’t think they ought to go so fast.”
Fastest of all was Gertrude. She had no patience in talking. All conversations were to her vehicles for emotion: “There is so much to give,” she would say. “One must give it all.” All her life, Gertrude had been giving. She had given to her friends, her pupils and (less frequently as time went by) to the Public, and the more she had given, the more she had to give; the process was self-renewing.
Gertrude gushed. It was not the gushing of a silly ill-informed woman, but the gushing of an oil-well—all good rich stuff, and from the heart. I am sure she must have been an excellent teacher because she had no sense of the ridiculous; you could make a fool of yourself with her, and if only you
felt
what you were doing, Gertrude would not see the foolishness, and neither would you. I can remember her standing on the table in the cabin after supper, delivering Mark Antony’s oration to the citizens, her arms two flexible pistons of indignation, her breasts quivering, breaking off from time to time to explain the psychological implications of the situation; and somehow what should have been supremely silly became a moving theatrical experience.
None of this did for Tony. He could not understand it, and she would not stop for him; her pupils, I suppose, had taken what they could use from the generous flood, and if they took only a twentieth of what there was, it was still enough. And, surprisingly in such awoman, she was impatient with him. Naturally sympathetic to atmosphere as any actress must be, she had caught from Arthur a little of the scorn he felt for Tony, and it remained at the back of her mind as a feeling that Tony was not “one of our kind of people”. And so, although she appealed to him sometimes (she appealed to everyone; she would have appealed to the gulls of the air to confirm a point of feeling), she did not wait for him, or notice his bewilderment and pain when he was snubbed.
What surprised me was that she should think highly of Arthur; surely
he
was not “one of our kind of people”? She had so little in common with him, except to complement his narrowness with her breadth, his bile with her richness. What circumstances had first brought them together, I could not discover; Gertrude who would talk freely of her life in the old days, was reticent about her escape from London. Arthur had met her, and had picked her up, and had taken her with him until they found safety together on the raft. She seemed to admire him and to accept his leadership completely; I had not the courage to ask her whether she actually liked Arthur, nor am I certain whether she knew.
*
Arthur was holding an after-supper conference. “We shall have to think about scurvy,” he said.
“We shall have to think about mould,” said Sonya, “I’m sure the Glub’ll have penicillin growing all over it if this goes on much longer.”
“It’s vacuum packed,” said Hunter.
Muriel said,
barre
, using two crates piled one on top of the other.
Tony never talked much. He would do his exercises, or fish, or scrub out the galley, or perform any of the other jobs Arthur would think up for us, his blue eyes always a little anxious, as if each activity took up the whole of his attention and left none over for conversation. If one of us were to appeal to him in discussion he would say, “Well, I don’t know really,” and the discussion would roll past him while he was still sorting out his ideas. (In this he did not resemble Hunter, who regarded ideas of any sort as not concerning him.)Only Sonya would have the patience to wait for Tony. “He’s a nice boy,” she would say, “and I don’t think they ought to go so fast.”
Fastest of all was Gertrude. She had no patience in talking. All conversations were to her vehicles for emotion: “There is so much to give,” she would say. “One must give it all.” All her life, Gertrude had been giving. She had given to her friends, her pupils and (less frequently as time went by) to the Public, and the more she had given, the more she had to give; the process was self-renewing.
Gertrude gushed. It was not the gushing of a silly ill-informed woman, but the gushing of an oil-well—all good rich stuff, and from the heart. I am sure she must have been an excellent teacher because she had no sense of the ridiculous; you could make a fool of yourself with her, and if only you
felt
what you were doing, Gertrude would not see the foolishness, and neither would you. I can remember her standing on the table in the cabin after supper, delivering Mark Antony’s oration to the citizens, her arms two flexible pistons of indignation, her breasts quivering, breaking off from time to time to explain the psychological implications of the situation; and somehow what should have been supremely silly became a moving theatrical experience.
None of this did for Tony. He could not understand it, and she would not stop for him; her pupils, I suppose, had taken what they could use from the generous flood, and if they took only a twentieth of what there was, it was still enough. And, surprisingly in such awoman, she was impatient with him. Naturally sympathetic to atmosphere as any actress must be, she had caught from Arthur a little of the scorn he felt for Tony, and it remained at the back of her mind as a feeling that Tony was not “one of our kind of people”. And so, although she appealed to him sometimes (she appealed to everyone; she would have appealed to the gulls of the air to confirm a point of feeling), she did not wait for him, or notice his bewilderment and pain when he was snubbed.
What surprised me was that she should think highly of Arthur; surely
he
was not “one of our kind of people”? She had so little in common with him, except to complement his narrowness with her breadth, his bile with her richness. What circumstances had first brought them together, I could not discover; Gertrude who would talk freely of her life in the old days, was reticent about her escape from London. Arthur had met her, and had picked her up, and had taken her with him until they found safety together on the raft. She seemed to admire him and to accept his leadership completely; I had not the courage to ask her whether she actually liked Arthur, nor am I certain whether she knew.
*
Arthur was holding an after-supper conference. “We shall have to think about scurvy,” he said.
“We shall have to think about mould,” said Sonya, “I’m sure the Glub’ll have penicillin growing all over it if this goes on much longer.”
“It’s vacuum packed,” said Hunter.
Muriel said,
Similar Books
