Read Online Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar - Free Book Online Page A

enough?”
    “Yes, yes,” they cried, greedy for at least an ounce of flesh if they couldn’t obtain their full pound.
    So I said my few lines. I thought that I said them without expression or audibility and definitely too fast. It was the first stanza of
The Lady of Shalott
. From as young as nine I had experienced a fellow feeling for that lady embowered on her silent isle.
    And, somehow, this must now have shone through. Apparently I had misjudged my own performance.
    “Oh, that was good. Wasn’t that good, everyone?”
    There was much earnest clapping; they really did seem to have enjoyed it. “You aren’t just poking fun at me?” They swore they weren’t. Others—presumably because they had heard all the applause—came in from neighbouring rooms.
    “More!” they said. “More!”
    “What? Honestly?” Still nervous but not like at the start.
    “Yes, Rachel. Please.”
    “You’re
sure
you aren’t teasing?”
    “Of course we aren’t. That would be cruel.”
    I knew I could improve on what I’d done.
    Confidence came quickly; the more I recited the better I grew.
“Or when the moon was overhead,
    Came two young lovers lately wed;
    ‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
    The Lady of Shalott.”
    Unfortunately, however, my memory of the poem wasn’t perfect.
    “Never mind. Just carry on. You’re doing great.”
“Out flew the web and floated wide;
    The mirror crack’d from side to side;
    ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried
    The Lady of Shalott.”
    Now I really was projecting and making good use of my hands as well. I had known I had it in me to be an actress.
    Yet the real test lay in the final stanza—where, recumbent in a stolen boat, she drifts downriver in the moonlight, borne towards the resplendent, many-towered court of King Arthur. In her mirror she had sometimes seen the knights come riding two-by-two. (“She hath no loyal knight and true, the Lady of Shalott.”) I wanted if possible to bring the tears into people’s eyes. I finished on a quiet and wholly reverent note.
“But Lancelot mused a little space;
    He said, ‘She has a lovely face;
    God in his mercy lend her grace,
    The Lady of Shalott.’”
    Even at school I had invariably found this a poignant end. Now my own eyes were so swimmy I couldn’t quite tell how my audience was affected. But I certainly caught sight of the odd handkerchief, heard the odd blowing of a nose.
    And one triumph led on to another. They wanted other things; just wouldn’t let me go. Finally I sang to them. They seemed beside themselves with pleasure. At last I put my hands up to my chest—returned once more to my prep-school days—revived the unexpected hit of my childhood.
    “Although when shadows fall
    I think if only...
    Somebody splendid really needed me,
    Someone affectionate and dear,
    Cares would be ended if I knew that he
    Wanted to have me near...”
    It was sheer intoxication; a wonderful prelude to what was to happen later that same evening.

15
    I went back to the chemist’s. I wore my red dress, though this was now a little too warm for the time of year. And only the previous afternoon I’d had my hair done. It was a moment I’d been continually anticipating and, squirrel-like, had been hoarding.
    Of course, as with nearly all such moments, there was the particle of grit in the shoe, so difficult to dislodge that one almost welcomed a particle in the eye as well: in this case the haunting knowledge of a poor night’s sleep, coupled with a touch of indigestion.
    But I couldn’t have put it off. Having decided this would be the day, postponement would have seemed quite wrong. A giving in to weakness.
    I said, “Good morning. How are you?”
    “Very well, thank you, madam. Yourself?”
    At first it would have been practically a relief if the lumpy, shiny-nosed girl had been there instead but as soon as we spoke I began to feel better.
    “I came in last March. You advised me I ought to settle here. Well, I’ve taken your