Blaming (Virago Modern Classics) Read Free Page B

strangers. They seemed devoted to each other – it was probably always said of them – as were so many other childless, middle-aged couples she had observed; to learn later of a son and grandchildren was an annoyance, for those did not enter into her picture.
    One afternoon at sea, going through the Strait of Messina in a storm, she had spoken to them during what was called a Tea Concert. She doubted if they ever would have spoken to her. They sat trying to read, cringing from the music. She proffered a large and illustrated book on Byzantine art, which Nick seemed very pleased to borrow. They had talked of places they had been to, and others lying ahead of them. Martha, living for a time in England, had made the most of her opportunity to travel on the continent,and had stayed for a long time in Florence, but without benefit of Italian.
    On the ship passengers seemed to compete with freight in order of importance; but a Cruise atmosphere was attempted. Between Piraeus and Istanbul, the Captain’s Dinner was held, with streamers and fancy hats. Stewards, radiantly smiling, as if at their first party, advanced through dimmed lights and a
rallentando
drum-roll, carrying on silvery trays a colourful
hors d’oeuvre
surrounded by large white swans.
    “What are the swans made from?” Amy asked the steward.
    “From
feta
cheese, Madame.”
    “Oh, may I have just a little piece, from underneath a wing, perhaps?”
    “I am sorry, Madame, but the birds are very old. They are kept in the cold storage.”
    “What did he say they are made from?” Martha had asked, leaning over from the next table.
    “
Feta
cheese,” said Amy. “Apparently from a long time ago.”
    Martha nodded. She smiled, and then nodded again to herself, looking down at her plate, and trying to prong a skidding olive.
    After that, the lights had dimmed again and this time, the stewards having lined up once more, came forward with pheasants, with probably age-old feathers (for they lacked brilliance) fanned out behind them, as if the tails belonged to displaying peacocks. Trussed and frozen birds can give little idea of the real thing, and perhaps the chef had never seen one in its natural state.
    Again Martha leaned over and asked for information – this time about the close season for game in England. And so it followed that they drank coffee together in the farthest place they could find from the Palm Court music. Nick obediently took a carnival hat from the steward and put it on his head, hardly looking up from his book. Martha and Amy declined.
    “It is too English for words,” Amy said, nodding in the direction of the band. “I remember those dreadful tunes when I was a girl.”
    Martha looked at her, as she drank her coffee, and thought about the English voice — the Englishwoman’s voice, rather light and high, quick, with odd stresses. “It is too English for
words
… when I was a gairl… those dretful
tunes.”
    Martha was content simply to sit and watch Amy writing on her picture postcards of mosques that they had not yet seen. In spite of her assurance about clothes – that orange caftan, for instance – there was something girlish about her, and Martha, openly staring at her pale face (pale, for she never tanned, got only a scattering of tiny freckles, like grated nutmeg), and at her dark, fringed hair, was trying to analyse this. Whatever was the cause, Amy seemed to have remained at the age of seventeen, or thereabouts; but it was the English girlhood of her own class and time. The like never to come again, Martha, much younger and American, decided. She loved Englishness. Because of her reading, she had by no means come to London as a stranger. She had gone about on her travels, recognising things and people, though as yet she could not put Amy into her right file.
    “Anyone want brandy?” Nick asked, looking up, but keeping his finger on a word.
    Amy lifted her head, became aware of Martha’s scrutiny and smiled awkwardly.