The Girl in a Swing Read online

with four different vegetables, involved a more serious

  problem.

  'This plate is too small. You see - it will be everything on

  top of each other.'

  'I'm sorry, madame. I'm afraid that is the largest plate

  we have."

  'Then please bring me a fresh plate, very hot, put the

  Wiener Schnitzel on it and leave the vegetable dishes here

  on the table.'

  I can imagine the snub I would have got if I'd made such

  a request. The head waiter supervised his minions in doing

  as she wished and a few minutes later returned to ask

  whether all was now to her liking. With her mouth full, she

  said it was wunderbar, at which he appeared much gratified.

  I myself found it difficult to eat. There was a kind of

  surging excitement in my stomach. I could not take my

  eyes off her. I watched her every movement, gesture and

  facial expression as one might watch a rainbow or a weir

  of leaping salmon. It will fade, they will be gone and you

  are left to walk home in the rain. Once she looked at my

  plate, still half-full of steak, sausage, bacon and kidney, and

  shook her head.

  'Alan - a man should eat.'

  'I'm quite happy, honestly. I'm enjoying the champagne.

  Are you?'

  She drained her glass and instantly a waiter refilled it.

  80

  '}a sehr. But it will make me drunk. No, not drunk. What

  should I say? - tipsy - can you say that?'

  'You can. No, don't frown. It's a perfectly good word.

  Let's both be tipsy.'

  When the pudding trolley came she asked for Apfelstrudel.

  The waiter cut her a very large slice and she took the

  cream jug from him and covered it thickly. Then she said,

  'Have you got any fresh grapes?'

  'I will go and ask, madame. I am sure we have.'

  'Kathe, do you always eat grapes with Apfelstrudel? Is it a

  local custom or something?'

  'It's for the pips, Alan.'

  'The pips? Well, I know Dr Johnson collected orange peel,

  but this is ridiculous. What do you do with the pips?'

  'Please will you fill up my champagne - right to near the

  top?'

  I did as she asked while the waiter brought a bunch of

  grapes and cut her a dozen. She put two into her mouth,

  chewed the pips clean and took them out. Then she dropped

  two pips into her champagne, waited about ten seconds and

  dropped in two more. Within half a minute the first two,

  covered with bubbles, rose to the surface. As each minute

  bubble burst it turned over and over and finally sank again.

  By this time the second tv/o were on the way up.

  'You know this game?' They were going up and down now

  like lift-cars.

  'No, I didn't. Wherever did you learn it?'

  'Oh - in the land of Cockaigne. Always with Sekt, this

  game. I have great fun of it.'

  When the coffee came she lolled back against the banquette

  like an empress gorged almost into a stupor. The

  stephanotis fell out of her hair and she laid it on the cloth.

  Leaning forward, I could smell it, the scent mingling with the

  faint, sharp fume of her yellow chartreuse as she raised and

  sipped it.

  She made a little face. 'Herb!'

  'It's meant to be.'

  '/a, gut. And I am tipsy. How nice!'

  'Kathe, can I meet you tomorrow?'

  81

  II

  She paused. 'Vielleicht.' Then, laughing, she shook her

  head.

  'No, seriously, Kathe - can I? When? Will you drive out to

  Helsing0r with me and have lunch?'

  'Vielleicht.'

  'Nein, kein vielleicht! Bitte Quickly,

  she cut me short. 'I will telephone you. I can do

  that?'

  'Jarl? Jytte?fMy non-existent ceramics friend?) 'Yes, you

  can. What time?'

  'Oh, about half an hour after I wake up. Write down the

  number.'

  On the way out we encountered another all-male group of

  distinctly merry Danes. One of them, carrying, for some

  reason, a dark-red carnation, detached himself and spoke

  to me - heaven knows why - in English.

  'Mister, pardon me, your beautiful lady has no flower, sir.

  Please you are allowing me to give her this one.'

  There seemed no reason to object. He handed it to her with

  a bow and complete propriety - his hand did not even touch

  hers. She thanked him with a nod and a smile, at one and

  the same time warm and gracious, yet distant enough to

  keep them at bay; then searched for nothing in her bag until

  they had departed.

  'Shall I pin it on for you?'

  'No, don't break the stalk, Alan. I will carry it. It's nice

  so.'

  'Shall I get a taxi?'

  'I don't need one, thank you. It's not far.'

  'Well, then, shall we walk?'

  'No, I will say good-night now. There is a 'bus. I call it

  the Always 'bus, because always I have to take it.'

  'But Kathe -'

  She took my hand. 'Danke schon. It was really lovely.

  I've enjoyed it very much. Everybody has garlic! Cute

  Nacht.'

  I stood watching as she walked away down the street in

  the velvet cloak, carrying the carnation in her gloved hand

  and smelling it from time to time like a pomander.

  82

  8

  ELSINORE. The platform on the battlements. (The Cannon

  Tower, actually.) A sunny afternoon in May, very warm. Not

  a ghost in sight. Kathe in a rose-pink, cotton dress and

  navy-blue cardigan.

  'Guck 'mal; that's Halsingborg, Alan, across the water;

  only five kilometres away.'

  'We could swim there in two hours.'

  'We'd freeze first. And the current. We'd end up on the

  bottom at Kullen. Then you could walk back all the way to

  England.'

  'It's a nice idea, all the same - to swim across. Do you

  like swimming?'

  'Love it. Often, I would swim. Once I swam eight kilometres.'

  'Where?'

  'Oh - a long way south, where it's warm.' She paused,

  looking out past the Trumpeter's Tower across the blue

  Sound. 'Oh, I'd swim round the world if I could! How lovely

  it would be, don't you think, to go to the tropics, and just

  swim?'

  'Yes; I'd come with you.' I told her about the Cherwell at

  Oxford, and Iffley Lock. 'I used to love being tumbled about

  in the white water.'

  'Ja, natitrlich. It's nice so." She rested both hands on the

  parapet and leaned forward, gazing out once more towards

  Halsingborg. 'Does your china business ever take you over

  there too?'

  'I've been to Stockholm, but never to Halsingborg. Have

  you?'

  'Just across on the ferry once, for fun.'

  'And was it? The town looks rather beautiful from here.'

  'Oh, the town's dull, but Sofiero's nice - the gardens. I

  went out there. It was lovely.'

  'All by yourself?'

  'Well, almost, yes.' She paused. 'Almost. Yes, by myself.'

  83

  I laughed. 'Kathe, how can you be almost by yourself?'

  'Oh, easily.' She turned and looked at me, smiling. 'Are<
br />
  you jealous, Alan?'

  'Well, I almost could be -'

  'Well, there you are - if you can be almost jealous, I can be

  almost by myself. Do you always wear those field glasses out

  of doors?'

  'Almost always. You see, I - oh, all right.' She was laughing

  and I laughed too. 'You tie me up in my own language,

  don't you?'

  'You haven't looked through them once.'

  'I suppose I've been too busy looking at you. I can look at

  ships and birds any time.'

  'You said you wanted to look at the wood-carving in the

  chapel.'

  'I know I did; but it's sunny and warm up here and the

  chapel's indoors. Besides, I feel lazy.'

  'But that's not like you.'

  'How can you tell that? You hardly know me.'

  'I can tell, all the same. You're a man who always has

  some object in his mind, aren't you, and goes to a place on

  purpose to see something he thinks is beautiful or important?

  What is it they say - "an old head on young shoulders"?

  But I know what you've done to-day. You've put your

  head down and forgotten to pick it up again.'

  It was very near the truth. With Barbara - and with

  others; not only girls - I had always planned meetings, a

  day out or an evening at home, with some purpose in mind.

  'What about going to see the Norman church at Avington?'

  I would say; or 'I believe you said you'd never heard a Bart6k

  quartet. We might try one this evening,' To me it felt

  strange, this unprogrammed, selves-absorbed idling in pleasure

  on the towers of Kronborg. We were not really looking

  at the castle at all - not at the chapel, not at the sixteenthcentury

  tapestries, not at Honthorst's ceiling paintings in the

  King's Chamber - and Kathe, I felt sure, had no intention of

  doing so. With her, inconsequence seemed a kind of skill and

  it appeared natural to regard the Sound, the gulls, the distant

  Kattegat and the tower on whose parapet we were lean84

  ing in the sunshine simply as a background for herself and

  the here and now taking place between us. She needed no

  purpose except her awareness of my enjoyment of her cornpany;

  and her frivolity, which in anyone else would have

  bored and irritated me, seemed entirely suited both to the

  occasion and to herself. In a word, I was enjoying wasting

  time with her.

  I think it was from this day - so early - that there tegan

  to germinate in me the concept of Kathe as entirely selfsufficient,

  requiring nothing to enhance her presence and

  naturally central to any scene in which she might happen to

  be. Consistent in hedonism, she exercised a kind of innate

  authority and in so doing became like a still centre, needing

  neither direction nor purpose and only the semblance of

  activity, like a tree in the wind.

  'Oh, look, Alan - a beetle! Such a pretty one!'

  The brilliant green beetle, its dark eyes prominent on

  either side of its head, was sunning itself on a stone of the

  parapet a few feet to her right. She moved across, picked it

  up gently between ringer and thumb and put it on the back

  of her hand, where it sat still, torpid in the sunshine. Her

  fingers were most beautifully and delicately shaped, the narrow,

  oval nails convex, smooth and nacreous as shells.

  'You don't mind him on your hand?'

  'Ach nein - Weshalb?' She seemed surprised.

  'Lots of girls don't like insects.'

  'Oh, f'ff.' (Waving fingers.) 'I never saw a so beautiful one,

  did you?'

  'Cicindela campestris', the green tiger beetle. He's quite

  common in England, so I suppose he is here too. Funny they

  usually fly off when you disturb them. I suppose he

  likes the sunshine. I wonder how he got up here?'

  The beetle opened its carapace and took off in buzzing

  flight.

  'That is how.' It circled, returned and alighted again on

  her sleeve. 'Sunshine be - be blowed! It's me he likes.' But

  then it flew again, away and down from the high platform

  towards the grassy trench below. I leaned out over the

  parapet, my eyes following it out of sight.

  85

  'Beetles o'er his base into the sea.'

  'Was bedeutet das? Explain.'

  ' "What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

  Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

  That beetles o'er his base into the sea,

  And there assume some other horrible form

  Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason

  And draw you into madness?" '

  I thought perhaps she might tease me for being pretentious,

  but Kathe, as I was to learn, never made light of anything

  which she sensed to be of value to someone else.

  'It sounds wonderful! But what was it -1 mean, that might

  assume a horrible form?'

  'It was a ghost, come for retribution.'

  'Tell me, then, while we go down.'

  As we came out onto the bridge from the tunnel through

  the bastion she suddenly stumbled and almost fell. I

  caught her arm and in recovering her balance she pressed

  against me, light and firm, her hair brushing my face.

  'Are you all right, Kathe?'

  '/a, danke. How silly, I turned my foot over! Oh, what

  a nuisance, look - the heel has broken off the shoe.' She

  took it off and, holding it up to the light, looked at the

  name in the instep. 'Stupid people! I've a good mind not to

  buy their shoes again.'

  I took the shoe from her. It felt brittle and cheap.

  'Will you be able to manage? It's quite a step to the car.'

  Til take off the other one, so, and you can give me your

  arm.'

  I saw her once hop forty paces through the public street.

  As far as the next five minutes were concerned she certainly

  made defect perfection. In her stockinged feet she trod

  lightly, without wincing, the length of the moat, round the

  Ridderpostej to the Kronvaerksport and across the outer

  bridge beyond. Now and then, however, she bore down

  heavily on my arm and once she stopped, panting slightly

  but affecting an interest in the swans. I doubt whether any of

  those strolling past us noticed that she was not wearing

  shoes.

  86

  Between the outer moat and the car lay a hundred yards of

  loose gravel, but this too she covered with no sign of discomfort.

  I opened the near-side door for her and she sat

  down sideways, raising one leg towards me.

  'Now here's a nice job for you, Alan. Will you please take

  away all the gravel?'

  She smoothed the pink skirt between her thighs as I went

  down on one knee beside the car. The gravel felt unpleasantly

  sharp, and I put my handkerchief between it and my knee

  before taking her foot across my other leg. The thin stocking,

  stretching over sole and instep, cool, soft and fleshy

  under my fingers, was covered with tiny stones embedded in

  the nylon. I began brushing and picking them out.

  'Ow - tickling!' She wriggled her toes, then suddenly

  jerked her knee, almost k
icking me in the face. I pulled my

  head back just in time.

  Tm so sorry, Alan! I couldn't help it! Come back, I'll

  make it better!'

  And she drew the sole of her foot lightly down one side

  of my face. I could feel the rasping of the minute bristles

  along my cheek and then, as she did it the second time, this

  was not all I felt. Embarrassment came upon me. I took

  her foot back in my hands, but she withdrew it into the

  car.

  'Perhaps I'd better shave before you do that again, Kathe.

  Shall I do your other foot now?'

  The stocking was torn and there was blood on the sole.

  'You've cut yourself!'

  'Das macht nichts. It will be all right!'

  'But doesn't it hurt?'

  'No, I can't feel anything. Just clean it off and tell me

  where the cut is.'

  I looked vaguely round. 'No water.'

  'Lick fingers.' I hesitated. 'Go on!'

  I did as I was told. The cut looked rather deep. It was

  nearly an inch long and bleeding fairly freely. Kathe did not

  even trouble herself to look at it. This was her way, as I was

  to find out. Anything inelegant or inconvenient was always

  turned into a game or ignored as not worth bothering about.

  87

  n

  I drove to a chemist's but since Kathe, laughing at my concern,

  would not go in, I bought some disinfectant, cottonwool

  and Elastoplast dressings and brought them out to the

  car. The bleeding seemed to have stopped and I cleaned up

  the cut and put one of the dressings on it. She watched with

  amusement and a kind of pleasurable surprise, as though

  this sort of attention was something out of her experience

  and she had not hitherto been sure whether or not I was

  serious.

  'Thank you, Alan. You are kind. It's nice to be made a fuss

  of! I'd never have bothered by myself.'

  'I'd better drive you home, hadn't I, before we start doing

  anything else?'

  'No; but when we get back to K0benhavn, you can drop me

  at a shop where I will get some more shoes. Then I will go

  home from there.'

  'Well, I'll drive you back home from the shoe-shop, of

  course. That's no trouble.'

  She shook her head. I felt puzzled.

  'Then shall I call for you later on?'

  'Not this evening, Alan, I'm afraid.'

  'You mean you won't be able to have dinner with me?'

  'Leider nicht. It would have been nice, but unfortunately

  it's impossible.'

  I drove on in silence for a little while and then said, 'Er perhaps

  we might meet tomorrow?'

  She smiled. 'Ich muss - oh, I have to be out of K0benhavn

  tomorrow, I'm afraid. What a pity!'

  'Well - it's only that I have to go back to England on Monday.'

  'I know - so you said. I'm sorry, really I am.'

  Well, I thought, when you come to think of it, it's likely

  enough that she wouldn't want to see me again. A girl like

  this must have plenty of admirers, and I've never been much

  of a hand at the game anyway. In fact, I don't quite know

  what I'm doing all this for; but - oh, hell, I'd very much have

  liked to see her again.

  And yet - and yet, if I was any judge, she had not spoken

  of the forthcoming evening or, for the matter of that, the

  88

  following day, in a tone which suggested that she felt much

  enthusiasm for either. Indeed, she now seemed a shade depressed,

  whereas all the afternoon she had been in high

  spirits - almost like a girl who doesn't get out much. I wondered

  whether perhaps she might be looking after an invalid

  parent, but didn't like to ask. No, more likely she had in fact

  enjoyed the outing - and flirting - but intended to spend the

  rest of the week-end, as no doubt she usually did, with some

  regular friend - lover, perhaps. I found the thought distressing.

  But why ever should you? I asked myself, as we drove

  past Tarbsek. You're not trying to go to bed with the girl

  - you never meant to. You don't know what the hell you

  are doing, do you? And you're going home on Monday, to

  important business that requires all your energy and attention.

  If she doesn't particularly want to see you again, why

  on earth should you be bothered? Yet I was. In fact, I felt

  most disappointed.

  When we reached K0benhavn I suggested two or three

  shops where she might go for shoes and begged her to let

  me buy them for her.

  'No, Alan, really. It's kind of you, but I know where I

  want to go. You can drop me there and I'll say good-bye.

  Could you turn left at these next lights, please?'

  She hasn't got much room for evasion now, I thought.

  Wherever it is, she'll have to let me drive her there, for she

  can't walk or even take a bus without any shoes to her feet.

  She guided me on into what seemed like a rather dismal