The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [112]
“A love like that—a history of such—such pain, and such fulfilment—is a sacred history. It changes a man. Like Roger in the book, I used to take myself lightly, I was consumed with what I believe is normal widespread curiosity about the sex-feelings. But once a man has truly given himself—and sacrifices have been made—there can be no further question …”
Olive thought, rather sharply, I do not need warning off. She extracted her hand, and used it to rearrange her hair. It was probable, of course, that he was not warning her, but shoring up himself, against his own inclinations, which he seemed to be only too much aware of. She said, demurely, with a little smile, that what he said was very right, very honourable. She thought to herself that this kind of conversation was altogether more perturbing than Toby’s devotion, or Prosper’s courtesy. She would be glad when Humphry came back from wherever he had gone—he had said it was Leeds, but it could well be Manchester.
Olive Wellwood was thirty-eight. She came from a class where many, perhaps most, women did not live much beyond that age, where what was in women’s minds was diminishing strength and the looming of real death. Yet here she was in the magical Garden of England, with a good body, and a face that was, she thought, more interesting, more defined, yes indeed, more beautiful, than when she had been a green girl. And spider-webs of sexual attraction floated everywhere, and touched their skins, like dandelion seeds on white spiralling parasols, like ozone wafting in from the sea. It was still her time, she thought, looking out at the Channel and the children—and Toby who was leaping with them, and Violet camped with nanny and pram—and Prosper who was striding towards them in a smart panama hat. The children were children, blessed children, not yet formed. Though she saw that Herbert Methley had detached his attention from her, and was staring with a pleased expression at the gaggle of girls, pale, fine Griselda, brisk dark Dorothy, dreamy Pomona and inhibited Imogen, pretty Phyllis and composed Florence, the only one in whom could be seen a shadow of the woman she would be. “Aren’t they lovely?” she said to Methley, who gave her a sharp look, smiled conspiratorially, and agreed.
The boys were coming out of the water, onto the sand. They were like sealfolk, Olive thought. Sleek creatures of the deep, beaching themselves and taking human form. Shaggy Geraint and precise-gestured Charles, and behind them, riding in prone on a wave, then standing thigh-deep in the moving water, his hair streaked and streaming with it, Tom. He seemed reluctant to come out. He bent and stirred the surface of the water with his golden arms. He was the most graceful creature she had ever seen. It was noon. The sun was high and shone directly down on her golden boy, who was not reflected in the moving surface of the sea, which he had broken into shining particles, myriads of slanting glassy fragments, a mosaic of surfaces, as there were myriads of glittering water-drops catching the light and making rainbows along his shoulders and in his long hair. He had fine gold hairs all over his body, too, she saw. Fine gold hairs long enough to cling together and make dripping patterns on his chest and thighs. Olive saw—it was the effect of dandelion-plumes and ozone—that his thin rod (she had no familiar word for it) was half-upright along his stomach. She loved Tom. She could not keep him. Tom loved her—this was still her time, with him, too—but he would go away, and be changed.
She started making-up, in the other world. The queen in the clearing, on the horse with fifty silver bells and nine at every tett of its mane—whatever a tett was. The woman and the boy, in the clearing. A story. She smiled, at a safe distance now, and Herbert Methley wondered what she was smiling at, and misconstrued it, as was natural.
Dorothy went to the pottery workshop, to see how Philip was.