The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [312]
The interval came and the audience applauded vigorously and there was a buzz of talk. Hedda said “It’s brilliantly atmospheric. The puppets are so clever. It’s sinister, don’t you think, Tom?”
Tom excused himself, and blundered out in the direction of the lavatory. He stood in an anonymous line of males, and went in and pissed into the porcelain and tried not to think, which he had trained himself to do, or not to do.
He went back to the box. He was both not-thinking, and not-believing. Something had been taken from him, certainly, but in these lights, against this backcloth, it was something fabricated and trivial, which it made no sense to mourn.
The end came. Light, and silken ferns in multifarious transparent greens and golds, flowed out of the coal-ball.
The audience, in the same way, erupted into cries of approval and hands beating hands.
“You ought to clap, Tom,” said Phyllis, clapping prettily.
Tom clapped, so that she would stop talking. They could see into the box where Olive was. People were applauding and pointing. She came with August Steyning, to the rim of their space, and inclined her head to the calling and clapping.
Tom thought, we are all shut up in these boxes and we can’t get out.
He knew he was prohibited from thinking about his mother. He was shut in a box, and there was nothing he could do.
“Must get out,” said Tom. “Air. Need air.” He pushed his golden chair back, found the door in the red throat of the box-trap, and stumbled out.
So that when Olive came with Humphry, to be kissed and congratulated by her children, Tom was not there. She was dazed with success; her hair was coming loose, she had to put it up, again and again. She had not looked into the cupboard in her mind when she had locked away any anxiety about Tom Wellwood and Tom Underground. It would work out. Things worked out. Violet said “I trust you are happy” and Olive then looked round her children, kissed them all, and said to her sister, lightly, “Where’s Tom?”
“He went out to get some air, he said.”
“It is very hot,” said Olive. “I hope he enjoyed the play.”
“Everybody did,” said Violet. “And so they should.”
Olive was given a large bouquet of red roses, lilies and stephanotis, in a silver holder, the size you have to cradle in your arms, which made the control of her hair even harder. She was wearing a black stiff silk skirt, embroidered with gold flowers, and a silver shirt, with a ruffled neck. Humphry had given her a double row of amber beads. It was a present for the First Night. There were insects trapped in some of the beads: one was a lace-winged fly, millions of years old, which had left traces, in the hard translucent bead, of its struggle to escape the oozing sap. Humphry had said “I thought it was appropriate. I couldn’t give you a coal-ball.” Olive kissed him. “I love you, Humph,” she said. “We have come a long way from the Dream in Hackney.” “A long way and no way,” said Humphry, and kissed her again.
People came to praise. James Barrie, saying he was moved, and Bernard Shaw, saying she had managed to please the multitude with intelligence, which was hard to do, and H. G. Wells, who called the play an allegory, which caused Olive to frown. Fabians came, and the Portman Square Wellwoods, though Griselda and Julian Cain were not there, were coming with a party from Cambridge the following weekend. Prosper Cain was absent: his wife was near her time, and unwell, they were told.
Olive said “Where’s Tom?”
“He kept dozing off,” said Hedda, remorseless.
“Not really dozing,” said Phyllis. “More resting his head.”
“Where is he?”
“You know he doesn’t like crowds,” said Violet. “He’ll turn up.”
There was a party. There was champagne, and high excited laughter. People asked the Germans how they did