The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [103]
"In that empty house?"
"Of course. How glad we were to get back to Waikiki. I'm frightened there, but it feels to me rather fine. The mutton bled, did you see?—No, I mean that house this morning. Did I hurt you, darling? Whatever I said, I swear I didn't mean. What did I say?"
"You said you hadn't meant some other things you had said."
"Well, nor did I, I expect—Or were they things you set store by?"
"And you said there were things you didn't like about us," said Portia, keeping her face away.
"That's not true, across my heart. I think we are perfect, darling. But I'd much rather you knew when I didn't mean what I said, then we shouldn't have to go back and put that right."
"But what can I go by?"
"Yourself."
"But Daphne thinks I am bats. She told me not to be potty, before lunch."
"Don't sit right up: I can't look at you properly."
Portia lay down and turned her cheek on the grass till her eyes obediently met his at a level. His light, curious look glanced into hers—then she dropped one hand across her eyes and lay rigid, crisping her fingers up. "She says I'm potty about you. She says I haven't got any ideas."
"Bitch," Eddie said. "They all try and pervert you, but no one but me could really do it, darling. I suppose one day you will have ideas of your own, but I really do dread your having any. Being just as you are now makes you the only person I love. But I can see that makes me a cheat. Never be potty about me: I can't do anything for you. Or, at least, I won't: I don't want you to change. We don't want to eat each other."
"Oh no, Eddie—But what do you mean?"
"Well, like Anna and Thomas. And it can be much worse."
"What do you mean?" she said apprehensively, raising her hand an inch over her eyes.
"What happens the whole time. And that's what they call love."
"You say you never love anyone."
"How would I be such a fool? I see through all that hanky-panky. But you always make me happy—except, you didn't this morning. You must never show any sign of change."
"Yes, that's all very well, but I feel everyone waiting; everyone gets impatient; I cannot stay as I am. They will all expect something in a year or two more. At present people like Matchett and Mrs. Heccomb are kind to me, and Major Brutt goes on sending me puzzles, but that can't keep on happening—suppose they're not always there? I can see there is something about me Daphne despises. And I was frightened by what you said this morning—is there something unnatural about us? Do you feel safe with me because I am bats? What did Daphne mean about ideas I hadn't got?"
"Her own, I should think. But—"
"But what ideas do you never want me to have?"
"Oh, those are still worse."
"You fill me with such despair," she said, lying without moving.
Eddie reached across and idly pulled her hand away from her eyes. Keeping her hand down in the grass between them, he gently bent open her fingers one by one, then felt over her palm with his finger-tip, as though he found something in Braille on it. Portia looked at the sky through the branches over their heads, then sighed impalpably, shutting her eyes again. Eddie said; "You don't know how much I love you."
"Then, you threaten you won't—that you won't if I grow up. Suppose I was twenty-six?"
"A dreary old thing like that?"
"Oh, don't laugh; you make me despair more."
"I have to laugh—I don't like the things you say. Don't you know how dreadful the things you say are?"
"I don't understand," she said, very much frightened. "Why?"
"You accuse me of being a vicious person," said Eddie, lying racked by her on the grass.
"Oh, I do not!"
"I should have known this would happen. It always does happen; it's happening now."
Terrified by his voice and face of iron, Portia cried "Oh no!" Annihilating the space of grass between them she flung an arm across him, her weight on his body, and despairingly kissed his cheek, his mouth, his chin. "You are perfect," she said, sobbing. "You are my