The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [77]
"Well after all, Clara's coming."
"What does she want to come for? This is the first I've heard of it."
"Well I really must say—I must say, really! You asked her yourself, Dickie: you did! You said why not drop in Saturday, and of course she jumped at it. I daresay she's cutting some other date."
"Well, I don't know what dates all your friends have, but I know I never asked Clara. Would I ask Clara when the Montreal Eagles are here?"
"Which eagles, dear?" said Mrs. Heccomb.
"They're at the Icedrome tonight—as Daphne has known for weeks."
"Well, I don't care where your beastly old eagles are. All I know is that you did ask Clara. And you needn't go on as if 1 knew what dates Clara had. I should have thought that was your business, not mine."
"Oh, would you really?" said Dickie, giving his sister a brassy stare. "And what grounds, may I ask, have you for saying that?"
"Well, she's only round when you're here," said Daphne, weakening slightly.
"Where the girl may choose to be is her own business, I take it."
"Then don't you go making out she's a friend of mine."
"Oh, all right, all right, all right, you didn't ask her, I did. I didn't want to see the Montreal Eagles, oh no. Must Cecil come?"
"I just slipped in and asked him," said Mrs. Heccomb. "I thought you two might forget, and he would have been so hurt."
Dickie said: "I don't see why we have got to have Cecil."
"I do," said Daphne. "Mumsie and I thought he would do for Portia."
"Oh, Daphne, that was your idea, you know."
For the first time, Dickie looked full at Portia with his commanding stag's eyes. "You will find Cecil a bit cissie," he said.
"Oh Dickie, he's not."
"Oh, I like Cecil all right, but I can't stand those cissie pullovers."
"Well, you wear pullovers."
"I don't wear cissie pullovers."
"Oh, by the way, Dickie, you ought to see Doris bounce when she hears that bell."
"Oh, so it rings now, does it?"
"No thanks to you, either."
"Dickie's so busy, dear—Look, we ought to go up and dress now. And Doris is in there wanting to clear."
"Then for goodness' sake why doesn't she? Make her open the windows—we don't want the whole place smelling of veal and ham."
The three ladies went upstairs, Mrs. Heccomb taking her last cup of coffee with her. Dickie, after an interval for reflection, could be heard going up to change his appearance, too. Now, all over the bedroom floor of Waikiki, chests of drawers were banged open, taps were run. A black night wind was up, and Waikiki breasted it steadily, straining like a liner: every fixture rattled. This all went to heighten a pre-party tensity of the nerves. Portia wormed her way into her black velvet, which, from hanging only behind a curtain, had taken on a briny dampness inside: the velvet clung to her skin above her chemise top. She combed back her hair and put on the red snood—so tight that it drew the ends of her eyebrows up. With eyes too much dilated to see, she looked past herself in the mirror.
She was first downstairs and, squatting on the tiled kerb in front of the fire, heard the chimney roar. With arms raised from the elbows, like an Egyptian, she turned and toasted her body, feeling the clammy velvet slowly unstick from between her shoulder blades.
This was to be her first party. Tonight, the ceiling rose higher, the lounge extended tense and mysterious. Columns of translucent tawny shadow stood between the orange shades of the lamps. The gramophone stood open, a record on it, the arm with the needle bent back like an arm ready to strike. Doris not seeing Portia, Doris elate and ghostly in a large winged cap passed through the lounge with trays. Out there at sea they might take this house for another lighted ship—and soon this magnetic room would be drawing people down the dark esplanade. Portia saw