XL

THE SWING. ELFRIDA on it, Flapping Eagle behind it, Irina leaning against the great ash which bore it. Elfrida’s parasol leaning beside Irina’s, closed and unnecessary in the soothing shadow of the tree. Elfrida smiling in innocent child-pleasure, Flapping Eagle half-smiling to keep her company, Irina unsmiling, eyes grey behind closed lids, halfway between dreams and waking. The swing, swaying in restful sweeps, queenly as the tree. Not even in the garden of the Cherkassovs was there a tree to match the ash, nor a swing to compare with this. The mist was light today, the sun warm and the air humming with bees about their business. There: a butterfly, glinting wings and flutters in the shafting shaded light. An elegiac day, graceful as the arcing swing, fresh and clean as new-baked bread, delicate as lace or a pale woman’s skin, a day to match the beauty of the women at the swing. Flapping Eagle woke at dawn, wide-eyed and refreshed; he had slept well and remembered no dreams. The dawn, like the succeeding day, had been a cheering thing, blinding him to his concerns. On a day, by a tree, at a swing, with two women like this spirits could not help but rise. Flapping Eagle’s were high.

Elfrida on the swing. —Higher! she commanded. Flapping Eagle pushed harder, the swing soared. Irina’s lids, closed like her parasol, censored the scene from her sight. Such ostentatious innocence held little attraction for her. Elfrida Gribb was her constant companion and her neighbour; and yet, she thought, the two of them had few enough common attributes, excepting their beauty. It had been a long time since Irina had thought this; a long time since Elfrida’s act of child-woman had irritated her. Today, it did. No-one could be so pure, no innocence so well-protected, no action as lacking in calculation as Elfrida’s claimed to be. Hers was the artifice that concealed artifice, thought Irina, and the subterfuge annoyed. She laughed, ate, slept, wondered like a child—and Irina Cherkassova was no lover of children. So she closed her eyes and let them play.

The soaring Elfrida had quite a different effect on Flapping Eagle. She had been awake early as well; and before the arrival of the Countess for a surprise breakfast visit, they had talked for a long time. Flapping Eagle had found that to look into those green eyes was to agree with their thoughts, just as Irina Cherkassova’s grey eyes could hypnotize him to their will. Talking to Elfrida, he had found himself willing to dismiss all his qualms of the previous night, all his doubts, and regain the courage of his conviction that K was the place for him. There were worse fates than that of spending an eternity with those eyes. And listening to Elfrida he even felt a certain sympathy with Ignatius Gribb. In her eyes, he was a considerate, loving man, and the eyes were unanswerable. But flickeringly they grew shadowed, as though her certainty wavered … and then the shadow was banished, and they sparkled again. Even her dislike of Jocasta and her house failed to arouse any objection; Flapping Eagle had distasteful memories of his own whoring past and embraced her dislike with the zeal of the convert. He found himself thinking less of Virgil Jones for staying there. Which was, of course, a convenient salve for his conscience. The chameleon adaptability within him, the symbiotic expertise had taken control once again, stimulated by the gaze of Elfrida Gribb.

—Irina, said Elfrida. Come, it’s your turn.

—No, no, said Irina Cherkassova. I’ll forgo it.

—Nonsense, said Flapping Eagle. We’ll have no spectators here.

And Irina submitted. She took Elfrida’s place. Elfrida sat on the grass and hummed.

The thought struck Flapping Eagle that it had been too long since he had had a woman. And in the same instant he wondered about Irina Cherkassova, with her weak husband and idiot son and petrified pregnancy. Elfrida Gribb was attractive in spite of (because of?) her innocent airs; Irina Cherkassova’s charms were more freely displayed. She was the more likely of the two. But second best, he told himself, and was surprised by the thought. Surprised and then worried by its implications for himself, a guest in her husband’s house. Unconsciously he pushed the swing too hard.

—Mr Eagle, reproved Irina, kindly take care. Mr Eagle: public decorum or a rejection of the intimacy of the other night?

—Sorry, he said.

Elfrida, too, was finding her neighbour a trial today. Again, it was an unusual feeling; and again, like Irina, she failed to put her finger on its source. Or perhaps she avoided doing so, as she had banished her jealousy of the night before last by thoughts of her dear Ignatius. She forced herself to picture him now, poring over his books and minute handwriting, sitting poised as a stone for hours and then darting a line down upon the elderly exercise-book he filled so entirely, not liking to waste a blank millimetre of paper, since his stocks were not inexhaustible. The picture made her smile; and then it dissolved, and the tallish, firm figure of Flapping Eagle filled it once more. —He is certainly beautiful, she thought.

Irina dismounted from the swing. —And now, Mr Eagle, she said firmly, since you dislike spectators so, Elfrida and I shall have to make sure you take your turn.

—O, yes, cried Elfrida, jumping up. On you go, Mr Eagle.

Then he was in their hands, flying up and down and back, whistling through the almost-clear air, at the mercy of the two pale mannequins. At their mercy, because he too was gradually becoming obsessed, and they were to be the objects of his obsession.

There was nothing for it. He must see Virgil today. He had put it off too long already, and it had to be done. Perhaps his gradual introduction into the ways of K would mean seeing little of his erstwhile guide, but that was no excuse for ingratitude. And perhaps K was not the place … there were still those unanswered questions, that ostrich-view of things.

—I must go into town, he said.

—I’ll accompany you to the Cobble-way, said Irina. I was thinking of a short walk myself.

They left Elfrida feeling ill-humoured again, and angry with herself.

Out of sight of the Gribb house, trees obscuring it from view.

Irina Cherkassova said: —Are we still friends, Flapping Eagle?

—Yes, he replied. If you like.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth.

—Then that cements our friendship, she said, and walked away from him without looking back.

There were too many fluctuations within him—between his feelings for Virgil and his feelings for the new life to which Elfrida had introduced him; and now an emotional wavering between Elfrida and Irina, brought on by that kiss. He had to start settling things irrevocably, he told himself, and walked purposefully towards the House of the Rising Son.