Turning Back the Sun(18)
Ivar had followed him out. “Felicie wasn”t joking,” he said. “I do think that. These people are radically different. You only have to look at the shape of their heads to see it. There simply isn”t enough room for a developed neocortex.”
Rayner chilled. Ivar, he”d noticed, was reading a manual called Leadership Effectiveness. He seemed to be mentally arming himself. To Ivar, knowledge must always have a purpose—Rayner remembered this from their schooldays. Everything was used, directed to an end. Nothing existed simply for itself.
Rayner said, “It”s not as simple as that.”
Ivar answered quite affectionately, “You always did complicate things.” He dropped his cigarette stub over the verandah. “But just look at Felicie”s head shape, for example. That”s the brain case of a sheep.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not in the least.” But he laughed. “This is the last holiday she and I take together. She”s an exceptionally pretty woman, don”t you think, but there”s too much I dislike in her, and I”ve no doubt she”d say the same about me.”
“There”s something desperate about her.”
“I”ll keep an eye on her after we”ve split up.”
Rayner watched Ivar”s face in the moonlight: the putty-like face in which nothing was memorable, except the bland balance of the whole. Yes, Ivar would keep an eye on Felicie. Rayner”s childhood memories of him were all of a premature adult, mocking a little, but kindly within limits: a man to whom cruelty would be a waste of energy.
He went on gazing at the moonstruck lake. His head was clearing, but not happily. If he had not known Ivar in childhood, he thought, they could never have become friends. Yet sometimes he felt irritated at his own inability to embrace life as Ivar did. Everything seemed to grate on him harder than on others—on these robust townspeople drinking and dancing behind him, their exile forgotten. Ivar and the town were right for one another, he thought. They were all ruled by a merciless common sense: whether in accepting a theory about the savages” inferiority (one of God”s slips, they would say) or the lot of the pathetic Felicie.
“Zo? will help her,” Rayner said. “I think she relies on Zo?.”
“Yes, she probably does.” Ivar turned quiet. “But you can”t rely on Zo? except in bursts.” He took Rayner”s arm, asserting their old friendship, its primacy over any later ones. “I”ve known Zo? several years, and she”s very self-willed, complex…. She”s a solitary.”
Perhaps Ivar was warning him against falling in love. But in some way, Rayner thought, Zo? had offended him.
“Don”t misunderstand me,” he went on. “She”s good looking, she”s intelligent…. On a six-day holiday she”ll be fine.” He gave a collusive laugh. “But then, she”s never the same …”
It was the first time Rayner had seen this look on Ivar”s face: perplexity. So he had failed to understand her.
Then Rayner felt a sudden distaste at them both standing here, talking about their temporary women. He did not want to discuss Zo? any longer. But he could not resist asking, “How the hell did she land up in this town?”
“She”s always gone her own way. Her parents are decent people in the north, you know. Teachers. But she had to be different …”
Zo? and Felicie came out onto the terrace then, exclaiming at the moonlight and the men”s absence. They had twined jasmine in each other”s hair. Their laughter tinkled in the night. Anyone boating on the lake, Rayner thought, would have seen two glamorous young women carelessly on holiday with their men …
Behind them the band had struck up one of the syncopated dance tunes popular that year. In front, an isolated wind was interfering with the moonlight all over the lake. Felicie was walking unsteadily up and down the terrace, crooning to herself. Zo?, standing close to Rayner, had started listening for owls, and he was conscious of her hands resting beside him on the verandah stonework, their long fingers interlaced. Ivar came and stood beside them, his jacket hung carelessly over his arm.
Then Ivar reached out and covered Zo?”s hands with one of his. It was a broad hand, Rayner saw. A gold ring glinted on it. Ivar said, “Come and dance.”
There was something so assured, so proprietorial about the gesture, that Zo?”s reaction was the more shocking. Her hands darted from under his and bunched whitely at her waist. For a split second an abyss of vulnerability opened up in her. Then her anger covered her. For an instant Rayner saw her eyes flash down at his crippled foot, the one which could not dance, then up again at Ivar. Her hands were behind her back. She breathed, “No!”
Because he scarcely knew her, her character splintered with awesome complexity before his eyes. Every night she would wipe away with cold cream the elaborate evening face she had composed, and there would appear beneath it her other, softer persona. With her hair loosed behind her back like a young girl”s, her features appeared thinner, peakier. Even the luster in her eyes seemed to change. It calmed to a tentative stare. Her whole demeanor seemed to be asking: am I all right?
This changed person awoke Rayner”s protectiveness. It was as if this capacity in him—a kind of impassioned tenderness—had been there long ago, waiting for her. At night the slender dancer”s arms with their elongated fingers twined about him in blind urgency, so that he wanted to calm her into himself. Yet whenever he started to think that this orphan was her only manifestation, its mirror image would erupt—vital, playful, defiant—and she would revert to her daytime self: the owner of the proud back and strong-shaped legs. Then she would tease and laugh at him and at herself, like somebody watching a carnival.