TWO TAXI DRIVES
[To Paul Morand]
I: SUNSHINE
"Margaret, my dear, how delightful."
"Is it?"
"But of course."
"I always wonder," she murmured, "about accidental and sudden meetings. They are a sort of nervous shock and you always feel that you are looking for something that you've mislaid and that you don't seem able to find again until you've parted."
"How depressing you are. Looking for mislaid intimacy, do you mean?"
"I suppose so."
"When I saw you I simply felt—Margaret, thank God!"
"Matthew, you old humbug."
"And for you who specialise in intimacy and the unexpected, it is simply disgraceful."
"But I don't."
"You used to."
"Yes."
"Are you a reformed character?"
"A reformed experimentalist."
"I don't believe it."
"Matthew, after all I am glad to see you."
"Then let us take a taxi and drive round the Bois."
"Very well."
"You're not reformed at all. If you were, you would say, 'I've got to try on,' or, 'there are so many things I must do before lunch,' or 'I am only in Paris for such a short time.'"
"They're all true."
"Of course—that sort of thing is always true. The point is, is it relevant?"
"Talking of specialists. Do you still specialise in the irrelevant?"
"I have never understood what that word meant when applied to my activities. I have still kept my sense of proportion, if that is what you are driving at?"
"And Virginia?"
"Is still Virginia."
"And you love her?"
"Very often."
"Not all the time?"
"Certainly not. How then should I have my opportunities of discovering that I loved her?"
"Does she like your method?"
"I wonder. Sometimes it gets on her nerves."
"Poor Virginia."
"It is ridiculous to pity Virginia. Every one adores her and she meddles about in people's lives to her heart's content."
"I always pity women who care for charming men."
"Why—because charming men are fickle?"
"No, because they are vulnerable."
"Nonsense."
"Charm is the dragon's blood."
"But the leaf always falls somewhere."
"And the weak spot is vanity—which is no use to one at all."
"By the way, how is Michael, talking of charming men. Or, were we talking about them?"
"I suppose so."
"Margaret, I don't like Michael."
"Why not?"
"He is too complete."
"Do you usually tell women that you don't like their husbands?"
"No, they usually tell it to me."
"Is that what you suggest that I am doing?"
"Margaret, please. You know I didn't mean that. It was just an idiotic jeu de mots."
"Matthew, be careful; if you are serious you will turn my head."
"I would love to turn your head."
"Why is it that you always make me indiscreet?"
"I suppose that I inspire people with the happy illusion that I am not going to take what they say seriously."
"I suppose that is it."
"By the way, what was India like?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Of course not."
"I stayed with Ariadne."
"Is she happy?"
"Radiant."
"Loving pomp?"
"Loving Robert."
"Dear me."
"Robert is the most wonderful man in the world."
"Well, he wanted to marry you; why didn't you marry him?"
"I thought his pedestal such a precarious foothold in life."
"If Ariadne can balance on it for a moment, it must be pretty firm."
"It is a lovely pedestal. You can see for miles from it, and it is as comfortable as an armchair."
"Ariadne always had a rare eye for a cushion."
"Ariadne is a perfect wife."
"Margaret, it is absolutely essential that I should see you once every twenty-four hours for the rest of my life. You will, therefore, not think me too matter-of-fact if I ask you your immediate plans?"
"I am staying here three more days."
"Damn—sixteen hours gone already, I am off to Deauville."
"Then I am going back to London where it will all begin again."
"I shall be there."
"How grand it sounds to be a melodrama."
"Margaret, do you know that I love you a great deal?"
"I know that you are a great flirt."
"Of course. That makes my real love so very exceptional and precious."
"Does Virginia know that?"
"Virginia almost understands everything, but of course she can't afford to admit it, or one would behave too impossibly."
"Matthew, may I tell you something very serious?"
"Yes, if you don't expect me to profit by it."
"I used to understand almost everything, and I went on stretching and stretching till it broke, and now I understand nothing."
"Perhaps you are right," he twinkled at her, "perhaps I had better not marry Virginia."
"Are you trying to make me unhappy?"
"Margaret, dearest, I might even be serious if I thought that it would make you happy."
"Good heavens, it's one, and I am lunching at one."
"Margaret, promise never to mislay our intimacy again."
"I promise."
That evening there was a knock at the door.
"Monsieur a fait dire que c'était un bouquet pour Madame."
An immense bunch of balloons followed him into the room.
"For Margaret who—in spite of everything, because of everything—understands everything."
"Matthew," she wrote, "how young you make me."
And then she murmured to herself:
"Poor Virginia!"
II: LAMPS
"I love you so." The wheels of the taxi were the counterpoint to his voice.
"What is the good of my turning away when every bit of him bites into my consciousness?" she thought.
The road stretched ahead of them like ciré satin with a piping of lights. She had changed her position a little, restless under the constraint of his eyes. A lamp lit her up for him, her face white and drawn, her eyelids pulled over her eyes like a heavy curtain.
"One feels that one could skate down the street," she murmured, "it looks like stuff worn thin with time and use—the shabby shiny surface of the night."
On and on they went.
"We can't get anywhere," he said.
A lamp lit up her face.
It looked so weary and impotent as if she had abdicated the uneven struggle with circumstances.
On they raced, down the slippery ribbon of road.
There was a bump and she fell towards him. He stretched out his arm and held her firm and secure. He wanted her to feel that it was a rampart and not an insidious outpost of passion quick to take advantage.
"Let me kiss you once, for God's sake," his voice was harsh.
She turned her face towards him. The passing lamp showed her resigned, pitying, tender.
"Don't look like that," he said—sharp with the things he had wanted.
"I'm sorry," her voice was velvety and comforting.
Yet another lamp, there was a faint smile on her lips—breathed as it were from him. He huddled into his corner, hurt by her compassion.
"I hate to see the moon," she said, "cynical and prying—an eavesdropper of a moon."
Again a light gave him a fleeting vision of her—photographed on to his soul.
Her deep dark eyes, heavy with distress, the corners of her mouth repudiating the misery of the moment. She put her hand on his arm.
"Don't," she said, "there is in life such an incoherent mass of interwoven strands. And perhaps something comes and tears them all to bits."
Her voice was chanting—as if she were singing him a lullaby—then it became light again.
"Wait till the next lamp," she said. "And you will see in my eyes the old laughter that you used to love."
They turned down a side street and there were no more lights.
Abruptly the taxi stopped.
She got out. Her pale gold coat was a continuation of the moon.
She turned her brooding eyes away from him.
"Thank you for taking me home," she said; her voice had broken. She looked back—a smile turned on to her lips.
He heard her latch key. The door opened and shut.