POST 16

Constance trudged upstairs to the third floor. She had had a marvellous evening. Life was full now of ongoing possibilities once Philip returned on leave at the end of the week; and strains of Delius, awfully quietly, it being midnight, came from Sarah's old upright in her room. All that counted.

But it also counted that she, Constance, had done no homework again. And she had forgotten to bring up a light-bulb for her bedroom and she could not work in bed by candlelight and she was worn out in any case. She passed her bedroom door and went on to the top sitting-room she shared. She regarded with profound distaste the books thrown about all over her desk. Fran's - she had inherited their father's leather-topped brass-handled, mahogany affair rescued and restored from the wreckage of the Old House - was as usual impeccably tidy, with actual pens and pencils and ink in the pen-and-ink stand, and reference books on guard at the ready. Sarah's desk was empty.

Down in the bathroom, Constance, made happy once more by her courageous decision to abandon all thoughts of homework, it was only punitive post-exam homework anyway, examined her newly-washed face above the damp neck-rim of a faded nightgown. It was a shiny, waxy white face, huge dark old eyeholes, red eyes, grey hair, referred to politely but not politely enough as ash. Plain. Good chin-line if you could keep your head half-cocked like that all the time and not a bad nose in the Greek fashion always providing the upper lip rested halfway down the chin. Dirty feet! Gym tomorrow! She yawned and her eyes were just filling copiously with tears of tiredness when a really galvanising racket broke out directly above in Sarah's room. Sarah and Philip no less, in unison, parts and counterparts, solo and duet, andante and allegro, con brio, without discretion, let or hindrance, were singing an old, all too recognisable song, and sending it chiming round the house. Not only was it loud, it was also lewd, Philip having written the words for Sarah, Sarah the music for Philip when they were children. They had based their childhood love-affair on it just at the time Sarah's first lover, Mervyn Evanwood, proposed himself, years ago, as Master of Ceremonies at a sitting-room concert. Astonishing words. Poem of Hate for Sarah Yokeham and Mervyn Evanwood. And he has flown as frail men should, as blows the dogrose off the wood. Breath held, as between wonder and lightning, waiting for the storm to burst from below, Constance hummed and danced upstairs, whirled and hopped onto the landing, wiping her washed, wet feet on the carpet and joining ecstatically in her own childhood once more. Last verse.

I hate you singer on the stage
Because you're such a tempting age
Of ravishing voice and doubtful taste
Because you haven't got much waist.
Your nose is long
Your mouth is wide
And I can almost see inside
You sing your song
And all your teeth
Stand dark among
That pound of beef
You call your tongue
You
call
your
tongue.
And yet you seem to light a fire
In me of all my heart's desire
Your flesh I yearn for like my mother's
Although you spurn me for another's
Don't have him, Sarah Yokeham, or
Plonk, plonk, before you're spoken for

Ever so quietly, and in pretty counterpart

Don't have him Sarah Yokeham or
Plonk, plonk, before you're spoken for.

Nothing could content them, having excited themselves so skilfully in there, but that the repetition of these huge absurdities must follow in canon, quite preventing them from hearing the oncoming crashing of feet. Constance glided smugly to her room and left the door ajar. The candle juddered. She got into bed and listened.

She could not hear what was being said. The racket had stopped. Laughter. She was just about to get out of bed again to join the departures when her bedroom door opened a little.

"Con...are you in bed? Can I come to say goodnight?"

And stay to say goodmorning.

Blinking prettily, she hoped, and sleepily, as if sleepily, to hide such embarrassing inspirations, Constance was about to sit up, having rescued her feet from under Philip's behind, when Frances came in and sat down next to him on the chair at the bottom of the divan. Philip put his head on Frances's shoulder. Frances got up. One would never pass Frances by, but when she pushed back her heavy hair to speak her mind, being as honest as she knew how, her eyes shining, then he must love her completely. Damn them. "Why don't you look at me, or smile at me?" Philip said to Frances, smiling. He got up. He took her hand. He was going to lead her away perhaps. But she did not want to go. She now sat down on Constance's bed, practically on Constance's knees. Lovely view of two backs if viewed longitudinally.

"You never told me how you liked The Man Who Fell Off Snowdon," Philip said.

Constance was well aware that her presence, much as Fran might hate it, would, Fran hoped, make Philip safe. No end to Fran's silliness.

"I didn't like it. It was an attack. Let the sun set on Frances, it said."

"Well," Philip laughed, "misunderstood again! When you hold up to me as a thousand times more significant to Man a city church which I know you may possibly have studied once and certainly never notice except wilfully, you inspire me, I turned you into a mountain..." (There seemed to Constance wide margins for misunderstanding there, if Philip were putting a fair care)

"It's no good joking, Philip." Frances withdrew her hand. He shook her shoulder gently. She seemed only embarrassed and angry, heavy. Her heaviness, the particular kind of immovable sense of her own righteousness irritated him. Anyway, it irritated Constance; anyone would think she Constance was invisible, like some servant, beneath notice.

"You've been arguing with Matthew. You get dreadfully...intense."

"But I learned something. Didn't you? Strange how my mere presence takes all the life out of you," Philip said. Constance moved off irritably about a foot down the bed, earhole exposed.

"In all your letters not one word have you said about staying in the Army."

"I talked to you about it in Wales. Nothing's definite."

"To me, it makes our writing to each other, our whole friendship, of little importance."

"Not that you mind my staying in the Army. You must be rather pleased. We can proceed on paper."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"I've told you what I could. I've only just decided to try. It's impossible to write everything. You don't write everything."

"I do!" Frances must have flushed at that, she was deeply offended. She stood up.

"Especially you." But he must have known she was only defending the importance of their letters in her life, because he turned to smile towards her again.

"There's something ...odd about this decision that you haven't told me," she said.

He shaded his eyes as if from the candlelight, screwing them up. "There are no rules for being yourself," he said. Frances was tense, holding her body hard, trembling a little in the dark room. Her face was crumpled, frowning, her eyes distant. They were both pained by what they saw wherever it was they were looking at. Then Frances turned to him. Her eyes pleaded. Let it be a first simple love. Constance shivered with the message and the insight, and covered her head.

"We can't talk here," Frances said.

"Oh my God! I can leave," said Constance and got furiously our of her bed. Not that that interrupted anybody.

"Certainly we can talk here. The very place you chose. Enjoy the world."

He did not want a first simple love. He moved away from Frances. "I'm back again on Saturday. I'll take you out to supper. How about that?" He looked at Frances hopefully, and took Constance's arm. The meaning of that, Constance looked down at his hand, was that he did not want to frighten Frances.

"No, that's impossible." Oh indeed! Spontaneity was not Fran's strong point. She obviously had not decided what to say to him. If she yearned for him now it was not for his company. Philip examined the junk on the mantelpiece. Constance sighed for all the waste. Frances, after a moment, left.

Philip turned rather helplessly towards the door. "Tell me if you change your mind about supper," he called, but in a way that made Constance feel angry with both of them.