GAY LIFE (A Satire on the Lifestyle of the French Riviera). E. M. Delafield
Coral was forty-four, and as straight and slim as a well-built girl of twenty. Nothing had spread, anywhere. Automatically, her hands passed down the firm, flat outline of her hips and waist, and she smiled a little, with satisfaction, and then slipped over her head the pyjama-top.
On the rock beside her was an elaborate beach-bag, on green glass rings. Coral sat down and extracted from it everything that she wanted for the lengthy and complicated process of making up her face.
If only her face had remained as young as her figure!
She gazed into her little looking-glass, carefully not frowning because frowning made lines.
The white bathing-helmet was unbecoming, and she hastily took it off, and shook her hair loose. Every day it hurt her afresh that her hair, which once had been ash-blonde in colour and soft in texture, should by imperceptible degrees have become stiff and brittle and lifeless.
It was permanent waving that had done it. No head of hair could stand up against it, year after year. And that time she'd dyed it had been disastrous, too. There was still a faint greenish tinge to be seen on one side of her head.
Coral ran a comb through her hair, sighing.
Then she gently patted the tiny little lines round her eyes. They were very nearly imperceptible—and her eyes were, and always would be, a lovely grey-blue between their darkened lashes. She smeared a very little rouge into her cheeks, and powdered her nose, chin, and forehead with an ochrish powder.
Before applying her lipstick, Coral scrutinised her front teeth very earnestly in the mirror. They were all right—still. And the few that weren't her own were at the back, thank Heaven, and no one could possibly guess.
She reddened her mouth thoroughly. It was a very pretty and alluring mouth still, and there was as yet no sign of a double chin beneath it.
Coral's terror of advancing years was by far the most real thing in her life. She lived only for the excitement of her succession of affairs with men, and it was to her almost unendurable to envisage an existence in which she would cease to be sexually attractive.
So far, there were no signs that she had lost any of her power, and indeed since her separation from Patrick's father, and resultant freedom, it seemed to have increased. There was always someone.
Romayne was a rich man, and he gave her a generous allowance, for herself and for the boy. He knew—and Coral knew that he knew—that he could easily have divorced her—but Romayne was a man of religious scruples.
Coral did not mind. She had no particular wish to marry again. All that she wanted was to go on receiving the allowance, and to be free to go where she liked and do as she liked. She was extravagant, and never out of debt, but she had a natural light-heartedness that enabled her to throw off every impression except the ones of the moment.
She had come to the South of France partly to get away from her creditors in London, and partly at the instigation of a new friend recently met at a suburban Bridge Club—a Mrs. Wolverton-Gush.
"Gushie'll expect me to go and look her up to-night, I suppose," thought Coral, lacing up her bathing-shoes. "I can't imagine Gushie out here, wearing a bathing-dress."
She giggled at the thought, for Mrs. Wolverton-Gush was large, and Coral had never seen her dressed in anything except tight, black, pseudo-smart London garments, with touches of white, or of jade-green. She was the widow, she said, of a civil engineer, and had no children. A dishonest trustee, who had eventually committed suicide, was held by Mrs. Wolverton-Gush responsible for the fact that she was obliged to work for her living. She had, at various times, run a Tea-shop, a Registry Office, a Nursing Home, and a Hostel for Professional Women. Once or twice Mrs. Wolverton-Gush, in a stately way, had borrowed five or ten pounds from Carol, who was open-handed and liked to boast of it. The money had always been paid back again.
It was Mrs. Wolverton-Gush who had introduced Buckland to Mrs. Romayne, at a party given by Coral in London. She had suggested, almost immediately afterwards, that "a great boy like Patrick" ought to have a holiday-tutor, who would be able to drive the car, and swim, and play games with him. A tutor would be invaluable, if they went to the South of France.
"Your friend, Buck, is looking for a job. He's done things of that kind heaps of times," said Coral.
"I dare say he'd take it on. He admires you tremendously. Not that I'd advise you to engage him unless you really feel it would be the best thing for Patrick," had replied Mrs. Wolverton-Gush.
Coral was amused. She knew very well that the whole thing had been arranged beforehand, and that if an engagement for Buckland resulted, Mrs. Wolverton-Gush would claim a commission from him.
Coral cared not at all. Her quarter's allowance had just been paid, she was feeling rich, and the idea of having a big, good-looking young man at her beck and call in a smart Hotel on the Côte d'Azur, appealed to her. And to be tête-à-tête with Patrick, whom she found inarticulate and distressingly innocent, often bored her very much.
Buckland treated her with exactly the sort of familiarity that most flattered her, and Coral assured herself that the fact of his being nearly sixteen years younger than herself—whether he knew it or not—would prevent either of them from taking a possible affair too seriously.
Her interpretation of the word "affair" was, however, elastic. In a haze of good-humour, occasioned by recently taken exercise, the consciousness of Buckland's proximity, and the prospect of drinks and noise and people as soon as they should get back to the Hotel, Mrs. Romayne sang to herself as she tied the last shoelace.
Buckland, swinging round a corner, almost ran into her.
"Give me a cigarette," she commanded.
"I was just bringing them along. Here—keep still. I'll light it for you."
He was holding her arm when Patrick pulled himself up from the water and came across the rock, dripping.
"Had a good swim, Patrick? Where are the others?" called out Buckland.
"I don't know."
The boy vanished behind a rock.
"What a surly young beggar it is!" muttered Buckland. "Did you hear the way he spoke to me?"
"What's upset him?"
"How should I know?"
"Well, it's your job to find out, isn't it?" observed Mrs. Romayne without rancour. "You're his tutor, aren't you?"
"If you say so," grinned Buckland, looking straight into her eyes. "Personally, I should have thought there were lots of things I could do better than chasing about after a schoolboy who hasn't got the manners of a Hottentot."
Coral laughed. She was not paying much attention to his words, but her pulses were beating faster than usual as his warm grasp tightened strongly on her arm.
(4)
Mervyn Morgan did not go into the water to meet his two younger children. He watched them, swimming well and steadily, the boy David keeping slightly ahead of his sister.
"Daddy!"
"Hallo."
David climbed up beside his father. He was a silent little boy, very sturdy and freckled. Mervyn liked him the best of his children, because he was a boy, and also because he was the least critical of the three.
"Is mummy here?" Mervyn asked.
"No, she didn't come. Patrick's mother brought us down in the Buick."
After that they sat in silence, except for occasional monosyllabic replies shouted to Gwennie, who was haranguing them from the sea.
She was a moon-faced, gregarious child, of indomitable vitality and considerable intelligence.
When she, also, landed, Mervyn said, "Well done!" because Gwennie was a girl, and he felt that