The Complete Short Stories. Muriel Spark
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Ted?”
“That chap looks miserable,” Ted observed. He referred to a shot of David Carter who had just ambled within range of the camera.
Everyone laughed, for David looked exceedingly grim.
“He was caught in an off-moment there,” said Sybil’s hostess. “Oh, there goes Sybil. I thought you looked a little sad just then, Sybil. There’s that other girl again, and the lovely dog.”
“Was this a typical afternoon in the Colony?” inquired the young man.
“It was and it wasn’t,” Sybil said.
Whenever they had the camera out life changed at the Westons’. Everyone, including the children, had to look very happy. The house natives were arranged to appear in the background wearing their best whites. Sometimes Barry would have everyone dancing in a ring with the children, and the natives had to clap time.
Or, as on the last occasion, he would stage an effect of gracious living. The head cook-boy, who had a good knowledge of photography, was placed at his post.
“Ready,” said Barry to the cook, “shoot.”
Désirée came out, followed by the dog.
“Look frisky, Barker,” said Barry. The Alsatian looked frisky.
Barry put one arm round Désirée and his other arm through Sybil’s that late afternoon, walking them slowly across the camera range. He chatted with amiability and with an actor’s lift of the head. He would accentuate his laughter, tossing back his head. A sound track would, however, have reproduced the words, “Smile, Sybil. Walk slowly. Look as if you’re enjoying it. You’ll be able to see yourself in later years, having the time of your life.”
Sybil giggled.
Just then David was seen to be securing the little lake boat between the trees. “He must have come across the lake,” said Barry. “I wonder if he’s been drinking again?”
But David’s walk was quite steady. He did not realize he was being photographed as he crossed the long lawn. He stood for a moment staring at Sybil. She said, “Oh, hallo, David.” He turned and walked aimlessly face-on towards the camera.
“Hold it a minute,” Barry called out to the cook.
The boy obeyed at the moment David realized he had been filmed.
“OK,” shouted Barry, when David was out of range. “Fire ahead.”
It was then Barry said to Sybil, “Haven’t you found a man yet …?” and Désirée said, “You ought to try a love affair …”
“We’ve made Sybil unhappy,” said Désirée.
“Oh, I’m quite happy.”
“Well, cheer up in front of the camera,” said Barry.
The sun was setting fast, the camera was folded away, and everyone had gone to change. Sybil came down and sat on the stoep outside the open French windows of the dining-room. Presently, Désirée was indoors behind her, adjusting the oil lamps which one of the house-boys had set too high. Désirée put her head round the glass door and remarked to Sybil, “That Benjamin’s a fool, I shall speak to him in the morning. He simply will not take care with these lamps. One day we’ll have a real smoke-out.”
Sybil said, “Oh, I expect they are all so used to electricity these days …”
“That’s the trouble,” said Désirée, and turned back into the room.
Sybil was feeling disturbed by David’s presence in the place. She wondered if he would come in to dinner. Thinking of his sullen staring at her on the lawn, she felt he might make a scene. She heard a gasp from the dining-room behind her.
She looked round, but in the same second it was over. A deafening crack from the pistol and Désirée crumpled up. A movement by the inner door and David held the gun to his head. Sybil screamed, and was aware of running footsteps upstairs. The gun exploded again and David’s body dropped sideways.
With Barry and the natives she went round to the dining-room. Désirée was dead. David lingered a moment enough to roll his eyes in Sybil’s direction as she rose from Désirée’s body. He knows, thought Sybil quite lucidly, that he got the wrong woman.
“What I can’t understand,” said Barry when he called on Sybil a few weeks later, “is why he did it.”
“He was mad,” said Sybil.
“Not all that mad,” said Barry. “And everyone thinks, of course, that there was an affair between them. That’s what I can’t bear.”
“Quite,” said Sybil. “But of course he was keen on Désirée. You always said so. Those rows you used to have … You always made out you were jealous of David.”
“Do you know,” he said, “I wasn’t, really. It was a sort of … a sort of …”
“Play-act,” said Sybil.
“Sort of. You see, there was nothing between them,” he said. “And honestly, Carter wasn’t a bit interested in Désirée. And the question is why he did it. I can’t bear people to think …”
The damage to his pride, Sybil saw, outweighed his grief. The sun was setting and she rose to put on the stoep light.
“Stop!” he said. “Turn round. My God, you did look like Désirée for a moment.”
“You’re nervy,” she said, and switched on the light.
“In some ways you do look a little like Désirée,” he said. “In some lights,” he said reflectively.
I must say something, thought Sybil, to blot this notion from his mind. I must make this occasion unmemorable, distasteful to him.
“At all events,” she said, “you’ve still got your poetry.”
“That’s the great thing,” he said, “I’ve still got that. It means everything to me, a great consolation. I’m selling up the estate and joining up. The kids are going into a convent and I’m going up north. What we need is some good war poetry. There hasn’t been any war poetry.”
“You’ll make a better soldier,” she said, “than a poet.”
“What do you say?”
She repeated her words fairly slowly, and with a sense of relief, almost of absolution. The season of falsity had formed a scab, soon to fall away altogether. There is no health, she thought, for me, outside of honesty.
“You’ve always,” he said, “thought my poetry was wonderful.”
“I have said so,” she said, “but it was a sort of play-act. Of course, it’s only my opinion, but I think you’re a third-rater poet.”
“You’re upset, my dear,” he said.
He sent her the four reels of film from Cairo a month before he was killed in action. “It will be nice in later years,” he wrote, “for you to recall those good times we used to have.”
“It has been delightful,” said her hostess. “You haven’t changed a bit. Do you feel any different?”
“Well yes, I feel rather differently about everything, of course.” One learns to accept oneself.
“A hundred feet of one’s past life!” said the young man. “If they were mine, I’m sure I should be shattered. I should be calling ‘Lights! Lights!’ like Hamlet’s uncle.”
Sybil smiled at him. He looked back, suddenly solemn and shrewd.
“How tragic, those people being killed in shooting affairs,” said the elderly woman.
“The last reel was the best,” said her hostess. “The garden was entrancing. I should