The waiter came back with their two drinks. Llewellyn paid him.
He looked over to the glass the girl held cupped in her two hands.
“Brandy?”
“Yes. Brandy helps a lot.”
“It helps you to feel alone? Is that it?”
“Yes. It helps me to feel-free.”
“And you’re not free?”
“Is anybody free?”
He considered. She had not said the words bitterly-as they are usually spoken. She had been asking a simple question.
“The fate of every man is bound about his neck-is that what you feel?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not quite. I can understand feeling rather like that, that your course was charted out like a ship’s, and that you must follow it, again rather like a ship, and that so long as you do, you are all right. But I feel more like a ship that has, quite suddenly, gone off its proper course. And then, you see, you’re lost. You don’t know where you are, and you’re at the mercy of the wind and sea, and you’re not free, you’re caught in the grip of something you don’t understand-tangled up in it all.” She added: “What nonsense I’m talking. I suppose it’s the brandy.”
He agreed.
“It’s partly the brandy, no doubt. Where does it take you?”
“Oh, away… that’s all-away….”
“What is it, really, that you have to get away from?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s the really-well, wicked part of it. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I’ve got everything.” She repeated sombrely: “Everything…. Oh, I don’t mean I’ve not had sorrows, losses, but it’s not that. I don’t hanker and grieve over the past. I don’t resurrect it and live it over again. I don’t want to go back, or even forward. I just want to go away somewhere. I sit here drinking brandy and presently I’m out there, beyond the harbour, and going farther and farther-into some kind of unreal place that doesn’t really exist. It’s rather like the dreams of flying you have as a child-no weight-so light-floating.”
The wide unfocused stare was coming back to her eyes. Llewellyn sat watching her.
Presently she came to herself with a little start.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t come back. I’m going now.” He rose. “May I, now and then, come and sit here and talk to you? If you’d rather not, just say so. I shall understand.”
“No, I should like you to come. Good-night. I shan’t go just yet. You see, it’s not always that I can get away.”
2
It was about a week later when they talked together again.
She said as soon as he sat down: “I’m glad you haven’t gone away yet. I was afraid you might have gone.”
“I shan’t go away just yet. It’s not time yet.”
“Where will you go when you leave here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mean-you’re waiting for orders?”
“You might put it like that, yes.”
She said slowly:
“Last time, when we talked, it was all about me. We didn’t talk about you at all. Why did you come here-to the island? Had you a reason?”
“Perhaps it was for the same reason as you drink brandy-to get away, in my case from people.”
“People in general, or do you mean special people?”
“Not people in general. I meant really people who know me-or knew me-as I was.”
“Did something-happen?”
“Yes, something happened.”
She leaned forward.
“Are you like me? Did something happen that put you off course?”
He shook his head with something that was almost vehemence.
“No, not at all. What happened to me was an intrinsic part of the pattern of my life. It had significance and intention.”
“But what you said about people-”
“They don’t understand, you see. They are sorry for me, and they want to drag me back-to something that’s finished.”
She wrinkled a puzzled brow.
“I don’t quite-”
“I had a job,” he said smiling. “Now-I’ve lost it.”
“An important job?”
“I don’t know.” He was thoughtful. “I thought it was. But one can’t really know, you see, what is important. One has to learn not to trust one’s own values. Values are always relative.”
“So you gave up your job?”
“No.” His smile flashed out again. “I was sacked.”