563296589345

morning when he met her, and the sight of the familiar frock gave him courage. It seemed to bring her
nearer to him, taking away the strangeness and the elegance that had sometimes unnerved him.
He picked up the magazine she had been reading and made some remark; for a moment they
chattered in the banal way they so seldom managed to avoid. It is strange how the drivelling habits of
conversation will persist into almost all moments. Yet even as they chattered they found themselves
drifting to the door and then outside, and presently to the big frangipani tree by the tennis court. It was
the night of the full moon. Flaring like a white-hot coin, so brilliant that it hurt one’s eyes, the moon
swam rapidly upwards in a sky of smoky blue, across which drifted a few wisps of yellowish cloud.
The stars were all invisible. The croton bushes, by day hideous dungs like jaundiced laurels, were
changed by the moon into jagged black-and-white designs like fantastic woodcuts. By the compound
fence two Dravidian coolies were walking down the road, transfigured, their white rags gleaming.
Through the tepid air the scent streamed from the frangipani tree like some intolerable compound out
of a penny-in-the-slot machine.
‘Look at the moon, just look at it!’ Flory said. ‘It’s like a white sun. It’s brighter than an English
winter day.’
Elizabeth looked up into the branches of the frangipani tree, which the moon seemed to have
changed into rods of silver. The light lay thick, as though palpable, on everything, crusting the earth
and the rough bark of trees like some dazzling salt, and every leaf seemed to bear a freight of solid
light, like snow. Even Elizabeth, indifferent to such things, was astonished.
‘It’s wonderful! You never see moonlight like that at Home. It’s so–so——’ No adjective except
‘bright’ presenting itself, she was silent. She had a habit of leaving her sentences unfinished, like
Rosa Dartle, though for a different reason.
‘Yes, the old moon does her best in this country. How that tree does stink, doesn’t it? Beastly,
tropical thing! I hate a tree that blooms all the year round, don’t you?’
He was talking half abstractedly, to cover the time till the coolies should be out of sight. As they
disappeared he put his arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder, and then, when she did not start or speak,
turned her round and drew her against him. Her head came against his breast, and her short hair
grazed his lips. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to meet his. She was not wearing
her spectacles.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘No.’
‘I mean, you don’t mind my–this thing of mine?’ he shook his head slightly to indicate the birthmark.
He could not kiss her without first asking this question.
‘No, no. Of course not.’
A moment after their mouths met he felt her bare arms settle lightly round his neck. They stood
pressed together, against the smooth trunk of the frangipani tree, body to body, mouth to mouth, for a
minute or more. The sickly scent of the tree came mingling with the scent of Elizabeth’s hair. And the
scent gave him a feeling of stultification, of remoteness from Elizabeth, even though she was in his
arms. All that that alien tree symbolised for him, his exile, the secret, wasted years–it was like an
unbridgeable gulf between them. How should he ever make her understand what it was that he wanted