Free The Sea Change by Elizabeth Jane Howard Page A

pat and prick it and mark it with L: let her argue and discuss and find the faults which she felt were her contribution – thereby losing to her all the fine flush
of a piece of work finished. Because of her, play after play slipped from the heart where it had been building and was cast upon his waters of Lethe – all over, bar the cheering, and there
wasn’t any of that . . .
    She was almost in tears – he must have lost his temper. He started to lie to her and she looked relieved. As they left the house, she left her centre long enough to say: ‘Poor Em.
You should have told me you had to re-write the whole act: it must have been awful for you.’
    In the taxi she said: ‘Well, the least I can do is to find you a new secretary.’ And he took her blue-gloved hand feeling deeply ashamed at the appearance of nobility – brittle
and blistering on her face.
    The day had worn itself into something of a calm – the sky skim milk, the river watered half-ripe wheat; the plane trees along the Embankment whose new leaves had been washed and tossed
all the day were fresh and still and golden green – and the starlings like clouds of black ash – fled to their noisy and uncomfortable night in Trafalgar Square. The Fairbrothers gave
their party three floors up in a suite looking on to these sights, but the suite was so packed with the blurring agitation of social intercourse that they might not have been there. The party was
about show business: almost everyone there had something to do with it, and he thought that this would be apparent to any odd member of an audience. The women were better dressed – on the
whole – than the average English party. They had certainly made the most – and in some cases too much – of themselves; their eyes and mouths designed to be seen at a distance,
their hair and their hands well groomed, their feet beautifully shod: they wore real scent and a lot of it; artificial jewellery and a lot of that: ingeniously cut brassieres or none at all. A few
of them had poodles, which, like their handbags, were either very large or very small, and their voices, at whatever volume, were meant to be heard. The men might have been more difficult to place.
Sick men, prosperous men, crafty men, nervous men; men who looked as though they ate too much; men who looked as though they never slept; men who kept and understood their bodies like a well-tuned
car. Men who hoped they were somebody else; men who wished they were not: men looking for an opportunity; men escaping from responsibility. Men who made things; men who took things; men who broke
things. Men who had nothing to gain; and men who had nothing to lose. Their difference from other groups of men was the immediate and thorough knowledge that they had about each other’s
careers. Success or failure could not be concealed from one another, or, indeed, from anybody else: they had almost all had their bad luck, bad taste, or bad judgment confirmed in public: some of
them had been on a financial switchback for years; many of them had some startling ability, and there were a few artists.
    Lillian was soon swallowed up, and he stood repeatedly refusing a drink and exchanging minima with the immediate throng. The room had a feeling of pressure about it – apart from scents it
smelled mysteriously of cold summer food, although he could not see any: there was the usual methylated haze of smoke above the hats and heads, and there was noise spilling, cramming, flooding the
room with the windows open like sluices to let some of it out. His hostess had given him some soft drink – the glass was cold and sticky in his hands – she was asking about Lillian, and
he looked distractedly round for Lillian to come and give an account of herself. She was talking to a man whose face he knew and a girl whom he didn’t. The girl was certainly an odd member of
the audience: very young; listening; wearing a cotton dress and a white cardigan and noticeably