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HAPPY BIRTHDAY
!' and, reassured, his eyes
began to assemble the room — the table, crackers, shining cake,
glasses and bottles, the green paper greeting, the glittering tinsel
and those downcast shaded lights. Round the cake burned the little
upright knives of those thirty-one candles, each yellow blade wink-
ing. The ceiling disappeared in darkness, all the light was lowered
down upon the table and the carpet. He stood for a moment still
shocked, robbed still of the room he had expected, its cold and
clockless daylight, its motionless smell of dust.
An uncertain figure that was Clara came forward from behind
the table, her waist and legs in light, then upwards in shadow. Her
hands stretched towards him, her voice laughed from the darkness.
And thus with the affirmation of her presence, the feeling of shock
mysteriously cleared, the room fell into a different perspective -
and instantly he saw with gratitude how carefully she had arranged
that festive table, indeed how prettily reminiscent it was of festivity,
old Christmases and parties held long ago in some separate life.
Happier, he was able to watch the glasses fill with rich black stout,
saw the red wink of the port dropped in to sweeten it, raised his
glass in a toast. Then they stood in the half-light of that upper
shadow, drank, joked, talked themselves into the climate of celebra-
tion. They moved round that table with its bright low centre-light
like figures about a shaded gambling board — so vivid the clarity of
their lowered hands, the sheen of his suit and the gleam of her
stockings, yet with their faces veiled and diffused. Then, when two
of the bottles were already empty, they sat down.
Raikes blinked in the new light. Everything sparkled suddenly,
430 William Sansom
all things round him seemed to wink. He laughed, abruptly too
excited. Clara was bending away from him, stretching to cut the
cake. As he raised his glass, he saw her back from the corner of his
eye, over the crystal rim of his glass — and held it then undrunk. He
stared at the shining white blouse, the concisely corrugated folds of
the knife-edge wave of her hair. Clara? The strangeness of the room
dropped its curtain round him again, heavily. Clara, a slow voice
mentioned in his mind, has merely bought herself a new blouse and
waved her hair. He nodded, accepting this automatically. But the
stout to which he was not used weighed inside his head, as though
some heavy circular hat was being pressed down, wreathing lead-
enly where its brim circled, forcing a lightness within that seemed
to balloon airily upwards. Unconsciously his hand went to his fore-
head - and at that moment Clara turned her face towards him,
setting it on one side in the full light, blowing out some of those
little red candles, laughing as she blew. The candle flames flickered
and winked like jewels close to her cheek. She blew her cheeks out,
so that they became full and rounded, then laughed so that her
white teeth gleamed between oil-rich red lips.
Thin candle-threads of black smoke needled curling by her hair.
She saw something strange in his eyes. Her voice said: 'Why Ron
— you haven't a headache? Not yet anyway . . . eh, dear?'
Now he no longer laughed naturally, but felt the stretch of his
lips as he tried to smile a denial of the headache. The worry was at
his head, he felt no longer at ease in that familiar chair, but rather
balanced on it alertly, so that under the table his calves were
braced, so that he moved his hands carefully for fear of encroach-
ing on what was not his, hands of a guest, hands uneasy at a
strange table.
Clara sat round now facing him — their chairs were to the same
side of that round table, and close. She kept smiling; those new
things she wore were plainly stimulating her, she must have felt
transformed and beautiful. Such a certainty together with the un-
accustomed alcohol brought a vivacity to her eye, a definition to
the movements of her mouth. Traces of faltering, of apology, of all
the wounded humilities of a face that apologizes for itself - all
these were gone, wiped away beneath the white powder; now her
face seemed to be charged with light, expressive, and in its new
self-assurance predatory. It was a face bent on effect, on making its
mischief. Instinctively it performed new tricks, attitudes learnt and
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