The Best of British Short Stories/The Olive

He laughed involuntarily as the olive rolled towards his chair across the shiny parquet floor of the hotel dining-room. His table in the cavernous salle à manger was apart: he sat alone, a solitary guest; the table from which the olive fell and rolled towards him was some distance away. The angle, however, made him an unlikely objective. Yet the lob-sided, juicy thing, after hesitating once or twice en route as it plopped along, came to rest finally against his feet. It settled with an inviting, almost an aggressive air. And he stooped and picked it up, putting it rather self-consciously, because of the girl from whose table it had come, on the white tablecloth beside his plate. Then, looking up, he caught her eye, and saw that she too was laughing, though not a bit self-consciously. As she helped herself to the hors d’oeuvres a false move had sent it flying. She watched him pick the olive up and set it beside his plate. Her eyes then suddenly looked away again⁠—at her mother⁠—questioningly. The incident was closed. But the little oblong, succulent olive lay beside his plate, so that his fingers played with it. He fingered it automatically from time to time until his lonely meal was finished. When no one was looking he slipped it into his pocket, as though, having taken the trouble to pick it up, this was the very least he could do with it. Heaven alone knows why, but he then took it upstairs with him, setting it on the marble mantelpiece among his field glasses, tobacco tins, ink-bottles, pipes and candlestick. At any rate, he kept it⁠—the moist, shiny, lob-sided, juicy little oblong olive. The hotel lounge wearied him; he came to his room after dinner to smoke at his ease, his coat off and his feet on a chair; to read another chapter of Freud, to write a letter or two he didn’t in the least want to write, and then go to bed at ten o’clock. But this evening the olive kept rolling between him and the thing he read; it rolled between the paragraphs, between the lines; the olive was more vital than the interest of these eternal “complexes” and “suppressed desires.” The truth was that he kept seeing the eyes of the laughing girl beyond the bouncing olive. She had smiled at him in such a natural, spontaneous, friendly way before her mother’s glance had checked her⁠—a smile, he felt, that might lead to acquaintance on the morrow. He wondered! A thrill of possible adventure ran through him. She was a merry-looking sort of girl, with a happy, half-roguish face that seemed on the lookout for somebody to play with. Her mother, like most of the people in the big hotel, was an invalid; the girl, a dutiful and patient daughter. They had arrived that very day apparently. A laugh is a revealing thing, he thought as he fell asleep to dream of a lob-sided olive rolling consciously towards him, and of a girl’s eyes that watched its awkward movements, then looked up into his own and laughed. In his dream the olive had been deliberately and cleverly dispatched upon its uncertain journey. It was a message. He did not know, of course, that the mother, chiding her daughter’s awkwardness, had muttered: “There you are again, child! True to your name, you never see an olive without doing something queer and odd with it!” A youngish man, whose knowledge of chemistry, including invisible inks and suchlike mysteries, had proved so valuable to the Censor’s Department that for five years he had overworked without a holiday, the Italian Riviera had attracted him, and he had come out for a two months’ rest. It was his first visit. Sun, mimosa, blue seas and brilliant skies had tempted him; exchange made a pound worth forty, fifty, sixty and seventy shillings. He found the place lovely, but somewhat untenanted. Having chosen at random, he had come to a spot where the companionship he hoped to find did not exist. The place languished after the war, slow to recover; the colony of resident English was scattered still; travellers preferred the coast of France with Mentone and Monte Carlo to enliven them. The country, moreover, was distracted by strikes. The electric light failed one week, letters the next, and as soon as the electricians and postal-workers resumed, the railways stopped running. Few visitors came, and the few who came soon left. He stayed on, however, caught by the sunshine and the good exchange, also without the physical energy to discover a better, livelier place. He went for walks among the olive groves, he sat beside the sea and palms, he visited shops and bought things he did not want because the exchange made them seem cheap, he paid immense “extras” in his weekly bill, then chuckled as he reduced them to shillings and found that a few pence covered them; he lay with a book for hours among the olive groves. The olive groves! His daily life could not escape the olive groves; to olive groves, sooner or later, his walks, his expeditions, his meanderings by the sea, his shopping⁠—all led him to these ubiquitous olive groves. If he bought a picture postcard to send home, there was sure to be an olive grove in one corner of it. The whole place was smothered with olive groves, the people owed their incomes and existence to these irrepressible trees. The villages among the hills swam roof-deep in them. They swarmed even in the hotel gardens. The guide books praised them as persistently as the residents brought them, sooner or later, into every conversation. They grew lyrical over them: “And how do you like our olive trees? Ah, you think them pretty. At first, most people are disappointed. They grow on one.” “They do,” he agreed. “I’m glad you appreciate them. I find them the embodiment of grace. And when the wind lifts the under-leaves across a whole mountain slope⁠—why, it’s wonderful, isn’t it? One realises the meaning of ‘olive-green’.” “One does,” he sighed. “But all the same I should like to get one to eat⁠—an olive, I mean.” “Ah, to eat, yes. That’s not so easy. You see, the crop is⁠—” “Exactly,” he interrupted impatiently, weary of the habitual and evasive explanations. “But I should like to taste the fruit. I should like to enjoy one.” For, after a stay of six weeks, he had never once seen an olive on the table, in the shops, nor even on the street barrows at the market place. He had never tasted one. No one sold olives, though olive trees were a drug in the place; no one bought them, no one asked for them; it seemed that no one wanted them. The trees, when he looked closely, were thick with a dark little berry that seemed more like a sour sloe than the succulent, delicious spicy fruit associated with its name. Men climbed the trunks, everywhere shaking the laden branches and hitting them with long bamboo poles to knock the fruit off, while women and children, squatting on their haunches, spent laborious hours filling baskets underneath, then loading mules and donkeys with their daily “catch.” But an olive to eat was unobtainable. He had never cared for olives, but now he craved with all his soul to feel his teeth in one. “Ach! But it is the Spanish olive that you eat ,” explained the head waiter, a German “from Basel.” “These are for oil only.” After which he disliked the olive more than ever⁠—until that night when he saw the first eatable specimen rolling across the shiny parquet floor, propelled towards him by the careless hand of a pretty girl, who then looked up into his eyes and smiled. He was convinced that Eve, similarly, had rolled the apple towards Adam across the emerald sward of the first garden in the world. He slept usually like the dead. It must have been something very real that made him open his eyes and sit up in bed alertly. There was a noise against his door. He listened. The room was still quite dark. It was early morning. The noise was not repeated. “Who’s there?” he asked in a sleepy whisper. “What is it?” The noise came again. Someone was scratching on the door. No, it was somebody tapping. “What do you want?” he demanded in a louder voice. “Come in,” he added, wondering sleepily whether he was presentable. Either the hotel was on fire or the porter was waking the wrong person for some sunrise expedition. Nothing happened. Wide awake now, he turned the switch on, but no light flooded the room. The electricians, he remembered with a curse, were out on strike. He fumbled for the matches, and as he did so a voice in the corridor became distinctly audible. It was just outside his door. “Aren’t you ready?” he heard. “You sleep forever.” And the voice, although never having heard it before, he could not have recognised it, belonged, he knew suddenly, to the girl who had let the olive fall. In an instant he was out of bed. He lit a candle. “I’m coming,” he called softly, as he slipped rapidly into some clothes. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you. I shan’t be a minute.” “Be quick then!” he heard, while the candle flame slowly grew, and he found his garments. Less than three minutes later he opened the door and, candle in hand, peered into the dark passage. “Blow it out!” came a peremptory whisper. He obeyed, but not quick enough. A pair of red lips emerged from the shadows. There was a puff, and the candle was extinguished. “I’ve got my reputation to consider. We mustn’t be seen, of course!” The face vanished in the darkness, but he had recognised it⁠—the shining skin, the bright glancing eyes. The sweet breath touched his cheek. The candlestick was taken from him by a swift, deft movement. He heard it knock the wainscoting as it was set down. He went out into a pitch-black corridor, where a soft hand seized his own and led him⁠—by a back door, it seemed⁠—out into the open air of the hillside immediately behind the hotel. He saw the stars. The morning was cool and fragrant, the sharp air waked him, and the last vestiges of sleep went flying. He had been drowsy and confused, had obeyed the summons without thinking. He now realised suddenly that he was engaged in an act of madness. The girl, dressed in some flimsy material thrown loosely about her head and body, stood a few feet away, looking, he thought, like some figure called out of dreams and slumber of a forgotten world, out of legend almost. He saw her evening shoes peep out; he divined an evening dress beneath the gauzy covering. The light wind blew it close against her figure. He thought of a nymph. “I say⁠—but haven’t you been to bed?” he asked stupidly. He had meant to expostulate, to apologise for his foolish rashness, to scold and say they must go back at once. Instead, this sentence came. He guessed she had been sitting up all night. He stood still a second, staring in mute admiration, his eyes full of bewildered question. “Watching the stars,” she met his thought with a happy laugh. “Orion has touched the horizon. I came for you at once. We’ve got just four hours!” The voice, the smile, the eyes, the reference to Orion, swept him off his feet. Something in him broke loose, and flew wildly, recklessly to the stars. “Let us be off!” he cried, “before the Bear tilts down. Already Alcyone begins to fade. I’m ready. Come!” She laughed. The wind blew the gauze aside to show two ivory white limbs. She caught his hand again, and they scampered together up the steep hillside towards the woods. Soon the big hotel, the villas, the white houses of the little town where natives and visitors still lay soundly sleeping, were out of sight. The farther sky came down to meet them. The stars were paling, but no sign of actual dawn was yet visible. The freshness stung their cheeks. Slowly, the heavens grew lighter, the east turned rose, the outline of the trees defined themselves, there was a stirring of the silvery green leaves. They were among olive groves⁠—but the spirits of the trees were dancing. Far below them, a pool of deep colour, they saw the ancient sea. They saw the tiny specks of distant fishing-boats. The sailors were singing to the dawn, and birds among the mimosa of the hanging gardens answered them. Pausing a moment at length beneath a gaunt old tree, whose struggle to leave the clinging earth had tortured its great writhing arms and trunk, they took their breath, gazing at one another with eyes full of happy dreams. “You understood so quickly,” said the girl, “my little message. I knew by your eyes and ears you would.” And she first tweaked his ears with two slender fingers mischievously, then laid her soft palm with a momentary light pressure on both eyes. “You’re half-and-half, at any rate,” she added, looking him up and down for a swift instant of appraisement, “if you’re not altogether.” The laughter showed her white, even little teeth. “You know how to play, and that’s something,” she added. Then, as if to herself, “You’ll be altogether before I’ve done with you.” “Shall I?” he stammered, afraid to look at her. Puzzled, some spirit of compromise still lingering in him, he knew not what she meant; he knew only that the current of life flowed increasingly through his veins, but that her eyes confused him. “I’m longing for it,” he added. “How wonderfully you did it! They roll so awkwardly⁠—” “Oh, that!” She peered at him through a wisp of hair. “You’ve kept it, I hope.” “Rather. It’s on my mantelpiece⁠—” “You’re sure you haven’t eaten it?” and she made a delicious mimicry with her red lips, so that he saw the tip of a small pointed tongue. “I shall keep it,” he swore, “as long as these arms have life in them,” and he seized her just as she was crouching to escape, and covered her with kisses. “I knew you longed to play,” she panted, when he released her. “Still, it was sweet of you to pick it up before another got it.” “Another!” he exclaimed. “The gods decide. It’s a lob-sided thing, remember. It can’t roll straight.” She looked oddly mischievous, elusive. He stared at her. “If it had rolled elsewhere⁠—and another had picked it up⁠—?” he began. “I should be with that other now!” And this time she was off and away before he could prevent her, and the sound of her silvery laughter mocked him among the olive trees beyond. He was up and after her in a second, following her slim whiteness in and out of the old-world grove, as she flitted lightly, her hair flying in the wind, her figure flashing like a ray of sunlight or the race of foaming water⁠—till at last he caught her and drew her down upon his knees, and kissed her wildly, forgetting who and where and what he was. “Hark!” she whispered breathlessly, one arm close about his neck. “I hear their footsteps. Listen! It is the pipe!” “The pipe⁠—!” he repeated, conscious of a tiny but delicious shudder. For a sudden chill ran through him as she said it. He gazed at her. The hair fell loose about her cheeks, flushed and rosy with his hot kisses. Her eyes were bright and wild for all their softness. Her face, turned sideways to him as she listened, wore an extraordinary look that for an instant made his blood run cold. He saw the parted lips, the small white teeth, the slim neck of ivory, the young bosom panting from his tempestuous embrace. Of an unearthly loveliness and brightness she seemed to him, yet with this strange, remote expression that touched his soul with sudden terror. Her face turned slowly. “Who are you?” he whispered. He sprang to his feet without waiting for her answer. He was young and agile; strong, too, with that quick response of muscle they have who keep their bodies well; but he was no match for her. Her speed and agility outclassed his own with ease. She leapt. Before he had moved one leg forward towards escape, she was clinging with soft, supple arms and limbs about him, so that he could not free himself, and as her weight bore him downwards to the ground, her lips found his own and kissed them into silence. She lay buried again in his embrace, her hair across his eyes, her heart against his heart, and he forgot his question, forgot his little fear, forgot the very world he knew.⁠ ⁠… “They come, they come,” she cried gaily. “The Dawn is here. Are you ready?” “I’ve been ready for five thousand years,” he answered, leaping to his feet beside her. “Altogether!” came upon a sparkling laugh that was like wind among the olive leaves. Shaking her last gauzy covering from her, she snatched his hand, and they ran forward together to join the dancing throng now crowding up the slope beneath the trees. Their happy singing filled the sky. Decked with vine and ivy, and trailing silvery green branches, they poured in a flood of radiant life along the mountain side. Slowly they melted away into the blue distance of the breaking dawn, and, as the last figure disappeared, the sun came up slowly out of a purple sea. They came to the place he knew⁠—the deserted earthquake village⁠—and a faint memory stirred in him. He did not actually recall that he had visited it already, had eaten his sandwiches with “hotel friends” beneath its crumbling walls; but there was a dim troubling sense of familiarity⁠—nothing more. The houses still stood, but pigeons lived in them, and weasels, stoats and snakes had their uncertain homes in ancient bedrooms. Not twenty years ago the peasants thronged its narrow streets, through which the dawn now peered and cool wind breathed among dew-laden brambles. “I know the house,” she cried, “the house where we would live!” and raced, a flying form of air and sunlight, into a tumbled cottage that had no roof, no floor or windows. Wild bees had hung a nest against the broken wall. He followed her. There was sunlight in the room, and there were flowers. Upon a rude, simple table lay a bowl of cream, with eggs and honey and butter close against a homemade loaf. They sank into each other’s arms upon a couch of fragrant grass and boughs against the window where wild roses bloomed⁠ ⁠… and the bees flew in and out. It was Bussana, the so-called earthquake village, because a sudden earthquake had fallen on it one summer morning when all the inhabitants were at church. The crashing roof killed sixty, the tumbling walls another hundred, and the rest had left it where it stood. “The Church,” he said, vaguely remembering the story. “They were at prayer⁠—” The girl laughed carelessly in his ear, setting his blood in a rush and quiver of delicious joy. He felt himself untamed, wild as the wind and animals. “The true God claimed His own,” she whispered. “He came back. Ah, they were not ready⁠—the old priests had seen to that. But he came. They heard his music. Then his tread shook the olive groves, the old ground danced, the hills leapt for joy⁠—” “And the houses crumbled,” he laughed as he pressed her closer to his heart⁠— “And now we’ve come back!” she cried merrily. “We’ve come back to worship and be glad!” She nestled into him, while the sun rose higher. “I hear them⁠—hark!” she cried, and again leapt, dancing from his side. Again he followed her like wind. Through the broken window they saw the naked fauns and nymphs and satyrs rolling, dancing, shaking their soft hoofs amid the ferns and brambles. Towards the appalling, ruptured church they sped with feet of light and air. A roar of happy song and laughter rose. “Come!” he cried. “We must go too.” Hand in hand they raced to join the tumbling, dancing throng. She was in his arms and on his back and flung across his shoulders, as he ran. They reached the broken building, its whole roof gone sliding years ago, its walls a-tremble still, its shattered shrines alive with nesting birds. “Hush!” she whispered in a tone of awe, yet pleasure. “He is there!” She pointed, her bare arm outstretched above the bending heads. There, in the empty space, where once stood sacred Host and Cup, he sat, filling the niche sublimely and with awful power. His shaggy form, benign yet terrible, rose through the broken stone. The great eyes shone and smiled. The feet were lost in brambles. “God!” cried a wild, frightened voice yet with deep worship in it⁠—and the old familiar panic came with portentous swiftness. The great Figure rose. The birds flew screaming, the animals sought holes, the worshippers, laughing and glad a moment ago, rushed tumbling over one another for the doors. “He goes again! Who called? Who called like that? His feet shake the ground!” “It is the earthquake!” screamed a woman’s shrill accents in ghastly terror. “Kiss me⁠—one kiss before we forget again⁠ ⁠… !” sighed a laughing, passionate voice against his ear. “Once more your arms, your heart beating on my lips⁠ ⁠… ! You recognised his power. You are now altogether! We shall remember!” But he woke, with the heavy bedclothes stuffed against his mouth and the wind of early morning sighing mournfully about the hotel walls.

“Have they left again⁠—those ladies?” he inquired casually of the head waiter, pointing to the table. “They were here last night at dinner.” “Who do you mean?” replied the man, stupidly, gazing at the spot indicated with a face quite blank. “Last night⁠—at dinner?” He tried to think. “An English lady, elderly, with⁠—her daughter⁠—” at which moment precisely the girl came in alone. Lunch was over, the room empty. There was a second’s difficult pause. It seemed ridiculous not to speak. Their eyes met. The girl blushed furiously. He was very quick for an Englishman. “I was allowing myself to ask after your mother,” he began. “I was afraid”⁠—he glanced at the table laid for one⁠—“she was not well, perhaps?” “Oh, but that’s very kind of you, I’m sure.” She smiled. He saw the small white even teeth.⁠ ⁠… And before three days had passed, he was so deeply in love that he simply couldn’t help himself. “I believe,” he said lamely, “this is yours. You dropped it, you know. Er⁠—may I keep it? It’s only an olive.” They were, of course, in an olive grove when he asked it, and the sun was setting. She looked at him, looked him up and down, looked at his ears, his eyes. He felt that in another second her little fingers would slip up and tweak the first, or close the second with a soft pressure⁠— “Tell me,” he begged: “did you dream anything⁠—that first night I saw you?” She took a quick step backwards. “No,” she said, as he followed her more quickly still, “I don’t think I did. But,” she went on breathlessly as he caught her up, “I knew⁠—from the way you picked it up⁠—” “Knew what?” he demanded, holding her tightly so that she could not get away again. “That you were already half and half, but would soon be altogether.” And, as he kissed her, he felt her soft little fingers tweak his ears.