Brief Encounter Page #6

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We decided we'd go

to the botanical gardens.

Do you know, I believe we should

all behave quite differently...

if we lived in a warm,

sunny climate all the time.

We shouldn't be so withdrawn

and shy and difficult.

Oh, Fred, it really was

a lovely afternoon.

There were some little boys

sailing their boats.

One of them looked like Bobby.

That should have given me

a pang of conscience, I know,

but it didn't... I was enjoying myself,

enjoying every single minute.

Alec suddenly said that he was

sick of staring at the water...

and that he wanted to be on it.

All the boats were covered up,

but we managed to persuade

the old man to let us have one.

He thought we were raving mad.

Perhaps he was right.

Alec rode off at a great rate,

and I trailed my hand

in the water.

It was very cold,

but a lovely feeling.

You don't row

very well, do you?

I'm going to be perfectly honest

with you... I don't row at all,

and unless you want to go round

and round in ever-narrowing circles,

you'd better start steering.

Oh, we had such fun, Fred.

I felt gay and happy

and sort of released.

That's what's so shameful

about it all.

That's what would hurt you

so much if you knew...

that I could feel

as intensely as that...

away from you,

with a stranger.

- Oh, look out! We can't get through!

- Pull on your left!

Oh. Oh, dear, I never could

tell left from right.

I'm most awfully sorry.

You know the British have always

been nice to mad people.

That boatman thinks we are quite dotty,

but look how sweet he's been.

Tea, milk, even sugar.

Thank you.

You know what's happened,

don't you?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I've fallen in love

with you.

Yes, I know.

Tell me honestly. Please tell me

honestly if what I believe is true.

- What do you believe?

- That it's the same with you...

that you've fallen in love too.

- It sounds so silly.

- Why?

- I know you so little.

- It is true, though, isn't it?

- Yes, it's true.

- Laura.

No, please, we must be sensible.

Please help me to be sensible.

We mustn't behave like this. We must

forget that we've said what we've said.

- Not yet, not quite yet.

- But we must. Don't you see?

Listen, it's too late now

to be as sensible as all that.

It's too late to forget

what we've said,

and anyway, whether we'd said it or not

couldn't have mattered.

We know.

We've both of us known for a long time.

How can you say that?

I've only known you for four weeks.

We only talked for the frst time

last Thursday week.

Last Thursday week. Has it been

a long time for you since then?

- Answer me truly.

- Yes.

How often did you decide that you were

never going to see me again?

- Several times a day. Oh, Alec.

- So did I.

I love you.

I love your wide eyes...

and the way you smile

and your shyness...

- and the way you laugh at my jokes.

- Please, don't.

I love you. I love you.

You love me too.

It's no use pretending

it hasn't happened, because it has.

Yes, it has.

I don't want to pretend anything either

to you or to anyone else,

but from now on,

I shall have to.

That's what's wrong, don't you see?

That's what spoils everything.

That's why we must stop

here and now talking like this.

We're neither of us free to love

each other. There's too much in the way.

There's still time,

if we control ourselves

and behave like sensible human beings.

There's still time to...

There's no time at all.

- There's your train.

- Yes.

I'll come over

to the platform with you.

No, Alec, not here.

Someone will see.

I love you so.

Do you think we might

have that down a bit, darling?

Hi, Laura.

- Yes, dear?

- You were miles away.

Was I?

Yes, I suppose I was.

Do you mind if we turn that down

a little? It really is deafening.

No, of course not.

I shan't be long over this,

darling, then we'll go to bed.

You look a bit tired, you know?

Don't hurry.

I'm perfectly happy.

How can I possibly say that?

"Don't hurry.

I'm perfectly happy. "

If only it were true.

Not, I suppose, that anybody

is ever perfectly happy, really.

But just to be ordinarily contented,

to be at peace.

It's such a little while ago, really,

but it seems an eternity...

since that train

went out of the station,

taking him away

into the darkness.

I was happy then.

As I went back through

the subway to my own platform,

I was walking on air.

When I got into the train,

I didn't even pretend to read.

I didn't care whether people were

looking at me or not. I had to think.

I should have been utterly wretched and

ashamed. I know I should, but I wasn't.

I felt suddenly

quite wildly happy,

like a romantic schoolgirl,

like a romantic fool.

You see, he'd said he loved me,

and I had said I loved him.

And it was true.

It was true.

I imagined him holding me

in his arms.

I imagined being with him in all sorts

of glamorous circumstances.

It was one of those absurd fantasies,

just like one has when one is a girl,

being wooed and married

by the ideal of one's dreams.

I stared out of that

railway carriage window into the dark...

and watched the dim trees

and the telegraph posts slipping by,

and through them,

I saw Alec and me.

Alec and me...

perhaps a little younger than we are

now, but just as much in love...

and with nothing in the way.

I saw us in Paris,

in a box at the opera.

The orchestra was tuning up.

Then we were in Venice, drifting along

the Grand Canal in a gondola...

with the sound of mandolins

coming to us over the water.

I saw us traveling

far away together,

all the places

I've always longed to go.

I saw us leaning on the rail of a ship,

looking at the sea and stars,

standing on a tropical beach

in the moonlight...

with the palm trees

sighing above us.

Then the palm trees changed into those

pollarded willows by the canal...

just before the level crossing,

and all the silly dreams

disappeared,

and I got out at Ketchworth

and gave up my ticket...

and walked home as usual,

quite soberly

and without wings...

without any wings at all.

When I had changed for dinner and was

doing my face a bit... Do you remember?

I don't suppose you do,

but I do.

You see, you didn't know that that was

the first time in our life together...

that I had ever lied to you.

It started then...

the shame of the whole thing,

the guiltiness, the fear.

- Good evening, Mrs. Jesson.

- Hello, dear.

- Had a good day?

- Yes, lovely.

- What'd you do?

- Well, I shopped and had lunch

and went to the pictures.

- All by yourself?

- Yes.

Uh, no, not exactly.

What do you mean,

"not exactly"?

Well, I went to the pictures by myself,

but I had lunch with Mary Norton.

She couldn't come to the pictures

'cause she had to see her in-laws.

They live just outside

Milford, you know?

So I walked with her to the bus

and then came home on my own.

I haven't seen Mary Norton for ages.

How is she looking?

Very well, really.

A little fatter, I thought.

Hurry up with all this beautifying.

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