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"The Black Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора
«She's back,» I heard him say.
«What? Who's back? I do not understand you.»
«Christian.»
This was the name, not pronounced now in my presence for very many years, of my former wife.
«You don't remember me.»
«Yes, I do.»
«Yes, yes-«As was, that is. I thought you should know. She's a widow, he left her everything, she's back in London, back in your old place-«Did she send you?»
«Here? Well, not exactly-«
«Well, no, I just heard through the lawyer. She's back in your old place! God!»
«I see no need for you to come-«So she's written you? I wondered if she'd have written you.»
«I thought of course you'd want to see her-«I don't want to see her! I cannot think of anyone I less want to see or hear of!»
I shall not attempt here to describe my marriage. Some impression of it will doubtless emerge. For the present story, its general nature rather than its detail is important. It was not a success. At first I saw her as a life-bringer. Then I saw her as a death-bringer. Some women are like that. There is a sort of energy which seems to reveal the world: then one day you find you are being devoured. Fellow victims will know what I mean. Possibly I am a natural bachelor. Christian was certainly a natural flirt. Sheer silliness can be attractive in a woman. I was, of course, attracted. She was, I suppose, a rather «sexy» woman. Some people thought me lucky. She brought, what I detest, disorder into my life. She was a great maker of scenes. In the end I hated her. Five years of marriage seemed to have convinced both of us of the utter impossibility of this state.
There is nothing quite like the dead dull feel of a failed marriage. Nor is there anything like one's hatred for an ex-spouse. (How can such a person dare to be happy?) I cannot credit those who speak of «friendship» in such a context. I lived for years with a sense of things irrevocably soiled and spoiled, it could give suddenly such a sad feel to the world sometimes. I could not liberate myself from her mind. This had nothing to do with love. Those who have suffered this sort of bondage will understand. Some people are just «diminishers» and «spoilers» for others. I suppose almost everybody diminishes someone. A saint would be nobody's spoiler. Most of one's acquaintances however can be blessedly forgotten when not present. Out of sight out of mind is a charter of human survival. Not so Christian, she was ubiquitous: her consciousness was rapacious, her thoughts could damage, passing like noxious rays through space and time. Her remarks were memorable. Only good old America cured her for me in the end. I put her away with a tedious man in a tedious and very distant town and was able at last to feel that she had died. What a relief.
Francis Marloe was another matter. Neither he nor his thoughts had ever been important to me, nor as far as I could see to anyone. He was Christian's younger brother, treated by her with indulgent contempt. He never married. After lengthy trying he qualified as a doctor, but was soon struck off the register for some irregularity in the prescription of drugs. I learnt later with abhorrence that he had set up in business as a self-styled «psychoanalyst.» Later still I heard he had taken to drink. If I had been told that he had committed suicide I should have heard the news without either concern or surprise. I was not pleased to see him again. He had in fact altered almost beyond recognition. He had been a slim tripping blond-haloed faun. Now he looked coarse, fat, red-faced, pathetic, slightly wild, slightly sinister, perhaps a little mad. He had always been very stupid. However at that moment I was not concerned about Mr. Francis Marloe, but about the absolutely terrifying news which he had brought me.
«And don't called me 'Brad.' I'm catching a train.»
«I won't keep you for a moment, I'll just explain, I've been thinking-yes, I'll make it snappy, just please listen to me, please, I beseech you-Look, it's this, you see you're the first person Chris will be looking up in London-« What?»
«No, Brad, you see-«Don't call me 'Brad'!»
«All right, all right, Bradley, sorry, please don't be cross, surely you know Chris, she cared awfully for you, she really cared, much more than for old Evans, she'll come to you, even if it's only out of curiosity-«I won't be here,» I said. This suddenly sounded horribly plausible. Perhaps there is a deep malign streak in all of us. Christian certainly had more than her share of sheer malignancy. She might indeed almost instinctively come to me, out of curiosity, out of malice, as cats are said to jump onto the laps of cat-haters. One does feel a certain curiosity about an ex-spouse, a desire doubtless that they should have suffered remorse and disappointment. One only wants bad news. One wants to gloat. Christian would yearn to satisfy herself of my wretchedness.
«I'm not interested,» I cried, «I'm not interested!»
«You are interested, you know. Why if ever I saw an interested look on a bloke's face-«Has she got children?»
«I forget its name. It was great. Maybe you wondered why I didn't turn upя?
«No!»
«Sort of, sort of-«Oh God!» I said, «Get out, will you?» The idea of my prising money out of Christian for her delinquent brother struck me as unusually lunatic even for Francis.
«And, you know, I was knocked when I heard she was back, it's a shock, it changes a lot of things, I wanted to come and chew it over with somebody, for human interest like, and you were natural-I say, is there any drink in the house?»
«I intuit she'll want you, want to impress you and that-We broke down in letters, you see, I was always wanting money, and then she got a lawyer to stop me writing to her-But now it's like a new start, if you could just sort of ease me in, bring me along like-«
«You want me to pose as your friend?»
«No.»
The telephone began to ring.
«Bradley, have a heart-«Out!»
He stood before me with that air of revolting humility. I threw open the sitting-room door and the door of the flat. I picked up the telephone in the hall.
I said immediately, quietly too but in emotion, «Arnold, don't be silly. Don't be silly!»
«Could you come round at once, please.» His voice sounded like a recorded announcement.
A moment's pause. «No.»
«Well, do so!»
A moment's pause. «Maybe.» His voice was toneless as if calm. A matter doubtless of severe shock.
«What happened-?»
It may be relevant to record that my first general feeling on hearing what Arnold had to say was one of curious joy. Before the reader sets me down as a monster of callousness let him look into his own heart. Such reactions are not after all so abnormal and may be said in that minimal sense at least to be almost excusable. We naturally take in the catastrophes of our friends a pleasure which genuinely does not preclude friendship. This is partly but not entirely because we enjoy being empowered as helpers. The unexpected or inappropriate catastrophe is especially piquant. I was very attached to both Arnold and Rachel. But there is a natural tribal hostility between the married and the unmarried. I cannot stand the shows so often quite instinctively put on by married people to insinuate that they are not only more fortunate but in some way more moral than you are. Moreover to help their case the unmarried person often naively assumes that all marriages are happy unless shown to be otherwise. The Baffin marriage had always seemed pretty sound. This sudden vignette of home life set the ideas in a turmoil.
Still rosy with the rush of blood which Arnold's words had occasioned, and also, I should make clear (there is no contradiction), very alarmed and upset, I turned round and saw Francis, whose existence I had forgotten.
«No.»
«I heard you say something about a doctor.»
«Shall I come too?» said Francis. «I might be useful. After all, I am still a doctor in the eyes of God.»
I thought for a moment and said, «All right.» We got a taxi.
It has been suggested, especially in the light of more recent events, that I envied Arnold's success as a writer. I would like at jnce and categorically to deny this. I sometimes envied his freedom to write at a time when I was tied to my desk. But I did not in general feel envy of Arnold Baffin for one very simple reason: it seemed to me that he achieved success at the expense of merit. As his discoverer and patron I felt from the start identified with his activities. And I felt, rather, distress that a promising young writer should have laid aside true ambition and settled so quickly into a popular mould. I respected his industry and I admired his «career.» He had lany gifts other than purely literary ones. I did not, however, much like his books. Tact readily supervened however and, as I have said, we soon instinctively avoided certain topics of conversation.
I should make clear that Arnold was not in any crude sense «spoilt» by success. He was no tax-dodger with a yacht and a house in Malta. (We sometimes laughingly discussed tax-avoidance, but never tax-evasion.) He lived in a fairly large, but not immodest, suburban villa in a «good class» housing estate in Ealing. His domestic life was, even to an irritating extent, lacking in style. It was not that he put on an act of being «the ordinary chap.» In some way he was «the ordinary chap,» and eschewed the vision which might, for better as well as worse, have made a very different use of his money. I never knew Arnold to purchase any object of beauty. He was indeed quite deficient in visual taste, though he was rather aggressively fond of music. As to his person, he continued to look like a schoolmaster, dressed shapelessly, and retained a raw shy boyish appearance. It never occurred to him to play «the famous writer.» Or perhaps intelligence, of which he had plenty, suggested this way of playing it. He wore steel-rimmed specs, behind which his eyes were a very pale bluish-green, rather striking. His nose was pointed, his face always rather greasy, but healthy looking. There was a general lack of colour. Something of an albino? He was accounted, and perhaps was, good-looking. He was always combing his hair.
«This is Dr. Marloe. Dr. Marloe-Arnold Baffin. Dr. Marloe happened to be with me when you rang up about your wife's accident.» I stressed the last word.
«Doctor,» said Arnold. «Yes, you see-she-«She fell?» I suggested.
«Yes,» I said. «A friend of mine.» This untruth at least conveyed important information.
«Are you the Arnold Baffin?» said Francis.
«I say, I do admire your books-I've read-«What's the situation?» I said to Arnold. I thought he looked as if he was drunk, and immediately after I could smell drink.
Arnold, making some sort of effort, said slowly, «She locked herself into our bedroom. After it-happened-She was bleeding a lot – I thought-I don't quite know what-the injury was-At any rate-At any rate-« He stopped.
«Arnold Baffin,» said Francis, to himself.
Arnold leaned back against the hall stand. He leaned his head back into a coat that was hanging there, closed his eyes for a moment, and then went on. «Sorry. You see. She was sort of crying and wailing in there for a time. I mean in the bedroom. Now it's all quiet and she doesn't answer at all. I'm afraid she may be unconscious or-«
«I tried to, I tried to, but the chisel, the-outside woodwork just broke away and I couldn't get any-«Sit down, Arnold, for Christ's sake.» I pushed him onto a chair.
«And you can't see through the keyhole because the key-«She's probably just upset and won't answer out of-you know-«
«Where's your chisel?»
«Up there. But it's a small one. I can't find-«Well, you two stay here,» I said. «I'll just go up and see what's going on. I bet you anything-Arnold, stay here and sit down!»
Silence.
«I'll get a hammer,» I could hear Arnold, invisible, saying downstairs.
Silence.
I hurled myself at the door, shouting, «Rachel!» Then I stopped, and listened very carefully.
More creeping. Then very softly in a scarcely audible whisper. «Bradley.»
«Rachel, Rachel, are you all right?»
I shouted to the others, «She's all right! She's all right!»
I heard them saying something behind me on the stairs. «Rachel, let me in, can you? Let me in.»
I heard the key turn in the lock and I pushed quickly into the room, catching a glimpse of Arnold who was standing on the stairs with Francis behind him a little lower down. I saw the two faces very clearly, like faces in a crucifixion crowd which represent the painter and his friend. Arnold's face was distorted into a sort of sneer of anguish. Francis's was bright with malign curiosity. Suitable expressions for a crucifixion. Inside I nearly fell over Rachel who was sitting on the floor. She was moaning softly now, trying frantically to turn the key again in the lock. I turned it for her and then sat down on the floor beside her.
Since Rachel Baffin is one of the main actors, in a crucial sense perhaps the main actor, in my drama I should like now to pause briefly to describe her. I had known her for over twenty years, almost as long as I had known Arnold, yet at the time that I speak of I did not really, as I later realized, know her well. There was a sort of vagueness. Some women, in fact in my experience many women, have a sort of «abstract» quality about them. Is this a real sex difference? Perhaps this quality is really just unselfishness. (In this respect, you know where you are with men!) In Rachel's case it was certainly not lack of intelligence. There was a vagueness which womanly affection and the custom of my quasi-family friendship with the Baffins did not dispel, even increased. Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines. This may be to make a mystery of what had simpler causes. Rachel was an intelligent woman married to a famous man: and instinctively such a woman behaves as a function of her husband, she reflects, as it were, all the light onto him. Her «blankness» repelled even curiosity. One does not expect such a woman to have ambition: whereas Arnold and I were both, in quite different ways, tormented, perhaps even defined, by ambition. Rachel was (in a way in which one would never think this of a man) a «good specimen,» a «good sport.» One relied on her. There she was. She looked (then) just like a big handsome sweet contented woman, the efficient wife of a well-known charmer. She was a large smooth-faced, slightly freckled, reddish-blond person, with straight– ish gingery wiry hair and a pale complexion, a bit tall for a woman and generally on a larger scale physically than her husband. She had been putting on weight and some might have called her fat. She was always busy, often with charities and mild left-wing politics. (Arnold cared nothing for politics.) She was an excellent «housewife,» and often referred to herself by this title.
«Rachel, are you hurt? I've got a doctor here-She began awkwardly to get up, again pushing away my assisting hand. I got a whiff of alcohol from her panting breath. She knelt upon her dress and I heard it tear. Then she half ran half fell across the room to the disordered bed, where she flopped on her back, tugging at the bedclothes, ineffectually because she was half lying on them, then covering her face with both hands and crying in an appalling wailing manner, lying with her feet wide apart in a graceless self-absorption of grief.
«Rachel, please control yourself. Drink some water.» The sound of that abandoned weeping was scarcely bearable, and something far too intense to be called embarrassment, yet of that quality, made me both reluctant and anxious to look at her. A woman's crying can sicken one with fright and guilt, and this was terrible crying.
«No, no,» she whispered, a sort of voiceless whine. «Not Arnold, not-« Was she still afraid of him?
«I'm going to let the doctor in,» I said.
I opened the door and placed my hand on Arnold's chest. «Go in and look at her,» I said to Francis. «There's some blood.»
Arnold began to call out, «Let me see you, please, darling, don't be angry, oh please-I pushed him back towards the head of the stairs. Francis went inside and locked the door again, whether out of delicacy or professional caution.
«Where are the scissors?» shouted Francis from within.
«Top drawer dressing table,» Arnold shouted back. «Christ, what does he want scissors for? Is he going to operate or something?»
I pushed Arnold and he hobbled stooping, holding the banisters, past the turn of the stair, and sat on the lowest step, holding his head in his hands and staring at the zigzag design of the hall carpet. The hall was always a bit dim because of the stained glass in the door. I went down past him and sat on a chair, feeling very odd, upset, excited.
«Oh Christ, oh Christ. Do you think she'll forgive me?»
«Thank God,» said Arnold. «Do you know, I think she may have been shamming all the time. Anyway, thank God. What should-?»
«There's nothing seriously wrong. She's got a very nasty lump on her head and she's a bit in shock. Could be a touch of concussion. Keep her in bed and keep the room dark. Aspirins, any of her usual sedatives, hot-water bottles, hot drinks, I mean tea and that. Better let her see her own doctor. She'll soon be herself again.»
«She wants to see you,» said Francis to me. We had all moved back up to the landing.
Arnold began again calling, «My darling, please-«I'll deal,» I said. I half opened the bedroom door, which was unlocked.
«Oh Christ. This is awful. I've had enough-« said Arnold. «Darling-«You go down and give yourself another drink,» I told him.
«I wouldn't mind a drink,» said Francis.
I went in and threw the macintosh out and closed the door again.
I heard retreating steps as Arnold and Francis went away down the stairs.
I locked it.
Francis had pulled the curtains and there was a sort of thick pink twilight in the room. The evening sun, now palely shining, made the big floppy flowers on the chintz curtains glow in a melancholy way. The room had the rather sinister tedium which some bedrooms have, a sort of weary banality which is a reminder of death. A dressing table can be a terrible thing. The Baffins had placed theirs in the window where it obstructed the light and presented its ugly back to the road. The plate-glass «table» surface was dusty and covered with cosmetic tubes and bottles and balls of hair. The chest of drawers had all its drawers gaping, spewing pink underwear and shoulder straps. The bed was chaotic, violent, the green artificial– silk coverlet swooping down on one side and the sheets and blankets creased up into a messy mass, like an old face. There was a warm intimate embarrassing smell of sweat and face powder. The whole room breathed the flat horror of genuine mortality, dull and spiritless and final.
Her feet, with glossy high-heeled shoes on, protruded from under the green coverlet. I said timidly, almost as if making conversation and to establish a rapport, «Here, let me take your shoes off.»
She remained stiff while, with some difficulty, I pulled off both shoes. I felt the soft warmth of the damp brown stockinged foot. A pungent sour odour joined the vapid smell of the room. I wiped my hands on my trousers. f «Better get properly into bed. Look, I'll straighten out your bedclothes a bit.»
«I'll fill you a hot-water bottle, shall I?»
I found a hot-water bottle and filled it from the hot tap in the wash basin. Its soiled woolly cover smelt of sweat and sleep. I got it a bit wet on the outside, but it felt quite warm. I lifted the sheet and blanket and thrust it in beside her thigh.
«No, thank you.»
«Do you good.»
«You'll be all right, the doctor said so.»
She sighed very deeply and flopped her hand back onto the bed, lying now with both hands symmetrically by her sides, palms upward, like a limp disentombed Christ figure, still bearing the marks of ill treatment. Tufts of cut hair adhered to the dried blood on the bosom of her blue dress. She said in a hollow louder voice, «This is so awful, so awful, so awful.»
«Nonsense, Rachel. It's just one of those things.»
«And he asks you round-to see it all.»
«I shall never forgive him. Be my witness now. I shall never forgive him. Never, never, never. Not if he were to kneel at my feet for twenty years. A woman does not forgive this ever. She won't save a man at the end. If he were drowning, I'd watch.»
«Rachel, you don't mean this. Please don't talk in this awful sort of theatrical way. Of course you'll forgive him. I'm sure there were faults on both sides. After all you hit him too, you put your monogram on his cheek.»
«Stop, please. You must rest. Do take some aspirins. Try to sleep a little. I'll get you some tea, would you like that?»
«Rachel, don't, don't, don't, I won't listen, you don't mean any of this rigmarole. Don't say such things to me. You'll regret it later.»
You don't mean it, Rachel. Better not say it.»
«And I won't forgive you either for having seen me like this with my face bruised to pieces and heard me talk horribly like this. I'll smile at you again but I won't forgive you in my heart.»
«And now you'll go downstairs and talk about me vilely to him. I know how men talk.»
«I fill you with disgust. A broken whimpering middle-aged woman.»
«All right, I'll tell him. Don't be cross with me, Rachel. It's not my fault.»
«Oh, go away.»
«Go away.»
I went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I heard a soft bound and then the key turning in the lock. I went down the stairs feeling very shaken and, yes, she had been right, disgusted.
Arnold jumped up and began to make for the door, but 1 stopped him. «She says she doesn't want to be visited again today. She says tomorrow she'll be as usual. She says she'll go to sleep now.»
Arnold sat down again. He said, «Yes, better for her to sleep for a while. Oh my God, that's a relief. Let her rest awhile. I expect she'll come down for supper in an hour or two. I'll make her something nice, give her a surprise. God, I do feel relieved.»
«Yes. But she'll come down, I'm sure she will. She's very buoyant. I'll let her rest now of course. The doctor says it's not-Have a drink, Bradley.»
«All's well that ends well,» said Arnold. «I'm sorry to have involved you both.» No doubt he was sorry. If he had not lost his nerve he could have kept the whole thing secret, he was probably thinking now. However, as Rachel had conjectured, he seemed to have largely recovered his composure. He was sitting very upright, holding his glass carefully in both hands, one leg crossed over the other and a small well-shod foot rhythmically signalling. Everything about Arnold was neat and small, though he was of average height. He had a small well-shaped head, small ears, a small mouth such as a girl would have liked to own, and ridiculously small feet. He had put on his steel-rimmed glasses and his face had resumed its healthy greasy look. His pointed nose probed the atmosphere, his eyes glinted towards me, diffidently. He had combed his pale lank hair.
Without sitting down I said to Francis. «We needn't keep you now. Thanks for coming.»
«Don't go, Doctor,» said Arnold. Perhaps he wanted male support, to surround himself with men. Perhaps they had been having an interesting conversation. Arnold had something of the coarseness and the camaraderie of the homme moyen sensuel. This too could be a help in marriage. Arnold's glass struck his lower teeth with a slight clack. He had probably drunk a good deal since coming downstairs.
«I'm so grateful, Doctor,» said Arnold. «Do I owe you anything?»
«You owe him nothing,» I said.
«About what we were talking about before,» he said to me conspiratorially at the door. «When you see Christian-«I won't.»
«Anyway, here's my address.»
«You are very firm with your friends,» said Arnold.
«He's not a friend.»
«Yes, I do. This is just a matter of experience. She never sulks for long after a thing like this, not if I lose my temper. She's kind to me then. It's if I keep quiet she goes on and on. Not that we make a habit of scraps like this. But we sometimes both explode and then it's all over at once, clears the air. We're very close to each other. These rows aren't real warfare, they're an aspect of love. This may be hard for an outsider to understand-«I suppose usually there aren't outsiders around.»
«Quite. You do believe me, don't you, Bradley? It's rather important that you should. I'm not just defending myself. It's true. We both shout but there's no real danger. Understand?»
«Did she say anything about me?»
Anyway, what did it mean?
«Yes.»
«Look,» said Arnold, «my hand's trembling. Look at the glass shaking about. It's quite involuntary. Isn't that odd?»
«Oh, I think I shall be better tomorrow.»
«To see her, you fool.»
«No. Do you mind if I tidy things up a bit?» I set a stool upright. I began to stoop around the room with a wastepaper basket, picking up broken glass and china, mementoes of the battle which now seemed so unreal, impossible. One casualty was a red-eyed china rabbit which I knew Rachel was very fond of. Who had broken that? Probably Rachel.
«Rachel and I are very happily married,» said Arnold.
«Of course we argue sometimes. Marriage is a long journey at close quarters. Of course nerves get frayed. Every married person is a Jekyll and Hyde, they've got to be. You mayn't think it, but Rachel is a bit of a nagger. Her voice goes on and on and on sometimes. At least it has lately, I suppose it's her age. You wouldn't believe it, but she can go on for an hour saying the same thing over and over again.»
«Women like to talk.»
«You mean literally? She ought to see a psychiatrist.»
«What sort of sentence does she repeat, saying what? Give me an example.»
«You're not sort of-Are you?»
«You mean running around? No, of course not. Christ, I'm a model husband. Rachel knows that perfectly well. I always tell her the truth, she knows I don't have affairs. Well, I have had, but I told her, and that was ages ago. Why shouldn't I talk to other women, we're not Victorians! I have to have friends and talk freely to them, I can't give way on a point like that. And where it would make one mad with resentment one mustn't give way, one oughtn't to. Anyway she doesn't really expect it, it's all dotty. Why shouldn't I talk about her sometimes? It would look jolly funny if she was a banned subject. It's always open kind sympathetic talk, I wouldn't say anything I wouldn't want her to hear. I don't mind her talking about me to her friends. Christ, one isn't sacred, and of course she does talk, she has lots of friends, she's not cloistered. She says she's wasted her talents, but that's not true, there are hundreds of kinds of self-expression, one doesn't have to be a bloody artist. She's intelligent, she could have been a secretary or something if she'd wanted to, but does she really want that? Of course not. It's a sort of empty complaint, and she knows it, it's just a kind of momentary annoyance with me. She does all sorts of interesting things, she's on endless committees, involved in campaigns for this and that, she knows all sorts of people, Members of Parliament, far grander people than me! She's not a frustrated person-«It's just a mood,» I said. «Women have moods.» The agonized voice I had heard upstairs already seemed remote. Then it occurred to me that I was doing just what she had predicted.
I thought, He will soon feel resentment against me because of this. I said, «Naturally I won't mention this business to anyone.»
Arnold, looking a little annoyed, said, «Do what you like. I'm not asking you to be discreet. More sherry? Why did you chuck that doctor chap out so, if I may say so, churlishly?»
«What was all that he was saying to you just at the end?»
«Oh, nothing.»
«I'd better go. Rachel will be coming down for the reconciliation scene.»
«Not for another hour, I reckon.»
«Yes. He's her brother.»
«Really? Your ex-wife's brother. How fascinating. I wish I'd known, I'd have looked him over more carefully. Are you being reconciled or something?»
«Oh come on, something's happening.»
«You love happenings, don't you. She's coming back to London. She's a widow now. It's nothing to do with me.»
«Why the hell should I? I don't like her.»
«You are picturesque, Bradley. And so dignified! After all these years. I'd be dying with curiosity. I must say, I'd love to meet your ex-wife. I can never quite see you as a married man.»
«What do you mean? You said he was.»
«He was struck off the register.»
«I don't know. Something to do with drugs.»
«But what to do with drugs? What did he do exactly?»
«Well, what really happened wasn't very-I dare say he guessed-«I hope not! He's capable of blackmailing you.»
«That man? Oh no!»
«But now he's back. Bradley, you are censorious, you know.»
«I disapprove of some things, oddly enough.»
«I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody.»
«The sympathy needn't be vague-«And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody.»
«I detest chatter and gossip. One must hold one's tongue. Even sometimes just not think about people. Real thoughts come out of silence.»
«Bradley, not that, please. Listen! I was saying justice demands details. You say you aren't interested in why he was struck off the register. You ought to be! You say he's some sort of scoundrel. I'd like to be told what sort. You obviously don't know.»
«I rather liked him. I asked him to come and see us.»
«Oh Christ!»
«That's what makes a writer, knowing the details.»
«It may make your kind of writer. It doesn't make mine.»
«Why pile up a jumble of 'details'? When you start really imagining something you have to forget the details anyhow, they just get in the way. Art isn't the reproduction of oddments out of life.»
«I never said it was!» said Arnold. «I don't draw direct from life.»
«Oh that. Oh God.»
«Inquisitive chatter and cataloguing of things one's spotted isn't art.»
«Bradley, I know you-«Art isn't chat plus fantasy. Art comes out of endless restraint and silence.»
«If the silence is endless there isn't any art! It's people without creative gifts who say that more means worse!»
«Then thank God I'm not one.»
«You're such an agonizer, Bradley. You romanticize art. You're a masochist about it, you want to suffer, you want to feel that your inability to create is continuously significant.»
«Oh come, be humbler, let cheerfulness break in! I can't think why you worry so. Thinking of yourself as a 'writer' is part of your trouble. Why not just think of yourself as someone who very occasionally writes something, who may in the future write something? Why make a life drama out of it?»
«I don't think of myself as a writer, not like that. I know you do. You're all 'writer.' I don't see myself in that way. I think of myself as an artist, that is, as a dedicated person. And of course it's a life drama. Are you suggesting that I'm some sort of amateur?»
«All right. Sorry. Sorry.»
«You get so worked up and flowery! You sound as if you were quoting something all the time!»
«Let's start up our Sundays again,» said Arnold. «I so much enjoyed our talks. We must just keep out of those old rat runs. We're both like mechanical toys when certain subjects are mentioned, we go whirring off. Come to lunch next Sunday, why not?»
«I doubt if Rachel will want to see me next Sunday.»
«Anyway I'm going abroad.»
«Of course, I'd forgotten. Where are you going to?»
«Well, you aren't going at once, are you? Come next Sunday. And let us know where you'll be in Italy. We're going there too, we might meet.»
«I'll ring up. Better go now, Arnold.»
He seemed ready to let me go now. In fact we were both of us exhausted.
He waved me off and closed the door quickly. By the time I reached the front gate I could hear his gramophone. He must have hared straight back into the drawing-room and put on a record, like a man racing for his fix. It sounded like Stravinsky or something. The action and the sound set my teeth on edge. I am, I fear, one of those who, according to Shakespeare, are «fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.»
I felt very tired and a little muzzy and weak at the knees with fear and shock. A mixture of emotions raged. Partly, I still felt something of the sheer unholy excitement which I had experienced initially at the thought of a friend (especially this one) in trouble. I felt too that, as far as the trouble was concerned, I had acquitted myself quite well. However it was also possible that I might have to pay the penalty for this. Both Arnold and Rachel might resent my role and wish to punish me for it. This was a particularly irritating anxiety to develop just as I was proposing to go away and forget all about Arnold for a time. It was alarming to find myself suddenly so bound up by exasperation, irritation, affection. I resented and feared these ligatures. I wondered if I should not now delay my departure until after Sunday. On Sunday I could test the atmosphere, estimate the damage, make some sort of peace. Then I could depart in a suitable state of indifference. That they would both resent me as a witness seemed inevitable. However in so far as they were both decent rational people I could expect from them a conscious effort to inhibit resentment. This seemed a reason to see them again soon so as to allow them to make their effort before the thing became historically fixed. On the other hand I had, in that lurid evening light, a superstitious feeling that if I did not make my escape before Sunday something would grab me. I even wondered if I should take a taxi (one passed me at that moment), go back to my flat, pick up my luggage, and go straight on to the station, catching whatever train I could, even if it meant waiting there until the following morning. But this was obviously an absurd idea.
I then began to wonder what on earth was happening now back at the Baffins' house? Was Rachel still lying like a disfigured corpse staring at the ceiling, while Arnold sat in the drawing-room drinking whisky and listening to The Fire Bird? Perhaps Rachel had drawn the sheet over her face again in that appalling way. Or was it all quite different? Arnold was kneeling outside the door begging her to let him in, weeping and accusing himself. Or else, Rachel, who had been listening for my departure, had come quietly down the stairs and into her husband's arms. Perhaps now they were in the kitchen together, cooking the supper and opening a special bottle of wine to celebrate. What a mystery a marriage was. What a strange and violent world, the world of matrimony. I was glad to be outside it. The idea of it filled me with a sort of queasy pity. I felt at that moment so «curious,» in just Arnold's sense of the word, that I almost turned back to snoop around the house and find out what had happened. But of course such an action was not in my character.
The young fellow appeared to be chanting some sort of repetitive litany. I now saw that what he was strewing was not so much flowers as white petals. Where had I seen just such petals lately? The fragments of white paint which the violence of Arnold's chisel had dislodged from the bedroom door. And the white petals were being cast, not at random, but in relation to the regular and constant passage of motor-cars. As a car approached the young chap would take a handful of petals out of a bag and cast them into the path of the car, uttering the while his rhythmic chant. Then the frail whitenesses would race about, caught in the car's motion, dash madly under the wheels, follow the whirlwind of the car's wake, and dissipate themselves farther along the road: so that the casting away of the petals seemed like a sacrifice or act of destruction, since that which was offered was being so instantly consumed and made to vanish.
I describe Julian here as teen-age because that was how I still thought of her, though at this period she was, I suppose, in her earliest twenties. Arnold had been a young father. I had felt a modest avuncular interest in the fairy-like little girl. (I had never wanted children of my own. Many artists do not.) With the approach of puberty however she lost her looks and developed an awkward sulky aggressive attitude to the world in general which considerably diminished her charm. She was always fretting and complaining, and her little face, as it hardened into adult lines, grew discontented and secretive. That was as I recalled her. I had not in fact seen her for some while. Her parents adored her, yet were at the same time disappointed in her. They had wanted a boy. They had both assumed, as parents do, that Julian would be clever, but this appeared not to be the case. Julian took a long time growing up, she took little part in the self-conscious tribalism of the «teen-age» world, and still preferred dressing her dolls to dressing herself at an age when most girls are beginning, even pardonably, to interest themselves in war paint.
«Hello, Bradley.»
Owing to her absence at college and the demise of our Sundays I had not seen Julian for nearly a year, and before that indeed infrequently. I found her older, the face still sulky but with more of a brooding expression, suggestive of the occurrence of thought. She had a rather bad complexion, or perhaps it was just that Arnold's «greasy» look looked less healthy on a woman. She never used make-up. She had watery-blue eyes, not the flecked hazel-brown of her mother's, nor did her secretive and dog-like face repeat Rachel's large bland freckled features. Her thick undulating mane, which had no trace of red, was streakily fair with that dark blond colour which is almost suggestive of green. Even at close quarters she still slightly resembled a boy, tallish, dour, who had just cut himself in a premature attempt to shave his first whisker. I did not mind the dourness. I dislike girls who are skittish.
«Have you been to see Daddy?»
«Yes.» I reflected that it was just as well Julian was out this evening.
«Certainly not!»
«You don't come any more.»
«Not now. I'm doing teaching practice in London. What was happening when you left?»
«Where? At home? Oh-nothing special-«They were quarrelling so I left the house. Have they calmed town?»
«No, I-How smart you are, Julian. Quite a dandy.»
«It's an exorcism. These are love letters.»
«From my ex-boy friend.»
I remembered that Arnold had mentioned rather unenthusiastically a «hairy swain,» an art student or something.
«Yes. I've torn them into the smallest possible pieces. When I've got rid of them all I'll be free. Here goes the last, I think.»
Taking from her neck the receptacle rather like a nose-bag which had contained the dismembered missives she turned it inside out. A few more white petals flew with the passing wind and were gone.
» 'Oscar Belling.' « ш «What?»
«That was his name. Look, I'm using the past tense! It's all over!
«I'd rather not talk about it. Bradley, I wanted to ask you something.»
It was quite dark now, a bluish night gauzed over by the yellow street lamps, and reminding me irrelevantly of Rachel's reddish golden hair adhering to the front of Francis's shabby blue suit. We walked slowly along the street.
My heart sank. «That's fine.»
«And I want you to help me.»
«The thing is, I don't want to be a writer like Daddy, I want to be a writer like you.»
My heart warmed to the girl. But my answer had to be ironical. «My dear Julian, don't emulate me! I constantly try and hardly ever succeed!»
I wondered if these were the views of the late Oscar Belling. «It's a long hard road, Julian, if that's what you believe.»
«Well, it's what you believe, and I admire you for it, I've always admired you, Bradley. But the point is this, will you teach me?»
«Two things really. I've been thinking about it. I know I'm not educated and I know I'm immature. And this teachers' training place is hopeless. I want you to give me a reading list. All the great books I ought to read, but only the great ones and the hard ones. I don't want to waste my time with small stuff. I haven't got much time left now. And I'll read the books and we could discuss them. You could give me sort of tutorials on them. And then, the second thing, I'd like to write things for you, short stories perhaps, or anything you felt I should write, and you'd criticize what I'd written. You see, I want to be really taken in hand. I think one should pay so much attention to technique, don't you? Like learning to draw before you paint. Do please say you'll take me on. It needn't take much of your time, not more than a couple of hours or so in a week, and it would absolutely change my life.»
I knew of course that it was just a matter of choosing a way of getting out of this gracefully. Julian was already grieving over the wasted years and regretting that she had not much time left. My grief and my regret were a rather different matter. I could not spare her a couple of hours a week. How dare she ask for my precious hours? In any case, the child's suggestion appalled and embarrassed me. It was not just the display of youthful insensibility. It was the sadly misplaced nature of her ambition. There was little doubt that Julian's fate was to be typist, teacher, housewife, without starring in any role.
«Oh, where? I could visit you. I'm quite free now because my school has measles.»
«I shall be travelling.»
«And you don't mind poetry, prose-?»
«Oh no, not poetry. I can't read poetry very well. I'm keeping poetry for later on.»
«Well, yes, of course they are, but I'd be reading them in a prose translation.»
«So that disposes of that difficulty.»
We had stopped rather abruptly a little short of the station outside the illuminated window of a shoe shop. High summer boots of various colours made out of a sort of lace occupied the front of the window. Slightly put out by the brusqueness of my dismissal I could not think of anything suitable to say. I saluted vaguely and said, «Ta-ta,» an expression which I do not think I have ever used before or since.
«Ta-ta,» said Julian, as if this were a sort of code. Then she turned to face the lighted window and began examining the boots.
Yes, it was time to move. I had felt, during recent months, sometimes boredom, sometimes despair, as I struggled with a nebulous work which seemed now a nouvelle, now a vast novel, wherein a hero not unlike myself pursued, amid ghostly incidents, a series of reflections about life and art. The trouble was that the dark blaze, whose absence I had deplored in Arnold's work, was absent here as well. I could not fire and fuse these thoughts, these people, into a whole thing. I wanted to produce a sort of statement which might be called my philosophy. But I also wanted to embody this in a story, perhaps in an allegory, something with a form as pliant and as hard as my cast-iron garland of roses. But I could not do it. My people were shadows, my thoughts were epigrams. However I felt, as we artists can feel, the proximity of enlightenment. And I was sure that if I went away now into loneliness, right away from the associations of tedium and failure, I would soon be rewarded. So it was in this mood that I decided to set forth, leaving my darling burrow for a countryside which I had never visited, and a cottage which I had never seen.
I also write to ask you, as briefly as possible, a favour. You were of course interested to meet Francis Marloe, who by the weirdest accident was with me when you telephoned. You spoke of meeting him again. Please do not do so. If you reflect you will see how hurtful to me any such association would be. I do not propose to have anything to do with my former wife and I do not want any connection to exist between her world, whatever that may turn out to be, and the things of my own which are dear to me. It would of course be characteristic of you to feel «interested» in probing in this region, but please be kind enough to an old friend not to do so.
Refilling my pen, I began to write another letter, which ran as follows: My dear Julian, it was kind of you to ask my advice about books and writing. I am afraid I cannot offer to teach you to write. I have not the time, and such teaching is, I surmise, impossible anyway. Let me just say a word about books. I think you should read the Iliad and the Odyssey in any unvarnished translation. (If pressed for time, omit the Odyssey.) These are the greatest literary works in the world, where huge conceptions are refined into simplicity. I think perhaps you should leave Dante until later. The Commedia presents many points of difficulty and needs, as Homer does not, a commentary. In fact, if not read in Italian, this great work seems not only incomprehensible, but repulsive. You should, I feel, relax your embargo upon poetry sufficiently to accommodate the better known plays of Shakespeare! How fortunate we are to have English as our native tongue! Familiarity and excitement should carry you easily through these works. Forget that they are «poetry» and just enjoy them. The rest of my reading list consists simply of the greatest English and Russian novels of the nineteenth century. (If you are not sure which these are, ask your father: I think he can be trusted to tell you!)
My very good wishes to you, and thank you for wanting to know what I thought!
Bradley
After I had finished this letter and after some reflection and fumbling and excursions to the chimney piece and the display cabinet, I began a further letter which went thus: Dear Marloe, as I hope I made clear to you, your visit was not only unwelcome but entirely without point, since I do not propose under any circumstances to communicate with my former wife. Any further attempt at an approach, whether by letter or in person, will be met by absolute rejection. However, now that you appreciate my attitude I imagine that you will be kind and wise enough to leave me alone. I was grateful for your help chez Mr. and Mrs. Baffin. I should tell you, in case you had any thought of pursuing an acquaintance with them, that I have asked them not to receive you, and they will not receive you.
Bradley Pearson
Francis had, on his departure on the previous evening, contrived to thrust into my pocket his address and telephone number written upon a slip of paper. I copied the address onto the envelope and threw the paper into the wastepaper basket.
Yours sincerely,
Bradley Pearson
When I had finished writing this letter I was not only sweating, I was trembling and panting and my heart was beating viciously. What emotion had so invaded me? Fear? It is sometimes curiously difficult to name the emotion from which one suffers. The naming of it is sometimes unimportant, sometimes crucial. Hatred?
I looked at my watch and found that in the composition of the letter a long time had passed. It was now too late to catch the morning train. No doubt the afternoon train would be better in any case. Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.
My suitcases were in the hall where I had left them yesterday. I put on my macintosh. I went into the bathroom. This bathroom was of the kind which no amount of caring for could make other than sordid. Vari-coloured slivers of soap, such as I cannot normally bear to throw away, were lying about in the basin and in the bath. With a sudden act of will I collected them all and flushed them down the lavatory. As I stood there, dazed with this success, the front doorbell suddenly began to ring and ring. part one 45 1 At this point it is necessary for me to give some account of my sister, Priscilla, who is about to appear upon the scene.
Priscilla is six years younger than me. She left school early. So indeed did I. I am an educated and cultivated person through my own zeal, efforts and talents. Priscilla had no zeal and talents and made no efforts. She was spoilt by my mother whom she resembled. I think women, perhaps unconsciously, convey to female children a deep sense of their own discontent. My mother, though not too unhappily married, had a continued grudge against the world. This may have originated in, or been aggravated by, a sense of having married «beneath» her, though not exactly in a social sense. My mother had been a «beauty» and had had many suitors. I suspect she felt later in life, as she grew old behind the counter, that if she had played her cards otherwise she could have made a much better bargain in life. Priscilla, though she made in commercial and even in social terms a more advantageous buy, followed somewhat the same pattern. Priscilla, though not as pretty as my mother, had been a good-looking girl, and was admired in the circle of pert half-baked undereducated youths who constituted her «social life.» But Priscilla, egged on by her mother, had ambitions, and was in no hurry to settle with one of these unprepossessing candidates.
By the time she recovered she was getting on into her twenties and had lost some of her first good looks. She talked at that time of becoming a «model» (a «mannequin»), but so far as I know made no serious attempt to do so. What she did become, virtually, and not to put too fine a point upon it, was a tart. I do not mean that she stood around in the road, but she moved in a world of business men, golf-club bar proppers and night-club hounds, who certainly regarded her in this light. I did not want to know anything about this; possibly I ought to have been more concerned. I was upset and annoyed when my father once approached the subject, and although I could see that he had been made utterly miserable, I resolutely refused to discuss it. I never said anything to my mother, who always defended Priscilla and pretended, or deceived herself into believing, that all was well. I was by this time already involved with Christian, and I had other matters on my mind.
I will not attempt a lengthy description of Roger. He too will appear in the story in due course. I did not like Roger. Roger did not like me. He always referred to himself as a «public-school boy,» which I suppose he had been. He had a little education, and a great deal of «air,» a «plummy» voice and a misleadingly distinguished appearance. As his copious crown of hair became peppery and then grey he began to resemble a soldier. (He had once done some army service, I think in the Pay Corps.) He held himself like a military man and alleged that his friends nicknamed him «the brigadier.» He cultivated the crude joking manners of a junior officers' mess. He worked in fact in a bank, about which he made as much mystery as possible. He drank and laughed too much.
She was smartly dressed in a navy-blue «jersey» coat and skirt, looking pale and tense, unsmiling. She had retained her looks into middle age, though she had put on weight and looked a good deal less «glossy,» now resembling a «career woman»: the female counterpart perhaps of Roger's specious «military look.» Her well-cut un– gaudy clothes, deliberately «classic» and quite unlike the lurid plumage of her youth, looked a bit like uniform, the effect being counteracted however by the vulgar «costume jewellery» with which she always loaded herself. She dyed her hair a discreet gold and wore it kempt and wavy. Her face was not a weak one, somewhat resembling mine only without the «cagey» sensitive look. Her eyes were narrowed by short sight, and her thin lips were brightly painted.
She said nothing in reply to my surprised greeting, marched past me into the sitting-room, selected one of the lyre-back chairs, pulled it away from the wall, sat down upon it and dissolved into desperate tears.
After a while the weeping subsided into a series of long sighing sobs. She sat inspecting the streaks of honey-brown make-up which had come off onto her paper handkerchief. ilT-gt; –111 –«
Priscilla, what is it?
I felt blank dismay, instant fear for myself. I did not want to be involved in any mess of Priscilla's. I did not even want to have to be sorry for Priscilla. Then I thought, Of course there is exaggeration, misconception.
«Don't be silly, Priscilla. Now do calm yourself, please. Of course you haven't left Roger. You've had a tiff-«Could I have some whisky?»
«Well, can I have some?»
I went to the walnut hanging cupboard and poured her a glass of brown sherry. «Here.»
She got up abruptly, pushed out of the door, banging herself against the lintel, and went into the spare bedroom. She came out again, cannoning into me, when she saw that the bed was not made up. She went into my bedroom, sat on the bed, threw her handbag violently into a corner, kicked off her shoes and dragged off her jacket. Uttering a low moan she began to undo her skirt.
«Priscilla!»
I fetched it.
Priscilla got her skirt off, seemingly tearing it in the process. With a flash of pink petticoat she got herself between the sheets and lay there shuddering, staring in front of her with big blank suffering eyes.
«Bradley, my marriage is over. I think my life is probably over. What a poor affair it has been.»
«Priscilla, don't talk so-«Roger has become a devil. Some sort of devil. Or else he's mad.»
«But lately it's been sort of pure intense hell, he's been sort of willing my death, oh I can't explain, and he tried to poison me and I woke in the night and he was standing by my bed looking so terrible as if he was just making up his mind to strangle me.»
«How can you say that to me, how can you. This cold hatred and wanting to kill me and poison me-«Priscilla, calm yourself. You can't leave Roger. It doesn't make sense. Of course you're unhappy, all married people are unhappy, but you can't just launch yourself on the world at fifty whatever you are now-«
«Stop it. Stop that noise, please. Now dry yourself up and I'll take you back to Paddington in a taxi. I'm going to the country. You can't stay here.»
«And I left all my jewels behind and some of them are quite valuable, and now he won't let me have them out of spite. Oh why was I such a fool! I just ran out of the house late last night, we'd been quarrelling for hours and hours and I couldn't stand it any more. I just ran out, I didn't even take my coat, and I went to the station and I thought he'd come after me to the station, but he didn't. Of course he's been trying to drive me to run away and then say it's my fault. And I waited at the station for hours and it was so cold and I felt as if I was going mad through sheer misery. Oh he's been so awful to me, so vile and frightening-Sometimes he'd just go on and on and on saying, 'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you-«All spouses are murmuring that to each other all the time. It's the fundamental litany of marriage.» '
«I think you were saying that, Priscilla, not him. I think-«And I left all my jewels behind and my mink stole, and Roger took all the money out of our joint account-«Priscilla, brace up. Look, I'll give you ten minutes. Just rest quietly, and then put your togs on again and we'll leave together.»
«Bradley-oh my God I'm so wretched, I'm choking with it-I made a home for him-I haven't got anything else-I cared so much about that house, I made all the curtains myself-I loved all the little things-I hadn't anything else to love-and now it's all gone-all my life has been taken away from me-I'll destroy myself-I'll tear myself to pieces-«
«Now make an effort. Get control of yourself. I'm not being heartless. It's for your good. I'll leave you now and finish packing my own bags.»
She was sobbing again, not touching her face, letting the tears flow down. She looked so pitiful and ugly, I reached across and pulled the curtain a little. Her swollen face, the scene in the dim light, reminded me of Rachel.
I waited for about ten minutes, trying to calm and clear my mind, and then went back to the bedroom door. I did not really expect that Priscilla would have got dressed and be ready to leave. I did not know what to do. I felt fear and disgust at the idea of «mental breakdown,» the semi-deliberate refusal to go on organizing one's life which is regarded with such tolerance in these days. I peered into the room. Priscilla was lying in a sort of abandoned attitude on her side, having half kicked off the bedclothes. Her mouth was wet and wide open. A plump stockinged leg stuck rather awkwardly out of the bed, surmounted by yellowish suspenders and a piece of mottled thigh. The graceless awkwardness of the position suggested a dummy which had fallen over. She said in a heavy slightly whimpering voice, «I've just eaten all my sleeping pills.»
«What! Priscilla! No!»
«You're not serious! How many?»
I picked it up. The label meant nothing to me. I made a sort of dart at Priscilla, trying stupidly to pull the bedclothes up over her, but one of her legs was on top of them. I ran out of the room.
There were the rapid pips of the «pay tone,» and then a click-Arnold's voice said, «Bradley, Rachel and I are just in town for lunch, we're just round the corner and we wondered if we could persuade you to join us. Darling, would you like to talk to Bradley?»
Rachel's voice said, «Bradley, my dear, we both felt-I said, «Priscilla's just eaten all her sleeping pills.»
«Priscilla. My sister, just taken bottle sleeping pills-I-get hospital-«
«What's that, Bradley? I can't hear. Bradley, don't ring off, we-«Priscilla's taken her sleeping-Sorry, I must ring-get doctor-sorry, sorry-I jammed the phone down, then lifted it again and could still hear Rachel's voice saying, «anything we can do-« I banged it back, ran to the bedroom door, ran back again, lifted the phone, put it down, began to pull the telephone books out of the shelves where they live inside a converted mahogany commode. The telephone books slewed all over the floor. The front doorbell rang.
I said, «Thank God you've come, my sister has just eaten a bottle full of sleeping pills.»
«Where's the bottle?» said Francis. «How many were in it?»
«When did she take them?»
«Just now.»
«No, I-«
«Where is she?»
«Bradley, can we-«Help me find the bottle, I had the bottle she took, I put it down somewhere-A cry came out of the bedroom. Francis called, «Brad, could-Rachel said, «Let me.» She went into the bedroom.
«I must telephone the hospital,» I said.
«I can't read the blasted telephone number. Can you read the number?»
«I always said you needed glasses.»
«Arnold, could you telephone the hospital and I'll look for the-I must have taken it into the-I ran into the sitting-room and was surprised to see a girl there. I got an impression of freshly laundered dress, freshly laundered girl, girl on a visit. She was examining the little bronzes in the lacquered display cabinet. She stopped doing this and watched me with polite curiosity while I started hurling cushions about. «What are you looking for, Bradley?»
«Bottle. Sleeping pills. See what kind.»
Francis called out. I ran to the bedroom. Rachel was mopping the floor. There was a vile smell. Priscilla was sitting on the side of the bed sobbing. Her petticoat with pink daisies on it was hitched up round her waist, rather tight silken knickers cut into her thigh, making the mottled flesh bulge.
Francis, talking quickly, excitedly, said, «She was sick-I didn't really-it'll help-but a stomach pump-Julian said, «Is this it?» Without entering she thrust a hand round the door.
«She can't do herself much harm with that. Need to take an awful lot. It makes one sick actually, that was why-«Priscilla, do stop crying. You'll be all right.»
«Leave me alone!»
«Leave me alone, I hate you all.»
«She isn't herself,» I said.
«I'll make some tea,» said Rachel.
They retired and the door shut. I tried again to pull the bedclothes back, but Priscilla was sitting on them.
I sat down beside her and looked at my watch. It was after twelve. No one had thought to pull the curtains back and the room was still twilit. There was a horrible smell. I patted the heaving mass of blankets. Only a little of her hair was visible, with a dirty line of grey at the roots of the gold. Her hair was dry and brittle, more like some synthetic fibre than like human hair. I felt disgust and helpless pity and a prowling desire to vomit. I sat for a time patting her with the awkward ineffectual gesture of a small child trying to pat an animal. I could not make out what forms I was touching. I wondered if I should firmly pull off the covers and take her hand, but when I plucked at the blankets she burrowed deeper and even her hair disappeared.
Rachel called, «The ambulance has come.»
Julian, looking like one of my pieces of china, was back in her place by the display cabinet. Rachel was lying sprawled in an armchair with a rather odd smile on her face. Rachel said, «She'll be all right?»
«Yes.»
«What?»
«This little thing. I wonder if I could buy it? Would you sell it to me?»
Julian was holding in her hand one of the little Chinese bronzes, a piece which I had had for many years. A water buffalo with lowered head and exquisitely wrinkled neck bears upon his back an aristocratic lady of delicate loveliness with a many-folded dress and high elaborate hair.
«I wonder if-?»
«Keep it, keep it,» I said.
«Bradley, you mustn't let her-«No, I'll buy it-«
«Oh thank you! Why, here's a letter addressed to Dad, and one for me. May I take them?»
«Yes, yes. Where's Arnold?»
«She felt it wasn't quite the moment,» said Julian.
«Who felt?»
«With Christian?»
«Your ex-wife arrived,» said Rachel, smiling. «Arnold explained that your sister had just attempted suicide. Your ex-wife felt it was not the moment for a reunion. She retired from the scene and Arnold escorted her. I don't know where to exactly. 'To the pub' were 1r his words.»
It was the day after her exploit with the sleeping pills. The ambulance had taken her to the hospital from which she had been discharged on the same afternoon. She was brought back to my flat and went to bed. She was still in bed, in my bed, the time being about ten-thirty in the morning. The sun was shining. The Post Office Tower glittered with newly minted detail.
I had of course failed to find Arnold and Christian. Looking for someone is, as psychologists have observed, perceptually peculiar, in that the world is suddenly organized as a basis upon which the absence of what is sought is bodied forth in a ghostly manner. The familiar streets about my house, never fully to recover from this haunting, were filled with non-apparitions of the pair, fleeing, laughing, mocking, overwhelmingly real and yet invisible. Other pairs simulated them and made them vanish, the air was smoky with them. But it was too good a joke, too good a coup, for Arnold to risk my spoiling its perfection. By now they were somewhere else, not in the Fitzroy or the Marquis or the Wheatsheaf or the Black Horse, but somewhere else: and the white ghosts of them blew into my eyes, like white petals, like white flakes of paint, like the scraps of paper which the hieratic boy had cast out upon the river of the roadway, images of beauty and cruelty and fear.
«Well, why did you rush away in such a hurry? If, as you say, you decided ages ago to leave Roger, why didn't you pack a suitcase and go off in a taxi some morning when he was at the office, in an orderly manner?»
«I don't think one leaves one's husband like that,» said Priscilla.
The telephone rings.
«Hello, Pearson. Hartbourne here.»
«I wondered if we could have lunch on Tuesday.»
«Sorry, I'm not sure, my sister's here-I'll ring you back-Tuesday? My whole concept of the future had crumpled.
«Oh Priscilla, stop it, do. Try to be a bit brave at least.»
«I know I've lost my looks-«As if that mattered!»
«That's just nonsense, Priscilla.»gt; «Oh Bradley, if only we hadn't killed that child-She had already been onto this subject at some length.
«Oh Bradley, if only we'd kept the child-But how was I to know I wouldn't be able to have another one? That child, that one child, to think that it existed, it cried out for life, and we killed it deliberately. It was all Roger's fault, he insisted that we get rid of it, he didn't want to marry me, we killed it, the special one, the only one, my dear little child-«Oh do stop, Priscilla. It would be well over twenty now and on drugs, the bane of your life.» I have never desired children myself and can scarcely understand this desire in others.
«Of course it's unjust. Life is unjust. Do stop whingeing and try to be practical. You can't stay here. I can't support you. Anyway I'm going away.»
«I'll get a job.»
«I'll have to.»
«You're a woman over fifty, with no education and no skill. You're unemployable.»
The telephone rings again.
The oily ingratiating tones of Mr. Francis Marloe.
«Oh good. Oh Brad, I just thought I'd tell you the hospital psych said better not leave her alone, you know.»
«Rachel told me yesterday.»
«You and Dad made me feel so ashamed and inferior in the old days, you were both so cruel to me and Mum, Mum was so unhappy-«
«Either you must return to Roger or you must make some definite financial arrangement with him. It's nothing to do with me. You've got to face up to things.
«No, I will not!»
«Oh God, if only I'd taken my jewels with me, they mean so much to me, I saved up to buy them, and the mink stole. And there's two silver goblets on my dressing table and a little box made of malachite-«
«No, I can't. Roger will have sold them out of spite. The only consolation I had was buying things. If I bought some pretty thing it cheered me up for a while and I could save out of the housekeeping money and it cheered me up a little bit. I got my diamante set and I got a crystal-and-lapis necklace which was quite expensive and-«
«Why hasn't Roger telephoned? He must know you're here.»
«Bradley, please would you go to Bristol-«It sounds to me as if you're dying to go back to the man-«Please would you go and get my jewels, I'll give you the key.»
«Oh do stop going on about your jewels. They're all right. They're legally yours anyway. A wife owns her own jewellery.»
«Bradley, please please go to Bristol for me. He won't have had time to sell them yet, he won't have thought of it. Besides he probably imagines I'm coming back. They're all still in their places. I'll give you the key of the house and you can go in when he's at the office and just get those few things, it will be quite easy and it will make such a difference to my mind, and then I'll do anything you like, oh it will make such a difference-The front doorbell rang at this point. I got up. I felt stupidly upset. I made a sort of caressing gesture to Priscilla and left the room, closing the door. I went to the front door of the flat and opened it.
Arnold Baffin was outside. We moved into the sitting-room, smoothly, like dancers.
«How is she?»
«Much better. You and Rachel were so kind.»
«What is there to be angry about?»
«You know-they did tell you-that I went off with Christian?»
«You are angry. Oh Christ.»
«I am NOT angry! I just don't-want to-know-«I didn't intend this, it just happened.»
«But I can't pretend it didn't happen, can I? Bradley, I've got to talk to you about it-just to make you stop blaming me-I'm not a fool-after all I'm a novelist, damn it!-I know how complicated-«I don't see what being a novelist has to do with it or why you have to drag that in-«I only mean I understand how you feel-«I don't think you do. I can see you're excited. It must have amused you very much to be the reception committee for my ex– wife. Naturally you want to talk about it. I am telling you not to.»
«But Bradley, she's a phenomenon.»
«My dear Bradley, you must be curious, you must be. If I were you I'd be dying with curiosity. There's hurt pride, I suppose, and-«There's no question of hurt pride. / left her.»
«Well, resentment or something, I know time doesn't heal. That's the silliest idea of all. But God, I'd be so curious. I'd want to see what she'd become, what she was like. Of course she sounds like an American now-«I don't want to know!»
«Our friendship is a tough plant, Bradley. Look, I just refuse to pretend that this thing hasn't happened, and I don't think you ought to either. I know people can be awful dooms for each other-«Precisely.»
«But sometimes if you face a thing it becomes tolerable. You ought to face this, and anyway, you've got to, she's here and she's determined to see you, she's absolutely mad with interest, you can't avoid her. And you know, she is a most enormously nice person-«I think that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say.»
«Bradley, be sincere.»
«You've met her, you've discussed me, you think she's 'a most enormously nice person-«Bradley, don't shout. I-«
I go and lift the receiver.
«Brad! I say, is that really you? Guess who this is!»
I went back into the sitting-room and sat down. «That was her.»
«You've gone quite white. You're not going to faint, are you? Can I get you something? Please forgive me for talking so stupidly. Is she hanging on?»
«Bradley, let me talk to her.»
«No.»
«Bradley, don't you see, you've got to deal with this, you can't shirk it, you can't. She'll come round in a taxi.»
The telephone rings again. I lift it up and hold it a little way off. Christian's voice, even with the American tang, is recognizable. The years drop away. «Brad, do listen, please. I'm round at the flat, you know, our old place. Why won't you come round? I've got some Scotch. Brad, please don't just bang the phone down, don't be mean. Come round and see me. I do so want to take a look at you. I'll be here all day, till five o'clock anyway.»
«She wants me to go and see her.»
«You've got to, you've got to, it's your fate!»
The telephone rings again. I take it off and lay it down on the table. It bubbles remotely. Priscilla calls in a shrill voice, «Bradley!»
«Don't touch that,» I said to Arnold, pointing at the telephone. I went in to Priscilla.
«Yes.»
«I think I'll come out to see him. I want to thank him.»
«You will come back soon?»
«Yes, yes.»
Arnold looked displeased. «I suppose I can stay. Is there any drink? I wanted to talk to you about Rachel, actually, and about that funny letter you wrote me. Where are you off to?»
«I'm going to see Christian.»
«You've met her, you've discussed me, you think she's 'a most enormously nice person-«Bradley, don't shout. I-The telephone rings again.
I go and lift the receiver.
I put the telephone down, settling it carefully back onto its stand.
I went back into the sitting-room and sat down. «That was her.»
«No. I put the thing-down-The telephone rings again. I do nothing.
«Bradley, let me talk to her.»
I get to the telephone just after Arnold has lifted the receiver. I bang it back onto the rest.
«Bradley, don't you see, you've got to deal with this, you can't shirk it, you can't. She'll come round in a taxi.»
I put the telephone down.
«She wants me to go and see her.»
«I'm not going.»
The telephone rings again. I take it off and lay it down on the table. It bubbles remotely. Priscilla calls in a shrill voice, «Bradley!»
«Is that Arnold Baffin out there?» She was sitting on the side of the bed. I saw with surprise that she had put on her blouse and skirt and was putting some thick yellowish-pinkish muck onto her nose.
«Yes.»
«As you like. Look, Priscilla, I'm going to be away for an hour or two. Will you be all right? I'll come back at lunch time, maybe a bit late. I'll ask Arnold to stay with you.»
«You will come back soon?»
I ran in to Arnold. «Could you stay with Priscilla? The doctor said she shouldn't be left alone.»
Arnold looked displeased. «I suppose I can stay. Is there any drink? I wanted to talk to you about Rachel, actually, and about that funny letter you wrote me. Where are you off to?»
Marriage is a curious institution, as I have already remarked. I cannot quite see how it can be possible. People who boast of happy marriages are, I submit, usually self-deceivers, if not actually liars. The human soul is not framed for continued proximity, and the result of this enforced neighbourhood is often an appalling loneliness for which the rules of the game forbid assuagement. There is nothing like the bootless solitude of those who are caged together. Those outside the cage can, to their own taste, satisfy their need for society by more or less organized dashes in the direction of other human beings. But the unit of two can scarcely communicate with others, and is fortunate, as the years go by, if it can communicate within itself. Or is this the sour envious view of the failed husband? I speak now of course of ordinary «successful» marriages. Where the unit of two is a machine of mutual hatred there is hell in a pure form. I left Christian before our hell was quite perfected. I saw very clearly what it would be like.
The reason why, after swearing that I would not see her, I changed my mind and rushed to her was simply this. I realized quite suddenly that I would now be in torment until I had seen her and settled that she had no more power over me. Witch she might be, but surely not for me any more. And this was of course made much more obviously necessary by Arnold's having, by this vile chance, «got in on her.» I think his describing her as «an enormously nice person» had some cosmic effect on me. So she had got out of my mind and was walking about? Arnold had seen her with innocent eyes. Why did this threaten me so terribly? By going to see her myself I would be able to «dilute» the power of her meeting with Arnold. But I did not think all this out immediately. I acted on instinct, wanting to know the worst.
The sudden recrudescence of the far past makes one dizzy even when there are no ugly features involved. There seemed to be no oxygen in the street. I ran, I ran. She opened the door.
I think I would not have recognized her at once. She looked slimmer and taller. She had been a bunchy sensuous frilly woman. Now she looked more austere, certainly older, also smarter, wearing a simple dress of mousy light-brown tweed and a chain belt. Her hair, which used to be waved, was straight, thick, longish, faintly undulating, and dyed, I suppose, to a reddish brown. Her face was more bony, a little wrinkled, the faintest wizening effect as on an apple, not unpleasant. The long liquidy brown eyes had not aged or dimmed. She looked competent and distinguished, like the manager of an international cosmetic firm.
She had turned her back on me and was fiddling in a cupboard.
«Oh Jesus, I shall get the giggles. Have a drink, Bradley. Scotch? I guess we need something. I hope you're going to be nice to me. What a horrid letter you wrote me.»
«There was a letter addressed to me in your sitting-room. Arnold gave it to me. Here, take this and stop trembling.»
«No thank you.»
The voice was faintly steadily American. Now that I could see her more distinctly among the dark blurry browns and blues of the room I realized how handsome she had become. The old terrible nervy vitality had been shaped by a mature elegance into an air of authority. How had a woman without education managed to do that to herself in a little town in the Middle West of America?
The room was almost the same. It represented and recalled a much earlier me, a younger and yet unformed taste: wickerwork, wool-embroidered cushions, blurry lithographs, hand-thrown pottery with purple glazes, hand-woven curtains of flecked mauve linen, straw matting on the floor. A calm pretty insipid place. I had created that room years and years and years ago. I had wept in it. I had screamed in it.
«Your ma still alive?»
«No.»
«Yes.»
«Drink, won't you, it'll loosen your tongue. Do you know something, I'm glad to see you! I looked forward to you on the ship. But I guess I'm glad to see everything just now, I get a buzz from the whole world just now, everything's bright and beautiful. Do you know I did a course in Zen Buddhism? I guess I must be enlightened, everything's so glorious! I thought poor old Evans would never get on with the departure scene, I prayed every day for that man to die, he was a sick man. Now I wake up every morning and remember it's really true and I close my eyes again and I'm in heaven. Not a very holy attitude is it, but it's nature, and at my age at least you can be sincere. Are you shocked, am I awful? Yes, I think I am glad to see you, I think it's fun. God, I just want to laugh and laugh, isn't that odd?»
«I came to see you simply because I thought that you would annoy me until I did. I meant what I said in my letter. It was not 'excited,' it was just a statement. I do not want and will not tolerate any renewal of our acquaintance. And now that you have satisfied your curiosity by looking at me and had your laugh will you please understand that I want to hear no more of you. I say this just in case you might conceive it to be 'fun' to pester me. I would be grateful if you would keep away from me, and keep away from my friends too.»
«Oh come on, Brad, you don't own your friends. Are you jealous already?»
«I feel pretty sick too, do you know? I feel all kind of moved and touched. I thought about you out there, Brad. We did make a mess of things, didn't we. We got so across each other, it spoilt the world in a way. I talked about you with my guru. I thought of writing you-«
«Goodbye.»
gt; ' I'l»
Three.
«I am a real author.»
«We had a literary chap from England at our Women Writers' Guild, I asked about you but he hadn't heard of you. I did some writing myself, I wrote some short stories. You're not still at the old Tax grind, are you?»
«You aren't sixty-five, are you, Brad? My memory's packed up. How old are you?»
«Fifty-eight. I retired in order to write.»
«No.»
«Poor old Evans. There was a sort of kindness in him, a sort of gentleness, but he was so mortally dull he nearly killed me. At least you were never dull. Do you know that I'm a rich woman now, really quite rich, proper rich? Oh Bradley, to be able to tell you that, it's good, it's good! I'm going to have a new life, Bradley. I'm going to hear the trumpets blowing in my life.»
«I'm going to be happy and to make other people happy. GO AWAY!»
The last command was, I almost instantly grasped, addressed not to me but to someone behind me who was standing just outside the window, which gave directly onto the pavement. I half turned and saw Francis Marloe standing outside. He was leaning forward to peer in through the glass, his eyebrows raised and a bland submissive smile upon his face. When he could discern us he put his hands together in an attitude of prayer.
I followed her up the narrow stair and into the front bedroom. This room had changed. Upon a bright pink carpet everything was black and shiny and modern. Christian flung open the window. Something flew out and landed with a clatter in the road. Coming nearer I saw that it was a stripy sponge bag. Out of it tumbled an electric shaver and a toothbrush. Francis scrambled for them quickly, then stood, consciously pathetic, his little close eyes blinking upward, his small mouth still pursed in a humble smile.
«And your milk chocolate. Look out. No, I won't, I'll give it to Brad. Brad, you still like milk chocolate, don't you. See, I'm giving your milk chocolate to Bradley.» She thrust the packet at me. I laid it on the bed. «I'm not being heartless, it's just that he's been at me the whole time since I got back, he imagines I'll play mother and support him! God, he's a real Welfare State layabout, like what the Americans think all the English are. Look at him now, what a clown! I gave him money, but he wants to move in and hang up his hat. He climbed in the kitchen window when I was out and I came back and found him in bed! Wow! Look who's here now!»
«Hey, Arnold!» Arnold looked up and waved and moved towards the front door. She ran away down the stairs again with clacking heels and I heard the door open. Laughter.
Francis was still standing in the gutter holding his electric razor and his toothbrush. He looked towards the door, then looked up at me. He spread his arms, then dropped them at his sides in a gesture of mock despair. I threw the packet of milk chocolate out of the window. I did not wait to see him pick it up. I went slowly down the stairs. Arnold and Christian were just inside the sitting-room door, both talking.
«Bradley, I'm sorry,» said Arnold. «Priscilla attacked me.»
«Attacked you?»
«You make me laugh too!» said Arnold.
They both began to laugh. The hilarious excitement which Christian had been holding in check throughout our interview burst wildly forth. She laughed, wailing, gasping for breath, leaning back against the door with tears spilling from her eyes. Arnold laughed too, without control, hands hanging, head back, mouth gaping, eyes closed. They swayed. They roared.
I ignored him and he fell away. As I reached the corner of the road he shouted after me, «Brad! Thanks for the chocolate!»
Priscilla had been much relieved when I had agreed to go and fetch these objects, to which she seemed to attach an almost magical significance. It was agreed that after their abstraction Roger should be formally asked to pack up and send the rest of her clothes. Priscilla did not imagine that he would impound these, once her jewels were saved. She kept saying that Roger might sell her «precious things» out of spite, and on reflection I felt that this was indeed possible. I had hoped that my really, all things considered, very kind offer of a salvage operation would cheer Priscilla up. But once this source of anxiety was alleviated, she started up again an almost continuous rigmarole of remorse and misery, about the lost child, about her age, about her personal appearance, about her husband's unkindness, about her ruined useless life. Uncontrolled remorse, devoid of conscience or judgment, is very unattractive. I felt shame for my sister at this time and would gladly have kept her hidden away. However someone had to be with her and Rachel, who had heard a good deal of these repinings on the previous day, agreed, dutifully but without enthusiasm, to stay with Priscilla during my Bristol journey, provided I returned as early as possible on the same day.
Priscilla had so much conveyed the desolation of the house. No one had made the beds for weeks. She had given up washing dishes. The char had left of course. Roger had taken a savage satisfaction part one 75 in increasing the mess and blaming her for it. Roger broke things deliberately. Priscilla would not clear them up. Roger found a plate with mouldy food upon it. He smashed the plate upon the ground in front of Priscilla in the hall. There it lay, with the pieces of broken plate and the muck spread upon the carpet. Priscilla had passed by with vacant eyes. But the scene as I came through the door was so different that I thought for a moment that I must be in the wrong house. There was a quite conspicuous air of cleanliness and order. The white woodwork shone, the Wilton carpet glowed. There were even flowers, huge red and white peonies, in a big brass jug on the oak chest. The chest had been polished. The jug had been polished.
Upstairs the same rather weird cleanliness and order prevailed. The beds had been made with hospitaline accuracy. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. A clock ticked quietly. It felt eerie, like the Marie Celeste. I gazed out into the garden at a sleek lawn and irises in flower. The sun was shining brightly but a little coolly. Roger must have cut the grass since Priscilla's departure. I went to the long lower drawer of the chest of drawers where Priscilla said she kept her jewel case. I dragged the drawer open, but there was nothing in it but clothes. I jumbled them up, then searched other drawers there and in the bathroom. I opened the wardrobe. There was no sign of the jewel case or of the mink stole. Nor could I see upon the dressing table the silver goblets or the malachite box which were supposed to be there. I felt very upset and ran into the other rooms. One room was simply full of Priscilla's clothes, lying on the bed, on chairs, on the floor, looking so bright and gay and odd. On my rounds I saw the blue-and-white striped china urn, which was considerably larger than Priscilla had suggested, and picked it up. As I stood at a loss upon the landing, holding the urn, I heard a sound down below me and a voice said, «Hello, it's me.»
«I came to get Priscilla's jewellery and stuff.»
«Is Priscilla with you?»
«She isn't coming back, is she?»
«No.»
«I want my sister's jewels.»
«Won't you drink? Mind if I do?»
«I'm awfully sorry, but I don't think I can let you have them. You see, I don't know how valuable they are, and until-«And her mink stole.»
«Ditto.»
«Elsewhere. Look, Bradley, we needn't fight, need we?»
«I want the jewels and the mink and that vase I brought down and an enamel picture of-«Oh God. You know Priscilla's a mental case?»
«Please. I can't help Priscilla any more. I would if I could. Honestly, it's been such hell. She cleared out, after all.»
«You drove her out.» I saw Priscilla's little marble statuette on the chimney piece. It looked like Aphrodite. Miserable pity for my sister possessed me. She wanted her little things about her, they might console her. There was not much else left.
«I don't want to talk to you. I want the stuff.»
«Everything valuable is in the bank. I thought Priscilla might raid the place. She can have her clothes, only for Christ's sake don't encourage her to fetch them in person. In fact I'd be jolly glad to have her clothes out of the house. But the rest I regard as sub judice.»
I felt incoherent humiliation and rage. «You deliberately drove her out. She says you tried to poison her-«
«I just put an overdose of salt and mustard into her stew. It must have tasted awful. I sat and watched her trying to eat it. Little pictures out of hell. You've just no idea. I see you've brought two suitcases. I'll put out some of her clothes for you.»
«What are you talking about? You insisted on the abortion.»
«She wanted the abortion. I didn't know what I wanted. Then when the child was gone I felt awful about it. Then Priscilla told me she was pregnant again. That was your mother's idea. It wasn't true. I married her because I couldn't bear to lose a second child. And there was no child.»
«Leave that alone, please,» said Roger. «This isn't an antique shop.»
As I put it down there was a step in the hall and a beautiful young girl came in through the door. She was dressed in a mauve canvas jerkin and white slacks, tousled and casual like a girl on a yacht, her dark brown hair gilded. Her face glowed with something more exalted and inward than mere good health and sunshine. She looked about twenty. She was carrying a shopping bag which she put down in the doorway.
Roger leapt up and ran to her, his face relaxed and beaming, his eyes looking larger, more luminous, wider apart. He kissed her on the lips, then held her for a moment, staring at her, smiling and astounded. He gave a short «Oh!» of amazed satisfaction, then turned to me. «This is Marigold. She's my mistress.»
«It hasn't taken you long to install one.»
«Yes, of course, darling,» said the girl gravely, pushing back her tousled hair and leaning up against Roger. «We must tell him everything.» She had a light West Country accent and I could now see that she was older than twenty.
«Marigold and I have been together for years. We've been half living together for years and years. We never let Priscilla know.»
«It's over now,» said Roger. «Thank God it's over.» They were holding hands.
I felt hatred and horror of this sudden cameo of happiness. I ignored the girl and said to Roger, «I can see that living with a girl who could be your daughter must be more fun than observing your marriage vows with an elderly woman.»
'For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.' Just when she was most in need of help you drove my sister out of her home.»
«I didn't!»
«Marigold is pregnant,» said Roger.
«How can you tell me that,» I said, «with that air of vile satisfaction. Am I supposed to be pleased because you've fathered another bastard? Are you so proud of being an adulterer? I regard you both as wicked, an old man and a young girl, and if you only knew how ugly and pathetic you look, pawing each other and making a vulgar display of how pleased you are with yourselves for having got rid of my sister-You're like a pair of murderers-They moved apart. Marigold sat down, looking up at her lover with a dazed glowing stare. «We didn't do this deliberately,» said Roger. «It just happened. We can't help it if we're happy. At least we're acting rightly now, we've stopped lying anyway. We want you to tell Priscilla, to explain everything. God, that will be a relief. Won't it, darling?»
«Marigold had a little flat-I used to visit her-it was a miserable situation.»
«Now it's all dropped away and-oh just to be able to speak the truth, it's-We've been so sorry for poor Priscilla-«If you could only see yourselves,» I said, «if you could only see yourselves-Now if you will kindly hand over Priscilla's jewellery-«Sorry,» said Roger. «I explained.»
«I'll pack them, shall I?» said Marigold. She ran out of the room.
«You will tell Priscilla, won't you?» said Roger. «It'll be such a relief to my mind. I'm such a coward. I've kept putting off breaking it to her.»
«It wasn't a plan! We were just muddling along, we were bloody miserable. We'd waited and waited-«Hoping she'd die, I suppose. I'm surprised you didn't murder her.»
«We had to have the child,» said Roger. «That child's important and I'm going to act fairly by it. It has some rights, I should think! We had to have our happiness at last and have it fully and truthfully. I want Marigold to be my wife. Priscilla was never happy with me.»
«Well, she's taken my life too. She's taken years and years from me when I might have been happy and living in the open!»
«Oh go to hell!» I said. I went out into the hall where Marigold was kneeling, surrounded by an ocean of silks and tweeds and pink underwear. Most of it looked entirely new.
«I explained, Bradley.»
«Oh you should be ashamed,» I said. «Look at you both. You are wicked people. You should be so ashamed.»
«Yes, yes, we'll do that, won't we, darling,» said Marigold. «There's a trunk upstairs-«You will tell her, won't you,» said Roger. «Tell her as gently as you can. Make it clear though. You can tell her Marigold is pregnant. There's no way back now.»
«You've seen to that.»
«No. I like that thing.»
«Well then that striped vase, didn't she want that?»
«Oh darling, please let Priscilla have that vase, just to please me!»
«Oh all right, darling-What a tender-hearted little muggins it is!»
«Don't think I'm the devil incarnate, Bradley old man. Of course I'm not a holy character, I'm just an ordinary chap, I doubt if you'll find an ordinarier. You must understand that I've had a rough time. It's been pure hell running two lives, and Priscilla's been awful to me for so long, she's really hated me, she hasn't said a kind or gentle thing to me for years-Marigold came back with a bulky parcel. I took it from her and opened the front door. The outside world looked dazzling, as if I had been in the dark. I stepped outside and looked back at them. They were swaying together, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand. They could not check two radiant smiles. I wanted to spit upon the doorstep but my mouth was dry.
Later on they were shooting pigeons and the funnel was blue and white, the blue confounded with the sky, the white hung in space like a great cylinder of crinkly paper or like a kite in a picture. Kites have always meant a lot to me. What an image of our condition, the distant high thing, the sensitive pull, the feel of the cord, its invisibility, its length, the fear of loss. I do not usually get drunk. Bristol is the sherry city. Excellent cheap sherry, light and clean, is drawn out of huge dark wooden barrels. I was feeling, for a time, almost mad with defeat.
«All things work together for good for those who love God,» said Saint Paul. Possibly: but what is it to love God? I have never seen this happening. There is, my dear friend and mentor, some hard– won calm when we see the world very detailed and very close: as close and as vivid as the newly painted funnels of ships on a sunny evening. But the dark and the ugly is not washed away, this too is seen, and the horror of the world is part of the world. There is no triumph of good, and if there were it would not be a triumph of good. There is no drying of tears or obliteration of the sufferings of the innocent and of those who have undergone crippling injustice in their lives. I tell you, my dear, what you know better and more deeply than I can ever know it. Even as I write these words, which should be lucid and filled with glowing colour, I feel the very darkness of my own personality invading my pen. Only perhaps in the ink of this darkness can this writing properly be written? It is not really possible to write like an angel, though some of our near-gods by heaven-inspired trickery sometimes seem to do it.
Later on the empty lighted street was like a theatre set. The black wall at the end of it was a ship's hull. The stone of the quay and the steel of the hull touched each other and I sat upon the stone and leaned my head against the hollow steel. I was in a shop lying under the counter with a woman, and all the shelves were cages containing dead animals which I had forgotten to feed. Ships are compartmental and hollow, ships are like women. The steel vibrated and sang, sang of the predatory women, Christian, Marigold, my mother: the destroyers. I saw the masts and sails of great clippers against a dark sky. Later I sat in Temple Meads station and howled inside myself, suffering the torments of the wicked under those pitiless vaults. Why had no one answered the telephone? A train after midnight took me away. Somehow I had managed to break the blue-and-white china urn. I left the fragments in the compartment when I got out at Paddington.
I found a note from Rachel waiting, and Rachel herself came early, very early, soon after I had arrived, to tell me what had happened: how Priscilla had become upset, how Christian had telephoned, how Arnold had come, how Francis had come. When I failed to appear Priscilla had become as fretful as a little child awaiting its tardy mother, tears, fears. Late in the evening Christian had carried Priscilla off in a taxi. Arnold and Christian had laughed a great deal. Rachel thought I would be angry with her. I was not. «Of course you could do nothing if they decided otherwise.»
«It's not a plot, Bradley, don't look like that.»
«He thinks you're holding Priscilla as a hostage!»
«I am holding Priscilla as a hostage!»
«I missed the train. I'm very sorry.»
«Why did you miss the train?»
«How guilty he looks! Look, Priscilla, how guilty he looks!»
«Poor Priscilla thought you'd been run over or something.»
«Be quiet everybody, Priscilla's trying to say something.»
«Bradley, don't be cross.»
«Did you get my things?»
«Sit down, Brad, you look awful.»
«It's going to be all right.»
«I did telephone.»
«Dear Priscilla, don't throw yourself around so.»
«I'm afraid I didn't get your things.»
«What happened, Bradley?»
«Roger was there. We had a chat.»
«You're on his side now.»
«Men always stick together, dear.»
«You talked to him about me.»
«Of course I did!»
«Well, women are hell!»
«Is he unhappy?»
«Was the house all dirty and awful?»
«Yes.»
«He said he'd send them on.»
«But didn't you bring anything, not anything?»
«Did you ask him specially about the jewels and the mink?»
«He'll send everything on.»
«It's all right, it's going to be all right.»
«Yes, I did!»
«He won't send my things ever, he won't, he won't, I know he won't, I've lost them forever and ever!»
«I'll wait for you downstairs. Then we can both go home.»
«Oh but Priscilla's going to stay here with me.»
«Did you look for them, did you see them?»
«Aren't you, darling, going to stay here with me?»
«Bradley, you mustn't talk to her like that.»
«You know you're not a looker-after, Bradley.»
«Priscilla-«After all, look what happened yesterday.»
«Oh please don't go.»
«Is it too early for a drink?»
«No one's pitying her!»
«I pity her,» said Francis.
«Steady on, Bradley, maybe Chris is right.»
«And don't call her Chris.»
«Bradley doesn't believe in mental illness.»
«Well, neither do I as it happens, but-«You are all persuading her she's ill, while what she needs-«Bradley, she needs rest and quiet.»
«Brad, she's a sick woman.»
«Priscilla, get up.»
«I think I really must go.»
«You do want to stay here with me, don't you, darling, you said so, you want to stay with Christian?»
«It's going to be all right.»
In the end Rachel and Arnold and Francis and I left the house together. At least, I just turned and walked out, and the others followed somehow.
«Bradley, you look as if you've gone blind, here, don't walk out into the roadway like that, you ass.»
Arnold had hold of my sleeve. He held onto me. The other two crowded up, staring.
«You don't understand,» I said. My head ached and my eyes were intolerant of the light.
«I understand perfectly, as a matter of fact,» said Arnold. «You've just lost this round and you'd better relax. I'd go to bed if I were you.»
«No, you won't.»
«Why do you keep shading your eyes and screwing them up like that?» said Rachel.
«I think I'll go to bed, yes.»
«Bradley,» said Arnold, «don't be cross with me.»
«It was all an accident, my being there I mean, I called in because I thought you'd be back, Christian rang and then she turned up, and Rachel had had about enough of Priscilla and there was no sign of you. I know it seems hurtful, but really it was just common sense, and it amused Christian so much, and you know how I love a scandal and a little bit of turmoil. You've got to forgive us. We're not all conspiring against you.»
«I know you're not.»
«Let me come with you,» said Francis.
«You'd better come with me,» said Rachel. «I'll give you lunch.»
Rachel and I got into a taxi. Francis ran along beside it trying to say something, but I pulled the window up.
N. ow at last there was peace. Rachel's big calm woman's face beamed upon me, the beneficent full moon, not the black moon dagger-armed and brimming with darkness. The bruise seemed to have faded, or perhaps she had covered it with make-up. Or perhaps it had only ever been a shadow after all.
We were sitting on the veranda. The Baffins' garden was not big, but in the flush of early summer it seemed endless. A dotting of fruit trees and ferny bushes amid longish red-tufted grass obscured the nearby houses, obscured even the creosoted fence. Only a hint of pink rambler roses between the trunks suggested an enclosure. The garden was a curved space, a warm green shell smelling of earth and leaves. At the foot of the veranda steps there was a pavement covered with the mauve flowers of creeping thyme, beyond this a clipped grassy path starred with white daisies. It stirred some memory of a childhood holiday. Once in an endless meadow, just able to peer through the tawny haze of the grass tops, the child who was myself had watched a young fox catching mice, an elegant newly minted fox, straight from the hand of God, brilliantly ruddy, with black stockings and a white-tipped brush. The fox heard and turned. I saw its intense vivid mask, its liquid amber eyes. Then it was gone. An image of such beauty and such mysterious sense. The child wept and knew himself an artist.
«So Roger's blissfully happy?» said Rachel, to whom I had told all.
«Not yet.»
«Roger and that young girl. God, it sickens me!»
«What am I to do, Rachel, what am I to do?»
Rachel, relaxed, barefoot, did not reply. She was gently stroking her face where I had imagined the bruise. We were reposing now in deck chairs. She was relaxed yet animated, in a characteristic way: what Arnold called her «exalted look.» A bright expectancy blazed in her pale freckled face and in her light brown eyes. She looked alert and handsome. Her reddish golden hair was deliberately frizzed out and untidy.
«Who? What?»
«The blackbirds.»
«Just like us.»
«What are you talking about, Bradley?»
«Have some more milk chocolate.»
«Francis likes milk chocolate.»
«All this intimate friendly talk about 'Christian' makes me feel ill.»
«You mustn't mind so much. It's all in your head.»
«Bradley. You know I didn't mean any of those violent things I said about Arnold the other day.»
«Yes, I know.»
«The what?»
«Bradley, don't be so-«How heavy mine is, like a great stone in my breast. Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.»
«You don't hate me for having seen-you know, you and Arnold, the other day?»
«No. It just makes you seem closer.»
«You're very attached to Arnold, aren't you?»
«Yes.»
«No.»
«It's odd. He's awkward with you. I know he often hurts you. But he cares very much for you, very much.»
«You're such a funny fellow, Bradley. You're so unphysical. And you're as shy as a schoolboy.»
«That woman coming back bang into the middle of everything has been such a bloody shock. And she's got her claws into Arnold already. And Priscilla.»
«And you.»
«No. But I appreciate her. You never described her properly.»
«Arnold thinks you're still in love with her.»
«If he thinks that it must be because he's in love with her himself.»
«Rachel, do you want me to scream and scream and scream?»
«You are a schoolboy!»
«Are you a masochist, Bradley?»
«Don't be daft.»
«Is Arnold in love with her?»
«Where do you suppose he went to when he left us today?»
«Of course.»
«Hell. He's only met her twice, three times-«Don't you believe in love at first sight?»
«He had a pretty long session with her in that pub. And again last night when-«Don't tell me. Is he?»
«Oh Jesus Christ.»
«It's too late. Oh Christ. Rachel, I don't feel terribly well.»
«Oh confound you, Bradley. Here. Take my hand. Take it.»
One is very vulnerable in a deck chair. I had been wondering what kind of hand-holding this was. I did not know what sort of pressure to give her hand or how long to retain it. When her head came thrusting onto my shoulder with that gauche aggressive nuzzling gesture I felt a sudden not unpleasant helplessness. At the same time I said, «Rachel, get up, please, let's go inside.»
She shot up out of the chair. I got up more slowly. The slack canvas gave little leverage, and her speed was remarkable. I followed her into the dark drawing-room.
«Come and sit down, Rachel.»
We sat down on the sofa and immediately her lips were pressed against mine.
The first glimpse of someone's face after they have made an irrevocable gesture of affection is always instructive and moving. Rachel's face was radiant, tender, rueful, questioning. I felt bucked. I wanted to convey pleasure, gratitude. «Oh, dear Rachel, thank you.»
«I'm not just trying to cheer you up.»
«There's a real something here.»
«I know. I'm so glad.»
«So do I. But-Oh, thank you.»
We were silent for a moment, tense, almost embarrassed.
«Oh you are ridiculous,» she said. «All right, all right. Schoolboy. Running away. Off you go then. Thank you for kissing me.»
«It's not that. It's just so perfect. I'm afraid of spoiling something or something.»
«No damage. Oh silly Rachel! It's beautiful. We are closer, aren't we?»
We got up and stood holding hands. I suddenly felt extremely happy and laughed.
«No Rachel. You've given me a piece of happiness.»
«Well, hold onto it then. It's mine too.»
A copy of Arnold's latest novel, The Woeful Forest, was lying on the table near the front door. I saw it with a shock, and my hand shot to my pocket. My review of the novel was still there, folded up. I took it out and handed it to Rachel. I said, «Do something for me. Read that and tell me whether or not I should publish it. I'll do whatever you tell me.»
«What is it?»
«But of course you must publish it.»
«Read it. Not now. I'll do whatever you say.»
Coming out into the garden everything was different. It had become evening. There was a lurid indistinct light which made things blurry and hard to locate. Near things were illuminated by a rich hazed sunlight, while the sky farther off was dark with cloud and the promise of night, although in fact it was not yet very late. I felt upset, confused, elated, and very much wanting now to be by myself.
The garden in front of the house was rather long, a lawn planted with small bushes, shrubby roses and the like, with a «crazy paving» path down the centre. The path glimmered white, with dark patches where tufty rock plants were growing between the stones. Rachel touched my hand. I squeezed her fingers but did not hold on. She went first down the path. About half-way to the gate a sense of something behind me made me turn round.
Rachel had turned round now, and we both stood in silence looking up. The figure above was so odd and separate, like an image upon a tomb, it did not occur to me that I could speak to it. Then as I gazed up at the featureless face, the girl slowly brought her other hand round towards the taut invisible string. There was a faint flash and a faint click. The pale globe up above curtsied for a moment, and then with an air of suddenly collected dignity and purpose rose and began to move slowly away. Julian had cut the string.
The deliberation of the action, and the evident and histrionic way in which it was addressed to its impromptu audience, produced physical shock, like that of some sort of assault. I felt a thrill of pain and dismay. Rachel gave a brief exclamation, a sort of «Ach!» and moved quickly on towards the gate. I followed her. She did not pause at the gate but went on into the road and began to walk briskly along the pavement. I hurried and joined her where she had stopped, out of sight of the house, under a big copper beech tree at the corner of the road. It was getting dark.
«The balloon? Oh some boy gave it to her.»
«But how does it stay up?»
«Why did she cut the string?»
«I can't imagine. Just some sort of act of aggression. She's full of strange fancies just now.»
«Girls of that age are always unhappy.»
«Love, I suppose.»
«That sounds like the human condition.»
«Poor child.»
«No, no-«I don't mean it in a nasty way! You're so shy. I love it. Kiss me.»
I kissed her quickly but very fully in the darkness underneath the tree.
«Do that.»
«Don't worry. Nothing for worry.»
Rachel gave a weird little laugh and vanished into the obscurity. I began to walk quickly along the next road in the direction of the tube station.
I found that my heart was beating rather violently. I could not make out whether something very important had happened or not. I thought, I shall know tomorrow. Now there was nothing to be done except to rest upon an immediate sense of the experience. Rachel still hovered round me like a perfume. But in my mind with great clarity I saw Arnold, as if he were looking at me from the far end of an illuminated corridor. Whatever had happened had happened to Arnold too.
For a moment it was invisible behind a tree. Then suddenly, wafted faster by a momentary breeze, it swept down over the street, moving into the arc of the lamplight. For a second or two it appeared in front of me, huge and yellow, its tail of pendant bows swaying crazily. I could even see the string. I raced towards it. Something lightly brushed my face. The street lamps dazzled me as I clutched above my head, and clutched again. And then it was all gone. The balloon had vanished, descending into some dark and farther maze of suburban gardens. I continued for some while to hurry to and fro among the little intersecting streets, but I did not set eyes again upon the travelling portent.
At the tube station I saw Arnold coming through the ticket barrier, smiling secretively to himself. I moved to the other side and he did not see me. When I reached my flat Francis Marloe was waiting outside the door. I amazed him by asking him in. Of what passed between us then I shall speak later.
When I say that I also thought I ought to leave London because of what had just happened between me and Rachel I would not be understood as suggesting that I was entirely moved by delicate conscientious scruples, though I did in fact feel such scruples. I felt rather more, about Rachel, a kind of curious detached satisfaction which had many ingredients. One ingredient of a less than worthy sort was a crude and simple sense of scoring off Arnold. Or perhaps that indeed puts it too crudely. I felt that I was now, in a new way, defended against Arnold. There was something important to him which I knew and he did not. (Only later did it occur to me that Rachel might decide to tell Arnold of our kisses.) Such knowledges are always deeply reassuring. Though, to do myself justice, there was in this no intent of going any further with the matter. What was remarkable was how far we had, in our little exchange, actually gone. And that we had gone so far suggested, as Rachel herself later said, that in both our minds the ground had long been prepared. Such dialectical leaps from quantity into quality are common in human relations. This was another reason for going away. I now had more than enough to brood upon and I wanted to brood without the intrusive interference of any real developments. As it was, we had carried the thing off well, with dignity and intelligence. It had a certain completeness. Rachel's gesture had enormously comforted me. I felt no guilt. And I wanted to bask at peace in the rays of that comfort.
However it appeared, when I attempted to be realistic about it, that I could not thus solve my problems all together. Priscilla and myself at Patara was simply not a viable idea. I knew I could not possibly work with my sister in the house. Not only would her sheer nervous presence make work impossible. I knew that she would soon irritate me into all sorts of beastliness. Besides, how ill was she really? Ought she to have medical attention, psychiatric treatment, electric shocks? What ought I to do now about Roger and Marigold and the crystal-and-lapis necklace and the mink stole? Until these things were clarified Priscilla would have to remain in London and so would I.
PS. I've read the review and enclose it with this letter. I think you shouldn't publish it. It would hurt Arnold so much. You and he must love each other. That is so important. Oh help me to remain sane.
I was upset, touched, annoyed, pleased and thoroughly frightened by this emotional and jumbled missive. What large new thing was happening now and what consequences would it have? Why did women have to make things so definite? Why could she not have let our strange experience drift in a pleasant vagueness? I had dimly thought of her as an «ally» against (against?) Arnold. She had made this horrible idea explicit. And if I was to be made mad by a relationship between Arnold and Christian would it help me at all that Rachel was made mad too? How I feared these «needs.» I now wanted very much to see Arnold and have a frank talk, even a shouting match. But a frank talk with Arnold was something which seemed to be becoming more and more impossible. In utter dismay I sat down where I was upon a chair in the hall to think it all over. Then the telephone rang.
«A little what?»
«A little office party. I thought of inviting Bingley and Math– eson and Hadley-Smith and Caldicott and Dyson, and the wives of course, and Miss Wellington and Miss Searle and Mrs. Brad– shaw-«How nice.»
«How kind.»
«Now you tell me a day that would suit you and I'll issue the invitations. It'll be quite like old times. People so often ask after you, I thought-«Any day suits me.»
«Fine.»
«Good. Then eight o'clock at my place. By the way, shall I invite Grey-Pelham? He won't bring his wife, so it should be all right.»
«And I'd like to make a lunch date with you.»
«I'll ring you. I haven't got my diary.»
«I'm writing it down now. Thank you so much.»
As I put the telephone down someone began ringing the doorbell. I went and opened the door. It was Priscilla. She marched past me into the sitting-room and immediately began to cry.
«You only want me to stop crying.»
«All right, I only want you to stop crying. Stop crying.»
«Oh Priscilla, I am so sorry.»
«Yes. Be sorry. Bradley, I think you're right. I'd better go back to Roger.»
«Why not? Have you changed your mind? You were saying so much I should go back. You said he was so unhappy and the house was so awful. He needs me, I suppose. And it is my home. Nowhere else is. Perhaps he'll be nicer to me now. Bradley, I think I'm going mad, I'm going out of my mind. What's it like when people go mad, does one know one's going mad?»
«Of course you aren't going mad.»
«I'm sorry, I still haven't made up the spare bed.»
«Bradley, your cabinet looks different, something's gone. Where have you put the water-buffalo lady?»
«Oh Bradley, how could you, she was mine, she was mine.» Priscilla gave a little moan and the tears began to flow again. She started to fumble vainly in her bag looking for a handkerchief.
«You couldn't even keep that for me.»
«I only let you take her because I knew 1 could visit her here. I liked visiting her here. She had her place here.»
«I'm terribly sorry-«I'll never get my jewels and now even she's gone, my last little thing gone.»
«She asked for it. I will get it back, please don't worry. Now please go to bed and rest.»
«She was mine, you gave her to me.»
Priscilla trailed into the bedroom. She got straight into the bed.
«Don't you want to undress?»
«Oh buck up, Priscilla. I'm glad you've come back though. Why did you leave the other place?»
«Arnold made a pass at me.»
«I pushed him away and he turned nasty. He must have told Christian about it. They were downstairs laughing and laughing and laughing. They must have been laughing at me.»
«I don't suppose they were. They were just happy.»
«Was Arnold there in the afternoon?»
«Oh yes, he came straight back after you'd left, he was there nearly all day, they made a huge lunch downstairs, I could smell it, I didn't want any, and I heard them laughing all the time. They didn't want me, they left me alone nearly all day.»
«I can't stand that man. And I can't stand her either. They didn't really want me there at all, they didn't care about me really to help me, it was just part of a game, it was like a joke.»
«You're right there.»
«She said a doctor was coming but he didn't come. I feel terrible, I think I've got cancer. Everyone despises me, everyone knows what's happened to me. Bradley, could you ring up Roger?»
«Oh no, please-«I'll have to go back to Roger. I could see Dr. Macey at home. Or else I'll kill myself. I think I'll kill myself. No one will care.»
«Oh what does it matter, what does it matter.»
The front doorbell rang again. I ran to open it. Francis Marloe was outside, his little eyes screwed up with ingratiating humility. «Oh Brad, you must forgive me for coming-«Come in,» I said. «You offered to nurse my sister. Well, she's here and you're engaged.»
«You can go in and nurse her now, she's in there. Can you give her a sedative?»
«I always carry-«All right, go on.» I picked up the telephone and dialled Rachel's number. «Hello, Rachel.»
I knew at once from her voice that she was alone. A woman can put so much into the way she says your name.
«Rachel. Thanks for your sweet letter.»
«Rachel, listen. Priscilla's come back and Francis Marloe is here. Listen. I gave Julian a water buffalo with a lady on it.»
«A what?»
«Oh. Did you?»
«Yes. She asked for it, here, you remember.»
«Well, it's really Priscilla's only I forgot and she wants it back. Could you get it off Julian, and bring it round, or send her? Tell her I'm very sorry-«She's out, but I'll find it. I'll bring it at once.»
«The human lot is sad and awful,» murmured Francis. «We are demons to each other. Yes, demons.» He was looking pleased, pursing up his red lips and casting delighted coy glances at me with his little eyes.
«No, I can't bear to be touched, I feel as if I were a leper, I feel my flesh is rotting, I'm sure I smell-«Priscilla, do take your skirt off, it must be getting so crumpled.»
«What does it matter, what does anything matter, oh I am so unhappy.»
«Sad and awful, sad and awful. Demons. Demons. Yes.»
«Priscilla, do try to relax, you're as rigid as a corpse.»
«Do at least make an effort to be comfortable!»
«I gave him my life. I haven't got another one. A woman has nothing else.»
«Oh I'm so frightened-«Priscilla, there's nothing to be frightened of. Oh God, you are getting me down!»
«Frightened.»
The front doorbell rang. I opened the door to Rachel and was making her a rueful face when I saw that Julian was standing just behind her.
Rachel said meaningfully, «Julian arrived back and insisted on bringing the thing along herself.»
I let them in and ushered them into the bedroom where Priscilla was still talking to Francis. «He had no idea of equality between us, I suppose no man has, they all despise women-«Men are terrible, terrible-«Visitors, Priscilla!»
Priscilla, her shoes humping the edge of the quilt, was propped up on several pillows. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her mouth was rectangular with complaint, like the mouth of a letter box.
I said soothingly, «There you are, Priscilla. There's your water– buffalo lady. She came back home to you after all.»
Julian had retreated to the bottom of the bed. She stared at Priscilla with a look of agonized and still rather self-conscious pity. She opened her lips and put her hands together as if praying. It looked as if she were begging Priscilla's pardon for being young and good– looking and innocent and unspoilt and having a future, while Priscilla was old and ugly and sinful and wrecked and had none. The contrast between them went through the room like a spasm of pain.
In the sitting-room Julian said, «I'm terribly sorry.»
«It wasn't your fault,» I told her.
«You can't imagine,» I said, «what it is to be like that. So don't bother to try.»
«I'm so awfully sorry for her.»
Julian said, «Oh I do wish-Ah well-« She went to the door. Then she said to me, «Bradley, could I have just a word with you? Could you just walk with me to the corner. I won't keep you more than a moment.»
I gave a complicit wave to Rachel and followed the child out of the house. She walked confidently down the court and into Charlotte Street without looking round. The cold sun was shining brightly and I felt a great sense of relief at being suddenly out in the open among busy indifferent anonymous people under a blue clean sky.
Julian said with a responsible air, «Bradley, I'm very sorry I got that all wrong.»
«Nobody could have got it right. Real misery cuts off all paths to itself.»
«There aren't any, Julian. Anyway you're too young to be a saint.»
«I know I'm stupidly young. Oh dear, old age is so awful, poor Priscilla. Look, Bradley, what I wanted to say was just thank you so much for that letter. I think it's the most wonderful letter that anybody ever wrote to me.»
«That letter about art, about art and truth.»
«Oh that. Yes.»
«Kind of you, but-«I want you to give me a reading list, a larger one.»
«Thank you for bringing the water buffalo back. I'll give you something else instead.»
I was rather touched by this. «I'll look out something. And now I'd better-«Bradley, don't go. We hardly ever talk. Well, I know we can't now, but do let's meet again soon, I want to talk to you about Hamlet.»
«Hamlet! Oh all right, but-«
«How did you see that review?»
«I saw my mother putting it away, and she looked so secretive-«That was very sly of you.»
«And another thing, about Christian, my father says he's working Christian on your behalf-«What?»
«I don't know what he thinks he's at, but I'm sure you should go and see him and ask him. And if I were you I'd get away like you told them you were going to. Perhaps I could come and see you in Italy, I'd love that. Francis Marloe can look after Priscilla, I rather like him. I say, do you think Priscilla will go back to her husband? I'd rather die than do that if I was her.»
«I do love the way you talk, you're so precise, not like my father. He lives in a sort of rosy haze with Jesus and Mary and Buddha and Shiva and the Fisher King all chasing round and round dressed up as people in Chelsea.»
This was such a good description of Arnold's work that I laughed. «I'm grateful for your advice, Julian.»
«Thank you for treating me as an equal.»
She looked up at me, not sure if this was a joke. «Bradley, we will be friends, won't we, real friends?»
«Oh, that was just a bit of exhibitionism.»
«I pursued it.»
«It escaped me.»
«I'm glad it got lost. I was very attached to it.»
«Yes. How did you know?»
«Mr. Belling gave it to you.»
«I really loved that balloon. I did sometimes think of letting it go, it was a sort of nervous urge. But I didn't know I'd cut the string-«Until you saw your mother in the garden.»
«Until I saw you in the garden.»
I turned back into the court. When I got to the sitting-room Rachel moved towards me and enveloped me with a spontaneous yet planned movement. We swayed together, nearly falling over her piled macintosh upon the floor, and then slumped down onto Hart– bourne's armchair. She tried to nudge me back into the depths of the chair, her knee climbing over mine, but I kept her upright, holding her as if she were a large doll. «Oh Rachel, let us not get into a muddle.»
«You cheated me out of those minutes. Whatever it is, we're in it. Christian just rang up.»
«Yes. I said Priscilla was staying here. She said-«I don't want to know.»
«Bradley, I want to tell you something and I want you to think about it. It's something I've discovered since I wrote you that letter. I don't really mind all that much about Christian and Arnold. I suddenly feel that it's sort of set me free. Do you understand, Bradley? Do you know what that means?»
I'm Arnold's wife forever. And you can go and write your book and be alone and whatever you want. But we'll each have a resource, we'll have each other, it will be an eternal bond, like a religious vow, it will save us, if only you will let me love you.»
«But Rachel-this will be a secret-?»
«Not quite,» I said.
«You do love me a bit, don't you?»
«Rachel, I don't want to feel guilty. It would interfere with my work.»
«Oh Bradley, Bradley-« She began to laugh helplessly. Then she drew her knees up again and threw the weight of her torso forward against me. We toppled over backwards into the chair with her mainly on top. I felt her weight and saw her face close to mine, leering and anarchic with emotion, unfamiliar and undefended and touching, and I relaxed and felt her body relax too, falling like heavy liquid into the interstices of my own, falling like honey. Her wet mouth travelled across my cheek and settled upon my mouth, like the celestial snail closing the great gate. As blackness fell for a moment I saw the Post Office Tower, haloed with blue sky, aslant and looking in at the window. (This was impossible, actually, since the next house blocks any possible view of the tower.)
«Rachel-«
«I know. You're going to tell me to go.»
«I'm going. See how docile I am. Don't be frightened by anything I said. You haven't got to do anything at all.»
«The unmoved mover.»
«Rachel, I'm so terrified of being tied by anything just now. You'll think me so mean and spiritless-I do care and I'm very grateful-but I've got to write this book, I've got to, and I've got to be worthy to-«I do respect and admire you, Bradley. That's part of it. You're so much more serious about writing than Arnold is. Don't worry about tomorrow or about anything. I'll ring you. Don't get up. I want to leave you sitting there looking so thin and tall and solemn. Like a-like a-Inspector of Taxes. Just remember, freedom, a new world. Perhaps that's just what your book needs, what it's been waiting for. Oh you're such a schoolboy, such a puritan. It's time for you to grow up and be free. Good-bye, Bradley. May your own god bless you.»
She ran out. I stayed where I was, as she had told me to. I was greatly struck by what she had just said. I reflected upon it. Perhaps after all Rachel was the destined angel. How very peculiar it all was, and how brimful I was of sexual desire and how unusual this was.
«Are you all right, Brad?»
«Yes, of course.»
«What do you want?»
«Do you mind if I go out and have some lunch?»
«It's after twelve. There's only baked beans in the kitchen. Do you mind-«
«Yes, yes, go.»
«How is she?»
«She's asleep. Brad-«Yes?»
«Here.»
«Thanks. And, Brad-«
«I'm afraid that bronze thing got broken. It won't stand up properly.»
He thrust the warm bronze into my hand and I put it down on the table. One of the water buffalo's legs was crumpled. It fell over lop-sidedly. I stared at it. The lady smiled. She resembled Rachel. When I looked up Francis was gone.
Very gently I undid the top button of her blouse. The neck fell open, revealing the badly soiled interior of the collar. I eased off her shoes, holding them by the long pointed heels, and pulled the blankets over her plump sweat-darkened feet. The breathing-murmur ceased, but she did not waken. I left the room.
I went into the spare room and lay down on the bed. I thought about my two recent encounters with Rachel and how calm and pleased I had felt after the first one, and how disturbed and excited I now felt after the second one. Was I going to «fall in love» with Rachel? Should I even play with the idea, utter the words to myself? Was I upon the brink of some balls-up of catastrophic dimensions, some real disaster? Or was this perhaps in an unexpected form the opening itself of my long-awaited «break through,» my passage into another world, into the presence of the god? Or was it just nothing, the ephemeral emotions of an unhappily married middle-aged woman, the transient embarrassment of an elderly puritan who had for a very long time had no adventures at all? Indeed it is true, I said to myself, it is a long time since I had an adventure of any sort. I tried to think soberly about Arnold. But quite soon I was conscious of nothing except a flaming sea of vague undirected physical desire.
I say this the more passionately because I think it just conceivable that an obtuse person might mistake some of my attitudes for something of that sort. Have I not just been speculating whether Rachel's sweet unexpected affections might not set free the talent which I had so long known of, believed in, and nursed in vain? What sort of picture of me has my reader received? I fear it must lack definition, since as I have never had any strong sense of my own identity, how can I characterize sharply that which I can scarcely apprehend? However my own delicacy cannot necessarily cozen judgment and may even provoke it. «A frustrated fellow, no longer young, lacking confidence in himself as a man: of course, naturally, he feels that a good fuck would set him up, release his talents, in which incidentally he has given us no good reason to believe. He pretends he is thinking about his book, while really he is thinking about a woman's breasts. He pretends he is apprehensive about his moral uprightness, but really it is quite another sort of rectitude that is causing him anxiety.»
It was not frivolous to connect my sense of an impending revelation with my anxiety about my work. If some great change was pending in my life this could not but be part of my development as an artist, since my development as an artist was my development as a man. Rachel might indeed be the messenger of the god. She was certainly confronting me with a challenge to which I would have to respond boldly or otherwise. It had often, when I thought most profoundly about it, occurred to me that 7 was a bad artist because I was a coward. Would now courage in life prefigure and even perhaps induce courage in art?
So I reflected, attempting to achieve calm. But by about five o'clock of that same day I was in a frenzy again, an obscure frenzy. What was this, love, sex, art? I felt that strong urge to do something, to act, which often afflicts people in unanalysable dilemmas. If one can only act, depart, return, send a letter, one can ease the anxiety which is really fear of the future in the form of fear of the darkness of one's present desires: «dread,» such as philosophers speak of, which is not so much really an experience of void as the appalling sense that one is in the grip of some very strong but as yet undeclared motive. Under the influence of this feeling I put my review of Arnold's book into an envelope and posted it off to him. But first of all 1 read it carefully through.
Arnold Baffin's new book will delight his many admirers. It is, what readers often and innocently want, «the mixture as before.» It tells of a stockbroker who, at the age of fifty, decides to become a monk. His course is thwarted by the sister of his abbot-to-be, an intense lady returned from the East, who attempts to convert the hero to Buddhism. These two indulge in very long discussions of religion. The climax comes when the abbot (a Christ figure he) is killed by an immense bronze crucifix which accidentally (or is it accidentally?) falls upon him while he is celebrating mass.
And so on for another two thousand words. When I had folded this up and posted it I felt a solid, but still rather mysterious, sense of satisfaction. My action would at least precipitate a new phase in our relationship, too long stagnant. I even thought it possible that this careful assessment of his work might actually do Arnold good.
That evening Priscilla seemed to be a little bit better. She slept all the afternoon and woke up saying she was hungry. However she took only a little of the clear soup and chicken which Francis had prepared. Francis, my view of whom was undergoing modification, had taken over the kitchen. He came back with no change from my pound, but with a fairly plausible account of how he had spent it. He had also fetched a sleeping bag from his digs and said he would sleep in the sitting-room. He seemed humble and grateful. I was busy stifling my misgiving about the risk of so «engaging» him.
For the moment however behold me sitting with Priscilla and Francis. A domestic interior. It is about ten o'clock in the evening and the curtains are drawn.
Priscilla was again wearing my pyjamas, the cuffs liberally turned back. She was drinking some hot chocolate which Francis had made for her. Francis and I were drinking sherry.
«How funny,» said Priscilla, «so do mine. It's as if it's always a rainy afternoon, that sort of light.»
I said, «I suppose we think of the past as a tunnel. The present is lighted. Farther back it gets more shadowy.»
Francis was sitting cross-legged in a small armchair, filling it completely, looking like an image in a niche. His floppy wide-legged trousers were stiff with dirt and grease near to the turn-ups. The strained knees thereof were threadbare and shiny and hinted at pink flesh beyond the veil. His hands, podgy and also very dirty, were folded in his lap in a complacent position which looked faintly Oriental. He was smiling his red-lipped apologetic smile.
«Why, yes. We're Jewish. At least we're partly Jewish.»
«Christian is sort of, well, not exactly ashamed of it-or she was. Our maternal grandparents were Jewish. The other grandparents were goy.»
«Rather funny about Christian's name, isn't it?»
«Yet you went to the synagogue?»
«Only once, we were quite small. Dad was ill and we stayed with the grandpops. They were very keen for us to go. At least for me to go. They didn't care what Christian did, she was a girl. And her name disgusted them, though they did call her by her other one.»
«He killed my mother, I think.»
«Who did?»
«Why did I never know-Ah well-The things that happen in marriage-murdering your wife, not knowing she's Jewish-«Christian got to know a lot of Jews in America, I think that made a difference-I stared at Francis. When you find out that somebody is Jewish they look different. I had only after many years of knowing him discovered that Hartbourne was a Jew. He immediately began to look much cleverer.
Priscilla was restive at being left out of the conversation. Her hands moved ceaselessly, creasing the sheet up into little fanlike shapes. Her face was thickly patchily powdered. She had combed her hair. Every now and then she sighed, making a woo-woo-woo sound with a palpitating lower lip.
«And the things on the upper shelves that had been there for years. Big old dried-up inkpots and bits of china that had got chipped.»
«I often dream about the shop.»
«Isn't that odd. I always feel frightened, it's always a nightmare.»
«When I dream about it,» said Priscilla, «it's always empty, huge and empty, a wooden shell, counter and shelves and boxes, all empty.»
«The empty womb,» said Priscilla. She made her woo-woo-woo sound and began to cry, hiding her eyes behind the large pendant sleeve of my pyjama jacket.
«Oh bosh,» I said.
«Rubbish! How could you remember that! And how could anyone ever prove it anyway? Now, Priscilla, do stop, it's time you went to sleep.»
«I've slept all day-I can't sleep now-«You will,» said Francis. «There was a sleeping pill in your chocolate.»
«Oh, whatever shall I do-«Go to sleep.»
«Bradley, you won't let them certify me, will you? Roger said once I was mad and he'd have me certified and shut up.»
«Bradley, whatever will happen to me? I'll have to kill myself, there's nothing else to do. I can't go back to Roger, he was killing my mind, he was making me mad. He'd break things and say I'd done it and couldn't remember.»
«He's a very bad man.»
«Settle down, Priscilla. I'll do your pillows.»
«Hold my hand, Bradley.»
«Is wanting to kill yourself a sign of going mad?»
«No. Anyway you don't want to kill yourself. You're just a bit depressed.»
«And the night-light. Bradley, do you think I could have a night-light?»
«I haven't got one and it's too late. I'll get one tomorrow. The lamp is just beside you, you can turn it on.»
«I'll leave the door ajar, you'll see the landing light.»
«I think I'd die of terror in the dark, my thoughts would kill me.»
«All right, all right-«You promise you won't go, you promise-?»
«I won't go-not yet-«Say 'promise,' say it, say the word-« 'Promise.' «
«That's sleep. Good night, there's a good girl. I'll leave the door ajar a little. Francis and I will be quite near.»
She protested still, but I left her and returned to the sitting-room. Only one lamp was lit and the room was ruddy and dusky. There were murmurs from the bedroom, then silence. I felt exhausted. It had been a long day.
«It's the gas, Brad. I couldn't find the matches.»
Francis was sitting on the floor beside the glowing gas fire with the bottle of sherry. The level in the bottle had dropped considerably.
«It isn't impossible. You can.»
«Nonsense.»
«If you can believe that you can believe anything.»
«I'm sorry I upset Priscilla.»
«That's not so. I think she could.»
«Would you stay with her if I went away?»
«So,» said Francis. «Priscilla is in hell. Well, we all are. Life is torture, consciousness is torture. All our little devices are just morphia to stop us from screaming.»
«No, no,» I said, «good things can happen. Like, well, like falling in love.»
«Not at all. When one really loves somebody-«So you're in love,» said Francis.
«Certainly not!»
«What you saw this morning-«Oh, I don't mean her.»
«Who then?»
«You mean I'm in love with-? What perfectly obscene nonsense!»
«And he's in love with you. Why has he taken up with Christian, why have you taken up with Rachel?»
«Have you never realized that you're a repressed homosexual?»
«Look,» I said, «I'm grateful to you for your help with Priscilla. And don't misunderstand me, I am a completely tolerant man. I have no objection to homosexuality. Let others do as they please. But I just happen to be a completely normal heterosexual-«One must accept one's body, one must learn to relax. Your thing about smells is a guilt complex because of your repressed tendencies, you won't accept your body, it's a well-known neurosis-«I am not a neurotic!»
«You have to pretend to be an artist because of Arnold, you identify with him-«I discovered him!» I shouted. «I was writing long before him, I was well-known when he was in the cradle!»
«Sssh, you'll wake Priscilla. The emotion rubs off on the women, but the source of the emotion is you and Arnold, you're crazy about each other-«I am not homosexual, I am not neurotic, I know myself-«Oh all right,» said Francis, suddenly changing his posture and turning away from the fire. «All right. Have it your own way.»
I have rarely seen a man crying and the sight inspires disgust and fear. Francis was whimpering loudly, producing suddenly a great many tears. I could see his fat reddened hands wet with them in the light of the gas fire.
«Oh, cut it out!»
«Forgive me, Brad. I'm just a-«Try to be a man, try to-«I can't-Oh God-it's just the bloody pain-I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has-and now you'll throw me out, and, oh God, if you only knew-«I'm going to bed,» I said. «Have you got your sleeping bag here?»
«Yes, it's-«
«I want to have a pee.»
«Good night!»
«Gone to the library. So he says. And Julian's gone to a pop festival.»
«I sent Arnold that review. Did he say anything?»
I hugged Rachel in the hall, behind the stained glass of the front door, beside the hall stand, next to the coloured print of Mrs. Sid– dons which I could see through the red haze of her hair. Still imprinted on my eyes was the vision of her broad pale face as she opened the door, crumpled into an ecstasy of relief. It is a privilege to be received in this way. There are human beings who have never been so welcomed. Something of Rachel's age, of her being wean. no longer young, was visible too and touching.
«Look, come upstairs.»
She led me by the hand, and in a moment we were in the bedroom where I had seen Rachel lying like a dead woman with the sheet over her face. As we came in Rachel pulled the curtains and then dragged the green silk counterpane off the bed. «Now, Bradley, sit down beside me.»
We sat down rather awkwardly side by side and stared at each other. I felt the roughness of the blankets under my limp hand. The welcoming image had faded and I was rigid with confusion and anxiety.
«Rachel, we must know what we're doing, I don't want to behau badly.»
«Guilt would interfere with your work.» She lightly closed my eyes with her finger tips.
«No. I think I started thinking about it, somehow out of self-defence, and then that awful time, you know, in this room, you were here, you were inside the barrier as it were, and I've known you so long, it's as if you had a special role, like a knight with a charge laid upon him, my knight, so necessary and precious, and I've always seen you a little as a wise man, a sort of hermit or ascetic-«And it always gives ladies particular pleasure to seduce ascetics.»
«Perhaps. Am I seducing you? Anyway I've got to perform an act of will. Otherwise I shall die of humiliation or something. I feel it's a holy time.»
«It's your idea too, Bradley. Look where you are!»
«We are both conventional middle-aged people.»
«Well, I am, I'm pre-permissive. And you are my best friend's wife. And one doesn't with one's best friend's wife-«
«What?»
«But it's started, it's here, the only question is what we do with it. Bradley, I'm afraid I do rather enjoy arguing with you.»
«You know where arguments like this end,»
«God, we might as well be eighteen.»
«They don't argue now.»
«I don't know and it no longer matters.»
«You still love Arnold, don't you?»
«Oh don't start that, Bradley.»
«I just mean, naturally one might want a change, but let's not do anything-«
I reflected. «Yes.»
«Well, you must stop being. Oh my dear, don't you see that this is somehow the point? I must see you unafraid. This is what being my knight is. That will really let me out. And it will do something great for you too. Why can't you write? Because you're all timid and repressed and tied up. I mean in a spiritual way.»
«Oh Bradley, look, enough of this argument, let's undress.»
All this time we had been sitting sideways facing each other, not touching, except when the tips of her fingers lightly tapped my face, then the lapels of my jacket, my shoulders and arms as if she were putting a spell upon me.
She was blushing and her face had become suddenly more tentative. She had very full round breasts with huge brown mandalas. The unclothed body wears a very different head from the clothed body. The blush extended down her neck and faded into the deep V of mottled sunburn which stained the flesh between her breasts. Her body had an air of unexhibited chasteness. I knew that this was a most unwonted gesture. And indeed it was a long time since I had seen a woman's breasts. I looked but did not move.
«Rachel,» I said, «I am very touched and moved, but I really think this is most unwise.»
«Bradley, undress.»
«Rachel,» I said, «I am, as I say, moved. I am very grateful. But I cannot make love to you. I don't mean I don't want to, I cannot. The machinery will not work.»
» 'Always' has no force here. I haven't been with a woman for many years. This privilege is unwonted and unexpected. And I cannot rise to it.»
«Undress. I just want to hold you.»
«You're icy cold, Bradley. You look as if you're going to cry. Don't worry, my darling, it doesn't matter.»
«It does matter.»
There won't be a next time, I thought. And then I felt so overpoweringly sorry for Rachel that I really put my arms around her and drew her up against me. She gave an excited little sigh.
Then. «Rachel! Hey, where are you?» Arnold's voice below.
I glided out and down the stairs and opened the front door. I pulled it to very softly after me but it would not close. I pulled it harder and it banged. I ran down the path and slipped upon some moss and came down with a crash. I staggered up and began to run away down the road.
At the end of the next road I was slowing down to a quick walk when, just as I rounded the corner, I cannoned straight into somebody. It was a girl dressed in a very short striped garment, she had bare legs and bare feet, she was Julian.
«I thought you were at a pop festival,» I said, breathless, frantic with emotion, but concealing it.
«I couldn't get on the train. At least I could have done if I didn't mind being squashed, but I do, I'm a bit of a claustrophobe.»
«I suppose not. I've never been to one. Now you're going to lecture me about drugs, aren't you?»
«No. Do you want a lecture?»
«No.»
«Do you think she was having an affair with Claudius before her husband died?»
«Why not?»
«Too conventional,» I said. «Not enough courage. It would have needed tremendous courage.»
«So was her husband.»
«We only see him through Hamlet's eyes.»
«How do you know?»
«I just know.»
«That's another point.»
«I think some women have a nervous urge to commit adultery, especially when they reach a certain age.»
«Do you think the king and Claudius ever liked each other?»
«There's a theory that they were in love. Gertrude killed her husband because he was having a love affair with Claudius. Hamlet knew of course. No wonder he was neurotic. There are lots of veiled references to buggery. 'A mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.' Ear is phallic and wholesome is a pun-«I say! Where can I read about it?»
I was walking fast and Julian had to give a little run every now and then to keep up. She kept turning towards me as she did so, performing a sort of dance beside me. I looked down at her bare brown very dirty feet executing these hops, skips and jumps.
We had nearly reached the place where I had seen her in the twilight tearing up the love letters, when I had at first taken her for a boy. I said, «How is Mr. Belling?»
«No, you know you can say anything you like to me. All that's over and done, thank God.»
«Your balloon didn't come sailing back to you? You didn't wake up one morning and find it tied to your window?»
At that moment Julian stopped outside the same shoe shop where I had parted from her on the previous occasion. «Oh I do adore those boots, the purple ones, I do wish they weren't so expensive!»
On impulse I said, «I'll buy them for you.» I wanted to gain a little time to think of a suitably plausible way of asking her to keep quiet.
«Why not? It's ages since I gave you a present. I used to when you were little. Come on, be brave.»
«Oh Bradley, I'd love it, and you're so kind, which is even better than the boots, but I can't-«Why not?»
«I see. I think incidentally that this barefoot cult is perfectly idiotic. Suppose you step on some glass?»
«I know. I think it's idiotic too, I won't do it again, it was just for the festival, it's terribly uncomfortable, my feet are hurting like anything already. Oh dear, what a shame though.»
«There isn't a shop near-I had been fumbling in my pocket looking for my wallet. Suddenly as my hand emerged a pile of stuff fell out onto the pavement: my tie, underpants and socks. My face blazing with guilt, I swooped on them.
«Oh look, what luck, I could wear your socks. It's so warm, I don't wonder you took them off. May I, would you mind?»
It was cool and dim inside. Not at all like the nightmare shop that haunted my sister and myself; and not at all like the remembered interior of the womb either. More like the temple of some old unpassionate rather ascetic cult. The tiers of white containers (perhaps containing relics or votive gifts), the quiet darkly clad acolytes, the lowered voices, the rows of seats for meditation, the oddly shaped stools. The shoe horns.
We sat down side by side and Julian asked for her size. The black-clad girl began to ease the purple boot on over Julian's foot and my grey nylon sock. The high boot enveloped her leg and the zip fastener moved smoothly upward.
Julian stood in front of the mirror and I looked at her reflection. The boots looked stunning on her. Above the knee there was a piece of bare thigh, only faintly brown, and then the blue-andgreenand-white striped hem of her brief dress.
Julian's delight was literally indescribable. Her face dissolved and glowed, she quite unconsciously clapped her hands, she rushed back to me and shook me by the shoulders and then rushed back to the mirror. Her innocent pleasure would have moved me very much upon a better occasion. Why had I thought of her as an image of vanity? This delight of the young animal in itself was something pure. I could not help smiling.
«They look smashing.»
«I'm so pleased, oh you are so sweet-Thank you so much!»
«No, I won't wear them, it's too hot,» Julian was explaining to the sales girl. «Bradley, you are an angel. May I come and see you soon and we'll talk about Shakespeare? I'm free any time-Monday, Tuesday-how about Tuesday morning at your place at eleven? Or whenever you like?»
«All right, all right.»
«Yes, yes.»
«Oh I am so pleased with the boots.»
It was not until later that I remembered that she had gone away still wearing my socks.
Somehow or other it was twelve noon. Returning eastward to my flat I felt a good deal more sober, and I soon regretted my «high– minded» failure to silence Julian. Out of some ridiculous sense of dignity I had failed to take an absolutely essential precaution. When Julian blurted out about meeting me, what would Arnold guess, what would Rachel devise, what would she confess? Trying, and failing, to get the problem into focus I felt a guilty excited painful feeling not unlike sexual desire. Julian must be home by now. What was happening? Perhaps nothing. I felt an intense need to telephone Rachel at once, but knew that this would be profitless. «Knowing the worst» would have to wait awhile.
«Don't take on, Brad. She's back at my place.»
Christian had taken off her shoes, which were lying on the bed. Her trim pearly-silky legs were neatly crossed. Legs are ageless.
«I didn't, I just came to visit her, and she was so tearful and low and saying you were going to go away and leave her, so I said, 'Why not come back to me,' and she said she wanted to, so I sent her and Francis off in a taxi.»
«My sister is not a sort of ping-pong ball.»
«I don't want to go away.»
«Well, Priscilla thought you did.»
«Brad, don't be silly. It's far better for her to be at Notting Hill. I've asked a doctor to see her this afternoon. Do leave her in peace for a bit.»
«Did Arnold come to you this morning?»
«Did he come to cry on your shoulder?»
«No. He came to discuss a business project.»
«Yes. We're going into business together. I have a lot of spare money, so has he. I didn't spend all my time in Illinois at the Ladies' Guild. I helped Evans run his business. At the end I ran his business. I'm not going to idle around over here. I'm going into lingerie. And Arnold is going with me.»
«Why did you never tell me you were Jewish?»
«So you and Arnold are going to make money together. Has it occurred to you to wonder how Rachel might feel?»
«Aren't you after Rachel?»
«Rachel told Arnold you were.»
«Rachel told Arnold I was after her?»
«You're lying,» I said. I left the room. Christian called after me, «Brad, let's be friends, please.»
I had reached the front door with some general intention of going to fetch Priscilla and with a more immediate need to get away from Christian when the bell rang. I opened the door at once and there was Arnold.
I said, «Your business partner is here.»
«So she told you?»
«Hello, honey,» said Christian behind me, welcoming Arnold. They trooped into the sitting-room, and after a moment's hesitation I followed them. Christian, who was still putting her shoes on, was wearing a handsome cotton dress of an exceptionally vivid shade of green. Of course I could see now that she was Jewish: that curvy clever mouth, that wily rounded-off nose, those veiled snaky eyes. She was as handsome as her dress, a queen in Israel.
I said to Arnold, «Did you know that she was Jewish?»
«How?»
«I asked.»
«Look,» said Arnold, «there's nothing between Chris and me except friendship. You've heard of that, haven't you?»
«It can't exist between a man and a woman,» I said. I had only just, with sudden clairvoyance, realized this for certain.
«Married people can't have friendships,» I said. «If they do, they're faithless.»
«Don't worry about Rachel,» said Arnold.
«I didn't give her the black eye. It was accidental. I explained to you.»
«I'll go,» said Christian, «but let me just make a little speech before I do. Gee, I'm sorry about all this. But honestly, Brad, you're living in a dream world. I was very emotionally disturbed when I got back here and I came straight to you. Some men would have been flattered. I may be over fifty but I'm not a has-been. I got three proposals of marriage on the boat, and all from people who didn't know I was rich. Anyway what's wrong with being rich? It's a quality, it's attractive. Rich people are nicer, they're less nervy. I'm quite a proposition. And I came to you. As it happened I met Arnold and we talked and he asked a lot of questions, he was interested. That makes people friends and we are friends. But we haven't started up a love affair. Why should we? We're too intelligent. I'm not a little girl in a mini-skirt looking for kicks. I'm a damned clever woman who wants to have fun for the rest of her life, real fun, and happiness, not just emotional messes. I guess I can see into my motivation by now. I was years in deep analysis back in Illinois. I want friendships with men. I want to help people. Do you know that helping people is the way to be happy? And I'm curious. I want to know lots of people and see what makes them tick. I'm not going to get stuck in any hole-and-corner dramas. I'm going to live in the open. And right out in the open is where Arnold and I have been. You just haven't understood. I want to be friends with you, Brad. I want us to redeem the past by our friendship, like sort of redemptive love-I groaned.
«Well why not, naturally he was interested, and I was truthful. It's not a sacred subject, why shouldn't I talk about it. I guess you and I ought to try to be honest with each other and talk it all out of our systems. I know it would do me a power of good. Say, have you ever been analysed?»
«Analysed'-'– Certainly not!!»
«Ask your friend to go, would you?» I said to Arnold. He smiled.
«I'm going, I'm going, Brad. Look, don't answer me now, but think about this. I do beg you most humbly, and I mean humbly, to talk to me sometime soon, to talk properly, talk about the past, talk about what went wrong, and do it not because it will help you but because it will help me. That's all. Think it over. See you.»
«I know you're sort of scared-«I am not scared. I just happen to detest you. You are the sort of insinuating power-mongering woman that I detest. I cannot forgive you and I do not want to see you.»
«I guess this sort of classical love-hate-«Not love. Just hate. Be honest enough to see that, since you're so intelligent. And another thing. When I have had my little talk with Arnold I am coming over to fetch my sister, and after that any connection between you and me ceases.»
She laughed a red-tongued white-toothed laugh, merrily. «Oh-ho, what would that mean, I wonder? You'd better watch it, I learnt Karate at the Ladies' Guild. Well, I'm off. But think over what I said. Why choose hatred? Why not choose happiness and doing a little good to each other for a change? All right, all right, I'm off, cheery-bye.»
She clacked out and I could hear her laughing as she pulled the front door to behind her.
«No.» The feeling of sheer loving pity for Rachel came back to me, no nonsense about legs, just pity, pity.
«Wait a bit, wait a bit. Rachel's all right. It's you who's getting all steamed up about me and Christian. Of course you naturally feel possessive about Christian-«I do not!»
Arnold was sitting with his legs straight out in front of him, balanced on the heels. A characteristic pose. His face wore the affectionate quizzical ironical expression which I had once liked so much.
I said, «Let's have a drink.» I went to the walnut hanging cupboard.
I looked at Arnold and found him looking at me. He seemed hugely amused. He looked well and strong and young, his lean greasy pale brown face had the look of a keen undergraduate. He looked like a clever undergraduate teasing his tutor.
«Bradley, it's true what I said about me and Chris. I care far too much about my work to indulge in muddles. And Christian is rational too. In fact she's the most rational woman I've ever met. What a grip on life that woman has!»
«I read your so-called review with some interest.»
«Why call it a so-called review? It's a review. I'm not going to publish it.»
«True. And if it's any satisfaction to you I regret having done so. Could you just tear it up and forget it?»
«I've already torn it up. I thought I might be tempted to read it again. I can't forget it. Bradley, you know how vain and touchy we artists are.»
«I wasn't excluding you, for Christ's sake. We, you too. When one's attacked through one's work it goes straight into the heart. I don't mean that one bothers about journalists, I mean people one knows. They sometimes imagine that you can despise a man's book and remain his friend. You can't. The offence is unforgivable.»
«So our friendship is at an end.»
«Go on.»
«You, and you aren't the only one, every critic tends to do this, speak as if you were addressing a person of invincible complacency, you speak as if the artist had never realized his faults at all. In fact most artists understand their own weaknesses far better than the critics do. Only naturally there is no place for the public parade of this knowledge. If one is prepared to publish a work one must let it speak for itself. It would be unthinkable to run along beside it whimpering, 'I know it's no good.' One keeps one's mouth shut.»
«I know I'm a second-rater.»
«Uh-hu.»
«Yes.»
«Also I enjoy it. For me writing is a natural product of joie de vivre. Why not? Why shouldn't I be happy if I can?»
«An alternative would be to do what you do. Finish nothing, publish nothing, nourish a continual grudge against the world, and live with an unrealized idea of perfection which makes you feel superior to those who try and fail.»
«How clearly you put it.»
«Yep.»
«Believe me, I'm not trying to make you angry, I'm in a quite instinctive way defending myself against you. Unless I do this reasonably effectively I shall feel deep resentment and I don't want to feel deep resentment. Isn't that sound psychology?»
«Bradley, we simply mustn't be enemies. I don't only mean it would be nice not to be, I also mean it would be fatal to be. We could destroy each other. Bradley, do say something, for God's sake.»
«You do like melodrama,» I said. «I couldn't destroy anybody. I feel old and stupid. All I care about is getting my book written. There is a book, I care about that absolutely. The rest is rubble. I'm sorry I upset Rachel. I think I'd better leave London for a while. I need a change.»
I said, «I don't believe you about you and Christian.»
«You're jealous.»
«My marriage is a very strong organism. Any wife has moments of jealousy. But Rachel knows she's the only one. When you have slept beside a woman for years and years and years she becomes part of you, separation isn't possible. Wishful-thinking outsiders often tend to underestimate the strength of a marriage.»
«I dare say.»
«Meredith! Yes.»
«What Christian would call your motivation is dark to me.»
«Yes. Arnold, would you go now? Do you mind? Perhaps I'm getting old, but I can't stand emotional conversations the way I used to.»
«Write to me. We used to write to each other. Let's not stupidly mislay each other.»
«I'm sorry too.»
«Oh fuck off, for Christ's sake.»
I waited till I heard Arnold's footsteps well out of the court, then I rang the Baffins' number. Julian answered. I put the phone down at once.
I thought: What did they say to Julian?
«He sent me to you.»
It was the next morning and Rachel and I were sitting on a bench in Soho Square. The sun was shining and there was a dusty defeated smell of midsummer London: oily, grimy, spicy, melancholy and old. A number of tousled and rather elderly-looking pigeons stood around us, staring at us with their hard insentient eyes. Despairing people sat on other benches. The sky above Oxford Street was a sizzling unforgiving blue. Though it was still quite early in the morning I was sweating.
She laughed with a kind of snarl, tugging at her hair. «Yes. Poor old Rachel!»
«Sorry, I-Oh hell-You mean he actually said to you, 'Go and see Bradley'?»
«But what words exactly did he use? People who aren't writers never describe things exactly.»
«Oh I don't know. I can't remember.»
«I know that feeling.»
«I don't think you do. Your life is perfectly O. K. You're free. You've got money. You fuss about your work, but you can go away to the country or go abroad and meditate in some hotel. God, how I'd like to be alone in a hotel! It would be paradise!»
«All that's superficial, what's the word I want, frivolous. It's all-what's the word-«Gratuitous.»
«It's not part of real life, of what's compulsory. My life is all compulsory. My child, my husband, compulsory. I'm caged.»
«Rachel, I think you're raving. A striking simile, but really I never heard such tosh.»
«Well, perhaps I'm just describing how it is with me and Arnold. I'm just a growth on him. I have no being of my own. I can't get at him. I couldn't do so even by killing myself. It would interest him, he'd have a theory about it. He'd soon find another woman he could get on with better, and they'd discuss my case.»
«Bradley, how I adore your simplicity. As if I understood that language any more! You're talking to a toad, to an earthworm cut in two and wiggling.»
«Rachel, do stop, you're upsetting me.»
«Such a bedraggled one-«You were a separate place. Do you understand?»
«A wide plain where you could set up your tent? Or are these similes getting out of hand?»
«I don't, it's just a habit of speech. Surely you know me by now.»
«Yes, yes, I do actually. Oh I've messed everything up. I've even spoilt you. Now Arnold has taken you over too. He cares for you far more than he cares for me. He takes everything.»
«Brave words. But it is now.»
«Please try to remember what he said this morning, you know, when he asked you-«
«God. Does he think you'll report your conversation with me to him?»
«Maybe.»
«Maybe.»
«Is Arnold having an affair with Christian?»
«Don't be silly. Is Arnold-«
«I don't know. I'm getting bored with that question. Possibly not in the strict sense. But I don't care. He acts as a free man, he always has. If he. wants to see Christian he sees her. They're going into business together. I couldn't care less whether they get into bed together too.»
«I don't know what he believes and I don't care.»
«Please try. Truth does matter. What exactly happened yesterday after Arnold arrived back and we were-Please describe the events in detail. I want a description beginning, 'I ran down the stairs.' «
«I didn't say it. She assumed it and I didn't deny it.»
«Well, that comes to the same thing. Then Julian started to talk about the boots you'd bought her. I must say I was rather surprised. You are a cool customer. Anyway, Arnold raised his eyebrows, you know the way he does. But he said nothing while Julian was with us.»
«Ha! That's another thing. No, I don't think so. Julian went straight on upstairs to try the boots on. I didn't see her again till after Arnold had gone to see you. Then she explained about the socks. She thought it was a great joke.»
«You see, I just shoved them in my pocket and-«All right, I imagined it all. Here they are, by the way. I washed them. They're still a bit damp. I told Julian not to mention you to Arnold for a while. I said he was so cross about that review. So I trust the sock incident is closed.»
«What did you say?»
«What could I say? I was completely taken by surprise. I laughed and said you'd annoyed me. I said you'd been rather emotional and I'd turned you out, and felt it would be kinder to you not to tell Arnold.»
«No, I couldn't. While Julian was there I couldn't think, and then I just had to say something. My head was full of nothing but the truth. The best I could do was to tell half of it in a garbled form.»
«You could have invented a complete falsehood.»
«I know, I know. Did Arnold believe you?»
«I'm not sure. He knows I'm a liar, he's often enough caught me in lies. He lies too. We accept each other as liars, most married couples do.»
«You grieve over such an imperfect world, do you? Anyway he doesn't really mind. If I have some sort of thing on it eases his conscience and leaves him more free. And as long as he's in control and can bait you a bit it may even amuse him. He doesn't take you seriously as a threat to his marriage.»
«I see.»
«Isn't there?»
«No. You've just played along out of vague affection and pity. Oh don't protest, I know. As for Arnold not taking you seriously as a libertine, that can hardly surprise you. The funny thing is, Arnold does care for you a lot.»
«So you see, the real drama is between you and him. I'm just a side issue as usual.»
«No, no.»
«Rachel, you can't!»
«And I think that review of yours was spiteful and stupid.»
«You're just eaten up with envy.»
«Let's not argue about that, Rachel, please.»
«You'll be talking your intellectual talk together and I'll be outside washing up and hearing your voices going on and on and on. It'll be just like the old days.»
«Listen, dear Rachel,» I said. «Why shouldn't you have a private place? I don't mean a love affair, neither of us has the temperament for that. I dare say I'm terribly repressed, not that I mind. And an affair would involve us in lies and would be wrong-«How simply you put it!»
«We've known each other for years without ever coming really close. Now we suddenly blunder up against each other and it goes all wrong. We might now recede again to the previous distance or even farther. I suggest we don't. We can be friends. Arnold was holding forth about how he and Christian were friends-«Was he?»
«I suggest that you and I settle down to construct a friendship, nothing clandestine, all cheerful and above board-«Cheerful?»
«I often wonder.»
«Why shouldn't we love each other a bit and make each other happier?»
«Let's try. I need you.»
«That's the best thing you've said yet.»
«When you will something a simple formulation is often the best. Besides, morals is simple.»
«And we must be moral, mustn't we?»
«In the end. That's rich. Are you going to leave Priscilla with Christian?»
This took me aback. I said, «For the present.» I could not decide what to do about Priscilla.
«Never!»
«A muddler hoping to be forgiven. That sounds humble and touching. It would possibly be very effective in one of your books. But I've got a kind of misery that makes me blind and deaf. You wouldn't understand. You live in the open with all of you spread out around you. I'm mangled in a machine. Even to say it's my own fault doesn't mean anything. However don't worry too much about me. I expect all married people are like this. It doesn't prevent me from enjoying cups of tea.»
«You're so self-righteous, Bradley. You can't help it. You're a deeply censorious and self-righteous person. Still, you mean well, you're a nice chap. Maybe later I shall be glad you said these things.»
«Then it's a pact.»
«Of course-«You don't understand. I don't mean anything to do with simplicity and love. I don't even mean a will to survive. I mean fire, fire. What tortures. What kills. Ah well-«Rachel, look up. The sun's shining.»
«Don't be soppy.»
«Oh look, Rachel.»
«What?»
«Oh that. Bradley, don't come any farther. I'm going to the station.»
«When shall I see you?»
«Rachel, you're sure Julian doesn't know anything about-anything?»
«Quite sure. And no one's likely to tell her! Whatever possessed you to buy her those expensive boots?»
«You don't seem to have employed the time vel7 profitably.»
«No I-didn't.»
Rachel left me. I saw her disappear into the crowd, her battered blue handbag swinging, the plump pale flesh ex» her upper arm oscillating a little, her hair tangled, her face dazed and tired– with an automatic hand she had scooped up the hanging shoulder strap. Then I saw her again, and again and again. O^fшrd Street was ful1 of tired ageing women with dazed faces, push*ing blindly against each other like a herd of animals. I ran across the road and north –wards towards my flat.
I thought, I must get away, I must get away I must Set away. I thought, I'm glad Julian doesn't know about all that. I thought, Maybe Priscilla really is better off at Notting ^ilL: thought, Perhaps I will go and see Christian after all.
Seen from the peace and seclusion of our present haven the events of these few days between the first appearanc^ of Francis Marloe and my Soho Square conversation with Rachel *»
With these observations I introduce an analysis of my recent (as it were) conduct which I now wish, my dear, to deploy before you. As far as Rachel was concerned, I acted out of a mixture of rather graceless motives. I think the turning point was her emotional letter. What dangerous machines letters are. Perhaps it is as well that they are going out of fashion. A letter can be endlessly reread and reinterpreted, it stirs imagination and fantasy, it persists, it is red– hot evidence. It was a long time since I had received anything resembling a love letter. And the very fact that it was a letter and not a viva voce statement gave it a sort of abstract power over me. We often make important moves in our life in a de-individualized condition. We feel suddenly that we are typifying something. This can be a source of inspiration and also a way of excusing ourselves. The intensity of Rachel's letter communicated self-importance, energy, the sense of a role.
Christian's take-over of Priscilla, though utterly «obscene,» was already becoming more of a problem than an outrage. I was more inclined to let the situation ride. Christian would get no profit from her hostage. But I did not think that she would therefore abandon or «drop» Priscilla. Perhaps here again I had been influenced by Arnold. In some people sheer will is a substitute for morality. What Arnold called «grip.» When she was my wife Christian had employed this will in an attempt to invade and conquer me. A lesser man would have surrendered in exchange for a marriage which might even have been a happy one. One can see many men who live happily, possessed and run (indeed manned, the way a ship is manned) by women of tremendous will. What saved me from Christian was art. My artist's soul rejected this massive invasion. (It was like an invasion of viruses.) The hatred for Christian which I had nursed all these years was a natural product of my struggle for survival and its original spearhead. To overthrow a tyrant, whether in public or in private, one must learn to hate. Now however, no longer reallv threatened and with an incentive to be more objective, I could see how well, how intelligently, Christian had organized herself. Perhaps learning that she was Jewish had altered my vision. I felt almost ready for a new kind of contest in which I would defeat her casually. The final exorcism would be a display of cool amused indifference. But these were shadowy thoughts. The main point was that I now felt ready to trust Christian to be business-like and reliable about Priscilla, since I felt like being neither.
I have perhaps not even now sufficiently emphasized how much I was dominated during this time by an increasingly powerful sense of the imminence in my life of a great work of art. This pellet irradiated each of the «frames» of my awareness in such a way that even when I was, for example, listening to Rachel's voice or looking at Priscilla's face, I was also thinking: The time has come. At least I was not thinking these words, I was not thinking anything in words: I was simply aware of a great dark wonderful something nearby in the future, magnetically connected with me: connected with my mind, connected with my body, which sometimes literally shook or swayed under that tremendous and authoritative pull. What did I imagine that the book would be like? I did not know. But I intuitively grasped both its being and its excellence. An artist in a state of power has a serene relationship to time. Fruition is simply a matter of waiting. The work announces itself, emerges often quite whole, when the moment comes, if the apprenticeship has been correct. (As the sage looks for years at the bamboo branch, then draws it quickly and without effort.) I felt that all I needed was solitude.
The mind, so constantly busy with its own welfare, is always sensitively filing and sorting the ways in which self-respect (vanity) has been damaged. In doing so it is at the same time industriously discovering methods of making good the damage. I had felt chagrined and ashamed because Rachel regarded me as a failed muddler, and Arnold was posing as having, in some unspecified sense, «found me out.» (And, what was worse, «forgiven me»!) Reflection on what had happened was already repainting this picture. I was quite strong enough to «hold» them both, to comfort Rachel and to «play» Arnold. The sense of challenge involved already made my bruised vanity cease a little to droop.
I would console Rachel with innocent love. This resolution and the ring of the good word made me feel, on that momentous morning, a better man. But what rather preoccupied my thoughts was the image of Christian: her image rather than any definite proposition about her. These images which float in the mind's cave (and whatever the philosophers may say the mind is a dark cave full of drifting beings) are of course not neutral apparitions but already saturated with judgment, lurid with it. I still felt in waves my old poisonous hatred of this bully. I also felt the not very edifying desire beforementioned to erase, by a show of indifference, the undignified impression which I had made. I had displayed too much emotion. Now instead I must stare with cold curiosity. As I practised staring at her charged and glowing image it seemed to be dissolving and changing before my eyes. Was I beginning to remember at last that I had once loved her?
The telephone rang.
«Hartbourne here.»
«Why didn't you come to the party?»
«What party?»
«Oh God. Sorry.»
«Everyone was very disappointed.»
«So were we.»
«I-er-hope it was a good party all the same-«In spite of your absence it was an excellent party.»
«All the old gang. Caldicott and Grey-Pelham and Dyson and Randolph and Matheson and Hadley-Smith and-«Did Mrs. Grey-Pelham come?»
«No.»
«Never mind, Pearson. Can we make a lunch date?»
«I'm leaving town.»
«I say, I am sorry-«Not at all.»
I put the telephone down. I felt the hand of destiny heavy upon me. Even the air was thickening as if it were full of incense or rich pollen. I looked at my watch. It was time to go to Netting Hill. I stood there in my little sitting-room and looked at the buffalo lady who was lying on her side in the lacquered display cabinet. I had not dared to try to straighten out the buffalo's crumpled leg for fear of snapping the delicate bronze. I looked where a line of sloping sun had made a flying buttress against the wall outside, making the grime stand out in lacy relief, outlining the bricks. The room, the wall, trembled with precision, as if the inanimate world were about to utter a word.
«Bradley, you've forgotten! I've come for my Hamlet tutorial.»
«I hadn't forgotten,» I said with a silent curse. «Come in.»
«Yes. It's a bit hot for them, but I wanted to show them off to you. I'm so cheered up and grateful. Are you sure you don't mind discussing Shakespeare? You look as if you were going somewhere. Did you really remember I was coming?»
«Yes, of course.»
«Yes. Here.»
I sat down opposite to her. She sat sidesaddle on her chair, the boots side by side, very much on display. I sat astride on mine, gripping it with my knees. I opened my copy of Shakespeare in front of me on the table. Julian laughed.
«You're so matter-of-fact. I'm sure you weren't expecting me. You'd forgotten I existed. Now you're just like a schoolteacher.»
«Perhaps you are good for my nerves too.»
«Nothing's happened yet. It may not be fun. What do you want to do?»
«I'll ask questions and you answer them.»
«I've got a whole list of questions, look.»
«I've answered that one already.»
«You're going to waste my time with these questions and then not believe my answers?»
«Well, it can be a starting point for a discussion.»
«If you have time. I know I'm lucky to get any of your time, you're so busy.»
«I'm not busy at all. I have absolutely nothing to do.»
«Lies.»
«I know you're teasing again.»
«Why did Hamlet delay killing Claudius?»
«Because he was a dreamy conscientious young intellectual who wasn't likely to commit a murder out of hand because he had the impression that he had seen a ghost. Next question.»
«I know the ghost is real, but Hamlet didn't.»
«Oh. But there must have been another deeper reason why he delayed, isn't that the point of the play?»
«What is it?»
«He identifies Claudius with his father.»
«No. He hates his father.»
«Well, wouldn't that make him murder Claudius at once?»
«Well, I don't see how identifying Claudius with his father makes him not kill Claudius.»
«He doesn't enjoy hating his father. It makes him feel guilty.»
«That's part of the same thing.»
«How do you mean?»
«But I thought he loved his mother.»
«That's the point.»
«He condemns his mother for committing adultery with his fa– «Wait a minute, Bradley, I'm getting mixed.»
«Claudius is just a continuation of his brother on the conscious level.»
«The unconscious mind knows nothing of logic.»
«You mean Hamlet is jealous, you mean he's in love with his mother?»
«Oh thai.»
«That.»
«The unconscious mind delights in identifying people with each other. It has only a few characters to play with.»
«So lots of actors have to play the same part?»
«I don't think I believe in the unconscious mind.»
«Excellent girl.»
«Not at all.»
«Why couldn't Ophelia save Hamlet? That's another of my questions actually.»
«I know that I'm ignorant, and I can't deny that I'm young, but I do not identify myself with Ophelia!»
«Of course not. You identify yourself with Hamlet. Everyone does.»
«Not in great works of literature. Do you identify with Macbeth or Lear?»
«No, well, not like that-«Or with Achilles or Agamemnon or Aeneas or Raskolnikov or Madame Bovary or Marcel or Fanny Price or-«Wait a moment. I haven't heard of some of these people. And I think I do identify with Achilles.»
«Oh Bradley-I can't think-Didn't he kill Hector?»
«Never mind. Have I made my point?»
«Hamlet is unusual because it is a great work of literature in which everyone identifies with the hero.»
«I see. Does that make it less good than Shakespeare's other plays, I mean the good ones?»
«Then something funny has happened.»
«Correct.»
«For this relief much thanks.» She unzipped the boots and revealed, in pink tights, the legs. She admired the legs, waggled the toes, undid another button at her neck, then giggled.
I said, «Do you mind if I take off my jacket?»
«You'll see my braces.»
«How exciting. You must be the last man in London who wears any. They're getting as rare and thrilling as suspenders.»
«So you weren't expecting me?»
«Don't be silly. Do you mind if I take off my tie?»
I took off my tie and undid the top two buttons of my shirt. Then I did one of them up again. The hair on my chest is copious but grizzled. (Or, if you prefer, a sable silvered.) I could feel the perspiration trickling down my temples, down the back of my neck, and winding its way through the forest on my diaphragm.
«You aren't sweating,» I said to Julian. «How do you manage it?»
«Oh Bradley, I knew I'd just bore you! And now I won't see you again for months, I know you!»
«Shut up. That dreary stuff about Hamlet and his ma and pa you can get out of a book. I'll tell you which one.»
«It is true, but it doesn't matter. A sophisticated reader takes such things in his stride. You are a sophisticated reader in ovo.»
«In what?»
«Whereas Lear and Macbeth and Othello are-«Aren't.»
«Bradley, was Shakespeare homosexual?»
«Oh I see. So Hamlet's really in love with Horatio-«Be quiet, girl. In mediocre works the hero is the author.»
«My father is the hero of all his novels.»
«No.»
«Is he unconscious of it?»
«Correct. So this must be what the play is about.»
«Oh. What?»
«How do you mean?»
«What is the most mysterious and endlessly debated part of his ceuvre?»
«Correct.»
«Bradley, I read such an extraordinary theory about the sonnets-«Be silent. So Shakespeare is at his most cryptic when he is talking about himself. How is it that Hamlet is the most famous and accessible of his plays?»
«Yes, but nevertheless it is the best known work of literature in the world. Indian peasants, Australian lumberjacks, Argentine ranchers, Norwegian sailors, members of the Red Army, Americans, all the most remote and brutish specimens of mankind have heard of Hamlet.»
«Don't you mean Canadian lumberjacks? I thought Australia-«How can this be?»
«Because Shakespeare, by the sheer intensity of his own meditation upon the problem of his identity has produced a new language, a special rhetoric of consciousness-«I'm not with you.»
«Words are Hamlet's being as they were Shakespeare's.»
«How all occasions do inform against me.»
«Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice.»
«Absent thee from felicity a while.»
«I played Hamlet once,» said Julian.
«I played Hamlet once, at school, I was sixteen.»
I had closed the book and had my two hands flat on the table. I stared at the girl. She smiled, and then when I did not, giggled and blushed, thrusting back her hair with a crooked finger. «I wasn't very good. I say, Bradley, do my feet smell?»
«I'll put the boots on again.» She began to point one pink foot, thrusting it into its purple sheath. «I'm sorry, I interrupted you, please go on.»
«No. The show's over.»
«No. What I was saying is no good for your exam. That's esoteric lore. You'd plough if you tried to utter that stuff. In fact you don't understand any of it. It doesn't matter. You'd better just learn a few simple things. I'll send you some notes and one or two books to read. I know what questions they'll ask you and I know what answers will get you top marks.»
«But I don't want to do the easy stuff, I want to do the difficult stuff, besides, if what you say is true-«You can't conjure with that word at your age.»
«He was.»
I got up. I felt suddenly exhausted, almost dazed, damp with sweat from head to foot as if I were outlined with warm quicksilver. I opened the window and a breath of slightly cooler air entered the room, polluted and dusty, yet also somehow bearing the half-obliterated ghosts of flowers from distant parks. A massed-up buzz of various noise filled the room, cars, voices, the endless hum of London's being. I opened the front of my shirt all the way down to the waist and scratched in my curly mat of grey hair. I turned to face Julian. Then I went to the walnut hanging cupboard and brought out glasses and the sherry decanter. I poured out sherry.
«Oh the usual. All Hamlets dress the same, don't they. Unless they're in modern dress, and we weren't.»
«Do what I ask please.»
«Describe your costume.»
«Well, I wore black tights and black velvet shoes with silvery buckles and a sort of black slinky jerkin with a low opening and a white silk shirt underneath that and a big gold chain round my neck and-What's the matter, Bradley?»
«I thought I looked a lot like a picture I saw of John Gielgud.»
«Who is he?»
«You misunderstand me, child. Go on.»
«That's all. I enjoyed it ever so much. Especially the fight at the end.»
«Here thou incestuous murderous damned Dane-«Bradley, you must be a mind-reader. Look, do tell me something more about what you were saying, couldn't you sort of put it in a nutshell?»
«Hamlet is a piece a clef. It is about someone Shakespeare was in love with.»
«Don't be so bloody sorry for them,» I said. «They're marvellous people, both of them, marvellous people with real private lives of their own.»
«Sorry. I must have sounded awful. I suppose I am awful. Perhaps all young people are awful.»
«Sorry, Bradley. I say, I do wish you'd come and see the parents oftener, I think you do them good.»
I felt some shame in asking her about Arnold and Rachel, but I wanted to be, and now was, sure that they had said nothing damaging about me.
«I feel I can. I'm ready to wait. I won't rush into it. I want to write hard dense impersonal sort of books, not a bit like me.»
«Good girl.»
«I'm so sorry-Oh Bradley, I have enjoyed this. Do you think we could meet again before long? I know you hate to be tied down. Aren't you going away?»
«No.»
«Yes.»
«Well, I suppose I must be off-«I owe you a thing.»
«A thing. In return for the buffalo lady. Remember?»
«Yes. I didn't like to remind you-«Here.»
«Oh Bradley, how frightfully kind of you, it looks so sort of elegant and valuable, and something's written on it, A Friend's Gift, oh my dear, how nice! We are friends, aren't we?»
«Yes.»
«You won't forget all about me-?»
«Out.»
I fell on my knees and then lay full-length face downwards on the rug in front of the fireplace. Something very extraordinary indeed had just happened to me.
«It was so kind of you to see Julian yesterday.»
«I enjoyed it.»
«Not at all. Here we are.»
I dashed among the shelves followed by Rachel. «I must buy some more of my special notebooks. I'm going to be doing a lot of writing soon. Rachel, let me buy you something, I must, I'm in a present-giving mood.»
«Here, let me give you these nice things!» I had to load somebody with presents. I collected for Rachel a ball of red string, a blue felt tipped pen, a pad of special calligrapher's paper, a magnifying glass, a fancy carrier bag, a large wooden clothes peg with urgent written on it in gold, and six postcards of the Post Office Tower. I paid for the purchases and loaded the bag with all Rachel's spoil into her arms.
«You seem in a good mood!» She said, pleased, but still a bit maussade. «Now can we go back to your place?»
«Well, let's sit somewhere.»
«There's a seat in Tottenham Court Road, just opposite Heals.»
They were. I must have spent longer than I realized in meditation. We went into one.
It was a featureless modern place, ruined by the brewers, all made of light plastic (pubs should be dark holes) but with the sun shining in and the street door open it had a sort of southern charm. We visited the bar and then sat at a plastic table which was already wet with beer. Rachel had a double whisky which she proposed to drink neat. I had a lemonade shandy for the sake of appearances. We looked at each other.
«Bradley, you are looking odd.»
«Peculiar?»
«Dear Rachel! I'm so glad to see you. Tell me all. Let's talk about Julian. Such an intelligent girl.»
«I'm glad you think so. I'm not sure that I do. I'm grateful to you for taking an interest in her at last.»
«She says she's been trying to attract your attention for years. I warned her you probably won't keep it up.»
«I'll do what I can for her. I like her, you know.» I laughed crazily.
«Rachel, I've been thinking,» I said. (I had not in fact, it had just come into my head.) «I may be being completely unjust to Arnold. It's years since I read the whole of his work, I must read it all through again, I may see it quite differently now. You like Arnold's novels, don't you?»
«I'm his wife. And I'm a totally uneducated woman, as my dear daughter never tires of telling me. But look, I don't want to talk about these things. I want to say-well, first of all forgive me for bothering you again. You'll begin to think I'm a neurotic woman with a fixation.»
«Yes, my dearest creature.»
«You said some very kind and probably very wise things last time we met about friendship. I feel I was rather churlish-«Not at all.»
«Rachel, what a delightful thing, it's made my day!»
«Be serious for a moment, Bradley.»
«You've got it!»
«Be quiet. I don't want an affair, not because I don't want an affair, maybe I do, it's not worth finding out, but because it would be a mess and belong with all that anxiety and resentment you were talking about, anyway you haven't got the guts or temperament or whatever for an affair, but Bradley, I want you.»
«Oh don't be so gay and flippant, you look so horribly pleased with yourself, what's the matter?»
«I wish I could hold you to some sort of seriousness, you're so terribly sort of slippery today. Bradley, this matters so much-you will love me, you will be faithful?»
«A real true friend to me forever?»
«Yes, yes!»
The last I saw of her, through the window as I went off, she was staring at the table and very slowly making patterns in the beer drips with her finger. Her face had a heavy sullen dreamy remembering look which was very touching.
Hartbourne asked after Christian. He had known her slightly. The news of her return must have somehow got around. I talked about her frankly and at ease. Yes, I had seen her. She was much improved, not only in looks. We were on quite good terms, very civilized. And Priscilla? She had left her husband and was staying with Christian, I was just going to visit them. «Priscilla staying with Christian? How remarkable,» said Hartbourne. Yes I suppose it was, but it just showed what good friends we all were. In turn I asked Hartbourne about the office. Was that ridiculous committee still sitting? Had Matheson got his promotion yet? Had the new lavatories materialized? Was that comic tea lady still around? Hart– bourne remarked that I seemed «very fit and relaxed.»
«Yes.» I had not even realized that Arnold had published any poems. What a skunk I was! I also purchased the London edition of Shakespeare complete in six volumes, to give to Julian in exchange for her Hamlet when the time came, and I went away still smiling.
As I was just turning into the court I saw Rigby, my upstairs neighbour. I stopped him and had begun some cordial conversation about the fine weather when he said, «There's someone waiting outside your door.» I gasped and excused myself and quickly ran. A man, however, was awaiting me. A well-dressed distinguished-looking figure with a soldierly air.
«I left her in a sort of cafe down there.»
«Well, go and get her at once, go on, I'd love to see her again! I'll be putting the kettle on and putting the tea things out.»
Marigold was looking very dressed-up for town with a little blue linen cap and a white linen pinafore dress and a dark-blue silk blouse and a rather expensive-looking red-white-and-blue scarf. She looked a bit like a musical-comedy sailor girl. She was rounder however and had the self-conscious self-satisfied pouting stance of the pregnant woman. Her tanned cheeks were deeply ruddy with health and happiness. She smiled all the time with her eyes and one simply could not help smiling back. She must have left a trail of happiness behind her down the street.
«Marigold, how lovely you look!» I said.
«Sit down, sit down, please forgive me, it's just that you both look so happy, I can't help myself. Marigold, will you be mother?»
«I suppose this is some sort of sick joke?»
«You'll be turning nasty in a minute.»
«Roger, please relax, please just talk to me quietly, let's be gentle and reasonable with each other. I'm very sorry I was so unpleasant to you both down in Bristol. I was upset for Priscilla, I still am, but I don't regard you as wicked, I know how these things happen.»
I peered down and then began to dig into it. Necklaces and things. The enamel picture. The little marble, or whatever it was, statuette. Two silver cups, other oddments. «That's good of you, Priscilla will be so pleased. What about the mink?»
«I was coming to that,» said Roger. «I'm afraid I sold the mink. I'd already sold it when I saw you last. I agreed with Priscilla it was a sort of investment. I'll let her have half the proceeds. In due course.»
«All the jewels are there,» said Roger, «and the little things from her dressing table, and Marigold has packed all the clothes and so on into three trunks. Where shall we send them?»
I wrote down the Notting Hill address.
«We won't be poorly off,» said Marigold, sweeping her sleeve across Roger's. «I shall go on working after the little one is born.»
«What do you do?» I asked.
«Good for you!» I laughed out of sheer joie de vivre. Fancy, this charming girl a dentist!
«You've told Priscilla about us, of course?» said Roger, sedate.
«Julian?»
«Julian Baffin, the daughter of a friend of mine.»
«I confess you've surprised me,» said Roger.
«Being beastly to you two won't help Priscilla.»
«Cheery-bye to my favourite dentist!» I shouted after them.
«He must be drunk,» I heard Roger say as I shut the door.
«Guess what I've got in this bag!» I said to Priscilla.
It was the same evening. Francis had let me in. There was no sign of Christian.
She did not reply. Then she suddenly reached out to a big jar of greasy cold cream and started plastering it upon her face. The red lipstick merged into the grease, tingeing it with red. Priscilla spread the pinkish mess all over her face, still gazing devouringly into her own eyes.
«Look,» I said, «look who's here!» I put the white statuette onto the glass top of the dressing table. I laid the enamel picture and the malachite box beside it. I drew out a mass of entangled necklaces.
«Roger brought them for you. And look, I've brought you the buffalo lady again. I'm afraid she's a bit lame, but-«And the mink stole? Did you see him?»
«It's no good. I should never have left him. It isn't fair to him. And I think away from him I'm literally going mad. All chances of happiness are gone from me. Just being with myself is hell all the time anyway. And here in this meaningless place I'm with myself more. Even hating Roger was something, it meant something, being made unhappy by him did, after all he belongs to me. And I was used to things there, there was something to do, shopping and cooking and cleaning the house, even though he didn't come home for his supper, I'd cook it and put it ready for him and he wouldn't come home and I'd sit and cry watching the television programme. Still it was all part of something, and waiting for him at night in the dark when I went to bed, listening for his key in the door, at least there was something to wait for. I wasn't alone with my mind. I don't really care if he went with girls, secretaries in the office, I suppose they all do. I don't feel now that it matters much. I'm connected with him forever, it's for better and worse, worse in this case, but any tie is something when one's drifting away to hell. You can't look after me, obviously, why should you. Christian's been very kind, but she's just curious, she's just playing a game, she'll soon get tired of me. I know I'm awful, awful, I can't think how anyone can bear to look at me. I don't want to be looked after anyway. I can feel my mind decaying already. I feel I must smell of decay. I've been in bed all day. I didn't even make up my face until just before you came, and then it looked so terrible. I hate Roger and the last year or two I've been afraid of him. But if I don't go back to him I'll just dissolve, all my inwards will come pouring out, like people who are just going to be hanged. I can't tell you what the misery's like that I'm in.»
«Did he send the mink?»
«Well-«
«Yes, Priscilla-«
«He's had this girl for a long time-«Yes.»
«So he wants a divorce-«Yes. Dear Priscilla, you've understood it all and you must face it all-«
«Death,» she murmurred, «death, death, death-«Don't give way, my dear-«Death.»
«That's better, show a bit of spirit!»
«Bradley, if you knew how much I hated even you, you'd know how far beyond any human hope I am now. As for Roger-I'd like to stick-a red-hot knitting needle-into his liver-«Priscilla!»
She had turned on her side and was sobbing quietly, rather breathlessly, her mouth shuddering, her eyes awash with tears. I had never seen anyone so inaccessibly miserable. I felt an urge to put her to sleep, not for good of course, but if only one could have given her a shot of something just to stop this awful weeping, to give some intermission to the tormented consciousness.
The door opened and Christian came in. Gazing at Priscilla she greeted me inattentively with a sort of «holding» gesture which, it occurred to me, was the height of intimacy. «What is it now?» she said to Priscilla sternly.
«Oh God, did you have to?»
Priscilla suddenly started to scream quietly. «Scream quietly» may sound like an oxymoron, but I mean to indicate the curiously controlled rhythmic screaming which goes with a certain kind of hysterics. Hysterics is terrifying because of its willed and yet not willed quality. It has the frightfulness of a deliberate assault on the spectators, yet it is also, with its apparently unstoppable rhythm, like the setting-going of a machine. It is no use asking someone in hysterics to «control themselves.» By «choosing» to become hysterical they have put themselves beyond ordinary communication. Priscilla, now sitting upright in bed, gave a gasping «Uuuh!» then a screamed «Aaah!» ending in a sort of bubbling sob, then the gasp again and the scream and so on. It was an appalling sound, both tortured and cruel. I have four times heard a woman in hysterics, once my mother when my father shouted at her, once Priscilla when she was pregnant, once another woman (would that I could forget that occasion) and now Priscilla again. I turned to Christian raising my hands distractedly.
Christian said, «Out you go, Brad, wait downstairs.»
I ran down the first flight, then went more slowly down the second flight. By the time I reached the door of the dark brown and indigo drawing-room the house had become entirely silent. I went in and stood with my feet well apart, breathing.
«She's stopped,» I said. «What did you do?»
«I slapped her.»
«Brad! Quick, here, some brandy-«Could I have some biscuits or something? I haven't eaten all day. Or yesterday.»
I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.
«It's no good letting her go on and on, she tires herself so, she did it for half an hour yesterday-«All right, yes, all right-«Why, you poor pet! I'm doing my best, honest. It's no fun having a near-crazy in the house. I'm doing it for you, Brad.»
«Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again-«You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?» I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.
«What?»
«You called me 'Chris.' «
«Good. Julian.»
«What was that?»
«Brad, please-Oh, all right, I won't keep you. But I want you to say something to me.»
«What?»
«Me too,» I said.
Christian entered.
«I slapped her.»
I said, «I think I'm going to faint.» I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hand.
I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.
«Brad, dear, don't-«I hate violence,» I said.
«Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again-«You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?» I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.
«Did you just notice something, Brad?»
«You called me 'Chris.' «
«Did I? Like old days. Well, but you won't? I'll pay you-«Oh never mind the dough. I'll look after her. I got onto a new doc. There's a treatment with injections she can have.»
«What was that?»
I had just uttered Julian's name aloud. I got up. «Chris, do you mind, I must go. I've got something very important to do.» Think about Julian.
«What?»
«Oh that you forgive me or something. That there's peace between us or something. You know I just loved you, Brad. You saw my love as a sort of crushing force or a will to power or something but I just wanted to hold you. And I did really truly come back here to you and for you. I thought about you out there and what a fool I'd been. Of course I'm not a romantic crazy. I know our thing couldn't work then, we were so young and God we were stupid with each other. But there was something I saw in you which didn't leave me alone. I used to dream we were reconciled, you know in dreams at night, real dreams.»
«What tosh, my dearest dearest Chris.»
«Oh sure, but all the same-you know something, suddenly I feel you're open to me, right open to me-I can walk straight in and there's welcome written on the mat-Brad, say those good words, will you, say you forgive me, say we're really reconciled and friends again at last.»
«Brad, you know in a way you are my husband, I've never really stopped thinking of you that way, after all we were married in church, with my body I thee worship and the whole sacred caboodle, we were pure in heart once, we meant well by each other, we really cared, didn't we, didn't we care?»
«Possibly, but-«
«Chris darling, you're dotty,» I said. «But I'm very touched.»
«Gee, Brad, you look so young. You look all dewy and spiritual like a cat with kittens.»
«Switzerland.»
«Not Switzerland. I hate mountains.»
A woman's face changes in tenderness. It may become scarcely recognizable. Christian en tendresse looked older, more animal-like and absurd, her features all squashed up and rubbery. She was wearing an open-necked cotton dress of rich Chinese red and a gold chain round her neck. The flesh of her neck was stained and dry behind the fresh gold of the chain. Her dyed hair was glossy and animal-sleek. She was looking at me in the cool north indigo duskiness of the room with such a humble pleading diffident rueful tender look upon her face, and her drooping hands were opened to me in a sort of Oriental gesture of abandonment and homage. I stepped forward and took her in my arms.
At the same time I laughed, and holding her, not kissing her, continued to laugh. I saw over her shoulder a quite other face of happiness. But I held her very consciously and laughed, and then she began to laugh too, her forehead moving to and fro against my shoulder.
I released Christian slowly and she looked at Arnold and went on laughing in a weary almost contented sort of way, «Oh dear, oh dear-«I'm just off,» I said to Arnold.
He had sat down quietly immediately on entering, like a man in a waiting room. He had his wet look (his drenched albino aspect) as if he had been in the rain, his colourless hair darkened with grease, his face shiny, his nose pointing like a greased pin. His very pale blue eyes, washed almost to whiteness, were cool as water. I had seen, before he had time to smooth it, the expression of chagrin with which he had greeted our little scene.
«Think what over?»
«Oh he's priceless, he's forgotten it already! I just proposed to Brad and he's forgotten it!»
«Decent of you.»
«Not at all. I want to be-at peace with everybody-at this time-«Is it Christmas?» said Arnold.
«Are you feeling all right, Bradley?»
«Just look at him. I guess it's the transfiguration!»
As I neared the corner of the street I heard running steps behind me. It was Francis.
«Brad, I just wanted to say-Wait, please, wait-I wanted to say I'll stick by her whatever happens, I'll-«Who?»
«Oh yes. How is she?»
«Asleep.»
«Brad, I wanted to make sure you weren't angry with me.»
«Why should I be?»
«And Brad. I wanted to say, just one more thing-I just wanted to say-whatever happens-I'm on your side.»
I stopped and looked at him and he smirked and bit his fat lower lip and the little eyes came questing slyly up. «In the coming-great-battle,» I said, «whatever it-may turn out-to be-thank you, Francis Marloe.»
«I'm very fond of you, Brad, you know that.»
«Bugger off.»
«What time is it?»
«Eleven-thirty.»
«You'll be glad to hear that I'm not coming round to see you.»
«But I'd love you to.»
«We are friends, aren't we?»
«No.»
«Yes?»
«How's-how's-Julian-today?»
«She's not-by any chance-going to come round here-to get her Hamlet-is she?»
«No. She seems to be off Hamlet today. She's down the road with a young couple who are digging a conversation pit in their garden playroom.»
«A conversation pit.»
«Oh. Ah well. I see. Tell her-No. Well-« you.
«Yes, of course.»
«Sorry to be so sort of-limp and wet-Thanks for listening I'll ring again-Bye-I forgot Rachel. I decided I would go out and buy Julian a present. I still felt ill and rather faint and given to fits of trembling. At the idea of buying the present a lot of trembling came on. Present-buying is a fairly universal symptom of love. It is certainly a sine qua non. (If you don't want to give her a present you don't love her.) It is I suppose a method of touching the beloved.
«Oh Brad. It's Chris.»
«Oh-Chris-hello, dear.»
«Today-yes-«Have you thought over my proposition?»
«What proposition?»
«No.»
«Why not?»
«But you can't play bridge.»
«I learnt in the thirty or so years of your absence. I had to pass the time somehow.»
«I'll come round to see Priscilla-this evening-probably-«O. K., I'll wait. Mind you come.»
«And God bless you, Chris, God bless you, dear, God bless you.»
It now seemed to me incredible that I could have had the nerve to leave the house that morning. Suppose she had telephoned, suppose she had come, when I was away? She could not spend the whole day digging a conversation pit, whatever that was. She would surely come round soon to get her Hamlet. How good it was that I had that hostage. After a while I moved back into the sitting-room and picked up the shabby little book and sat caressing it in Hart– bourne's armchair. My eyelids drooped and the material world grew dim and I waited.
The telephone rang and I ran to it, jolting the table and knocking the six volumes of Shakespeare off onto the floor.
«Oh God. It's you.»
«What's the matter?»
«Bradley, I hear-«
«What time is it?»
«Yes.»
«Well, could I see you after that? There's something important I want to tell you.»
«What?»
«What's a conversation pit?»
«What's the point of it?»
«It has no point.»
«Nothing. I'll read your books. I'll start to like them. Everything will be different.»
«Have you got softening of the brain?»
The telephone rang. I reached it. This time it was Julian.
«Oh Bradley, hello, it's me.»
«Bradley-sorry-it's me-you know, Julian Baffin.»
I said, «Hold on a minute, would you?» I covered the mouthpiece and closed my eyes tightly, groped for a chair, panting, trying to control my breath. In a few moments I said, coughing a little to disguise the tremor, «Sorry. The kettle was just boiling.»
«Not at all.»
«I just wondered if I could pick up my Hamlet whenever you've finished with it.»
«But there's no hurry at all-any time in the next fortnight would do. I'm not working on that at the moment. And there's one or two more questions I've thought of. If you like I could send them by post, and you could post me the book. I don't want to interrupt your work.»
«In the next-fortnight-«Or month. I may be going to the country actually. My school has still got the measles.»
«Fine. How about Thursday morning about ten?»
«Yes. That's-fine.»
«Wait a minute,» I said.
There was silence.
The restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower revolves very slowly. Slow as a dial hand. Majestic trope of lion-blunting time.
How swiftly did it move that night while London crept behind the beloved head? Was it quite immobile, made still by thought, a mere fantasy of motion in a world beyond duration? Or was it spinning like a top, whirling away into invisibility, and pinning me against the outer wall, kitten-limbed and crucified by centrifugal force?
To speak more crudely, what I experienced that evening on the Post Office Tower was a kind of blinding joy. It was as if stars were exploding in front of my eyes so that I literally could not see. Breathing was fast and difficult, not unpleasant. I was conscious of a certain satisfaction in being able to go on pumping myself full of oxygen. A quiet and perhaps outwardly imperceptible shuddering possessed my whole frame. My hands vibrated, my legs ached and throbbed, my knees were in the condition described by the Greek poetess. This dereglement was completed by a sense of giddiness produced by the sheer conception of being so high above the ground and yet still connected to it. Giddiness of this kind in any case locates itself in the genitals.
All this, and further hues and saturations of bliss which I cannot describe at all, I felt on that evening as I sat with Julian in the Post Office Tower restaurant. We talked, and our communion was so perfect that it might have been telepathic for all I could make out afterwards about how it actually occurred. The evening had darkened to an intense blue, but it was not yet night. The forms of London, some already chequered with yellow light, glided onward through a dim shimmering corpuscular haze. The Albert Hall, the Science Museums, Centre Point, the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Festival Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the Albert Memorial. The precious and beloved skyline of my own Jerusalem processed incessantly behind that dear mysterious head. Only the royal parks were already places of darkness, growing inkily purple with night-time and its silence.
«Bradley, I think it's swaying.»
«It can't be. I believe it does sway a little in the wind. But there's no wind tonight.»
«Well, there might be. Yes, I think it is swaying.» How could I tell? Everything was swaying.
Of course I had merely pretended to eat. I had drunk very little wine. Alcohol still seemed a complete irrelevancy. I was drunk with love. Julian had both eaten and drunk a good deal, indiscriminately praising everything that passed her lips. We had talked about the view, about her college, about her school with the measles, about how soon one could tell whether one was a poet, about whether the novel, about why the theatre. I had never talked so easily to anyone. Oh blessed weightlessness, oh blessed space.
«Forget it. No high theory about Shakespeare is any good, not because he's so divine but because he's so human. Even great art is jumble in the end.»
«So the critics are just stupid?»
«Like you now trying to like what my father writes?»
«That's more special. I feel I've been unjust. He has huge vitality and he tells a good story. Stories are art too, you know.»
«So young and so untender.»
«So young, my lord, but true.»
«Bradley, you aren't listening.»
She constantly used my name. I could not use hers. She had no name.
What I wanted to do was to kiss her in the lift going down should we chance to have that momentary love nest to ourselves. But of course that was out of the question. There must be no, absolutely no, show of marked interest. She had, as young people with their charming egoism and their impromptu modes so felicitously do, taken it quite calmly for granted that I should suddenly have felt like dining on the Post Office Tower and should, since she had happened to ring up, have happened to ask her to come too.
«No. I shouldn't bother.»
«Yes.»
«Yes, I wouldn't?»
«What?»
«I'm quoting again. Never mind.»
«Good.» I asked for the bill. I did not want to ruin what was perfect by any hint of anxious hanging-on. An overstayed welcome would have been torture afterwards. I did not want to see her looking at her watch.
She looked at her watch. «Oh dear, I must go soon.»
We had the lift to ourselves going down. I did not kiss her. I did not suggest that she should come back to my flat. Ao we walked along Goodge Street I did not touch her, even «accidentally.» I was beginning to wonder how in the world it would be possible to part from her.
«Well, then-Well, then-«
«Oh, I quite forgot to bring your Hamlet.» I had of course done no such thing.
«Never mind, I'll get it another time. Good night, Bradley, and thanks.»
«Won't you-Shall we fix a time for you to come-You said you had some-I'm so often out-Or shall I-Will you-«I'll ring you. Good night, and thank you so much.»
It was now or never. With a sense of moving very slowly, of executing some sort of precise figure in a minuet, I stepped a little in front of Julian, who was turning away, took her left wrist lightly in my right hand, thereby halting her, and then leaned down and pressed my judiciously parted lips against her cheek. The effect could not be casual. I straightened up and we stood for a moment looking at each other.
«Yes, of course.» I would go to hell with her, and even to Covent Garden.
«It's Rosenkavalier. Next Wednesday. Meet in the foyer about half past six. I've got quite good tickets. Septimus Leech got us two, only now he can't come.»
«Oh he's my new boy friend. Good night, Bradley.»
She was gone. I stood there dazed in the lamplight among the hurrying ghosts. And I felt as a man might feel who, with a whole skin on him and a square meal inside him, sits in a cell having just been captured by the secret police.
On the second day I began to need her, though even «anxiety» would be too gross a word for that delicate silken magnetic tug, as it manifested itself at any rate initially. Self was reviving. On the first day Julian had been everywhere. On the second day she was, yes, somewhere, located vaguely, not yet dreadfully required, but needed. She was, on the second day, absent. This inspired the small craving for strategy, a little questing desire to make plans. The future, formerly blotted out by an excess of light, reappeared. There were once more vistas, hypotheses, possibilities. But joy and gratitude still lightened the world and made possible a gentle concern with other people, other things. I wonder how long a man could remain in that first phase of love? Much longer than I did, no doubt, but surely not indefinitely. The second phase, I am sure, given favouring conditions, could continue much longer. (But again, not indefinitely. Love is history, is dialectic, it must move.) As it is, I lived in hours what another man might have lived in years.
The transformation of my beatitude could, as that second day wore on, be measured by a literally physical sense of strain, as if magnetic rays or even ropes or chains were delicately plucking, then tugging, then dragging. Physical desire had of course been with me from the first, but earlier it had been, though perceptually localized, metaphysically diffused into a general glory. Sex is our great connection with the world, and at its most felicitous and spiritual it is no servitude since it informs everything and enables us to inhabit and enjoy all that we touch and look upon. At other times it settles in the body like a toad. It becomes a drag, a weight: not necessarily for this reason unwelcome. We may love our chains and our stripes too. By the time Julian telephoned I was in deep anxiety and yearning but not in hell. I could not then willingly have put off seeing her, the craving was too acute. But I was able, when I was with her, to be perfectly happy. I did not expect the inferno.
There were no tears now. I lay in bed in an electric storm of physical desire. I tossed and panted and groaned as if I were wrestling with a palpable demon. The fact that I had actually touched her, kissed her, grew (I am sorry about these metaphors) into a sort of mountain which kept falling on top of me. I felt her flesh upon my lips. Phantoms were bred from this touch. I felt like a grotesque condemned excluded monster. How could it be that I had actually kissed her cheek without enveloping her, without becoming her? How could I at that moment have refrained from kneeling at her feet and howling?
I got up but was suffering such extreme local discomfort that I could hardly get dressed. I started making tea, but its smell sickened me. I drank a little whisky in a glass of water and began to feel very ill. I could not stand still but wandered distractedly and rapidly about the flat, rubbing against the furniture as a tiger in a cage endlessly brushes its bars. I had ceased groaning and was now hissing. I tried to compose a few thoughts about the future. Should I kill myself? Should I go at once to Patara and barricade myself in and blow my mind with alcohol? Run, run, run. But I could not compose thoughts. All that concerned me was finding some way of getting through these present minutes of pain.
The idea that one recovers from being in love is, of course, by definition (by my definition anyway) excluded from the state of love. Besides, one does not always recover. And certainly no such banal would-be comfort could have existed for a second in the scorching atmosphere of my mind at that time. As I said earlier, I knew that I was completely done for. There was no ray of light, no comfort at all. Though I will now also mention something which dawned upon me later. There was of course no question now of writing, of «sublimating» it all (ridiculous expression). But the sense remained that this was my destiny, that this was… the work of… the same power. And to be pinned down by that power, even liver, was to be in some terrible sense in one's own place.
To speak of matters which are less obscure, I soon of course decided that I could not «run.» I could not go away to the country. I had to see Julian again, I had to wait through those awful days until the appointment at Covent Garden. Of course I wanted to ring her up at once and ask her to see me. But I somehow kept blindly thrusting this temptation away. I would not let my life degenerate into madness. Better to be alone with him and to suffer than to pull it all down into some sort of yelling chaos. Silence, though now with a different and utterly unconsoling sense, was my only task.
I went back into the sitting-room and he followed me, already staring at me with surprise. I sat down and started rubbing my eyes and my brow, breathing heavily.
«What's the matter, Brad?»
«I say, there's some whisky. I didn't know you had any. You must have hidden it jolly well. May I have some?»
«Yes.»
«Yes.»
Francis was putting a glass into my hand. «Are you ill?»
«What's the matter?»
I drank some whisky and choked a bit. I felt extremely sick and also unable to distinguish physical from mental pain.
«Why? Where?»
«You said you'd come to see Priscilla.»
«We rang up here.»
«I was out to dinner.»
«Yes.»
«Arnold was there till after eleven. He wanted to see you about something. He was in a bit of a state.»
«Much the same. Chris wants to know if you'd mind if she had de^1^"treatment-«
«You mean you don't mind? You know it destroys cells in the brain?»
«On the other hand-'
«I ought to see Priscilla,» I said, I think, aloud. But I knew that I just couldn't. I had not got a grain of spirit to offer to any other person. I could not expose myself in my present condition to that poor rapacious craving consciousness.
Electric shocks. They batter the brain cage. Like hitting the wireless, they say, to make it go. I must pull myself together. Priscilla.
«We must go-into it-« I said.
«Nothing. Destruction of cells in the brain.»
«Are you ill?»
«What is it?»
«I'm in love.»
«Julian Baffin.»
I had not intended to tell him. It was something to do with Pris– cilla that I did. The pity of it. And then a sense of being battered beyond caring.
«Yes.»
«Have you told her?»
«I don't see that that decides anything much,» said Francis. «Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that. Can I have some more whisky?»
«You don't understand,» I said. «I can't-before that-young girl-make a display of feelings such as I-feel. It would appal her. And as I can envisage-no possible relationship with her of that kind-«
«Don't talk such utter-It's a question of morals and of-everything. She cannot possibly feel-for me-almost an old man-it would just disgust her-she simply wouldn't want to see me again.»
«There's a lot of assumptions there. As for morals, well maybe, though I don't know. Everything is another matter, especially these days. But will you enjoy going on and on meeting her and keeping your mouth shut?»
«Well, then. Sorry to be so simple-minded. Hadn't you better start pulling out?»
«You've obviously never been in love.»
«Cut and run. Go to Spain or something.»
«I can't. I'm seeing her on Wednesday. We're going to the opera. Oh Christ.»
«You could do it with a sort of light touch-«There's a dignity and a power in silence.»
«Silence?» said Francis. «You've broken that already.»
«Of course I won't tell anybody,» said Francis. «But why after all did you tell me? You didn't intend to and you'll regret it. You'll probably hate me for it. But please, please don't if you can. You told me because you were frantic, because you felt an irresistible nervous urge. You'll tell her, sooner or later, for the same reason.»
«Never.»
«Laugh?»
«Young people can't take too seriously the feelings of oldies like us. She'll be rather touched, but she'll regard it as an absurd infatuation. She'll be amused, fascinated. It'll make her day.»
«Brad, you are cross with me, don't be, it wasn't my fault you told me.»
«Get out.»
«Do anything you think fit. I leave it to you.»
«Aren't you coming over to see her?»
Francis got as far as the door. I was still sitting and rubbing my eyes. Francis's funny bear face was all creased up with anxiety and concern and he suddenly resembled his sister, when she had become so absurd, looking at me tenderly in the indigo dark of our old drawing-room.
«Brad, why don't you make a thing of Priscilla?»
«Make her your life-line. Go all out to help her. Really make a job of it. Take your mind off this.»
«You don't know what this is like.»
«You vile-thing-Oh why did I tell you, why did I tell you, I must have been insane-«Well, I'll keep mum. All right, all right, I'm going.»
When he was gone I simply ran berserk round the house. Why oh why oh why had I broken my silence. I had given away my only treasure and I had given it to a fool. Not that I was concerned about whether Francis would betray me. Some much more frightening thing had been added to my pain. In my chess game with the dark lord I had made perhaps a fatally wrong move.
«Bradley, what's the matter?»
«Nothing.»
«Were you talking?»
«I was asking you if you knew the story.»
«Of Rosenkavalier.»
«Of course I don't know the story of Rosenkavalier.»
«Oh well, it's quite simple really, it's about this young man, Octavian, and the Marschallin loves him, and they're lovers, only she's much older than he is and she's afraid she'll lose him because he's bound to fall in love with somebody his own age-«How old is he and how old is she?»
«Oh, I suppose he's about twenty and she's about thirty.»
«Enough.»
«Don't you want to know what happens next?»
At that moment there was a pattering noise of clapping, rising to a rattling crescendo, the deadly sound of a dry sea, the light banging of many bones in a tempest.
The stars faded and the red torches began to dim and a terrifying packed silence slowly fell as the conductor lifted up his rod. Silence. Darkness. Then a rush of wind and a flurry of sweet pulsating anguish has been set free to stream through the dark. I closed my eyes and bowed my head before it. Could I transform all this extraneous sweetness into a river of pure love? Or would I be somehow undone by it, choked, dismembered, disgraced? I felt now almost at once a pang of relief as, after the first few moments, tears began to flow freely out of my eyes. The gift of tears which had been given and then withdrawn again had come back to bless me. I wept with a marvellous facility, quietly relaxing my arm and my leg. Perhaps if I wept copiously throughout I could bear it after all. I was not listening to the music, I was undergoing it, and the full yearning of my heart was flowing automatically out of my eyes and soaking my waistcoat, as I hung, so easily now, together with Julian, fluttering, hovering like a double hawk, like a double angel, in the dark void pierced by sorties of fire. I only wondered if it would soon prove impossible to cry quietly, and whether I should then begin to sob.
I became aware that I had uttered a sort of moan, because the man on my other side, whom I noticed now for the first time, turned and stared at me. At the same moment my stomach seemed to come sliding down from somewhere else and then quickly arched itself up again and I felt a quick bitter taste in my mouth. I murmured «Sorry!» quickly in Julian's direction and got up. There was a soft awkward scraping at the end of the row as six people rose hastily to let me out. I blundered by, slipped on some steps, the terrible relentless sweet sound still gripping my shoulders with its talons. Then I was pushing my way underneath the illuminated sign marked exit and out into the brightly lit and completely empty and suddenly silent foyer. I walked fast. I was definitely going to be sick.
Selection of a place to be sick in is always a matter of personal importance and can add an extra tormenting dimension to the graceless horror of vomiting. Not on the carpet, not on the table, not over your hostess's dress. I did not want to be sick within the precincts of the Royal Opera House, nor was I. I emerged into a deserted shabby street and a pungent spicy smell of early dusk. The pillars of the Opera House, blazing a pale gold behind me, seemed in that squalid place like the portico of a ruined or perhaps imagined or perhaps magically fabricated palace, the green and white arcades of the foreign fruit market, looking like something out of the Italian Renaissance, actually clinging to its side. I turned a corner and confronted an array of about a thousand peaches in tiers of boxes behind a lattice grille. I carefully took hold of the grille with one hand and leaned well forward and was sick.
I became aware that someone was standing beside me. Julian said, «How are you feeling now, Bradley?»
I began to walk away from her, fumbling for my handkerchief. I wiped my mouth carefully, trying to cleanse it within with saliva.
Julian was following me. I could hear the soft tap-tap of her shoes on the sticky pavement and my whole body apprehended her presence behind me.
«Bradley, would you like some coffee? There's a stall there.»
«Let's sit down somewhere.»
«Nowhere to sit.»
Opposite to us the big derelict eastern portico of Inigo Jones's church was now in view, cluttered up with barrows and housing at the far end the coffee stall referred to by Julian. Some mean and casual lamplight, itself seeming dirty, revealed the thick pillars, a few lounging market men, a large pile of vegetable refuse and disinte– rating cardboard boxes. It was like a scene in some small battered Italian city, rendered by Hogarth.
Julian seated herself on the plinth of one of the pillars at the lark end of the portico, and I sat down next to her, or as near next to her as the bulge of the column would allow. I could feel the thick filth and muck of London under my feet, under my bottom, behind my back. I saw, in a diagonal of dim light, Julian's silk dress hitched up, her tights, smoky blue, coloured by the flesh within, her shoes, also blue, against which I had so cautiously placed my own.
«I'm sorry.»
«Was it the music?»
We were silent then for what seemed ages. I sighed and leaned back against the pillar and felt a few more tears, late-comers to the scene, quiet and gentle, come slowly brimming up and overflowing. I contemplated Julian's blue shoes.
Then Julian said, «How me?»
Julian whistled. No, this does not quite convey the sound she made. She let her breath out thoughtfully, judiciously.
After a while she said, «I thought perhaps you were.»
«The way you kissed me last week.»
«Oh really. Well, I'm sorry. Now I think I'd better go home. I'll be leaving London tomorrow. I'm very sorry to have spoilt your evening. I hope you'll excuse my animal behaviour. I hope you haven't dirtied your pretty dress. Good night.» I actually got up. I felt quite empty and light, able to walk. First the flesh, then the spirit. I started to walk away in the direction of Henrietta Street.
«Come back. Please.»
I came back. I sat down again and covered my face. Then I felt Julian's hand trying to come through the crook of my arm. I shook her off again. I felt determined and violent, as if at that moment I hated her and could kill her.
«Don't try to touch me,» I said.
«All right, I won't. But please talk.»
«Bradley, listen, listen. I'm not good at explaining or arguing but – You see, you can't just unload all this onto me and then run off. It isn't fair. You must see that.»
«I'm beyond fairness,» I said. «I just want to survive. I'm sure you feel a curiosity which it is natural to try to gratify. Even perhaps politeness suggests that one should be a little less abrupt. But I honestly don't care a hang about considering your feelings and all that. It's possibly the worst thing I've ever done. But now it's done there's little point in lingering over a post-mortem, however much satisfaction you might derive from it.»
The question had a striking simplicity. I was clear about the answer. «No. It's all spoilt. I endlessly imagined talking to you about it, but that just belonged to the fantasy world. I can't talk love to you in the real world. The real world rejects it. It's not that it would be a crime so much as-absurd. I feel quite cold and-dry. What do you want? To hear me praise your eyes?»
«Has telling your love-made your love-end?»
«I-Bradley, don't go-I must-oh help me-find the right words-This is important-And it concerns me-You talk as if there was nobody here but you.»
«There is nobody here but me,» I said. «You're just something in my dream.»
«Suffer? You?» I got up with a sort of laugh and set off again. This time before I could take more than a step or two Julian, still sitting down, had managed to capture one of my hands in two of hers. I looked down into her face. I willed to pull my hand from her, but somewhere between the brain and the hand the message got lost. I stood looking down into her urgent face which seemed to have hardened and aged. She gazed at me, not tenderly but frowning with intent, the eyes narrowed into thin questioning rectangles, the lips parted, the nose wrinkled with some sort of delicate fastidious doubt. She said, «Sit down, please.» I sat down, and she released my hand.
We looked at each other. «Bradley, you can't go.»
«This isn't cruelty. There's something I've got to understand. You say you're just concerned with yourself. All right. I'm just concerned with myself. And you did start it. You can't just stop it now when you decide to. I'm an equal partner in this game.»
«I hope you are enjoying the game. It must be pleasant to feel blood on your claws. It'll give you something nice to think about when you lie in bed tonight.»
«All right, I dare say I can trust your discretion. But I must now ask you to release me from this unkind and unseemly inquisition.»
Julian said, after another short pause, «So you're going away tomorrow? Where to?»
«And what am I supposed to do? Just lock this evening away and forget about it?»
«Yes.»
«You know perfectly well what I mean.»
«I see. And how long will it take you to get over this, as you put it, unfortunate infatuation?»
«Suppose I say you just want to go to bed with me?»
«Suppose you say it.»
«Not now.»
«Because you've spoilt all the fantasy fun of your love by bringing it out into the real world?»
«Bradley, may I touch you?»
«No. Please go away. If you pity me at all, go away.»
«You say you aren't thinking about me. Indeed you aren't!»
«What's that bloody smell? What's in those boxes?»
«Strawberries!» The smell of youthful illusion and feverish transient joy.
«You say you love me, but you aren't interested in me in the least.»
«You evidently don't think at all that I might return your affection.»
«Nope. What?»
«Don't be silly,» I said. «You're being childish.» Pigeons, unsure whether it was day or night, were walking about near our feet. I looked at the pigeons.
«Your love must be very-what's the word-solipsistic if you don't even imagine or speculate about what I might feel.»
«Then you oughtn't to have told me about it.»
«We agree on that.»
«I'm not going to get excited about what you feel,» I said. «You're a very silly young girl. You're flattered and thrilled because an older man is making a fool of himself about you. Possibly this is the first time this has happened to you, and doubtless it won't be the last. Of course you want to explore the situation a bit, probe your feelings, fake up a few emotions. That's no use to me. And of course I realize that you'd have to be a good deal older and tougher and cooler than you are to be able to drop this thing at once as you ought to do. So you can't do what you ought to do any more than I can. What a pity. Now let's get away from these blasted strawberries. I'm going home.»
«Bradley, how old are you?»
Why I told this lie is hard to explain. Partly it was just a bitter joke. I was so absorbed in prophetic calculation of this evening's damage, of how much more awful the pains of loss and jealousy and despair would now be; to be asked my age was somehow the last straw, the last dash of salt upon the wound. One could only jest. Anyway surely the girl knew my age. Also however in another part of my mind was the idea: I am not «really» fifty-eight, how can I be. I feel young, I look young. There was an immediate instinct for concealment. I was in fact about to say forty-eight, and then hopped onto forty-six. That seemed a reasonable age, acceptable, right.
Julian was silent for a moment. She seemed surprised. We turned into Bedford Street. Then she said, «Oh, then you are a little older than my father. I thought you were younger.»
«Bradley, don't laugh in that horrible way, what is it? Please let us stop and talk, I must talk to you properly tonight.»
«All right, let us stop and talk.»
«Inigo Jones giving us another chance.»
«No one has ever been sick for me before,» said Julian.
«Good old Strauss.»
I was sitting Egyptian style, square, with my hands on my knees, looking away into the darkness where the shadow-cat had made himself a play-fellow out of the stuff of the night. A warm hand came questing lightly over my tensed knuckles. «Don't, Julian. I really am going in a minute. Please try to make it easy.»
«I may behave like a fool, but that's no reason for you to behave like a bloody bitch.»
«To a nunnery go and quickly too. Farewell.»
«I won't be silent and I will touch.» She put her tormenting hand upon my arm again.
I said, «You are behaving-so badly-I wouldn't have-believed-you could be so-frivolously-unkind.»
There are moments of paradise which are worth millennia of hell, or so one may think, only one is not always fully conscious of this at the moment in question. I was fully conscious. I knew that even if the ruin of the world were to ensue I had made a good bargain. I had imagined kissing Julian, but I had not prefigured this concentrated intensity of pure joy, this sudden white-hot rapturous pressure of lips upon lips, being upon being.
I was so utterly transported by the quite unexpected experience of holding and kissing her that it was only, I think, in some secondary moment inside this moment that I became aware that she was also holding and kissing me. Both her arms were round my neck and her lips were ardent and her eyes were closed.
«Don't talk lying rubbish.»
«What am I to do? You won't listen properly. You think I'm a child, you think I'm playing, it's not so. Of course I'm confused. I've known you such a long time, all my life. I've always loved you. Please don't interrupt. Oh if you only knew how much I always looked forward to your coming, wanted to talk to you, wanted to tell you things. You never noticed, but lots and lots of things weren't real to me at all until I'd told you about them. If you only knew how much I've always admired you. When I was a child I used to say I wanted to marry you. Do you remember? I'm sure you don't. You've been my ideal man for ever and ever. And this isn't just a silly child's thing, it isn't even a sort of crush, it's a deep real love. Of course it's a love I've not questioned or thought about or even named until quite lately-but I have questioned it and thought about it-as soon as I felt and knew that I was grown up. You see, my love has grown up too. I've so much wanted to be with you, I've so much wanted to get to know you properly, since I've been a woman. Why do you think I made all that fuss about discussing the play? I did want to discuss the play. But I much more wanted and needed your affection and your attention. God, I wanted just to look at you. You can't think how I've longed to touch you and kiss you sometimes in these last, oh years, only I didn't dare to and thought I never would. And lately, oh ever since that day you saw me tearing up the letters, I've been thinking about you almost all the time-and so especially since last week when I-when I had a sort of premonition about-what you told me tonight-I've thought about nothing else but you.»
«Who?»
«Septimus. Septimus Leech. Your boy friend. Haven't you been able to spare a couple of minutes to think about him?»
I said, «I see.» I got up lightly and quickly and made for the gateway. I turned along Bedford Street in the direction of Leicester Square station. As I crossed into Garrick Street, Julian, walking beside me, thrust her left hand into my right hand. With my left hand I carefully detached hers and dropped it again by her side. We walked on in silence as far as the corner of St. Martin's Lane.
Then Julian said, «I see that you're determined not to believe or attend to anything that I say. You seem to think that I'm still about twelve.»
«God, Bradley, I do love you.»
«That's very kind of you.»
«I am not accusing you of insincerity. Just of not having the faintest idea what you are talking about. You admitted to being confused.»
«Did I?»
«Was that kiss I gave you muddled and unclear?» said Julian.
«You're going home by train,» I said. «I'll say good night now.»
«You don't know what you said. Tomorrow it will seem a bad dream.»
«We'll see about that! At least you've talked to me, you've argued.»
«Look, I don't have to go now.»
«Yes, you do. It's finished.»
«I won't-leave London,» I said.
«You'll see me tomorrow?»
«I'll ring up about ten.»
«Good night.»
I slept, I suppose. I kept being nudged awake by a sort of bliss and then sinking again. My body ached with a painful delightful sensation of desire and gratified desire, somehow merged into a single mode of being. I groaned softly over myself. I was made of something else, something delicious, in which consciousness throbbed in a warm daze. I was made of honey and fudge and marzipan, and at the same time I was made of steel. I was a steel wire vibrating quietly in the midst of blue emptiness. These words do not of course convey my sensations, no words could. I did not think. I was. In so far as any stray thoughts attempted to intrude into this heaven I sent them packing.
I rose early and shaved with majestic slowness and dressed with indulgent care and spent a long time inspecting myself in the mirror. I looked about thirty-five. Well, forty. My recent regime had made me even thinner and this suited me. Faded silky grey-blond hair, straight and quite a lot of it, a large-nostrilled bony nose, not unsightly, granity blue-grey eyes, good cheekbones, a large brow, a thin mouth: an intellectual's face. The face, too, of a puritan. What of him?
I could mainly congratulate myself on having been fairly cool last night. It is true that I had been sick at her feet and had told her that I loved her in accents which, I noted, had conveyed the gravity of the situation to her at once. But after that I had behaved with dignity. (Which of course I had been enabled to do partly by the intense cozening delight of her presence.) I could not accuse myself of having then hustled her in any way. But what, oh what, was she feeling about it all by now? Suppose when she telephoned she said coldly that after all she agreed that the matter had best be dropped? I had exhorted her to be adult enough to let go. Perhaps maturer reflection had already made her see the point of this good advice. What had her speech about «love» meant? Did she know what she was talking about? Was it not just a rigmarole which she had invented because she was touched and flattered and excited by my exhibition? Would she draw back? Or if it were the case that she really loved me, what on earth would happen next? But I did not really wonder about what would happen next. If she really loved me it did not matter what happened next.
At about nine o'clock the front doorbell rang. I crept out and peered at the frosted-glass panel. It was Julian. With a quick small effort of self-control I opened the door. She flew in. I managed to kick the door to before sne pulled me into the sitting-room. She had her arms round my neck and I held her in a sort of vivid darkness and then my chattering teeth had become a laughing and crying act, and she was laughing and shuddering too and we had sat down on the floor.
«Don't be a fool, girl– oh-Oh-You're here-you're here-«Bradley, I do loVe you, I do, it's the real thing. I realized it for absolute certain last night after I left you. I haven't slept, I've been in a sort of mad irHnce– This is it. I've never had it before. One can't be in doubt, cgt;n one?»
«No,» I said. «One can't. If there is any doubt it's not it.»
«What about Mr. Belling?»
«Oh Bradley, don't torment me with Mr. Belling. That was just a nervous craving H? doesn't exist, nothing exists but this-surely you see Besides l*e had no real feelings, no strength, not like you-«I've impressed y
«I love you. I fe^l shattered but at the same time I feel quite calm Doesn't that show that something extraordinary has happened that calm? I fee^ like an archangel. I can talk to you, I can convince you, you'll see everything. There's plenty of time after all, isn't there, Bradley?
Her question, which was really an assertion, touched me in the midst of my joy with a coldish finger. Time, plans, the future. «Yes, my darling, there's plenty of time.»
«You've got such a beautiful head.»
«I thrust it through the curtains of your cradle.»
«I'd lay it under the wheels of your car.»
«I wish I could remember when I first saw you!»
«When did you first start feeling like this about me? We can talk about that now can't we?»
«We can talk about that now. I think it came on when we were discussing Hamlet.»
«I know-«One can't calculate, measure. But-oh my dear-we are in a fix, aren't we. Come here.» I drew her to me and got her liony head up against my chest.
«I don't see any fix about it,» she said into my clean blue pinstriped shirt, of which she was undoing the upper buttons. «Of course we must move very slowly and test ourselves against time and-not be in a hurry to do-anything-«I agree,» I said, «that we should not be in a hurry to do-anything.» She was not making it easy, however, thrusting her hand inside my shirt, and sighing, and grasping the curly grey hair of my front.
«No, Julian, my dear heart.»
«I have to touch you. It's so marvellous, such a sort of privilege-«
«What words?»
» 'Love,'
«I think that's silly. But while we've got eyes I suppose we can give words a rest. Look. Can't you see what you won't name?»
«Please. I honestly think we shouldn't define this thing at all. We must just be quiet and patient and see what happens.»
«I'm terrified.»
«I'm not. I've never felt braver in my life. What are you afraid of? And why did you say we were in a fix? What fix are we in?»
«Oh that. That's simply a convention. It doesn't touch us at all.»
«It does touch us,» I said. I felt its touch.
I hesitated. «Yes.» There was much that I would have some day to lay before her. But not today.
«It's not-«Oh Julian, you don't know me, you don't know me-«It's not Christian?»
«Thank heaven. You know, Bradley, when I heard my father talking about bringing you and Christian together I felt such a pang-and that was before-perhaps that began to make me realize how I really felt about you-«Like Emma and Mr. Knightly.»
«A pillar in the desert.»
«No, no, Chris is a nice person and I don't even hate her any more, but she's nothing to me. You have let me out of so many cages. I'll tell you-later-in the time-that we've got.»
«Well, if it's not that, the age business doesn't matter a pin, lots of girls prefer older men. So everything's quite clear and plain. I didn't say anything to my parents last night or this morning, as I wanted to be sure you hadn't changed. But I'll tell them today-«Wait a minute! What'll you say to them?»
«Julian! It's impossible! Julian, I'm older than you think-«Older than the rocks among which you sit. Yes, yes, we know that!»
«It's impossible.»
«No-I really love you-«Isn't that something forever?»
«Yes. Real love is about forever-and this is real love-but-«But what?»
«Julian, I think we must keep this thing secret for a while «Why?»
» «Because you may change your mind.»
«I won't. But you don't know me, you can't. And I'm more than old enough to be your father.»
«Do you think I care-?»
«Bradley, that's soft.»
«I'd very much rather you didn't tell your parents at present.»
The shadow between us was unbearable to me. If I was embarked upon this thing let me be embarked. I would have to trust myself completely to her sense of truth, even to her naivety, even to her inexperience, even to her foolishness. I said, «My perfect darling, you, must do whatever you feel is right to do. I leave it entirely to you. I love you absolutely and I trust you absolutely and what will be will be.»
«You think the parents won't like it?»
After that we talked a bit more about Christian and about my marriage and about Priscilla. We talked about Julian's childhood and the times when we had been together. We talked about when I might have started to love her, and about when she might have started to love me. We did not talk about the future. We continued to sit upon the floor like shy animals, like children, stroking each other's hands and each other's hair. We kissed, not often. I sent her away about midday. I felt we should not exhaust each other. We needed to brood and to recover. Of course there was no question of going to bed.
«You don't quite understand,» I said. «I am not proposing to go away.»
«What do you propose to do then?» said Arnold.
He had telephoned. Then he and Rachel had arrived. They had, there is no other word for it, marched in. Their presence was like that of an occupying army. To confront familiar people who are suddenly unsmiling and tense with anger and shock is very frightening. I felt frightened. I knew they would «hate it.» But I had not expected this big united hostile will. Their sheer incredulity, feigned or otherwise, silenced me, put me to flight. I could explain nothing and felt that I was creating some entirely false impression.
«To stay here,» I said, «see a bit of the girl, I suppose-«You mean lead her on?» said Rachel.
«To act naturally, get to know her better-After all we-love each other, it appears-and-«Bradley, get back to reality,» said Arnold. «Stop blithering. You're in some sort of dream world at the moment. You're nearly sixty. Julian is twenty. She said at the start that you'd told her your age and that she didn't mind, but you can't mean to take advantage of a sentimental schoolgirl who is flattered by your attentions-«She's not a schoolgirl,» I said.
«I am not taking her in! I've told her that the age difference makes this thing practically impossible-«It makes it entirely impossible,» said Arnold.
«She said the most extraordinary things this afternoon,» said Rachel. «I can't think what you can have been saying to her.»
«So you suggested that she should deceive her parents?»
«No, no, not like that-«I can't make out what has happened,» said Rachel. «Did you suddenly feel this-urge or whatever it was-and then go and tell her that you found her attractive, and then make a pass at her, or what? What has happened exactly? This must be fairly new?»
«But you said she was upset-«We told her it was a bad joke.»
I thought, My darling, I trust you, I trust you, and I know. I will keep faith with your faith. But at the same time I felt pain and fright. Could I, after what had happened, now doubt it all? She was so very young. And it was indeed, as they said, something very new in the world. When I thought how new I was amazed at the degree of my certainty. But there, above the doubt, was the certainty.
«I don't know what we shall do,» I said. «I agree that the whole thing is fantastic. It's almost too good to be true that Julian should love me. It may even not be true. It has surprised me very much indeed. But I am certainly not going now to let the matter drop. I am not going to go quietly away as you suggested earlier, I am not going to stop seeing Julian, I can't. I must find out whether she really loves me or not. Though what follows if she does I don't know at all, perhaps nothing. All this is extremely unusual and may turn out to be very painful, especially to me. I don't want to cause her pain. I don't think I can do her harm. But at this particular point we can't either of us stop. That's all.»
«She can stop and she will,» said Arnold. «Even if I have to lock her in her bedroom.»
«Oh Christ, Christ,» said Arnold, «of course he hasn't, he's not a criminal.»
«No, I haven't.»
«Rachel, I don't know! Please realize that you are talking to a mad person.»
«So you actually admit to being irrational and irresponsible and dangerous!»
There was a moment's silence after this speech. I stared at Arnold. He had been sitting very still, speaking quietly but with a spitting staccato emphasis and with that sort of «edge» to the voice which is intended to terrify. His face under his pale hair was flushed bright pink like a girl's. I tried to check my fear with anger, but could not. I said in a small voice, «Your eloquence suggests to me that Julian did after all convince you both that she was in love.»
«She doesn't know what she feels-«
«Yes, you have,» said Rachel. «You spoke to her about your feelings.»
«All right. I shouldn't have. But to love somebody isn't a sin, there's good in this, we'll find a way to make it-all good-I won't bother her-if you like I won't see her for a week-let her think things over-«It won't do,» said Arnold, more gently. «Any sort of half-measures will only make things worse. You must see that, Bradley. Christ, you don't want a mess any more than we do. You must go away. If you see her you'll just make more drama. Best thing for all is stop, absolutely, now. Do see it. Sorry.»
Rachel passed me and as she did so she shrank from me and her mouth gave a little wince of disgust. She said tonelessly, «I want you to know, Bradley, that Arnold and I are entirely united in this matter.»
«Forgive me, Rachel.»
Arnold came back. He said, «There's no need just now to act on the letter I sent you. Could I have it back?»
«I've destroyed it.»
«Well. I will not allow any harm to my daughter. Be sure of that. Be-warned.»
He went out, closing the front door softly. I was panting with emotion. I ran to the telephone and dialled the Ealing number. There was a pause and then the high buzz of «number unobtainable.» I dialled several times, with the same result. I felt as if I had been cut off by an axe at the knees. I held my head in a violent grip, trying to compose myself and think. The urgency of the need to see Julian seethed all round me, blotting out my vision. I was being blinded and stung to death by bees. I was suffocating. I ran out into the court and began to walk at random along Charlotte Street, then along Windmill Street, then along Tottenham Court Road. After a while it began to seem probable that if I did not take some violent and decisive action soon I would collapse. I hailed a taxi and told the man to drive to Ealing.
The evening was overcast, the dour thick light turning a little purple, the air warm and motionless. I could smell dust, as if the quiet tedious streets all around me had dissolved into endless dunes of dust. I thought about this morning and how we had seemed to have all the time in the world. And now there seemed to be no more time. I also thought that if only I had had the wit to take that taxi at once I might have arrived here before Arnold and Rachel. What was happening? I crossed the road and began to walk slowly down on the other side.
I stood now upon the opposite pavement and regarded the house and wondered what to do. I considered the idea of hanging around until three o'clock in the morning and then penetrating into the garden and using one of Arnold's ladders to climb up to Julian's window. But I did not want to become a nightmare figure to her, a night intruder, a secret man. The greatness of this morning had been its lucid openness. This morning I had felt like a cave-dweller emerging into the sun. She was the truth of my life. I would not become a sort of burglar or pickpocket in hers. Besides. There were so many unknown things. What was she thinking now?
After about five minutes Arnold came out. I recognized his figure though I could not see his face. I began to walk back up the road toward the copper beech and he followed, then walked beside me in silence. A close-by lamp-post was illuminating one side of the tree, making the leaves a transparent glowing winy purple, and separating them out with clear shadows, each from each. We stepped into the rich gathered darkness underneath the tree, trying to see each other's faces.
Arnold said, «I'm sorry I got so excited.»
«Everything's got much clearer now.»
«Good.»
«So 'm I.»
«I hadn't realized how little had happened.»
«I mean, I hadn't got the time scheme. I somehow gathered from what Julian said this afternoon that this whatever it is had been going on for some time. But now I understand it's only been going on since yesterday evening.»
«A lot has happened since yesterday evening,» I said. «You should understand, you seem to have been fairly busy lately yourself.»
«I see you're playing it differently now,» I said.
«What?»
«Now Julian has explained everything to us and it's all perfectly clear.»
«And what does it look like?»
«I don't believe you. But go on.»
«And of course she was flattered-«What's she doing now?»
«Christ.»
«But don't worry about her, Bradley.»
«I wanted to explain-She has now told us everything, and we can see that this is really nothing at all, just a storm in a teacup, and she agrees.»
«Does she?»
«Arnold, did she really say this?»
' «Yes.
«Yes.»
I let go of him, and we both moved instinctively back into the shadow. His face leered at me, twisted up with will and anxiety and deep intention. It was not the pink angry hostile face of earlier. It was a hard determined face which told me nothing.
«Yes, and it will be most considerate of you to sheer off. Be kind to the child. Let her recover her dignity. Dignity matters so much to a young girl. She feels she's lost face by taking it all so seriously and she feels she's made a bit of an exhibition of herself. If you saw her now she'd just giggle and blush and feel sorry for you and ashamed of herself. She sees now it was silly to take it all so seriously and make a drama of it. She admits that she was flattered, it turned her head a bit, and it was an exciting surprise. But when she saw we weren't amused she sobered up. She understands now that it's all an impossible nonsense, well, she understands, in practical matters she's an intelligent girl. Do use enough imagination to see how she must feel now! She's not such a fool as to imagine you're suffering from any great passion either. She says she's very sorry and will you please not try to see her for a while yet. It's better to have a bit of an interval. We're going on holiday soon anyway, the day after tomorrow, in fact. I've decided to take her to Venice. She's always wanted to go. We've been to Rome and Florence, but never there, and she's got a thing about it. So we're going to take a flat, probably spend the rest of the summer. Julian's absolutely thrilled. I think a change of scene would help my book too. So there we are. I'm awfully sorry I got so worked up this afternoon. You must have thought me a solemn idiot. I hope you aren't angry with me now?»
«Not at all,» I said.
«All right,» I said. «Yes.»
«I can rely on you?»
«Who does?»
«Rachel.»
He called me back. «By the way, you did really destroy that letter?»
«Yes.»
I had so much loved and trusted Julian's instinct for frankness that I had not even had the sense to advise her to tone it all down a bit. I had not even, fool that I was, really foreseen how awful the thing would look to her parents. I had been far too absorbed in the sacredness of my own feelings to make the cold effort to be objective here. And what an idiot I had been, to go farther back, not to tone it all down myself! I could have broken it to her slowly, moved in on her gradually, wooed her quietly, hinted, insinuated, whispered. There could have been chaste and then less chaste kisses. Why did I have to sick it up all at once like that and put her in a frenzy? But of course this slow-motion idea was only tolerable in retrospect in the light of the knowledge that I now had of her love for me. If I had started to tell her anything at all I could not have stopped myself from telling her everything straightaway. The anxiety would have been too terrible. I did not now meditate upon, or even entertain, the thought that I might have been and ought to have been silent. I did not reject this idea. Only it seemed to belong to some very remote period of the past. For better or worse, that was no longer in question, and guilt about it did not form part of my distress.
I woke to the sound of dustbin lids being clattered by Greeks at the end of the court. I rose quickly into a world which had become, even since last night, much more frightful. Last night there had been horrors, but there had been a sense of drama, a feeling of obstacles to be overcome, and beyond it all the uplifting certainty of her love. Today I felt crazy with doubt and fear. She was only a young girl after all. Could she, against such fierce parental opposition, hold to her faith and keep her vision clear? And if they had lied to me about her was it not likely that they had lied to her about me? They would tell her that I had said I would give her up. And I had said it. Would she understand? Would she be strong enough to go on believing in me? How strong was she? How little in fact I knew her. Was it really all in my mind? And supposing they took her away? Supposing I really could not find her? Surely she would write to me. But supposing she did not? Perhaps, although she did love me, she had decided that the whole thing was a mistake? That would, after all, be a thoroughly rational decision.
Waiting in fear is surely one of the most awful of human tribulations. The wife at the pit head. The prisoner awaiting interrogation. The shipwrecked man on the raft in the empty sea. The sheer extension of time is felt then as physical anguish. The minutes, each of which might bring relief, or at least certainty, pass fruitlessly and manufacture an increase of horror. As the minutes of that morning passed away I felt a cold deadly increase of my conviction that all was lost. This was how it would be from now on and forever. She would never communicate with me again. I endured this until half past eleven and then I decided I must go to Ealing and try to see her by force if necessary. I even thought of arming myself with some weapon. But suppose she was already gone?
It had begun to rain. I had put on my macintosh and was standing in the hall wondering if tears would help. I imagined pushing Arnold violently aside and leaping up the stairs. But what then?
«What? Is that-?»
«Miss Baffin is calling you-«
«Oh darling-Oh thank God-«Bradley, quickly, I must see you, I've run away.»
«Oh good, oh my darling, I've been in such a-«Me too. Look, I'm in a telephone box near Ealing Broadway station, I haven't any money.»
«I'll hide in a shop, I'm so terrified of-«Oh my darling girl-«Tell the taxi to drive slowly past the station, I'll see you.»
«Yes, yes.»
«Never mind them. I'm coming to fetch you.»
«What happened?»
«I was an absolute idiot, I told them all about it in a sort of triumphant aggressive way, I felt so happy, I couldn't conceal it or muffle it, and they were livid, at least at first they simply couldn't believe it, and then they rushed off to see you, and I should have run away then, only I was feeling sort of combative and I wanted another session and then when they came back they were much worse, I've never seen my father so upset and angry, he was quite violent.»
«God, he didn't beat you?»
«Yes, when I came round-«
«You came round?»
«Dad said later on that he'd seen you again. He said you'd agreed to give it all up. I didn't believe him of course.»
«Oh my brave dear! He told me you didn't want to see me. Of course I didn't believe him either.»
«Oh Julian, I've brought irrevocable things to you.»
«Yes.»
«That's your silliest remark yet. Anyway, the row went on for hours, mainly between me and my father, and then when my mother started in he shouted that she was jealous of me, and she shouted that he was in love with me, and then she started to cry and I screamed, and, oh Bradley, I didn't know ordinary educated middle-class English people could behave the way we behaved last night.»
«That shows how young you are.»
«You shouted and banged?»
«No, nothing like that. I knew I couldn't get out of the window, it's too high. I sat on my bed and I cried a lot of course. You know, it seems silly in the middle of all this real sort of-carnage-but I was so sad about the little things of mine my father broke. He broke two sort of cups and all my china animals-«Julian, I can't bear this-«And it was so frightening-and sort of humiliating-He didn't find this, though, it was under my pillow.» Julian took out of the pocket of her dress the gilt snuffbox, A Friend's Gift.
«You must have more time to think, we can't-«Anyway, about eleven, and that was another last straw, I had to shout and beg them to let me out to go to the lavatory. Then my father came in again and started off on a new tack, being very kind and understanding. It was then he said that he'd seen you again and that you'd said you'd give me up, which of course I knew wasn't true. And then he said he'd take me to Athens-«He told me Venice. I've been in Venice all night.»
«He was afraid you'd follow. I was as cold as ice by this time and I'd already made a plan to pretend to agree with anything he said and then to escape as soon as I could. So I acted a climb-down and how a treat like going to Athens made all the difference and-thank God you weren't listening-and-«I know. I did the same. I actually did tell him I'd sheer off. I felt like Saint Peter.»
«Did you sleep?»
«Julian, I feel so terrible, so responsible. I'm glad you felt sorry for your mother. You mustn't hate them, you must pity them. In a way they're right and we're wrong-«Ever since they locked that door I began to feel like a monster. But I was a happy monster. Sometimes one has got to become monstrous in order to survive. I'm old enough to know that, anyway.»
«Julian, my heroine, my queen-oh where can we go-we can't go back to my flat.»
«I know. They'll be there. Bradley, I must be properly alone with you somewhere.»
«What do you mean, even if it's only to think?»
«I feel so guilty about all this-what you called carnage. We haven't decided anything, we mustn't, we don't know-«Bradley, how brave are you really? Are you going to lead me back to my parents? Are you going to stray me like a cat? You are my home now. Bradley, do you love me?»
«Then you must be bold and free and show qualities of leadership. Think, Bradley, there must be some sort of secret place we can go, even if it's only a hotel.»
«Oh Julian, we can't go to a hotel. There isn't anywhere secret we can go to-Oh my God, yes there is! There is, there is, there is!»
I went in quietly and stood in the hall listening. Then I heard a nearby rustling sound which seemed to come from my bedroom. Then a curious noise such as some bird might make, a sort of descending «woo-oo.» I stood stiffly, prickling with alarm. Then there was the unmistakable sound of someone yawning. I went forward and opened the bedroom door.
«I decided to come back to you. They tried to stop me but I came. They turned me over to the doctors. They wanted me to stay in the hospital but I wouldn't. There were mad people there, I'm not mad. I had some of the shock treatment. It makes you feel terrible. You scream and throw yourself across the room. They ought to hold you. I bruised my arm. Look.» She was speaking very slowly. She began laboriously to pull off the navy-blue jacket.
«Look.» Priscilla was rolling up the sleeve of her blouse. There was a large mottled bruise on her upper arm. «Or do you think they were holding me? Perhaps they were holding me. They have a sort of strait jacket they use but they didn't put it on me. I think. I can't remember. It rattles one's head so. It can't be good. And now they've done something to my brain that won't come right again ever. I didn't understand before what it was. I wanted to ask you about it but you didn't come. And Arnold and Christian were always talking and laughing, I couldn't be quiet in myself for their racket and their cackling. I felt such a stranger there, like a poor lodger. One must be with one's own people. And I want you to help me with the divorce. I felt so ashamed with them because everything in their life was going so well and they were so sort of successful. I couldn't talk about what I wanted with them and they were always in a hurry-and then they got me to start out on these electric shocks. One shouldn't do things in a hurry, one always regrets it. Oh Bradley, I wish I hadn't had those shocks, I can feel my brain's half destroyed with them. It stands to reason, people aren't supposed to have electric shocks are they?»
«Where's Arnold?» I said.
«He was here?»
«Yes. He came after me. I just walked out after breakfast. Not that I had any breakfast, I can't eat these days at all, I can't bear the smell of food. Bradley, I want you to go with me to the lawyer, and I want you to go with me to the hairdresser, I must get my hair rinsed. I think I can just do that, it won't be too much for me. Then I think I'll rest. What did Roger say about my mink stole? I kept worrying about that. Why didn't you visit me? I kept asking for you. I want you to go with me to the lawyer this morning.»
«What did Roger say about my mink stole?»
«He sold it. He'll give you the money.»
«Please don't cry-«I'm not crying. I came all the way from Netting Hill by myself, and I shouldn't, I'm ill. I think I'll sit in the sitting-room for a while. Could you make me some tea?» She got up heavily and pushed past me. I smelt a rank animal smell off her mingled with some sort of hospital odour. Formaldehyde perhaps. Her face looked ponderous and sleepy and her lower lip drooped with an effect resembling a sneer. She sat down slowly and carefully in the small armchair and put her feet on a footstool.
«Priscilla, you can't stay here! I've got to leave London!»
«I'll make you some tea,» I said to get out of the room. I went to the kitchen and actually put the kettle on. I was horribly upset at the sight of Priscilla, but of course there was no question of changing my plans. I just could not think what to do immediately. I had a rendezvous with Julian in half an hour's time. If I failed to turn up she would come straight here. Meanwhile Arnold, unaccountably absent, might turn up at any moment.
Someone came in through the front door. I issued quickly from the kitchen, ready to make a dash for freedom. I charged into Francis with such force that I butted him back out of the doorway. We held onto each other.
«I strayed him,» said Francis, «but you haven't much time.»
I pulled Francis outside into the court. I wanted to be able to see Arnold coming. Francis was such a relief, I held firmly onto both his sleeves in case he should run away, which however he seemed unlikely to do. He smirked at me, looking pleased with himself.
«He told Christian who told me. Chris is enjoying it all like mad.»
«Francis,, listen. I'm going away with Julian today. I want you to stay with Priscilla here, or at Notting Hill, wherever she wants to be. Here's a cheque, a big one, and I'll give you more.»
«Never mind. I'll telephone you at intervals to see how Priscilla is. Thanks for your help. Now I must pack one or two things and get out.»
«Brad, look. I brought this back. I'm afraid it's properly broken now. I broke off the foot trying to straighten it out.» He thrust something into my hand. It was the little bronze of the buffalo lady.
I ran into my bedroom and hurled clothes into a suitcase. Then I returned to the sitting-room.
Priscilla was sitting bolt upright now, looking frightened. «What was that noise?»
«Who is it there?»
«Just Francis. He'll stay with you. I've got to go.»
«I'm not sure. I'll ring up.»
«Oh Bradley, please, please don't leave me. It's so frightening, everything frightens me now, I get so frightened at night. You are my brother, I know you'll look after me, you can't leave me with strangers. And I don't know what to do for the best and you're the only person I can talk to. I think I won't go and see the lawyer yet. I don't know what to do about Roger. Oh I wish I'd never left him, I want Roger, I want Roger-Roger would pity me if he saw me now.»
«Yes. Francis broke it trying to mend it.»
«I don't want it now any more.»
«It's quite broken now. Oh how sad, how sad– «Priscilla, stop it!»
«Oh dear, I do want Roger, Roger was mine, we belonged together, he was mine and I was his.»
«I want you to go to Roger and tell him I'm sorry– «Certainly not!»
«I want Roger, dear Roger, I want him– I tried to kiss her, at least I approached my face to the dark soiled line of the grey hair, but she jerked her head as I stooped and rapped me hard on the jaw. «Good-bye, Priscilla, I'll ring up.»
Arnold and Christian were just getting out of a taxi about ten yards away. Arnold was paying the taxi man. Christian saw me. She at once moved, turning her back to me and placing herself between me and Arnold.
I dodged back. There is a tiny slit of an alleyway just before the court debouches and I wedged myself into this, and saw almost instantly Arnold striding past, his face set hard with anxiety and purpose. Christian followed him more slowly, her eyes questing about. She saw me again and she made a gesture of a sort of Oriental voluptuousness, a kind of amused sensuous homage, lifting her hands palm upwards and then bringing them sinuously down to her sides like a ballet dancer. She did not pause. I waited some moments and then emerged.
«Mind out. This is tricky light for driving in.»
«Will you stop a minute?»
«Do you really think I could leave you?»
«Sub specie aeternitatis, yes. You have done so already.»
«A pity your education was so neglected.»
«Bradley, I shall get angry with you.»
«You are deliberately hurting and spoiling.»
«I am not a very nice character. You must get to know me some time.»
«You do and you don't.»
«Do you doubt my love?»
«I fear nothing.»
«Perfection is instant despair. Instant despair. Nothing to do with time.»
«Maybe.»
'Will you please stop driving?»
«I don't see that you can do anything.»
«I shall jump out of the car.»
«I shall.»
And the next moment she had.
I looked back and saw her in the half-light lying in a dark motionless heap by the side of the road.
I have had terrible moments in my life. Many of them came to me after this one. But this was, seen in retrospect, the most beautiful, the purest and the most absolutely punishing.
Oh the poor frailty of the human form, its egg-shell vulnerability! How can this precarious crushable machine of flesh and bones and blood survive on this planet of hard surfaces and relentless murderous gravity? I had felt the crash and crunch of her body upon the road.
Her head was in the grass, her legs hunched up on the verge. The moment of stillness when I got to her was the worst. I knelt beside her, moaning aloud, not daring to touch or move that perhaps terribly damaged body. Was she conscious, would she in a moment begin to scream with pain? My hands hovered about her with a condemned tragic helplessness. I had a very different future now as I ineptly questioned that inert and scattered being that I did not dare even to fold in my arms.
«Are you badly hurt?» I said in a grating breathless voice.
«Don't-think-so-' Then she sat up and put her arms round my neck.
«No-I'm sure-not-Look, I fell onto these humpy cushions of grass or moss or-«I thought you fell on the road.»
«No, I just-grazed my leg again-and I banged my face-ouf! I think I'm perfectly all right though, it just hurts-Wait a moment, let me just try moving-Yes, I'm perfectly all right-Oh I am sorry-I took her in my arms properly then and we held onto each other, half lying among the little mossy grassy hillocks beside a ditch full of white flowering nettles. The creamy moon had become smaller and paler and more metallic. Darkness began to thicken about us in the dense air as we held each other in silence.
«Bradley, please. I hear a car, someone will come.»
I got up, burning, and helped her up, and then in fact a car did come by and its lights showed her legs, the blue of her dress which matched her eyes, and a flash of her shaggy brown-gold mane. It also showed her sandals lying together upon the road.
«It's just a graze.»
«You're limping.»
We walked back to the car and I turned on the headlights and made an intricate bower of green leaves in the middle of the dark. We got into the car and held each other's hands.
«It won't be necessary to do that again, Julian.»
Then we drove on in silence, her hand on my knee. For the last bit she read the map by torchlight. We crossed a railway line and a canal into a sort of empty flat land. There were no lights of houses to be seen now. The lights of the car showed how the roadway faded into a stony verge of smooth grey pebbles and vivid green wiry grass. We paused and turned at a featureless crossroads where Julian turned her torch onto the ringer post. The road turned into a stony track along which we bumped at five miles per hour. And at last the headlights swung round and revealed two white gate posts and the name written in bold Italian lettering: patara. The car moved onto gravel and the lights jerked over red-brick walls and we came to a halt outside a narrow latticed porch. Julian already had the key, she had been holding it for miles. I peered at oi our haven. It was a little square red-brick bungalow. The agent had been a trifle romantic. «It's marvellous,» said Julian. She let me in.
All the lights were on. Julian had run from room to room. She had pulled back the sheets of the double divan bed. «I don't think this is aired at all, it's quite damp. Oh Bradley, let's go down to the sea straightaway, shall we? Then I'll cook supper.»
«Of course! I think I'll just change, it's got a bit chilly, and then we'll go down to the sea, it must be just there, I think I can hear it.»
I went out of the front door and listened. The sound of the sea sieving pebbles came in a regular harsh grating sigh from over the top of some little eminence, sand dunes perhaps, just in front of me. The moon was slightly hazed over but giving out a golden, not silvery, illumination by which I could see the white garden fencing, ragged shrubs and the outline of a single tree. A sense of emptiness and level land. Air moving softly, salty. I felt a mixture of bliss and pure fear. After a few moments I went back into the house. Silence.
So had I. I sat and brooded over her and pondered a hundred things. I had no intention of waking her, though I did wonder if I should bathe her thigh. The long scratches looked quite clean. This sudden magical withdrawal into unconsciousness was just what I had been wanting at different times during the day, to be with her and yet not with her. And now as I sat and sighed beside her there was a strange pleasure in not touching her. After a while I lightly lifted the bedclothes over her, laying down the folded sheet just below those clasped and nestling hands, and I wondered what I had done, or more perhaps what she had done, since it was more her will than mine which had so completely transformed our lives. Perhaps tomorrow morning it would all seem to her like a dreadful dream. Perhaps tomorrow I would be driving a weeping girl back to London. For that too I must be faithfully ready, for I had already been given a fortune which I did not in the least deserve. How wonderful and terrible it had been when she leapt out of the car. But what did it mean except that she was young and the young love extremes? She was a child of extremes and I was a puritan and old. Would I ever make love to her? Ought I to? Would I be able to?
«Look, Bradley, an animal's skull, all washed by the sea. What is it, a sheep?»
«There are all those stones and shells to take back too.»
«Well, we can get the car down, can't we?»
«The curlew. It says its name. Oh Bradley, look at this beautiful piece of wood, the way the sea has had it, it looks like Chinese writing.»
«Are we to bring that too?»
I took the square piece of wood, all its wrinkles smoothed and joined by the sea water until it looked like a sort of delicate sketch of an old face, a sketch such as some Italian artist, Leonardo perhaps, might make in a rather abstract way in his notebook. I took the sheep's skull. The skull, bereft of teeth but otherwise fairly complete, had been in the sea for some time. There was nothing sharp upon it. It had been smoothed and caressed and polished until it seemed more like a work of art, some exquisite fabrication in ivory, than one of nature's remnants. The bone was densely smooth to the touch, warmed by the sun, the colour of thick cream, the colour of Julian's shoulders.
«Bradley, are you awake? Tea, coffee, milk, sugar? How little know about you.»
«I love your socks. We're going straight down to the sea.» And we did. We had a picnic breakfast with milky tea in a thermos flask and bread and butter and jam, down on the flat stones of the beach, just beside where the sea, much more gently than last night, was touching the clean fringe of the land, which it had itself fashioned to be its pure spouse and counterpart, withdrawing to breathe and returning again to touch. Behind us were wind-combed sand dunes and yellow arches of long reedy grass and blue sky the colour of Julian's eyes. Before us was the calm cold English sea, diamond-sparkling and rather dark even under the sun.
There have been many moments of happiness. But that first breakfast beside the sea had a simplicity and an intensity which it would be hard to match. It was not even plagued by hope. It was just perfect communion and rest and the kind of joy which comes when the beloved and one's own soul become so mingled with the external world that there is a place made for once upon the planet where stones and tufts of grass and transparent water and the quiet sound of the wind can really be. It was perhaps the other side of the diptych from last night's moment of seeing Julian in the twilight lying motionless beside the road. But it was not really connected, as moments of pure joy are not really connected with anything. Any human life which has such moments has surely put a trembling finger upon nature's most transcendent aim.
After tea we drove over to the big church and walked about inside its bony emptiness. A few chairs upon the huge stone floor be tokened a tiny congregation. There was no stained glass, only huge oerpendicular windows through which the cool sun shone onto the rather powdery stone of the floor, casting a little shadow into 'iescats many centuries old. The church in the flat land –f ruined ship or ark, or perhaps like the skeleton of al, under whose gaunt ribs one moved with awe in silence with soft feet, padding and prowling,! ri s!
We drove back under a sky of light brown cloud streaked with long mouths full of green or orange light, and I felt exalted and hollow and clean and at the same time burning with desire and wondering, but with no will of my own, what was going to happen next. Julian prattled on and I gave her a short tutorial on English church architecture. Then she announced that she wanted to swim and we drove to the dunes and ran to the sea and it turned out that she had her bathing costume on underneath her dress and she rushed into the water and was soon splashing about and taunting me. (I cannot swim.) I think however that the sea was extremely cold for she came out of it fairly quickly.
The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular one and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries. There are, I am told, people who just want «a woman» or «a man.» I cannot conceive of this state of affairs and it does not concern me. I had rarely wanted another human being absolutely which was the same as to say that I had rarely wanted another human being at all. Holding hands and kissing, that can mean something in friendship, though it had not been my way. But that trembling dedication to the totality of another I had experienced-well, as I sat on the divan bed that evening and waited for Julian I felt, never before: though I knew intellectually that I had been in love with Christian. And there had been another case, of which I do not tell the story here.
It was and was not like the first day of the honeymoon when the newly married pair, in tender deference to each other, feign habits which are not their own. I was not a young husband. I was not young and I was not a husband. I felt none of the youthful spouse's need to take control, his reflective anxiety about the future, his calmingly classified commitment. I feared the future and I was committed but I felt myself that day in a world so entirely weird, in a land of marvels, where all that was required of my courage was that I should walk on and on. I felt no need to take control. It was not that Julian controlled me. We were both of us controlled by something else.
«Uh– hu.»
«You understand me?»
When one has at last got what has been ardently longed for one wishes time to cease. Often indeed at such moments it is miraculously slowed. Looking into each other's eyes we caressed each other without any haste at all, with a sort of tender curious astonishment. I felt none of Marvell's frenzy now. I felt rather that I was privileged to be living out in a brief span some great aeon of the experience of love. Did the Greeks know between 600 and 400 b.c. what millennia of human experience they were enacting? Perhaps not. But I knew, as I worshipped my darling from head to foot that I was under orders, a sort of incarnate history of human love.
«Don't be silly, Bradley.»
«Darling, we'll sleep.»
«I'm going outside for a minute.»
When I came back she had put on a sort of– dark blue silk nightshirt, unbuttoned to the navel. I pushed it back onto her shoulders. Her breasts were the perfect fruit of youth, rounded and just pendant. Her hair had dried into a soft golden fuzz. Her eyes were huge. I put on a dressing-gown. I knelt in front of her without touching her.
«My darling, don't worry.»
«It will be all right.»
«Julian, I'm old.»
«No, but-How bruised you are, your poor arm and your leg.»
«I'm sorry-«
«Come into bed, Bradley.»
«Your knees smell of the northern sea. Has anyone ever kissed the soles of your feet before?»
«Good. Sorry to be such a failure.»
«You know there isn't any possible failure here, Bradley. I love you.»
«We will be married, won't we?»
«It's impossible.»
«Well, why do you say these sort of abstract things that you don't mean?»
«I'm just instinctively protecting myself.»
«You're quite mad,» I said, «but as I told you, I'm your slave. Whatever you go on wanting will be the law of my being.»
«That's settled then. Oh dear, I am so tired.»
I was asleep two seconds later. We woke at dawn and embraced each other again, but with the same result.
The next day the mist was still there, thicker, still moving in from the sea with a sort of relentless marching motion, passing by the house in a steady purposive manner like a shadowy army bound for some distant hosting. We watched it, sitting laced together in the window seat of the little sitting-room in the early morning.
«Don't use that tone of voice. That's your 'despair.' Not again.»
«No, just saying the obvious.»
«It's not my subject.»
«You mean about our marriage?»
«Oh stop worrying, Bradley. You want to sort of justify everything.»
«I am by you eternally justified. Even if your love were to end now I am justified.»
«Only from me.»
«Well, it isn't going to end now. And do stop boring me about your age.»
«Is that a quotation?»
«It's a damn rotten argument.»
«One or two little things, I suppose.»
«Have you noticed that in the last two or three days I've grown up?»
«I was a child and perhaps you are still thinking of me as a child. But now I am a woman, a real one.»
«Oh my darling girl, hold onto me, hold onto me, hold onto me, and if I ever try to leave you don't let me.»
I called to Julian that I was going back to the house to get the car to carry the wood, and she should stay and go on collecting. I wanted to see if our bicyclist had left anything. I started off across the courtyard, but in a moment she was calling, «Wait for me!» and racing after me and clasping my hand and laughing. I averted my terrified face from her and she noticed nothing.
When we got to the house she stopped in the garden to inspect some stones which she had placed there in a row. I moved without obvious haste to the porch and went in through the door. A telegram was lying on the mat and I picked it up with a quick swoop. I went on into the lavatory and locked the door.
I stared at these deadly words. They could only mean something catastrophic. And the incomprehensibility of this visitation was terrifying. Francis did not know this address. Someone must have found out, how? Arnold presumably. We had made some slip, how, when, what, some fatal mistake. Even now Arnold was on his way here and Francis was trying to warn me.
Julian called, «Yoo hoo!»
«I think it's lunch time, don't you?» said Julian. «Let's fetch the wood after.» She was putting the blue-and-white check tablecloth onto the table again. She put the jug of flowers in the centre of the table, from which it was always ceremonially removed as we sat down to eat. Already there were these customs.
«But we can go then on the way,» said Julian.
«I'll come with you, then.»
«No, you stay here. Why don't you go and pick some of that watercress we saw? I'd love some for my lunch.»
I went to the car, then failed to start it in my agitation. At last it started and I set off bumping horribly slowly along the track. By road the nearest village was where our big church was. There must be a telephone box there. The church was just outside the village on the side towards the sea, and I could recall nothing of the place from our night arrival. I passed the garage. I had thought of asking the garage man if I could use his telephone, but it might, not be private. I drove past the church and turning a corner saw the village street'and a public telephone box.
I stopped outside it. Of course the box was occupied. Inside it a girl, gesticulating and smiling, turned her back on me. I waited. At last the door opened. I found I had no change. Then the operator would not answer. Finally I achieved a reverse charge call to my own number and heard Francis, who had picked up the receiver at once, babbling at the other end.
«Oh Bradley-Bradley-«
«What's the matter? Has Arnold found out? What sort of a mess have you made of things?»
«What is it, for God's sake? What's happened?»
There was silence, then a high whining sound. At the other end of the line Francis was crying. I felt sick with fear.
«Oh Bradley-it's Priscilla-«What?»
«She's dead.»
«How-?»
«She killed herself-she took sleeping tablets-she must have had them hidden-I left her-I shouldn't have done-we took her to hospital-but it was too late-oh Bradley, Bradley-«She is really-dead?» I said, and I felt that she simply couldn't be, it was impossible, she was in hospital where people were helped to get better, she simply could not have killed herself, it was another false alarm. «Really-dead? Are you sure-?»
«Oh I'm so wretched-it's all my fault-I want to kill myself-I can't live after this, how can I-« More whining and crying.
«Francis. Stop that whimpering. Listen. How did you find out where I was?»
«I've just got it. Hold on. Just keep quiet and hold on.» I stood silent in the slanting ray of the sun, looking at the pitted concrete of the telephone box, and I wanted to cry out, She cannot be dead, has everything been done, everything? I wanted to take Priscilla in my arms and make her live again. I wanted desperately to console her and to make her happy. It would have been so easy.
«Oh God, oh God, oh God-« Francis was saying softly, repeating it again and again.
«No. No one knows. Arnold and Christian came over last night. They rang up and I had to tell them. But I hadn't found the letter then and I told them I didn't know where you were.»
«That's good. Don't tell anybody where I am.»
«I'm coming back,» I said, «but not at once. It was only chance you found that letter. You must consider that this telephone conversation didn't happen.»
«But, Brad, the funeral and-I haven't done anything-she's in the mortuary-«You haven't told her husband, you know, Roger Saxe?»
«Well, let him know. You'll find his address and phone number in my address book in the-«Yes, yes-«He'll organize the funeral. If he won't, organize it yourself-Start organizing it anyway-Do whatever you'd do if you really didn't know where I was-I'll come when I can.»
«Oh Brad, I can't do it-you must come, you must-they keep asking-she's your sister-«I hired you to look after her. Why did you leave her?»
«Do as I tell you. There's nothing we can do for-Priscilla-she isn't-there any more.»
«Brad, please come, please-for my sake-Until I see you I'm in hell-I can't tell you what it's been like-I must see you, I must-«I can't come now,» I said. «I can't-come-now. Get on with the arrangements-get hold of Roger Saxe-I leave it all to you. I'll come when I can. Goodbye.»
As I drove along the road at about fifteen miles an hour I realized what an ambiguous and suspended state I had been in since our arrival, so long ago, at Patara. I had of course been prepared to occupy myself simply with being happy, simply with the miracle of her continued presence. This was right surely. These days of paradise, rescued from the slow anxious mastication of time, should not be marred by pusillanimous fears of the future, or by that despair which Julian called my «abstraction.» On the other hand, as I now saw, some deep reflection had been at work, must have been at work, within that seemingly thoughtless joy-of-presence. I had, half hidden from myself, terrible purposes. My problem was simply how to keep Julian forever. And although I had said, to myself and to her, it is impossible, I knew at the same time that having once been with her in this way I could not now surrender her. The problem of keeping her had once, inconceivably long ago, seemed like the problem of persuading myself that it would, in spite of everything clearly to be said against this, be right to accept her generosity and take every possible advantage of it. But by now the problem had become, within the quiet self-concealed flow of my relentlessly purposive ratiocination, something much more blackly primitive, something which was scarcely problem or scarcely thought any more, but more like a sort of growth in my mind.
I had of course already decided not to tell Julian about Priscilla's death. If I told her I would have to go back to London at once. And I felt that if we left our refuge now, if we parted now, with our flight unconsummated, the process which would ensure our liberation from doubt and our eternal betrothal might never take place at all. It was something which, for both of us, I had to do, it was my destined ordeal to keep silent in order to bring us both through this darkness. And it must be done now in unbroken continuity with what had happened. The love-making was part of this. I could not and would not chill Julian's young blood now with this tale of suicide. Of course I would have to «discover» it soon, we would have to go back soon, but not yet, not without my having reached that point of decision which seemed so close and which would enable me and make me worthy to keep her forever. There was nothing I could do for Priscilla. My duty henceforth was to Julian. The sheer pain of the concealment was itself part of the ordeal. I wanted to tell Julian at once. I needed her consolation and her precious forgiveness. But for both our sakes I had for the moment to do without this.
I came in through the porch and blinked in the comparative obscurity of the sitting-room. At first I could not see Julian at all, could only hear her voice coming to me out of darkness. Then I saw her face, the rest obscure. Then I saw what she had done.
She was dressed in black tights, black shoes, she wore a black velvet jerkin and a white shirt and a gold chain with a cross about her neck. She had posed herself in the doorway of the kitchen, holding the sheep's skull up in one hand.
«Nothing,» I said.
«You're staring so. Don't I look princely? Bradley, you're frightening me. What is it?»
«I'll take them off now. We'll have lunch. I got the watercress.»
«We won't have lunch,» I said. «We're going to bed.»
«Yes.»
I strode to her and took her wrist and pulled her into the bedroom and tumbled her on the bed. The sheep's skull fell to the floor. I put one knee on the bed and began to drag at her white shirt. «Wait, wait, you're tearing it!» She began hastily undoing the buttons and fumbling with the jerkin. I pulled the whole bundle up and over her head, but the chain and cross impeded them. «Wait, Bradley, please, the chain's got round my throat, please.» I dug in the snowy whiteness of the shirt and the silky tangle of her hair for the chain and found it and snapped it. The clothes came away. Julian was desperately undoing her brassiere. I began hauling down the black tights dragging them over her thighs as she arched her body to help me. For a moment, still fully dressed, I surveyed her naked. Then I began to tear my clothes off.
Later on, she was crying. There had been no doubt about this love-making. I lay exhausted and let her cry. Then I turned her round and let her tears mingle with the sweat which had darkened the thick grey hairs of my chest and made them cling to my hot flesh in flattened curls. I held her in a kind of horrified trance of triumph and felt between my hands the adorable racked sobbing of her body.
«Stop crying.»
«I'm sorry I broke the chain. I'll mend it.»
«It doesn't matter.»
«Yes.»
«I love you. We'll be married.»
«We will, won't we, Julian?»
«Yes.»
«Yes.»
«Please stop crying.»
Later on still we made love again. Then somehow it was the evening.
«What made you like that, Bradley?»
We were exhausted and very hungry and I needed alcohol. We ate our lunch of liver sausage and bread and cheese and watercress without ceremony by lamplight with the windows open to the blue salty night. I drank up all the rest of the wine.
What had made me like that? Had I suddenly felt that Julian had killed Priscilla? No. The fury, the anger, was directed to myself through Julian. Or directed against fate through Julian and through myself. Yet of course this fury was love too, the power itself of the god, mad and alarming. «It was love,» I said to her.
I had removed, at any rate, my next obstacle, though the world beyond it looked different again, not what I had expected. I had prefigured the proximity of some simplifying intellectual certainty. What there was now was my relationship to Julian, stretching away still into the obscurity of the future, urgent and puzzling and historically dynamic, changing, it seemed, even from second to second. The girl looked different, I looked different. Was that the body which I had worshipped every part of? It was as if the terrible abstraction had been carried by the rush of divine power right into the centre of our passion. I found myself, at moments, trembling, and saw Julian trembling. And the touching thing was that we were comforting each other, like people who had just escaped from a fire.
«I will mend your chain, I will.»
«And I'll mend the sheep's skull too.»
«It's in too many pieces.»
«Let's draw the curtains. I feel bad spirits are looking in at us.»
«We are surrounded by spirits. Curtains won't keep them out.» But I pulled the curtains and came round behind her chair, touching her neck very lightly with my finger. Her flesh was cool, almost cold, and she shuddered, arching her neck. She made no other response, but I felt that our bodies were rapt in a communion with each other which passed our understanding. Meanwhile it was a time for quiet communication by words, for speech of a new sort, arcane prophetic speech.
We listened.
«Bradley, would you go and lock the front door?»
«No, it's not-coldness.»
«I know.»
«Oh you wonderful, wonderful thing.»
«I feel so odd,» she said, «quite impersonal, I've never felt like this before at all.»
«Does love do that? I thought yesterday, the day before yesterday, that I loved you. It wasn't like this.»
«It is the god, the black Eros. Don't be afraid.»
«I'm there too.»
«Yes. Yes.»
I had the strange feeling that I was speaking these words. I was speaking through her, through the pure echoing emptiness of her being, hollowed by love.
«Then I looked into your eyes and thought: Bradley! Now you have no name.»
«I feel we are joined forever. Sort of-dedicated.»
«Yes.»
We listened to it passing, far off.
«Is it like this in inspiration, I mean when you write?»
«Is it the same thing really?»
«Yes,» I said. «The desire of the human heart for love and for knowledge is infinite. But most people only realize this when they are in love, when the conception of this desire being actually fulfilled is present to them.» And art too-«Is this desire-purified-in the presence of-its possibility-in the divine presence.»
«You will write now, won't you?»
«I will write now.»
«And my name's come back!» I said. «Come on. To bed and to sleep.»
«I don't think I've ever felt so beautifully tired and heavy in my life.»
«What is it?» Her frightened voice woke me into full consciousness and absolute dread.
Someone was banging and banging and banging on the front door.
«I don't know,» I said, sitting up too and putting my arms round her. We clung together.
«Better keep quiet and not put the light on. Oh Bradley, I'm so frightened.»
«Sssh. Perhaps they'll go away.»
The banging, which had stopped for a moment, was resumed louder than before. Some metal object was being pounded on the panels of the door. There was a sound of splintering wood.
«No, no, I'm coming too-«Stay here.»
«Don't open the door, Bradley, don't-I put the light on in the little hall. The banging stopped at once. I stood in silence before the door, now knowing who was on the other side of it.
I turned on the lights in the sitting-room and he followed me in there and put down on the table the large spanner with which he had been beating on the door. He sat down, not looking at me, breathing hard.
I sat down too, covering my bare knees which were shuddering convulsively.
«Yes.»
«I've come to-take her away-«She won't want to go,» I said. «How did you find us?»
«What telephone call?»
«Don't pretend,» said Arnold, looking at me now. «He told me he telephoned you this morning about Priscilla.»
«So you couldn't-drag yourself away-from your love nest-even though your sister-had killed herself.»
«I am going to London tomorrow. Julian is coming with me. We are going to be married.»
«No.»
«Will you call her, please?»
Julian was dressed. She was wearing one of my jackets over her dress. It reached down to her thighs. She was very pale.
«Your pa.»
I threw the spanner down on the bed. «A lethal weapon. Not for use. Better come and see him.»
«You will-«
I went back to the sitting-room and Julian followed. Arnold had got up. We faced him across the table, which was still strewn with the remnants of our supper which we had been too worn out to clear away. I put my arm round Julian's shoulder.
Arnold had got a grip on himself and had clearly resolved not to shout. He said, «My dear girl-«Hello.»
«This is home,» said Julian. I squeezed her, and then moved to sit down, leaving them facing each other.
Arnold in a light macintosh, with his exhausted denuded emotional face, looked like some sort of fanatical gunman. His pale, pale eyes stared and his lips were moving as if he were soundlessly stammering. «Oh Julian-come away-You can't stay here with this man-You must have lost your mind-Look, here's a letter from your mother begging you to come home-I'll put it here, please read it-How can you be so pitiless and callous, staying here and-I suppose you've been-after poor Priscilla-«What about Priscilla?» said Julian.
«What about Priscilla?»
«Priscilla is dead,» I said. «She killed herself yesterday with an overdose.»
«That's correct,» I said. «When I told you I was going to the garage I went to telephone Francis and he told me.»
«And you didn't tell me? You hid it-and then we-all the afternoon we were-«Ach-« said Arnold.
I rose. «It's hard to explain,» I said, «but please try to understand. There was nothing more I could do for Priscilla. And for you-I had to stay-and bear the burden of being silent. It wasn't callousness.»
«Lust might be its name,» said Arnold.
«Oh Bradley-poor Priscilla-«
«Julian, I was going to tell you tomorrow. I was going to tell you everything tomorrow. I had to stay today. You saw how it was. We were both possessed, we were held here, we couldn't have gone, it had to happen as it did.»
«Tomorrow we'll go back to ordinary things, tomorrow we'll think about Priscilla and I'll tell you all about it and how much I am to blame-«
«It was my fault,» said Julian, «it was because of me. Otherwise you would have been with her.»
«A convenient justification,» said Arnold. «So you think Priscilla is better off dead, do you?»
«No. I'm just saying it-at least could be thought about like that-I don't want Julian to feel that-Oh Julian, I ought to have told you.»
«Sometimes one has to be silent even if it hurts awfully. I wanted your consolation, of course I did. But something else was more important.»
«The sexual gratification of an elderly man,» said Arnold. «Think, Julian, think. He is thirty-eight years older than you are.»
«He can't be-«Look him up in Who's Who.»
«I'm not in Who's Who.»
«Fifty-eight.»
«When you are thirty he will be nearly seventy,» said Arnold. «Come on. Surely this is enough. We've kept this quiet and there's no need for shouting. I see Bradley even removed the blunt instrument. Let's go, Julian. You can have your cry in the car. Then you'll start feeling what an escape you've had. Come. He won't try to stop you now. Look at him.»
«Bradley, take your hands away. Please. Are you really fifty– eight?»
«Yes.»
She murmured, «Yes-now-«
«Does it matter?» I said. «You said you didn't mind what age I was.»
«Quite,» I said, «quite.»
Julian said, «I can't bear it, about Priscilla, I can't bear it, I can't bear it-«Steady,» said Arnold. «Steady. Come now.»
«I want to explain to you,» I said. «I want to explain about Priscilla.»
«How can you-?» she said. «Oh dear-oh dear-« She was crying now helplessly, with trembling wet lips.
«Julian, I can't let you go now, I'd go mad please don't go-you must stay with me long enough to let me defend myself-«You are indefensible,» said Arnold. «Why argue? Can't you see it's over? You have had a caper with a silly girl and now it's over. The spell is broken. And give me that spanner. I don't like to see you holding it.»
I gave him the spanner, but I did not move from the door. I said, «Julian, decide.»
«Oh thank God,» I said, «thank God.»
«I want to hear what Bradley has to say. I'll come back to London tomorrow. But I'm not going to leave Bradley alone in the middle of the night.»
«You're coming with me,» said Arnold.
«No, she isn't. She's said what she wants to do. Now please go away. Arnold, think. Do you want us to fight about this? Do you want to crack my head with that spanner? I promise I'll bring Julian to London tomorrow. Nobody shall force her, nobody can force her, she'll do what she wants to do, I'm not trying to kidnap her.»
«She's right,» I said.
Arnold did not look at me. He looked at his daughter with a very concentrated desolate stare. He gave a sort of gasping sigh. «Do you promise to come home tomorrow?»
«Do you promise to come home?»
«Yes.»
«Oh Julian, we haven't lost each other, have we? I am so deeply sorry I lied about my age, it was stupid. But it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, we're beyond where it matters, it can't matter. And I couldn't go back to London this morning. I know it was a crime not to. But it was a crime that I committed because I love you.»
«I feel so confused,» she said, «I feel so awfully confused-«Let me explain how-«Please. I can't hear, I just wouldn't be able to hear-Everything's been such a shock-like a-destruction-I'd rather-I think I'll just go to the lavatory and then I'll try to go to sleep.» She went away, returned, and took off her dress and put on her dark blue silk night-shirt over her underclothes. She seemed already like a sleepwalker.
She begun to get heavily into the bed, moving stiffly, like an old person.
«That's right,» I said. «We'll talk in the morning, won't we. We'll sleep now. If we can just go to sleep in each other's arms we'll be so much helped, won't we.»
«May I stay, Julian?»
«Bradley-darling-I'd rather be by myself just now. I feel as if I'd been invaded or-broken-I've got to become complete again and for that-it's better to be alone-just now.»
«Good night, my darling.»
I kissed her on the brow and then quickly got up and turned the light out and closed the door. Then I went and locked and bolted the front door. Everything seemed possible tonight, even the return of Arnold with the spanner. I sat in an armchair in the sitting-room and wished I had brought some whisky with me. I resolved to stay awake for the rest of the night.
Later on I started thinking about Priscilla and the sheer sadness of it all and the pitifulness of her end. The shocking fact of her death seemed only now to be reaching my heart, and I felt futile ingenious love for her. I ought to have thought about how to console her. It would not have been impossible. I began to feel sleepy and got up and prowled around. I opened the bedroom door and listened to Julian's steady breathing and prayed. I went into the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. The godly radiance had withdrawn from my face. My eyes were hooded by wrinkles, my brow was scored, little blood-red worms crawled in the dull sallow skin, I looked gaunt and old. But Julian was sleeping quietly and all my hope slept with her. I returned to my sitting-room armchair and put my head back and instantly fell asleep. I dreamed that Priscilla and I were young again, hiding under the counter in the shop.
I awoke to a grey awful spotty early-morning light which made the unfamiliar room present in a ghastly way. The furniture was humped shapelessly about me like sleeping animals. Everything seemed to. be covered with soiled dust sheets. The slits in the clumsily drawn curtains revealed a dawn sky, pale and murky, without colour, the sun not yet risen.
It was hard to see in the room: the granular dawn light, with the texture of a bad newspaper picture, seemed to obscure rather than promote vision. The bed was in some sort of chaos. I thought I could discern Julian. Then I saw that there were only tossed sheets. The bed, the room, was empty.
I called her name softly, ran into the other rooms. I even looked crazily into cupboards. She was not in the house. I went outside onto the porch and ran all round the house and then out onto the level of the stony courtyard, and down to the dunes, calling her name, shouting now, yelling as loudly as I could. I came back and hooted the horn of the car again and again, making a ghastly tocsin in the empty absolutely quiet twilit scene. But nothing answered. There was no doubt about it. She had gone.
I got to the road and doubled back towards the railway station. At the little toy station the platforms were empty. A railway man walking along the tracks told me that no train had stopped there during the night hours. I drove on to the main road and along it in the direction of London. The sun was shining coldly and brightly and a few cars were already about. But the grassy verges of the road were empty. I turned back and drove the other way, through the village, past the church. I even stopped and went into the church. Of course it was hopeless. I drove back and ran into the cottage with a desperate feigned hope that she might have returned while I was away. The little place with its open door and its ransacked air and all its lights on stood obscenely void in the bright sunshine. Then I drove the car to the dunes, running its bonnet into a dewy wall of wispy wiry grass and sand. I ran about among the dunes and down onto the beach, shouting, «Julian! Julian!» The climbing sun shone onto a quiet sea which without even a ripple drew its level line along the gently shelving wall of many-coloured elliptical stones. w,, ait, Brad, better let Roger go first.»
Christian was holding my arm in a firm grip.
«What do we do now, go home?»
«No, we should walk around a bit in the garden, I think it's customary, at least it is in the U. S. A. I'll just say a word to those women.»
«I don't know. Friends of Priscilla's. I think one of them's her char. Kind of them to come, wasn't it?»
«Yes, very.»
«I have nothing to say to Roger.»
We walked slowly down the aisle. Francis, fluttering by the doorway, stood aside to let the women pass, sent a ghastly smile in our direction, then followed them out.
«Browning. Tennyson.»
«It was lovely, wasn't it? So suitable. It made me cry.»
We emerged into the garden. A light rain was falling from a brightish brownish sky. The good weather seemed to be over. I shook Christian's hand off my arm and put up my umbrella.
Roger, looking responsible and manly and bereaved in smart black, was thanking the poetry-reader and another crematorium official. The coffin-bearers had already gone. Christian was talking to the three women and they were affecting to admire the dripping azaleas. Francis, beside me, was trying to get in under my umbrella, and was repeating a story which he had already told me, with variations, several times. He was whimpering a little as he spoke. He had wept audibly during the service.
«Stop whingeing like a bloody woman. Go away, will you? It wasn't your fault. It had to happen. It was better like that. You can't save someone who wants death. It was better so.»
«You told me to look after her, and I-«Go away.»
«I'll kill myself, I will.»
«Get on with it, then.»
«Yes, of course. Just leave me alone. Please.» I jerked the umbrella away, turning my shoulder against Francis, and made for the gate.
Flip-flopping rainy steps caught up with me. Christian. «Brad, you must talk to Roger. He says would you wait for him. He has some business to talk with you. Oh Brad, don't run off in that awful way. I'm coming with you, anyway, don't run off. Do come back and talk to Roger, please.» o ' r «He should be content with having killed my sister without bothering me with his business.»
I waited under the arty lich-gate while Roger advanced under his umbrella. He even had a black macintosh.
«Bradley. A sad business. I feel much to blame.»
«As Priscilla's heir-I paused.
His umbrella touched mine and I took a pace back. I could see Christian's live eager face just beyond, watching, with the avid curiosity of the unhurt. She had no umbrella and was wearing a dark green raincoat and a smart black macintosh hat with a wide brim, like a small sombrero. Francis had gone back to the azalea ladies.
«The will is very simple, there should be no problem. I'll let you see a copy of course. And perhaps you wouldn't mind returning to me any things of Priscilla's which you have, those jewels for instance, they could be sent by registered post. Or better still, perhaps I could call for them this afternoon at the flat, if you're going to be in? Mrs. Evandale has very kindly said I may call for the things Priscilla left at her house-I turned my back on him and walked away down the street.
He called after me, «I'm very upset too, very-but what's the use Christian was walking beside me, having got in underneath the umbrella, taking my arm again. We passed a small yellow Austin which was parked at a meter. Inside at the wheel sat Marigold. She bowed to me as we passed, but I ignored her.
«Roger's mistress.»
A little later the Austin passed us by. Marigold was driving with one arm thrown round Roger's back. Roger's head lay on her shoulder. No doubt he really was very upset, very.
«No.»
«But do you know where she is?»
«All right-but you must let me help you, you can't just go off by yourself after all these horrors. Please come and stay at Notting Hill. I'll look after you, I'd love to. Will you come?»
«No, thank you.»
«But where is she, Brad, where can she be, where do you think she is? You don't think she's killed herself, do you?»
«No, of course not,» I said. «She's with Arnold.»
«We-ell-« Christian peered up at me, peeking from under her black sombrero. «How do you feel, Brad, generally in yourself? You know, you need looking after, you need-«Just leave me alone, will you. And keep Francis at Notting Hill. I don't want to see him. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll take this taxi. Goodbye.»
It was perfectly simple of course, what had happened. I saw it all now. Arnold must have come back while I was asleep and either cajoled or forced Julian to get into the car with him. Perhaps he had asked her to sit in the car to talk to him. Then he had driven off quickly. She must have wanted to hurl herself from that car. But she had promised me not to. Besides, she wanted no doubt to convince her father. Now they were somewhere together, arguing, fighting. Perhaps he had locked her into a room somewhere. But she would soon escape and come back to me. I knew that she could not simply have left me like that without a word.
The world is perhaps ultimately to be defined as a place of suffering. Man is a suffering animal, subject to ceaseless anxiety and pain and fear, subject to the rule of what the Buddhists call dukha, the endless unsatisfied anguish of a being who passionately desires only illusory goods. However within this vale of misery there are many regions. We all suffer, but we suffer so appallingly differently. An enlightened one may, who knows, pity the fretful millionaire with as pure an energy as he pities the starving peasant. Possibly the lot of the millionaire is more genuinely pitiable, since he is deluded by the solace of false and fleeting pleasures, while there may be a compulsory wisdom contained in the destitution of the peasant. Such judgments however are reserved for the enlightened, and ordinary mortals who feigned to utter them would rightly be called frivolous. We properly think it a worse fate to starve in poverty than to yawn in the midst of luxury. If the suffering of the world were, as it could be imagined to be, less extreme, if boredom and simple worldly disappointments were our gravest trials, and if, which is harder to conceive, we grieved little at any bereavement and went to death as to sleep, our whole morality might be immensely, perhaps totally, different. That this world is a place of horror must affect every serious artist and thinker, darkening his reflection, ruining his system, sometimes actually driving him mad. Any seriousness avoids this fact at its peril, and the great ones who have seemed to neglect it have only done so in appearance. (This is a tautology.) This is the planet where cancer reigns, where people regularly and automatically and almost without comment die like flies from floods and famine and disease, where people fight each other with hideous weapons to whose effects even nightmares cannot do justice, where men terrify and torture each other and spend whole lifetimes telling lies out of fear. This is where we live.
This preludes, dear friend, my apologia, offered to you not for the first time, concerning this love story. The pains of love? Pooh! And yet: the ecstasy of love, the glory of love. Plato lay with a beautiful boy and thought it no shame to see here the beginning of the path to the sun. Happy love undoes the self and makes the world visible. Unhappy love is, or can be, a revelation of pure suffering. Too often of course our reverses are clouded and embittered by jealousy, remorse, hatred, the mean and servile «if onlys» of a peevish spirit. But there can be intuitions even here of a more sublime agony. And who can say that this is not in some way a fellow feeling with those quite otherwise afflicted? Zeus, they say, mocks lovers' oaths, and we may covertly smile even while we sympathize with the lovelorn, especially if they are young. We believe they will recover. Perhaps they will, whatever recovery may be. But there are times of suffering which remain in our lives like black absolutes and are not blotted out. Fortunate are those for whom these black stars shed some sort of light.
In waiting time devours itself. Great hollows open up inside each minute, each second. Each moment is one at which the longed-for thing could happen. Yet at the same instant the terrified mind has flown ahead through centuries of unlightened despair. I tried to grasp and to arrest these giddy convulsions of the spirit, lying on my back on my bed and watching the window glow from dark to light and fade again from light to dark. Odd that a demonic suffering should lie supine, while a glorified suffering lies prone.
I shall now advance the narrative by quoting several letters.
B.
Dear Christian,
Please reply at once by telephone or letter. I do not want to see you.
Dear Arnold,
Julian and I have talked with full knowledge and understand each other. After your first departure all was well between us. Your «revelations» made and can make no difference. You are dealing with a kind of mutual attachment which, since you make no mention of it in your books, I assume that you know nothing of. Julian and I recognize the same god. We have found each other, we love each other, and there is no impediment to our marriage. Do not imagine that you can constitute one. You have seen that Julian was unwilling even to listen to you. Please now recognize that your daughter is grown-up and has made her choice. Accept, as indeed you finally must, her free decision in my favour. Naturally she cares what you think. Naturally too she will not finally obey you. I expect her return hourly. By the time you get this she may even be with me.
Your objection to me as a suitor has of course deep motives. The matter of my age, though important, is certainly not crucial. You have even admitted to me that as a writer you are a disappointed man. And some part of you has always envied me because I have kept my gift pure and you have not. Continual mediocre creation can sour a whole life. The compromise with the second best, which is the lot of almost every man, is by the bad artist externalized into a persisting testimony. How much better the silence and guarded speech of a more strict endeavour. That I should also have gained your daughter's love must seem, I can well understand, like the last straw.
Julian and I will settle our future together privately and in our own way. We understand each other perfectly. Please accept this fact and cease your cruel and vain attempts to force your daughter to do what she does not want to do.
B.P.
«Priscilla. Yes.»
«You mustn't blame yourself too much.»
«Where did Francis find her? Where was she lying when he found her?»
«I don't know.»
«No. I suppose she was in bed.»
«I would have wanted to know-all the details-I think-just to picture it-Did you see her dead?»
«Didn't you have to identify her?»
«No.»
«Roger did.»
«Odd about identifying dead people, recognizing them. I hope I don't ever have to-«He's keeping her prisoner somewhere, I know he is.»
«He locked her in her room before.»
«Of course he didn't. The girl was romancing.»
«Really.»
«Why hasn't she written to me?»
«Rachel, you don't know what's inside me, you don't know what it's like to be me, to be where I am. You see it's a matter of absolute certainty, of knowing your own mind and somebody else's with absolute certainty. It's something completely steady and old, as if it's always been, ever since the world began. That's why what you say is simply nonsense, it doesn't make any sense to me, it's a sort of gabbling. She understands, she spoke this language with me at once. We love each other.»
«Bradley dear, do try to come back to reality-«This is reality. Oh God, supposing she were dead-«Oh don't be silly. You make me sick.»
In a way, the truth was that I did not. I could attach no precise events to the idea of Rachel. Here memory was simply a cold cloud to be shuddered at. She was a familiar person and a familiar presence, but the notion that I had ever done anything in relation to her was utterly shadowy, so much had the advent of Julian drained the rest of my life of significant content, separating history from prehistory. I wanted to explain this.
«Yes, I do-of course-remember-but it's as if-since Julian-everything has been-sort of amputated and-the past has quite gone-it didn't mean anything anyway-it was just-I'm sorry this sounds rather unkind, but being in love one simply has to tell the truth all the time-I know you must feel that there was a sort of-betrayal-you must resent it-«Resent it? Good heavens no. I just feel sorry for you. And it's all a pity and a sort of waste and rather pathetic really. Well, a sad thing, a disappointment perhaps, a disillusionment. It seems odd to me now that I ever felt that you were a sort of strong wise man or that you could help me. I was touched when you talked about eternal friendship. It seemed to mean something at the time. Do you remember talking about eternal friendship?»
«Can you really not remember? You are peculiar. I wonder if you're having some sort of breakdown? Can you really not recall our liaison at all?»
«There was no liaison.»
«You told Julian?»
«Yes. Hadn't you thought that I might? Oh but of course you'd forgotten all about it!»
«And I'm afraid I told Arnold almost straightaway. You're not the only one who has states of mind. With my husband at any rate, I'm not very discreet. It's a risk one runs with married people.»
«When did you tell her-when-?»
«What did you tell her?»
«And when she did get back, I must say-«What did you tell her?»
«Oh God-«
«No wonder you tried to forget it all. But, Bradley, one is responsible for one's actions, and one's past does belong to one. You can't blot it out by entering a dream world and decreeing that life began yesterday. You can't make yourself into a new person overnight, however much in love you feel you are. That sort of love is an illusion, all that 'certainty' you were talking about is an illusion. It's like being under the influence of drugs.»
«Anyway it's over now and no harm done. You needn't worry too much or feel remorse or anything, she had already decided it was a mistake. She has some sense. Really, you mustn't take a young girl's feelings so literally. You haven't lost a pearl of great price, my dear Bradley, and you'll appreciate this sooner than you imagine. You'll soon be heaving a sigh of relief too. Julian is a very ordinary little girl. She's immature, not all there yet, like an embryo. Of course there was a lot of emotion swilling around, but it didn't really signify too much who was at the receiving end of it. It's a very volatile time of life. There's nothing steady or permanent or deep in any of these great crazes. She's been 'madly in love' any number of times in the last two or three years. My dear man, did you really imagine you would be the sticking point of a young girl's passion? How could that be? A girl like Julian will have to love a hundred men before she finds the right one. I was just the same. Oh do wake up, Bradley. Look at yourself in a mirror. Come back to earth.»
«And she came straight to you?»
«And what did she say?»
«Do stop looking like King Lear «What did she say?»
«Oh Christ, oh Christ.»
«She got me to repeat it all and give all the details and swear it was true and then she believed me.»
«She said, 'If only it had been longer ago.' I suppose she had a point there.»
«She didn't understand. It wasn't at all like what you said. When you said that, it wasn't true. When you used those words they conveyed something which simply wasn't true. You implied-«I'm sorry! I don't know what words you would expect me to have used! Those ones seemed to me to be pretty appropriate and accurate.»
«You said she was crying.»
«Oh madly, like a child who was going to be hanged. But she always did enjoy crying.»
«How could you have told her?»
«It was Arnold's idea. But I didn't honestly feel at that point that I had to be discreet any more. I thought a little shock would bring Julian to her senses-«
«No, not particularly. I felt you ought to be told about Julian.»
«But you haven't told me!»
'We.'»
«Don't shout. And I came, you won't care of course, but out of a sort of kindness. I wondered if I could help you.»
«Well, don't worry. You'll feel relieved later on. Just try not to feel resentment against me or against Julian. You'll only make yourself miserable if you do.»
I got up and went to the bureau and got out Arnold's letter. I got it out simply with the intention of making sure I had not dreamt it. Perhaps my memory really was disturbed. There was a sort of blank over Arnold's letter and yet I seemed to recall-I said, holding the letter in my hand, «Julian will come back to me. I know this. I know it just as well as I know-«What's that you have there?»
There was a ring at the front doorbell.
I threw the letter onto the table and ran out to the door in heart-agony.
«Parcel for Mr. Bradley Pearson.»
«What is it?»
Rachel was standing by the table reading the letter. I sat down. I felt very tired.
«You ought not to have shown me this letter.»
«But, Rachel, you said you and Arnold told each other everything, so surely you-«God, you are vile, vindictive-«It's not my fault! It can't make any difference, can it?»
«Truly, I didn't mean you to read it, it was just a crazy accident, I didn't mean to upset you. Anyway Arnold has probably changed his mind by now-«
«Aaaaah-«
Rachel's scream flamed out in the darkening room, more visible suddenly than the pale round of her face. I saw the disturbed violent agony of her eyes and her mouth. She ran at me, or perhaps she was simply running to the door. I stumbled aside and crashed my elbow against the wall. She passed me like a stampeding animal and I heard the after-sigh of her scream. The front door flew open and through the open street door I saw lamplight reflected in the wet paving stones of the court.
«You were listening.»
«Brad, I'm sorry-«It doesn't matter. What the hell's this?» I kicked the cardboard box.
I watched while Francis tore the cardboard and dragged the top off the box.
It was full of books. The Precious Labyrinth. The Gauntlets of Power. Tobias and the Fallen Angel. A Banner with a Strange Device. Essays of a Seeker. A Skull on Fire. A Clash of Symbols. Hollows in the Sky. The Glass Sword. Mysticism and Literature. The Maid and the Magus. The Pierced Chalice. Inside a Snow Crystal.
I looked at the huge compact mountain of smugly printed words. I picked up one of the books and opened it at random. Rage possessed me. With a snarl of disgust I tried to tear the book down the middle, ripping the spine in two, but it was too tough, so I tore the pages out in handfuls. The next book was a paperback and I was able to tug it into two and then into four. I seized another one. Francis watched, his face brightening with sympathy and pleasure. Then he came down the stairs to help me, murmuring «Hi!» to himself, «Hi!» as he dragged the books to pieces and then pursued and tore again the white cascading sheaves of print. We worked resolutely through the contents of the box, standing sturdily with our feet apart like men working in a river, as the pile of dismembered debris rose about us. It took us just under ten minutes to destroy the complete works of Arnold Baffin.
«How are you feeling now, Brad?»
I had fainted or something. I had eaten practically nothing since my return to London. Now I was sitting on the black woolly rug on the sitting-room floor with my back against one of the armchairs which was propped against the wall. The gas fire was flaring and popping. One lamp was alight. Francis had made some sandwiches and I had eaten some. I had drunk some whisky. In fact I felt very strange but not faint any more, no more little eruptions in my field of vision, no more heavy black canopies descending and bearing me to the ground. I was now on the ground and feeling very long and leaden. I could see Francis clearly in the flickering light, so clearly that I frowned over it, he was suddenly too close, too present. I looked down and noticed that he was holding one of my hands. I frowned over that too and removed it.
Francis who, as I recalled, had by now drunk a good deal of whisky, was kneeling beside me eagerly and attentively, not in an attitude of repose, as if I were something which he was making. His lips were pushed out coaxingly, the big red underlip curling over and the mucus of the mouth showing in a scarlet line. His little close eyes were sparkling with inward glee. His dispossessed hand joined his other hand, rubbing rhythmically up and down his plump thighs on the shiny shabby material of his blue suit. He made a little sympathetic chortling noise every now and then.
«Have some more whiskers, Brad, it'll do you good. Don't you worry, then. I'll find her for you.»
«That's right,» I said. «I'll stay here, I must. She'll come here, won't she. This is where she'll come to. She could come at any time. I'll leave the front door open again tonight, like I did last night. She can come in then like a little bird coming to its place. She can come in.»
«I know she'll come back,» I said. «It's odd when one knows. Her love for me was an absolute word spoken. It belongs to the eternal. I cannot doubt that word, it is the logos of all being, and if she loves me not chaos is come again. Love is knowledge, you see, like the philosophers always told us. I know her by intuition as if she were here inside my head.»
«I know, Brad. When you really love somebody it's as if the whole world's saying it.»
«Yes, Brad. There was a boy once. But he committed suicide. It was years ago.»
«Oh my God, Priscilla. I keep forgetting about her.»
«Priscilla died because nobody loved her. She dried up and collapsed inside and died like a poisoned rat. God doesn't love the world, He can't do, look at it. But I hardly seem to care at all. I loved my mother.»
«Me too, Brad.»
«I guess not, Brad.»
«Because I love Julian I ought to be able to love everybody. I will be able to one day. Oh Christ, if I could only have some happiness. When she comes back I'll love everybody, I'll love Priscilla.»
«Love ought to triumph over time, but can it? Not time's fool, he said, and he knew about love if anybody did, he was bloody crucified if anybody was. Of course one's got to suffer. Perhaps in the end the suffering is all, it's all contained in the suffering. The final atoms of it all are simply pain. How old are you, Francis?»
«Forty-eight, Brad.»
«I've never had any luck, Brad. I don't even hope for any any more. But I still love people. Not like Steve of course, but I love them. I love you, Brad.»
«She will come back. The world hasn't changed for nothing. It can't change back now. The old world has gone forever. Oh how my life has gone from me, it has ebbed away. I cannot believe I am fifty-eight.»
«I never really loved anybody before Julian came.»
«But there were women, after Chris I mean?»
«Perhaps the reality is in the suffering. But it can't be. Love promises happiness. Art promises happiness. Yet it isn't exactly a promise because you don't need the future. I am happy now, I think. I'll write it all down, only not tonight.»
«I envy you being a writer chap, Brad. You can say what you feel. I'm just eaten by feelings and I can't even shout.»
«Sure you can, Brad. I always knew you had it in you. You were always like you were a great man.»
«I've never given myself away before, Francis, never gambled myself absolutely. I've been a timid frightened man all my life. Now I know what it's like to be beyond fear. I'm where greatness lives now. I've handed myself over. And yet it's like being under discipline too. I haven't any choice. I love, I worship and I shall be rewarded.»
«Yes. He will come.»
«Brad, I think you'd better go to bed.»
«You stay here and I search.»
«Yes. Happiness must exist. It can't all be made of pain. But what is happiness made of? All right, all right, Francis, I'll go to bed. What's the worst image of suffering you can think of?»
«Yes. I'll meditate on that. Good night. Perhaps she'll come back in the morning.»
«Perhaps you'll be happy this time tomorrow.»
«Wake up, wake up, Brad, here's a letter.»
I sat up in bed. Francis was thrusting at me a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It had a French stamp. I knew that it could only be from her. «Go, go, and close the door.» He went. I opened the letter, shuddering, almost weeping with hope and fear. It read as follows.
Julian
«Brad, may I come in?»
«Is it good news, Brad?»
«She's in Italy,» I said. «I'm going after her. She's in Venice.»
«Are you going to Venice today?» said Francis, as I was getting into my trousers.
«Yes. At once.»
«No. The letter's in code. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's, I don't know who.»
I thought for a moment. «All right. You might be useful.»
«All right.» That made sense. I sat down on the bed. I was feeling rather faint again.
«And-I say, Brad, shall I do some detective work? I could go to Arnold's publisher and find out who his Venice admirer is.»
«I'll pretend to be writing a book about how different nationalities see Arnold's work. I'll ask if they can put me in touch with his Italian admirers. They might have the address, it's worth trying.»
«It's a brainwave,» I said. «It's an idea of genius.»
«There may be no direct flight at once, if there isn't book us through Milan.»
«And I'll get some maps and guide-books, we'll need a map of the city, won't we?»
«Make me a cheque then, Brad. Here's your cheque book. Make it out to 'bearer' and I can take it to your bank. Make it a big one, Brad, so I can book us the best way. And Brad, would you mind, I haven't any clothes, it'll be hot there, won't it, do you mind if I buy some summer clothes, I haven't a thing?»
«Yes. Buy anything. Buy the guides and a map, that's a good idea. And go to the publisher. Yes, yes.»
«No. Go quickly. Here.» I gave him a large cheque.
«Oh thanks, Brad! You stay here and rest. I'll be back. Oh how exciting! Brad, do you know, I've never been to Italy, ever at all!»
In the bureau bookcase opposite to me were the love poems of Dante. I pulled them out. And as I touched the book I felt, so strange is the chemistry of love, that my embroiled heart was furthering its history. I felt love now in the form of a sort of divine anger. What I was suffering for that girl. Of course I would love my pain. But there is a rich anger which is bred so, and which is of the purest stuff that love is ever made of. Dante, who spoke his name so often and suffered so at his hands, knew that.
S'io avessi le belle trecce press, che fatte son per me scudiscio e ferza, pigliandole anzi terza, con esse passerei vespero e squille: e non sarei pietoso ne cortese, ami farei com' orso quando scherza; e se Amor me ne sferza, io mi vendicherei di piu di mille.
I was lying face downwards on the floor, holding Julian's letter and the Rime together against my heart, when the telephone rang. I staggered up amid black constellations and got to the instrument. I heard Julian's voice.
No, it was not her voice, it was Rachel's. Only Rachel's voice, in emotion, horribly recalling that of her daughter.
«What is it, Rachel, I can't hear?»
«Bradley, could you come round at once.»
«Please could you come round at once, it's very, very urgent.»
«Can't you come here!»
«Rachel, she is in Venice, isn't she? Do you know her address?
I've had a letter from her. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's. Do you know? Have you got an address book of Arnold's you could look it up in?»
«I'll tell you everything. Just come here. Come, come, at once, in a taxi, every moment matters.»
«Rachel, is Julian all right?»
I hardly recognized her. Or rather, I recognized her as a portentous revenant, the weeping distraught figure of the beginning of the story, her face grossly swollen with tears and, it seemed, again bruised, or perhaps just dirtied as a child's may be after much rubbing away of tears.
«Rachel, there's been a car accident, they've telephoned, she's hurt? What's happened, what's happened?»
«Rachel-something terrible has happened to Julian-what is it? Oh God, what has happened?»
Rachel got up after a moment or two, still moaning and supporting herself against the wall. Her hair was a thick tangled frizzy mass, like the hair of the insane, torn at and dragged across her brow and eyes. Her mouth, all wet, was open and shuddering. Her eyes, oozing great tears, were slits between the swollen lids. Laboriously, like an animal, she pushed past me, still leaning with one hand on the wall, and made her way towards the door of the drawing-room. She pushed it open and made a gesture forward. I followed her into the doorway.
A large poker was lying on the carpet where the blood was. The blood was red and sticky, the consistency of custard, skinning a little on the surface.1 touched, then held, Arnold's tweedy shoulder, warm with the sun, trying to stir him a little, but he seemed as weighty as lead, bolted to the floor, or else my trembling limbs had no strength. I stepped back with blood upon my shoes, and trod upon Arnold's glasses which were lying just beyond the circle of blood.
«Oh God-you did that-with the poker-She whispered, «He's dead-he must be-is he?»
«Have you sent for the-Oh Christ-what happened?»
«I hit him-we were shouting-I didn't mean-then he started screaming with pain-I couldn't bear to hear him screaming like that-I hit him again to stop him screaming-«We must hide the poker-you must say it was an accident-Oh what shall we do-He can't be dead, he can't be-«I kept calling him and calling him and calling him, but he wouldn't move.» Rachel was still whispering, standing in the doorway of the room. She had stopped crying and her staring eyes seemed larger and wider, she kept rubbing her hands rhythmically upon her dress.
«He's dead.»
«Did you ring the doctor?»
«I'll get the doctor-And the police-I suppose-And an ambulance-Tell them he fell and hit his head or something-Oh Christ-I'll take the poker away anyhow-Better say he hit you and-«
I picked up the poker.1 stared for a moment at Arnold's face. The sightless eye-glint was terrible. I felt sick urgent panic, the desire to hand this nightmare over as quickly as possible to somebody else. As I moved towards the door I saw something on the floor near Rachel's feet. A screwed-up ball of paper. Arnold's writing. I picked it up and brushed past her where she still stood leaning in the doorway. I went out into the kitchen and put the poker down on the table. The ball of paper was Arnold's letter to me about Christian. I took out a box of matches and began to burn the letter in the sink. It kept falling into a basin of water since my hands would not obey me. When at last I had reduced it to ashes I turned the tap on it. Then I started washing the poker. Some of Arnold's hair was stuck to it with blood. I dried it and put it away in a cupboard.
«It's no good-« She turned back into the hall, and we stood there together in the dim light beside the stained-glass panel of the front door.
«You mean it's no good not telling the truth?»
«But you must tell them it was an accident-that he hit you first-that it was self-defence-Rachel, shall I telephone the police? Oh do please try to think-'
She murmured something.
«Dobbin. Dobbin. My darling-«
I realized, as she now turned away, that this must be her pet name for Arnold which in all the years I had known them I had never heard her utter. Arnold's secret name. She turned away from me and went into the dining-room, where I heard her fall, onto the floor or perhaps into a chair. I heard her begin to lament once more, a short cry, then a shuddering «fa-fa-fa-« then the cry again. I went back into the drawing-room to see if Arnold had moved. I almost feared to see him opening accusing eyes, wriggling with the pain which Rachel had found so unendurable. He had not moved.
I got to the telephone in the hall. Rachel's cries were softening into little almost dreamy wails. I dialled 999 and got a hospital and said there had been a bad accident and asked for an ambulance. «A man has hurt his head. His skull cracked I think. Yes.» Then after a moment's hesitation I rang the police and said the same things. My own fear of the police made any other course unthinkable. Rachel was right, concealment was not possible, better to reveal all at once, anything was better than the horror of being «found out.» It was no good saying Arnold had fallen downstairs. Rachel was in no condition to be taught a cover story. She would blurt out the truth in any case.
I went into the dining-room and looked at her. She was sitting on the floor with her mouth wide open and her two hands squeezing either side of her face. I saw her mouth as a round O, she looked subhuman and damned, her face without features, her flesh drained and blue, like those who live underground. «Rachel. Don't worry. They're coming.»
I went out and sat on the stairs and found that I was saying, «Oh-oh-oh-oh-« and could not stop.
The police arrived first. I let them in and pointed to the back room. Through the open front door I saw the sunny street and cars coming, an ambulance. I heard somebody say, «He's dead.»
«Ask Mrs. Baffin. In there.»
«Who are you?»
The dining-room door was shut. I was explaining who Arnold was, who I was, how I came to be there.
«Cracked his skull like an egg shell.»
«Come with us, please.»
I sat in a police car between two men. I started explaining again. I said, «He hit her, I think. It was an accident. It wasn't murder.»
«Why did you do it?»
«Do what?»
«I didn't kill Arnold Baffin.»
«What did you hit him with?»
«Why did you do it? Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?»
«I didn't kill him.»
«You don't remember me.»
«Yes, I do.»
«I'm Francis Marloe, you know, your brother-in-law.»
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