A Garden of Trees (27 page)

“A regard for Peter?”

“Yes. And I know for certain that he has a regard for you.”

“Has he?”

“Yes. And he is not lavish with his respect. There are few people, I feel, who can influence him.”

“There was . . . ” I began.

“There was someone whom he respected? Yes, I believe there was, and now there is no longer. You will have noticed, perhaps, that that is part of the trouble.”

I had noticed. I remembered Marius in the square with Peter running beside him, a moonlight night with emotion gone wrong, Marius as Mephistopheles and Peter as Faust. It had been a holiday beneath the statue that we had none of us understood. And now there was retribution. “I had noticed that,” I said.

“You see,” he said, “there is something in this century that is inimical to children. Peter is still a child. We have talked about the chasm between generations, but it is really not that, it is simply a difference in ages. My generation were children once, at the beginning of the century, and it is interesting to remember us. We were mostly killed in the war. There was an obsession with death when I was young just as now there is an obsession with futility. Then it was active and now it is passive; that is the only difference. We all of us arrive at that age when destruction becomes a mania of the soul—the age when we cease against our will to be children.

“Have you ever read the letters of young men at the beginning of the first world war? They are extraordinary reading. I mean the young men who, like myself and Peter, were brought up with every material advantage. I do not speak for those whose childhood was a material struggle, for their problems were different. My generation, the generation of Edwardian children being brought up in Edwardian luxury, came to an age at which they wanted to die. They said so, in their letters. They were children, and they did not know how to grow up, so they went to war to absolve themselves from the responsibility. There they found what they wanted. They said so. The war was a release, a fulfillment of childish continuities. They lived as children and they died as children, and I think they were glad.”

“It was not the same in this war,” I said.

“No, but that was because this war was not a children's business. One gets, as it were, wise to war's futility. We did, of course, after a few months in the trenches. But you were older than we, you knew it all before, you could find no release in sacrifice because you knew that it was sacrifice for nothing. We did not. And now you are alive, but you still don't know what to do about it. It is funny how there were fewer deaths in this war probably because there were fewer desires for it.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Peter, of course, is different. Peter had no war. He did not have the opportunity for sacrifice. But the situation is there. He has reached an age at which he requires an opportunity to fulfill himself, and he does not find it. He was an extraordinary child, and the memory of that does not help him. He was brought up in the old style, and life ran kindly for him. We spent much of our time in foreign countries, you know, where English children are, so to speak, at a premium. And then he was at school. He was very successful at school. And then he was fond of Annabelle. I think he was quite unusually fond of Annabelle. They never fought, or quarreled, as brothers and sisters do. They used to guard each other carefully like ancient maiden ladies. There were times, indeed, when their regard for each other almost worried me. They became quite solemn and detached in their affection.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Once, you see, the world was not inimical to children. Once there was continuity between the expectation of a child and the expectation of an adult. The pattern was set, and the child advanced in it smoothly. Now the pattern is broken and the grown-up child is lost. This is a direct result of the freedom which children nowadays are given. This freedom is not right unless the child can build something out of it.”

“No,” I said.

“So, you see, this is a time of testing. We have agreed that children should not translate things into their parents' terms, and this I have endeavoured to put into practice. Now we have to see whether our theories are justified. For Peter it is a time when childhood ceases. The old life dies and the new life begins. He has to find his own translation. I think it is only right that we should help the death to be as comfortable as possible.”

“But with no bluff, no craftiness—that is always recognized on a death-bed. We must face what is real.”

“If you will allow me to say so, I think that this might be taken as a definition of the difference between the old and the young—that the young are realists on the surface and not underneath, and the old are most likely the opposite. Reality, you see, is not solely concerned with behaviour. In manners, words, and affections the young endeavour to be the most ardent realists, but they are not often wise enough to be realists at heart. The aim of a realist is to come to terms with his situation, and to the successful achievement of this manners are a means and not an end. The charge of hypocrisy that is so often leveled against the old is of no validity unless one knows what is in each man's heart. There are certain intentions, and certain failures, and the behaviour that arises from them. But it is in intention that the old are the realists.”

“And the intention is to come to terms?”

“In the best possible way, with the way of each person different. There can be no other realistic intention. You will perhaps know the futility of refusing terms and fighting.”

“Yes,” I said.

“So that, with Peter, we must be realists, certainly, but realists primarily in aim. We must help him to come to terms in the best possible way. As to what that way is, your guess is as good as mine. Also, I am sure, will be your manners. I trust that you will not find mine too frivolously indirect.”

“Nor mine too earnest,” I said.

“The old, you see, have their little tricks of appeasement. I do not think they are wrong. It is the intentions that matter.”

“Not the results?”

“I have said that there are failures. I would go so far as to say that there are too many failures. But that should not prevent one from trying.”

“No,” I said.

We lay back in our chairs. For a railway station the room was unusually quiet. Rubber-soled porters crept by with muffled trays. I felt enormously flattered. With me, perhaps, had he been insincere? A tactical manoeuvre to enroll my support? It did not matter. I believed him. “I will do what I can,” I said.

“Thank you. And now, if you will excuse me, I really must go. Perhaps, in fact, I had an appointment all the time!” He did his wicked smile at me through a pillar of smoke.

I followed him. Going down the steps he laid his hand on my arm. “Also,” he said, “there is Annabelle. But you will know what to do about that.” Then he walked on ahead of me.

In his tiny car he looked like an ancient carved idol. He wound down the window. “I hope I see you again,” he said.

“I hope so,” I said.

“I have to go to Paris to-morrow, but perhaps after that.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I used to know your father,” he said. “In fact we were very good friends. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I said.

He drove off rapidly through the taxis like a dog splitting a flock of sheep. I watched him whizz round the corner. I stood on the pavement and wondered if he had been talking all the time about Annabelle, but I did not think he had.

I rang up Peter. “Do you know where Marius is?” I said.

“Where are you speaking from?”

“From Pall Mall.”

“Have you been with my father?”

“Yes.”

“My father would charm the leg off a horse,” Peter said.

“Do you know where Marius is?”

“What have you been talking about?”

“About you, of course. And Marius?”

There was a silence for a few seconds, then, “I believe he is staying with your friend Alice,” Peter said.

“Oh.” I thought about this. “Will you be in this evening?” I said.

“I expect so.”

“Perhaps we might meet sometime afterwards.”

“After what?”

“Anyway, I'll ring you up.”

“Yes do. Do let's meet.”

“All right then.” I rang off.

I went round to Alice's house. She stood defensively in the doorway like a chucker-out. “Oh it's you,” she said. “Fancy seeing you.”

“I wondered if Marius was here,” I said.

“How rude,” she said. “No, he's out.”

“Can I come in then?”

“Have you got any cigarettes?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then you can come in.” She held the door open and I went through.

“I'm in a mess,” I said.

“For God's sake don't start talking about yourself again,” she said.

“All right. All right,” I said. “How's Marius?”

“He's a bore, but I don't see much of him. Why can't he stay at Grosvenor Square?”

“Annabelle is having a child,” I said. “Didn't you know?”

“No,” she said. “Is she? Can't I have a cigarette?”

I gave her one. “You don't seem very surprised,” I said.

“I don't think anything that goes on between you and your friends would surprise me,” she said.

“It's not my child.”

“Whose is it then?”

“I supposed it was Marius's.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I can't see why they aren't together, can you?”

“No,” she said.

“I mean, why doesn't he marry her?”

“Good heavens, why do people not marry each other?”

“But they must want to.”

“Must they? God knows I shouldn't want to marry Marius.”

“But she must want to. I suppose it is Marius who won't.”

“The way you think you understand people!” she said.

I sat down. The room was hot and oppressive. I felt faintly pathetic like a private detective. “I suppose you want me to leave you my cigarettes and go,” I said.

“Darling, you know how I love seeing you. Tell me what you have been doing lately.”

“Nothing,” I said. “I've finished my book.”

“I'm sure it's dreadful.”

“Yes. Do you know when Marius will be in?”

“No,” she said. “And why make such a fuss about Marius? You're not going to ask him why he doesn't marry Annabelle, are you?”

“I might,” I said.

“Oh how dreadful,” she said. “How perfectly dreadful. Please don't do it in my house, that's all. You can do it anywhere else.”

When Marius came in I saw at once that he seemed younger. He had always been theatrical, but now he made his entrance with some of the awkwardness of inexperience, his movement from the door to the chair being performed self-consciously as if he were watching himself from the audience. Once he had acted as if there were no one present to him except himself. Now there were others. It was strange that I was not more glad to see him.

“I'm going to my bedroom,” Alice said. “I can't bear to hear your conversation.”

Marius sat in the chair and smiled his half-smile into the carpet. Then he pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and took an enormous time to open them. “How did you know I was here?” he said.

“Peter told me.”

“Yes,” he said. He searched for matches. “I didn't know where you were,” he added.

“No,” I said. “That's what everyone says.”

Once, I remembered, what Marius had acted had been the same as what he felt. Now I had the impression that it was not. But that, surely, was what happened when one grew old? For Marius, then, growing younger, was this situation merely one about which he felt nothing? I found this difficult to believe.

“How did you think Peter was?”

“Not very well.”

“No. I'm thinking of going away,” he said.

“Away? You've only just got back.”

“I've got nothing to do here.”

“Haven't you?”

“No.”

“Then why did you come back?”

“Oh I don't know,” he said.

So here we were, I thought, back in the shop window where what is displayed has nothing to do with what is underneath, where the little packets are sham and the meanings, like Peter's figures, non-existent. The only oddity was that in Marius's window, as in those of the more exclusive establishments, there did not even seem to be anything on show. No feelings and nothing on show. It was at least logical.

“Where will you go?” I said.

“Back home,” he said. I had not heard him use the word “home” before. “There are things to be done there,” he said.

“And what will Peter do?” I found myself talking of Peter instead of Annabelle in the way that everyone did.

“I believe his father is trying to get him a job in Paris.”

“Will Peter take it?”

“I hope he will.”

“Do you know his father then?”

“Oh yes. I stayed with them, you know, for quite a time. He is a very remarkable man, his father. Very remarkable indeed. I was doing some work for him out there.”

“What sort of work?”

“Various things,” Marius said.

There was nothing else to say. I stood up to go. I was angry, but this time it was with a quite dispassionate annoyance, a desire to get away into an atmosphere that was whole. Marius watched me and then asked me, more from politeness than anxiety, I thought, if I would have lunch with him the next day. I thanked him. Politeness was better than nothing. I walked along to say good-bye to Alice and I found her lying on her bed in the shaded light. “I told you you would be in a mess if you went with Marius,” she said. She was looking very tired and the light made hollows in her face as it lay on the pillow. “Are you in a mess?” I said.