A Word Child (23 page)

The letter was dated a week ago and was presumably what Biscuit had tried to deliver last Saturday. It was a neatly written letter, doubtless the result of several drafts. Lady Kitty had acted quickly and yet carefully. Then I realized that Biscuit was supposed to take a message back, only I had dismissed her. This upset me very much. For of course there could be no doubt or hesitation about it. I would certainly do whatever Lady Kitty wanted. I would see her, I would see Gunnar, I would take the initiative which she said he would not take. I must do this and trust to her judgment that it would do more good than harm. Whether she was right or not was another matter. But it was not for me even to speculate about this. I simply had to do what her letter told me. As for my failure to return an answer at once by Biscuit, I must hope that this would not be interpreted as indecision. Of course there could be no question of my communicating with the house in Cheyne Walk. But Biscuit would surely come again for her reply. I was confronted, I suddenly realized with a mixture of alarm and awed relief, with an organization of almost military efficiency. There was no doubt, and as I saw this I let my head fall back against the wall in a kind of frightened admiring amaze, that Biscuit had been sent to observe me, to report on me, to see if I was the sort of person who could be trusted to receive Lady Kitty's — oh my God — so precious letter. Biscuit would turn up again to learn my answer to it, to learn if I would speak to Gunnar and whether I would be beside the Serpentine at eight o'clock on Monday.

The whole vista which now unravelled before my dazzled eyes was so extraordinary that I panted with emotion as I viewed it. Fancy, and this was the least of shocks, those two women discussing me! Biscuit must in some sense have reported favourably, yet on what evidence and in what terms? Lady Kitty would not have written such a dangerous
brave
letter to just anybody. How fantastically kind of her to write to me! And what on earth could she think about me, what image of me was there in her mind? I now realized that, with my idiotic conception of myself as scarcely existing, I had not imagined that she would ever have given me a single thought. I must have supposed, when I knew that Gunnar had married again, that he must have told his spouse about the past. Only I had not reflected. I had not really conceived that some conception of
me
had existed all these years in the minds of Gunnar and his second wife. And thus I had of course protected myself. What monster had been there all these years of which I knew nothing and which was yet a part of my being?

It was odd, almost frivolous, that I thought first about the women. But I thought about them briefly. The important thing was Gunnar. And as I read the letter through for the fourth time my imagination began to be stirred and very uncomfortably stirred. ‘Bitterness … resentment… anger… revenge …' I had in truth not imagined Gunnar as
brooding.
I had conceived of him as hating me, but I had pictured this hatred as something clean, hygienic, separate and somehow essentially past, like a sharp knife put away forever in a drawer. Not that I thought that such things fade or vanish in the end. But I did not rate it among the live continuing functioning changing things of the world, partly because I did not conceive that I would ever meet Gunnar again. As far as my life was concerned it was all over. But supposing all these years Gunnar's hatred had grown, had flowered? Suppose he had meditated schemes of revenge, suppose he had wanted to kill me, suppose he still wanted to? What use was Lady Kitty's touching idea of a quiet talk in the face of a horror like that?

And yet she had written to ask my help. Her letter bewildered me, since it conjured up for the first time a genuinely biting image of the real Gunnar, and in the same breath spoke of reconciliation and cure as being at least worth the attempt. I had to trust her here. She must have some good enough reason to think the quiet talk a possibility. If there was really nothing for me in Gunnar except mad rage, she would not have made the suggestion — unless she was a very silly woman. But then perhaps she was a very silly woman? That had to be considered too. Altogether it was important that I should see her before deciding exactly how to approach Gunnar. It might be wisest to write him a letter. Then if he did not want to see me there need be no drama at all. All he had to do was not to reply.

But then, the imagination raced frenziedly on, what would become of me? How would I feel as the hours and the days went by and Gunnar did not answer me — or if he just replied formally that he would not see me? I measured what an immense mental change I had already undergone since opening that fateful letter. What a completely new landscape confronted me now! I had never for a moment envisaged a reconciliation with Gunnar, even the degree of reconciliation which talking would imply, as being available to me. Even God could scarcely have brought it about. Could Lady Kitty manage to do what God could not? Of course Lady Kitty had the advantage of existing, of sitting in her room at Cheyne Walk and writing this letter and handing it to her maid … But amazing as were her possible achievements, what she had already brought about was perhaps equally remarkable. She had totally altered my mind. I now thought it at least conceivable that I might speak again to Gunnar and be in some way at peace with him; and now that I could conceive of this, I wanted it, I needed it, with a desperation which was something new in my life. If
that
could only happen … How terrible suddenly to want this almost impossible thing, to realize that it could be, and yet might never be. This was a new suffering which the damned had not imagined, as if Christ should open a window into hell, look through, and then close it again.

This consideration, this glimpse of a completely new torture, brought my thoughts abruptly back to myself. Of course they had never really been away, but now all the old familiar solipsistic self-protective instincts were active, rejecting the possibility of change, the possibility of failure. I could now have faced the idea of Gunnar's murdering me more readily than the idea of his ignoring me, of his simply failing to respond to my appeal. After all, nothing had happened yet, nothing need happen, to alter the arrangements of my life. I had only to say no to Lady Kitty. It would be a reasonable enough no. No might indeed be not only the prudent answer but the right answer. I could say no and remain in safety. And yet — how could I not be there beside the Serpentine on Monday morning where in my feverish imagination I could already see myself waiting?

I rose now in sheer confused agitation and blundered out of the bar onto the platform, holding the letter still unfolded in my hand. A Hounslow train was just roaring into the station in a loud climax of dry clamour. Not knowing what I was doing I began to walk towards the escalator.

‘Hilary!'

The face of Biscuit suddenly materialized. I cannoned into her, then grabbed her coat and pulled her back beside me against the wall. The people on the platform surged forward, the people off the train streamed past. Biscuit and I leaned back against the advertisements.

‘Hello, Biscuit, we meet again. Why are you here?'

‘I followed you.'

‘Followed — you mean from — ?'

‘Yes, from the bridge. I wanted to bring back the message. I was to bring it back tonight. I thought I would wait until you had finished the letter. Then I could take the message.'

‘Oh, my God, And how long have you waited?'

‘Not long. Only an hour and a half.'

‘An hour and a half? Have I been sitting in there for an hour and a half?'

‘I watched you through the window. I did not like to interrupt you as you were thinking.'

‘Thinking? Was that thinking? I wondered what it was.'

‘The message — '

‘Oh yes, the message. What message, incidentally?'

‘Will you do what Lady Kitty asks and will you meet her on Monday?'

‘I thought you didn't know what was in the letter.'

‘I don't. I ask what I was told to ask.'

‘You're a handy girl, aren't you. I wish you were my maid. The answer is yes and yes.'

‘Yes and yes?'

‘Yes, I will do what she asks and yes I will meet her on Monday.'

‘Thank you. Good night — then — Hilary.'

I looked down at Biscuit. She was looking up at me. Her duffle coat was dry now (had she really been sitting patiently on the cold platform all that time?), her eyes were glistening and big, but I did not interrogate them. Her bony face looked tired. In the rough shapeless coat she looked like a refugee. I kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘Off you go. How will you get to Cheyne Walk from here?'

‘I shall walk, it is not far.'

‘Good night, then.'

She turned and went slowly away without looking back and got onto the escalator and was carried upward out of sight. I waited a while to let her get ahead on her journey back to Cheyne Walk, where she would report, in some bright cosy unimaginable boudoir, to her unimaginable employer. Then I followed up myself and came out into Sloane Square. The night air bit with a coldness which shocked the blood into retreat. I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. The fog was a little less dense. I stood still for a while, then began to walk along in the direction of the King's Arms.

Suddenly I remembered Tommy. I looked at my watch. Biscuit's vigil had lasted more like two hours. Tommy had been waiting for me for well over an hour. I went into the telephone box outside the Royal Court Theatre and rang her number.

‘Tommy — '

‘Oh darling — darling — thank God. I couldn't think what had happened — I thought you'd been run over, I thought you'd been killed — I was so worried — Oh thank God, thank God — '

‘Tommy, I'm so sorry — '

‘That's all right, I'm just so relieved to hear your voice, oh I am so relieved — I was imagining all sorts of things — '

‘I'm sorry, darling — '

‘Will you come now?'

‘Well, no, I can't — '

There was a silence.

‘Tommy, I'm sorry, it isn't that — I mean I'm not with anyone else. I'm in a telephone box in Sloane Square and I'm just going home. I had a drink or two and forgot the time — I think I'd better — go home now — please forgive me — '

After another silence she said, ‘All right — darling — I'm just so disappointed not to see you — I was so longing to see you. Will you — see me tomorrow?'

‘Yes, yes, tomorrow — tomorrow morning if you like — come to the flat about eleven — we could go for a walk.'

‘Oh good, oh thank you, I'm so glad — don't worry, I'll be all right, I'll sleep well. I do hope you're not upset about anything — you will tell me, won't you?'

‘Yes, yes — '

‘Sleep well, my darling.'

‘And you too, Tommy, sleep well — good night.'

And I did sleep well. And the final thing I thought before I fell asleep was that now, at last, in the end, Lady Kitty had taken over and she would dispose of everything in the best way possible. Lady Kitty … would … arrange … it … all…

SATURDAY

I
T WAS the next morning and Tommy and I were at the Round Pond. Tommy was happy. She knew from of old that this was a place of reconciling.

Earlier in the morning Mick and Jimbo had arrived as usual to visit Christopher. Jimbo had bought me a potted plant, a gloomy resigned growth which looked as if it had never heard of flowers. I was touched however. Did Jimbo, in the gentle sympathy of his half-feminine Welsh heart, know that I was shortly to face the flames? He gave it to me hastily and shyly, as if anxious not to display any sort of pity. Later the telephone engineer arrived and then the boy with the elastic band hair style. This contravened the rule of only three visitors at a time, but I forgave them on this occasion for the sake of Jimbo's potted plant. The telephone engineer had brought a guitar and after a while there was a cautious sound of plucked strings, then the hollow tap of the tabla and fragments of muted singing. Perhaps the Waterbirds were coming into existence after all. I did not disturb them. When Tommy came I took her away at once. I did not want to let her into the flat.

We had strolled along the vista which belongs to Watts's Bronze Horseman, and had reached the Round Pond, that centre of intense and innocent diversion, that perhaps mysterious and holy place, the omphalos of London. The quick-change artist weather had put on another show today. The fog had gone, to be replaced by a vivid russet-yellow light, cloud almost pierced by sun, which lent bright but strange colours to all things visible, the calm dark façade of Kensington Palace, the choppy metallic surface of the pond, the iridescent feathers of the ducks, the white sails of the model yachts, the red jerseys of the children, Tommy's blue mac, Tommy's grey eyes. Tommy held my hand and I let her, feeling myself like a child. I had no grain of sexual desire for her today.

Some boys were flying kites, racing along, trying to persuade strange bird-like structures to rise, to lift themselves mysteriously into the air, to tug, to be checked, to rise again, to float, to soar, until they should become high colourless spots and then vanish into the yellow sky which must after all be composed of mist. Excited dogs with sensitive spotted noses gambolled upon the glaringly green grass, mad with canine joys. Large and small beasts raced and circled in an ecstasy of motion, stopping abruptly to perform those intimate free-masonical ceremonies whereby alsatians, mastiffs, terriers, chihuahuas and pekinese all somehow recognize each other as dogs.

We admired the cunning speed of the model yachts, their owners swinging round the pond in dignified absorption to catch their vessels on the other side, adjust their sails and send them off again. We watched the diving ducks diving, and the swans swanning and the Canadian geese driving in convoy, groaning softly with excitement as they approached some bread-bestowing child. We watched an old man feeding sparrows, the tiny birds hovering like little frenzied helicopters above his fingers. We saw the beautiful feet of coots through green transparent water. Tommy laughed with happiness and squeezed my arm. I laughed too. We sat down on a wet bench. A collie ran up and thrust its warm firm muzzle into Tommy's hand.

I felt extraordinary. I was being kind to Tommy because I could not afford to quarrel with her just then, could not spare the energy for any irrelevant difference of opinion with the dear child, for instance about trivial questions such as whether or not we were going to get married. The idea of this marriage had now become utterly flimsy and unreal. The dreadful light cast by Lady Kitty's letter had made a new world, or perhaps it was an old world, a primeval world, a world in any case which had never heard of Thomasina Uhlmeister or of the man who had lain in bed with her on Wednesday night.

On the way to the Round Pond I had taken Tommy roundabout by way of the Serpentine Bridge and had inspected the place where I was to meet Lady Kitty on Monday morning. Of course I felt frightened about this meeting, but also felt, so strangely, a sort of deep calm, the almost confident calm which had accompanied me into sleep on the previous night. I was now in an interim wherein all power of action had been taken from me. I was paralysed and waiting, like a fly stung by a spider, only I was a cool resigned fly, almost without anxiety, so taken over was I by this sudden new power which had entered my life. I had been conscripted, I was under orders. Later of course I would have to make judgments, face dangers, take risks, decide and choose. But in the pure blessed interval between now and Monday there was absolutely nothing I could do but fold my hands and wait. Pray perhaps, not even hope, not even speculate, but wait. I almost wished the time was longer. I felt calm, vigorous and in an obscure way tremendously changed. My bright paralysed serenity communicated itself to Tommy. She interpreted it as my brave resignation to the idea of becoming her husband (this was plausible though wrong) and with her intelligent tact she refrained from putting any sort of pressure upon me. In our crazy separated ways we were almost happy, able at any rate to enjoy the kites, the boats, the dogs, the birds.

‘Collies are so clever.'

‘Are they, Tomkins?'

‘I think they love us more than any other dog does.'

‘Is that a sign of intelligence?'

‘They communicate, they understand.'

‘Do they, Thomas?'

‘In Scotland you can see the collie dog on one hillside collecting up the sheep and the shepherd a mile away on the other hillside directing the dog by whistling.'

‘Is that what you can see in Scotland, Thomasina?'

‘You're teasing me, Hilary! Isn't he, collie dog?'

It was Saturday evening and I had just arrived at Crystal's place. The evening had brought the light brown fog nuzzling down out of the air, not as thick as last night, but gently smudging lights and outlines, smelling of soot and burning, not unpleasant. I shook my overcoat and laid it out on Crystal's bed. Her little electric fire, kept on all day, had made the room quite warm. The sewing machine was in its usual place upon the floor, looking like a good dog. The table was laid, the lace cloth spotless.

‘Are you all right, darling?'

‘Yes, yes — and you?'

‘Fine. What's for supper?'

‘Sausages and mashed and beans and blackberry and apple pie and custard.'

‘Oh good.' I opened the Spanish burgundy.

My enchanted Round Pond mood had undergone some modification under the gloomy challenge of the afternoon. The sheer fright I had felt in the Sloane Square Station bar had returned, the possible torture of a frustrated hope. The notion of any hope here was terrible. What could I possibly hope for? This morning I had felt almost complacent because I imagined that Lady Kitty would tell me what to do and see to it that I succeeded. Now this seemed ridiculous. Lady Kitty was some sort of blind gambler, and she was gambling with me. At least she was proposing to do so. During the afternoon (lying on my bed, alone) I had been thinking about Gunnar. About that house in north Oxford. About Tristram. About the car crash. About how wonderfully kind Gunnar had been to me. About the day when he and Anne brought the champagne. About when I saw him in hospital. About things that must not be thought about.

I tried to distract my mind by wondering whether I was really going to marry Tommy, and if so whether I ought to tell Crystal so this evening. I thought now in a resigned will-less sort of way that I might conceivably marry Tommy. I did sort of love Tommy. Our little time at the Round Pond had been for me a time of sort of love. And her absolute love for me was perhaps a gift not to be thrown away; just as Arthur's absolute love for Crystal was a gift not to be thrown away. Thus it is with some marriages and not necessarily bad ones either. Perhaps some sort of contentment might come to me somehow some day if I married little Tommy and let her try to cure my soul? I felt, as I walked through the light fog towards North End Road, tired and sad, distracted for a while from the afternoon's dread and the fear of Monday, and resolved at last to speak to Crystal about Tommy and about our possible, probable, marriage. Perhaps Crystal was waiting for this, perhaps it would relieve her mind and make her feel happier in her own choice; and if so it was for this reason worth doing. How terribly sad I felt about it now. However it did not after all matter very much to me what I did with myself.

I poured out a glass of the still rather chilly burgundy. Then I saw that Crystal was crying. A large tear had come from each eye, failed to make it over the plump curve of the cheek and rolled away on either side towards the ear. Two more tears followed.

‘Oh my darling, what is it?'

Crystal quickly dispersed the tears, then went into the little kitchen and turned off the gas under the potatoes. I went after her, terrified. For a moment her face had expressed the most awful helpless grief.

‘Crystal, what is it? What is it, my darling girl?'

‘Nothing. It's perfectly all right. I'm so sorry, I'm just being silly.'

‘What is it, tell me? Look come back in here and sit down.'

‘Don't sit on your wet coat, dear.'

‘
Tell me!
'

‘It's just that — I've broken things off with Arthur.'

‘Oh God — '

We sat at the table looking at each other. Crystal took her glasses off. More tears came out of her golden eyes and tried to go down her cheeks, but she mopped them away.

I thought, why? I thought, Clifford Larr. Had I not, in some rotten secret cranny of my soul, been hoping for just this? Clifford had decided, casually, cynically, to prevent the marriage. He had thought that he could do so by moving his little finger and he had been right. I felt distress, disgust, anger. I wondered if I should say what I thought or keep silent. I had to know, the anger was so much. I said, ‘Dear heart, did Clifford do this? Did he write to you, come to see you?'

‘No, no — it's nothing to do with him.'

‘He didn't write or come or telephone or anything?'

‘No, no, no!'

I wondered if that was true. ‘Then why? I thought you'd decided, I thought you wanted it, I thought you'd be happy.'

‘No, it's just — I'm so sorry — I feel I'm being stupid and awful — I just felt it wouldn't do.'

‘But
why,
why did you change your mind, has anything
happened
to change your mind?'

‘No, nothing, just my thoughts.'

‘You haven't quarrelled with Arthur?'

‘No, we never quarrel.'

‘But
what
in your thoughts, why?'

‘Please don't be angry — '

‘I'm not! You've told him?'

‘Yes, I wrote him a letter. You see, I was never really sure about it, there were so many things — '

‘It's not for me, you haven't broken it off because of me, because of not wanting to leave me alone?' Oh God, ought I now to tell her about Tommy? What was I to do?

‘No, no, it's not that at all. I just — it's in my own self — I can't get married, it's too late — I'm an old maid already — I'm a happy happy old maid — ' Now tears were everywhere, soaking her cheeks.

I pushed my chair up against hers and got her into my arms. ‘Oh my Crystal baby, my love.' She laid her head on my shoulder and I stroked her funny frizzy hair.

‘You always said we were babes in the wood.'

‘Oh, Christ, yes.' How lost, in what a wood. ‘Oh, Crystal, I do so much want you to be happy, I do so blame myself, I've wrecked your life, I know I have — '

‘No, you haven't, I love you, and if I can help you and be with you sometimes then I'm perfectly happy.'

‘Over and over like a mighty sea comes the love of Crystal rolling over me.'

Later on we calmed down and ate the sausages and mashed and I let myself feel profound disgraceful relief at Crystal's decision. We did not discuss Arthur or Gunnar or Tommy and of course I said nothing about Lady Kitty. We talked a lot about the old days, about the caravan and Aunt Bill and about Christmas times when we were children. And I promised to take Crystal to see the decorations in Regent Street.

I came up in the lift, which had been mended. It was not late. I had left Crystal before ten. She had become quite calm and almost, in her curious way, radiant. The tears had left her dear face quite bright. And her love for me glowed out of it as it had always done through the long long years. I wondered and wondered what it was that had made her draw back. Perhaps, after all, it was just her sense that, for her happiness, she could love no one but me? Was it indeed perhaps her intuitive identification with me, her sense of my tribulation, and her desire to clear the decks so as to help me in my coming trial? She must feel that with Gunnar's return I was in some way imperilled. And with me in trouble how could she think of Arthur? Or rather, with me in trouble did she not discover how little she really cared for him?

In the dreary dull electric light of the landing someone was standing outside the door of my flat. My heart sank into my boots. It was Arthur.

‘Oh hello, Arthur. No one at home?'

‘I didn't ring. I knew you were with — her — '

‘Why didn't you ring, you dolt? Why stand on the landing?'

‘I didn't want to be a nuisance — '

I opened the door and we went in.

Christopher came out of his room, looking very beautiful in a new dragon-embroidered dressing gown. ‘I say, Hilary, Laura was here and — Oh hello, Arthur.'

Thank God I had missed Laura anyway. ‘Did you get those candles?'

‘Oh God, I forgot again, I'm so sorry! Can I make you some — ?'

‘No, just buzz off. And don't start any bloody music.'

I went into my bedroom and Arthur followed me and we both sat down on the bed. Arthur began to cry.

‘Oh Arthur, stop, I've had such a day — '

‘She told you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you think she'll change her mind?'