A Word Child (30 page)

Kitty was silent. She did not answer this, but said in a few moments, still pacing, ‘What was she like?'

‘Has Gunnar never told you?'

‘Never in the world. You obviously haven't
understood.
Nothing could be more impossible.'

I reflected. ‘I don't think I can tell you either, not just like that.'

‘Say something. Please. Anything. What colour was her hair?'

‘Mouse.'

‘But she was beautiful?'

‘She had lovely — bright — clever — eyes. I'm very sorry but I can't — I can't — '

Kitty sighed deeply and stood still gazing out over the dark now faster moving tide of the river.

‘You never saw a photograph of her?' I said after a moment.

She shook her head. I wondered if she was beginning to cry, but I could not now see her face.

She spoke again in a firm voice. She had evidently decided to leave that subject. ‘You told me that this — business — had wrecked your life.'

‘Yes. And my sister's.'

‘You have a sister?'

Kitty's discussion of me with Gunnar could not after all have been very detailed if even this had not emerged. I did not know if I was pleased or not.

‘Yes.'

Kitty did not pursue the sister. ‘Well, as I think I said then, ought you not to see to yourself, try to cure yourself as well, or get cured and better and so on?' The words were awkward and could not but sound cold.

‘Ghosts don't get cured. They just fade away.' This ought not to have been said.

She replied, perhaps even a trifle more coldly, ‘You know that's silly. You must try, you can try. And if you help Gunnar you will at least have done something to sort of rescue the past.'

‘Yes. I suppose so.' With desperation I felt the current of communication between us drying up, ceasing. In a moment now she would tell me to go, and I could think of nothing to say to stop her. And I was behaving as if I resented everything she said. How could I remove this impression without seizing her hand and crying out? I said abruptly, ‘You got my letter?'

‘Yes, of course. Thank you — thank you for writing at such length — '

Silence. The letter had been a mistake, everything I did here was a mistake.

Kitty spoke again, sounding a little now as if she too wanted to ‘save' our conversation. ‘You mustn't worry so.'

‘Worry? Well, one does rather!'

‘Sorry, my words are all going wrong this evening. I mean — you think everything's your fault, but it isn't.'

‘I can't see whose else's fault anything can be here!'

‘Well — his — even mine — '

‘Scarcely yours!'

‘Yes, mine. I haven't — at least — brought him luck — I haven't been able really to help him — another woman might have — and I've had no children — and he so much wants — '

‘I expect he does, after losing two, but I don't see — ' I felt now as if I were plunging around in the mud.

‘Two?'

‘Yes — ' Then I covered my mouth with my hand.

‘How do you mean
two
?'

‘Oh well — I suppose — there might have been — I don't mean anything — '

‘Why
two,
you said
two
?'

Kitty had stopped in front of me. Her glaring eyes shone with passion. There was no escape.

‘Anne was pregnant — his — '

‘He never told me.'

I moved away from her. I did not want to see her face, I wanted to cover my own.

Kitty too had turned away. It was as if a bell had rung to separate two fighters. Or as if two planes peeling off east and west were suddenly separated by the whole sky. She sat down upon the edge of the jetty, the expensive coat trailing in the mud.

I had never felt more a victim of the past. I said, ‘I am very sorry — '

‘Please go away now.'

‘May I — '

‘Please go. Thank you for coming. Now please go.'

I went slowly away from her in the direction of the embankment.

It was only seven-thirty when I reached the North End Road. I had of course in the previous days, and even during today, and even somehow in Kitty's presence, not forgotten that I was to see Crystal on Saturday evening. Saturday was Crystal's day and unless I told her I was not coming she would expect me. When I telephoned her on Thursday evening I had heard that lonely echo from the private inwardness of her sad existence. Of course I knew that Crystal had stripped her life for me, that she was alone because of me. How I had planned once to surround her with friends, with sources of joy, to make up forever for those horrible childhood years! It would have been possible, even easy, if I had been happy myself. As it was she lived in poverty and solitude and of the two friends whom I had brought to her one (Clifford) had caused her misery and the other (Arthur) she had surrendered because of me. Did I measure her loneliness or try to imagine it? No. I never reflected on how she passed the long hours and days between our meetings.

I was always profoundly relieved and glad to come to Crystal, though this never, in the harsh chemistry of my soul, set going any wish to see her oftener, and this evening I needed her with a blind passionate hunted frenzy. In the certain hope that everything would be absolutely as usual I bounded up the stairs to her room.

Everything was absolutely as usual. The lace tablecloth was laid for two and the parchment shaded lamp with the galleon on it was switched on in the corner, for decoration only, since the bright centre light revealed the shabby room but too well. The sherry was on the table. The wine I had brought with me, bought at the usual nearby pub. Crystal was sitting beside the table and sewing. She read my face at once, threw the sewing down and came round the table. We embraced and held onto each other tightly, eyes closed. As I am six foot one and Crystal scarcely five feet two an embrace was always some sort of ingenious compromise. I sagged, she stood on tiptoe. It was very easy to sag on this occasion, I felt ready to fall to the ground as soon as her hands touched me.

I let go of her and sat down heavily on her bed, rumpling the green satin bedspread. She stared at me for a few moments, as if touching my head with the tender sensitive antennae of her loving thoughts. Then she poured out some sherry and put it on the table within my reach. I peeled off my coat and pulled the wine bottle out of the pocket.

‘What's for supper?'

‘Fish cakes and grilled tomatoes and chips and strawberry trifle and cream.'

‘Good.'

Crystal began to open the wine bottle, as she always did at this stage, still watching me.

‘Are you all right, Crystal darling?'

‘Yes, fine.'

‘Have you seen Arthur?'

‘No.'

‘You haven't changed your mind about chucking him?'

‘No.'

I looked up at Crystal. Her beautiful golden eyes were hidden by the thick glasses whereon all sorts of reflections were playing as she moved her head, dealing with the bottle. Her frizzy orange-tinted hair hung heavily down as if a small thick mat had been laid upon her head. Her moist jutting lower lip expressed anxiety and concern. The nostrils of her stumpy upturned nose moved in and out.

I was drinking my sherry. I needed that drink.

Crystal said, ‘Have you seen Tommy?'

‘Yes, but that's all over, finished with.' It seemed a hundred years since I had dismissed Thomasina from my life and my thoughts, and it only now occurred to me that I had not hitherto had time to inform Crystal.

‘I know. She came here.'

‘Tommy came here, bothering you? Blast her. What did she say?'

‘She cried.'

‘She cries everywhere.'

Crystal was silent. She placed the wine bottle carefully upon the little decorated cork mat which awaited it upon the table. Words were not necessary to tell me that although Crystal sympathized a bit with Tommy she was glad that I was not going to marry her.

‘Give me some more sherry, darling.'

For both of us, that was enough about Tommy. I had decided as I came along to tell Crystal everything. Well, almost everything.

‘Have you cooked the fish cakes?'

‘Yes, everything's cooked. It's in the oven. We can have it when we like.'

‘Good. Sit down, dear heart. Near me.'

She sat down on an upright chair near to the bed, holding her sewing on her lap. She was wearing a shapeless old woollen dress with blue and green stripes which used to belong to Aunt Bill, and which Crystal had altered, more than once, to fit herself. Crystal's wardrobe went on and on forever. Nothing was ever thrown away.

‘Crystal, listen. I have seen Lady Kitty. You know, Gunnar's wife.'

A dark red-purplish flush rose into Crystal's face, making it look for a moment almost leaden.

‘Have you seen Gunnar?'

‘No. Well, literally yes, but I haven't talked to him. I don't know if I will — it's all — oh it's all so complicated — ' It struck me now for the first time that, feeling as I did about Kitty, perhaps I ought not to see Gunnar, ought not to proceed another step along the road where a woman's well-meaning rashness was leading me. I had accepted Kitty's picture of the situation with naive faith. But why should I trust her judgment of what was needful?

‘How was it you saw Lady Kitty?'

‘She asked to see me. She sent her servant to me. I talked to her twice. Gunnar doesn't know.'

‘Gunnar doesn't know you saw her?'

‘No. You see — ' How absurd it all seemed now that I was trying to tell it. ‘You see, she feels I might be able to help Gunnar. I mean, he's been obsessed all these years with what happened, he's been hating me and wanting revenge and she says it's — it's like an illness — and if he could just see me and — it wouldn't really matter much what we said so long as we talked — '

‘But if he hates you, if he wants revenge?'

‘He might stop, if he saw me. He might feel differently — anyway it might become less of a — '

‘He might hurt you.'

‘Don't be silly, Crystal. These are mental things.' Were they?

‘I don't want you to see him,' she said. She was pulling the piece of sewing between her two hands, pulling it apart. In the moment of silence I could hear the threads breaking. I took it from her and put it on the table.

‘No need to get as red as a turkey cock about it. It can't do any harm.'

‘It can. I don't want you to see him or to see her again. I don't want you to have anything to do with them at all. We were all right. Why did they have to come? Why can't they leave us alone? Please, Hilary, change your job, get away from him, please. Then we can be like we were before. And now there's just the two of us again. If you see him you will be hurt, you will be badly hurt somehow, I know it, I know it — '

‘Dear child, dear love, don't be so bloody irrational. And try to think of me, well I know you're thinking of me, but think of me a bit more intelligently. Suppose I want to see Gunnar? Suppose I feel it might help
me
to have a talk with him? He's not the only one who's obsessed, he's not the only one who's got the horrors about — that — '

Crystal was silent for a while, looking down, away from me. ‘Do you want to see him?'

‘I don't know. I want to do what she wants.'

‘What Lady Kitty wants? Why?'

‘Because she's — Because I love her — I can't help it — '

This was the bit I had decided not to tell; but once I had started it was impossible to hold it back. Without it, in any case, the story scarcely made sense.

‘I see,' said Crystal after a moment. She picked up her sewing again and began to fiddle with it, drawing her finger along the seam. Then she found her needle and began with remarkable neat rhythmical quickness to sew.

‘I love her,' I said. ‘Yes, I love her.' It was something vast to say it, it seemed to open up a great dark dome above me blazing with stars. ‘But of course — '

‘Have you told her?'

‘What do you take me for? Of course I haven't.'

‘Does she love you?'

‘Don't be idiotic, Crystal. I'm sorry I told you, you're getting the wrong end of the stick at once. It's not like that. Quite probably I shall never see her again. They want to get on with their lives, I'm just a sort of instrument. She doesn't care for me, she just wants me to see Gunnar so as to help him and she doesn't want him to know she suggested it.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because it would make it less sort of efficient, efficacious.' Was that the reason? I had not really reflected on the reason.

‘Well, he might not be pleased — ' said Crystal, her needle flashing.

‘Oh do stop sewing, Crystal, my nerves are shot to pieces!'

‘Would you like your supper now?'

‘No. Give me some wine.'

Crystal put the sewing down again, poured the wine.

‘Have they got children, Gunnar and her?'

‘No. Look, Crystal, my loving Lady Kitty is just a fact, it's just an irrelevant fact — '

‘You said it made you want to do what she told you.'

‘Yes, but I'd do that anyway out of a sense of duty. If there's the faintest possibility of my being able to help Gunnar I've got to try, can't you see that? This isn't the beginning of anything I'm not going to be a friend of the family, how can I be? I'll just see Gunnar once, twice maybe, then I'm done. I certainly won't be seeing
her
again, I may not even see her again at all, as I said. Do try and understand.'

‘I think I'll have some sherry,' said Crystal. This was unusual. She said, ‘I don't want you to see him. I don't want there to be anything between you any more at all.'

‘But why? I wouldn't have looked for him. But now he's here. We meet on the bloody stairs!'