A Word Child (34 page)

It was a little more than an hour later and I was inserting my key in the door at the flat in Lexham Gardens. The heavens might be falling and the earth cracking but it was Monday and Clifford Larr would be waiting for me and the table would be set for supper.

I opened the door. The table was set. Clifford was in the kitchen stirring something.

‘Hello, darling.'

‘Hello,' I said, taking off my overcoat.

‘Is your cold better?'

‘What cold?'

‘The one you allegedly had last Monday.'

‘Oh that. What's for supper?'

‘Lentil soup. Chicken casserole. Stilton cheese.'

‘Good.'

‘Tell me something.'

‘What?'

‘Anything. I'm bored.'

‘A girl just slapped my face.'

‘Excellent. Tommy?'

‘No. Lady Kitty's maid.'

‘You are
in,
aren't you, having your face slapped by the maid. I suppose you tried to kiss her?'

‘Yes.'

‘You behave like a lout. I suppose it is early conditioning. What does Lady Kitty think?'

‘She doesn't know.'

‘What makes you imagine that?'

What indeed? Did Biscuit tell Kitty of my stupid kisses? I was surrounded by terrible dangerous mysteries. I felt exasperated, frightened shame. ‘That's all I'm fit for, kissing maids behind bushes and getting slapped. I've resigned my job.'

Clifford whistled thoughtfully on three notes, still stirring. ‘Why?'

‘Gunnar.'

‘You've seen him again, since our talk in the park on Wednesday.'

‘Yes. I saw him yesterday.'

‘And he told you to leave the office?'

‘More or less. It's not a bit like you thought.' I poured myself out a glass of sherry and sat down on my usual chair.

‘Didn't you have a touching reconciliation after all?'

‘No.'

‘A fight?'

‘No.'

‘Then what on earth?'

‘We had a clinical interview.'

‘I am fascinated. Describe it.'

‘Never boring, am I. Can I have some of those nuts?'

‘Yes, but not too many. Go on.'

‘He hates me,' I said, ‘and it's, for him, not part of the treatment to stop doing so. That's just the thing I didn't foresee. Like you, I thought it would be either a reconciliation or a fight. And as I don't think he's a complete fool I imagined that if he asked to see me it would be for some sort of reconciliation.'

‘You didn't say that on Wednesday.'

‘Like you, I don't always say what I think.'

‘I didn't know you were so optimistic.'

‘I wasn't. But I suppose I hoped — I don't know what I thought — '

‘Your behaviour is so unlike mine that sometimes understanding simply fails. You
hoped,
did you? Can you still do
that
? Surely you saw that it was totally naive to expect reconciliation — humility, sincerity, all play-acting of course, but still a lot to ask from a successful man of the world like Gunnar?'

‘But on Wednesday you said you thought there would be just that, that I'd be shown off as a sort of prodigal son, you said “I can see it all”.'

‘As you recently observed, I do not always say what I think.'

‘Ah. You feared it?'

‘You are a slow man, but you sometimes arrive.'

‘Well, you needn't have feared any friendship between me and Gunnar. Nothing could be more impossible.'

‘I find that satisfactory. But you have not described this clinical scene.'

‘It was all set up by one of Gunnar's analysts. He just wanted to see me to sort of get rid of emotions, like making a bomb safe by a controlled explosion. Only there was no explosion. We were both as cold as ice.'

Come on, this is getting dull again. Tell me something that he said.'

‘He said it did him good to utter Anne's name in my presence. He said his hatred of me had sort of kept her going as an awful ghost.'

‘Ah yes' — said Clifford thoughtfully, staring at me. ‘That makes sense. I can understand that.'

‘I'm not sure that I can. That was about it. He did all the talking. I behaved like an exceptionally stupid and callous zombie. He made me into one.'

‘I can understand that too.'

Then he said good-bye forever and told me to go.'

‘After having instructed you to resign your job.'

‘Yes.'

‘However you saw him again today.'

‘How did you know?'

‘I followed you back down the stairs. What happened today?'

I was certainly not going to tell Clifford that dreadful story about Crystal and Gunnar. ‘Nothing much.'

‘You lie. Does he know you've seen his wife?'

‘No.'

‘Have you seen her again, since Wednesday?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you in love with her?'

‘Yes.'

‘Of course you would be. You really are stupid. You are an absolute novice about human nature. A woman like that could do anything with you. And she isn't even clever. She's simply spoilt and confident. She's a silly romantical female who likes involving men in little mysterious plots. Have you kissed her?'

‘No!'

‘Only the maid.'

‘Only the maid.'

‘How do you see the maid, incidentally?'

‘The maid brings the letters.'

‘Typical. I expect she spends all her time trotting round London delivering secret notes. You don't imagine you're the only one, do you?'

‘Yes, I do,' I said. ‘In this sense. No one else is related to Gunnar and to his wife in the perfectly extraordinary way that I am related.'

‘You sound quite proud of it. When are you going to kiss Lady Kitty?'

‘Never! Look, you haven't understood. I may see Gunnar once again, I may see her once again. But neither of them wants me around. I'm just a curative agent, a catalyst. Lady Kitty isn't interested in
me,
she's interested in curing her husband's obsessions.'

‘You could be very wrong about that,' said Clifford thoughtfully. ‘And how about Crystal?'

‘How do you mean, how about Crystal?'

‘Crystal must fit in somewhere.'

‘Crystal doesn't fit in anywhere. Crystal is as unconnected with real life as a saint on a pillar.'

‘Quite a nice image. But no. Perhaps there will be cosiness. I should like to think of Lady Kitty going to visit Crystal with a canikin of hot soup in a basket.'

‘Shut up, Clifford, will you.'

‘Can't you see that you're being entangled?'

‘I wish I was being entangled! I'm not, I'm being amputated! Christ, I'm leaving my job, I'm moving right away into a different world. What more can they want? I'll have served my purpose and I'll go.'

‘What is your new job?'

‘I haven't got one! I only resigned today! I don't know if I'll be able to get one! I'll probably end up on National Assistance or selling matches. I'm really done for now, can't you see that, I've been going steadily down hill, now I'm really heading for the gutter, where, as you so often point out I began and belong!' I had not, till this moment, seen it so clearly myself. I would see Kitty once again. And after that, absolute smash.

‘How interesting,' said Clifford. ‘Perhaps you will take to drink and become a familiar shambling figure, sitting on the steps of the Whitehall offices, begging your ex-colleagues for pound notes.'

‘Little you bloody care.'

‘Is that a personal appeal?'

‘You've done nothing but needle me since I arrived, you never do anything but needle me.'

‘Don't break that glass, it's one of my better ones.'

‘I'm going. As you so clearly suggest, it's time for me to disappear from your elegant set-up. And you can find some nice quiet little queer to visit you on Mondays henceforth. All right, I'm not going to break your fucking glass.
Goodbye.
'

I jumped up. Clifford moved quickly between me and the door and took the glass out of my hand. He held my hand. ‘Darling. Stop it. Darling.'

I sat down again.

He said, ‘Can't you understand human conversation? Can't you
read
it, can't you read
me
? I should have thought it would be easy enough.' He touched the side of my head gently.

‘All right. Sorry.' This sort of thing had happened before.

We went into the dining-room and started on the lentil soup. It was excellent.

TUESDAY

M
y dearest, it is me again. I feel I am such a drag in your life. I waited on Sunday till five and Christopher was so tired of me then and I was so tired of myself, I went away. I suppose you left like that again on purpose to hurt me and make me realize at last that you really don't want me. And yet when I was sitting beside you and I was knitting and you were lying on the bed, we were so quiet and peaceful together like two married persons and I could not but believe that I was a comfort to you. I know you are in trouble, but it seems that I cannot help. I can only annoy you, and this grieves me so terribly. I am in such pain. And it can't be very nice for you to love another man's wife, surely you see there is no future in it. I expect the rumour must be all over the office by now. I told Freddie definitely that I would not play Peter, so you are free of me on that score. Only I cannot cannot believe that things are over between us. I feel as connected with you as if I were your mother. You cannot get rid of me. You will recover from your trouble and you will find me waiting. I love you. Forgive all my mistakes. I will expect you on Friday as usual.

Your loyal loving Thomas.

It was early Tuesday morning and I was sitting at my desk in the office, the others having not yet arrived, and reading Tommy's usual Tuesday morning letter from King's Lynn. The reference to ‘another man's wife' turned me cold with horror until I realized that of course poor Tommy meant Laura Impiatt! This belief was something of a convenience and I had no intention of dislodging it from Tommy's silly little head. The notion that I loved Laura was an innocent blind, a trivial tepid cover-up of the dreadful truth. Let it stand. The fact that Laura, in her dotty way, loved me, or thought she did, would help to make the useful fiction more plausible, and may even have led Laura to hint to Tommy that I loved her! No harm would be done. Whereas the monstrous fact of my love for Gunnar's wife would, if it ever emerged, wreck my mind, wreck the universe. Would I see Tommy as usual on Friday? It seemed very doubtful. Friday was very far away and huge events loomed between.

I had come to the office, although I knew I would not be able to work, because it was my obligation to turn up for a further month and also, and more terribly, because I could not think what else to do. I must find other employment. But how? How was this done? I had never greatly enjoyed my job, but it had been safe and mildly amusing. Could I now sell myself outside the Civil Service in the wicked world of free enterprise where a brilliant Oxford ‘first' would cut no ice? Should I try something quite different, such as school teaching? Perhaps it was not necessary to resign from the Service at all, would it not do if I simply got a transfer to another department? Why had I been in such a desperate hurry to resign? Reflection told me however that I had been right. To negotiate a transfer might take months and months, during which time I would every day be running the risk of offending Gunnar with the sight of me.

Had Kitty's note of yesterday altered the situation? No. I might talk to Gunnar once again, or I might not. But I did not think that another talk with him would make any difference to our relations or to the advisability of vanishing. Herein I differed from my darling. Kitty, whose silliness, as delineated by Clifford, I could perfectly credit, though I loved her, still imagined that Gunnar would ‘break down', that he would need, to put it crudely, to forgive me for the sake of his own peace of mind. Kitty still believed in the ‘reconciliation scene'. I had stupidly, surreptitiously, self-deceivingly believed in it, until lately, myself. But now no more. In fact, my attitude to Gunnar was in process of hardening a little. I had been ready to enact my guilt for his benefit. He was not interested. All right. If he could play it cool, so could I. We could, at any rate, feign a coolness which would leave the deep things untouched and enable us to disengage from each other without hideous drama. Was this after all the shabby best? I did not know nor did it just now concern me. Two things, for the moment, dominated the world: that tomorrow Gunnar would see Crystal, and the day after I would see Kitty.

The more I thought about it the more I detested the idea of Gunnar going to see Crystal. Why had I agreed to it? I had still felt, even then, as if I were somehow under Gunnar's authority, under his orders, bound, because of the past, to do his will. Today I felt rather less subservient. I could simply have said no to him. There was no need to slavishly report his wishes to Crystal, or to comply with her nervous desire to meet him once more. What good could come of it? Crystal, whose serenity was as precarious as my own, might be deeply, permanently, upset by this encounter. And the idea of it horrified me in deep places, as if I actually feared (only this was insane) that Gunnar might make love to Crystal again. Had he ever really done so? The fact that he had asked so improbably to see her was evidence in favour of her story. Perhaps he wanted — what? To beg her pardon, once more to kiss her hand? The whole idea filled me with disgust and the wish somehow to spoil his enterprise. I felt it was too late now, now that Crystal was expecting this weird visit, simply to forbid it. Should I insist on being present myself when Gunnar came? That would certainly wreck things. I decided however upon a milder form of sabotage. So when I had finished tearing up Tommy's letter I wrote a note to Crystal, to reach her by post tomorrow morning, which ran as follows:

Dearest, I am worried about your seeing G. Do you really want to? If you decide during the day that you do not, ring me at the office. If you don't ring I will come round to your place before seven and I will wait, I won't come in, and I will let him see me waiting outside. If you want me you can open the window and call. I hope you won't let him stay long. I shall want to talk to you immediately after he is gone. Much love. H.

I had just finished writing this when I heard someone enter the room and turned round. It was Arthur. He had evidently recovered from his 'flu. He looked rather pale. He came and took Reggie's chair and put it beside me and sat down.

‘Hello, Arthur, I didn't expect to see you today. 'Flu better?'

‘Yes, I'm fine. Hilary, is it true that you've resigned?'

‘The news has got round has it? Yes.'

‘The porter told me. Why?'

‘You know why.'

‘Oh dear, oh dear. Whatever will you do?'

Arthur's sympathetic soupy face was all crinkled up with concern, his moustache working. I wanted to hit him. ‘Go to Australia.'

‘To
Australia
? With Crystal?'

‘Hilary, it's not
true
that you've resigned?' Edith Witcher.

‘We thought you were joking yesterday!' Reggie Farbottom.

Arthur got up. He said, ‘You will come this evening, won't you? I'm not infectious.'

‘Hilary, why on earth have you resigned?'

‘Mind you let Edith have your desk, no interlopers allowed.'

‘But, Hilary,
why
?'

‘I wanted a change,' I said, facing them. Arthur had moved to the door. I could see in profile his sad face as he pictured Crystal setting off for New South Wales. ‘I'd fed up with leading a little monotonous life.'

‘Well, I suppose we all are — '

‘I decided it was time to shake things up a bit. Launch out on something new.'

‘But what?'

‘I'm going to start a hairdressing business!'

‘In Australia,' said Arthur.

‘Hilary's going to start a hairdressing business in Australia!'

‘What's this?' said Freddie Impiatt, coming in. ‘Hilary, are you really resigning? Why on earth?'

The others, who now included Jenny Searle and Skinker, respecting Freddie's lofty rank, gave ground. He took the chair beside me vacated by Arthur. It was like a visit from a doctor.

‘Just wanted a change.'

‘But why — there's no need to — Perhaps we could talk about this — '

It occurred to me that Freddie thought I was resigning because of Laura! Did he suppose I loved her? Or that she loved me? Let him suppose.

I put on a funereal face. ‘I just felt it was — time to move on — '

Freddie looked very worried. He was a decent humane silly man. ‘You mustn't do anything in a hurry. You know you'll lose your pension rights? I do hope — Look, we'll see you on Thursday as usual, won't we?'

Thursday! ‘Yes, of course,' I said, to get rid of him. He went slowly away. The others crowded back.

‘Hilary, are you really going to Australia?'

‘Hilary is a hero.'

‘We'd all like to go to Australia only we haven't Hilary's courage.'

‘Hilary is a great man.'

‘Goodness gracious, Arthur, whatever have you done?'

It was Tuesday evening and I was round at Arthur's place. I had come via a longish session at Sloane Square. I avoided Liverpool Street on Tuesdays for fear of meeting Tommy coming back from King's Lynn. The usual grub was ready and waiting on the table; tongue, mashed potatoes and peas, biscuits and cheese, bananas. I had brought the wine.

Arthur had, since I had seen him in the morning, shaved off his moustache. It improved his appearance remarkably. He looked younger and more intelligent.

‘You suggested it.'

‘Did I?'

‘Yes. I said could I change myself, and you said I could shave off my moustache.'

‘I wasn't serious. However, I think you look better without it. Don't you? Why, what's all this stuff?'

Arthur's shiny sideboard and
art déco
aeroplane armchair were covered with gaily coloured travel brochures. Sydney harbour, Sydney opera house, miles of sunny beaches, water ski-ing, surfing, kangaroos …

‘I don't feel stuck here,' said Arthur. ‘I thought I might consider coming too, if you didn't object.'

‘Coming where?'

To Australia.'

I began to laugh. I felt, for the moment, curiously free, carefree, with the freedom and insouciance of despair. The thought that I would see Kitty on Thursday, even the thought that I would see Kitty for the last time on Thursday, cast a lurid life-sustaining radiance. Another blessed merciful interim. And after that let the world end. I felt too an odd grim satisfaction at the prospect of playing policeman to Gunnar tomorrow. Gunnar might feel that he could exorcize Anne by seeing me and exorcize Crystal by seeing Crystal, but he could not get rid of and had not yet exorcized me. I was still there. Perhaps we should end up fighting after all.

‘That was a joke too,' I said. ‘I'm not going to Australia.'

‘Oh,' said Arthur, looking relieved. ‘I've been thinking about Australia ever since.'

‘Well you can stop now.'

He began to collect up the brochures and stack them neatly on the sideboard. We sat down to supper.

I felt a kind of relief in Arthur's presence. It was partly the feeling which I had had last night that in spite of horrors in one's life a routine could persist. It was Tuesday, I was with Arthur. And there was something more. Arthur was a little untalented unambitious man, destined to spend his life in a cupboard, but there was in a quite important sense no harm in him. He was kind, guileless, harmless and he had had the wit to love Crystal, to
see
Crystal, to see her value. I felt, for this, a pure gratitude to Arthur which shed a little light upon him. More practically, he was someone to whom I could talk of my situation. Indeed he was the only person to whom I could talk of my situation since with Crystal it was too painful and Clifford only made spiteful jokes.

‘How's Crystal?' said Arthur.

‘Fine.'

‘I wanted to say to you — don't worry, I won't go on about it — I'm still hoping, I can't help it. I'll always be there. Will you tell her just — Arthur will always be there?'

‘Yes. Sure.'

‘Do you think there's any chance — '

‘Well, no — '

‘I suppose — ah well — I wondered — I don't know whether you want to talk about that other business, how it's going?'

‘That other business is going sensationally,' I told him. How was it going? There could be many different ways of explaining how it was going, many different tones. With Arthur I decided to use the sensational. Why? I felt the need of a crude cleansing briskness. There were lingering residues of sentiment and weak regret, the ‘mush' to which Gunnar had alluded, illusory rubbish to be cleared away, rubbish towards which Arthur's silly sentimental innocent mind was already homing.

‘Oh — do tell — '

‘I saw Gunnar.'

‘Oh good — oh I'm so glad — so glad — And you made it up?'

What a phrase. ‘Made it up? Made
that
up? Don't be daft.'

‘What happened then?'

‘We established comfortably that we detested each other.'

‘But you don't detest him. You like him, anyway you wish him well and you want him to forgive you. If not, what's it all for?'

What indeed. ‘A lot has happened since I told you that story, in fact the story's old hat by now. Shall I put you in the picture? I saw Kitty — '

‘Lady Kitty?'

‘Yes, we're great friends, we meet and discuss Gunnar. Gunnar doesn't know of course. I've quite fallen for her.'

‘I suppose this is another of your jokes?' said Arthur.

‘No, it's not a joke unless everything is. She sends me secret letters by her maid. We have clandestine meetings beside the river. We're having one on Thursday. It's ever so exciting. I suppose that's another reason for detesting her husband.'

‘Hilary, you can't mean this — ' Arthur threw down his fork.

‘She's a marvellous woman. Gunnar was vile to me when we met. It wasn't a meeting of human beings. He simply wanted to use me. He made it clear that he hated me and that he didn't propose to stop. There's nothing more natural of course, nothing to be surprised at. But if he hates me what's the use? Kitty says he's been obsessed with the past, obsessed with dreams of revenge. He's had analysis and all that crap. I think she imagined that if he saw me it would all fall away. Perhaps it has, but not in the way that I expected, I thought there'd be something in it for me, I didn't realize it would be like a bloody clinic. Kitty still thinks I can do something wonderful for him, but that's because being a woman she wants some sort of feast of the emotions, and because being a woman she believes in magic. But all her magic has done so far is make me fall in love with her. No, it's all over already between me and Gunnar. I was a dolt to imagine that we could help each other in
that
way. I've learnt a good deal in this last fortnight, I can tell you. I've jettisoned a lot of sentimental nonsense that I'm better without. I don't really feel sorry about the past at all, one can't, it's bound to be false or mixed up with a hundred other things. Regret, remorse, that's the most selfish thing of all. I wanted some sort of soothing experience, some sort of symbolic reassurance, I wanted him to say, “It's all right, Hilary, it's all right.” But how can he say that? Perhaps if I could have imposed my will on him I might have got something, some suitable little drama. As it was he imposed his will upon me, and of course I had to let him. That was in the contract. Really there's no live connection with the past, the past is gone, that's obvious when you come to think of it, it doesn't exist any more. What remains are emotions which can be manipulated mechanically. That was what my meeting with Gunnar was, an exercise in mechanical manipulation. I only hope he found it satisfactory.'