An End and a Beginning (30 page)

“Did you?”

“I did.”

“You really mean it?”

“Why d'you suppose I came back?”

“What have I done, Sheila, what have I done. Do tell. Please.”

“Nothing.”

“I'm glad. God, I'm glad.”

“You haven't told me much about yourself,” she said, as she handed him the cup, and he put it back on the tray.

“About myself?” The smile was almost grim. “I'm sick of talking about myself. I emptied out all the junk yesterday, dear.”

“I mean to-morrow,” Sheila said, “not yesterday.”

She ignored his smile, it even made her a little resentful of him. She came to the point. “What do you intend to do?”

“Me? I don't know yet,” he said, and then he raised his voice and exclaimed, “Christ, I'm only out a week——”

“Ssh! Do you remember Winifred.”

“How could I make up my mind, I hadn't got a bloody mind. All I had when I got out through the door were two legs to get away from it as fast as I could. Don't you understand, Sheila. Don't you? You yourself suggested I should come here, and I
came
here because there wasn't anywhere else. All I wanted to do, and have wanted to do ever since, is to go and hide, shut myself away from everybody. I'm raw, I'm bloody raw. But I'm not angry. Don't think that, dear, please. I'm not angry. It wasn't a pleasure cruise, and I didn't ask for one. When I went in I actually had a home, had parents, even had sister and brothers, and when I came out there was nothing. How can I make up my mind as quickly as that. It took me two days to discover that I was really out, but it'll take more than that to find out what I've lost——”

She put a hand on his mouth. “No, dear, not that, no, not that. No self-pity.”

She flung her arms round him. “Peter, dear, I'm sorry. It's the way I feel, it's the way Miss Fetch feels, perhaps it's the way this whole house feels. I'll be all right directly. Perhaps I haven't yet got over the shock. It is a shock. Will you help finish off these things. Just refold them as I pass them to you,” and she at once resumed her work.

A question gnawed at him, ground about inside him, but he felt he dare not ask it. She might even laugh, and looking at her there was something in her attitude, in her very expression that seemed to say, “No questions. Keep off.”

“Put them back on that shelf, you can reach it better than I can.”

He lifted up the bundle and stuffed it back in the cupboard, and as he turned away saw her kneeling at his feet. He knelt down, leaned close, slipped a finger inside her dress, smiled and said, “I can't help it, Sheila, dear. I just can't help it. It's the way I feel,” the finger moving in, making circles, watching, waiting for a response. There was no response. She got up at once, and her movement forced the question, drove it out. He caught her hands.

“Look at me, Sheila,” he said. “Just look at me, closely, very closely.”

She looked, without smiling, almost without feeling. “What is it?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“You'll probably think it bloody silly, but I've wanted to ask it ever since you came. Can I?”

There was something so pleading in him that she at last smiled.

“Did you really come here because of me?” he asked.

“Did you really think that, dear?”

He nodded.

“Really and truly?”

“I did. Did you?”

“Let's go into the little study,” she said, “it's too cold here. No. Don't bother with the tray, dear. Miss Fetch will look after that,” and she preceded him out of the room. He walked slowly behind her, and he wanted the answer, and he dreaded it. They reached the study door.

“Bring in something to drink,” she said.

She sat down by the fire and waited for him. “Poor Peter,” she thought, “he's never forgotten, never,” and when he came in she motioned him over.

“No,” she said, “I don't want anything. You have some.” He poured whisky into a glass, he drank, he put the glass on the mantelshelf, he looked at her, and knew the answer.

“I was like you, dear,” she said. “I had to go somewhere. Pure necessity, I belong here. This is my home. Don't you understand? It's not that way, Peter,” and she pressed her hand into his own, as she thought, “Shall I tell him again how sorry I am. Must I? He really thinks I'm in love with him.”

“You won't go back to Gelton?” She shook her head.

“Gelton is finished,” she said.

“You were just being sorry for me,” he said, and he let go the hand.

“Can't we even be sorry for one another?” she asked.

“It's still him?”

It shot out of his mouth like a nail.

“Yes, him, dear. Though his name is Desmond, and he's your own brother.”

“Then why did you leave him, leave Gelton?”

“I told you. Something came to an end.”

“What ended?” And then the knock, the voice, and Miss Fetch, the invisible shield against the answer.

“What is it, Winifred?”

“A moment, ma'm.”

“I'm coming,” and she hurried to the door.

He sat down on a low stool, folded his arms and leaned forward. “Another dream.”

He put the glass back on the mantelpiece and sat down again. Sheila came in and resumed her seat on the sofa.

“Extraordinary,” she exclaimed, “how extraordinary. Just for a moment it might have been your father sat there, the same head, the same hunch of the shoulders.”

“My father?” without turning, moving, “what made you think that?”

“I told you, dear. You're your father all over again. I liked your father. I can see him now, and it takes me back to the very first time I met him. He was sat just like that in front of a fire.”

“When was that?”

She told him. “It wasn't long after we were married. I remember I didn't really want to go there at all. I knew your mother's attitude. I only went for Desmond's sake. It was all new to me. I'd never seen such a house, so small, and I'd never seen so many houses either. There seemed to me millions of them. When we reached the door I hesitated, I wanted to go back, at the last moment I felt I couldn't face either of them. ‘I always call round to see my father the night before he sails,' Desmond said, and with that I decided. There was no need to knock, he just opened the door and walked in. They were both sat at either end of the fire, your father in the very attitude in which you're sitting now. It was early evening, and no light had been bothered with, but the fire supplied all that was necessary. Desmond gave me a chair in the corner, but I did not at once sit down. I walked up to your mother and addressed her. Sphinx-like, she sat there, her hands folded in her lap, looking straight forward, but at nothing in particular. The moment I looked at her I knew something wasn't right, the place wasn't, that room, she wasn't. She didn't fit in anywhere. She was different. The room and the woman opposed, battled with each other. That's what I felt. She did not smile, even as she extended her hand. Simply said, ‘Good evening,' and I said ‘Good evening,' and then I went and sat in my chair. Your father had got up, and he came over to me. A spare, dried-up, burnt-up sort of man, thin, but I liked the look of him. I felt an amiableness there, though when he shook hands with me he didn't smile, and I felt he might have wanted to. Desmond joined us and we talked for a few minutes. I only realized later that he could have heard little, for he was fairly deaf. Not a word came from your mother, and all the time I could feel her eyes on me. It was most uncomfortable. Your father went back to his chair, sat down, then lit his pipe. No word was spoken. I remember watching the smoke from it curl up, and that my eyes began to wander about, noting this and that object, and I was struck by the taste shown in the furnishings, the curtains, odd ornaments, the tidiness, the cleanliness. Only once the faintest smile reached me from your mother, which I returned. I was struck dumb in this atmosphere, I didn't know what to do. what to say. Suddenly we all seemed to be looking at each other, saying nothing. It is the longest half-hour I've ever spent, though I felt that for your mother it was the longest half-hour in the world. Once your father smiled across at her, but it wasn't returned. Desmond sat behind me, his fingers stroking the back of my neck. We heard the clock ticking, we saw the smoke go up the chimney, we heard coals fall to the hearth. But never a word, and not a move. We just sat there like dummies. And this continuous stroking movement at the back of my neck came to me like a kind of assurance, as though he were saying to me, ‘Nothing odd here. Don't worry. Nothing to be frightened about. It's just a scene from a long play that has in it a thousand acts.'

“I longed for a movement, for somebody to look up, to speak, I even longed for an end of it, and kept hoping a knock at the door might break it up. In this curious scene I could think only of puppets. How long will it last? I thought. Your father puffed away at his pipe, your mother appeared to be under a kind of spell, committed
not
to speak. I wanted to go then, and dreaded moving, and all the time his fingers were moving up and down my neck. But Desmond gave no sign that he wanted to go. The silence was becoming hateful to me, and I kept looking at your father. There was something mysterious about it, something almost inhuman, and I wondered what was wrong with this house, and I wondered at the terrible silence. It was a relief to look up at the clock, to watch the minutes go by. How stupid of him to have brought me here, I thought. How silly of me to have come. Would no one speak. But someone did, and at last the silence was broken.

“‘What time is she sailing, Father?' Desmond asked. The question was so sudden, so unexpected that the words fell into the silence like stones. Your father did not answer, and only then did your mother speak. ‘Friday,' she said, ‘he sails on Friday at seven in the morning.'

“Perhaps your father was a man who never asked any questions, and consequently required no answers. What kind of person is this? I asked myself, and I suddenly thought, what a relief if he got up and struck her. But no, he just sat on, monkishly silent, aloof, far away, refusing to speak. I had a vision of this man, buried in the depths of ships, tossing about from sea to sea, day after day, year after year. And I asked myself, is this the kind of thing he comes home to, this silence, this haggard peace? Perhaps he was always glad to be going, to be away, freed from the atmosphere, from the sight of that staring, silent woman. When Desmond at last got up my sigh of relief could have been heard all over that street. He crossed the room and bent down and spoke to your father, just the two words that required no effort, and I will never forget that as he spoke them they yielded up not a shred of affection, not a shred of human feeling. ‘Good-bye, Dad.'

“‘Good-bye,' your father said, out of the hidden depths of himself. I can hear him saying it. I then got up and went over to him. My heart went out to him. ‘I'm so glad to have met you,' I said, ‘good-bye now.' I could see that his pipe had gone out. I realized that something
had
happened. That, too, was a relief. I went across to your mother. ‘Good-night, Mother,' I said. ‘Good-night,' she said.

“After that nobody moved. We found our way out of the house, and Desmond banged the door after. In the darkened street he took a tight hold of my arm. But I couldn't move, I stood there, rooted. ‘My God,' I said.

“‘Well,' he said, ‘you've seen it, you've seen them. You wanted to, you went, you saw it. There's no need to go ever again, and I shan't ask you. What you have seen is one martyr and one old horse. It was always like that, it will always be, it will never change. My mother is ashamed of me, and my father must forever carry the guilt of marrying her. The guilt is what he
is.
' I remember I moved then, and we went slowly down the street. I was so surprised when he laughed.

“‘I shouldn't take too much notice. They often quarrel like that. I've seen so much of it. They can quarrel without using words, just by looking at each other, driving in and down with their eyes, by their bloody silence, the eyes do all the work, and my mother's too-often folded hands are the measure of her disgust.'

“‘Disgust,' I said.

“‘I'm sorry for Father, not for her. I've always been on his side. Now if he were a lazy man, but he isn't, Christ he never stops working.' And I was listening, and I was getting into my stride.

“‘The crime is the distance of water my father put between them. Her real home is a long way off. I felt just as embarrassed as you, Sheila, and it would have been a relief if they'd struck each other. The moment those two people are alone, they're different. Somehow they live on another level, away from us. I don't know of any two people in this city who are so close to one another, so wrapped up, so terribly bound, ruthlessly tied together. Oh, it's hard for you to understand. Behind all that, behind what looks like hate and indifference there is much devotion. They certainly quarrelled about something this evening, some paltry thing, I expect. Mother can knife you with a look. She's like that. In a few hours he'll be gone, and hardly seem to have been home at all. Coming and going, that's the ticket. God, I've sat through hours of silence in that house. And yet the night he sails there she'll be down on her knees, and in her prayers she'll give out to God the very length of the ocean he has to cross, and the number of his years on ships, and who knows, the very heat of the world he stands in. Mother keeps a close eye on God Almighty. She'll pray for his safety, and she'll cry bitterly about him. They've flayed each other for a lifetime, and still they love each other. A curious creature, Mother, a curious couple, a strange, almost unbelievable life. We've all of us looked for something, and felt for something, and hoped for a glimpse of something, but we've never found it. Some deep hidden, mysterious cord binds them.'”