Her Victory (57 page)

For a man to withdraw his spirit into pastime or business was normal enough. She didn't object, but considered that such retreats were necessary for her also, and didn't see why she should not have them, though while she had been with George it wasn't feasible unless the house were to be consumed by a deadly aura of resentment that threatened to wither both his soul and hers. No wonder he had tried so wickedly to get her back. It must be difficult nowadays to find someone to fill the place on his terms – though she imagined there might still be plenty to suit him.

Her son also, as was only to be expected from a child who screamed whenever she did not give him full attention, had been a replica of George in his soul, and the image of all children when it came to dominating the mother. They had left her no way out except to find a corner into which she could retreat, a golden space where the light was her own for the peculiar but deep need of the moment.

12

A line of intensely white clouds low on the horizon formed a wall of crenellations as they walked arm in arm along the seafront. When she told Tom about it, he asked why she needed this area of quiet and peace for herself. He didn't disagree that she should have it, but wanted to know out of curiosity, and in order to learn something about her from the answer.

She couldn't say, really. Didn't know. She just needed it so as to stay alive. That's all. There were reasons, obviously, but she couldn't be absolutely clear about them at the moment. When she could, she would, he could rely on that. She preferred to talk rather than answer questions.

He laughed. ‘Take your time. There's plenty of it.'

‘I will.'

‘Enough for both of us. It's something we can keep for ourselves, or we can share.'

‘I like the idea,' she said. ‘It has promise.'

He did the talking. He told her about the wireless officer on one of his ships who had been a British Israelite, and described the hobbies he had seen men indulge in to save their sanity and occasionally their lives.

She liked his stories. For a man who had spoken little to those he worked with he must have done more listening than most. He had observed without seeming to. In the presence of the garrulous he had only to scratch his nose, or adjust his cap, or light a cigarette for that person to set out on long and perhaps intimate confessions. It was human nature, hardly worth remarking on, except that everything was worth comment. Thanks for the education, she said.

He laughed at her. ‘One learned more by keeping quiet, but now, for obvious reasons, I no longer believe it. My talk is unlocked, you might say, though in those days I would occasionally nail someone, and let go a few distilled drops of myself when on shore. I was never an island: more like a peninsula!'

The horizon, a narrow black band from end to end, changed towards the shore to an equally narrow seam of blue. A light green stretched left and right at the beach, where creaming tongues of snowy foam licked at the shingle. Above the horizon a wide cone of rain came from the low sky, while to the west a dim button of sun prophesied more bad weather.

They walked on. She liked people who told stories, she said, even if they were liars. George always said he had none to tell. Everyone had something to tell. He simply hadn't had the gumption or energy to say much. He was too locked into himself. Some people had to be shaken to the roots before they would open up. Not that she blamed George, though she had, she supposed, merely by thinking about it, and felt ashamed at doing so. He had simply not been born for easy speech, and it was no reflection on his intelligence.

The last shekels of sunlight rippled on the sea. Two ships seemed to have been there since she had first looked out of the window at Clara's flat. He held her arm. ‘They're not the same ones, though!'

Smoke from Shoreham power-station made a scene of beauty. She had no reason to blame George for not telling stories, because neither he nor she had ever spun them off in the bright tone that any normal person might have expected. When the spirit was willing all problems vanished. To learn slowly was always to learn too late. The only advantage of such learning, it seemed to her, was that it enriched your reflections when you later mulled on the experience that your learning had been too late to profit by.

There was never any reason not to scintillate, not to say something, at least. Her head ached? What if it did? She was deathly tired? Poor thing! She hated him? No excuse, either, unless you hated yourself as well. If you lived together fifty years and hated one another like hemlock-and-pumice-stone there was no reason not to amuse – unless you hated yourself more than you couldn't stand him. Interesting to see that what had gone wrong was lack of energy, congenital self-hatred, a dose of self-pity, a proneness to self-ruination. What was the point? You learned slowly, or not at all. But she wished she had learned more quickly than she had.

She had fallen into the man-trap again, because didn't you, after all, have to protect your own silence, safeguard your own personal and particular retreat so as not to go totally insane when you couldn't stand even yourself a moment longer? Hadn't a man that feeling as well? What one craved, the other must also, in which case if she and Tom lived together, and loved each other, then the treaty to be alone whenever they felt like it should be ratified from the start.

He needed his silences for reading and study. He sat for hours with books and papers, and when she spoke she felt she was taking him out of some weird dreamscape that he cared to inhabit alone. She loved the fact that, being in it, he did not mind that she at the moment was not, though she would sometimes have preferred to be there with him, and occasionally picked up a book from his pile to read, after the battle to admit it to herself had been won. She was beginning to believe that what was good for a man was good for a woman, but that what was good for a woman was good for them both.

He never stayed in bed later than seven, even if they didn't sleep till after midnight. He liked the day, and woke up so as to get the best out of it. He did a few jumps and press-ups, then spent half an hour bathing and dressing. She got the table set. For breakfast he liked boiled eggs, yoghourt, black bread, cucumber and salted fish. She had grown to like the same meal, which she took in her dressing-gown, and he fully dressed. They talked about the day that had gone, and the day still to come. When nothing had occurred, or looked like happening, it was amazing the talk that could be got from such pleasant vacuity.

She asked, while he filled their cups: ‘Could we invite Judy and her kids down for a day?'

‘Why not? Next Sunday, if you like.'

‘They'd love it. I used to feel sorry for them cooped up in that crumbling room, though she wouldn't like to hear me saying so.'

He pushed the egg-shell aside, and reached for the fish. ‘The children wouldn't mind, I'll bet. We'll lay on some food, and take them out. Be nice if the weather is good.'

‘They're always broke,' she said.

‘I'll send twenty pounds for their fares.'

She touched his arm. ‘Let me do it. Judy might prefer it to come from me. I'll write to her this morning.'

‘We'll devote a day to looking after them,' he said.

She was surprised at how quickly their existence had become easy – and said so. The only words she could not speak were those which jumped into her mind too quickly to be crushed back. ‘Make the most of the situation before you go home to George. One day soon, when I tell you, you'll walk out of the flat in what clothes you have on your back, and set off for Nottingham. You'll have no option but to do it, to obey, because I'll know that's best for you, just as George did when he came down – and still does. You're not cut out for this life. It's false. It isn't you, and never can be. Admit it. Give it up. Get out of it. Who are you to think you can be happy? What right do you think you've got to escape your fate? Or even to embrace it? Grow up, and get back to where you belong.'

Uncontrollable orders held themselves in a secret lair and, when least expected, shot venomous barbs to destroy her happiness. Impossible to guard against, not part of anybody else, they came from within, signalled to appear without her knowledge, so that she was helpless with panic at what might be done with no connivance from her.

He didn't notice. Her mind could be in a state of devastation, but a smile would hide it all.

They stayed in, and cleaned the flat together, and put what he called his ‘archives' back into their place. At dusk he switched on the lights and drew the living-room curtains. ‘With you I'm happy. My life is changing all the time. It's enriched by you. But we have to change our lives together. Will you go along with me in that?'

She sorted out what to say from too much that suggested itself. She certainly preferred his questions to her own. His were positive, direct, constructive, and concerned, she knew, only for her good. ‘There's no proper answer. Is that good enough for you?'

It would have been easy to say ‘yes', but caution, although she despised it, held her back. To go with someone through their transformation wouldn't be difficult while you too were changing.

‘It's all right.'

He didn't look as if it was, though knew he could expect nothing better. He could no longer cover his nuances of expression, which encouraged her to be frank. ‘I have this terrible voice in me which says I shall go back to George one of these days.'

‘How can I fight that one?' He winced, knowing that he had to. ‘I will, though. I'll fight it every possible way. Would you willingly return to the House of Servitude? I came from the same place, and know I couldn't. We have a common journey to make, to get away from what we have left – in spirit as well as in space and time, and without each other it's a break we can't make. Neither of us are out of bondage yet. We've left the old places, but haven't arrived anywhere. We shall, though.'

He was right. She couldn't go back. Nothing would drive her to self-destruction. But why did she still think it possible? The only safe way was to go forward. ‘I've become even more of myself since I met you. I'm an individual again. I can't say more than that.'

He stood up. There was no need to make promises. They would share the adventure. There was no other way but to live with uncertainty. One day passed, and another took its place. That was enough for him.

As long as she woke up with him she did not care. She received answers even before thinking of questions. She had formerly carried a string of questions like chains that became too heavy to let her move, until she was driven half mad, fixed into a nightmare that nearly killed her.

He went to the refrigerator. It was time for supper. She had never seen a man enjoy his food so much. ‘For most of my life meals came at all hours. You ate when you could. On board you were too stunned to worry, and no plate of food had a name. When on shore you were often too drunk to care. I thought of regular meals as only possible in a reign of freedom and order.'

He held up a bottle of white wine. ‘There's nothing better than this to help our food down – on April 3rd 5737, or however it can be put.' He fetched three glasses and a corkscrew. ‘Today we celebrate our release from the state of slavery.' He held her hands, and they were cold, the knuckles more prominent than his own. His hands were also whiter.

The cork was tough, but he wedged the bottle between his legs and pulled. ‘We only have each other at the moment, but let's praise God for that. So many people don't even know they have as much.'

He was trying, and his blatant attempt to capture her so that she could free herself made her happy rather than guilty at her own pusillanimous fears. He was from a different world. You persisted in the face of all opposition, persevered in spite of any discouragement. You didn't take either yes or no for an answer in case whatever you accepted served only to divert you from the one real path.

The wood was packed stonily hard against the spout of green glass. When he pulled, with hands clenched, the reddish hairs along the back trembled with effort. ‘I'm a bit of a Jonah,' he said, ‘but fresh from the whale's belly and full of life. I slept like a stone last night, after we made love. I knew when I woke up that this evening was going to be special, even without looking at the calendar.'

She stroked his wrist for a moment, as if to console him at not being able to get the cork out of the bottle – or perhaps to give a reward in advance for when he succeeded. She didn't know. It was a gamble as to whether or not he would get the cork out. She looked at his struggle, unable to speak.

His elbow shot back against a chair, and the pain must have stung his bone. Bits of cork went spitting on to the carpet. She expected him to curse at the difficulty, if not the impossibility. ‘We'll toast and talk,' he said, ‘and feast our release from useless bondage – if you'll join me in the celebration.'

He went back to work. It was an engineering problem, as if it were a matter of solving a prime conundrum of Archimedes, an equation of force pitted against the seemingly immovable reinforced by the almost certainly indestructible. Neither was it an uncommon situation, he supposed, given the plastic composition of ersatz corks.

‘Why don't you take it to the sink and push the cork in?' she suggested. ‘You won't lose much of the precious wine.'

‘Oh no,' he said. ‘No half measures. That wouldn't do at all.'

He put the corkscrew in down the side of the cork instead of through the centre, leaned the bottle at an angle and, using the spout itself as leverage, pulled perpendicularly until, she saw, he was first red and then almost blue in the face.

She laughed, but watched the cork slowly drawn out of its green constriction. When it came free he filled three glasses. He took one to the door of the flat, and she saw that he returned without it. ‘What did you do?'