The Nice and the Good (48 page)

Holding the paper-weight tightly in her skirt and blowing her nose Mary said, “John, you’ll think I’m crazy and you’re not to worry. There’s something I’ve got to tell you. I can’t go away out of that door without telling you. I wasn’t really in love with Willy. I loved Willy dearly, I love him dearly, but it’s not being in love. One knows what being in love is like and it is a very terrible thing. I shouldn’t tell you this, you’ve got this girl, and you’ve been so awfully kind to me and I oughtn’t to trouble you and I meant to say nothing about it, I really did, and if you hadn’t—
”

“Mary, what on earth are you talking about?”

“I love you, John, I’ve fallen in love with you. I’m sorry, I know it’s improbable, and perhaps you won’t believe me, but it’s true, I’m terribly sorry. I promise I’ll be rational about it and not a nuisance and I wouldn’t expect you to see me, well now you won’t want to see me—Oh God!” She hid her face in the handkerchief.

Ducane rose to his feet. He went over to the window and looked out at the beautiful geraniums and the beautiful motor cars and the blue evening sky full of beautiful aeroplanes on their way to London Airport. He tried to control his voice.

“Mary, have you really got a dinner appointment?”

“No. I just said that. Sorry, John, I’m going now.”

“I suggest you stay,” said Ducane, “and talk the situation over. There’s plenty to eat in the house and I’ve got a bottle of wine.”

“There’s no point in talking it over. It would only make things worse. There’s nothing to say. I just love you. That’s all of it.”

“That’s half of it,” said Ducane. “Possibly over dinner I might tell you the other half.”

“W
AS
that really it?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you did it right?”

“My God, I’m sure!”

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“Girls never do the first time.”

“Perhaps I’m a Lesbian.”

“Don’t be silly, Barbie. You did like it a little?”

“Well, just the first bit.”

“Oh Barb, you were so wonderful, I worship you.”

“Something’s sticking into my back.”

“I hope you aren’t lying on my glasses.”

“Damn your glasses. No, it’s just an ivy root.”

“You’re marked all over with beautiful marks of ivy leaves!”

“You were so
heavy
, Pierce.”

“I felt heavy afterwards. I felt I was just a great contented stone lying on top of you.”

“Are you sure I won’t have a baby?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think I’ll get to like it more, to like it as much as you do?”

“You’ll like it more. You’ll never like it as much as I do, Barbie. I’ve been in paradise.”

“Well, I’m glad somebody’s pleased.”

“Oh Barb darling—”

“All right, all right. Do you think we’ve been wicked?”

“No. We love each other. We do love each other, don’t we, Barbie?”

“Yes. But it could still be wrong.”

“It could. I don’t feel it is though. I feel as if everything in the world is with us.”

“I feel that too.”

“You don’t regret it, you won’t hate me?”

“No. It had to happen to me and I’m glad it’s happened like this.”

“I’ve loved you so long, Barb—”

“I feel I couldn’t have done it with anyone else. It’s because I know you so well, you’re like my brother.”

“Barb!”

“Well, you know what I mean. Darling Pierce, your body looks so different to me now and so wonderful.”

“I can’t think why girls like men at all. We’re so rough and nasty and stick-like compared with you. You’re not getting cold, are you?”

“No, I’m fine. What a hot night. How huge the moon is.”

“It looks so close, as if we could touch it.”

“Listen to the owl, isn’t he lovely? Pierce—”

“Yes?”

“Do you think we’ll either of us ever go to bed with anyone else?”

“No, well, Barb, you know we’re quite young and—”

“You’re thinking about other girls
already
!”

“Barb, Barb, please don’t move away, please bring your hand back again. Darling, I love you, good God, you know I love you!”

“Maybe I do. You were horrid enough to me.”

“I promise I’ll never be horrid again. You were horrid too.”

“I know. Let’s
really
love each other, Pierce. In a good way.”

“Yes, let’s. It won’t be difficult.”

“It won’t be easy. Perhaps we could get married after you’ve taken your A levels.”

“Well, Barb, we mustn’t be in
too
much of a hurry—Oh darling,
please
—”

“When are we going to do this again? Tomorrow?”

“We can’t tomorrow. I’ve got to go to Geoffrey Pember-Smith’s place.”

“Can’t you put it off?”

“Well, no. You see there’s this chance to have the yacht—”

“What about me? I thought you loved me!”

“I do love you, darling Barb. But yachts are important too.”

“Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather.”

“Me too.”

“What a dark horse Mary is. And after all that business with Willy.”

“My dear Kate, you did rather jump to conclusions about Mary and Willy. She was never too certain about it.”

“Maybe. But I’m sure she wasn’t thinking of appropriating John.”

“Perhaps John appropriated her.”

“No, no, Octavian. It was her doing. It must have occurred to her after the thing with Willy fell through. She felt she had to have somebody. I hope they won’t regret it.”

“I’m sure they won’t.”

“You’re being very charitable, Octavian.”

“Well, we must forgive him, you know.”

“Of course we
forgive
him. But it was a little sudden.”

“It does seem to be the mating season, doesn’t it.”

“First Richard and Paula, and then this bombshell.”

“John’s certainly a remarkable peacemaker.”

“You think he fixed up Paula and Richard? I doubt that. I must say, I wouldn’t be married to Richard for the world.”

“Paula seems pleased enough. I think they’ll be happy. They know the worst, and they’re terribly in love.”

“Your universal benevolence is beginning to depress me, Octavian.”

“Sorry, darling. Shall I turn out the light?”

“Yes, now we can see the moon properly, it’s
immense
.”

“Like a huge apricot.”

“Listen to the owl.”

“Yes, isn’t he lovely.”

“Where’s Barbie? I didn’t see her after dinner.”

“Gone to bed I think.”

“Thank heavens young Pierce seems to have gone off the boil a bit. He’s going to stay with those Pember-Smith people tomorrow.”

“Yes. Barb must be relieved. How long are the twins staying on?”

“At least another week. Paula is having the house in Chelsea redecorated.”

“A rite of exorcism, I imagine.”

“Fumigation. It probably needs it. By the way, what was the name of that chap, you remember, the chap who killed himself in your office?”

“Radeechy.”

“Didn’t you say John thought Richard was involved with him somehow?”

“It turned out there was nothing in that, at least nothing important. I believe they both knew the same girl, or something.”

“Why did John resign from the office, was it because he felt he’d muffed that enquiry thing?”

“No, I don’t think so. His report was a bit thin, but the whole issue was old hat anyway.”

“Why then?”

“He wants to get on with his research, and maybe do some more teaching. He’s been talking of resigning for years.”

“I expect he wants to make a break, a new life and all that.”

“I hope he’ll go on coming here—I mean
they
will.”

“I suppose I hope it. Octavian, I must get another housekeeper. Can we afford it?”

“Yes, darling. Only don’t hurt Casie’s feelings.”

“Damn Casie. Well, no I won’t. I wonder if anyone would understand if I advertised for a head parlourmaid? Oh Octavian, it’s so sad, all our house seems broken apart, everyone is going.”

“Darling, you’ll soon get other ones.”

“Other whats?”

“I mean, well, people.”

“I think you’re being horrid.”

“Dear love, don’t let go.”

“You disgraceful old hedonist. I just can’t get over John and Mary. Do you think he’s the sort of homosexual who has to get married to persuade himself he’s normal?”

“You think he must be homosexual because he was moderately able to resist you!”

“Octavian, you
beast
. Mary
is
rather the mother figure, isn’t she?”

“I don’t think John’s queer. Mary just is his type, serious and so on.”

“Yes. I suppose I just wasn’t his type. I feel now I made an awful ass of myself about John.”

“You’re an affectionate girl, Kate.”

“Well, don’t say it in that tone!”

“John wasn’t up to it. It was too complicated for him. He didn’t really understand you.”

“He didn’t really understand me.”

“John’s a very nice chap, but he’s not the wise good man that we once thought he was.”

“We thought he was God, didn’t we, and he turns out to be just like us after all.”

“Just like us after all.”

“Are you ready, darling?”

“Ready, sweetheart.”

“Octavian, I do love you. You cheer me up so much. Isn’t it wonderful that we tell each other everything?”

In fact there were a few details of Octavian’s conduct, concerning long late evenings when he stayed in the office with his secretary, which Octavian did not think it necessary to divulge to Kate. However he easily forgave himself, so completely forgetting the matter as to feel blameless, and as he frequently decided that each occasion was the last he did not view himself as a deceiver of his wife. His knowledge that there was indeed nothing which she concealed from him was a profound source of happiness and satisfaction.

The apricot moon shone and the night owl hooted above the rituals of love.

“They are going,” said Theo.

“Yes,” said Willy.

“You are sad.”

“I am always sad.”

“Not always. You were almost cheerful a fortnight ago. I thought you were changed.”

“Something happend that time in London.”

“What happened?”

“I made love to a girl.”

“Good heavens, Willy! I mean, with all due respect—”

“Yes, I was surprised too.”

“What was she like?”

“A gazelle.”

“And when are you seeing her again?”

“I’m not.”

“But Willy, why not? Didn’t she want to?”

“She did. But no, no, Theo. I am a dead man.”

“Dead men don’t make love.”

“That was just a miracle. But a miracle need have no consequences. It is outside causality.”

“I should have thought a miracle would have consequences by definition. And you admit to being changed.”

“I don’t. You said I was changed. I am just a past with no present.”

“That’s a cowardly lie, if ever there was one.”

“What can one do with the past, Theo?”

“Forgive it. Let it enter into you in peace.”

“I can’t.”

“You must forgive Hitler, Willy. It is time.”

“Damn Hitler. No, I will never forgive him. But that’s not the problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“Forgiving myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not what he did. It’s what I did.”

“Where?”

“
Da unten. Là-bas
Dachau.”

“Willy, Willy, Willy, hang on.”

“I’m all right.”

“I mean, don’t tell me.”

“You used to say tell me. Now you say don’t.”

“I’ve gone that much more to bits, Willy. I feel so ill all the time. All right, tell me in general terms. What happened?”

“I betrayed two people because I was afraid, and they died.”

“In that inferno—. You must pity yourself too, Willy.”

“They were gassed. My life wasn’t even threatened.”

“We are clay, Willy. There is no man whose rationality and goodness cannot be broken by torment. Do not think ‘I did it’. Think it was done.”

“But I did do it.”

“That sense of ownership is pride.”

“They were gassed, Theo.”

Willy was sitting in his armchair, his lame leg extended into the soft grey powdery pile of wood ash in the fireplace. Theo was sitting with his back to the fireplace on an
upright chair which he had drawn up close. He looked away past Willy’s head toward the long window full of glittering blue sky. His arm lay heavily upon Willy’s arm, his hand cupping and caressing the curve of the shoulder.

Willy stroked back his longish white hair and relaxed his face into a bland steely calm. “You might be right, but I can’t think in your terms. It’s not even like memory. It’s all just there.”

“All the time, Willy?”

“Every hour, every minute. And there’s no machinery to shift it. No moral machinery. No psychological machinery.”

“We’ll see, my dear. Where there’s been one miracle there could be another one. Maybe you should tell me the whole thing after all.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

I won’t listen though, thought Theo. He’s not really telling it to me.

Theo moved his hand upward a little, fingering the collar of Willy’s shirt at the neck. He fixed his eyes upon the dazzling window. The sunlight seemed to have got inside the glass and the blue sky was visible through a sparkling screen of splintered light. As Willy’s voice murmured on, Theo tried hard to think about something else. He thought about the seagull with the broken wing which the twins had found and brought to him. Henrietta was crying and carrying the seagull which was sitting on one of her hands, while she held and caressed it with the other. The twins came running to Theo across the stones. When an animal was hurt the twins became helpless and confused. Could anything be done, could the broken wing be mended, should they go to find a vet? Theo said no, there was nothing to be done with a broken wing. He would take the bird from them and drown it quickly. It was the kindest thing, the only thing. The bird would not know what was happening. He took the seagull carefully from Henrietta’s outstretched hands and told the twins to go away. They ran off at once together, Edward now in tears as well. Theo did not pause to take off his shoes or roll up his trousers, he walked straight into the sea, his shoes crunching on the sunny underwater stones. The seagull lay perfectly still in
his hands, its bright eyes seeming impassive, as if calm. The bird was light, light, and the grey feathers soft, soft. Theo bent down and quickly plunged the soft grey parcel of life down underneath the water. There was a faint movement in his hands. He stood there bent for a long time, with his eyes closed, feeling the hot sun upon his neck. At last he straightened himself. He did not look down at the bedraggled thing in his hands. He dared not leave it in the sea in case the twins should see it again. He mounted the shingle and walked with wet clinging trouser legs along to the far end of the beach where he knelt and dug with his hands as deep a hole as he could in the loose falling pebbles. He put the dead bird into the hole and covered it up carefully. Then he moved a little away and lay face downward on the stones.