The Sea, The Sea Part 11

'It was important, it was serious!'

'If only I had had the sense and the nerve either to tell him at the start or never to tell him at all. But you sec, when I saw how jealous Ben was, what an angry jealous man he was, I began to be terrified in case one dayyou would turn up'

'And I have!'

'And I had to protect myself by at least having mentioned you before. You see, I was afraid someone might say something or that you'd find out where I wasI tried so hard not to let anyone know, anyone who could tell you, I cut off all the connections, and my parents had moved, I thought you might try to find me and'

'You cut the connections all right! But, Hartley, if you were so frightened of him at the very start, why did you marry the blighter?'

'I always thought it would get better later on.'

'You were never frightened of me, were you?'

'No, no. But I was afraid that you would find out where I was and write to me. He always looked at my letters. For years and years I always got up first and ran down every morning so as to find the post first in case there was a letter from you.'

'Oh G.o.d G.o.d.'

'I did this after I told him too, I was always terrified of the post, in case there was anything he could pick on and misunderstand. Anyway I felt it was too awful living with the risk of his finding out, so I did tell himand it wasterrible.'

'He was furious, jealous?'

'It was terrible. You see, he couldn't believe it was innocent.'

'Hartley,' I said, 'it was innocent, but it was serious serious, something happened to us forever in those years. So in a way Ben was right to be impressed, you were telling him something which made everything different. I can understand that.'

'He wouldn't believe we hadn't been lovers, he thought I'd lied when I said I was a virgin. It was so especially terrible because what he thought wasn't true and I could never convince him, though I told him again and again. Sometimes he'd try to trap me by saying he'd forgive me if only I'd admit it, but I knew he wouldn't. He kept asking and pressing me and asking again and again and again, he just couldn't believe it.'

'My darling, we were were lovers, though not in lovers, though not in that that sense' sense'

'He kept asking and asking, every day, sometimes every hour. And he'd ask the same question in the same words over and over and over, whatever answer I gave him. And of course the more angry he got the more clumsy and stupid and wretched I got so that it must have sounded as if I was lying'

'I'd like to kill that man.'

She had drunk some more wine and was now sitting shivering, no longer crying, her wide eyes darkened, the pupils expanded, staring at the candle, with the tea towel unconsciously held up to her face, pressing it against her cheekbone like a veil. Her large brow, which looked white in the candlelight, was puckered and pitted with little shadows, but the way she had turned up the collar other green cotton coat behind her hair gave her a girlish look. Perhaps that was what she used to do with her mackintosh collar in the days when we went bicycling. And even as I was listening intently to her words I was all the time gazing with a kind of creative pa.s.sion at her candle-lit face, like some G.o.d rea.s.sembling her beauty for my own purposes.

'Wait, Hartley, it's all right,' for she had suddenly looked up in alarm, 'I'm just going to light more candles, I want to look at you.' It was getting darker outside. I raided out a box of candles and lit four more, dripping the wax into tea cups and standing them upright. I ranged them round her like lights at an altar. Then I went and sat opposite to her, not near but looking. I so much wanted to see her smile. That would help the process of re-creation.

'Hartley, take away that veil. Won't you smile at me?'

She lowered the tea towel and I saw the wet drooping wretchedness other mouth. 'Charles, what's the time?'

It was twenty-five past ten. 'Oh, half past nine, earlier. Look, Hartley, dearest, none of this matters, it's all over over, don't you see? All right, he was a jealous stupid man, a horrible man who deserves to be punished, only it doesn't matter matter now, you don't have to go back into that h.e.l.l. But what has all this got to do with t.i.tus? You were going to tell me something about t.i.tus.' now, you don't have to go back into that h.e.l.l. But what has all this got to do with t.i.tus? You were going to tell me something about t.i.tus.'

'He thinks t.i.tus is your son.'

' What? What? ' '

'He thinks t.i.tus is your son.'

Hartley had laid her hands flat on the table. Brightly lit by the candles she looked now like an interrogated prisoner.

I sat up very straight, blushing with amazement and shock, and found that I had put my hands flat on the table too. We stared at each other. 'Hartley, you can't be serious, he can't be serious! How could t.i.tus be my son? Your husband isn't insane, is he? He knew t.i.tus was adopted, he knew where he came from'

'No, that's the pointhe didn't didn't know where t.i.tus came from. I was the one who brought t.i.tus into our lives, it was my idea, I arranged it all. Ben was in a state of shock throughout the whole business, he never did anything but sign papers without reading them. Once, somebody from the adoption people came to the house and saw Ben, but I did all the talking. Ben was like a zombie.' know where t.i.tus came from. I was the one who brought t.i.tus into our lives, it was my idea, I arranged it all. Ben was in a state of shock throughout the whole business, he never did anything but sign papers without reading them. Once, somebody from the adoption people came to the house and saw Ben, but I did all the talking. Ben was like a zombie.'

'But Hartley, wait a minute, he knew I was a thing of the past, you didn't adopt t.i.tus until years and years after you left me.'

'He thought we'd kept up. He thought we met secretly.' Hartley, tearless and staring-eyed, was almost, with her glare of misery and her pale pitted forehead, accusing.

'Hartley, darling, people can't believe things which are totally crazy and for which there is absolutely no evidence. He must have known you hadn't been seeing me.'

'How could he know know? I was alone all day, sometimes all night. He had to go away travelling.'

'All right let's stay sane about this let's say it was extremely improbable! Besidesoh, how could he not believe you, how could he torture you with such mad imagined invented things!'

'It didn't happen all at once,' said Hartley. She gulped some more wine. 'He took against t.i.tus from the start, perhaps because the adoption was the only thing I'd ever forced him to do against his will and he resented it and somehow deeply wanted it to fail. You see, he'd gone on and on up to that time saying that of course you had been my lover and you probably still were, and I'd gone on and on denying it till I was tired, I think we were both tired, I used to try to think about something else when he was talking about you. I thought at first he didn't really believe I'd kept up with you but only said it to spite me, and perhaps at first he didn't believe that, but I'm sure he thought we'd been lovers. And of course we couldn't forget you because you were always in the papers and then later on we saw you on telly'

'G.o.d-'

'And this had gone on sort of festering in his mind, and then suddenly, it was as if he had worked it out, it was like a sort of revelation, he connected you with t.i.tus. There were two bad things in his life and he went on brooding on them until he felt they must must connect, they must connect, and they were both my fault.' connect, they must connect, and they were both my fault.'

'But how old was t.i.tus then and what sort of evidence?'

'I can't remember how old t.i.tus was, and perhaps it didn't happen all that suddenly. He was always harsh with t.i.tus even when he was a tiny child, and later on it was worse. He may have said it just as a crazy thing to hurt me, and then when I was so upset he began to think about it and to see everything I said as a proof of guilt.'

'But, Hartley, this is madness, he must be mad, clinically mad'

'He isn't mad.'

'That's what mad people do, see everything as evidence for what they want to believe.'

'He says that t.i.tus resembles you'

'Well, there you are.'

'And the funny thing is that he does look a bit like you.'

'He looks like you because you brought him up, and you look like me because we gazed and gazed at each other for so many years. Loving couples come to resemble each other.'

'Really? Perhaps you're right. It did seem odd, uncanny almost.' This idea seemed to strike Hartley more than anything I had said, even for a moment to please her.

'Besides, there must have been independent proof of t.i.tus's birth and his parentage.'

'That was part of the trouble. You see, when I got t.i.tus I simply didn't want to know who his parents were, I didn't want to think he was not entirely mine. The adoption society gave me a lot of stuff, they even gave me a letter from his mother, but I didn't read any of it, I destroyed it at once. I didn't want to give any part of my thoughts to his real parents. I didn't want to remember anything connected with t.i.tus before I carried him home with me, and I didn't remember, I blotted it out of my mind. So when Ben became so interested and so suspicious and began to question me I didn't know how to answer, at first I couldn't even properly remember the name of the adoption society. It must all have sounded so bad, so like a lie'

'But there are records, aren't there, official records?'

'There are now, but things were less formal then, and there wasn't any law about children having the right to know who their parents were. Of course there must have been records I suppose, but by the time Ben wanted to know the details the adoption society had ceased to exist, and I think a lot of papers had been destroyed in a fire, so someone said anyway. Ben never believed any of it, and no one would answer letters. I did try to find out, I went to London, he wouldn't come, and I stayed in a hotel'

'Oh Hartley, Hartley ' I was picturing this journey, and the return home.

'I did try, but I couldn't find out, and somehow even then I didn't want to.'

'But I still don't understand, what did he think had happened? What did he think we'd been doing?'

'He thought we'd been going on seeing each other, perhaps not all the time, but on and off, secretly. He thought I'd become pregnant and'

'But he was living with you!'

'That was another odd thing. Just before the adoption was finally fixed up I was away for quite a long time, it was about the only time I was away. I went to my father who was ill, he died thenand in this time away Ben thought the baby had come. I wasn't slim any more at all, I could have been pregnant, you see it all fitted in. And he thought I had invented all the adoption business so as to bring your child into his house.'

'But he saw the papers'

'Well, I could have got hold of the papers somehow, he didn't read them anyway. And the visitor from the society could have been an accomplice.'

'Your husband is a most ingenious man. A vile hateful cruel half-mad ingenious torturer torturer.'

Hartley, staring now at the candle flames, simply shook her head.

'But t.i.tus himself, he didn't know, I suppose, I mean what Ben thought?'

'Well, he did know/ she said, 'later on, I mean when he was about nine or ten. Of course we'd always told him that he was an adopted child, like you're supposed to. But then Ben started telling him that he was the child of his mother's lover and that his mother was a wh.o.r.e.'

'What perfectly monstrous wickedness'

'Ben did go through a phase of knocking t.i.tus about. Some neighbours called the prevention of cruelty people. I couldn't do anything, I couldn't defend him, I had to sort of take Ben's side, it was an awful time, everything was broken, as if one could still stand up but all one's bones were broken, all the bones and the little joints were broken, one wasn't whole any more, one wasn't a person any more.' Slow tears came and still staring at the candles she blindly felt about on the table for the towel. I pushed it towards her.

'But why couldn't you defend himoh, stupid question. Hartley, I can't bear this'

'He felt it was all my fault, and it was was all my fault, I ought to have told him at the start, he asked me if there had ever been anyone else, and I lied really because there had been you although we weren't lovers, and later on when I told it, it sounded so mysterious and big. And I married him because I was sorry for him and I wanted to make him happyand then and then' all my fault, I ought to have told him at the start, he asked me if there had ever been anyone else, and I lied really because there had been you although we weren't lovers, and later on when I told it, it sounded so mysterious and big. And I married him because I was sorry for him and I wanted to make him happyand then and then'

'Oh Hartley, stop.'

'And I somehow got into a kind of fatal way of getting everything wrong doing everything wrong, and hurting him, as if I were doing exactly the thing that would make him angry. One night when he was out at an evening cla.s.s I accidentally put the chain on the door and went to bed and slept and he couldn't get in till I woke up at three and it was raining and then he started hitting me and wouldn't let me go to sleep'

'Hartley, don't tell me any more of these horrors horrors please. I don't want to hear them and anyway it's all over.' please. I don't want to hear them and anyway it's all over.'

'Oh I've been so stupid, so stupid, and of course t.i.tus never settled down at school and everything went wrong, everything, and I'm not even sure that Ben believed it all at the start or that he always really believed it later, only everything I did seemed to make things worse, it was as if he hypnotized me into acting as if I was guilty. And I'm not sure what t.i.tus believed or what he believes. t.i.tus used to sit there hearing Ben saying one thing and me saying the other, it was like a sort of litany, an awful poemand I don't know whether he knew what the truth was or whether there was any truth, it was all a kind of fog of awful senseless argument and row. It all got ravelled up into a nightmare and in the end he blamed me for it and in a way he was right, sometimes I think he blamed me and resented me more than he did Ben. Of course when t.i.tus was small he was frightened al the time and he kept quiet and he'd sit all the evening on his little chair against the wall, all white and tense and quiet, dreadfully quiet. Later on when he was about fifteen he used to pretend sometimes that he was your child, and once or twice he told Ben that I'd told him he was. But I think he did this just to spite Ben when t.i.tus was too big for Ben to hit him any more.'

'Hartley, stop stop. Just tell me more about t.i.tus now. When did he go away? Where do you think he is?'

'When he left school he went into the poly, you know, the polytechnic, where we used to live, he had a student grant, he was studying electricity. He lived at home, but he sort of ignored us, he sent us to Coventry. I sometimes felt he really hated us, both of us. And he could never forgive me for not protecting him when he was small. Then just before we moved down here he went into digs, and then he just vanished. He left the digs and never let us know or sent an address. I went round there and asked about him but no one seemed to know or care where he'd gone, and he never wrote. He knew we were coming here. I think he went to look for his real parents, he always said he would. He went on and on about them sometimes and how perhaps they were rich. Anyway, he's gone now. Gone.'

'Don't be so tragic, Hartley, he'll turn up again. He knows where you live, doesn't he? He'll turn up. He'll come home when he's short of money, they always do.'

She shook her head. 'Sometimes I don't want him to come back. Sometimes I believe he's dead. Sometimes I almost wish he were were dead, and that I could hear that he was dead, so that the anguish of the hope and the fear and the dread could just stop, and we could be at peace. If he came backit could beterrible' dead, and that I could hear that he was dead, so that the anguish of the hope and the fear and the dread could just stop, and we could be at peace. If he came backit could beterrible'

'You mean?'

'Terrible.' The slow tears were coming and she kept drooping her eyelids to make them slide down her cheeks. She said, 'I wish we'd never adopted a child, it was my fault, Ben was quite right, we were better without. I could have managed then and Ben would have beenlike I wanted'

In spite of the pain and horror of her story my mind was leaping ahead into a bright land, into all sorts of almost detailed vistas of sudden hope. I would take Hartley away and together we would find t.i.tus. In some strange metaphysical sense it was true, I would make it true: t.i.tus was my son, the offspring of our old love!

'Hartley, my little one, stop crying, you've had your orgy of horrors, now stop it. You're mine now and I'm going to look after you and protect you'

She began shaking her head again. 'And I married him to make him happy! But you mustn't think it's been all bad, it hasn't. What I've told you is the bad part, but I've probably given you a quite wrong impression.'

'Now you're going to tell me you've had a happy marriage!'

'No, but it's not been all bad, Ben wasn't always awful with t.i.tus. Ben's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, perhaps all men are. It was just that you kept cropping up and that always set him off, and we couldn't just forget you because you were so famous, but we've had better times too'

'What were they like?'

'Oh just ordinary times, you might think it was dull, we had a quiet life'

'A quiet life!'

'Ben didn't much like his job but he liked doing things about the house, he likes DIY.'

'DIY?'

'Do It Yourself. We went to London once to the exhibition at Olympia. He used to go to evening cla.s.ses,'

'What was he learning at the cla.s.s on that quiet evening when you left the chain on the door?'

'He was learning to rivet china.'

'OhLord! Hartley, what did you do all the time? Did you entertain, have friends?'

'Well, Ben didn't like social life. I didn't mind. We don't really know anybody here either.'

'And did you go to evening cla.s.ses too?'

'I once started German, but he didn't like me to go out in the evening and the cla.s.ses were different nights.'

'OhHartleyAnd in all those years was he faithful to you, did he ever have anyone else?'

For a moment she seemed not to understand. 'No, of course not!'

'I wonder how you can be so sure. And you, did you ever have anyone else?'

'No, of course of course I didn't!' I didn't!'

'Well, I suppose it would have been as much as your life would have been worth.'

'You see really we were very wrapped up in each other, we are very'

'Wrapped up! Yes! I can see it all.'