The Sea, The Sea Part 6

'No.'

'Wasn't you asking about big eels,' said someone else, 'seen any?'

'No.'

'Seen any seals?'

'No.'

'He ain't seen nothing.'

A t.i.tter.

I was feeling hungry, so I ate a cheese sandwich and a horrible pork pie. I sat for a while and looked at the rest of my mail. I did not care a fig for the company and I did not mind if they knew it. The letters, sent on by Miss Kaufman, were all personal but of little interest. They included one which would formerly have pleased me from Sidney Ashe describing comical goings-on in Stratford, Ontario. There was also one from my physicist friend (previously mentioned I think) Victor Banstead of Cambridge. I crumpled all the letters up, including Lizzie's, and dropped them into a nearby basket, and then had to scrabble in it, under the amused gaze of the company, to get them out again. I crammed them in my pocket and said goodnight. No one answered. Once I had closed the door there was prolonged laughter. I did not take the diagonal footpath but followed the road which led straight on towards the harbour. Once I was clear of the village I stopped and looked up at the hillside. The sun was low and a few lighted windows already shone here and there, weirdly pale. I am very long-sighted, and although I had needed my pince-nez to read the letters, I could see the bungalows quite clearly. There seemed to be a faint light in the sitting room at Nibletts. Supper would be over and they would be watching television. In silence? It occurred to me: I could not conceive of married life. How was such a state of affairs possible? I felt a very strong desire to go up the hill and knock on the door. Supposing I arrived with a bottle of champagne... ? But I had now invented a device for getting through the next hours. There might very well be a letter from Hartley tomorrow morning. And if by any chance there was not... I would... decide what to do. Then I wondered, in that little house, how, where can she write a private letter? In the bathroom? He must go away sometimes. Would it be be a private letter? Marriage was indeed a mystery. I walked on down to the harbour where the calm, calm sea was just audibly lapping. The harbour was empty and quiet and darkish within the firm arm of its stone quay which seemed to be exuding the thick powdery light. As I loitered I could feel the warmth of the stone under my feet. A cormorant pa.s.sed by, low over the waves, a black cross-shaped portent. Now there was a big pale crumbly moon and a brilliant evening star. Just beyond, in the ladies' bathing place, two boys were playing on the dark seaweed, but silently as if magicked by the hour. I walked slowly along the coast road in the direction of Shruff End, then on past it, and spent some time looking at Raven Bay with the hotel lights reflected in the water. The evening star changed from gold to silver and the moon diminished and gained a hard-edged brilliance. I walked back at last and as I turned onto the causeway I saw a curious flicker within the house as if a light were moving. I stopped and watched. There was a momentary clear flicker which ducked and then became hazy behind one of the front windows, then vanished. Someone inside was walking about carrying a candle. My first thought was that it was Hartley. Then I thought it was more likely to be Rosina. I walked back along the road and sure enough, hidden behind the projecting rock where it had been before, was her horrible little red car. a private letter? Marriage was indeed a mystery. I walked on down to the harbour where the calm, calm sea was just audibly lapping. The harbour was empty and quiet and darkish within the firm arm of its stone quay which seemed to be exuding the thick powdery light. As I loitered I could feel the warmth of the stone under my feet. A cormorant pa.s.sed by, low over the waves, a black cross-shaped portent. Now there was a big pale crumbly moon and a brilliant evening star. Just beyond, in the ladies' bathing place, two boys were playing on the dark seaweed, but silently as if magicked by the hour. I walked slowly along the coast road in the direction of Shruff End, then on past it, and spent some time looking at Raven Bay with the hotel lights reflected in the water. The evening star changed from gold to silver and the moon diminished and gained a hard-edged brilliance. I walked back at last and as I turned onto the causeway I saw a curious flicker within the house as if a light were moving. I stopped and watched. There was a momentary clear flicker which ducked and then became hazy behind one of the front windows, then vanished. Someone inside was walking about carrying a candle. My first thought was that it was Hartley. Then I thought it was more likely to be Rosina. I walked back along the road and sure enough, hidden behind the projecting rock where it had been before, was her horrible little red car.

I felt such intense annoyance that I actually kicked one of the wheels. I decided that I could not bear to see Rosina. Her unspeakable presence in my house was a sacrilege. The sight other impertinent face would provoke me to unreasoning anger. The horror and vulgarity of a quarrel would be unbearable; and there would be no getting rid of her. I glided with long tip-toe strides along the causeway and round the side of the house onto the lawn. I could now see into the kitchen. Yes, there was Rosina, with two lighted candles on the kitchen table, trying unsuccessfully to light one of my lamps, and probably ruining the wick in the process. I saw her intent cross-eyed stare and the bad-tempered movements of her mouth as she twiddled the wick roughly up and down and poked it with the lighted match. The lamp flared up, then went out. She was wearing something black, with a white shirt, and her dark hair, which was hanging loose, was swinging almost into the candle flame. I receded quietly, picking up as I did so the rugs and cushions which were lying on the gra.s.s. It was just as well I had eaten something in the pub, otherwise hunger would have driven me into the house.

I clambered over the rocks until the house was invisible and found, very close to the sea and just above it, a long shallow depression where I had sunbathed once or twice in the prehistoric days. The night was very warm, very still, and as I put my gla.s.ses in a place of safety and composed myself for sleep I wondered sadly why it had never occurred to me to sleep out here in the days when I was happy. It was so close to the sea which was gently slapping the rock just below, it was like being in a boat. And as my rocky bed sloped a little down towards the water, I could lie with my head on a cushion, looking straight out at the horizon, where the moon was making an almost but not quite motionless rift of silver. The first stars were already sharp and bright. More stars were coming, more, more. Lying on my back, wrapped in my rug, my hands clasped in front of me, I prayed that all might be well between me and Hartley, that somehow that lifelong faithful remembering, what I now thought of as my mystical marriage, might not be lost or wasted, but somehow come to good! And then, as if the spirit that I prayed to had admonished me in reply, I tried to put myself out of the picture and to pray only for Hartley: that she might be happy, that t.i.tus might come home, that her husband might love her and she him. This was more difficult. In fact it was so difficult that the temptation of which I had been aware earlier, and which I had so firmly driven away, began to creep in again from the side, however hard I tried to think only good thoughts. Is her husband. Fitch, Ben, whatever his name is, a jealous tyrant, is he the cause other unhappiness? If so then perhaps...? I decided at last that if there was no letter from Hartley in the morning I would call at the bungalow and d.a.m.n the consequences. Because... I had to know... the answer... to that question. Then I found that I was not thinking about Hartley any more, but about my mother. I saw her face covered with wrinkles of anxiety and disapproval and love. Then I was seeing Aunt Estelle, wearing a little round straw hat, sitting at the wheel of the white Rolls-Royce. I know that it excited my father to see her drive that big car. It excited Uncle Abel. It excited me. Aunt Estelle wearing a broad band round her head like a 'fillet', which we used to make such silly jokes about at school when we were translating Latin. She played tennis so well. They had a hard court at Ramsdens. How was it that she resembled James, she so pretty, so gay, he with his silences and his occluded lowering face? Some gauzy mask of similarity had been put over his head, like the Hartley-mask that so many women had worn for me through the years, even that funny old woman in the village who was so unlike her. But had I forgotten already, that funny old woman was Hartley! Then was James really Aunt Estelle? Now Aunt Estelle was dancing on a dark rotating gramophone record, dancing in the middle where the label was, and somehow she was the label, a face, with torn paper, torn paper, turning and turning with the record. And all this time I was keeping my eyes open, or trying to, only they kept closing, because I wanted to go on watching the stars, where the most extraordinary things were happening. A bright satellite, a man-made star, very slowly and somehow carefully crossed the sky in a great arc, from one side to the other, a close arc, one knew it was not far away, a friendly satellite slowly going about its business round and round the globe. And then, much much farther away, stars were quietly shooting and tumbling and disappearing, silently falling and being extinguished, lost utterly silent falling stars, falling from nowhere to nowhere into an unimaginable extinction. How many of them there were, as if the heavens were crumbling at last and being dismantled. And I wanted to show all these things to my father.

Later I knew that I had been asleep and I opened my eyes with wonder and the sky had utterly changed again and was no longer dark but bright, golden, gold-dust golden, as if curtain after curtain had been removed behind the stars I had seen before, and now I was looking into the vast interior of the universe, as if the universe were quietly turning itself inside out. Stars behind stars and stars behind stars behind stars until there was nothing between them, nothing beyond them, but dusty dim gold of stars and no s.p.a.ce and no light but stars. The moon was gone. The water lapped higher, nearer, touching the rock so lightly it was audible only as a kind of vibration. The sea had fallen dark, in submission to the stars. And the stars seemed to move as if one could see the rotation of the heavens as a kind of vast crepitation, only now there were no more events, no shooting stars, no falling stars, which human senses could grasp or even conceive of. All was movement, all was change, and somehow this was visible and yet unimaginable. And I was no longer I but something pinned down as an atom, an atom of an atom, a necessary captive spectator, a tiny mirror into which it was all indifferently beamed, as it motionlessly seethed and boiled, gold behind gold behind gold.

Later still I awoke and it had all gone; and for a few moments I thought that I had seen all those stars only in a dream. There was a weird shocking sudden quiet, as at the cessation of a great symphony or of some immense prolonged indescribable din. Had the stars then been audible as well as visible and had I indeed heard the music of the spheres? The early dawn light hung over the rocks and over the sea, with an awful intent gripping silence, as if it had seized these faintly visible shapes and were very slowly drawing them out of a darkness in which they wanted to remain. Even the water was now totally silent, not a tap, not a vibration. The sky was a faintly lucid grey and the sea was a lightless grey, and the rocks were a dark fuzzy greyish brown. The sense of loneliness was far more intense than it had been under the stars. Then I had felt no fear. Now I felt fear. I discovered that I was feeling very stiff and rather cold. The rock beneath me was very hard and I felt bruised and aching. I was surprised to find my rugs and cushions were wet with dew. I got up stiffly and shook them. I looked around me. Mountainous piled-up rocks hid the house. And I saw myself as a dark figure in the midst of this empty awfully silent dawn, where light was scarcely yet light, and I was afraid of myself and quickly lay down again and settled my rug and closed my eyes, lying there stiffly and not imagining that I would sleep again.

But I did sleep and I dreamed that Hartley was a ballet dancer and was circling a huge stage sur les sur les points points dressed in a black tutu and a head-dress of sparkling diamonds and black feathers. Now and then she would leap, and I would say to myself, but she dressed in a black tutu and a head-dress of sparkling diamonds and black feathers. Now and then she would leap, and I would say to myself, but she stays stays in the air, it's uncanny, it's like levitation, she just in the air, it's uncanny, it's like levitation, she just stays stays there. And as I watched I said to myself in a complacent way, isn't it wonderful that we're both so young and we have all our lives before us. How can old people be happy? We're young and we there. And as I watched I said to myself in a complacent way, isn't it wonderful that we're both so young and we have all our lives before us. How can old people be happy? We're young and we know know that we're young, whereas most young people just take it for granted. Then the stage was a forest and a prince also dressed in black came and carried Hartley away, and her head hung back over his shoulder as if her neck was broken. I stayed there still thinking, how wonderful that I'm young; I had a bad dream and thought that I was old. And I'm sure, I'm sure, that on the other side of those trees there is a lake, or perhaps it's the sea. I woke up in the sunshine, and whereas in my other wakings I had understood at once where I was, this time I was very startled, and could still see Hartley's dead face, her head hanging limply in that terrible way; and I felt a foreboding and a horror which I had not felt in the dream. I pushed myself up on my elbow and only gradually worked out why I was here, lying on the rock, in the bright sunlight in front of a blue muttering sea. I got up slowly, and then felt a pang of sadness as I remembered being so pleased about being young in my dream. I looked at my watch. It was six thirty. It was only then that I thought: if there is no letter this morning I shall go to the bungalow. that we're young, whereas most young people just take it for granted. Then the stage was a forest and a prince also dressed in black came and carried Hartley away, and her head hung back over his shoulder as if her neck was broken. I stayed there still thinking, how wonderful that I'm young; I had a bad dream and thought that I was old. And I'm sure, I'm sure, that on the other side of those trees there is a lake, or perhaps it's the sea. I woke up in the sunshine, and whereas in my other wakings I had understood at once where I was, this time I was very startled, and could still see Hartley's dead face, her head hanging limply in that terrible way; and I felt a foreboding and a horror which I had not felt in the dream. I pushed myself up on my elbow and only gradually worked out why I was here, lying on the rock, in the bright sunlight in front of a blue muttering sea. I got up slowly, and then felt a pang of sadness as I remembered being so pleased about being young in my dream. I looked at my watch. It was six thirty. It was only then that I thought: if there is no letter this morning I shall go to the bungalow. That is settled That is settled. I felt very hungry. I wondered if Rosina had spent the night in the house. I climbed over the rocks as far as the road and walked back towards Shruff End. I looked into the rocky recess where she had left her car. It was gone. I went on and across the causeway. Of course there were no letters yet. When I got inside I made a thorough search of the house. There were a lot of spent matches lying about, but my bed showed no signs of having been slept in. I was glad about that. She must have gone away late last night. She had opened a bottle of wine and a tin of olives and had eaten some bread. She left no note, but had left her mark by strewing the smashed remains of a rather pretty teacup in the middle of the kitchen table. It could have been worse. I breakfasted, since I was so hungry, on tea and toast and the remainder of the olives. Then I just waited, and waited, and while I did so I tried to remember what I had felt when I looked at the stars, but already it was fading. Then I started making sorties to the dog kennel. About half past nine there were some letters, but none from Hartley. About ten I was walking around the village. At half past ten I was outside Nibletts.

I resisted the temptation to peer anxiously at the house as I walked up the path. I wanted to seem to blunder in, and the best way to do that was actually to blunder in. Down in the village I had felt sick with an anxious yearning sense of Hartley's proximity. Now the magnetism other nearness produced a desperate audacity; I felt out of control, heavy, dangerous. I rang the sweet-sounding bell and its hollow angelic chime made a terrible vibration inside the house.

There was then a slight sound of scuffling, but no voices were audible. I realized that my head must be fuzzily visible through the frosted gla.s.s. Did they have many visitors?

Ben opened the door. He had by now become 'Ben' in my thoughts, so ardently had I been attempting to inhabit Hartley's mind. He was wearing a white cotton tee shirt which made him appear rather stout, and he looked unshaven. The parts of his face which were not grubbily bristled were greasy, and there were shiny lumps on his brow. As he tossed his head back with an animal gesture I saw the black interior of his wide nostrils.

I said, 'Good morning,' and smiled.

He said, 'What is it?' with an expression of surprise, genuine or a.s.sumed, which let him off smiling.

'Oh I was out for my morning const.i.tutional and I thought I'd call. I felt it would be so nice to glimpse you and Hartley again, now we are neighbours. And I wanted to bring you something. May I come in for a moment?' I had planned this beforehand. I put my foot onto the step. Ben glanced behind him; then he opened the door wider with one hand, while with the other he opened the door of one of the front rooms. Then he stood back with his arms extended so that he and the two doors made a screen or barrier to shepherd me harmlessly into the front room. This was obviously the spare bedroom. It was rather small, containing a divan, a chair, a chest of drawers. Sunlight illumined bright red flowers upon the unlined curtains. The room smelt of furnishing fabric and furniture polish and dust and of not being used. The divan bed beneath a blue and white gingham cover had clearly not been made up. There was a framed colour photograph of a tabby cat. Ben came inside and shut the door and just for a second I felt afraid of him. There was little s.p.a.ce. He did not ask me to sit down, so we stood facing each other beside the divan. I had decided that to begin with I would keep on gaily chattering, and I had settled on an order of discourse which I hoped that I would now remember. There was much to be discovered, and perhaps a very short time to discover it in.

'How is Mary? I hope she is well?' I remembered to call her Mary. 'I hoped to catch a glimpse. I've got a little note here for you both.'

'She isn't here,' said Ben.

I felt sure this was a lie. 'Well, here it is, my little note.' I handed over a sealed envelope addressed to Mr and Mrs Fitch.

Ben took the envelope, gazed at it frowning, then gave me a blank stare. He said, 'Thank you,' and opened the door.

I said, 'Won't you read it please? It's just an invitation.' I smiled again. Ben gave a sort of sigh of irritation and tore open the envelope. As he did so I saw over his shoulder through the open door that the door of the kitchen, which had been closed when I entered, was now ajar. The heavy smell of roses, dustier, more appallingly sad inside the house than outside, came through from the hall. I could see the 'altar' with the brown questing knight above it. Ben looked up, and closed the bedroom door again.

I said, waving my arm in an explanatory way towards the invitation, and trying with gestures of a simulated bonhomie to fill and dominate the little room and simulate a flow of mutual conversation, 'As you see, it's just a formal invitation, and, look, I've written on the back that I do so hope you and Mary will drop in. I've got one or two friends down from London,' this was untrue of course, but I thought it might sound less significantly alarming than a proposed a trois a trois, 'and I wondered if you and your wife would be so good as to toddle over to Shruff End and have a drink on Friday, it's quite informal, no need to dress or anything, and you needn't stay long.' As this did not sound quite polite and as Ben was still frowning at the card, deciphering my kind message on the back, I added, 'Or of course if you would prefer it you could come over just the two of you on Thursday or Sat.u.r.day or any time really, I'm not tied up. I do hope you will. Your house is so charming, so well done, I'm sure you could advise me about mineI so wanted to ask you about various thingsthe village andthe locality and'

'I don't think we can come,' said Ben. He added, 'I'm sorry.'

'Ah well, if you can't manage anything just now, I expect you're busy and it's not convenient, we could fix something a little later, perhaps, I could drop in next week, I often pa.s.s this way. I used to be such a busy person and now I have all the time in the world, do you find that now you've retired? Of course it's marvellous and one's so lucky, especially living in a place like this. Yes, I do like your house. Is that your p.u.s.s.y cat, isn't he charming?' I gestured towards the colour photograph of the cat which was hanging over the bed.

Ben turned towards the photo and for a second his brow and his mouth relaxed and his eyes lightened and widened. 'Yes. That's Tamburlaine. We called him Tambi. He's dead now.'

'What a splendid name. It's so important what you call a cat. Tabbies are top cats, don't you think?

I've always been such a rolling stone I've never been able to keep an animal, such a pity. Have you got a cat now?'

Ben threw the invitation card and the crumpled envelope onto the bed. The brusque movement put an end to my chatter. He stood for a moment opening his mouth and showing his uneven teeth in some kind of indecision. He ruffled up his short thick mousy hair. He said, 'Listen.' There was a pause, he gulped breathlessly and my own breath was suspended. We stood together bulkily in the little room, I leaning a little over him. 'Listen, it's not on, sorry, we don't want to know you. Sorry to put it like that but you won't seem to take a hint. I mean, there's no point, is there. All right, you knew Mary a long time ago, but a long time ago is a long time ago. She doesn't want to know you now, and I don't want to start, see. You don't have to see people now because you saw them once or went to school with them or what. Things change and people have their own worlds and their own places. We aren't your sort, well, that's obvious, isn't it. We don't want to come to your parties and meet your friends and drink your drinks, it's not on. And we don't want you barging in here at all hours of the day either, sorry if this sounds rude, but it's better to get it understood once and for all. I don't know how you live with your friends in your world, but we don't live like that, we're quiet folk and we keep ourselves to ourselves. See? So as far as this stuff about 'old school friends' or whatever goes, forget it. Of course we'll pa.s.s the time of day with you if we see you in the village, but we don't want to be on visiting terms, that's not our kind of thing. Sothank you for your invitationbut, well, there we are.' Here he fumbled loudly with the door handle, presumably to warn Hartley to be out of the way.

As he spoke, and as I listened to him, I had been looking down at the narrow scantily covered divan. That was certainly not Ben's bed; so they slept together. I listened to his rigmarole almost without any surprise, almost as if it were a ca.s.sette which I myself had invented. I felt at the same time angry, confused, and tormented by the certainty that Hartley was in the house, silent, hiding from me. Why? Why?

One thing I had firmly decided beforehand was that however Ben reacted I was not going to lose my temper or display any emotion. It was certainly at this moment not easy to retain my mask of urbanity. Ben, after his speech, was standing stiffly, wrought up by his own words, frowning as if puzzled and staring at the photo of the cat. He had not raised his voice, indeed he had spoken in rather low though emphatic tones, and he had not yet opened the door. Doubtless he wanted, when he did so, to be sure of making a quick job of getting me out of the house.

I felt my accursed tendency to blush betraying me. My face and neck had changed colour, my cheeks were blazing. I said as coolly and airily as I could, 'Well, all right, but I hope you'll think it over. After all we are neighbours. And if you think I'm some sort of jet set grandee or something you're quite wrong. I'm a very simple person, as I hope you'll discover. I'll write to you again later on. I wonder if I could see Mary just for a moment before I go?'

'She isn't here.''

'I expect she's out shopping. Maybe she'll be back soon? I'd love to see her.'

' She isn't here! She isn't here! ' Ben picked up the envelope and the invitation card from the bed and hurled them onto the floor. Then he threw the door wide open with a crash. ' Ben picked up the envelope and the invitation card from the bed and hurled them onto the floor. Then he threw the door wide open with a crash.

He was standing between me and the door, and there was an awkward moment. He backed a little and I made a concessive flourishing gesture with my hand, instinctively designed to dissipate the sudden aura of violence. I got past him into the hall and began to fumble with the front door. Ben, who had immediately followed me, began to open the door and our hands touched. I then had to sidestep again to get out of the house. I was not able to look back towards the kitchen, and was in any case blind with emotion. I saw with terrible clarity the glaring scarlet and orange of some extremely large roses growing beside the path. The door banged. I fumbled hastily with the complicated fastening of the gate and managed to get out onto the pavement. I walked fast down the hill. I did not run. I began to walk more slowly, more slowly, and by the time I reached the village I was strolling. Acute feelings of anger, fear and a sort of boiling shame gradually subsided. Had I scuttled out like a frightened dog? I decided that the answer to that question did not matter. I touched my burning cheeks and cooled them with the back of my hand.

And as the violent feelings became calmer another emotion, darker, deeper, came slowly up from below. Or rather there were two emotions closely, blackly, coiled together. I felt a piercing pain connected with the vision of that mean flimsily covered divan and with the inference that... Hartley... slept... with that brutal ageing schoolboy. I knew that I felt this particular pain now not just because of the divan, but because, until I had made sure of what I had made sure of, I had been attempting to block out altogether certain reactions to the situation, certain pictures, certain terrible sensations. The other emotion which now, closely embraced with this one, rose dark and gleaming to the surface was: a kind of frightful glee glee. Ben was just as I hadfearedand hoped. He was a hateful tyrant. He was a thoroughly nasty man. And so... And so...

History

THREE.

'Every persisting marriage is based on fear,' said Peregrine Arbelow. But let me explain. I am writing these pages, as I have written the previous ones (since page 100 in fact), in London, in my peculiar miserable derelict new flat. It has even occurred to me that if I wanted to live as a hermit retired from the world this would be a far better habitat! (Someone said something like this to me lately. Rosina?) So much has been happening, I thought I would write it as a continuous narrative without too many reversions to the present tense. So I am writing my life, after all, as a novel!

Why not? It was a matter of finding a form, and somehow history, my history, has found the form for me. There will be plenty of time to reflect and remember as I go along, to digress and philosophize, to inhabit the far past or depict the scarcely formulated present; so my novel can still be a sort of memoir and a sort of diary. The past and the present are after all so close, so almost one, as if time were an artificial teasing out of a material which longs to join, to interpenetrate, and to become heavy and very small like some of those heavenly bodies scientists tell us of.

I arrived here two days ago and have spent most of the time writing. On the second evening, as I shall shortly recount, I visited Peregrine. Today I shall continue to write; it is oddly enough easier to write here, amid all this cramped chaos, than in the open s.p.a.ces at Shruff End. I have been able to concentrate; and my G.o.d there is plenty to concentrate on. This evening I shall take the train back home. (Home?

Home.) I have telephoned to the local taxi to meet me at the station. I am sitting at a rickety table up against a window, from which I can see the unutterably feathery tops of a very bland green plane tree and beyond its lilting leaves a jumble of walls and windows and chimneys, and backs of houses built out of the crusty dung-brown Victorian brick out of which this part of London seems to be constructed. I sold my big airy apartment in Barnes, so near the river, so near the railway, in a fever of haste when I was buying Shruff End. And this little flat was, almost in my intention, a sort of penitential chapel. I have not even yet had time to arrange the furniture. Beside me as I write is an armchair with a television set on top of it. (Thank G.o.d for the impossibility of television at Shruff End.) Beyond, a bookcase stands facing the wall, presenting to me its greyish back, draped with cobwebs and pitted with woodworm. Picture?, lamps, books, ornaments and rolled-up rugs cover the floor, together with a sinister scattering of pieces of broken gla.s.s and china. I hustled the removal men and they were not at their best. Crates of kitchen ware, not unpacked, fill the tiny kitchen. Even though I sold many things and put some in store (including several trunks full of theatre souvenirs) there is far too much stuff here. The two bedrooms are small, but have an attractive view down a mews where many plants and trees are growing outside the little houses. The kitchen, if you can get in, is satisfactory, with a good gas stove and a refrigerator. Yesterday I lunched on tinned macaroni cheese jazzed up with oil, garlic, basil, and more cheese, and a lovely dish of cold boiled courgettes. (Courgettes should never be fried, in my opinion.) I must remember to buy more courgettes and some green peppers to take back with me. And talking of food, I have just this moment remembered that last night (when I was with Perry) was the night when I was supposed to be dining with Lizzie and Gilbert, and I forgot to cancel it. They will have spent the whole day cooking for me. What brought me to London was the following. Fundamentally I suppose what brought me away was a sense of a very important interval in the problem of Hartley: an interval for reflection, planning and a certain necessary purging of intent. What more immediately brought me was Rosina and her horrible little red car. Rosina turned up again at Shruff End on the evening of the day when I had that informative encounter with Ben which I have just related; and I amazed her and also got rid of her by asking her if she would drive me to London, leaving early on the following morning. I wanted to come away, as I have said, to think. And I wanted, as I will explain, to find some old photos of Hartley which had been left in London. And the journey was incidentally a good way of brushing Rosina off me, at any rate for the moment. It was not just that this donation of my company and willingness to accept her services as a chauffeur (she drives very well) was likely to placate. I was also able over the journey to indicate half laughingly, and as if the idea had of course never been serious, that there was no question of anything between me and Lizzie. Rosina took this news, as I knew she would, coolly and with an air of wise generosity, which would have enraged me had I been telling her the whole truth. As it was I even hinted that she had helped to 'bring me to my senses'. Did she really believe that I had abandoned Lizzie and that her terrorist tactics had influenced me? Or did she suspect that there was something quite else afoot? It was hard to say. After all she is an actress.

We were both surprised at how pleasant the journey turned out to be. We spoke of nothing personal but chattered and gossiped all the way and, in that enclosed time, enjoyed each other's company as we used to do in the days before Rosina loved me and I was crazed by her. Tactfully she told me only what I wanted to hear about, failures and flops and bankruptcies and personal disaster. Fritzie's plan to film the Odyssey Odyssey had run into money trouble, Marcus was suing Al over Nell's contract, Rita's third husband had run off with a male dancer, Fabian was back in a mental home. had run into money trouble, Marcus was suing Al over Nell's contract, Rita's third husband had run off with a male dancer, Fabian was back in a mental home. Apres moi le deluge Apres moi le deluge. While I amused her with descriptions of my misadventures at the Black Lion. And without seeming in the least preoccupied I managed to think about Hartley all the way to London. After all I am an actor. Rosina dropped me in Netting Hill. We parted with amicable vagueness. She was too intelligent to press me at this point, especially if she believed that she had won some sort of advantage by a successful exercise of power. I had no idea what she thought or what she wanted and I soon forgot her. I gave myself up to that not unpleasing slightly mad feeling that always comes over me when I enter London, the scattering anonymous feeling of returning into oneself in the great tragi-comic metropolis when the bond of society, whether in train or car, is suddenly snapped. I walked to my flat (I would not let Rosina drive me there) and did some shopping on the way. I let myself in in a state of painful excitement. The alien jumbled rooms, still smelling of other lives, greeted me with hostility. I at once began searching for photographs of Hartley. I thought they might have got lost in the move, but all was well. I poured them from an envelope onto the table and spread them out, all brown and faded and curling at the edges. They were almost all snaps I had taken of her. Hartley always smiling or laughing, the wind blowing her hair and her skirt, posed upon a ca.n.a.l bridge, holding her bike, leaning against a five-barred gate, kneeling in b.u.t.tercups and looking at me with a face blazing with love. I kept trying to trace the similarities, to build connections between the young face and the old, the old face and the new. But the images were too terrible, too agonizing, because of the overwhelming smell of youth and happiness which emanated from them. Prudent, careful of myself, I quickly gathered them all together and put them back into the envelope to take to Shruff End.

I then searched quickly for a picture of my mother, and soon found one, not anxious-looking but broad-faced and grinning with a jocund yet powerful expression that was terribly familiar to me. Her sc.r.a.ped-back hair revealed her bulky rounded brow, and her commanding wide-apart eyes gazed straight at the beholder. She would never have made an intellectual, but there were many careers in which she might have succeeded. She was often merry, but with a merriment almost ostentatiously derived from, or a.s.sociated with, an ascetic simple blameless life. The jazz age pa.s.sed my parents by. I also found, though I was not looking for it, a touching (too touching) picture of my father, very young, in the uniform of an infantry officer of the first war. How on earth had he survived that holocaust, and why had I never asked him really detailed questions about it? He too was looking at me, but unsmiling, diffident, with anxious eyes. How soft and young his mouth looked. However had that gentle timid being managed as a soldier? It was my mother who made decisions and argued with the tradesmen. Perhaps it was some of her northern toughness in me which had made me so browbeat the world as to accept me at my own valuation. Then I saw, peeping out from under some horrible pictures of James on his pony (why ever had I kept those?), a photograph of Uncle Abel and Aunt Estelle dancing together. I pulled it out. They were in evening dress and holding each other rather far apart for what was obviously, from the way they were looking at each other, a moment only. The next moment they would be closely embraced. Tango? Waltz?

Slow foxtrot? There was something in their att.i.tude which announced not only their happiness but their mutual dependence, their absolutely satisfactory relationship: he so burly, so masterly, so elegant, so protective, she so frail, so graceful, so trustful and submissive, so confidently loving. So b.l.o.o.d.y beautiful. Poor lucky Aunt Estelle, she never lived to lose those charms. However had I got hold of that photo? I now quite suddenly recalled that I had stolen it from the family alb.u.m at Ramsdens. I turned the stiff brown photo over, and saw the glue on the back and a little dark brownish fur of the thick page from which I had removed it.

As I had been bowling along the motorway with Rosina in the sunny early morning and chattering about California and the latest row in Equity, I had been composing a letter which I intended to write to Hartley as soon as I got to London. But after I arrived I felt, first of all, a more urgent need to clear my mind and somehow to steady and console myself by writing a full account of what had happened. Then I found other reasons for not, as yet, writing that letter. I was in fact in a terrible ferment, not exactly of indecision, but of anxious impatient frightened emotion. I was still struggling to hold off a frightful crippling mindless jealousy-pain which was waiting just round some corner in my distracted soul. I had to keep that away from me by thinking thinking; and the fruit of my thought was somewhat as follows. When I left Ben after that rather horrible interview, I felt dark feral glee because I realized that I was now free to detest him; and I was free to do more, oh ever so much more, than that. The crude summary of the matter was that I was now able to think in terms of rescuing Hartley rescuing Hartley. There was a kind of dreadful violent leaping ahead in this thought, as if I were being powerfully jerked by something which already existed in the far-off future. Hatred, jealousy, fear and fierce yearning love raged together in my mind. Oh my poor girl, oh my poor dear girl. I felt an agony of protective possessive love, and such a deep pain to think how I had failed to defend her from a lifetime of unhappiness. How I would cherish her, how console and perfectly love her now if only... But I still had just enough prudence left to go on thinking thinking. I reviewed the evidence and I had very little doubt about what it pointed to. Hartley loved me and had long regretted losing me. How could she not? She did not love her husband. How could she? He was mentally undistinguished; there was no wit or spiritual sweetness in that man. He was physically unattractive, with his big unshapely sensual mouth and his look of a cropped schoolboy. And he was, it seemed, a barbarian and a bully. He was a tyrant, probably a chronically jealous man, a dull resentful dog, a limited shut-in fellow with no sense of the joy of life. Hartley had been a captive all these years. She may, in the earlier times, have thought of escape; but gradually she fell, as so many bullied isolated women do, into a gradual despair. Better not to fight, not to hope. The shock of seeing me again must have been enormous. Of course she had digested some of it by the time I discovered her. Her frightened negative behaviour was easy to explain. She was probably afraid of her husband; but she was much more afraid of her old love for me, still alive, blazing away there like an underground oil fire: a love which, at the very least, could now utterly destroy her small despairing peace of mind. About all this, and about how I could and would, if she wished it, take her away, I had intended to write to her in the letter, which I would of course deliver secretly. But reason and reflection, together with fear, suggested a delay. Fear said that if anything were to go terribly badly wrong now I should lose my mind. Reason said that the evidence was not conclusive and could be read in other ways. My anti-Ben persona was perhaps not a very reliable witness. Had Had Ben revealed himself as so very unpleasant in our meeting, given that my own conduct had been so exasperating? Well, he had, until the end, controlled himself; but I had felt, from the start, a fierce and unreasoning degree of hostility. Then there was the mystery of t.i.tus. Why had he run away? Had he turned out a problem child, perhaps a delinquent? Had the tragedy of his departure, the shared grief, brought them closer together? The shared grief, the shared bed. My thoughts had still to be kept on a leash, and there were long dark pa.s.sages down which they were straining to run. And of course there was (and this was something huge) the possibility that although he was ugly and charmless and brutal and dull she loved him and had been reasonably contented with him. I had answered, to my satisfaction, a series of questions. This one remained, and it was the last. Ben revealed himself as so very unpleasant in our meeting, given that my own conduct had been so exasperating? Well, he had, until the end, controlled himself; but I had felt, from the start, a fierce and unreasoning degree of hostility. Then there was the mystery of t.i.tus. Why had he run away? Had he turned out a problem child, perhaps a delinquent? Had the tragedy of his departure, the shared grief, brought them closer together? The shared grief, the shared bed. My thoughts had still to be kept on a leash, and there were long dark pa.s.sages down which they were straining to run. And of course there was (and this was something huge) the possibility that although he was ugly and charmless and brutal and dull she loved him and had been reasonably contented with him. I had answered, to my satisfaction, a series of questions. This one remained, and it was the last. Did she Did she after all love him? after all love him? Bat it was impossible. And yet I must find out. I must find out before I could proceed with the plans and projects which were tugging and tugging at my attention and my will. I must wait, everything must wait, until I had found out the answer to that question. But how? I dared not simply write and ask her, there was too much at stake, and I realized as I thought carefully about it that her reply was bound to be obscure. Then (and I am speaking of yesterday) I saw the solution, the rather horrible but necessary solution to the problem. And about this, I will write in due course. Meanwhile let there be an interval of rest. In order to start resting I rang up Peregrine and went round last night and got drunk with him, and what we talked about I will now recount, since some of it is relevant to my situation. Indeed, now I come to think of it, nearly everything in the world is relevant to my situation. Of course I did not tell Peregrine anything about Hartley. I have never mentioned her to him, though I may once have dropped a hint about a 'first love'. Bat it was impossible. And yet I must find out. I must find out before I could proceed with the plans and projects which were tugging and tugging at my attention and my will. I must wait, everything must wait, until I had found out the answer to that question. But how? I dared not simply write and ask her, there was too much at stake, and I realized as I thought carefully about it that her reply was bound to be obscure. Then (and I am speaking of yesterday) I saw the solution, the rather horrible but necessary solution to the problem. And about this, I will write in due course. Meanwhile let there be an interval of rest. In order to start resting I rang up Peregrine and went round last night and got drunk with him, and what we talked about I will now recount, since some of it is relevant to my situation. Indeed, now I come to think of it, nearly everything in the world is relevant to my situation. Of course I did not tell Peregrine anything about Hartley. I have never mentioned her to him, though I may once have dropped a hint about a 'first love'.

I did some more shopping and brought the ingredients of our supper round to his flat in Hampstead. It has taken me a long time to persuade Perry that it is stupid and immoral to go to expensive crowded restaurants to be served with bad food by contemptuous waiters and turned out before one is ready to go. As it was we had a long relaxed evening, ate a delicious curry (cooked by me. Perry cannot cook) with rice and a green salad, followed by an orgy of fresh fruit, with shortcake biscuits, and drank three bottles of Peregrine's excellent claret. (I am not a petty purist who refuses to drink wine with curry.) We then went on to coffee and whisky and Turkish delight. Thank G.o.d I have always had a good digestion. How sad for those who cannot enjoy what are after all prime pleasures of daily life, and perhaps for some the only ones, eating and drinking.

I confess I went to Peregrine not only for a drinking bout and a chat with an old friend, but for male company, sheer complicit male company: the complicity of males which is like, indeed is, a kind of complicity in crime, in chauvinism, in getting away with things, in just gluttonously enjoying the present even if h.e.l.l is all around. In my case, I should however add, this did not include coa.r.s.e and obscene conversation. I abhor artless bawdy. I had, long ago, to give some rather sharp lessons on this subject to Perry and to some others. Not Wilfred. He was never foul-mouthed.

So, having done my thinking and made my resolution, I had the relaxed sense of an interval, wherein I might rest and gather my strength. Hartley would wait. She would not run away. She could not could not run away. run away.

'Every persisting marriage is based on fear,' said Peregrine. Tear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what's at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you put the boot in or whether it makes you cower. As for marriage, people simply settle into positions of domination and submission. Of course they sometimes 'grow together' or 'achieve a harmony', since you have to deal rationally with a source of terror in your life. I suspect there are awfully few happy marriages really, only people conceal their misery and their disappointment. How many happy couples do we know?

All right, Sid and Rosemary, and they've got nice children, and they talk to each other, they never stop chattering, it's a kind of miracle, but do we really know, and how much longer will it last? I can't think of any others, though I know several that look OK, only I happen to see behind the scenes! G.o.d, Charles, you were a wise man never to get married. You stayed free. Like Wilfred Dunning. Never put on a collar and chain. Christ, I loathe women. But I can't get going on the other tack either. And you needn't blush and look coy, I never fancied you. I know what you got up to with Fritzie Eitel! n.o.but I'd have had old Wilfred if he'd asked me. What did old Wilfred do for s.e.x? No one ever knew. Perhaps he didn't have any, and if so good on him. I still miss Wilfred. He was a sweet man. And he was generous, he liked to be the cause that wit is in other men. G.o.d, he inspired me. Getting drunk with old Wilfred was likeh.e.l.l, what was it like? Did you know Lizzie Scherer was living with Gilbert Opian? I think that's smart of both of them.'

'I miss Wilfred too. Yes, I heard about Lizzie.' One of my minor motives in going to see Peregrine had been to find out if there was really any gossip going round about me and Lizzie, .and if so to scotch it. Apparently Perry had heard nothing. 'So you and Pamela?'

'That's over, really. I mean, she still lives in the house, but we don't communicate. That's h.e.l.l, Charles, h.e.l.l h.e.l.l, like you don't know. To be tied to someone where all the sources of speech are fouled up and poisoned. Everything you say is wrong or vile. Christ, I'm a rotten picker. First that b.i.t.c.h Rosina, then a friend like Pam. Seen Rosina lately?'

'No.'

'Nor have I, but every time I turn on the television there she is, that's a b.l.o.o.d.y curse. I suppose I loved her once. Or it was just that she made me feel like Mark Antony. Penche sur elle l'ardent Penche sur elle l'ardent imperator... imperator... All I saw in Rosina's eyes was a reflection of myself. Then I saw the divorce court. The trouble with Rosina is she wants every man: Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ, Leonardo, Mozart, Wilamowitz, Mr Gladstone, D. H. Lawrence, Jimmy Carteryou name him, she wants him. I suppose you wouldn't like to take Pam off my hands too, would you? No? Ah well, I can't convey to you what it's like, like a fight with knives, and really it's still going onwe haven't either of us got the sheer b.l.o.o.d.y strength to start arranging the divorce. Divorce proceedings are h.e.l.l, you've got to think, you've got to decide, you've got to lie. I believe she's got another chap, I don't want to know. She goes away a lot, I only wish she didn't keep coming back, I suppose it's convenient. The sheer endless destructive b.l.o.o.d.y spitefulness, the wanton breaking of all the little tentacles of tenderness and joy, all the little spontaneous nonsenses that connect one human being with another. I do try to communicate with her sometimes, and she says the most hurtful thing she can think of in reply. One's soul becomes numb with the endless blows and of course one becomes a sort of fiend oneself, that goes without saying, one becomes ingenious in evil. I've seen it in other cases, the spouse who feels guilty, even irrationally, is endlessly the victim of the whims of the other, and can take no moral stand. That leads to mutual terrorism. And oh, when we still used to sleep together, lying awake at night and finding one's only consolation in imagining in All I saw in Rosina's eyes was a reflection of myself. Then I saw the divorce court. The trouble with Rosina is she wants every man: Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ, Leonardo, Mozart, Wilamowitz, Mr Gladstone, D. H. Lawrence, Jimmy Carteryou name him, she wants him. I suppose you wouldn't like to take Pam off my hands too, would you? No? Ah well, I can't convey to you what it's like, like a fight with knives, and really it's still going onwe haven't either of us got the sheer b.l.o.o.d.y strength to start arranging the divorce. Divorce proceedings are h.e.l.l, you've got to think, you've got to decide, you've got to lie. I believe she's got another chap, I don't want to know. She goes away a lot, I only wish she didn't keep coming back, I suppose it's convenient. The sheer endless destructive b.l.o.o.d.y spitefulness, the wanton breaking of all the little tentacles of tenderness and joy, all the little spontaneous nonsenses that connect one human being with another. I do try to communicate with her sometimes, and she says the most hurtful thing she can think of in reply. One's soul becomes numb with the endless blows and of course one becomes a sort of fiend oneself, that goes without saying, one becomes ingenious in evil. I've seen it in other cases, the spouse who feels guilty, even irrationally, is endlessly the victim of the whims of the other, and can take no moral stand. That leads to mutual terrorism. And oh, when we still used to sleep together, lying awake at night and finding one's only consolation in imagining in detail detail how one would go downstairs and find a how one would go downstairs and find a hatchet hatchet and smash one's partner's head in and mash it into a b.l.o.o.d.y pudding on the pillow! Ah, Charles, Charles, you know nothing of these marital joys. Have some more whisky.' and smash one's partner's head in and mash it into a b.l.o.o.d.y pudding on the pillow! Ah, Charles, Charles, you know nothing of these marital joys. Have some more whisky.'

'Thanks'. And how's the little girl? What's her name? Angela.' This was Pamela's daughter by her previous marriage to 'Ginger' G.o.dwin.

'She's not so little now. Oh, she's at school. At least I suppose she is, she goes somewhere every day. I ignore her, she ignores me, we never got on. I don't think Pam sees her either. Pam is drunk a lot of the time now. It's an edifying scene. Oh Charles, you're so lucky to have escaped b.l.o.o.d.y scot free from all those frightful wounding traps where one's blood flows and one yells with pain and watches oneself becoming a devil. You're so out of it all, G.o.d, you're clever. You're such a smooth clean b.u.g.g.e.r, Charles, your face is so clean and so smooth and pink like a girl's, I bet you only shave once a month, and your hands are so clean and your b.l.o.o.d.y nails are clean (look at mine) and you've got away with everything, scot free, scot b.l.o.o.d.y free. Yes, yes, I must get on with getting the b.l.o.o.d.y divorce, but that means communicating with Pamela and I can't can'tl can't face sitting down with her, or trying to sit down, we don't sit down any more in each other's presence, and trying to make a rational plan to rid each other of each other Maybe she doesn't want it anyway! It may suit her to live here and use this house as a base for whatever she's doing! I pay a pretty large amount into her bank every month'

'Can't she get a job or'

' Job? Pam? Laissez-moi rire! Job? Pam? Laissez-moi rire! Pam was never an actress, she was a starlet. She can't Pam was never an actress, she was a starlet. She can't do do anything. She's lived on men all her life. She lived on Ginger and she lived on some other poor American fish before that and G.o.d knows who before that. Ginger still pays her fantastic sums in alimony. And of course she'll only consent to leave me if I agree to do the same. And do you know, I'm still paying alimony to Rosina, though she's earning five times what I am. anything. She's lived on men all her life. She lived on Ginger and she lived on some other poor American fish before that and G.o.d knows who before that. Ginger still pays her fantastic sums in alimony. And of course she'll only consent to leave me if I agree to do the same. And do you know, I'm still paying alimony to Rosina, though she's earning five times what I am. Suis-je un homme, ou une omelette? Suis-je un homme, ou une omelette? Sometimes I wonder. I was so b.l.o.o.d.y fed up and anxious to get rid of her I signed everything. G.o.d, if you would only remove Pamela too! You're a lucky dog. Good clean fun every time and then you ditch them. Christ, you even got away from Clement. Why did I never learn?' Sometimes I wonder. I was so b.l.o.o.d.y fed up and anxious to get rid of her I signed everything. G.o.d, if you would only remove Pamela too! You're a lucky dog. Good clean fun every time and then you ditch them. Christ, you even got away from Clement. Why did I never learn?'

'If you think I had a joy-ride with Clement'

'The trouble with you, Charles, is that basically you despise women, whereas I, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, do not.'

'I don't despise women. I was in love with all Shakespeare's heroines before I was twelve.'

'But they don't exist, dear man, that's the point. They live in the never-never land of art, all tricked out in Shakespeare's wit and wisdom, and mock us from there, filling us with false hopes and empty dreams. The real thing is spite and lies and arguments about money.'

It might seem from this account that Perry was doing all the talking, and indeed by the end of the evening he was. He is endowed with an Irish flow of words, and when thoroughly drunk is difficult to interrupt. I was in any case in a mood to incite him rather than to talk myself. I was soothed by his eloquent lamentations and I must confess rather cheered up by his troubles. I am afraid that I was pleased rather than otherwise that his second marriage had failed; I should have felt a certain chagrin had I been the involuntary cause of his being happy en en deuxieme noces deuxieme noces. Such feelings do me no credit; but they are not uncommon ones.

We were sitting in the rather large and handsome dining room of Peregrine's flat. A white table cloth, much stained with wine, covered the table and looked as if it had been there for some time. Perry had moved his divan bed into this room, and had even installed an electric kettle and an electric cooking ring (on which I had cooked the curry) so as to be able to leave the rest of the flat to Pamela. The ring stood on a square of newspaper which was covered with food droppings. The charwoman had left after being insulted by Pam. The room was very dusty and smelt of burnt saucepans and dirty linen. However, as Perry said, the door could be closed and locked.

Peregrine Arbelow has, as I think I said earlier, just about the largest face that I have ever seen on a human being; though when he was young, in his 'playboy' days, this did not prevent him from looking handsome. He has a large round face, now rather fat and flabby, framed (with the help of science) by short thick chestnut brown curls. (It was he who advised me about the rescue operation on my own hair.) His large eyes have retained a look of innocence or perhaps simply puzzlement. He is a big stout man, always dressed, even in hot weather, in tweedy suits with waistcoats. He has a watch and chain. He speaks with a light touch of the accent of his native Ulster, which of course disappears absolutely on the stage, unlike Gilbert Opian's lisp. He is an excellent comic, though not as good as Wilfred, but then n.o.body is. I thought it was time to get off the dangerous topic of women. 'Been to Ireland lately?' This always set Perry off and was a guaranteed subject-changer.

'Ireland! There's another b.i.t.c.h. Christ, the Irish are stupid! As Pushkin said about the Poles, their history is and ought to be a disaster. At least the Poles suffer tragically, the Jews suffer intelligently, even wittily, the Irish suffer stupidly, like a bawling cow in a bog. I can't think how the English tolerate that island, there ought to have been a final solution years ago, well they did try. Cromwell, where are you now when we really need you? Belfast has been kicked to pieces. n.o.body cares. The pain of it, Charles, the pain of it, the b.l.o.o.d.y suffering, the degradation, the b.l.o.o.d.y t.i.t for tat. Why can't they let the thing stop somewhere, like Christ did? Could a hundred saints save that island, could a thousand? And I can't just forget it, it's like the shirt of what's his name, it's on on me, it's crawling on my flesh. The only thing I get out of it is sometimes, in some moods, I can actually feel me, it's crawling on my flesh. The only thing I get out of it is sometimes, in some moods, I can actually feel pleased pleased that other people are worse off than me, that their beloved husband or son or wife has been shot down before their eyes, or that they've got to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. That's how vile I am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a b.l.o.o.d.y Scot, that other people are worse off than me, that their beloved husband or son or wife has been shot down before their eyes, or that they've got to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. That's how vile I am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a b.l.o.o.d.y Scot, that's that's how b.l.o.o.d.y awful it is being Irish! I think I hate Ireland more than I hate the theatre, and that's saying something!' how b.l.o.o.d.y awful it is being Irish! I think I hate Ireland more than I hate the theatre, and that's saying something!'

At that moment the door opened and Pamela put her head round it. Then, swinging on the door, she half stepped half fell into the room and gazed at us gla.s.sily. She was wearing a coat and had evidently just come in. She was still handsome, with a lot of tumbling wavy grey hair, now rather bedraggled. Her smudged scarlet mouth turned down at the corners in an aggressive unhappy sneer. She stared at me, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyes, ignoring Perry. I said, 'h.e.l.lo, Pam.'

She turned round laboriously, still holding on to the door, and started to go out, then turned about, with her face wrinkled up in a pout and her lips working, and having a.s.sembled enough saliva in her mouth, spat onto the floor, leaned forward to inspect the spit, and reeled away leaving the door open. Peregrine leapt to his feet, rushed to kick the door violently shut, then picked up his gla.s.s and hurled it into the fireplace. It failed to break. He ran round the table literally foaming at the mouth, lifted it high with a cry of ' Aaaagh! Aaaagh! ', a sound like a spitting cat only with the volume of a lion. I rose and took the gla.s.s out of his hand and put it on the table. He then walked slowly towards the door, looked at the place where Pamela had spat, tore a piece off one of the filthy newspapers and carefully laid it over the spittle. Then he returned to his seat. 'Drink up, Charles, dear chap. You aren't drinking. You're sober. Drink up.' ', a sound like a spitting cat only with the volume of a lion. I rose and took the gla.s.s out of his hand and put it on the table. He then walked slowly towards the door, looked at the place where Pamela had spat, tore a piece off one of the filthy newspapers and carefully laid it over the spittle. Then he returned to his seat. 'Drink up, Charles, dear chap. You aren't drinking. You're sober. Drink up.'

'You were saying about the theatre.'

'You were so right not to publish your plays, they were nothing, nothing, froth, but at least they didn't pretend to be anything else. Now you're offended, vanity, vanity. Yes, I hate the theatre.' Perry meant the London West End theatre. 'Lies, lies, almost all art is lies. h.e.l.l itself it turns to favour and to prettiness. Muck Muck. Real suffering isisChrist, I'm drunkit's sodifferent. Oh Charles, if you could see my native cityAnd that spitting b.i.t.c.hHow can human beings live like that, how can they do it to each other? If we could only keep our mouths shut. Drama, tragedy, belong to the stage, not to life, that's the trouble. It's the soul that's missing. All art disfigures life, misrepresents it, theatre most of all because it seems so like, you see real walking and talking people. G.o.d! How is it when you turn on the radio you can always tell if it's an actor talking? It's the vulgarity, the vulgarity, the theatre is the temple of vulgarity. It's a living proof that we don't want to talk about serious things and probably can't. Everything, everything, the saddest, the most sacred, even the funniest, is turned into a vulgar trick. You're quite right, Charles, I remember your saying about old Shakespeare that he was thehe was theonly one. Him and some Greek chap no one can understand anyway. The rest is a foul stinking sea of complacent vulgarity. Wilfred felt that. Sometimes I remember he looked so sad, after he'd had them laughing themselves sick. Oh Charles, if only there was a G.o.d, but there isn't, there isn't, at all ' Perry's big round brown eyes were filling with tears. He fumbled for a handkerchief, then used the table cloth. After a moment he added, 'I wish I'd stayed at Queen's and become a doctor. As it is I crawl on everyday towards the tomb. When I wake in the morning I think first of death, do you?'

'No.'

'No. You still have the joie de vivre joie de vivre of a young