New
PROSECTS:
SHORT
STORIES / -
ARTICLES;
THE MA ) APE
REVISION.
me Mif# OF THE colrel
Vanous ekcarnls Partal MYs


'THE NIGHT OF HIE ECLpSE'
BoKI IL IL
P.2-32. - Rokt Ch. I


#808 NIGHT OF THE ECLIPSE
Maurice Rewdon.


Book
Book 11.
Book 111.


BOOK I
CHAPTER 1.
On the_train from the coast he talked loudly and the other
passengers looked a bit intimidated under the direct fire of his-questions.
When he addressed them they blinked and shifted
all except a quiet,
well-bred young woman on the other side of the gangway who was evidently
used to men shouting, and a woman from Johannesburg, her face dry and lined
from the sun, who sat at his table and looked at him with admiration all
the time because he seemed to her such a striking representative of the
Old Country, which she had never visited before. Wherewhrentolduherthatwhe
didnkt-think-tblackstashoubdenecessaril: to
apars fromwhistestrshitestrshe,
hackedstmnadaamiaturnedsavey-fora rmoment N But-he-vent-onaskicing-his
politerquestions-bif-herzantzthecothers a turni L L
e at L mas
frsthershmfferbercac as-toorsmat L a > nisenergies
They entered the still, grey outskirts of London - a deathly
shadow that stole over the train- without a sound; so it seemed to him
underneath his energetic manner. But he didn't turn and look out of the
window because he wanted to keep it at bay a little longer; the shadow
would steal over him, too, as it had just done over the train, and it would
darken him, too, before many hours. He didn't glance to left or right but
went on talking like a robust Englishman
well, he was robust and he was
English! But it was deliberate, he was acting up all the time and there
was a note of danger in his voice, which perhaps was what made people glance
at him curiously, their eyes slightly narrowed.
He told the quiet young woman about his house in Basrah and the


irrigation scheme that was being planned by the government 'out there'.
Now usually he would never think of using those words 'out there': it made
a place seem impossibly far, and thus unreal, and he'd travelled too much
to think like that. But it seemed more English to say 'out there' and he
deginitaly
was being very assidioasty the Englishman.
Only five years before he'd felt ashamed of being so -'English'.
Everybody had told him, either as a compliment or criticism, "You're so
English!" And he'd always taken it as a criticism.
BRt beztirzand
Sital
EUr nt L ERea-man-with-Foe-dowa-hiS-back?
- you wwenew * dsn andao
pat-youprhaurd-on-enothersmantersshoulter n a reassuring-movementyathe
megementewouldnitscomengomerpoffazherather.
ELaok tesyoumwitE7haZRLE
grteneue epressiorasfff-tea t a 41 C ratc P oure
: LEmPE 2 a EMAERICRUX a
trat
what heddefe et i - He dunever
sster cend-slvof-imsides aadeeds SISC
uitemthe-appost
subb mgE er
V tatourhatztoabpepeaksanett
therre
PER
the sound of those words, "You're /capp
so English!"
or it might be a glance a foreigner gave him, especially
a swarthy foreigner with undisturbed black eyes - always paralysed him and
fixed his body in a stiffness foreign to it. Try as he might to ease his
limbs, and look in front of him naturally, he couldn't, and got stiffer and
stiffer. aexcingtr a tmaet S
secceds
He would try terribly hard sometimes,
jug
smiling and gesticulating and say 'Yes' and 'No' premat turely, and kicking
his feet about in a funny way, but it was no good, it only gave an
impression of strangeness. Now a gentleman, an English gentleman, a real
one, behaved quite differently. He always had ease.)
thas muen A
Te mEE e * CEE But otherwise
and Granville was an
otherwise
you had to fight your way to it slowly. It didn't matter


how easy and unstiff you weré inside; you still had to fight through to
a public manner.
He didn't think like that now.. The word England meant other
things
summer afternoons and tea on the lawn, for instance (though he
could hardly remember having actually had tea on are lawn), and streams,
small woods; then, well - rather easy-going people, decent, andr lazy
perhaps; nothing to frighten him any morefo The word also meant London,
which he thought of as in a perpetual glow of late afternoon, when
the
shops would have their lights on, and the buses looked like blazing liners
putting out to sea. He'd been away two years now and he'd begun to
realise that this sense he'd had of a stiffness being imposed on him from
outside - of being narrowed down all the time, thwarted of a real self -
must have been his own private fault, part of growing-up-perhaps; not in
the country itself. Indeed, something else had happened while he was
away: far from losing the sense of being English he'd become proud of it :
not mentally proud but quietly and glowingly so, in his sense of belonging
to England that clement, far-off island - in the same way as his Arab
friends belonged to Basrah. Before, he always used to say that. there was
something in England nowadays that turned your blood to water. But he'd
forgotten that now.
Yet also he was afraid. He hadn't forgotten it completely.
Frain
So he wouldn't look out of thejwindow'until he was really obliged to.
He wasn't going to invite the slate roofs, which always suggested, in fair
weather and foul, that it had just been raining Et a terrible, final
rain, and the tiny, curtained windows, and the cement back-yards like
prison walks, to drag him straight back again
'Come on, there
you,
the dusky fellow in the tropical jacket, your hair bleached from the nice


sea trip! You with a dishdasha in your trunk that you thought you might
use as a dressing gown, we've got a few reminders for you now!'
So he went on talking at the top of his voice, his back straight
and his eyes unflinching. He hoped to keep it up. After all, he had
nothing to fear: he'd be off again in a couple of months. He'd be back
on thè same. boat that had brought him. He hoped to keep it up, and
disprove the idea that England watered your veins.
His house was on the edge of Shoreditch, not TerF far from
Spitalfields market. He'd found it onsedag three years beforeh, E
a quiet house with large Georgian windows, mC
surrounded by
strout small, drab houses built one on to the other. Eya an
straordinery taace ws Etshadebeensforensforssal
N Et
mortgage-andswithinsarmonthahezanthaberand: uSEE
atEE
L a
asamedratn thetime-thatzheldeb8 ten a 1 t Jobrwithethenheadsofficestaethe
gomsutrichethexhousEERouhge-basidealbyr-beingsonhyzaestoreds *sathrowerawag
EmminsteadshergatztheshezMtadlg a Jos a and à - - à chisssurprisesthese it 1a ary
Eeptle-houser It was more than big enough for them: three
and
floors, bue when they had children the attic floor, which they hardly ar
used now, could be turned into a nursery. His wife was expecting a child
now; at least, he thought so.
He found a taxi and asked the driver to take him along by the
Palace, then through Charing Cross along the Strand. It was a hot,
cloudy evening and there were few people about. He liked the wall
enclosing the Palace. He always used to walk here. It had the look of
the old world, humbler than the shops on the other side, with their tall
fronts from Victorian times. Paper fluttered along the gutter.


Trafalgar Square made him feel he'd never been away. It might have been
yesterday evening when he caught that night-train down to Southampton -
the taxi had taken him round the square while the Christmas tree from
Norway was being put up; its coloured lights were being tested and kept
flicking on and off like neat little flames in the darkness. Now there
were no lights, only one red sign at the top of a building advertising a
meat extract.
There were more people along the Strand, walking slowly because
of the heat, glancing in at the dusty shops. Then came the City,
wonderfully solemn and still, àEE deserted now that the offices were
closed. The taxi swept past the Stock Exchange, then through street after
street, always silent, with the office fronts shuttered up.
mipthrms
Gam em
aglar alttsdd. There was still damage from the
war, huge gaps where there were only cellars, their walls tidily demolished
so that they were like meaningless open boxes side by side, under the level
of the road.
He had an impression of frightful grimness at first. The streets
were so dumb and hollow-lookingfo It was all so dark! He'd been in the
blinding sun such a long time now - if only they'd bought a house in the
country! Phegromid-eastl redommnss But he tried to remind himself
that the darkness was only that of an overcast summer evening, which could
happen in Basrah as well. One simply mustn't look at things too closely.
One had to start living here, then it felt all right. He remembered
finding these same tall streets delightful once, because they were always
deserted in the evening. ATC-CAETEREY gEremindedndm-reryd-ard
ana
There was still St. Barthololomew's church hidden at the end of a narrow walk,


intimate and crouching, a ghostly, ancient grey. Am moate as te
gront-equereof Smrenrelds-where-at-one-time-they-ouurnedereretiogy a
He-remembersd-a-royad-procession-frem-Pepyslg-dtarymuumanperhaps-Charles-H+s
homengoming -processionsor. waseiate isequeenskawwhenwehesermivedufrom
Hotkend@mwessbourthe-horsestwhoofe-nad-mademgudemaudeagening-elattormommthe.
cobblespmendsthemdiveriesuandeoats-hademadesmsblazezofrcolourmincthe
nerpoysetreetypsbetweertahousehousessthatshad.odmosta-tonchedzat-themfloors-abover
woute-havenbgensposotblenntomded A emthe-king-withinga-fewrfestysfromonemob
indowssldfewhadnstsbeen "separatetthhermaamistrwaewnoweaskbrerything
visthinatetrchingadistancernewButwaow werwereestpangedestondifer
sotrothegenbutrkdingaewereyshidinguthestighbsoneithercsidetmsedetweBot
sytop SeepingabetweennathemysstherewwagamberrewDarorsthorthouseswith tany
20 o miendowsysaysahmostwaquashredhbertmkeept ingrerientimatberpeurrgslooket
He had an old-fashioned taxi, which was pleasant. They were
difficult to come by these days. You could really lean back in their
leather, jet-black seats, and the jolting reminded him of exciting taxi-
Se nundaal
rides before the war, in childhood. The horn watem COmEr
mEEEs like an old man coughing. There was a special smell, tooo-s
garmapannt
Yes, he'd known a London once
so busy
damnad
and enthralling, always sunny! 'But then,' he thought, 'what a)silly
daydreanys
The sky a bars atenine aud (ow-cast a gave the streets an
oveshead,
indoor look, as if there were a roof exerthens There was a strange dark
stillness about everything. The twilight would come late and people
would leave their curtains undrawn and their windows up because of the heat.
Talk would be heard from behind the windows, drowsy and soft, then lights
would go on one by one and fall across the pavement, a faint yellow.


Commercial Road looked forsaken with its blank_shop windows,
some with their shutters down, dusty and unpainted. It made him feel
gutto-fonely. For a moment he couldn't think of a single friend he had @
ather
* prateypa GEE Butt athmyoscemedente
5 a
Bata CowR-EHaganbecantlsckadat A
therhousee-torgetRE & ak a RCR
ppenranceghssakeyr-ommibeyrommbehsafzpt
RpeesedLlongsEberershop
thEBNN
He'd be called 'Pip' again. For the past two years he'd been
as sislaont
Philip or Mr. Granville, ae
His RCELE
CLE
in Basrah, Mohammed
never departed
from a simple 'Granville ' o Mohammed had dropped the Mr. part as a sign
of friendship but wouldn't go further.
'With a snip and a clip,' he thought, 'they'll reduce me to
The taxi turned into Chaworth Road, where he lived. It looked
like a long, squat monument of stone, deentert sad and yet MEE cosy in
a way. At the end stood his house, tar-ar +-
d a
rothars,
jostled about by its smaller trathrem a little ridiculous with its lovely
tall windows and the old uneven glass which had remained intact through
all the bombing raids on the Cityo-
Goodmerss-iknone
atatterBnanzthegt2e
dinrgazalammstreetzor
Everything looked shrivelled and dusty in the heat. The taxi
began slowing up and he saw with me surprise that there were two cars
his
outside
house, a low, cream-coloured sports car and an old-fashioned
one with a muddy, dented frame. But what about two cars? Cars had


often stood there. And here he was trembling! The taxi drew to a
halt and as he put his hand in his pocket to take out some money his eye
caught the contrast between the back of his hand, brown and freckled, with
bleached hairs, and e
tm A his tropical jacket, and in that
moment he became aware of the distance that now existed between himself -
reaching for money with a trembling, hand and the past he'd just left
behind him at the railway station. In a few minutes, it seemed, all those
hot, blinding days in Basrah had been wiped out, as if to say that a man
could have only one destiny.
He glanced up at the house and saw that both his bedroom-window
and that of the adjacent 'music-room' as they always called it were open
at the bottom. There were guests, apparently. A wave of nervousness
went through him like fingers stroking him inside. As he got out of the
taxi he almost tripped over his bags. The front door was open, which
made matters worse because, not having to ring the bell, he would appear
at the top of the stairs suddenly and they would all stare at him with
astonished eyes
: But why astonished eyes? How absurd! It was his
house, after all! Where on earth had this fear of people come from, even
when they were his own friends?
As the taxi drew away he looked up at the open windows a second
time, hoping that someone would have heard him arrive and lean out of' the
window shouting, "There's Philip!" His train had got in at 7.29 and he'd
sent a cable about it. But Pinkie hadn't come to the station. She
didn't do things like that on the whole. He was always straining for an
she
intimacy that We a barred him. She would say if he asked her, "But surely
you can get from the station to here without me, can't' you?"
He began dragging his heavy cases up the stairs. There was the


same stillness as in the street. The'staircase was narrow and he banged
his cases against the wall, scraping his calf. The stair-carpet was loose ;
perhaps someone had dashed down the stairs or fallen; the rods had been
torn out. Still there was ho sound from above. He had a job getting the
cases up, they were so big and heavy. The dove-grey distemper on the
first landing, which he'd done himself two years before, had begun to
flake, near a window where the damp came in. He'd have to have the drain-
pipe outside looked at.
teochad C landing
Just as he
d er
staians he saw a
young man standing by the telephone, his back towards him. Granville
stopped, his heart beating fast. But why? it might be someone who'd
slipped over from the office! Yet the encounter was different, he didn't
know why. It was Ho-gattng the breath of a strange world in his face;
chill and deathly. He noticed the back of the young man's neck, as if
the strangeness lay there; the hair was soft and gently curled, not
bristly at the base like most men's. Granville's mouth opened, dry with
fear. Absurd! And the way the young man gripped his hand round the
telephone had something special about it. He watched the plump, white
knuckles as if they could speak; and they seemed to say, 'I'm here to stay
oue
and try and push me B if you can!' Then the young man turned round to
him with a pleasant smile and said, "Oh, hullo!" And the strange
impression was gone at once.
He nodded quickly and went on up the stairs to the music-room.
without aytnga anyimme Things were more or less as he'd left them two
years before. o There was no one in the music-room itself but he could hear
voices. They must be in the room beyond, where he and Pinkie slept;
he'd often used that room as a study, if a glorified clerk in a so-called


'technical imports' firm could be said to have a study/o
The first thing. he noticed mhharhg
ARu was that
and noto
his desk had been moved from the window
served as a sideboard for E drinks. He had a swift impression of
people holding glasses - a dull light from the open window and a renewed
sense of the stillness in the street outside a quiet talk
everyone
leaning against something or with one leg crooked casually over the other.
There were only seven or eight people.
No one had yet seen him. Then a stray voice said, "Here's Jesus
Christ!" And almost at once another cried, "It's Pip!" He was aware
from -
of apother clerk i the firm, a young man called Dick Pollocke with whom
he'd been at the T.I.M. training school five or six years before.
wote
Gransidbs
Pollocke still stted a fair, whispy beard; then tahi
Saw
metstord that Pntimis was standing there without a stitch of clothing
above his waist. His chest was sunburned, a smooth, faint brown. His
feet were bare, too. But nobody seemed to mind. The others were dressed
casually, for the summer. They weren't even looking in Pollocke's
direction.
Most of the faces were familiar F more or léss. Someone
nodded to him from the other side of the room, a boyish EE man with
eue,
agreeable
was his name Gerald? At first he couldn't see Pinkie.
She was probably pouring drinks by the chimney-piece. In place of the
bed he noticed there were just cushions on the floor, and people were
sitting there. Everyone seemed tired, not
EA nervously alert as he
was.
Poltothe-weo-bateing-bo-ergind
bauts eighbeer-wie-rodded and
smited varmes abwevermoninge aty EWTTU hemleanedmberctgehtowetit 5e


e bhat-ints-beard-wes-simobhoriccombaitseHio-wacslleening-oramsticie
ra wibt dadentywrememberedefromsthestrainingwschooledayss
CURAS
Podkeckewhed a sbroubhenwithnshtswleg-ngwandzathengoduewas-fag-rasshescould
ephormbongetting-azeprainabeschoolmefromserossecosswcoumtrgmrummingst
asteara sabowesaedmbernsnentrese-heesbiolonsagcthhe-samewaembeforeymbraet
dentikexetirory ypoofmactisnyxymandsmenaotngutenactuguapp pearandenditkeetiios
serazes pposeditoncentainmpifhersemfTCTIatirother
Hooke wasofir
andu Sor-months-the E weuldit
lush al
He caught sight of Pinkie with that little tremor of bewildered
4 a w.
ecstasy which always came after an absence! She was standing on the
other side of the room with a drink in her hand laughing at something,
elegant and tall, her ear-rings shaking slightly, her eyes rat ther blind
as they cast slowly round the room. Her head was raised as she laughed,
and her mouth quivered as it always did when she was excited. She had
less of a strained look than wher-ehe-tteft Basrah. Perhaps it was his
imagination but her face had an even more delicate look than usual,
her eyes were an even lighter blue. All he could do was stare at her,.
having dreamed about her so much in the last month.
She wore a print dress with short sleeves, her neck long and slim.
The ear-rings were silver, the-shape-of-the Muslim crescent, he noticed.
Ear
He hadnlt seen them before. Perhaps she'd picked them up in the market
near the South Gate in Basrah, where old men sat beating copper trays.
She'd bought him a beautiful pair of turquoise cuff-links there once, but
#a els
on his last day,
Eaos sick with the heat and with being away from her,
4 oen
though she'd only gone a month, he'd stepped on them in the bedroom and
the stones went into tiny blue fragments the colour of the sea. They


looked so beautiful on the floor! He'd no idea how they came to be there,
under his feet, but perhaps Kath'm, his house-boy, had swept them off the
dressing table with his duster, which he used much like a fly-whisk,
beating at objects with a certain gracious fury.
He waved to her but she didn't see him. ST
5E0onsnsamReNOOMGE ind
eesed
Teio
datii art
Her
blue eyes flickered gently, and she bent forward a little to talk to
someone at her side. How peaceful and happy she looked! Then she
turned slowly and sightlessly, as if by inward knowledge, lowering her head
and gazing towards the door, still in her conversation, smiling and nodding
with the charm she always showed to friends. Then their eyes met and a
delighted, childish smile, no longer only charming, came to her face.
His nervousness ebbed away. There was so little intimacy between them
when all was said and done, but still they gave each other courage when
jia ty carlenn wa
they looked at each other like that/o
"Sweetheart!"
They pushed across the room and kissed each other in their
awkward fashion, rather formal, holding each other for a moment. She
looked so cool. Her shoulders had a wonderful smoothness and her hair
shone like sand where the sun had bleached it in front.
"Hullo, you old bastard!" she murmured with her roguish expression
and a chuckle. "How was the trip?"
"Oh, not so dusty!"
Nearly the whole of the Basrah office had turned out to see her
off, including Mohammed. That seemed a great time ago now, though it was


just under four weeks. Her skin had kept its golden brown colour, from
the bathing they'd done in the T.I.M. pool, in the spring. The Arab
clerks called her 'the English flower'. She was a little paler than
before perhaps, but that fitted her nature. It gave her the tragic
look, which she carried more willingly than rude health.
She began leading him across the room to get a drink.
"These are only the left-overs," she murmured, glancing round in
her blind way.
"What from?"
"Oh, I gave a party last night!"
He touched Pollocke's bare shoulder as he passed.
"Granville!" Pollocke cried, turning round at once with a smile,
his chin still lifted, making his beard shine in the light from the window
rather like tinsel. "How's tricks?"
"All right! You.look well!"
Pollocke laughed in his bréathless and silent way, down his
nostrils. "You don't look so bad yourself. Arabian nights seem to suit
lgwit the ag
gleneen
They stood in silence, baffled by each other fomimmmgmenter still smiling.
He'd always had trouble talking to Pollocke, though atatrainingmaghed
they'd been senmer
friends.
Poltooko-workedwatwheadnodficeg
Copthada-avenees
"How long have you got over here?" Pollocke asked him.
"Two months."
"That's two months for two years, is it?"


"Well, it's not too bad, I suppose. That's on top of what you
get out there, is it?"
"I take a week-end or two out there. That's all!" And they
laughed with sudden friendliness.
"What happened to your shirt?" Granville asked him.
"Oh - '1 Pollocke glanced down at his chest. "It's upstairs
drying. Some joker poured a double whisky on it."
eRa
Saors a oaT
His mouth was
plump under his beard, bulging a little from
his teeth, not characteristic of his lean, pale, austere face at all.
with Hhair
His youth was all in his eyes, drtnh ta unusual friendliness and good
willot h
That was what had struck Granville first, when they met,
in the entrance hall of the school at Reading, with hundreds of other
candidates. waiting to go in fory interview. Pollocke had joked with him,
and they'd recognised a pleasant unconcern in each other. Most of the
other candidates looked so tense. He and Pollocke hit on a certain
courage in each other, and there was mutual respect at once.
"I haven't seen much of you since training school days," Granville
said.
"No. But we can mend that, can't we?"
Pollocke's eyes were even lighter than Pinkie's. But they were
steadier. Yet also they were strangely transparent, and abstract like
shining steel. They had no real depth, or rather they seemed to have no
base behind them. It was like looking into the sky: one was aware of


endless space.
Pinkie was pouring him a drink at the desk and he went across
to her again. He kissed her on the cheek and looked at her closely. TRa
kiss
tt was a little against the laws between them, but he risked it. For a
moment they were quite alone, their faces close together, and he seemed
on the edge of intimacy with her. But in a moment her gaze faltered and
she turned away quickly, pretending to be absorbed in getting his drink.
It was much like flinching, though he preferred not to call it that.
In Basrah she'd sometimes held her hand involuntarily up to her mouth
when he talked, as if sick. He tended to talk on and on at times. Once
on a favourite theme he was difficult to stop, and the words poured out.
Now it was enough for her to be alone with him a few minutes to feel
suffocatedfo Yet she said nothing about it. He only saw the look on her
face as if she wanted to vomit.
On the surface they were such a perfect match. They looked so
well together. Her aunt Beatrice had always said, "What a fine-looking
couple they are!" Who could have guessed that Pinkie was mortally afraid
of him?
He took his drink awayis making no effort to keep her by him.
At least the atmosphere was casual and he could sip his drink. unnoticed.
Pollocke was talking to the girl egain-moving-heevily-from-ene-feotm
e.r. ane-bhess
tie a
oencorthr-earpobw And his beard was
nearly horizontal as before. Granville wanted to laugh. 'It's all a
joke!" he thought. There was Pinkie smiling again in the corner. She
had such a quick power of recovery, considering how frail she could be
sometimes. Why did he bring his thoughts bearing down on her all the
time? For instance, at this moment, instead of standing there thinking,


why didn't he drink a glass of the reddish, sticky mixture she'd given
him, with a kick of brandy in it, and then another, until he was ready to
be casual as well? She loved that most of all, when he was a bit tight!
"You're such a sunny person, really," she'd said to him in Basrah
just before she left. Two years there had altered him somewhat. Why did
he give her such black looks sometimes? She wanted to know.
But more often than not they were cheerful and affectionate with
each other. There was a kind of intimacy between them, in the light of
common day, as if they' were children. He called her 'calf-nose' and she
called him 'little mouse'. They ragged each other. They hardly ever
had an open quarrel. Only something deadly from the outside spread its
shadow over them, and the shadow had grown in Basrah.
It was dull and sultry outside. Perhaps this helped to make the
guests casual. The curtains. were still. People leaned against the wall
or sat on the floor, sipping their drinks. The punch took his nervousness
away. He felt almost absorbed back into his old life. Only his flesh
was absorbed back, though; not all of him.
He began talking to someone at his side, a plump man in a corduroy
suit. He had a jolly face with bloodshot eyes which Granville thought he
remembered. It turned out that he also worked at T.I.M., in the public
relations office. Pollocke had brought him along.
"You've got one of those hot jobs east of the Suez, have you?"
Pilals
this man asked him with a smile.
"Yes, in Basrah."
"I thought so from the old duck suit!"
Granville
murmured, glancing down at his jacket, "Do you know the Middle East?"


in a whila,
"I pop out to Beirut or Cairo once a
Soy-TARtIGIL
I prefer the patter of English rain. Especially with my tum."
He looked at Granville meaningfully, his lips drawn tight. "Ulcers."
"Oh, that's nasty! Are you on a diet?"
"Well, fish and hip.
pap, you know. The boose is what keeps me going." He held his glass
up between plump fingers. "This chap's quite an enemy of mine. If I
could rout 'im I'd be all right."
Welly
auy V
rourmworrires
thartalig
what
roymtendemist@he
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Granville's attention kept wandering back to Pinkie. All of a
sudden it struck him as preposterous that she should t givey a party
the night before his arrival. It hadn't been quite clear to him before.
He almost strode across to her indignantly. But he held on to himself,


knowing how capable he was of causing a scene.
"You're rather a late arrival, aren't you?" the man asked.
"In what way?" Granville said, wondering if he'd lost the thread.
"Well, you're a day late for the party, I mean."
"Oh, yes! I couldn't get over in time."
"Have you known these good people for long?"
Granville paused. "Who?"
The other man nodded across to Pinkie. "The lady of the house,
I mean?"
"Oh! This is my house. That's my wife!"
The man stared at him and then said, a -
e Is old Pinkie really your wife? You could be brother and sister!
I thought you were much older!"
"Why?" Granville smiled in an uncertain way.
sha
"Well, from the way # Pinkte talks you'd think you were a sort Sitzls
of funny old boy rather like a professor, if you see what I mean!"
And again he burst out laughing. "And here you are like her kid-brother!"
"Awful, the impression our wives give of us, isn't it?" Granville
said. So that was how she talked!
/9itali
"Isn't it the end? There's none' of - em knows what we're really
Dtk
like! We're so good and interesting, aren't we, and it's all wasted on
them?" He added, "Pinkie was. out there with you, of course?"
"Oh, yes! She came ahead to get things fixed up here.'
VYou're married as well?" Granville asked him.
"Yes, with three huge kids. All male. They get bigger every
piae


Ribs
day, LOARENARE Ekents
You haven't tried thr
"No. I hope to!"
"That's where my fat tum started."
"Three boys, did you say?"
"Well, I
you'd call them that, yes!" And he said, "Do
suppose 7o
you know,. that was a marvellous party last night? Your wife certainly
knows her stuff as far as entertaining
goes. She'd do well in my
department."
Indignation tugged at him again. She'd done it deliberately:
Why wasn't she alone now, even though she had given a party? They hadn't
seen each other for a month! Of course, it was deliberate! Almost
turning his back on the publicity-man he gulped down the rest of his drink
and pushed his way out of the room, hoping
indeed, expecting without
much doubt
that she would follow him with an anxious expression; she'd
never not done so in the past, after all!
So he plunged out of the room, almost upsetting two of the guests.
But he found himself alone in the music-room! And he began to feel a
fool! Had anyone noticed him going? He hoped not - now! Pollocke had
glanced up suddenly; he'd noticed that. The talk was going on as before:
Had even Pinkie noticed? Or was she doing that deliberately as well?
Sitels
Were even their quarrelling-habits, whtehmam the most intimate habits
people could have,, to be put aside?
He noticed spots of drink on the carpet, not yet dry. A wild
evening from the look of it! The gramophone was still in the corner,
apparently unbroken, the records piled on the turntable. An he temembered
the whitfing noise it made as each record fell into place.


'Well,' he thought to himself, 'now you've got neither a drink
nor someone to talk to. You can hardly go back!'
Almost every hour on the boat and then for two whole days in
Genoa he'd thought about anthingbt her. That was the trouble; in his
mind he'd arranged his home-coming so elaborately - the meal they were
going to have alone in the kitchen upstairs, while the sky darkened outside;
then they would go to bed and he would kiss her in earnest for the first
timeyo But underneath he'd been afraid that nothing of the sort would
happen. Well, he deserved it, perhaps. But he couldn't see clearly
why.
A few months before she'd said quite out of the blue, "I'm a
completely damned person!" He'd laughed and said all she needed was a
child. But he knew there was a warning in what she'd said. It was the
only piece of self-criticism he'd ever heard her utter. Otherwise she
flew into a rage at any cirticism; it made her feel cornered and persecuted.
Her remark was caused by her having danced with some of the Arab
clerks in the Cabala club by the river. One night she'd gone out alone
with one of them
not a clerk exactly but an assistant manager from one
of the subsidiary stations in Kurdistan and therefore, technically at any
rate, in Granville's employ. People started gossiping about Mr. Granville's
'shame'. The men of Basrah only showed their wives to trusted friends,
and usually on a reciprocal basis even then. Otherwise the poor women
were hidden away. The story went round the coffee houses not only of
Basrah but of the whole region, and Kirkuk besides, that Granville was a
qoar
ienogemmed and let his wife go free at night. Apparently, his performance
with boys was stupendous, they said, five or six a night and still looking
for more when dawn showed through! He pleaded with his wife, they said,


to find a good man who'd keep her busy till breakfast-timejo "By Allah,"
they murmured in the coffee houses, sucking at their hubble-bubbles, "she
has fat and beautiful thighs and the pull of a mare and let us go to the
Cabala tonight!" They streamed to the Cabala in their cloaks and
bernooses, craning round whenever an Englishwoman entered. This was
what Mohammed told him. When Granville heard it he rushed back to the
house in a fury and shouted at her, "Do you want me to lose my job?"
Then
he hit her across the face, and a went on hitting
her with a dumb relish that astonished both of them. It was strange how
they both seemed spectators of it, in the selfless intimacy of marriage.
She even seemed to admire him for it. "It's better than leaving me
completely alone," she said by chance one day afterwards. There were
bruises all over her face and shoulders, and the clerks smiled. The
coffee houses said he was a flagellist as well, like an attache at the
British Embassy thirty or forty years before who'd surprised his Arab
boys at night by whipping them and calling out at the same time, "Take that,
He name %f
you little bugger, Cunningham!" Cunningham was suopoer a the first
kodl
boy he 3/ever whipped,at his public school; Fpetect and his Arab boys
called the flagellation bahgar-kahnin-kham; 'Sahib give me one
bahgar-kahnin-kham hard tonight!' they would say.
He knew Pinkie would never forget that beating; it meant a change
in their relation. 'The spell was gone. After this she went out very
far
seldom and spent hours lying about the house, yearning
London. Mohammed described the assistant manager as a 'dog and son of
a dog,' kelb ibn kelb, in a contemptuous, dusty voice. And Granville told
her.
"Oh, well," she murmured, "he danced all right!"


She'd danced him off his feet and then got dead drunk. The
assistant-manager was delirious with the sheer social triumph of'it.
Excape slap and ticble;
Nothing had passed between them Mt : :
she always said she couldn't
bear the touch of a stranger's hands on her body and he felt this was true.
After this, also, she began pleading with him for a child, as if
she could see the dangers ahead and wanted a child to prevent them. He
was horrified by the idea. This was odd because he loved children, but
only other people's children, it seemed. She went on pleading as if to
save the marriage, in a last effort. She almost pulled him inside her
pessaty
one night, when she had no cout
inns
But he held back, frightened, -
his muscles quivering with the effort. Then he let himself go. Mentally
he knew she was perfectly right, and mentally he wanted children. But
ergas
his climat was grudging, and there was a certain sadness in her afterwards.
Well, apparently his grudging climax had taken. She'hadn't had
fot a couale of months.
the curse f
Asecets k
Just then the XOME man who'd been at the telephone came into the
music-room. He had a small, rather fine face with a pallor so extreme
that it seemed even to enter his eyes, though in fact they were dark.
His hands were in his pockets. He had masses of black, shining hair and
a remarkably tiny waist, quite out of proportion to his shoulders, as if
he wore corsets. His expression was light and friendly. Everything in
his face seemed reserved for the present moment, looking neither back nor
forward. And yet, in this devotion to the present there was something
Gaantilke
opposite, too, a magical element E/couldn't describe. There was nothing
empty about him. On the contrary, simply his presence fascinated
Granville and he stood torn between horror and a blaze of friendship which
the other man seemed to be calling forth in him.


They stood gazing at each other. Then they recollected themselves
and smiled. The other man stepped aside as Granville walked to the door
and said in a parodying tone, "After you, sir!"
other
Granville began walking up the stairs and the yaung man called
after him, "Where are you off to?"
He turned and watched his friendly smile for a moment. Surely
his tone had been mocking? But the smile denied it. Why should a
stranger want to mock him? Yet it wasn't mockery either, but a familiarity
that knew its object.
"The kitchen," he replied. Then he walked on in confusion.
oto ons
"Just to get some coffee!" He heard the goung-man walk back with soft
steps into the music-room.
He reached the top of the stairs and then, as he caught sight of
the kitchen, stepped back in surprise. Every inch of the table was
covered with dirty plates, piled up, and where there were no plates there
was the refuse of vegetables and meat, courng like vomit. Thrown together
on the plates were dirty knives and forks with food crusted all over them,
and then cups half-filled with cold tea or coffee or punch. The tall
dresser on the right that had always looked so old-fashioned and neat,
tha
reminding him of # Victorian kitcher with B shining blue-printed plates
and scrubbed woodwork, had been cleared of everything clean, m its
linoleum top was covered with dry porridge oat ts, sugar, a breadcrumbs.
The drawers were half open, a sagging downwards with the sheer weight -
balls of string and oil-proof paper bags and cutlery and torn cookery
books all mixed together. The sink was swimming with dark-brown greasy
shane.
water and tealeaves, gt the floor
caEer with coffee stains and
spilt food. It looked as if an army had passed through. There wasn't


a clean saucepan, let alone a cup or saucer: The sugar bowl was empty.
He couldn't see the kettle anywhere. That put paid to a cup of tea!
He noticed that the spout of the tea-pot had been smashed, leaving a
jagged brown mouth. He stood in the middle of it quivering.
And there was a woman in charge here! She called herself a
woman! He went on fuming. And if he said anything trh she replied,
"Oh, Pip, for God's sake don't be so English!" 'English' apparently
meant to-the-point! She needed freedom - for herself, of course.
far
Oh, of course! Freedom! Yet she'd never Gone this/before, and the hib
quiet knowledge that this was 60 was fixed in the back of his mind.
The attic room next door was nearly as bad. The mirror
had been a full-length mirror hanging by the window, for Pinkie when she
was dressing up
lay smashed on the carpet in numberless silver fragments.
'It is deliberate, it is deliberate!" his mind kept repeating while he
trembled more and more.
The bed was unmade and there was glass all over the pillow. The
chimney-piece was covered with playing cards, dirty cups, half-used
candles, ash-trays piled with cigarette ends. The wardrobe doors
tkeir
the pleated green curtain behind it glass paney even now giving it an
elegant and tranquil look - were hanging open and some of Pinkie's
clothes, her evening gowns and some fancy-dress material, had fallen to
the bottom in a heap. His trembling grew into a cold shiver. He opened
his mouth to yawn and his teeth chattered. He had a dull feeling that
his life here was finished. But so quickly, without warning! What
else had he got? An office in Basrah and Mohammed, who spoke nursery
English.. -
She hadn't followed him up the stairs. She would have done that


in the past. She wouldn't refuse to do it now unless she'd made a new
world for herself. But he refused this idea. "I'm completely damned!"
she'd said. That was it! It was in her flickering gaze. And he was
her victim. But éven as he trembled and fumed against her he didn't
really believe this. It was too neat a thought. Why didn't he do
something about it? go downstairs, for instance? But he couldn't!
attic
It was still lovely to go to the/window and look out, as he'd
often done two years before. Opposite there were roof-tops and the
darkening summer sky. From here you could just see the cross atha
of St. Paul's, quite alone, as if it hung from the sky. How silent
everything was.
a somotee CHlE
He remembered the
milk-carts passing in the early morning,
with the horses's
hoofs making a loud clatter far below as it might have been a century ago
when a carriage passed.
He picked some glass off the bed and sat down. There still wasn't
a sound anywhere. He watched the ceiling for a moment. It slanted with
the roof and the tiny window was cut into it. They'd spent winter-evenings
up here sitting over the gas-fire, drinking coffee. He remembered the
red-parchment shade over the light which always made the room glow warmly.
There it was, in the same place, swinging in the light breeze from the
window. A breeze had started, cool and brief, now that dusk was coming.
How sad and barren the sky looked now!
He heard footsteps on the stairs. She was coming! At once the
absurdity of these events struck him. Of course, things couldn't change
so soon/o Three or four weeks ago she'd been cooking for him as she'd
always done before/o Mind you, she'd never been frightfully tidy in the
Ditals
kitchen. But this wreckage must be an accident. He felt extraordinarily


happyfo
But
1t wasn't Pinkie. The steps came on to the landing,
the boards creaked, then there was silence for a time. He was all
suspense, craning round. And then he saw Pollocke's wife looking down
at him.
"Hullo!" she cried.
He jumped up in an effort to hide his state, though he could
hardly speak. He - had to think for a moment before he recognised her.
hos
has
She' tal changed a little. While Pollocke Smemet-tantnte become more
upright and solid-looking she had dwindled. But then she'd always been
tiny. Everything in her face was cleanly marked and steady, especially
her eyes,,and there was a black fixity in her eyebrows, which were thick
and almost met in the middle over her nose. And the line of her hair in
front was low, giving her an unusually narrow forehead. She was pretty
but in a sharp and detached way, as if the depth in her face couldn't
get out. That depth was in her eyes. They were narrow, Arab eyes,
very dusky, and it gave him a brief, painful, cont tradictory nostalgia to
look into them as he'd been looking into #e eyes much the same for the
past two years; they were so smoky and dense, smouldering: There was an
odd mystical despair in them, too. She had tight dazzlingly yellow
slacks
taa
on, with a red jumper that made her breasts look hard and sharp,
like armour. She always went in for bright colours. She-put aut her
band
tumbte
andhe-grespedmgngemembonaninghegmaren
meure
"How are you, Hanni? I didn't see you downstairs!"
"I was in the corner. I waved! 11 She always spoke a little


primly, from years of trying to talk the best English.
"Come and sit down," he added. - p
But she stood by the door awkwardly.
"Can't I get you a drink or something?" she asked, still gazing
at him. He began to think his state was visible to her.
"Why? What's the matter?" he laughed.
"Nothing!" She shook her head and sat down quickly on a pouffe
by the bed. "I'm dreaming! We didn't get a wink of sleep last night!"
2 g
Yon
Am could see the Assyrian in hergat
Her hair was a lighter
colour than her eyebrows and she tried to eliminate its stilt crinkles by
wearing it straight down to her shoulders, heavily-oiled, so that the
fixity of her features was emphasised even more. And the desert was still
there at the back of her eyes, undeniably, though her face was set to hide
it. Her mouth abss had a guarded and tense look. Eyebrows meeting in
the middle was supposed to mean a quick temper but he remembered her as a
crealiute.
mild, mt M Perhaps there was a quick flame inside her stillness.
Pet
snn
1ng scheoty ars
A roume-towr
eyutenesmespieds A quick movement seemed
physically impossible for her, as if she was rooted down; yet she was
slim and agile and had a girl's small-hi 1
and upright breasts.
She feared being 'heavy' like the Arab women. He remembered that, too.
"Did you have a good trip?" she asked, gazing at him with her
dusky, reflective eyes.
"Yes, it was marvellous on the boat. Lovely weather." Then
he said in a sudden mood of impatience, "I wish we could get rid of all


these people!"
Sbmgsaertondssetentagadtere "It isn't a very good welcome home, uip.
is it?" And she smiled. "Shall I try and get rid of them for you?"
He felt easier for her sympathy and leaned back, but he was still
trembling. She ought to have been a nurse, he thought. He remembered
how she used to send methodical little parcels to Pollocke at the training
Pip.
school, with instructions that he must share the cake with fhenns
But he remembered her kindness as an intellectual event; it hadn't really
left a mark on him. He couldn't think why this was so. He'd always
had trouble remembering her Christian name as if her real self was absent
to him. Perhaps it was because he and Pollocke hadn't become friends
after all. Yet the conditions of friendship had seemed to be there.
"Let me get you a drink, really," she murmured, getting up again.
"It'll make you feel better."
There was such a strange a tmosphere between them, in the silence
guesks
of this attic-floor, as if they were both refugees from the
belowfo
saied.
"All right, then!" he - -
mumanted
When she got to the door she turned round and aird in her pursed
and restricted way, "I said to Dick they ought to have been sent packing
this afternoon. But Pinkie said you wouldn't mind!"
"Oh!" He laughed to suggest a comic audacity on Pinkie's part.
Many minutes wnet by after she left the room. So it seemed.
It was growing dark now and fewer cars were passtit mthecnretay u His
tropical suit shone white in the darkness and his hands looked almost
black by comparison. He began to wonder if she was going to stay


downstairs after all. Once among them again she might forget him -
she was flattered by people's attention. He lolled on the bed feeling
neglected and sorry for himself. What a home-coming! He
refused to lose sight of the form of the thing. He'd worked out the
form of Pinkie's welcome so carefully. A hundred times he'd sat at the
kitchen table with her in the dusk, sharing observations about what it
felt like to be back in England againlo
He heard Hanni's footsteps on the stairs and realised shedhadn't
been away more than two or three minutes
time enough only to pour the
drinks. In the distance, far away, perhaps in Commercial Road, a bus
passed with a swishing noise like a sudden wind, then died as quickly.
She came up slowly and he could hear the tinkle of ice in a glass.
"Here we are," she said. With her free hand she switched on the
light, and the room suddenly glowed, reminding him of the existence of
the carpet, which was red and had originally been in his bedroom. It was
faded now. He knew the old stains on it.
"God," he said, hodding towards the smashed mirror, "that's a hell
of a mess, isn't it?"
"Yes, it fell off the wall." - : Catam baTA
Ao rx
"Fell off?"
"Well, it wasn't nailed on properly, I suppose!"
Stals
"It was never nailed. I screwed it on myself."
She put his drink down on a little table by the bed, her face
averted.
"You look so healthy, Philip," she said, looking down at him with
a smile. "This is really the tail-end of the party."


"Yes, Pinkie told me.' "1
"It went on for about three days".
"Three days? I thought it was only last night!" He trembled
more but took pains to hide it, clenching his teeth together. Yes,
Pinkie was going to leave him!
"Well, you know -" She laughed in her shy and fixed way -
"Pinkie took a time to work up to it! We came in and helped get the
punch ready and all that."
till
"I wonder. why she couldn't wait untta I got back?"
"She said you had to stay in Genoa."
"Yes, so I did!" He said it as if it had suddenly occurred to
him, so as to cover Pinkie.
aiche
: UT-DCRrwrthoutents SHIrtT
a abodsokd atonirshededewhenmcamesitthesgoomdmsnersisorwonderlswondered
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SHe Smffed
ar sdond
ajoyedatiresgpepebyemorer-yeranererohre!
Atist SS1
I got rather drunk and came up here to sleep it off and
Parkeol
some man crawled into bed after me, some awful, pot-bellied little man! ske
was too drunk to do anything about it and he fell
Kim.Y
asleep!"
He laughed nervously, his mouth dry. The story didn't fit her.
She was telling it out of bravado for some reason. She was trying to be
smart and off-hand and this was against her intimate nature.
"Dick came up about two in the morning and found him there, right
on top of. me, snoring away! He said, Bo you mind, this is my bed!'


But the horrid little man was fast asleep!" She spluttered with laughter.
"What happened, then?"
"Oh, poor Dick walked the streets all night. He threatened
to kill the man but he didn't touch him, of course!"
'Poor *Dick' didn't believe in violence. =
Spanvis
a aeked Sipesanguns-Se-thewwar-he-wouikd-hsa
weedr
There was silence for a time and Hanni said, "Pinkie seems to
have had a lovely time in Basrah."
"Yes, Ee it suited her."
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'The MIgHT OF THE EOLIRE
Chaps: 2-6


They talked on about nothing in particular, as if his
arrival had been a year ago, and she got him another drink. It
got dark and the lights were visible from the street below, rather
silver, like moonlight. Then to his relief the guests began leaving
downstairs. The cars outside started up, making an unholy roar in
the narrow street. And Hanni rose, having unconsciously performed
her role of nurse.
"I'll go and collect Dick," she murmured. And as she went to
the door she added, "Come over and see us one day."
"We'd love to!"
After a time he heard the front door close. There, everything
was all rightafter all!


CHAPTER 2.
But now they were alone together he couldn't bear to face ger.
That was the pattern between them. He sat on in the attic room in the
darkness---Hanni switched off the light by accident when she went.
He heard Pinkie clearing up downstairs. Why didn't she come up to
say hullo? Surely it meant something? But why didn't he go downstairs
to her? He could go downstairs now and chuck her under the chin and
have another drinii, make a joke of it. It was what he actually wanted
to do, with all his heart. But he couldn't!
Later there would be a quarrel; a sudden rash word followed by
tears. He would then pour everything out in a long speech, going into
the whys and wherefores of her errors and sometimes, though more rarely,
the whys and wherefores of his own, while he strode up and down the room
gesticulating, a glare splitting his brow, his shoulders hunched up like
someone trying to force his way into a tunnel. The theme would be
moral: what their lives ought to be like together. Meanwhile her eyes
would begin to flicker and she would stifle a yawn. She would begin
to feel imprisoned in a torrent of words, suffocated, drowning.
Once launched on a theme he was beyond


recall and she could only get relief by bursting into tears.
He heard her pulling his desk back into place, domotains,
straining at it and gasping, t
This was part of a demonstration,
no doubtfo She was showing him how held ruined everything by making her
guests feel he didn't want them in the houseo 'Everything will be back
in order soon', she was saying, 'especially your precious bloody desk
where you do all your thinking!/ Then, when
every damned boring piece of furniture is back in its place we'll sit
gikl
and stare at each other as usual; what a bore! But he was rather bucked
that she was making the gesture at all; it showed he was in her mind. The
desk bumped and rumbled below. Quite a relief! They were being beastly
to each other on known linesfo
The last month in Basrah had been ghastly. Shereld-bee bittle
the " € ee-end-im-eny- wgerge 2
here. stappad. aelawen-immthe
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massiavemorcheetresecateepcatmeebeboyscwithwutttlenbraysrofrehewing-gusro


de vozete-gmoutingannahropurmtngraetper-yosp-mmalea-gpumbhing-destiwcos-tho-purten
arrd-hotesutnptito-pewemenby-blerang-catdsetomprayers probayedwbymdonedapeaiser
from o mosquesporendegoeechhimgwredtoseiyethen "COTTEemnouseSTNN edm
winechese-coffee khouses "stering-bot
an ad mokin
a rendt aa
san
The sweat used to collect at the base of his neck and make a
nasty raw rash which he dabbed with a handkerchief, making it worse a
until it bled. He couldn't sleep at night and spent much of his
time in the Mesopotamia Hotel under the fans. Homgatmabowpalgmemeourmen
themderstmoneT-ab0uE-the-possibblietymodsanioty ehoughwi-tesisteswasnltotihne
sensomforMTIOESespswieeHohappenodemhen-theweadkege aekemewassembledwwverlles
ent netendesbhreshousenchecktagsorathendoorswandenindoavindowssboreeerindettheyswere:
ant gesamaibubimessaentghbymanderathersenamrkegrhekensopmewsopmebodysgetting-imrart
ndawubosetristledzwtth-stmetoosedrombtidmdawavennastlprwendbuintonssavavage
temperspabnothresoffitemEMECITERermightewindwefremmotieadesenteshadwawetrange
beuelemforwhdmencewcelieedopte-hogeingrimagtrerysvoicesmenekdewessandewehenshe
leokedronburofwhiehedmoomwindowswccwhisshouserwasizesthenhesslgreerrloscieteirety
osewavostecafeabirerzconeuikarmhonbesereregerepacetmfarsapert swshemtheraghte
olehzeeeentangureseirerdeshtershagedeeder-tingenthroughsbhemshadowsgofinethempads
tansaezummtlesskneseexdegicallyectihataaMohammerhpebeimnsmmenathondlietwaddtleessmost
feskhasotheroberkeewourbdslonowchowrtoxproteateobwhimimineTions Idesaghn
skomsbuntendumgataahedechimsmm-tieg-vetkeD-HREG-enerWesapostautot distelather
yesgnbesogerduringsrstrfivatudentertotyawhtkrwatonesgworembet flune
aEMindaNsZERIwszsandaucosiiagktakensshinwvrtmbomhira-inokeenmdlan Categones
meatihaendtigSTestindekthe a L - eyes i à sofathewatudenterseringsnyCoade xther
GroNtimurelgrattackedeeBuroperde-Baropeane 8 - trd Thebmotargetoswagethrescingwenicdeinie
missdestrerstRSERECOTanviileknewathesekrears a wereragleinesefreiokessas His only


relief was thinking about Pinkie;
he spent hours alone at night, even
avoiding Mohammed, to be alone with her image, in a state of helf-collapse.
sas
It was a cool, voluptuous image and it dept him going. He imaginod her
naked with full, round, heavy breasts, her nipples sharp and darkly red,
swollen, while her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her hips seeming
massive, moving
Ho cat
e a herb-heme a b-sponding-ewweewect
Ganoe-er-"hte-wey aglan
a eslaupried pn-afterwbwoddaysmbhomewaadienaessontaher
Sunsuddenssbechegramefnom-Pasiinwvene-es pluptuouswrimage-wers-mardesanenyedae
is-rastgibgathessheal-thyenseakvoyagewfromBeirubgsburb-gtidtwi-to-hwistiheld-wis
r a wAnd-wnowegsdnslondonvaisturseemedtowharveTmothtrg" o-dorn wethni UT
Thererwaswnothaifgeinsicoimmorsbetwees-Hep""56ay and"that-opathemtm -
a6-hep-bodgtenrass burbessheswersrelsbwedsbwdoing-anys motsthembhingaeherd
haderincmind-formiers
She came upstairs and switched the light on, not realising he was
there. At once he jumped up. Her hair was tumbled, presumably from
her efforts wi th the desk, and she was wearing her tragic look.
"Good God!" he shouted, Runpsuibadepalonngnbhd sngwoesD
sut CBEn
ee is Aps
utt this/unholy bloody mess, isn't
At once his chin was thrust forward, his shoulders were hunched,
maantr
his eyes glared blackly towards her. He hadn't consciously inbended the
Bak- it wsard Ka lala.
words at all! Phan ae
apowe : a
wor ah
aNt de
netrusticongagrasmadioadagywwaoustranges
She screamed back, "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Well, Jesus Christ
I Fancy coming back to this!"
This time she didn't cry. He was MHAE disappointed.
Instead she walked across the room and flung the attic-window up, then, to


his amazement, brought in a kettle from off the roof! He wanted to
laugh but his face was set with grim condemnation.
"You haven't seen the lid of this, by any chance, have you?"
she asked, with equally ridiculous grimness, holding the lidless kettle
in her hand.
l tka Ratehon
She went next door/and he heard her light the gas. Then she
came back.
"I suppose you want a cup of tea?" she asked.
But he flung past her without a word: she 'd given him something
to refuse! Didn't she realise how awful it was coming-back to this? he
)gite
pakohially
asked hinselfy But at the same time his mind was baffled. He couldn't
quite tell what his feelings were. He was keeping something up
deliberately; he really wanted to call her 'calf-nose' and have a cup of
tea. He went downstairs to have his first real look at the house, now
that it was quiet.
His bags were still in the music-room where He'd dropped them
Repmethenhesnth and he opened the first one, meaning to unpack.. But he
was too nervous.
He walked into the bedroom and stood there, -
letting the quiet sink into him. She'd made the room more or
less presentable. There was still no bed, however. The tasselled bed-
cover, coloured a sombre mauve, was lying on the floor. 1 rona - a
W 5 athontwohe "guestsrenndspobstes
derrethewadisewensuellhedsorsicesehadneldr sit &
neakhyashadgentsdtsthes : Rykwagnanderthegs-wouhtn
aolery
filled
He looked at the grey/carpets C
s 93 Fety EEHOTMOro U
futed
He was proud of that, having tat - a /it himself.


His desk was painted a light sea-blue. He'd done that as
well.
A - a a + undsobee-tet-inbe phowatt rendofound-se :
winberaguitsphenvrandudusty d E pvaliemhadnat-oered-much-about
aa -before T
- rom-bhe-tookvof-themr N wTheet a 6 oar ers
a emkneewanduthemposkete aggedhpe-fhe-There-werswar-petr-of-stmyky
an B a - epwieiweanepomeatespmewomefuqueetiermfor-Bersredre
The curtains were lovely, a delicate rose-coloured pattern of
tall trees, with a still monkey sitting in the branches. This monkey
had a flat, melancholy face wrinkled by the curtain's folds, and it stared
out into the room, moving sometimes with the breeze. The curtains had
come to Pinkie from a grandmother and had originally been at Aldercote,
the Grysham home fifty years before. At the bottom they were in shreds
and had yellowed. But the rose colour had become more and more delicate.
New linings had been sewn on again and again.
A breeze came in from the window like a promise of excitement
a cool, tender, secretive breath across his face. It made him shudder,
he didn't know whether with excitement or fear. 'Why not let things go?'
he thought. 'Why insist so much?' Let him go to parties, take a girl
dancing! Why not? Let all the forms collapse!
It reminded him of another breeze, on the night of an eclipse
three months before in Basrah. He'd stayed awake all night thinking
things out in the way held always promised himself he would. In the
morning after that long night of thought he saw, everything clearly,
gleaming and ice-cool. An ambition of his life had been fulfilled.
Pinkie knew nothing about that night. She seemed to see no
change in him. He said nothing; telling her about it might take away
some of his certainty; he wanted to let it lie dormant for a time. In


any case, though she was curious about his thoughts and followed his long
arguments with an intrigued expression, from a distance, with a hint of
love despite herself, in the end they made her yawn.
This had crushed their marriage, really. Ever since he could
remember he'd had a problem beat ting at his brain for which everything must
wait. 'If only I could reach a golution,' he always told himself, 'then
my life would change, then I could behave normally!' It got so bad in
Basrah that he gave up inviting people, even business-friends. Grudgingly
he went to a film with her once a month. When he did go out to a party
or dance dtirher it was on a kind of insurance-basis: it would keep
got ted-up
her quiet for a time. In the end he -
with her endless
'Pip, why don't we go out somewhere?" He told her to clear out and find
a 'bloody dancing partner' somewhere, which she did!
One day, of course, he and Pinkie would be going out together all
Stel
the time. Oh, yes, later they'd be out every night! He'd be carefree!
Here
7 A
Fer he was hurting himself as well. He actually wanted to go out. He
loved dancing with her and seeing her contented smile. She was so easily
pleased. She only wanted him to be light-hearted a few hours every day
need
rao, wRecd
and she knew it was a destos in him a
lat he was holding back.
The mark of a frown was getting deeper and deeper on his brow every day.
Why? She couldn't understand it.
"You're such a sunny person, really!" she said. "Why do you
have to be like this?"
It was the same over her little demonstrations of affection.
She made to kiss him or stroke his hair and at once he ducked away.
Another time, another time! But meanwhile he had to think things out.
As for having children, well, of course, one day he'd be ready for them!


He'd be strong enough to take on fatherhood: but he didn't want to do i
caaTE a
smad until he'd thought things out; he couldn't feel whole
until he'd done so. On the other hand, he didn't tell her this in so
many words.
So she became
more and more baffled. The lost look in her eyes grew. At last her
sexual interest died as well. That was the flower he'd been clever
enough to crushfo
'Why do you hate people?' - - this was always on her lips, too.
She'd always felt starved of life. She wanted lots of people round her,
and he wasn't quite the person for that. At least he was in his nature Sals
but not in what he chose as his destiny. Her childhood had been lonely,
she'd spent hours alone with a strick nurse. Her brothers and sisters,
eight of them, had neglected her as the youngest; they had formed their
clubs already. She told him once that being alone was a state of sin and
shame for her. It meant you were disliked. And she thought that being
alone meant the same in him - a state of shame! And he saw her looking
at him with doubt sometimes, feeling shame on his account.
The silence of his room froze her and took her back to the long
empty days of childhood. If they were alone together for long she felt
imprisoned and suffocated, as she'd done as a child after too long in an
overheated nursery or after too big a meal. The more she asked him to
take her out in Basrah the more he resisted, in a fight to keep his
privacy. The seige and the attack became their pattern. It was now a
convention between them that she pulled in one direction and he in the
other, whatever their real desires were. She insisted on going out even
when she felt tired and ill, and he stayed at home when he was dying to
see other people. Not did she really think he hated people: it had


become part of the convention between them to say 50. On his side
he said she was afraid to be alone, and this was equally untrue. She
loved tucking herself into bed at night with a book and a glass of hot
chocolate. But since their marriage she'd rarely done it.
All this came to a climax in Basrah for the simple reason that
Cuk of
men were Huthet socially from women, except in advanced circles. There
were times when he genuinely couldn't take her out - to the house of a
whose wwme were edind the veil
sheikh
* mectione
the
cabaret where the whores were picked up. Nor could she go about the
modorn
city alone, much less sit in one of the cafés, even the most ehagt of
them. Even carrying a shopping bag down the main street was 'shame 1 in
the eyes of the sheikh-class. It had to be done by a servant, who
followed you at a distance. Gradually she began to put the blame for
this state of affairs on him, as if he'd invented Muslim society. And in
an absurd way he did feel responsible for it. His career meant loneliness
for her; this was becoming her theme. And it was difficult to deny it.
didalt
But really E even going out) - satisfied her. - It was something
more difficult. At first, in Basrah, they'd gone out quite a lot, making
you
a round of the cinemas where ems sat
boxes pather like/stableg,
inçopen
protected against the yelling crowd; or they went to company dinners and
ma of
even organised /them. Tamraldboon
caewalendethend-other 5
Embassyytheremwersartobmborrokresse-from pause
MAR
But still she felt swindled. The empty house
still waited for them when they got back; and she dreamed of London, where
she could leave the front door open all day, and all sorts of people
drifted in. The(house Sr Basrah waited for them after a party like a grim
destiny claiming them back. Nobody in Basrah called without special


invitation. "What a stuffy lot of buggers they all are!" she cried.
Most of the parties were solemn affairs, too. The guests sa t
round the wall clicking their beads in silence, smiling at each other now
and then, divided from their neighbours by a little table on which were
placed a bowl of nuts, a glass of brandy and an ash-tray with water in it
that sent up a stink of sodden tobacco. Mohammed's parties were like
this, and Granville tried to persuade him not to give them. There would
be semi-westernised Arab music from Cairo, and everybody would say,
"Wallah, Allah!" with ecstasy when the famous Makboula started singing.
Pinkie would yawn until tears came.
was
And when he did get to know people he bacame friends with them
in a man's way which she couldn't share. That was another of her
complaints. Mohammed was a good example. An evening with him was agony
for her; she would rather. have one of his parties! "No more talk-and-beads
You
for me!" Ene had to he doing something, dancing or playing cards or
talking to new people. She couldn't bear Mohammed's silences. To
please her he took her to the Cabala, the high-class cabaret for Europeans,
stiee
about once a month, but shmgs there was/a sense of swindling. The
ibes
evenings were too planned, Pinkie seemed to say, whereas if they =
lon
fem
E a lively group of people there wouldn't tammbwon any need D plans.
But he couldn't think with lots of people round him! He had to
whan colovok,
be alone for hours on end, and he wanted the free run of the housek
Sometimes she gave him two hours after lunch to be alone, and this made
him feel swindled on his side because his thoughts refused to come according
to a schedule. They had a persistent destructive effect on each other's
freedom.
feaw
cap
L Ecl there were a mmLe
English women married to Arab


architects or doctors or engineers, who also wanted a casual life,
Pentt A
there were Arab and Kurdish students who'd been to American or English
had
colleges andjseen beyond the veil. One girl, the daughter of a police
official, wore a tight jumper with the word WISCONSIN knitted across it,
and never wore the abba; since
Kurdish women wore no veil there was
already a precedent. for the Arab women not to do so. This meant there
were opportunities for Pinkie; and a circle'did start up. But as always
Granville held back. He could have given wonderful parties in the house. e
He knew it. The rooms were large, and there were terraces, even a lawn,
though the grass was burned and patchy. Ànd the girls in the circle were
pretty. It was easy to talk to the men. They were a great relaxation
from the sheikhs. Sometimes they all went off tagather for a picnic in
the desert or : a
to Babylon ant the arch of Tesiphon, which
the Wisconsin girl climbed, to everybody's horror; she stood on the peak
of the immense broken arch gazing down at them. And there were fires on
someone's specially irrigated lawn at night, and buffet suppers inside
Swedish
Slss
chic, gleaming rooms with fitted carpets and - ctedexpoden, furniture,
and abstract paintings on the walls.) Bet-it-was-tor
- tomge
mHewcoubdodin ursen awot
poesaryyourt
WONC ortepser Sometimes he yearned to
let everything go, in a- delicious, haphazard flow of life, talking to
people all the time, wandering and lolling about, dancing and joking, a
atent taking a drive across the desert to an encampment where the
gypsies would dance all night, their women with golden plate-like
ornaments on their breasts which they made ES revolve inwards on each
sexy
other in a A a
way. He could live like that till the end of


felt
his days! But after a time he/ G dn
dispersed from his real self. With Mohammed it was different: talk
followed themes slowly and coolly. But with other people he felt drawn
too much into t present reality. And he was searching all the time
for the underneath-reality. They broke this underneath-reality in him,
and the effect was both delightful and shocking.
Pinkie gave in. She saw tup BHONAT-EREER that everything
- ( might
in him s attractive)
the 'sunniness' - :
go to ruin. And Basrah made this clear to her for the first
time. She'd always had the humble idea, before, that he might be leading
her somewhere, with a bit of unhappiness at first, but not for long. Now
it wasn't true. That took her strength away. She began to lean on him
more and more. The more he tried to be alone the more she clung to him,
and he felt he was expected to live her life as well as his own. She
refused to be independent - she could only conceive that as being in
revolt against him. Decisions were left to him - whom to invite,
where to go, the letters they should write. He won absolute iron control
of her without wanting to. She leaned on him for her whole life. He
was her initiative, her morality, her judge. So she never left him really
freeefor his work. There was always a part of him lurking in her, in
another room, a responsibility that nagged and tugged at him: yet if he
went next door, if he gave up his afternoon, he knew he wouldn't be able
to give himself, all his passions and his uncurbed, flowing self; so he
never could give his afternoons, or anything else, to her; she only wanted
an element of him, which meant distortion of all his other self. He
stayed hammering away at his work even when he didn't want to, and even
when there wasn't any real work to do; he became more and more entrenched,


because the first condition of intimacy, the right of absolute self-
abandon, couldn't be fulfilled; and correspondingly, she wilted and
faded before his sight, day by day, in the enormous Basrah heat, because she
was suffering exactly the dame thing. She started calling him po-faced,
a 'parson' ' - and he felt a new pale alter ego growing, which he hated,
too.
She stood in the doorway of the music-room and he started out of
his thoughts.
MEXEIE - ca cd TERERROVNCEJOUEBE ak
"Have you brought the lemons?" she asked, her eyes turned away,
Her hair was still down over her brow; a her eyes had lost
the curiosity and light he'd seen in them at the party not an hour
before. Yet she was such an easy person to rally. He only had to say
an encouraging word and she would smile! But he couldn't bring himself
do it
to do it. For God's sake, why couldn't he mtga?
"Yes," he replied wageringly, "I'll get them!"
A fortnight before, in her only letter, she'd asked him to bring aver
Besah
some) |lemons for halmuth tea,
They were tiny, shrivelled,
yan
sun-blackened lemons that bme put inf the tea-pot. He took them out of
his case and handed them to her, three of them in tissue paper.
"Thank you," she said in a haughty tone, and he went on fiddling
suit
about with his /case in an embarrassed way. He knew a storm was brewing.
She was gazing at a point half-way between them on the floor, as always
when she was angry, and her hair was down over her right eye, giving her
a childish, pouting look. She went on addressing the point on the floor:
"And now do you mind telling me what you meant by walking out of my party
like that?"


He still had his head in his case, rummaging round, and dared not look h, h
up at her in case he got a swipe in the eye. It had happened before.
warled
He could feel her gaze fixed haughtily on his back and he tazchomabsued
CAs
to giggle.
"What's that?" he asked.
tsn Ad Hew? I said would you mind telling me why you tried to
make a fool of me at my own party?" She added, "Make a fool of me in
front of my guests!"
The words 'my guests' gave her a terrific grandeur and he turned
round to look at her out of a simple objective curiosityo = -e
- s Her eyebrows were raised, her cheeks N2 flushed, - her
chin
pushed forward.
"I don't know - :1 His voice sounded quite trivial. "I thought
we were going to have dinner together - "
"What on earth are you talking about?" she cried. "I only got
your telegram yesterday!"
"That doesn't stop you
11 He was still crouched foolishly
over his case.
"What do you mean, it doesn't stop me? Do you think I'm bloody-
well going to cancel all my plans just because you take it into
head
J. tals
your
to come a few days earlier?"
"No, but 1
"Do you think I've got nothing better to do than stand around
here waiting for your next orders?"
"I didn't say that."
n-a amrete
dasrab gan
"Did you or did you not tell me you were staying a week in Genoa?"
Her eyes blazed at him and he was afraid she might get into one


of her frantic states when she gritted her. teeth and screamed.
"Yes, Pinkie, I did - " He added gingerly, "It's all right
She stopped. "What's all right, you bloody fool?"
"Well, I was wrong." II
"Oh, I see! So it was all for nothing, was it?"
"Ruining my party!"
"Oh, come on, your party was last night!"
She was already placated. He could tell that from her eyes.
The moment he'd said he was wrong all the defiance ld left her.
"Why do you always do that?" she said with sudden tears in her
eyes. Her face was screwed up pitifully. "Why do you always have to
ruin things?"
He shrugged. "I don't know." He gazed down at his case as if
he was really trying to think about it. "Don't cry, Pinkie!"
"I wanted you to be at this party," she said. The tears began
pouring down her face and he got up.
"Pinkie " He put his arms round her and they stood close to
each other in an awkward way while she gasped and cried.
"How did I know you were coming back?" she whispered.
"I'm sorry, Pinkie."
He pulled her head gently on to his shoulder and looked across
at the window. How forlorn they were! Her little gasps broke into the
silence. She gave him affectionate little punches in the side while she
wept, saying, "Oh, Pip", with the sheer helplessness of the situation.
He could feel her cool bare shouldef against him, and her wet cheeks.
"It always seems to happen like this, doesn't it?" he said.


"I méan, when we've been away from each other?"
"Yes!" she said, and her tears increased.
"Don't cry any more!" He was completely sunk at the sound of
her tears and swore not to find fault with her again. There was something
so desparate and final about the way she cried, like a kind of final
destruction things; anything, including his own submission, was better
than thatfo
as cade L
This time he didn't make a long 'orang-utang' speech, He watched
the fixed, identical roofs on the other side of the road, while a circle
of lamplight like shining dust glowed from the street below.
"Let's go up and cook something, shall we? he siad.
"Yes. I've got some chicken!" And on the way up to the
kitchen, still half in his arms, sniffing back her tears, she asked him,
"How was the journey?"
They had a meal together, sitting at a slatted garden-table that
had come from the summer-house at Aldercote.
could
Con
aeaead he
see a solitary rooftop mtte close at hand shining faintly
in the moonlight, through the small kitchen-window. They said little at
first. He described the sea, how it had been quite still and blue for
three days. They'd anchored at Syracuse for a couple of hours and he'd
Texen
drunk thick red wine with a talkative/ corn-merchant : cenleross who wore an
enormous sort of cow-boy's hat and never really looked at him while he
talked, only gazed all round him sleepily.
"Your hair got bleached," she said, and gave him a little kiss
on the cheek.
She told him she'd been on the river at Hampton Court with the
Jou
Pollockes. And she'd been so happy getting back to London: B could


anle rkerpeople
live as-ono-wanted senegesie - a suneep with 1e
wa tching.
The party was now a forbidden subject between them.
That was another pattern, made largely by him. Certain matters fell
into a silent abyss which grew steadily. So there would always be this
source of mistrust between them. It would probably have been fun
listening to her déscriptions of the partyfo
He tried to ask her about it, to break through the darkness, but he felt
jsitals
as if a hand had come over his mouth. And she, seeing his face, didn't
dare broach it.
He-wented- A oL
e à em had-boandoingionthomboe
sheby geen
sing stongonm-Tpea-gearewbeforeyhette
limbed out-there-duming
5 ao
dexil à
withubapwacreaminge
eomeweiymomemete eempeen awdrunky But-rewthe-roof-werg-arforbirddem
She looked mritt washed-out from her tears. Her body was /mip.
MTE
really sunken with grief: He noticed it for the first time. She
leaned on her elbows listlessly, her head hanging. Why couldn't hee
accept her? wait.and see what news she had for him, instead of always
taking her by storm like this? 'Why did I send those people away?' he
asked himself. Had he sent them away? +
He'd made a terrible fool of himself! 'Why did I stalk out of the room?
Why did my heart beat at the sight of those cars?' He couldn't see what
was right any more. He had a familiar sensation of lost and confused
authority, that reminded him of the time before they went to Basrah.
And. coerpthinngot the foyage had been so nice. The sky had
tad
been light and clear antthtim and he E /spent hours watching the white
surf behind the boat. 'It's too late now,' he thought. 'I can't undo
what I've done.'


They moved the bed back with much puffing and blowing. Then
the bedroom was more or less as they'd left it two years before. She
walked about mechanically, getting new sheets from the cupboard and
fluffing the matress up. He noticed for the first time that she'd only
got one ear-ring on.
"Where's your other ear-ring?" he asked.
She stopped. "What?" She flinched for a moment, afraid that
he'd said something cutting.
"You've lost an ear-ring."
"Oh, have I?" She put her hand vaguely up to her ear and
gazed before her.
"Perhaps it fell off just now," he added.
"Yes." She gazed about the room, seeming to look for it, but
vaguely, without moving from the bed. She was lost in thought. She
could have been a thousand miles away. It quite frightened him and for
a moment his trembling returned.
Then she went into the bathroom. There came the sound of
trickling water as she got ready for bed. He noticed that the pillows
still bore the imprint of heads. Objects in the room haunted him. He
saw aepiece of blue paper in the basket by the desk and found that it was
one of his own letters from Basrah, ending, 'With all love to you, your
own Pip.' How embarrassing it was to read that now. And he came across
the words, 'you are my darling little calf-nose and I adore you.' Why did
he whip himself up into these high dreaming states when they were away
from each other? Then there was always a big let-down afterwards, from
the spiritual peaks! If he wrote 'dear Pinkie' and signed himself
'Cheerio, Pip' they might come together naturally afterwards, without a
word being spoken.


When she came back from the bathroom he asked her quietly,
"What happened to the child?"
She was standing by the door and looked at him with the same
stilled detachment as before, although on guard now. "What child, Pip?"
The trembling returned like a cold shiver all over his body.
"Oh, for God's sake!" he cried. But he was careful not to raise his
voice too much. "Didn't we start a child over there?"
"Oh!" She went and tucked a sheet in carefully, her eyes quite
closed to him. "Something sort of fell out in the lavatory the other
day. I don't know.... I've had the curse again, anyway.' "
There was a moment of relief for him, of a pained kind. He was
free again to think out his life! Then it was gone. The child would
have put them right rogether, perhaps! It would have committed them to
each other once and for all. Now there would be no more chancef He
tried to see if she was lying, by staring at her. 'Her flesh must have
felt my unwillingness, 1 he thought. She walked about the room, her hair
over. her brow, detached, a little flushed. 'Our fleshes decided for us.'
She was gazing before her, unblinking, her face quite still.
She was like a child: frightened or lying, he couldn't tell which!
"How?" he asked in a whisper.
"What do you mean
"How could it just fall out?"
She shrugged. "Well, it did. I don't even know if we did
start it."
"But you said so! The child was in you."
She was silent for a moment. "Oh, these things are never
certain!"


He was looking for a trace of feeling on her face but there
wasn't any.
"I don't know any more than you do," she said, and busied
herself with the bed again, her face set as he'd never seen it before,
even in Basrah when he'd told her to go and find a dancing partner.
"But don't you feel sorry?" he asked.
"Well, it's just a fact, isn't it?" She threw up her chin a
little, blinking, as if casting off a thought very quickly.
After a pause he said, "You didn't get rid of it, did you?"
"Really, Pip!" She laughed and he trusted her at once. "What
do you think I am?"
But again her face was set, as if she could be trusted only in
that one statement.
"You've changed," he said softly. "If you hadn't changed you'd
be sorry not to have the child. You wanted one out there. But you don't
seem to have lost anything. #I
Again she thref up her chin ever so slightly, with a blinking,
sensitive movement of the eyes.
"Well, as I said, it's just a fact."
"But I say you've changed."
She turned to him and to his surprise gazed at him reflectively
for a time, her brow clear, as :if thinking over what he'd just said in a
perpectly objective way.
"Tell me how I've changed, then!"
He felt at a loss for a' momeht but took the plunge, and his voice
quivered. "You seem harder!"
"How?" She showedrno surprise, no regret. Her face was exactly


the same as before, quite clear.
"You don't seem to belong to me any more. It's the way you
look at me!"
"I've had a holiday from you, that's all!"
"Wéll, I suppose I need time to get back to you." She said it
as a suggestion which he could either accept or not. She herself didn't
know!
"I always have to get used to you again, don't I?" she added.
"Do you? Why?"
She didn't answer. He half turned away and murmured, "I don't
know, you seem so inhuman sometimes."
She went on with the bed. He wanted her to deny angrily wha t
he'd said. But she always accepted his verdicts mutely. Ironically,
he was far from accepting them himself. She got a wretched picture of
herself purely from remarks he threw out just to provoke her.
His body was slightly bowed as. he stood by the door, in a posture
of defeat. Then he moved, straightened his back and began unbuttoning
his shirt. He didn't want to sleep, nor did he want to stay up. He
didn't want to read and he didn't want to go on talking to her. He had
an entombed, static feeling.
"The party went on for three days, did it?" he asked.
She glanced round at him and answered in a subdued voice, "More
or less.' tt
"You must have enjoyed that," he said in a deliberately light
tone, trying to make amends for what he'd done earlier.
But she mistook him. "Oh, really?" Her voice was sarcastic.


"I wasn't being funny!"
"Why shouldn't I enjoy it?" Her mettle was up.
"I told you," he said quietly, "I wasn't being funny.' '1
"Well, it sounded as if you were!"
"Pinkie," he said, as quiet as before, touching her on the arm.
He drew her in a light movement towards him. To his surprise she. didn't
resist. "Have you been up to anything?"
She stared straight into his eyes, .her mouth open, it seemed
to him with terror, and whispered, "What do you mean?"
"Have you been having affairs or anything of that sort?"
"Affairs?" Her lips were dry and she didn't cease staring him
in the eyes. "Of course, I haven't, darling!"
He said 'affairs' because he couldn't bear to pronounce the
dreadful specific phrase 'an affair', though it was what he wanted to say
and what he meant.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his throat so dry that he could hardly
talk.
"Of course, I'm sure!"
The words were a great comfort to him. But since she kept
staring at him, wide-eyed, he could tell nothing from her face. He
nodded and let her go. And a moment later he felt foolish and
embarrassed for having asked it.
She got into her pyjamas quickly and went to bed.
"God, I'm so tired," she murmured.
This was a sign for him not to touch her; it was understood
between them. But he had no desires.


He took off his shirt and stood leaning against his desk naked
to the waist. She closed her eyes, tucking the sheet up under her nose,
her brow clear like a child's. Sleep came to her quickly and soon he'd
be alone.
Poer-Pinkie pticdn-b-werrberrb-enybhing-disreot-frommiimpmeSo-ahabbit
of-pnoomaotenation-trach-growm-aprbgtweer-bhemowew-Shabowaenitp-he-musedeto
aimselis dssndovemsuffooatedwher-dtitenhi-ewspeechestsw-Shendi-dndnehbrwart
Bovey natowwacuserkoussanddemardingr sen@hemwaptedwsomething-aighter-powth
Enimmn-neoponsiteitdummwntbn-wosa-cheurgoponsibaldty-that-aurt-agdsieontited
hert-hewimposedwisbwatmevengevergsspointuismwShewshuddered-at-going-sondeepudntor
Lat shamhad-skermifio-liche-lcharaotergow-Batwadfermust-beisembroddereds
Coms-anichsanautal-yrone-foncbidarehemastyukavod-thonht-cmentntonper
a * sorastpwaplisttingoisteumraturatlyt Amd-ehe-layotheyothere-mowegrésting
a porfeotmaleeprmseemingbongezewatabhewdistagceencicbh-herwegee
Mia gmtowdfmistomdstwwaxgwsemethingeebeaubafutwthatenadesahemastiasbistdrpin
neposen
The breeze from the window chilled his back and he remembered
that his pyjamas were still in his case. He went next door and pulled
them out roughly. Then he, too, got into bed, careful not to touch her.
The darkness was pleasant. It made him feel he was hiding, even from
himself, in a comtarted suspension of reality. He stretched out his
toes and yawned. The lamplight outside streamed in between the curtains
on to the chimney-piece. It was good living in the City where everything
was B quiet in the evening, with = silent offices all round. -
E bir
He heard the screech of a barn-owl. All at
once he felt drowsy and quite cheerful. He could see a chimney and a bit
of roof opposite, between the curtains. Pinkie felt hot at his side and


swiftly her warmth drew him into sleep. He crooked his legs under hers
and put his rtght arm round her waist in the way they'd been doing for
five years. And it established a different reality for him, so that
the party and everything he had said afterwards became absurd, and this
familiar reality of warm thighs r
and the sound of breathing
was the only one for him. He was happy to be back in his room.
He dreamt of Basrah that night; he: was following Pinkie through
felirsen
the dusty, crowded main street, trying to push his way
donkeys and
pase
mules, slapping at their haunches, edging
ta the almost stationary
cars in the middle of the road, while she went further and further away
in Ke enel
until thy /she was lost.


CHAPTER 3.
mtng he woke early and knew it was a lovely day
olaap
before he opened his eyes. There was - semaore hush, like countryside
in the heat, muffling the traffico =
istan He lay there for
some time, breathing deeply, almost asleep. Then he opened his eyes and
saw the sky between the curtains, clear and = blue', with whisps of
white. cloud. The chimneys looked sharp and red by contrast, like painted
canvas held against the sky. There was such stillness in the air that
everything looked fixed and vivid, even the furniture of the room, with a
stream of sunlight pouring through the window on to the chimney-piece in
one straight, brilliant shaft.
Pinkie was fast asleep, lying on her side, and he realised
drowsily that his hand still lay on her hip from the night before, and his
legs were still crooked in hers. He saw the monkey on the curtain,
close
gazing sadly out. Their bodies lay in one united warmth, jined so mck
bogethnt that he couldn't tell at first how his limbs differed from hers;
he. had to move slightly to make sure. The City made a busy, hushed
throbbing in the distance now that the offices were open. He felt safe.
All their divisions of the evening before were absurd. The quarrel
between them in Basrah, the incident with the clerk from Kirkuk, were
distant and absurd. Last night was unreal. Only this was real, the
act of lying together,.melted into one creature by the warmth.
He got up, careful not to disturb her, and without thinking went
through the same motions as on morning after morning two years before,


leaning his arm first on the bed and then on the wall behind him so as to
lever himself over her without waking her. And, just as she'd done
nearly always before, she turned her face as if to look up at him, but with
her eyes closed, then snuggled back into her pillow again and fell fast
asleep: Only her short, auburn hair showed above the sheet.
He tiptoed out of the room and closed the door carefully,
remembering that the latch never worked properly and one had to wait for
a slight clicking noise before letting go of the handle. The brightness
from the street beba made him blink at first. It filled the music-room
with a hot How, making it strangely like a tropical garden, every colour -
chair
the cool blue of the carpet, the silver chintz/covers,
the delicate grey piano and the dazzling white bookshelves
fixed and
separate in the stillness. He did love this house!
Every room had its
Jitals
soul!
Fin-our-etrome-down-bhe-tengthrof-the-streetyon-both-pawenentey
amd-ho-caugho-etcght-of-aremmed-red-mik-captron-thewother-etde-ty-therkerby
thaty toor-tooked-extravrdinertlywivideandwokeanp---tmunswoperatedeby
handy 6-romemberedy-areeteotricaitricat-brothey-that-wetge-tn-pacorof-a-man
omer-bdanorerabonb-tihnenyenmenyenmembeforegettheneta-beenmar-bereencmsi-ledtotihledebing
aktie-shad-gdlwaysmbaken-edownwar-bag-or-carrotswand-appleawose-Saturdny
morningseforshimoseunbatsthen-lismwesembremsforredmbomanobheremeckemanwbecause
bhecaptrzonsathizszoundewentendowmcwktiesheartstroublezandasaideher.couzdrse
emagewachoreevengsmiorersa25onhe-te-reededsthemextresbitroutrofcexercitsezec-Bunts
swwsomomusdsmithout-BimmmoOtherzpeopte-woupainworpabe-overfeedingshim-nowesmpaite
badranhrugersroymromesbeltagmehantlcooked"gaere-st-wouldmburet-the-enastersneoénde
Pammusendntorputrchrsamumnie-agutnetreinkesesg-stomachranteghvemhersestbigs


The milkman hadn't changed and Granville watched him with a
drowsy interest as he went up the steps to one of the front doors with a
crate of bottles in his hand, his body leaning slightly to one side and
-his- free arm held outwards so as to give himself balance, rather like a
tightrope walker. That was exactly as he'd done it two years before.
Indeed, his movements were so precisely the same and 60 familiar to
Granville that he was hardly conscious of them now at all. Where were
those two years between? It made him feel giddy. He had an uncanny
conviction that he hadn't been away at all but had fallen into a long
sleep, Basrah was a pèrfect blank for himfo
The milkman had a sharp, lined worker's faces rittethin 1
armblen mcted adym58S a a as -gavesaskindyogtodmoratng te
boapassers-bypokouohimg-his-capy and-themavertedwhiseeyesxatmoneey-back
towthesstaskxofvmitk-bettlesymerswifwhewfound-tookingoutside-hiswewnwnewondd
Ean E *
He passed unnoticed, rapt in his work, with aihidden devotion
that made a tiny glistening point in his eyes. He-put empty bottles back
into the cart and took fresh ones out, never pausing, slightly bowed all
the time, his lips set and his eyes with their rapt look, sunk, - almost
hidden, tiny points.
der WEKS
dazk
Baliar
sorepewsfabhowmewmerenboe
Ro por WCMNeeT thechinot-bottles a
crabayostheneebduredwretichemerdemrbymhtugtr0ntegsateysatechemputirechsos-bbheubranke,
and-M1s-0odestrrats a bworwthewdoogeiESomfamtliartarmAAndmal-lazdonezwibhear
kchisdousmorcinips Granville watched him closely. How could the man do
it day in and day out like a precise machine for ten or twenty or thirty
years, and yet keep the gleam of love in his eyes? All at once Granville's
interest was aroused. Of course, the man wasn't performing a function sital


just
Work
movement of his hands for him
more than
9tl
al/o
wasn't/the
any
just
Granville's work in Basrah was/filling in invoices and dictating letters:
his
work in Basrah was the whir of the fan in the office, the blinding
sunlight against the shutters of the window, the call-to-prayer blaring
from a minaret across the road, and the sound of Mohammed sucking his
teethlo And this milkman was in the open, the weather was part of his
work; it was a ritual of nature almost, without explanation. The expression
in his eyes was that of a man listening to a marvellous story all the
timefo That was it!
That my of gazing reminded Granville of his own father; he had
when
the same gleam in his eyes athor-workimg
the docks
near Tilbury/o)
And secondly it reminded him of Abu Kath'mamheawas, his house-boy's
wha
mother in Basrah,
lived in a mud-hut at the bottom of the garden, by a
the banana-treef.
But why did he think of them together now - his father, this
milkman, Abu Kath'm? They were so different. Her obrido-wae-dongand
bow-wibhrterwherwheadn a badesinar instenbondines S msisehs@swalkougnildialkswomidabe
deughed-atansalmostmatmanymadbyymm sewreundmend-llowing-andwsedfweeeurod!
Whereasathewmatkmantauwakksrsemoneicouddrebwee wewebnideseesowersmwershurTredy
t-weswakessisheisnedepanieenmaoudf-amhiipea rateedmoverahimemeursntliememsuroxtliogs
Serthrephgsboowmnskendaudushi-lomAbsnkebakathle
ga y
fiatedonwthendistanceceim
wagspahisewagesunkensendsconsealede Yet the glitter at the centre
of their eyes was the same. And their movements, while from totally
different worlds, had the same awe of things/o That was what his father
had in his eyes a look of belief and awe. But there was something else
behind it, too. It was a look of confidence. It suggested that things


things could be depended on. It wasn't a personal or active confidence:
it wasn't a chosen state at all but a complete faith in the constancy of
/Stal
the world, which went along on one continuous theme and hummed wit th one
activity. Their eyes didn't pry into the outside world, glancing from
object to object. They looked at things hazily. They had the same
heetieit and humble air, too, as befememebhomesbo-wirdrchmbhey-moe listening la a
/That was the light in Abu Kath'm's eyes as she gàzed into the distance,
her head lifted proudlyc the-themo
soanwonitduefsherpheasserderormecuedembarteewenton Her gaze invested every-
thing with a safe and calm theme. And the.milkman had essentially the
same gaze.
A gleam of belief, like a flame, had been kept intact in them,"
This was how Granville's night of thought had begun in Basrah,
through his seeing the gleam in Abu Kath'm for the first time; he had seen
her in the afternoon, during the eclipse, standing in the garden. Her
black cloak had been drawn nearly over her face so that only the slits of
her eyes were visible, keen and shining, the genna-mark on her brow lurid
in the strange light. She had warned him against Allah, pointing up at
the hazy sun. Allah was in the sun, she said, and was very angry at this
moment
that was why he was hiding himself! And this had begun
thoughts in Granville for which he'd been waiting ten or twenty years.
He realised how often he'd asked himself, without finding the actual words,
'What does it feel like to believe in God?' And before him, in her, there
seemed to be an answer if only he could penetrate 'to it. And so he'd
begun to try, all night.
He turned away from the window, yawning, and realised with a
hidden twinge of pain that he'd just been 'thinking' - standing quite


still, his jaw thrust forward, his eyes popping out of his head, floating! -
his fists clenched, thinking, thinking!
He stopped on his way to the door. It was the first shame, of
that squeezing and burning kind, a bleak, dispirited remorse for the whole
nature of his being, that he'd had for two years.
He went upstairs to the kitchen, aadro tidy now apart from a
bucket crammed wi th refuse near the door. The slatted gaden table, with
garten
the sunlight falling across it, gave the room the look of a
summer-
house. Along the dresser, on three shelves, were Victorian plates of
various sizes, painted in a bluish-grey pastoral scene.
aad. piakadubhen.sepestwwobutthg-Road-estse-ryeansabafongwcsastens@onikshtundowishtnkosihts
pasentop-bhey-aadowgowoliencetyinooktuntangpa-soupetumeenpsaseoaceRseoucenboshrand
aamagnintacentoeplattenatoprapthe-sundeyeyrncust, purdapt-nad-alecost-besgsthen
aupoundezeshengoumerpeoplavof.Abibottis-Rottry-getting-better-money-TOwg
a sed bri ght padepmudesigneygmandwerethrowing-tHe-e1reloingsmonts
sa nesihedehaifuthisshrousseofromothergedond-bend-hendsshopaiciswalbbbetrtue
RUL
What with the chintz covers and curtains from Pinkie's family, a
quiet sedateness from the past hung over the rooms. It was so unlike the
lives they actually leafo
The kitchen floor creaked under his foot,
That was how they'd creaked two years before, and he
waited for the familiar wooden bump that always followed. Bump! There
it was!
1 winter-merning a
akeno d 6 A
nerabenepsbetorewttmwas
you
as W Vorkeng-at-doptinpbhadd-hventeem mpoundmbheweornere
tketangor gevewhimseblmarereehouwofrnguicaguiotbefonements He remembered
the rustle of the morning paper as he used to open it at the table, in the


silence of the house, and the sound of his tea-cup as he put it back in
the saucer, while the traffic throbbed softly in the distance, getting
steadily louder. Here he didn't have to think. Everything was provided
You,
for om Life throbbed outside. He would patatay fall back into his
old habits - an evening concert, theatres, coffee with friends in the
attic room next door, while his real self lay in abeyance all the time :
But there would be no office this time, for two months. That was bad,
perhaps - e
There was nothing in the larder, only a scrap of soiled grease-
proof paper, so he went automatically to the door and took down the canvas shopping
bag from a hook. It looked the same, like a small sack, with dusty earth
at the bottom from potatoes.
cou
His steps across the room, the blind way his hand had
risen towards the hook on the door
the last two years might just as
well not have existed!
There was a shop on the corner called Ayy's where he could.get
everything. It was - narrow, wedged between houses, the only shop in
the hele street, dark and mysterious, with a rich display of packets and
tins,
There was
a combined smell of soap and cheese,
he remembered. A fresh ham always stood on the counter, and sometimes
there was a
tray of home-made
thick with sultanas and
brend-Casines
currants. Amy herself was plump, with healthy dark eyes and flushed
cheeks, rather Irish-looking, and she always gave him extra weight, with a
little wink. A light was usually necessary in the shop because it was so
narrow, so that it glowed cosily, with bright packets piled up to the ceiling.
ounborPorEnembrimen a Mher
bacitr nemnoseneopty


n asmd du LTA amibblempremmbekrisndrebhesscountercbetwbetweens a
pappadoed woadnsesomeOCOPArmasloukes SN NEE
sli y A t M -
A special calm and silence hung over the shop. She went about her work
with a delicate kind of concentration, slow. And she made the street
outside seem in the country.
Now he had to steel himself to meet her again. It was such an
effort: with surprise he found he wanted to hide himself away; he recoiléd
from leaving the house/o That was another sensation he hadn't had these
two yearsg'since leaving. His initiative had taken a blow.
As he went downstairs he again had an unpleasant sense of
unworthiness that was also familiar from two years before.
ideal-patber -
He was full of confused thoughts,
like dry voices in his brain. And this state also he remembered from two
years before, going down these same stairs, dark and soft to the feet, wi th
the same canvas bag in his hand. His body had lost
its assurance
since last evening. Was that his imagination? His legs felt out of step
with the rest of him! 'Oh, please stop my brain!" he felt like crying.
He needëd butter, sugar, bacon and eggs, brown bread. He must
concentrate. He made a list in his mind, going down the stairs, as he'd
always done before. And he felt automatically in his pocket for the money.
And milk. Had he seen a packet of tea upstairs? He'd better get one,
in case. A little sweat, formed itself on his upper lip as he went down
the last steps. He felt a twinge. of peculiar revulsion and giddiness,
like a desire to jump out of his own body, because he couldn't accept
himself. The thought again went across his brain, for no apparent reason,
becausa vf Aim
that the guests had indeed left oustentocmisomint last night. 'Why did I
stalk out of the room?' he asked himself. "Why did my heart beat at the


sight of the cars outside?' Everything on the voyage had been so light
was
and clear, like the surf behind the boat! But at this moment life ceomed
flat and,plain and deadly,
his own behaviour
grotesque. And
the question he'd asked Pinkie last night! What exaggeration
what
outlandish thinking! A hot blush of shame went through him, making his
heart beat fast. How could he have done it?
alvut finkie?
But what was the truth? - His mind wavered, putting its timid little
question. What about his instincts, were they nothing? But again the
plain and obvious world asserted
Silal
itself.
aisiteri - ai
Of çourse,
PTE
only-
nothing was wrong!
was/madness and dreams. There they were
again, those little ghosts in his brain fighting each other! They'd been
so quiet these two years!
He walked through the dark hall downstairs and stood at the top of
the steps gazing into the street and breat thing in the morning air. That'
you
was better. Ah, the air did - good!
Sunlight still drenched the street, blinding him at first. It
was quite like Basraht Cam
porchegpaptantmbhowhousee copposrt ve
Granville hurried
past the milk-trolley, hoping to escape the man's notice. A revulsion
from all public contact filled him. And the milkman didn't look up.
Then, influenced by being out of doors, his body underwent a
sudden quickening process.
It wasn't simply
that there was more noise and light. It was a total bodily influence, like
ta - waking upp with no trace of drowsiness. His mood of revulsion
was gone.
The house, behind him, seemed like a shrine of thought, dark.
It was like waking up, yet also it was like surrendering his real self,


like dying. How could he be so malleable to life? Apparently, the
night.of the eclipse had achieved less for him than he'd thought! Perhaps
one day he would be able to walk out of the house with the same self that
had been thinking inside it. But that would mean a long journey yet!
His trousers flashed white in the sunlight as he crossed the road,
and he was conscious of their brightness against the grey of the street.
Surely they were too conspicuous? Someone passed on the other side, walking
quickly, a man in drab clothes. Absurdly, he resolved to take off these
flashing trousers when he got back.
The-street looked like a village in the sunlight, with the clear
whare he wod Ceth, m
blue sky beyond the roofs. It reminded him of Abbott's Roadfom cumme
one f thoie awleng days,
tays B H
o-tHe-Bea, when he would wake early
with excitement; a long charabanc would be waiting outside the Co-op hall
and he would wear plimsoll shoes for the sand; those mornings had - smelled
different - it was the smell of the smooth, shiny surface of the charabanc,
and the bag of sandwiches, and the rubber of his plimsolls, and milting tar
from the hot roadway. But almost at once a melancholy shadow followed
this memory. He'd often had this same sequence of feelings - first the
Roppy
sense of a/village, then the EHE eclipse of hope that came inexplicably.
Hest-of-the-houses-tooked-brighter-than-theyld-done-two-yeare
beforer There -wene-white-watts-and-newly-paditted-window-frames.
Surprising what- -a-bi-t-of-paint-did-tomthe-brickwork- -The-grimy industriat
toek-had- gorre- Her-decideduto-watk-down-to-Commercial "Road, just-to-see-it
The pame-were-gone-nowy-and-the-tracks-had-been-taken-upy-which
gave-the oad. -wider-appearance than before. There-was-a-clatter-of
passing-lorries-and-andwcarsson-theirmway-to-the-Citowthe-Cityr It-all-lopked-as-dusty
as-everr-squat-shops-and"coloured Fhoardings: Atiny, thin-faced-marwas


It occurred to him that he hadn't touched Pinkie yet. This meant
he hadn't touched her for a month. Wasn't that strange? Well, they
were completely out of tune with each other, really. Their sex was
fumbled, on the whole, glorified self-abuse. His desire was too direct
for her: she wanted subtle and intricate approaches; even cruelty would
have thrilled her more. She closed her eyes add got excited only when
his touch seemed anonymous to her; when she could forget him as he
really was. And he, wrecking his chances, obtruded himself, gazing
at her and talking. The dim and shadowy excited her; but he was
frightened!
But once---at Stratford on Avon---he could remember with fascination.
They'd gone up to see 'The Tempest' and stayed the night at a small,
cosy inmear the river. The spirit of the room was favourable to them,
p8rhaps, with its bright curtains and tiny mullioned windows; it might
have been the previous occupants---a lingering scent of good lust.
Anyway, it was the first time they really abandoned themselves to each other;
her breasts glistened with his kisses in the darkness, her nipples protruded,


hard and dark, and she pushed her body up towards him, opening her legs
until they were bent under her, making her stomach seem massive. No
endearments that time! No sighs! Just plain business 1 a clap of
thunder - a flood! it happened suddenly, the moment they were in bed.
But when he mentioned the occasion to her afterwards, as something
quite special, she said she didn't remember it; though they repeated it
afterwards now and then, in the same accidental way. 'Stratford' became
ing
his word for the sex
uhiech
Sitae
meanf trust, silence.- théy ought to enjoy.


CHAPTER 4.
Dick and Hanni came over again the next evening
which
surpmisedmard excited him. So he hadn't frightened people away! He was
in his shirt-sleeves when they called
he dashed downstairs to let them
in, having seen them from the bedroom window, but there was no need as the
front door was always open these days, on the latch. At once the house
felt warm and thrilling to him, full of deep colours, as it had done two
years before. He waved them into the hall and they smiled back at him.
"Hullo, Pip! We thought we'd come and help you finish the
punch!"
"Yes, come on!" As if it was his punch
he was overjoyed!
"And to hear all about it," Dick added quietly.
Pinkie was standing on the first landing.
"Trust you to come and finish the dregs, # she called down with a
familiar chuckle.
"Well, how's mum?" Dick called up to her, stumbling a little on
the stairs at the bottom. He clearly liked Pinkie an enormous lot: a bit
in awe of her, too
he was smiling so pleasantly and youthfully!
"Have you recovered yet?" Hanni asked her.
"Never again!" Dick murmured.
They sounded familiar and easy, their tone already formed, without
his help. But yet it seemed to include him. Or rather, there was no
sign that it didn't. But yet - ! How funny this sadness was
that


came suddenly, drawing him back! Was that Basrah? Him, Pinkie?
They ate a. scratch.meal in the kitchen, sitting with bare arms.
It was still sultry-hot, and the window was open at the bottom,.showing the
roofs of houses amd a few commercial temples near the river like strange
grey turrets and steeples in an extraordinary island-citywith flat, green
fields beyond, the sky immense and high even in the dying light. The
wikk
lightness and greyness of everything was strange to him now, meking a
curious heady effect.
rest TE er-more Jolwed-to-his-Bagratogebf- to
the-journeybetweenshad-died-away Cand-hg-rently-ippkatt-ct-Hanind-DIsk
for- resfirst-
Now:
endsr
- was ertainmot :
Again Hanni i's wide, densely black and smoky Arab eyes, her dark skin faintly nit
pock-marked with traces of the desert-boil, her smooth black hair drawn
back so tight from her brow, her thick eyebrows that nearly met over her
nose, brought him back to the Basrah-world; ;and the dark glow of her skin
made it seem that they were in their: dining room in the consular district
again, as the sun - was going down, leaning over the table, and the printed
blue plates, the bright dresser behind her, were eastern colours, after the
stupendous day-heat, in the evening when silence was appreciated like the
coolness, and thoughts came slowly, with an extraordinary methodical
patience. Dick was pale next to herg. armscemmd-to-ba - a little austere,
but warm, twinkling, with a certain kind of inaccessible cleanliness: it was
Kem
in his fingers, their nails clean and well-kept, the pads under msnatls
delicate and pale, also square-looking, as if they touched things softly but
firmly. But his beard! Why didn't he cut the damned thing off? It
you
looked as if ene could blow it away! One wanteded 0
puff and it was
gone! Aheard-menut tharta atan E
consciouszand-pett :
a nt
TOT
He made it seem a whimsical little touch -


put there just because it wasn't like him at all, a ERERE bit cussed, not
quite healthy, eitherfo A strange birdfo
They went downstairs afterwards and sat on the bedroom floor with
the bowl of punch in the middle -- - - Dick wanted to hear all about Basrah,
and Granville was bubbling over to talk about it.
It was dark now but the curtains were still undrawn and the lamp
on the chest-of-drawers, reddish and mellow, was reflected in the window,
filling
with
making the room sermendle es
mysterious colours. They were all
Ditals
sweating slightly
if was good,
to be Ahere! This was the homecoming!)
7v, good
How
earth
|Silal
could he expect a conventional homecoming from Pinkie, imodating/
ust
e cooing toget ther in bed - and then what? No, thank
You
God, they weren't a little couple and never would be! ene needed friends; /ials
that was the real homecoming, something total, not : just sex and the
tiresome/ gials
petty marriage-unit of two
thank God they didn't .have that! Thank God
they weren't a little couple in a little box! Pinkie preserved him from
You were
that: tooke prad
coutd bave:
edir At least, wi th her, anemes in the
ylal
world, not suffocated in a deathly marriage-box! She was in trousers this Sitls
evening, her feet bare, half-lying on the floor against cushions, exactly as
eem ancipated,
she was in Basrah when they went to. see someone 1
dents Egroupy-whete
conkd
Her blouse was open low, showing part of her breasts.
Yet
Were her breasts smaller? More inaccessible to him? Not
belonging to him any more? Not wifely,any more? And so a sad after-
/9ikl
thought came to chase the first away. But it was quickly swallowed up in
reminiscences about Basrah.
"Well, did you enjoy it, Pip?" Dick asked him seriously.
ilals
"Not
enjoyed exactly but
"Interesting?"


Pinkie chuckled. "It never stopped being that! Even the
gital
boredom was interesting, wasn' 't it, mouse?"
"It wasn't a drizzly English boredom," Pinkie went on, "it was
gaudy, real gaudy - # Dick twinkled at her. "It got right inside you
like a' disease!"
"A worm," " Granville cried, "disgusting but it had
something
drama tic about it, something was always
on in you!"
going, 7
"Well," Dick said quietly, "it sounds just the place - for a worm
like me!"
"You'd hate it," Hanni told him.
"I feel it changed me,' 11 Granville said - yes, this was what he
/gal
wanted to tell them! "It isn't a question of hating it or not
all I
know is it changed my life!"
"How?" Dick asked.
"Well, it made life more mysterious! As Pinkie says, even the
boredom! Nothing's plain and ordinary! Do you think so, Pinkie?"
"Absolutely!"
Sill
"It wasn't because Basrah was new to us," Granville said, "because
this sense of mystery didn't grow less as we went on living there but more
do you see. what I mean?"
Dick nodded. quickly, as if to say that so far it was obvious and
didn't need emphasis.
"It was behind everything you did - every little thought! It
never left you! Do you see what I'm saying
it wasn't really a sense
Sikl
of mystery like you night get here if you went inside a church, just for a


moment, it was there/ all the time, like the air! It was the basic thing
7o I
/Bitrls
about everything! The thing you always got down to! Don't you think
that's extraordinary?"
"If it's true, old sport, yes!" And Dick showed with his eyes
tha t he believed him earnestly 1 and yet didn't at all.
"And I felt more mysterious to myself. I felt I was less known and
(Dital
measured up than I'd been here. I began to think of myself
I don't mean
in a deliberate way, I mean I was aware of myself as part of the glow all
round me, do you see what I mean? A created part! And Pinkie was more
mysterious to me than before!" They' smiled at her, and Hanni winked, but
he went on breathlessly. "Her body was stranger to me 11
He smiled but wouldn't be pushed off his subject. "More distant!
She was more in her own eternity! You could feel this mystery along the
river most : in the evening
in the lights, and the way the oars went
into the water without you seeing them! I mean, we knew the lights were
just electric bulbs slung on wires, completely botched. up and messy, and the
river stank, and there was a completely horrible chorus of car hooters from
the main street all the time, but it was all part of a glow, do you see what
j3te
I mean?"
"I had too much of it, Pip," Hanni murmured in her stiff but
confidential way, with an endearing purse of her lips, but I know what you
mean.. " She looked at the floor. "I think I do."
"But it's in people's faces as well, Hanni! Don't you think so?
T N
are
They've got a kind of eternity in their eyes. Something that's not in their
control 7- they aren't actually looking at things, they're more gazing!
yous
That's partly what I mean
life's not in enets control there, it's already


made for you, I mean in a grand way, not made by men but something no man
can control. There's this stirring grandeur in everything - you, can feel
it in the dust and filth, and the scars and pockmarks, and the khamsin --!"
"The wind," Hanni explained to Dick in an unwilling way, as if the
word struck disgust in her, "the hot wind, it makes you fefl rotten."
"I'll tell you something, Dick, I began to feel own
ASitals
powers
aer
for the. first time in my life!"
Dick gazed at him,for a' moment quite seriousvo "What do you mean?"
"I started listening to the created part of myself
do you see
what I mean? I didn'ti
myself as much as I did in
Sitl
mind
England
I didn't
mind losing my temper if that was on the cards - I,mean, the real part of
me took over! I don't know --!" He glanced' a little desparately at
Pinkie. "It's difficult to describe!"
"You mean you didn't have to tame yourself all the time as we do
here," Pinkie said, with that neatness she had sometimes.
"That's it! I don't mean I was wild, I was probably much more
7 a
/Stals
peaceful than here, but I was just myself, I. wasn't in control of myself
in the old way
I just let go, I let myself be taken in by that extra-
d ttal
ordinary glowing authority outside, and inside me, too!"
"There are dangers there for Englishmen,' " Hanni said. softly. "I
know that from my father!"
"Yes, I know what you mean, but I don't mean in behaviour to let
yourself go all loosek, to let the valves go
anyway, I haven't got valves
that always threaten to blow up, I think that's a middle-class thing, I
"All right," said Dick quietly, hearing the danger-signal of an
'orang-utang' speech, "back to the subject, Phillimore-Jackson, and don't


rattle your decorations. 1
"Well," Granville went on, the wind out of his sails for a moment -
(well' was a telltale word with him), "I
er I
"The glowing authority outside," Pinkie reminded him, chuckling.
lee gair
For the first time in my life I felt
natural! By surrendering! By letting the life outside me and inside
|9ihe
the mysterious part, take over! I could really lift my head up! Like
the Arabs in the desert. Well, I'd never done that before! I've never
fut
relished just walking and things like that before, motatke I did in Basrah!
TTT
You'know, I really began to find out for the first time what real- natural
walking was! Bef fore that, I just seemed to stumble along! We seem. all
/oires
out of joint in our civilisation: I learned how to walk without hurrying
along, without bending over all the time to get there, you see, that's the
difference - - here we're. brought up to think that walking is just a means
of getting somewhere, it's part of a plan and the plan says you sleep now 11
and after a few hours of sleep you go there or you stay here, it's all like
a schedule here, it all seems laid down by men, well, look outside the
window and you can see theresult of that, in streets and buses running to an
intricate timetable, and newspapers telling you the news from all over the
world, everything running on little plans made by men, to serve men, it's all A
man-made, but there you get the other world, and there is another world,
God's world! And I never really knew it existed before! Oh, I thought
J11
it existed, I imagined it and I dreamed about it! But in Basrah it was
there,as I said just now, it was" in the air, it was the world that lay in
front of you, it was in your food, it was
the way you slept and the way
dumbuks
the palm trees moved outside the window, it was i the way the derms sounded
across the river and the way men walked, I didn't feel I had to demean


myself before life all the time as I do here, I didn't have to humble my
own strength all the time, and work on one cylinder instead of eight, and
I bet Pinkie felt the same! !"
"Did you?" Hanni asked her with a side-glance, smoking so that ditel
the smoke curled up her face like a tiny white snakeo for-remoments
#t Pinkie answered
2iTals
"Not quite like that, no,
with a smile, touching
one of her forefingers with her tongue, in a soft, slow motion, as she did
when she was thinking something over to herself very privately.
"You know," Granville went on, looking at Dick, "it made me feèl
I was looking into the
I méan, the past as it was for
Sital
past.
this country
as well! I had the sensation that people there were more like what people
here used to be than we are!"
"Before industries, you mean?" Dick asked.
"Partly, yes, but industries were only what happened as a result
of - - well, of something getting lost. I mean, those people don't just
believe in God, they don't believe in God at all, I mean God isn't in their '1
minds at all, they just live ina world which was created by something
TPT
- FT
completely beyond them, and which controls them, and which has this extra-
ordinary glow! You see, that's what I mean by this glow -- they percéive I
God
God is this glow that one can smell and see and hear and sleep in!
Do, you see what I mean? They don't have to believe in. God, with their
little mihds, they perceive him, or rather they perceive the manifestations
of him, in.a tree, the wind, a sound, that sort of thing! They actually
now
perceive eternity! And I'm saying we used to be able to!
But/we
We can't perceive eternity, or the glow, or God, or whatever you like
to call it, as a simple matter-of-fact a R as people used to in our
world and still can over there! We have to be lofty about it - we have


to think
dream - believe
make an effort
we have to try and
get beyond the matter-of-fact, or we think we do! We've lost the power
joihe
to perceive God, or the things of God, directly! We can't believe in God
in the real sense. In the Christian world there can't be a religious
19ital
person! There's no such thing! We've all lost the faculty! That's
what I feel I found out in Basrah! We can only try!"
"But how can you speak for everybody else?" Hanni asked.
That question always baffled him
it baffled him that people
could ask it, as if clear feelings didn't have their natural authority, if
Sitals
they were really clear!
"Oh, I think we. can, talk for all of life - I mean, if we're
interested in that kind of truth. There's no other way of finding it out -
I mean, you couldn't produce tables and charts and figures in which such
things are decided, could you?" And Hanni nodded quickly, as if her
question had already taken them into a longer speech than she'd intended.
"And there," he went on, turning again to Dick, "you get the main
difference between Basrah and London, or between Basrah and any western
city. We've made our mark on everything! Do you see what I mean? And
industries are only one of the marks! We've put things under a kind of
plan, under hundreds and thousands of plans that you can see outside, in
any city! We've made the earth for us. You'd- think there was nothing
but us on the earth, walking through this huge city! You'd think that
eternity had been put aside in some way
I mean that glow you get in
your daily life in Basrah. I mean, you stilly see açcidental things
thére
a dead dog or cat by the road, half-eaten by carrion birds :"
"Ucch!" said Pinkie, smiling at Dick.
"But still, it makes you realise, even with the stink in your


nostrils, what a kind of basic providence life has there! But in our
world we've made everything our business
the garbage gets cleared away,
|9itel
there's a kind of mathematical concept over everything, governing every
little hour! Do you see what I mean? I mean, not that you should leave
your garbage. out, or your dead dogs, but this in our world is the sign that
we've got everything under control
as if there wasn't anything beyond
us, only men in life, who seem to have created themselves! And that makes
an extraordinanry empty feeling in the city
just men who come from
nowhere and go back to nowhere, without a word of explanation, nothing
splendid in life, nothing marvellous and extraordinary beyond men that you
can see in the sky, and which brought them into being, and which moves them
in the evening sometimes when they are sitting round telling a story, or
when they're making love, or when they go out on the balcony. at night just
before they go to sleep and feel the breeze and hear something in the
distance
you get all that out thére still, what we've removed from our
Sike
lives - just as if removing the garbage contradicted God, which I don't see 1)
why it should!"
"Well, it must have been a terrific experience, that's all I can
say, Pip," Dick murmured in a respectful way.
"But do you see what I mean?"
"Oh, yes, exactly!"
sitals
"You see, I listened to life more in Basrah." He was aware,
underneath, of Hanni getting a bit restive
she moved one foot up and
down nervously, and filled her glass again, her lips pursed as when she was
under constraint of some kind. "I was aware of what lay beyond men, the
great spaces, and how these spaces never spoke or showed themselves but
nonetheless brought life into being and draw men back again in the end.


Sitals
you see what
saying? Not that I discovered something for the
first time which is completely obvious to all of us and which was certainly
obvious to me as well, long before I thought of Basrah, but that I perceived
these spaces for the first time. I felt them! And I never had before!
Or not in that continual, daily way! For the first time I experienced a
world in which men didn't appear to be the authors!" Dick leaned forward,
about to say something but Granville. jumped in before him with an idea that
seemed suddenly to chasedthe old one away. "In Basrah I saw a world so
marvellous in organisation that it made me shudder, so much more marvellous
in organisation that anything I'd seen men do, so much more marvellous than JOre
all the cities, and all the promises! I knew about that marvellous
had 71
organisation before, as we all do, I had/glimpses of it eaen in the country
where I was evacuated during the war, but in Basrah, for the first time, I
lived in it, with my own body and desires
they were part of it as well,
my hands, and, well " He glanced undertainly at Pinkie - "My sex,
everything!"
"I hope you can endorse that, Mrs. Granville," Dick said with a
little laugh.
"Well, I think I know what my husband means!" Pinkie said,
chuckling and wetting her finger again.
"Lots of little things-changed in my life
I gave up using the
alarm in the morning, I knew by the light what'time I ought to get up, just
as our house-boy did, and I never bustled round my work any more, not as I
used to - I did things more when and as I felt like doing them, and you'd
be amazed I never got anything in, too late for Nevinson's deadliness! I
started sleeping in the afternoon ---!"
"Yes, that's something all civilised people should do!" Pinkie said.


"I never knew before," Granville went on, "that things could
have such a fabulous appearance! Little tiny things like sipping a glass
|9ital
of lemon tea or walking home as the sun was going down or sitting under
the fan at the Mesopat tamia hotel or eating chicken livers at the bar with
Mohammed - -"
"Who's he?" Dick asked, glancing at Pinkie.
"Pip's assistant."
"We used to sit in the bar together while the Kurds from the
mountains were kicking up a shindy in the lounge playing cards : 11
"They were real savages," Pinkie said, "or rather they looked it
they were rather sweet, really! They wore big baggy trousers and kept
daggers in their belts, and they wear little white turbans! Wasn't your
dad an authority on them, Hanni?"
"That's right." But Hanni wasn't saying any more. e
"One day Hanni's going to show me round over there," Dick said,
"especially Kurdistan, near the Russian border."
Hanni laughed. "You won't get me near there! I wouldn't dream
jsihe
of going back!"
"Well," Granville said, "I can see what Hanni means, it isn't
exciting there, you couldn't be
in our sense, like you could
Idital
here,
happy
I mean I think life in England's much more interesting
I feel excited here -I"
for instance, by you two " He smiled at Hanni and Dick, who made
appreciative little nods, half-burlesque in Dick's case. "There's nothing
like the clearness and light you get in England!
ott
There isn't the lightness in the people over there - I don't know,
everything seems separate from one here, after Basrah, one feels like a kind
/sike
7 P
of enchanted spectator here, if you see what I mean, it isn't the same world


at all, English people smile so much compared with people in Basrah, their
pitl
voices seem so full of independence and optimism, and the feeling you get Rare
is that you can make things all right with a bit of will, if you try!
You see, I think that's Europe, that's our civilisation, it's completely
/Sital
different from there! In Basrah the voices seem to be coming out of the
Sound
past, they foer deep and dRHd dusty, they're controlled from somewhere
very deep down, somewhere rather dark and forbidden and concealed, they're
held back in the throat compared with our voices, they're not quite conscious Sital
as ours are. And the eyes are dark and tired, not lit by a quick curiosity
as they are in our world!"
T77
Then he told them about his sense of a shadow passing over him the
previous evening, on the train from the coast, as they came into London.
"It wasn't because I felt'London was ugly, 11 he went on, "Basrah's much
uglier, but I started feeling eclipsed as a person, as a creature, at least
F77
I think that's why I felt a kind of shadow! I wasn't
myself
quite
- - any
more as I was in Basrah, I don't mean myself as a personality, I mean myself
in my flesh, just in my nerves. Yet - - wb free here
there ims
freedom!
aS freed from myself, in a heady sort of way! Hhamermennts
TTTT
gts Chaye-touchedwexergthing la
wia
Somyoumchomit-go
intorargthitngzstraightas-yourseldsanaturallyia There-lgesomewinterpretation
ag "for-yousaTithe-times cowMenshavesmadesthingsrtosk-afe-our-World
cur-morements-AYENentwatchenttratched- ere- athey-seem-tombemin-Basrah ahescan
27-btr-mints
Pcan Say-whatever-comes-intomourkheadste e EMersagethete
HorEy ne
he celmmnteyoutreroffendingesoleonezbycmentioningelarasay,
a Isomeonereise-byementioning- the-Arabs Everythingzcomescdomstozspite,
urd-divietor-amt-hatredatherg,ormseemseems-totam-Butzheremitiszsomltighty R
auhlops
Yet at the same time we've lost another kind of freedom! In /Oitals


Basrah we had our
far
lad
own lives, as
as the nerves went, we felt strange to
ourselves, we felt created from beyond men! But here we're catered for
all the time
by the milkman and the shops and the newspapers and the
buses and the idea of growing older and all the little responsibilities
that are supposed to go with every age of life, like a clever little plan
laid down for us by other men before. we are born. We don't make our own
lives! Yet we could! In all this planning we could! Here we could!
But it takes time. All we do now is to choose our lives from what the
outside world offers us, we don't really make it! And my question is
whether we can achieve our own lives here, whether ene can go through the
7TT
day with the same sort of unhesitating physical authority you feel in Basrah, h
do you see what I mean? It might take es years to achieve. Do you think
it's possible?" He paused, gazing at Dick. "Well?"
"Well," Dick said in a quiet voice, looking at him squarely, "if
I understand you right, that's about the biggest problem of the lot for me,
just that!"
"But. is it possible?"
"After years, perhaps," Dick went on, "when you're unsteady on
your feet and your hair's falling out and your wife has a young lover of
forty!"
"But you have to change yourself, isn't that it? You have to
think things out! Then, perhaps!" By now the women were more or less
out of the conversation.
"You have to surrender, I1 Granville added, "learn to surrender to
the rhythm outside, to the silence! And I began to do it in Basrah. I
began to let my feelings decide when I was tired at night and we were talking 11
to Mohammed by the river
I didn't look at my watch - I let my body
h 7


tell me, 'It's time to go to bed. 1 And it was always roughly the same
time when I went. Sometimes the body told me nothing and we went on
talking all night
nearly till dawn as the air got colder and the sounds
on the river stopped and the call-to-prayer came across the city at about
four, over the loudspeakers. I surrendered there! But here we're taught Siab
F / f
not to surrender! We' 're taught to look at everything and work everything
d V
out! Our bodies get tired like clocks! We work like clocks! And yet
you can do the same work, you can do more, without looking. - at the clock at
all! Like Mohammed! He works to the clock in the sense that he comes in
at the same time every morning
but te deeper timel |s still alive in him.
When. I got out there I started mapping put every day according to the
appointments book
so many people to see, so many letters to write
but for Mohammed the day just unfolded -- like the dawn unfolding - it
opened naturally in front of him and took him with it! Yet he did the
work. And he did it without that awful fatigue of the 'nerves you get here.
And I learned it, toofo Because it was in the air, all round meyo I
surrendered! I surrendered to. deeper time and deeper space! And that
1ihb
means being stronger, being much more of a man, much more supple and lively!
But I hadn't got the strength in me
it was only because it was in the
air outside. I didn't take it to Basrah. I learned it in Basrah because
Sital
it was in the air there. And I want to learn it in myself - by myself -
to take it wherever I go - it means surrendering, I know. . that - some
sort of surrender, but I don't know how to go about it, I don't know the
path I should take! I know it'll take a long time! And I've seen that
surrender
I've recognised it here, too
I know it exists here - -
I've seen it in the eyes of the milkman " The others glanced at each nip.
other
they didn't know the reference, and he was aware of this but


hurried on just the same, not caring to explain - - "and in my fat ther, too--
in the worid where I was born
there was the same surrender
in my
parents
but I've lost it - I've been taught to lose it and I've got
to learn it again!"
At the end, when Granville seemed to have exhausted his subject,
but not his desire to' talk, Dick turned to Hanni and asked her, "Well, is
he right about Basrah?"
"He's right except that it's all disgusting and horrifying, yes.
Islam's heartless and cruel and dirty and petty and vindictive, and you
can't get away from it whatever else you talk about!" She said the words
with a crisp finality - L her hatred of that world was final. Then she
added in a soft voice, "But I suppose it's all right for an englishman, if Jcf
he doesn't stay too long
after all, he puts a lot of himself into it
a lot that doesn't really exist there at all
there's no dignity there,
to start with, you start like a dog and you go out like a dog, that's what
my father always used to say. He's a good example
he talked like Pip
at first, but he stayed there too long, he hated everyone including my
mother by the end. Not that mummy was a Muslim but I suppose she must
have picked up some of the stink
yes, Pip, I can imagine the dead cats
and dogs by the road, that's what sticks in my mind from all you've said!"
"Well ---!" Pip shrugged amiably and smiled at her.
"Pip wasn't saying he liked dead dogs, " Pinkie murmured, blinking
lates
protectively in his direction.
"No, not at all," Granville said, "I'm talking more like a person
starved of something, you see! I might agree with you in the end
sure I would
we belong to the same civilisation
but I'm still
starved of that sense of providençe you get in that other world, for all its 1


stink
that sense of life being untouched in its created part
the
Sin
silence you get though it's the noisiest place in the world!"
"Well," Dick said, looking sideways at Pinkie. "Pip's among us
again. But I'm for bed ---!"
"So am I!" Hanni said, stretching.
Granville let them go without adding anything - - they almost
scrambled out of the'room, Dick chuckling and giving a last twinkling look
as if to say, 'Catch us if you can, cock!! Of course, Pinkie had offered
them the bed upstairs in the attic room and they accepted - - he was thrilled
that the house would hum with someone else's presence.
was W
aad 5 C camed
Kas
They would all get up in the morning and have breakfast together, working by
6 kketoare,
egge,
division of labour, Hanni/ and Pinkie on the footr he on the tea ant coffee,
his
aA Dick on,t the morning paper; sime by agreement established two years
before Dick kept out of the way in the kitchen; his work wasn' 't worth the
mess it made.
But-he-wae-adoo-disaappointed-that-they-didnl-twei-t-bhere-donger-in-
thewway held becomemused-towin-Basrah Or-rathery-not.Longen,-stowasnempstowaenetra
mertter f t e H -wi-bha-di-fferent twsortwof-rhythmy-g-slower-oneHe
semembengd-bhe-odink-of-bhe-beads-during-a-pause-tn-thewbalkyowhile-peopie
gazed-before-themg-olinkef-edinkminmthewderdry-airfawaiting-for=thembalk-to
exchaust-itsel-f-naturaltysresimandusilencemtowshorshowbhe-wewaysow-But-nop-he-was
berck-inthe-worid-where-foree-was-usedfall-the-timer-wherewthenwitl-suddenly
3 interposed-ard Sound-things-to-doy éven-when-there-weren-kb-thimgs-to-dopmin,
a-kind-os-shamewof-surrendering-tomreal-oouterstirmtime.e-Nothing-was-left-to
bhre-dilenoe-herey-the-big-phythme-outside-had-no-phancer-there-wae-onky-the
pansonad-wilt-grimding-trharmonéousiky-and-breakeng-the-evening-upy-breaking


st-inwapdly-oven-wisthout-outward-signep-breaiing-dt-from-inside-so-thath
ewen-though-people-might-sit-there-in-exactig-thhe-same-wey-as-they-did-in-
Besrah-yet-there-was-something-broken-underneathy-some-nervous-disturbance
lake-a-little-voice-sayings-Weil,,mtombed.nowreatowworkenow,mback=to
immediato-1i-6o-now.,mackmtowour-wil-willytozawcup-of-coffeey-teay-awdrinky-a
strollgl -And-even-though-thereumighht-havenbeen-meen-more-teawdrinking-in
Beerahy-more-strolling-and-peshaps-more-real-woorkyyeb-the-read-Anner
aitence-Masnotishatbtozmedmag à 1waSmhete.
Butmtt-wasas.a-gaod-eveming: It was good to be back! His a/mp.
from
Rad
Panet ST foreboding and horror, K the night befores was gone
obviously
tkat,
people
ikers
a left-over from the dark Basrah-world, After all,jeme didn't stab orreks
tey
tay
sistersto death here, with small cuts, if she turned prostitute, ane didn't
hang political prisoners by their neck in the main square and leave them on
display for three hours afterwardes the children didn't cat tch little birds
here and use them as kites by tying their feèt.t to a bong piece of string, aad
ting
then ley them flutter up and down helplessly! No, it was a different
world and he'd better realise it quickg: Thank God a little sanity had
returned to him, so soon, after only a day back! Those cars outside, for
instance
he'd really stopped breathing when he saw them from the taxi, his
heart had suddenly beat so fast that he thought his head was going to burst!
Extraordinary!
No, there was peace here. Order. That took time to learn again.
He had to try and keep out those hot, stampeding thoughts that came to him
from the Basrah-world
things could be talked about here; bring them into
the light! No shadows, no carrionsscandal, no hidden, foul spot!
He felt warmed and healthy and full of life all the way through,
and he bounded upstairs to get Pinkie and himself a cup of cocoa while the


others got ready for bed in the attic room. Hurrah! Pinkie was putting
on new pillow-cases. Thank God life wasn't the nightmare jone tried to
sonalines!
ambush it
No, it was more mysterious
the
ttal
intok
mystery wasn't onlyls
dark, there was light as well/o Yes! He boiled the milk and mixed the
cocoa
the kitchen was so neat and colourful, the light glowed so nicely
over everything, the boards under his feet bumped so intimately as they 5 had
always done
he was back, back! He could dance round the room! Back
out of the shadows! Hanni was right! Back to people who talked their
lives over
who loved their freedom and other people's! To people who
loved the light! And he bore two steaming cups of cocoa down to the
bedroom.
"That looks good, little. mouse!"
"Rather!" he said,
them down on the
Sitals
putting
mantelpiece.
"I'll elect you king of the cocoa!" she said, banging out the
pillows.
"I wouldn't like it every night," he replied, taking his first sip.
Siah
"Would you?"
"No, it's too sickly! But as a change it's orl right, eh?" She
sat down playfully and pushed out her legs, taking her mug from the mantelpiece.
"Yes," she added, gazing before her, "Basrah's all right as a
dream but what about being there?"
"Yes, I've been thinking that too!"
"How can one ever go back?"
"Well, that's. the problem!"
And they sat t staring before them, leaving the question to look
after itself.


CHAPTER 5.
The house was quiet for the next few days. and-his feats aa a e
oue
T med = Just E eds
HeEeHE dowstairs-nexer
a ang momone-cal-ked-onthettelephonen
evan-bagar-to-T3E-the-cars-hedt
een soutsidemon-the-fiustmeveningt He=wantredmtomask-Pinkie-ti-she-could
mstate threm-inesomeewagy-butztheromwaststillwamsibencembertween-thron
atmitmwas-forced-or unna-surEr
ney-simpy-y-nad-notaing-t
She did the housework and went shopping,, while he sorted out his
things and put the attic-room in order, removing the broken glass and
fixing in brackets for a new mirror. Once or twice the phone rang, but no
went
voice replied when, he picked up the receiver; he suspected that Pinkie WEE /
outside to make her calls, at a phone-box round the corner; but he
rejected the thought because of the quietness with which she did everything,
cooking nice meals as she'd done in Basrah, and otherwise trying on her
clothes or mending something. It surprised him that she had no complaints,
but he put it down to her being happy at living in London again. Hetook
going-roand to the Eorar
OLOWSE
udesearching Ethe-mastcabrachures-for-a-goodecoodEconcert
He went to the office to try to renew his contract.. But the head
of the contracts-department wasn't there, and in any case' the contract
itself had been mislaid, so he left it. The management was quite casual
thise
about EuCh things. He could easily sign up again once he was back in
Basrah.


They-saw-more
thes
tockes than
SradurEEy
riendshi
a a H a a ig-SeToe deys Sarted ga
dowmz Hampton Court
oltecke-ae-cheped Chem
through-the
dart
famous-view
le aone
thets
S wtisit
the
civer-tookedpeacefut
aunning-quiteEwi ittayyand
thes telde on
de were
EE een- an-tie-last ft
Pollocke-wag Wa
A du L
leamin chis-eyes,- an Emurmuredy
aY ccoming or
LA a le cds6 -rememberea Tann
Ham
dded
awkward way
te rememberent
tte furniture
OOOKS E me coul dsee
a a CO
à the civer
shome-outsine
inkcte and-Hamni
seemed
ney
the a view wande
acH0 I
Hami=confided-in
her IE ad y-y Etbag-stittiy
ne: - chailg
kt dng chroughthersteethraszshe
tways
re-had
and one coura-seePinkiewas
e andarawn in
Pollocke began calling at the house after work, sometimes just
for a cup of tea cestere
eees E and Hanni stayed one week-end alone,
helping with the meals. She and Pinkie talked about Dick quite a lot
when'he wasn't there. They would close the kitchen door, and Granville
would hear their voices, low-pitched. He enjoyed the thought of this
feminine intimacy. It gave the house a safe and warm feeling. Pollocke
played darts with Glenning, the publicity-man, at a pub in the Commercial
Road, and sometimes they all went there, sitting in the public bar, where
there were long wooden benches, asd-burs-weodes
It was an
unimpassioned sort of life and he could find no trace of his first fears.


TIE: Est-avening
Yet they were there - in his tissues, asleep for
the moment. And he never felt-really at ease wi th Pollocken Wa6-a
Icap
stwangs telation
tre tatk- had-t0-be-0onstracted-a H sire pae ThISEWEE
Paltorketsmannar set thet tone Granyille-TLe-feLE Hmsol unden
Wherhe wars 5
resen aimset
a a
teansframer He rarely said whatever came into his head; when he
did he had a sense of regret afterwards as if he'd exposed
himselformdcat: /Sitals
ad reen
me = at crainingsschonls POLLOCkE TaTEE M
sty
des gazing-downewinithehtsstsainkling-eyesyeartectionarezandewh a imsicar
spontaneous- carr was-alway about te - egan
never happeneat
They never got beyond themselves for a moment.
same
egond
one aa the-curtainyourd
bomdrawnsasicdecls
n nere
ee astre-
mm a touscand
respect Por each ather
One Sat turday they took a boat eat from Happton Court, just the
two of them, and. rowed towards Marlow, in still, sun-lit, misty weather.
Pleasure.steamers passed them and Dick waved - hend
AJOLLE EWEY
making a burlesque of it. He rowed steadily, in shirtsleeves, shifting
the boat along at quite a pace. And he seemed to watch everything as if
it were a paisig scene only, passing him like the fields and pleasure-
steamers, while he was motionless, judging it all as a good or bad
performanceo hwas-theamsed-spactators That was how he listened to
Granville's talk as well, considering it in a judicious way, from Afark
you
And there was something pleasurable in this, teye because it made eze feel
Yout
master of the world, in control with onets mind. Life was the subject of
a continual mental essay, so to speak; nothing disastrous - even real -
Gramille
could happen. It gave emela heady sense of freedom. At the same time


it wasn't natural.
Granville- looked at Dick from the other end of the boat, at his
cool, my light eyes as he squinted against the sun, scanning the banks
slowly, ad his mouth with less clarity than his eyes, bulging slightly,
lut
an odd soft decisiveness about it: ( He couldn't get a sign from Dick's
face of what a sort of person he was. His beard, thin and fair, stirring
Aitals
a little at the edges with the breeze, was like a disguise he'd put on just
that morning. It hid the lines round his mouth so that he seemed to be
faintly smiling all the time, though he probably wasn't. At the same time
his face was youthful and without calculation or deceit. There was something
innocent in his eyes; they were. never sharp, much less fierce, but looked
at everything with a lingering, uninquisitive good will. Eneg-wore-mhat
Gra a
Chooi e TaL Laokat - LALO
Pollarkes light om A a
msedcand-boydshy sandet stmply-uracovezed.
asa
htp-hat-petereu-oute
They spent all day on the river. Some of the chumminess from
the training-school days came back, and they moored up at a pub to get
some beer. They played croquet on the lawn until it was dark. This meant
rowing back without lights, and there was no moon. It was exciting, going
close to the 'bank all the time, with silence all round. Sometimes they
would steer into the reeds by.mistake and Pollocke would laugh, still
master of the world. And they made calm little. remarks to each other all
the time, enjoying the possibility of danger. The oars made a soft,
hollow splash, and the water trickled off them as they feathered back. It
took three or four hours, and they arrived exhausted. All the shops were
closed and no one was in Pollocke's flat, so they took a train to Waterloo
and went home to Chaworth Road. Hanni was there with Pinkie, just finishing


a meal, so there was a little party, with Pollocke describing the row
back in burlesque terms. Two beds were fixed up. This evening put the
christening touch to their friendship, and the four of them were now
secure together, more or less.
Dick.
If Granville spoke earnestly about anything/Pollocke would seem
unmoved and gaze before him as if/say2, "I enjoy your performance, but
I don't necessarily agree with what you say!' The result was that Granville
took to. performing a little in his company, preparing his sentences before
he spoke them and turning a nice phrase whenever he would. And the usual
outlet was humour. They both enjoyed a laugh; it provided a relief from
the effort.
Age was an obsession with Dick. He felt the approach of thirty
like a death-sentence. He did press-up exercises in the morning; and
when they were on the river together he insisted on rowing all the time.
His hips were slim like a boy's. Granville was also aware of his youth
disappearing. But in Dick it was an acute panic.
"I can tell you, old sport," he would say softly, "I lie in bed
sometimes and sweat, just at the passing of old daddy time. I know it's
just a crisis. When I get over the border, on to the other side of thirty,
it'll be all right, I suppose. !"
He would suddenly go into a dance in the middle of the room,
flinging his legs out frantically, as if trying to jump back into his
youth. Or he would leap out of a chair after being still for some time
and start pottering about with something, biting his lip, horrified at the
passing of time.
He would notice the marks of age, or youth, in Granville, too.
"I swear you look five years younger today," he would murmur,


rts 95.
looking at him with admiration. "I don't know how you do it, captain.
And two days ago you looked as if the hounds of hell were after you!"
And another time Ett said, tam "I can feel myself slowing up.
It's a message being flashed to meyo You know, the old limbs sink down in
that chair
woof " He made a soft, blowing noise, spreading his
hands out. "And I'm not getting the same kick out of things! I need
less sleep, too. Sometimes I' get out of bed in the morning feeling like
a wiry old man."
He always described in a clear and succinct way whatever he felt.
He made himself sound like another person, who while of absorbing interest
was also remote from him. He gave a map of himself all the time, ranging
over it freely, half-amused,
Er amument-hy-mpnshntyron
And he was always still and calm when he talked about himself.
He seemed to be listening for signs of new movement in himself, hushed and
absorbed. The phenomenon of'Dick was as interesting for Granville as it
was for Dick. himself, it was a- third object between them.
Hanni. 'bored' him, he said.one evening, adding, "As any woman
you'ré going to live with should!" He talked about how he'd met her first,
at the Capthall Avenue office, when she was doing a temporary interpreter's.
job there. "She looked ghastly, such a bloody school-marm, her eyebrows
meet ting in the middle like some black cigar across her face! Thank Christ
my secretary doesn't look like that, I thought! Then I went back for more
the day after, like a fool! And, well 11 He paused to smile. It was
curiously theatrical - "she offered me the cigar and I liked it!"
"Were you in love with her?" - - #
exee EERE
Pollocke was silent, as always when he was asked a clear question,
waiting to give it his. open and free consideration, then he answered firmly,


"Had you been in love with anybody else?"
And again there was. a pause, followed by a firm, "No!"
Another- me
swasm
NO a AS : porethis mworkand
themother
techappily=dewote rmselt-tomtne
york Onlys-provtdeschedgut Cenoughesum,
work-meant-nothing-to
Herwas
Rearta beach-bor! a hemsaid
Tat
A Emmconscienticous
sa FOR
doing
crosswerd-puich te l=likezexerythings
a tc
paused quiterstill
ras estmap sasit y
suppr DS
be one tham A
mmot
a b I peer
Erong-Teediingszonang ais thewissues:
kegp ar even, keelr
ye dmltrsoundacynicals
ISTEE eyeszwe en amusen -gazing-acrose
- a Grenvitl
nas ctartktngzaboutre
performancesnceasquisbersimpl
Dick
When they were rowing together that Saturday afternoon he suddenly
looked up at the sky with a twinkle and said, "Charlie God's putting up
quite a decent show today, isn't he?"
And Dick always described points of strong feeling with more
/oials
usual
7 T
deliberate calm and style than otharatse. On the way back to Wat terloo,
after their long, blind row in the dark, he murmured to him, "Well, I don't
know about you, Sergeant-Major, but I was,an ant-heap of nerves in that
boatfo I thought we were going to strike'a mine any minute. The old knees
were knocking together like castanets!"
was
He ateed-to-ome- sider
wnti re a kind of musing, wistful,
A He
puzzled, heroic companion. Et was never really at ease with Dick, they


never really got down to anything, but afterwards he felt the loss of
his company.
Quite suddenly, in the grounds of Hampton Court one afternoon,
after they and the Poli(fakes had eaten together, he turned to Pinkie


and said, "Suppose I go back to Basrah alone? Shall I?"
Hanni and Dick were a little behind them. He
idea how
these words came into his head. But they caused her no surprise.
"Yes,' 1t she said, gazing loosely into the distance. They were
standing at the edge of the lake, with the massive, red palace behind them.
Then she asked, "But what would you do for a woman?"
"I could go to the brothel," he said at once, hoping to catch
Dick's ear; but Dick was kissing Hanni's neck.
hurt.
He glanced at her. She didn't appear affended She only smiled
in a crooked and slightly defensive way. The whole afternoon, still and
dark, with thunder in the distance, was strange. They stood together,
looking before them at the shining water, and spoke as if they had no control
over their words at all. Dick and Hanni were near by, arm in arm, whispering
something to each other; they tended to play lovers rather a lot for a
married couple.
"I wouldn't mind being out of that a tmosphere for a bit," Pinkie
eitchy
went on. "All those Btooey pot-bellied sheikhs - 11 She gave a glance
towards Hanni, as if wanting to catch her attention in the same way as he'd
tried for Dick's. And Hanni did look across at her, blinking. "Like a
pack of old women! They were the ones who did all the talking!"
"Oh, the clerks did it as well," he murmured, getting more
irritated. Dick also was looking at them now, and it séemed that all four
of them were fixed together in the still afternoon, their wills paralysed
and involved together, enacting a situation out of their control.
"But the sheihks went in for all the male-honour talk, didn't
they?" she cried. "Calling you 'my brother' and all that?"
"Well," he said quietly, uncertain of himself, "you can't laugh


away all honour. . "
"But why male honour? Whai t about my honour as well?" He eyes
were flashing.
He flared up as well. "But there's some difference between a man
and a woman!"
"Why?" Dick asked in a crisp way. Granville turned round as if
he 'd heard a shot fired, so strange was the new voice, like the cracking
of a twig before a storm. "I don't think there's any difference!"
"What?" Granville asked, his throat dry. "No difference between
Igital
a man and a woman?"
LCK spakedeliteratatalype-Frpe-ptrsed. "Their bodies hip.
are different, that's all."
"But our bodies aren't separate from us!" Granville cried,
Sitals
roused. "They're only an expression, just a. part! 3s
G-CCSr-SNCETT The others were silent. "Why don't men have babies, then,
and do the cooking, and everything a woman does?"
"Because they're physically different," said Dick, spacing out
his words slowly and carefully, gazing down at the water.
"Men do cook, I Hanni said, "quite often!"
"So when we go to bed with our women," he burst out, "we go to bed
with our sisters or friends?"
Hechat
the others laughed.
Pinkie looked happy again. He stood there blinking and confused, trying
to -make sense of his own words, and the others laughed even more.
"A body isn't just something you can touch," he went on, trying to
pick up the thread. "It isn't all of a person I But the argument
was gone.


13 C 2 loo.
"Anyway," Pinkie murmured, "all this is only because I felt like
having a dance one night. I suppose you'd have liked me to go and have
some illicit sex with a diplomat one afternoon while you were at work,
like half the other English and American wives! Your male honour would
have been intact then!"
again
awoempeny
Lre h
"Oh, for God's sake," he shouted, "just because you want a dance
situls
it doesn't mean you have to have one; does it?" His voice drifted across
the gardens. "This male honour started just because men didn't do what
/2itals
they wanted to all the time!"
"That's because they could do what they wanted to all the time! :
And a woman can't!" She waved her hand blindly, with her strange half-
smile, that was both defiant and hurt. "If I go and sit in a cafe alone
I've got men staring me up and down, even -here
and as for Basrah --!"
"Oh," he said, "a woman.adjusts herself to that all right if she
means business."
"If she's ugly, yôu mean!"
And there the argument ended. He forced the anger out of himself.
And to judge by the set look on Pinkie's face, making her look older, she
was doing the same e
queezea
AI 58
huckre,
LVE you Ima le honour
ortre B
Waffle - wai I e
martlezwabertes was ne grandrau ner WHOL a mai rrled Ant-Beatriced
ant
Sa our
Le= because- Bea trice was muc y younger- ethang Nar e
Waffles Sheswasra Lash
man Witr asharpy a rbal W1-ty


XE lol,
tones Onces ber a E
a as aug
the Adonnes he et the rench day I andacleared-anzenenympost
mone grenaden
hen
aor vn 1
- pipe-and-started-rearted-Teading
Drydentsatranscations-from-Horace
O ldsome eones afterwardsethatewren,
hntorowm-en-found-hiin-he-wng-bo-wng-bending-tho-eingf-lcnopf-lloeorrowedo-bhy-nuproty-for
atoed-todascincampoeme-tdnkineathedrbstbsenwersersEKEEERye
robably heter wourdy
t WOr 1 U -
Granctilz E a
found out from Hanni
the name
the
that
pale
young man he'd seen using the telephone E the first evening was Grove.
okerwise
no one re mentioned the name. Nor did Grove appear again.
nererwentouta a astal Imes a Phe-martteterwabslefsunexploredy
* Edow ratysebetyeen em
rapme Pances ner 1 ingup chere. wasa
cacidtertt at
Heren was
Hekd-gtven-htr.
waant
snes us
Maow abbenoe,tHere-Wes
20180fEGrover here Wasa aé ebato
theserweremhowEbarred-trom,
Conversat
slowty-theywere-formingzau ncampment
S sometimes
2 appeared Simply
theme
(agan
He wanted to ask Dick what had been going on' in his absence,
Seem
but he didn't want to appanr petty or jealous et
D because
tak Seemed
toun He did try it in an
oblique way. He asked him how he thought Pinkie was these days; did she
as euet
seem 'the same Pinkie' fer
EhTnE
Very objedtive.. BV
And Dick seemed to understand what was in his mind, because he just looked
straight ahead, his lips pursed slightly and his eyes unblinking, and said,


"Yes", then closed his lips as if he never wanted to open them again.
A chill apprehension ran through Granville, because this made it çlearer
than before that there was somet thing to hide.
During his talks to Hanni he tried to find out more, but that was
even less hopeful, because her gaze was more watchful than Dick's, and
seemed to pick up his moods more subtly; so whenever Pinkie came into the
conversation he made it seem that he had no doubts about her, and that on
the contrary there was the greatest confidence between them; he even wanted
to give the impression that he was carefree and tolerant about 'affairs'
that would be his position, from the public point of view, if he found out
that there had been any! Also he was afraid that Pinkie was innocent, in
Sitls
which case his suspicions would sew a bad seed in other people's minds
unnecessarily.
He thought of the othér three as evasive and mute, but he was the
one least capable of breaking into speech.
He learned through Glenning, the publicity-man, that Dick was
'a one for the girls', and instantly felt a twinge of admiration combined
with disapproval; or perhaps the disapproval was only moral envy he
couldn't tell. Glenning told him in the pub one evening when they were
alone that Dick had borrowed his flat the previous week 'to do a secretary';
he talked about it in a genial, amused way as if Dick was famous for that
kind of thing. When Dick came into the pub later Glenning looked up at
him and said, "That girl of yours
do you realise she: left .some. of her
feathers and an egg behind in my bed?" Dick's mouth fell open for a
moment and he looked frightened, but then he laughed and sat down easily
at Glenning's side, murmuring that he'd always thought the girl 'a bit of
a hen'.


Hanni and Pinkie were together in the kitchen one day at one of
their tête-a-têtes, with the : door closed, when he happened to pass on his
way to the attic-room and suddenly heard thé name 'Grove', followed by a
lowering of voices; their voices made a quiet rasping on the air, no more
than a whisper. The idea formed in his head quite conclusively as he stood
on the landing between the two rooms,with his heart beating fast and his
mouth open, that she was in love with Grove. He went on to the attic-room
and tried to work on the new mirror, but his hands trembled so much that
he decided to lie down. Their voices were now normal again, a spasmodic
humming on the other side of the wall. He heard Hanni laugh. It was
such a comfortable and easy laugh, so without any conspiratorial note, that
he thought he must be wrong; he tried to reconstruct the sentence in which
'Grove' had occurred, but he couldn't remember the other sounds; perhaps the
word had been 'mauve'? Also it was possible that they had. been talking
kitchen-affairs, and had said 'stove'. But Kitchen-affairs weren't to
Jec.
the taste of either of them, as he Imew/o Later Hanni opened the door and
went downstairs to look for some cigarettes, and he realised from the
sounds that they were cooking something together, perhaps one of Pinkie's
easily
French dishes, so that the word might indeed have been 'stove'. He got- up
again and went on with the mirror, revived more or less, but he souldn't
Reod.
get the thought out of his minds
Not for five or six days
did he touch Binkie.
His raw desire, that had glared at him in Basrah like the sun itself,
sickly and dangerous, had withered into a kind of local, urban itch. But
the idea persisted. It had become a medical idea, probably a wrong one
that the glands were full and needed their release whether he felt real


Ar lo4.
desire or not. Bo he watched Pinkie with interest, hoping to decoy her.
She was unaware of it, but after nearly a week, seeming to feel a mild
curiosity about him, as te where/had E put his glandular fluids if not
in her, she kissed him in a significant way and they began scrambling about
as they always did when their desires were low. But the flame revived in
him, and slowly the enormous, pitiless image that had hardly left him for
a moment in Basrah returned, and even united with her briefly, until he
had a shocked, sparse orgasm that failed to. involve most of his body,
touching only nerve-ends, not the centres; he was still wide-awake after
it, and they lay together numbed, sad, continents away from each other.
Pinkie's orgasm was a private event, distant from him. It wracked her middle
for a moment, a small shudder that touched her stomach and died, like an
awful vision. that made her close her eyes and screw up her mouth painfully
for a moment, and lose herself in an infinite sea of self. The act only
confirmed them in their separateness from each other; it left them with
more desires than befored 10t
was remarkab
desire-for
a tways chappenen
She-geve,
remembered
exr
as sways
ren
Cherehadnet-even been the


los.
CHAPTER 6
Later in the week, after a quiet Aphone-call, Pinkie announced
old
that she was going back to her/ jobo at her o Cher
He was staggered. The firm had moved to the other side of
London; it would mean travelling to Wembley every day, an hour or more/o
"We don't need the money," he said.
"Oh, I just want a change. Everybody else is working, after all."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, all our friends!"
The following Monday she got up at seven and he made tea for her
as once she'd made it for him, two years before. She looked neat and
contented, with a spotted silk scarf tucked into her blouse. She wore
her best high-heeled shoes, and a tight grey skirt that made her look tall
and slim. She sucked her forefinger now and then, just touching it with
the tip of her tongue, gazing down,/as she did when she was making a silent>
mge
calculation of some kind.. She was quite remote from him. She corird have
been a young. girl off to her first job, with a dance to go to in the evening.
"I thought you liked being free," he said.
"I do." She gazed down, her face closed to him, and wouldn't say
any more.
wen S a ncH ren me been. LE emt B more
2867-H6-00uld-86utle


lob.
I ear thoughts were gone
T I watched ter dow
breakfast tabie as hetdbeer watching ner forseverad days-pasto He tried hip
to look into her eyes but she turned them away quickly. And when their
eyes did. meet her's were blind. She left for the office as if they were
strangers, looking both more of a girl and older, too.. Her face was set
like Eaof a hard-willed young girl; yet even so the softness showed
through, in the texture of her skin.
a beratit nedgivenherhad changed ner re ot
mset
la U
to-Hannmiabont
dE - she-and-Hannistmade:
cemin a
rat sne routd o-tozwork and a e
surronnded hears lessressyhetd danot a iced
mai
ta oT
gardens oTHamptor
moment ret a
em he an Eseehe-absura,
hersoftressatowarus-Hin-had-gone He sat at the same position in
front of the breakfast table all morning, numbed and half-trembling. But
it was a state that went on underneath, like a natural function of his body.
ant.
And it wasn't unpleasueshim It was a state of excitement and suspense;
what did the future hold?
After this he was alone in the house most days.) Ht-mas-agrzeabie
trst - as-hew gota t used to the-ideasofeher-workingzand seeme C deonly
amother asper
and-owripus-xoratr She left at the same hour
every morning, and came back looking rather pale and tired in the evening
Relpad Ret cook
wanting her dinner, which he - A
m cad for her It continued to be
exciting. There were things to talk about: she had stories about the
offices an nOW age
over COudinner SOOL
a a dea srementous a
r Ar
beingclasOSACIDNIgeT


lo7.
every a
travd Ethoughts Her confidence came back and she
talked more readily. There was a healthy little flush in her cheeks and
they were affectionate and natural with each other as they hadn 't been for
a year or more. He began to think that her working was a good bargain.
It took her out of herself and he got his privacy. She didn't lean on
him as she'd done in Basrah.
Sex,
But they slept toget ther less. She was tired and refused Hims
Randiness
Restrel wracked and gnawed at him, and sometimes he yearned for her the
whole day much as he'd done in Basrah during the last monthgthere When
was
she came back in the evening his approach wortdbe too overwhelming and
direct, forher, because he was pent-up. He' felt an 'orang-utang'. in his
Yoo,
sex,
one
man
astms-before. She shrunk from him. The
heat of his hands, his breath, the closeness of his eyes, seemed-to panickad
her. Usually he knew how to avoid this, and approachéd her in a quiet,
deliberately unconcerned, light way, not kissing her too earnestly or
touching her too heavily at first. He would fondle her t softly, like
someone in a dream, while her eyes closed: this aroused her most, when the
touches were abstract, coming from anywhere, in a dimness, his fingers not
his but detached like things in a dream. First this dimness and silence
had to be entered, softly and circumspectly, then her passion grew. He
had to cancel himself out at first, withholding his breath and his real
passions. That was the routine he'd learned with her.
But now he'd been kept in leash too long. He'd spent hours
thinking about her breasts and hips, imagining voluptuous movements. She
was tired and locked away from him, thin-lipped and perplexed.
But then she suddenly turned to him one evening after they'd gone
to bed and put her hand between his legs. It was quite like 'Stratford'.


los.
And he was once more quiet; of course, the desire would build up in him
again, he knew that. He feàred it - yet it was all the more exciting,
because he couldn't satisfy it easily.
Hanni happened to get an afternoon off and dropped ing ome-day
She cooked a meal with him and they went for a walk afterwards.) Theyt
meverreally-apoken 4 Lach cott
ema
this time she talked Jcap
as he'd seen her talk to Pinkie, t confiding way her mouth tense and
half-closed, yet all the more intimate because ofethat,thmmnpatsr
ske
ale
= E ta sadness pervaded) her talk. It was always there, like keening.
Jcab
was
always
Shef sermert
e mourning something;
someone's disloyalty, the pain of
fixed
being misunderstoon. She spoke in a monotone, her eyes tey ttil under
her straight; black eyebrows,
fi gestaes
in a frightened
expression. Sthraghtenet of-an artandymostlys -And-of-Dick's
WOTT a Oata
E dtone KIONCHONmumtn a I sel
Nar
that
gayemtoommuch-peoplewwonddatthinke her apoor E imitating
Camily=woman:
Poltocke-wonididntt-alioy
Her feet were tiny, Granville noticed as they walked along; she
was like a little girl, with an old burden of sadness that made her stiff,
unjustly.2
Her mother was Assyrian, t her father English. He'd been a
political officer sestove ma rageanihau-beenmsent
d ore
to Kurdistan,
SEET a
Ontt r when the Kurds were
resisting the pdea of sharing Iraq with the Arabs.
youg man
A hawve-a-way-wEn themkusdishtritees:
ene Foney Pmourcadn-vikd lagesa


Rurlot
mmber
ger - butl et
He met Hanni's mother in Kirkuk and after their marriage
do wn Ve
hafpy
fint in
tanin
settled s
Mosul,
Vergenin
they
marhage,
Walers.
thait maid in Bastah.
Hanni reminded him of Bertha, They had the same watchful air, h - h
as if immediate personal dignity was the most important thing for them.
Only when she talked softly and intimately was she rea
herself. At
other times, especially when there were people about, she seemed to
concentratt on the form of the conversation and not on what was said.
ke Arb Rousalcy
He told her a little-about Bertha,' how she despised Kath'm/ and
hated it if he served at table, sch - 10 aer a I mnever
atorer And to his surprise Hanni didn't shut herself up, as she usually
did when the Middle East was mentioned.
Said
"Oh; yes," she replied with a curiously tired look, touched with
irritability, "I know her type all right!"
"She keeps' a bible in the sitting room.' I1
She nodded. "We kept a bible, too!"
It had been in the family for generations, she said, and always
Mosul
lay on a lace mat in - the corner of the/sitting room, a thut a cvere
Mosul.
She hated t
L She described
the tiny front room with its stuffed owl in a glass case and its imitation-
English furniture. Over the mantelpiece there'd been gilt-framed pictures
Geogeand Marg
of the King a
the Prince of Wales. It
peen) jand
was'a ECEEDETALR rehash /eic.
of Victorian England.' He was struck by the phrase and threw her a quick
glance, realising she was more articulate than he'd thought.
"That wasn't daddy's style at all," she added. "It was all mummy.
He started a trading company and then started drinking. Mummy was horrified.
You know, she had a kind of village-mentality. She thought he got us a bad


25 llo.
hame 1
ceputestanous Which he did. He used to debunk everybody when he was drunk
Is Hair faces
he used to call them CEEL shysters/--- in the middle of dinner
and my
mother used to go absolutely cold as steel! I can see her face now!"
You
her sympathy was with her mother. Gre could feel that.
/cab
She shared that sense of indignity
the steel-cold disapproval. It was
in her own life, too, perhaps inherited
disapproval coupled with a
sense of personal position. Her father had outraged this, though she loved
him. He was dead now - he died of drink. And her mother still looked
now,
after the trading company, in Beirut/
"Mummy came to England to give birth to me, so that I'd be English,"
Hanni said. ,"And she sent me to.an English school near Kirkuk which was
staffed by caricature-Englishmen.
gn tE
frriendliness
All the time she talked he was afraid that her E taes would suda donly
Cease,
wamly
amoments so he saidenothin p onty nodded /and made little exclamat tions.
you
In this sort of life one had to cling to any little bit of intimacy.
* coakdnd
CICIL
gout
eked himselt
ermofa themmwere?
As-s00r-as-she wwaswwithwothermpeoplewagain-sher-stifinessy "that" was
moremanmancientadig 11 LtymturnedmtomarmoderrBocial-usey-came-backy-anch L
everything-hewsaidu tawher-was-2gain-like-a-message-Shashed-acrossethewsear
Her--faco-hardlysmowedand-she-made-onymeetaccatorbattte-statementsy-péshape
Diek- was hé reallyseen.
Dickeass good-aswgain - HE one
L at a a tolumes about thatagi
e res "She -rike
South- be iskand wi-thmthe-stormsethrowrsin,-of-courset


IlI.
Hannisheraddededrwasl 1
alkerwShe-waskorlyaknownsthrough
rer sikencest ikg-bookpulc-hewantd-wsterpancparming-wtmptitottygwhichzat-sbke
sanionkemo-wasudeldberatekgenotmquitemoainceroruliwoutd-beme-Sbpokewowof-silonce!"
Once or twice she stayed at Chaworth Road for the night, alone,
Hheir uwn flat.
when she didn't expect Dick back at Hampton-fourts Apparently, this was
a form of retaliation. She never said what Dick got up to on those
evenings away. Butit was easy to imagine. Sex was one of hij big themes I
it went with youth. All Hanni said was that it was part of his 'policy of
independence' to stay out all night. She talked about him rat ther as she
oWh
talked about her/ father, coolly, without apparent attachment except a motherly
kind. Her words left a sting behind them. She said she'd learned the
gift of stinging gossip early in life.
And Granville found himself
ever
almetim.
burning with resentment against Dick wheny she talkedk untrmno-pulled
: AS
ahe hhays spoke
e-0 Me-flaty-thendlanted-elee
Sometimes-shecand- ICK Laaked
relm I e strangersabogetiermand
somt a
She said Dick never allowed a
loving mood to go 'on for long. It soon made him feel caught. He was
horrified at the idea that she might require all his attentions; he was a
|oitals
little like Pinkie in thisfo And he. always had a device ready for keeping
her at a distance, like arranging a formal little dinner-party, just for
the two of them, at the Caprice or the Berkeley Grill. He would phone
her from the office and make the formal invitation, sounding jolly and
facetious, and she would get herself up to impress him, as if they were new
lovers. In a way she enjoyed this. The dressing-up was nice; she felt.
which wasgood.
'woken up': And he did want her to look pretty, mt
ring-men
But, still, it was always a jolt:
suddenly she had to behave as if she didn't know him. She would smile at.


hew
him across the table, shining in her/dress with the bare shoulders, and
act
Dick would totave as if he'd never seen her before, looking between her
breasts with an exciting mixture of distance and familiarity. There was
the sensuous threll of being familiar with a stranger! He often hurt her
and infuriated her, but in the end she always admired him.
Or he would ask her to go down to his parents at Harrow for a few
days, just to make the formal break. And he laid it down as a' 'principle
that they must each have at least two evenings a month to themselves, to go
out where they liked and with whom they liked, and no questions asked. For
mutual. happiness she agreed. But she rarely took up her free evenings.
Once or twice, out of loneliness, she tried to interfere with his but he
pikl
amaging
retaliated at once, with an ba sany unrelenting thoroughness: he would
punishment evenings.
spend three or four evenings out
sthout-ssging-angbhings A
principle once agreed on must never be broken. This was absolute with him.
thair
She wanted to furnish theatomphon-Court flat properly but he
wouldnjt let her. They. all hegan talking about this one evening and Dick
murmured, glancing over at him with a smile, "The furniture'd start staring
at me!" He said he wanted a place that offered no 'definitions' of his
character. So the flat was as bare as possible. A properly furnished
place would make too full a statement about him, he thought.
When she talked about him Hanni always made it seem that she
played a meek role, giving in to him for the sake of peace. But behind her
his
level voice there was quite a hard will. Yet this was only E1 impression.
Nothing could be verified from her quiet manner.
She had a good rapport with Dick's mother, whom Dick nicknamed
'Lady Godiva' - his father was 'King Arthur'
and often went down to
see them.


Cheir A
Hehadn
Dick
was amused and offhand about them. But at the same time there was a
touch of bitterness in his voice, as if they'd played all sorts of
ineffectual tricks on him. His face took on a guarded look when they
were mentioned. He said,
mbtkerauady AO
e S
SEEL sert
NAY S CHETITEd I him ian
cemrkrposedailsneay-t-mewhiis: 'King Arthur' was a good mMTEEC title for a man
who'd 'never attempted anything heroic in his life'.
art eomed
aall Y e the. sai in
Dick
Hanni
told him one day that she always came back from Harrow with a knowing look
in her eye, as if she could now see right through him down to his toes.
"This makes her look like the dd girlf" he added, "which gives me
quite a kick! I can then literally fuck my own mother!" And he
spluttered with laughter:
Granville only heard Dick's parents spoken of by their nicknames.
Hanni used these names as well. Sometimes Dick would call his father
'King' or 'the King', and his mother 'milady'.
"Milady got on the blower to me this morning," he would say, "and
do you know she said she'd just seen me from the top of a bus in High
Holborn and I needed a haircut!"
He would smile but with a little twitch dn his lips, as if his
coolness towards his parents wasn't complete. Mostly he talked about them
as distant characters doing some kind of bad performance. Granville hadn't
Dick.
met them and saw them only as caricatures, through him They were two
mountebanks some of whose fake goods Dick had been tricked into buying; he
knew their game and smiled, but bitterly because they'd caught him. Tha t
was the impression. Nothing they did or said lacked this fraudulent


rabol 114-.
quality. But #hen Granville asked him one day why he hated them so much
he replied, "I don't!"
Lady Godiva, Hanni said, was a small, thin woman with a sharp nose
and quick, intelligent eyes, not yet old and still attractive. She was
an Australian and had met King Arthur in Brisbane when she was seventeen.
Their families' had been in the same'business
hotels. She still owned
a number of them in Sidney and Brisbane, and King Arthur now managed them
together with his English interests, in the same company. He was the sonc
of a modest hotel-manager who had sent him to Australia to learn the ropes
of the trade from the bottom, which he'd done, starting as a bell-boy. He
was a tall, erect, kindly man and had one absorbing hobby, building model
ships. One of his great private disappointments was leading Dick as a
child to one of his most brilliant pieces of work, a vast, gleaming liner
with cabins and lounges that had taken him exer three years to build, and
hearing him say, "I hate ships, and that goes for all models of them, too."
k chadsachorto à thembeaand cou 5 W
rake. Muchof
spent ambpa
Southampton
meyalar ca Chemjourney never-took * SSE trag STX NEeks-ami-al
that timezhezwas.ecooped-upwith. chisaparents
am A TcaL A
Jass cabi T
E war ustatly
owed byweeksci Camhotulmsut E
Theyzexpesteuel him o-igin-thew familgahusines A
u ICE St and-perhaps-manage-theztwosBrisbanezho
CI got
rem
Lady'Godiva was completety baffled by Dick but wouldn't admit it
to herself, Hanni said. She triédi to play his game of cool talk but only
sounded biting and disdainful. Really she'd taught him the coolness,
believing it was true drawing-room style; and a public-school had done the


rest.
Slowly Granville was getting to know Dick behind the style. He
even began to feel that this style was an urgent makeshift to stem hot tides
of feeling inside. But, like Hanni, Dick rarely showed his hando On the
surface he did, giving a clear map of himself in conversation, but it was
only a contour map and gave no real sense of the country.
One evening he did show his hand for a moment. They were sitting
Dick
in the music-room talking about jealousy, just the two of them. #a was at
his favourite game, examining a painful and intimate feeling with dauntless
and methodical honesty. As always he sat quite still gazing before him,
smacking his lips slightly while he thought the matter over, half-smiling,
one leg crooked over the other, apparently perfect master of himself, and
grest
seeming to take aprenormons relish in the existence of his own limbs, in
everything he did and said. That was Fechens the most compelling and
his
attractive thing about Dick's company,
Seemerwt tor-takem immediate
physical relish in himself. M
- time-whetherm HE
standing-ormsitting-downgmingad
ements sthemayche-putsthe - CIPS
A a a aismfengersatogetherzande 1 S JOC hemrage astreachmothermever
meccontinual, losmaCkITE
This self-sufficiency
Somatimes.
made Granville feel quite overshadowed/ Dick always seemed to be leaning
tegore
back with an audience, while he himself was always leaning forward, trying
to achieve an audience.
/olal
But this time Dick leaned forward and in the most confidential
voice said, "You know who broke that mirror upstairs, don't you?"
"You didn't!" GanilrsatdwiaASIONLEnteiment.
"Yes," Dick went on coolly, "J did it when I found a chap in bed


asos 116.
with Hanni - - naked as well!:
na asa W whatmHanai-hadztald 11
rememberetc
I did it the
vor rather,
second
S,tal
just
time I found him in bed. The first time
by the door and made. a
TTT7
I/stood
quivering little speech : which the little man took sbecdobaly no notice
of at all! I said, 'This bed has been offered to myself and my wife for
the night' (which it had, by Pinkie
you see how principled I am even in
my rages?), and I gave him ten minutes to fuck off! Otherwise, I said, I'd
have to pull him out!"
/oilal
It was a funny picture, Dick standing at the door talking like
that, and Granville smiled. This seemed an encouragement to Dick and his
face fell into more of a repose; a glint of humour came back into his eyes
as well, as if by permission from Granville. Hept Rever hehnadBo
AMTEYREIEEEIass1-before:
"Did you pull him out?" Granville asked him.
/itah
"Nofo de HON
ave H
I smashed
inslead.
the mirror/"
He said he strode across the room 'and s-his-owmehouror tore the
mirror off the wall and threw it at the window, where it caught the lower
ledge and smashed to pieces.
"As a matter of fact, " he added, "while I was tearing it off the
Pipo,
nail an image of you came into my- mind and I thought, 'Poor old Granville
I'm smashing his furniture upllo"
ona Granvil LE e
PEFT CI pay-foriit-ore-drre-day
"Noxmnoy hat damages-o Nar
Hheymexchanged Eriendty
at was mmmaug-hetueen mA theme
DEak hadn't, luckily, thrown the thing at the occupants of the bed.


sat
Hanni Mes sittin a - up terrified and blinking, her breasts showing over her
petticoat, he said. As for the man, he just stared at Dick with his
mouth open, not grasping what was going on at all. Then Dick had flung out
of the house and walked the streets for half-an-hour, his legs trembling so
violently that he could hardly stand up.
Mmgmtkeymop-ber # aythingzmeAEYEANETLC asked
attaknowe
Ceth a U
Butatre was
Wictart CCE
ays
"She says she was drmm at
member anythingt
"Dobs the idea haunt you, rather?" Granville asked. He was happy
to find that they weren't such.different creatures after 'all.
But. Dick asked, "What idea?"
"Her sleeping with somebody else, she-dtdon
Dick was surprised. "No! Why should it?" And he went on
talking in a reminiscent tone about how he'd wandered the streets that
night.
a TEE
He gazed at the floor, betorechim, his eyes gleaming as if he
was telling an adventure story. There was almost a smile.
I yorknoy
perence I think I must have walked twelve blocksthat night,
lany
more or less counting the railings as they paseed, and all the time tha t
little room was in my mind!" Kep saying - A set
mimutes morer
ack
e gones


But-again-Dick-had-littreinterest
thar
C she-epystimmotie
Gof fopmacetate gasSn a Aand ragueb over- his
dt gariag
It was the jealousy itself that seemed to interest him. He had
an intrigued and baffled expression on his faceo WHen-he-talked-about-his
SWA S* en iagy T-1tHadTcomenfrommoutsidequltkezsogething-aebuadaly
badeing
togsr omplete surpr -
t 5 30-HF-6OHe--wary- EhCtamit-showed
arorchers er-frencesste a
FEn
martallad a
He seemed tor
Such tick
be-marvelling at the -fact that. he had/feelings
SULALT Lsed
a as they gred-h'sauthenticTty. And Hanni's role was secondary.
ST EEirelyshpmmustacovezitovezter C ofezlEthejeatousyzateal? Cramytllerstoaked
a EEMOErplex ty
In a moment Bik returned to his old manner: he decided he wanted
waitsesses
tay wrere 3 ood,
to have a look at the giris at the cafe in the Commercial Road/uhere-tiny
tal
Wals
se-waFeresses there.
Ris
And he leapt out of te chairo
a 1 he pans
Hè left behind in Granville a sense that underneath his lonely style there
was something grand and warm that would be revealed steadily Cmem in the
next few weeks. Perhaps he would be another real friend like Mohammed.
He was excited at the idea. Like all men he'd always looked for a friend
but had a handfull of acquaintances instead. He terribly needed the talk
of a man. It gave him confidence and steadied him. Even now he felt he
could face his jealousy towards Pinkie better. una wer d momelp aftermalt?
amie em
Dick and Hanni stayed-at the house . quite frequently, and were some-
times there for the week-end. Hanni said it was 'heaven' after their ou
But
Empe Coua flat. Howexers there were = irritations between the two
24s


couples. The chief cause, sometimes the scapegoat for the other three,
because he was so helpless, was Dick. Tem
Ris bed
he-singlo-bets he left E/unmade in the morning, and he rarely washed up
Cab
after a meal; he would cook himself eggs and bacon, and leave his dirty
things floating in water.
hen-was-perfungncteryand
- even 1
meant matot
rl the * moint shurn
Cansweratterwards Wasalways,
ANR I sorry and
ou d
say AUTREA
yourr One-Saturdayhhe-ment
mopping
* eX ca gas ce eagihe 5
anrip Camreturned-to-the
housawamhaimostanothing-mhohad-read eg
a mo LTK - e K
afahamtee Eforsome-heasohy-E0 aa L
sau a a ecouldntt a
ger
Shops Also he swung on a
chair
saan one evening until it broke. Granville found Dick's
blindness to detail a romantic quality, and his own irritation at it. petty
and watchful.
Sometimes Pinkie and Dick seemed to be in league together, sitting
over crossword-puzzles or a game of chess for hours. And sometimes Hanni
and Pinkie seemed to be conspiring against 'the spear-side', as Dick called
himself and Granville. Most of the irritations were unspoken, quickly
forgotten in a smile or a friendly cup of coffee in the kitchen. Pinkie
and Granville, as a couple, had a standing criticism of the other two-
Hat
as a couple: they 'crept off' to bed too soon, and didn't 'club in' to make
an intimate little dinner-party together; their company was always on the
point of being wikhdrawn; taseemer they'were 'nervous'.
There were odd comings and goings all the time. Hanni would call
.at the house and Pinkie would leave with her soon afterwards; then Dick


would call, after they'd gone, and seem surprised not to find them there,
and leave immediately as if he knew where to find them. Or Pinkie would
call from the office towards the end of the afternoon and ask if Hanni
had come over, then omit to leave a message for her in case she did çome
over, saying it was 'all right', they were sure to 'meet up' somewhere.
Or the three of them might return to the house together late in the evening,
saying they'd all met 'by chance' in town. He had the impression of a club
they knew, or a house similar to this one, only with a more flowing
clientele. It excited and horrified him, a te eans mem


theshitghtn-towereny-and-Prnicte.hmdeherntregiomexpressionvagatngc-hepreyes
chosed-andshorahipowdren-together-inea-in-a-pout-that-suggested-botTmmtenderness
unte mistwwas-atTengemcombined-withehermpointedmeers-arrdondthewredmforked
cari thant-drifted-out-behina-meryit-gavenerva-pecuiiar-dark-taughtiness?
Sier-apk-@kockworiockworko-harehy-tneldmesch-other-ptrer-trelayonty-temred-togethor-mstt
extnatuebedpetheirsoffeeks-touchingewhile-theirfeet-simuffred-sfowhy-atongy
this-wasmit-thettheerightondrces-fopsmostrofethe-guests-and-thowhellwad-mope-op
desewemptys mliewtold-myzerbeth-howemrch-hekd-erjoyed-Meedhar-and-stro-sarth
witheamehanke-of-hep-frengy-kctcking-hemretieinthy-in-the-enictey-Hohnr-como-agatind
Phe-etowmees-off-the-dmnece-wats-amimdrance-formhery-sie-weent-gt-her-steper
buntry-energr-ent-kegt gtemeing-rourd-themelooruwirthevvivactons,
e ead ante
A Penkciepmemting-at-at-neat-ReLmaGE Hemagad
axpmensisonesectedretesbea
They crawled into bed
barforembon as the birds were beginning
to sing and the first milk-van passed. Having fixed her ears so well,
Pinkie couldn't get them off, and he had to do it with a pair of tweezers,
pulling the wires carefully away. Her forked tail was broken and her
tights had split during the Scotch reel: she looked exstatic, pale, quiet;
to oblige her, though she hadn't made any direct request, he hardly spoke;
and he left the paint on; his eyes were still long and slanting, a his
lips full and red; she put her hand through his hair and gazed at him; and
he was careful not to hug her too close in case he spoiled the spell; and
they went to bed in the same quiet mood, exhausted; in the morning his red
kiss-marks were smudged, vague red stains all over his chest and arms like
the trace of blood, and the sheets were stained with them; thus ended his
one night as a faun.


The HIgHT OFHE ECRe'
Bookr-Chap 8 P134-118


a de
BOOK 11.
CHAPTER 8.
People started calling at the house again. Glenning, the
publicity-man, was almost a daily visitor. Some of the other faces
he'd seen that first evening reappeared; there was a girl Dick Pollocke
had been talking to; her name was Lucy, and she always came with a
girlfriend nicknamed Ginger- The two of them sat in the music-room
together, long-haired and quiet, sometimes with a book, sometimes just
sitting.
For some time there were repeated phone-calls in the day which
came to nothing when he answered them. He would pick up the receiver
and say hullo, then there would be silence, followed by a click at the
other end. It got on his nerves_and the idea became fixed in his mind
that it was Grove trying to get through to Pinkie, though why Grove
didn't know she worked at Wembley he couldn't explain. One day he
silent
shouted into the/phone, trembling, "Stop it, you bloody fool, stop it!"
He remembered afterwards how his voice had echoed up the well of the
stairs in the empty hause, like someone else's voice, rasping and
strange; it souhded like someone bound and gagged.


Rheard-nothing-morecof theoffe A o L the-Beirt officep which
Glenning-hanttaldhimHemoremof-less-a tainty
Ctearky it-worldntt
One day
happenbetore-he-went-back-again: - In-acway_that-was-a-Telieta he would - nip.
be in the office again with Mohammed at his desk onmt thezothermoidezof-the
poong with the fans whirring and sunlight streaming between the shutters;
it was quite a happy image, and it seemed to him that he could actually
hi Aa.
- Boyad
hear the silence of that office, with its special tone, 1 as if the sunlight
a etialle
asonre
was/pressing on the roofs outside, EkS a'huge brass weight that came down
harder and harder as the day want on; and behind the silence there was
a cnts alrl tlral chonus
atways the cacophonynof car-hooters from the main street, inmthemdistancs.
fotee - a
He ought to be getting his, ticket back and wondered whether to shorten his
leave by a week and take a boat adasthe-wag instead of flying: the voyage
would calm him again. He noticed that he already assumed Pinkie wouldn't
Ge/coming. (But he told himself that she would follow him after a month
or so.)
Pinkie came and went from the office. Several weeks passed
wi thout a single new event. But though he thought of going to a travel-
bureau and getting his ticket it didn't seem quite serious. He couldn't
imagine going back. Usually if something was certain to
Ital
happen he could
feel it in some way, art imagine the circumstances.
tkay
Sometimes sexerat
them went together to a new cafein the
Commercial Road where there were wicker-baskets on the walls for flowers,
and a fisher's net draped across the ceilingot tachte-mannerz Pinkie
was subdued as he'd never seen her before, but still with the intact look
that aroused his curiosity. She gave way to all his suggestions. They
went shopping together, and otherwise she seemed quite content to stay
mote
in. He. put it down to their getting geod-meny visitors. The door


downstairs was open most of the day, as she liked it.) He-hank-walks
Eipping-docks-and-tne-T sowery
KONEELO-CORCAIVncervenquete-Traquent!g
phe RTOELTOL om
reashor
get-out t a A
Taret books The house was tidy again and the mild weather held. He
ewer
began to wonder how he would/leave this light, clean life, with the
pleasurable undertone of menace,
Eshort
There was a lot of coffee-drinking in the kitchen, and he enjoyed
especial the long hours talking to Hanni, sometimess
when she felt in a confidential mood.. But it was a vacuum. Underneath,
it was all frightful. Yet his face mustn't acknowledge this. Nor must
his talk. He was the same as the others, keeping his real self in
reserve: it was the polite thing to do.
He asked Pinkie one evening, "I feel 'frightened sometimes - is
everything all right?"
2eet
Her coming and going was so mechanicalfo She made a customary
stiff blink of her eyes, with a loose gaze for a moment; and she said,
"What do you mean, Pip?", in the same surprised and slightly breathless
tone hs when he'd asked his question about 'affairs' that first evening.
You
yout
He gave it up. Cnè had to be sure of. orets facts.
Hanni got furious, àt one of Dick's escapades.
solu
staytmernigh
a han gomback damp on Court cad
he"s-rungaup-i K
say -50
about that
nIp
cl sa
one. go toched-earlyza getmaunl ghtts
e S
Youreves E
ag 50mo show-the-8erah Thet three of them, he,
and
Pinkie/ Hanni ant-frveliey were sitting in the kitchen drinking wine
ter-dinner when she suddenly laid down' her glass and said, "I'm going


to flat,
et I
to Hampton-Comig-snd I trind m-gomngato find something interesting
Yoo!
when I get dewr theref" L Thaylanghed-am-tola-Her-no
ont-shegotwher-handbag atmondezandlett-thehewhouse And next evening
she catiet-inmand told them what she'd found. She gaazedinto-the-Piats
kaflat
mhe-smpan found E in darkness but knew he was there because she
toer
could smell the Turkish cigarettes he smoked when he was seducing a
A open
woman. She pushed open the door of the front room/and switched on the
light, and there was Dick with a stunning and 'Juno-esque' girl, sitting
on a sofa
Ke with the window open at the bottom.
He LA just) ouate
ase an had slipped her petticoat-straps off ner
stortders so that her breasts were showing. LE was-staabout-tomben
domand
ret mipples-shens sa
gat-on,-she-sgd2
The girl quite calmly pulleduher straps up again and closed her blouse,
and said, hardly turning round, "What unexpected guest have we got?"
Dick looked terrified and said, "It's my wife! Won't you meet?" He
got up and, was just about to make the introductions
Hanni said she
was glad to find his fly-buttons were done up, at any rate - when she
walked towards them in a fury and shouted at the girl, "Get out of my
flat at once!" The girl got up with a haughty expression - she really
was magnificent, and Hanni felt a little twinge of admiration for her -
and said in a casual way, "Yes, of course! I expect you/want a little
word with your husband, fon't you?" After she'd gone Hanni began more
or less chasing him round the flat. She filled a huge flower-bowl with
water and calmly tipped the lot over his head. And while he was trying
to wipe himself off she started slapping him round the face at a furious
rate. As he said afterwards, she was really hitting the girl
and
he! A accepted the blows on this basis, which made them seem lighter!


He looked blue next day, and had a slight cut on his upper lip. By
five o'clock in the morning they'd talked themselves out and then had
the 'most enormous screw' ever. Hanni said it was wonderful dealing
with a man after he'd been caught in flagrante delectis - you could
kick him, pour water over him and 'really go to town' as you never could
otherwise; then you could really 'milk' him. For several days afterwards
she was mute and narrow-eyed, and would answer none of Dick's questions.
He gave her flowers and took her to the theatre, but she couldn't forget
how magnificent the girl had- been.
Granville thonght-he felt a glow of admiration for Dick. He
told himself that Dick was asserting the only freedom left in life: The Jec.
spell of' the flesh! That was the only thing left! So he went to the
office and found Dick just coming out of a board meeting. "What a
wonderful fellow you are!" he said with the frivolous, sparkling glance
which was now taken for granted between them,(and which he really thought 2n
idiotig. And then, while Dick was smiling back at him, with the same
idiot
tittke sparkle, he realised that he didn't know why he'd come to the
Come
office, that he hadn't wanted tol, that he didn't belong here, that he
didn't know what had happened to his life, that he was whirling round
wi Hout one of Ri own!
giddily in other people's lives, a DE tes ne madert So he promptly
made up a reason for coming
he wanted, to look up the contracts'
department
anes weh?
and dashed out of the building. Why didn't he find a woman? Through
loyalty to Pinkie! And she was probably with Grove, at this minute!
But he refused this thought at once. Yet she probably was! But suppose
she wasn't? He faltered again. And so his resolution failed him, which
it didn't do in Dick. He didn't have Dick's pluck to enter the mystery


and risk everything with his own hands and his own life. He was always
hanging back in thought!
One evening Dick gave him one of his little speeches about sex.
"You know, I'm quite a methodical person, but by God there's no method
as far as sex is concerned, is there? You can't book it in advance, ean
t isnt a lot
you? I'd say I really wanted sex about, well, once a week; not-mone
mean
n a
A a ca per
a I en
for a thriving male, is it? But I bet Don Juan didn't do much better,
for all his escapades!" He added, "One of our clients from South
America had some sort of aphrodisiac powder, from a root or something,
which he said made you red-hot. - We had him damnmto-tampton-Sourt to stay,
then I came back one night and found he'd been putting the stuff in Hanni's
Granville laughed. "What happened?"
"Well, of course, I told him to leave the house and never darken
my towels again!"
As time went on Pinkie became more and more matter-of-fact. It
seemed to be the result of working at the office. She was tired when she
came back, and anything too personal, any intimate discussion of their
life, seemed absurd to her, perhaps because it was outside the working
schedule. He tried to summon up courage to ask about Grove, but didn't
for fear of getting an honest answer.
yten corked
He made her breakfast every morning, and rsur
pared dinner
when she came back at night. She was kept out by business o Friday# m
until midnight or so. She said Friday was the night when the different
departments aligets firn got together, first in a committee-meet ting
and then over dinner. But he phoned her once during this committee-


meeting, in the early part of the evening, and there was no reply; she
said' afterwards that this was because' the secretaries had gone home,
adding that as a matter of fact she'd seen the light flickering on the
operator's switchboard as she passed. But he didn't believe it. One
hertrottor
week-end she went off to/ geE house in Wiltshire and came back looking
palerand tert
red . than before. He dared not ask her why this was so
because it might indicate that' he suspected her of not actually going,
but spending two days in' bed with Groveyo
It occurred to him when she talked that she'd been listening to
someone else's voice and, being impressionable, had absorbed this voice
as her own. He tried to divine what sort of person this was. He
motally
thought it was aj /small person
there' was an unusual note of envy and
bitterness in her. sometimes. It wasn't the voice she'd had all these
years. imd-secondky-t F Beemed-to-him-thatzshezwas-absonbing-middres
cass argumentsabout-iie
CHIS as perhaps-wherezhermattermotslact
tonezeemenfrom. He wasn't alone with her any longer; there was this
ale tke time.
third person/ She was now in the habit of getting up suddenly during
had
a conversation and changing the subject, whereas before she a /always
stuck at a thing and not let her mind interfere. She now seemed to have
even
learned a social manner of avoiding dangerous and/continuous themes.
One evening she said in a crisp way that didn't belong to her, "After all,
there's more in life than thinking out one's personal problems, you
a m iddle - eass termin -
know!" She was
rology
beginning to use the-vocabu
sep
a a
It was peculiar to hear her say how 'sensitive' somebody
was, and she stunned him by saying just before they went to bed one
evening that she found his philosophy' interesting. His mouth fell
open and he puti out his hand slightly as if to catch hold of her in her


disguise, but in a second she was the.real Pinkie again.
He found he could get on quite well if he read the newspaper,
every morning, saw two or three people during the day and made sure that
there was at least one event from the day before that he could talk. to kem
offars
acceptad
them about. This madé
or outward conversation possible.
Real talk was out of the question. Dick was the only one who did it,
with his girls. He'd found a way of doing ito arsit * e
Lemo Work
COD
ats
1 6 Granville
They couldn't make their own lives any moreo they HOU d-onty-make-nen
retionss The job at the office,-thefr newspapers, the hurried sounds
in the streets, drew them.ali further and further into the system, and
the only satisfactory (thing to do was to tearorctheaystemmand forego
all thought and self-responsibility.
Ter
AWS
ney wasml
You
hustling
a-breat-them Omecould leave everything to the/outside world
Your
and nevér communicate enels real self to other people; there was a comfort
in this; the cycle of happiness and pain, the natural rise and fall of
life, didn't seem to apply any more. There was a numbed but safe
consistency. No one was sufficiently alone to be in control of his life
any more, hrr clore
Muh cluls Llne Gnful titha
He always thought he was about to get inside Dick and Hanni, to
Diks
a true intimacy,, but it nevèr happéned. He could metr-Pinkcier-he-cortd
Pinkiels
feel ter existence. But they were closed to him as perhaps no other
/2ital
people had been in his life. Their silence always felt like a with-
holding of something that could or should be said and was actually in
their minds. He had a constant sense of suppression in their company,
and of mental. surveillance, 9 with remarks released by policy, after strict
censorship. They were sematimes nicknamed 'the poltergeists' perhaps for


this reason.
When he had a quiet talk with Hanni the deadlock was broken for
a time. She got several afternoons off and came to the house. They
swam
walked in Kensington Gardens and. sometimes bathed in the Lido. He was
quite glad to be with her, as if to convince her that he had no unusual
feelings towards Pinkie and that his life was going along smoothay. He
wanted her to have no fixed conclusions about him. So each time they
walked together it was like a bid for freedom - from a preconceived
judgement on her part. It always seemed that a subject was being
avoided: was it Pinkie? But their tone was intimate. They laughed and
talked quite gaily, yet he was nervous all the time. He had the
impression that his life was wearing down slowly. Why couldn't he speak
to her clearly about what he feared? Because he didn't want to show
himself in weakness. And why didn't he want to show himself in weakness?
this
Because whether he liked it or not- suffering was weakness in the society- ot vattor
tke Souely
/they'd made between the four of them. When Hanni went down with 'flu
wsitk Per
Dick stayed in the Heptor-domet flatjas little as possible, and only
made a feeble effort at nursingone He would look at her and say quite
candidly, "I can't understand how I ever made love to you. You look like
a railway porter!"
was-alwagsmpleasant
Tere
-somewtovetyzdayse
He yearned for something new to happen an escapade like Dick's, and also n,
he had an optimistic sense that his life would change soon. The hot
sunlight that drenched everything gave him this confidence. He talked
to Hanni about Basrah at some length, but whenever D aeemer-possible
lctang-, utong'
thet he wourd launch into one of his speeches' FT
whenmhe-feanedsforward
Stighthy-and-began-flaring-
ont
she would repeat, "Mm, mm,' I1


ally,
frantiç ways nodding all the timeo as
= ce a boct Chim-thatmshecknew
verything-he-was-going-torsay-and-so-he-needrht-sayite -She-had-a
FOFFOY 2of-him-boring-hery geemedt card-anything-that-wae-thezslightest
depar
fron-practica-statements-os-facitcarried-thiscthreatrkBut
there-was-a-pleasure-in-this-for-hima-it-was-nice-to-cheosemlittle
statyments-carefully-rather-in-Dickks-candad-atyley-1iy-liker-l-think
Slenningacomes-roundmto-us-formwhat-he-misses-in-his-own-homer-don*t-you?"
And then she would tell him a little anecdote about Glenning - how he
ohce left his wife in a waiting-room at Norwich station and only remembered
her when he stepped off the train at Liverpool Streetfo Glenning's wife
was so stupid that all she wanted was to have babies, she said. Seraard
Gkenning-were-alwayswton-themjobl,-it-seemed--es--for-instafcer-they-would-
dressweachagthermin-impeccablemputdoor-clothes-and-thien-during-a
desberatodly-folly-formai-conversation-undress-each-other-egain-aittle-byslittle,
-bheymweremonthembedmbogether.m. His, wi-fewwouldwaskhim-questions
abeut=themofficewlike-a-secretary REN "How-are-woollensedoing-thesemdays?
ehe-woukd-ask-"Ghy-not-toombadali-he-woukd-saymas-hewsl-isppedeoff-her
ekirtpalfstwompercent-fise-thiswweekt"
She
Hann would go from one anecdote to another in her chanting voice,
chuckling now and then. "Dick was at it last night," she would say,
"and every time he pushed I did a loud fart! He said it was like
conducting a Sousa march!"
But he had the impression that talking like this hurt hero as-wedl
She hadn't a natural, flowing ribaldry. She flickered her eyelids in
Pinkie
talk eike tkat
a pained way.
conld
raturally
Hanni
She would complain about Dick in a monotonous voice, tight-lipped
and brooding; underneath, she seemed concerned about him, in an irritated,


maternal way. Sometimes it seemed that she was talking about Pinkie
as well, while mentioning only Dick's nameo she-woudd
E S-
heEknewshat-shemeant-alEeady-thronghePinkias They began to share a
wer
ro otter parple
grievance. Dick and Pinkie bade wbetstheyzcadtedsthe 'blind' quatits No A
purswing-their-owm-pleasures-whateverchat ppened andesteppingacrosg-other
pempheastfthey werenlt there théy didn't notice small.details; theyd
bothateen-spostedstr
fost, poi d Hansther
deprived-ofzsomermings They didn't know what it felt like to be 'someone le.c.
*kam
else'. But this left trimmcand-itmmi with an uncomfortable feeling that
they themselves were only more ethical because they were inactive, and
that the other two had more pluck. It rendered them spectators of the
other two, which wasn't flattering to the pride.
Behind Hanni's panicky mm, mms there was always the implication
that one day
not now,because this wasn't the time or occasion - she
would reveal all the thoughts and facts and values on which she based her
lwer Pit alrout
silent appraisal of things and her pre-knowledge of what he /was going! to
say: but as with Dick the time never came; it was never the occasion!
Yet he always believed she had the power to tell him. And he concluded pitls
that what he was about- to say had no interest for her, and curbed himself.
So, despite the growing intimacy between . them, he felt the same edge of
stiffness as always before; there was always the tremulous frontier where
they doubted each other and had to rehearse their statements, and force
their faces into a smile. Much was due to her fear of' him; Pinkie said
she didn't like the way he glared' at her sometimes.
Hanni gave the impression of a dark and rather deadly calm,
something held very deeps inside her, timidly from the world but also
obstinate. Yet she always answered him anxiously, whatever he asked her.


She was always trying to oblige; but there was still this locked reserve
in her. More and more he was silent with her unless he had something
grimly factual to say.
But he preferred it to being alone
his nerves played such
tricks on him. One afternoon, in the silent house, an unaccountable
fn te agtemenn
terror caught hold of him. It was about a-quartar-te four/and he'd just
finished eating. He got up to carry the dirty plates to the sink
there was the swish of a passing bus in the distance, and an aeroplane
throbbed overhead. He ran water into the bowl and slipped the plates in.
But he didn't wash up, only turned away absently, his hand still on the
water-tap.
aou
Then th unbearable nervous tremor started in him. - He held his
breath, listening for the sound of the downstairs door. But nothing came .
His stomach ectrally-seemertto quakedland quiver, sending ERE shafts of
horror E through him, and a foreboding darkness approached him, like the
slow, hot breeze he had felt that same afternoon in the street below,
flowing past him with a solemn, ominous movement. The silence had become
grim and hollow, like the silence round a dead person. He moved a foot,
and the boards creaked under the linoleum as if only a dead wind had
stirred them, nothing human.
He'd begun to think about Pinkie: he realised this - - it wasn 't
a thought so much as the shadow of herself that had passed over him! She
must have done or said something against him at that moment
twenty
pethaps
miles away, close by, it didn't matter! He believed. in these ghostly
connections between people. He saw her hand sliding gently down the
face of -
But the picture faded. Yet perhaps he had the impression
or had he planted the impression? - - of a young man's face, pale and


smiling while Pinkie's hand made its cruelly suggestive, delicious,
stroking motion?
Yes, she was always out these days! A hot dread spread over him.
He ran downstairs to the bedroom and flung open the wardrobe door. Her
best coat was gone! Her best coat! Her best summer coat! But what
did that mean? Nothing! Her shoes, then -- - her shoes - ! He tore
out all the heaped shoes in a frenzy - her best shoes, where were they?
Or her handbag
her black handbag, for the evenings
that would
prove something! He kicked the door closed again, crushing the frail
shoes and the piles of old stockings and silk scarves together, and
rushed next. door. There! But no, the handbag wasn't in its usual
place, on the bookshelf, close to the piano, close to his precious
gramophone
: Yes, she had wanted to look elegant this afternoon!
He stood in the middle of the room panting and staring down at
the carpet. He felt a giddy trembling so violent that his legs hardly
seemed able to support him any more.
The door opened suddenly and Hanni was standing in the doorway,
calm and still. He turned round with a start, gaping at her.
"Whatever's the matter, Pip?" she asked.
He smiled. His heart was still beating fast. She looked round
Aanhi pas'
n matha an hat
the
alway
room
blach
slowly.
Laid mih t
"Is anything wrong?"
chrerale!
She came further into the room and at that moment he raised his
hand, unawares, to touch his nose. She saw it trembling ever so slightly.
The light from the street shone up into her eyes as she turned towards the
window, making them seem darker than they were, a deep, mottled colour, nearly


an absolute black. Not a sound came from the street.
L"No," he murmured. "Why?" Then he added at once, to make
talk, "Have you just come?"
He stood with his legs astride, not knowing what to do with his
hands until she spoke again.
"What about some coffée?" she said.
"Yes
She turned to go upstairs and gave him a quick, searching look.
His trembling ceased and the colour came back to his face. - As he
on emkesuel
followed her up the stairs/ /awkwardly he felt much like A child,changing
his head.
She glanced out of the kitchen window, at the roofs near the
river.
"It's a wonderful day," she said. "Have you been out?"
"Just down the road, that's all."
She turned to look at him, slowly, still seeming to wonder.
"Shall we go to the Lido, Pip?"
They left right away, not troubling about the coffee.
L Hinn
He hido
were
That afternoon, after theytsen swimming, a sudden change came
over him: = was warer - the-suntight- over he take
tem as
Cresseuier Eskyaspreadmout=tom R 11 n
tclndingsinzonecmoment-all-hisilife; it was a revelation of.stupefying
hope, in which he felt his whole future contained in goodness, and resolvedfo
All the bad things of his present life would go. But even now, at this


felr
moment, he wERS freefo
For the first time since his return he had an excited sense of
the city round him, aga a sense that it didn't matter what his life was
or what happened at home, hecause of all the other activities that were
open to him every daya as-one-member st n-a-masszof-othersmwithoutra,
namesas-farmas-s=suffering-wont: He kicked out his leg involuntarily,
dripping with water, in a happy spasm of freedom, already celebrating the
future, and he looked at Hanni with a relieved smile. He would do something!
He didn't know what yet, but he would. Esomething-to change his life.
Let him spend all the money he had, for instance
he could take the
other three to a club! Mareadyacfortnight tad peeseds Hosslowiy-the
agter all
cam
OfSCDICEE, he was a Londoner
why /cap
hadn't he realised that before?
ne 3
way-from + aimt He
could go out into these streets as he'd always done. in the past, and lose
himself, as if life was eternal and he was walking up and down the span
of eternal time, looking in at the lighted shop windows! He made no
specific proposal of action to himself; something would turn up; the club-
idea was only momentary, a suggestion.
he was quité certain that, now Ca
he was in a fit mood, his life would change. He dragged Hanni into the
water again, whooping and laughing, and they splashed together under the
diving board. She blinked at him, delighted and wondering.
es shakon
Basratmotfi He'd found himself! And after two or three swims up and
down the enclosure they went in again, puffing hard, and threw themselves
down on the grass, where the trees were. "The water seems to do you
good!" Hanni panted. He got a sudden dazzling impression of her, as
someone he did know after all. The long grass was extraordinarily vivid
against the slight darkness of her skin. It all looked so strange under


the trees, in the middle of a city, with people's white skin against the
grass, in the shade of tall trees, with the bright light draining through
the leaves in speckles, and here and there a negro, stark black, with
glowing phite eyes and teeth. And there were sunshades, red and yellow,
with prams and also blankets spread out. And Hanni cn otiental frown.
"Are you ever ashamed of being lonely?" he asked her suddenly,
gazing at her in a verg direct way.
estr from the sate
sen
As she dried herself, panting, she looked up, first with the slightest
blink, as if reservation would take hold of her again and chill everything,
frut
and said, "Yes, sometimes!" It gave him such Esensemof relief to ask an
honest question, not simply a prepared question in an honest style! In
that moment everything seemed humbug that people talked, a nervous humbug
imposed by the city. She didn't move for a little time. For a moment
he thought she was going to take her little reply back by saying something
clever or facetious; but, as if she knew what he expected of her
she
had such a gift for that
she went on drying herself quietly, with
some little grief in her eyes as she looked down at the grass, lowering
her head to rub the towel against her neck. He felt lazy and lay down,
looking up at the trees. And she seemed suddenly relieved to be out of
his scrutiny. She'd said to Pinkie
t Trammngeschols years beforey hip,
that he was the sort of person who tried to 'pin you on to a board' for
his collection of "butterflies'. Pollocke had said that was absurd.
But he wondered now if
asthent-mmmer she'd passed beyond tha t
Jcab
mistrust. The sun was still shining on the water in a great yellowness,
flung lavishly over the trees and bushes on the other side of the lake,
and he became happy again at the thought of the dusty, hot streets that


began at the edge of the park, and the cafés that would be filling with
people about this time, the first taxis of the evening-rush that would
turn the corner at Queen's Gate, the musty smell of beer as,the pubs
opened, and the dark interiors that seemed to wait for the evening to
come and for dusk to fall/o He thought of these things in quick succession,
try
in an ecstatic mood anointed in this yellowness, a magnificent, dazzling
splash that extended to the outermost spaces of reality in a vast sunset.
How strange that he hadn't felt properly in the city untii now! All
those painful little thoughts at the house would be gone. He would be
able to stand his full height. That was what they meant when they said
'old Pip' - - a gay and reckless sort of person, not this little thinking
insect!
"Why did you ask that?" Hanni said.
"I don't know!"
The words were out of his mouth before he knew RReremire-Wast He
was about to go on, to say that he deduced the sort of life she led from
the one he led. He wanted to break the silence that had hung over his
life since his return - talk about all the intimate fears that had been
playing at his mind, and the misery he'd sunk into, and the fact that he
saw nothing before him in the future; mota
C a S
and how he'd felt the weight of an accusation on him after his return,
that he'd sent away all Pinkie's friends from the house, and that he felt
he represented a shadow over her life, and how thankful he'd been that a
offrionds
groupl had re-formed, even though it was without Grove! And' 'Grove' - -:
But he couldn't doit. He let the moment pass. And she blinked,
recording everything so minutely with her face as she always did, as if
she'd felt the breath of his revelations pass over her and then die away


again bef fore they could turn to speech. So they were back again in
deadlock! Yet she seemed satisfied with his "I don't know!" and his
laugh afterwards, that sounded hollow to himself. And they were too
tired and hungry from the bathing to want to talk any more. The moment
had passed.
People were beginning to pack yp their things and leave. The
stillness, that had muffled everybody's voice and turned what they said
into a whisper, was broken now. The traffic from Knightsbridge sounded
like a wind in the distance, level and unchanging, representing the city's
preparation for evening. The other side of the lake looked like a coast-
line sery far away. Perhaps he endowed her with more strength than she
had, and also perhaps she feared his expectations of her! Perhaps they
were all doing that to each other! But still he couldn't bring himself
to speak. She picked up the cloth bag she'd brought with her and they
walked across the park towards the road. He was aware of her as a kind
of little sentinel at his side, always armed, smooth, brown and slim, her
the
eyebrows meeting injmiddle like a frontier across her face, a black,
negative line. The tufted grass stretched away before them, and the
trees clustered together, beginning to contain the first shadows of the
evening. He looked back as they plodded across the sand of Rottpn Row,
at the sky, for a last glimpse; dusk was just stirring, like a mst shroud
of dust Youched with red getting closer and closer to the earth. It
fell so lightly, little by little, that it might be a breath of air,
given substance, almost making a stir that could be hèard. Their shoes
made a quiet swishing noise in the grass, much like the countryside,
except ' for the level roar of traffic that drew nearer.
When they got back he bought a dozen bottles of wine and rang up


Dick to tell him to come over for a little party. Dick was quite pleased -
"I see Pip's getting back into his old form," he murmured, but added that
he couldn't manage it, as he was having dinner with 'an important contact
on the distaff side'. In a lower voice he asked, "Is Hanni there?" and
when Granville said yes he added, "Tell her I'm giving a talk on free
trade at the local Y.M.C.A." Y.M.C.A. meant 'You're My Choice All right'
so Hanni told him afterwards. It was Dick's private language and
indicated that he would be taking a girl out - probably the one she'd
tha flak,
caught him with at timpton-euine, she said - but wouldn't be unfaithful to
her. She didn't seem annoyed, and they drank a tumbler of wine together.
There was quite a jolly evening after Pinkie came home. . They made A
nip.
punch, combining the wine with brandy and lemon, juice, and Glenning called
in - ter-theatrestie with a few others. Lucy and Ginger came e It grew
into a party. There were the usual records, including one that had
always stirred him called 'The Creole Shake'. And Dick' came in after all
had
about midnight with a sorry expression: the girl/gota slap-up dinner
gone
out of him, he said, and then BeTt straight home afterwards, almost without
looking at himo ag Hanni was delighted, and Dick danced with her
again and again, not even pausing when there was no music, his body tight
against hèrs and his head lowered on to her shoulders, so that he seemed
to be whispering messages i heroesn
Pip
Thus, Granville gave his first party since his return, on his own
initiative. This made a great difference to Pinkie - that he'd done it
himself, unexpectedly. She gave him a kiss on the neck similar to the
first. she 'd ever given him. He'd found his feet again!
cose
oere -
reforg That was what they meant by 'Pip'!
It was like coming back home to himself after a long absence. And the


tto, 153.
other three looked wonderful that evening, so clear and cheerful: how
ungrateful he'd been to neglect them! The nightmares were fihished.
What did it matter, all this absurd calculation as to who was being loyal
to whom? He had a glorious sensation of being alone and free and also
happy, an extraordinary combination; he even felt close to Dick's dandyism!
That would need practice. For the first time since his return Basrah seemed
not to have been his own experience at all. And it had all happened
through a yellow flash across the sky in Kensington Gardens' that Wartsh
TEC
ighe
disgily t
During the party he got/ tipsy and sat talking w Hanni E
Dick had gone into the bedroom where some of the others were, sitting in
candlelight.
a a assfire oHE There was a great din and bustle,
and the air was think with smoke, though all the windows were open.
Pinkie was at the phone and he had a stirring of his old fears, but they
Came lack
were gone when she Erdurned-te-the-room looking as gay as before. The
quiet
street was qunte enstail outside, and their noise echoed across it. e
worderen there-a-be-a-oomplaint
6 aac
nese in wacn
Hanni was confidential, as always at a party, and
asked him again
what his question had meant that afternoon.
Whyour - gosuddendertyask
16 thatzns
They'sat on the divan while people pushed past
teal
their legs, trying to dance. It wasn't a tre confidence between them.
He perceived this through his clouded brain. It was Dick's style
this cool probing, not hers. But he joined in the game. And, as before,
he tried to lay himself bare.
"I was deducing something from myself,' " he said.
"What
that you're ashamed?"
"No, no!" Again the words were out of his mouth like a reflext


action. "I mean being lonely!"
She puffed at her cigarette slowly, her eyes narrowed. "In
what way?"
"I suppose as we all are!"
Again his spirit had failed him, or rather the spirit simply
wasn 't there, while she moved hardly a muscle, gazing straight before her.
What had he meant that afternoon? He hadn't an idea! He hadn't a
thought in his head!. How could he begin to talk about all those
complicated little puzzles of intimacy? Where would he begin? He hadn't
Dick's gift! She nodded after his last remark, her eyes almost closed
against the smoke of her cigarette, in their characteristic way.
"Yes, we're all rather lonely, I suppose," she said, finishing off
a conversation that had contained nothing.
He would have replied to this but a clear thought refused to comeo
cerhis- a seadk With drinks inside him he was only fit to dance or play
the fool! He was suddenly in a whirl of self-consciousness. He tried
her
again with Hanni: why shouldn't he mention Grove now? Why not ask/what
Pinkie did on Friday evenings? Why not talk about how he yearned to
make love to Pinkie somstimes and she yawned in his face? That was the
honest style he should learn. The words were there! But he couldn't.
His mouth was fixed. The drinks only helped to paralyse him. He whirled
round in his thoughts, and couldn't escape them. Thank God his leave was
ending soon, at any rate! Suddenly he had a sharp sense of regret, that
he had indeed laid himself bare to Hanni, in the short sentence he'd
uttered, and that she had him caught now, and that he hadn't done justice
to himself in those few words, and so had made things doubly worse! Oh,
why had he talked? A flush began to rise up his neck. He was caught,


Zafds
caught! It felt as if his limbs and insides were transfixed and held
still, without a flow of blood through them. The longer the silence
lasted between them the more he accused himself!
Happily for his feelings Hanni went on talking, but about Dick.
At once the horrid whirl of his thoughts ceased. Dick, she said, was
frightened of going mad. Granville felt he understood this very well
at the moment! She said she was often worried about him. Dick would
sit still for hours in the most uncanny way, without doing anything, or
he would get up and prowl round the room with his head buried in his
collar. He'd told her once that if he had the chance of jumping out of
his own body into somebody else's he'd take it with pleasure, and risk
being ugly or lame for the rest of his lifeyo Re-nakaathe-passing-or,
rimey-shemgidh The moment never came when he felt really himself and
enjoyed it; well, there were moments, perhaps a day, a wonderful summer's
day, but it didn't last; and the passing of time meant a perpetual loss
for him.
of opportunities She seemed to understand him very well, talking softly,
as if it was herself. Fhe-emptiness2ad Eroum-uB.apparred-Hin,-he-Baikd -
sometimesher coutdnt
e TOR euman-bedings-had-managed-to-f Eha-the-earth
1p cheob-jects-emos-emoughtomake-itomaket Taok cempt
OT-C8Ur66-He-was
frightened-of-gettingaard-that-tollawed- That was why he had affairs
and was always thinking about women. He had a 'thing' about breasts;
Loa son-thes: face-of ern, Tity
a goud feel-
It was much more arad
'she said, than ne actuad 18 a
Pic,
andathe actual womén that interested him. He abwages said he enjoyed
/Silal
7FF
sleeping with her auch better than with anybody else; and that it was
'getting better and better with time'. But there was always this other
quest, which had to do with FES vanity. Yet vanity wasn't the right


word; he' wasn't vain. But he had to be reassured, and she couldn't do
it on her own; no one woman could do it. Ghechom-rskerchhim-tie-phne-prenctome
dayEwhypu a che-feltzemptrempty-he-didn't gLy 6-up-the-Hampton-Conseeplace,
whitch-couzan't-be-emptier.---why-dadnwb-they-move-into-Eondon-whhere
neither-pf-then-had-ever-lived? And-he-said-he-couldr'-bear-the-idea
of-being-olassified-as-he-woutd-be-
lived-in-Iondors-if-he-
ne d tyheld-be-well,nondescripta-Shelsea-wag-harty-bohemialay
Kenstngtor-was--faded-genteels-Notting-Hi11-Gartte-was- "gainsqualfd; 5h
cotminsterm---athat-wekthewone-distriot-he-woutstrot-mind-living-in,
"emnd-bhe-onemonemplaceyi-Henni-anmi-addedy-iwheremthe-fentsrare-fabutousy-of
courseti
Ityfaue
kuisesk
orul
The party. ended at dawn, and there were the four of them left,
sitting over breakfast in the kitchen as a grey, cloudy sky began to
rise outside, - a new presence stepling through the window and changing
Hromni 3 vncun
the furniture with soft touches. Dick, jumped up and gave a ridiculous
account of how Pinkie ate. Sha-hadan-acute. dislike.of-being-watched
ower-her-food,-And-DicK-atchedher-deliberatelguntil-ahe-laid.dowp
her-knife-and-forkostowtyaardmrmrmureds COOChETEA-POTIOCKemmatCenucte
your ONA A ttopdy-rations, o a
nai
per
a your faced
etonceshesjumpezrjumped-up
gave
speech "Every morsel is weighed
up and rolled about the mouth, " he cried, "every taste-bud is on the
qui vive as with quick, exploring movements of the mandibles she opens
up new layers of taste for the enslaved salival juices! Then, with a
last salute, the dignitaries of the mouth lining the route in panoply of
fef
office, she flings it down to the cellars of the stomach where restive
hohemians lie in wait over candlelight, reeking with yesterday's garlic!"
His beard wagged up and down in the most comical way, and he didn't pause


Pup
for a moment, as if he'd rehearsed it. He once) told(Granvillà that at
school he'd been famous for this sort Vor thing. He had a peculiar
burlesque vigour and extravagance in which his coolness disappeared.
Pip
Life was easier in the next few days.. He went to' the cafe more
often, ands
ee bi iged
Ceavemwhen-he- dmdrained-his-cup,-LE
atound
opd
hung/on reading e talking to people.
a Aked-in-Kensingbon-Gardens.
He'd gone back to his old life,
so he told himself. But he couldn't
remembes
escolttent what his old life had been! He'd been more or, less in harmony
with Pinkie then
that was one thing he remembered. But still there'd
been something feverish underneath
always.
was
a routine.
His day had quite
nip
He read the paper over breakfast, after Pinkie had gone, and then went
down to the bedroom to make the bed and write letters or read; then he
went out for a coffee. He happened to look at himself in the mirror more
closely than usual one morning and noticed that, the skin round his eyes
was very pale, and Faad his "Cheeks had lost their colour. He no longer
had that weathered look.
hha pians
In the fusicproom he 'happeneia to pick up a medical encyclopedia
of Pinkie's. that was lying on-the coffee-table. This was the book that
ans ago
the young man
ger-heard at the-time-of her first seudio-party;
(ur was an old story). He IL
had seduced her withk etnges = Besed had opened it at the venereal section
He, had
with Ats diagrams andlurid illustrations of the sexual parts, and hets
discussed it all with her so unambiguously that_the-actitself, when it
tke IRF
came, seemed only um-demonstration ofy dead hypothesis. And the pages
fell open naturally at these sections now. The first thing Granville
saw- (was a description under the word SYPHILIS. Ther tertiary stage was


particularly frightful. It had the effect of blindness or madness, and
could be inherited; the child,of someone in the tertiary stage might be
born blind. It sounded just like the state he and the other three had
fallen into. The effect of blindness, and it could be inheritedfo And
it was infectious in/all its stages, incubatory, primary, secondary and
tertiary! The last was incurable! It sounded quite like old Dick!
Incurable! They were blind, and nearly mad: mute and blind! Mad and
mute and blind!
He remembered something about Dick: it was the nature of his
anger; oné couldn't call it real anger. It didn't come out' properly. as
191al
ace SUEE hadnin. When he a got furious with Hanni and Pinkie. EfmEks
berfore ustatter
e Sauthe mertcar-atftge, he only
went white round his lips, and his voice had/cracked. It wasn't an
anger that suffused all his body and made him flush, in a healthy flow.
The anger didn't do him good. He had no voice to be angry with
physically couldn't raise his voice, it seemedyo He was rational even in
his flesh. Raanger waspays
preventer
them necessary
voral ards were ssing He could become steely, his eyes glassy and
his lips pale, or else indignant in a plaintive manner that was nearer
his gentle nature. ET the anger was always checked in a pre-conscious Jcaf
Aefirint
manner; the check was already there, in his flesh; it was a conflict and
distortion already accepted by the flesh, and written into his body; so
that it had become a white-hot flame, destructive, with a dangerous licking
edge, that flashed through him and then abated, usually, in silence; this
was what 'anger' was in him. The middle part of the body constricted and
pulled itself in; it didn't expand with a greater flow of ease than before.
A tn taleh there was nothing righteous or handsome about the anger. It /cap


really did border on hysteria - if it had come out it wouldhhave been
Stal
hysterialo
Pip
And Gramsilte was beginning to feel the same thing in himself,
as a shadow, perhaps through the remorse he felt after anger. There
would be a-spurt of sourness inside him, really like a gland spraying ja
kind of Jacid round his guts ---he-remembered-it-at_the Lido, in the
moment when Hanni had seemed about to disregard his question. >mis
sourness seemed to him yellow. >He'd never known it before. Was this
the first organic sign of what Dick had leanned as a child, in his glands
and tissues?
He looked back at some of his own 'outbursts' with mild astonishment.
as Dick's
Would the same consciousness/grow in him until by the end of his life it -
was 'tertiary' as well? until it had formed in his tissues, without
surface manifestations 7 (for the first bright-réd, open chancres-of -
syphilis disappeared early?
In this respect he and Pinkie were distinct, at present, from
Hanni and Dick. When he or Pinkie blew a valve they really let themselves
go - Pinkie screamed at the top of her voice; their blood flowed better
afterwards. Hanni was the same as Dick, though perhaps only on the
surface; only a very slight, dangerous flush mounted her cheeks, and her
eyes showed a glinting, relentless light. He had the feeling that if
Dick had tried to behave like Pinkie and' l'really let himself go, some
frightful meanness and spitefulness would banecheen the result, and this
Dick
he/couldn't afford to let happen. The same might be true of Hanni,
though she was too hidden a creature for one to be sure. But Pinkie,
at any time in her anger, could be stopped. She didn't have that gleam
of relentlessness or blind refusal of life. In Dick anger meant the


severance of connection with other people, but in her it meant a warmer
connection; she was showing her connection.
/Jital
And a smile brought her round at once. Nursing a grievance,
scheming to avenge it, were unknown to her. Hanni 's angers, on the
other hand, lurked as wounded afterthoughts. Ankie said that Hanni had
a genius for creating 'undercurrents': people would sometimes quarrel in
her company for no reason.
So they all inherited blindness and madness, one way or another.
Would it go on, the legions of disease spreading all over the world
through education, until everyone was tertiary? Blind and mad - the
whole world! They were planning huge schools in England; it would happen
in Africa, Russia, in Asia and China! The senses would go mad!
Yet he didn't feel this would happen. The middle-class road was
at the endyo The spirochete of education wouldn't takefo The body would
be too stout and resistant.
At the end of these half-feverish reflections he began to feel a
ridiculous hope, like standing before an immense golden plain on a hot day,
with hardly a movement in the air, in a silence that came out of the earth,
like the future being laid before him in one visible reality: a plain
that stretched placid and flat as far as he could see! It had something
to do with his own life, with the hope he'd begun to entertain in the last
few days, and with the yellow flash across the sky at the Lido.
When Pinkie asked him, "Aren't you getting your ticket back?" it
was quite a shock.
"Yes, I must see to that!"
1 agim think-that-reality-had-chengedi
how could she hif p./ I /cq
were
bear him to go alone? He refused to tot up how many days hethad left.


I6l.
He bought four tickets for a performance of 'Hamlet' he'd read about,
with a new actor named de Cloud, which the papers said was a pseudonym
and should be pronounced 'de Clue'. They were for the following week,
and he had the illusion that it would help conceal the reality that he
had five days left and had made no plans/o
Suppose he had children? What living sense could he pass on to
them? His father had given him a living sense - but what had he got?
/Sitl
Education had withered it away! He felt panic-stricken, wanting to
strike out the years.
ak home,
The garden in Abbott's Roadhad breat thed for his father. Like
a great beast with its paws tucked up, purring! But not for the son!
Let him try to make that garden breathe
let the son try! No! It
/size
gardan
was only a garden among others for him. Onel I on that precious little
(stal
map of life his school had given him! The trees were groupftrees, the
leaves and bushes group leaves and bushes! Types, universals
not the
breathing presence itself! Not the only garden in the world!
So he couldn't pass it on. He could only pass on admonitions
about life, and advice. Children remember your being, the way you looked
into the garden at dawn, sipping your hot cup of tea : Not your advice.
He thought this with an absolutely sucken spirit, his head down, nV.
quite motionless, his breath almost gone.
Pinkie's brother Nigel came over for dinner one evening and they
set up a table in the music-room with candles. Nigel looked worried and
kept moving. his knee rhythmically under the table. He seemed to feel out
of place. Dick wandered in with Hanni and they all sat having a drink.


The four of them made gay conversation for Nigel's benefit, exaggerating
selres
Nigel
the closeness between them, but this only seemed to make him feel excluded.
He looked robust, with massive shoulders and a bald, weather-beaten brow,
with wisps of blond hair, his face still soft and young, his eyes EE
with
Roide
pof len
thensu blazing and selfless curiosity. But this/wasn't his EECEE
He gazed at Dick, blinking. He tapped his foot, his eyes strained, and
left early. Pinkie said he was tired these days and had such a lot of
work on his hands. He'd found his wife couldn't have children and this
Pinkie
was a great blow to him, or so she thought - - she'd heard it from one of
A didht
her sisters. She and Nigel hadnht) jragget - 'each other as they usually dido
when Theyveretugether; they onlydid t in the country when they T
3 ad ans
keit
reathy a a homes * Et there #e the intimate glow of respect in her
eyes. cap
drenshe-looked rat- himoyer arner It Ba made the music-room look too
small.
Pip
Grenvitt was troubled afterwards, wondering what was wrong with
the house to make the man feel R ill-at-ease.
E coutdrtt ee
dear
e a a
A worry V. had
e chousemnadhadwhades Nigel sent a polite little letter
two days later from Wiltshire thanking them for an 'unusual' evening.
The music-room ad looked fabulous:
its colours tard stood out vividly
against each other, like a tropical garden lit up.
mear HEL
Kere eurery daiy
Granditte would spend two-or-three hours in-this gone an the-evening when
there was.no one in the house, simply absorbing its brightness and variety:
that
Came esrery
it was beginning to fill up with: voices, now thegched people trnegh atter
wenings
aighi sometimes he enjoyed it better sitting there and remembering them
in silence than actually being with them. The house wasn't weird for
him as it had been the first evening, L Lin relim Jun buorad


alrost
Granville began to perceive something a Hanni -
she liked
to be thought busy and in demand. She liked to appear suddenly in
evening dress saying she'd just been to a first-night, or she was
about to go to 'the most wonderful party'. Sometimes she séemed to enjoy
making Pinkie feel left out, which wasn't difficult. "Really?" Pinkie
would reply, her mouth drawn down in a sorry way, "I'd have given anything
to go to a party tonight!" Yatshemayhaye teen T toore
for Pinkie,
The parties she wasn't invited to were always the best onesk and Hanni was
tas
aware of e A weakness.
But there were also times when Pinkie was invited out and Hanni
Piakie
wasn't, and then ste took her revenge, sometimes by asking her round for
a drink 'beforehand' -- by saying 'beforehand' she aroused Hanni's
curiosity. It was a grim feminine game. But slowly they were forming
Jorin
an alliance
"If you can't beat 'em, befriend 'em - "1 Pinkie told him
one day
"isa sound feminine principle!" They would scheme to get
each other invited out, and keep a strict balance-sheet to see that not
too much credit was given on one side.
If Gramd le met someone unusual he found he hurried home to tell
Pinkie, with the same triumph that Hanni showed when she was called to the
telephone by a stranger. Pinkie would question him closely, gazing down
with a slight compression of her brow as if trying to choose in her mind
whether to accept or reject what he said. She was like an examiner in
Muerunkii
afhs
the social mysteries
she could recognise something false at once. Her
fundamental question was, "How did you meet them?" Everything hinged on
that. And it.always turned out that he'd met them through some perfectly
ordinary circumstance - at the office when he was with Dick, or sitting


in thé cafe'with Glenning or Ginger; it was always through someone they
both knew well
confined to the little group of people she knew he
|gilal
knew. It made him feel like a child, offering her things of small
magnitude. She listened to him squeamishly, and when she 'd broken his
story down to its ordinary elements she showed both relief and disappoint-
ment - relief that no fabulous event had taken place without her, and
disappointment that she youldn't find a key to the fabulous through him.
TTT
sital
And the most superb new contact always turned out to be a man in the end
Hial
not very different from other menfo She had a primordial snobbery, not
towards a lower social class but towards all lonely people. Sometimes
when she came in and found him sitting in the bedroom alone, huddled up in
an armchair - it might be without a book, gazing in front of him - she
made a little gasp and hurried away.
Hanni was different. When he was alone she would come in and talk
to him, curling up on the' floor, smoking slowly, with movements that were
at once rigid and graceful. Her dream of the fabulous social event had
more simple vanity than Pinkie's. She and Pinkie eagerly discussed new
contacts with each other, shutting themselves up in the kitchen. He was
present at some of these investigations. They were harsh and clinical,
alscet
laying the other person bare, until a humourous caricature emerged. It
was like clever journalism. There was no hint of the other person's
living presence, only his actions and phrases and the farcical situations
he got himself into. All men were a little funny. Pinkie was always
describing them as 'pompous'o
He began to be careful not to show himself too much, in case the
others took him for granted. He left the house sometimes when he knew
that she and Hanni were coming in together, so that he could return an


hour later and give the impression that he'd been away all day.
He waited for parties and evenings-out for the deadlock of life
to be broken; the affection between the four of them welled up in a
crowd of people. This was really how their friendship was kept going: it
went from one public event to the next!" There was always the exciting
dressing-up beforehand, when Hanni would arrive from the office with a
little attaché-case full of her things and take a bath and then start
dressing in one of. the rooms downstairs, (with the gas-fire on.) The house
would feel warm, and a scent of bath-salts would float into the rooms.
Sometimes he would have a drink with her while she pored over her toenails,
louidrg
whiie
clipping them and painting them, always. talking. in her quiet voice, that
Cmvuye
had Such powerful intimacy and steadiness in-it, through tight lips, as
g1. weure
palleng
if her face were a rock, Pinkie would also come down, and they would.sit
on the floor by the gas-fire, safe in the knowledge that they would be
going out as a group/"already gaya ansoneedn' teet nervous-o
cront tatar "We always.go to good parties," Pinkie said once, "because
/3ital
even when they're bad we. make them good!" HRSF wew soe
e a
nyaten
At a party Dick would 'go off'? keeping to the side-rooms if there
clnnke
were any, until he'd found a girl. Pinkie would(get extravagant and dance
CA doihn
recklessly, Hanni would arini quietly at the beginning and dance with
twan
lac
style, then go wild at the end of the evening, though néver with absolute
I hfr
abandon Each party. wasa marvellous landscape with
races of people,
Papere
hile
and they would catch each other's eyes across this expanse and wave-or
a catint
a Rome afme.
wink with an intimacy they could never really-get don In a crowd they
were always a family, but free and exciting, gloriously unknown to each
other. Dick" would slip over to him and confide something, usually about


one of the girls: WI say) you see that one with the bald head and the
twitch, don't you? -I've been trying to shake her off all evening!> I
thought of giving her your address!" Then he might make his loud, dusty-
sounding laugh, like Huh!
But the following day it was always the same as before, with
thoughts withheld and the conversàtion stylised and disjointed. It
wasn't that they held things back really
the more intimate the talk,
the better: but there had tol be a special tone. You couldn't show fear
or misgiving. The other person might get ashamed of you. People who
came to the house found them hard and offhand - (those who weren't hard 9-
and offhand themselves.
once.
Hanni told him why Pinkie had got ss peeved with Dick ECREEkE
e arey i
1 u
cepit
ngszundermhis-hati
"She wanted Dick tol do something for Grove at the office," she
said quietly. "And he refused."
The name was like a. blow, smack in the middle of his face! She
spoke steadily -- - she even said 'Grove' without blinking an eyelid. And
he tried to stop the hot trembling that seized every part of his body like
a sudden wind. At the same time he knew she was helping him, in a
strange way. She was putting out a hand to him but - -
inkie
wanted Dick to recommend Grove's firm, in-some-we she
esl
went on, and Bick-har refused - of course!'(a smile, here) - out of -
Buk pictunde,
principle! Because Dick # didn't believe the firm was a good one. Jeic.
What was Grove's firm? He daren't ask her! He sat there smiling
and he even found himself asking, "Now which one was Grove?"
His heart was beating at an enormous rate, and he tried to prevent
his eyes staring out of his head in a telltale way. The trembling had


concentrated itself in his middle, and for some minutes he didn't hear
a word she said.
Rad
Ah, Grove worked in an advertising firm e hej /heard that! Here
he jumped in - and changed the talk at once with something idiotic
about how public-relations was getting a racket these days. He didn't
know what he was saying. But she refused to be budged. She went on to
say, with. the same quiet voice, like a nurse, that Grove worked mostly in
the evenings, getting round the clubs, and that his only free evening was
Friday.
Friday! He almost fell off his chair and went deathly pale, his
lips dry and puffy. Friday evenings! He remembered Pinkie's face when
she'd told him about the light on the operator's switchboard, she'd
blinked quickly. Had she blinked? It was all so ghostly, this putting
together of memories! And again he made a quick remark to cover up,
though in a terrible unsteady voice.
He spent the rest of the day trembling, his insides surging up
and down, his face flushed, and when Pinkie came in he wouldn't talk to
her. But she was used tothis by now and put it down to his thinking out
some 'problem'. Gradually over the next few days he got back to normal,
with the new information absorbed into the rest of him, to replenish the
hidden nerve-war.
He also thought he remembered Hanni saying
but it only came
to his consciousness now
that Pinkie's uncle, Lord Maimbury, was giving
Grove some help - offering to draw him in as a subsidiary to his own
firm, perhaps? Or was that dreaming? Of course! But yet the words
were clear before him
out of the shadow of his unheard conversation


with Hanni.
A letter came from Mohammed. 'My darling Mr. Granville,' it
said, 'a woman was murder in the souk yesterday, she has beegn in my
house, my dear, how are you, Mr Tomlinson from Port of Beirut made inspect
your office, I give him good tip for the Races outside 7-2, we sweat, my
darling, I am your brother, give my humble satisfactions to Mrs Granville,
I love you too much, Yours faithfully, Mohammed Hadawi." He smiled,
but it was remote) ne didn't trouble to show it 'to Pinkie. A woman was
u Eug
quite often murdered in the area of the souk, because that-was where the
brothels were, along a tiny alleyway guarded by the police. He'd seen
Mohammed's signature many times before but it struck him with no
familiarity now. The words stuck in his mind
'Mr. Tomlinson made
inspect your office'.
thoyw 2 te lrrntse.
lymae
- the
And
Duru.
Tue
yhc
rcsmd.
Tre
ore
tahan
wuat
mal
Genl
Sti
buetur mmmadal
7h halanie
f patm,
slarale spry
- Ls t -
Sronkln, Srue lmns, paid
Irmaie
Lonta
Vho
rks -pelel
bottel.
Led
the
cis's
Mo umel f
the malahe 2
Rin K STeafy
walel
crerr gtil
lanlmes
pals
tta,
mR 2
hiho 2 Tho
syl4
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7L b
Ann
calal
Cn Mmany
haol
2P3


THE HIGHT OF THE Eaugse'


CHAPTER 2a
The weeks passed. There were newcomers in the group as a result
of the Tail-and-Hoof ball. He was out nearly every evening and couldn't
had
understand how he E managed to spend so much time in the house before;
the phone rang continually for one or other of them; Dick and Hanni now
took him for granted as a fellow party-goer; usually he slept until noon
and waited for the day to develop, which it did of its own accord, largely
through the telephoné.
He went for long walks with Hell, sEB one of the newcomers;
they strolled by the river, hardly talking; a subject of conversation would
seem to present itself but then fade away before it was clear; they were
impenetrable to each other. The hair-girl also came to the house,
sometimes with Hanni, sometimes alone, preoccupied and rarely talkative;
but she would suddenly wake up and begin joking and making her deafening
laugh; she would come and sit in the music-room while he was there, hardly
glancing at him; a making dates with her was out of the question; there
was no need, since she came nearly every day; they would put on a record
and dance, then he would make coffee, nothing else.
mutolargin (alias He)
Alice the] snake-girl) also came, and Joyce thë pale girl was
sometimes there. He began to. share Dick's fascimation for the pale girl;
she would sit in the kitchen for an hour or more looking at a magazine,
= still and soft, E smoking and gazing in front of her; there was a
quiet detachment between her and Pinkie; they had something in common, in


their presences, and they averted their eyes from each other as if afraid
of mingling their identities. Hell wore her hair in the same way as at
the ball, straight down, and usually she had a black dress on and clutched
a small black hand-bag; she always looked cold, and her teeth seemed to
chatter invisibly when she talked, while her shoulders were hunched
slightly; Pinkie said that Grove called her 'the last trump'.
Life was not so casual COTTm that he felt his identity had
gone, but pleasurably. There was msan
cause for nerves or apprehansion
since he wasn't called on to do anything; no conversation was expected of
him and no powers were attributed to him., In this circle no one was
greatly interested in anyone else. It made no difference that he had no
money in his' pocket; someone always called and an activity would start for
which his company was required; he had to make no effort for this; he could
sit in silence; his face was known and expected, as the other faces were
expected by him. The social classes mixed, or rather the shadows left on sotial
life by the past mixed
the snake-girl's Cockney accent and Hell's
breathless, creme-de-la-crème speech. But everyone had their being in
Hell
suspense; the snake-girl was wary of Hell, and the-latter was delicately
didit iin fack mix at aal,
and flinchingly aware of her, so that their real presences
tat I
At first Sramy Lhe thought that only he held his real self back but he
saw that everyone did it; Dick was perhaps the most open of them, he gave
the truest demonstration of himself in his behaviour; but here there was
an heroic element, a a PU
cleverly and painfully devised performance;
as a result he amused and enchanted people most, because he'd gone into the
matter more deliberately than anybody else, and had come to the conclusion
that ifyou were going to turn a false face to the world it might as well
Dick's
accotding to Hanri
be an entertaining one. EES suffering, as-frannille a ce -


Hlartid the mo Bu C
2 G olise
op - donat
his room; he would
sit
castigating himself; one evening he came
back to her
and said he was sure Geens
looked on him
5 self deprecialon
as a 'sex-maniac' with nothing in his head at all; at such
timesk
he was afraid of going mado
crud
re cra 1
a ahimempby-epadte Site
Somrst UTES NET *
we CLC #
MEFR pan
aursedzebDBaazttywre-tO-TOMalligdyencarherg gecwoutderrerrecognise
Ga some
luckily the 'little
Hanni : Lt
/cafp
Re real
sewk
worm, vanity' had so far never let him down
Rim agter anettar wom an;
A E
this,
she said, was mainly why she didn't try to interfere with him; it was his
way of getting strength, from which she benefited.
Just as other people drifted into his house, wit thout saying a
teris,
word, so he drifted into/ therrocal
V Ner
nodding hullo
and then giving himself up to the silence. Whether orrnot the others
just
regarded this common behaviour as strange he couldn't find out,/as they
couldn't find out if he regarded it as strange; it was simply the accepted Ails
style. Hell sometimes rang up in the middle of the night and asked for
a bed; she lived with 'a family of school-teachers', as she called them
even the little children were school-teachers, she said, and she dared
not return when she'd taken 'more than a fair drop'; so she would creep
into the house and be found on the divan in the music-room next morning,


her black lace underwear in a pile on the floor and her hair hanging down
from the pillow like black crêpe.
PELE
a sandar
sumstins
But Chezm ie still clungo to his privacy; zbteressnbinre
he refused to let her in. Also he would lock the door downstairs during
the day sometimes, and not answer the door-bell or telephone.
It seemed to him, even with all these callers, and the activities
in the evening, that he.had nothing to do;
outr he wrote letters of application for jobs and then didn't post them;
he was on the point of ringing T.I.M. a dozen times; mgat
nen
a ter
as 5E Sa Cadesen
he wrote a long letter to Mohammed
telling him what heUd done and promptly tore it up; then he wrote a frantic
one, saying, 'Please, help me!', and posted it. He set himself tasks in
the morning and arranged his desk neatly; he went throughta carbon copy
of his report for T.I.M. with the idea of amplifying it
to hand the
new sections in t nem later/ perhaps, as the basis of his next job with
them. There was still no answer from Nevinson. Did they regard him as
an ex-employee or not? Dick told him not to apply for his super-
annuation as he would get more later, for some complicated reason; he obeyed
without question and drew his last money out of the bank. He couldn't say
he was unhappy, though.
Hell borrowed the school-teachers' car one evening - she simply
took it out of the garage
and ran it against the railings by the Tower
like this.
Aldercsle
of London. There was always some interesting little eventh Deryk Grystrem
ies.
had a special nod for her at # party thr - sonbe
The past seemed /nip.
quite dead; He was an accepted face, nowhere was barred to him; he talked
Aldercete
to Gryshan casually, and the idea of there having been a to-do between


Aldarerle
Dick and Gryshom over himself/ mentatty
U aeI
he conld Jre words mannt rothing fov ttose peglo;
was outlandish and absurd; - E A ward
aciatr
ym uded *em to rkeir simple dacotatin efece ad jon
a ttitad L
eF :
JWR
Hell gave promise of 'real friendship; twmitnbe a delicate,
quiet relation; in which they would sit much as he and Mohammed had sat
watir
by the river in the evening, with long pauses, saying whatevèr came into
their heads; she m d smokef reflectively, saying. didn' 't he think this
person had somet thing 'valiant' about him or that person was 'a York rather
teal
than a Lancaster', always in a style that just evaded sourt sense? He
lived
realised after a time that she has hardly aware of him. She
msde a
amin-her reflective dream, drawing others in sometimes, if the conditions
were quiet enough. Yet she was polite and answered questions; sometimes
great
she showed aemost
courtesy and charm when accepting thingsy
like a cup of tea; but then, she would be absent and fidgetty again; at
walk ey.
a party, after a few drinks, she would arans
Cim without the slightest
recognition, he Eaxpmntoimiamt a smile drifting on her lips. Dick said
that she md
i gave him the heeby-
Pitp
jeebies, and he cursed the day Gran kie had gone to that Tail-and-Hoof
ballfo Cometrimen
wouke
aeet
robering -and-mubbering bomhessel-slujel-bl-jmomoone
en pers-shemwas-goingepast-aridmeatirdeineminmaresharpesroacermright
eving-hep-whekenembodgerarttleatrattieletTell
Pyamesstt
agezewataahimfoors 2oie-iner straiing-Mer ee n A a agie
BarO
a re
ereepe
Pyp
It ocCurred to a
that Hell set the tone for all the other


girls who came to the house
to judge from their behaviour. They
seemed to think that this was how you lived at Chaworth Road; the pale
girl and the snake-girl talked quietly. like Hell, yawned like her, lolled,
smiled in the same limp way. Even the hair-girl showed no vivacity
when Hell was there, not unless there was a party or Larry Vice was
mentioned
at the word 'Vice' her A
eyes would move in their deep sockets/
and she would
scream, "Oh, Vice! That boy's wound himself round me like poison ivy!"
Once she said in a quiet voice PaC
"I'll tell you something,
kid, Larry and E dad gpt on fine, and what more do you want than that,
eh?" He nodded like an idiot and put another record on.
continm maal k take
Hanni and Pinkie |tosk/it for granted that he was having an affair
with her. Pinkie told Hanni one day that she was 'somewhat egbarrassed'
whenever ttay
to find Joy Celeste Palways in the house.9 Joy Celeste encouraged this/
were found legotor
/by yelling with laughter anenever tany
Nen ae M
zue and shrieking, "Nearly caught us at it again, blabber-mouth!" or
"I've just been up in heaven, help me down, sister of mercy!" Hell
would sit for hours in the music-room, in the same chair always, smoking
endlessly,
quietlys never reading, her straight hair falling down to her shoulders
and her thin, pale hands flickering to her face now and then. The young
man nicknamed Cerberus to whom she was supposed to be engaged sometimes
came as well, small and flushed, and as quiet as she was; he had the habit
of smiling quickly on and off whenever anything was said to him, and then
not answering. He recognised no one at all and everybody wondered how
Hell had been able to establish herself in his memory; he called everyone
'job', or rather every male, for he had no name for women; he would say
to Granville, "I say, job, have you got another drink there?", and when


Granville replied, "Yes, wha t will you have, wine or beer?" he would
flash on his smile and say, absolutely nothing, only wait. Or he would
ask, "Can Hell and I stay the night, job?", then promptly leave the house.
Ryp
One day Dick took Frran Hhe aside in the bedroom while Hell and Cerberus
were sitting next door, and murmured to him, "Well, how do you like the
) cmporcdiswam?"
middle classes now, bo'sun? Quite sane, aren't wete Hell told them all
that Cerberus was in the habit of 'walking off' with things, and that a
few days previously he'd left someone's house with a persian carpet over
kad
his shoulder#; he "/left it in the Tube
"I think I left it in : the
Tube," he said afterwards. These stories sounded exaggerated, but they
at any tale
always turned out to be true; Cr msta a C Hell was called to a police-
station in Islington to answer questions about En persian carpet.
Glenning brought over a young man with ruby lips and a pleasant,
unthad mm
drowsy smile called 'Mac" Saunders who edited the daily gossip-column
Ptp
Thay
that Gramttt had read so often in the last three months. Hrard
Granailke began going for long walks together, sometimes with Hell as well,
again hardly ever exchanging a word. The more. he came to know 'Mac', or
rather the more silénces he shared with him, the. more surprised he was
that what Glenning called 'the racket' hadn't touched him; andetaat he
in fack
gave an impression of untouched goodness, ancatm; 'Mac' had his own
seemad
drowsy reflections, he warsethe mast amiable and cooperative,
alrove ald
he fell in with every's suggestion, Jhe seemed to have no sense of
status
Granville was more and more taken aback. The thing that had
broken Glenning in the same workT namely, that it was hollow, with no
'inside' to ith was the main advantage for 'Mac'.
Eeut e a
BEEE on - meren
de Yw WOTR


a oEL
Pip
Sometimes he came into the kitchen when Gaamt
was there
and worked on S conversations he intended to have at parties that eveningo
Sasy senough SR : Akt peopleutonagreezwith-themsartter-youdtoritEes
cam
cetd 1 E
a6 E HNS a
Moc'
him
EG O pubtiattg Now and then te showed Ghamille these
little notes, and Granville would see them in print next day: he could
thus see how the 'glittering world' with which he had once excited his
o imagination had come about in the mind of a young man not unlike
himself, only with fewer illusions about how the world ranfo He was also nip.
surprised to realisé that 'Mac' Saunders looked on him as a source of
information, because so many people came to the house; a conversation with
Hell might, for instance, be useful one day if a member of her family
flung a big party or got married or assaulted someone. Granser
also
Par
knew the Kaaba dancing company, the Marquis and some of the permanent
wag
guests at the Gare St. Lazare
the 'darker side of life's which/also
good m
mmhbhe Material for 'Mac'; E tnestance the gossip column once described
a house where aristocracy met dancing-girl*, which could have been
Chaworth Road,
'Mac' liked the 'mice' there, too, namely, Joy Celeste,
the snake-girl, Joyce and a number of others. But he seemed to have no
sexual affiliations himself; he followed other people's affairs with a
rapt, benevolent curiosity.
Parties came about at the house without Pinkie even knowing about
them; she was now used to returning home and finding one in progress; and
with astonishing ease she ceased to look on him as a recluse; he was now
much like anyone else; but at the same time she showed traces of
disappointment, as if a god of hers, however hateful, had fallen/o


He had spent every penny of his money and stayed in the house
nearly all the time, attaching himself to a group whenever one offered
itself. Meanwhile she was getting plump and had taken to a wider skirt.
He began to be sick in the mornings, and Glenning explained that this was
only the 'couvade', an ancient primitive ritual by which the men went
sympatkaticntty,
through E the labour-pains or the woman, 1 while the women, he added
with a look at Pinkie, went about their 'ordinary business'. The
plumpness didn't stop her dancing; everyone agreed that exercise was good
for child-birth. There were complaints from the neighbours about some
of the parties; te windows were usually kept open because of the heat
and smoke. One morning they found that a passer-by had pissed into
their empty milk-bottles
and then into the letter-box; the
letters had soaked it up and. were yellow and limp; one of them was from
Elizabeth giving the date of te river-party, and Pinkie had to phone
to ask what she'd written; Granville said with a laugh that she ought to
tell Liz that her letter had arrived soaked in piss, but a demure and
haughty look came over Pinkie's face and she said, "I wouldn't dream of
it!". The hall downstairs began to be cluttered up with articles'left
by guests
raincoats, suitcases and even a small pram. - No one knew
where the pram came from. He decided to forget about past and future
even the little reminders that there still were. People could say what
hasl
they liked about him; he wouldn't stop to think; he /achieved his objective,
to be free in his own countrylo
A heavily-built man not unlike Glenning started coming to the
social
kouse; he seemed to connect C
with Pinkie in the matter
of/rank;
hin
one day he asked 'Grmvitte in a soft voice, "Didn't I meet your father
Pep
down at Freddy's place? I think his name was Granville!" But Gooeooriclt e


only laughed; and the other man, whetas called Algy, talked about some-
thing else at once. He slurred his sentences, unlike Glenning; and there
was a vagueness in his eyes that Glenning didn't have
the same blind
quality as in Hell. It was said that Algy had once lifted a smaller
man clean off his feet in a pub when he was drunk and said to him,
"Don't I know your cousin David?" And the smaller man had said in an
icy voice, "Let me down at once, you smell of garlic!", to which Algy
had said, "All right, there's no need to be offensive about it!" There
were endless little stories like this, mostly told by Hell, who made an
odd, fluttering, and breathless laugh afterwards. Another story was tha t
'Mac' Saunders had bought a set of whips to flagellate his girl-friends
with, but
tEminHd instead he used them to
pull the blinds down E at night.
Pip
Sien
never felt watched in their company; that, he told
hilself, was a wonderful relief for his nerves; AENE
thaad
embered A
a they weren't thinking about you
silently behind their eyes, and judging your conduct; Chay
he could really let himself go if he wanted to; on the other hand he
never did; he was more constrained than ever before in his life.
heso
0e6ou
hetromedosedeon-heians-heunsted-wfec-feceen cheyamight
rOerberusy-bu a hart HCTT a E nertte airtmoeatepndd
egmanistoonaogpliwedebomthewhilt-formitsscosntrystenisbmdlepedi-bmdefined
dee of rehevroursoncewandmforwadily gend-rthewmiddies otessea * Efoktowing
bettndmt
RWEheIEEcapeE Tmmeg L brondg-aewhid ghets-othey-hededenes.
Phtren * aadtto mimself cheewarsopeisingsthroughka worthewhids texperisencege


he-weouskcing-omsagauehopwaeskartstogrationnttonhntreethewpeople-wbomcammemstossthe
hetroe
sas
burbyemoro-bhegfi C -ohtoy-vinmtomkersobocretiot
me Awherertetogracy-ndidrstrtreveyre existy-wren- fizrdrphbwerheted
tre edwyear or more-hewderemalrtowwidirow wiemente-meant fe shadowot
aristooheogegpenthengombhesempeoptemawereyfinebhenehadomimegsd horsilabmle baafning
fpomi
hatwwagbe a a-tacioy-sumpetyy heedneebmhimseib@daballeedinemang Butwhe
emembe
bhpough-hds-aped
dhem Hoseemed
eo-tong ago, ando 9g perree
nee
again Hougat
deares an
He/tugant poathink of the days before their Meedham visit as OmE K
righle Kan ms,
His friendship with Dick and Hanni belonged to
that period. Yes, there'd been a friendshipfo An extraordinary
innocence seemed to surround it nowfo But the period was over. The
friendship was past. They came to the house less and less, because of
the 'weeds'.
even
Many of the people who came
now didn't/know his name;
one of them, hearing Cerberus call him job', seriously thought his name
was that, and even introduced him to someone as, "This is Job - I'm
sorry, I don't know your second name.' I
Another thing he liked about Hell and Algy and the others was
that their manners were automatic; they were silent whenever the mood took
them; they didn't hold a moral plan of conduct before them, and they didn't
try to work out easy routes for themselves in life; they burned themselves
at the flame; they didn't search other people's remarks for meaning, or
judge people's feelings by the look on their' faces; partly this was due to
orpaid tke slightasr attaution ra kkem atale.
- the fact that they rarely listened to other people,h Sternness didn't
frighten them; they didn't smile to put other people at their ease; they
didn't feel threatened by outbursts of feeling in other peopleo e
dut


stant mmorat a
mgabongsd te a : : - SEM 5 gemereyz nethirslastrasgentionyazhe-doubtedi-whab
yot p Gr0a41e2 trimseikfntg-heve-in-thext-presence? cHe-was-just,as
Ame
FEAA aotmevensthatpcheawes Respeckedps-but-wi-thout-himr doing
E i A ahedwas-asespected-beceuserhecherwas-oneofsthemt Somew
a eded N
et soned C à wwassitwherezche-Wesmseperrarbe
more-micktfo-olegs-thenyhiewohoughbtew-lie
oting
neekaty Fore moment
IT C En * mA
How
the plece
aes sec
msel
an gonet
Not that Hell and Algy were w
certain of themselves; Hell
was called 'the nerve-bag' or 'rattle-box'. Algy was morbidly convinced
that people were 'getting at him' behind his back. ee AH - cted
penptr
- Caautomaticamemerp theves was ceadya sometnugain-theit
voscosandudoliveryawhischsmbheyshadndletuburilt-for-themsedvesg-aThertawas
anathersimportantathing--for-himeoe-Butathismalso-meant-that-they-didrt
devolopgadincesso.much-wastalready--planted-in-them-by-upbringifinging-there
3ne
towerds ouysthing
Macano-morala.evelopmra/their lives didn't seem to move WCE
litie lhert people's;
they simply were;
ethemtime, evensathoagt
hemhadenothingstoranswervitwith
Treremwassthis-moral-concermmin-himy
Rowtherewwass-in-Dickpar-butmforsthewothersy for-Helly--tgyy-Serberuswand
thewabheragslifexwaseinedepthgmeistrwwasskkilly and that was restful to him;
at the' same time there was movement in him, a he couldn't deny it;
he couldn't deny its thumping demands, Tmch
lese
ret
drante
He tried to make his world devoid of future, E


E like theirs; but it wasn't natural to him, because the future
teally a mornd ovec.
stretched before him in the form of a quest, Suddenly, as if to deny
of- his,
these EEF thoughts/ Algy threw up his job in London and flew to New
Zealand where he started work as a wine-waiter in one of the big hotels;
Glenning predicted that within a year Algy would be unrecognisable
'weather-beaten and brisk', impossible to tell apart from a working man,
and without a trace ofHell or Cerberus on his person/o
At one of his parties Joy Celeste held an impromptu strip-tease
competition in an upstairs room; all the rooms had people in them, and
the piano was being played downstairs, but more and more of the guests
were drifting upstairs; he walked up as well and could hardly get in the
insida
door; there was a hush A he oonr and the first thing he saw was a
mirtor;
flattering yellow light reflected in the rivers the lights were out and
it appeared that by the mantelpiece, in the light of two candles, the
hair-girl and a young man were making bets of some kind; losing a bet
meant you had to take off an article of clothing; she was already in her
blouse and knickers, minus skirt and stockings; the young man was without
under
shirt or/vest; her hair flowed down over her shoulders, and it appeared that
she had claimed untying her hair as a valid forfeit; Larry Vice was one
of the guests, and his hoo, hoo could be heard in the hush; the only talk
was between her and the young man; they were -
"No, I claim one here," and "Start with your pants, then", MNotam yom
I claim.a douple on that and advance you one on the
griphed
all.
last forfeit, how's that?" The deep hush SI C cec themk There was
m-atmospherod intense concentration. "No, sirree!" she suddenly
shouted, yelling with laughter. All the men were gazing at her intently,


as if she were operating a subtle mechanism; E
he didn't know half the faces; her blouse came off,
tra
and she stood there in
à and knickers, saying, "Hey, now, look,
I'm chilly, customer," while the young man persisted, "That's not a full
forfeit." Then it came to an end without further undressing; she was
suddenly ashamed, glancing round at all the rapt faces in the flickering
candle-light, and with a shake of her head and a defiant pout she pulled
on her skirt and blouse again.
Exemritie had got into the habit when talking alone to Dick of
referring to the hair-girl as 'Makboula', her supposed real name, and by
accident he did it one evening when they were all together in the music-
room; she turned on him at once, her head lowered, and hissed, "Drop that
name, streaky pants!"; there was the utmost blind venom in her eyes and
he stepped back, astonished; but suddenly she was talking in an unconcerned
way to someone else. They hardly spoke to each other again after that,
but she continued to come to the house, and he made her coffee as before;
she didn't seem to notice any difference. He reflected on - etge
'streaky pants', wondering what it meant; his trousers weren't streaked;
Dick said he thought it was a cross between 'streak of piss' and 'randy pants',
a ' grammat atical cross or compound, old sport.'
Suddenly as he lay in bed one night there was a terrific onslaught
on his mind from the silence outside, in accusations that came like
hammers one after the other.
mere
mouth
a de bredti
a aod
e a scen


tmbrarent His heart beat fast and the blood plunged through him like
inn angthing!
a torrent in the darkness. He didn't believe) bewet
teati He believed in oblivion! There was no help. There was no
foothold and nothing came from any activity. While he sweated and stared
hehad a sende of
before him ta
total pauseo e: E The night of the eclipse
was dead! He was an imposter. He struggled to recollect his reasoning
that night. He almost pushed himself out of bed in the darkness,
straining; where were the thoughts? where should he begin again? where was
the first foothold so that he could climb again? But'all he could think
of - they came ringing like a false bell into his mind, idiotically T
were bare propositions,
but the state behind them was gone; they were words.
He lay back again bathed in sweat, exhausted. "What had happened to me?"
he asked, agatn
a small, pretty young woman in Hell's group EA became lcp
his 'lover'. There was a sudden, gnawing desire between them, pulling
their bodies together, like a hard will nobody else could stop. It was
EKE a flame, white-hot, not really passionate but WEE white and hard witk
determination
they met in a club, in a large group, and danced together
at once. They mingled their brea th toget ther as they moved round the
floor, gazédrat each other closely, wi thout a word, their facea almost
touching. They kissed suddenly, under the eyes of her 'husband'
the
man living with her at the moment. It was beyond both of them, this
yeaming.
hard, obstinate E He quickly took her phone-number and they me t
Dick's
(Hanni connived).
three days later, in the afternoon, at
flat/ It was a
Key fell
cold, dismal day. The moment the door closed behind them be sgon
on ench ettar.
She had the curse but, half-


naked, she pulled him -
to one of the divans, and
he came on her stomach. That was before. they'd spoken a word together.
They met there again the following week, and stripped naked in front of
the gas-fire. But the nakedness sat tisfied him less. The room was
on one side, and toking hot -drom Megaagire-onte Hhar
freezing cold/ wie ecme -
She ha
Convulsive
one, Jorgasm after another, and he
she
wondered if thris was what people meant by /nymphomaniac". When they
alunys
were finished they had nothing to say to each other. There was/ the first
sen
fascination, while she EES dressed, but then, in the candour of nakedness,
everything fled away. They found, talking to each other, that they didn't
even like each othero mck On the bed she marvelled at himrhmrEyes
ased
"Oh, this is the best, the best!"/but he felt gaite
fot
just an object B her,
rdewey w
But
CEEe I He felt friendly towards her. "I like you', he kept Jec.
saying.
Really, it was the same as r a with Hell and Algy. He was
a kind of abstract force for her
his individuality was missing. And
she didn't seem to be marvelling at him
only at his movements, his
erection. He was a 'man' for her. Just 'man'. In her circle you
and
expected 'the men' to be rash and wild, rather blindk violent, not aware
wkom
of women. as more than 'little' things', as 'gals'/you were expected to
crush in some way. Dick hated them because he understood them//patkaps.
emufsted
She had spurts of anger
irritation that ter etrt suddenly,
perhaps because he gave her neither the bad
love
treatment she was used to nor the first hard LSE ana matc,
Pinkie had no suspicions. She continuéd to flinch when she
saw the hair-girl or when the Kaaba dancing company was mentioned.


found that she suspected/his innocent journeys across London,
ers but was at peace
when he left thotome to meet Hester, (as,
his
'lover' was called. Hester was a divorced woman with three children;
nip.
that was the only real subject of conversation between them, her children,
and she would show him photographs of them; she had the same delicate,
breathless manner of speech as Hell but there was ar concentrated gleam
in her eye that Hell lacked; she was clearer and more determined, with
an obstinate will which couldn't be swerved; she said she dared not
introduce him to the children because they might think badly of her; they
would tell her parents, and her brother was a Jesuit priest; she had
taken terrible risks to 'go' with him; her family watched her 'like hawks',
they'd done so since she divorced, and once her father, uhwas an army-man,
had pushed her down the stairs
and threatened to
somelvdy.
'make mince-meat' of her because she was 'going' with ammenmetethe time.
It was a macabre, finished world she described: the young men in it had
h n
a, desperate violence
she EE left her husband because he would twist
her arm 'frightfully' if she came back late! And/she was always coming Sital
i made tife guils painful
back late,
seemer
tattes
everyone she described was] wild and frightening, a /cafs
kind of massive caricatureo
a one ewa
she said her father had got wind'o of him,
leapi
franille ànd had promised to search him out and. give him 'a sound kick
teeth'
in the temacht
IE mode Rim feal
1 a CEsePt
ae en sick and giddy.


Dick
HanntnoRME e
told him that Hester was known /np.
everywhere as 'the man-hole'.
dead
tets though only his mazrimacted flesh was involved, in orgasm aftet /cof
orgasm,
it was what he
seemed to need; it was in his flesh that he needed to revive and feel his
/ital
first independence from Pinkie. And now he felt easier at Chaworth Road;
advanecs
he could delay his sexual apponsbes to Pinkie as long as he liked,
having exhausted himself elsewhere; his approaches were more subtle and
patient; then
a a
there was nothing pent-up in him;
he now
shared, so to speak, her burden of guilt when they lay down side by side
at nighto suaa
He began to feel
light, E his appetite improved. Dick told him he looked 'drained of
impurities', and that was precisely how he felt; his flesh, separate from
him, was healed; his blood was clean; he felt cool and ordered.
He asked Dick what had happened to Hanni; why was she never at the
flat? The reply was, "No particular reason. Why?"
msheappeanad
ct-Ormomorthr-Ronts
a a at
sa aa
nara
Py's
Then he took Cran
arm in a nervous way and said,
looking round, "We all have our ups and downs, don't we?" His lips were
Pip
pale and - m
thought he saw the faintest trembling in his fingers.
clul,
He began going to the New Studio trt
a then became a
member; it was another place to + E take people to if you wanted to
demonstrate a socially paried lifeo ert
He got the money to join from
Pinkie; he told her about the club and she nodded rather.like someone


considering a pay-claim, and left the money on his desk before she
went out in the morning.


I - THE NigHs OF THE Ecurse; :
Partial m/s Ch:23
p4p-f2.


CHAPTER Z4
The river-party Elizabeth had written about (on piss-soaked
notepaper) was a great success. There were some faces from the Tail-
and-Hoof ball. She introduced them to a bouncy young man who talkedi
very fast and tapped his foot restlessly, and sang: snatches of old hit-
tunes. "Do you know this one?" he would say like a machine-gun;
and launch into the deathly idiotic words of a 'hit'. To Pip's
surprise Pinkie lapped all this up. Normally she chucked: to herself
at this kind of thing, B said something genially cutting.
The river was touched with red from the sun. At the Isle of Dogs
they turned round, the boat kicking up a wash with its paddles, and the
bouncy young man kept up his endless chit-chat, taking his audience for
granted. Pinkie and Elizabeth seemed rapt, glued to him; they never
missed a syllable or breath.
couldn't make it out. The powerful
Elizabeth was suddenly so docile and girlish. She ducked her head
diffidently and kept sayingz to Pinkie, "Isn't he extraordinary?",
after a completely flat remark he might have made, such as, "I tend to
go for the quick tunes, I don't know about your" His other remarks
were a string of references to odd things bike aircraft, houses in
the country, card games, turf for lawns---all in a jumble which Liz
and Pinkie seemed to see a perfect logic in. Then theropas the story
of how he had hitchhiked fifty miles across Norway because his car had
broken down; also he had stayed at a hotel where the food was good,
and another one where the food was bad; sometimes it had rained,
sometimes it hadn't. And at everything Liz and Pinkie showed enthralled


TVA
wonder. Pip tried to listen harder---to get a narrative thread he
might have missed---and he tried to join in, laughing and showing
Creorge
surprise by lifting his eyebrows. tet - gas ce --that was his name-
said he'd been on the 'grand tour' the previous year: he pronounced
it the French way and Pip thought this was a joke and roared with
laughter, but he tripped up badly there because it was serious.
And George had once played baccarat with a lorry-driver in a bistro
at dawn---an apparently serious remark which got howls of laughter
from the women. Then, from George, "I was absolutely whacke d. the
next night, I really was---God, I think I slept about twelve hours--!"
unlike
To which Pinkie said in a demure way---it was so umaunt-for her that
Pip's mouth fell open---"Come, tome, I can't imagine you getting tired!"
Why not? She hadn't met the chap before.
They all went on to the Melbourne afterwards. And thereras
more champagne. Pinkie and George danced together---she showed him
how to whirl round on the same spot without getting giddy; you kept
your eyes on the other person's eyes! And shegave him such an oh-
you-charming-devil look that Pip nearly fell off his seat. It was a
role he simply couldn't connect her with in any way, it was just too
astonishing for words. He couldn't imagine how a person you had lived
with for four or five years could show a totally new side, unwarned and
unrehearsed in the smallest hint beforehand. Geogreewasn't a 'faun'
after all. He didn't even have what she called 'umph'. Grove had
'umph', but not George. George was pleasant, inconsequential, cheerful--
not the sort of person who interested her


at all!
divine
Aldereote
As if by previous/arrangement Deryk Grysham was also at the
club, in another party onethe other side of the room.
same
He was giggling, fluttering his hands at Pinkie
Pip
and calling out, "Hullo, there!"
he even acknowledged Caanx a with
a radiant smile; ag he danced
R with a EEUttE darkt a E
robust girl who looked about her glumly and didntt seemy to understand Re -
behavisur as little P:p did Pinkic's. He
ATG
was
dearly
much
dazzled by the river-party, that/ was
sat
2ize
clearyo
TTh
comfortably at te long table, sfrrounded for all he knew by. the best
titles I the lando muere
atty-oht-group-who-protabl - cortrd
nou
guita
te had had a few drinks and was in/an abandoned state of
mind himself. He thought he would like to be said hullo to again by
Aldereds
again;
Gryehen and cataty fluttered his hand to him
con
Alderote
the effect was immediate
frgstam fluttered back as if to say, 'Why
Ravefun
can't we always bel together like this?' He felt like making Deryk
Sitel
flutter/
all evening, just for the devil of itfo Gomes
imes
ster
COER nag-wanst-on
CHNNENTRE
hip
danced, too,
with one of the women in the
party, whose face was extraordinarily composed, with a dazzling loveliness,
her skin so soft that it appeared beyond touch, making him feel hushed,


of hispresent life
suddenly, wondering if the noisy dream/would come to an end andcpeace
reality
return.
and A
wasu
He sat gazing across
the table at her, hardly blinking his eyes, not shifting his gaze even
ehen he drank from his glass. i
the unfinishet
towering handeome theck-set-mar-if-he eAmight-findsh-his-gdase
aim-ag-hem dird appeagmbomwant-etg aerd-tche-man-onid. atomhidwastrepsar
kong-pauser esyyoumays -Iwappreciatenthetmyou'remhonestmaboubert
tahgat bbermtham-justrdoisngrioryatikersome-othezabasbendesio-HionHo-gmid-he
Runnocklegmbrotherg ardmbeganbeekting-eranvittemhowmhowhe-harted-mustrot
thewobhepmpeople-atmthewtabilermmopapad--he-repeatedyulind-ikemyouebecause
youdcemhoresbewwmawhen-you-wanrt-rO-TARE-ERe-DOOBe-out-vof-mymoutt-yoursay
sowssosheremitmisp-and-E-bet-yonavengotesgotwthewbleodg-meck-neck-bodnintceamink-ityetoor
nan asrislalomeedshhhewhachg-butwondsgnmékfabihyselwent-hatf@-wayhy-whirch-Raunmockbe
brothersdtdy-scowtinng-art-onewos-thewother-guestewend-sayingy-whey-henevealeh
ne teren
At the end of the evening
Aa dn *
ARA
brere made
Heremwere arrangements/ with George; trr-ment- THmE
he must
come and have dinner at Chaworth Road, Pinkie said. Once or twice
Granvil
owds
aN outsite while they
LPyp addoas tuel Semething la Rar)
were all getting their coat ts on, but she appeared not to hear him. Her
e - os studying
and a anting l6 saem
eyes passed him by, set on a task
but bhirgmyetgmmuohwopge
bhiemeancedte * ut bey whobompactry 86 pbody
hewwas-nothings-jyetwar-bhing-invechobheejmhe-exketted-onky-from bhewoutsidemeor


K vtidg-George.
while she and Liz and
/caf
Ra fall eika ms 2
George SE pranced about among the coats and hats
the
-jure a proptn *e clotes Re Was stounding up in.
When they got back home, as they were going up the stairs in the
darkness, he asked her, "Who was that young man, the one called George?"
"Good God," she replied, "don't you know?" She half-turned in the
darkness, nearly stopping: "That was Viscount Warsdale!" And the anger, hil
tkrongh
pent up all these weeks, suddenly flooded OVeF him - he knew he wouldn't
be able to hold it! Already he'd begun to tremble -- her last look at
him, in the foyer, burned in his memory sofo
a viscount! A viscount! Viscount! How tawdry and cheap! /cap
How bestial! He was silent for a time as they continued up the stairs
to the music-room, but there, before the light had been switched on, he
burst out, shrieking at the top of his voice, beyond himself as he U
thought it was impossible for him to be now, "You HETE
crawling toads! Stew in you own rotten juice instead of dragging other
people into it - you filthy lot
you filthy lot
you filthy lot --!"
He had never yelled at her so much; his voice echoed across the street in
a shriek, s the tears poured down
his face; "You heartless lot,
you heartless lot!" It was like a frightening chant, almost a song!
It appeared to be a complete shock to her; he was aware of her trembling
in the darkness, and there was a gasp as if she'd begun to soblo "What
nip.
are you talking about?" she asked breathlessly. But his strange, shrieked A.p.
chant went on, though he had no sense of choosing his words; and it came
out in bursts, like panted breath, halting and half-croaking like a
frightful cough, "God, if I'd known
kowtowing to people like that
you
bloody toads'
Feti
where's your bloody Aift pride,


'both of you
going down on your arses
to.some tuppeny-halfpenny
with
kid
the manners of the gutter
just because
of some
cheap
must Ge
bloody title
what a foul
couple
of bastards
you
aristocracy
you.people
!" The tears continued to pour down his
face and into his mouth. He was sure, underneath, that she would
accept what he said, noy show anger or offence, because of the sheer
helpless nature of his outburst; he thought she would want to nurse him
in some way and calm him down.
MAA
But
suddenly she leaned forward in the darkness and with a swift, coolly
aimed movement swung her hand-bag, which had a sharp metal edges, into
his face, drawing blood; he put his hand up and lowered his head and was
'at once calm; "It's all right," he said quietly, "I'm sorry."
She stood there quivering, her teeth chattering. And they
continued to stand in the half-darkness, their legs astride. She seemed
to recover and started to move away, and this had the effect of reviving
his anger at once: he imitated her talking to George, bending his body in
a mock-wheedling fashion, "Oh, come, come, I can't imagine you getting
tired!" And he added ina clear voice, as if making a matter-of-fact
announcement of some kind, "You E arse-crawling bitch!" He slammed
out of the room clutching at his mouth and as he walked up the stairs he
heard her cough in a pathetic way as if all the sorrows of life had STE
heaped themselves on her and she couldn't go on any more; he stopped, to
return, but his pride made him go on up to the kitchen where he made
himself two eggs and a rasher of bacon, with a. pot of tea; she was asleep
by the time he returned downstairs. He decided not to drink wine or
beer for a few days to let his blood cool; his mouth swelldd up and Pinkie
made a joke about it. next evening to Hell, saying how jealous he'd been


pors 442.
because she danced with Viscount Warsdale; Hell wanted to know at once
how 'Georgey' was, she hadn't seen him for years; her interest quickened
in the most unusual way. In three or four days he felt he could joke
about it, too; "What's that you keep in your hand-bag," he asked Pinkie,
"a knuckle-dustér or something?"
Grove appeared at the house again, but this time only fora few
minutes, on his way to a party. Again Grand tte was acutely aware of
his benevolence; standing at his side he felt that Pinkie was com;etely
vindicated and right
to choose Grove. Yet he knew that'when alone
again he would fall back to the twisted logic by which she was his
rightful wife. But there was something extraordinarily bright and safe
in Grove's presence which remainéd with him.
He noticed a change in Pinkie: she was more cautious in the way
she talked about other people these days. If he appeared to criticise
someone, say Hell or Cerberus, yhe withheld herself with a demureness
found
he'd never eean in her before; she turned his criticism back on him, as
forher how,
if the spirit of criticism intim was somet thing darkk belonging to the
lo tat time
past /before he became a gay dog. He
Canart
erned-the house
His outburst
was quickly forgotten; he'd
had too much to drink and that was that; it was true, he told himself,
he'd drunk an enormous amount without realising itfo Again Pinkie told.
him, as bhe'd done in Basrah, that he was 'such a sunny person' and that
ligke awag!
it was always a pity to see him bury
An element in her character had waned recently; she was a less
extravagant person. On the surface her extravagance was much greater


than bei fore
he noticed that she wore tight trousers in the evening
and sexy blouses like one of the 'mice', and she no longer seemed nervous
of other people's opinion, she seldom had a shy and lonely expression
now; but this was only a social extravagance; underneath she seemed more
reserved, he could feel her deciding not to say something out of social
policy. But this - new outward extravagance seemed to satisfy her; her old
arrogant way of speech was gone but she was happier. While he thought of
this as Grove's influence on her he couldn't account for it in Grove's
pérsonality; why should her extravagance have gone?
- There was a second much stiffer note from the U.K. Compound in
Basrah asking again for the sum of £11.14.2,. but this time it gave him
a little. twinge of enjoyment
to think that he'd laid down all claims
teir
to peeplets good opinion. He began to wake up in ,the morning with the
kad
feeling that he put his body in pawn the night before, to the public;
on show
yrt
it had been reveated naked and.he didn't know/how much : areNc E
had
shame he E brought on
sometimes he
in the
himselfo
woke_up
/caf
middle of the night with his heart beating fast, a sensè of siennd
regret paralysing him like physical shock; this was shame, he found, at what
he thought he might have said to someone in the evening; he had a vague
had
memory of many conversations; particularly those he SJhad after a few
liguor
glasses of eemeti tring were lost to him in their det tail, and it was here,
seld-
A accusing
in what he couldn't remember, that the chief source of shame and toede ene
conjecture lay; or else he would "remember something he (actually had said,
and it would dart into his mind like a frightful flame, making him sweatfo
It might only be a small remark bmtd-mas but if it had slipped out
without preparation, and particularly if. there had been a silence afterwards,


a lull. in the talk, he felt the encroachment of shame; next morning, or
in the middle of the night, the words would appear before him like a :
lighted signo
rat ast ta
ad er
phoved
est
frm Ke silence
would conclude/that the person he'd been talking to thought him a fool,
and there was no way of retrieving himself from this verdict; it was the
ad erell
verdict/ that he saw held above him like a red neon-sign in the dead of
the night. Thus, he found he was more interested in other people's good
opinion than he'd thought/o
One night this took a graphic form in a dream which haunted him
ereniag.
for days. It was after a gay B
There was' a silver, gleaming,
grotesque object in the sky making a trail of smoke, quite far away, but
in a few moments it'was close overhead, vast and silver, with four engines
that made singularly little noise; it floated nearer and nearer - he was
standing in the centre of a large town
until it suddenly dived down
and crashed in flames;
trem
he jumped into a dark grocery shop for shelter,
pulling two others with him
were these Pinkie and Grove?
and there
A finik ing
they çrouched waiting for all the debris to/fall; then they went out En to
the road again but all they saw was a black gap in the shops and no real
debris, nor flames; and the area was already cordoned off; there was no
great alarm, and one of the people he was with made a joke about it; he
assumed that only the pilot was killed but afterwards he learned that a
hundred or so people had died; yet the street was hardly disturbed. The
sight of the huge floating plane worried him all day: It appeared to him


g45
to be a picture of total calamity which people didn't record in their
faces; life went on without alarm. There was even a certain anger
Ravig feen
against the other people for/ batmg/killed.
Hester, the 'lover', told him that she'd met Clockwork, whose real
name was Barnes, and that Clockwork knew through Hanni 'all there was to
know' about himfo She then recited his own life to him" with artful
had
glances. He da thrown up his job in Basrah because his wife E refused
to go E there with him; d Ei there was 'a skeleton in his cupboard' -
class
he came from a working family; he lived on his wife; he was of rather an
drowsils
'hysterical' nature; he wmsjsod-heartedmtm
which was why he would probably come to nothing in his work;
his life was 'ignominious'; he was in love with a girl. in the Kaaba
dancing company.
Hampton Court-
They were sitting by the river gazing across at à eaatte when
she recited this to. him; and when she asked if it was all. true he said
simply, "Ies"o "Including the dancing girl?" she asked.. He nodded again,
Rip
pouting,
She only smiled. A grudging, careless attitude had
grown over her.
Rad
He waited to be stunned by what she t /said, but felt only a mild
irri tation;. he even felt no resentment against Hanni. He thought of
approaching Dick in the confidential manner. they HE sometimes adopted :
SEEE
"I say, tell old Hanni to watch her tongue, will
you? I mean, I don't mind, but -!" And Dick would be light and clear:
"Of course, I will, old chap!" But he said nothing.
Pinkie said that Hanni was appearing 'at 'nearly every fashionable
party in London' these days; she didn't say with whom, and he didn't offer


her the information Hester NICE had given him, namely that Hanni and
'Clockwork' were so much in love that they were 'like children' together.
But then she probably knew it and was keeping it from him on the grounds
that he might disapprove. e
The following evening, as if she'd heard them talking, Hanni
appeared at the door downstairs in a new coat, looking remarkably radiant
aboet
and calm, with an unusual stillness i her; it wasn't' the quietness of
withdrawal but deeper;
ked
her face was cool and smooth;
ad she appeared bangg me more erecta m
- wat
- hers
rtte He found he had a nostalgia for her and Dick as
friends and asked her where Dick was; oh, he wouldn't be coming round
that evening! She told him.he looked tired and must sleep more; Pinkie
treated her with deference like a special guest, and he heard her closing
the door downstairs against possible visitors.
When Hanni had gone Pinkie told him that Dick had 'broken down'
the flat
on the subject of Joe Clockwork; Hanni had stayed away from tamphe CH
for three or four nights running, and he'd got 'absolutely desparate'o
been mahere
nov kerd
had
She "/never
HatTims
really forgiven him for the pale girl,/when he'd come in 'reeking of
Ared!
tkat nighe
acd above all for making an 'Exhibition'/in front of Pinkie and
PES
She was especially sensitive about her dignity as far as he, Pip, was
concerned, Pinkie said.
was an
Joe Clockwork had-beenan 'exciting proposition'; here was a boy,.
virtually, with a genuinely queer streak who needed a nurse, and she had
obliged, overlooking the fact that she might fall in love with him, which


ta 447
wad
she did do, or at least shéce-aderme infatuated; she told Pinkie there
was something worcopttweady 'sad and ancient' in Clockwork which she
hadn't suspected at all, and that she had spent hours simply gazing into
his face and lying on a bed. with him, doing nothing; she said the silence
would 'seem. to be going along', there wouldn't be the sense of a-marTons
B not doing,anything, as there was with Dick; it was a 'great rest'
for hero M N a
ner
rae LL si
a CImE Pinkie said Hanni
Dick
was as tickled as a kitten that she'd 'brought #m low' at last.
ME Dick had
hip,
Pock
te flat,
managed to get her down to Hampt ad Gomt where he told her that she must
promide
never/ sleep with another man again; he hid his face in her lap and said
proken MLAE that he couldn't reason about it, he knew a
ekrew it didn't fit in with the rest of his life or
with what he believed a a
es but if she touched
would
another man he a go Eg a a divorce her at once; and before looking up
he asked her, "Will you take that as final?" There was silence and Dick
repeated the question, still not looking up, and at last Hanni said, "Yes."
Grame
imagined her looking calm and proud like a goddess when she said
Pitan
this; and with this unearthly calm round her she had come over to see
Settfad logalker cec te flae,
them; she and Dick were now SE + tntiompton-écmnts and all further
meetings with Clockwork were to be ones of friendship.
Gramte found more and more that the idea of Pinkie sleeping
wit th Grove. gave him a sharp sexual excitement; the pain was an element in
the alchemy, its base metal; and he' found that this surpassed his old


desire
'lover!
for her. It overwhelmed his relation with
in kim
The anger threatened to rise/now and then, he often wanted to hit N
but it was never more than a passing twitch in his fingers, and he always
checked himself in the interests of this new grim passion. He hid the
had
photographs he/found of her and would glance at them secretly, whenever
he wished to arouse his passion; he was astonished at what desire there
and
was in him; to it seemed inexhaustiblei/it was less and less possible
to satisfy it; Pinkie bngan-ta-monds
told Hanni that
he was 'Herculean'. For her as well the new quiet, oblique sex was
satisfactory; EE she told him suddenly one evening when they were on
their way out to the cafe that she could happily go on with this life for
ever; when she came in late these days she always took a bath, and again
he thought he smelt sperm on. the towel she used; that, too, was a matter
of quick, painful excitement; it was a marvellous liberation from the
suffocating part of sex; it was BS free, and no loyalties, much less
moral speeches, were requiredfo Pinkie had to suppress her anger, too;
nip,
she started up whenever Joy Celeste was mentioned; he watched her doing
the same as himself; her eyes flared up, then her face grew set and
deliberate. They even began confiding in each other about their' love-
making. This was momentous, and happened quite by accident. Hemmutenty
ahese-thingez
- ot- now
she began telling him about the approaches /cap
had
the 'young man with the ear-ring' had made to her, when she i called on
Rat had
lod
him. He remembered how relieved E/been that
to the house
she/returned
early kat evening,
Row
and thet she had joked with Dick about it; but now he
regretted that she hadn't more to tell. As Pinkie said, "You want your
bread buttered on both sides!"


Ale 449
Grove wasn't mentioned directly; he had the': impression that this
was sacred for her, and above all other pleasures; he appreciated her
character in this. Their talk was an exciting preliminary to love.
*air utimata
It freed. them from the shadows of te past, from the aching void of
So little;
belonging exclusively to each other when they shared noth
it. dwis
established ezct
them
an as separate people with interesting lives of their own; it
filled the lack of a rock of trust; unsern
the swirling waters trunk
Hrmgh,
love nuucd
they plunged into themjo They e
= more.
No hot feelings were involved. - They kept their distance M
as part of the pleasureo
who
They were like two strangers, but
took
surprising liberties with each othero taed
a a
fantt
TELE she began to need him sexually, a
Eind /cap
of h Sreight sex uith Grme.
Apart from that he would spend whole afternoons listening to the
Creole Shake over and over again, with a glass in his hand. Ho-wont-ta
coneert
Germen-Reguiemyis
à P rat-movement- car * ng or
nase emhednt sensetionge 6f--fhoating-awe -qui-be--beyont
406t imbo-death E omthemborderswof-multity srising-eard-fatliead-fatl-ing
masicmaeydfe ash@waswbpeegaaliftedmurprbodilysandsthenmtoweredwegateredwagetmy
achstemenvittstess-end-lesewbodymnsonthat-the-akysicatmeerenfermermand-rearery
endzherwweg-admostrreceived-intositrmbathed-in-melodiessend-sund-stnieedowmeand
sempyheswae-Cushedysendastumbleds-barck-homeaafterweardegathener nowswremed
two-parte-ofshimseifr the-musiczwasnttHabsorbed-intorhts: feg eonky
arde himefhoat-patwardsyeitodidn'trenterrhis-fheshy-changing-himgea irt
atwaysshadehadrbeforezitrtoulan't -get-throagh-boshifs-mumbedwandzperatysed


g50
expedtencomoretepabebionyenotmto-consultmotheremenabeforexthe-tbruth.
Thartwiey-to-live-with-God-tnrmindel
wrobemeb-elt-out-habercinethewforformof-atettersto-Nevinsony
akt-peopleyhe-wonderedeif-Tre-wara-s-going-cuckoombut-went-on-wirthett.
Homtegsconhissmdeskmfformsome-timewend-he-everput-it-in-arrenvelopeyethem
somthnewpit bwawagarmosertle-wasmsurprised-how-much-hewthoughtzabout-Nevinson?
Kondogsrsbhoughwheshadnit-metshimemoxelieswvas-ewerewof-Wevinson-gutching
over-his-liferand-calling-toxhim-likearfatherrm Andwapperently-herthought
bbemouid
ticates a TIS Tcact 2 r4 a ir
There was a reply from Mohammed, quite cheerful, asking when he
was coming back and assuming that his leave had been prolonged once again;
Py's
as for srAne dets 'Help me!' - letter it seemed to have passed unnoticed,
for which he wasn't sorry.
COrC
lahammed ta
ao ne OUR - C ot H H sthugahike
clearly
There was/ no news at the Basrah office
about his having offered his resignation. That was odd.
Joyce the pale girl gave a party at her basement-flat to which
everyone they knew was invited, except for the 'weeds'; the whole Kaaba
dancing company was there. Dick had evidently told Joyce about her
fascinating pallor; she was dressed in next to nothing
bare arms,
bare shoulders, ard her skirt WSS so tight she could hardly walk., It was
like old times: Dick and Hanni were there, dancing separately; Pinkie
came, though she went off early; there was the old excited sense, between
the four of them, of laying themselves bare to each other as they didn't
in a guick chat, a. >Rased glance acmid te roem while othar
otherwise, and hor
ari
heople akislad mvnd tom.
nents Larry Vice got
drunk and wedged himself in between the wall and a divan bed, and fell


Pip
asleep. Sransitde and the pale girl. discovered a sympathy for each
other, due partly to their common friendship with Dick, and they danced:
tagather several times in sucçession; Dick was applying himself to a girl
in the Kaaba company but came over to him when he was alone for a moment
and said in a low voice, smiling, "Listen, old sport, I can see the danger-
signal! Do you know what I mean?" Granville shook. his head and they
looked into.each other's eyes with the perfect openness they only had at
parties; Dick went on to say aas M ought to 'make up his mind' whe ther
he wanted 'Joy or Joyce or who'; he didn't mind what the verdict was as
long as hé knew; it was only in: the interests of their not getting their
'wires crossed'; he only wanted to know; and there was a look of real
Pip
objective curiosity in his eyes; but Granite couldn't tell him anything,
only shruggea his shoulders and smilef back.
As ifDick had planted a suggestion in his mind he found himself
with the pale giri again, talking to her confidentially, mostly about Dick:
together they watched him on the other side of the room with his dainty,
smiling Moroccan girl, and laughed when he made a characteristic little
gesture like taking the girl's glass to re-fill it and giving her a
twinkling smile at the same time; and they watched him when he danced,
his cheek pressed hard against her's. = ntmacy
wowan *
Dick had certainly changed hero
Ihip
WeEnE
She was now tremulously aware of herself, and kept glancing down
TIC slwmamat her
S a E E bosom; and her pallor seemed even
naw,
more of a veil, K soft and yet impenetrable; METTETOTE also Dick had
given her a style of intimate speech; she asked Granville all sorts of
questions;
tzee d
B nar would he ever go back


Tae 452
to the Middle East? what were the women like out there? did he think she
was too tall for a woman? She gazed before her all the time, still and
hot lang ago Roal
reflective; this was the girl who a à sat over love-magazines in the music-.
room for two or three hours of an evening, saying not a wordfo He wondered
at Dick's patience.
Pinkie came bothe-panty in a flowing, black gown;smtberalitke
e - oR a a Det tE aa A tan erma Meedham this was to hide her stomach
mostly; she had a few drinks and danced twice with Dick, then left again,
saying she felt tired.
Larry Vice woke up for a moment, surprised to find himself in
ewenghody
such a tight position, and said, blinking up at the - a
"How do
you people manage to sleep standing up?", and then went off again.
Pitp
GEE a R are heard the hair-girl on the other side of the room, in the half-
darkness, cry, "Oh, no, you don't, not with my dad around!" amd-anyboay
H M
then she made her clapping laugh.
He noticed Alice the snake-girl sitting in a corner, quiet as
always, like a dark, round-cheeked boy with her thick legs pushed ant in
front of her; justahe
Maaqurtsp-wit-Dick she
smiled a charming good-evening to him TE n re-wasctrkirng tmmoycE and
later he went over and sat at her side on the floor, enjoying the casual
virtial strangats.
sideways
intimacy that joined him exergomes She glanced dow at him and said,
toj*
"Your wife's- having a good time, I see." He nodded, looking round
involuntarily for Pinkie, but she'd gone; then he remembered that for
Alice the snake-girl Hanni was his wife/o At that moment Hanni was
dancing quite near them, laughing and kicking up her legs, with one of
the men from the Kaaba company.
He was about to explain that she wasn't his wife at all when


Alice said, "You wouldn't think he was in trouble to look at him, would
"Who?" Granville asked.
She nodded towards Dick, who was dancing on the other gide of
the room.
"What trouble do you mean?" he asked.
"Wife-trouble!"
There was a pause and Granville asked, "Does he have wife-trouble?"
"Well, you ought to know," she murmured, turning to him with a
smile, reminding him of Kit for a moment with her tom-boyish manner,
"you're his best friend, aren't you?"
"Yes," he said; and he repeated his question, saying he hadn't
heard of any wife-trouble'; to which she replied, "Oh, well, perhaps I'd
better keep my trap shut!"
But later she told him; rêter-hentd-saird at ae
he-ought
HONmRSEtends Dick's wife was sleeping with the Kaaba company's
publicity man; Granville said quickly, "Grove?", a distant form of the
old panic starting in him, a shadow; "Yes," she said.
"Who is?" he asked, not choosing his words properly.
"What do you mean?" she.said, again looking down him.
deunrat
"Who's sleeping with Grove?"
"Dick's wife!"
"Good Lord!" - Hè had the impulse to run home and tell Pinkie;
it was nearly amusing/o But he continued to give her his attention, quite
still, where he was sitting.


"Yes," she went on, "you wouldn't think it from the way he comes
to the Marquis and talks to Grove as easy as anything, would you?"
She then told him that Dick had thrown up his job 'in Basrah I to
see her 'through the baby'. Granville's excitement turned into the
familiar sexual one, pained and fascinated, as he recognised that for
'Dick's wife' he had to read Pinkie! He was surprised how little this
girl knew Dick; and he had assumed some intimacy between them; fhon-the
begimingg he asked her, what had Dick told her about his life? Nothing,
really: they just 'sat together'. Dick had tried to kiss her once but
hod
had
she aal turned Sidney the snake on to him, and he A thought it was poisonous
and jumped'on a table with a green expression and said to her, "Now look
here, sweet, cobras can be dangerous
we've got laws in this country",
drawing his trousers up like a skirt. After that they became friends,
and she agreed to 'sit with him' if he wanted to. She'd got 'all the
dope I : about him from the head of the dancing troupe who lived in the same
house as Grove and heard him and Dick's wife 'roaring and slapping' each
other upstairs in one of the bedrooms.
Alice began laughing: "It's a scream the way he talks about them
two! He ' says, Boy, sometimes I want to go upstairs and join in, it
sounds so good! He says you hear smacks and kisses and yells and then
the bed gives a clang like the, gong in a boxing match! When things start
moving. upstairs round about half-past six in the evening he says to his
wife, 'Well, here we go, luscious, seconds out of the ring!' and then it
starts! Sometimes there's.a knockout in the first round, he says, and
and ono 2 tem
sometimes they go on for three hours/om-morezand wins/on points. Friday


nights are the nights, he says! Sometimes you hear 'em shout, "You're
driving me mad!" or 'It's terrific!" ahich makes this dancer and his wife
just double up!"
At the end of this Alice gazed before her, stretching her legs
out and yawning, and added, "To cap it all the baby she's going to have is
This stunned him so much that at first he only smiled and nodded,
refusing to absorb the words; he got her to repeat it, and she said the
same words again. She added, "I don't like that sort of behaviour.
Somebody ought to tell him. Look at him dancing over there!"
And at that moment Dick gazed across the room at Hanni while he
was dancing and gave her a pleasant little smile, his cheek ytill close
to the Moroccan girl's. Araneilhe-ghance-ghancad
oH a crace Wickedreses His teeth began to
chatter, and he took another drink swiftly; he was in a delirious state
at Har moment
not unlike joy. The pale. girl passedjand smiled down at him.
called'
Alice also said that Grove/ G-atway
bout
houde.
living-in Chaworth Roadk RdEE
the 'filthiest sink' in London,
Harai'(maaning Pinkie).
ând thathe feared it was slowly corrupting her
needed
sympathy zother-peopte
ser e
abont themoruci-fisionzgncerminsthe.
chen
nds
mademh: A
herzni nEpries
ewas- thewnob
ver.
ske
He could hardly control the chattering of his teeth and AER
asked him if he was cold. She went on to say, about 'Dick', that you
wouldn't think he was a 'violent' sort of person to look at him, but


to 456
according to Grove he was: he kept his wife indoors forcibly and te quite
often beat her up; worst of all, he was unable to excite her passionsfo
Alice said she had only realised how true this probably was when she'd
seen him dancing on that table pulling his trousers up in such an unmanly
way, because of a harmless snakelo
How 'Dick' managed to get his girls was difficult to imagine, she
said, because his touch - according to Grove
was 'the kiss of death'
to his own wifelo Grove bad said of 'Dick' that he was a 'nice enough.
person' but Pinkie/needed somebody with more love in their hearts, who
went out to people more, and could give her the - full life' she was yearning
'Hannt'
for.. And Grove had offered/Einkie) a 'money-back guarantee', as he had
called it, that within a year or two she would be completely free of her
'mania - that she wasn't 'wanted'; he would 'open society' for her.
Grameere pulled ' the snake-girl to her feet and made her dance
with him, which she did awkwardly, saying to him when he swung her round
fast, "Hey, do you want a snake-bite, too?" He was surprised how calm
hein
anly a moment age
his fact felt; his heart had beat fast) before/but now he was cool; a
great coldness began to come over him, making him shiver. People were
dancing drowsily now. At the end of the tune he let her go absently,
hardly aware of dropping her hand. He stood in the middle of the room
for a time, absent to everything.
He strolled into the basement-area of the house, alone, as dawn
came up, IE
adowmbe
ind-the 0018
the liglr coming
as if
Outsideit was quite still, ererything) /like dust, emst-mer-settiked for ever,
A a
/caf
So tat kkerc umldnever right gatn
FEro surprse he found Dick leaning against the
/cafp
a V "looking up at the sky, alone; Dick turned slowly as if expecting
him and murmured, "Hullo, there, old sport."


Pip
GEF
asked him at once, "Did you know Pinkie's baby wasn 't
There was a pause and Dick replied quietly, "Yes, of course I did."
"Why didn't you tell me then?"
"ETITAV L88compltvatbtonsym -Papp-ebpsciask
mant erswcongugal A
confidentialcboice; "You know you're a boob. You Inip
ought to have got out long ago, as I tried to tell you," ke Said.
Pip.
Aramiite nodded.
Dick went on, "Never mind: You know now."
Bick-staped - - tth-doyce-aret he walked home alone. The dawn was Jcopfrip
grey with heavy clouds and the first buses were starting; now and then
still
a sleepy person walked by, his steps enclosed in the get hush that/lay
over
B the streets. He took a bath, uhenahes - ace so numbed in his senses
that it was like gipping someone else's flesh into the water; he hardly
had the strength to lift himself out, ad yet he couldn't think of sleeping. Icap
He wanted to goonpan make himself a cup of tea but the desire died
suddenly; he didn't want to see Pinkie.
ogain, 'Make uf your mind- it Joyce av
In the evening Dick told himx Msraysaathe-Whole-maghtpcandashe A
Moblonlaf ?' He said
avewm ANCH meggs > cand-astovely-rashersot-bacon-inthewmormingat corepeatsd
Rps
thatzGranviltezought makecupshimcmindy he could see his faxcination for
aad
Joyce 'growing fast', A #e added, "You can't have your cake and eat it,
you know!" To which Granville said with a limp smile, "Your cake, you hip.
mean." "Yes, but you can have it if you like," Dick said, and agat his
utterly
eyes were perfectly clear, 1 - + and devoid of possessivenessio He
then-went m C
there was nothing better than' sleeping with a 'new'
> Dicke
Icaf
wonton;
kkat merning
woman;k that breakfast with Joyce) had beahrescEny FEE BBTCEE
made him
think of Homer and B a . 'rosy-fingered dawns'. He said that the first


porrys?
four pleasures in his life were, in the following order: sleeping with a
woman for the first time, fatthough oue-caL ctoome-accropper-thers-cert
his wig-;
banthypnsometimes sleeping with Hammt TEAT mning-byzhertsomeonezonesof-long
EtEnge walking alone in a big city at dawn; and, last, ammfonthy
friendship.
e tOoTF chrewmtlent themideasthatsifsyouswererlrealtyareen
mneammarriedewomar-you-shouadnttzconsidercthezhusbandactozthe-pointrof
streringathemTOOLsROLSROL-Iover
Grasvilse was disappointed that friendship should come so low; i
had
but he felt close to Dick as he a I never done before, perhaps
because everything else was finished for him. He was happy with Dick.
He felt he was fit for Dick only when he was free, like this.
He tried to go on with the same life but couldrno longer break
his face into a smile; he-went-with-peoples ike-a-ghose-and he gave up
Dick's flat
phoning thewether Hester; they met a last time at Hemptor-Court --- and
tealising
adter he involuntarily drew back from her, .not kmowing what he was doing,
vith otker Hougels in Ris Read,
aPaES ttnkingo F 3 DU -
she snapped at him, "Oh, go to
hell!" He was S. alykaced tLakat fine ko tought she meont the person Hell.
The money ran out altogether and he had an hour's pale, disjointed
conversation with Pinkie about it; she didn't seem to be blaming him for
in any way; he avoided her eyes these days, and she, following suit as
she usually did, avoided hig
As for the child, silence
had been BO customary between them in the old days that it was easy to
revive. But their new form of sex persisted: it even flourished on the Imp.
increased reserve between them. For the first time their love was safely
beyond affection and words of endearment. It gave him a burning desire
even stronger than before; he was now taking not only a stranger but an


enemy..
They decided to ask Maimbury for a loan; he was to do the asking,
by phone; there was Maimbury's cool voice at the other end asking "Who?
Who did you say it was?" He asked for twenty-five pounds and Maimbury
agreed without hesitation, as cool as before. He went to collect it the
same afternoon and was ushered into the office by one of the clerks; for
some seconds Maimbury didn't look up but continued writing something on
the side of a typewritten sheet in a slow hand, in the silence of the room;
then he looked up, his eyes calm and soft, and murmured,quietly, "Well,
hullo, Philip." And he stood up to shake hands; the twenty-five pounds
were brought in and countedo amd-xhenmitonas-dome-Mactmburytsmanmer:
peceme
askedt Sie
ROTEES On the way back he passed T.I.M. and saw a messenger hasten
inside; the entrance was bleak and inanimately hostile to him, RoaEand
and he crossed over the road to avoid being recognised by the
commissionarie. He was still wearing his tropical jacket; it had turned
a bit yellow, perhaps from constant. smoky atmospheres, ahd the weather was
decidedly chilly for it. These days he ate little and sat staring
before him. Sometimes he told himself that a mistake had been made -
how could people know for sure who the father was? But he'd finished
wit th that sort of reasoning.
had
He slept with Joyce, more or less because he a/been asked not to
with
in such an inviting way. Sharing the Bane fascinating pale secret SBL
Dick was a pleasure, although, still, his own flesh was separate from him,
and her softness was lost on him really. Once he and Dick met on her
doorstep and burst out laughing; they didn't ring the bell but went off
to a pub and then stayed together all evening to make sure that the other


Kac4bo.
la Rer,
didn't go back/ It made their sense of intimacy even stronger. Joyce
told them both - separately a that she'd never heard two men talk
so admiringly of each other; she gave the impression that they were two
aspects of the same being for her, and a perfect complement to each
other. There wasn't a trace of disloyalty in her eyes when the three of
them were together; he and Dick agreed that this was flattering to them; it maank
they were 'sound'4 peopls.
One afternoon he made the decision to get out; it was the effect
of meeting a friend of Hell's called Tim, whom Cerberus brought round to
the house. He had a round face with rather staring eyes and his lips
were strangely full and crimson; he was impeccably dressed, with a rolled
umbrella, and spoke carefully, his vowels as rounded as his lips. Ama
Pip.
he began asking Granvihle questions/ one after the other: hetd-heard
lcop
tronitalt
oue V Reeks-agajmh hisenameswas-GranrtEE wastrettz
He believed he worked in the Middle East? That must be very interesting?
Didn't one's nerves get edgy out there
so he had heard? How
long
would he be in England? Would the situation in the Middle East blow up
/lic
again, did he think? He must know a great deal about the 'Arab
psychology'?
had
His tone gave Graneate too much importance; since they a /never
met Borer it sounded insinuating, with an edge of contempt. He spoke
with a slow gravity. His lips, bright and moist, were set in a kind of
pontifical deliberation, which also seemed on the edge of mockery; and
yet when he smiled his eyes were honest and clear. His cheeks were
Piyp
plump; and his round lips suggested to GERTLEEEE a riotous appetite which
his manner covered up; also he spoke unctiously and softly. Gomrre


felt more and more distressed and was aee convinced that in the
strangest way he was causing the young man to behave like this, and that
at any other time he would have looked quite different to him, and spoken
quite differentlylo He answered as casually as possible, careful not to
give a. sign that he condoned the tone of importance; he tried to throw
the questions back : did the young man live in this district? did he
often come here? But they rebounded in his face, and he found himself
answering the same questions himself; also he noticed that his own voice
had a hollow, official sound. Tim suggested a walk, his eyebrows raised
a little as if to ask for the privilege of his company
could he spare
the time? And he agreed like a hypnotised animal; they strolled through
the City and the questions went onfo He felt pale and too hot, and
ungainly in his stride. He tried to talk.about Kurdistan and the Alpine-
like flowers in the mountains there, but his words faltered and he
couldn't get the hollow sound out of his voice. Some sort of strange
pressure was being exercised by the young man, he felt; and he noticed
Tim's rolled black umbrella again as if he hadn't seen it properly before.
It was tap-tapping on the pavement; and also he had a black suit, buttoned
fully at the front. What did he do for a living? He tried to find out,
deviously, but couldn't form the slightest impression. Every question
lers he found oulc
rebounded on him. The more he talked, the more Te made FOC
He went on talking out of nervousness.
dese-camie-to-nis-Head
Said.
"Turkistan's just like Scotland!" he ert Er
EE VECE E omdedEDEtTIT
me EE The air was heavy wi th emptiness. The emptiness ta crept
AAL
into him, covering the whole of the City as well like aat invisible
enslronding
blanket Euddenty Ecoming-dodowOKeE the banks and offices and narrow streets.
Rad
Tim was silent now. He "/pillaged Granville's soul -- - and the verdict


Pyp
'was silence! Granvitle wanted to get away. As he turned to announce
that he must be off he was assailed by a dreadful sense of waste; he
remembered it acutely from two years before; it was a sense of having
time on, his hands and no obligation or place in the world, and of being
acknowledged for nothing by other people. His clothes felt drab, his
body seemed to have shrunk into something like dust, on the verge of
becoming pure air; he was nothing for the other man; he knew it!
"Well -" he began; he wanted to turn tail and run off. #
NawEst
cants
ae a ad ser onemot
Grenyillessaides out-apparently-wirthout-his-ownwvoicer-and,
Asbhout-thenowbeing-an-ideawinwhiswheadr-much-lesswa-picturewofywhat-he
was-tablcingeaboutm- sthatahewhadnestwddked-that-onery ThereswaGwaidilence.
Tim-then-entdmthabwgsmithemson-of-pedsants-mwwche-pauisedmagain--mwtand
mothot-decayedenotsittylmwcrand-héreshe-gave-drapttitere-tong-meansos
molacewehewbiked-themptays"at-the-Studio-theatre but-herunderstpodwhow
the-lenguage-and-somewof-thedideerst-would-be- toomstrong-forwsome-peopleds
mes
be-medewamfadtering pay andellimaconsidered-thatwhelkd-wisthered
At last Granville managed to get away; he almost ran back to the
Hare
house, his eyes lowered from passers-by; when he got back he went straight
to the bathroom and took a hot bath; -n he changed into clean underwear
Seemad k Rave
and a clean shirt; the last piece of identity hadj been wrested from himfo .
He had no self! Therefore what did it matter where he transported it?
He resolved to get his job back, if that was possible. He
phoned Dick at once and his answer was, "Good, Pip. I think that's wise.
Would you like me to go along to the old cove now?" "Yes." And a
meeting with Nevinson was arranged.


in fack
He found out from Hanni that/Dick had saved the situation for
had
him weeks agofo He /gone to Nevinson and told him not to take the
letter of resignation too seriously - Granville was having 'family-
trouble'o iot e s A hec
set
Raew-HB, it was a
shesaid
secreti (but she'd let Pinkie into the secret)
aemd E condif finitout notaing about - - the-Basra COAICEL a DECR
A pes
jos carck
CE a e
aough-
:Ah A -
Nevinson was just as he imagined him: tall and rugged, with bushy
eyebrows. His hair was Blagheg tussled like a boy's; Cr a M at
first he was confidential, very much man-to-man.
"Well, I've been hearing all about you"; he smiled boyishly and
went on, "As you probably know, I'm new to this outfit -- - and not liking
the desk-work at all!"
Pip
h p
RexemhersntledgranduGranyanduGranvtle murmured something sympathetic.
Nevinson shifted a. paper on his desk. "Well, as far as I can
see you've been doing a first-class job of work out there
first class!"
"Thank you.' #
Apauser
omebody-whos ze
pres
a -meantwby-thiswmixing-wisth-Arab-peoplerm emsaidethatmid
engthing tblewaup' fin-bhe-Middle- East they-wanted-to-geemit-didrehtryltybhow
ander MT-I-Mg -as-weldy-and-that-meant-keeping-péopletg-eympethye
btoh-couldnatt-be-done-bystreating-them ke-*skivviestq-Granville-had
gobwout-amorg-peopte-and-hadnetmaparkedl a himself-inmthemlfoyermof-the
Britbesh-Enbassydewatting-formthewnextedinner-invitation.lakeesomepeoplessomempeoples


apleasedg stuldyapleasedk
AhTES pause. The office was very quiet; its windows gave
out on. to a narrow courtyard, with other lighted offices on the opposite
side. A persian carpet covered Hesay the diore floor, and a tall lamp
with tassles exactly like thé one Granville had had in his own office
stood behind Nevinson's chair, giving the room the same cosy and glowing
look. Nevinson blinked. It was coming now. He pulled out a file.
"Now about this report of yours, we've had quite a lot of
discussion about it - f1 He scratched his head - "Well, we found it
Schetpy
a bit aghstown if you see what I mean! Mind you - 11 He looked up,
his eyebrows raised. "I think it's awfully good myself. But what we
want out of these yearly reports is facts. I mean, we can 't go blazing
off into politics and religion, can we
not on the office-level?"
Pip
And he showed Graville a page of his report; "Look at this", and he
1 'TRe deserl is 4 shad ow, a dinrne presence:
pointed to the words, Themmiddiesclass: satheminstrumentrotaChrista
"We can't have that, can we?"
"No, quitel" said Granvillé.
"I expect you know we've decided on a policy of expansion, I8
Nevinson went on.
"No," GanviEEe replied.
"Well, what we thought we might do is to put the Basrah 'office in
the care of Beirut for the time being, so we sent our Beirut chap over
there - he's new,,awfully nice, a chap called Blair!"
"Oh!" He felt: giddy for a moment but managed to smile, REE
"It.isn't very sensible'geographically, of course, but it'll have
to do until we gét the Middle. East working as one unit."
"This means he's sitting at my desk, does it?" MCAEKBLE E c


rtre 465
Nevinson looked down and murmured, "Well, old chap, you did let
the job go, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course, I realise I'm lucky enough to get a job at all.
I just wanted to find out. This means somebody else is working over me, 9
doesn't it? In the same office?"
"For the time being, yes. Your pay'll be the same, you needn 't
worry about that."
Granville flushed with indignation.. "But I can't see why I'm
being offered the job at all!"
"It's perfectly clear, old chap, " Nevinson said, "we need you out
thereft But not as tadly as ael kat""
Granville wondered at himself: forget Eing-ntsgunt, he'd got his
job back, what more did he want?
"This Blair-chap", Nevinson went on, "has been on the Middle East
circuit for years with another company and we were frtghthnty lucky to
get him. He's just what we need to pull the whole outfit together."
"After all," Nevinson added after a pause, "we can't risk you
going off the rails again, can we?"
It was that or nothing; so he nodded. There was one change:
no travel-allowance and no 'swindle-sheet'; in effect, his pay had been
reducedlo And he would have to ask permission to leave Basrah at any
time; the old jaunts to Kirkuk and Mosul, to the 'Alp-like hills' of
Kurdistan were finished/o
Nevinson saw him to the door with a friendly, "Good bye, old
chap." Then he added quietly, "You know, I'm very sorry about this.
If you'd come to me a couple of months ago and asked for the Beirut office
we'd have given it to gou like a shot. But then this happened!" And his


last words were, "I dontt suppose you've had a very pleasant time but if
you pull your weight things'll be all right."
He went straight from the office to a travel-bureau and booked a
passage from Naples to Beirut; hecvoutdneanmnstar A enoa ca timenwhe
neededstombesadonepad he needed a sea voyage to bring his health round.
How would he face Mohammed nowa as 'Mr. Blair's assistant'? TAO
atmesphere-wouldabe-gone S an Heldabentied-towawdesk-with-fixedmhours.
Mohammed-woudd-see-thet-he-was-a-subordinate-nowg-hia-stature-would-be-gonek
Théwevenings-by-the-riverswouldn'tzbe-free"any-morerwoaWhatzawfoolshed
beentcerAnd-he-could-have-had-the=Beirutwofficedwo-8o-much-for-Dickts
advices In his mind he' began to blame Dick for the whole course. of évents,
Dick had
kim
telling. himself that if S-BeeR
slightest
that
Ial
given /the
idea
he could
get the Beirut office for the asking he would never havehung on in London
like that, only Dick had discouraged his initiative; but this was little
comfort, and he didn't believe it.
"he-question-that
CG : a a
a U d hat katy
Where wasmitsmeffede? Way-hadret
hes triumphe Whyswasn e aware D Emovir à
am and
GHanging-him
thought. hat perhapszi might, bexall lmrightrin-Basrahpeven-now,
afyhewcoukd-manage-tonke-toskeep-acertainestillnessmmm-He-shouldmtryeto-keeps
baforeshismansimngesofshimsehfeadeomantd-and-therefonf-assundeserwindiuif,
hewdid-thisradspark-mightwreturreturnmtowhimgofrom-ousidey-he-must-golabout
hiswork-withouteworrying-wnat-othermpeoplewthought-ofshimy-forsinstance,
-must Hoven-bry-tomenjoy-losing-stature-in-Mofiammedloseyesi-isfehemdidugon
he-youkdnat-dosemstaturér-perhapsjmnothing-couildmhurtwsilencemhfwhesképt
toxistyeonaylepnidemwesstheweasiest-thingetokhurtj-heemust-phet-himetwhimeelfnfaikde


dox 46 7
He said nothing about the interview to Pinkie. It seemed she'd
forgotten he was to have it. A few days later when his boat ticket
arrived she murmured vaguely, "I suppose I'll be joining you in a few
months, won't I?" He nodded glumly and they said no more. Grove
came over again. He was once more struck by his friendly confidence,
and felt revived; the events of the last few weeks, including the
question of the child, seemed unimportant. A party gathered inthe
music-room that evening. Grove talked most of the time, making everyone
laugh. While he talked, rattling away without the slightest embarrass-
ment, Pip asked himself, why should he leave? why not be a subordinate
here, if he was to be one anyway? But his thoughts went round in a
sickening way, gone almost the moment they entered his head.
He found that Grove conducted a kind of human publicity services
he brought peopl e together and talked admiringly about nearly everyone..
But he never stayed long. He brought someone to the house and then left,
as if he had many more missions to fulfil. Therefore he brought warmth
and left a chill, in an enigmatic combination which had to do with his
strange deeper self, that was always hidden, all the more for his quick
repartee and cleverly transparent boasting. Grove knew---seemed to-
that he was hurting Granville's life; but he did it like someone passing
on a burden which he had carried EE too longs though hegave no sign
of the burden in his eyes, or anywhere. He was hurt, somewhere: and he
was frailly passing on the hurt, without malice, and with no real hope ofr
getting rid of it for good.
Grove made easy capital out of winning a beautiful young wife from a
sunny young husband: yet it wasn't any more than the petty capital he made
all day, out of the smallest event, half joking, building up his little
reputation all over again, like a laughing mole. Something made him
try to build a stout little nest for himself wherever he was, as if


from his natal hesle
he had been dislodged/every early in life Hand was always trying to
get back, woffing himself round with intimacy, in talk and jokes and
disarming boasts and promises. He did it a thousand times a day, this
nest-building. Perhaps he had no other way of surviving. It wasn't a
good way to survive, building a thousand nests a day, with everybody
under the sun, in a dozen houses, at a dozen café-tables: you only
needed one. So Pip didn't resent capital being made out of him---there
this
was also something nice about te fairy-tale conquest that Grove hinted'
tat >tory:
at to other people. For: some hidden reason he needed) # it seemedi to
Aud
bring him an important mystical gain. As Pibwas learning to do without
Was
reputation he could gillingly let his go cheapo -
this was what hip.
hadshmys weighed Grove down, bringing a strained look into his eyes,
suddenly thoughtful and tortured with regret; tre te
a burning need for reputation. Pip didn't need repatation for the kind
of nest he wanted to build.
He went down to Abbott's Road to say good bye. They knew nothing
about his having resigned, and he left it vague; his mother divined
that something bad had happened but said nothing.. She only asked
quietly, "Is Pinkie going back with you?" From his panic-stricken
glance she knew everything. His father was gracious as always, a
little formal, gazing with narrow eyes into the garden. The table
was laid with cheese and lettuce and celery, and the tea-pot stood under
a cosy in the scullery as it always had in his childhood.


ead-cherkepttugndeningsoftasHeNKIs6edshis-mother-boodisbyerard"ShodB
BmdtrongtysdthEntsIaCherhe-HOTELGE-L8B6aBt tumbled-out 6N0f-the-Rous6
mes-is-mobhen/stegesson-his
His boat was to leave Naples a day later than he'd been told, so
he stayed a day more in London; in the morning, when nobody else was
there, the phone rang and he heard Grove's voice at the other end saying,
"Pinkie? Pinkie?"
full of eand expectation and relietfo He put
the phone back as quietly as he could, without answering it. He even
felt the flicker of a smile on his face, as if it wasn't his own face.
And the trembling never left him for a moment, it was like a permanent
bodily condition.
thinking Hak Re had
Grove came over that evening, alone, Maving-medeatherer e A enere
alsendy legc. He
Groze played the piano and sang
while Pinkie swept out the music-room; neanwhile Grenvadre sat upstairs
trying to read the papero mothing-torECA redatton
rmseesatheshouser
ane
ast hECTEECINECOinscotang e
sunging nen bate
Campackedre The piano EMEVTE stopped suddenly and he heard
wvith ita
For er momant, 0
Grove's laughter that I at wayachaden cae power to raise your hopes /misthont
rerltystouchingzyourahearty Then there was Pinkie's voice, imploring him,
"Oh, don't darling, not now
Only a little while!" Only a little
hip,
while more and he'll be gone! A pale anger rose in him and he strode
out on to the staircase. But he stopped. She #
imploringly:
euea
spokef/so
He didn't)know she could sound like that. So tender and pleading! And Jital
Rad
he /thought of her as hard! Why hadn't she pleaded with him. like that?
He didn't know it was in her voice to do so!
He listened again, on the landing. There was Grove: "Come on,
Pink,
Grists let's go out!"


And she replied, patiently, as if to a child, "Yes, darling, : yes!"
He realised for the first time--in a clear, even blinding way---that
she was in love. No power could change that. She couldn't change it,
certainly. She had tried perhaps.. Even, she had wanted to change it.
But she couldn't. Because she was in love, in love, in love! The
words kept ringing in his brain. In love! It was like bells. In
love! Then why hadn't he recognised it? Oh, why? For it made her
innocent! She was in love! The words rang out like joyful bells!
In love! In love!
He walked further down the staris and had the sense of losing his
body so that his steps hardly made an impression on him. He felt
bodiless---the stairs were nothing to him, his pain was nothing, nor
his trembling! These didn't matter, didn't matter! There was a
shudder of relief through his body that drained all the poisons away.
She was innocent, innocent. It was like touching Christ, as if Christ
was standing there on the stairs, in him for a moment, bodilessly. He
had a sense of sunlight, though he was trembling like a leaf. The
trembling wasn't hiso She was pure! pure! The tears poured down his
face but with triumph---it was like his own triumph! He had surrendered!
surrendered! She wasn'tpad after all, nor hard, but in love, in love!
And that was everything.


Hé parted from her casually next day; she lay on the bed, remote
from him; he asked her not to come downstairs to see him off; it would
make too much of a good bye.
"Well, cheerio," he said at the door of the bedroom, and waved
his hand.
"Cheerio, darling!" She waved, too, in exactly the same way as
he'd done, with a little flutter of fingers; just before he turned away
she blew him a kiss as she'd done on the train to Meedham, with a bright
look for a moment.
Sper-hadssaridigokdingl L EthedeveniagsbaforenthsthatAEl8Heds Sa
ME goangats
A 851C3856AEGEaEdROSSosserareosstbsycderjoastanshakkensthantiakenstantie
Hanni had promised to come over to say good bye but didn't
n I
appear. The day was dull and er ER -
Sintngk 24t25845848 sultry, quite unusual for - autumn;
the sweat poured out of him; on the boat across to France he caught
sight of himself in a mirror and was astonished to see how haggard he
looked;
wasyawdthayeltowishasbagszunderehtsgeyemn his hair was lank and greasy;
he shuddered when he thought of the house in Basrah, silent and closed.
And he saw Pinkie in his mind; a stranger to him, gane far away, going
pl hud' * Riel
about her own concerns. "Only a little while!". MRE-ETE Be


THE HIEHT OF THE Eeppse
Tuconglck m/s Ch.lttoad


CHAPTER 17.
Then the crisis petered out. Russia proposed a peace-conference,
with the first condition. that Britain withdraw her troops. This was a
clever move as it isolated Britain morally, by making the negotiations
depend on her alone. Britain announced that troops would be withdrawn
only at the request of sheikh; but he requested it a few hours later.
There was suddenly another riot in Rubath in which a policeman
had his feet cut off and was dragged through the streets by a howling mob.
There was a banner, in English, which read, 'Humanity, happiness, habeas
corpus'. Glenning said that the mob thought habeas corpus meant 'have
a corpse' I and picked on a policeman.
There was to be an international conference - certainly; then,
the day after,, there was to be one - perhaps. Anyway, the crisis was
over. There was no word about Creed. A paper published a cartoon
showing the sheikh in conference with army officers, but without Creed,
and underneath there was the caption, 'Altogether dis-Creed-ited'.
There was a melancholy stillness in the country. Glenning's little
political anatomies', as Dick called them, had become a regular feature
of kitchen-life since the crisis started. He said that America and
Russia had got the world into two armed camps, in which Europe was the
temporary 'np-man's-land'. And we were living in the middle of this
no-man's-land, or at least on its westerly edge, which was why we had
the feeling of not being quite real at times, not quite men, but 'no-men'.


England hadn't really existed since 1938. After that she was a barracks,
and still was. Like France, she was embalmed by both east and west into
her old, dead self - the 'colonial power', to serve identical interests.
When the no-man's-land came alive again this would disappear overnight.
The break with America would come. Dick didn't agree with this. He
said that English interests were completely tied-up with American: there
was such an intimate 'love-death' relationship that you wouldn't ever
get a split. Glenning answered that this had nothing to do with it -
there would be a break in American policies, the post-war theory of
American civilisation inheriting the earth by shere moral righteousness
would go out with a 'fizz, or a fart: and we would cease to be 'no-men'.
Dick listened to him attentively, with a little smile of appreciation;
it was s0 clearly a voice he could understand, quiet and balanced, never
trying to rush him.
Everybody seemed to return to life now the crisis was over. He
realised as if jolted back after a long sleep that he was due to make a
report - e he would have to go to the office -- that a few days before
he'd met a strange, small woman called Joy Celeste a that his leave
was being extended - that Gpove existed! It was thrilling, horrifying,
dazzling in one. e
Hanni was still sleeping at the house, and one evening Dick came
in shortly before midnight 'prowling for sex', in Pinkie's words. He
always had the same look, she said, of a boy who wanted to 'go' and
couldn't hold it. He seemed to see nothing and didn't even nod hullo to
Granville. Hanni was sitting in the music-room paring her toe-nails
quietly when he came in, and, aware of his state, she decided to prolong


it. She hardly looked up at him to say hullo and after he'd walked
round the room several times she asked Pinkie in a quiet voice, "What
about some coffee?" And. Pinkie, catching the intention with a. smile,
said at once, "Yes, I'd love some!"
They trooped up to the kitchen, Dick following in a disconsolate
silence: he had a grim, held-in look on his face, and gazed at the floor
a good deal, the edges of his mouth quivering ever Bo slightly so that
the light hairs of his beard moved. His beard had been under attack
recently. Linger-Longer didn't like it especially; she said it had
struck as manly at first in a horrifying, bristly-brush' sort of way,
but now it revolted her. Dick said that while she was 'ambivalent'
about it he should leave it on: the effect of him clean-shaven might be
worse, and in any case Hanni had never seen him clean-shaven! Pinkie
said the beard made him look bogus.
"Cock!" Dick cried. "It goes perfectly with a strict black suit
and a dark tie! Because it's blond and untidy! It makes people think
twice about me - they're always looking across the table to see if I'm
really bogus or not - I càn feel them! And that means they're giving
me their full attention, which in business is an awful lot! Whereas your
clean-shaven man lays his cards on the table much too soon. A little
twitch of the mouth and he's finished! Also," he added, "the beard
indicates possibly a wild past but the black suit raps this idea soundly
over the knuckles - - thus, an interesting conflict is set up in the
spectator!"
His beard was more of a goatee than what he called a 'bush', he
said. He couldn't stand men with bad-smelling bushes round their shops!
Nobody could say his was a dark, nasty thing; it was blond and flimsy,


golden in the summer; in a word, 'Tudor'.
At last, over the coffee, Hanni was got to bed. As the bed
downstairs was small they decided to sleep in one of the ramshackle
attic-rooms, immediately above Pinkie and Granville.
In the middle of the night he was woken suddenly. The floor-
boards creaked and bumped overhead, and the bed moved. He thought
drowsily, 'They're making love', and tried to sleep again. Pinkie was
always joking about how Dick was a stickler for 'new positions'; and now
he seemed to be running, walking, hanging on to things, heaving at the
bed, coughing, kicking at something, chuckling, jumping up and down, all
in the most grotesque way. Granville glanced at the luminous alarm-
clock - three in the morning. Had they been at it all this time?
Then there was the sound of a powerful, regular beating like a
drum, shaking the whole house, and he heard, when there was sudden quiet,
two strange cries, first Hanni's, like a long, agonised laugh, and a few
seconds later Dick's, like a man coughing in thick smoke, followed by a
prolonged maon. He tried to stop his ears in the pillow against the
intimacy of their sounds, but he couldn't. Pinkie still slept soundly.
What would she have said? - She would have joked about it, perhaps. But
there was now silence, absolute, flat, and he was left alone with those
intimate sounds, like a challenge to his whole self.
He told himself, with a dawning and pained awareness, that he'd
heard the sound of real sex and that this wasn't what he and Pinkie had!
Alone left with these sounds -- he couldn't joke, as he might have
with Pinkie, rather tenderly, chuckling. If only she'd woken! But he
was alone - - it was a strange feeling
he was alone with someohe else's
intimacy which he could never talk or joke away but would have 'to resolve


in his own life. It was like a terrible task suddenly dropped in front
of him, bonk, in the middle of the night.
He couldn't sleep all night. There was perfect silence upstairs:
the natural after-sleep of sex, with all the tissues satisfied. He lay
turning and sweating. Only when dawn came did he doze off into a thin,
troubled sleep. Then he woke at eight o'clock, before Pinkie; worn out.
He'd had nightmares and felt sick.
When the other three left the house for work he got up, having
simulated sleep while Pinkie was dressing. He felt an itching perspiration
all over his face and everything looked grim and bilious to him: he didn't
even enjoy his precious breakfast alone in the kitchen. - He was in a
sompletely sunken state. But there was a pain over and above this: he
was aware of being in a confused and hidden way ashamed of not having
slept. How strange! It seemed that he was ashamed of having suffered
during the night; there was a double sensation all the time, of the
suffering itself.and then the shame of it! His life had fallen into
chaos for the space of a night - that seemed to be the trouble; he hadn't
slept at the publicly appointed time! His thoughts in the night had had
a wildness that couldn't be contained in the clear waking hours; they
couldn't be received into his life. The sensation was like wanting to
vomit but being unable to; he couldn't pass the experience through him,
and he couldn't get rid of it; he couldn't joke about it, as the daylight
hours seemed to require, and he couldn't put it in the necessary impersonal
language either, to make it a serious topic!
He remembered Basrah at night, the stars outside fantastically
bright and twinkling, so that often he had leaned up on his elbows to
make sure that they were stars and not silver lights someone was holding


up! It was a strange country where everyone was asleep and there were
no bitter, dusty thoughts; where the earth was absorbed for once into the
silence all round it, so that one could touch everything at the heart,
without men's voices, in' real state! He remembered lying in his room
through those long, cool, silent nights when the palm-leaves moved outside,
making. their faint tinkle, and of being aware that the silence was teaching
him something; it was the sensation of getting beyond the ordinary veil
of life, to thoughts that had a prodigal violence!
But now the night flung him out; he felt joined to nothing, as if
he'd been brought into life but then been abandoned naked, findingievery-.
thing meaningless. Meanwhile his mind clicked and revolved in a dull,
grey void, trying to find its way to a connection which would bring the
rhythm and flow of life back, while his body lay inert and incôngruous
underneath this activity, without function, the blood aluggish and the
limbs heavy. The night had broken an essential fibre in him; he was
worn and pale all the way through, with the sensation that he was discarded
for ever and would continue like this, among the dead, with only his mind
limping on trying to perceive life through its bloodless little channels,
trying to do service for the body! His feelings in the night were all
crushed and herded into a frightened corner; there was no allowance for
them in the life round him; there was simply nothing to be said about them,
and other people's faces, even Pinkie's, seemed not to have in their tiny
tines and crevices the possibility of hearing about such things. It was
as if in the life all round him, in the streets, in the conversations
they all had in the kitchen, in the buses that stopped and started
regularly every day in the distance, in the newspapers, in the way people
walked, in the flat shop-windows, in the way he himself had learned to


talk now, there was a kind of agreement to close the night-reality out.
The lonély, dark, grim hours were only to be seen as a little abstract line
in people's faces, the sign of stress! When Pinkie came home in the
evening he would no doubt talk to her about the report, which he was at
the moment unfit to touch, or ask her about the office; or she would tell
him the latest about Dick from Hanni. But his feelings of the night a no!
They wouldn 't. be absorbed into his flesh, into wisdom, they wouldn't even
pass into his face as an extra sadness as they would have in Mohammed's;
they would die out, and he would hope to forget them, so that the shame
that had followed them would die, too! And then his face. would carry
the shame no longer; he would be fit for the world, and then later other
dark and accidental feelings would rise in him, and the same would begin
again! His feelings would die into the corpse of experience, one
experience rejecting the last one.
How could he establish the meaning of these accidental vapours
that rose under his nostrils in the dead of night, when there was no
solitude, when he couldn"t separate himself from Pinkie, when his body
seemed not to be his own, when this fenced world outside was on the move
all the time, when the streets pounded and hammered with recognition of
the fenced life but not of the other which had no form of speech, when
only the fenced life was present to him all the time, when it was in his
own, bed, when it lay in every wall of the house he
when it
wasin,
was
written in the papers he read? How could.he. establish the meaning alone?
He would have to get away! He would have to suffer loneliness, perhaps
in Basrah, until his true voice began to speak to him, in candour, and
he could pick his way gradually through his life unravelling it from the
other voices that had been dinning in his ears! When Pinkie came back


that evening he would be ready for her, hiding his concern and his.
makedness of the night.
All through the day he heard the cries Dick and Hanni had made.
He was stunned in his body. What quietness his own. marriage had! Such
a solemn act, requiring religious attentions! And Dick and Hanni
abandoned themselves to pleasure. Pleasure! That was the stark
comparison. What hold could he have on her, then? There was a treaty
between them, but no mutual interests: that. didn't make a good. alliance!
The cries of Dick and Hanni were, like voices telling him about his life.
Alone, how couldihe have found out what he and Pinkie were missing?
Gradually a cloud had been growing round them, of their own touches and
gestures, so that nothing definite could be told: any more, even about the
outside world!
But one the. other hand only he was hoodwinked; Pinkie had taken
the way out. Their love was limp and frail. What was the matter with
him, not to have recognised this? Their bodies didn*t, exibt! Once Dick
had asked Pinkie, "What sort of women does Pip like?" And she'd.replied
with some surprise at the question, "None! He isn't like that at all!"
His thoughts were clear now - she didn't connect his body with pleasure!
And he'd taken this quité for granted all these years.
He often tried to talk about 'Stratford'. He tried to break
through their friendship, that marred everything and took away the mystery!
Once. he. talked to her for nearly two hours, pacing round the room in his
'orang-utang' fashion; she only nodded at everything, agreeing listlessly
and looking vague! They shouldn't go at it with their personalities,
he'd said. There should be no 'you' or 'I'. They ought to follow
their appetites selfishly, he said, as if they were alone, and then they'd


find something waiting for them; an extraordinary natural pleasure, as
at Stratford! And she looked sick. She had the suffocating look as
always when he talked too much; she put her hand up to her mouth and
made as if to vomit, her eyes closed in a martyred way. He said they'
- had to learn how to become like a: 'limb' in each other's side, unconscious;
and a 'sturdy confidence' would grow up between them, they would be able
to tell each other 'everything', their hidden and outlandish desires; so
that they were left with their bodies as things almost beyond them, lying
in their own mystery! Then they would be more separate from each other,
and closer.
Immediately after this talk she went on a slimming diet, and
began to look pale and boyish, with a kind of martyred purity in her face.
There was a letter from the United Kingdom Compound in Basrah,
about a bill.
"Dear Mr. Granville," it said, 'I have been informed by Technical
Industries Management Ltd.; that you are at present in the t.K. for a
period of two months vacation. May I point out that there is an outstanding
bill with us in your name for the sum of £11.14.2. and that in' the
circumstances a cheque by return post would be appreciated. Tesidents'
of the Compound settle accounts weekly and your bill having been outstanding
over' two months the Residents committee has decided Compound privileges
can no longer be extended to yous' It was signed, &Yours faithfully,
M. Scriven', which in his disabled state he read as 'Yours fearfully,
M. Craven.'
Letters like that had an extraordinary power to arrive on the day
of lowest ebb. "You little piece of iron in the English soul', he


thought. "What makes you so proud to be inhuman?y
His teeth began to chatter with the accumulated distress; the
kitchen was cold and had a bare look in the dull light; the weather was
overcast and chilly again.
He'd been along to the office to draw his monthly cheque and
found that his situation wasn't nearly as good as he'd thought; his
cheques had been sènt off to Basrah in the normal way, but his bank there
had sent them back to his London account, thinking that these were his
instructions. Thus, he'd. been drawing from the bottom of the kitty
without realising it! He was staggered when he saw how much he'd spent
in the last month; for safety he deposited the price of an air ticket to
Basrah with the cashier; to go' on he'd have to borrow from Pinkie.
However much he earned he never seemed to have any in his pocket. Pinkie
was the same; they suddenly lavished it on a party or dinner out.
Pinkie returned that evening with Hanni and Dick, in a cheerful
party; his sleepless night was forgotten at once. Pinkie put a question
unexpectedly after dinner; 'vould Christ be crucified if he came on earth
again?
"Do you mean if he came in period costume or modern dress?" Dick
asked.
"Oh, in modern dress!" !
Dick said with a smile that he'd probably 'fill Albert Hall',
representing as he would 'Charlie God'. Granville said he'd certainly
be crucified' again, though he might. not be put on a cross or stoned.
Hanni was against this; she agreed with Dick and added that people were
different nowadays; when Granville asked what she meant by 'different'
she said 'less bigotted'. Pinkie was non-committal, gazing at them all


in turn: It was a strange question coming from her, and he looked at
her sideways, searching for a clue in her face, but there was none.
That evening she had a light, vanishing quality in her face, as if she'd
been through something purifying. In the discussion Dick talked about
Christ as 'Charlie God, Junior'.
Granville said something vague, rather under his breath - that
we were all sefving 'a silent meaning' in all our haphazard thoughts and
actions every day. He said it almost to himself, gazing at the table.
Dick looked at him strangely and seemed just about to Bay sométhing
facetious when he stopped, catching the seriousness in Granville's face,
and asked quietly, "How do you mean?"
Before he could reply Dick leaned across the table 60 that his
face was very close, bis eyes screved up, with their little twinkle of
curiosity, and asked almost in a whisper, "Do you really believe all that
caper about God, Pip? I never thought I'd know somebody intimately who
dind! Do you think old Charles God is up there when the show's over,
sitting on the judgement seat, and all that caper?"
"No," Granville said, "I didn't mean exactly that."
"What silent meaning are you talking about, then?" He seemed
genuinely to want to know - to be told something.
"Welly a kind of order behind things!"
"But when do we find out what the order is?" Dick asked.
"How do you know it's there, then?"
"All I mean is we. can't ever.know with our minds. You're asking
for an order we can talk. about. But this is something our minds can't


deal with. So we shall never know!"
"Well, how do you know, then? If you'll forgive the embarrassing
question?"
"I know with what thereis in me that's different from my mind."
"It's'a feeling?"
This was. an anti-climas for Dick; he had genuinely wanted to find
out something!
"But you don't believe in judgement day?" Dick asked him.
After a pause he said unwillingly, "No!"
It buried the argument finally for Dick. And the brief discussion
stung Granville to an awareness of his own insecure position: why not say
he did believe in judgement day?' Because he didn't! He resolved to
go through his reflections on the night of the eclipse bit by, bit soon,
for he felt he had answered that question adequately then; but at the
moment he could. reflect on nothing!
Dick waited for him to go on talking but he didn't; he sat locked
in silence, staring fixedly at the table. He thought he might try to
unravel the. matter, for himself and Dick; but when he looked up to begin
Dick was fondling Hanni's hair with an intimate smile and saying, "Well,
what about it?", meaning they should go home.
He went to the office and arranged for his files to be brought up.
Nevinson didn't ask to see him. The secretary he was given was tall and
non-committal, with bright yellow hair and a long face; she bhook hands
with him quickly, with a charm that came and went in a shy, intimidated
way, her smile fading quickly and as quickly returning. Everything


about her was meticulous, and she : walked with straight, symmetrical but
easy steps, her high heels making a perfectly refilar sound on the floor.
The office he'd been given was tiny, overlooking a bombed site;
it had a gas-fire and panelled walls, and the' dome. of St. Paul's was
close by, huge and grey,,like a pencil drawing. He stayed there all day
getting the files in order; but his work wasn't to start for a week or so,
when the secretary would be free. She took down some notes for him in
a business-like way, her lips tight together with concentration, pausing
when he paused so that what he said seemed to have more importance than it
really did. The room was dim with a tasselled light, and the desk was
low, across one corner, with a rather gorgeous persian carpet. She told
him that usually one of the directors used this room as his funk-hole';
she smiled at him pleasantly when she said thie, with a sudden unexpected
penetrating glance, slipping from her perfection for a moment. Later he
met Glenning downstairs and learned that she was the best secretary in the
place and was reserved for directors or visitors; she sometiges had to
show them the sights of London, 'As a sort of top-class whore', he added.
She was called among the directors 'the. secret weapon' and was used to
soften up 'hard clients.' Nevinson would say, "It's no good - - we' '11
have to use the secret' weapon!"'
He yearned to get down to work at once. The room had an inviting,
safe, enclosed look; it lay at the end of a quiet corridor where few
people passed, on the directors' floor. He would like to come there
every day. He wanted to sink himself iniit, lead Dick's sort of life, not
go abroad any more on' that endless quest. Like'Dick he would arrive in
the morning at the same time every day; the little office would be a
haven for him, away from the raw, aching reality of home; he'd go back in


the evening quiet and renewed, seeing the house as a strange, vivid country
where something fresh would be offered him, a kind of theatre that started
the moment he opened the door, bright and glittering, with gaudyk soft
colours, and. the raw desires would return, dismaying and yet exciting him,
making his heart beat, perilous néarly to the point of self-extinction,
in an. unexpected,. grim, trembling rapture. Why didn't he accept the
facts of his marriage to Pinkie, in sanity? Even now - as he stood
beside the low, elegant desk with its polished top, he could face the
existence of Grove better; comfortably, event He could see them kissing;
they slept together: what was wrong in that? The cosy little office
saw nothing unusual about it! There were just facts, and other facts
to counter them. Why didn't he consult his own pleasures as Dick did?
Why not live like Mohammed, taking women as they came his way; and when
nothing came his way, going to the brothel? Why was he afraid of going back
to Basrah alone? The brothels were pleasant there. One could drink in
them and pass an evening! He'd done it: sat in one of the small rooms
with wooden floors while the girls passed to and fro along a gallery
outside; in the courtyard below chickens had clucked and run all day, and
men had come' in noisily through the entrancé-gate calling for madame. Why
was he hemming his life in? Why couldn't he bring his body into the
open? Dick had shown him the way, for London! There was now a chance to
imitate Dick's. dandyism; he thought of him as a dandy, serious and
philosophical; a dandy of the night, in the glittering mystery; going out
alone, shorn of éverything familiar, without a wife, home, only a self
that put on a new black mask for the journey! Granville could imagine
him so well with a velvet mask held up on a little stick, only his mouth
showing, moist, full, innocent, taking relish in itself, nearly smiling,


for the mystical journey of- sex.
He remembered the solicitor Ismail Beg in Basrah, a tall, wild
Kurd who always wore the most beautiful American duck-suits and a panama
hat, and poured arak down'his throat in the evening until he was swaying i
about and calling everyone except Granville, for whom he had a special,
protective intimacy, a buffalo' or 'dog-son-of-a-dog'. Usually he and
Granville went to a cabaret together where heavy Kurds and Arabs sat at
tables glowering at. a half-naked girl on the stage, vhile she revolved her
hips, making her head go ' to and fro sideways! without moving her neck.
Ismail would tower above them in his superb western suit, while they
laughed at him sheepishly, their robes pulled up to show their socks and
suspenders. He was a clown for them but also awesome, a rich man afraid
of no ones They withered and looked away under his blazing glance. He
owned a number of brothels and sometimes took Granville on a 'tour of
inspection' in the evening, to drink brandy or arak in one of the best
tooms with the madame, while trade went on in the adjoining compartments.
Madame would be called out every few minutes to settle a bill or stop a
quarrel. A girl would rush in calling for the douche and permanganate
of potash because a 'buffalo' had broken his french letter, while the
'buffalo' swore by Allah downstairs in the courtyard, at the top of his
voice, that the, rubber they used was like paper, and he hoped the 'bint al
gawad', the pimp's daughter, would make a better mother than she'd make
a fuck! Huge sheikhs tumbled along the wooden gallery in the evening,
their chauffeurs waiting outside in Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles. They
would come in roaring from the cabarets, or quiet like children, their fat
hands shining with jewels, their cloaks magnificent; they would stake whole
villages over poker in the side-rooms, or buy one of the girls for a week


if they took a fancy to her. The madames were always calm and humorous;
capable women past their youth. And they held Ismail Beg in esteem.
They would settle him comfortably in an armchair however drunk he was,
and clap their hands for a bottle of brandy, putting little bowls of nuts
in. front of him, and hot fried chicken-livers. He would pull the girls
close to him when they came in and put his hand up their skirts toigive
them a pinch and make them scream; he would jump up and do a grotesque
dance with his eyes closed, towering above everybcdy, snapping his fingers
and moving his head sideways like the girls in the cabarets. He pissed
over the bonnets of the cars outside while the chauffeurs - 'dogs-sons-
of-dogs' - stared at him heavily from inside, afraid to say anything.
And sometimes he made a strange yell that filled the narrow alleyways of
the brothel quarter, rising and falling, like a cry that might be heard in
the mountains, among the tribesmen. He boasted; he said he could pick
up a handkerchief from the ground with his teeth while at full gallop on
horseback, and he'd won many bets doing this in Kurdistan: He was a.
warrior, a prince sie hence, the name Beg - greatly respected, feared,
hated by the 'dogs-sons-of-dogs': And an influence on the government,
a friend of the king; adored by his wife; unhappy! He had one weakness,
he said, and smiled, leaving Granville to think what it was. If he
intended sleeping with one of the women he would go out alone and not call
on Granville: He kept his wife under more or less lock and key, afraid
of a "dog-son-of-a-dog' getting into the house and making love to her.
Sometimes he leaned out of his bedroom window at night and fired shots
into the garden, thinking there. were men below. Unlike the other women
in Basrah his wife didn't wear the veil; she came from Beirut, the
daughter of a merchant who spoke French, and she smarted all the time


against being cooped up in a house from morning till night. She would
pour Ismail's arak. into the potted plants in the sitting room when he
wasn 't looking, but the moment she'd done this he would turn round to her
slowly with a smile full of graciousness and say, "You whore, fill my
glass again!" however drunk he was. He told Granville that the only men
who had, .seen her, apart from him, were his beother and the public
prosecutor. She was obsessed by the idea that other women were pursuing
him all the time; and he encouraged the idea. She even wrote Pinkie a
note in French accusing her of trying to charm him; she said she had
always considered Englishwomen, until now, 'above others in matters of
honour'. Granville showed the note to Ismail and he laughed, slapping
his hip; and then he added, giving, him a roguish glance, "Is she trying
to charm me?"
There was one madame who was plump, with a pale sallowness that
shone in an intriguing way, f like a. light in her, hardly disclosed, making
her eyes extraordinarily dark; she stood straighter and taller than the
othér girls, in an immovable way; they looked small and awkward next to
her, clucking round her. like hens, while she remained immovable, smiling,
in her strange pallor. She was in the prime of life and, Ismail said,
she was 'as good as ever', though the flush of youth had gone. Would
granville like to try her? Or would he prefer one of the girls? Which
would he like? : The girls were all 'bits of velvet', he said, but madame
was 'a queen'. And he laughed, his eyes twinkling, as he gazed at
Granville waiting for a reply. Granville said nothing, smiling also,
watching the madame. And Ismail tried to tantalise him further: "Go. on,
isn't she magnificent? Look at her!" Granville began to ache with
tantalised desire, but his will gripped him, and he poured himself another


brandy, shaking his head with a smile, for all the world as if he was
tired and only wanted a little talk. And there it had ended.
He'd had occasion since his return to London to think of that
incident again and again, wondering if he wouldn't be in a stronger
position now if he'd performed that mystical act of self-release: He
would have come back to her at night with the flush of strangenessiin him.
She wouldn't have liked it, perhaps, but her blood would have risen to
him! As it was, that night, he'd come back to her resentful eyed;
she'd already gone to bed, and gazed at him from the pillow with a frown,
while he undressed. She attributed to him what he hadn't performed,
and for a few days this burned in her and incensed her, and. excited her.
Why hadn't he done it? The desire still ached in him. It would have
released her from the sin she saw herself accused of in his eyes which
nei ther of them could name; he would hate had his burden of sin as well!
The moment had been perfect in the brothel; desire had coincided with
opportunity; but if Pinkie took the lead his desire would be stunned by
fear of what she might be doing; he realised that. He had forfeited the
right to lead their unhappiness!
But he was resolved now to imitate Dick. He even had a mystical
sense of Dick as the guide appointed to him. Their afternoon at the
Marquis hadn 't been mentioned again. The crisis had made a rift between
them. He couldH't bring himself to call on the hair-girl alone, though
he had her address; he was afraid of her ridiculing him; and of being
ridiculous to the rest of the group, Dick included, supposing there was
a, group! Her face. came to his mind again and agein, indistinct, with
dark hollow eyes and. high cheek-bones, deathly sallow in comjplexion; she
was gazing before her, downwards, not at him at all, the bones on her


shoulders showing, talking to herself all the time. He didn't know if
she came to mind naturally or whe ther his will was doing it! Why did
he want to call on her? Was hers the face he'd been. expecting all these
weeks? But that was ridiculous! She didn't even appeal to him:. Only
his will persisted, telling him that there was a mystical connection in
his meeting with her. He tried to say something to Dick: when would
they be going out again? But he always funked it. Dick was going about
his life quietly, saying little. He'd taken Linger-Longer to the theatre
and 'drawn a blank', Pinkie said.
*Hanni had now returned to Hampton Court. She said she found it
in a hell of 2 mess, and Dick said it had all been done the evening before,
when he'd given dinner to Linger-Longer 'in a last effort'.
He tried to work on his report again. Ie wrote that the revolt
in Rubath had been *the birth of a middle-class', équivalent to what
happened in England in 1832.. He thought a definition of 'middle class'
was necessary, so he wrote that this meant ' the class whose historical
role was to destroy religion. When he read this over he thought it had
too metaphysical a tone for a commercial report but he left it.
The sheikh of Rubath was now producing a White Paper on 'national
reconstruction', together with the army-officers who had rebelled against
him. Glenning said that Creed was behind this, too - he got on quite
well with the army officers! And the joke among. thé politicians now.
was that the riots had at least produced a 'social Creed'.
Therè was an unpleasant incident between him and Dick one morning,
during the week-end. He was getting into a pair of trousers in the
bedroom when Dick came in, looking for Hanni who'd apparently said she might.
be calling at the house'. They nodded to each other, and Dick noticed


the long, blueish scars on his leg from the war.
"What are they?" he. asked.
"Oh, haven't you seen them before?" Granville said casually.
"I was wounded."
There was a pause and he sensed a stiffening on Dick's part.
He looked up.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Nothing. But, you know," Dick went on in a slightly trembling
voice, "I've got no sympathy for 'that at all. Did you expect me to have?"
"Well, I'm rather surprised at myself! But you vent out to
murder people and that's what you got."
He pulled on his trousers quickly. "Yes, that's what I got."
His anger was up at once, but this was the first time Dick had made a
frontal attack on him, and the anger was diminished by surprise. "I
didn't ask for sympathy!"
Dick was glaring at him in an unnatural way, and he felt quite
frightened for a moment.
"What's bitten you?" he asked, calm again.
"Nothing. You attack people often enough, don't you?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"I mean why be surprised when I do?" Dick said.
"I'm not! You've got the right!"
"That's what I was exerting, old sport - the right!" Dick's
ease of manner had returned; his eyes were genial again. And he left the
room with, "Well, I'd better look for the old noman. I
Granville told Pinkie about this later and she said that Dick was


probably brooding. over what he'd said after the Hamlet they'd seen.
"After all, you're not one to pull your punches, are you, sweetheart?"
she said with a quick, critical glance at him. Dick was frightfully
sensitive, she added, and although he liked to give the impression of
being balanced he 'brooded on hurts' for a long time without saying a
word, and was full of 'the most awful doubts about himself.' Granville
'built people up too high' and then thought that only a "God-almighty
blow' would knock them down, whereas a 'tap' would do the job: He had
a passing impression that this wasn't her true style of speech; the second
such impression he'd had recently.
He éxpected to be stung by what Dick had said but instead hé felt
light and grateful; perhaps it was because Dick had shown his hand, and
he could now see him in his heart, as a fellow-sufferer. He went out
and bought a bottle of good wine, then phoned him to say it. was waiting
for him whenever he liked to call, as a reward for 'taking attacks so
well'; to be drunk on' the premises or not, as he wished! Dick's voice
at the other end was quiet and gracious: "What a nice thought, Pip! Yes,
please, teacher, I'll be there, Monday, and we'll go fifty-fifty!" On
Monday evening he came full of smiles, and they drank the bottle together,
sitting in the music-room.
Dick told him that, in view of the conversations they'd had during
the crisis, he now put him down as 'a romantic supporter of ancien regimes
everywhere.' It was a familiar theme, he said, of justifying poverty
and distresis me - other people's of course
on picturesque grounds!'
Granville wasn't unlike those 'Arabophils' Hanni sometimes came across at
the foreign office - who when thèy went out to the Middle East found
'dignity' in the Arabs and then hobnobbed with the dirtiest rogues among


them. Dick spoke pleasantly, gazing at him with light eyes, smiling,
simply putting the propositions before him for rejection or agreement. -
"Whenevèr there's something to say about henna-marks on Abu Kath'm's
brow, ft he went on, "or the call-to-prayer that blares down the dirty
streets, or the stink of the river at night in the summer months and all
that caper, you say it! But as far as Arab schemes to change Arab life
go, even elementary ones such as irrigation of the desert, or plans to
introduce wide roads and hospitals, you've got nothing to say at all!"
Granville shrugged. "Well, all I can say is that I don't
belong to the romantic school!"
"All right, tell me why not. You agree, first, that only talking
about the stinks and the henna-marks would be romantic, don't you?"
"Yes," Granville agreed doubtfully.
"Well, then, tell me what else you think about over there! Tell
me 'one realistic element that comes into your thinking about Arab life."
"I can't." Again he shrugged. But then he added, "In my
friendship there, perhaps."
"No, I won't let you get away with it, old sport! Your friend-
ships won't clear up the trachoma in the villages and decrease the child
mortality-rate."
"Oh, I agree there."
"So you are a romantic, Pip!"
"But why not?" Dick persisted, seeming. pleased at Granville's
lack of resistance but also curious.
"I don't know! I can't tell you!"
Dick laughed and took another sip of his wine. "You talk just


like me. And I thought I'd get a real explanation out of you."
"It's something I haven't made up my mind about."
"Well, that's how I like you, old sport, so stay where you are!
But this was exactly what Granville didn't intend to do.
What was it to be then,
the 'flame' in people, which he
recognised in Abu Kath'm, or decent lives? He had to say decent lives!
How could he wish anything else on people? And why should the two be
incompatible? But he felt they were; the plans and schemes would be at
the expense of the 'flame'; and here he was back at the beginning! If
the price to be paid for good lives was death in the end
a kind of
civic collapse
what was the good of it? He couldn't resolve the
matter! He realised how far he looked on the middle class as a total
historical mistake; he wrote them off; he could see no need for this
historical mistake, much less good! The middle-clàss was just a
negative development in his eyes: the factories had come, people had been
herded into them, smoke had filled the air, life was violated and made
ugly! But how could an historical mistake have lasted two centuries?
How was it possible for history suddenly to beitwisted out of its path-
and remain distorted ever since? How could he put himself in opposition
to history? Surely that was romantic? to simply turn his back? What
were his ideas? What did distinguish him from a romantic? He couldn't
tell himself! He didn't know what this experience was that men had
needed. There lay his next real task of thought.
Hanni dropped in later and an argument developed between her and
Dick. First ehe looked at the empty wine-bottle and, recognising a real
chateau-label, murmured, "What a mean bastard you are, Dick! I thought
you said we'd got to cut down on spending?" She lifted the bottle up


to the light. while Dick watched her. "And you couldn't even leave me
half a glass."
Dick nodded quietly. "That's right."
"He didn't know you were coming over," Granville said with a smile.
"Yes, he did. I phoned him at the office this afternoon. Not
that you were very warm about it," she added, turning to Dick again.
And again he nodded, with the same expression as before.
"Well," she murmured, sittingidown, but without looking. in the
slightest bit annoyed, "I say you're a mean bastard."
"And I say you're an interfering bitch," said Dick crisply, but
also without annoyance. He then finished off his glass with a show of
relish and added, "That bottle cost the best part of a couple of,quid, too."
"That's what I mean!"
Then Dick turned to Granville and said, "Well, thanks again for
the thought, bo'sun. I don't think,anybody's invited me to a choicer
drop of claret this two years."
There was silence and Hanni, admitted defeat with a sudden smile.
"Have I broken in on a stag-party, then?" she asked.
Granville was just about. to tell her no, not at all, when Dick
murmured firmly, "Yes."
"Oh, well, in that case," she said, stretching her legs and taking
off the coloured scarf round her head, "I'll stay!"
Coffee was made, and she introduced another attack on Dick by
saying that he was 'too bloody rational by half'; she agreed with Pip on
the subject! She talked softly, choosing her sentences with the utmosti
care, gazing sideways at Dick without blinking, an edge,of sceptical
humour in her voice. She said that was why he loved 'communists and


scientists best of all the bipeds', at which Dick smiled in a distant
way and winked at Granville. She added that the conversations fo these
people always made an 'idiot smile' come over his face; he loved them
because he believed in everything rational, "except your prick of course,
and even that comes in for some quiet rational analysis at times, doesn't
Here Dick laughed outright and asked, "What are you referring to
there, old peach?"
But she didn't answer for the moment, only went on gazing at him
levelly, with the flicker of a smile on her lips. Then she said, "I mean,
you like to know when and where it's going to happen, don't you, so you
can get yourself in shape?"
"Well, naturally, matron, I likè to see my way ahead!"
Granville joined in the half-joking combat, and said he quite
agreed, Dick was rational 'down to his fibres and bones'. Scientists
and communists, he said, put forward clear propositions, which led to
action of some kind; and this was why Dick liked them! Every rationalist
was a practical man at heart, or tried to be. Hanni carried on and said
that when Dick was with a scientist he spoke in a special way, trying to
make everything he said sound like, 'statistics'; and then she imitated
him, showing how his beard lifted up, giving him a goatish look. The
more intimate a subject was, she went on, the more impersonally he liked
to talk about it. That was another of his 'school-boy affectatations'.
She turned to Granville and told him with a smile, "Do you know, we had
a geneticist down at Hampton Court last week, and Dick kept asking him
things like, "When the female organ makes a secretion on being excited,
what exactly is going on, can you tell me?" He thinks he's so bloody


clever!"
Dick was enjoying himself, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on
the ceiling, seeming to contemplate himself with her, as if they were
flirting, using his image as a convenient subject. In her level gaze
there was relish of his person, reluctant and concerned.
It was an unusual vein of talk for her, and Granville felt
illuminated as to her nature, as if they'd been strangers before. The
still, dignified presence with which she protected herself,' always like
a dark shadow, sometimes enchanting and sometimes hunched and ancient,
sometimes unsubstantial like the evening light and sometimes dry and
imprisoned, wasn't there for the moment. When he looked across at her he
could see the desert blazing in her eyes, but closed round with darkness,
so that it was like a glimpse of the boundary where light and darkness
met and were one, at the primative beginning of matter.
He resolved to talk to her more often so that a real friendship
would grow; the, possibility was obviously there An uncomfortable wariness
still prevailed between them; and this made it difficult in his relation
with Dick, because there was always her shadow near by, an ambiguous no-man's-
land. How marvellous it would be if all foir of them could share
confidences together and live in self-yielding warmth and safety, facing
their own desires, so that a powerful vividness came about, from the
variety of their separate feelings towards the lonely, subtle world
outside, always giving them something to tell! And other people would be
drawn to them; the rooms of this house were vivid even now; they could
share everything; there need never be any problems of money; thère needn't
be dislikes or quarrels, because everything would be plain and stated;
their natures would be simply facts; it would be as silly to quarrel with




observed before, had the gift of breaking through this into intimate
self-revelation, probing and enquiring, and unfolding himself; he was used
to. this world, it seemed, and had learned the way to handle it early,,50
that the word 'candour' had come to mean this for him - a deliberate
break-through of conversational forms! It had to be done, in the name of
sanity; perhaps that was how Dick remained sane, always challenging the
dark powers to come to the light; the mind was there to break these powers
by analysis! But the others weren't like that. Hanni's mind wasn't
trained enough to make the analysis; Granville had too little experience
of the conversational form; Pinkie, happiest of all, had a form in herself,
natural and organic, which didn't take account of other people, she
refused the analytic effort, or rather it was unnecessary to her, however
much it might have extited her; as it appeared to sometimes; she gave vent
to: herself unguardedly, sensing in a blind way that the dark powers weree
an element of change and instruction in life, and had to be absorbed in
the flesh, not reduced to indignity and flung out by the mind; she hid
much, but never to'the, point of wounding herself; she followed her
desires, while Granville refused to, finding himself in a permanent neutral
territory as a result. Hanni, was similar to him in this respect: she
had neither Dick's searching mental hold nor Pinkie's flow of manner; the
struggle was already giving her stature, beyond the shyness she'd always
had in England; there was a mute, striking dignity growing in her; her face
was beginning to wear a tragic look, determined and immutable, with a.
proud, long-suffering wisdom in it, like a god found in the desert, made
of stone. It was partly this untouchable element that put Granville in
awe of her, at a: still distance.
Again he concluded that Dick had the purest middle class alchemy




soft sentimental lump underneath, aren't you, darling?"
"That's right, mother," Dick said in a mock-childish voice.
Then he, too, leaned forward and began taking part in the conversation
seriously for the first time, as if in answer to the biting remark
Granville had made. He said that his 'paradox' lay in the fact that he
admired rational people for their lack of squeamishness.
"And I mean by rational," he added, "the opposite of people' like
you, old sport." As an ideal, he said one couldn't beat communism; it
planned life.according to principles that had been thought out and
supported by study and research, instead of the 'haphazard ways' of
capitalism. On the other hand, being a paradoxical person, he was quite
relieved that communism hadn't come about yet, because it would bring
'a frightful lot of earnestness and do-goodism ' into life for which he
was unsuited by temperament. But as an ideal, logically, he saw no holes
in it. For instance, children ought to be brought up, not haphazardly
as they were now, but according to an intelligent plan, which would
enquire into what each child was best suited for, what training he would
respond to best and what society required of him at all times.
Granville cut in with a remark that this might be unfortunate
for the child - he'd be 'in prison' before he started, in the 'prison
of other people's ideas about him'! But Dick said that if the matter
was properly studied the training would go according to the child's
aptitudes and therefore wouldn't constitute a prison. Granville replied
to this, how aas it possible to know 60 much about a child's aptitudes,
enough to make safe predictions about his desires and happiness, especially
as the child could say nothing about himself? And Dick said again that
it could be done if research was exhaustive enough.


There the talk ended; with a little irritation on both sides;
the soothing effects of the wine were turned to spleen, and he wished
that Hanni hadn't come in. Nowadays when he and Dick confronted each
other they exaggerated their points of view out of irritated defiance;
this gave them a wild idea of each other, and that in turn made the
defiance stronger.
When Pinkie came in he told her about the converaation, while they
were getting ready for bed, and she said that 'old Hanni' - had probably
got her ideas
the 'rationalist' talk
from Glenning, Who liked to
amuse himself by stripping Dick's character down.
"She's got a sound head on her, has old Hanni," she said, "but no
The bottle of wine for Dick had drained him; he asked Pinkie if
he could borrow something from her but she replied, "I was going to ask
you the same thing, old cock!" She hadn't a sou; in fact, she was
overdrawn. He asked how she managed to spend 60 much, in view of the
fact that he always footed the domestic bills, and this started an argument.
He tried to broach the question of whether she and her uncle Lord Maimbury
had loaned Grove anything, but he couldn't, though it supplied the
indignation with which he argued.
He was always trying to pluck up courage to go and see the hair-
girl; he thought perhaps he would offer Dick, the muscular-looking girl
and the hair-girl dinner, somewhere, a table for four, don't you know; but.
for that you needed coin, a base element, no doubt, but one which had a
magical. influence on restaurateurs, waiters and so forth. He hesitated
to ask for an advance at the office. He wanted to take a bus to the
Strand and look for Joy Celeste's home, but he thought of 'dad' being


there: he feared being ridiculous in the eyes of this mysterious,
stooping old fellow with the tiny head:


CHAPTER 18.
He'd got into the habit of reading the mornihg paper over break-
fast more or less column by column. It was an hypnotic activity he'd
never known before; he left his books unread, and never went to the
library. The newspaper was lying there when he got up, on the door-mat
with some ridiculous head-line, and he ran down to get it automatically;
at the breakfast table he opened it with his left hand, keeping the right
for his cup of tea, which he could now pick up and replace in the saucer,
after long practice, without glancing at' it. He always turned to the
middle pages first, where the gossip-column was. It gave him the sense
of an inner circle of glittering activity from which he was cut off and
which. was going on all thè time, spreading a glow over his small life.
This circle involved more or less the same people day by day, but it
wasn't 'society' in the fashionable sense; it was questionable whether
that even éxisted. It was a kind of special gossip-columm society, and
even though it might be imaginary, it seemed acceptable in the breakfast-
hour, in a half-dream, a little sickly and squalid, but compulsive. And
also it was a relief from the dry, tyrannical hold of the other pages,
where robberies, dirty civic crimes, yacht-races and political maneouvres
were talked about, and the eye was drawn against its will by a few quick
phases that seemed to touch the heart and then pulled quickly away again.
He had the impression that the gossip-column was actually an intimate
report of people's doings. It was like reading a letter someone had -


written him. His mind put up a little resistance to this, but acceptance
became easier with time; it went with the cosy light in the kitchen and
the steaming cups of tea. And why so much effort, after all? The
gossip was like meeting new people.
This gossip-world was glittering and extravagant as his wasn't; he
didn't know where it was going on. 1 He had no evidence that it was going
on at all; but still it was a relief! It was more hopeful than reading
a book because it talked not about an imaginary. world or a past world but
one that was going on here and now, it might be only a few hundred" yards
from him. Certain names always figured in the column a Warsdale,
Maine, Wynters; a star-name was Laura Lady Maine; she was a llavish party-
goer', Glenning said one evening. These were the titled people; but
having a title was only one of the certificates of entry; it wasn't,
essential. Nor was power. Nor was it even enough to be rich and important,
There had to be something wild, a bit of extravagance, but extravagance, on
a sound footing. A kind .of respectable wildness. The parties and balls,
since they were all describéd -in the same column, seemed to involve a
group as distinct from the rest of the country as the old noble classes
had been. And he felt a thrill at nearly being at the edge of the
group himself, for weren't some of the names connected with Pinkie's
family? Arthur Wynters, for instance, was Maimbury's son! A cousin of
Pinkie's! The çolumn would say, 'Viscount Maine will be back from his
annual trip to New York at the end of the week. Something tells me he
may shortly take a week-end at Warsdale, accompanied by his daughter.
But Laura Lady Maine danced three times in a row last night with the
rather dashing Hon. Wynters, who had flown in only an hour before from
the Bermudas. One of the party told me afterwards, "Arthur always keeps


his appointments."
He notiçed that Pinkie turned to the column ravenously when she
came home in the evening, and sometimes she and Hanni talked about the
parties described as though they'd been there themselves. This surprised
him because he expected her to feel boredom at a world she already knew;
but apparently, she didn't know it; and she relied on the newspaper like
everyone else! If anything, Hanni was less interested. Pinkie, spoke
without relish-of her childhood at Aldercote, and made it seem that the
people she'd kmown there, by virtue of her having known them, were dull
and not in the style of these glittering personalities in the gossip-
column. The inference-of the column was that a kind of 'high society', -
mingled with 'trade' and 'art' still went on in palatial houses under :
brilliant chandeliers, with flunkies and attendants. The picture was
silly, but it formed in his mind without him doing anything about it, in
a breakfast-hour state of crassness which came each day with a dull,
thudding cosiness.
Pinkie said that the 'real' aristocracy was living in rented
rooms and draughty barns these days; but this. didn't rob the '1911
aristocracy', as Glenning called it, of their glitter for her. Once
they had met Arthur Wynters by chance in Shaftesbury Avenue and Granville
noticed that she seemed to glitter and sparkle herself, in talking to
him, by a strange sympathetic process. He was a pale young man with
delicate, fluttering eyes, and there was a quiet assurance about him, -
in the slow, undefensive way he moved and gazed before him - which was
unusual in post-war people.
Her family was also connected with the Maines, but illicitly.
A General Maine had had an affair with one of her grandmothers during the


1914 war; and had been responsible' for a deep hole in the divan downstairs
in the music-room, which had come from a house in Carlton Terrace where
the grandmother had.: lived for the war-years, it being so conveniently
near the war office. Granville had gazed at it in wonder after she'd
told him, trying to imagine the grand and fabulous actions of that world
before his birth,, and the magnificent bedroom with rose-coloured silk
overlays, and the immense laçe curtains hiding the windows, in an
unsubstantial Carlton Terrace where the houses gleamed and towered like
rocks of immutable sugar, and where the hum of the traffic - or the
clip-clop of hoofs was softened by tall trees!
Pinkie: told him that in fact Maine and Nancy, as the grandmother was
called had always made love in a box-room full of cobwebs, in the servants'
quarters; her grandfather, she said, being a 'rather vague old boy!,
always thought the pounding 'above stairs' was a Zeppelin raid! One
night the bombardment was so loud that he decided to go up on the roof
and 'have a look', and he came across Main in one of the upstairs rooms,
in his Blues, though. he was supposed to be fighting on the western front;
"What's it like up there, Maine, old boy?" grandfather asked, and Maine -
replied at once, "Much too hot for you, sir! Better stay downstairs!";
and' théy both went down to the cellar for a drink. Maine said he'd
'dropped in to have a look at the raid on the roof', as the war office
roof was 'crowded', and her grandfather weemed quite satisfied. The
raids had gone on long after the Armistice, which her grandfather had
thought was 'just like the Germans'.
When Pinkiettold these stories the men in them were nearly always
vague and bewildered, so that one wondered how public life had ever been
carried on at one time. But this vagueness helped to cast a legendary


warmth over them as well. Nearly every article of furniture they'd
got from Aldercoté had a story attached to it. The divan with the hole
helped to give the music-room its glow, making it seem watched over by
the past, and also as if it were continuing the past now in its glowing
colours; the room had an extra dignity and presence. It made him think
of heavy curtains, and love-letters written in a large, generous, untidy
hand; so different from the careful, educated little scrawl he had
taught himself. But. it was more than a thought; it was almost a memory,
seeming to lie in the room. Much was due to the curtains in the bedroom,
too, with their sad monkey. And in the book-shelf there was a collection
of Maine's letters and memoirs, written in a halting and oddly meek way!
with much' more tender feeling and doubt, Granville thought; than the
letters he himself ever wrote or received: Sométhing had gone out of us;
we couldn't weep any more like those men; yet we thought of them as
blustering and hard
military. men who rode rough-shod over their women
and servants, and had sent battalions to their slaughter! Yet they had
this peculiar meek dignity. He came across a note one day, slipped into
the Memoirs, yellow and faded, one corner inexplicably burned, from Maine
to Nancy Grysham, from General Headquarters in France, dated November 18th,
1915: 'My own darling Nanky,' it said, 'dined at the chateau last night,
quietly toasted your health at the very moment, would believe it, when
my host referred to Nancy, the town, in French! Rushing this off to
catch the bag. Big push starting soon, your own Ted. P.S. "Please tell
Mamma to send chocolate biscuits!!! Maine always announced a push some
time before it happened, to give German spies, Pinkie said, 'a sportsman-
like hint'. Sometimes he even gave the exact day and hour. "At dawn
the day after tomorrow,' he would write, 'the big phow starts'.


The past gazed on him from that letter as it gazed on the music-
room. He felt he had to join up with this past, by his development; he
didn't know quite how. But he couldn't forfeit what these men had had.
If he'd been a Grysham it would have been easy; the gruff toné of the
Grysham males would be in his voice now, and their glaring, impersonal
gaze would be somewhere in his eyes; he might be like Nigel, who was more
on the classical or what Pinkie called the 'gilt' side of the family.
He wouldn't have been just one single person sitting in a kitchen, trying
to make out where his personality lay and what the world was made of!
The past would have been in his flesh: people would have said; 'That's
just how his grandfather looked!' Dife wouldn't be just here and now!
Nor would his own life stick out like a sore thumb; he'd be one of the
shadows of the house, that came and went, among the other shadows of the
past that had come and gone in their time. The glow would be that of the
past and future as one presence, absorbing everything!
Sometimes he felt he was in a mystical association with these
men, through Pinkie. There was a scrap of a letter be 'd seen from one
of her uncles, Clive, who'd been killed as a boy at Ypres in a dawn-
attack: 'Dear Mums, my boots are cracking again, and could you send
some notepaper, also, dearest darling, I lost the precious lanyard.'
Like a tiny city; With such a yielding innocence: No brittle mind-work
going on! Only this golden, unquestioning belief! They'd all had such
delicate voices compared with ours, so rich and full of heart, so rambling
and soft. Everything had been spoken without caution or fear, then.
There'd been such openness. But we were hemmed in all the time; our
feelings bubbled l-over and simmered and made endless distortions.
People had been the be-all and end-ali of life then
thrilling,


curious, like stars, the outer spaces, speed, death! Rooms had been
full of their touch and sound, the exciting rustle of clothes. And
whenever he was with one of Pinkie's relatives he felt a tremendous inner
relief, at the sensation of counting again in the scale of life for
himsélf alone, in his flesh, in the way he moved and talked. The room,
the sky outside, the touch of his clothes, the sight of other people,
the sound of voices were different. There was no frandness in life
beyond the grandness of people; they contained the glow of life! So
their voices had a richer sound; and when they moved or smiled it always
had a fabulous quality, yet quite natural, much more natural than ourselves!
Their eyes lit up at other people, overcome by fabulous qualities, by
endless achievements and infinite spaces!
He was astonished, in his naive modern self, that no schooling
had gone into making these forimer people fabulous; there had been no
ideas to support them. They had actually grown up with this glow of
flesh. They had governed their households, and their country, with it.
Nancy had written her letters to the General in one rush, with no full
stops or commas, like the common people.
The gossip-column helped him believe wha't he knew was untrue, that
their world was stili intact. Of course, after breakfast there was a
slow, lurking disgust. It was. numbed state, like being condemned only
to watch life. There he sat in the kitchen, and his whole self, even
his flesh as he leaned on the edge of the table, cupping his hand under
his chin, was put out of use. For the effect of reading about a falsely
glittering world was to take away the real glitter of the kitchen for him.
For two years he hadn't had quite this feeling, which he now accepted
every morning as what it was to be alive! In those two years he'd


hardly read a newspaper. He. felt, now, like something small in a fetid
and unseen hole, watching an unreal tower that was the world. His
independence was tainted. And the paper always made it seem that the
world was going along on perfectly. organised and sound lines like a story
being unfolded day by day which however had no real plot, no meaning and
no interest.
Under its influence the intimate side of his life seemed to
disappear and he was no more involved in himself than a stranger would
be. Indeed, he saw himself as a stranger - bushy eyebrows - tiny
white creases round his eyes from the Basrah sun - : Marked, found out!
A clerk, a little clerk - : It made him giddy and sick. All the hours
with Mohammed by the river were an illusion, all the endless blue depths
of the sky were an illusion, and the desert, and every spell he'd fallen
under - nothing counted by this dreary, day-by-day tale of a world where
for a thing to really happen and be really serious it had to stink of
money or importance or crime or a rotten glitter or whatever would draw
a crowd; but nothing that would draw one single creature, with a message
to him alone, addressed to his stature alone.
He had a panic-stricken sense, which he remembered from two years
before, of being stranded for ever in England, a dumb registered
functionary in a world where the spell had gone out and nothing was
allowed to glow - the horror of never being able to leave the country
again, of being directed in his movements for the rest of his life
according to his type and function, for after all weren't there millions
of people like himself, who was he to have the desert and know Mohammed
and stare into the blinding spaces, who was he, who was he? The endless
English cry that ha'd smashed and wrecked everything until it had finally


smashed and wrecked the country itself - - who was he, who was he, who is
this fellow, who are you exactly? I amI-I-- I and I stretch to
the ends of the earth as endless as the spaces and no man shall take it
from me, no man shall touch me with your who-is-he cancer:
But he didn't feel the power, or the right, to stop taking the
paper. Pinkie said the style appealed to her, it didn't 'put' on airs',
it was 'racy and bitchy', and it 'gave the fashions'. Sometimes he
flung it on the floor, and watched it lying there inertly, with its
endless task of deifying public life like a musical box that sang the same
thing over and over again, 'Look at the crowd, Look at the crowd!' A
crowd, however, did excite fellow-interest, and sooner or later he bent
down, his eye caught by one of the headlines, and began reading before he
was really conscious of it. Always when he put it down again and leaned
back it was like descending from a high, floating voyage where only the
shadows of faces had been seen; and this withered the room for him;
he was no longer quite there; the plates on the dresser didn't remind him
so vividly of the old London and the sound of carriages rumbling past;
the shaft of sunlight on the table was less lively; it was only a dusty,
yellow patch; he wasn't present to his own life; the world was starkly
physical, and he watched it in dumb relation, with the newspaper as his
only passport to its inner reality; but then, once attained, this inner
reality was only dust and shadows.
Glenning told them one evening that he 'd started as a journalist.
He said it was the same work as publicity -- - it was 'caption-writing'.
When he thought of all the people he'd worked with he felt sick at the
thought of their influence on people's minds, except that by now he knew
they had none, really. He said he'd fallen intà 'the racket' with the I


brightest of, intentions and had neant to get out of it - to start his
real life 1 - as a matter of fact, to study music - - as soon as he'd
made a bit of money. "Then," he said, "my guts slackened, after about
twenty years"; and no he got a melancholy pleasure from 'sitting in the
ruins of self'. He never went to a concert; he had no records; he felt
music would hurt him. He'd studied nearly up to the Mus Bach but had
run off to Greece, after a girl or something; he couldn't remember;
anyway, he'd never gone back to college. He'd been brought up in the
country and was the son of a country-parson. He had meant to become a
priest at one time. "Or am I making that up?" he asked with a smile.
"I can't be certain."
After he'd heard this Granville bubbled over to convey how much
he, too, derived from music. He tried to talk - perhaps he could
really talk to Glenning, from his heart, instead of listening to his sad
little witticisms with a yes and a no all the time! - but all he found
in himself was the bare words, all useless without a warm moral drive
behind them. He wished he could talk with an easy flow about himself
as Glenning did! But all his processes of speech were gummed up. He
couldn't sit back and reflect about his own life. Also he realised that
he wanted more to persuade Glenning that he had intelligent ideas than to
convey the ideas themselves. As if doubt was cast on him every moment of
the day?
Only with Pinkie did he talk endlessly, walking round the room
flinging his arms out e he laid himself bare to the one person it
suffocated most.
Thè following Sat turday the weather changed and it was warm again,


with hardly a breeze; he was aware of it the moment he woke up because
of a fluffy, indefinable smell of leaves, mixed with that of the hot
tarmac below; the light streamed in from between the curtains.
Pinkie was still asleep, turned away from him, and he began to
feel sleepy again, too. There was a delightful silence; the traffic in
the distance only made a light, comfortable swishing noise, as if they
were near the sea, and a holiday was beginning. He turned on his side
again, towards her, closing his eyes, and just at this moment she stirred
as well. She was hardly awake.. His cheek touched hers slightly and he
was sleepily aware of her face being turned square in his direction, as
if to ask him a question. With a sleepy tenderness he drew close to her
and for a moment their lips touched. Then he almost fell asleep, his
mouth open.
But the, drowsy mood of tenderness returned, and he put his face
close to hers again. She hadn't moved and atill seemed to be questioning
him silently, her breathing steady and deep. Then she made a startled
movement, and everything changed: he felt her eyes open, so that her I
lashes brushed quickly against his brow. She seemed to stare into the
dimness of the room, trying to recollect herself, stiff and bewildered.
Their lips were still almost touching, and he dared not move, wondering
what was about to happen. Suddenly she pushed away from him. It was
as if she'd just discovered who it was, so close to her! Only in sleep
had she fallen close to him and now she drew back in a panic-stricken way.
She held herself stiffly at the edge of the bed, gradually waking up,
her breathing quicker. There was silence. He waited, hardly daring to
breathe. Pérhaps she'd had a nightmare. He made the slightest invol-
untary movement towards her and the moment she noticed it her body


quickened again, with the same panic-stricken movement as before, and
this time she leaped out of bed. His heart began beating fast while
he was wondering what she would do. She'd drawn back as if his sleeping
presence was nauseous to her, that of a stranger! And she seemed to
assume he was still asleep; he was aware of her as watching him for a moment,
with this impersonal horror, as if he were inert! He made pretend he
was still asleep, breathing deeply, and then he heard her start dressing,
always with the same quick, panic-stricken movement, hurrying to pull on
her things.
He heard her high-heeled shoes knock together. What was she
doing? He was stiff with horror, and he tried to stop his limbs
trembling in case she realised he'd been awake all the time. She slipped
her shoee on. How strange!" She didn't usually dress for breakfast,
but put on an old dressing-gown. She went towards the door. She
couldn't be going out, not at this hour! Without breadkfast? It had
never happened before? She wanted to do some early shopping, perhaps;
she would go upstairs and get the bag! She closed the bedroom-door very
carefully, pausing outside 60 that he could hear her breathing for a
moment, as if between pursed lips; she held the door for a moment so that
it wouldn't click, as he himself did so often; it was quite unusual for
her to do such a thing; hitherto,she'd. never seened aware of the door
clicking! The moment it was closed he leaned up, his whole body
trembling and his heart making a great regular pounding motion in his
chest; and he listened with all his strength, keeping his mouth open, so
as hothtorhear even his own. breathing. I She went to the lavatory and
he heard thé chain being pulled. The rush of water made it impossible
for him to hear where she went from . there. Was it upstairs? He could


hear nothing. Some time passed. Then he heard the door downstairs
close. She'd gone out! Out! He almost collapsed back onto the bed.
He heard the sharp sound of her high-heeled shoes on the pavement below, going,
he thought, towards the Commercial Road.
She was going out shopping! But she'd never done it before
breakfast, ever; she wasn't interested in shopping! And this didn't
account for her horror; but then his eyes hadn't been open and he couldn't
be sure of this horror! -
She didn't come back all morning. He waited in bed for another
hour, quite still, but there wasn't a sound in the house. He sat over
breakfast for a long time, until nearly noon, trembling all the time.
But then he felt indifferent all of a sudden, as if his nerves had worn
themselves out, and began sweeping the music-room, and tidying his records.
He made lunch and went for a walk. She still hadn't returned when he got
back, and his trembling, which was like being cold all the way through,
started again. He made himself some tea and when his lips touched the
cup he heard the door open downstairs; it was followed by the sound of
her heels on the stairs, slower than before. She'd done some shopping.
She was wearing her beret, which gavelher a girlish look; her lips were
small and moist, her eyes light and transparent, without a definite look
in them. Nothing was said about her having gone. She talked naturally.
He was astonished at her composure! She said what a good boy he was to
have cleaned up the music-room, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Also
she'd bought in some cakes, and he made another pot of tea; there was
warm sunshine outside, and all the windows were open; it was like being
in the country, having tea on the lawn; tea-time passed so naturally, and
his nerves were calm! The evening drew on and no one phoned. She began


to look preoccupied, though only with the shadow of a thought; she sat
by the hearth looking across at the window vaguely, her blue eyes iost
and flickering.
At about ten Dick phoned him up and asked him in a quiet voice if
he could join them m he was with the hair-girl and 'Joyce!, whom for
the moment Granville confused with the muscular-looking girl - for a
drink at the Marquis, downstairs, where one could also eat if one wanted to.
There was a pause and Dick almost whispered, "Is Pinkie there?" Granville
replied, "Yes," to which Dick said, "Well, what about it, then?" There
was intimate conspiracy in his voice which at once made Granville feel
sorry for Pinkie, who was only sitting in the next room, within earshop;
but he told Dick "Yes!" and put the phone down without waiting for a reply.
He walked next door casually and said he was going out for a drink with
Dick and would probably be back by midnight; she eurprised him by looking
up in a glum way, with her lonely pout, and asking him what he expected
her to do in the meantime! He was just about to lose his temper and
shout, 'What the hell was E doing when you were out?', but he was too
tired and limp in nerve, and simply shrugged. At the same time he was
frightened that she'd retaliate by going out again, and he said quickly,
"Surely you can spend a bit of time alone, can't you? I don't often see
Dick alone!" She seemed satisfied and he was about to go when she said
with her lips pursed, staring at the floor, "What's he got against me,
then? Doesn't he like my company or something?" He replied, "I don't
think he knew you were here!" She pushed out her legs and leaned further
back in her chair: "All right, then, you old sod, go and have your stag-
party! Tell him from me he's an unfriendly bastard!" She was how in
goodhhumour and he said as he. went, "I'll tell him!"


It wasn't yet dark, but downcast and still very warm; there was
an exciting closeness in the air; but he felt immune to it, still trembling
a little in the aftermath of the day. People were just coming home and
the buses were full. A bus drew to a stop and some tired-looking people
got out. Then it moved off again, and a woman walked away with steps so
regular, on high-heeled shoes, that they might have been fixed by instru-
ments; her head was bowed slightly as she walked, and she glanced about
quickly, her eyes never staying on an object for more than a moment, as
if newly intimidated each time. And other people had a similarly
humbled manner; they fixed their eyes on the pavement, or hurried along;
but above all they seemed to be trying to strip their faces of expression,
as if to offer blank conduct-sheets to the world and avoid all verdicts;
he did it himself; the habit had died a little in the last two years; but
he remembered walking along this very street, and trying to compose his
face naturally as if for a photograph.
Dick and the others were sitting downstairs in the Marquis; the
place was quite crowded. There was only a piano. playing now, under a
spotlight, and a few people were dancing; respectable-looking couples,
while the others sat at the tables. Joyce, the girl with the extraordinary
pallor, had just finished at the bar and had come down to eat before going
home; the hair-girl sat with her chin cupped in her hands saying little.
She hardly greeted him. He asked himself whether she had really' 'been the
'image' in his mind all this time, infatuating him, but he couldn't tell.
He could only think about Pinkie; it was a touch of irony that Dick should
have chosen just this day to invite him. Pinkie's eyes as she'd come
into the kitchen, with her beret on, remained in his mind. Dick was
subdued as well. Little was said between any of them; they. gazed at


the other guests in a desultory fashion. Granville could pay for nothing,
which was another miscalculation on the part of providence; he only had
a few shillings in his pocket. But yet, for all his trembling and his.
concern to get back to Pinkie a God only knew what for!
The evening was exciting; it was exciting to suffer in this way;
the inner trembling was like an exciting undertone. And it gave him an
attitude of unconcern towards the hair-girl which she seemed to prefer to
his former one of flushed participation. He deaned back in his chair
coolly, and she leaned. towards him, sharing the silence. They drank arak
again, and she said she had to be home about. midnight to see 'dad!. He :
was suddenly facetious and asked with a laugh how 'dad'. was; she turned
to him slowly with her grave, sallow, bony face, her black hair pulled tight
round her brow so that her eyes were wide and narrow, and said in. a harsh
way, "All right, big-prick, that's enough about dad!" He felt stung,
but as she at once began talking about something else to the pale girl,
and as Dick looked quite unconcernéd, running his hand through his beard
and gazing across at the pianist, he was soon at his -ease again. The
hair-girl even turned to him again as she was leaving and said she thought
all people who travelled were interesting', and that they must 'get
together' again some time and be real friends. Again the image of
Pinkie sprang to his mind and he hardly smiled at her in reply, which
again stood him in good stead with her if the quick interested glance
she flashed at him was anything to go by; he simply held out his hand,
nei ther formally nor shyly, and nodded good bye! The pale girl stayed
on a little longer, then she vent as well. She hardly spoke at all,
only sat there in an easy way, limply, her stomach bulging softly under
her jumper while she gazed before her; her hand dangled down from the


chair-arm, and nothing that happened appeared to have an impact on her;
her eyes didn't change, but neither were they fixed; they stayed in a
soft, reflective unconcern, which seemed to have infected Dick as well;
he had the impression that nothing could penetrate her pallor, which
seemed actually inside her skin, its substance, not a colourionly; it
was like a wonderful veil that.had been put over her and yet was absorbed
into"her, no longer substantial. Dick told him afterwards that she was
driving him mad but that he was 'inching' her steadily towards the bed.
Granville told him about his impression of her pallor, and he said it was
exactly right - - there was something immovable but marvellously soft all
round her, and he added that the idea of seeing her naked made him
shudder all over; he wondered if he'd be able to bear it, having got
nervous about the idea so often; he'd never felt like that about a woman
before! She was soft to the touch as well, he said; he'd never felt
anyone with such a soft. body. Hanni was like a 'skiffle-board' next to
her. He also told Granville, for the second time, that the hair-girl's
real name was Makboula, and that she didn't allow anyone to use it; he
doubted if 'dad' existed; she was a rum girl and no one knew what went on
at her flat, if she had a flat; he'd never been round to the address to
check up. They parted at Waterloo, where Granville went to see him off,
meaning to walk home, right across tha City, which would take him about an
hour; it was just after one o'clock in the morning, and there the strange,
quiet evening ended.
Pinkie was out again, and his previous atate threatened to return,
only worse, with the fear now that she would stay out all night. But she
came back a few minutes after he'd taken off his shoes. He heard her go
straight to the bathroom,. but she didn't run the water. He had the idea


that she was wiping herself with the towel, between the legs; a' clear
image of it came into his mind, and to confirm it he went there after
she' 'd gone upstairs to the kitchen; one of the towels looked recently
used, and he ran it over with his hands, in surreptitious haste. And
he found a small spot near the edge, moist and fresh. He lifted it to
his nose and thought he recognised the smell of sperm. He was surprised
to find that there was a thrill in this for him, besides the pain which
was becoming so familiar to him how that it was like a permanent state
of the bowels. He thought he would confirm his impression by examining
her underwear after she'd slipped into bed; he would quickly touch them
in the darkness to find if they, too, were wet. But the time came and
there was no sign of her underwear. When she took off her skirt she was
naked underneath. He asked her, trying not to speak with a trembling
voice, didn't ehe, for Lord's sake
he aimed at facetiousness
wear
knickers these days? And her reply, quite non-commital, was that she'd
aleays found them 'an impediment'. She then yawned and asked how Dick
was these days; and he said, "Fine!" When they'd switched the light
out she told him that she'd decided to go to a cinema that evening.
"That late?" he asked, with a touch of roguishness in his voice that was
new and puzzling to him; and she replied, laying her head on the pillow
and pulling up the sheet, "I went to the cafe afterwards. Hanni and
Clockwork were there!" Then they fell asleep, simultaneously, it seemed.


BOOK IV
CHAPTER 19.
The fine weather continued and walking became his only pleasure.
'He would get back dead-tired in the evening and sit with the others
drinking wine sleepily, his nerves exhausted. He found his thoughts were
clearer when he waiked and that dark notions didn't master him so easily
as in a room. Sometimes he set out early in the morning, before Pinkie
was up. He would walk along Leadenhall street and the Cornhill past the
Bank of England, then down Cheapside to the back of St. Paul's, and from
there he would cut up to Smithfields to have a look at St. Bartholomew's
church, hidden and silent at the end of its own walk. Then he would turn
south again to Fleet Street and the Strand, go through the Horse Guards'
Parade to St. James's Park, where he would sit and watch the ducks for a
time, and make the last stage of his journey to Kehsington gardens; he
always ended there, and the walk was the same every morning. Everything
gleamed and flashed in the sun on the way; it was always best during the
morning hours; the air was cleaner and the shops and streets had a
remarkably country-look; there was a golden bustle everywhere, and the
sky looked especially high and blue and spacious above the roofs.
Sometimes he took sandwiches, and sat on the grass near the Lido, where
he'd gone with Hanni; she got little time off now and came to the house
less; Pinkie said she thought Hanni's relation with 'Joe Clockwork' had
clicked, and she was spending her evenings ' with him; '80 far Dick wasn 't


'rattled'.
One morning he was walking near the Serpentine when he saw Pinkie's
cousin, Deryk Grysham, strolling along; he'd just walked over the stone
bridge and was standing still while some children ran past him. It was
a lovely day; the water flashed through the trees, and the sky was a
perfect blue, with only a slight warm breeze that stirred the grass now
and then. One could hear the splash of an oar from the lake and the
dull swishing sound of the traffic behind the trees. Grysham came out
of the shadows, oné hand idly in his jacket pocket, gazing before him,
quite lost, while the children played and shouted near by. He looked
drawn into himself as Granville had never seen him before; they'd met a
hand-full of times, especially just after he and Pinkie were married;
but since then. they'd hardly seen each other. The family didn't hang
together on the whole; Pinkie's brother Nigel, for instance, hardly knew
Deryk.
Grysham had a long, pale face and gave the impression of being
both massive and fragile; he was quite tall, and broad in the shoulders.
There was a certain heaviness in his body, but it was veiled by a frailty
of nature. Not that his face had any great delicacy. His nose was long
ànd 'his jaw heavy, giving his face a formless, ever so slightly coarse
appearance when in repose. His eyes had a pale look, tired and not fully
open. All his body seemed to be in sleep, removed from the rough air;
the delicacy was clearly in him, but he had no really delicate features
He was strolling along with a slow, pale motion, and seemed. to emerge
bodilessly from the shadows; Granville had to look twice before he was
sure he was there. He. had a grace ful way of moving and gave the
impression of harmony. It wasn't Dick's deliberate cool harmony, but a real


quiet cohesion of' the body, by virtue of its withdrawal from the world;
Granville had never seen him in repose before, not quite like this. He
only remembered him in drawing-rooms, smiling and shaking hands, gazing
at everyone with eyes that seemed incapable of sharpness. And now
Grysham had an effect on the trees round him: he made them seem part of
a magnificent park still closed to the public. Granville thought of
the gardens of Versailles. Partly it was Crysham's corduroy jacket,
which at first sight. looked velvet.
They walked towards each other quickly.
"What a wonderful surprise! I'd no idea you were back, Philip!"
They shook hands, smiling at each other, and Granville replied,
"Yes, about two months ago!"
Grysham was 60 effusive that he felt ashamed of the weakness of
his own feelings: he only felt a mild affection;" also excitement, perhaps,
at being with one of the Gryshame again - they all had such a glow and
style! Though Deryk and his mother Beatrice were looked on as outposts
of the family - - too tidy and conscious of rank! That was because
Beatrice was 'trade' - she was more Grysham than the Gryshams, the
family said. She was a flashing, wild, haughty woman - but also
careful underneath her style -ie a snob from top to toe.
In Grysham's gaze now there was mingled admiration, curiosity and
a subtle glittering look of being complimented by Granville's presence.
"Isn't it lovely?" Granville said, nodding towards where the
sunlight flickered on the water, through the leaves.
"Isn't it? I couldn't bear my room.any more! You look awfully
well," Grysham added, giving him a side-glance. "How's Hester?"


The name IPinkie' was unknown to Deryk; he and his mother
always said Hester. Granville tried to think of something more to say
but couldn't, and they continued along the path; he added that Hester
had got nice and sunburned in the Middle East, but stopped there. He
felt quite tongue-tied but yet easy as well: there was something so
foreign to: him in Grysham, he himself had. been away so long and in such
a different world, that he felt a fascinated curiosity towards the other
man,. as if he himself was cancelled out and calmly listening to Deryk's
being, that took shape at his side, helped by his silence; two years ago
he would have forced the conversation along, believing that this was
expected of him; he'd always been nervous with Deryk's mother Beatrice;
he'd always felt too fired and stimulated socially, because of her gushing
charm, for any drowsy, inquisitive calm to be possible. It was like
being drawn into a strange, vivid country now, where he only had to watch
and listen; he was no longer involved; what Beatrice or Deryk thought
of him didn't matter so much; they had less power to hurt; their exclusion
of him, if that had ever been in their minds, seemed not to concern him,
but to be about an idea of him from which he in himself was immune; he
hadn 't heard the word 'background' for two years or more!, He was thus
less in awe of Deryk. A glow had come into his own life which he held
intact; he'd tasted friendship; he deliberately remembered Mohammed as
they walked along, as a protective device. He clung to the memory of
Basrah! He felt nervous apprehension threaten to mount in him for a
moment, like a devil inside him which his confidence had tempted to come
out; he'd always felt feathers in the belly before seeing beatrice,
because of her terrific social requirements of wit and constant talk,
which he'd always found, once he'd steeled himself to them, that he


enjoyed fulfilling; but now he steeled himself the opposite way, to calm;
with nothing to say he said nothing! And Deryk seemed to sense something
new in him; his tone was more confidential than Granville could remember
it, with less deliberate charm and courtesy; they were on an equal footing.
Granville was aware that this calm he had, which he knew wouldn 't
last long, might be his first glimpse of maturity, as he would have to
find it in the world he'd graduated to; it had something to do with the
defeat of pride in himself; he would have to learn how not to care what
people thought of him; then he would be able to rest, and watch and
listen; he would allow his own self to reside elsewhere, intact; and that
would take much construction - perhaps years more.
The carriage of Deryk's head was like a sea-horse's, uplifted,
his'eyes half-closed in a sleepy, pale surveillance, his nose long and
also pale, seeming to' overhang his lips. He could remember the first
moment Deryk had opened thè door of the top-floor flat to him, a few weeks
after he and Pinkie were married; he remembered the sense of being
incorporated into some grand and blazing activity, which never quite came
about however; it was in Deryk's delighted smile as he stretched out his
hand - to his 'favourite' cousin's husband - - with, "How very nice to
meet you! Do come in!"
"What's the work like' out there?" Deryk asked him.
"Oh 5 it's fascinating!"
He made the words up,: and smiled. And now a return-question was
required of him: "How's the school?" Deryk worked in a school where
his mo'ther had a money-interest.
"Oh! I'm always thinking of giving it up - travelling! But -m :
Granville glanced at Deryk quickly - suppose he had failed to


understand Deryk?
suppose they had equal desires, only on two sides
of an immense gulf planted by history?
"Do you want to travelg" he asked quickly.
"Yes, I'd love to!"
"Why don't you come out to the Middle East?"
"I've always dreamed about it - but, you know, Beatrice really
couldn't get on without me - at the school for one thing!"
"Why don't you try it? You could sent the money home!"
"I know!" Then a charming smile, which seemed to make it all
make-believe
everything he'd been saying.
"You could easily find some work out there!" Granville want on,
persisting deliberately.
And Deryk's smile faded a little. The little formula of charm
had been disturbed. "Yes!"
"Why don't you do. it?" He persisted further, forcing himself
to it with a hard directness while
absurd!--- beginning to quiver ever
so slightly inside, with apprehersion : from breaking the little
formula that the other man insisted on with all his soft, casual being
like a pale weight in the sunlight.
"Perhaps I will one day," Deryk replied. That was a little
patronising. And the smile had almost quite faded. There was éven
the slightest edge of - nastiness? But no -: - perhaps a delicate sour
distaste.
Slowly the old clouds, which he'd all but forgotten, gathered :
in Granville again. He began to remember the past. Partly it was
Deryk's accent, which was like a deliberate attempt not to speak the
language of ordinary men, with 'rarely' for 'really' and a painful


'ee-ow' for 'oh', an accent that seemed to say, 'I was paid for!"
Granville fought against it, reminding himself of Basrah and trying to
keep the idea of Deryk as someone foreign to him, and also mysterious.
Partly he succeeded as they walked along together under the trees with
the children's voices behind them. But the memories became more and
more detailed - of a slight rudeness here, of" a sudden harsh sneering
sentence from Beatrice, the 'lady', a look of horror on her face when he E
mentioned his mother casually in a conversation - the horror really had
made her face seem to fall into her chin! Absurd, dead, historical,
but here they were coming up like steam from Deryk's presence at his side!
Was he slowly recapturing that,old sense of being favoured by Deryk -
was that the web he and Beatrice weaved on their visitors, was that the
costly invisible article they were still trying to sell in a world which
had flung them off as far as authority was concerned fifty years ago!
Behind them was the inner citadel of power, and they held the
keys - that was the idea you were supposed to get. But you were never
let in. So the dream was always to hover before you.
Deryk had his pale hands behind his back, idly clasped together.
They came out into an. opening where a hill rose steeply, smooth and
green, and the warmth of the sun had collected there, in the hollow, full
of hot, dusty scents. He seemed like othéh men - lost in thought,
kicking slightly at the gravel with his foot, but as if he were off-duty in
some way: his fragility. wasn't that of the drawing toom for the moment,
but more childish - hé inight be a child kicking at the gravel, rat ther
bored! His eyes had a childish, dreamy quality, too, without anything
self-protective in their look. His jacket was a deep wine-colour, and
his grey trousers had lost their crease; he was untidy but yet he had an


air of clean, fastidious detachment. His shoulders were bowed wearily.
Granville had an impression of a child alone in his own park, pouting a
little, sad and frightfully lonely, wondering what had gone wrong,'
because this was a public park and all the world roared close by.
Suddenly their eyes met and Deryk's gaze changed at once, the dimness
left his eyes like something' falling into the sea, a shadow, replaced
with a look of gentle solicitude a yes, was Granville about to ask a
question?
Granville's heart was moved at once. He had the sensation that
there was a special recognition in Deryk's eyes at that moment, perhaps
because they were in - well,' the same family! He suddenly blamed
himself for the dark thoughts he'd just had, and for the absence in his
life of this light courtesy! When Deryk shook hands with someone his
expression was extraordinaryily gentle and delighted, and humbly
solicitous. His whole body seemed made for courtesy, and one could't
imagine that he had a dark thought, much less a censorious one. His
eyes filled with light as if the social command had become the natural
one for him. He disclaimed self when he talked to people, too - it was
all "How wonderful!" and "No, really?" and "How very nice for you!" And
when he did bring in his own life he made it seem like a game, something
you didn't bother about. He smoothed the path all the time, nodding
and smiling, calling the other person on. But - it didn't go all the
way through: You were left with the feeling that he and Beatrice would
tear you to peices as soon as your back. was turned.
He remembered their house, so well, - the hushed anteroom of the
citadel of power! - the thick carpets, the white, curving bannisters,
the dim and heavily curtained drawing room that seemed to promise everything,


the dead-white walls because that was the only colour you could furnish
to, the gréat porcelain bowl from Aldercote that shone, from one of the
tables, the deep armchairs where you sank down, the striped chintz
everywhere, then beatrice rising from an armchair as you came in with a
nighty rustle' and sweep, always in a' long, flowing gown that shone and
glittered in the dim light. Yet' she was robust as weli, with thick arms
and a determined chin. Her eyes sparkled at you, gleeful and challenging,
black, with a tiny light of irony in them. Her dress was always' cut low,
and the lights were arranged to take twenty years off her age, which they
did, giving her skin a marvellous, soft, healthy glow, with nothing
pinched or thwarted. She had the habit of giving you an admiring not
every now and then, even if she wasn't talking to you, together with a
wide smile that had something roguish in it, making her teeth shine.
She had blonde, unruly hair and together with her sharp nose it gave her
an eagle-look, especially as she had the habit of darting her head from
side to side as she switched her gaze. Her lips were full and open,
yet gripped firmly in sunsual will, with something flirtatious and -
conniving in them.
Beatrice loved rank ravenously, almost with an innocent passion.
Knowling that somebody was a lord or higher (lower she didn't go) made
them seem extraordinarily beautiful to her, and she really did look at
them with sexually admiring eyes, even if they were a lady or a duchess.
When she was with Pinkie's uncle, Maimbury, she laughed and threw back
her head, and all her wit came out
she would flash him glances, and
dim lights seemed unnecessary then, because her skin vibrated naturally
with youth. By the same token she hated the absence of rank in people.
She couldn't respect them. But, more than that, she couldn't forgive


them. She simply was unable to. There was no dream there for her.
She had a wonderful way of talking about the family. Did Pinkie
know that one of her cousins was marrying the marquis of Averdale next
year? Such a clever, charming girl! And had Philip been introduced
to the Wynters girl? That must be arranged! They'd adore each other
she knew that! And she would look across at Deryk and say, "Don't you
think so, darling?" and he would answer, "Yes, mumny!" It never was
arranged. But the promise was intoxicating. Beyond Beatrice you always
saw a country mansion with tall lighted windows peeping through the
cedar trees. Then it would be, "Your grandfather adored you when you
were small," to Pinkie, smiling brilliantly.. "Clive took your grand-
mother down to Aldercote that summer, do you remember, for the last. time,
she died the same year Pamela was born
I always remember Pamela in
her baptism clothes, she madè such a lovely baby!" Or, "That was before
your father sold everything up, when we always went down to Beeches for
July and August, do you remember, darling?" And so the web was spun,
closer and closer with every visit.
"Hester must be looking well after all that sun!" Deryk said.
"Isn't it rather too hot sometimes?"
"Well," Granville replied, "youccan always go for a dip in the
swimming pool
you don't dream of working after eleven in the morning!"
"Oh! Is that a company pool or ---?"
"Well, it's a kind of club run for the oil people mostly, and
we've got membership cards." He was just about to add that they'd lost
their membership cards when he cut himself short, knowing too well the
hot feeling of regret that might result if he let his words rush on


without preparation, whatever the words were!
"Isn't it difficult for an, English woman
moving about freely,
that sort of thing?" Deryk asked him.
"Well, it isn't easy but you get more and more women without the
veil.: They're quite used to seeing English women. They think they're
all mad anyway."
"Oh!" Deryk chuckled in a breathless way. "And you work with
Arabs,.do you?"
"It must be a wonderful life, Philip," Deryk aaid quietly.
They came to a stone bridge with fat pillars where there were
people leaning on the parapet gazing down into the water, silent. The
stream was very still below, touched at the edge by willow branches.
The sunlight cast the design of the pillars on to it, and these shadows
trembled with the breeze sometimes; or a fish passed swiftly across.
"Are they trout?" Deryk said, peering down.
"They look like it!"
Two or three fish darted under the bridge, their bodies silvery
blue. Further on they could see boats out on the Serpentine, moving
slowly, without a sound from any of them; nearer the bank there were toy
yachts, their sailsa dazzling white as they went up and down on the tiny
waves; far on the other, side they could see people diving into the water
at the Lido, white bodies streaking down and making a splash, with the
trees where he and Hanni had sat making a dark cave-like hollow behind.
They came to' a man launching a toy ship from the bank, with a
crowd watching him. The little vessel had three funnels and was worked
by. radio. Some of the people watching were dressed for the office, in


dark winter suits. The man started the engine by pulling at a piece
of cord, then he pushed the boat carefully away, giving ita final little
shove with the tips of his fingers; he was a small man with a wrinkled,
pale face and freckled handss utterly absorbed in his task, the stub-end of
a cigarette forgotten in the corner of his mouth, brown and dry. As the
dignified little ship went smoothly out, keeping a straight course and
sending out a surf on either side, he bent down to the radio, which had
an aerial and three or four dials. And then he controlled the boat's
direction, 8o that it moved, out heavily, as if massive, still, going a
straight course; but then it veered heavily round, gleaming in the water.
The port-holes and cabin windows flashed as it turned, and all the time
the man kept his head bowed, only lifting his gaze slightly to look out for
other boats, his hand on the dials. The only noise from the lake was the
muffled bumping of an oar: now and then on a rowlock, far out, and the
flapping of the tiny yacht-sails.
Again Granville glanced at Deryk and was surprised to see that he
was 'rapt and fascinated like every one else in the crowd; again he was
like a child.
"He must be a happy man, don't you think?" Deryk said with a
smile. There was the same wistfulness Granville had noticed before;
he was bereft of a tangible self and looked extraordinarily lonely.
"Do you enjoy living in London?" Granville asked him as they
walked away.
"Well, it's awfully wearing sometimes but the holidays are good
I, do get long holidays, that's one advantage of teaching!" And then,
having said this little bit.about himself, he turned to Granville with a
final air, as if drawing a curtain, and made his little smile that seemed


to say, "But my life's just a game, what about yours?*
Granville felt suddenly elated - he would really talk to Deryk,
he'd get him to tell him about his life and fears, he'd dig further and
further down, why shouldn't they be friends, why shouldn't he explore
things in this way, why not cut through all this dreariness and formula
and set talk that governed everything, that gripped England like a deadly
paralysis and which you could see in people's faces! What was there in
the air, against that exploration?
They'd come round the park full circle to where they'd met and
the children still played. It seemed to finish the conversation, too.
They walked on to Alexandra Gate, strolling. They saw two chestnut horses
on Rotten Row, under the trees, with women riders in elegant top hots,
turning and rearing slightly, their flanks close together, the sunlight
going over them in dazzling yellow spots as they kicked up the sand,
seeming not to move by their own wills but to be in an airy, floating
motion like the brilliant shadows all round them.
Well! He and Deryk turned to each other to say good bye. So
nice to have met! What about Hester, when was she going to call
Beat trice? Then they must. both come over! Yes, and Deryk must bring
Beatrice over for dinner one evening, Hester would love a and so forth.
He hardly knew what he was saying or what he was hearing. He only had
an impression of Deryk's face as géntle and solicitous again, smoothing
the path, always smoothing the path!
They put out their hands and gave each other a final smile.
"Be sure to give Beatrice our love!" Granville cried, in a last
sudden access of affection. "Hester's been meaning to phone for a long


"Do come round and see us! Mummy's going to be so excited when
I tell her!"
They walked away in opposite directions a he chose the opposite
direction though he. was heading the same way as Deryk a a and then turned
to wave at each other simultaneously. Granville caught a glimpse of his
long pale face again, and his pale fingers as they waved delicately,
flickering above Deryk's head for a moment. Then he was gone.
Pinkie's uncle, Maimbury, had a sparkling and golden quality
that put people at ease right away. It was. this perhaps that Deryk was
striving for. Why didn't he attain it? He didn't me a quite. There
was something grudging in him
he and Beatrice beckoned you inside but
that was also a good way: of making you feel shut out as well, especially
as there was no inside! All they did, really, was create a little fable,
and then despise you secretly if you fell for it.
But Maimbury was whole: a still, slim, quietly gracious man with
the same unaffected assurance touched with pallor. as his son Wynters;
only there was more bite to his gaze
he'd made himself one of the
richest men in the country and pulled off a good many brisk deals. He
was '1911 aristocracy' - but his mother was a Grysham; a bit too
expensive for true blue blood, anl the family said, but good to dine off!
He kept his tall London house, that shone like a great white tooth in the
sunlight, partly as a monument for them and partly as a restaurant -
they came in their muddy shoes and dirtied his carpet, Pinkie said, and
belched loudly after means, to the horror of the butler who was also
1911' and was fool enough to think that aristocracy and delicate manners
could ever go together!


Well, to some extent they did go together in Maimbury. He'd
grown up in both worlds -m : a bankérs' world on the one hand and the
old lingering world of the country estate (supported by the banks) on the
other. He was the effectivé head of Pinkie's side of the family.
Everyone came to him for advice and, of course, money. They brought
their bastard children for him to support, and used his name when they
were in a tight spot. Family conferences took place between him and
Beatrice, who knew better than anybody where the family needed bolstering
up and patching. They were always trying to keep the family together.
But the family didn't want to be kept together: not unless they could see
the money in it! As for a sense of aristocracy, they had absolutely
none
they didn't know what people meant!
Pinkie had a childish, romantic admiration for Maimbury: it was
like her love for Nigel, only Maimbury
'Nicky' a was a debonair
figure who 'arranged' everything; he belonged to the world of affairs,
and Nigel to nature.
The first real family event after Granville had married Pinkie was
lunch with him.. And it was an extraordinary event because it showed
Granville a world he'd never known before even in his wildest imaginations,
an invisible world which Pinkie had renounced in herself. He was always
conscious afterwards that she'd renounced the Englànd in herself, the
unconscious and dreaming part of her blood, for which she could see no
use in the world.
The moment Maimbury had walked across the carpet in the hush of
- the hotel-lounge Granville felt at ease, with a strange, immediate,
involuntary change of feeling as if the man had'brought a new golden light
in with him, coming suddenly through the revolving glass door, dreading


softly, waving his hand in a càsual movement towards Pinkie. He 'wore
his raincoat open and carried an old trilby hat; Granville remembered -
the way he swung this hat, with an oddly childish and graceful abandon,
so that it was like a school-cap for a moment. His eyes caught Granville's
attention next: they were wide-set and still, remarkably placid, as if
their physical shape had been determined slowly by quiet, good thoughts.
And their original shape seemed to include a smile, which asserted
safety and calm at once.
It was a light, wondering quality, and
dominated them all the time they were at lunch. It put Pinkie in a
specially gentle and courteous mood, bringing out that invisible elenent
that brooded and slept in her - the ecstatic, thrilling, wild, half-
choked way of talking that made her lips moist and full, and put lost,
distant, shining vagueness in her eyes as if she was looking back across
centuries and everything grand that had ever happened in the country
was happening in her again and as if a natural. authority and dominance
lay in her body which: only had to be called out, like the rustle of a
silk dress and candlelight and the flash of eyes in the dimness! She
and Maimbury made the crowded Oxford Street outside distant, rotten,
dead and foul, an idiot dream sprayed on the earth like a stink and left
to lie for a few decades, not more, before it was smashed to pieces by
better hands than had put it there.
Maimbury had taken Pinkie by the hand warnly and spoken in a: low,
easy voice that at once seemed to establish endless time
"Hester;
how are you?", with a quick glance at her to verify she was well. Then
he turned to Granville, his eyes measuring him for a moment in a mild,
rather passive way,. without scrutiny, absorbing him with an unwatchful
calm, and said to him shortly, man to man, "How do you do?" Through the


whole lunch Granville kept glancing at Pinkie because of her metamorphosis
into a tall, graceful, attentive creature, gazing before her in a dazzled
way
into her real self. She had a dark suit on with a red silk
scarf loose round her neck which made her face glow and her skin pale and
smooth, in a dramatic contrast. She could have been one of the great
women of the past ma a Holland or Devonshire! It was extraordinary
what effect his presence had.
Maimbury's hair was slightly grey at the edges and this made the
casual vigour of his body all the more striking. He had a firm, lean
face, weathered and lined; everything led 1 to his eyes. As they went
into lunch he snapped his fingers and called out "Boy!" sharply to one
of the pages, then told him to 'take the gentleman 's coat'. For a
moment Granville had been surprised, and had stood still in the carpeted
lobby - 'The man means me!" he thought. It seemed to him then that
Maimbury had subtly established equality between them by saying that -
by making a double announcement, to the page and himself. And the page
raced towards him, even before he took Maimbury's coat.
Inside the dining room they were handed over to the head waiter,
who said quietly, "This way, milord," and led the way briskly between
the tables, whispering to another waiter in a brittle, narrow-eyed way,
"Tell Joe quick - - Maimbury!"
Seats were drawn back from their tables in the corner, they all
sat down, and Maimbury took the leather-covered menu in his hand. He
glanced down at it and stroked his mouth thoughtfully, leaning on his
elbow. "Now what shall we have?" he murmured. Granville said nothing.
He was used to being confused by wine-names and dish-names at that time,
so he decided to leave the talking to Pinkie. She always knew what she


wanted and said so, while he would order the same dish as someone else
at the table, saying to the waiter after a pause, "J'll have the same!"
Then he just hoped the food would be all right. Once he'd ordered
escallop in this way
'it was one of the few dishes he knew
and he
got a heap of fish in a sea-shell instead of what he'd expected
veal!
He'd looked down at the fish in a bemused way, trying to reconcile it
with his idea of veal fried in breadcrumbs, and wondering whether the
waiter had misheard him.or if his leg was being pulled. Then he'd
caught sight of the card and saw under FISH the word scallop and assumed
this must be it. Apparently, you could use the word for both veal and
fish.
Another time, when he was at the T.I.M. training school, he'd
been invited to lunch by one of the specialists in Arab affairs. The
man had small, gleaming, kindly eyes but he only spoke when he had
something intelligent. to say, a mannerism which always frightened
Granville. Suddenly, between courses, hè looked at Granville in a calm,
rather patriarchal way and asked, "Will you share some plovers' eggs
with me?" He decided to nod and smile, as if the thought had occurred
to him, too. But he had no idea what the words meant! He thought it
might be a wine' - something like 'Plaver Seggs'! It seemed all right - -
'Plaver Seggs '45'. And then the little mottled eggs came, six of thém,
and he ate three of them with a panic-stricken show of relish.
After a pause Pinkie said to Maimbury, "Well, I don't know a
thing about wines for a start, Nicky. So you'd better do the ordering."
There, it was perfectly simple! You just had to say it! And
Maimbury replied, "Would you like me to order the whole thing?"
Granville answered, "Yes,. that'd be lovely!" So homely, this idea of the


host ordering for everybody! Maimbury gave him an appreciative little
glance.
Granville had noticed for the first time in a restaurant of this
kind that he felt no apprehension, nor a sense that he must hand on every
word said to him in case he was guilty of a breach of manners. He sat
easily in his chair, his elbows on the rests, and actually thought
about what he was saying - this was perhaps the most amazing thing for
him, to actually think in a public place with the same unhurried
reflection as he did in private! The table seemed to belong to them,
their own, and though the hall clattered and hummed with conversation,
the other tables seemed far away, and the streets outside were so remote
as to be inimaginable.
Held forgotten now what they talked about. But an extraordinary
graciousness had flowed from Maimbury; it was something rooted and fixed
in him, a blessed mark, that could never have been imitated or learned.
Granville was astonished how, within a few moments of being in his presence,
he felt not only at his ea33 but washed clean of guile and baseness;
it actually seemed, by contrast, that at other times he'd learned to
dislike himself! For he settled so comfortably -- not proudly or
vainly - into his own frame. under Maimbury's gaze, and he observed that
Pinkie was doing the same; Her sentences were like trenchant little edicts,
uttered blindly, as if from the past, with the vagueness of the past
round them, caught in a glow, dramatic, making the present moment seem
only a contribution to the slow, legendary movement of time far beyond
them. And her red scarf marked this more strongly. It was something
in Maimbury's smile, and in the soft gaze of his eyes that carried no
advance-image of the world but waited in good will for the world to


declare itself. Granville only said what he wanted to say, and his
silence didn't feel hedged-in and intimidated. It was such a relief -
actually being with somebody in a public place and yet keeping intact,
without fear! In an epoch when being in public meant losing intactness,
in the roar of a city! Had the world always been like that?" Was it
only us, in our world, who underwent a strange psychological shock when
we went into the company of other people, and uttered things we hardly
knew or recognised, and then, afterwards, felt a sense of betrayal, that
we'd departed from ourselves, unawares, and lost the road, as.if we'd'
been bewitched, and odd public statements had been put into our mouths
from the air? Was the usual air infectious nowadays? And was Maimbury
free of that?
Granville had the momentary enchanting experience when he was
with Maimbury of discovering goodness in himself - not extra and above
what he was in himself---- it was simply a recognition of the ordinary
goodness every man had, as if hitherto he'd been given a false story,
that there was no goodness in the ordinary state, no natural goodnéss
inherited by everyone!
There were even all sorts of ways of talking and moving which had
never appeared to, him before; as if hitherto he'd been in the grip of
fear, and had been paralysed by the gaze of other men, not consciously
any more but in a manner almost physical, certainly automatic, like
goose-flesh in sudden cold; sometimes it seemed that he could deduce the
presence of other men near him, without seeing them, by this automatic
response of the flesh! Indeed, it appeared to him that the whole of his
life, apart from the interlude in Sussex, had been in a state of fear!
Long ago, he'd forgotten what natural behaviour was like, and now he more


or less accepted a state of self-suspension as the price to be paid for
being in public! And now, through Maimbury, he became aware that this
might be true of most other people, too: it might be the state of our
world. With Maimbury he said whatever thoughts came into his head, as
if they were from a mysterious source - mysterious even to him me - and
not open to the limiting judgements of men; it was a atrange freedom he
had never known before, and he was less willing to say afterwards that he
lived in a free epoch; for the flesh was in chains, it was chained to this
throbbing public life that went, round in a circle and caught us up like
a St. Catherine's wheel, stretching and torturing us, twisting our faces
and shooting out our hands in peculiar, unwilled gestubes! The self was
more or less in abeyance with Maimbury: he was simply a man, Pinkie was
simply a woman; there was simply the world, no 'inner' cr 'outer', no
'private' or 'public', but people sitting together to eat! Not was this
a primitive sense, of having got behind civilisation to a supposedly
untouched and intimate state; it was the reverse - far in advance of
anything primitive; it was actually a sense of civilised people
not
clever ones, or terrifically energetic ones, or. demoniacally astute ones,
but civilised ones in a golden way, in whom reason wasn't a faculty of
the brain but a sweet power of curiosity and light! That was in
Maimbury's face. There were no marks of fear!
Pinkie had once showed him a photograph of Maimbury as a child,
standing in a tall hot-house with the rest of his family, dressed in
knickerbockers: he had long, fair curls and the wonderful softness was
already in his eyes. And it made Granville feel how seldom a child
Heeps his dream in our epoch, but is pinched and limited early, especially
a boy, in recognition of the pitiless, dry symmetry of the public world


that has to be observed, requiring stricter gestures than natural onès
ever could be, and only certain brain-calculations in place of thoughts,
and hard pellets of 'fact' in place of the flowing truth and expérience.
of life! Maimbury had kept his softness. Nothing had been damaged
in him; s0 it was like a glimpse into more golden egochs, seeing him.
he'd been allowed his own dignity from the beginning. Perhaps only
girls could grow like that in our world; with their graciousness intact
in them, and the light of dreaming still allowed in their eyes.
Granville remembered all too well in his own childhood how he had always
tried to stop the graciousness in his face as much_as possible, and to
discourage the dream, in deference to a public world that never made a
clear statement of its requirements, only seemed to turn a cold shoulder
when he departed from this descipline into natural behaviour.
This was so wonderful in Maimbury's face - that it had never
been turned from its natural and sweet civilised development. Instead
of civilisation being progress or industries or ethical presumption, or
anything grandly intellectual and public, it was, in Maimbury, an intimate
light that could only ba passed from person to person; it was something to
do with the heart, inimi table - in every man it would be a different
flame - how extraordinary to think that once life had consisted of all
these flames, intact, touching and burning and reflecting each other!
How exciting it must have been before our epochs càme into being! The
flame was in Maimbury's movements, in the way he talked and smiled; there
was nothing constructed about him; he simply had this shining presence, which
couldn't leave him because it was in the shape of his face and the sound
of his voice; Granville thought of it as 'extraordinary'; but suppose it
was what men had inherited in the past as the ordinary course of things,


without thinking about it?
The marvel of Maimbury's presence - for which Granville had
no parallel or previous warning in his life - was that it showed no
trace at all of the 'higher world'. That was the revelation of Maimbury's
lunch invitation for Granville! And he realised that Deryk did,
emphatically, belong to the 'higher world': like Beatrice, he had not
a gentle heart, but gentle manners.
And this light in Maimbury was something that could never have
been invented or cultivated by one man alone; it could only have been
inherited, and grown out of birth, through slow years of growing, in
safety! Were we going to lose all that? Were we going to become simply
separate citizens, each with his personality, but with nothing marvellous
inherited? What Maimbury carried in his body and in pis fine, restful
eyes was a theme that had grown like a slow flower by the ingenuity of
generations, and was a doctrine that couldn't be passed on articulately:
it was a light known only by presence, and impossible even to give a name
to because no single thing composed it, only the total life of one person!
That was aristocracy: it wasn't class - namely, power, but a genius which
no country, once given it, could ever forget, and beyond which, in
simplicity and sweetness, it could hever go. Aristocracy was only an
image, caught for a moment; it wasn't truly a historical reality. The
image was only passed on in glimpses. No primciples safeguarded or
hindered it. A man was it by his presence alone, it couldn't be
purchased or learned or damaged: it could only be inherited.
Were we to have only bare records of it, only memoirs and country
palaces open to the public?. Were we do do away with the first image of
our own souls?
Could we inherit as well? Had the 'higher world'


reached the end of its historical task? Now a man had to create his
own life! Would he do it in that most perfect of all images? It was
all laid before us in the tales of kings, in the country houses that had
never stirred from their first tranquillity: what an extraordinary
inheritance awaited us if we could break our silence of the heart! But
if we kept to the middle-class.road, ashamed to bé ourselves, because self
was dark and Becret, if we kept on joining movements and trying to make
more movement, if we looked for the right society all the time, and the
right principles, and. the right safeguards for our children, if we let
our selves of here and now die, broken by thè noise outside that prompted
us to join and spoke to us out of radios and stared at us in the morning
from the newspaper and gazed at us from films, always drawing us to
believe in a bigger and finer world outside which was only composed. of
people like ourselves, if we never turned to our own silence, never let
that silence take its own time, never learned to take action from its
sound root; if we never braved the accusation that we were useless or laxy
or selfish, or out of the group, or hollow, or dead by virtue of our
solitude: then.we should inherit death, and our children would look into
our public faces and read nothing! A great religious duty for the first
time awaited not simply a few people but untold numbers.


CHAPTER 20.
That evening he told Pinkie about the meeting with Deryk and
she chuckled. She said she wondered what Deryk was doing in Kensington
Gardens 1 - he had a date with Peter Pan, perhaps! She would phone
Beatrice one day from the office and they'd get a lunch out of the old girl!
Dick dashed into the house and took him aside, his beard wagging
excitedly - "Jesus, I could kick myself - - I've just let the most
dazzling girl slip through my fingers! She sat next to me on the bus
and we got off at the same stop! She started looking in the chemist's
window and I know she wanted me to speak to her! But I funked it!
You know, that sort of thing spoils the whole evening for me. What, a
fool I am!"
"Why don't you go back and look for her?"
"No, the spontaneity's gone now!"
He slouched about the house and later on, upstairs in the kitchen
when Pinkie had left the room for a moment, he whispered in Granville's
ear; "I keep going ovèr it in my mind! I've had dozens of imaginary
conversations with her. I'll never let that happen again!"
Hanni joined them and they all went downstairs to the music-room.
Pinkie put on a Bach record from years ago, scratched and faint, the
suite in D major; they sat listening to it in silence; the atmosphere was
sad; they all lolled in their chairs; it' seemed to him that Pinkie was
on the point of tears!


Some talk began afterwards about Bach in which Hanni saidin a
quiet voice, "I think hé's so wonderfully mathematical!" This angered
Granville. He asked her, trying to stop all sorts of indignant feelings
rushing out, if she really meant that?
And here Dick spoke up; he said there wasa 'case' for the idea;
Bach did have a 'mat athematical kind of symmetry'!
To shich Granville murmured, flushing, "Symmetry, my arse!"
Hanni's mettle was up:, "What had he got, then," she asked.
"Feeling, I suppose?"
Her face was fixed with féar and defiance at the same time, so
that her lips trembled slightly, pale and pursed.
Dick_stroked his beard and said he found 'old Johann Sebastian
really stunning stufftit
Hanni persisted with her question to Granville, asking. him what
there was in Bach if not symmetry, and he said with a rather foolish
expression, "Godf" And he added quickly, "Christ as well - Bach
understood everything about Christ!"
He leaned forward and was just about to go on talking when Hanni
got up and strode out of the room. She left the house and Dick followed
to look after her. And she, didn't appear again for three days.
Granville was left bubbling over to himself. But the next. day Pinkie
said that Hanni"had been most annoyed about Dick - he would go on -
talking about the girl he'd nearly spoken to outside the chemist's and
saying he wanted to kick himself, and asking Hanni if she thought he'd -
missed anything really 'hot'. The Bach had just come on top of that!
There was an incident rather like this one a few days later
it left Granville in the same state. It involved Pinkie and Dick this


time. Pinkie was studying 'The Racing Times', which she sometimes
bought if she wanted to lay a bet; and she had ingenious ideas, which
she never applied, for getting the winners by multiple betting, which
meant laying out a lot of money; in Basrah they'd. followed one of these
multiple systems on paper, with the race-results from England, but were
always baffled by 'the long losing-runs. She was lying on the divan
reading the dog-race results, and making notes with a blue pencil. Dick
was talking about the office, and asking him casually, with his light,
deliberately objective voice, why he preferred working in Basrah, since
the work there was the. same as in London, the office-furniture was the
same, only it was stifling hot. This came near to one of Granville's
'themes', and he leaned forward to speak about it; he said that the first
thing was the presence of Mohammed facing him at the opposite wall; you
didn't get that in London ae a and here Dick nodded and smiled agreeably;
and there was the heat; there was the sunlight that blazed through the
blinds in little strips; one could hear the call-to-prayer; as he spoke
he was leading up to something, the presence in Basrah of the. religious
world, in all things big and small. But suddenly, as he was speaking,
Pinkie looked up and said quietly to Dick, "I've just discovered the
world's finest system." Her voice was so quiet that it was impossible to
doubt the truth of what she said; Dick's eyes were alight at once and he
asked her to 'spill the béans', and when she said in the same quiet voice,
full of her discovery, "You want to know about a really watertight system,
do you?" Dick cried, "Yes, please, teacher!" and jumped up from his chair;
he went across to her without another glance at Granville and together
they began going through the 'notes she'd made in her little book, with the
latest results before them. Granville sat on, stunned, his unspoken


words whirling. round in his head; but on behalf of his own dignity he
didn't get up and leave. He heard' Pinkie's voicé, still soft with
assurance: "Say you've got a dog running at 6-4 on end another one at.
4-6 against,. and you're betting even money both ways, well, what you do e
of course, that's if you've got more or less outsider-odds on at least
three, otherwise you don 't touch the race en - what you do is this I
while Dick gàzed over her shoulder, rapt, no longer judicious, and involved
as Granville had never seen him in any discussion they'd ever had! To
his surprise, half-way through Pinkie's explanation Dick looked up and
murmured, "Sorry I interrupted you, old sport, but I won't get an offer
like this again." Pinkie chuckled and they went on.
"You know, Pip, I think I'm better trained for this world than
you are," Dick said to him one evening in the pub. And Granville nodded
n his agreement.
Dick paused, looking down at his finger-tips.
"I'll tell you something, Pip," he went on. "There's one thing
I've never been able to shake,off, and that's -i" He glanced at
Granville with a smile; blinking quickly' - 'la sense that I belong to the
best people."
"Now that comes from Lady Godiva. She's always told me, so has
the old man, 'Remember; you've had the best this country can offer, you've
been to the best schools, you've got advantages everybody else is after
and they're going to envy you!' Now, it's odd, but I can't shake that
off. I can't agree that I have got advantages, but I feel I have, I just
can't help it m-f" He looked into Granville's eyes calmly, with the


slight smile he always had when he was trying to think something out.
"I feel people look up to me, but more than that - they want something
out of me! They're trying to get some sort of advantage out of me!
It isn't a matter of attitude at all - it's just a state I'm always in
I' feel that when people approach me they recognise something!"
"Perhaps they dot"
"But I feel it towards you as well."
Dick turned his pale eyes towards himy and Granville felt chilled
for a moment. But he was used to Dick's occasional frightening candour,
and smiled.' "How do you mean?"
"Well, I feel you and Pinkie like having me round the house d
for my company also to help the tone."
"I tell you, it isn't an attitude, it's just what I feel instinct-
ively. Say you stop and talk to me on the stairs, I feel you're after
something! I can't help itt, You want_me to make you feel less lonely,
or you'ré after some information about the office, or you'd like a drink,
it's always something that. I can give you! And I can give it to you or
hold it back, as I like."
Granville smiled at him. "It's honest of you,"
"Well, you know me, old man; poor but honest!" Dick said with a
little laugh, falling into his facetious manner.
There was a pause.
"Is that how Lady Godiva feels?" Granville asked him.
"Yes! But she feels it about working people. They're all
caricatures for her. Of course, I've passed beyond that. I'm not a
bloody fool!"


"Suppose your parents met mine, do you mean they wouldn't talk.
to them as if they were real people?"
"Well," Dick gazed before him, considering it. "I don't know
your parents, except what Hanni's told me -ini she liked them a hell of
a lot, but, yes, well, they'd see them as sort of working class
characters, like on the stage, not people they could relax with or really
talk to! - They'd seé them as rather pathetic - - not responsible for
their own actions 1 not quite in life! They'd humour them all the
time! Oh, they'd- be kindly and enquiring, but as they would be to -
well, invalids. They wouldn*t think your parents' feelings worth talking
about like their own!"
"What would my parents have to do to qualify as serious, then?"
"Well, they'd have to have money for a start, live somewhere
else, change . their accents. They'd have to be 'educated' abe but not
what you mean by educated. They don't mean being able to read and think
and that sort of thing, because all their reading and thinking is fake
anyway, and they get it all from the newspapers like everybody else -
they mean by 'educated' living like them!"
"Being middle-class!"
"If you like. You see, they could never imagine that your
parents had as much refinement or sensibility as they do. This is where
I've advanced beyond them - I can imagine iti They'd never be able
to imagine themselves living in a working street and going off to work
early in the morning, and that sort of thing. It's just a- closed world
to them! They couldn't, credit someone who says 'iggins instead of
Higgins with their capacities of feeling!"
"What they feel towards working people you feel to everybody, then!"


Granville said with a smile.
"Yes, but they also feel it to everybody. Nobody's up to their
mark!" Then he added seriously. "I respect you more than most people.
I'm rather scared of what you think. But at the moment of being with
you, in a position of contact, I feel superior!"
"But why?"
"Because w well, you're just you, if you see what I mean!
There's just you sitting in front of me every time, and that little
voice inside me says you ought to be more! I don't believe you ought
to be more
but the little voice says you should come to people with
more style, if you see what I mean, not just yourself, you should coat
it all round a bit like Glenning, or keep a more organised appointments
book, or something like that ms it's difficuit to put it into words!
But I like you a - I don't agree with the little voice, but there it is!
And when all's said and donek we 're similar to each other in one respect
we're - lone birds!"
"But that little voice doesn't say the samé about everybody,
does it?" Granville asked him.
"What doès it say about Pinkie?"
"It says she's got an obsession about being left out of the
party. So, she needs my company! Which gives me a little itch to
withdraw it."
"I'll tell : you something else, Abdul," Dick said as he got up to
get more drinks. "You're the only man I'd allow to call me Dick.
Otherwise it's Richard. Did you know that?"


"It's very flattering!" He realised for the first time that,
indeed, the only people who çalled him Dick apart from himself were
Hanni and Pinkie.
And when that conversation was over, as they drank coffee upstairs
in the kitchen, as the last light was going down, Dick said to him,
"Well, old sport, have you made up your mind about Makboula?"
"Makboula?"
"Yes, I know, but what ?"
"Well," Dick replied, "do you like her?"
"Well, then, you'd better get in while the going's good! You'll
catch her on the hop. I believe she's just finished something with an
Australian crooner or an Azrec weight-lifter - I forget which!" :
Granville laughed and said, in that case he certainly would do
something! He noticed Dick was easier with him that before. It was a
barely perceptible change in his manner.
He tried to remember the hair-girl's face, but couldn't. His
recent life had become abstract and floating, a kind of dazed flow; he
could remember Deryk Grysham vividly, and also how Pinkie had left the
house before breadfast that Saturday morning a week, two weeks ago; these
incidents were like pictures in his mind, singularly detached from him;
he couldn't focus his attention properly.
Pinkie rang up Beatrice and they went over to lunch. There was
the same gushing politeress as ever. Pinkie looked tall, dazzling and
rat ther patrician, a little as she had done for their first lunch with


Maimbury. This time she wore a pair of delightful turquoise ear-rings,
which apparently she had bought at the same time as the cuff-links he'd
smashed.. She was quiet, however, over, lunch, and answered Beatrice's
continual questions perfunctorily. She was detached from them all, and
for a moment it seemed to him that hé was nearer the family than she was.
Basrah she hardly mentioned. It was like dead history now. Between
her and Deryk there was a family-playfulness; but it was automatic and
didn't touch her inner mood. The flat had a sonbre, damp light, without
its former fabulous suggestions for him. Beatrice looked only a trace
older, her eyes strained, while Deryk seemed to brood under an immense, :
overbearing fatigue that pushed him further and Hurther down in his chair.
Their inner moods, too, were hidden. What were they feeling underneath?
Why did oné require to know what they were feeling underneath?
Pinkie said afterwards that his job had 'Imperial style' for
Beatrice and that he was now 'fully rehabilitated', meaning. that he'd got
over his "background' all right.
She got a day off and they walked together near the river, then
went for a batherin the Lido. A letter came from her friend Elizabeth
Bewley-Patton inviting them both to her house at Meedham, near York, in
a week's time: Pinkie was to phone and arrange it. He'd never been there
but she said the countryside was lovely and that the sea was near by;
the house was an old vicarage and had a marvellous panelled bathroom with
huge Victorian taps, she said, all smelling of Bewley Patton's 'musk-
perfume and pine-salts'; she'd met him several times and said he was
rather like Nigel, only an even more 'classical' sort of person; he didn't
ride to hounds and he 'liked the girls'.
Pinkie was. sun-burned again, from. the Lido. They went through


a few days like their very first together, in Reading; they walked arm-
in-arm, and she almost kissed him in the old style, with her tongue.
They ragged and playéd the fool as they'd'once doné before Basrah. She
called him 'Pip-squeak' for the first time in a year. He wondered at
this, and his numbed state of mind accepted good as well as bad.
Glenning came in one evening and let it fall that he'd just lost
'a good man' at the office; this turned out to be Grove, of all people!
Apparently, they'd done some work together, and Grove came to the office
in a free-lance capacity. Pinkie wasn't there when Glenning talked
about it; he didn't glance at Granville once but seemed to talk to
himself, mumbling and looking down; then he took Granville out for a
drink and bought a bottle of wine; Granville wondered if he was trying to
do him a service of some kind!
Glenning told him he'd met Grove at the house, before Granville
came back, and found out that he was a first-class photographer and
'contact-man';. "He's done bloody good work for me, I'll say that," he
murmured; but now Grove had decided to set up on his own, a sort of
publicity firm under the name 'Grove Publicity Management Ltd.' He
didn't know where his. money came from, because he hadn't had a bean before.
He knew he' 'd got a loan from somewhère. There'd been a rumour that
someone quite influential had extended a helping hand; could the name be
Maimbury?
Granville's cheeks flushed and he said quickly, "Yes, that's an
uncle of Pinkie's."
And Glenning simply notted in a lazy fashion, still gazing down;
he had such a protective manner! And after he'd said this he leaned
forward and poured him another glass of wine; "Let's get drunk tonight,


shall we, old boy?" he said, and Granville nodded.
They left the house; which was empty, it being Friday evening,
and went to the Marquis, which Granville was proud to show him. Glenning
bought a bottle of whisky there, and they drank it slowly; neither of
them were members but Granville saw Joyce, the pale girl, and managed to
get himself joined to the club by paying a pound. He was shy and
detached with her and was terrified she'd come downstairs and join them
when she'd finished at the bar; but there was no sign of her. Glenning
said that funnily enough he knew this place A through Grove, who did the
publicity for the 'Kaaba dancing company' who rehearsed here! Grove was
achieving quite a ubiquity! During the whisky he remembered that Pinkie's
bank balance had been surprisingly low when. he'd asked her for a loan;
this explained it; she and Maimbury had gone in together! He began to
feel a smarting indignation against them; but he remembered the last few
sun-lit days with Pinkie and refused to believe its Finally, when he
went home, he was sure that Glenning would only have told himywhat he, did
if there had been no connection between Grove and Pinkie.
He began going to the office for the work on his files, and on
the second day, he asked Dick to spend the hight at the house so that they
could travel in together one morning; it would be like the old Reading
days, when they'd got up early to go for a week-end's camping or a day's
hike across Berkshire. They breakfasted alone in the kitchen, before
Pinkie was up; it was darkening in the mornings now and they had the
light on; Dick made the tea while he managed the bacon and eggs. They
joked and chafed each other. The house was wonderfully silent, and
they spoke in undertones, sipping their tea. There was the old fascin-


ation he got from Dick's company, of seeing everything fresh and vivid,.
as if life was being laid in front of him for the first. time; there was
none of the ache of being with a woman; there was. a wonderful relish in
everything; all the little sights and sounds of the kitchen could be
noticed; the light glowed more mysteriously; they ate their fill and then
threw everything into the sink. The whine of the first buses in the
distance was thrilling to him; he advanced one of his favourite ideas
to Dick, that men and women should have. their separate worlds, ad the
two 'rhythms' were so diffèrent; and Dick said, while he nosed over the
morning paper, that this would be all right as long as he had access to
the other world; and he added that he'd managed to establish a comfortable
rhythm with women at times, 'differences notwithstanding'. They chuckled
and went off to work.
They took a bus down; the lights were still on, looking sickly in
the growing sunlight. "Well, bo'sun," Dick said, giving him a nudge,
"now you know what I go through while you 'ré basking in the desert sun!"
The tiny office was exactly as he'd left it the day before, with
the files ready, piled on the floor; and the Secret Weapon was waiting
for him with a notebook in hér hand. A few of the people' downstairs
recognised him and greeted him cheerfully; they all had the same. mild,
respectful and enquiring air; what a difference it was from the black
stared of Basrah! One of them asked him what life was like 'out there'
and he stood bétween their desks trying to answer while they gazed at him
with a certain light in their'eyes; they seemed to be seeing the dazzling
desert as he described it, gazing into the distance. When the door of
his office was closed and the first file was lying on his desk he began
to feel a peculiar relief; the chair was soft, on a swivel and made with


leather. He sat deeper in it and gazed out of the window; he could just
see the edge of St. Paul's, dusty like a piece of fabric in the sunlight.
His thoughts began to collect themselves into the office-plan he hadn't
known for more than two months.
He worked there for three days and realised that the work would
take him another week. Pinkie had talked to Elizabeth Bewley-Patton and
had arranged for them both to spend about five days there. But now that
was altered because of his extra work; she would go up in a few days alone,
and after a week, when he'd finished at the office, he'd join her. She
said she was so relieved to be getting out of London; and it wasn't going
to be a 'dressy' sort of visit; there'd only be 'old Liz'; her husband
was in Malta or somewhere for the Admiralty; when she'd phoned Elizabeth
up, she told, him, the housekeeper had thought she was Laura Lady Maine!
But the house waan't 'grand', she added; there wouldn't even be the
housekeeper there during their stay; it was going to be cosy and restful.
In: the evening he always left the office before Dick, who would
be delayed at his desk or have to take a client out to dinner. This was
the price one had to pay, Dick said, for early promotion. Dick had lost
some of his ease of manner in recent weeks; his face took on a carful
look. when he reached the pillared éntrance of T.I.M., where the
commissionaire stood, and he appeared to steel himself.
Granville's life was regular again; he slept the moment his head
touched the pillow; wild thoughts were kept at bay; the idea of Pinkie
having a lover was now manifestly absurd to him; it was 'dramatic'; his
mind was clear and practical! Other people's faces at the office had a
fixed quietude; and he could see why; his own had become the same! His


secretary always closed the door with hushed, careful fingers; her face
was wholly set on the work, as if its themes went into the pores of her
skin and stretched down her long legs and into the thin heels and toes
of her shoes; all her movements were under strict and minute survellance,
from her tactfully painted. lips to her stockings; she really did have the
intricacy and exactitude of a weapon. It seemed that she'd been given
a list of points on which a woman is dudged by a man, and donformed to
them methodically, in her dress and manners, without herself being
involved in. any way.
He began to feel shame towards his life at Chaworth Road. - What
a chaos and wreck it was : How could he bear to look into his secretary's
eyes and say good morning to the people downstairs as he passed their
desks, when he had this behind him? He had the throbbing conviction
that his life was remiss, far underground; he wished to keep to the order
of the office from nowoon! It outlawed everything that belonged to him
alone
in the dead of night - to do with him and Pinkie; it
established a fixed exterior; and there was pleasure in this; you could
become as symmetrical as the office itself, taking tea at eleven, going
down to lunch with the morning paper under your arm, sitting in the same
chair by the window, with a glass of lager which the waitress put before
you in the same way every day, and picking up the telephone, talking in a
formalised manner, smiling the same smile.at the secretary every time the
dictation was over!
Chaworth Road was sometimes a shock in the evening; he couldn't
make the adjustment'at once; and, especially when a small party collected,
one had to look free; a drink halped! He remembered Mohammed's face from
a great distance; it was a face wreathed with all sorts of little


corruptions and kindnesses, with all the brothels he'd been to, with all
the araks he'd' drunk in the evening, with the girls off the street, and
the boys he took to his sqalid room, gazing at them with his soft, black,
incurious eyes! Mohammed sat in a. specially cushioned chair; and he
would sigh sometimes, murmuring, "Allah, wa-Allah!", and take a cigarette,
.or sent out for tea; sometimes 'he would lift his eyes and begin talking
to him quietly about the latest bit of scandal; um Hussein, the wife of
the chemist Abdullah, had been seen in the green district the other night,
in a closed car, number-plate diplomatic; his smoky black eyes would gaze
into the distance; the chauffeur of the Minister of Economics had screamed
an insult at his master in his own, house, calling him a father of pricks'
and saying that 'his arse streamed with come', which was the worst insult
for a man, since it implied the 'passive role'; and that the Minister
would surely 'put him awày'! Granville began to think he'd never see
the face againt and that it hadn't definitely happened.
Under his influence Pinkie also fell back into a routine life;
the rituals of Basrah were established again; she got up half-an-hour earlier
and made the tea; and she shopped on her was home, and began to have
something ready for him in the evening. She even did extra cooking, and
made delicious meat-loaves and desserts; the bathroom was clean, and there
were fresh sheets on the bed.
She hardly went out in the evening. He looked at her in wonder;
the affectionatehess of the last few days continued. She was flushed
healthily, and wore a pretty house-coat. From the moment he put on
office clothes again a certain established submission had: come over her;
as Dick said to him one' day, "There's nothing like a nine-to-five routine
for bringing a woman to heel"; every woman, he said, was a suburban.


The house sparkled, and they got wonderful food.
The buses were always full when he came home,. - and very quiet,
with the tiredness of everyone. Most people had newspapers, and
opened them with a crackle; the air was full of mechanical, clicking
movements. Newspapers were opened, folded once, folded again, then held
before the eyes; it went on mechanically; the desire to read didn't seem
essential to it. As the conductor moved down the gangway there would
be clipped voices, "Aldgate, please," "Threepenny one, please", "Six
and a half, please" while the bus hummed and trembled in its depths.
Everything went click-click and there were few easy movements of the eyes,
lips or hands; only underneath was there ahidden, broken, pathetic warmth,
and calm, joining everyone. After a few days the rhythm got into him,
too; there was a place for the newspaper' in the right hand; it was folded
in a certain way; the face was set in a matter-of-fact expression; walking
was business-like and unpretentious; your movements suggested that life
was ordinary, known and previously examined, so that surprise, curiosity
or the close inspection of anything were out of place. He remembered
the hair-girl's dance, and caught his breath to realise that it had
actually happened; and he couldn 't believe that he'd sat downstairs in
the Marquis with Dick and the muscular-looking girl, and kept his
composure; life appeared to him as a pattern of flat, simple, ordinary
facts; these facts were that he had a house, lived there with his wife,
had a job, was free in the evenings, and so forth: Outside that
commonsense-structure things were dreamy and unreal. Everything has
beèn taken care of," the city seemed to say, 'and you needn't stir yourself.'
He was astonished at the serious way people now treated him -
the commissionaire outside the T.I.M. entrance when he arrived in the


morning, and bus-conductors, shop-keepers, waitresses; he wore a dark
suit and a semi-starched collar, and the office-work made it possible
for him to do everything at the acknowledged times; he was never anywhere
out of hours; and there was an understood public tribute for that. What
he really felt, or what he was, had become vague.
But he was brought up'with aijolt; it happened on a Friday.
Pinkie phoned him at the office to say she'd be going out with Hanni,
and would he mind getting his own dinner tonight? Dick might be coming round
to share his grub. However, Dick didn't join him on his way out of the
office; some last-minute work had come in. Nobody was in the house when
he got back, though these days the downstairs door was left open for
people like Gerals or Glenning to wander in if they felt like it. He,
cooked some food and ate the dessert she'd left him; it became dark and
he decided he'd like to go for a walk; he went as far as Piccadilly,
where it was dusty and hot, and took a bus back, getting home after eleven.
She was still not home, so he decided to go out again for a shorter stroll,
down to the Commercial Road and backi he was walking quite near the house
when he happened to turn round and watch a bus that was just slowing down;
there weren't many people on board, and the yellow lights inside had a
blazing effect on the darkness; it made him blink. He glanced.at the
upper deck and to his astonishment .saw Pinkie with someone at her side;
he looked closer and noticed that a hand was resting on her shoulder;
it was Grove's; then Grove leaned towards her, whispering something, and
and kissed her. on the cheek; she gazed before her in a sad way, like a
child being taken home after a treat, droopy and tired. Granvillé's
heart was beat ting so fast that he could hardly take breath. He didn't


know which way to turn in case they should get off the bus now; but they
didn't, and as the bus drew away from him he had a better view from
behind - the pale hand resting heavily on her shoulder, Grove's thick,
black hair down to his collar, and: the same neck he'd noticed the first
evening, with fluffier'_hair at the base; he turned down a side-street
to avoid home; Grove might take her to the gate and he might surprise
them; he wanted to wait; he stumbled along, not seeing anything round him;
his composure was gone; the palms of his hands were sweating and blood
rushed into his head and pounded about.
He wanted to give them time to say good night. The absurdest
doubt started in him as to whether he'd actually seen them; now he: knew
how he distorted things to his own advantage! He rushed towards
Chaworth Road suddenly, wanting further proof that they were together, or
rather that they, were lovers; suppose she said to him calmly, "Well,
what's in a kiss? Don't friends kiss each other sometimes?" But now
it was too late. He'd given them time to' get away: There was a
pleasure in the hunt; the shadow.of a grim sexual pleasure; it would
excite him to see them together, see them kiss! He leaped along the
pavement, his dark office-coat flying. When he got to the house there
was no one outside; a light went on in the music-room upstairs; the sight
was stupendously forlorn to him!.
He started in on the subject as soon as he was standing in front
of her; she was sitting on the bed taking off her stockings, and she had
begun to undo her blouse so that her breasts were visible, preparing to
go to bed.
"What the bloody hell have you been up to?" he shouted.
She made a jump and looked up at him, pale at once, her mouth


open, like a child; he fought against his compassion.
"What do you mean?" she asked breathlessly, terrified.
He could tell that her heart was beating fast now as well; he
noticed for the first time that she had a touch of grey at the side of
her hair.
"You' 're' having an affair!" he shouted.
And she said to this, her voice trembling, "What on earth are you
talking about?"
"I told you to be honest - the first night - -!" he shouted at
her.
His anger mounted and she started crying. He kept repeating,
"Have you got a lover?" And to his surprise she suddenly looked up with
the most simple expression and said in a quiet voice "Yes."
But either because she saw the crushed and stunned look on his
face, and the total collapsing movement he made with his body, or because
it was true, she added at once, "No, I haven't." The room looked in
ruins. The carpet, bed and chairs had a disconnected look; he was dazed
and sometimes it seemed his eyes had gone wrong, because her image kept
flickering. He realised he hadn't mentioned what he'd seen; and he
couldn't bring himself to mention it! She might then tell him everything;
and he couldn't bear that! He kept drilling into her, exhausting her,
until it was past two in the morning, storming about her lack of constancy,
asking if she wanted a divorce, repeating his question again and again -
did she have a lover? She wept nearly all the time; he said she'd
better get over her tears and start facing the question; to his question did
ahe want a divorce, put for the fourth or fifth time, she made the same
simple reply she'd made before, with the same expression, "Yes." When


they were in bed she broke down again and fell into his arms; she said
through her tears that she wanted them to be 'lovers' again, like at
first; it was a strange thing to say; he didn't know what it meant; what
could he do to make them 'lovers' again? He thought about this even
while. she clung to him and he held her round the shoulders. He was
comforted. The word came to his mind again and again, 'lovers': what
did she mean? They switched the light out and she began to sleep; he
lay puzzling; she wanted to go back to those first summer days in Reading;
it was impossible; he was finished; and there he stèpt:
His life here was a masquerade; it struck him next morning; he
was sick and beaten; he couldn't bear to look her in the face; he had
nothing to say; and she seemed to haver.no sorrow; they spent two hours
over breakfast, it being Saturday, and then made coffee; she was mute,
with tight-closed lips. He wanted bo attack her again and go through
the same questionaire as the night before; but what was the use?
Questions presupposed a hope; and there wasn't hope! He'd tried to find
out the truth before, but not too hard; now he knew! He was alone, and
he had to make a life for himself; it was a flat, pale, implacable
conviction. There were no other thoughts in his héad. Everything was
quiet and still in him. But it didn't afford him any relief; it was only
a weak state, like the pause after an operation. He tried not to
believe what he'd seen with his eyes. A little idiot-voice in his head
said that the hiss iad been an illusion. He steeled himself to ask Hanni,
had she really been. with Pinkie the previous evening? He hung about the
kitchen when' Pinkie went shopping, hoping Hanni would come; but she didn 't
comeall day.


Hanni appeared from Hampton Court Sunday afternoon, without Dick.
But he couldn't do it. Then he suddenly forced himself, when Pinkie was
in the bath, and he and she weré sitting in the kitchen. Had she been
with Pinkie Friday evening? "Yes," she replied without a flicker. They
were with 'Joe Clockwork', she added. She had a sane, cool expression,
which made his pain worse, because he could see how far he was from others.
He was no wiser: why shouldn't there have been four of them on Friday
evening - - Grove and 'Clockwork'? He'd meant to work on the report over
the week-end but could only sit gazing in front of him.
He wouldn't go back to Basrah; no, he had no projects-now; it even
felt peaceful; he sat staring in front of him in a state of raw nerves,
with hardly the will to make himself a cup of tea, much less open a book
or go for a walk. He couldn't sleep, also. It was like actually living
inside a dream. Nothing was quite tangible. Reality was at second
removed behind his raw nerves. He would suddenly wake up after dozing
and say to himself, "Of course, it isn't true!" And the truth would
dawn on him slowly again like a pale light.
He' worked at the office as best he could; downstairs in the canteen
he only pecked at his food; he was anxious to get to the bar, and went back
upstairs in the afternoon unsteady; the secretary found him much more
jolly and relaxed, and behaved less mechanically. Dick hardly spoke to
him, going about his work. - Hanni came in after work in the evenings
and manicured her toe-nails by the fire. He tried to disburden himself;
but before Dick he was ashamed; Dick avoided people in trouble, and
'invalids'; before Hanni he was afraid she might use the information
against him one day.
With a trembling hand he phoned up the Marquis to find out if the


hair-girl was there. To his surprise 'she' was, and with a trembling
voice he asked her if she'd like' to go to the ZOO with him m a he said
thè zoo on the spur of the moment; he was even more surprised when she
took him at his word and said she'd love to; he'd expected her to ring
off in a huff; but she asked 'politely how he was! He'd done it!
Suddenly
after all these weeks!
He made it for the following-afternoon; and the next day he
simply walked out of the office at the end of the morning and didn't go
back, but caught a bus to Regent's Park. He hadn't said a word to the
secretary. It'was another lovely, warm day, and his black clothes were
stifling. The hair-girl was amused by them and also impressed; she made
him put his arm in hers, and walked proudly along. It gave him a sense
of sacrilege against her
that he wasn't fully aware of her; he only
saw things through his pallor, dimly and weakly. He was only concerned
with not showing his nervousness; his eyes twitched and he had to squint
them against the sunlight. His bones ached from làck of sleep. He asked
himself what they were doing together? She said "Gee, look at that!" to
everything, and he smiled; she said he seemed much happier and easier
than on the first. day she'd seen him. He gave her a little squeeze on
the arm when she said this; apparently, such gestures were enough; what
a ridiculous world!
She walked with her head slightly down as before, preoccupiéd,
making small jerky steps; this time she was wearing a bright print dress,
which made hér look like a little girl,. dark-skinned, with deep, peering
eyes. Her hair was tied in a ribbon behind, nearly, falling in one strand.
He asked her how the dancing was going on and she said that 'the darkies'
were annoying her as they adways had done; and that her father had always


warned her against them; once more she said that if things were different,
as they'd been when she was a child, those 'darkies' would be calling her
miss and making their salaams to her. She kept her voice down; she was
even demure.
As' they reached one of the chimpanzee-cages one of the animals
bent down, doubled up for a moment, then swung to a lower bar; there he
sat for a moment, and then, gazing placidly at the spectators outside,
he began to masturbate. He didnit with quick little movements. A
woman near by with a sharp nose and sad lines round her mouth gaidiquickly
to her two children, "All right, that's enough," and pulled thém away; there
was pérsonal indignation in her voice. The hair-girl laughed and bellowed,
"Now just look at that! You dirty old man!" He laughed as well and
suddenly the chimpànzee subsided and looked at them both with an open mouth,
péering at thém, his hands àt his'side; he"d heard that monkeys think you're
angry when you laugh or smile. Granville had difficulty in making his
voice come out properly; it cracked and droned.
While they were walking towards the elephants she suddenly asked
him, "Don't you ever go out with your wife?" She gave him a dark,
upward glance. He said he did sometimes, and asked why she wanted to
know. She'd met Pinkie, she:told him, at that party she gave. They
never seemed to be together, she said.
"Why should we be together?" hé asked her.
"What?" she said, turning and looking him fuli in the eyes, so
quickly that her hair swung round from one shoulder to the other. "What's
the good of' marriage, then?"
He said, "Well, one's still got to have a life of one's own.' ff
"Why get married, then?"


He shrugged, completely done-up. "We go out together. sometimes,"
he murmured.
"But she 's beautiful! thought she was the sweetest kid at the
party!" she cried. "I can't understand it! Aren't you scared she'll
run after somebody else?"
And again he shrugged. There were the delighted cries of
children near by. They came to the gravel path where two. elephants plodded
clowly up and down, bearing awed-looking children on a great saddle which
swayed slightly; close to the trees. The elephant's eyes had a smoky
and merciful look in the midst of black, wrinkled, leathery skin, old and
tiny.
They went to the lion house, where the air was thick and stifling.
Sometimes a roar boomed out across the hall. Sunlight poured in through
the tall windows and the arched doorways; there was a lioness padding up
and down close to the bars, dark, with blazing eyes; her vast paws thumped
softly on the floor and her coat rubbed against the bars_as she searched
the distance. The onlookers, tiny and shifting, were absent to her; she
looked far over their heads, Her paws levered her smoothlynanduquickly
along, and her body was tense with watching. It was near feeding-time,
somebody said. Then she stood quite still, her head high. She was
entirely concentrated on her object. An attendant had appeared, far at
the other end of the hall, and his pail made a clanking sound.. All the
animals were up at once, and the prowling walk went on in all the cages.
The attendant jumped down into a pit running in front of the cages and
began walking along it, whistling. A lion gazed down,at him as he passed,
golden and red-maned, his mouth open 80 that his long white teeth showed
slightly, his head lowered, watching the tiny figure pass underneath,


with friendly, intrigued eyes. The man reached the, lioness and said
something to her; the crowd moved closer. The man was smali and thin,
whippet-faced, with sharp eyes. She gazed straight down into his eyes,
peering at him in his tininess,. her head a little to one side, trying to
understand his speech. All' the time he spoke she watched him and
sometimes she glanced at his pail, looking for the connection between
his speech and that. He put his hand in the pail and she started
forward softly, with a quickened interest as if he'd said something
startling. He held a massive piece of meat before him, lurid red flesh
hanging in a strand, yellow-streaked. Then with a quick accurate
movement he threw it into the cage and she leaped on to it before it
reached the ground, tearing at it with a deep sustained growl that was
also like a croon of sympathy for the caught prey.
He hardly remembered leaving the hair-girl that afternoon; she was
intrigued by his silence and kept shooting him quick glances. Now and
then he put a question to her mechanically. It was one of those endless
summer days when the air had a fevered and disquieting numbness; he took
a bus down to Marble Arch alone and then walked across to the City
through St. James's Park. There were lovers everywhere, and he watched
the ducks cleaning themselves at the edge 'of the water, flicking their
tails. The streets were rather deserted, as on a holiday. He kept on
thinking of the lioness, and heard her strange croon of sympathy as she
tore at the flesh. He felt drained and withered; there was half a bottle
of wine in the kitchen which someone had left, and he drank it in record
time; Pinkie had gone to bed.
To make it worse, as the days went on, hé began to feel a terrible


desire for Pinkie. But he couldn't bring himself to touch her or even
speak to her. He remained sunk in a chair in the music-room in the
evenings. The previous week, when he and Dick had travelled to the
office together, seemed positively ages ago. Only the immediate
purposes of his body counted, nothing else; his desire for her was local
and gripped in his genitals; not spread in his body but gnawing at him,
disconnected from the question of her character, that being past hope
for him. He watched her surreptitiously. His mind began to work in
that thin way which he'd always been taught at school was true thinking;
only the little brain-box ticked over! It worked alone, ticking abjectly
about life, making its own painstaking, grim calculations, without moral
drive behind it; there was no will in him. The brain had the run of his
whole being; but it had no direction except to serve local needs. It
was a pleasure to have this moral drive gone; the lossrof will left a
trembling placidness. He didn't care. He looked at his report on the
desk, nearly laid out, and wondered that he'd ever had the sustaining power
to get that far. Life was now piecemeal, simply events. He waited
listlessly for the next event to turn up. Were some people always like
that, he asked himself, the people who were deadly factual and crisp and
reasonable?
He thought he might try to construct his life on these shambles;
let him apply his mind coolly; let him decoy Pinkie artfully,"to satidfy
his sex; with no moral drive his bràin could work coolly towards its
ends;. these ends were, in 'a word, his own comfott. Thank God that was
still with him!
But he dared not touch her; he had 'to overcome the sense of
humiliation; and yet the humiliation was part of the pleasure; it was the


desire; the more he felt it, the.more 'his desire was stimulated; he
remembered when she'd been brazen with him, récently; the memory was
exciting!
He worked at his pride, trying to break it down; let him talk
to her, as a beginning; the silence had to be broken down; thèn their
life would grow together again on the new thin basis. This was difficult
because she gritted her teeth against his feelings; this was clear; she
went out of the house without saying a word; she no longer cooked the
meals; the wonderful dessèrts and meat loaves were finished. Deliberately
one morning she said to him; before they both went off to work, "Oh, I
shall be out for a 'day or s0:" He couldn't answer 'her, only stared.
A scheme occurred to him of locking the downstairs door and stopping her
getting out; he Hadn't thought her capable of staying out the whole night;
he realised how much hope there had still been in him, in the deep regions!
He looked panic-stricken and she seemed to take pity on him. She. said
she only meant she was going out for the evening. He suggested
breathlessly that they go and E see'a film. together; she agreed in a'
perfunctory way; she was watching him, her eyes flickering curiously.
He face showed the slightèst sign of unstiffening.
He spent that day wandering about Soho; office-work was out of
the question, and at 'about half-past four he rang' the Secret Weapon and
told her that he'd been up to Birmingham and was delayed; would she lay
out such-and-such a file for him, as he was coming in an hour earlier
next morning? He ate in a' noisy Italian place with marble-topped tables;
the narrow, bustling streets of Soho were a comfort to him with their
touch of foreign life. When he got back he found to his surprise that
both Dick and Pinkie were there; he had a sharp sense of foreboding as


he walked up the stairs, and his stomach did a turn; there was the smell of
Pinkie's scent outside the bathroom. Dick nodded to him when he walked
in, without saying. anything; Pinkie was next door in the bedroom putting
the last touches to her hair; he almost dared not mention the cinema; it
seemed out of the question that she would actually come.
He asked her if she was going out, and she turned to face him
slowly, her eyes lost and liquidly blue, as they sometimes were when ' she
went out alone. She said she was; just round the corner; she'd forgotten
about the cinema - some other time; she was going round to 'pick up an
ear-ring' she 'd lost; didn't'he remember? Those ones in the shape of
the Muslin crescent? He'd pointed out the loss to her himself that
first night; he ought to know, she said.
He didn't want to say too much because of Dick being within earshot,
but he managed, "Can't you cancel it? I was keen on seeing a film!"
She coolly unscrewed a lipstick and began touching her lips.
No, it was impossible, she said; she 'd fixed it up at the office; 'this
fellow' had hung on to the ear-ring just to get her round to his flat; as
the ear-ring was precious to her she'd have to 'face the music'; Dick
chuckled next door. He went on asking her to make it another evening but
she wouldn't budge. She went to the bed and pulled on some knickers
under her skirt 80 that the elastic made a little smack on her skin.
"Can't he bring it round here?" he asked abjectly. She laughed: "Good
God, I wouldn't want him round here!" She walked past him coolly, her
high heels making a soft scraping sound on the carpet, and he caught her
scent again, something like roses, clean and disquieting. "Oh, Christ,"
he went on, following her into the music-room, "I came back specially.
Why didn't you let me know?" She was adamant. He'd never dragged after


her like this before! Dick sat there on the arm of a chair, swinging
one leg.
He felt hot and ungainly. Also' he had a protective feeling
towards Grove of all people; where was he tonight? - He was aware of
another hope that had still been sound in him, that while she might betray
him she was incapable of betraying Grove as well - namely, doing. jit'
for its own sake! His brain in its new abject capacity even suggested a
compromise, that she should be allowed Grove if she confined her betrayals
to him: She picked up a small velvet bag from the mantelpiece and
walked out of the room with a little wink at Dick. He went to the lavatory,
not wanting to face Dick alone, and waiting there until he heard him go
upstairs to the kitchen; then he left the house again.
There wasn't a sound in the street. A bird came and perched on
the railing, a blackbird, and made a sad, distinct little song, his tiny
head uplifted and his yellow points of eyes shining; then Granville
disturbed him and he flew off. It was the first blackbird he'd seen
here. He walked until he was exhausted and thén returned; to his
surprise she was already back; it was only ten. He was elated as he
walked up the stairs, hearing her talk to Dick, but he checked his walk
so that they wouldn't notice. He heard her tell Dick that after the
second dance and the second stiff drink the 'bounder' tried to 'get fresh' ', 9
but bhe'd snatched the ear-ring and made off. His relief was extraordinary;
he wanted to get in touch with Grove at once and celebrate the soundness
of her character! He' almost liked Grove? Perhaps it was fate's subtle
way of resigning him to Grove's existence? Eventually, perhaps, one
could accept everything? With enough food and drink, and enough money
in your pocket for an evening out, perhaps you could let life do whatever


it liked with you?
The next evening she was out again and when she came back he
heard her take a bath. He went into the bathroom afterwards, while she
was dressing in the bedroom, and sàw that she'd been using her vaginal
douche; that was strangely careless; why should she use it unless she'd
slept with someone? But hercouldn't recollect if she used it whenever
she took a bath; the impression stuck, however. He prevented his eyes
showing any expression. There was pleasure involved in his examining
the douché; it: was a painful séxual delight, taking his breath away.
His desire was being stimulated all the time; first there was the shock
of discovery, then the desire began gnawing at him. He must let the
brain go on ticking with its closed life, far behind the eyes; the eyes
only twitched and fluttered, no longer the windows of the soul - or
perhaps they were more windows now than ever before, if he could only
see himself; he dared not look in the mirror; when he shaved in the
morning he used a small magnifying mirror that Dick had left behind once,
thus avoiding his own eyes.
On the week-end she went about the house cleaning, and played the
piano for the first time since his return to England; it brought the
tears to his eyes; it was some Scarlatti, which she always played well,
with calm, deft fingers; he stood on the stairs listening, his desire
soothed a little; the playing was so lovely; it drifted through the house;
he didn't go down into the music-room because it embarrassed her if she
knew he was near by while she played. Thère was a stormy sky that
evening, with great heat. Sweat poured down his neck as it used to in
Basrah; he could feel his rash again on his neck, awakened; how would he
be able to face those suffocating, fly-blown days again alone? It made


him shudder. He remembered the tinkling of the palm-tree by his
balcony in the middle of the night, and the last month when pinkie hadn't
been there, and his_feverish fear that it was somebody climbing up. How
would he be able to bear it again, alone?
Next morning his mind failed him with its humble little plans; he'd
planned to approach her subtly, with hard calculation, decoying her sex 80
that it would be all the more exciting, seeming to come from a stranger,
behind the veil of their silence together. But he ruined everything; a
moment after they woke up, before his eyes were open and his mind was
aware of what his desires intended, he put out his arm towards her in a
caressing movement, with the old sincereity, and began kissing her neck,
his will flooded out by yearning. She did exactly what she'd done before;
she was alert at once. and he could feel her blinking, the tiny lashes
fluttering against his cheek; and again she stiffened with panic. But
suddenly, this time, his abjectness was gone; he kicked at the bedclothes
with one terrific push of his leg and, quite awake, jumped off the bed with
an odd kind of roar,. giddy, and then pulled up the whole bed with his two
hands, surprised at his strength, then lifted it until there was danger of
her being équashed against the wall; she screamed exaggeratedly,.as if
knives were being used, and with a sudden reversion to light-heartedness,
so that he could have laughed, seeing her crumpled up on the edge of the
bed like the heroine in a melodrama, he' let the bed fall again. It came
down with'an almighty thump and clang and shook the whole house. He
nearly burst out laughing. Now he didn't know where to put himself; he
wanted to undo his action, and put his mind back into its. underground
clicking life again. But he couldn't! With a final show of disgust he
pulled all the bedclothes off and flung them across to the other side of


the room; then he stalked upstairs.
If only he'd kept himself in check! He'd ruined everything!
It would take him another two days to build up the grim, satisfying muteness;
and then, slowly, he would remove her veil. He made some tea and began to
feel still and soothed. The house was in silence. A few minutes later
she came up in her dressing gown, pale and with the trace of tears on her
cheek., He noticed at once when she looked at him that her eyes were
devoid of any feeling towards him, even hatred. They'd never been like
this before. She sat down and pulled a cup and saucer towards her, still
gazing at him, her hair dishevelled, and said quietly, "You bloody little
clerk. Who do you think you are, exactly3" And she continued to gaze
at him dully, all the consideration gone out of her eyes. He. sat under
her gaze, frightened. 'Those were Grove's eyes', he thought.
'I'm not in her any more,' he thought. *My spell's gone.'
He realised dumbly what respect she must have had for him before;
by its absence now:.
He got up and her hard eyes followed him; then she blinked and
looked down at the table again. He went and lay on the bed downstairs,
hollowed-out. He could see himself from outside, as white flesh, discarded;
his flesh lay on the bed, only his mind kept life going; othervise he had
no self. After all, she was so near him, and had been for five, six years,
thinking everything with him; now a whole element of himself was taken
away; it was like being drained of blood; he lay panting! An uncanny
feeling: his body was occupied by nothing. The sky looked deathly and
bleak outside, its grey light touched every object in the room.
Impossible that enchanting things could exist. She came and swept up
her office-things from the room and dréssed in the bathroom, and then he


heard her leave the house. She was right, he thought; how frightfully
he behaved: : He deserved to be hollowed out; he must, learn to look at it
like that. every day; he had to protect her, against herself as well;
he had to soothe the tears she' shed because of him; he must see that the
affair with Grove went well; in' that way she'd keep her beauty; why couldn't
he do that? Why not be her. guàrdian, and go into her tears, be inside
her all the time, beyond sex? That would be a real intimacy, béyond
people! He mustn't diminish her in any way.
Tears filled his eyes; it began to patter with rain outside; he
heard what she'd said again - - he was a bloody little clerk. He realised
suddenly how precious his thinking was to him., His 'problems*! Not a
little clerk - no -! The tears fell down the side of his face in a
mechanical way, independently of him; he simply felt thom streàming down.
And it-wasn't crying on his own behalf; he had the calm sensation behind
his tears that he was crying for what men did; it was a lament for what
life was, as if self had drained out of him and he was only the instrument
of this unearthly lament that brought the tears pouring down his face
while his eyes stared quite calmly in front of him.
But what was he, in himself? Let him look at the matter clearly.
All he had was this faith in himself. What was he, more than a'clerk?
He remembered the shock a few nights before when Dick had got up toilook
at the 'Racing Times' with Pinkie. Suppose a water-tight betting system
was more interesting than what he had to say? Suppose. his problems'
were nothing? Suppose the moment he leaned forward to speak he scared -
people off? He was bled dry; he couldn't lift his head; he'd reached
the ultimate static depth of unbelief.
Slowly he revived; the spirit stirred and began to, awaken in him;


it was like a hand stretching out and beginning to stir with life. He
told himself that this was a point at which every man had to be blind,
and not know what he was, and be prepared to go on in blindness; something
in life, at an essential point, had to be accepted blindly; civilisation
rested on that; there had to be a blind point of faith; there had to be
a spark in every man which he held up to eternity against coubt and
ridicule! For a moment he fell back: how silly it must look to an
outsider, a little clerk storming an putting forward his ideas! Who
was there in the world to say that his thoughts had meaning? Only
himself! He couldn't think of one other person. In the Sussex days
he'd always had a faith that people saw the light in him at once. But
that was gone. He had to go on in blindness.
The night before she went up to Meedham his desire was fulfilled..
It might have been an act of policy on her part; she took pity on him,
obeying a deeper wisdom, perhaps. She got into bed naked, switching
the light out first, leaving her pyjamas under the pillow; at one moment
she'd been standing in her skirt and blouse, with her shoes off, while
he lay in bed, and the next she'd switched the light out and was slipping
her clothes off quickly; and he felt her cool flesh against his. She'd
just come in from an evening-out; her story was that she'd been to the
cafe and taken a taxi back. But there was a tremulous excitement about
her, quivering. in her body, and he found she was already wet between her
legs; his sudden excitement - a servant that answered her at once
was almostuunbearable, touched as it was with horror; there was an image,
that both tortured and drugged him, of another contact.
It was a numbed, absent act with the echo of something intimate


underneath, like a silent massage; the momént it was over, as after a
successful operation, there was great calm, a sense 'of cleanliness and
light, and a certain air of convalescence. - It wasn't quite the subtle
act he'd been steeling himself for, in which he'd gét behind the veil
to where he could feel Grove's spirit in hér and accept it; but it left
him" satisfied. He felt quiet and soothed, and next day he saw her off
at the station.
She looked fresh and young in a print dress, and they blew each
other a kiss as the train drev out, its windows flashing in the hazy
sunlight, making her eyes twinkle; there was a sudden affection between
them; he wanted to run after the train; they both seemed to recollect
something! He strolled back to the house with his hands in his pockets.
Miraculously the burden lifted from him.
That evening he went to a concert at the Albert Hall and had a
sense of returning to himself; and of life at Chaworth Road as being
foreign to him. He read in bed afterwards, sipping cocoa; he hadn 't
lived quietly like this for ages, it seemed; the calm flowed through
him; his thoughts were clear; the life he led was alien to him. He was
astonished at the balm that flowed through him simply from being alone.
In the morning he made tea on the gas-ring in the bedroom and sat
in bed drinking it, the curtains still.closed. The room, again to his
surprise, looked settled and cosy, its objects rooted there. For weeks
past he must have been in a fever, by comparison with this. It occurred
to him that he wasn't worried about her at the moment; that was the main
relief, perhaps; she would have a good, clean life with Elizabeth and the
children; the nightmare would lift for a few days; she would cook and


gossip; she always bloomed in the country and looked a different person.
Elizabeth was sane and responsible, accustomed to running a large house-
So he résted, infinitely, sleeping longer than usual and browsing
through his travel books for hours in, the evening. Hanni 'and Dick
appeared to feel this when they came over; there was the old simplicity
between them; Hanni cooked them meals, humming.
Ittreminded him of the previous spring in Baerah. Everything had
been sparkling and lucid theni There'd been no. dangers. The house had
been quiet and spacious, with clear sunlight streaming through the
corridors, and the lawns of the consular district had been a dazzling
green; He and Pinkie had gone for picnics, even as far as Babylon once.,
in somebody's private plane; and they'd had tea in the garden, under the
banana trees, almost every day.
During those lovely. spring weeks he'd undergone a change which he
thought would affect his whole life. The celipse had happened then. It
had seemed such a small thing: he'd spent the nigat avake in his room,
thinking. And in the morning he felt he'd never seen things so clearly,
or answered so many questions. It seemed the lucidity of the weather had
actually come inside him, and he was part of it.
But after that, contrary to his hope, life had become darker.
The month without Pinkie had been darkriess itself. And since then he'd
"itallen further and further down.
Yet that sleepless night rémained a landmark for him, behind a
growing mist but always safe.


uv peples
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Memmiuin Brglded gorlau
CHAPTER 21.
The uighvn tue ec
LU 3 a
uhe Re
clipre Sevallag lefpe
dee,
had started by accident, just before the eclipse,/when he and
Pinkie wandered out on to the porch and found Abu Kath'm there. Te yea W cu
Abu Kath'm had a round, very flat face with etill, black eyes
set wide apart, her mouth a thick, straight, yellowish-crimson line.
There were henna marks on her brow and chin, to ward off the evil eye,
and a hem of her black abba was usually drawn up over her nose, so that
her eyes shone blackly in the slit. She stood hardly higher than his elbow
and walked in a round, fussy way, but always in perfect silence, her back
straight and her head up, going forward softly on her toes, hardly
disturbing the sand, her long skirt making a brief circular motion
backwards and forwards. There was sorjething too fussy about her - $ it
annoyed him a bit. She would make ceremonious little bows when she
brought the washing over, and once she tried to kiss his feet. But it
didn't impair her dignity. She had a dignity that was like a presence
behind her,' implied by her gestures and ingratiating little nods and
smiles but not actually in them.
He often watched her from an upstairs window overlooking the garden.
She would be squatting at the entrance of her mud hut mending clothes or
picking bugs out of the hair of one of her grandchildren. Sometimes she
would look up quickly as if she'd heard sométhing and gaze before her,
narrowing her eyes a little 80 that they shone; and no matter where she
looked there always seemed to be thé vast desert in front of her. A


special silence always seemed to hang round her hut, however much she
shouted at the children or fussed about. Her husband came only rarèly,
on an old bicycle which he leanied against one of thé banana trees. He
had the same silence and the same distance in his eyes. - It didn't matter
how many awkward or quick gestures they made, the stillness was always
there. And they weren't aware of each other's proximity. They went close
together and sometimes spoke loudly into each other's, faces. But there
was always the same distant stare in their eyes, surpassing people'.
The newspapers had been talking for days about the coming eclipse.
And the time of total obsauration was predicted to the minute. It was
to be a fev minutes after three, in the afternoon.
Outside, a slight wind stirred. the sand, like before a dust-storm.
Boghdad
The
lay in a great hush. Only this slight breeze touched the sand
on the pathway outside and sent it whirling up in thin yellow clouds among
the palm-leaves. Usually they could hear children playing near by, or
cars in the distance. . But today there wasn't a sound.
The sun still shone, but more and more dimly, as if a high mist
obscured it. There was something vaguely disturbing in the air. Perhaps
it was only the silence.
The palm-leaves were still like. iron, and the colours of the
garden were becoming more lurid as all brightness left the sky. He hadn't
wanted to come outside. They'd just finished lunch, and he'd got up and
walked to the window. Everything had seemed to be waiting. The sandy
undulations of the waste area outside had looked hard like flint, each
mound getting more and more fixed, a polished yellow crust. Then Pinkie
had said she'd got a headache and' added, "Let's go outside!" It seemed
strangely wrong to go outside, but he nodded. And they walked out on to


the porch overlooking the garden, where everything now lay deep in a
threatening silence. The rugged, knarled harks of the bânana trees, the
: ragged grass and the yellow mud-hut with the endless shimmering desert
beyond, grèw more and more contrasted, in a fixed and flat way, as if,
though more distinct from each other than before, these objects were all
part of the same hard substance and had drawn together in a new,
unwholesome intimacy. There was no wind now, not even a breeze. An
absolute stillness held everything. Not a leaf or bough moved. The
rooms of the house were very dark now. Inside and outside seemed to be
drawing into one, and the plants and the trees had the dead immobility
of furniture. Ànd the air felt like that in a room.
Their shoes made a sharp rustling noise on the tiles, and this was
covered up at once by the silence. Pinkie was frowning, her eyes screwed
up in a tired way. He strolled towards the parapet and looked up at the
sky. The sun was crescent-shaped now, almost finished. Why were there
no sounds from the city? Pinkie moved to his side and he heard her
breathing quite distinctly. The banana trees were black with shadow,
their massive trunks liké monuments of iron. The crescent, hardly more
than a brilliantly curved line, was growing smaller and smaller.
He became aware of E dark movement below in the garden and looked
down quickly. He'd forgotten Abu Kath'm was standing there, so much
part of the. garden had she become. Her black abba was drawn up close to
her eyes and he heard her say the greeting Allah bil khair to him under
the cloth. He nodded to her. She moved nearer them with her soft,
circular motion. Her bare feet made the slightest thudding on the earth.
Then she stood still under the parapet, gazing up at them, and he noticed
that her eyes were troubled, blacker than usual, more fiery and pointed.


She made a long movement of her arm under her cloak and nodded
with an urgent expression towards the. house; she wanted them to go back
inside! Like the colours of the garden the colours of her face had
become moré vivid under the strange sky. The henna marks on her brow
were a more glaring reddish-brown, and the skin round her .eyés. was
luminously yellow. Neither he nor Pinkie moved, only watched her. She
nodded towards the house again', her eyes screwed up earnestly. She was
standing perfectly still. Everything in the garden seemed immovable,
the folds of her cloak like folds of iron. Her sallow, slightly sweating
skin could have been wax. The sun was almost gone.
Then she said something, speaking very quickly under the cloth
in a gutteral, hoarse whisper. It hardly touched the silence, and he
wasn 't aware of her actually ceasing to speak, only of the silence having
asserted itself again. The sound was secretive and rasping, from an
inhuman depth. It had a certain dryness, like twigs breaking. The
voice seemed not her own. Her eyes, screwed up with an urgent
concentration, seemed the only human thing in her, as if they were trying
to send a message of help across the silence, to corroborate the voice
that had come from under her cloth.
He didn't catch any of the words. He raised his eyebrows, to
indicate he hadn't understood, but she took this for surprise at what
she'd said, and nodded quickly again. Then she repeated the remark, and
this time he managed to catch a few of the words. Bhe was saying something
about the sun being Allah. Then, "Allah is angry with men,' " he heard.
And this was followed by a sentence something liké, "He is hiding his eyes
from men" or "He is covering his sight from men in shame for them!" She
répeated the quick, stabbing word for 'shame', that was like a whip of


punishment itself - aib, two syllables rushed breathlessly together.
When she_said "Allah" she made the slightest backward movement
of her head towards the sky. It was hardly enough to be noticed, only
a faint swaying motion, with a look of gleaming confidence in her eyes.
But there was such an unhesitating intimacy in it that he glanced up at
the sun at once, almost expecting to see evidence of what she said.
She stood absolutely still, fixed in the garden like the trees. Her
eyes were unblinking, staring at him with pin-peints of shrewd light.
The sun was quite gone now. Over everything there was this uncanny dusk!
He heard her repeat the words, "Allah is angry", and she drew the abba
closer around her shoulders.
He glanced sideways at Pinkie and saw that she too was looking up
at the sky. For a moment it was quite believable that Allah was there,
showing his anger!
"How lang does it last?" Pinkie asked in a murmur.
He shrugged. No birds were singing. He noticed it for the
first time. She strolled to the parapet and leaned forward on it, staring
into the bushes under the banana trees. And he yawned.
"I think it's only a few seconds," he replied..
"When was the last eclipse?"
"I donlt know - years ago".
He didn't want to ispeak at all. It felt out of place. His
voice sounded jagged and unharmonious.
"She doesn't like us being out here," Pinkie said softly, watching
Abu Kath'm again.
But by now the sun was beginning to come back and the weather


.revive. The fear seemed to have left Abu Kath'm's face. She had a
softer look, and the folds of her skirt were no longer like iron. The
skin round her eyes had lost its lurid, shining quality.
And one could see the weather had changed just by looking at her.
As the sky cleared, so did her face. But he and Pinkie had to look up
at the sun and see it appearing, to be certain. That was how they knew.
But Abu Kath'm knew it without the use of her eyes. She was a part of
everything else in the garden. Nor did she 'feel' the change in the sun,
She was part of it. - She was part of the weather. It was still active
inside her. And just as everything else in the garden began to change
its colour, so did she. She was fixed in nature like the trees, whereas
he and Pinkie were looking on all the time, their minds active, far from
the wonld round them. The world was 'external' to them. It was 'round'
them.
Something of the silence lifted, too. He heard a bird singing
alone. There was the faintest breath of wind through the trees. And
the light was growing all the time. The desert, stretching far beyond
the garden, was bright again, like a huge shimmering sea of yellow. He
heard the hushed throbbing of the city again. Why did it come only now?
Perhaps the slight wind brought it.
The colours of the garden were drawing out of their sombre, fixed
darkness and taking on separate life again. A child shouted in the
distance. Pinkie strolled back indoors, yawning.
Abu Kath'm walked away also, back to her hut. The weight and
foreboding had lifted from her. She walked in her usual fussy way, her
skirt swinging with its curiously soothing and circular motion, Her
body turned a little with each step like an element of the air itself.


He turned, back to the house and for the rest of the day his mind
kept wandering to her. Really, she'd' shown him the afternoon. Without
her he would just have seen an 'eclipse - - with his eyes! And he
realised for the first time how little part of the world he was.
Abu Kath'm talked about the sky with an air of perfect authority,
and made him and Pinkie look like children by comparison with herself -
strange, thoughtful, brooding children!
For them the eclipse was an 'event' taking place in a vast, empty.
zone : the ioon moves between the earth and the sun, causing a partial
obscuration of the light. There was nothing in this to involve their
'feelings'. It had nothing to do.with them. The world was everything
'round' them, as if they were foreigners to it. And this wasn't a
philosophy or doctrine on their part. It was a discipline so deep that
it had become their way of perceiving things. And only with somebody
like Abu Kath'm in front of them did they become at all conscious of
this peculiar discipline.
Look at the way he'd thought about things on the porch, quite
naturally and without question. Abu Kath'm was 'below' him, under the
parapet. There were banana trees 'behind! her. Pinkie was at his 'side'.
'Above' them all was the 'sky' (a weather zone, so to speak), and the
'eclipse' was 'taking place' there, a predicted event. He was 'standing'
on the porch. It was all like a physicist's survey. But it was the
way he perceived things quite naturally. He thought while he perceived;
and the two were no longer separable in him. He was apart from the
things round him. They were in a kind of mat thematical relation to him,
'above', 'below', at the side', 'behind'. The world was like a fixed
chart. It was as if a thinker's consciousness had been imprinted on


his own so deeply that there was now no other way of seeing things:
But. Abu Kath'm was inside the processes all round her.' This
didn't mean she lacked a mind. She had a quick, shrewd intelligence
which showed in her eyes. But she - didn't have a system of thought
imprinted on her.
If the eclipse had affected him he would have said it was
'nervousness' due to 'the weather'. It would have been turned into a
scientific type of concept, in which the body was a victim of influences
from' the 'outside'. Compared with Abu Kath'm, he thought about life all
the time instead of actually perceiving and living it.
The comparison induced strange sensai ations in him; for a moment he
could see himself as the Arabs did: a strangely static, pale, withdrawn
creature. He seemed not really subject to the processes of life and
death, but a spectator of them. The fact was, however, that these
processes did still govern us. Therefore, he must have a distorted
consciousness!
That evening, after the eclipse, there was a deeper silence in
the house than usual. Kath'm the house-boy made a fire in the sitting
room, for it was still cold in the evenings. There were no sounds from
outside, only a dog barking in the distance now and then. Pinkie was
reading the local newspaper for English residents. They'd planned to
eat at the Cabala with one of the branch managers, but Pinkie had said :
she was tired and he'd called it off.
He sat gazing into the fire, thinking about the afternoon. It
was a matter that concerned him very closely, he knew that. Abu Kath 'm
believed in God! As we believed in trees, say, or our own breathing;


these things simply were for us.' And Allah simply vas for her. The
mind didn't enter into it. His vocabulary, 'believing in' God or
'feeling' God, put the matter wrong from the start. And he had to think
through these words.
Pinkie went up to bed early and he stayed watching the last embers
of the fire. Only a tall standing lamp was on, casting à dim red glow
over everything. The room was long and high with folding doors in one
wall which led to the dining room, and were opened only when there were
guests. t Curtains were drawn across them now to hide the rather ugly
glass panelling, and they gave the room a shrouded, secret look, like
a temple, especially now there was only the red lamp. He half-dozed.
All evening he'd sat without a book. Then he became aware of a growing
contentment in himself. He stretched out his legs, making a rustling
sound on the rush mat, and settled further into his armehair. The fire
was still hot and the room glowed with a wonderful subdued brilliance,
the small black designs of the curtain standing out vividly, like designs
on the wall of a mosque. He heard singing in the distance, with the
thump of a drum. It was a servant in one of the consular gardens,
perhaps. The dumebuk made smart little raps, exciting and subtle. The
song seemed not to be developing in time, but static, like an endless
wail. His mind was asleep for a moment, in second place, contented.
The glowing room was like an indoor night, its objects fixed like stars,
with that breathing stillness of trees.
It was like having life in depth instead of movement; he was only
aware of the present moment; but the present moment was endless, in depth,
there being no sound of movement to recognise time by. This had a strange
relevance to his other thoughts. Only his mind could have told him that


time was getting on, that bed was waiting, that Pinkie was already
asleep. But for the moment there was only the present, like eternity
captured. Surely the mind always brought the shadow of death over an
experience, by announcing the horizon beyond present time? taking us out
of the depth of eternity? Did Abu Kath'm really live inside present
time? But we'd got broken off! We moved at a tangent all the time!
He felt drawn right into life, sucked down by the flow of the
room and the distant, whining song. There was no death for the moment.
The mind pointed out no frontiers.
The. song.ended, and his mind was roused again. He looked at
his watch and was surprised to see it was past midnight. Pinkie was
probably asleep by nowo He decided to sleep in his own room, which he
did whenever he worked late.
Before turning off the light he looked back at the hearth again,
where there were the last dusty embers. The room was very still; long
and brilliant. Did Abu Kath'm live all the time with the fullness of
that moment he'd just had? Was that what real life was like? : Was that
why she had endless patience? Once he 'd told her to guard the house all
day while he was away, and she'd taken him literally, and had sat squatting
on the doorstep for eight hours, until he returned, without the slightest
impatience, her - abba drawn close over her héad.
He closed the door and felt his way along the corridor to the
stairs; on the first landing there was a double window where he sometimes
stopped to watch Abu Kath'm on the lawn below. The sky was bright and
he could just make out her yellow hut, 'a dimly shining hump with shadowy
trees behind it. And beyond, stretching into vagueness, lay the desert,
a whitish mass that seemed bo move, because it was hardly distinguishable


from the sky. He stared at it for a few moments, and it disappeared.
Then he looked down at the garden again; a black oblong, and once more
it became visible, like a. moving shroud in' the night. There wasn't a
sound. No dogs were barking. On this side of the house he couldn't
hear the singing. Yet he had no sense of solitude: He had the
impression of actually breathing the night, the source of his breath.
being the same stillness that lay outside. He turned round to look at
Pinkie's door on the next landing and saw that her light was out. His
shoes scraped on the stone stairs, and he went up on tiptoe. He didn't
want to disturb the silence. It had the same commanding intègrity as
during the eclipse.
He opened the door of his room carefully and could make out his
sparse objects there - the narrow bed by the right-hand wall, the desk
under the window and the rush matting in the centre of the floor. It
was simple, rather like a monk's cell. He didn't want to switch the
light on but walked through the darkness on' to the balcony that let from
his room. A faint breeze came through when he walked out, touching his
face. He could see the waste area below with its little mounds and
craters, and the path between the palm trees that served for a road, its
sandy floor shining dimly between the stiff leaves. A dog barked in
the distance, then it was still again. The palm tree at the edge of
the balcony tinkled for a moment, and the breeze made the sound ofa
distant wave, rising and falling back again. Everything was composed
of shadow, furry and soft; even his hands were unsubstantial like dust,
hanging at his sides.
He pulled the door closed again and went over to his bed, where
he lay down, propping the pillow-up behind him and pulling a blanket over


his feet. How paltry Abu Kath'm made his past thoughts about 'believing
in God', in the Sussex days 'and after! God was for her - it didn't
matter whether you called it God or the sun, or what. For the first
time in his life he'd glimpsed the other state of being, for which he'd
been searching since childhood! That was why he'd thought about her
all afternoon. He'd arrived at a. turning-point in his life, as far as
thinking went
he was sure of that!
He tried to remember his earliest thoughts about religion. He'd
been sent to St. Mary's in Abbott's Road every Sunday. What had
happened? What had his thoughts been there? He racked hin brains,
trying to remember. At St. Mary's there were dark mahonany pews and
fat yellow pillars on either side of the chancel; it was quite a handsome
church, really. The idea had been to keep him out of mischief more than
anything. But what had happened in his mind when he'd heard the mords
Christ and God? Had he ever believed in God as Abu Kath'm did? What
had happened to his religion? And all he could remémber now was a vague
perplexity.
At first, 'God*-had been simple, just a. gentle presence at the
edge of the roof-tops. The image had been dreamy, in the style of
childhood. But then those confirmation classes had started; and here,
he remembered, the problems had begun, when he was about thirteen. His
perplexity had begun over Christ, whom he'd never really thought about
before. Christ, too, had been 'a simple figure, like a marvellous elder
brother. In his.mother's prayers Christ had never been mentioned, only
God and people. Now he heard about Christ in detail for the first time.
He was raised up. . by the story, and he was as quickly flung down, into
perflexity. And since the day of his confirmation, when a bishop had


come to the church and' he'd taken his first - - and last - taste of
the wafer, he hadn't given the matter a deliberate thought. Nobody
else had bothered. And the perplexity had remained. But it had
remained hidden. Only now had he become aware of it.
The confirmation classes had been held on Sunday afternoons
when the church was empty. A group of children say in the front pew
while a young clergyman from another parish talked to them from the
chancel steps. At first Granville. could hardly take his eyes off the
clergyman's face; he thought he'd never seen such clear, good eyes in a
person! They never seemed to show censure. And he noticed that the
young man always spoke wi th a smile when he mentioned Christ. He smiled
a littlé even when he was talking about Christ's death and how they didn't
have to break his legs to quicken the end because he gave up the ghost
early, while the two thieves still struggled on in the death-throes. He
also. told them how a soldier had thrust his spear into Christ's side,
probably to make sure he was dea, and how there was a legend that a drop
of the blood and water from the wound had fallen on to his face and he'd
been cured at once of an eye-disease. Even when he spoke about the
blood and water gushing out he smiled in a tender way. He had flushed,
healthy cheeks and soft black hair, and talked in an easy way, his eyes
resting on the children in equality, which struck Granville even then as
wonderful in a grown-up, that he should be able to talk with equality
to children.
By smiling when he told them about: the last moments on the cross
and how Christ had called into the darkness, 'My God, why hast thou
forsaken me?', he made it all feel safe and even good: which was very
strange.


The church itself had begun to feel a happier place! Before,
it had been hopeless and sombre, a place where priests sniffed and. haw-
hawed through their' vague sermons, and coffins were laid in the chancel,
and grim, nernous couples wére married, while the trams scraped and rumbled
past outside. It was astonishing how the young clergyman could change
n it so! The sun seemed to shine in at the tall windows more, and the
stained glass began to glow mysteriously. It began to look quite a
lovely church, with its great clean beams and. arches.
As the confirmation classés went on he began to associate the
gentle look in the young man's eyes with what he was talking about, namely
*Christ'. And he listened more closely. He was determined to be like
him if possible, to have those same good eyes. He wanted to be like that
when he grew up, without suspicion or reserve. So many people in the
streets outside had small eyes: which twitched from side to side in a
fixed, disbelieving watchfulness. He began to hate the streets at this
time. They were hard, dusty, bleak corridors leading nowhere, grimy and
yellow and grey. "The trams creaked and clanged, and over everything lay
a silence that had nothing gentle in it at all, no rhythm, but was simply
a suspension, like a dead face. Even at thirteen he was jumpy and nervous, 1
expecting accidents all the time. There seemed less and less to cling
to in his life. The streets offered nothing. Life consisted of quick,
unrelated events which didn't comprise a whole experience. It was a hard,
disjointed dream.
Only in the countryside had he ever, heard the real silence, that
had a rhythm in it, like someone breathing. That was a comfort. But
otherwise the gentlenéss in people's faces was his only comfort. When
he saw someone 'nice', as Eve, Aunt May's daughter was 'nice', with her


sad, compassionaté look, he had a terrific sense of awe. And the young
clergyman was 'nice'. But. this time there was more than a person. He
felt *Christ' behind it.
The young man talked about Christ intimately, as if he was close
by, and Granville began to have a sense of Christ as actually being there
on the chancel steps. The communion rail, the tasselled alter-cloth of
crimson and silver, the gleaming altar. of gold, seemed to be his home.
It was a strange feeling, like discovering who these things belonged to,
for the first time. The church began to feel like a house which the
owner had just left, 80 that his golden presence was still in the air,
in the ticking clock and the armehair.
He learned that confirmation would give them the right to eat of
Christ's body and drink of his'blood, symbolically, at the communion rail,
for 'He that eàteth my flesh, and drinketh of my blood, dwelleth in me,
and I in him.' The meaning of this. was only vague for him - - idiotic,
really - eating flesh and drinking blood - but his mind made a quiet
acceptance and he thought of the communion as a silent meeting with
Christ that was too far beyond the clutches of ordinary life to: be
examined thoroughly. Still, it wasn't simple
not life the figure of
Christ.
We must always remember, the young man said, that Christ willed
his suffering and foretold everything that would happen to him. He had
to show. people what it meant to forgive and love. People don't believe
words. They must have something to look at. And when they saw Christ
dying. above them on the cross they knew as they would never have known
otherwise that he meant every word he'd said. Here was a man who had
used himself as.a living demonstration for other people,
used his own


body! 'Can you imagine that?' the young man asked. 'Do you wonder
that his example has never left out minds since?' 'Though ye believe
not me, believe the works,' Christ had said. 'And the breat that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.'
Without his crucifixion Christ would simply have been a: preachér
'liké me', the clergyman said with a smile.
But during the last few classes Granville began to feel puzzle-
ment. For Christ wasn 't 'nice' in the way he'd thought at first! It
began to seem strange to him that his own mother and father should have
sent him to church. There was a great anger in Christ, often against
mothers and fathers. 'Think nottthat I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not to send peaçe, but a sword,' he said. 'For I am come to set
a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and
the daughter-in-law against her'mother-in-law.'
Now how was it that his mother and fat ther had sent him there, if
Christ wanted to put him at variance with them? And how could the
young clergyman tell him to honour and obey his mother and father) There
was no mistake about it at all! - 'If any man come to me and hate not
his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' Yet the clergyman
always said that Christ was 'good'. And his mother and father had sent
him to church bo that he too would be 'good'. Could you be good without
following Christ? How could you follow Christ if you loved your mother
and father? Look at the man who'd asked Christ if he might bury his own
father before following him! - - 'Let the dead bury the dead,' Christ:
had said. 'He that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy
of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. -


Did other people hear the same words? Or did they gloss' over
them in some way? Or perhaps they didn't know about them!
In one of these classes he asked a question about it. But the
: young clergyman was gague and seemed not really to understand him. He
said something about Christ's calling being beyond even his 'nearest and
dearest'. 'But how can it be good to hate my mother and father?'
Granville thought. And if everybody were to do it to follow Christ,
surely the world couldn't go on, because there'd be no families?
But the other children didn't seem worried. And the clergyman
went on talking, with the same smile. And gradually he put aside his
doubt. The church was still there with its gleaming altar and tall -
stained windows. It was all so.nuch bigger than he was. It had been
alive such a long time. No doubt. there were réasons he didn't understand.
It seemed impossible that so many grown-up people, including the vicar,
could- be wrong. Perhaps he didn't understand the archaic language of
the Bible? And if the bread and wine of the communion were 'symbolical'
for Christ's flesh and blood, why shouldn't Christ's words be symbolical'
in some-way? Perhaps: Christ hadn't meant real mothers and fathers, and
real brothers and sisters!
Only in the marriage at Cana was there a glimpse of a' possible
meaning. When Christ's mother reminded him that there was no wine,
implying that he alone had the miraculous power to bring it, Christ said
angrily, 'What have I to do with thee?! and 'Mine hour is not yet come.'
And Granville felt a dim understanding of Christ în this mood. It was
what he'd often felt with his own mother, when she tried to interfere
with him_sometimes. But then how could Christ possibly feel, the: same
as he did? Probably the words didn't mean what he thought they did!


He took Christ to mean, 'What's it got to do with you?' But that seemed
much too familiar! So he accepted :the puzzlement, and then put it out
of his mind.
And people didn't seem to care. His mother and father didn 't
seem to know much about what Christ said. And he had the idea that one
didn't go to church after one ceased to be a child. Only old fogies
went. So the question never meant much to him.
The bishop confirmed his class, and the wafer melted in his
mouth with a remarkablé swiftnéss, and he wondered where it had been
manufactured, He sought a special holy taste in the wine, which he was
told had been blessed, but the sip he took
the cup was pulled away
from him almost at once
was too small for him to find out. There
was a crowded church and anthems sung by choirs from all over London, he
had feathers in his tummy, but all to a purpose he didn't understand.
He was sure, now, that there was something right in that first
puzzlement. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it.. It'wash't
difficult now to imagine that' the vicar had been wrong, and the young
clergyman, too!
He remembered the Bible that lày on show downstairs under the
silver-plated crucifix, belonging to Bertha, and he toptoed down to get
it. The house was so silent that he could hear the rustling of his
clothes as he walked. The Bible was one of those family editions with
the words of Christ printed in red, and genteel paintings of the disciples.
It hadn't been moved for nearly two years, and there was a fadèd place on
the lace Cover. underneath. 'Well,' he thought, 'I never imagined I'd
ever use this!' It was a little symbol of Bertha's stuffiness, and he 'd


wanted to get rid of it, but Pinkie had stopped him, And now he picked
it up with the same gingerly awe he'd seen in Kath'm's eyes whenever he'd
passed it.
That night, pulling his desk-lamp. closer, he read more or less
haphazardly in it. He was amazed at how simple and true-sounding the
story.of Christ was. Why had he never been taught it, just as a story?
He felt he'd stumbled on his own language again after years of silence,
and was suddenly talking!
He even began to see Christ as a person. This was the first
time he'd really read the gospels. Even now, as he read, absorbed and
still, it seemed silly that he should be doing 80. He wondered that he
could be really interested in it! He realised that he'd'always taken the
language of the Bible as meaningless. It all had a kind of vague
symbolical application - a sort of poetry, not meaning much! And here
he was reading the words actually as if other men had written it! And
he found a story that offered no difficulties at all.
How was it that he'd beén disinherited from this story, in this
great epoch of education? when, once upon a time, for generation after
generation, simple and illiterate people all over the world had found no
difficulty in it? What a lot of effort his 'education' was costing him
in life!
He began to think of Christ as intimately close to him, and not
wrapped up in divinity. Only for a short time in the confirmation classes,
moved by the young man' 's smile, had he felt that intimacy before, Since
then, his education had taught him that he had no right to feel intimacy--
of all things me with great historical figures!
He was amazed at how clearly he: could see Christ
like someone


standing in front of him, very youthful, with an extraordinary çalm and
sweetness. He could see him sitting in the temple writing in the sand
absent-mindedly, with perfect repose, before the crowd brought the fallen
woman to him, playfully, to see if he was fool enough to bless a whore.
And he could see him standing up and saying angrily that if anybody in
the crowd thought he was clean of sin himself he had the right to judge
this woman, but not otherwise! He could see him again, always with
this marvellous repose, lying on the couch before taking dinner with the
Pharisee, and showing a certain care to the woman who bathed his feet in
oil, another whore, while the Pharisee sarcastically asked him if he
minded being anointed by a 'sinner'? He could soe Christ at the well
talking to the Samaritan woman in his leisurely, reflective way, arguing
quietly with her. That was ridiculous to most Jews we to talk to a
woman about God and to a low Samaritan at that! But Christ was, always
doing that kind of thing. When somebody touched Christ once in the
crowd, and he turned, Granville had the impression that he knew how he
turned, the exact gesture. Christ stood so clear and fresh among people.
Christ was always talking to people in their lonely state, he
noticed - not in their importance. He called to men alone in themselves.
'Beware of men,' he said, 'for they wili deliver you up to the councils:'
'When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret. No priest was needed. No
family was needed. Only a man alone in himself. This was what made
Christ's teaching last from one generation to the next, that-it depended
'not on other people but on one man alone withdrawing into himself.
But the Jews had said no less since Moses in that God was only
to be found 'in secret'. That had been their strength, too, this gleaming


secrecy which nothing could touch. It was the silent dignity that had held
the Jews together. And Christ inherited this dignity. The difference
was that he said that every human creature was chosen by God. Not just
the Jews! The Jewish gift must be given to all men? And this wa's the
blasphemy in Jewish eyes
to call even the wicked blessed, even the
low! To call all of them children of God was offensive!
And all. at once Granville saw the connection with his first
perplexity as a child! Christ said it didn't matter that you were
somebody's son or brother, or a man as opposed to a woman, or a Jew
instead of a heathen, - - the state of your life was what counted! And
if you loved those names instead of God, if you rested on your position
in life, you were rotten! Christ put his life against the whole
suffocating weight of status quo! Against this throbbing public life!
God was so high in Christ's time that no one dared even pronounce
his name. Foreigners and uncircumcised people were excluded from His
mercy. Women were unclean, excluded from the Passover. God the State
the high priest governed for Him.
Therefore Christ's teaching was treason as well. He talked
equally to women and whores, to foreigners and heathen. Everybody had
an equal power of penetrating to God - equal even to the priest's; It
was a devastating argument and in the end took the Jewish God to almost
every race on earth.
In everyone, Christ said, however dirty or wicked or despised,
there was that mysterious element of light and silence where he belonged
to something that was beyond other men beyond even himself; and which
couldn't be destroyed by other men! No special credentials had to be
shown. You could even be a slave! Everyone, the most foolish and


ignorant person, had this absolute self-responsibility. No wonder the
Jews were aghast - or. rather laughed and mocked!
Every man had the power to choose between the light and the
darkness. He always knew" the difference, in himself! He was alone. with
his own conscience! The verdict of the priest made no difference. And
the law made no difference, if your conscience was active! Only a man
alone in himself was the judge of where the light of truth lay. 'He
that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, that his
deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.'
Hitherto in Granville's life the name 'Christ' had meant, more or
less, 'love'. Very well, everybody agreed with love! And Christ had
been talked about so many times, after all! Even the crucifixion seemed
painless now, especially as 'Christ' was too lofty to engage your
sympathies! He'd often wondered, like those who had stood about the
cross and mocked him, *Why couldn't he save himself, if he was really
the son of God?' How could you feel Christ's pain as your own, if
Christ was divine and therefore started off with an advantage over
everyone else?
And that was the chief difference now. He saw Christ as a real
person. Like himself! Before, he'd never been able to see exactly
what had gripped one generation after another, for nearly two thousand
years, in the story of Christ! In the Sussex days he'd understood for
the first time that the Christian civilisation had spread across the whole
of Italy, and then the whole of Europe and parts of Asia, planting a cross
in hundreds and thousands of villages, but he hadn't been'able to see how
it had happened that so' many people had been influenceds He'd only seen
it as an historical movement.


But now he saw Christ through himself. Therefore the crucifizion
was real to him. And, also for . the first time, since he could see
Christ through his own experience, he could see how extraordinary he was!
Of course, if you started by saying that Christ was extraordinary and
divine, there was no room for amazement. Only if you saw him as yourself
could you be amazed.
Christ seemed to tell the story of a man's pain wherever that man
was, whatever language he spoke, whatever epoch he lived in. Hé didn't
waste a gesture! It was all so beautifully conceived, his own life,
spread out like a story which he knew from the beginning. Opinion didn't
touch him. He went about his death with an absolutely calm deliberateness,
foreseeing every stage because he brought it about himself. And the
story was discovered again in every generation as something fresh because
it was revived in each man's experience, like a flower that while new had
the same head as millions before it.
The word 'God' was easier for Granville. It meant the spell -
what had gone out of our lives! At dawn in the Sussex days, when he'd
been on sentry-go, the whole earth had seemed to stir, and then the word
'God' had seemed sui table.
The truth wasn't supported by the number of men who held it.
That was Christ! One man alone could hold the only truth in the world!
Granville felt a terrific self-vindication: He did have a place,
then, in life, he did have meaning, he did know something vithout ploughing
through exams and books and fighting to the top of the T.I:M. worm-world!
It was a doctrine of terrific courage, it raised the single man
to a height unknown before! And this man. could be anyone! His strength
in the truth would come from beyond him, where there were no numbers or


power, but silence! He only had to give up trying to satisfy that little
will in himself, or the will of other men. Then the stronger will would
come through.
This is what Christ did he actually did it with his own life!
Even when he said he was the son of God he didn't mean himself with his
own little will - - which the Jews thought. When they accused him of
blasphemy at his trial he asked them, wasn't it written in their own
scriptures that 'Ye are gods', that all men were gods? And he was a man!
He was any man! All men were the children of God! Therefore his own
prayer began, 'Our father.'
Nobody really saw what he meant, apart from the women round him,
perhaps. The disciples didn't see. You could tell that by the questions
they asked him. They thought he was going to offer them something, in
life: or they believed him like children listening to a fairy-tale. When
he. told them that people on top found it more difficult than others to be
close to God, they couldn't believe their ears! The priests as well?
'And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth
them again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard it is for them that
trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. And they were astonished
out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And
Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with
God: for with God all things are possible.'
For the disciples he was just a messiah. That meant the man
who'd bring glory to Israel again, the kingdom of God on earth, that sort
of thing
a, fairy tale. When he told them one day that he would' soon
be dead, and seemed not to care, Peter refused to take him seriously!
How could a man who had come to save Israel, get rid of the foreign troops


and so on, want to die of all things, before he'd taken one step towards
it? How could you save the world by promptly disappearing from it? No
wonder the ones on top laughed!
It was the same at the last supper.
They didn't understand it
was the last at all. He told them, 'A little while, and ye shall not
see me.' But they didn't understand: 'They said therefore, What is
this he saith, A little while? We cannot tell what he saith. Now
Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, ànd said unto him, Do ye
enquire among yourselves of what I said, A little while? Verily, verily,
I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament.'
The darkness of the cross wasn't what they'd expected. Two of
them had asked Christ once whether, on his day of glory', they could sit
one on either side of his throne: And death was such a baffling answer
to that.
Christ's magic was that he didn't ask for any satisfactions to
his personal. will, not even leadership or dignity. He remained absolutely
still even when they were calling up to him to save himself, on the cross.
The silence is deeper than the noise of men's ambitions and
society and virtue and laws. A man has to wait for it, alone and still.
He remembered reading about the ancient world in the Sussex days,
and finding no theme there that had any importance for him. But now
things began to fall together. He was surprised how much dead knowledge
there was in his mind. The moment it fell into the new connection it
was alive.
The Jews had seen great empires collapse all round them, they saw
that though they were always passed by as an unimportant little people on


.the way from Egypt to Persia, they were the only ones to survive. They
survived invasion, massacre, annexation.
Their God had a perfect, irresistible and consistent justice
which men couldn't buy or change. He wasn't a bull or the sun or a man
in the sky. He was silent, inside every man - every Jew. And so He
survived everything that went on outside.
In none of the other great civilisations a Egypt, Greece or
Rome - was there this intimate link between what a man did in the silence
of his thoughts, and the grace bestowed on him from beyond. That 'beyond'
was harmonious, it was one thing, it was,an order - not various little
gods quarrelling in the sky and hurling thunderbolts. The 'beyond' meant
peace. It was on your side. That was the relief Christ took all over
the world, all over the broken Roman empire - from the Jews!
And of course we now took it for granted. Every one of us! The
world has a meaning for us. Nothing is quite haphazard or accidental
in our world! It is based on laws. And that sense of laws underneath
life that never changed was the first lesson of the Jewish religion.
'How strange,' Granville thought, 'that I should have taken all
these years to arrive at a simple definition of "Christian civilisation'!
Yet it was so simple on the face of it! And slowly he was beginning to
link together his own life, too. What else had his sense of a silent order
in life been, in the Sussex days, when he'd begun to take walks alone, but
what the Jews had given? And his sense. of there being a spark in himself,
without help from other men? Had he inherited this experience from
Christ, unawares, as Christ had inherited it, only more vividly, from the
Jews? He was beginning to discover the historical connection he'd been
after since childhood!


In everybody, Christ said, there was a secret place beyond all
men. That was the peace he offered people. Every man had a place
where his own infinite integrity lay.
Moses had promised the Jews 'great and goodly cities'. It was the
one respect in which God did reward men's interests. And Christ removed
this last reward. His disciples expected him to come mounted on a
charger at: the head of an army, to remove the Romans. And, deliberately,
he came in mounted on an ass. He did overcome the Romans. But not in
the method of ambition. His story gradually travelled through the
broken-hearted empire, like hope. The empire's roads and ship-routes, :i
running across Europe and Asia, a vast act of ambition, became the roads
and ship-routes his story travelled by. Slowly the meaning of what he'd
said dawned on people, as it dawned on the disciples, who wrote the story
down.
Christ died on a Roman instrument of torture, kept for criminals.
He wàs laughed at while he was dying, his death wasn't important enough
to be recorded officially. But he overcame an empire. By giving up
ambition he overcame the most ambitious project that the earth had been.
'So things can come about from the silent will of one man,' I he
thought, 'slowly through the years, working in the darkness unknown to
the mind!' How the Pharisees-must have laughed! He overcome Rome?
And the world? A 'prophet' like all the others, with the same parapher-
nalia of disciples and miracles to catch the popular eye and parables and
ominous quotations from the scriptures! Calling himself' 'the son of God'?
'Well, they'd laugh thé same today,' he thought. 'They want
to see a plan for the future of mankind.'
But ordinary people went on living as they always had done, in


silence, passively, knowing that things did change in the darkness,
like the stirring of new roots.
He heard the tinkling of the. palm-tree by his balçony. It was
about the middle of the night now. The breeze made a hushed sound
outside, touching the window, and he glanced up. Beyond the light of
the desk-lamp he could see the window like a square black picture.
Though he could see nothing outside he had the same feeling as before,
perhaps because of the silence - that everything was unsubstantial like
dust, a vast shadow, both the room and the night outside. The room
looked rixed and yet vague, its individual things drawn into one uni ty
by the silence.
What did Christ die into? he thought. What lay on the otherside
of death? What was that silent order one became aware of in life? There
was a gap behind Christ! 'What do I mean by God?' The experience was
missing. But the word 'God' must have sprung from a human experience.
'Can I break through the obstruction of my own mind and get near to that
experience?' he asked himself. 'And so come to within a shade of
believing in God myself?' Hitherto, he'd always regarded 'believing in
God' with distant awe. How could anybody believe in God? It was
impossible!
Yet all those centuries of men lay behind, refuting him. What
did 'God' mean? Hitherto he'd glided over the word. Well, he'd once
glided over the word 'Christ'. Now let him see if he could do justice
to 'God', too.
He thought for a long time in the silence. Then it occurred to
him, 'Consult your own feelings. Don 't try to conceive all the time,


with your mind. Go into your real life. What experience have you,
had of something. utterly beyond you, for instance?' Wouldn't there
be a clue in that?
The words 'divine presence' came into his mind. But it was only
a phrase. And it had a lofty sound. He was sure the Jews hadn't
meant by God that you could only get. from an ecstatic experience.
It must be an experience which came and went quietly, and unawares,
even day by day. He had a. conviction that he'd overlooked this
experience all his life, because it didn't fit in with the allowed
concepts of our epoch.
All of a sudden it seemed easy. Look at the way the room had
appeared to him only a few moments ago, as' - béing unsubstantial like dust!
The silence had seemed to turn everything into.one unity! He'd stood on
the balcony and felt that everything was dust outside, joined together
like one shadow, including even himself. And at the window on the landing,
overlooking the garden, on his way upstairs, he'd felt he was actually
breathing the stillness outside, and that the night was part of him!
He'd felt no solitude!
There was a. presence all round him,' that actually seemed to
breathe: The wind had touched his face when he'd gone out on to the
balcony, like a breath from that presence, so intimate! And the presence
was invisible, but always there. One could come and go, and forget it,
but it would always be there. It would be. there after he died, and it
was there before he càme. - It included him. He had come out of it.
And the presence was inside him as well. He was most aware of it when
he felt peaceful. It was a presence he could violate, too. For instance,
he hadn't wanted to switch the light on, from a sense that it would


violate the silence. So there was harmony in the stillness. And it
was possible to ruin this. If he'd talked or moved about noisily he
would have ruined it for himself. The stillness would have become
separate from him. I His thoughts would no longer have followed each
other at. their own pace, in their own order. For his thoughts seemed
actually - to .come out of the stillness. They were quite different from
those thoughts which he had deliberately
at the office, for instance.
So there. was a guide in the stillness, too, which you could follow or
disregard, at will!
He thought back over. it again, quietly.. Surely. there only
primitive, a mere beginning
was the form of 'God'? His sense of a
presence all round him, breathing, surely that was his recognition of
something alive and yet inside him, apart from him and yet the whole of
life? Surely that. was a fumbling towards a definition of God, that the
Jews had been the first to make? One God for the whole universe ae
surely that was the feeling of things being a unity, with a presence
behind it? The presence was' invisible! It wasn't this tree or this
touch of wind. These were only manifestations. So God was both invisible
- and intimate.
And it was a presence that lay before and after one's life, and
continued while one was unaware of it. God was 'eternal'.
The presence included one's.own life, too. One seemed. to come
out .of it, and in'death to be going back into it. This was. the feeling
of having been created. God was the 'creator'.
And, yet the prèsence was inside one as well ba it didn*t simply
include one. a It was whole inside one. So Eod was to be found 'in
secret'.


And if one followed the stillness one was aware of a harmony, in
one's' thoughts. That was where the Jews had made a moral connection.
You could follow God at your own free will. You could consult Him, in
secret. You could follow His guidance or not. What was this but Granville's
feeling that the présence was in and all round him, with a pace and order
of its own? What was it but the idea of 'eternal justice '? Only a man
whose conscience was free could talk to God, or have harmony:
God didn't take rewards, Moses had said. God wasn't a man, or in
the image of a man, nor was He any thing in our sense. He was 'spirit'.
*Of course,' f thought Granville, 'how absurd it would be for me to ask
the presence all round me to do something for me!' For the presence
wasn't something he could see before him, or feel. It was underneath
everything, the sense of there being sométhing alive which wasn't limited
to the things you could see' and feel, like the balcony or the palm-tree,
though it was in them also. It was pure spirit!
But those words 'pure spirit' had come to mean something lofty,
like 'pure idea'. And he'd got to think through thesé words, and through
the snares of the mind. He couldn't deny that when he stood in the
silence he was aware of a force beyond him and yet in himt And men had
given it a name. Surely 'God' was that name?
For the first time he saw a meaning in phrases that had always been
empty for him - - 'God is spirit', 'the Creator', 'the God of peace',
'the God of Gods', *the just God'. They could all be tfanslated into
his experiénce. Only those words had been stripped bare of flesh, and
he had to keep this experience of a 'presence' in mind, to make them real.
But it was impossible for him to keep this experience in mind
without a word of some sort - without using that word 'presence'.


But how could he talk to other people about 'the presence' and expect
them to understand? Was that how the word God had come into being
to cover all such experiences and make them one shared concept for
everybody? Only we had lost the experience: only the empty word remained
to us!
And again, that word 'presence', in covering only his own
experience, didn't get beyond him, so that really it couldn't convey
the magnitude of what he'd just comé in contact with: he had to show
that it was more than just a passing experience, that'it was in a way
beyond all experience. He had to convey the idea that while he'd been
aware of a whole being - the *presence'.. - yet it could never be
experienced. as a whole. Only a part or moment of it could be experienced -
the darkness on the balcony, à glance from the window 1 and yet this part
always suggested the whole. And the word 'presence' alone failed to
convey this:
He remembered, from Exodus, that before the flight from Egypt
Moses had told his people the name of God for the first time. It was no
longer 'Lord', meaning simply master, but Jehovah. And Jehovah meant
'I am that I am'.
"I am that I am' gave the idea of an unanswerable will, a complete
being, all that there was. 'It didn't bring in the apectator as presence'
did.
'But even then', he thought, 'a word isn't enough in itself'.
The fact was' that he 'd still be alone with his experience however màny
wordsthe used! - But 'Jehovah' had been used by men living together,
with the same hopes. And they passed it on to their children. In this
way it was separate from each one of them in himself. Yet it was still.


intimate. So it had exactly that combined ave and intimacy which the
thing itself, the 'Presence', needed. And it did this only by being
absorbed into the lives of men.. t Only by being shared aimong men could
it be lifted beyond one man aloné. That was the power of a word, as
Moses saw. - A word, like.an idea, had to have a. communal sanction before
it could seem to have the detachment of the thing it describad.
'So,' thought Granville, 'if my word 'presence' was used by people
now, and it entered into their lives, and was passed on to children, it
would take on power; it would carry a hint in its very sound of the kind
of thing I experienced when the word came to my mind.'
And so it was with 'God'. It had to be known and felt from
childhood. And if it wasn't, then knowledge of 'God* was accidental.
One stumbled on it here and there. through life, as he'd just done. To
know 'God* you' had to see him in the eyes of people round you, and hear
him referred to day after day and connected with the smallest actions,
drawn into the flesh of life, not an idea, 60 that He always seemed to be
at the edge of bhings and to be watching you. There was no difficulty
in the knowledge itself, as Granville's experience of the 'presence'
showed. But our' community had no allowance for it. God had slipped
out of life.
The word was certainly empty for him. It was the sane as the
pagan 'god', a man in the sky who cast a net round Venus and Mars while
they made love; ridiculous or aesthetic, always untrue. The word 'God'
couldn't convey that dumb and alive 'presence' he'd been aware of.
And this presence' was all he had. It came and went, a mere
lonely experience. It didn't affect anything. It lacked the warmth of


something pointed out to him in childhood.
The eclipse had been an event in empty space for him, like the
click of a machine. He couldn't help it. He would always see it like
that. His feelings were separate from the event. There were his
feelings, then the weather, then the eclipse, all separate, never in the
unity he was sometimes aware of in life underneath - to be. touched so
easily, it always seemed: Abu Kath'm had seen God. But for his world -
that was 'mystical', meaning strange and hidden, not belonging to the
light of day or shared by other people.
Now even the word 'presence' was becoming empty. for him. It
was an idea floating in his mind, because he'd got used to the word now.
It was private. It had no echoes beyond him. Yes, you had to see it
in other men's eyes: Alone you weren't enough.
The room looked ordinary again, and the silence outside seemed
familiar now, an accompaniment to his thoughts, no longer suggesting a
'presence'. He began to feel tired. But he was determined to get to
the end of his thoughts. He heard Pinkie cough from next door in her
sleep. It occurred to him that there'd be a heavy day at the office -
some files were coming in from Kirkuk. But a question persisted in his
mind: how had a person like himself come about,perceiving the sky without
anything divine in it, without 'God'? Because it wasn't the truth - -
that sky he saw! It wasn't the real sky,. that was mysterious and seemed
to breathe!
He saw the sky as - a kind of mathematical concept - - yes, but what
did that mean? It meant he saw it as something useful to men: that. is,
men could measure it and predict its. movements!


The eclipse was a kind of geometrical" action for him: an Object
called the moon moved between an Object called the sun and another
Object on which he was standing. A dimming of light resulted, lasting
so many,seconds. He saw it like a surveyor from another universe.
Yet he hadn't the slightest knowledge of surveying or physics! It was
simply in his nature!
Ask any ordinary man and he'd give you the same geometrical
story of what was 'happening' in the eclipse: It wasn't that this kind
of thinking was new or unusual, but that in us it was more than thinking
it was actually the way we smelt and touched and saw things!
It was unreligious thinking. But why? Well, it laid down the
nature of the sky as something that could be measured and predicted:
there was nothing in the sky that couldn't be tackled by men' 's minds;
it was only oxygen, light, matter, only objeçts in space.
Everything beyond men's minds escaped him! Yet the world was
full of. it: men's minds were only a slight little tracing on this huge
eternity. Yet he'd been brought up to say it was the whole thing!
As a child he'd always imagined there was a policeman in the sky who
controlled everything: not a god but a man, in a blue uniform, with a
truncheon.: And at the same time this created a terrible puzzlement
bécause the policeman wasn't all that reliable. He had allowed a war
to happen, for instance, which nobody could see the reason for afterwards.
What else was that but perceiving the world as if it had been
made only for men's ambitions? All of a sudden he saw a connecting
link - his kind of mind came from a terrific act of pride, from wanting
to turn the whole of reality into something you could manoeuvre and use, 1
just as if you were the author of it all:


It reminded him of that railway bridge, in Sussex, when he'd
gazed' down at the gleaming tracks below and realised that all 'the facts
he'd learned at school were dead facts, because they illuminated a thing
only in so far' as it could be used for some purpose; it was useful to know
about expanding metals if you were laying those tracks. But it wasn't the
whole truth! I You had to strike the world dead first, in your mind, to
see its function, like something mathematical, apart from yourself.
And instead of just keeping that as one of our methods of thinking w
though a strange and disquieting one
we had let it cloud over' our
whole consciousness until there were people like - 4 himself! 1 people
who saw the world-naturally like that! - He saw it with all the heart and
breath and enormous mystical movement knocked out of it: Yes, all that
invisible movement, all that 'presence' round him, had to be called -
'mysticalf aie a little cranky!
And to realise this he'd had to allow his whole self and will to
be. engulfed by something huge and apparently selfless outside him, first
in Sussex, when: he'd really seen the country for the first time, and now
in' Basrah. 'Islam ' meant 'surrender': he'd surrendered to something
both times, he'd been sucked in by the outer presence - he remembered
that walk along the road to Chichester when he could hardly tell the
difference between his body and what lay all round him in the massive heat.
And wasn't that what Moses had told the tribes in the desért -w to submit?
Wasn't that the first law of all real religion - submit and surrender
not to other men but to the 'presence': listen to it, at night - -?
And this meant forgetting your ambitions. 'You* were forgotten - -
only this huge will outside remained, flooding through you!
Christ had to say it again - he came fifteen hundred years


after Moses. Again there were ambitions in the air a the God of the
Jews was waiting 'to conquer all the world for Israel. And Christ began
the conquering in his own way, through a total submission of self that
nobody else understood. He seemed to waver in the garden, the night
before he was taken: no one understood what he was about to do, he was
absolutely alone - on the face of it, he would just die and not be
heard of again; "0, my Father', he said, 'if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me! Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' As
the big will outside willed!
While people had ambitions in their minds they were cut off from
the truth - that was what Moses and Christ seemed to say! The little
personal will stopped the big outer will from flowing through them. So
both Moses and Christ had to lift God up above men again - away from their
ambitions in from their itch for rewards!
'Is our role now,' Granville thought, 'the same, to life the sky
up beyond men again?'
That was the meaning of Christ's death: people were shown that
at least one man could give up all his ambitions and go willingly into
death.
That was why the story held, because it was a standing testimonial
from generation to generation of the power of the human creature.
Christ left no rules for us. Only this silence after his death! :
But was that also a sign - - that we had to look further and further into
the silence until we found our feett Was this what history had been
doing? 'Is this my interest in history?' Granville asked himself. 'To
find the traces of that theme?'
The moment the God of Mosés was mixed up in ambitions - the


moment temples were put up to' Him and.a high priest elected, the moment
a society started round it
there was danger. The moment Christ was
caught up in a church, in ambition and office and competition, there was
danger. Their truth was smashed. Little personal wills got in the way.
We had churches. - But not a religious soul in the Christian world!
Nobody could be religious! Nobody had it in him! He hadn't got it
in his nerves, in his mind, in his heart, in his nose or bowels or belly!
All you could do was make a' little gesture - strive - try to fight your
way through? But the churches were just muck. They were little reminders
of what men used to be. Like the ruins of temples! But more than that
they were only little clubs. The Christian couldn't believe in God.
Christ and God had been smashed to pieces. We could only grub in the
ruins and pick up little morsels of the marvellous colourèd stone' and try
to piece the world together again so that real dawns would rise on our
children:s children's children : e 'If a man tells you he believes in
God,' thought Granville, 'he's a: liar or a fool or a swine!i Thé
Christian was crippled and broken and babbling like an idiot, and God
had almost totally. disowned him, the link was only there by the thinnest
umbilical cord. Could one of the idiots suddenly stop grubbing in the
dust and garbage and lift his eyes up to the sky -N eyes that shone
with self - that saw nothing but self even in the sky - and say 'I
believe in God?'
Perhaps only the middle ages had been really in the image of
Christ. Then, ambitions had been really dead for a time. The old
idiot-show of the ancient Roman world, with its endless armies and its
putrid workd of art and its sewers and straight roads, was finished for


a time. And so they were 'middle' ages for us witin after the Roman
empire, which we understood, and before the renaissance in Italy, which
we also understood: between two spectacular worlds, the Roman and our own!
Were: they called 'middle' because they were all uncertainty from
out point of view? Was it that we couldn't read our own ambitions in
them? Nothing had happened in that time from our point of view! Just
as, for our world now, Abu Kath'm hadn't seen the real eclipse!
We looked in the middle ages for our own plans and charters and
personalities and continual fretting struggles between little personal
wills from epoch to epoch, and didn't find them. No trade, as in our
world, or very'little of it! No great landowners with their armies of
slaves, no ambitious ruling class: But one great ambitious project
there had been, that held everything else together: the second coming.
of Christ.
Well, you could see the germ of trouble there, already. People
would wait so long and no longer. Gradually the old ambitious itch had
started again. The first sign was a revival of trade. Gradually the
towns became important again. Certain people had grown tired of waiting!
The 'burghers'. - the men of the towns
were the seed of the new
world that came into being. They planned life, they always had done:
they planned the education, the law, the drainage. Their trade brought
movement. They looked ahead. They brought refinement. That peculiar
under-stillness of the middle ages', that patient waiting mood, came to
an end.
There were long connecting roads again, new ship routes. Venice
was typical of the new world, an independent republic based on trade, not
faith! It sent its ships to infidel ports without a bad conscience.


Then ancient learning was revived. No sign like the cross had
governed the ancient world! There'd been heroism -ine fabulous storics,
not the bitter stories of the saints, always waiting for second life!
Men had seemed to stand their full height in the pagan world - tragic
figures! Men had even populated the sky, as gods! Happiness had been
a reasonable design, even if the gods farted at you sometimes! t
So. this remaissance was a revival of life as a grand,i enjoyable
adventure! There were. great voyages of discovery. The nobles were
again cultivated people living in the towns
not just soldiers as
they'd been in the middle agesi Fortunes were made, courts sprang up
everywhere, there were tyrants, strange whirling careers that went out
like a star.
But it wasn't just a repetition of the ancient world. In a wayk
this new world came from Christ. That was the contradiction! The will
and stature he'd given men by saying they were the children of God, and
therefore free, was precisely the energy behind the renaissance. It
looked like a repetition because of its spectacular movement, but there
was now a different morality. from which people acted, there was a new
dignity, there was the sense of one order governing everything. The
old chaos of the ancient Roman world wasn't there
no haphazard myths
and cults and weird 'mysteries'. Theories of an ordered universe started,
a universe governed by laws, and all of life was now searched for its
consistent principles and themes, even the human body.
And the same thing went on in the church. But the end of the
middle ages the church was as much a vehicle for pérsonal ambition as
the ancient Roman governments had been. The first real challenge to this
was the reformation in Germany. Again this was from Christ. Again,


like the remaissance, it aimed to lift men up.
It denied that the pope had any mysterious accéss to God.
Confession ought to be abolished, it said. This meant that the church
wouldn't be able to absolve a man of his sins -- even for money, as it
had been doing. Only the man himself could do it, in his own conscience.
This took away the church's hold on people the hold of fear and
interest. It took away the intimate hold, the consoling guidance in
little things.
Both the remaissance and the reformation, without meaning to,
achieved a kind of Becular society in which Christ and God were separated
from life. These words fell away from the lips of the poor, gradually.
Men had been lifted up 80 high n the renaissance made him shine with
intelligence and seem to conquer all of reality, the reformation made
him a priest to himself - that nothing else beyond them could be seen!
So the two movements had the same effect. A society came into
being that went round like clockwork, serving. nothing but itself, not
referring to anything beyond it. The sky became like an empty. ceiling
over it - just space - oblivion.
But people's behaviour wasn't the same as in ancient times.
There was nothing like the greed and chaos of the old empire, in its last
years. Christ seemed to have entered life, but anonymously, in people's
behaviour. There was a new kind of social order. There were fewer and
fewer slaves, fewer serfs. Women were no longer servants. That breath
of freedom from Christ had come into life. There was the' idea of the
dutiful citizen, more and more, especially in the north, where the
reformation had happened. Every man was more and more résponsible for
himself. But Christ was less and less recognised as the author. Society


was 'Christian', but the name Christ began to fall away.
Men chose their own: lives. 'Democracy'
demos-kratia, the
power of men, above everything else.
'And so I see the eclipse as described by men, : he said to himself,"
'in a universe spanned by men's measurements and calculations. I see it
only inside men's capacities. And everything beyond a man 's mind
escapes me! I have no words for it. Only when I look into Abu Kath'm's
eyes do I see it; and realise how little open to the real world I am!'
'If I withdraw from somet thing and watch it,' he asked himself,
'what is the activity uppermost in me? Surely the brain? And so,
naturally, if I'm in withdrawal from things - from people - -even from
myself -- my uppermost activity is in the brain: I see things from the
brain, the sky like an empty proposi tion!
'This is perhaps wha t I noticed first in Abu Kath'm; that she
isn't in withdrawal.'
He remembered how once he'd said to her jokingly one morning,
"You're getting fat!", and she 'd looked down at herself, at her flowing
robes, with such a funny expression, so mixed and puzzled: she really
never had thought about herself before, in that way, it seemed; she hadn't
thought about her body, The division of 'mind' from 'body' didn't exist
for her. That was his distinction! That was the Christian world!
Really his remark tore her out of God's world, where she was
never quite distinct from everything round her, and it suddenly pitched
her into a men's world, where she was a 'person', where she stood alone,
surveying her own body from above.
She never could attain to a 'personality' in our sense. She


never could survey the world and herself as if she had really arranged
it all, planning it as she went along! She had submitted, she was
submitted, in all her being, she could be nothing else. She was blind.
She had no plans for the day, for the next hour - the will of Allah
created her rhythm.
She felt it was unlucky if someone asked after the health of her
children. She made a quick little prayer to ward off the evil eye.
: All the common people of Basrah did that. All the ancient Mediterranean
peoples, the Greeks included, had done it, too. One mustn't pry too,
closely into life. There was a spell that mustn't be broken. Too much
attention shouldn't be drawn to men. Indeed, the mind altogether was
unlucky.
The dawn began to come through, an ever so faint blueness at the
corner of the sky, making the rush carpet and the door to the balcony
softly clear. And almost to the moment there was the sound of birds.
L Their singing seemed to be inside the air, waking with it, in no
particular place. How restful the twittering was, with all 'the time of
the universe at its disposal! The birds actually seemed to wake. with
the sky. And men were non-existent. How lovely freedom was!
Horror of the mind was in him, too
from Abbott's Road. That
was why Abu Kath'm had stirred so much thought in him. It was really
a'horror of men - - a horror of them domina ting everything, shutting out
the light.
His thoughts came drowsily, hardly connected any more: dim but
with a peaceful clarity underneath, hardly words any more, disjointed
and brief.


In Abbott's Road, too, life had been blind, like Abu Kath'm.
'They' - the absent power : had controlled everything. 'They' came
and collected the rent. 'They' made wars. 'They' made you work.
Movement always came from outside. Outside was the will of men
invisible men who arranged the schedule: not the will of Allah.
Even then the intimate little favric of life was hardly touched -
the winding of the clock, pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, the walk in the
park on Sunday afternoons. It was woven together again at once.
Of course, there wasn't Abu Kath'm's stateliness in Abbott's Road.
Nobody walked like her. That had gone out. Life had a troublesome
edge. There were shill things: at the end of life was oblivion, like
the grey sky on a bad morning, eternally. Nobody explained it.
Suddenly there might be a cream-coloured ambulance in the street. Or
blinds might be pulled down.. There was a sense of disaster. Death
was unexplained. Just a frightful oddity.'
And there was no slow awakening to the world like the birds. A
hard routine had been fixed on every day. One couldn't way where it came
from, and one didn't do it for oneself. It was just there, a jerking
motion you had to join because there was nothing else. Life wasn 't
nàtural there. The face grew fixed, too, with 'set lips and unmoving
eyes. The words became clipped. One's walk was jerky, too.
But even then, despite the plan that was fixed by somebody else,
the little fabric was kept. People held stiffly away from each other.
Their lives were arranged by men they didn't see. But still the fabric
was untouched.
And Christ and God had gone into this fabric, it seemed. The
church was just a building in Abbott's Road, but there was a decency


between people, and a quiet belief. The Christian dignity was there.
But the word 'Christ' itself was only a swear-word.
He remembered one Monday afternoon in his early childhood, when
he was sitting on his mother's knee, after she'd hung the clothes out on
the line. He remembered gazing down at the narrow gardens where sheets
were billowing in the sunshine, and having the impression that this was
a glimpse of the very centre of life, which was a place of peace. It
was difficult to explain. But it seemed to come from his mother, to be
passed on to him like speech. It was the. sense of there being one
marvellous theme that ran through all life and included the sunshine,
the silence, the wind making the sheets billow, and the two of them
sitting there and gazing far beyond each other, while joined together.
Beyond the roof-tops in Abbott's Road there was oblivion. No
questions were asked. There was only a plan of work made by men. That
had to be fulfilled. There was no' other meaning.
So you couldn't lift up your head to the sky, or to Christ or
God. You no longer had the right. There was only the plan of work.
But even then a glow was kept.
The plans always came from above. Of course - a those movements
of history he'd just been thinking about, the revival of commerce, the
remaissance, the reformation, the industrial revolution, they were all
from above! That was why there were only books to go by -- nothing
was passed from nouth to mouth about them.
Somet times people had worked in fields, sometimes in cities,
sometimes for one man, sometimes for several, sometimes for the state -
or in the name of God, or in the name of humanity! But it was only a
wind that passed. Life remained substantially the same, with the same


peace.
Otherwise who would have done the work? You can 't work running
round all the time.
His father loved the dawn. Every morning he went round the tiny
garden, just after the light came. Even the houses of Abbott's Road looked
natural at dawn, like hills.
And at King George's dock his father could keep his dream. They
couldn't take away the vast river gleaming in the early light, and the
sound of fog-horns!
Unless a man had a light in his eyes - of something beyond all
men
he was horrible!
'How horrible to grow up among burghers!" he thought. What
suffering that must be for the children! He remembered something lovely
from before the War: it was when he'd seen the old Queen pass in her
carriage and a woman next to him had said to her child, lifting him up,
over the heads of the crows, "There she is, duck! Look, there's the
Queen!" And the boy. had gazed before him, his mouth open, absolutely,
rapt; gazing it seemed into everything fabulous that there was in the
world! It was lovely how a dream could be passed on. like that!
He felt satisfied now. His life had joined together. That was
why he'd set-out on thesé thoughts, perhaps - to join his life together.
He could face men better now, he thought. He had his, own world.
A clock struck in the distance, for he couldn't make out the
number of strokes. He felt sleepy for the first time; and 'began to nod.
Would a godly earth come back again? he wondered drowsily: As he thought
this he opened his eyes again and looked across at the. window, and saw a
long curling leaf of the palm-tree silhouetted against the sky like a
finger, pointing upwards.


BOOK V
CHAPTER 22.
He went up to Meedham at the end of the week, and Elizabeth met
him at the station. He'd left the house neat and quiet
he and
Hanni got down to some cleaning, as a surprise for Pinkie, and everything
sparkled. It was really a lovely house, if only they could keep it
clean!
This was his first journey since he'd got back, and he sat gazing
out of the window all the time, contented and drowsy, watching the steam
sweep down in front of the window and hide the countryside for a moment.
He'd given himself a treat with a first-class ticket, and he could
stretch out his legs. The floor was carpeted. Delicious! There were
the familiar snug stations with their glass roofs, and bookstalls with
lights glowing inside them amid piles of magazines and newspapers, and
gloomy halls marked 'Buffet' with steaming windows. And beyond the
platform, trees. Why hadn't he come into the country before?' It was
such a relief to see the long grass and streams, the wooden stiles!
It was a misty, hot day, with the sun trying to get through, and
the fields looked sullen. But it brightened the further north they
went. And by the time they arrived, in the evening, the sun cast a red
glow over the fields.
Elizabeth was like a rush of wind, as alwayss He'd begun to
feel nervous, preparing for her volley of talko She was sitting in the
car
a broken-down Ford with a canvas top - and shouted out,


"Philip
come on, you old dear!" She looked tremendously well.
They kissed.
"How are. you?"
"I'm fine - jump in, dinner'1l be up in a few minutes!"
And almost before he'd thrown his bag. in the back she'd engaged
the gear and they were off. She had a wonderful cascading generosity.
It was in her body. There wasn't a spare or flinching movement. She
had full, strong, black eyes and dark hair that kept tumbling about as
she talked, and a way of leaning forward all the time as if searching for
something. She was full of questions and laughter, and rushed in all
the time. But it was never social talk. It was like a great waterfall
one was drenched with spray and it made the silence afterwards more
glorious. She'd become plumper in the last two years but her face was
still clear like a school-girl's.
"It's ages since I saw you!"
He felt quite jaded and slow next to her, but increasingly excited:
"How are the children?" he asked.
"They're marvellous! Jane's sweet. She gets soft on every
little boy she meets -- isn 't it a scream?"
He began, "I've never seen them, you know! Only n
But the words were swept out of his mouth.
"No?" she cried. "I could have sworn they knew you!"
She turned and looked at him with her full, dark eyes: "But you've
been up_ bére before, haven't you?"


"What? Oh, you poor darling -- - I was sure :" She stopped,
biting her lip and frowning while the car sped on, making perilous bumps
near the grass verge. "Didn't you come up with Pinkie just before you
went abroad?"
"No, just Pinkie."
"Really? Oh, well, we'll have to make up for it this time!"
And she pressed forward over the steering wheel and increased speed,
making the car lurch and rattle suddenly, then career off like a horse
under the whip.
"She's béen telling me all about you!" she cried, just like a
rider shouting something in mid-gallop. "You have got a swell job!"
And she flashed him a bright glance of admiration, which he hadn't
seen in her eyes before. She'd always given him a blinking, hesi tant
glance under her eyebrows before, as if she didn't know what to expect
from him.. But now, apparently, he'd proved himself!
The country looked very still in the evening light. They passed
by a farmhouse lying behind elm trees, and great barns with. red, mossy
roofs, and paddocks with fences. Sometimes the red sky flashed in a
window.
"Red sky at night " he murmured.
"Yes! It looks marvellous for the beach tomorrow!"
"Oh, I forgot, you're near the sea!"
"Yes, ién't it good? We went down this morning with the kids!"
"It's lovely country," he said, gazing out of the window.
"It's my ideal. It's got space, and lots of shade, and trees,
and that sort of thing!"
They'began àn ascent between hedgerows, and the car seemed to


hesitate.
"Come on, you old crock!" she shouted.
But it went its own pace while she kept pushing herself forward
in her seat to help it along.
"She doesn't like the hill!" she added. "Sometimes she does
and sometimes she doesn't" : It was a question whether they would get to the
top at all. It went slower and slower. The chassis rattled and
trembled, but then the car just cleared the rim of the hill before it
gave out. "Done it!" The engine had stalled, but after a few tries
with the starter, breaking through the country silence, she got it going
again. "The mixture's too rich! I give her too much peddle or revving
or something, so Gordy says! There, now come on and finish your stretch,
you lazy old bounder! Isn't she marvellous? We wouldn't part wi th her
for worlds! Gordy always runs about in the shiny thing, but I hate it!
Yes, isn't the country lovely round here?"
And she looked out, blinking, with the most lovely air of discovery.
There were hills stretching on either side as far as they could see; she
suddenly pointed out to the right, where there was a cluster of thick
trees in the distance, a dark green mass touched with red from the
glowing sky.
"We live over there!" she cried.
He could make out the tower of a church with a tiny wooden steeple
built on to it, and the faded red brick of some houses.
"I say," she added with a laugh, "I hope you're not going to be
bored! I'm_afraid my conversation's not up to much! What a pity old
Gordy's not here, he's the brainy typé, don't you think so?, It's going
to be a bit of a hen party, Philip!"


He said something about finding her intelligent company and
they both laughed. Then he asked, "How is Gordon?"
They'd met once or twice,, in a distant kind of way, through
Pinkie.
"Oh, working too hard as usual!" She shook her head with a'
vivacious movement, so that her hair swept across her shoulders. "I
can't relax when he's here!.. Is Pinkie like that?"
"Probably."
"You men are, so frightfully domineering: She looks sweet."
"Pinkie., I think you're doing her good. "
He thought, 'It's Grove you're congratulating, old girl, did you :
but know it!"
The country swept past again.. They were now in a perilous
descent. - - Strange, he'd felt impudent asking after Gordon, using his
Christian name!
He remembered Gordon Bewley-Patton as a tall man with the same
bounding health as Elizabeth but a quieter voice, and a great civility
and shyness of manner. Sometimes he winced if Mlizabeth bounded about
too much, Pinkie said, and called her 'Mrs. Bellows-Patton.'
He'd met Gordon at his club, while the women were off somewhere
shopping. He had turned the same gingerly glance on Granville, combined
with warm attention, as Elizabeth usually did. But when Granville showed,
with a deliberate effort, that he was at éase, Gordon settled down as well.
There-had been a little. crisis over the drink. : Granville had wanted beer
and. asked for 'bitter, please'. Gordon didn't understand this. He'd
apparently thought it was some mumbo-jumbo because he screwed up his eyes


and leaned forward, his hand to his ear,' with the same gengerly
expression as before, and said, "Bi-- -?
-? I'm sorry I can't understand you!"
Granville had laughed, "Bitter, bitter!" And at last the bar-man had
rescued them with, "He means bitter beer, sir. Light beer!" And
understanding dawned on Gordon's face. "Oh, beer!" he had cried, and
then given Granville a bright, tender smile as if to say, 'So glad we
don't talk different languages, after all!'
"I don't think she really enjoys it out there," he said as the
car turned into a narrow lane.
"Oh, why ever not?" She flung him a quick, absorbed glance.
"Well, I don't know, the life's too small for her
it's no
good for a woman "
"But she said she adored it! I thought it was just the thing
as long as you didn't stay out there too long and get used to the sun-
downer and come back witha bad liver and all that!"
"Of course, it's exciting for her - #
"Darling old Hester's such a bohemian, isn't she?" she asked with
a laugh. She made it sound so harmless - even good! "Isn't that
the trouble?" she went on.. "She's a bohemian!"
"Yes, I suppose s0. But that's the point, she can't fling her
legs out. in Basrah as she can here. People don't understand it. Well,
you know yourself: it's enough for a woman to bhow her face out there."
"Oh, quite!" Then she added more quietly, "You've got to be firm
with Hester. You mustn't let her wander off."
"Why not?" he asked. And the question surprised him, as it did
her.


"What a question! Don't you really care?"
"I méant why do you think she shouldn't wander off?"
"Well, for your benefit!. I'd don't know --!" She gave him an
uncanny glance, unable to find her words.
"But if she wandered off," hé said, "it would mean she wanted
to wander off, and it's no use forcing somebody's life off its pat th, is
it? You can't do it in any case. You'd feel that all you'd'got in
return was a fraud. You can alter somebody's will, but the will's got
to be there."
"Does she want to wander, then?" she asked quietly, again biting
her lip.
He shrugged. "It was your phrase."
"Everybody'd like to wander some time, I suppose. But first of
all you've got to get a fâmily going, don't you agree?"
There. was a pause, and he gared out of the window again. He had
a sense of giving himself away, just as he would with Dick or Hanni, but
it was gone in a moment. She was so different! The subject had already
passed out of her. Nothing was harboured in her mind. The trees and
grass outside looked clear and fresh. 'How paltry life usually is,' he
told himself, 'because of thoughts lurking in peopleds minds like rats!'
Then they arrived. He was astonished that they'd actually driven
about ten miles. It had gone like a few seconds.
"Well, here we are!" she said. Then she called out, "Hester!
Children!"
It was a lovely house, set back from the road, its porch shaded


by a dark plane-tree. The red brick walls glowed, in. the last of the sun.
There were tall windows, their sills within a foot or two of the ground,
s0 that one could have stepped into the rooms from the gravel drive.
The house spread out wide, two storeys, with pillars at the entrance,
and the roof was uneven, grown over with moss, like those of the farms
he'd seen on the way.
Pinkie came out with the children, looking fresh and much happier
than when she'd.left. She gave him a smacking kiss and laughed.
The children were Toby, David and Jane. They looked him over
casually after being introduced, and ran inside again. Jane had a slow,
dark gaze, and one could see something of Elizabeth's impulsive warmth,in
her, held back.
"Aren't they beasts, my children?" she cried.
"Perfectly horrible," Pinkie said, gazing up at the sky with
loose eyes, blinking against the light. "It's all this modern upbringing,
The house was apart from the village, which straggled down the
road, hidden behind thick trees and bushes. On the garden-side of the
house there stretched a long valley with endless fields and. a range of low
hills in the furthest distance,. misty and blueish. It was like seeing
everything from the air., This was the valley they'd seen from the car,
when she'd pointed. But still it was a surprise, a sudden accéss of
light as one came round the side of the house.
Elizabeth made rather a fuss of him, getting him tea and glancing
at Pinkie brightly now and then. Pinkie played up to it, allowing him
his importance. It seemed to give her a thrill, as well. She' made the
tea, and they drank out of tall nursery mugs that had once belonged to


Elizabeth's grandmo ther. Pinkie behaved as if she 'd always given him
tea in this style; for the time, being, she seemed to believe it really
was so.
"How do you like old Liz's jalopy?" she asked him.
"It goes fine, doesn't it?" They laughed.
"You'll be driving us all to the beach in it tomorrow. "
Elizabeth showed him Gordon's study with his collection of books
that covered everywall. This was in case he got bored with the 'womenfolk',
she said. The room led off the dark hall, long and quiet, with panelled
walls visible here and there behind the books, and deep leather armchairs'
round the hearth. It was rather like a clubroom, with shields on the
mantel-piece and a rack for pipes. There was an immense desk under the
window at the end of the room, which.overlooked the valley. He told
Pinkie what a wash-out it made him feel, being a clerk, when he saw all
this.
She murmured uncomfortably, not really coming to his aid, "Oh, I
don't know!", and turned away. Then, perhaps under the influence of the
mellow, still house, she added, "You don't have such a bad life. I
wouldn't like to be in the shoes of some of the wives I know, anyway!
Living in a sort of backyard with squalid little husbands coming in at
six sharp every evening and giving them sour little pecks on the cheek!"
"Hear, hear!" Elizabeth shouted. playfully from the hall,
Playfully Pinkie added, "Anyway, you've got style; and that's
what counts!" And after another pause: "And you're not a clerk now,
you're a branch manager!"
"That sounds worse!" he replied with a laugh.


That evening, when they were having a drink before dinner;
sitting in the big drawing.room where there were . three tall windows, talk.
started-about the value of confessing your sins. Elizabéth was a catholic
and cried, "It's such a jolly good service! It's like going to the
lavatory!" Then she clipped her hand over her mouth with a laugh. "Is
that blasphemous, do you think? What I mean is you have such a purged
feeling afterwards!"
"Why, do you have many sins?". asked Pinkie with a smile.
"Oh, lots! Not grave ones - but lots of tiny little ones!"
"I have lots, too," said Pinkie quite seriously. "And grave -
ones. I
"Oh, you poor dear!" She turned to Granville, giving him a
lively, flashing glance. "Is she awfully wicked, Philip?"
"I suppose she is, rather."
"But what sort of wicked?" she asked, looking at Pinkie again.
"I mean, do you have mean thoughts and that sort of thing? Surely not?"
"Oh, no, I don't mean that sort of wicked."
"Well, how, then?"
"She means getting drunk and wanting men and that sort of thing, #
he said. "She thinks God's only interested in that sort' of thing -
presumably because she, is!".
Pinkie chuckled, gazing down at her glass, seeming to feel
complimented.
"Oh, when I go to confession I think of when I snubbed somebody
or was rude to Gordy, and - things like that!"
"Really, Liz!" Pinkie laughed, rolling her drink round. "You


are a virtuous bitch!"
"Not a.bit of it, they're real sins, those things!"
"Small hat,. old girl, small hat! You wait until you.commit a
really wopping sin, thén you'll-know what guilt is!"
"Do you feel guilt, then?" Elizabeth asked her, intrigued, giving
her one of her awed, blinking glances.
"Yes." She pouted, staring at the floor. "guite a lot!"
She looked so solitary compared with Elizabeth, and sat low in
the settee, pale, her eyes hesitant while she thought the matter over.
"Ien't it funny," Elizabeth said in a bright way, "how serious
people take themselves! They think their little sins are. so important.
But nothing's too sinful to tell! That's the whole point of confession -
it makes you see. how common and ordinary your sins are!"
"I suppose it does!" Pinkie said with'a amile, a little tipsy now,
still swirling her drink round and peering at it against the light, her
eyes slightly narrowed.
There : was silence for a time.. He could just hear the trees
outside, 'stirring with the breeze.
"Why," Granville asked Pinkie, "what's so grave about your sins?"
He'd just remembered his outing to' ' the z0o with the hair-girl and felt
absurdly jubilant about it: he, too, had a sin - a potential one anyway!
And this vent to excuse Pinkie's.
She seemed to catch the roguishness in his tone and said, "Oh,
nothing uncolourful, anyway - that's the real sin, don't. you think so,
being dreary?"
"Yes!" They flashed a smile at each other, unsteady because. of
the drink, like strangers excited with themselves.


"What about your sins?" she asked while Elizabeth studied them in
a baffled way: it was like a tournament of words, tense and disjointed,
and she was looking on like a child, her mouth slightly open.
"Mine," he said, "ny sins," leaning back and gazing up at thé
ceiling, his glass in his hand with the ice clinking against the sides,
"oh, they're like shadows, they come and go
"How?" Pinkie asked, her chin quivering a little this time
in case he got serious.
"Well, I never know what's going to turn out a sin - something
said - something thought - rarely anything done!" He*stopped.
"No, I was talking about ordinary sins."
"Sleeping with people, you mean!"
"Oh, well, as Elizabeth said, they're not so big as they seem!"
And he could have kicked himself for saying it, because a look. not of
relief exactly but half-excited deliberateness flashed into her eyes,
making them glint for a moment, while the relief was in her mouth, in a
certain sweet repose that settled there for a few seconds. And yet, why
not ...? Why not give away your life with an easy gesture. as with any
other?
"I haven't time to be unfaithful," Elizabeth said.
"Good God, Liz, what an old philistine you are, you're like the
' person who's got no time for reading!" Binkie cried.
"Well, Ihaven't!" They laughed.
"When I'm forty and the children are grown up," Elizabeth added
ina demure way, blinking, her cheeks flushed from the gin, "I may -
cast my net around!"


"Oh, well, if you say a few Hail Maries afterwards, I suppose
that'll be all right for old mother church!"
The sitting room had chintz-covered arnchairs and a grand piano,
all glowing and soft in an old style. He watched Pinkie stretch out her
legs comfortably. Then, while his thoughts wandered, they got 'on to the
subject of class. Elizabeth said that at the admiralty you could always
tell the 'new* people who weren't out of the top drawer or anywhere near
it. They always gave themselves away!
"And there are four standard give-aways that Gordy and I have
noticed. They mark a person right off!"
Pinkie looked gleeful. "What are they?"
"Well, first, pouring milk in a cup before the tea," she replied.
"I always do," Pinkie said. "Nurse says it makes a stronger
"So it does, but that's not the point! It's allowed if you do
it in revolt, darling, like you, but one could tell you a mile off -
gentry slumming it!"
"I see - a well, go on."
"The second one's 'pardon' - - instead of 'I'm sorry' or 'What
did you say?"
"Pardon's ghastly, I agree. But one can't really way 'What?'
can one? It sounds a leetle straightforward, doesn't it?"
"But that's what manners are, darling! I think it sounds so
robust!"
"And what's the third?" he asked her.
"Serviette for napkin," she said without looking at him. "That's
a real give-away!"


"I always say that," he murmured. "By accident."
She didn't turn her eyes towards him but went on. "And the
fourth is 'I'M awfully glad to have met you' or 'Nice to have seen you'
you must never say that!"
"Really?" Pinkie said. "What are you to say, thèn 1 supposing
you feel it?""
"You mustn't feel it, I suppose!"
"But you really believe they're give-aways?" he asked her.
"Yes, dear, they work, they really do!"
"But what do they give away?"
"Well, a person's position
"But what exactly?"
She paused, thinking again, in deference to him. It made an
unnatural line come on her forehead. "Well, it proves a person 's
middle class."
"Oh!" He laughed. "You only go down as far as that!"
Pinkie laughed alzo, and Elizabeth followed them with an innocent
expression.
"Anything under the middle class,' 18 murmured Pinkie, "is sea-monsters
for Liz. One doesn't even mention it!"
"Well, they do give themselves airs sometimes," Elizabeth persisted
with a doubtful expression
"Don't you sometimes?" he asked.
She fluttered, not answering.
"Liz is an hon., old cock, so she had the right!" Pinkie said.
"Well, if she's an hon. she ought to try and behave like one, that's
all I can say a !" Granville started indignantly, flushing, not looking


at Elizabeth.
"Oh, in what way?" Elizabeth aisked him with a quick look, half
abashed and half-admiring.
"Well, if you're an honourable it isn't very honourable sticking
your nose into other people's lives as if you'd been set up as their
judge by God Almighty - just muck from the past - and a déad past, too--
that past wasn't even alive so why try and salvage a lot of dirty much
from it?"
Elizabeth looked at Pinkie in confusion, and then they smiled at
each other.
"I should think," Pinkie said in a quiet toice, rolling the ice
round in her glass again, "that Liz didn't understand a word of. that."
"All I said was people give themselves away sometimes without
meaning to!" Elizabeth cried.
"Exactly!" Pinkie said with a laughing glance at Granville, who
Bmiled back at her suddenlyk his flush dying.
"Is he always like that?" Elizabeth asked her. [t
"That's the trouble if you, marry a brainy type!"
"Isn't Gordon brainy?"
"Yes, and he's exaçtly the same!" And she gave Granville a
warm; concerned, motherly look, seeming to see him from above for a moment.
They went up to bed early. So far Pinkie had been sleeping in
one of the small spare rooms, but now they were given the bedroom of
honour, where Elizabeth and Gordon usually slept. It was a wide, low-
ceilinged room with an immense bed, and one of the windows looked straight
across the valley.


"Well, what sort of time have you had?" he asked her when they
were undressing.
"Eating mostly!" She sat down on the bed and added, "Xou know,
one isn't really alivé in London, is one?"
"My first feeling, getting here," he said in a confiding way,
looking her straight in the eyes, "was not being fully alive compared
with Liz!"
"Really?" She chuckled. "She'd be flattered to hear it!"
The window overlooking the valley was open and a breeze made the
curtain billow into the room; it was curiously exciting in the dim light.
"She thinks you're just the' man for me," she added.
He glanced at her as she said this - - she was peeling off her
stockings, and there was an unusual look of quiet satisfaction on her face.
"What do you think?" he asked her.
But she didn't reply. Instead, she went on, "We talked about men
quite a lot this time. I think old Liz really would like a change!"
"Wouldn't we all?" he said with a smile, unbuttoning his shirt -
the remark seemed not his own, but to come from the house; and hist smile,
it was almost put there, from outside.
"She's such a healthy bitch, old Liz!" Pinkie said. - "It's rather
like talking bloodstock!"
He pulled the curtain aside to look out. There was a bright sky
and he could just make out the trees below. 'Grove' was on the tip of his
tongue. Why not broach it here? But it didn't seem to matter here.
It was paltry.. That was annoying, as nothing would have been easier for
him than to mention it then, with the same smile, as he leaned out of the
window, hushed like the night.


"I think it'll be nice tomorrow, ". he said, his head still outside.
There came a bellow from another window along the wall, "Oh, do
you really? Jolly good!" Pinkie jumped up and came to the window as
well, and they all stood talking again ww in a strange, hushed way, half
in the night, the valley laying black and immense underneath them. They
arranged when to leave in the morning they were to take the car to
the sea. Their voices sounded mysterious and muffled. Pinkie cried
out to Elizabeth, "I hope you didn't near any intimacies!", and pulled
in her head while Elizabeth's bellow of "No!" went down the garden.
When the light was out she said she'd described him to Elizabeth
as 'a good stayer' in bed. He chuckled de again with that sense of
it being given to him, not his own chuckle. She talked with the light
voice of a sound, healthy wife, with a touch of mockery that could excite
a man. Just before he slept he remembered Grove on the bus and his hand
made à tiny twitch as if the nerves in it wanted to strike out at something.
But he slept at once, and next morning found his arm round her waist
as usual.
In the morning the sun blazed into the room and there wasn't the
stir of a breeze outside. Elizabeth was already up, getting the children
ready. And they all set out, minus Elizabeth, who decided at the last
minute that she had to go shopping.
The jalopy clanged and shook but worked all right. The children
sat in the back, leaning over so that their heads touched his and Pinkie's.
He could smell their hair, rather like cherries. He glanced sideways
at Pinkie, to' see what she would be like as a'mother; she had a vague but
curiously competent look as she listened to their chatter. The eldest, boy


Toby, was solemn and plump: He liked to go into detail and asked one
question after another while his younger brother, with lovely fair. eyes,
sàt' listening intently, his mouth open; and Jane looked out of the window,
occasionally addressing a quiet, feminine question to Pinkie, which the
boys pounced on if they could.
"Do you like driving the car?" Toby asked him.
"Yes, now and then."
"Why now and then?"
"Weil, I like to look out of the window sometimes and you can't
do it if you're driving."
"Daddy can."
"Yes, He turns round and talks to us while he's driving.' n
"That's rather dangerous, isn't it?" Pinkie said.
He took no notice. "He rides a motor bike, too. He's given it
up now."
"He says it isn't suitable when you have a family."
Pinkie turned round to him. "Why isn't it?"
"Well," Toby said; giving her a stern look, "you can hardly take
the family on a motor bike, can you?"
"No, I suppose you can't."
There was a pause and Jane asked quietly, "Hester, do you always
wear your hair short like that?"
"Mummy always has hers long. You ought to see it when she
undresses and it unravels. I'd rather like to have plaits but they


don't let you at school."
"Oh, do be quiet," Toby said without looking at her.. "You're
always on about hair."
She. leaned across and pinched him on the knee, which was bare:
"Ouch!" He pulled her hair and she screamed.
"Hey, children!" Pinkie cried. "You'll fall out if you aren't
careful!"
There was quiet again.
"That's impossible," David said after considerati.on. "You can't
fall out if you're sitting in the back because your seats are in the way
and there's only one door."
"How observant of you!"
"Jane hit her head on the top once when daddy bounced," Toby said
"and she blubbered all the way back.".
"Oh, blubber yourself," she replied; but she was ashamed and didn't
say any more.
They guided him to a beautiful spot among tall, white rocks where
there wasn't a soul; it was a tiny inlet' with pools of clear water, some
of them quite deep, with a pebbly bottom; they got the car almost to the
edge of the sea and began taking off their clothes; Pinkie took charge of
the' children at' once, putting their clothes in three piles on one of the
smooth rocks shining in the sun; and as soon as they were ready, dressed
in uniform black bathing suits, the three of them dashed off into one of
the deeper pools and began splashing about. Beyond the rocks, about
fifty yards out, because it was low tide, there was the sea, green and
still, flickering in the sun; there wasn't a sound apart from the cries
of the children, not even a bird, and nothing was visible on the sea as


far as the horizon. Pinkie pulled a white swimming cap over her haad
and waded with him into one of the pools; Jane was swiming apart from
the boys, waiting for her to come in, brooding a little; Pinkie lowered
herself into the water as she always did, with a gingerly action, flicking
water. over her shoulders, wincing and screwing up her face; but the water
was luke-warm. He walked on towards the sea and Toby suddenly rushed
after him, putting his wet hand in his.
"David and Jane aren't allowed to go in the sea without daddy,"
Toby said.
"Well," Granville replied, "let's leave them with Hester, shall
The sea was much colder and they both plunged in at the same time,
coming close to each other with a gasp. Toby called out breathlessly,
"Jolly good, ien't it?" and they both put their heads under., Only the
rocks and the open sea could be seen, but nothing of the coastline, 60
that it felt wonderfully deserted, like an island. He splashed Toby. and
ducked away; they chased each other, whooping and laughing; the boy' had
freckles on his nose which showed up more when he was wet, and his teeth
had a gap in them; his head would shoot up in the water right by Granville's
face; they lay full length, floating, only their heads and toes showing;
they stretched and twisted in the clear water. David, on land, had begun
to resent Toby's absence.
"Toby, come backt Daddy doesn't allow it!"
"Oh, you fibber," Toby shouted back without moving a muscle from
his floating position, "you know jolly well he does! Her doesn't allow
you, you mean!"


They swam in again, panting, and Toby plunged into one of the
shallow pools in an indifferent way, showing off to his brother; David
came and splashed him and at once great fountains of spray went up,
hiding them both. Jane dog-paddled away from then, close to Pinkie,
who also had a quiet dog-paddlé. "Aren't they awful?" he heard Jane
say in a-confidential tone.
Afterwards Pinkie saw to the childrens' hair, combing each of
them in turn; he watched her from the car; they took her help quite for
granted, remaining perfectly quiet while she was doing it; she had the
competent look in her face that he'd noticed before. In the car,. when
they all got in, Jane wanted to stay close to her, s0 she was allowed
in front; the smell of hair was greater now and also there was a cherry-
like smell, frèsh and clean, from their skins; they all began singing,
"Hickery-dickery dock, the mouse ran up the clock! as the car bounced :
towards the road.
"That was a good swin, wasn't it?" Toby asked intimately,
breathing down the back of his neck.
There was a pause and Jane murmured, "Toby always has been a
boaster."
But to their surprise Toby said nothing; perhaps his knee still
hurt. But after a time he asked his sister, "How's your precious hair?
I suppose. you're going to tell us how you'd like to have plaits?"
"No, I'm not!" Jane paused, gazing out of the window steadily.
"My remark wasn't addressed to you in any caso."
"Oh, listen to. that!" he cried. "Where did you get that from?"


"That way of talking?" Toby turned to Pinkie: '"She got that
sentence from daddy. He often says, 'My remark wasn't addressed to you.
But he's funny when he says itin
"And she," David said quietly, "just sounds pompous."
"Oh, shut up, you!" Jane cried, turning on the smaller brother.
"There's no need for you to butt in! You're the most pompous little
thing I've ever seen if it comes to that!"
David was silent, and a hush fell over the three of them; he
seemed about to cry.
Jane turned her neck slowly to look at him and said in a gingerly
way, "You aren't going to blubber, are you?"
"Oh, be quiet, you!" David said as the tears gushed out of his
eyes and he continued gazing before him.
"Oh, déar!" Toby said in a glum, adult way, his lips pouting,
turning to look out of the window, away from his younger brother.
"David!" Pinkie cried. "Come on, old boy, don't cry! She didn't
mean it." And she leaned back and put a handkerchief to his eyes.
Through David's tears
though he remàined quite still - came
the words, "She meant every word of it. She always does!"
"Well, what about it?" Toby asked in a solid way,. still looking
out of the window. "She doesn't affect me. She can say what she likes.
Girls are soppy, don't you know that?"
"But I'm younger,' 11 David said, reasoning, his eyes clear of tears.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Quite a lot!"
"I never cried at your age."
4That's a lie!" Jane said.


David turned to her, his eyes almost dry: "Why, can you remember
him crying?"
"Of course, I can! All children cry!"
"All right," Toby said in a neat voice. "Chapter and verse,
please."
There was a pause. "What on earth are you talking about?" Jane
adked, actually looking across at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up.
But Toby didn't turn round, only remained solidly gazing out of
the window wit th his hands on his chubby knees.
"It's from daddy again,' " David said quietly.
HOh, dear, you are a copy-cat!" Jane cried, still looking across
at Toby.
"I can use expressions like everybody else," Toby said in his
usual unassailable tone. "Daddy speaks English, doesn't he? You can
say I'm a copy-cat because I speak Engliéh if you like. That's the sort
of thing you would say!".
"But nobody knows what it means!"
"What what means?"
"That about 'chapters'!"
"Of course they do!" David. cried, his eyes light, leaping up and
down in his seat. "You are a dunce! It means 'example'! Give me an
example, it means!"
"There you are;" Toby said. "That's what I méan about it not
mattering if you're young. David knows far more than you already!"
And Jane wàs quenched for a time, biting her lip.:
Pinkie turned to her. "Don't you cry as well."
"Oh, no," Jane replied, smiling at her brightly, "there's no


danger of that. They're BO silly, both of them!"
"I had exactly the same when I was your age," Pinkie said to her,
her eyes flickering a little.
"Did you?" Jane asked with interest.
"Yes. Only I had eight brothers and sistérs."
The two boys were silent, absorbed in a game of gripping each
other by the hand and trying to push the other back; at the moment there
was stalemate.
"Eight brothers and sisters!" Jane repeated, marvelling. "I'd
like some sisters. Did you like it?"
"What, having sisters?"
"I hated it."
"You hated your sisters?" Jane cried with a touch of admiration
in her voice.
"Well, I didn't hate them so much, I hated being younger, being
left out of things." She made it sound like yesterday; the hurt was
still in her voice.
"Did they leave you alone all the time, then?"
"Yes. So when your brothers are beastly, remember it could be
worse!" And Pinkie smiled at her.
Toby won suddenly. David's arm was wrenched back and he called -
out, "Pax!Y
"And that was my left arm," Toby said with satisfaction. "So I'm


quite a bit stronger."
"Wait till I'm your age," David said in a clear, factual way.
By that time they'd arrived. Elizabeth was back, and the
children were swept off to lunch in the kitchen. Elizabeth looked full
of life: "I phoned Gordy in Malta, can you imagine that? He sounded
'sweet!" They had beer with their lunch and decided on a sleep afterwards.
That evening he went for a walk alone, taking the road that went
past the house. It dipped down between trees, shaded, with the valley
on one side and a tall, grassy embankment on the other. The sunset
didn't glow like the previous evening. It cast a thin yellow light over
everything, making the shadows long and clear. It was still warm. He
leaned on a fence, gazing across the valley.
Birds wheeled down on the field before him, most of them invisible,
making a long soaring whistle as the swooped. But they didn't disturb
the silence. It was strange, this silence: if he really concentrated
he could hear noises inside it of which he'd been unaware before - a
dog barking in the distance, the sound of leaves moving slightly behind
him, the whistling of other birds in the trees.
He could see cattle grazing in the distance, and there were long
black shadows across the field,. like an immense plain. He could smell
newly-cut grass. There was a tiny flurry of wings, then a chirrup, and
the long soaring whistle again. Things were so still round him that he
might always have been standing there. Time was only a movement that
took placeiin his head: it didn't exist round him. This stillness, like
a breath that came from another world, didn't developi it just was, in
the endless blue of the sky, quite still. One couldnit say it was infinity,


and endless, progression, either. It hadn't beginning or end. There
was just this absolute stillness of space, wi thout time.
He sank into this outer time for a moment, lost; his own time gone.
A bird sang piercingly in the embankment behind him, actually in
the bushes clinging to the side, where it was dark and enclosed. The
song was poured out with marvellous leisure, every pause seemed fixed from
somewhere else, from the outer spaces, not haphazard or a matter of choice.
And it was like a comment from that outer time, on the things all round.
The comment seemed to point out this and that, with such reflective
beauty, so leisurely and calm, without apparent theme, sometimes like a
cry, or like a word of pity, or a sudden, soaring, joyful cry, pausing
to let the song fall into the silence, with a rhythm that was also beyond
time, so bold and unceasing and triumphant that he almost cried out.
He remembered certain scenes from the past - they swept into
his mind suddenly, the names and places forgotten: tea in a garden with
tall grass near by, hyacinthe like a blue cloud in a wood, a voice across
the fields, clear sunlight at dawn. And with them came a sense of
miserable regret, like darkness falling over him, as if he'd lost something
of terrific importance somewhere along the path of life and couldn't say
where. There ---! It was on. the tip of his tongue. He'd nearly got
it: the key! But it didn't come.
The next day was social; Elizabeth took them to a castle a few
milès away, a rugged, glowing pile at the top of a hill, with 'a long
drive leading up to it. She knew the owner. There were tennis courts
* er
behind, and a few people were - 'playing.
Only one turret of the old castle remained, the rest having been


turned into a low-lying house with mullioned windows about two centuries'
before; nearly. all the fields round them, stratching as far as you could
see, with an elm here and there, belonged to the house; it was mostly
grazing land; what little was farmed didn't pay for itself, Elizabeth
told them.
"They're as poor as church mice," she added. "There's just
Tommy and his old mum.now
she's completely batty: He's an angel!"
It was windy and uncomfortable by the courts, because it was s0
high up, at the edge of al kind of cliff, unprotected from the wind that
came straight in from the sea. A number of people were sitting on the
grass by the courts, most of them women, and as soon as Elizabeth appeared
there were loud cried - "Darling!" "What a swéet dress!", "Did you get
those cuttings I sent you?", : "Elizabeth!" 1 "Liz, old girl!", "How's
Gordy?", "Who's winning against who?" "Never play it myself!" "Liar,
Charles!", "Wasn't that a gorgeous evening?" She was lost among them.
"I say, look out - -!" A ball flew over the net and bounced
among them. "Sorry!" came a cry from the court; a young man in tweeds
dashed across and retrieved it. There were roars of laughter among the
women who'd been nearly hit.
"How's that?" someone cried.
"Out for a duck?"
"Boundary!"
One of the women had a new-born child in her arms and Elizabeth
began cooing over it, completely absorbed and gay, chucking it under the
chin, "Oh, what a booful, loverly, cheeky-weeky darling! You saucy-waucy,
booky-wooky, booful little sweetheart, booful precious!" The young man in
tweeds sat by the court on a shooting stick, crying out when there was a


good ball; but the wind kept carrying it off and there were shouts of
"Damn!" and "Just my bloody luck!" from the players. The ball went
swiftly to and fro, just over the net, making a steady plock on the rackets;
beyond the court there was blue sky, and, below, hills patched with dark
woods, lighted up by the sun for a moment and then dull again as a cloud
raced across.. Pinkie got caught in talk by one of the women and he
could hear her saying 'yes' in her bored way so that it sounded like
'yerse'; he guessed that the woman was talking about housework or something,
and moved closer to make sure; it was babies, whether one should have two
or three; Pinkie looked as if she wanted to vomit. Suddenly an older
woman who was only half in the conversation barked across at her, "Have you
got stables?" and Pinkie replied in a perfectly steady voice, "No
were
you looking for one?"
There was tea in the library and they went in after most of the
others, because they'd arrived late and the players had to be fed first.
Elizabeth was helping in the kitchen and didn't join them: there were also
the score cards to mark up and new balls to be unpacked. She dashed here
and there, waving to them or saying, "So sorry, darlings!"
A long table had been laid out for about thirty people, but the
only other person there when they sat down' was a plump young man with
pale, loose features, who sat bent over his plate running his fingers
through the crumbs thoughtfully; the only clean place was at his side and
Pinkie went there while Granville sat opposite.
There was a huge book-case behind him, nearly the length of the
room, with criss-cross wire in front of it, but as far as he could see
there were no books; there were piles of magazines everywhere, and he
noticed gun cartridges, pipes and pipe-racks, billiard-cues leaning against


the wall and, surprisingly, a tall, black case for a double bass. People
passed by in the cluttered entrance-hall outside, which was panelled with
the most beautiful stripped oak, hundreds of years old. They talked
heartily and banged their sticks on the wooden floor, laughing.
Then the man at Pinkie's side suddenly spoke; or rather he looked
up and made a sound like, "Ah!" His eyes gave the ambiguous impression
of being both piercing and vague, as if the keenness in them had never
been called out properly; he was bald, which made him look older than
his age.
He turned to Pinkie, after his "Ah!", and asked her in a soft
voice, "Are you interested in jazz?"
She ducked her head forward in a characteristic shy way, fixing
her eyes on the table before her with a alight frown, and said, "Quite,
"Do you know the : ah . Thames Wharf Stomp?"
"No," She shook her head. "I con't say I do."
"Ah!" He gazed at her with a drowsy light in his eyes. "It's
awfully good." - He added, "Do you play anything?"
"I play the piano." #
"Oh, jolly good! Join our band. Where are you?"
"I'm staying with Elizabeth Bewley-Patton."
"But I live in London." She still had her head ducked attentively.
"Oh, that's a pity," he said. "I learned the sax. I've got a
library of nearly four hundred records from Dixieland up!"
"Yes. All in this room."


"Oh, is this your house, then?" she asked, looking up for the
first time.
"Yes!" He laughed in a wheezing fashion and as abruptly stopped.
"You'll notice the lack of books."
"I didn't, as a matter of fact. Nice place you've got," she
said looking round.
He said nothing to this, only gazed at his plate.
"Do you get away much?" she asked; but again he took no notice.
"I give myself three hours practice a day", he said, "come fair
veather or foul. I go toitown for records and sheet-music, I mean town
here, you'll understand, not London!" He turned to her and gave her a
charming smile, and suddenly said, "Have some more tea!"
He then gazed across at Granville in a blind way for some time,
silent, and called out at the top of his voice, "Have some more tea over
there!", though they weren't more than two yards apart; and before Granville
could answer he shouted, "What?"
"Yes, I'd love some!"
But he simply turned back to Pinkie: "I'm getting a band up. Five-
piece. Rattling good! I'd like some better drums, that's all."
"You need a good strong beat, what?" she asked in her swashbuckling
manner.
"Yes!" He wheezed a little without moving. "Sounds rather rude,
doesn't it?" He' asked suddenly, "Are you married?"
"Yes, That's my husband across the table!"
Again he gave him a long, blind look and said quietly, "Where's
your husband?"


"You're looking straight at him."
He smiled brilliantly, again, the whole of his face waking. up,
his. eyes piercing and stern, light blue: "Oh, Isay, I'm awfully sorry,
I thought you were old Sanderson's cousin! I couldn't make out why you
were here! He's in Mexico!". 'He laughed again, his shoulders shaking
softly. "Or.is it-Nigeria?"
"Well, they're both rather hot," Pinkie said.
"That's right!" He laughed even more. "I say,,you do come out
with some rude things!"
"Don 't you like tennis?" she asked, apparently to divert. him.
"Never play it. Damned silly game. Hurts your arm. Pointless,
don't you think so?" He addressed himself to Granville again. "I say,
are you in the City?"
"In a way, I -
"Wish 'to God I'w was, sometimes! My pals do. It's the thing, really,
don't you think so? But old mum'd go crackers, she would really!"
Elizabeth came in like the wind and shouted, "Tommy, you old
bounder! ôn to jazz again, what?"
"Let's say I've been and gone," he answered quietly, giving her
a little smile.
She began to play up to him, going behind his chair and tweeking
his ears. "Tommy's a darling, an absolute darling, and when he gets on
to that sax he's irresistible!"
Her look was demure and girlish - she seemed completely changed
by the young man. She looked complimented when he said anything to her.
And Pinkie began to b3 the same, infected. She flashed him interested
glances, rather like an acteess.


They all got up to return to the courts and he heard Elizabeth
invite him to dinner that evening - a last-minute thing - - "I'm
suddenly going to have a party!" she cried. And she went round some of
the other guests, inviting them, until she had a party of about seven or
eight.
When they were getting into the car to leave the young man came
out to them and suddenly thrust his hand into Granville's as if they'd
never met and said, "I'm Tommy Bligh! How do you do?" The women laughed
and then they drove off.
"Isn't he a scream!" Elizabeth said. She turned to Granville.
"Did you like the house, old thing?"
"Yes, lovely!" He gave it a last look as they turned out of
the drive; it looked vast at the top of the hill, a bright orange mass,
like something done angrily a long time ago.
The fuss and excitement had left Elizabeth. The wind dropped
and the evening now looked quiet and clear.
"Guick! Spuds to peel!" Elizabeth cried as they stopped on the
gravel path, and ran to the house.
A black silk dress was found for Pinkie, with bare shoulders.
When she put on silver ear-rings with it she looked delicate and glittering.
The men weren't dressing, Elizabeth said. He took a bath, feeling a
twinge of excitement that reminded him of London. The bathroom was
wonderful with panelled walls and huge taps bigger than his foot, and a:
creaking floor: He could hear Elizabeth going to and fro between the
kitchen and the dining room, çalling out to the children to get a hurry
on. They were just going to bed, splashing about in the bathroom
downstairs and arguing at the top of their voices; Toby had lost his tooth-


brush and Jane said she didn't want his germs, so he couldn't use, hers;
he said to this that germs didn't stay on things if they were in the
light, and if oxygen could get to it; but she scorned the. argument and
asked why in that case 'fumigation' was necessary; he hadn't heard of
that.
Granville took his time, letting the water become luke-warm;
when the children's voices had gone and he heard their bedroom-doors. close
he got out; there was a wicker-chair on which one could sit when drying
oneself, and a huge towel.
When he returned to the bedroom Pinkie had taken off her magnificent
dress again and was in her petticoat powdering her shoulders, leaning
towards the dressing-table mirror.
"Oh, by the way," she said, glancing round to see that he'd shut
the door, "I'm going to have a baby."
"I'm going to have a baby."
He. stared at her from behind, staying where he was by the door,
the towel over his arm. "When?"
"Oh, I'm about six weeks gone."
The familiar trembling came over his body like a shadow, then
was gone, and he asked, "Whose child is it?"
She smiled. "What on earth are you talking about? Yours of
course!"
"My God!" He was astonished, laughing almost, and moved further
into the room. "When did you find out?"
"I didn't have the curse, so I went to see the doctor."


"In London."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to make sure," she murmured.
He sat down on the bed and said with a laugh, "I was going to ask
if it's a boy or a girl!"
"A bit premature, that," she said quietly; she didn't smile in
answer to him.
A breeze touched the curtains and she began doing her eyebrows
carefully, biting her lip.
"How extraordinary!" he went on. "But I don't remember
"When could it have happened?"
She shrugged. "I suppose it can happen any time."
"It's never happened before!"
She was silent and then said, "Don't you remember, one morning,
I said it didn't matter about putting anything in because I was getting
the curse, and you can't conceive with the curse?"
He tried to remember bu couldn't. She went on, "In any case,
these things aren't fool-proof." There was another silence and she
added,, "Why, don't you want a baby?"
"Yes, of course I do!"
She pulled on her dress and he sat gazing across at the window
at a loss for anything to say; she was gazing down to see if her slip
was showing; he glanced at her stomach.
"When do you start getting big?" he asked.
"Oh, in about two months' time, I suppose."
"What did the doctor say?"


"Take plenty of exercise. He's one of those. He's putting
me on to a gynaecologist."
He searched her eyes for a feeling he could define, but she
went on dressing in a nonchalant way, her face delicate, her gaze turned
away ffom him.
"Would you zip me up?" she asked, turning her back to him.
He pulled the zip up and clipped it at the neck.
"Does Elizabeth know?" he asked.
"Yes, but it's old hat for her, she has about one a year!" She
glanced at herself in the mirror. "I suppose I'll start getting matronly
like her." a
"Yes, lots of good food!"
"Don't worry about that, sweetheart!" She smiled slightly.
"They say you get a passion for things, don't they? Like the duchess of
Malfi and the plums, or was it apricots?"
"Ah, well," he said, bantering, "I suppose we 'll have to grit our
teeth and see it through!"
"That's right!" She was brief.again and returned to the dressing-.
table.'
Perhaps they'd have a life like Elizabeth, he thought; children
brought light, after all! He was excited.
"Wherè will you have it?" he asked
"What country, you mean?"
"Here, I suppose." She paused. "Don't you think 80?"
"Yes! What. about Basrah, then?".
"I don't think it'd be a good idea, do you, with all that heat?"


"No, I didn't mean that! * I meant, when would you come?"
"When I've had it, I suppose.' #
He nodded in silence and said, "But that's in nine months."
As quickly she changed the argument: "Well, i could come out now
and then come back for the birth."
Later, just before they went downstairs, she said, "Of -course,
the heat'll be ghastly with a child inside."
He took no notice of this, feeling happy and reckless at the
same time. He could see her as she would have been down at Aldércote a
hundred years ago, in the vast rooms, walking down the gallery with its
tall, framed pictures, her flickering, lost gaze not out of place. And
Grove didn't matter! Indeed, he added to her stature! He was her
servente, as the Italiahs used to call it; and Granville remembered from
his reading of the Devonshire memoirs how the fifth duke of Devonshire
had lived with his wife and mistress together, and how his wife had
adored his mistress like a sister! A little voice told him that he
didn't live in a palace, and that he was far from being a duke; also the
duke hadn't lived with his wife's lover! But he told himself it was only
the sense of glitter and space. he was after.
The evening went well. Pinkie put down a neat gin at once and
said in a loud voice, surveying the room full of people, that she felt
'a world better for it', and strode across to get another. In this sort
of mood she infected Granville; he, too, talked loudly; Tommy Bligh was
there in a gréen waistcoat, looking sprucer than a few hours before.
There was a man with a lined, sunburned face who'd worked in
Ismailia for five_years and was just off to the Aden Protectorate; he
told Granville.he knew Basrah like the back of his hand; he said after


a pause, "Hideous, isn't it?", and : they both laughed. They agréed that
there was a 'great godly hideousness' in the Arab countries which was
fascinating; this was after the second drink; their eyes sparkled, and
the women were beginning to laugh loudly, especially Elizabeth, who also
had bare shoulders, her dress black and simple, rather tight, making her
look neat and determined, with flashing, black eyes.
At dinner she gave him the place of honour, where Gordon usually
sat. The talk went along at a smacking pace, hardly pausing but never
pushed deliberately; the table had been' pulled out to its full length
and took up nearly the whole room; there was a last yellow glow from the
sun coming in at the window almost horizontal, shining on to Elizabeth's
face at the other end of the table, lighting on her lips now and then;
the wallypanelling was mellow and red-tainted in the light; the women
were all young, and the drink had brought flushes to their cheeks. The
man next to him turned to him with deference and asked how Gordon was
these days; he'd assumed that they moved in the same world
travelland
politics; Granville swallowed his astonishment and said he'd only met
Gordon once or twice perfunctorily; he spoke in a careless way as he
hadn't done since his arrival from Basrah.
He heard Eizabeth say something about 'while manners maketh man,
it only maketh an ordinary man, whereas a gentleman maketh manners!"
The man from Ismailia who was at her side, very flushed now; pouted and
said something objecting to this, and his wife, sitting opposite him, said
that the attitude was 'typical' of him. Elizabeth screamed with laughter
for some reason, while the man glared across at his wife and said hotly,
"What a damned, pilfering lot of bloody nonsense you do talk sometimes!"
There was further laughter, from the other women, but the man's wife


didn't look in the slightest rebuffed; she only pursued her argument as
if it was quite natural for a man to show indignation; she even showed a
peculiar deference to it, and yet also she' stood up. to him,' only wi thout
defiance; a glow even seemed to come into her as she stood her ground,
but it included her husband as well. The argument got on to shooting,
and the husband cried out, laying down his knife and fork, "But the
blighter never brings down a feather!" and hè turned to Elizabeth, still
pouting, with grease from the meat on his lips, and said, "You seen . 'im 4
at it?" The answer was, "No, darling!" The wife said quite calmly,
"He got a wonderful bag last season." Her husband made a terrific pah
like a wind across the table, and set about his food again, murmuring to
himself about how the chap needed 'a sound kick in the arse' and he'd
give it to him himself if duty, 'that bloody ghoul always showing its
face', hadn't called him out to the Aden Protectorate. The men roared
at this. He was looked on as a great performer. He had pet hobby-
horses, it seemed, and liked to damn everything up to the prime minister
and down again. Tommy took up the subject of the sax again, sitting low
in his chair with his paunch sticking out under his waistcoat; he showed
no recognition of Pinkie though she sat next to him, and she took this
with a chuckle, raising her glass to him. Granville roared with the rest,
feeling he'd only really arrived in England this moment: the rest, in
London, was dead, grey,. neutral matter!
He gazed at the faces round the table - they were so dramatic
and full, flushed in the last yellow light! And they seemed to have the
whole English past in them
not' just project their. own feelings and
natures. There was the dramatic mark of the past, dug into their
flesh. Their authority was dead now but it still showed in their faces


and eyes - a they'd grown to full stature as people, nothing had hemmed
them in, nothing in their lives had advised caution and Eàfety. That
could be seen in their gestures and heard in their voices echoing across
the gravel enclosure outside, where the plane-trees made a deep evening
shade and the heavy, lurking scent of cut grass and manure came drifting
alone. And the light in their eyes came from the country: there were
the brisk winds and high sky in them; there was the samé light blueness'
of the English weather. And, again, those eyes weren't responsible for
the look in themselves
they were far beyond lone self. Something
had come from the outside, from the past, and was blind and intractable.
It was'like seeing the sky inside their gaze, immovable, for
which their eyes were only the frame. Their faces were creased and
ruffled with conflictssthat had broken and evolved in the past: and
théir blondness of complexion had the same, high, brisk quality of the
weather. There had to be faces like these, he thought; we couldn't go
.on frittering away the past;. faces had to show definite places, and
therefore the past, they had to be more than the signposts of one limited
being which lived for a space of a lifetime in its own feelings and then
died!
There was the glow of England in the mellow wood-panels'of the
dining-room, in the evening light that came peacefully from the window
behind them, in the hushed stirring of the plane-trees and elms outside
that overshadowed the house; there was a lightness, a certain emerald
quality, of the island set in a sea; and it was in the language, the way
they smacked their vowels out and didn't slur them or cover them up; the
words had a clapping purity which also belonged to the fields; it was in
the firm, just cast of mouth and the chin. 'How ghastly not to have a


country!' he thought. - There was always this for him to fall. back to;
he'd never realised it before; there was always this close,, intimate,
glowing community every one of whose little gestures and signs and
messages he understood; without it he'd be hardly more than a mind, he'd
only have his own little feelings, all to himself, on a tiny self-island
with his mind making the necessary contact with other people, always trying
to divine what they thought, without sure signs which let the heart rest!
His country. was known to him not in his mind but in the pores of his skin,
mysterious and intoxicating, the realisation of God, a grand, secret
presence in glances and faces, in a certain light like that in the open
sea, glittering and spacious!
The evening renewed power in him; it wasn't power in his mind,
or. anything to do with importance; it was simply the power to throw out
his voice and behave like himself, and yet not feel that he. was making
a performance, as a personality to be admired; the country held him and
gave him his real form, to which he submitted; there wasn't any ambitious
self in it; it was like the full use of his limbs for the first time;
he felt he hadn't had a real conversation - e been really there with other
people - for three years or more; since his last visit to the countryside:
Afterwards, when everybody had clattered out of the house and
driven off, leaving Elizabeth and. Pinkie sipping a last drink in the
sitting room, he strolled outside on the gravel-path where. it was quite
dark now, and stood looking at the house; he heard a barn-owl screech in
the trees further down the road, and some cattle coughed near by; the
curtains of the sitting room had been left undrawn and he could see their
heads moving as they talked; Pinkie's ear-rings twinkled in the light,. and


she smiled while Elizabeth was saying something. He would have a child
soon! It struck him like the night-air, fresh and cool. Perhaps he
could belong to his country now a even like Gordon and Elizabeth; he
could begin to share its mysteries and secrets for the first time, not
just watch them; he was still foreign to them; so much thinking had to
be done before England would be whole in him; this community had been
wounded so many times; his flesh, being of the public body, showed the
wounds; he had to bring himself to full stature slowly, like a flower
coaxed from the dark, past; perhaps England was being renewed in thousands
of other bodies too, at this moment, by slow evolution, until the life
came back; and it might be happening in other countries, too, so that
the mystery would be renewed in men, of having the weather and light in
their faces that they'd been born to.
He could only grow to his full power at home; he hadn't it in
him, in the short. span of life, to make a language by which he could be
understood everywhere, wandering alone with his feelings; if he tried to
do that he'd be a cardboard-man with internationally understood gestures
of good will! The heart had to belong to one place; there must be a
home - if it was to be understood without explanations; that was the balm
needed by the nerves; and also needed was a place which because it always
remained the same, showing all its different faces, at dawn and at night,
like his father's garden in Abbott's Road, began to show the face of all
reality; otherwise, if we were't sure of our position with other people,
we were tied to the present moment, always calculating our chances; in
Basrah he remained hidden and closed, behind English gestures no one
really understood, and of which he was sometimes painfully conscious, s0
that. they frozé on him sometimes; it couldn't go on much longer; three or


four yearstwould be the limit; in that time he would have to prepare the
England in himself, by isolation, seeing where it. lay by contrast with
that blazing, desért-world round him, so that on his return to England he
could be strange and anonymous to himself as he was in Basrah, not feel
his idèntity lost again as it was now, and his powers of loneliness
dispersed; it would mean growing into the secret England, that was in this
night-air, and not falling again into the 'public England that clamoured
all round him; he would have to be whole enough to walk through Abbott's
Road without a trace of the shudders which had once gone through him,
remembering only the glow of his early childhood there, not the aftermath;
he couldn't do it yet -- he thought. He must see the ghost of England,
where it lay untouched, at the inner flesh where the wounds hadn't
penetrated, so that he could know it in himself and create it in turn,
for his children; after all the public schemes that had ravished this
lovely ghost, the breath would come back again; as it was beginning in
him, BO it would be fulfilled in his children.
At that moment Elizabeth put a record on and he heard the strains
of Leporello's. 'Voglio far' il' gentiluomo' from Don Giovanni; it was
pathetic and mocking - Don Juan's valet wanted to be a gentleman: And
he suddenly felt mocked in himself. What other form did the countryside
have but what those man he'd just had dinner with had' made, generation
by generation? How could he live like Gordon and Elizabeth? Would
those same people be his friends if 'he came to live in the country?
His friends? He belonged to another world!
Leporello's tearful and self-mocking song went on e "Voglio far'
gent
uomo!", drifting through the night undér the
plane-trees. He'd seen people like Elizabeth created attention, in the


Tube, in buses; the accent was now decorative; it meant nothing in power;
it brought back memories; it was the scent of fields in the evening;
there was old England in it; that was what made people turn round, with
an odd self-eclipsing, deference; Elizabeth had the style and flashing
ebullience of old England; and the modern citizens turned round to
glimpse it again, like foreigners. How could he get over his foreignness?
England couldn't forget her gentlemen; their manners were sweet like the
meadows; it was in the literature, in the quiet country houses and the
rolling fields; it meant something fair, enchanting, rugged. They'd
intoxicated England; it was scmething in the flesh; Elizabeth had it.
It occurred to him how close to his aunt May she was; there was the same
lavishness; they hadnut the same manner at all; but underneath there was
the same legend.
Suppose he lived among these men, going to their houses across the
fields, perhaps riding with them, having them at table? He wouldn't
have to duck to a smaller stature all the time as he felt he had to at
present, to make himself acceptable as a citizen, or a clerk; he would be
able to swear, behave like a man; all the namby-pamby reserves that made
him want to go abroad
to the desert - wouldn't hold him any more;
he wouldn't have to search for stern faces and glaring eyes among the
Arabs; he'd find them here; among these men, too, the mind was lost in
reflection, too deep to analyse itself, as it was in Mohammed; then he'd
be able to grasp the heart of the country; the sting would be taken out
of death; he wouldn't be. a little unit of feelinge and attitudes falling
into oblivion when he died; he'd die into the soil.
( But here he paused again. Their world wasn't intact. Their
farms were divided up. They'd lost their grip. The countryside was


dead, really. How would he ride with these men? He wouldn't have the
time, even if he had the horse! And they didn't even want that world;
they weren't sure enough of themselves; he'd seen it in their eyes at
dinner; there was the sureness in their flesh, cut deep into their eyes,
but when they talked they had no sureness! They were looking to other
people now. People like himself!
Yet still the countryside was there, unpopulated now, with an
untouched air; how terrible to miss that gift! The fields had been
smoothed and touched by centuries of hands; the paths and hedgerows gave
off a scent of independence; that was it; it all lay there with an
extraordinary independence: That was the thing in their faces at dinner!
It was in. their stride, in the cast of their faces! It was in Pinkie -
what put her in a swashbuckling mood -- it lay in the room where she now
sat with Elizabeth - it was the smell of new-cut grass, the shade of
the plane-trees, the last yellow light on the panelled walls - it was
the touch of wildness - independence: It was what made their gaze so
open and distant and made them seem the vaguest of people!
It was in- Pinkie's flesh, in her bve of extravagance
but were
all these people the last witnesses? Would it go? Were they the last?
It made him feel his smallness: how could he achieve the same powere
wi thout generations behind him, without the marks of it in his flesh?
How could he do it alone? Could he only come to fullness in their form?
Was that the only form? Was it waiting for him, unavoidable and over-
powering? And intoxicating: And inviting! England had flowered in
their flesh! How could he avoid the feeling of plagiarising them? He
didn't know! But. still there was the yearning. To bring out the
wildness locked in his flesh! And the peace! But surely he had it,


as well as they? Surely it had been there, too, in his past! He had
a past, too! Was it so different? Hadn't his extravagance been
thwarted and tamed as Pinkie's had, too? Suppose his face was marked?
How did he know it waen't? How did he know it wasn't growing in him as
it had grown in these men
but always in a new form, s0 that he was
the new form, already? How could he expect it to be known to the mind
in any way we this flesh that grew and flowered in the darkness and
silence and beyond, where our minds couldisee nothing?
How wonderful to exist in England as he did in Basreh, swinging
in a hammock by the river,.his beads clicking in his hand while a dum-buk
played in the distance! How marvellous if the same mystery could come
back here-- to the fenced paddocks, the elm-trees standing alone in their
fields, the glittering sky over the house at night, the smell of cider
and beer, the sounds at harvest-time, the orchards that were furry and
warm, the paths between hedges!
Leporello stopped singing and at once he was aware of the silence
as a blanket on his choughts; the devil intervened and he saw the lighted
porch of the house as it might be in a neat, clean suburb, with trimmed
bushes near by, under lamp-light, frightfully fixed, with the intimacy
gone,, no strange sounds at all, the owl gone, the cough of the cattle
near by gone, no slight wind brushing through the trees - everything
giving only a sign of people and what they were doing a lighted
window upstairs being the bedroom, the time being bed-time, the sound of
a radio down the street, the mee-oW of a solitary cat that belonged to a
hearth, the shining of slate roofs in the lamplight, the flat silence all
round, a world stilled by men, possessing only men! No, he couldn't bear
it! He wanted to leave for Basrah at once! The public schemes had gone


too far; the island was fixed to them; they peered into every mood and
sigh; he couldn't bear it! No!
But as he went indoors again the other dream réturned like a
balm, brought on by the mellow glow of the panelling in the hall, and
the sound of Elizabeth's voice at the end of the corridor.
Before they went to bed a health was drunk to the coming child;
Elizabeth kissed him on the cheek and said, "Good for you, dad!" What
was it going to be, she asked, boy or girl? He said girl, since boys
were rather tricky to bring up; he'd already 'arranged' it to be a girl.
"Let's hope you, don't get a big bum like me!" Elizabeth_cried
to Pinkie.
"You've got an exquisite bum, " Pinkie murmured, putting the rest
of her drink back with a gulp; then she smacked her lips, a wild look in
her eyes for a moment, and added, "Give the little pairne plenty to
drink, that's what I always say!"


CHAPTER 23.
The next morning he woke up early, even before the children.
The sunlight was blazing into the room, already hot, and there was a
furry stillness in the air. He went to the window and looked down at
the orchard immediately below. The leaves were dusty and pale, with
a wilted look in the blinding light. And the earth between the trees
was dense-black. Not a leaf stirred, and the chorus of birds, in the
gable above his head and also down in the trees, hidden in the black
shadows, was absorbed. into the stillness as he'd noticed two evenings
before, like sounds that came out of the earth. Beyond the garden there
was a vast haze across the valley, stretching as far as he could see and
hiding the low hills in the distance, hot and motionless. Massive
breaths of heat drifted through the window, reminding him of Basrah.
Pinkie was still asleep, only her hair visible above the sheets, and he
decided to have a look at the village before breakfast.
He left the house quietly, tiptoeing down the stairs. The hall
below was dark and dool, with the curtains still drawn. There wàsnet a
sound. He carefully opened the front door and stepped out on to the
gravel path. A hot breath came into his face, scented and heavy -
80 like Basrah! And everything had the same fixed look, the leaves of
the trees like iron. His step made a sharp sound on the gravel as he.
turned to look at the house, its windows gleaming in the light, its red
brick like a marvellous coral reef in the sea, against the utter blue sky.


The real village lay off the road, through a path in the woods
almost opposite the house, and this he found easily.
Everything was hushed there, with a tall arch of twigs overhead
letting the sun through in tiny dazzling spots. The trees were young,
planted regularly. The floor was damp, with autumn leaves from the
previous year sunk into a muddy, soft carpet. And in the middle of the
woods a dry turf began, of a dazzlingly frésh green, and he could hear his
feet thump on it as he walked; it seemed to echo far underneath. There
was a'clearing at the end, where the hill. dipped suddenly, and here he saw
the ruins of a.stone house, just the base of the walls with weeds grown
all over them, and a' broken doorway, the timber eaten through.
Then he ,came out over a clear valley, and immediately before him
lay a squat Norman church, quite alone in its little green plot. The
tombatones gleaming white in the sun, some of them at an angle and others
sunk into the earth, only their heads visible, mossy and worn. A hot
breath of wind wént over the grass, stirring the wispy heads. He went
to the wooden porch and to his surprise found the church open. And he
walked into the cool,. musty air, letting the door thump closed behind him.
It was quite dark because of the.stained-glass windows. And the golden
altar gleamed in the trace of sunlight, before bright grey stone. The
stone looked like thin canvas, ancient, as if delicate to the touch. The
silence was quite unlike that of the fields. There were massive pillars
with the brickwork showing through in places. Some of the pews were
three or four hundred years old, and had the same frail, dusty-grey look
as the stone, with initials carved on them, and signs of the cross.
He heard a bird whistle quite close to the porch, a brief,
reminiscant sound piercing the silence for a moment. Then all noise was


gone again. At his feet there were tombstones laid flat - - Lady Jane
Courtley, daut". of Harry Meedham. Esquire, then a date, 1594. The head
and hands of the copper figure, representing Lady Courtley, were broken
off - Cromwell's work, probably.
He looked.up at one of the stained windows. The sky was just
visible. The village felt a great distance away - so did the house,
and Pinkie, asleep. There was.a vast silence ruffled by the wind, and
the sky had a look of terrific openness as over the sea, and seemed to be
intimate with the earth, knowing this church, not seeing the flow of
centuries at all.
It-n made him feel suddenly taken beyond his own life, rempved
three or four centuries back, to 1594 perhaps, and, gazing at the sky
through one of the windows, he felt he was actually removed into someone
else's body, too, from that time, and caught a glimpsé, like being
vouchsafed another life for a moment, of the world then - - 80 that he saw
the horizon outside the window as the horizon of his whole life, while
the hush of the fields outside contained the dead with whom he was
connected in: his flesh, and to whom he would go again, with the golden,
still country beyond the horizon strange to him, forbidden and limitless
as only the sight of the stars was to us,iin our shrunken world! Ah, at
that time everything at the base of life must . have been good, with a
certain sweetness and local strength! At least, life had started out
right then. Fibre' and resolution hadn't had to be learned slowly, on top
of ruins, as 'now. And again he arrived at the question, but distantly,
as if it concerned someone else, as to whether he would be able to do this
for his Own life - bring the early ruins. to order. He' stood in the
church for nearly half-an-hour, gazing down the chancel.between the pews,


listening to the silence with its strange, beckoning depth. Then he
left quickly, returning to the hot air outside with relief.
He went on to the village. Half the street was in shadow
closed shop-fronts and windows with the curtains still drawn. Only at
the inn, with a cobbled yard and stables, was there life stirring. He
heard the clang of a pail, 'and someone coughed. But the street was
deserted, with the sun streaming down its length, blacking out one side.
At the bottom of the hill the road became barer and widened.
The trees had been felled and there was an estate of bleak newly-built
houses with tthe mud of construction still round them. Why did they
always pull the trees down? But the English always didi He'd noticed
it as a child. They even seemed to resent 'them. Were trees too soft,
with their leisurely bowing and spreading of arms in the wind, like a
comment on men?
Beyond, where the trees started again, tall and close together,
he saw the chimneys of what looked like a big house.
He found a hole in the fence and went through. Was it the
manor house? At any rate, nobody lived there. The garden was overgrown
with tall bushes, with the trace here and there of an old rose tree,
pushing its blooms through in a last gesture.
And behind lay the house itself, like a palace, but shuttered,
with weeds up to its doors and climbing all over the steps from the garden,
filling the stone urns that had been used once for flowers. There was a
fountain in. the garden, almost hidden by moss and weeds, quite dry. Here
again roses of every colour peeped through, single bright. heads.
Most of the windows were smashed. He looked through a crack
in the shutters and saw a magnificent hall inside with a painted ceiling,


its gilt and blue stars still bright. It was bare of furniture. And
just as he looked in a bird flew across, its wings fluttering in a strip
of sunlight for a moment.
He tried to imagine the time when the lawns had been smooth and
the urns full of daffodils and tulips. The meadow would lie beyong as
it did now, rising and falling gently, with a few ancient oaks in the
middle, bent and knarled. People would be strolling up the steps.
The windows would be hining in the sun, with immense curtains behind them.
In the hall there would be deep armchairs, a long refectory table, oak
chests.
There was a squat building to one side, apart, that might be the
chapel. It was older than the rest, with that sweet, native look of
mediaeval things. It nestled more comfortably among the weeds than the
rest of the house.
A fat raven flew up from one of the chimneys, startled as he
pushed through the bushes.
On the train back from Meedham he kept talking loudly
his
voice seemed to have got used to it. But gradually he became aware of
the other people in the compartment and began talking in an undertone.
Pinkie, too, underwent the same change in her face. She gazed down at
the floor, sometimes biting her lip. The chimneys and slate roofs of
outer London passed. The dream was over. It was a dusty, warm evening.
Elizabeth had said she wanted to 'bring them out'; their lives
weren't grand enough. There was going to be a 'terribly swish ball' in
London, and she'd get tickets for all of them. Gordon would come as
well. It would be in about two weeks' time. Granville knew this was


after he was due to go back to Basrah, but he said nothing. And Pinkie
didn't seem to notice.
They got back after dark and found Dick in the kitchen. He was
worried about Granville's report. The office had rung up several
times, and also Nevinson had buttonholed him in the corridor about it.
"A lot might depend on it," he said.
"Yes, I'll get it finished." But he didn't sound interested,
and Dick gave him a glance.
Pinkie left the house for a few minutes - he thought to phone
Grove from a call-box, since no shops were open, and he took the
opportunity to say at once to Dick, "Did you know Pinkie was going to
have a child?"
To his surprise Dick only looked up mildly - a he'd started
reading the paper
and asked, "What was that?", his eyes vague. Then
he appeared to understand and said, "No, I didn't!" And after another
pause he added in a quieter voice, "Well, I hope you're proud, dad."
Granville found himself saying in a hot way, "I am rather
but afraid, perhaps!"
His voice trailed off, and almost at once Dick returned to his
paper, his lips tight'together and his eyes showing nothing. Granville
felt a rush of affection for him which he couldn't explain. He had a
sense of reliance in Dick which he hadn't known before. Dick's light
blue eyes were resting casually on the paper before him, and he made his littie
aniff of concentration. There was a long silence. Then Dick looked
up again and spoke: "Oh, I thought I'd give you a treat as you were off
soon. I booked up for the theatre."
"Did you?" He smiled. "That's good of you!"


It was 'tit-for-tat', Dick said, for the bottle of wine they'd
shared. There was, a theatre-club called the New Studio which he'd
heard of through Joyce and had. joined; apparently, the Kaaba dancing
company, with the hair-girl in her special dance, were giving alternate
performances there. But Granville's treat was to. be a play. About a
sailor, he'd heard, and it was supposed to be good.
Dick glanced at the kitchen-door.and, leaning across the table
towards him, said quietly, "I heard about your day at the zoo.".
Pinkie was on her way up the stairs and Dick managed to add in
a whisper, "The going's rather good, wouldn't you say, jockey?" And
when Pinkie appeared he turned round to her with a twinkling smile, pale
and remote, and said in a normal voice, "Well, landlady, I hear you've
got a bun in the oven?"
To which she - said, hardly looking at him, "'S right, old cheese!"
and went to the sink to peel some potatoes. She then exchanged a glance
with Dick and they chuckled. The silence returned abruptly, cutting off
their chuckles in a strange way; and their faced were, at once serioub
again.
Granville asked her how she felt and she said "Fine!". She
hadn 't had any morning-sickness, she told Dick, who hadalready gone back
to his paper. But he looked up in the same mild way as before and
murmured, "It's evening sickness gets usi down, don't you think so?"
There was no reply to this.
He asked himself again where the triumph of the night of the
eclipse lay - a why it was still eluding him - whéther it was a false
hope. He hadn't expected this. total silence even though the first


conscious triumph had died. Where was it in his life now? How was
it bearing fruit?
He began to tell himself that,' indeed, if he came to think of
it, his life was changing under the influence of that night, though the
effects were difficult to, perceive at first. Suppose their Meedham.
visit had been one of these effects? Pinkie's cheeks had been flushed
with health there! Elizabeth, he told himself, had come as a saviour.
And the news of the baby! It began to occur to him, in a slow light
like that of dawn, that this was the first real answer - in the flesh
to his night of thought -- the first confirmation - a touch from
heaven - the night of the eclipse transformed to flesh, in the shape
of a new breathing life!' There was his triumph!
At the same time, however, his body, and indeed his whole self,
was sluggish, as if it couldn't meet this triumph. The triumph,
apparently, hadn't reached his flesh. And he didn't know shy. Nor was
there a new life between him and Pinkie on account of the child. In
fact, it had made no difference. Her comings and goings were as
mechanical as before. She "kept her job. The child was hidden away
under the multiple noises and activities of London. It was no longer
their property, as it had been in Meedham, for a moment.
And the problem of his return, to Basrah hadn't changed: would: he
be. going? Would they go together? Would she really come. afterwards
as she promised? Nor did the child bring them into closer confidence.
They curled up together at night with no greater intimacy than before,
nor less. She looked at him - and he looked at her - with no more
promise., If anything, her look was barer than before; sometimes bleak,
when she glanced at' him. But the thought of the child always waylaid


dark presentiments.
It felt strange seeing Dick and Hanni - again. Also the house
felt strange. He perceived everything in a kaleidoscopic fashion,
broken in pieces; and this, also, was the opposite of his expectation.
Was it the child? Was the seed in Pinkie breaking his own into another
form, just as her body was changing, to accommodate the new being? But
the night of the eclipse had led him to éxpect a better order in his life,
like the opening of grand new themes from now on! And there was no such
thing. Everything was broken. It was like having broken eyes. He
felt that if he could get back even to his life before the Meedham visit,
it would be something! Before, there had been the undertone of threat
and forbidden excitement, and these were a sign of life at least! If he
felt them again, he would have a sense of his own heart; its sadness, or
the menace it recorded, would make a theme, and he would be able, at least,
to feel it there, if only by its fright and trouble! But now there
seemed to be a collapse of the inner sanctum; there were sights and sounds,
he talked as usual, the same excitements happened externally, but it was
separate from him, the inner link was gone, like a picture broken into many
pieces, though bright,and alluring; it made enchantment for the eye, but
no messages were passed to the inner halls.
His work at the office had finished just before the Meedham visit.
He'd shaken hands with the secretary, and he'd given him exactly the
same smile as on the first day. So there wasn't. the office-routine to
hold his life together.


There was no moral basis. to his life. He did what he felt
instinctively to be right, or else what other people expected of him:
but there was no clear decision in between -- no necessary truthful
course he knew he always had to follow, whatever other people expected
of him and whatever his, instincts said.
So, really, he had no self.. He was like all the others! Just
products! Their lives geared and moved by the city outside!
All the moral words were dead for him: good, bad, evil, wicked,
sinful, virtuous. Meaningless! Imagine. telling Pinkie she was 'wicked'.
She 'd laugh! Hanni, too! They'd feel. complimented - - the 'wild'
touch,' you know! But was he different? There was only one moral
criterion for them all -- 'What impression did I make on other people?*
That brought a shadow over the mind - that made you stop - that was
the. only guide you had, what other people thought!
So they were guiding each other - the blind leading the blind!
But he wouldn't be blind, and he wouldn't be led by the blind!
Hadn't Dick told him one day that this was how Lady Godiva and King Arthur
lived - doing only what people expected of them? And he was going to
join this disgraceful middle class sort of living? He had to protect
himself - a kéep himself intact - think things out all the time - stay
apart!
Of course - what was the night of the eclipse but his'childhood
out
breaking through? insisting on thinking the matter? determined to find
a path alone? wild for independence? That had been Abbott's Road!
There you had a morality! In Abbott's Road you didn't follow what other
people expected of you, there you had your likes and dislikes and these
weren't the same as any other man's and you were allowed this difference!


But not in this 'higher' world." Here your independence suffered
staggering blows! You weren't meant to stand alone! The man who did
8o was mocked and stung and isolated! You joined in'. That was the
soft, idiot little invitation - join in with the murder if that's what
'they' expect! And he wouldn't - he wouldn't if it cost him every
friend he had on the earth - not if it cost him his life!
This seemed to bring him, to life again. For a few days he
left revived - determined - he would be different!
He decided to get on with his report, finish it, take it in,
get his ticket to Basrah, and so - - end things tidily! He could do it
now! He smiled at Pinkie and got his papers together, and sat himself
at his desk at eight o'clock sharp in the morning, just before she went
off to work. And he started.
He revised the first part of his report, which now only wanted
a conclusion. The revision took two or three days. But there he
stuck. The weather seemed to grow gloomier. "Seemed', because the
state of the sky hadn't occurred to him in the last few days.. His
thoughts left him. He couldn't get on. He began lying on the bed,
trying to rest. And he even put his papers away, wanting them out of
sight. He didn't have a word more to say. And yet he didn't want to
send the report in with a perfunctory end. He had to be clear about it.
And it was only a' matter of a few sentences!
He hammered away with his mind, got out his papers again, used
all the reference books he'd thought he was finished with long ago, made
himself tired and nervous, and ali to no end. Not a thought! He'd
carefully set out the organisation of T.I.M. in Basrah, showing its links


with Beirut and Cairo: that was the main part of the report. But now
came his suggestions for the future. There must be changes! And this
was where he got stuck.
'What are you doing,', he asked himself, 'trying to force things
with your mind? Why not rest, wait a bit, idle, let new. thoughts form?'
And he forced himself to disobey. his torn, scolding nerves. And slowly,
during a concert, a clear question began to form in his mind: 'What's
your objection to finishing the report?
hate the
For
Why you
all of a sudden he saw that he hated the idea of making any suggestions
for the futureNo
He wanted to contract out of the whole bloody lot! He didn't
want more progress, more machines, more education wi he didn't. believe
in it m he hated it - - he wanted to withdraw - and that was the only
suggestion he could makek 0
But he was in the thick of it all, by his life, by his work:
there was a contradiction he hadn't worked out!
And he realised that he still didn't understand how or why the
'middle class' as he always called them had come into being; nor what
good they'd done, if any. He described them to himself as the instrument
that had killed religion in people. They'd killed it in him! But why
had they done it? How had it been allowed to happen? How had the
movement got such a hold? How could he write them off historically, or
in any other way? For he was one of themfo He couldn't write off his
own life, his work - a it couldn't be done!
And he set himself that task, quietly. He lay awake, his nerves
at rest now, wondering how the answer would come. Could that be his
last word about the 'middle class', about the new world he'd come into


that it was simply history gone wrong? and one just hoped it would come
better again?
Next day there happened to be an argument between Dick and Pinkie'
in the music-room - about the Prince : Albert bridge, leading from
Battersea park to Chelsea. Thère were plans to pull it down. But
complaints had come in to the local council, hundreds of letters; the
bridge was a fine example, people said, of Victorian désign, one of the
best, and there was no need to go on tearing down all Victorian London,
just because the fashions had changed. And Pinkie said she liked the
bridge. She thought thé upper struts were like wonderful strings of
beads, especially at night when they were lit-up, wheréas Dick said they
tna AP 2 2
looked
gaudy
more like a row of Edwardian watch-chains. And then they began
talking about Victorian houses. Pinkie said she got a cosy satisfaction
from being in a real furnished Victorian house with all. the trappings,
it had to be the real job - - hideous towering doors and polished door-
knobs, thick curtains and persian carpets, masses of cushions everywhere
squets
and knick-knacks and gaudy light-shades with tassles, and littIe inlaid
tables - everything 'purring liké a wonderfm luxurious cat' so that
you really couldn't believe there was a. real world outside ft nothing
considered too small or trifling to be worked on carefully m every tiny
coffee cup a special work in itself, every table cloth and nail-file and
embroidery-basket, as if the whole idea had been so flatter people, if
they had money -- a flatter every little taste and whim and desire% A
Dick said he preferred tbe light and aire Heewas on therside e
of-modernarchiteeture. and a
"Oh, I agree it's suffocating," Pinkie said. nBut then, perhaps
every age finds the last one suffocating!"


gnd afterwards, when he was alone, thinking of it again, he asked
himself, 'What did the Victorians feel suffocated by, to make allthat 6o hecl
deteiled
elemour-and extravagance?' Had they felt a similar suffocation with the
world they'd been children in, which had made them undertake these proud
excursions? - He paused. Suppose the world before industries hadn't
been so peaceful as he'd thought? Suppose there'd been decay and
suffocation there, too, among certain people? - never, of course,
among most people, whose lves never changedf from generation to generation,
but among the few whose thoughts led to change in the outside world?
unly
Suppose the nobility had collapsed at that time - - turned, a,to pleasure - -
lost interest in running the country, left even their own estates to
clever agents and stewards? And Suppose certain men had come to want
the same pleasure
the same colour and light
as it seemed - in
their own lives - the extravagance? Hadn't they achieved it, then,
these certain men, in the heavy embroidered cloths and their towers and
buttresses and endless knick-knacks, in Victorian times? hadn't that
been the climax of the first industries? Suppose that those hideous
Victorian shops and miniature palaces had renewed people's pride? Did
the Victorians, in fact, give a terrific boost to life, Which-was
ces JV 3 as
suffocating and horrible /to us?: Without them, would country towns have
become,silent, deserted jewels of Georgian architecture?
Suppose that, in a way, industries had been a struggle for the
light?
Suppose that only the gorgeous Auke's carriage had seemed to have
colour and light, as it had sped past, in that world before industries?
An pore
apd darkness had fallen on certain other men whose minds were nevertheless
active, and who had dréams, ambitions, even visions? Wasn't this how


industries had started? Hadn't they come out of lonely men, as the
revival of trade in the middle ages had come from the lonely towns, from
those men who weren't in any blind connection with other people, not
knights or serfs, but men who thought things over to themselves, in the
silence of their minds? Wasn't the first machine that startèd industries,
the spinning jenny conceived by a weaver, always alone in his work,
separate from the other villagers, a lonely traveller who went from place
to place selling his cloth, contemplative and pale conpared with the
labourers?
Wasn't that the character of industries - of our whole world -
that they had sprung from men's minds, calculating and dreaming and arguing
things over?
And what did that mean L for his other thoughts - for the night
of the eclipse
where did that connect?
Christ had been alone: was this the answer? He had severed
himself from the blind connections - from the inherited connections!
One by one the blind ties had gone in England - the divine
power of Rome, the divine power of the king, the divine power of the
dukes. Was it the lonely concept of freedom that had been trying to
shine all the time? Was this what Christ had given in his person? Perhaps
this freedom was part of heing withdrawn and alone; it was the hunger that
went-with being alone - - impatiénce of family, of priest, of pope, of
king, nobility, of every blinding power over the mind! Certain men had
done it, always a smail group, and the others, the majority, had watched,
inheriting a little more freedom, if to lack blind ties was freedom! Was
this what Christ had done - - made freedom the only path to God? Was
that in all his movements,
freedom? in everything he said, a wonderful


lightness? Was that, also, what those certain men had been trying to
realise in their factories? Was it that they'd wanted a lighter world,
where people. wouldn't just inherit the life-long task for their hands,
where their thoughts wouldn't only be those that had grown before they
were born? Was it to make a world where people could unbend from plind
work and leave it to the machines? - Was this behind their greed and
cruelty, without them knowing it, turning them into a movement that
within fifty years of coming to birth had control of parliament and had
à turned the country from a rural community into a throbbing factory crossed
with roads and canals and railway-lines? Was it to make a world free
from the dark, pagan shadows as well; a universe without fear or guilt, so
that when we looked up at the sky we should feel ourselves separate from
it and clear in our freedom, not haunted by its frowns and storms? Was
that why he 'd seen the eclipse as he'd done, mathematically? Had he
simply been projecting the freedom that was in him, s0 that he could see
the sun change and go dark without the slightest qualm or fear, unlike
Abu Kath'm who did show fear? Was this freedom an unparallelled freedom
so. that for the first time millions of people could face the changes and
terrors of the universe with stillness? Was that from Christ? 'Was that
the stillness he'd hadiin his own person? Had religion penetrated so
much into us that it was now in the pores of our skin and we didn't know
any more what it was like to be pagan and the victim of every omen and
fright in the universe? How much we took for granted! Was this freedom
presupposed in- the tiniest things, such as our visits to the doctor, whom
we left without the dark feeling that we ourselves through some fearful
stain were responsible for our sickness and horribly involved, but stood
apart even from our bodies with a cool stillness and detachment - which


made us seem thinkers and scholars compared with the pagans? Everything
had become phenomenon for us! It was in our consciences, which kept a
moral principle as something separate from us, and stopped ouf plunge
into dark self-interest; it was 'in our sense of the universe as separate;
it was in our sense of our bodies; nothing stuck to us; wasn't that the
fulfilment of an unparallelled freedom?
And what was this freedom but the spark Christ Baid could be
found in every person in his lonely state, apart from his place in the
world, no matter what his blind ties were, even a slave, a woman, an
unbeliever? And what had happened since his death but one struggle after
another against the blind ties that hid this divinity in which a man was
perfectly free, perfectly alone and perfectly beyond the touch of other
men?
Was this the kind of justification he'd been looking for all this
time in the middle class? How else would he know his own freedom, how
else would he be thinking as he was at this moment, unless what he called
the middle class had done its work, in the nineteenth century, of removing
the last blind tie?
Yes, industries had disinherited everybody: People no longer
had a squire to lean on, to take their glow from, or their punishment.
That had all gone out a century or more ago. The farmer with his homely
face had gone. The village had gone. Everything blind had gone,
everything you could inherit naturally, in the place where you were born!
What was that but turning people, through the unthinkable pain of upheaval,
into their own masters?
Was that where Christ had been leading us all this time, to where
we could contemplate him in. perfect freedom, free even from the dark


weight of religious advice and supervision, from the priests and councils?
Was that what Granville himself had been trying to arrive at when he :
asked himself what life he would have in England,. and whether it would
mean joining the old class of authority? Was' he seeking a way of
perpetuating the aristocracy he saw.in these men, their splendid
independence, without their power? Was that what was going to happen
in' England? Would people take the. form they had found and admired in
thése men, their easy gestures and authority, and perpetuate them in
themselves without the servants, wealth and influence? Was that what
made this class of authority bearable to him, that it was pure now,
'namely, devoid of pover? 60 that these men could only assert themselves
by what they were in themselves, as Christ, the everlasting model, had
done? Was it this that rendered the concept of the gentleman real -
its being shorn of authority? Was that why aristocracy had existed, to
cultivate the touch of divinity, in leisure and without any hemming-in by
other men or by work, in perfect independence, spreading itself to the
utmost in vast rooms and lovely parks? Was the aristocracy thé heart
of every country, however dead it might be now? was it the soul of a
country? did the soundness of a country come from its aristocracy's
Boundness?, Had the middle-class made it possible for every man to inherit
it, now that the form had been arrived at ànd settled, only without the
vast rooms and lovely parks now,, without the blind authority over other
men? Was the middle class itself only an instrument for freedom, moving
by blind function all the time, not a visionary body at all? Was its
role to establish the utiost possible satisfactions of power and ambition
for every man - in speed, comfort, leisure, and marvellous flights
through hundreds of different experiences all over the earth - so that


in the end there would be no wonder left in power at all, only' the
contemplation of all the wonder that lay beyond men; 80 that the last
immenselg: ambitious explorations of space, in cunning rockets travelling
at unthinkable speeds, would end in a marvelling contemplation of the
huge, still, blue empyrean?
Was this why the middle class had destroyed even the blind tie
of religion, so that it would be a conscious one?
Had the great reiterated principle of the middle class been that
men were the uppermost reality, and men must be served; had this been
their function, to repeat it until the stature of every person was assured
and admitted, and the touch of divinity could then be Been? Were we on
the threshold of that new epoch, in which the stature of a man would be
totally beyond his place and position? Had the middle class only been
serving Christ.all the time in trying to move towards the lightk like a
machine. that could only go on until it had disrupted and consumed all
humani ty? Were they the little technicians of Christ, blind to the force
they were creating? Was that why he found no real morality in Dick
but was stirred and thrilled by his daring and intimately exploring
thoughts, that tried to uncover the light all the time? Was that why
he found Dick's ideas 'mental', separate from thelife he led, because
there was no total, driving moral vision? Had the middle class now
performed the great menial task required by Christ? Had they strained
further and further towards the light, away from the dark and marshy
habits of endowing people with divine powers, and from superstition, so
that at last the human being stood free to contemplate himself apart
from his own fears and his own hopes and interests, as Christ had done
throughout his mission? Was a detachment similar to that of Christ


growing on all humanity? After the shocks delivered by the middle
class to, the peace in which most people had been locked before, as
Abu Kath'm was still locked, as he'd been locked in Abbott's Road as a
child - after the point of self-destruction had been reached in
millions of people
would the most of self-recall come as it had come
in him, through recollection of the previous life of peace and blindness,
and through the sense of having lost a guiding hand? Was it only a
fulfilment of Christ's advice to give up the family, to give up all ties,
for the one tie in which a person was no longer the victim.of interest
or even blind layalty, but chose the light for himself? Were people
giving up the dark, blind, suffocating part of family so as to give their
children the light of freedom; wasn't that how the children of the great
houses had been brought up, unpossessed by their parents? Wasn't that
what Jean Philby had talked to him about, when she'd said that a mother
had no 'rights' over her child? was it the light in which all ambitions
were dead, and we were free to contemplate other people, even the children
of our own flesh, in their freedom? Did every man have to become one
of the disciples - even those working in the fields, even the Samaritans,
the heathens, the fallen women, the Romans!
Yet it was say, this freedom. He was sunk down. There was so
much responsibility. So littie consolation. A terrible legacy! But
it was there.. You couldn't turn away.
And each time, perhaps, there was a new tie. We, in our world,
had the tie of other. men - we couldn't get through to the beyond -- - to
our single selves -- we couldn't hear the silence - that was our struggle!
We had to contract out, in some way - in our hearts --
He was numb with his thoughts, yet peaceful.


Next morning he sat down at his desk without a momentss thought
and wrote the end of the report in a few minutes, making hardly a pause.
He wrote that it was simply a question of the middle class getting power.
As its power increased the Arab countries would come to resembie the
Christian countries more and more. It had to be gone through. All
you.could do was to help the process on. Proposals flashed into his
mind with terrible swiftness. Where T.ILM. had the power it should
subsidise development-programmes, offer loans and so. forth. T.I.M.
should purchase a certain amount of land for disposal among its employees;
a new industrial city outside Basrah might be the result. There should
bè a new housing scheme for employees. A health-insurance policy should
be started, there ought to be arrangemen' ats with the university. of Baghdad
for the officialisation of T.I.M. educational certificates in the
Compound school. How the words clattered out!
He wrote it in a reckless and cynical frame of mind: suicidal,
almost. 'Let them get on with it!' he thought. 'And meanwhile the rest
of us will lie low, keeping what little flame we can alive, until it's all
finished - keeping the flame for our children's children!'
He suddenly added at the end: 'Thesé developments are part of a
great religious programme. e They are the extension of Christ to the
Muslim world. The middle class
the blind instrument by means of
which Christ is carried to all men.'
Next day he took the report to be typed out by the Secret Weapon.
To hell with them!
.On his way out of the office he met Hanni who to his astonishment
said, "Well, how do you like the girls at the Marquis?"
n "What girls?" His mouth fell open.


She laughed. "Your face is a picture!" She added, "You know,
Joyce and the girl who does the hair-dance! Dick's been telling me all
about it!"
So the top-secret regulations were off!
"He always tells me about his escapades after the novelty's worn
off," she added. "And I enjoy seeing if the girls live up to his
descriptions!"
"Do these?" he asked.
"Well, all except the Moroccan girls. I've got an ancient
dislike of them, as you know, so I'm not a good judge!"
They came. to a tea-shop neat St. Paul's and chatted' about Dick,
smiling. Yes, she said, life with Dick never lacked for varietso
She repeated what she'd said about Moroccan girls, and he simply
nodded. "But I hear you've fallen for one of them!" she said in a plunge.
He decided to agree. "Yes!"
Though he felt remote he was aware that he was making a better
impression on her than usual; she was beginning to think him a gay dog,
perhaps. And he was silent with her
he sat slouched easily at the
table, gazing through the window at the passers-by - and this seemed
to draw. her attention, too.
He paid the bill and kissed her on the cheek when they said
good bye. There was an anxious look on her face for a moment which
puzzled him, just before she disappeared. She wasn't. going to meet
Dick, she told him. He wondered if there was trouble. She hadh't
appeared at the house for some evenings, since their return from Meedham
in fact.
It- wasn't long before Pinkie had been briefed about the Marquis.


She was stunned and showed him a mute, disapproving face. This amazed
him more than Hanni's revelation! He even noticed that she began to
watch all his movements with grim, lip-biting concentration.
A pity she'd never grown her hair long, she said, otherwise she
1 Cm
could do a nice hair-dance for him! He suddenly became a zone of
interest for her, she gegan to give him a familiar drooping look he'd
got used to in Basrah when she gelt left out of something. His ticket
to Basrah, which was coming up again, was forgotten. 'Basrah' now seemed
to mean 'flesh-pot' for her: not boredom any more!
Also Hanni told him that Pinkie's interest in 'outside life', by
which he supposed she meant Grove, had gone down tremendously in the last
few days. Pinkie had asked her numberless questions: had he kissed the
hair-girl? Had they slept together 'yet'? How had they met?
Pinkie was not only morbidly intrigued, Hanni said, but she
wanted spectacular answers to her questions, as if she needed to prove him
a 'bastard like Dick', thoughtit hurt her. She no longer looked tired
in the evenings. There was even an excited flush in her cheeks sometimes.
When he went for a walk alone one evening she looked sulky. He began to
blame himself for "the" two innocent occasions on which he'd seen the hair-
girl; it seemed an act of cruelty to the coming child! Grove was
cancelled out by the new factor.
He suddenly had a sense of hot foreboding about the child. He
wanted to disburden himself-to Dick but decided against it a he
remembered
just in time, it seemed to him - that Hanni had told him
once that Dick looked on suffering as weakness; Dick feared a 'sympathetic
detonation' in himself if he listened to other people's troubles. He
had a sense- of 'contamination'; he made himself scarce.


Granville had noticed this at training school: there was no
brotherhood in Dick. If you asked him for help it might only. be
moving a desk across the room - he did it perfunctorily and left the
room in a. kind of dream, as if helping someone put his own self out of
action. Dick seemed to say, 'We're all alone, and if we meet andi have
a good time together, we do so by conscious social agreement, which
would be broken if we did anything to displease each other. Our liking
each other means that we have interests which coincide. Dick would
cancel and appointment at the last minute
say, at the cafe in the
Commercial road - and add, "But you go ahead, old sport", as if only
the event - sitting in the cafe - interested Granville. Partly it
was his poor estimation of his own company, so that he gave the impression
both of an agreeable modesty and an unpleasant coldness.
Granville had stopped trying to make appointments with him. His
pride would be hurt by Dick's, "Oh," followed by a pause, "can't quite
manage that, old sport! Another day." Or he might say. "I've got to
cover the annual flower-show at Hindhead for the Sperm News and Chancre
Gazette," meaning he was. meeting a girl.
And he himself had fallen into a similar mental habit recently:
he fought shy of doing anything which he couldn't conttrue to himself as
useful in some way, and this meant, generally, useful to himself. It
was difficult for him, for instance, to pick up the phone and pass the
time of day with someone. There had to be an appointment in mind.
Otherwise he felt 'soft'. Sometimes he would invent an occasion in order
to pass the time of day - - he might ring up Glenning for some office-
information which he didn't need. Giving Dick a bottle of wine had been
difficult for him. He'd had to force himself to do it. All round him


he felt a moral vacuum. The reason for being nice to
and
people
doing
things for them wasn't clear. There seemed no reason beyond self-interest,
and so it became a habit to present to himself the element of self-interest
to absolve himself of 'softness'. This 'softness' was a sense that
other people would set him at naught and assume he was idle and without
important commitments. To, be natural wasn't enough. He feared being
rebuffed -u having the phone put down.on him, for instance, if he laid
himself bare to people. He feared people saying they were 'busy'. The
word was coming to have a sting for him. Dick, Hanni and Pinkie were
all 'busy'. So he made an effort to be 'busy' as well.
Dick seemed to like a methodical relation. Once, years before,
they'd spent a week-end together at an inn near Reading, and had agreed
to go half-way with the expenses, and at precisely ten o'clock on
Saturday evening,'as. they sat over the lounge-fire, Dick turned to him
and said quietly, "Well, Petty Officer, I think it's about time for you
to take over 'mine host'. I think that's as fair a division as an
untrained mathematical mind could devise - we got here about a quarter to
ten last night, I'm standing you - " with a twinkling smile
"that
extra quarter of an hour, and we're leaving about that time tomorrow
night, aren't we? So the bills are yom from now on!" Dick had no
dark reserves about money. He always made it light and clear, on an
objective basis which left no unpleasantness.
He spent one evening with Dick at Hampton Court, as during the
first weeks of his leave. But the river was cold and bleak, nct as he
remèmbered it from the summer at all. Only the trées were bovely, on
the other side of the river, golden and yellow, close to the mellow red


palace. They sat looking at the view with a bottle of cheap wine
between them.
Dick said he always revealed his deceptions to Hanni - not that
he'd 'got anywhere' with the pale girl - 80 as to change Hanni.
Granville asked what this meant. Dick said that Hanni couldn't call
them deceptions once he'd spilled the beans, thus she couldn't deep up
her 'familiar pattern' of assuming he 'belonged' to her. Granville still
couldn't see what he meant.
"Well," Dick said, "if she feels I'm deceiving her it must mean
she feels she's in a familiar relation with me - she's the guardian of
my conscience in some way! Now by spilling the beans I wreck this.
She's got to reconsider her relation to me as if she was just one of the
other girls, do you see what I mean? She doesn't expect me to be
dishonest - she knows I won't lie, not for long, anyway - and that
breaks her chief moral hold over me."
This was what he meant by 'changing' her. He 'flushed the
relation 6hrough, he said, and turned her into someone new for him. The
'familiar' part of the relation was broken. They could then make love
as new people. It thrilled her as much as it did him, though it might
'rattle the old nerves about a bit'.
Granville went home admiring this. Dick also said that his
affairs were a 'conscious self-therapy', each woman doing her work for
him, until her role was exhausted, and then she was exchanged for another,
having got her part of the bargain as well - the therapy was mutual
after all. Granville blamed himself for a lack of lightness on this
subject. He always looked to women for permanent requirements, as
possible lifelong companions a permanent therapyi so to speak! The


name 'Grove' spelled the end of his life with Pinkie for him. Indeed,
the end of life.
Dick also told him more about Lady Godiva and King Arthur -
how they'd discovered Hanni was living with him, before they were married.
Lady Godiva had found a pair of knickers on the back of his armchair.
King Arthur called him down to Harrow, for a 'conference' at once; those
were the days when he was still getting an allowance. Anyway, the old
boy cut him off. Lady Godiva said the pants were filthy - that was the
main bone of contention: where was the girl's pride? Dick said he hadn't
located it yet.
"Where does the girl dress and undress?" Lady Godiva. had asked
during the 'conference'.
"Well, where we kip down!"
"Good Lord! In front of you? I never undressed in front of
your father for ten years after we were married!"
"Why," Dick asked her with a laugh, "what did you have to hide?"
Nowadays, he said, they accused him ef taking up with people who
were 'neithér fish, flesh nor fowl', a favourite expression of Lady Godiva's,
meaning people like Hanni and Granville - nobody knew where they 'came'
from. But Pinkie was 'quality'. From the day Dick told them that she
was 'a real Grysham down to her uncut toe-nails' they always asked
questions about her. Did she 'keep up' with the Aldercote part of the
family? Was she ever invited to the house? Would she 'come into
anything'? Did she know the present Lord Aldercote - 'something in
fertilisers', they believed? Everything she did was recited to. them,
and they approved of it all, even the story, of how she got dead-drunk in
Reading and lay out with the tin-cans in a backyard all night. So


'eighteenth century'! Well, the Gryshams had always been famous for
that sort of thing, hadn't they? A real 'buccaneering family':
As.a child, Dick said, he'd always had 'conferences' with the
old boy. His finances were discussed and an 'accounts book' brought
out, with debit and credit columns. On éach page there was a separate
item as 'Tuck Shop Allowance', 'Clothes Allowance', Income from
Gardening', ? 'Breakages and Fines' - he was fined for breaking crockeryk
raiding the larder, swearing and whistling and 'passing wind' at table,
and for staying in the lavatory for more than seven minutes at a 'sitting'.
"There was a first-class row last week," Dick went on. "I totted
up the old boy's assets on a piece of paper, to see what I'dget when he
passéd beyond. ! I wrote 'King Arthur's Assets' at the top, then made
two colums, one for his assets and another for his likely debts and
taxes. And he found it! I went down there for lunch and left it on the
coffee table. He nearly had a fit!"
"It must have been quite a shock," Granville said.
"Well, that's the way he thinks, in debit and credit columns!
He's done that all his life. For every hundred quid he's spent on me
he's thought of getting back a hundred quidsworth of filial duty plus a
five-percent divident. I don't think that man's dâne a single clean
act off the balance-sheet in his life!"
Granville asked him if he hated him and to his surprise Dick said,
"No, he's an amusing old stick! And he takes after me so much! Really,
he quite liked me totting up his assets, it's just the sort of thing
he'd do himself!"
Lady Godiva had never liked cutting Dick off like that. She
tried to persuade King Arthur to put him back 'ôn half-pay', but he


wouldn't hear of it. She said the advantage of having Dick on an
allowance was that it got him down to Harrow once a month to pick it up,
whereas now he hardly came at all. Half the allowance would get him
there 'bi-monthly', at least. But King Arthur said no, not since Dick
had become a 'bedouin', meaning he lived with Hanni.
And Lady Godiva said to Dick one day with a smile, "Iou know,
you're 80 easy to deal with -'if only your father knew -- because
you're completely selfish, like me!"


CHAPTER 24.
As a gesture to Pinkie, so that she shouldn't feel the sting
of Granville's having a lover, even an imaginary one, Dick arranged an
evening for them all at the New Studio club shere she could meet some
of the people she'd been hearing about. Hanni had been laying it on
thick, and Pinkie had an impression of the Kaaba dancing group as a bunch
of whores, drug-addicts and Moroccan playboys - something really
enchanting and 'dreamy'. They would make her feel 'ordinary' and
'English' with their dusky skins and deep, black, wild eyes that' went
right through you.
They were all to see the Kaaba performance at the club, then have
drinks in the bar afterwards. Granville felt very embarrassed at the
idea of facing the hair-girl and Pinkie together. He asked Dick why
the hell he'd done this and he replied 'to leaven life up a bit, baker!*
To his surprise he later heard that Glenning was going to be there
as well; and when he next saw Glenning he heard another surprise -- that
the whole evening had been organised by Grove! Take that! Grove was
the Kaaba company's publicity man!
Granville had the impression that Dick had acted as a cover for
Grove, or for Pinkie (the problem had been how to get Pinkie there when
Granville, as the hair-girl's friend, might also turn up - so let Dick
invite her openly, as a gesture, and so forth(; or that Hanni had
persuaded him to do so, after a cuè from Pinkie; or that they had all


concerted the plan. But as to why they should want to escaped him.
A trace of the old trembling began in him, but it was the slightest
fluttering which ceased almost at once; he was hardened, he felt; it
increased his apprehensions about the evening, and therefore his excitement.
When the evening came he drank. half a bottle of wine beforehand, flushed down
with brandy.
The man known as 'Joe Clockwork' was there. Granville was
introduced to him but forgot his real' name at once in favour of the
nickname which they used almost every day at the house. He had a flat,
sallow face with staring eyes that settled slowly on things, and large
ears, with. bigger shoulders than. one would have expected from the rest
of his body, which was slight and even frail; he moved with a strange
heaviness as well, though he wasn't heavy ofllimb; he lingered at everything,
dwelling on it slowly with his eyes, and turning round after a long delay
when someone spoke to him. Pinkie described him as 'Hanni's show-piece';
he was designed to 'off-set' the pale girl. The pale girl was there,
with Dick (breathing all over her', in Pinkie's words, his hand resting
on the wall behind her with his glass almost pushed into her neck; but she
seemed placid and even thrilled.
Pinkie was in a defiant frame of mind, and ordered herself a
double brandy the moment she got there; she put it back with her eyes
closed, because she hated all drink, and ordered another. Grove was
nowhere to be seen.
There had been quite an unusual bustle in the house that evening;
Hanni had come over with a dress to iron, her hair done up in a chignon;
Dick got off from work early; the bathroom was hot and misty, with scent
in' - the air; it was exciting; with all the lights glowing in the house and


the four of them rushing to and fro looking for collar-studs, hair-grips,
links, nail-polish, and taking a sip of wine or brandy from the bottles
in the kitchen.
The performance was a great success, and every seat in the tiny
thea tre was taken; the New Studio was off Cambridge Circus, over some
shops, and the long window of its bar overlooked the street; it was a
comfortable, plushy place which according to Dick had been used for
'naughty shows'. in the nineties. ' Not that the performance was good;
but the audience thrilled to the dark skins the moment the curtain went up.
Joy Celeste tried to make the opposite effect to darkness by
painting her skin a light yellow and holding in her lips to avoid the
'nigger-look'. Her hair-dance was the triumph of the evening and there
was long clapping for an encore, which she refused to give. The chorus
bumped into' each other and danced mechanically, their eyes all over the
place; but the audience loved it; Dick nudged Granville all the way
through, winking at him in the darkness; Pinkie, on the other side, was
enthralled and sat there with her chin sticking out as if the ungainly
people on the stage were vindicating a certain wild attitude to life for
her; ahe asked Dick in the interval if they and their dances were
'straight out of the village', and Dick spluttered with laughter - he
said he was astonished at her haivety, they were all more likely 'out of
Pimlico by Billingsgate'! During the hair-dance she leaned over to
Dick in the darkness, with Granville between them, and said in a loud
voice, her eyes fluttering and an abashed but defiant pout on her lips.
"Is this the girl Pip's lost his heart to?" Dick said softly "I think
that about squares the matter off, yes," to which she had nothing to say.
She only leaned back reflectively. The hair-girl appeared to impress


her in a dark way. But at the end of the dance, during the wild
clapping, she qualified this by saying loudly to Dick, "She'd be quite
attractive if she ate a. square meal, wouldn't she?"
The scene on the stage was garish, hung with straw and papier-
mache fruit, showing a golden beach with palm-trees and mud huts. It
was like a pantomime scene from Robinson Crusoe. There was shouting
and frenzied drum-beating, and the audience clapped and roared at
everything. The posters had advertised the 'real Arab dance and
Dervishes'.
Nearly every one of the dances was fast and loud. If a
dance began slowly it had to go up to a deafening crescendo. It was a
tiny stage, making it difficult for all the chorus to appear at once.
Dick said he heard, "Get off my f--- toes!" resound across the stage.
Sweat was pouring down the drummer's face and dripping on to his hands,
while the pianist sat cool and clerkly in a striped blue suit, glancing
up at the stage every few moments. When the curtain went down after
one dance he heard someone sitting behind them say, "They're so extra-
ordinarily vital, aren't they?
The curtain stuck and pieces of palm-tree drifted down as the
dancers pushed and sweated past each other and tripped up like elephants,.
while the music got louder and louder and seemed to lose all rhythm.
Only the hair-girl was remarkable. There was a real ferocity in her
dance, and again he found himself catching his breath for fear her head
would go flying off. And the. leader of the troupe pranced round her in
an ineffectual way as he'd done in the rehearsal, only with a sheepish
expression now, as if the revolving of the black head underneath him was
a surprise a - a social surprise. Someone's dress ripped with a loud
tearing noise - in the chorus. The hàiry arm of one of the stagehands


was visible for a moment, trying to mend it. Only the hair-girl could
have compared with the plump, lazy dancers of Basrah. The audience
applauded madly, stamping the floor. There was a political element in
this: the Rubath crisis had not long been over -e they were applauding
Arab life in general.
The hair-girl came out to the bar afterwards where everyone was
assembled. She was in a hard mood and talked at the top of her voice,
looking small and shrivelled, with very pale cheeks, her high cheek-bones
sticking out more than he'd noticed beforet and she had a short girlish
frock on which iade her look fourteen or so. There was quite a crush
in the bar. The club had a number of important sponsors, Dick told him,
and some of the drinks were on the house. A man with shining bags under
his eyes and thin, yellow hair, his neck flushed bright scarlet, got up
on a chair and said that the management would like to offer a free drink
to everyone 'in the selfish and calculated hope' that they would all
become members of the club.
To his astonishment, Granville saw Deryk Grysham neat the bar,
and they all greeted each other. Deryk was most polite, bobbing up and
down as he took Pinkie's hand,. and singing out, "Hullo!", his shoulders
hunched a little. And, "How nice to see you again, Philip!" he cried.
Granville asked after Beatrice and in return for this Deryk asked him
when his leave would be over - but there was B0 much noise near the bar
that he didn't answer, not that he knew the answer anyway. People were
pressing forward for their free drinks, in a gentle way, easing and
leaning themselves against each other, smiling and making jokes. There
was scent, the smell of hair-oil, smoke, brandy on the air. Most of
them were good-looking, with clear faces, the dress was casual and yet


vivid and deliberate, the girls in tight trousers and the young men with
ascots, fancy shirts, Italian-style suits. There was a strange, unfleshly
atmosphere: there was sex - in people's glances - in the vibrant
pallor of some of the girl's faces - but it was detached, odourless,
like a memory, a thought, enticing, brilliant - but almost vanishing.
It was a long, pleasant room with settees the length of. one wall
and à few armchairs, with tall potted plants, behind one of which Dick
had taken his pale girl - she'd got the evening off from the Marquis
specially for him. There was the sound of traffic outside, and a constant
twinkling and glowing of lights from the street. At a distance 'Joe
Clockwork' looked erect and striking; he had a strange presence; Pinkie
said she'd heard he was a 'chronic snob', and he used Hanni by showing
her off at parties as 'exotic'. There was a lingering softness in
Clockwork's manner of addressing people, and in the slow way his eyes
fell on to objects, but his neck and shoulders seemed too thick for this
delicate manner to be natural. His eyes were deep in his head, dark
and unblinking, and without their deliberate softness of expression they
would have been relentless. Suddenly Clockwork lifted his head and
made a brief, high-pitched laugh like a scream, then his face was serious
again; he was talking to Hanni, and she was smiling calmly, having just
said something. When they were all introduced Clockwork took Pinkie's
hand very briefly, with no grip at all, touching only her first two
fingers, and smiled in a bland way, seeming not to look at her at allk 80
soft was his gaze; but then, quickly so as to be hardly noticed, he gave
her a quick, flashing glance of scrutiny; and once more the bland,
leisurely smile was on his face. He turned his attentions to Hanni again,
and put his arm round her shoulder; "darling, angel, 11 he murmured, but


with a curious heavy remoteness from her, and a gaucheness of limbs that
was miraculously hidden by his softness. This softness set up a strange
dramatic contradiction: sometimes in profile his face looked rapt and
shadowy, unnaturally still like an image in the desert.
Pinkie said that the high-pitched laugh, which Clockwork repeated
several times, making everyone look. round, was his 'social speciality';
he did it to mark himself out from other people, but he never did it
more than a set number of times on any occasion; for a brief appearance
at a cocktail party he rarely did it more than once, with perhaps,a
parting one at the door; for a long party there would be five or six,
louder as people drank more; at a dinner-party he kept it for the dessert;
it was meant to show everybody that something very special was going on in
his corner.
Dick went on talking to the pale girl behind the potted plant,
leaning towards her, seeming to elect her the only person in the room;
his eyes were clear and twinkling; he treated every one else casually,
as if the evening had only one purpose for him.
A few people began to do some silly dancing in the middle of the
room,. to no music, while onlookers beat out a rhythm with their feet;
three or four couples started it, and Clockwork and Hanni joined them,
leaning against each other while keeping their hands at their sides; they
moved slightly, their eyes closed, and Clockwork kissed her lightly on
the brow once or twice; this performance seemed a strain to her, she was
steeling herself to, it and keeping her eyes closed, her lips pursed in
a tell-tale way, showing how the display hurt her. But Clockwork was
untroubled, and when he opened his eyes, gazing at the people round him,
it was with a drowsy expression, as if he 'd really been asleep. Pinkie,


gazing across at him, said she thought he was 'adorable' and she
appreciated Hanni's taste.
Suddenly the hair-girl was standing in front of them, clasping
a black hand-bag!
"Is this your wife?" she asked him.
Granville nodded and smiled. Luckily he was thick with drink!
The hair-girl put out her hand to Pinkie with, "Well, I believe I've'been
to one of your parties!"
She gazed up at Pinkie in an intrigued :manner, her hardness gone;
and she glanced at Granville as if to assess his relation to her.
Pinkie was like a little girl for a moment: "Oh, we were all a
bit confused that night, weren't we?"
"Well, that was certainly a nice party!" And she continued to
gaze. Then she turned to a man standing near them and said in an
unpleasant way, "Why don't you tell me how I danced?"
He was a man with very pale eyes, flickering and sensitive, and a
creased face. "You danced ghastly!" he said in a husky voice and
abruptly turned away.
"Shit-pot!" she replied and. then gave a clapping laugh before
walking off without another glance at any of them.
Pinkie looked a bit frozen; her lips were drawn tight together and
she had the 'patrician' air.
"Most personable!" she said quietly, folloving the hair-girl
across the room with her eyes.
Granville laughed and said she deserved another drink for that,
and ordered more double brandy. That put Pinkie. in a good mood again,
and later Hanni came up to her and said that 'the Moroccan girl with the


green door-knobs on her shoulders' had said in a loud voice to somebody
near her that 'Granville had a lovely wife.(
Glenning stayed with Pinkie most of the time. drinking quietly;
he said he wasn't fit for a party, having dispepsia; when Pinkie asked
him if 'old Clockwork' was 'out of the top drawer' he said, "Not at all,
you lovely person! He's the son of a retired preparatory school teacher
in Shepherd's Bush." But he added afterwards, "Well, he ought to be,
anyway!"
When they got home Granville rushed to the lavatory and vomited;
he came out again with his eyes watering, and Pinkie made a cup of tea;
he told her he'd mixed his drinks. Hanni was also there. A crisis had
come about just as they were leaving the theatre. An argument had started
at the bar between Dick and Deryk Grysham of all people; Granville wasn't
even aware that they knew each other.. But Pinkie said that Dick had
been interested in a girl at Deryk's school - that was while Granville
was in Basrah - a she used to keep a pair of stiletto-heeled shoes in her
satchel - and that was howiDick and Deryk had met. Anyway, Dick took
Deryk aside, to the window where the lights flashed and blinked, and they
stood there talking quietly together; the pale girl had disappeared by
that time. Granville had never seen Dick abandon a girl for a man before
it must be something serious!
Pinkie, Hanni and Granville had gone off in a taxi, leaving Dick
and Grysham still at it. Dick said he'd walk back.
In the taxi Pinkie asked Hanni what Dick had been so mysterious
about. Hanni looked tired as he'd never seén her before, and she answered
Pinkie in a crisp way, "I haven't the faintest idea." She gazed out of


the . taxi-window, smoking, a reflective, narrow gaze in her eyes; there
was an atmosphere of irritation that might burst.
"Doesn't your husband tell you anything about himself, ever?"
Pinkie asked her defiantly, looking the other way, her eyes haughty.
Hanni flickered a little and then said quietly, her eyes narrowed
still further, "Oh, he does." She was frightened of Pinkie in this mood,
and Granville thought he saw oné of her fingers tremble ever so slightly
as she moved her cigarette up to her mouth, concentrating everything on
her poise, still looking out of the window.
"And what was the trouble with your boyfriend?"
"What boyfriend?" Hanni.shivered slightly.
"Tom." Apparently, this was Clockwork. "Why did .he go off
like that?"
"Why shouldn't he?"
"I thought he was coming back with us?"
"He had to go to another party."
"I think he's a bastard!"
"Why?" Hanni asked, erect and dark.
"Did he really make that remark?"
"What remark?"
"That he didn't feel comfortable in our house until he knew I
was a Grysham?"
"I don't know!" Up went Hanni's hand again with her cigarette,
trembling.
"He told you; anyway, you ought to!"
"Well," Hanni replied quietly, "you've said yourself he's a snob,
so what's the argument?"


Hanni's strength returned as the taxi approached Chaworth Roàd.
"I think you're annoyed, Pinkie," she said in a level voice, stubbing out
her cigarette in a little tray on. the door, "because you didn't have your
boyfriend there tonight!"
Effective! Pinkie looked quite defenseless for a moment and
said, lifting her chin up, "Oh, really?"
Hanni got out of the taxi in a remarkably cool way, and smiled
at him; and she murmured to Pinkie, as they went up the stairs, "Now, then,
it's all over now, there's no need to get rattled." Pinkie was calmed
by this like a child, then Granville promptly went and vomited.
Dick came back after an hour and said he'd been having 'a little
business-chat' with Grysham; as Grysham wasn't in business this was
unlikely. It was about two in the morning with a clear, star-lit sky,
when they went to bed. He stretched, feeling a pleasant drowsiness from
the drinks and his subsequent disposal of them; Dick and Hanni were sleeping
upstairs again, but this time there was silence.
The following day Pinkie found out from Hanni, by inviting her to
a slap-up tea in Soho, what had passed between Grysham and Dick: surprises
were accumulating -- Granville found their subject was himself!
Dick had heard a remark Grysham made - a few days before to Glenning,
that he'd always thought that Pinkie's marriage 'would go wrong' for the
simple reason that shé'd 'married beneath her'; Granville couldn't
provide her with the life her upbringing had led her to expect - which,
despite the 'chip on her shoulder', she deserved; also, a social equal
would have got rid of her chip. This incensed Dick s0 much that he
couldn't work all day after he'd heard it: and when Granville heard this


he quivered with gratitude; what a wonderful friend to have; Dick had
also managed, through Glenning, to get Grysham invited to the New Studio,
for the sole purpose of having it out with him!
Grysham's remark made little impression on Granville, to his own
surprise; he only coolly took stock of the fact that Deryk was. perhaps a
shyster.
Apparently, Dick and Grysham had paced up and down the Charing.
Cross Road for half-an-hour or more, Grysham denying that he'd ever sàid
such a thing, saying he had the greatest liking for 'philip' - this,
Dick told Hanni, was of all strange contradictions probably true. But
1 Deryk hadn't come clean, though he'd shown the 'white flag' immediately.
Pinkie recounted all this in an abstract way as if it concerned
neit ther' of them; other Gryshams hadn't the power to hurt her' - they
were only aimusing figures of caricature.
Pinkie asked him question after question about the hair-girl: was
she literate? where did she come from? what was her real name? She
assumed total intimacy between them; her éyes fluttered and she looked
downcast and excited. He could feel her steeling herself to ask him
whether they'd slept together but she couldn't do it; he thought this was
a good opportunity to broach the subject of Grove, but neither could he
do. that!
Hanni inexplicably asked them if she could stay on a few nights
ionger as she was feeling unwell, and travelling down to Hampton Court
horrified her; she brought her things over as before; it was quite cosy
and Granville celebrated their reunion with more wine.
One morning after Hanni had left for work there was blue water


all over the lavatory floor; like pale ink; the lino was buckled where it
had sunk in, and a pool had formed outside the door; Pinkie knew nothing
about it; the hallway had an unpleasant, acrid smell.
It turned out that Hanni was bringing a child off and had taken
pills that affected the bladder in an alarming way; there was also a blue
stain on the carpet of the room upstairs; she just exploded', she told
Pinkie, and had lost control of her bladder; she rushed down to the
lavatory but it often happened just as she got.t to the door.
Granville was disgruntled; why couldn't she clear the mess up
at least, if she must bring her children off? It opened an old subject
of discord between him and Dick. "She said she would clear it up,"
Pinkie replied quietly. He insisted: why couldn't Hanni have the child.
and stop defying fate? "Search me," was Pinkie's réply, in an equally quiet
voice; "she only thought this was a baby!"
He quoted the annual figures for abortions in France and England,
and left the room; poor Hanni, feeling ill as well, had to avoid his
sharp gaze. She didn't clear the mess up after all; it soaked in further
and further, and stained the ceiling of one of the unused rooms downstairs,
which he and Pinkie intended one day to turn into studies, or perhaps a
nursery; a. puzzling obstinacy had come over Hanni and she never left her
room in the evening, even for the ritual of making coffee or cocoa before
bed which she'd always enjoyed; Dick would come in at bed-time and go
straight up, or he would phone and say he was going down to Hampton Court.
One night he came in very late and there was a big rumpus in the middle
of the night; Pinkie started up in the darkness and shook him awake.
"What the hell's going on?" she whispered. It was the sound of a chair
being dragged acrossathe floory something fell heavily, shaking the whole


house; then the door upstairs opened violently and was slammed closed
again; there was the sound of scuffling and a faint cry.
"They're fighting," she said. "They had a fight when you were
away, too."
"Shall I go up?"
"No, wait a bit!"
It was quiet again, then they heard light footsteps on the stairs;
the bathroom door was opened, and water began flowing in the bath. Pinkie
lay back again: "It seems to be -over." After a time there was the
muffled clang of someone getting into. the bath, and then splashing.
"Who's taking a bath at this time of night?" he asked.
"It must be Hanni. She might have been taken short again."
He was irritated and growled, "The pills haven't sent her crazy
as well, have they?"
A long time passed and they dozed off again; but the noise started
once more, exactly the same; they were awake at once. "I'm getting up,"
Pinkie said; just as she got out'of bed, shivering, the door upstairs
opened and somebody rushed down the stairs again, this time to the
lavatory. Pinkie went out into the hallway and he heard her shout,
"What are you two up to, for God's sake? We want some sleep!" There
was no reply as far as he could hear; he also got up, yawning, and put
one of Pinkie's dressing gowns on. ""There's someone in the lavatory,"
she whispered when he got into the music rooms, the light blinded tham and
they squinted-at each other, shivering. She shouted upstairs again:
"Are you deaf up there?" Whoever it was in the lavatory' hadn't switched
'on the light; "Who's in there?" Pinkie asked, going closer to the door.
Then they heard Hanni's quiet voice, even now trying to sound


balanced: "It's me. - I
"What's been going on?" Pinkie asked her through the door.
"It's that bastard Dick -"
"What did he do?"
"Half a minute!"
The plug was pulled and she came out, also in a dressing gown,
her hair ruffled, a haggard, menacing look on her face; she was sweating
and her skin was sallow, with deep lines round her eyes. She went and
sat down in the music room; "That bastard," she murmured, hugging her
shoulders together, "I could kill him sometimes! Pinkie asked her again
what he'd been up to.
"Oh, I was saying I oughtito have a baby this time and what a
fool I'd been, and he was bloody rude -"
"He said I could have all the babies I wanted if I paid for their
upkeep!" She paused, and the tiniest flicker of emusement passed over
her face, Softening it for a moment. "It was his tone more than anything."
"Why don't you just have a baby and let him get on with it?"
Hanni was recovering little and leaned back, a finer expression
in her eyes; the lines round them were miraculously gone and a look of
tragic rectitude that he'd often seen there before replaced it; she always
gathered her strength again after an attack like this. She murmured
that he was 'so bloody scared of settling down'; and she was fed up.with
living cooped up in a crazy flat miles from London - sometimes she
thought he was really off his head!
There was the sound of someone moving about upstairs quietly
putting things in their place; Dick was always tidy after: a scrap; he


detested things being broken, and always tried to persuade Hanni not to
use objects in her quarrels.
Pinkie asked suddenly if he was 'having a woman' lately, and
Hanni answered almost before her last word was out, "Yes, that's what
the trouble was really about." Dick had come back about two in the
morning stinking of 'Arab', she said; Granville's interest quickened -
which 'Arab'? Hanni said she could always smell *Arab' and so she had
made him go downstairs and have a bath; again the flicker of amusement
passed across her face and then was gone. Pinkie smiled when she
mentioned the bath and murmured, "That's fair enough." Hanni said she
hated 'that bloody Kaaba company performing like a lot of monkeys' and
felt that whoever it was had slept with Dick was 'laughing up her sleeve'
at her. She refused to go back upstairs and Granville went quietly and
made a cup of tea, leaving them to talk; not a sound came from Dick's room.
It was still dark outside and the street lay in silence. On an
impulse he knocked softly on Dick's door and went in; Dick had lit the
gas-fire and was sitting huddled over it in his pyjamas, his hair tussled,
with a pale, grim expression; "Hullo, bo'sun," he said in a whisper, "come
and sit down." He had tidied up rather thoroughly; there was no evidence
: of a scrap except his own hair; only the bed was in a bit of a mess.
Granville bantered with him; what was this about him smelling of
*Arab'? Dick only said, "Cock!" quietly and went on gazing at the fire.
He called Hanni a bitch under his breath and added, "Sometimes when I see
her phiz on the other side of the room I think to myself, you ugly old
cow, how did I ever get strung up with you?"
"I hear she gave you a bath," Granville said with a silent laugh.
There was another pause and a smile came into Dick's face: "Yes,


cold water, too."
They sat for a time in silence; the whole city lay in stillness.
Dick began talking, gazing at the fire all the time; he said that 'next
time' he'd stay the night; in fact, he'd stay the night tomorrow night;
also-'she' gave him eggs and a thick rasher of bacon for breakfast, which
was more than 'this bitch' did. Granville was dying to ask who 'she' was
but didn't want to deflect him; and after a few moments Dick looked up
and said, "Arab, my arse! * That girl smells of violets, if violets smell!y
There was another pause and finally Dick said he'd 'made it' with
the pale girl, and she'd been : 'like uncovering a marvellous garden'; he'd
spent the first. two hours - just contemplating' her body; there was nothing
on earth like it; he hated white skins normàlly and always went for 'the
dusky ones' but, by God, she'd got them all heat by a furlong or more in
'nature's Derby'; her body was an 'expanse', that was all he could say,
and he could happily 'wander all over her' for a day, a week, a year, with
eggs and bacon in the morning! He then looked up and said, "It's good
to see you, Pip." And he added, "I say, I'm sorry about tonight -
you must. be whacked!"
Granville said it was all right, it made a change, and he'd put
the kettle on for some tea; would he like some? To which Dick replied
that he thought it would 'pull him round' nicely.
Later, as dawn was just beginning to appear over the roofs, Dick
told him, "After all, she's got a lover."
He asked, "Who?"
to make sure. o
"Hanni," Dick said, misunderstanding his question; then he said
that on second thoughts he didn 't think s0.' There was a frown on his
face and he was thinking hard, staring into the white bars of the gas-fire.


Hanni suddenly appeared at the door, still and collected, the
trace of sweat on her nose, and said in a flat voice without looking at
Dick, "I'd like to go to bed." Dick didn't look up and Granville, with
a murmured, "Good night", left. the room; "Good night, Pip," he heard her
say, behind him. Pinkie was already asleep.
Dick was as good as his word and didn't appear next evening; not
had he come in by dawn; Hanni was mute and drawn-in when she left for work.
Her blue-water attacks stopped.
Then Dick appeared thé following day in the evening, with a huge
bunch of flowers, and after an hour or so in the room upstairs they went
off together, Hanni in the same evening gown she'd worn at the New Studio;
Pinkie said they'd gone to a night-club. That was the end of that!
He and Pinkie were together a lot that week; this was due partly
to "his new status in her eyes, and partly to the fact that he'd done the
report and she knew he must now leave. She took him to a jazz-club. she'd
heard about in Islington; it was full of youths from the working districts
all round; and quite a private affair. Everybody weemed to know each other;
and he noticed that people weren't afraid of smiling gently - - of being
soft. He noticed that very strongly - - it was a quiet little blow.
Their clothes were bright and graceful, the girls in tights and long
jumpers, their hair done up in ribbons at the back, the boys in velvet
jackets, heavily-striped shirts, cravats, some with their hair very long,
draping over the back of their-collars, others with it short, hardly more
than a bristle. He and Pinkie sat close together, dancing sometimes;
to his surprise she put her hand in his. One of the youths came up and
asked them with a smile if they'd like to join -- the club was after new


members. Granville felt inexplicably tired; he said he'd like to join
very much and got up to sign the book; five shillings forheach of them
had to be paid. Membership would help to make him feel that his life
was full and varied, that it didn't rise and 'fall by Pinkie alone - - he
would come to this club alone. The room felt so safe. There were no
hard men'tal battles here; Pinkie was quiet, close to him even with hèr
body, in a gay print dress. If only he could get away from those other
people
they were so frightening with their eyes that noticed every-
thing! Why couldn't they dream more, be soft?
But who were these 'other people'? People like himself! The
youth at the door, when they signed the book and got their cards,
murmured to them in a confidential way, smiling at him, "Two new 'uns?
That's the style!" It was quite a small room, perhaps a billiard room
once, with tall Victorian windows overlooking a grimy brick wall; but
seen from this room, in this company, that grimy wall wasn't depressing;
it had an intimate look, there was a certain distorted sweetness in its
grime.
They strolled. back home about ten o'clock, while it was still
light, and he had an insight for the first time, feeling her hip move
close to his, into what a life of quiet trust would be like. How much
longer would he bear it? He even raised his eyes to the sky as they
walked along; the foolish idea entered his head that this life of quiet
. trust had actually started this evening; it was in her - she was fresh
and clear-looking: But the moment they got back inside the house she
was separate again, lost to him; he had hoped they would go to bed at
once and complete this new trust with their bodies, but she didn't seem
to know what he meant; she made the cocoa, rang up Hanni in Hampton Court


to see how she was, then went to bed, and fell asleep at once.
But there was a difference of behaviour in her, he thought; she
hardly went out alone now. Where was Grove? Had the child made a
difference? She was content with him; her flesh was slowly changing
with the child, drawing her to him no matter what her will said; her
breasts were bigger, also her hips; the softness was being forced on her
from the outside: Was this, too, a reward for the night of the eclipse?
'You see', he told himself, 'if you live towards peace, only try to, an
answer comes eventually."
Hanni looked pale and thinner; also she hardly spoke. Then
Pinkie was with her a whole morning, one' Saturday, with the kitchen-door
closed tight, and it turned out that the blue medicine .hadn 't worked
and that she'd have to have a proper abortion. One had to go to a
psychologist and get him to give you a certificate saying you were
mentally unfit to bear children, then a doctor would do it for you O.K.
It was as easy as winking and 'everyone' did it these days; Dick had a
doctor-friend he'd been at school with, who would manage everything.
But it cost quite a bit of, money; all her savings would go on it, in fact.
'One had to rest for a day afterwards, that was all, one lost quite a bit:
of blood; a girl at the office said it made it difficult having a child
afterwards if you wanted one
sometimes impossible, but Dick's doctor
friend pooh-poohed the idea.
Hanni had a washed-put, stale look; her breasts had sunk, while
all the time Pinkie was growing softer and healthier. Hanni implored.
Pinkie not to teil Granville about it because of his 'moralising', but
she did; he said you only had to look at them both and compare them to


see where abortions led people!
"Wouldn't you like to have a baby?" Pinkie asked her. Hanni's
answer came in a barely controlled voice,.' "Yes, but it's the last thing
I should want at the moment!"
Dick had christened the child 'Tomb', apparently; he said with
a twinkling smile' to Pinkie without seeming to realise the macabre element,
"Yes, if only we'd been able to. affort young Tomb who knows where the
little fellow wouldn't have been today?"
But then, after another day, it was found that the blue medicine
had indeed worked; so the ugly business wasn't necessary.
He told Dick he'd finished the report, and it was ready to hand in.
"I thought I'd take it to Nevinson myself," he added.
"Yes, why don't you?". Dick replied in a non-committal way.
"Do you think I could ask him about the Beirut office outright?"
Granville went on. It occurred to him that she could have the child in
Beirut quite comfortably; there were good hospitals there, and it was
cooler.
Dick didn't understand this at first. "What do you mean, old
sport?" he asked, gazing at him with his light blue eyes, blinking.
"Well, just tell him outright that I'd like the Beirut office
and that I think I'm up to the work!"
There was a pause and Dick looked down at the floor, biting his
lip: "I wouldn't if I were you." He looked up again. "You've got to
let thuse things ride a bit. It's no good trying to push them. In any
case,' " he added, "I don't. think Nevinson's the man to be pushed. And he
might think, who is this chap trying to teach me my job?"
It was clear he was thinking carefully about every word he said;


it gave. his eyes little pin-points of light; Granville felt he might
have something up his sleeve. 'What does he know?' he asked himself.
He felt dead of heart all of a sudden. Clearly, he wasn't going to
get the Beirut office! In fact, they might be cooking up something
unpleasant for him
his removal to -an even smaller post, now he'd
built up Basrah! A better-cut fellow would take his place; he dropped
the subject at once, simply nodding his dea.
That evening Pinkie told him she couldn't bear the idea of going
back to Basrah.
"Why not?"
"Well " She was sitting on the divan, her shoes off and her
skirt crumpled under her. "I think it's going to be awful with a child
inside me out there --!"
"But it'll be winter most of the time. It won 't be any warmer
than here."
"I 'know, but it's such a ghastly place!"
"But you said you liked it."
"Yes, I did, but I'll be even more a prisoner than I was before,
with a child inside me, won' 't I?"
There was no question of her coming; behind her gaze there was
sométhing quite still and final. It was now three or four days to the
end. of his leave.
Then an idea occurred to him and he felt as gay as a child. He
could have danced round the .room. He would resign his place in Basrah!
He realised he never had intended to go back; he felt idle and pale -
frivolous; he'd grown to like London; there was even a melancholy pleasure
to be had in this city - - from the pain it inflicted. 'I like London!"


he thought foolishly.
Was it possible? No, of course not! Of' course he'd be going
back to Basrah!
But the idea stuck. He was astonished. Could he renounce his
whole life all his training
like that? He could! He found
himself perfectly willing!
Where would the money come from? He didn't know. That was the
beauty of it! He'd throw up his ambitions! There was some back-pay due,
and they'd have to pay off his super-annuation, since he wasn't breaking his
contract - - it had simply expired; and that would keep him going for a
time! It was all very well, this thinking about Christ and surrender
and all that sort of thing, but while he kept himself well-padded with a
job it.couldn't mean very much! L Now he was going to live by it! He
was going to submit himself to all the accidents of life! In a word,
he'd givé up being middle-class; wasn 't' that it? He'd close his mind to
all schemes from now on. Life would just flow through him.
And so he deliberately didn't think about it any more. It seemed
to him only a half-decision but still he refused to let himself think it
out. He let it ride, in Dick's phrase; he did s0 for a further two days
but it didn't make any difference. He only knew dumbly that he wouldn't
be leaving London; he couldn't conceive travelling to Basrah; he, as a
choosing and deciding agent, didn't exist.
He put his neatly-typed report in an envelope and enclosed a brief
letter to Nevinson saying that he would like to offer his resignation.
He didn't ask for another job at the head office; the thing mustn't be
cluttered up with words; he explained that his wife was having a child
and he felt he ought to stay with her. That was all. Nevinson would


think him soft in the.h head but he derived a satisfaction from that!
He'd renounced all ambition. It was so easy now he'd done it! He felt
so light and clean! He phoned his mother and talked gaily with her for
nearly half an hour; the house looked wonderful; he didn't say a word to
the others, and a stillness came. over him which was strangely like
complacency, Sometimes he stopped short in amazeinent at what he'd done,
but he always put it out of his mind.
One day he returned home from his walk early, because Pinkie was
getting the afternoon off, and to his surprise, when he walked into the
music-room, he saw Dick awinging in a chair 'by the bedroom-door.
Delightful! He took a jump across the room and, pointing a finger at
him in a burlesque way, said, "Why aren't you at work, answer me!" But,
to his further surprise, Dick didn't smile but looked abashed as if he'd-
really been accused of something, and then murmured, "All right, there,
bo'sun", in a quiet voice, and returned to the book on his lap. There
was a stir of nervousness in Granville, and he went on into the bedroom.
The door wasn't quite closed. And there was Pinkie combing her hair in
front of the mirror, sitting in a straight-backed chair, completely naked.
She made a marvellous picture. Her skin was a gentle pale-olive
colour, quite unblemished, with a dazzling bounty and richness which she
seemed to be aware of, reflecting on her image in a soft, drowsy, pagan
mood of good will. He was amazed at how lovely nakedness could be!
It presented a complete picture. She didn't turn round to look at him,
but continued gazing drowsily into the mirror. Awe was roused in him, and
a certain timidity, confronted by this marvellous ease and natural power.
Nothing wrong was suggested. The picture was so complete! He almost


tiptoed across the room to the chest of drawers, and fiddled about there
appearing to look for something. And he glanced at her again, from behind.
She had such an extraordinary air of seeming queen of herself, the
dovereign of a lovely, mellow island! He didn't connect her state with
Dick outside. There was clearly so little fear or deceit in her, at
that moment. He went next door again and sat reading like Dick, and
later the three of them had coffee together upstairs.
Only a few days later did he begin asking himself why Dick had
been there. And the door had been slightly open. And what a strange
position for à chair, immediately outside a door. Had Dick been peeping
at her? But with her knowledge? - With the door half open between them?
Talking perhaps about other things, while she sat naked, nonchalant -
and he devoured her with his eyes? both of them thrilled by this share
nonchalant disregard for her nakedness, talking perhpas about the Kaaba
dancing company, or the office, while the real, tempting, raw, voluptuous
subject lay between them? ancabsolute defiance of precedent that was more
thrilling than love itself? Granville was thrilled, too! It was only
one of many strange recent events he couldn't understand and daren't
mention. Perhaps Dick had asked to watch her - only watch! ai-- come
on, old girl, be a sport! - since he couldn't have her
let him only
watch the rich bosom that had lurked so often behind a blouse, so often
daunted him! Suppose it was that? What was the truth? He didn't know!
How would he ever decipher these friends? 1
The thought continued to thrill him. That nakedness - such an
expansive gesture! Yet behind it wasn't love. He felt that if there
had been love -- - if love had joined him and Dick and Pinkie and Hanni
together, even to nakedness
the thrill would have been complete; it


would have been less throbbing, less painful - less ecstatically painful,
but it would have contained them in,one fierce glow, and gone beyond their
tiny selves! But this didn't. Pinkie and Dick had been in possession
of themselves, separate, and that was why it hadn't been love; only an
aching concern, that depended on silences, glances, subterfuge all the
time! This was what he couldn't bear! The nakedness was bearable, it 4
was marvellous; any grand act of defiance must be appreciated! But not
this locked-in self that peeped out all the time - a city-version of
the pagan! If it had been love the picture would have been the same
nakedness in front of the mirror, Dick swinging on his chair, the door
a little ajar; but there would have been wide-open eyes as well, the same
thrill of sex but there would have been worship as well. And what there
had been, in fact, was hate! He couldn't unfix that idea. There'd been.
something steely- It.wasn't the sex-part that had stirred him strangely
seeing Dick look abashed; the real thrill seemed beyond right and wrong
he had stepped back in wonder seeing Pinkie, and bhe'd remained a naked image
in his mind, qui te separate from his interests, even from his desires -
she lay in herself, niarvellously remote, a law to herself! It was the'
hate-element that made him feel destroyed. Her enjoyment, and Dick's,
seemed to come from destroying an excluding him, as an image; there was
something narrow-eyed in the enjoyment, a quiet squeezing of his throttle.
Or was he dreaming? They' couldn't face him properly. If they had faced
him there would have been a kind of pagan thrill and love between them
all. That was the element missing for him: love: He'd looked for it so
long. And Pinkie thought he was-looking for the convention! She was
so wrapped in herself, she couldn't see him! There was no need for
these plots, the silences and glances! Dick had no need to look ashamed!


They were missing the real thrill, that of love! But, he knew, Dick
couldn't pay the price for that: he had to hold himself apart; that was
Dick's discipline
he was a recluse, he was locked inside his own
desires, these raw, ecstatic yearnings! And Pinkie couldn't have risen
to it, either; she, too, had to turn away, into herself! Only Hanni
could have done it: her shyness was something circumstantial - - it could
be broken down; again, she and Granville were on one side, Pinkie and
Dick on the other. Pinkie and Dick needed this other, lesser, more
painfully thrilling sex. It was their paganism. But it was too
rarified and subtle, not to.say deliberate, to be really pagan; there
couldn't be a lasting glow -- nothing of the awful splendour that Pinkie's
body had suggested - finally, there couldn't be a real thrill, because
no one really gave himself; the conventions had to be kept, finally,
because of the thrill of breaking them!
And underneath there was hate; the self was hated, in its
nakedness, and was only offered to the other person obliquely, with shaded
eyes, in silence, the brain always conscious, never succumbing even to the
thrill itself, except in the terrible last stage of orgasm, that was like
an agony, if it ever came.
Yet there wasn't any evidence of hate in Pinkie or Dick! Hanni
shoved far more! She looked dark sometimes, with something negative
brooding in her. But she had more of a flow of love, for all that, than
the other two. She was only less sweet because of this flow, which
found no rest. A few months before, just aftér his return from Basrah,
he and Pinkie had sat in the bathroom at Hampton Court while Hanni lay in
the vater, naked. He'd forgotten it! That sort of thing was the form
of love! Yes, he'd forgotten it!


Some days. later Pinkie was trying on a: new dress in the music-
room and said to Dick, "Well, how do you like it?" At which Dick
approached her with a deliberate expression, very close, and said, gazing
down at her breasts, "Yes, I like them very much - very much indeed."
And she murmured, with slightly narrowed eyes and a faint smile, "Now,
then, Pollocke.. " Hanni was there, too, and chuckled. Only Granville
was a spectator, silent. And the question suddenly entered his head,
Suppose I'm the one who's preventing a real paganism? Suppose my love
is locked, up no less than theirs?' And he felt powerless, tired, and
forced himself to chuckle, too.
To his surprise, when he and Dick were talking together later
with a bottle of wine between them, sitting on the bed, he found that,
far from being a pagan, Dick favoured the conventions in the simplest way.
Granville asked him suddenly, "What would you do if you found Hanni
sleeping with another man?" And Dick answered at once, "Walk straight,
out and never come back again."


CHAPTER 25
As quickly as the panic was off about Hanni's. child it' was on
again: the blue medicine hadn't worked, and she was already in the
'operating room'
down at Hampton Court
when he heard about it
from Pinkie. The operation was a success and Dick had to attend her
all night with hot water and swabs, after the doctor had left; again
Granville was supposed not to know, and Pinkie bound him to secrecy.
Dick rang her up to say that Hanni was doing well. 'Tomb' was really:
done for this time.
Then Hanni was on her feet again. She took a week off from the
office and began coming to the house nearly every day; she sat with him
in the kitchen and sometimes they went for walks together by the river,
near London Bridge; she said she didn't want to see anyone else, only
him and Pinkie; she 'd had a bad 'stomach-upset', she told him, perhsps
from the wine; but at the same time she appeared to realise that he knew
and was quite relieved that this was so..
The newspapers had promised correctly: the weather was now dark
and windy, tith an unpleasant bitein the air, and clouds lay in a thick
blinding mass over the roof-tops. One their walks he took Hanni's arm
protectively: the life was knocked out of her; she looked limp and
frozen; the comparison with Pinkie was extraordinary - e between a
withered flower and a rich, swelling fruit. But very slowly Hanni was
taking strength again; there was a staleness round her, something cut short


and stunned; she hadn't the confidence of her body and walked awkwardly;
she looked round her with a hesitating, blinking glance, trying to
marshal her old steadiness. But bit by bit the dignity returned to her
face; Pinkie said she'd burst into tears one evening and couldn't tell
her why. Dick called for her every day and took her down to Hampton
Court; he was quiet and serious, and brought her little presents. She
told Granville during one. of their walks that Clockwork, who was also
called 'Virginia Creepers' because of the soft way he 'loped along' and
because he always told women he was a virgin, was in love with her, but
he was 'homosexual at heart'; she said homosexuality was fashionable
these days among young men; it provided a cover under which to get women
without 'the direct male approach' ', it was a good excuse if 'you couldn 't
make love properly'. She said Clockwork was a boy really, a quite simple
person underneath, and a masturbater; she was the 'nursemaid' who would
bring him to manhood; there were 'worse jobe' she added in a sad way.
She spoke with a tired, melancholy flatness. She was fed up with every-
thing, she said, especially sex; she wanted a long holiday somewhere
sunny; she even wouldn't mind going back to Kurdistan for a bit; she could
go to see her mother in Beirut but hadn't the money; she'd come a long
way in life, it seemed, for a lot of 'dirt and corrumption'.
And one day in the kitchen, talking in a way that sounded like
an apology to him, she said she was frightened of 'vehement men', and
Clockwork was the opposite of vehement, which was perhaps why she liked
him. Granville asked why she was frightened and she replied she felt
they were always 'giving way to something'. There was a pause and she
smoked at her cigarette with pursed lips, her eyes narrowed against the
smoke in her characteristic way that had become for him a sign of long,


quiet talks; he felt he'd watched those eyes, flickering gently against
the smoke," while she took pause for her. next sentence, that was always
strangely muffled and reminiscent, for hours and days in the last three
months. "I don't understand that," he murmured after a time, feeling out
her position. She said that surely if everybody 'let themselves go'
there'd be chaos? He asked why letting oneself go meant chaos. She
thought it didn't mean chaos. necessarily, but a 'lot of nastiness' came
up from 'underneath'; she looked at him with raised eyebrows for a
moment, seeming to ask for confirmation. He said she must believe
people were nasty underneath; did she think that? She wouldn't say yes
or. no; she put the question back to him; what did he think? And he said,
"No"! She was silent, thinking it over.
"How do you feel?" he asked her.
"Rather awful!"
He remembered just. in time that he wasn't supposed to know the
cause; so he tried to go on talking. What would she rather havé in a
man, vehemence or cruelty? But she was silent again; he asked, would
she rather have feelings *come out' or 'stay brooding inside'?. She
replied that she thought 'brooding inside' was' better, and he was just
about to make an exclamation of. surprise when she silently burst into
'tears, sitting quite still, without putting her hand up to her face,
making not a sound. He got up and said, "Come on, let's go for a walk."
She followed him helplessly while he got her coat and put it round her
shoulders, and she dried her eyes before they got down to the street;
after an hour or so, during which they were mostly silent, she was all
right again and even timidly and shyly gay.
There was no reply from Nevinson so far, and Dick gave no sign


that he knew anything about it. The letter must have arrived, as he'd
registered it. He thought it was strange but it fitted in with the
dreamy and broken quality of the rest of his life now. Pinkie looked
at him searchingly one evening when she came in and asked, "What about
your ticket back?" He ought to have been gone three or four days
before:
"Oh, yes," he said, turning away from her, "I must see about that!"
he added, to waylay her suspicions, "I might hang on here for a week.
They wouldn't mind. I've got a lot of things to hammer out with
Nevinson before I go."
This seemed to satisfy her; she was the easiest person in the
world to lie to!
"Won't you miss me?" he asked in a sudden gay mood.
"Of course I'll miss you," she said defensively, "but if you've
got to go back you've got to, haven't. you?"
He laughed. "Well, that's true enough!"
He took long walks again, full of a sense of being unseen and
sécret, because no one knew what. he was up to. Everything looked new to
him - Westminster Abbey locked more fascinating than ever before; its
vast shadow loomed in the darkness - some of his walks were in the dead
of night, after the buses had stopped
and its walls seemed to topple
down soundlessly towards you if you stood under them. It was like
touching the past - - all the shops and roads near by, and the lamplights,
disappeared, and there was only the giant mediaefal church standing alone
in its lawn, and all the noise of London was nothing to it. The square
in front was usually. deserted when he walked through it, with lights
shining between the trees like those of an elegant garden during a fete;


he could see Big Ben, its. clock shining like a harvest moon; but he was
mostly aware of the silence of the Abbey.
'I'll really live in England,' he thought, 'I'll look at it all,
I'll study it, I won't just let all this history stand behind me, I'll
run my fingers through it like through gold: - It suddenly seemed a
terrible waste not to be feasting his eyes on it every day
people
had been laying up treasures here. for nearly a thousand years! No more
hours at home, talking and drinking and dreaming!
He went baçk to the Abbey in daylight and joined a, party of
tourists. He resolved to visit every castle and old house near London.
But the Abbey disappointed him. The inside seemed to have no past at
all! It had all been done away with. It was more like a sculptor's
backyard. The air was full of activities of state - the coronations
and great funerals. But this lacked life. No sweetness was left..
Only outside, shere the walls touched the lawn as they had from the
beginning, was there the infinite past. It was the same with the little
chapel of St. Margaret's at its side, like a younger sister, lying immed-
iately under the Abbey's towering presence
only outside, with its low
and humble form and its ancient, shining-grey walls, did it still have
sweetness. But inside, where there were bright prosperous pews, there
was an air of the 1914 war, of dread and regret and howling mistakes.
It reminded him of the hymn, 'Abide with me', and it brought ridiculous
tears to his eyes. just thinking of the way people sang it, in hushed
voices, with a strange helplessness, as if beasts were climbing all over
them and beginning to crush them as their voices died further and further
into the silence. And there were two flags from the time of Napoleon
when he'd threatened to invade England: they were in tatters now, almost


quite grey, like a soft parchment touched by the faintest colours, which
would be blown away by a breath. In one of the church-booklets he read
that a man called Farrar, a Victorian, had torn down the old wood and' .
put the hideous mahonany pews in
there had once been a nice Wren
gallery.
One evening he walked into the bathroom and sqN her standing in
front of the mirror naked down to her waist, powdering her breasts.
"What on.earth are you doing?" hè asked in surprise.
He was about to laugh but she said between her teeth without
looking round, "Get out!" Her nipplés were hard and unusually dark;
protriding from the massive whiteness of her breasts, but perhaps that
was an illusion due to the shadows of the bathroom; was she painting
them with. lipstick, of all things? He left the room meekly; she'd
never spoken to him in such a rasping way.. She was out of the house
until about eleven that evening, but such was his state of quiet, now he
could nurse the seçret of his resignation, that he was numb. to hurts.
One evening whem Dick and Hanni were there Pinkie told him that
the pullover he wore more or less all the time these days 'stank to high
heaven'. This was the result of 'living and eating in it'. He laughed
and asked Dick if this was true, and there was a pause. Dick considered
it and then nodded slowly, without a smile; and Hanni did the same,
laughing quickly
"For God's sake také it offiand get another one!". Binkie said.
akex
There followed some talk about smells. Pinkie ranged-on Dick
and said she'd noticed his breath stank when he was nervous; she had


smelled it standing on one side of the kitchen while he was on the
other. Dick bit his lip and murmured, looking down, "All. right, old
girl. That's enough!" and he added, still looking down, trying to
smile, "Halitosis runs in the Pollocke family, didn't you know?"
"At least Pip never stinks in himself, Pinkie went on in a light
way. "But he will stew in the same clothes for weeks till they're like
a sort of rank skin!"
About this time a new tablet came out in the pharmacies, coloured
red, which stained the mouth and was said to remove breath-odours.
There was suddenly a plethora of these tablets in the house, and the
four of them would suck them continuously; it stained the tonguë and
lips a delicate pink, 'the spring-time colour for spring-time people',
the advertisements said; there were boxes of them, round and decorated
with_rose-buds, all over the house, on the bables and mantelpieces.
They all tended to lean over each other more now, as if confident that
they no longer bore noxious odours. The strange thing was, Granville
noticed, that the more upset his life became, and the more lonely his
situation, the more conscious he was of smells, and of the possible
smells on his own person. And he wondered if the same applied to the
others. All of them had their mouths stained delicately now, which
gave them a peculiar puckish and sensual look. He noticed when Hanni
was ill that she sat taking her own scent; drawing her own breath into
her nose, pushing out her lover lip ever so slightly. Dick did it when
he was in a thoughtful and inward mood, his index finger touching his
upper lip; it happened when he seemed to be regretting something, to be
nursing a lingering, backward-glancing sorrow in him. And Granville
noticed that he himself did it when he was pent-up in his feelings and


'hadn't touched Pinkie for some time; contact with her would be like a
release of all his organs, back to their flowing state, and this morbid
self-awareness - that seemed an endemic part of their life - would
depart from him.
He had noticed this self-smelling most strongly at T.I.M. when
he went to the office; people would sit at their desks making a little
twitch of their lips, or a movement of their finger under their 'moses;
one cf the clerks he sometimes had to deal with in the exports-department
would actually stop in the middle of a sentence, and a tiny, melancholy
and yet fascinated gleam
hardly noticeable -- would come into his
eye as he took his own scent, as if discovering a new intimacy with
himself that was hidden to the outside world - his unique and solitary
possession. Granville remembered that he had first become aware of this
stink-consciousness as a 'higher world' phenomenon, depending. on a certain
degree of education. People like Abu Kath'm didn't have it - nor did
his father
no one at Abbott's Road.
Dick's farewell treat to him had been pùt off because of Hanni 's
illness, but it now came round, on a Tuesday. They got themselves
dolled up and set off like a couple of dandies, and sat in the front row
of the circle. They ate at a French place called 'Le Gourmand', which
everyone called Korman's. They didn't talk much. Dick had a frail,
remote look, his eyes delicate. Granville remarked on what good hands
he had, so pale against the darkness of his suit, and Dick told him he'd
had them manicured that day at the barber's; it was one of the nicest
sensations 'available', and the girl always leaned forward obligingly to
let him peep down her blouse. He'd tried to date her up but she said


the management 'frowned on it'.
The most puzzling thing about the evening was that Dick showed
not the slightest awareness of his leave having expired over a week
before! He was quietly genial all the time and didn't oncel.mention
the office.
After dinner Dick puffed at a cigar, which looked enormous against
his delicate face; but after a time he stubbed it out and said it felt
like 'smoking a business-man'.
The play at the New Studio jarred on their nerves; everything was
said in a sneering vein - - bloody-this and sodding-that all the way
through, but falsely, without real life. It was. a social 'document'.
The working people were slovenly, foul-mouthed, envious, they talked in
a biting and leering way which he himself had only heard after leaving
Abbott's Road! It was a 'higher world' picture of the working masses,
and even without a plot, or point, or power, it went down well. An
American critic had written that this was 'a heart-felt denunciation of
the British caste-system.' An air of the dead Thirties lingered round
it - - dead social battles. It was safe indignation, addressed to a
prosperous society, about conditions everybody agreed on because they
werè history.
Dick said nothing afterwards, only, "Sorry it wasn't better!"
and they left each other casually, again without refèrence to his leaving
England.
Later in the week then they saw each other Dick said he'd been
surprised that Granville hadn't liked the play; he would have thought
it was' : just up his street', since it had portrayed 'a chunk' of his
childhood! Granville opened his mouth to remonstrate, but he hadn't


the energy. Only a few weeks. ago, about the time of his arrival from
Basrah, he would have been up in arms immediately. But now he just
smiled and nodded. Dick seemed mueh more contented in his company
these days, and confided in him better.
A little party developed at Chaworth Road one Saturday afternoon
which included the hair-girl; Dick and Hanni suddenly appeared with her
soon after lunch and said that there were a few other people coming later;
it made a curious 1 fascinating atmosphere, this sudden afternoon party in
the gloomy weather which every now and then let a quick, golden blaze of
sunshine through, before the racing clouds closed again. Pinkie wasn't
there and Granville was nervous all the time that she'd come in and
assume he'd arranged it all with the hair-girl; and this increased the
èxcitement for him.
The hair-girl was morose and pale at first, her shoulders hunched-'
up, and she hardly glanced at him; but she looked at everything else,
at all the furniture in the room, from under her eyebrows, and fingered
through the dance-records which had been accumulating lately; she was
wearing bright-red, tight slacks with a black, shawl-like top; suddenly
she said to him, still without looking at him, only frowning at the
coffee-table, "Your wife's uncle's a lord?"; to which Hanni replied on
his behalf, "Yes, - fun, isn't it?" with an ironical smile. Miraculously
she and the hair-girl had become 'friends', so Dick said, and Hanni had
discovered that there was good to be found even in Arabs, though she
qualified this by saying the hair-girl had been brought up in London after
all.
Hanni had been to Joy Celeste's flat and found it'all neat and
'urban'; no 'night-club tattiness' at all;lace curtains and a nice


persian carpet in the sitting-room, and a real drinks-sideboard; her
wardrobe was quite large and didn't stink, in fact the place was cleaner
than their own at Hampton Court!
A dance-record was, put on and Granville brought two bottles of
wine out of the kitchen-cupboard which belonged to Pinkie; he was out of
money again and looked forward to the superannuation he'd be getting;
he worked it out -- two years of overseas-service at five pounds a
month, it made quite a tidy sum, enough to live on for a few more weeks,
until a further decision presented itself; Pinkie could look after the
bills for a bit; he resolved to ask her what the state of her finances
was now; perhaps Grove had paid her back; he found he assumed quite
naturally that she'd given all her savings to Grove Publicity Management
Ltd.' He took the two bottles out of the. cupboard with a childish sense
of theft and realised how afraid,of her he was.
The muscular-looking girl came along later with a friend of the
hair-girls6, a. young man called Larry Vice. Vice wasn't his real name,
it turned out. He was called Vice, Hanni said, because he was vice-
president of the Marquis, an honorary title; his real name was kept as dark
as the hair-girl's. She was all eyes the moment he came in; she forgot
everything else and kept asking hin questions, "You all right, sweetheart?"
"Like this place?", "Don't want to go, vicey-babe?", "Have a nice ride over?"
"Been across to the club?", "What about your voice, Larry-gorgeous?",
"Like this wine?", "Want. to play the piano, honey?", "Oh, vice-sugar,
you won't be cold in just that pullover?" She didn't move from her
position on the divan and Vice never once replied to her questions, but
stayed leaning against the piano, nodding and smiling, and sipping his
wine. He was tall and wild-looking with a hanging jaw and clipped,


flaxen hair, and had his mouth perpetually open in a kind of silent
laugh; he never did laugh outright, only made a strange 'Hoo!* noise
when anything amused him, which almost everything did. He was someone
from show-business, a crooner and tap-dancer, Hanni said. All through
the afternoon there was a sustained patter; "Remember I'm a gent!" shouted
Vice once to something Dick had said; to which . the hair-girl shouted
across, "If you're a gent my twat's a mangle, Vice!"; to which he shouted
back, with his.odd 'Hoo!' ejaculation, "Mangle-vice? Iou mean a mangle-
wurzel or edelweiss, don't you, hoo, hoo?"
The muscular-looking girl said as little as she had done when
Granville first met her; she only turned to him once and said.in her
gentle Cockney voice, "That girl of yours is a peach."
He didn't understand this, since she was looking straight at
Hanni!
"Who?" he asked.
"She looks a peach," she repeated, still looking at Hanni. And after
a pause she added "what a good couple they made.' He glanced at Dick
who was sitting two feet away from them, but his face was telling no
stories; Hanni also must have heard it, and she also was saying nothing.
Later when more wine was brought in from a shop round the corner, and the
'Creole Shake' was blaring through the house, the muscular-looking girl went
across to Hanni and said, "I think your husband's sweet! What's it like
out there in Basrah?" To which Hanni replied without turning a hair,
"Oh, it gets a bit hot in the heat, but apart from that it suits. us down
to,the ground!"
A game started, while Hanni was upstairs getting sandwiches, in
which Dick lay on the floor pressing his middle up so that he was balanced


on his heels at one end and the back of his neck at the other; the idea
was to see how many times he could do it; he wasn't allowed to rest his
arms on the floor. Then Joy Celeste came forward, jumping up from the
divan, and said, "Half a mo! See if you can carry a passenger, Dick!";
whereupon she lowered herself over him so that her body was exactly resting
on his while endless Hoo, hoos-were being bellowed across the room.
"This is awfully nice," Dick said quietly, his eyes alight, gazing
straight into hers, "just relax and we'll be all set for the joy-ride!",
"No, you don't, randy pants!" she cried, keeping her head up and laughing
with"a déafening bellow which seemed impoesible of her tiay, thin figure.
"All right, then", Dick said, "here we go!" He lifted his middle slowly,
straining, and up she came as well, whilé the room was silent; then he
subsided so that his behind hit, the floor sharply, and she was knocked
sharply against him; it was well-devised, and he repeated it, up slowly,
straining, then down with a wallop. "Hey!" she cried. "This is good!"
And she added with another bellowing laugh, "What d'yer keep in your prick
a stick, Dick?" With his eyes closed Dick murmured, "That's-my field-
marshal's baton, sweetheart, there's one in' every corporal's knapsack!";
and he went on raising and lowering himself.
Hanni came back in the middle of it, bearing the sandwiches, and
said with a slightly abashed look, "What are you two up. to?" And there
the game ended; the hair-girl was sweating, and went and had a whispered,
confidential talk with Hanni while everyone else attacked the sandwich
plate. Vice played the piano, and Dick dancedwith the muscular-looking
girl, putting his cheek close to hers while she gazed ahead of her with a
perfectly vacant expression. When it became dark they didn't wwitch the
lights on and the room was in a dim twilight from the street-lamp outside.


Pinkie came in about midnight and looked thoughtful at first;
but she never put a damper on a party andconce a drink was in her hand
she had joined in, dancing with Dick. When it was all over Hanni asked
Granville wasn't it amusing that 'Alice the girl-with-the-snake-called-
Sidney' - - the muscular-looking girl - had thought she was Mrs. Granville?
She hadn't contradicted her because she'd seen a 'closed look' on Dick's
face and thought he was up to one of his 'little games't Bo she'd kept
mum. Dick murmured to this, "Well, you never know, her little mistake
might come in useful one day." Pinkie was intrigued: "Who did she think
was your wife, then?" she asked Dick. He paused, gazing across at her in
a level way, and said, "You a and, oh, yes, please, teacher!"; and he
continued to gaze at her while Hanni murmured "Now then, Dick."
Afterwards in the bedroom Pinkie said that Dick was showing her
'attentions' of late and she didn't know how seriously to take him; she
couldn't believe it, in fact! Granville laughed and said that anything
like that was believable coming from Dick. They slept happily; he was
glad she'd found a party in progress - she thought he was responsible
for it, and Hanni had let her think s0. He tried to see if her nipples
were in fact painted with lip-stick while she was undressing but as always
she turned away from him with a quick demure movement, slipping her night-
dress over her head as she slipped her petticoat off. The image of her
standing in the bathroom painting herself returned to him in a quick,
voluptuous flash, and he burned with fascinated curiosity as to the love
she might have given someone else that evening; if he imagined her
submitting to love it brought a quick, stabbing pain of desire in him. He
could visualise himself pleading with her to continue her infidelity so
that he might have this stabbing desire like a white flame licking his


body and consuming him.
He felt so easy in his new life that the following week he went
over to see the hair-girl in her' flat; he hadn't the slightest embarrassment
in doing so and asked her on the telephone with a deliberate devil-take-you
laugh if she'd mind inviting him to lunch; she said she'd like to it he
came over at once. He'd slept badly and felt horrible; only his mind
was quiet and composed; it was working so much apart from his body these
days.
Her flat was hidden behind the Strand and he searched for it with
chill feelings; or rather the chill was in his.guts and organs, separate
from him, not in his frame of mind. As he reached the door he suddenly
remembered, for no reason, Maimbury's genial, reflective way of gazing at
things; 'Will I ever have that?' he asked himself. He put his finger on
the door-bell; the flat was in a tiny side-street close to a vetable-
market, and the staircase was dingy and uncarpeted; but the door itself
was that of a luxury-apartment. Maimbury's gaze probably came with the
years, he thought; fullness of heart was. said to come after a lot of
privation, when you needed it. But now, as he waited, wondering if she'd
gone away, just to mock and ridicule him, he felt thin of heart, exposed
and frightfully young.
But - she was there - a tiny, wan figure in a dark doorway --
and after looking at him briefly she shouted "Hi!" and at once turned her
back and rushed into one of the rooms, leaving him to shuffle in and close
the door himself.
"Something's cookin'!"she cried from the kitchen, and he went in
after her.


Everything there gleamed, the pots and unstained saucepans and
new plates. He told her what a nice place she séemed to have but as
he said it in an uncertain voice, coughing at the same time, she only
glanced at him and said nothing, assuming he hadn't spoken at all;
there was no paint on her 1ips; he was aware that she'd made no effort
for him at all, and again he asked himself whether he was infatuated
with hér or not; but the answer wasn't there; he'd thought of her image
once or twice at Chaworth Road, changing her a little, making her eyes
both sharper and more lavish in expression, and her hair blacker, while
depriving her of her jerky walk; but at the same time she remained the
same, and her fascination, if he felt it, lay partly in her walk. There
was no scent in the air. She clearly wasn't conscious of him as an
admirer; what was their relation, then? Why was he here? What had
happened during their visit to the zoo? Had they warmed to each. other?
He couldn't remember! What did she expect from him? As they had no
conversation, what else had they? Why had Dick congratulated him on
taking her to the zoo? Surely that indicated something? He tried to
keep Pinkie out of his mind; the stabbing pain of desire for her closed
his mind to everything and everyone else; he forced himself to show an
interest in the hair-girl and even took her hand while she was trying to
get a hot frying-pan off the fire, burning her slightly on the elbow and.
nearly getting a cup-full of steaming fat down his trousers; "Hey, look
out!" she screamed, and, "Well, fuck that for a lark!"
He remembered 'dad' for the first time and wondered if that
deafening 'fuck' had travelled to his paternal ears. He laughed sheepishly
and told her that water was good for a burn,'contrary to usual belief',
to' which she said, "Yak-er-ti-yak-yak-yak-!" and put her tongue out at him


while she grabbed a little pat of butter and rubbed it on her elbow.
She told him she'd only'got'up half-an-hour before as she'd had
a late night at the club; he glancèd in, at the bedroom and saw that the
bed was still unmade; the light outside depressed him; the low, dazzling
clouds were still there, close to the roof-tops. There were lace curtains
across the wide windows of the sitting room, as Hanni had said, and even
a carpet on the wall behind the divan. He asked whether her father was
in and'she said, moving swiftly from the kitchen to the room where, they
were going to eat, "Are you crazy?" He said, "Why had he moved?" And
the reply was, "Do you know what ycu're talking about?"
Then she became charming; he felt sick and giddy; she asked him
in a small voice if he'd help her carry the food in, there wasn't much but
if he didn't mihd a 'scrap lunch* there was enough. He gazed at her;
she was preoccupied and ruffled, the hair all round her face, uncombed;
and there was an anxious look in her eyes; they were screwed-up painfully.
She murmured, "I only see dad when he's asleep." She hurried out of the
room again, her hair lifting gently off her back.
There were a few potatoes, some scraps of tinned ham and cheese;
also she had to hurry up to bé at rehearsal. She ate fast and made her
deafening, clapping laugh once or twice when she remembered the party and
how she'd lain on top of Dick; "How is old randy-pants?" she asked him.
He said, "Working hard," and nothing more; he found he was in an irritable
frame of mind. She made no effort to serve him and he forked his way
through the tiny méal gloomily.
She said that Hanni had arranged the Saturday afternoon party
quite deliberateày as a kind of 'rebuff' to Pinkie; his ears pricked up
at once - - "What do you know about Pinkie?" he asked in a protective way.


But she was unaware of. anything sharp in his voice. She said, "That
party was to show your wife where she got off!" Hanni was determined,
she added, to try and do something for Granville in his present
'ignominious' life; he was astonished at how quickly and fluently she
spoke, like an educated woman; the words 'rebuff' and "ignominious'
surprised him! Then she fell into a quiet vein of talk; she'd become
friends with Hanni, she said, and now she knew better what his 'position'
was. He could hear Hanni's voice in hers; she was certain of her
information as if she'd lived through it herself, and she smoked her
cigarette a little like Hanni, narrowing her eyes. He wanted to ask
what she knew about his 'position' but she went on talking, this time
about Hanni: Hanni had told Dick whe wasn't going to stand the sort of
treatment from him that Pinkie 'handed out' to Granville; she had more
pride, and he'd better start revising his ways soon?.
She suddenly jumped up from the table and dashed next door, where
hé heard her telephoning someone. She said in the phone, "You know, the
guy who licks the spots off little ladies' twats!" and made her clapping
laugh; the subject was a 'big man' in. the night-club world who had to be
treated nicely; he might get her out of the Kaaba company into a show all
her own where she could have 'a little dignity', and therefore would the
person she was talking to mind if 'we called it off for tonight8?
Then shé returned to the table preoccupied and closed to him, an
anxious frown.on her face; her shoulders were hunched timidly as when she'd
called with the others on Saturday afternoon, making her look like a little
girl. There was a hissing sound in the kitchen and he started, thinking
it was 'dad', but' it was the kettle boiling for coffee and she clattered
out again. The moment coffee was over she jumped up again and grasped


hold of her hair, looking round for grips to tie it up with, and said
without looking at him that she was about an hour late and had to dash;
a petty mood swept over him and he shouted, "Damn! Why the héll couldn't
you let' me know that before you invited me over?" He was quite surprised
at himself; usually he wouldijust have watched her getting ready in a
passive state of mind! He expected her to turn round to him in surprise,
insulted, but she did nothing of the kind; she ran next door, five or
six hair-grips between her teeth, and began humming; and from next door
she called out to him, "Come in here, sweetheart, and watch me dress!"
He thought this was a change of tune and went into the other room. She.
was combing out her long hair, standing near a dressing table, bending
down to see herself; he sat down on ' the bed while she told him that this
'big man* was taking her out to - tea followed by drinks and that she had
to look a lady, which was easier in the cool weather than the hot because
her arm-pits seemed to have 'automatic douches' inside them the way they
sweated: And 'they' didn't like to see you sweat, unlessiit wa's between
your legs, and then, boy, they weren't so keen on you being a. lady! She
spoke as if she hated the 'big man' but at the same time flinched from
him and would do anything for him.
The idea entered his head that he ought to try and seduce her if
his visit was to be useful and not a shameful and empty episode in which
he filled the hang-dog role; he must kiss her! His mind was working s0
much apart from him - a thin little voice making its steady exclamations
in his head. The flat felt lonely and desolate to him; while she combed
her hair the melancholy, dazzling light poured in through the window
behind her, and every object in the room looked cold and bare. He didn't
feel the slightest inclination to touch her but his mind persisted, and


when she moved across the room to take a dress out of the wardrobe and
began slipping off her dressing gown he pulled her gently towards him
with a laugh, to lighten the misery of it, and kissed her on the cheek;
she leaned towards him stiffly, not as surprised or anxious as he expected
her to be; then she tried to push away from him by levering her arms
against his shoulders -- "Hey, I'll be late, sweetheart! Now come on!"
But suddenly she laughed and kissed him full on the lips; he had a totally
different impression of her for an instant, as someone soft; the skin of
her mouth actually changed for a moment, yielding and warm where it had
been scaly before, pursed and withdrawn from him. "Why, you dirty old man!"
she cried. But once again it was, "Hey, look at that time, you'll lose
me my job!" She said it in a jarring tone, her lips hard again, trying
to push herself away from him. She managed to break free and ran into
the bathroom, where she remained for a few minutes washing her face; he
glanced in and saw her wiping her armpits with a towel and. spraying
something; he called out to her, "What are you spraying?" and she shouted
without the slightest hesitation, her voice echoing in the tiled bathroom,
"Sweat-neutraliser, honey!" When she returned she wanted to make the
bed and told him, "Get up, gee-gee!", which he did; but as she pulled the
'top sheet off he again made a sally towards her and this time pulled her over
with an awkward movement and they both came down in a sprawl on the bed.
"Hey, be careful!" She paused: "Dad'll be in!" "What?" he said,
lifting his head. 'Dad' again' "Yeah," she cried, "he comes in round
about now!" But he was less diffident of 'dad' now and rematned lying
on top of her; there was a sharp clang of the bed-springs under them and
she tried to struggle free; he laughed again, this time genuinely; she
tried to tickle him but he pinned her hands down; he was beginning to


enjoy it. To his surprise she had a rough pullover on under her dressing
gown, and its flimey little strands were worrying his nostrils and mouth,
but he dared not move in case she wriggled free; she was quick and muscular.
She appealed to him more quietly, "Now, then, sweetheart, fair's fair."
Her hair fell like a great black shadow over the sheet and she looked into
his eyes meditatively for the first time as if trying to find out who he
was from a great distance; he had the sensation that it was the first
time she'd looked at him;. she had her head a little to' one side, like an
animal puzzled. She moved sideways and he took this as a movement.of
desire, though he still felt nothing himself; the only pleasure he was
aware of was from her hair, its endless black shadow and its deep smnell;
apart from that he was dead-of heart, and lay there a dead weight on her,
and only stayed there for fear of being ridiculous if he got up.
Suddenly, getting. angry, a dark shadow seeming to flit across
her face and twist its expression for a moment, she made another heave,
and he plunged his face towards her, trying to kiss her again, but with
such speed that their noses collided with a painful thud; they sat up
with a springing movement, nursing their faces. "Jesus!" she crooned;
behind his hand he asked if hers was bleeding and she shook her head and
then took the chance of getting off the bed.
She was again dressing, fixed the grips in her hair with an
extraordinary speed like a machine; she flung her dressing-gown into the
wardrobe, pulled off her sweater, stepped into some high-heeled shoes and
put a flowery, loose-sleeved dress on which made her look frain and thin,
with her head and hands and legs peeping out of it; she asked him if it
was 'aristocratic' enough and he said it looked 'on the big side', but
she didn't wait to listen to him and ran next door to get her bag. He


remembered that her chest had felt. extraordinarily hard undernea th him,
and that her hips had been sharp, as if they had thin armour round them.
She had painted her lips, a bright, savage mark across her face, and
otherwise her face was drawn, flat. and sallow, made more so by the red.
He happened to glance at the mantelpiece for the first time and
noticed. a quaint cylindrical bottle with an object dimly shining inside,
floating in liquid, like a piece of skin; he went closer and to his
astonishment saw that it was the embryo of a tiny child, no bigger than a
man's fist, the umbilical chort floating away, waving lightly in the water
as the hair-girl thumped through the flat, disturbing it. The embryo was
a few months old from the womb, its tiny legs bent, and its hand held up
to its mouth, with the tiniest suggestion of a thumb. When she came in
he askéd, pointing at it, "What's that?"
All her' haste disappeared at once and she approached the mantel-
piece softly; yes, she said, it was hers; didn't he think it was like her?.
It was a 'little boy'; she knew he would have been a darling! It was
Larry Vice's! Couldn't he see Larry's face there; he only had to look
closely, put his face right up to the glass and he'd see?
He did so and, indeed, there was the shadow of Vice's hanging jaw,
and the shadow of his silent laugh, combined with the darkness of the
hair-girl's eyes. He raised himself up again, not knowing what to say.
She had to 'get rid' of him, she said, she hadn't been able to afford a
child and she had rehearsals all day; she'd cried all night afterwards;
every morning she came in and said hullo to him, and she never went to
bed at night without imagining he was at his prayers, bent up in that way.
They left the flat and he said good-bye to her at a bus-stop in
the Strand; as she got on the bus she gave him a little glance as if to


confirm what she'd told him and to underline the sadness; she made a'
hardly perceptible nod, with a serious look in her eyes, as the bus sped
away. At night he thoughtof the embryo again and imagined the knife
cutting the chord; Pinkie was at his side, already asleep; he put his arm
round her; her cheeks were flushed with health and her stomach was just
beginning to swell; she'd only been sick once or twice; he had a placid
sensation of thanksgiving, that the child was coming further and further
to the light, while her breasts swelled, waiting for the birth, without
fear of a knife; nothing else was important.
Next day Hanni congratulated him with a chuckle on 'penetrating'
to Joy's flat, which only Vice had done; Joy had phoned her and said that
Granville certainly 'knew a trick or two'; also the hair-girl had put
clean sheets on the bed that morning, and there'd be 'extra laundry' this
week! The inference was clear: they'd alept together, and Granville sàid
nothing to contradict it.
Dick had also been told, and he invited Granville for a drink that
evening; he said he was 'relieved', with a little twinkle in his eye, and
a lot of fun was in store for them both! Granville asked Hanni afterwards
what Dick meant by saying he was relieved, and she said they were. both
glad he was - 'standing up for himself at last'; ridiculously, a tremor of
I pity for Pinkie went through him when she said this, though he nodded with
a laugh; he was getting into the habit of making an ineffectual little
laugh nowadays, and he wondered how long it would be before his mouth
looked like Vice's. There wasn't real amusement in the laugh but on the
other hand it wasn't hollow; it stated a general rippling attitude to life
of detachednfrivolity; particular amusement wasn't necessary, it seemed to


say.
Pinkie also got hint of the news; it came to her that the hair-
girl had 'fallen head over heels' for him and that he was'next in line
after Vice'. When they were alone in the music-room she asked him, a
frown flickering painfully on her brow while she gazed at a point half-
way between them on the floor, her lips tight together, "How is your
girlfriend, by the way?" He was confused and had the impulse to laugh
under her gaze; it was like being tickled, and reminded him of the
occasion on the right of his arrival when she'd asked for the dried lemons
and had stood frowning down at him from the door while he'd fiddled about
in his suitcase. He asked her who she meant by 'girlftiend'. "Oh, well,"
was the reply, "if you don't know who your various girlfriends are, I'm
sure I don't!"
She stalked up to the kitchen; he felt an odd nausea. Wondering
if his own jealous rages had made her feel the same, he resolved not to
indulge them again even if the energy came back to him. It was a grim
nausea at the pit of his stomach, like being caught in family. He wanted
to do something immensely free; was that what she'd felt when she'd
suddenly dashed out of the house that. morning straight from his bed?
He went upstairs and began imitating everything she'd said to him
in a burlesque way while she cooked the evening meal; "By the way, how is
your girlfriend?" he said, facing her dayfully; and then he went through the
words as if they were a part in a play, advising her how to stand, where
to place herself; he thawed her out quickly, and she laughed.
She said that Elizabeth had rung up about the annual ball she wanted
them to go to
'the most fabulous and fashionable thing' that happened
in the year! She'd already got the tickets and it was to be a 'Tail-and-


Hoof' ball; that was what it was called. You had to come wearing a. tail
of some kind - - it might be a donkey or a lion, an elephant, a horse -
and hoofs. Granville asked if the hoofs were obligatory, supposing you
want as a lion or elephant, for instance; and she said she thought so, yes.
C She added that she wanted him to go as a faun, with a little fluffy tail
and pointed ears; hoofs would be necessary for that in any case, though
she hadn't worked out the details yet.
What would she go as? She hadn't made up her mind but it would
be something that hid 'a huge belly'. "It isn't huge at all!" he said.
"You can hardly see it!" She felt enormous, she replied, but didn't mind
it if a nice-looking child came into the worldy he asked with a laugh
if she thought it was going to look like him. She blinked and said
quietly, "Well, one always hopes so, doesn't one?"
There was a problem of where they were to get their tails for the
ball, and Pinkie decided against trying to make them herself; she would
go to a theatrical costumers. She then announced casually tas: she broke
two eggs into a bowl that Grove was coming round for a drink the following
evening and he, trying to answer with the - same casual air, aaid, "Oh, good!",
so loudly that he seemed to be crying out with pain; they had the. light
on, because of the gloomy weather, and it glittered for a moment in her
eyes as she turned to glance at him quickly; but she seemed not to notice
anything unusual in his tone. There followed a burst of relief for him
that Grove wasn't after all intimate with her, since if that had been the
case she clearly wouldn't invite him round! At the same time, together
with this relief, there was a little spasm of dieappointment, touched with
the pain of yearning and desire thât she was still his own in the flesh
and hadn't been transported into mystery by another man's touch; it made


her look dull for a moment, standing by the stove; her body had lost its
giow for him; its secret light inside, of the forbidden sexual touch, had
gone; he was aware even of resentment - - how could she stand in the
bathroom putting lipstick on her nipples for no purpose, or make it seem
she was doing so; how could she snatch the mystery away like this? And
he was to have a child in the ordinary circumstances of family-life; how
disgusting! It would go on, year after year, the two (or three ) of them
stuck together in a tiny house, revolving round each other; and she'd had
this remarkable offer from fate ntt from 'Grove' - -- - which she'd turned
down, of a journey into the jungles of voluptuous and forbidden touch!
And what were Dick's 'attentions' to her? Were they only polite and
frivolous? Was he going to be robbed of them as well?
There was no wine in the house and he asked if she'd been to the
bank recently; she said, no, she hadn't a sou! So he was without wine,
without a job, without a woman! Just a faithful wife! It was the
flattest evening he could remember since his arrival; the trembling he'd
done in the last two or three months appeared to him ecstatic and desirable
now.
But the following afternoon he had his wish, and the familiar
trembling seized him as the hour of Grove's arrival drew nearer. He sat
quivering in the kitchen. Hanni and Dick were to come as well. Grove
arrived before them, smiling at the door. There was something so boyish
and friendly about Grove, the moment he presented himself downstairs, that
Granville's trembling went at once and he found to his surprise that the
other man was in a most peculiar way a solace to him; he felt no resprictions
on his own behaviour; nor was there any need to explain himself. It. was
like having his own brother in the house; he at once thought of what they


were going to do together, not immediately that evening, but in general,
in the future, as their friendship developed. Grove gave off the
promise of future activities. - they were all round him, like a fresh
scent. A party might develop, he might go off somewhere, he might get
tickets for the theatre(someone he knew
just come back from a big
tour) - you didn't know what might not happen, but one thing was clear,
that you'd be included; his presence gave you the assurance that you
wouldn't be left out! He was available; even his fixed appointments,
when he talked about them, seemed to have scmething soft and pliable about
them. They wouldn't mean him dashing off in the middle of something,
like Dick, unharmoniously. He was available for people e that was his
passion. All this Granville was aware of in the first few seconds of
seeing him again, and the life that had lain dormant in him for the last
few seeks flooded back solely under Grove's influence. And 'Grove' was
the name he'd been afraid of!
At the street-door Grove had said to him, "Hullo, there! We met
on the stairs once, remember? You look miserable!"
Granville stared at him for a moment, unable to collect himaelf:
"Did I?" he asked in a helpless way; and at once Grove was in the house,
as if he'd been there a twelve-month.
Hanni and Dick followed a few minutes later, and they all greeted'
each other like familiar companions, and settled at once into chatter in
the music-room. He remembered Grove as deathly pale but couldn't imagine
how he'd got the impression; he was quite brown in the face, with slightly
flushed cheeks, and his eyes had a keen, healthy light! He still had
masses of shining, black hair, and Granville's first impression of the back
of his neck, with soft, curly hair like a baby's, was true; and his nose


was not unlike Pinkie's, small and fine, but sharper. He pulled off his
jacket at once; Hanni smiled and asked him why he always liked to show off
his 'wasp-waist', to which Grove only laughed in a good-natured way; it
was quite chilly in * the room, and the electric fire was on; Hanni ragged.
him gently, speaking between tight lips, and asked was it true that he
wore a corset? He said quickly, "Only on my transvestist nights!", and
turned at once to Pinkie, giving her a little smile. There was a certain
pallor in his black eyes; Granville noticed it again; it was in the nature
of his gaze, which was always beyond people even when he looked at them in
an intimate fashion, as just now with Pinkie. It wasn't that his' eyes
passed quickly over objects or were superficial in their attention, on the
contrary, he was in the habit of gazing long at things, but he seemed to
be looking at a vague point behind and beyond people, even while he looked
at them fixedly; nor was it_that he was reflecting about them; he hadn't
reflective eyes, and his attention rarely strayed from people; he seemed
to be looking at something universal behind people, where there was no
colour. Also his eyes were sad. He. kept up a volley of jolly talk,
leaning against the mantelpiece; his fingernails were bitten and nervous,
Granville noticed.
"When are you off again?" Grove asked him, gazing at him with his
universal charm.
Pinkie answèred for him: "It should have been about a fortnight
But Grove didn't look at her, only gave him another polite glance
and said, "Oh," non-committally.
Pinkie's interjection quite took Granville aback;, he really had
assumed that she, like Dick, had overlooked the, expiry of his leave; he'd


thought life had become a dream for them as well!
Whenever Grove joked with her she smiled in a tired and slightly
exasperated way; astwith a boisterous child; this, too, was to Granville's
satisfaction; it showed that they didn't share a real intimacy. Later
they all went along to the Jazz-club he and Pinkie had joined, in
Islington, and there Granville saw that, on the contrary, she was helpless
in Grove's presence; the familiar contained trembling started in him,
which gave the evening a tone of forbidden excitement as strong as in. the
pre-Meedham days. When Grove asked her for a dance she seemed to have no
power of refusing; she got up in a tired way, even unwillingly, and leaned
against him while she danced; Granville now had a different explanation
for her not smiling at Grove's jokes! But still. he couldn't believe that
their relation approached the intimacy he'd shared wit th her himself.
Whenever Grove made a movement towards the tiny dance-floor she got up in
obedience; the others were remote for her; he watched Hanni ask her a
question and get no reply.
There was a hopeless, flickering look in Pinkie's eyes; she was
floating in misery, it seemed - a but this was a tragic mask, she was
dramatising it herself; there was happiness and thrill underneath. Grove,
on the other hand, paid equal attention to Hanni, not that the relation
between them was particularly good. She looked at him in a level way and
spoke to him disbelievingly; 'I know your game', she seemed to say. This
hurt Grove's pride and he tried to joke all the more with her; but his
antics fell flat with her. Granvillé and Dick laughed - though Dick
in a reserved way.
Once when Pinkie and Grove were dancing an unusually slow number he
saw Grove lean over and'kise her neck softly, whereupon an old giddiness


took hold of him, like the blood suddenly rushing up to his head,, and he
had to grip himself tight in his chair to become normal again. Pinkie
had her eyes closed in the tragic expression and her mouth was trembling;
she seemed to see herself under the gaze of numberless people who were
following her tragic development with sympathy. He found he felt an
irritated anger against her but not against Grove at all; about Grove there
was something s0 disarming and boyish that you couldn't take offence. His
kies seemed universal like his charm; dancing with him was like dancing with
anyone, that was the impression d there were no narrow interests contained
in him; the dancing was a gesture beyond people, at the same time as it
contained and enveloped Pinkie; Grove's lipe weren't personal, they didn't
make a predatory assault. There was no interested, personal thrust behind
his actions. When they sat down again Grove kept his arm round her, with
a glint of universal satisfaction at the back of his eyes. Meanwhile
Granville whistled to himself and made deliberate conversation with Dick
and Hanni, trying to make the arm on Pinkie's shoulder seem an ordinary
thing; there was only a telltale, livid flush on his face, and his lips
were puffy and quivering. His eyes bulged out of his head. There was no
drink, only lemonade and Coca-Cola. He and Dick decided to slip out to
a pub in the interval.
"What the hell ate you up to?" Dick suddenly said to him in an
alarmed way as soon as they were outside.
Granville knew what he meant at once - he'd found out about his
resignation!
But then Dick was surprisingly cool. There was eveh a twinkle in
his eye, perhaps of admiration. "Do you know what you're doing, you boob?
I hope you do!"


"I don't know what I'm doing, no!" Granville told him with an
obstinate pout. "I haven't any idea!" And then when they were standing
at the bar, after their beer was in front of them, he said, "Buy me a
whisky."
When it arrived he tipped it into his beer with a reckless motion,
while Dick watched him.
"What are you going to live on?"
"Oh, there '11 be enough for a couple of weeks or so!"Granville said.
"Then what?"
"Well, I admire your guts!" Dick said with a little breathless
chuckle, giving him the same look of intimacy combined with curious
interest as at training school years before; yet now, Granville thought,
they knew hardly more about each other than in those days.
He didn't deny that his resignation had taken 'guts'; he needed
all the good opinion he could scavenge. What did Pinkie feel about it?
Dick wanted to know.
"I haven't told her."
This impressed Dick; he laughed and said he'd like to see her face
when he broke the news!
The drink put Granville in quite a devil-may-care mood for a few
moments and when they were back in the hall he danced gaily with Hanni.
Grove began telling stories about his powers over women; that very
day, he said, he'd been sitting on a park bench and the 'most fabulous'
woman he'd ever seen had passed him and thrown a note at his feet asking
him to come up to her hotel-room.
Dick intervened quickly, a sharp look on his face, and said,


"What humber?"
"What do you mean?" Grove asked with a smile.
"The number of the room, tell L'me quick!"
"Four hundred and ninety seven!"
They all laughed, including Grove.
"A large hotel!" said Hanni.
Pinkie sniled in a lazy fashion and without looking at Grove
extended her hand and murmured, "Where's the slip of paper?"
"In my other coat!"
She took him gently under the chin and pulled his face round
towards hers; "You bloody liar," she said slowly, with the same smile, and
then let his face go.
Another story was that he'd once had a job as an insurance agent
and a woman he'd called on had found him 60 attractive that she almost
fainted and had to sit down, all without saying a word.
"What did you do?" Dick asked.
"I talked to her reascnably."
"Yes," Pinkie said with a chuckle. "I can imagine you doing that!"
Grove replied that as a matter of fact he did have more to say
to her than that; after all, he wasn't all that much an 'Englishman"!
The impression was that these stories, invented or not, weren't
about him in any particular way; so they weren't real boasting; nor did
they mean vanity; it was again a kind of universal gesture, with a vein of
sadness', and perhaps ancient tiredness, underneath.
On the way back Grove walked ahead of Granville with his arm round
Pinkie, kissing her hair now and then. Granville wanted to rush up and
tear them apart; he blinked and felt giddy, unable to walk properly.


Anger subsided; then it rose again, and went down again. All the while,
as they walked along, Hanni held him in conversation, talking quietly; it
was impossible to tell from hér expression how much she saw of his feelings
at the moment
how much he hid them, as well. Was he like any other
person walking along the street? How far was his own face composed?
When the anger rose in him he was on the point of striding forward and
tearing Pinkie away, but then it died as quickly and he concentrated all
his attention on making steady remarks to Dick and Hanni; asked to repeat
these remarks afterwards he couldn't have done it.
When the others had gone and he was alone with Pinkie he said to
her in a hissing way, "Are you sure that's my baby, you filthy bitch?"
She asked him what he meant by 'filthy bitch'; this was in a controlled
voice; the tragic misery - which had been soft
had left her face,
and a set look, touched with hardness, replaced it. He asked her, couldn't
she 'behave' even when he was sitting in front of her, walking behind her -
did she have. to turn the knife in the wound? Why didn't she made a clean
sweep, not keep him dangling in the middle of this ambiguous situation, one
man's wife and another man's mistress? He prevented himself raging at
her; he held himself back, remembering the nausea she'd made him feel when
she'd asked him about the hair-girl; he refused to be responsible for
creating nausea in her; he wouldn't limit her freedom!
But at the same time that was exactly what he wanted to do. Free,
she was an insult to him; imprisoned - - dull! He said to - her, "Surely
i can't be just an empty thing for you? I must have a heart like other
people, don't you think so? How can you bear to do that sort of thing?"
He meant accepting Grove's embraces while in front of him. But she asked
with a pale face, her mouth open, "What sort of thing?" And now he found


he couldn't bring himself to mention it; though he knew that she knew
he'd witnessed it, he had to treat it as a closed subject which might not
have taken place; he allowed it tofall into the dream-zone of 80 much
else that had happened in the last two. or three months.
He hardly slept that night, aching for someone to talk to. Dick
had a talk with him next day, trying to persuade him to go back to the
firm, but Grànville shrugged everything off. How did he like Grove?
Dick asked him. He said, "I did! I liked him!" Dick said that 'old
Grove' was an amusing fellow but he certainly carried a 'big load of corn'
around on his shoulders.
That evening after Dick had gone, Granville found some nude
photographs of Pinkie in one of his own drawers; he imagined they must have
been taken by Grove. One showed her with her breasts thrust out in a
gently challenging and yet submissive way; one of her nipples was pointed
straight into the camera, dark and round, and he wondered if that was why
she had painted them; another showed her from behind, low down, with her
peeping round with a downward glance, her flank round and white, one of
her breasts just visible. As he looked from one to the other his legs
were trembling so violently that he almost toppled over. But still his
mind was clear, working in its thin and satisfied way, apart from him, and
though he was troubled he was also intrigued - and thrilled, but he took
this for granted now
and perhaps, slightly, with a fierce edge, amused;
this thin self went on so much in separation from him that he had to
concentrate hard sometimes before he knew what he felt.
When she came in he told her he'd offered his resignation and would
be staying on in London in view of the baby. She didn't take it very
seriously, contrary to Dick's expectation. The first thing she said was,


"Well, I hope to Christ we '11 have money enough to live on." Oh, he
replied, he'd find something soon. She even seemed happy that he was
staying; "That means we can have lots of fun this winter," she said.
"Don't you care about the Basrah office?" Dick asked him when they
were together again. To delay an, answer Granville asked what he meant.
"Well, do you mind leaving it like that," Dick went on, "without winding
it up properly? It must be in chaos! There's been nobody there for a
couple or three_months!" He added that it wasn't that he'd expect of
Granville; he'd always known him thorough and hard-working. Didn't.it
offend just his sense of tidiness to leave the job in this way, apart from
throwing away all his years of training, and his references? Granville
answered that he was worried, yes, but only about Mohammed; that was all.
Dick asked him who that was, unless he meant the Prophet himself? Granville
said, "My assistant out there."
"Why don't you fly out there and wind things up?" Dick asked him
suddenly.
It was a strange question, and Granville gave him a look. After a
pause he said, "Why, is that what they want at the office?"
Dick turned away from him:, "God knows. I haven't spoken to anyone."
But he left Gaanville with the impression that he had.
He told Dick that Nevinson hadn"t replied to his letter of
resignation yet, to which Dick said that this was 'quite in order' as no
contract had been. broken, he'd only failed to sign a new one. Granville
murmured that he thought Nevinson would have taken more interest in his
work than that, "but then," he added, "I imagine much that ien't true."
Elizabeth sent the tickets for the Tail-and-Hoof ball, and he
hired a tail and a pair of cloven hoofs for thirty shillings; Pinkie decided


to go as a 'devil-ess' and wore forked tail and a horn with pointed ears;
cloven hoofs were too much, she said, and she went in high heels. All
legs would be uncovered, she'd heard; she wore a pair of tights, with a
blouse tucked into them, and her tail swished about behind her, attached
by a belt she usually used when she had the curse.
Most attention she concentrated on Granville, when the night came.
She said she wanted him as her own 'faun' tonight; and Hanni remarked that
if only he kept his mouth shut more and just HAked round him in à mysterious
fashion he'd make a 'first-class faun' and all the girls would 'want to
rape' him. Pinkie nodded as if this was more than a light remark; she
busied herself smoothing his hair down at the sides so as to make it like
a faun's head; she made him wear a pair of hér tights, darker than hers
and all over these she painted faun-like hair; his arms and neck had to be
bare; he must wear a shirt she got out of a trunk which was a roughly
faun colour, and she cut the collar off, then the sleeres; she painted
red lips all over him, on his arms, his chest and his stockinged legs;
and finally the cloven hoofs went on.
"I'wish you were like that every day," she said to him. And she
then started on his face; by the use of mascara she gavehhim long, faunlike
eyes, and his lips a touch of red; the eyes intérested Hanni most and she
helped by making them even longer, curling his eyelashes with an instrument
she always carried in. her cosmetics-bag. To their surprise ihe was coming
to the ball as well, but later; Clockwork was taking her; he never missed
anything fashionable, she said. She hadn't started dressing yet; she
hated fancy dress, she said, and had to work herself up to it by drinking
a little beforehànd; Clockwork would be coming round to Chaworth Road with
a bottle of whisky and she would see what the mood brought her by way of


ideas. Pinkie looked delicate, her eyes small and glittering, as usual
when she dressed up; she took no pains to hide her slightly swollen
stomach; she was now proud of it, she said. She stalked around on her.
high heels, skirtless, her tail protuding from her at the back; her
pointed ears kept coming off and Hanni clipped them on for her after much
trial and error with paper-clips and ear-rings; at last it was done with'
cotton slipped through the holes in Pinkie's ears. Her eyes flickered
with nervousness and whenever she looked at him she chuckled or leaned
forward and kissed him; she said it would be her one night with a faun
and she meant to enjoy it.
The évening was wild and boisterous, and they let themselves go
with vengeance. He danced with a young woman called Helen who had dark,
greasy hair down to her shoulders and a deathlyepale face; her nickname,
apparently; was Hell. Everyone calléd her that. She kept her eyes
closed all the time she danced and whirled round blindly, holding on to
him with only one hand. Her head was lowered so that her hair fell in
two long strands round her cheeks, sometimes hiding the whole of her face,
and she made a moaning noise under her breath, smiling in the strangest
way; whenever the dance came to ân end whe woke up slowly and would smile
her thanks at him and drift off at once, then would appear in front of
him again, her eyes already closed, the moment the music started again; once
she dragged him off to the bar and shouted to a group of people who showed
no sign of hearing her, only looking at her in a mild way, "It's Hester
Grysham' 's faun!". 2 she swung round as she said this, smiling in her strange
way, and, having a glass of something in her hand swished most of it in
his face and over his bare neck. He decided not to notice this and, to


save himself embarrassment, tried to behave in as blind a way as she,
drifting off back to the dancing room, dabbing a handgerchief over his face.
Occasionally someone bellowed at her while she danced, "Hell!" and .she
waved her hand blindly; and once a young man with immense shoulders and
a red, moist mouth strode on to the dance floor and thrust his hand into
hers with, "Hell: It's Giles! You look wonderful! Where's Cerberus?"
and without getting a reply'strode off again, a fixed expréssion on his
face; he was dressed for dinner and had no tail or hoofs.
Hell had drunk half a bottle of gin before coming; Pinkie, who'd
known her off and on for a long time, said she'd 'passed out' downstairs
but was always quick to recover; once she 'd passed out with a full bottle
of brandy in her hand and when a young man tried to get it out of her grip
she woke up and swiped him across the face with it, then passed out again.
She had a boy-friend known as Cerberus because he was always 'at the gates
of Hell'; he had 'three heads' because he seemed to bé looking in all
directions at once; he had the habit of going to the wrong house for a
party and staying there all night. He. had a mother universally called
'moms' who sent him a packet of fifty pound-notes every month or so which
he was in the habit of 'handing out to people' when he got them; 'moms'
appeared in London rarely but when she did she had a 'three-day drunk'; once
she'd vomited her false teeth down the lavatory and pulled the chain - -
that was in Belgravia on a Sunday morning, and by the time she'd got in
touch with the sewage people the teeth' were just passing under Hyde Park
Corner; the sewage-people got them back unharmed, and the joke that
circulated afterwards was that 'moms' had been 'putting her nose in other
people's business again'.
Hell had come as a nanny-goat with a little fluffy tail which was


only partly there now, and a flimsy white beard was stuck under her çhin
so that sometimes when she had her eyes closed she looked like an
Armenian priest. The dancing room was a kind of banquetting hall at the
top of an imposing flight of stairs, where people say and drank; the long
windows opened and went out on to a balcony where the lights of Charing
Cross and Pall Mall could be seen; the band was mounted high up on a
platform at the other hand, in tiers nearly to the ceiling, and there were
tables and chairs and dim, glowing lights all round the dance-floor;
many of the lights had been pulled over or their wires torn, and there were
broken. glasses. and forgotten hand-bags on the tables.
The bar was working at a ferocious speed, with all the drinks
prepared in rows; a number of rollers had been installed, operated by the
bar-waiters, on which all the drinks stood; when you took a glass the
IJAd
waiter gave the roller a slight turn and the gap you had made will filled;
likewise, when empty glasses were to be returned they were put on a roller
that worked the other way, and the bar-man rolled them towards him to
wash them up. But after an hour or so this system had turned in on itself,
so to speak; filled glasses were being taken haphazardly from anywhere on
the roller, so that the waiter had to lean, swearing quietly under his
breath, and put his newly-filled glasses in the haphazard gaps; and then,
having taken a drop or two himself, he would move the roller a bit too
smartly towards the customer and push a few of the end ones over the side
of the bar; also a customer discovered that all the rollers worked both
ways and that there were interesting results if he gave one of them a
push or two towards the bar-man. This grew into a sport and a police-
officer had to be called up from the street; he took his helmet off and
was at once surrounded by people who. said he must have a tail and hoofs,


and pinned hair and fur on to him from behind. He suggested 'paralysing
the action of the rollers in some way', to which the head barman said he'd
like to bloodywell paralyse the guests, one by one. The man who'd hituon
the idea of revolving the rollers the wrong way said that the head barman
had 'definitely lost control of the steering wheel and should have his
licence endorsed, the bastard.' He was a big, flushed, burly man with
immense dewlaps, and a deep county accent. It was surprising that the
policeman didn't touch him - but somebody in the crowd said that the
police didn't like arresting 'big' men, this man being. something 'big'
in politics.
Suddenly a small, slim young man pushed through the crowd and,
clutching the policeman by one of his chest-buttons, shouted, "Arrest me,
you attractive bitch, I'm quaer!" And the policeman said, "Do you mind
jest taking your hands off my button?" "Listen to that
he made a
proposal!" the young man shouted back. "No, I won't meet you in the park,
not with your big horny hands!"
There was a smiling throng round the bar, and glasses were being
smashed on the floor. The policeman was lost sight of, and a game of
tail-pulling started; nearly everyone's tail was off in a jiffy!
"I've got an elephant!" came a cry.
"Bag's a pony!"
"Dear, dear, I've got the sweetest little deer: dear, dear!"
In the body of the hall there were still many intact tails -
buffalo-tails, donkey-tails, cow-tails and golden horse-tails; the hoofs
were of every colour and design - some were wooden clogs, others high-
heeled shoes adapted, others short rubber boots with hair painted on them;
one man had a great hairy hump on his back and a camel-cloth; a woman had


come dressed as a giraffe with two little hairy horns between her ears
and a blouse coloured orange with dark spots. Most of the women had
taken advantage of the required animal-element and were without skirts;
some had dyed or hair-covered knickers on, with stockings, and others o
wore tights of evéry colour like Pinkie's. Hanni suddenly appeared at
the top of the stairs in perhaps the most fantastic costume of the evening:
she was a zebra, striped all over, even down her stockings, all done in
such a thorough way that her black eyebrows meeting together over her
nose looked like another stripe; she had two vast ears and a long, thick
tail which she could operate and turn one way or the other without touching
it directly. She came in supported by Clockwork who was also a faun, but
without the red kisses that had been painted all over Granville. A crowd
collected round them at once, cheering and lifting their glasses to Hanni;
she amiled and laughed as if she'd had hér full share of Clockwork's
whisky, her head lifted, while Clockwork softly and expertly pilotted her
through the drunks; a high-heeled shoe suddenly appeared and then a bottle
of champagne; Hanni was being invited to drink out of the shoe, but she
shook her head with a grimace; the champagne was poured into the shoe
unsteadily and then it spurted out of the toe in a fizzy spray, through a
hole. Suddenly a young man with a vast, bushy lion's mane round his
neck pushed himself towards Hanni and said at the top of his. voice, "I'd
go anywhere for meat like yours, being a lion!" and then as she disappeared,
"See you back in Africa, you lovely piece!" Clockwork took all this with
a slight, easy smile, his eyes seeking out the people he knew; then
Granville saw him usher her up to one of the tables where there was a
quiet group; people stood up and shook hands with her, none of them in
fancy dress.


There were cries from all over the hall during every dance:
someone would laugh at the top of his voice, or a couple would plunge
into a table' and upset everything. You certainly couldn't describe
these people as the tame citizens of democracy! They stood, legs astride,
staring on to the floor with flushed faces, or they raced the women round
without the slightest etiquette; one of the women roared as, loud as the
men and kept shouting for no obvious reason, "At-a-boy, at-a-boy!" The
giraffe-lady lowered her head during one dance, after another couple had'
deliberately 'barged' her, and drove her little hairy horns into a man's
tummy, making him shriek with a laugh, "Letitia, no, Letitia, bitch!"
From this developed a 'bull-fight' in which one man mounted another man's
back and tried to tear another man off his! But this interfered with the
dancing and the M.C. put a stop to it, saying at the top of his voice over
the microphone, "I'm sorry, there, sirs, I'm sorry, there, sirs, you, sirs,
yes, please, sirs, I'm 'very sorry, I'm sorry?", which was completely
incomprehensible to those at the bar and on the balcony, who couldn't see
the 'bull-fight'; one of those at the bar, hearing the voice, suddenly
rushed into the hall with a half-pint tankard of whisky and soda in his
hand shouting the same words, "I'm sorry, sirs, yes, sirs, you, please,
sirs, yes, sirs, I'm very sorry!", weaving his way among the couples at a
lightning" "speed, without spilling a drop of his drink, and then ran back
into the bar again; he ended facing one of the rollers, and cried,
"Terminus! All change!"
It wais all like an extraordinary pre-arranged performance, one
event fitting with the queerest logic into the next. Laura Lady Maine,
the guest of the evèning, appeared for a few moments, looking frail and
dazzled and bemused by the publicity being poured on her: people got up


from their tables to bow and curtsy and he saw one man quietly put his
tail in his pocket as she passed; then she was gone and the roars were
as loud as before.
Suddenly there was a shining black riding boot on one of the
tables and Granville watched a flushed, thick-set man with twinkling,
bloodshot blue eyes shout at one of the. waiters, "Waiter, come 'ere!
Lady Maine left 'er shoe be'ind!", and he promptly dripped the boot on to
the man's tray, where there happened not to be any glasses.
Elizabeth had been there all evening but in one of the side-rooms,
and Granville, having pulled his fair weight at the bar and drunk two.or
three more glasses than he'd paid for by posting himself close to one of
the rollers, whirled her round the floor at a breathless speed,: which
surprised both. of them. She looked superb, her hair done up in a kind of
mantilla, with long ear-rings; she wore a long black gown and had made no
effort at fancy dress apart from a flimsy horse-hair tail, also black,
that hung from a lace bow at the back. Then groups formed for a 'Scottish
air' and each had to improvise a reel, with the others dancing round him;
he could see Pinkie in another group. bobbing up and down, her mouth, wide-
open in a crooked grin, while Hell pulled at her dress from behind, laughing
breathlesely. The band looked down from their tiers in a gingerly way,
not showing the slightest amusement or sénse of participation, and seeming 1
to go higher' and higher as the evening went on. Pinkie told him in thé
interval that all the 'fainting' set, which apparently included Clockwork,
were in one of the side-rooms sitting. over cards and champagne; he asked
her to point the room out to him, and she took him there through one of
the corridors leading from the hall; it was a tall room with heavy curtains
and a dim, glittering chandelier in the middle, and there was a complete


hush there; sitting at the tables were mostly young people, pale nearly
all of them, and delicate-looking; by one of the windows he could see
Hanni and Clockwork, quite silent, waiting for a player to make his move;
hardly any of them wore tails or hoofs; Pinkie said they regarded fancy
dress as an 'un-cool' thing to do; they wore dinner jackets and their
expréssions were tired and casual, sometimes sad, as if from repletion
of the senses; Pinkie told him that this was all 'the thing' now -
'pallor'; apparently, you couldn't even sun-bathe when you found yourself - a
as you found yourself every year - in the south of France; you had to
look 'fainting'! Hell was more or less in this set but she danced too much;
if she could just sit and 'sort of wilt' at a card-table for four or five
hours in the evening she would qualify, but as it was she 'made too free'.
Hanni's brilliant zebra costume stood out in the room like a precious
carpet; Pinkie said that this was quite all right because Hanni, being
'exotic', could do nothing 'un-cool'.
Downstairs supper was being served in a room of the same style only
with long tables shining white and silver, with bowls of roses in the
middle; Elizabeth and Bewley-Patton were already there, and he and Pinkie
joined them. Elizabeth gave him a customary blink of the eyes as if
unsure of what he was going to do, but since he sat down like every one
else it passed. She began talking at the top of her voice about how some
'absolute boob' - upstairs had asked her if her black dress was meant to
represent an 'elephant's skin'; to which Bewley-Patton said quietly that
the 'gentleman' may have been referring to the fact that when she danced
she did so 'not unlike an elephant'. Elizabeth laughed and said to
Pinkie that 'our Gordy has had too much wine', and that he'd been saying
to her what a 'gorgeous piece' she, Pinkie, was! It was true, Gordy


kept glancing sideways at' Pinkie in an admiring way, but this was iost
on her as she was concentrating on her food. People at the next table
called out to Elizabeth and waved; oné of the women also waved to Pinkie,
and Granville recognised one of the guests from Elizabeth's dinner-party
at Meedham, the wife of the Aden man who'd argued about shooting.
Bewley-Patton sat quietly sipping white wine; he said,he'd got it specially,
and there was a crate under the table, which was why he had to spend so much
time there; it was lovely Moselle wine with the 'mountain-streams' in' it,
only it had got a bit hot. He was remarkably like Nigel, only a little
older and mellower. Elizabeth asked Granville when he'd be off again,
and he said, "I shan't be, at all!". with a smile. What did he mean?
she asked, blinking again. Pinkie told her he 'd resigned, and Bewlèy-
Patton turned to him confidentially and said, "Did it get you down?" as
if one could change jobs endlessly. This appealed to Granville and he
replied, "It did, rather ", in'a between-us-men tone. Pinkie chuckled
and said to Elizabeth; "I like that 'rather', , don't you?"
"Well, I hope you're doing right," Elizabeth Baid in a grave way.
Granville felt a spasm of irritation; "What's it got to do with
you in any case?"
"Nothing, darling, nothing!" she cried in her light-hearted way,
laughing. "It must be the school-marm in me, I suppose!" And she turned
away with an air of disdain mixed curiously with fluttering respect.
Bewley-Patton sat there and gave him a smile as if to say, 'They
can be annoying, can't they?' The music started again upstairs, a loud
thumping on the floor, and people began to drift away. He danced with
Elizabeth again while Pinkie danced with Clockwork, who had'left the card-
table to look, he told Pinkie, at 'the flesh'. It was a slow dance with


the lights lowered, and Pinkie had her tragic expression again, her eyes
closed and her lips drawn together in a pout that suggested both tenderness
and hurts; it was strange combined with her pointed ears and the red forked
tail that' drifted out behind her; it gave her a peculiar dark haughtiness.
She and Clockwork hardly held éach other at all, only leaned together as if
exhausted, their cheeks touching while their feet shuffled slowly along;
this wasn't the right dance for most of the guests and the hall was more or
less empty. He told Elizabeth how much he'd enjoyed Meedham and she said
with a shake of her head, kicking him slightly in the ankle, "Oh, come again!"
The slowness of the dance was a hindrance for her; she went at her steps
with a country-energy and kept glancing round the floor with a vivacious
twist of her head; and she watched Pinkie, smiling at her as if the tragic
expression was deliberately to amuse people.
Théy crawled into bed just before dawn as the birds. were beginning
to sing and the first milk-van passed. Having fixed her ears BO well,
Pinkie couldn't get them off, and he had to do it with a pair of tweezers,
pulling the wires carefully away. " Her forked tail was broken and her
tights had split during the Scotch reel: she looked exstatic, pale, quiet;
to oblige her, though she hadn't made any direct request, he hardly spoke;
and he left the paint on; his eyes were still long and slanting, and his
lips fuil and red; she put her hand through his hair. and gazed at him; and
he was careful. not to 'hug her too close in case he spoiled the spell; and
they went to bed in the same quiet mood, exhausted; in the morning his red
kiss-marks were smudged, vague red stains all over his chest and arms like
the trace of blood, and the sheets were stained with them; thus ènded his
one night as a faun.


Elizabeth rang up Pinkie that day and told her there was to be a
sequel, a gorgeous boat-party on the Thames with champagne and guitar-
playing, and they were to come as her guests we nothing to pay this time;
it would be on one of those pleasure-steamers, which would cruise down to
the Isle of Dogs and back again.
He felt this new life they were leading confirmed the rightness
of his' resignation; he was moving in ali kinds of circles - nothing in
English life was closed to him how! After all, he must learn about his
own country, mustn't he?
Hanni came to the house later in the week and told him that her
zebra costume had won Clockwork weveral 'good invitations'; he 'collected'
cocktail parties. Also she said that a friend of Clockwork's had danced
with Pinkie and exclaimed aftérwards, because she danced with such abandon,
"My God, that woman throws herself at you!", with an expression of offended
disgust; she added that one could always tell a 'small' person by what he
thought about Pinkie; this chap was 'an unwholesome little social climber';
she said that Pinkie had looked_magnificent danding, and that she doubted
if she'd even been aware of the 'silly little trout', who had a nasty
habit of knocking his ring against the wood of his chair to show that he
had one. She spoke in' her customary low, keening way, and he felt a
protective indignation against the young man on Pinkie's behalf, though
he hadn't set eyes on him. They agreed with each other that Pinkie gave
herself to people without discrimination and allowed her 'wonderful dignity'
to be brought within the compass of their pettiness.
She also told him that 'dad* was an invention of Joy Celeste's to
keep people away from her flat and also for use against those 'like you',
Hanni added with a smile, who were bold enough to penetrate there and make
themselves 'troublesome'.


CHAPTER 26.
The weeks passed. There were newcomers in the group as a result
of the Tail-and-Hoof ball. He was out nearly every evening and couldn't
understand how he'd managed to spend 80 much time in the house before;
the phone rang continually for one or other of them; Dick and Hanni now
took him for granted as a fellow party-goer; usually he slept until noon
and waited for the day to develop, which it did of its own accord, largely
through the telephone.
He went for long walks with Hell, who was one of the newcomers;
they strolled by the river, hardly talking; a subject of conversation would
seem to present itself but then fade away before it was clear; they were
impenetrable to each other. The hair-girl also came to the house,
sometimes with Hanni, sometimes alone, preoccupied and rarely talkative;
but she would suddenly wake up and begin joking and making her deafening
laugh; she would come and sit in the music-room while he was there, hardly
glancing at him, and making dates with her was out of the question; there
was no need, since she came nearly every day; they would put on a record
and dance, then he would make coffee, nothing else.
Alice the snake-girl also came, and Joyce the pale girl was
sometimes there. He began to share Dick's fascination for the pale girl;
she would sit in the kitchen for an hour or more looking at a magazine,
quite still and soft, or smoking and gazing in front of her; there was a
quiet detachment between her and Pinkie; they had something in common, in


their presences, and they averted their eyes from each other as if afraid
of mingling their identities. Hell wore her hair in the same way as at
the ball, straight down, and usually she had a black dress on and clutched
a small black hand-bag; she always. looked cold, and her teeth seemed to
chatter invisibly when she talked, while her shoulders were hunched
slightlys Pinkie said that Grove called her 'the last trump'.
Life was not so casual for him that he felt his identity had
gone. but pleasurably. There was never any cause for nerves or apprehainsion
ur :
since he wasn't called on to do anything; no conversation was expected of
him and no powers were attributed: to him. In this circle no one was
greatly interested in anyone else. It made no difference that he had no
money in his pocket; someone always called and an activity would start for
which his company was required; he had to make no effort for this; he could
sit in silence; his face was known and expected, as the other faces were
expected by him. The social classes mixed, or rather the shadows left on
life by the past mixed - a the snake-girl's Cockney accent and Hell's
breathless, crème-de-la-creme speech. But everyone had their being in
suspense; the snake-girl was wary of Hell, and the latter was delicately
and flinchingly aware of her, so that their real presences were held back.
At first Granville thought that only he held his real self back but he
saw that everyone did it; Dick was perhaps the most open of them, he gave
the truest demonstration of himself in his behaviour; but here there was
an heroic element, of a special cleverly and painfully devised performance;
as a result he amused and enchanted people most, because he'd gone into the
matter more deliberately than anybody else, and had come to the conclusion
that if you were going to turn a false face to the world it might as well
be an entertaindng one. His suffering, as Granvilie learned was


proportionately more unpleasant when he got back to his room; he would
sit and tremble, Hanni said, castigating himself; one evening he càme
back to her at Hampton Court and said he was sure Granville looked on him
as a 'sex-maniac' with nothing in his head at all; at such times, also,
he was afraid of going mad; eterything would be unhinged for him; he would
be floating, severed from everything, falling in empty space; she said he
some times even appeared not to recognise her properly; there would be no
consolation anywhere for him, even in her; he would recognise none of his
pleasures; he couldn't lose himself in anything; that was the most farght-
ful thing; he always jerked awake; it was this that sent him to girls; by
the time he'd overcome this fearful floating detachment, sufficiently
to excite their interest in him - - he told Hanni that luckily the 'little
worm, vanity' had so far never let him down - he was already back in
life, and strong enough to go back to Hanni and make love to her; this,
she said, was mainly why she didn't try to interfere with him; it was his
way of getting strength, from which she benefited.
Just as other people drifted into his house, without saying a
word, s0 he drifted into the local cafe or the pub where he might expect
to find a group of them; and he would sit down in the same way, nodding hullo
and then giving himself up to the silence. Whet ther orrnot the others
regarded this common behaviour as strange he couldn't find out, as they
couldn't find out if he regarded it as strange; it was simply the accepted
style. Hell sometimes rang up in the middle of the night and asked for
a bed; she lived with 'a family of school-teachers', as she called them -
even the little children were school-teachers, she said, and she dared
not return when she'd taken 'more than a fair drop's so she would creep
into the house and be found on the divan in, the music-room next morning,


her black lace underwear in a pile on the floor and her hair hanging down
from the pillow like black crepe. He or Pinkie would leave the key under
the mat for her. But Granville still clung to his privacy; after a time
he refused to let her in. Also he would lock the door downstairs during
the day sometimes, and not answer the door-bell or telephone.
It seemed to him, even with all these callers, and the activities
in the evening, that he had nothing to do; he couldn't waar his energies
out; he wrote letters of application for jobs and then'didn't post them;
he was on the point of ringing Tit.M. a dozen times; he got in travel-
books from the labrary and began to work out itineries across the desert
based on other people's journeys; he wrote a long letter to Mohammed
telling him what heUd done and promptly tore it up; then he wrote a frantic
one, saying, 'Please, help me!', and posted it. He set himself tasks in
the morning and arranged his desk neatly; he went throughta carbon copy
of his report for T.I.M. with the idea of amplifying it - to hand the
new sections in to them later, perhaps, as the basis of his next job with
them. There was still no answer from Nevinson. Did they regard him as
an ex-employee or not? Dick told him not to apply for his super-
annuation as he would get more later, for some complicated reason; he obeyed
without question and drew his last money out of the bank. He couldn't say
he was unhappy, though.
Hell borrowed the school-teachers' car one evening - she simply
took it out of the garage
and ran it against the railings by the Tower
of London, There was always some interesting little event. Deryk Grysham
had a special nod for her at a party they all went to. The past seemed
quite dead; He was an accepted face, xowhere was barred. to him; he talked
to Grysham casually, and the idea of there having been a to-do between


Dick and Grysham over himself, as mentally he recalled there had been,
was outlandish and absurd, and belonged to a moral conflict--- a social
conflict - was it a conflict of ideas?
which he couldn't grasp now!
Hell gave promise of real friendship; it would be a delicate,
quiet relation in which they would sit much as he and Mohammed had sat
by the river in the evening, with long pauses, saying whatever came into
their heads; she would smoke reflectively, saying didn't he think this
person had something 'valiant' about him or that person was 'a York rather
than a Lancaster', always in a style that just evaded sound sense? He
realised after a time that she kas hardly aware of him. She only went
on in her reflective dream, drawing others in sometimes, if the conditions
were quiet enough. Yet she was polite and answered questions; sometimes
she showed the most extraordinary courtesy and charm when accepting things,
like a cup of tea; but then she would be absent and fidgetty again; at
a party, after a few drinks, she would pass by him without the slightest
recognition, her eyes blind and a smile drifting on her lips. Dick said
that she and her whole group of 'limp noble weeds' gave him the heeby-
jeebies, and he cursed the day Granville had gone to that Tail-and-Hoof
ball! Sometimes, he said, Hell would flirg her 'long, reedy arms' round
him and scream, "Dick! Haven't seen you in an age!", and sometimes she
would walk right past him 'jittering and muttering to herselfs; once he
caught hold of her as she was going past and said in a sharp voice, right
into her face, giving her whole body a little 'rattle', "Tell me my name!",
and she had to gaze at him for some time, straining her eyes, before she
could say in a faltering voice, "Is it a is it Dick Pollocke, by any
chance?"
It oEfurred to Granville that Hell set the tone' for all the other


girls who came to the house - to judge from their behaviour. They
seemed to think that this.was how you lived at Chaworth Road; the pale
girl and the snake-girl talked quietly like Hell, yawned like her, lolled,
smiled in the same limp way. Even the hair-girl showed no vivacity
when Hell was there, not unless there was a party or Larry Vice was
mentioned - at the word 'Vice' her tiny pale figure would make a jump
and her eyes would move in their deep sockets, waking up, and she would
scream, "Oh, Vice! That boy's wound himself round me like poison ivy!"
Once she said in a quiet voice to Granville, "I'll tell you something,
kid, Larry and my dad got on fine, and what more do you want than that,
eh?" He nodded like an idiot and put another record on.
Hanni and Pinkie took it. for granted that he was having an affair
with her. Pinkie told Hanni one day that she was 'somewhat egbarrassed'
to find Joy Celeste "always in the house." Joy Celeste encouraged this
by yelling with laughter whenever Hanni came into the room when they were
alone, and shrieking, "Nearly caught us at it again, blabber-mouth!" or
"I've just been up in heaven, help me. down, sister of mercy!" Hell
would sit for hours in the music-room, in the same chair always, smoking
quietly, never reading, her straight hair falling down to her shoulders
and her thin, pale hands flickering to her face now and then. The young
man nicknamed Cerberus to whom she was supposed to be engaged sometimes
came as well, small and flushed, and as quiet as she was; he had the habit
of smiling quickly on and off whenever anything was said to him, and. then
not answering. He recognised no one at all and everybody wondered how :
Hell had been able to establish herself in his memory; he called everyone
'job', or rather every male, for he had no name for women; he would say
to Granville, "I say, job, have you got another drink there?", and when


Granville replied, "Yes, what will you have, wine or beer?" he would
flash on his smile and say absolutely nothing, only wait. Or he would
ask, "Can Hell and I stay the night, job?", then promptly leave the house.
One day Dick took Granville aside in the bedroom while Hell and Cerberus
were sitting next door, and murmured to him, "Well, how do you like the
middle classes now, bo'sun? Quite sane, aren't we?" Hell told them all
that Cerberus was in the habit of 'walking off' with things, and that a
few days previously he'd left someone's house wi th a persian carpet over
his shoulders; he'd left it in the Tube
"I think I left it in the
Tube," he said afterwards. These stories sounded exaggerated, but they
always turned out to be true; for instance, Hell was called to a police-
station in Islington to answer questions about the persian carpet.
Glenning brought over a young man with ruby lips and a pleasant,
drowsy smile called 'Mac' Saunders who edited the daily gossip-columm
that Granville had read so often in the last three months. He and
Granville began going for long walks together, sometimes with Hell as well,
again hardly ever exchanging a word. The more he came to know 'Mac', or
rather the more silences he shared with him, the more surprised he was
that what Glenning called 'the racket' hadn't touched him; and that he
gave an impresaion of untouched goodness and calm; 'Mac' had his own
drowsy reflections, he was the most amiable and cooperative person to be
with, he fell in with every suggestion, he seemed to have no sense of
status - Granville was more and more taken aback. The thing that had
broken Glenning in the same work, namely, that it was hollow, with no
'inside' to it, was the main advantage for 'Mac'. It meant he could
earn good money without touching the peculiar calm that lay in him; he
could go on with his thoughts and pleasures really as if there was no work


in life at all; he had learned the deft touch, after a long apprenticeship,
he said. Sometimes he came into the kitchen when Granville was there
and worked on the conversations he intended to have at parties that evening;
it was easy enough to get people to agree with them after you'd written
them, he said, because most of them were like 'babes in arms' when it
came to a bit.of publicity. Now and then he showed Granville these
little notes, and Granville would see them in print next day: he could
thus see how the glittering world' with which he had once excited his -
own imagination had come about in the mind of a young man not unlike
himself, only with fewer illusions about how the world ran! He wàs also
surprised to realise that 'Mac' Saunders,looked. on him as a source of
information, because so many people came to the house; a conversation with
Hell might,' for instance, be useful one day if a member of her family
flung a big party or got married or assaulted someone. Granville also
knew the Kaaba dancing company, the Marquis and some of the permanent
guests at. the Gare St. Lazare - the 'darker side of life', which also
could be naterial for 'Mac'; for instance, the gossip column once described
a house where 'aristocracy met' dancing-girls, which could have been.
Chaworth Road,
'Mac' liked the 'mice' there, too, namely, Joy Celeste,
the snake-girl, Joyce and a number of others. But he seemed to have no
sexual affiliations himself; he followed. other people's affairs with a
rapt, benevolent curiosity.
Parties came about at the house without Pinkie even knowing about
f them; she was now used to returning home and finding one in progress; and
with astonishing ease she ceased to look on him as a recluse; he was now
much like anyone else; but at the same time she showed traces of
disappointment, as if a god of hers, however hateful, had fallen!


He had spent every penny of his money and stayed in the house
nearly all the time, attaching himself to' a group whenever one offered
itself. Meanwhile she was getting plump and had taken to a wider skirt.
He began to be sick in the mornings, and Glenning explained that this was
only the 'couvade', an ancient primitive ritual by which the men went
through all the labour-pains for the woman, while the women, he added
with a look at Pinkie, went about their 'ordinary business'. The
plumpness didn't stop her dancing; everyone agreed that exercise was good
for child-birth. There were complaints from the neighbours about some
of the parties; the windows were usually kept open because of the heat
and smoke. One morning they found that a passer-by had pissed into
their empty milk-bottles in the night and then into the letter-box; the
letters had soaked it up and were yellow and limp; one of them was from
Elizabeth giving the date of. the river-party, and Pinkie had to phone
to ask what she'd written; Granville said with a laugh that she ought to
tell Liz that her letter had arrived soaked in piss, but a demure and
haughty look came. over Pinkie's face and she said, "I wouldn't dream of
it!" The hall downstairs began to be cluttered up with articles left
by guests.
raincoats, suitcases and even a small pram. No one knew
where the pram came from. He decided to forget about past and. future -
even the little reminders that there still were. e People could say what
they liked about him; he wouldn't stop to think; he'd achieved his objective,
to be free in his own country!
A heavily-built man not unlike Glenning started coming to the
house; he seemed to connect Granville with Pinkie in the mâtter of rank;
one day he asked Granville in a soft voice, "Didn't K meét your father
down at Freddy's place? I think his name was Granville!" But Granville


only laughed; and the othér man, who was called Algy, talked about some-
thing else at once. He slurred his sentences, unlike Glenning; and there
was a vagueness in his eyes that Glenning didn't have - the same blind
quality as in Hell. It was said that Algy had once lifted a smaller
man clean off his feet in a pub when he was drunk and said to him,
"Don't I know your cousin David?" And the smaller man had said in an
icy voice, "Let me down at once,you smell of garlic!" to which Algy
had said, "All right, there's no neëd to be offensive about it!" There
were endless little stories like this, mostly told by Hell, who made an
odd, fluttering and breathless laugh afterwards. Another story was that
'Mac' Saunders had bought a set of whips to flagellate his girl-friends
with, but the sight of thèm had terrified him and instead he used them to
pull the blinds down with at night.
Granville never felt watched in their company; that, he told
hilself, was a wonderful relief for his nerves; there was none of the
'third ghost' he remembered in Walsh; they weren't thinking about you
silently behind their eyes, and judging your conduct; they didn't judge
you at all, you were simply a fact for thems they were outspoken and rash;
he could really let himself go if he wanted to; on the other hand he
never did; he was more constrained than ever before in his life.
These people, he told himself, threw their voices out and. weren 't
afraid of anyone; they didn't have closed or haunted faces; they might
be peculiar, like Hell or Cerberus, but that didn't matter; it occurred
to him that an aristocracy livéd to the hilt for its country; it defined
permissible behaviour once and for all; and the middle-classes, following
behind them, threw their caps in the air only as high as they had done.
Thus, he said to himself, he was passing through a worth-while experience;


he couldn 't say who was 'aristocratic' in the people who came to the
house - Hell was said to be; but, more than this, what 'aristocratic'
was at a time when aristocracy didn't even exist, when it hadn't existed
for a hundred years or more he didn't know! - He meant the shadow of
aristocracy, then; these people were in the shadow; and he was learning
from it; that was a task, surely, he 'd set himself at Heedham? But he
couldn't remember what had passed through his head at Meedham. It seemed
8o long ago, and in a period: when he had shone with health.
He began to think of the days before their Meedham visit as ones
of thought and clarity. His friendship with Dick and Hanni belonged to
that period. Yes, there'd been a friendship! An extraordinary
innocence seemed to surround it now! But the period was over. The
friendship was past. They came to the house less and less, because of
the 'weeds'.
Many of the people who came to the house now didn't know his name;
one of them, hearing Cerberus call him 'job', seriously thought his name
was that, and even introduced him to someone as, "This is Job a I'm
sorry, I don't know your second name.' "
Another thing he liked about Hell and Algy and the others was
that their manners were automatic; they were silent whenever the mood took
them; they didn't hold a moral plan of conduct before them, and they didn't
try to work out easy routes for themselves in life; they burned themselves
at the flame; they didn't search other people's remarks for meaning, or
judge people's feelings by the look on their faces; partly this was due to
the fact that they rarely listened to other people. Sternness didn't
frighten them; they didn't smile to put other people at their ease; they
didn't feel threatened by outbursts of feeling in other people; they didn't


stand in moral scrutiny of other people; other people were still in
mystery for them. But here, in this last assertion, he doubted; what
mystery did he feel himself to have'in their presence? 'He was just a
name, and often not even that; he was respected, but without him doing
anything to win, it; he was respected because he was one of them! Some-
thing was missed out - his personality; it was where he was separate
from everyone else. So he was more middle class thén he thought! He
asking for personality: For a moment he was aware of the night of the
eclipse again; the spark in every man that Christ had shown - - the place
where he was's secret to himself...
But then it was gone!
Not that Hell and Algy were at all certain of themselves; Hell
was called 'the nerve-bag' or 'rattle-box'. Algy was morbidly convinced
that people were 'getting at him' behind his back. Yet, confronted by
people, they' had an automatic manner; there was already something in their
voice and delivery which they hadn't built for themselves. That was
another important thing for him. : But this also meant that they didn't
develop; since so much was already planted in them by upbringing there
was no moral development; their lives didn't seem to move to or from.
anything; they simply were; but all round them there was movement! What
was happening to him? That was his question all the time, even though
he had nothing to answer it with. There was this moral concern in him,
as there was in Dick. But for the others, for Hell, Algy, Cerberus and
the others,, life was in depth; it was still; and that was restful to him;
but at the same time there was movément in him, and he couldn't deny it;
he couldn't deny its thumping demands under the stillness. He couldn't
talk to them as himself so he made jokes, danced, sat in silence, drank
and asked questions. He tried to make his world devoid of future, in


depth like theirs; but it wasn't natural to him, because the future'
stretched before him in the form of a quest. Suddenly, as if to deny
these very thoughts, Algy threw up his job in London and flew to New
Zealand where he started work as a wine-waiter in one of the big hotels;
Glenning predicted that within a year Algy would be unrecognisable -
'weather-beaten and brisk', impossible to tell apart from a working man,
and without a trace ofHell or Cerberus on his person!
At one of his parties Joy Celeste held an impromptu strip-tease
competition in an upstairs room; all the rooms had people in them, and I
the piano was being played downstairs, but more and more of the guests
were drifting upstairs; he walked up as well and could hardly get in the
door; there was a hush in the room,. and the first thing he saw was a
flattering yellow light reflected in the river; the lights were out and
it appeared that by the mantelpiece, in the light of two candles, the
hair-girl and a young man were making bets of some kind; losing à bet
meant you had to take off an article of clothing; she was already in her
blouse and knickers, minus skirt and stockings; the young man was without
shirt or vest; her hair flowed down over her shoulders, and it appeared that
she had claimed untying her hair as a valid forfeit; Larry Vice was one
of the guests, and his hoo; hoo could be heard in the hush; the only talk
was between her and the young man; they were saying in quiet voices,
"No, I claim one here," and "Start with your pants, then", "Not on your
life!", All right, I claim a couple on that and advance you one on the
last forfeit, how's that?" The deep hush surrounded them. There was
an atmosphere of intense concentration. I "No, sirree!" she suddenly
shouted, yelling with laughter. All the men were gazing at her intently,


as if she, were operating a subtle mechanism of some kind and they were
admiring her ingenuity; he didn't know half the faces; her blouse came off,
and she stood there in brassiere and knickers, saying, "Hey, now, look,
I'm chilly, customer," while the young man persisted, "That's not a full
forfeit." Then it came to an end without further undressing; she was
suddenly ashamed, glancing round at all the rapt faces in the flickering
candle-light, and with a shake of her head and a defiant pout she pulled
on her skirt and blouse again.
Granville had got into the habit when talking alone to Dick of
referring to the hair-girl as 'Makboula', her supposed real name, and by
accident he did it one evening when they were all together in the music-
room; she turned on him at once, her head lowered, and hissed, "Drop that *
name, streaky pants!"; there was the utmost blind venom in her eyes and
he stepped back, astonished; but suddenly she was talking in an unconcerned
way to someone else. They hardly spoke to each other again after that,
but she continued to come to the house, and he made her coffee as before;
she didn't seem to notice any difference. He, reflected on the expression
'streaky pants', wondering what it meant; his trousers weren't streaked;
Dick said he thought it was a cross between 'streak of piss' and 'randy pants',
a grammatical cross or compound, old sport.'
Suddenly as he lay in bed one night there was a terrific onslaught
on his mind from the silence outside, in accusations that came like
hammers one after the other. He was stunned and began to sweat, his
mouth open. He didn't believe in God; he' only believed in Christ as an
historical figure! He didn't believe in the miracles! He didn't
believe Christ was the son of God: He didn't believe Christ rose on the
third day! He didn't believe in the ascent to heaven! Hë didnit believe


in heaven! His heart beat fast and the blood plunged through him like
a torrent in the darkness. He didn't believe he would be received after
death! He believed in oblivion: There was no help. There was no
foothold and nothing came from any activity. While he sweated and stared
before him there - was also a total pause in him. The night of the eclipse
was dead. He was an imposter. He struggled to recollect his reasoning
that night. He almost pushed himself outof bed in the darkness,
straining; where were the thoughts? where should he begin again? where was
the first foothold so that he could climb again? But all he could think
of - they came ringing like a false bell into his mind, idiotically -
were bare propositions, 'the spark in every man', 'riding in on an ass',
'giving up ambitions', but the state behind them was gone; they were words.
He lay back again bathed in sweat, exhausted. "What had happened to me?"
he asked again.
There was a small, pretty young woman in Hell's group who became
his 'lover'. There was a sudden, gnawing desire between them, pulling
their bodies together; like a hard will nobody else could stop. It was
like a flame, white-hot, not really passionate but with a white and hard
determination e they met in a club, in a large group, and danced together
at once. They mingled their breath together as they moved round the
floor, gazèdgat each other closely, without a word, their faced almost
touching. They kissed suddenly, under the eyes of her 'husband'
the
man living with her at the moment. It was beyond both of them, this
hard, obstinate lust. Ee. quickly took her phone-number and they met
three days later, in the afternoon, at the Hampton Court flat. It was a
cold, dismal day. The moment the door closed behind them he began
kissing her and taking off her clothes. She had the curse but, half-


naked, she pulled him into the nearest room, to one of the divans, and
:he came on her stomach. That was before they'd spoken a word together.
They met there again the following week, and stripped naked in front of
the. gas-fire. But the nàkedness satisfied him less. The room was
freezing cold, while one side of them was baked from the fire. She
clung to him again and again, for one orgasm after another, and he'
1 wondered if this was what people meant by 'nymphomaniac', When they
were finished they had nothing to say to each other. There was the first
fascination, while she was dressed, but then, in the candour of nakednèss,
everything fled away. They found, talking to each other, that they didn't
even like each other much. On the bed she marvelled at him, her eyes
closed, saying, "Oh, this is the best, the best!" but he felt quite
separate, just an object to her, as wide-awake ad he would be walking
alone the street. He felt friendly towards her. "I like you*, he kept
saying.
Really, it was the same as he'd felt with Hell and Algy. He was
a kind of abstract force for her - his individuality was missing. And
she didn't seem to be marvelling at him - only at his movements, his
erection. He was a 'man' for her. Just 'man'. In her circle you
expected 'the men' to be rash and wild, rather blind, violent, not aware
of women as more than 'little things', as 'gals' you were expected to
crush in some way. Dick hated them because he understood them!
She had spurts of anger
irritation that leapt out suddenly
and tried to claw him, perhaps because he gave her neither the bad
treatment she was used to nor the first hard lust.
Pinkie had no suspicions. She continued to flinch when' she
saw the hair-girl or when the Kaaba dancing company was mentioned.


Granville found that she suspected his innocent journeys across London,
when he was gokng to meet Glenning or 'Mac' Saunders, but was at peace
when he left the house to meet Hester, as, with a touch of irony, his
'lover' was called. Hester was a divorced woman with three children;
that was the only real subject of conversation between them, her children,
and she would show him photographs of them; she had the same delicate,
breathless manner of speech as Hell but there was a concentrated gleam
in her eye that Hell lacked; she was clearer and more determined, with
an obstinate will which couldn't be swerved; she said she dared not
introduce him to the children because they might think badly of her; they
would tell her parents, and her brother was a Jesuit priest; she had
taken terrible risks to 'go' with him; her family watched her 'like hawks',
they'd' done so since she divorced, and once her father, who was an army-man,
had pushed her down the stairs just outside her flat and threatened to
'make mince-meat' of her because she was going' with a man at the time.
It was a macabre, finished world she described: the young men in it had
a desperate violence wie she had left her husband because he would twist
her arm 'frightfully' if she came back late! And she was always coming
back late, it seemed, always risking something! There was the same
blindness as in Hell; everyone she described was wild and frightening, a
kind of maseive caricature; she endowed them with stature, but it was
set and known, universal; she said her father had got wind of him,
Granville, and had' promised to search him out and give him 'a sound kick
in the stomach'; he asked hér, trying to joke as always and to throw off
the burden, "Isn't that unsportsmanlike, the stomach? Shouldn't it be
the arse?" But underneath he was sick. and giddy. These dreadful threats!
Dick, also, had got wind of his 'activities' in tie empty flat --- - which


Hanni now seemed to have vacated - and told him that Hester was known
everywhere as 'the man-hole'.
Yet, though only his unanimated flesh was involved, in orgasm aftet
orgasm separate from him and abstract, he felt revived; it was what he
seemed to need; it was in his flesh that he needed to revive and feel his
first independence from Pinkie. And now he felt easier at Chaworth Road;
he could delay his sexual approaches to Pinkie as long as he liked,
having exhausted himself elsewhere; his approaches were more subtle and
patient; there was now no chance of his : suddenly giving way to an outburst;
there was nothing pent-up in him; his flesh was now equal to hers and he
shared, 80 to speak, her burden of guilt when they lay down side by side
at night, usually without saying a word to each other. He began to feel
light, and his appetite improved. Dick told him he looked 'drained of
impurities', and that was precisely how he felt; his flesh, separate from
him, was healed; his blood was clean; he felt cool and ordered.
He asked Dick what had happened to Hanni; why was she never at the
flat? The reply was, "No particular reason. Why?" Nor had she appeared
at Chaworth Road for some time; Pinkie hadn't seen her. Dick said she
was working hard, he believed, though he hadn't seen too much of her
himself, eit ther. Then he took Granville's arm in a nervous way and said,
looking round, "We all have our ups and downs, don't we?" His lips were
pale and Granville thought he saw the faintest trembling in his fingers.
He began going to the New Studio theatre, and then became a
member; it was another place to sit and take people to if you wanted to
demonstrate a socially taried life; food could behhad there and the
tickets were on a subscription basis. He got the money to join from
Pinkie; he told her about the club and she nodded rather like someone


considering a pay-claim, and left'the money on his desk before she went
out in the morning. Dick said that the plays performed were written by
a kind of committee employed by the club, and that their idea was to deal
with one' social problem after another, to make a 'clean sweep' of modern
life. The place had already been nicknamed 'Protest Hall* for this
reason, and people 'lapped it up'. There were to be no stars and the
plays were never to draw attention to themselves by being 'over-dramatic'
or in any way idiosyncratic; they were as far as possible simple and clear
statements of a current problem with as much drams as it, would need to
sustain the interest of the audience. Granville was beginning to feel a
peculiar unspoken indignation in his life, and he wondered if these
'protests' would contain it for him in some way. His 19fe was taking
more and more roots in London, he noticed; and ultimately he hoped that it
would take on a stillness such as he'd known in the Sussex days, and false
hopes would disappear; he wouldn't think of Basrah again!
Dick had a copy of the Studio club policy sent to him, and he read
in it that the idea of the theatre was 'the pulpit of modern life' was
to be applied; the West End commercial managers had kept modern life out
of the theatre, it added. He began going to the Studio club once or
twice a week, withor without Dick; there was a seoret pleasure in sitting
in the darkness with the evening paper in his hand; the stage glowed and
he fell into a dream; sometimes what happened on the stage was more real
to him than Chaworth Road; he would dream about it, and wake up in the
morning expecting the situation of the play to unfold before him instead
of his and Pinkie's world. There was one') play of protest after another:
a negro winning his way through race-prejudices in a northern mining town,
a' working man victimised by his foreman, a private soldier pitching himself


against "brasskhats'at Corps headquarters; a young african nationalist
against a British colonial magistrate; a poor family in Wales threatened
with an eviction-order; an Irishman, drinking wildly and cussing 'the
dirty bloody Limeys', trying to sing for a. living; a kind of suffragette
play in which a man's healthy desires caused his wife's suicide. The
trouble was that when you added all these protests together they made
you hate nearly everybody; which left no one to address the protest to!
Those people who weren't bosses might be foremen, those who weren't
foremen might be brass-hats, those who were none of these might be
British, those who weren't British could easily be a man - for the
suffragette play it was enough to be a man! So each new plat knocked the
last one down. Last week you might have been morally indignant on
behalf of the working man but this week you would be just as indignant
against him for being a white man. At first Granville came out of the
theatre. burning with indignation every time, but he was now inured to it.
He noticed that he didn't sit through the plays in a spirit of
criticism as he had done during the first one about the sailor in
Liverpool; he wondered if a change had come about in his life that had
removed a certain essential fibre. Most of theglays he simply sat
through, hardly hearing tkem; he took pleasure in the glow of the lights
on the stage, in a piece of scenery that suggested woods or the African
bush; he would doze.off in his seat and wake up with a start when the
set protest-speeck began, which it usually did towards the end of the
second act; after that he could pop off again. As in the first play
there was a lot of swearing. There were deliberately shocking references
to homosexuality, to Laura Lady Maine, to the government. When the play
was dull and stupid he was unwilling to. admit to himself that this was sok


because he then felt classed among the renegade people whom the play was
attacking. The protest-speeches covered up for the lack of drama and
truth. In one of the plays a character said of another, "He's always got
his eye on the Maine chance!" and there ware waves of laughter;, this
laughter had the tone of the forbidden, as if mentioning the word 'Maine'
on the stage was brave in itself, laying bare the social conventions.
There were regular targets
the royal family, the Church, the 'pukka
sahib' from India; whaterer no longer had power in modern life. There
were trembling protests against a ruling class that no longer existed,
against an empire that had been disbanded.
Dick was offended by the squealing' in the plays; he said that
a man who suffered shouldn't put the blame on other people, But
Branville only smiled. There wasn't a trace of the 'orang-utang' in
him. He seemed to have little objection to anything.


CHAPTER 27.
The river-party was a great success.. It was a superb autumn
evening, warm even, with the sunlight yellow and pure-looking on the
river; some 'of the roofs on either side looked as though they were made
of gold for a moment, and the city made one massive roar that was like a
new, exciting silence. Theré were many of the same facés as at the
Tail-and-Hoof ball. They all sat about on deck or down in the long
cabins while white-coated waiters brought round the drinks; the host,
a small, flushed man with blond hair called Lord Runnock, tasted one of
the drinks from a waiter's tray, holding the waiter by the sleeve. as he
did so, and then suddenly muttered with biting anger, turning round to
his wife, "I thought so, I bloodywell thought so! He's done it again!"
His wife tried to calm him, smiling at the guests and even at the waiter
with, "What happened, darling?" "He's opened the champagne!" came the
answer. "I told you not to!" he said to the man. "I said leave the
champagne till I tell you; but no ---: Oh Christ!" He shouted,
"Where's your brains, for Christ's sake?" And the meek reply came, "I
don't know, sir!"
Eizabeth introduced them both to a bouncy young man with dark
eyes whose name he didn't catch; he talked very fast, mostly to Pinkie,
and tapped his foot restlessly on the deck while he glanced about, singing
snatches of old hit-tunes. "Do you know this one?" he would say like a
machine-gun; and he would launch into a tune, "Da-da-da-diddle-ly-da-da-
dum-dum!" To Granville's' surprise Pinkie looked enthralled all the time,


and seemed actually to be straining herself to recognise the tune, though
hhis was impossible because it was too quick. She had none of her usual
forbearance and dignity; and though the singing wasn't singing, and jarred
on the nerves, there was a smile of appreciation on her face. They went
down to the lower deck and sat on benches, crammed together, while someone
paayed the guitar. Nearly all the guests were personal friends of Runnock's -
and suddenly from across the gangway, Runnock threw him a hard, resentful
glance as if to say, 'And who the devil are you?' Granville turned away,
deciding not to notice it, and said something to Elizabeth and the hit-
tune young man who sat opposite him; luckily she smiled back at him in
a vivacious way and when he glanced at Runnock again there was no malevolence
in his gaze at all, but even friendliness, a soft and gracious look. All
this went on invisibly, a little drama unseen by anyone else. The look in
Runnock's eye was too direct, too intimate, both when it was hard and
when it was gracious, for it to be meant for anyone else. Elizabeth,
being a friend of Lady Maine's, and known by everyone, was a good friend
to have there.
There was no.,wildness as at the ball. The river was lovely
outside, flat and touched with red from the sun. At the Isle of Dogs
they turned round, the boat kicking up a wash with its paddles, and the
party, now that oil-lamps had been lit, became more boisterous. The
bouncy young man kept up a constant chatter, taking his audience for
granted. Pinkie and Elizabeth seemed rapt, glued to him, never missing
a syllable or breath. He'd never seen Liz quite like it before. Bhe
was BO docile and girlish. She ducked her head in a diffident way, like
her daughter jane for a moment, and kept saying, "Oh, you bounder,
George!", then to Pinkie, "Isn't he extraordinary?" Granville listened


for something extraordinary but there was only a string of references
to odd things like streets, aircraft, houses in the country, card-games,
turf for lawns - all in jumble he couldn't follow at all.
And the
whole time there was this vivacious wonderment from the women! Then
there were hit-tunes again - "Do you remember this one? Ta-ta-ti-ti-
dum-dum-ti-tifti:" Then there was the story of how he'd hitch-hiked
fifty miles across Norway because his car had broken down - - he' 'd stayed
at a hotel where the food was good - - and one where the food was bad -
sometimes it had rained - and sometimes it hadn't. And at everything
there was the same enthralled wonderment. Granville tried to puzzle it
out. He tried to listen harder
to get the narrative thread he might
have missed - and he tried to join in, laughing and showing surprise by
lifting his eyebrows. - George --if that was his name d said he'd
been on the 'grand tour' the previous year: he pronounced it the French
way and Granville thought this was a joke and roared with laughter, but
he tripped up badly here because the girls were nodding in a serious way.
George had played baccarat with a lorry-driver in a bistro at dawn
howls of laughter! how did they know when to laugh together? "George!
Old thing"", it went on. And from George, "I was absolutely whacked -
the next night, I really was
God, I think I slept about twelve hours ---!"
To which Pinkie said in a demure way - it was so unusual for her that
Granville nearly nudged her to ask if she meant it - "Come, come, I
can't imagine you getting very tired!" Why not? She hadn't. even met
the chap before!
When the boat got back to the pier nearly everyone went on to the
Melbourne, a quite fashionable club, by an arrangement that formed quickly
as people were getting into their cars - "Coming to the Melbourne?",


"We're off to the Melbourne, what about you?" He and Pinkie went in
George's car; Elizabeth was travelling, with Runnock. George spoke to
Granville for the first' - time : a how did he think 'the old engine'
sounded? Granville didn't know and didn't care, but he said, "All tight,
I suppose." "You suppose
:" George cried with a rushed little laugh,
"I only had it decarbonised today!" "Good Lord," Granville murmured,
looking out of the window. He sat trying to think up something mechanical
to. say, and chose carburettors. At once George turned to him as if he 'd
said something stunning, and went into a long speech about the 'double-
carb' a
"The double-carb's the job, it really is - fit it in a day
I said, look how does that adapt to the rest and he said, fine, so I said
get to work
you just have to give it a tickle and whoof! the girl's
off - stands to reason, doesn't it, but there you are - rattling away
I was, the old bus
but very sound, though, don't you think so? Do you?"
He fixed Granville with youthful, darkly sharp, friendly eyes. "Yes, I do,"
Granville said, trying to give him the same glance back.
At the Melbourne there was a long table under dim lights where most
of the river-party guests sat. And once more there was champagne. Pinkie
and George danced together
she showed him how to whirl round on the
same spot without getting giddy: you keep your eyes on the other person's
eyes! And she swept him round with an oh-you-charming-devil look on her
face, apparently more abandoned than ever she'd been with Grove, and in
a role Granville couldn't connect with her - it was just too extraordinary
for words; he sat and stared at them with puzzled fascination, wondering if
she'd gone cuckoo! George wasn' 't a 'faun'! He wasn 't what she called
an 'oomph-man' - Grove had oomph, she always said! George was pleasant,
inconsequential, cheerful
not the sort of person who interested her


that way at all!
As if by previous arrangement Deryk Grysham was also at the
club, in another party onothe other side of the room. He seemed a bit
touched tonight, too! He was giggling, fluttering his hands at Pinkie
and calling out, "Hullo, there!" ' he even acknowledged Granville with
a radiant smile, and he danced as well, with a pretty, dark-looking
robust girl who looked about her glumly and didn't seem to understand
what he was up to with his little prancing steps. Well, Grysham was
certainly dazzled by the river-party, that was clear: And Granville sat
comfortably at the long table, syrrounded for all he knew by the best
titles in the land; and there was Grysham on the other side with some
tatty old group who probably couldn't run to an Honourable, let along a
duchess!
Granville had had a few drinks and was in an abandoned state of
mind himself. He thought he would like to be said hullo to again by
Grysham and deliberately fluttered his hand to him across the room; and
the effect was immediate - Grysham fluttered back as if to say, 'Why
çan't we always be together like this?' He felt like-making Deryk flutter'
all evening, just for the devil of it! Someone said that Laura Lady
Maine might be coming to the river-party table later in the evening
she 'came alive' only after midnight. There! They were clearly going
to get jam on it tonight! He felt like ringing up the prime minister
and asking him to step over!
Pinkie's whirling and Crysham n's capering went on. Granville
danced, too, first with Elizabeth and then with one of the women in the
party, whose face was extraordinarily composed, with a dazzling loveliness,
her skin so soft that it appeared beyond touch, making him feel hushed,


suddenly, wondering if the noisy dream would come to an end andepeace
reality
return. He could hardly take his eyes off her. Iet she
wasn't pretty. There was only this composure. He sat gazing across
the table at her, hardly blinking his eyes, not shifting his gaze even
when he drank from his glass. He went from chair to chair drinking up
the unfinished glasses, since the bottles were empty. And he even
asked a glowering, handsome, thick-set man if he might finish his glass
for him as he didn't appéar to want it, and the man said to him after a
long pause, "Yes, you may. I appreciate that you're honest about it -
it's better than just doing it, like some other bastards." He said he
was Runnock's brother, and began telling Granville how he hated most of
the other people at the table. And he repeated, "I like you because
you're honest -- a when you want to take the boose out of my mouth you say
so, so here it is, and I bet you've got the bloody neck to drink it, too."
Granville said he had, but only if they 'went half-way', which Runnock's
brother did, scowling at one of the other guests and saying, "They're all
rotters!"
At the end of the evening - Laura Lady Maine didn't come after
all - there were arrangements with George to meet him again; he must
come and have dinner at Chaworth Road, Pinkie said. Once or twice
Granville addressed something to her in the foyer outside, while they
were all getting their coats on, but she appeared not to hear him. Her
eyes passed him by, set on a task to which he was absent, but more than
that, to which he was nothing but a dead object, flesh, just dead weight,
wi thout a spark of liRe in him; he'd had a similar sensation with Hell,
but this was much worse -e this cancelled out his whole past, self, body;
he was' nothing, just a thing in clothes; he existed only from the outside -


a cardboard reality; that was how he felt himself while she and Liz and
George still pranced about among the coats and hats - just a prop for
his clothes.
When they got back home, as they were going up the stairs in the
darkness, he asked her, "Who was that young man, the cne called George?"
"Good God," she replied, "don't you know?" She half-turned in the
darkness, nearly stopping: "That was Viscount Warsdale!" And the anger,
pent up all these weeks, suddenly flooded over him - he knew he wouldn't
be able to hold it. Already he'd begun to tremble ve = her last look at
him, in the foyer, burned in his memory so! And now he'd been given the
reason
a viscount! A viscount! Viscount! How tawdry and cheap!
How bestial! He was silent for a time as they continued up the stairs
to the music-room, but there, before the light had been switched on, he
burst out, shrieking at the top of his voice, beyond himself as he'd
thought it was impossible for him to be now, "You dirty, filthy lot of
crawling toads! Stew in you own rotten juice instead of dragging other
people into it - you filthy lot L-- you filthy lot
you filthy lot --!"
He had never yelled at her so much; his voice echoed across the street in
a shriek, and the tears poured down on his face; "You heartless lot,
you heartless lot!" It was like a frightening chant, almost a song!
It appeared to be a complete shock to her; he was aware of her trembling
in the darkness, and there was a gasp as if she'd begun to sob! "What:
are you talking about?" she asked breathlessly. But his strange, shrieked
chant went on, though he had no sense of choosing his words; and it came
out in bursts, like panted breath, halting and half-croaking like a
frightful cough, "God, if I'd known -- kowtowing to people like that - -
you filthy, bloody toads
ladies - where's your bloody - pride,


both of you - going down on your arses
to some tuppeny-halfpenny
kid - the manners of the gutter - just because me of some - cheap
bloody title
what a foul - couple
of bastards you are
aristocracy
you people !" The tears continued to pour down his
face and into his mouth. He was sure, underneath, that she would
accept what he said, noy show anger or offence, because of the sheer
helpless noture of his outburst; he thought she would want to nurse him
in some way and calm him down. "What a filthy exhibition ---!" But
suddenly she leaned forward in the darkness and with a swift, coolly
aimed movement swung her hand-bag, which had Et sharp metal edges, into
his face, drawing blood; he put his hand up and lowered his head and was
at once calm; "It's all right," he said quietly, "I'm sorry."
She stood there quivering, her teeth chattering. And they
continued to stand in the half-darkness, their legs astride. She seemed
to recover and started to move away, and this had the effect of reviving
his anger at once: he imitated her talking to George, bending his body in
a mock-wheedling fashion, "Oh, come, come, I can't imagine you getting
tired!" And he added in a clear voice, as if making a matter-of-fact
announcement of some kind, "You stupid, arse-crawling bitch!" He slammed
out of the room clutching at his mouth and as he walked up the stairs he
heard her cough in a pathetic. way as if all the sorrows of life had suddenly
heaped themselves on her and she couldn't go on any more; he stopped, to
return, but his pride made him go on up to the kitchen where he made
himself two eggs and a rasher of bacon, with a pot of tea; she was asleep
by the time he returned downstairs. He decided not to drink wine or
beer for a few days to let his blood cool; his mouth swelldd up and Pinkie
made a joke about it next evening to Hell, saying how jealous he'd been


because she danced with Viscount Warsdale; Hell wanted to know at once
how 'Georgey' was, she hadn't seen him for years; her interest quickened
in the most unusual way. In three or four days he felt he could joke
about it, too; "What's that you keep in your hand-bag, " he asked Pinkie,
"a knuckle-duster or something?"
Grove appeared at the house again, but this time only for a few
minutes, on his way to a party. Again Granville was acutely aware of
his benevolence; standing at his side he felt that Pinkie was com;etely
vindicated and right - to choose Grove. Yet he knew that when alone
again he would fall back to the twisted logic by which she bas his
rightful wife. But there was something extraordinarily bright and safe
in Grove's presence which remained with him.
He noticed a change in Pinkie: she was more cautious in the way
she talked about other people these days. If he appeared to criticise
someone, say Hell or Cerberus, whe withheld herself with a demureness
he'd never seen in her before; she turned his criticism back on him, as
if the spirit of criticism in him was something dark, belonging to the
past - before he became a gay dog. He felt from her silence that his
criticism was an unnecessary departure from the light- and reasonable.
attitudes that now governed the house.
His outburst after the river-party was quickly forgotten; he'd
had too much to drink and that was that; it was true, he told himself,
he'd drunk an enormous amount without realising it! Again Pinkie told
him, as bhe 'd done in Basrah, that he was 'such a sunny person' and that
it was always a pity. to see. him 'burying his head in theories'.
An element in her character had waned recently; she was a" less
extravagant person. On the surface her extravagance was much greater


than before - he noticed that she wore tight trousers in the evening
and sexy blouses like one of the 'mice', and she no longer seemed nervous
of other people's opinion, she seldom had a shy and lonely expression
now; but this was only a social extravagance; underneath she seemed more
reserved, he could feel her deciding not to say something out of social
policy. But this new outward extravagance seemed to satisfy her; her old
arrogant way of speech was gone but she was happier. While he thought of
this as Grove's influence on her he couldn't account for it in Grove's
personality; why should her extravagance have gone?
There was a second much stiffer note from the U.K. Compound in
Basrah asking again for the sum of £11.14.2, but this time it gave him
a little twinge of enjoyment - to think that he'd laid down all claims
to people's good opinion. He began to wake up in the morning with the
feeling that he'd put his body in pawn the night before, to the public;
it had been revealed naked and he didn't know how much of it had been
seen, and what shame he'd brought on himself; sometimes he woke up in the
middle of the night with his heart beating fast, a sense of shame and
regret paralysing him like physical shock; this was shame, he found, at what
he thought he might have said to someone in the evening; he had a vague
memory of many conversations; particularly those he'd had after a few
glasses of eamething were lost to him in their detail, and it was here,
in what he couldn't remember, that the chief source of shame and useless
conjecture lay; or else he would remember something he actually had said,
and it would dart into his mind like a frightful flame, making him sweat!
It might only be a small remark he'd made but if it had slipped out
without preparation, and particularly if there had been a silence afterwards,


a lull in the talk, he felt the encroachment. of shame; next morning, or
in the middle of the night, the words would appear before him like a
lighted sign; it might be .a remark, that he'd enjoyed one of the plays at
'Protest Hall', after which, particularly if there had been a lull in the
talk, he would feel silently judged as the sort of person who approved
of all the plays at 'Protest Hall', or else the whole of that one; he
would conclude that the person he'd been talking to thought him a fool,
and there was no way of retrieving himself from this verdict; it was the
verdict that he saw.held above him like a red neon-sign in the dead of
the night. Thus, he found he was more interested in other people's good
opinion than he'd thought!
One night this took a graphiç form in a dream which haunted him
for days. It was after a gay night. There was a silver, gleaming,
grotesque object in the sky making a trail of smoke, quite far away, but
in a few moments it was close overhead, vast and silver, with four engines
that made singularly little noise; it floated nearer and nearer - he was
standing in the centre of a large town - until it suddenly dived down
and crashed in flames, still silently, enveloping some of the shops of
the road he was standing in; he jumped into a dark grocery shop for shelter,
pulling two others with him
were these Pinkie and Grove? and there
they crouched waiting for all the debris to fall; then they went out on to
the road again but all they saw was a black gap in the shops and no real
debris, nor flames; and the area was already cordoned off; there was no
great alarm; and one of the people he was with made a joke about it; he
assumed that only the pilot was killed but afterwards he learned that a
hundred or 80 people had died; yet the streét was hardly disturbed. The
sight of the huge floating plane worried him all day. It appeared to him


to be a picture of total calamity which people didn't record in their
faces; life went on without alarm. There was even a certain anger
against. the other people for being killed.
Hester, the lover, told him that she'd met Clockwork, whose real
name was Barnes, and that Clockwork knew through Hanni 'all there was to
know' about him! She then recited his own life to him with artful
glances. He'd thrown up his job in Basrah because his wife had refused
to go out there with him, she said; there was 'a skeleton in his cupboard -
he came from a working family; he lived on his wife; he was of rather an
'hysterical' nature; he was good-hearted and would never make any yort of
'official', which.was why he would probably come to nothing in his work;
his life was "ignominious'; he was in love with a girl in the Kaaba
dancing company.
They were sitting by the river gazing across at the castle when
she recited this to him; and when she asked if it was all true he said
simply, "Ies"o "Including the dancing girl?" she asked. He nodded again,
pouting, "Yes!" She only smiled. A grudging, careless attitude had
grown over her.
He. . waited to be stunned by what she'd said, but felt only' a mild
irritation; he even felt no resentment against Hanni. He thought of
approaching Dick in the confidential manner they had sometimes adopted
at training school: :o: "I say, tell old Hanni to watch her tongue; will
you? I mean, I don't mind, but !" And Dick would be light and clear:
"Of course, I will, old chap!" But he said nothing.
Pinkie said that Hanni was appearing at 'nearly every fashionable
party in London' these days; she didn't say with whom, and he didn't offer


her the information Hester No. 2 had given him, namely that Hanni and
'Clockwork' were so much in love that they were 'like children' together.
But then she probably knew it and was keeping it from him on the grounds
that he might disapprove.
The following evening, as if she'd heard them talking, Hanni
appeared at the door downstairs in a new coat, looking remarkably radiant
and calm, with an unusual stillness in her; it wasn't the quietness of
withdrawal but deeper; she walked easily and her face was cool and smooth;
and she appeared bigger and more erect, and even seemed to look down at
him for a moment. He found he had a nostalgia for her and Dick as
friends and asked her where Dick was; oh, he wouldn't be coming round
that evening! She told him he looked tired and must sleep more; Pinkie
treated her with deference like a special guest, and he heard her closing
the door downstairs against possible visitors.
When Hanni had gone Pinkie told him that Dick had 'broken down'
on the subject of Joe Clockwork; Hanni had stayed away from Hampton Court
for three or four nights running, and he'd got 'absolutely desparate';
there'd been nowhere for him to phone; hé didn't know where Joe Clockwork
lived; all he knew was that they worked in the same office, but she had
blocked all personal calls and he couldn't get through. She'd never
really forgiven him for the pale girl, when he'd come in 'reeking of her',
and above all for making an 'Exhibition' in front of Pinkie and Granville.
She was especially sensitive about her dignity as far as he, Pip, was
concerned, Pinkie said.
Joe Clockwork had been an 'exciting proposition'; here was a boy;
virtually, with a genuinely queer streak who needed a nurse, and she had
obliged, overlooking the fact that she might fall in love with him, which


she did do, or at least bheid become infatuated; she told Pinkie there
was something extraordinarily 'sad and ancient' in Clockwork which she
hadn't suspected at all, and that she had spent hours simply gazing into
his face and lying on a bed with him, doing nothing; she said the silence
would 'seem to be going along', there wouldn't be the sense of 'a nervous
pause, of not doing.anything, as there was with Dick; it was a 'great rest'
for her; she was amazed at the 'dignity' that lay in Clockwork unseèn!
Then Dick had broken down; he'd stayed outside the foreign officé waiting
for her, and had more or less pulled her off with him; Pinkiè said Hanni
was as tickled as a kitten that she'd 'brought him low' at last.
He and Pinkie agreed that Hanni certainly had 'grit'. Dick had
managed to get her down to Hampton Court, where he told her that she must
never sleep with another man again; he hid his face in her lap and said
in a broken voice that he couldn't reason about it, he knew he hadn't got
a leg to stand on, he knew it didn't fit in with the rest of his life or
with what he believed or what he said every day, but if she touched
another man he'd go away and divorce her at once; and before looking up
he asked her, "Will you take that as final?" There was silence and Dick
repeated the question, still not looking up, and at last Hanni said, "Yes."
Granville imagined her looking calm and proud like a goddess when she said
this; and with this unearthly calm round her she had come over to see
them; she and Dick were now back at Hampton Court, and all further
meetings with Clockwork were to be ones of friendship.
Granville found more and more that the idea of Pinkie sleeping
with Grove gave him a sharp sexual excitement; the pain was an element in
the alchemy, its base metal; and he found that this surpassed his old


desire for her. It overwhelmed his relation with the other Hester.
The anger threatened to rise now and then, he often wanted 'to hit Pinkie
but it was never more than a passing twitch in his fingers, and he always
checked himself in the interests of this new grim passion. He hid the
photographs he'd found of her and would glance at them secretly, whenever
he wished to arouse. his passion; he was astonished at what desire there
was in him, too; it seemed inexhaustible; it was less and less possible
to satisfy it; Pinkie began to wonder at this, too, and told Hanni that
he was 'Herculean'. For her as well the new quiet, oblique sex was
satisfactory; and she told him suddenly one evening when they were on
their way out to the cafe that she could happily go on with this life for
ever; when she came in late these days she always took a bath, and again
he thought he smelt sperm on the towel she 'used; that, too, was a matter
of quick, painful excitement; it was a marvellous liberation from the
suffocating part of sex; it was now free, and no loyalties, much less
moral speeches, were required! Pinkie had to suppress her anger, too;
she started up whenever Joy Celeste was mentioned; he watched her doing
the same as himself; her eyes flared up, then her face grew set and
deliberate. They even began confiding in each other about their love-
making. This was momentous, and happened quite by accident. He suddenly
said in a genial voice, "Oh, come, why do you try and hide these things?
I won't bite, you know!" And she began telling him about the approaches
the 'young man with the ear-ring' had made to her, when she'd called on
him. He remembered how relieved h'd been that she returned to the house
before ten o'clock, and that she had joked with Dick about it; but now he
regretted that she hadn't more to tell. As Pinkie said, "You want your
bread buttered on both sides!"


Grove wasn't mentioned directly; he had the impression that this
was sacred for her, and above, all other pleasures; he appreciated her
character in this. Their talk was an exciting preliminary to love.
It freed them from the shadows of the past, from the aching void of
belonging exclusively to each other when they shared nothing and weren't
real kin; it accepted the emptiness between them; they established each
other again as separate people with interesting lives of their own; it
filled the lack of a rock of trust underneath - the swirling waters
were received, they plunged into them! They slept with each other more.
No hot feelings were involved. They kept their distance from each other
as part of the pleasure; it was not unlike Glenning's vestist' activities
with his wife. They were like two strangers, but these strangers took
surprising liberties with each other; that was the attraction. They were
damiliar and thrillingly new; she began to need him sexually, and to find
him 'interesting'.
Apart from that he would spend whole afternoons listening to the
Creole Shake over and over again, with a glass in his hand. He went to
a concert and heard the German Requiem; in the first movement during 'For
all flesh is grass', he had the sensation of floating away quite beyond
himself, almost into death, to the borders of nullity, rising and falling
with the music as if he was being lifted up bodily and then lowered again,
each time with less and less body s0 that the sky came nearer and nearer,
and he was almost received into it, bathed in melodies and sunk down and
limp; he was crushed, and stumbled back home afterwards; there now weemed
two parts of himself - the music wasn't absorbed into his life; it only
made him float outwards; it didn't enter his flesh, changing him, as it
always had before; it couldn't get through to his numbed and paralysed


flesh, so stayed in the floating regions, lulling him and calling him
from the bad life. To verify this he went and heard Schubert's 'Death
and the Maiden' quartet, and waited for the movement of deadly pause in
it, where the outer silence is captured for some moments, and its rhythm.
actually enters life, joined to the music in thorough perfection; and
again when it came he was aware of something passing him by, an awful
procession, like that of a king, that lulled him and çalled to him and
tried to reduce his flesh, but couldn't take him wholly; again he hadn't
absorbed it into the flesh of his life, turning it to blood.
Aunt Beatrice called and had them over to lunch; Pinkie had
predicted this - Deryk would tell Beatrice about the river-party and
their social stock would soar up. They had a méal under a portrait of
one of the eighteenth century Gryshams. Beatrice was all charm and
flashed them glances; her wit was working overtime, but suddenly, after the
coffee, as if he and Pinkie hadn't come up to her new expectations, her
charm broke
he was in the middle of saying something about the sheikh
of Rubath when : she suddenly'turned a withering eye on him and got up with,
"Well, I can 't stay here all day!", and.swept out of the room, leaving
Deryk to clear up after her, so to speak. Deryk did his best, and said,
"Mummy's so tired these days, poor thing!" ' Pinkie's theory afterwards
was that the old girl had realised their invitation to the river-party was
a 'fluke': she had a 'nose' for these things.
Again Granville was aware of betraying himself to an implacable
verdict whenever he said anything more than good-evening or "What will
you have to drink?' He tried as hard as he could not to say what came
straight into his head, and never to say anything that brought a cloud


over people's faces
any thoughtful remark might do this, it seemed -
but it was impossible; suddenly a hot thought would break from his mind
and he would feel exposed to the contempt of others, imaginary as he
knew it was. He feared their conclusions, like iron bars in front of
his real self. He. told himself that they were only 'iron bars' if he
attributed importance to them; he tried to think of himself as a small
and insignificant creature who had no right to people's good opinion;
for only a high image of himself could be taken prisoner by other people
and put into bars; a low image left him free! But when the next occasion
arose his pride would come back like 'an unbreakable spring. He was
surprised how much pride there was in his life. He had no work, no job,
but he dressed himself up sometimes in his office-togs and sat at his desk,
making quite useless notes on a travel-book or something; he realised
when he did this that it was because he was ashamed of himselfi but more than
this, he was ashamed because he saw himself as someone else would see him
lying on the bed for hours, listening to, the 'Creole Shake' for hours
waiting impatiently for the next phone-call; he waen 't ashamed in himself,
left to himself, but he was when he imagined somebody else's eyes on his
life; it was social shame that came from his not being properly alone;
he was no longer ever alone, really. He remembered feeling just before
Meedham that his loneliness was now full
his self was full
because
he had Christ; but this thought was quite incomprehensible to him now;
the lonely hours were bleak; he warmed them with music or wine! He asked
himself again and again, 'What has happeded to the night of. the eclipse?'
But he never got béyond the question.
He would suddenly have a fit of social shame that he was getting
up too late and would set the alarm for an earlier hour, just after dawn;


Pinkie thought he was mad, but he said he liked the dawns! He would get
up briskly, dress and ahave, not linger in his dressing gown. But there
was nothing to do; there wasn't even anything to think about, for he
found that thoughts came easier to.him when he was sprawled on the bed
in old clothes, than when he was dressed and shaved for the office and
sitting at his desk.
He went into a cageteria near St. Paul's for a morning coffees to
revive his memories of when he'd worked at the head office two years
before, and as he was collecting his coffee from the counter he suddenly
took it into his head
partly because he was glum
to smile at the
girl serving him, as a gracious act to throw off the darkness of his life,
to try to bring a brief, tiny light to another human creature unknown to
him, without ambitions for himself. And the effect was instant. At
first she was absorbed in the mechanical business of handing out steaming
cups of coffee, but then she smiled back at him in a delighted way, her
tired, worn face awakened in a moment, and he heard her say to the other
serving girl as he walked to his table, "You can always tell a gentleman,
can't you?" He 'nearly dropped his cup with confusion and hurried to a
chair behind one of the pillars, hiding from her in case he did something
to bésmirch her image of him, and to show his real life! After he'd sat
down he took out a: peneil and began writing a definition of 'the gentleman',
with surprising clarity considering his state: 'First, to be true-to your
feelings. Second, to be enquiring of. others, to show no power, to be
gracious, to harbour no grievances, not to be competitive, not to pay
undue attention to appearances. Third, to call out thé good seed in
other people, to forgire and protect, not to judge in silence. Fourth,
to speak fearlessly, to be rash and wild for the truth, not to study


expedience or reputation, not to consult other men before the truth.
That is, to live with God in mind.'
'le wrote it all out later in the form of a letter to Nevinson,
of all people; he wondered if he was going cuckoo but went on with it.
It. lay on his.desk for some time and he even put it in an envelope; then
he threw it away.. He was surprised how much he thought about Nevinson
these days, though he hadn't met him. He was aware of Nevinson watching
over his life and calling to him like a father. And apparently he thought
this letter would vindicate his conduct in some way.
There was a reply from Mohammed, quite cheerful, asking when he
was coming back and assuming that his'leave had been prolonged once again;
as for Granville's 'Help me! I letter it seemed to have passed unnoticed,
for which he wasn't sorry. He puzzled how this could have been, and
concluded that Mohammed had taken it as 'So help me God!' something like'
his own tired 'Allah, wa-allah!' There was no news at the Basrah office
about his having offered his resigna tion. That was odd.
Joyce the pale girl gave a party at her basement-flat to which
everyone they knew was invited, except for the 'weeds'; the whole Kaaba
dancing company was there. Dick had evidently told Joyce about her
fascinating pallor; she was dressed in next to nothing - bare arms,
bare shoulders, and her skirt was so tight she could hardly walk. It was
like old times: Dick and Hanni were there, dancing separately; Pinkie
came, though she went off early; there was the old excited sense, between
the four of them, of laying themselves bare to each other as they didn't
otherwise, and without saying a word, only winking as they passed during
a dance, or stopping at the bar to chat for a moment. Larry Vice got
drunk and wedged himself in between the wall and a divan bed, and fell


asleep. Granville and the pale girl discovered a sympathy for each
other, due partly to their common friendship with Dick, and they danced
together several times in succession; Dick was applying himself to a girl
in the Kaaba company but came over to him when he was alone for a moment
and said in a low voice, smiling, "Listen, old sport, I can see the danger-
signal! Do you know what I mean?" Granville shook his head and they
looked into each other's eyes with the perfect openness they only had at
parties; Dick went on to say that Pip ought to 'make up his mind' whe ther
he wanted 'Joy or Joyce or who'; he didn't mind what the verdict was as
long as he knew; it was only in the interests of their not getting their
'wires crossed'; he only wanted to know; and there was a look of real
objective curiosity in his eyes; but Granville couldn't tell him anything,
only shrugged his shoulders and smiled back.
As if Dick had planted a suggestion in his mind he found himself
with the pale girl again, talking to her confidentially, mostly about Dick:
together they watched him on the other side of the room with his dainty,
smiling Moroccan girl, and laughed when he made a characteristic little
gesture like taking the girl's glass to re-fill it and giving her a
twinkling smile at the same time; and they watched him when he danced,
his cheek pressed hard against her's. An intimacy was growing up between
them through Dick! Otherwise they had nothing to talk about, especially
as Joyce rarely spoke. Dick had certainly changed her in the last few
weeks. She was now tremulously aware of herself, and kept glancing down
in a slow way at her bare arms and her bosom, and her pallor seemed even -
more of a veil, soft and yet impenetrable, than before; also Dick had
given her a style of intimate speech; she asked Granville all sorts of
quiet questions; her composure was extraordinary; would he ever go back


to the Middle East? what were the women like out there? did he think, she
was too tall for a woman? She gazed before her all the time, still and
reflective; this was the girl who'd sat over love-magazines in the music-
room for two or three hours of an evening, saying not a word! He wondered
at Dick's patience.
Pinkie came to the party in a flowing, black gown rather like
the one Elizabeth had lent her at Meedham; this was to hide her stomach
mostly; she had a few drinks and danced twice with Dick, then left again,
saying she felt tired.
Larry Vice. woke up for a moment, surprised to find himself in
such a tight position, and said, blinking up at the other guests, "How do
you people manage to sleep standing up?", and then went off again.
Granville heard the hair-girl on the other. side of the 'room, in the half-
darkness, cry, "Oh, no, you don't, not with ny dad around!" and "Anybody
seen Larry? Vicey, Vicey!", then she made her clapping laugh.
He noticed Alice the snake-girl sitting in a corner, quiet as
always, like a dark, round-cheeked boy with her thick legs pushed out in
front of her, just as he'd seen her first at the Marquis, with Dick; she
smiled a charming good-evening to him while he was talking to Joyce, and
later he went over and sat at her side on the floor, enjoying the casual
intimacy that joined him to everyone. She glanced down at him and said,
"Your wife's having a good time, I see." He nodded, looking round
involuntarily for Pinkie, but she'd gone; then he remembered that for
Alice the snake-girl Hanni was his wife! At that moment Hanni was
dancing quite near them, laughing and kicking up her legs, with one of
the men from the Kaaba company.
He was about to explain that she wasn't his wife at all when


Alice said, "You wouldn't think he was in trouble to look at him, would
"Who?" Granville asked."
She nodded towards Dick, who was dancing on the other wide of
the room.
"What trouble do you mean?" he asked.
"Wife-trouble!"
There was a pause and Granville asked, "Does he have wife-trouble?"
"Well, you ought to know, " she murmured, turning to him with a
smile, reminding him of Kit for a moment with her tom-boyish manner,
"you're his best friend, aren't you?"
"Yes," he said; and he repeated his question, saying he hadn't
heard of any 'wife-trouble'; to which she replied, "Oh, well, perhaps I'd
better keep my trap shut!"
But later she told him, after he'd said that he felt he ought to
know. as a friend: Dick's wife was sleeping with the Kaaba company's
publicity man; Granville said quickly, "Grove?", a distant form of the
old panic starting in him, a shadow; "Yes," she said.
"Who is?" he asked, not choosing his words properly.
"What do you mean?" she said, again looking down at him.
"Who's sleeping with Grove?"
"Dick's wife!"
"Good Lord!" He had the impulse to run home and tell Pinkie;
it was nearly amusing! But he continued to give her his' attention, quite
still, where he was sitting.


"Yes," she went on, "you wouldn't think it from the way he comes
to the Marquis and talks to Grove as easy as anything, would you?"
She then told him that Dick had thrown up his job 'in Basrah' to
see her 'through the baby'. Granville's excitement turned into the
familiar sexual one, pained and fascinated, as he recognised that for
'Dick's wife' he had to read Pinkie! He was surprised how little this
girl knew Dick; and he had assumed some intimacy between them from the
beginning; he asked her, what had Dick told her about his life? Nothing,
really: they just 'sat together'. Dick had tried to kiss her once but
she'd turned Sidney the snake on to him, and he'd thought it was poisonous
and jumped on a table with a green expression and said to her, "Now look
here, sweet, cobras can be dangerous
we've got laws in this country",
drawing his trousers up like a skirt: After that they became friends,
and she agreed to 'sit with him' if he wanted to. She'd got 'all the
dope' about him from the head of. the dancing troupe who lived in the same
house as Grove and heard him and Dick's wife 'roaring and slapping' each
other upstairé in one'of the bedrooms.
Alice began laughing: "It's a scream the way he talks about them
two! He says, Boy, sometimes I want to go upstairs and join in, it
sounds so good! He says you hear smacks and kisses and yells and then
the bed gives a. clang like the gong in a boxing match! When things start
moving upstairs round about half-past six in the evening he says to his
wife, 'Well, here we go, luscious, seconds out of the ring!' ahd then. it.
starts! Sometimes there's a knockout in the first round, he says, and
sometimes they go on for three hours or more and win on points. Friday


nights are the nights, he says! Sometimes you hear 'em shout, "You're
driving me mad!" or 'It's terrific!" ahich makes this dancer and his wife
just double up!"
At the end of this Alice gazed before her, stretching her legs
out and yawning, and added, "To cap it all the baby she's going to have is
This stunned him so much that at first he only smiled and nodded,
refusing to absorb the words; he got her to repeat it, and she said the
same words again. She added, "I don't like that sort of behaviour.
Somebody ought to tell him. Look at him dancing over there!"
And at that moment Dick gazed across the room at Hanni while he
was dancing and gave her a pleasant little smile, his cheek wtill close
to the Moroccan girl's. Granville glanced at Alice sideways; she was s0
like a young boy, without a. trace of wickedness! His teeth began to
chatter, and he took another drink swiftly; he was in a delirious state
not unlike joy. The pale girl passed and smiled down at him.
Alice also said that Grove was always 'on' to Dick's wife about
living in Chaworth Road; he said it was the filthiest sink' in London,
and that he feared it was slowly corrupting her; she needed all the
sympathy other people could manage because she was suffering a 'real
crucifixion'.
So that was why she 'd talked about the crucifixion once, in the
kitchen! And this made him, Granville, her high priest --he was the mob
that stoned and spat at her!
He could hardly control the chattering of his teeth and Alice
asked him if he was cold. She went on to say, about 'Dick', that you
wouldn't think he was a 'violent' sort of person to look at him, but


according to Grove he was: he kept his wife indoors forcibly and he quite
often beat her up; worst of all, he was unable to excite her passions!
Alice said she had only realised how true this probably was when she'd
seen him dancing on that table pulling his trousers up in such an unmanly
way, because of a harmless snake!
How 'Dick' managed to get his girls was difficult to imagine, she
said, because his touch - according to Grove - was 'the kiss of death'
to his own wife! Grove bad said of 'Dick' that he was a 'nice enough
person' but Pinkie needed somebody with more love in their hearts, who
went out to people more, and. could give her the 'full life' she was yearning
for. And Grove had offered Pinkie a 'money-back guarantee', as he had
called it, that within a year, or two she would be completely free of her
'mania 1 that she wasn't 'wanted'; he would 'open society' for her.
Granville pulled the snake-girl to her feet and made her dance
with him, which she did awkwardly, saying to him when he swung her round
fast, "Hey, do you want a snake-bite, too?" He was surprised how calm
his fact felt; his heart had beat fast before but now he was cool; a
great "coldness began to come over him, making him shiver. People were
dancing drowsily now. At the end of the tune he let her go absently,
hardly aware of dropping her hand. Ke stood in the middle of the room
for a time, ahsent to everything.
He strolled into the basement-area of the house, alone, as dawn
came up
it was like a shadow being lifted from behind the roofs.
Outside it was quite still, everything like dust that had settled for ever,
in this first light; to his surprise he found Dick leaning agains+ the
wall, looking up at the sky, also alone; Dick turned slowly as if expecting
him and murmured, "Hullo, there, old sport."


Granville asked him at once, "Did you know Pinkie's baby wasn 't
There was a pause and Dick replied quietly, "Yes, of course I did."
"Why didn't you tell me then?"
"Evitez les complications, Pip, especially in matters conjugal".
And he added in a more confidential boice, "You know you're a, boob. You
ought to have got out long ago, as I tried to tell you."
Granville nodded.
Dick went on, "Never mind! You know now."
Dick stayed with Joyce and he walked home alone. The dawn was
grey with heavy clouds and the first buses were starting; now and then
a sleepy person walked by, his steps enclosed in the great hush that lay
on the streets. He took a bath when he got back, so numbed in his senses
that it was like kipping someone else's flesh into the water; he hardly
had the strength to lift himself out, and yet he couldn't think of sleeping.
He wanted to go up and make himself a cup of tea but the desire died
suddenly; he didn't want to see Pinkie.
In the evening Dick told him, "I stayed the whole night, and she
gave me two eggs and a lovely rasher of bacon in the morning." He repeated
that Granville ought to make up his mind; he could see his faxcination for
Joyce 'growing fast'. He added, "You can't have your cake and eat it,
you know!" To which Granville said with a limp smile, "Your cake, you
mean." "Yes, but you can have it if you like," Dick said, and again his
eyes were perfectly clear, so light and devoid of possessiveness! He
then went on talking: there was nothing better than sleeping with a 'new'
woman; that breakfast with Joyce had been really 'classical'; it made him
think of Homer and the 'rosy-fingered dawns'. He said that the first


four pleasures in his life were, in the following order: sleeping with a
woman for the first time Ialthough one could 'come a cropper there very
badly sometimes); sleeping with Hanni, meaning by her 'someone of long
standing'; walking alone in a big city at dawn; and, last and fourth,
friendship. He then threw in the idea that if you were 'really keen'
on a married woman you shouldn't consider the husband 'to the point of
withering the roots of love'.
Granville was disappointed that friendship should come so low in
the list; but he felt close to Dick as he'd never done before, perhaps
because everything else was finished for him. He was happy with Dick.
He felt he was fit for Dick only when he was free, like this..
He tried to go on with the same life but coulduno longer break
his face into a smile; he went with people like a ghost and he gave up
phoning the other Hester; they met a last time at Hampton Court
and
adter he involuntarily drew back from her, not knowing what he was doing
at all,. thinking of the party at Joyce's, she snapped at him, "Oh, go to
The money ran out altogether and he had an hour's pale, disjointed
conversation with Pinkie about it; she didn't seem to be blaming him for
it in any way; he avoided her eyes these days, and she, following suit.as
she usually did, avoided his in. the. same way. As for the child, silence
had been so customary between them in the old days that it was easy to
revive. But their new form of sex persisted: it even flourished on the
increased reserve between them. For the first time their love was safely
beyond affection and words of endearment. It gave him a burning desire
even stronger than before; he was now taking not only a. stranger but an


enemy.
They decided to ask Maimbury for a loan; he was to do the asking,
by phone; there was Maimbury's cool voice at the other end asking "Who?
Who did you say it was?" He asked for twenty-five pounds and Maimbury
agreed without hesitation, as cool as before. He went to collect it the
same afternoon and was ushered into the office by one of the clerks; for
some seconds Maimbury didn 't look up but continued writing something on
the side of a typewritten sheet in a slow hand, in the silence of the room;
then he looked up, his eyes calm and soft, and murmured. quietly, "Well,
hullo, Philip." And he stood up to shake hands; the twenty-five pounds
were brought in and counted, and when it was done Maimbury's manner
became more confidential; "How's Hester?" he asked; "She's very well!"
"Good!" On the way back he passed T.I.M. and saw a messenger hasten
inside; the entrance was bleak and inanimately hostile to him, hollow and
dark, and he crossed over the road to avoid being recognised by the
commissionarie. He was still waaring his tropical jacket; it had turned
a bit yellow, perhaps from constant smoky atmospheres, and the weather was
decidedly chilly for it. These days he ate little and sat staring
before him. Sometimes he told himself that a mistake had been made -
how could people know for sure who the father was? But he'd finished
with that sort of reasoning.
He slept with Joyce, more or less because he'd been asked not to
in such an inviting way. Sharing the same fascinating pale secret as
Dick was a pleasure, although, still, his Own flesh was separate from him,
and her softness was lost on him really. Once he and Dick met on her
doorstep and burst out laughing; they didn't ring the bell but went off
to a pub and then stayed together all evening to make sure that the other


didn't go back. It made their sense of intimacy even stronger. Joyce
told them both - separately - that she'd never heard two men talk
so admiringly of each other; she gave the impression that they were two.
aspects of the same being for her, and a perfect complement to each
other. There wasn't a trace of disloyalty in her eyes when the three of
them were together; he and Dick agreed that this was flattering to them;
they were 'sound'.
One afternoon he made the decision to get out; it was the effect
of meeting a friend of Hell's called Tim, whom Cerberus brought round to
the house. He had a round face with rather staring eyes and his lips
were strangely full and crimson; he was impeccably dressed, with a rolled
umbrella, and spoke carefully, his vowels as rounded as his lips. And
he began asking Granville questions, one after the other: he'd heard
from Hell of his arrival some weeks ago; his name was Granville, wasn' 't it?
He believed he worked in the Middle East? That must be very interesting?
Didn't one's nerves get edgy out there : so he had heard? How long
would he be in England? Would the situation in the Middle East blow up
again, did he think? He must know a great deal about the 'Arab
psychology'!
His tone gave Granville too much importance; since they'd never
met before it sounded insinuating, with an edge of contempt. He spoke
with a slow gravity. His lips, bright and moist, were set in a kind of
pontifical deliberation, which.also seemed on the edge of mockery; and
yet when he smiled his eyes were honest and clear. His cheeks were
plump; and his round lips suggested to Granville a riotous appetite which
his manner covered up; also he spoke unctiously and softly. Granville


felt more and more distressed and was also convinced that in the
strangest way he was causing the young man to' behave like this, and that
at any other time he would have looked quite different to him, and spoken
quite differently! He answered as casually as possible, careful not to
give a sign that he condoned the tone of importance; he tried to throw
the questions back a did the young man live in this district? did he
often come here? But they rebounded in his face, and he found himself
answering the same questions himself; also he noticed that his own voice
had a hollow, official sound. Tim suggested a walk, his eyebrows raised
a little as if to ask for the privilege of his company
could he spare
the time? And he agreed like a hypnotised animal; they strolled through
the City, and the. questions went on! Hc felt pale and too. hot, and
ungainly in his stride. He tried to talk about Kurdistan and the Alpine-
like flowers in the mountains there, but his words faltered and he
couldn't get the hollow sound out of his voice. Some sort of strange
pressure was being exercised by the young man, he felt; and he noticed
Tim's rolled black umbrella again as if he hadn't seen it properly before.
It was tap-tapping on the pavement; and also he had a black suit, buttoned
fully at the front. What did he do for a living? He tried to find out,
deviously, but couldn't form the slightest impression. Every question
rebounded on him. The more he talked, the more he made a fool of himself.
He went on talking out of nervousness. No real ideas came to his head.
"Turkistan's just like Scotland!" he cried. His voice sounded so thin
and high! The air was heavy with emptiness. The emptiness had crept
into him, covering the whole of thè City as well like a vast invisible
blanket suddenly coming down over the banks and offices and narrow streets.
Tim was silent now. He'd pillaged Granville's soul -- and the verdict


was silence! Granville wanted to get away. As he turned to announce
that he must be off he was assailed by a dreadful sense of waste; he
remembered it acutely from two years before; it was a sense of having
time on his hands and no obligation or place in the world, and of being
acknowledged for nothing by other peoplé. His clothes felt drab, his
body seemed to have shrunk into something like dust, on the verge of
becoming pure air; he was nothing for the other man; he knew it!
"Well " he began; he wanted to turn tail and run off. - The
New Studio theatre club came up in the conversation; Tim had seen one of
the plays; Granville said -- but apparently without his own voice, and
wit thout there being an idea in his head, much less a picture of what he
was talking about
that he hadn't liked that one. There was aisilence.
Tim then said that as 'the son of peasants - he paused again - 'and
not of decayed nobility' - and here he gave Granville a long meaning
look he liked the plays at the Studio theatre; but he understood how
'the language and some of the ideas' would be 'too strong for some people'.
Granville made a. faltering reply, and Tim considered that he'd withered
him.
At last Granville managed to get away; he almost ran back to the
house, his eyès lowered from passers-by; when he got back he went straight
to the bathroom and took a hot bath; then he changed into clean underwear
and a clean shirt; the last. piece of identity had been wrested from him!
He had no self! Therefore what did it matter where he transported it?
He resolved to get his job back, if that was possible. He
phoned Dick at once and his answer was, "Good, Pip. I think that's wise.
Would you like me to go along to the old cove now?" "Yes." And a
meeting with Nevinson was arranged.


He found out from Hanni that Dick had saved the situation for
him weeks ago! He'd gone to Nevinson and told him not to take the
letter of resignation too seriously - Granville was having 'family-
trouble'; she said he wasn't to let Dick see he knew this; -it was a
secret; but she'd let Pinkie into the secret.
Granville could find out nothing about the Basrah office; Dick
said he wasn't sure he'd get the old job back; in fact, he thought it
unlikely.
Nevinson was just as he imagined him: tall and rugged, with bushy
eyebrows. His hair was slightly tussled like a boy's, yellowish; at
first he was confidential, very much man-to-man.
"Well, I've been hearing all about you"; he smiled boyishly and
went on, "As you probably know, I'm new to this outfit - and not liking
the desk-work at all!"
Here he smiled, and Granville murmured something sympathetic.
Nevinson shifted a paper on his desk. "Well, as far as I can
see you've been doing a first-class job of work out there - - first class!"
"Thank you."
A pause.
"It's just what we want, you see, somebody who gets out and mixes
with people."
He meant by this mixing with Arab people. He said that if
anything 'blew up' in the Middle East they wanted to see it didn't blow
up 'under T.I.M.' as well, and that meant keeping people's sympathy,
which couldn't be done by treating them like 'skivvies'; Granville had
got out among people and hadn't 'parked' himself in the 'foyer of the
British Embassy' waiting for the next dinner invitation like some people;


it was just what they wanted; he was very pleased; awfully pleased.
Another pause. The office was very quiet; its windows gave
out on to a narrow courtyard, with other lighted offices on the opposite
side. A persian carpet covered nearly the whole floor, and a tall lamp
with tassles exactly like the one Granville had had in his own office
stood behind Nevinson's chair, giving the room the same cosy and glowing
look. Nevinson blinked. It was coming now. He pulled out a file.
"Now about this report of yours, we've had quite a lot of
discussion about it - It He scratched his head - "Well, we found it
a bit high-flown if you see what I mean! Mind you - - I He looked up,
his eyebrows raised. "I think it's awfully good myself. But what we
want out of these yearly reports is facts., I mean; we can't go blazing
off into politics and religion, can we
not on the office-level?"
And he showed Granville a page of his report; "Look at this", and he
pointed to the words, 'The middle-class is the instrument of Christ.'
"We can't have that, can we?"
"No, quite!" said Granville
"I expect you know we've decided on a policy of expansion,"
Nevinson went on.
"No," Granville replied.
"Well, what we thought we might do is to put the Basrah office in
the care of Beirut for the time being, so we sent our Beirut chap over
there - - he's new, awfully nice, a chap called Blair!"
"Oh!" He felt giddy for a moment but managed to smile politely.
"It isn't very sensible geographically, of course, but it'll have
to do until we get the Middle East working as one unit."
"This means he's sitting at my desk, does it?" he asked bluntly.


Nevinson looked down and murmured, "Well, old chap, you did let
the job go, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course, I realise I'm lucky enough to get a job at all.
I just wanted to find out. This means somebody else is working over me 9
doesn't it? In the same office?"
"For the time being, yes. Your pay'll be the same, you needn't
worry about that."
Granville flushed with indignation. "But I can't see why I'm
being offered the job at all!"
"It's perfectly clear, old chap," Nevinson said, "we need you out
there!"
Granville wondered at himself for getting indignant; he'd got his
job back, what more did he want?
"This Blair-chap", Nevinson went on, "has been on the Middle East
circuit for years with another company and we were frightfully lucky to
get him. He's just what we need to pull the whole outfit together."
"After all," Nevinson added after a pause, "we can't risk you
going off the rails again, can we?"
It was that or nothing; so he nodded. There was one change:
no travel-allowance and no 'swindle-sheet'; in effect, his pay had been :
reduced! And he would have to ask permission to leave Basrah at any
time; the old jaunts to Kirkuk and Mosul, to the 'Alp-like hills' of
Kurdistan were finished!
Nevinson saw him to the door. with a friendly, "Good bye, old
chap." Then he added quietly, "You know, I'm very sorry about this.
If you'd come to me a couple of months ago and asked for the Beirut office
wb'd have given it to gou like a shot. But' then this happened!" And his


last words were, "I dontt suppose you've had a very pleasant time but if
you pull your weight things'll be all right."
He went straight from the office to a travel-bureau and booked a
passage from Naples to Beirut; he wouldn't stop at Genoa this time; he
needed to be alone; and he needed a sea voyage to bring his health round.
How would he face Mohammed now, as 'Mr. Blair's assistant'? The
atmosphere would be gone.. He'd be tied to a desk with fixed hours.
Mohammed would see that he was a subordinate now; his stature would be gone! :
The evenings by the river wouldn't be free any more. What a fool he'd
been! And he could have had the Beirut office! So much for Dick's
advice! In his mind. he began to blame Dick for the whole course of events,
telling himself that if he'd been given the slightest idea that he could
get the Beirut office for the asking he would never havehung on in London
like that, only Dick had discouraged his initiative; but this was little
comfort, and he didn't believe it.
The question that came to his mind again and again was, what had
happened to the night of the eclipse? Where was its effect? Why hadn't
he felt. the triumph? Why wasn't he aware of it moving in him and
changing him?
He thought that perhaps it might be all right in Basrah, even now,
if he could manage to keep a certain stillness. He should try to keep
before him an image of himself as small and therefore as undeserving; if
he did this a spark might return to him, from outside; he must go about
his work without worrying what other people thought of him; for instance,
he must even try to enjoy losing stature in Mohammed's eyes; if he did so
he wouldn't lose stature, perhaps; nothing could hurt silence if he kept
to it; only pride was the easiest thing to hurt; he must let himself fall


back into silence.
He said nothing about the interview to Pinkie. I It seemed she'd
forgotten he was to have it. That evening he went to a cinema in
Islington and was too tired even to follow the plot; there was a news-reel
in which some poor creature of a hare was chased by whippets; it leapt
through the air frantically, and always the hounds followed, decoying it
this way and that, until at last its strength gave out and it tumbled
under them, a limp ball of fur. Behind him a woman murmured, "Poor thing!
What a damned shame!" in exactly the same voice as his mother would have
done, and tears smarted in his eyes.
A few days later when his boat-ticket arrived Pinkie murmured
vaguely, "I suppose I'll be joining you in a few months, won't I?" He
nodded glumly and they said 'no more. Grove came over again. Granville
was once more struck by the friendly confidencé in him, and felt revived;
the events of the last few weeks, including the question of the child,
seemed unimportant. He couldn't imagine Grove in a dark or irritable
mood. He told Granville, standing by the hearth and gazing out of the
window in his curious abstract and yet local way, that he 'loved everybody';
he really meant that; he didn't turn away from anyone; he said that a
person aroused his good will whoever he was, unless he was clearly a
'swine'. He was trying to give Granville to understand that he'd
intended no malice against him.
A party gathered again in the music-room that evening. Grove
talked most of the time, making everyone laugh. While he talked,
rattling away without the slightest embarrassment, Granville asked
himself, why should he leave? Again the absurdity of insisting on clear
forms occurred to him: why not be a subordinate. here? But his thoughts


went round in' a sickening way, gone almost the moment they entered his
head. He found that Grove conducted a kind of human publicity service:
he brought people together and talked admiringly about nearly everyone;
he sat in the centre of the room and alréady the house was filled with
his spirit.
He went down to Abbott's Road to say good bye. They knew nothing
about his having resigned, and he left it vague; a word was enough for
them; he said he'd had a few things to 'cléar up' with the head office,
so he was late in going back. He was surprised when he stepped off the
bus to see how fresh and clean everything in the district looked. The
shop-fronts were newly-painted and the houses of Abbott's Road looked
like tiny farmhouees, not dingy at all but with a warm, bustling life
going on inside each of them. The windows were bright with coloured
curtains, and the hedges in front were trimmed.
He sat with them in the. back-room, with the window overlooking the
gardens open at the bottom. His mother divined that something unpleasant
had happened but said nothing. She only asked quietly, "Is Pinkie going
back with you?" From his panic-stricken glance she knew everything.
His father was gracious as always, a little formal, gazing with narrow
eyes into the garden. He trembled and could eat nothing. The table was
laid with cheese and lettuce and celery, and the tea-pot stood under a
cosy in the scullery as it always had in his childhood. He drank one
cup after another. He always returned to this world of Abbott's Road
alone, it seemed; but it couldn't help him; his mother and father had
nothing to say - they could only watch his distress and hope for the
best. The trains passed in' the distance, stopping and starting again
with a low grinding noise. He tried to talk but his mind was ineffective


and he kept wandering off. He kissed his mother bood bye and shook
hands strongly with his father; he more or less stumbled out of the house,
with his mother's eyes on him.
His boat was to leave Naples a day later than he'd been told, so
he stayed a day more in London; in the morning, when nobody else was
there, the phone rang and he heard Grove's voice at the other end saying,
"Pinkie? Pinkie?" So full of joy and expectation and relief! He put
the phone back as quietly as he could, without answèring it. He even
felt the flicker of a smile on his facé, as if it wasn't his own face.
And the trembling never left him for a moment, it was like a permanent
bodily condition.
Grove came over that evening, alone, having made the arrangement
to do so before he'd delayed.his trip. Grove played the piano and sang
while Pinkie swept out the music-room; meanwhile Granville sat upstairs
trying to read the paper; nothing bore a relation to him - the house,
Pinkie's broom hitting against the wainscoting, Grove singing, the boatz
ticket in his pocket. The piano downstairs stopped suddenly and he heard
Grove's laughter that t always had the power to raise your hopes without
really touching your heart. Then there was Pinkie's voice, imploring him,
"Oh, don't darling, not now --- Only a little while!" Only a little
while more and he'll be gone! A pale anger rose in him and he strode
out on to the staircase. But he stopped. She'd spoken so imploringly:
He didn't know she could sound like that. So tender and pleading! And
he'd thought of her as hard: Why hadn't she pleaded with him like that?
He didn't know it was in her voice to do so!
He listened again, on the landing. There was Grove: "Come on,
Grisly, let's go out!" Grisly was one of her nicknames from school


which he'd never used. 'Grisyly Grysham' - . Pinkie replied, patiently,
as if to a child, "Yes, darling, yes!" And he realised for the first
time - not painfully but in a'clear and blinding and staggering way -
that she was in love! She couldn't change that. She'd tried, perhaps.
Even, she'd wanted to! But she couldn't! Because she was in love, in
love, in love! The words kept ringing in his brain. In love! It was
like bells! In love! Then why hadn't he recognised it? Oh, why?
For it made her innocent!
He walked further down the stairs and had the sense of losing his
body so that his steps hardly made an impression on him. This was the
night of the eclipse! It was in his life now! It had come down from
his thoughts into his life! And he felt bodiless -- the stairs were
nothing to him, his pain was nothing, nor his trembling! They didn't
matter, didn't matter! He could have walked down to the music-room at
that moment in the most easy and smiling joy and put his hands on them
both and sat talking to them and heard them telling each other 'darling'
and 'sweetheart' without the slightest sense of being connected to them
any more! There was a shudder of relief through his body that seemed to
drain all the poisons away. Yet he was still in pain! But it wasn't
really his any more. There was something beyond life in him, for the
first time. It was like touching Christ, it was as if Christ was standing
there on the stairs, in him for a moment, bodilessly. He had a sense of
sunlight, though he was trembling like a leaf. Pinkie was pure! She
was pure! The tears poured down his face but with triumph in it was
like his own triumph! He'd surrendered! He'd surrendered her up to her
own life!


He parted from her casually next day; she lay on the bed, remote
from him; he asked her not 'to come downstairs to see him off; it would
make too much of a good bye.
"Well, cheerio," he said at the door of the bedroom, and waved
his hand.
"Cheerio, darling!" She waved, too, in exactly the same way as
he'd done, with a little flutter of fingers; just before he turned away
she blew him a kiss as she'd done on the train to Meedham, with a bright
look for a moment.
Dick had said jokingly the evening before that he was blowed if
he was going to give him a second send-off! So they'd just shaken hands
briefly. Hanni had promised to come over to say good bye but didn't
appear. The day was dull and he travelled to the station in a dazed
state, seeing nothing; it was also sultry, quite unusual for late autumn,
and the sweat poured out of him; on the boat across to France he caught
sight of himself in a mirror and was astonished to see how haggard he
was, with yellowish bags under his eyes; his hair was lank and greasy;
he shuddered when he thought of the house in Basrah, silent and closed.
And he saw Pinkie in his mind, a stranger to him, far, far away, going
about her own, concerns. "Only a little while!", he heard her say again.