Flight into Camden Page 15

  Afterwards he joked with me about writing my diary. He’d never seen it before: it was the first time since coming to London that I’d felt sufficiently comforted to write in it, and he was full of curiosity because I wouldn’t let him see it. The next morning he was extremely quiet, too nervous to eat, yawning with his nervousness, his hands trembling slightly as if they were unusually cold.

  Each morning during the next few weeks he would be silent and tense, pale, hardly aware of me, and unable to eat even a slice of toast, or drink a cup of tea. His nervousness affected me. I bore it with me on the bus to work, and I didn’t feel safe or relieved until I was in the office. I wondered why he was so afraid and destroyed: in the evenings he would be full of excitement and high spirits, tremendously facetious, uncontained and lustful. He did little marking and no preparation at home now.

  He told me several amusing stories of what happened in the classroom, and was never serious when he spoke about the school. There was just the white tension before he went, and that awful steeling of himself. Then the exhausting jubilance of the evening.

  He reminded me of my father going to the pit, and coming back with that peculiar male hysteria and forgetfulness. He himself wasn’t aware of the effect of his extreme appearance. He was still absorbed and conscientious: he disliked bringing work home to mark, or bringing anything that associated the flat with school, yet when he did bring books he marked them with great thoroughness and a care that was nowhere reflected in the work itself. The untidiness and the dirtiness of the exercise books made all his scrupulous correction look remote and out of touch. His neat, vertical writing in red ink on the black, scrawling mess was so striking that it suggested to me an insuperable barrier between him and the children. I said nothing. I was determined to allow him to build himself up in the same way that he’d allowed me.

  One Saturday morning he came in from a visit to the galleries and said cheerfully, ‘We’ve got visitors.’ He enjoyed my surprise and anxiety, grinning at me and coming to hold me a moment. ‘Try and guess,’ he said.

  ‘No. I’d rather not. I can imagine a lot of people I wouldn’t like to meet. Is it one of those teachers from school?’

  He laughed and shook his head. There was a dreadful simplicity and directness in his laughter now. It came out at the slightest opportunity. ‘No. It’s Ben. I haven’t met him yet, but I bumped into that parson, Fawcett, in Charing Cross Road. He said they’d come down for the week-end to see the Cézanne exhibition. I gave him the address and they’re coming along this afternoon around three.’

  ‘Does he know I’m here?’

  He patted me consolingly, and said, ‘I suppose so. But I don’t care. He won’t dare show he’s offended. He’s tremendously formal, is Ben.’

  ‘I think I’ll be out, anyway. I don’t want to see him.’

  ‘But you can’t go out. I want you to be here. I wouldn’t have you out for anything.’ He was so happy, happier than he’d ever been in London. I agreed to stay in. He hurried round tidying the flat, trying to conceal some of his enthusiasm. He made preparations to give them a meal, and as the afternoon wore on he glanced repeatedly out of the window, whistling softly to himself, hiding his agitation in endless little tasks he made for himself. I just sat down and watched him.

  Even when it grew dark his spirit hadn’t diminished. Ben was a notoriously late-arriver. Howarth’s expectancy grew, raging inside him like an exile’s. He stayed near the window, and once rushed down to Camden Town tube station to see if they had missed their way, to see if he could speed their arrival by a minute or two. He came back, his eyes still bright with expectancy. ‘Isn’t it just like Ben?’ he said. ‘The big stupid Ben. But he’s good really.’

  ‘That’s not what you always thought of him.’

  ‘Ah well, that was different,’ he said, amused at my reservation, and apparently willing to appease me in anything. He clapped his hands together and shouted round the flat meaninglessly.

  When it was completely dark and the street had emptied of all its Saturday activity, he suddenly became doubtful. His mood changed so quickly that I didn’t notice for a while. I was half-aware of his silence for several minutes; and when I looked up at him he was sitting in the chair, his hands clasped in his lap, staring at the fire. I said nothing and went into the kitchen to get on with some ironing. The people overhead, an Italian and his family, were unusually noisy, with their wireless blaring and the frequent scolding of their child. I worked for half an hour before I went back into the room. Howarth was standing by the window in the dark, staring into the street. He smiled at me, his face lit up crudely by the light from the street lamps. ‘Have you finished your ironing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m just having a rest.’

  I sat down by the fire. He stood at the window and began to hum to himself.

  ‘It doesn’t look as though they’re coming,’ I said.

  ‘You could never rely on them, you know,’ he said, as if reproaching me for having faith in them. ‘Did you want to do anything particular tonight?’

  ‘I wanted to listen to the play.’

  ‘You and that play,’ he said distantly. But he used to enjoy lying on the bed with me in the dark, listening to Saturday Night Theatre on the small portable wireless.

  He stayed by the window. I waited to see if he needed me, then I went back to finish the ironing, wanting to forget him.

  After I’d finished, I prepared a light supper, putting it on a tray to take through. I heard him crying. I stood outside the door and listened to him sobbing, muffled as if his head were buried in the divan or a chair. It was gasping and uncontrolled; the room was alive with his heavy breathing. I went back to the kitchen to wait, leaning on the table, wondering how long he would be.

  When I went into the room he was sitting by the fire again, still in the dark, his face ringed with the red glow, his eyes liquid, but narrowed in disguise. He spoke naturally when I talked to him: there was no sign of his distress except the unusual swelling of his eyes and the way his hands held one another. He smiled and laughed occasionally, and was attentive to me. He lay stiffly with me on the bed to listen to the play: he didn’t hear a word. He stared blindly the whole time at the reflected light on the ceiling.

  In the morning we were still in bed when the bell gave three rings for us. I had the only dressing-gown, so I ran down while Howarth covered the divan.

  It was John Fawcett at the door. He still had on his clerical collar.

  ‘Margaret? Is Gordon in? I met him yesterday … and I said I would call.’

  ‘Won’t you come up?’ I said indifferently.

  He ran his hand through his crew cut and smiled. He followed me agilely up the winding stairs. Howarth was standing across the room near the lighted gas fire: he’d quickly put on his trousers and shirt, but clumsily, and the room was roughly tidy. ‘Oh, hello, Fawcett,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought it was you. We’ve only just got up.’

  ‘Hello, Gordon.’ Fawcett, conscious of his professional gestures, sat down with exaggerated confidence after briefly shaking hands. He smiled at us both. ‘I’m sorry to come so early,’ he said. ‘But I simply had to explain about yesterday.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Howarth said, still cautious with our first visitor, and bringing himself reluctantly to sit down. He looked at me quickly to see how I was taking it. ‘You needn’t have bothered to come all this way round. I can guess more or less why you didn’t come yesterday.’

  ‘I know you’re offended,’ Fawcett said strongly. ‘I don’t blame you. I tried to get Ben to come, but he refused. I hate going back on my word like that, so I’ve come round to apologize, as the least I could do.’

  ‘It’s good of you,’ Howarth said. ‘I’m glad in a way that you have done. I’m sorry about Ben.’

  ‘He said you misled him about the train times when you came down here. And he also thought you were going on your own. Of course I didn’t know about any of this when I met you yesterday.’ />
  ‘Ben can be naïve,’ Howarth said quietly.

  Fawcett rubbed the palms of his hands over his knees. ‘I don’t know. It’s not often Ben takes offence. Though when he does it’s generally in some unexpected way.’

  ‘Did he have any other reason for not coming round yesterday?’ Howarth asked, almost fiercely.

  ‘He doesn’t like you two living together like this … I believe Ben thinks now that you were wrong to leave Joyce. He seems to think that by visiting you here he’ll inadvertently be condoning it.’ He looked at both of us frankly, and with deep curiosity.

  ‘And is that what you feel?’ Howarth said.

  ‘We all understand the situation, of course, particularly since we don’t have to live it. But even then, it’s been a dreadful mistake, Gordon. I’m not just being crude – but you’ve both made a name for yourselves. With Margaret’s brother being in the university, and you so well known there, it’s been an inevitable topic for anybody with a couple of minutes to spare. Personally, I sympathize very strongly with what you’ve tried to do, even though I can’t endorse any of it. I’ve never lost any respect for either of you.’

  Howarth was silent, watching him minutely. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ I asked Fawcett.

  ‘I’ve had mine already.’ He glanced at his watch, then rested both his hands again on his knees. ‘At the hotel. But I’d welcome a cup of tea, if you don’t mind.’

  I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and when I came back Howarth was saying, ‘I don’t see why. We both want a divorce, and she won’t put anything in the way. She’s said so. I’ve got it in writing.’

  ‘Well, that’s all I can tell you. It’s going to be quite some time before you can marry Margaret. They won’t grant two people like you and Joyce a divorce as quick as that.’

  ‘Still, I don’t care.’ Howarth quickly withdrew. ‘It can’t make any difference in the long run.’ He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  ‘What about your children?’ Fawcett said, allowing some feeling to show for the first time.

  ‘I reckon that’s what you’d like to reproach me for most.’

  ‘Not reproach. I believe reproach is an evil thing. But I have more sympathy for them than for anyone else involved. They are the most helpless.’

  ‘I don’t think you know what helpless means,’ Howarth said darkly.

  ‘But I can’t understand you leaving two children like that. I’ve been to visit them, I ought to tell you. I thought with having known you in the past I had some privilege of that sort. Whatever the situation was between you and Joyce, the result has been that she’s all the worse as a mother for your leaving. Perhaps you’ve affected the differences between you by leaving her. But what you’ve left behind – that’s deteriorated too.’

  ‘Are they unhappy … the children?’ Howarth asked dryly.

  ‘They were very quiet when I went. Perhaps because I was a stranger, but I’m not sure. It was plain enough how impatient your wife has become with them.’

  ‘She always was.’

  ‘Well, she can’t be any better. Her impatience with them now almost amounts to open resentment.’

  ‘So you want me to go back to her.’

  ‘It’s the only sane thing left that you can do.’

  ‘Would we be here like this if it were?’ Howarth said incredulously.

  ‘You know,’ Fawcett said slowly, easing himself forward in his chair, ‘I don’t think you’ve disgraced yourself coming to London like this. If you went back to your wife it might even have all been to the good.’

  ‘That’s just the mercenary thing I’d expect from a parson,’ Howarth said, but he was not embittered. ‘Spiritually mercenary, I mean. But what we’ve got here, Margaret and I – it’s not just something you can pick up out of anywhere. And having got it – it’s not something I could ever bring myself to spoil. It’s permanent. For good.’

  Fawcett withdrew slightly, within himself. He looked offended. ‘I wish I could believe that,’ he said. ‘But I’ve seen too much of human nature even in my small experience to be as sure about it as that. There’s no emotion so permanent that you can categorize it like that. I’m as convinced of that, Gordon, as much as I’m convinced of anything. It’s at the root of my belief.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’re not a Catholic,’ Howarth said crushingly.

  ‘I don’t need to be a Catholic to be human,’ he answered quietly, suddenly pitying Howarth. ‘I’m ready to step down on what I’ve said, not because I don’t believe it, but because I might not be the right person to tell you. I don’t want to arouse your bitterness against me.’

  ‘You’re beginning to get just that bit too patronizing,’ Howarth said, and stood up as the whistle screamed on the kettle next door. ‘I think we ought to drop the subject.… They’re only opinions, and I’ve experienced mine, as you say. You’ve only observed yours. I’m sorry we can’t get nearer than that.’

  ‘So am I,’ Fawcett said, watching him go out of the room to the kitchen, then looking back at me.

  He looked round at the walls, then again at me, searchingly and unashamed. ‘Has he done any painting while he’s been down here?’ he asked, his voice slightly lowered.

  ‘No.… Does he ever paint?’

  ‘He used to. Hasn’t he shown you his work?’

  ‘He’s never mentioned it.’

  ‘No. He hasn’t changed much.… He was very promising. Some drawings and paintings he did of the war. But after his first child died he seemed to forget it.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked with a sudden concern.

  ‘I don’t know.… Perhaps the war had something to do with it. He went into the army when he was twenty and didn’t come out until 1946. Has he told you much about his wife?’

  ‘No. And I don’t want to know.’

  ‘He blamed her for the death of their child. She seems to have left it too late in calling the doctor and the baby died of diphtheria. And when he doesn’t blame her he blames himself.’

  ‘And do you think this should affect me?’

  ‘No.… And it doesn’t explain anything. I just wondered if he’d told you. It’s not something he’d ever talk about himself, though.’

  ‘And it’s not something you can do anything about,’ I said, suddenly wanting to protect Howarth.

  ‘No.… I believe he really does love you. And there’s nothing I can do about that.’ He looked at me expectantly. We could hear Howarth putting crockery on to a tray in the kitchen. ‘I didn’t believe it until I saw him looking at you just now when he was speaking.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘I know how you feel. I knew when I first saw you with him at the literary circle … I felt frightened for you. It was obvious then he hadn’t told you he was married.’

  ‘I’m not sure he loves me,’ I said.

  ‘No?’ He was full of a slow surprise. ‘But then … you never will know.’ He was silent, about to explain, when Howarth came back into the room and put the tray down, and looked at us both narrowly and suspiciously.

  I went out to fetch the sugar he’d forgotten, and when I came back they were both talking about Cézanne: Fawcett with a brooding concentration and feeling.

  When he’d gone Howarth tried to ignore him; he acted as if Fawcett hadn’t been, or if his visit were merely a confirmation of his settled mind. He quietly made the bed, and while I cooked the breakfast he went out to get – his three Sunday papers.

  He was away a long time. His breakfast dried in the oven and I ate mine without appetite. I refused to go and look for him. I sat and read the Saturday papers through again, listening acutely for the door clicking in the well of the house.

  When he came in he was excited. He might have been crying, his eyes watering with rage and disturbance. He had no papers with him; his hands were clenched. He came into the room and stood there like a puppet, suspended in the middle of the floor. ‘I’ve just seen Ben,’ he said. ‘Would you believe it �
� he was stuck in a café at the end of the road all the time Fawcett was here.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘We were asked to leave the place – that’s how noisy it got. There’s no friend like an old friend.’

  ‘Did he want to see you?’

  ‘He’d no choice. I saw them both through the window and I went straight in. Fawcett at least made it clear he didn’t like it. He never said a word the whole time. He just sat there looking at me thoughtfully, like a simpleton …’

  ‘I don’t think he’s simple. He’s sincere … and decent.’

  ‘He’s still simple. And I don’t think he’s sincere … whatever that means.’ He sat himself impatiently in the easy chair, then stood up again to walk about the room. ‘But Ben – he didn’t want to come here because of you. He seems to think I’ve betrayed my “cause” by attaching it to you. He said I was a hypocrite, a masochist, self-pitying – everything in fact that I normally associate with him.’

  ‘It sounds very childish.’

  ‘Ben is childish. He talks about a black and white world, right and wrong. Fawcett thinks it’s an institution world. Between them, one saying too much and the other nothing.…’ He splayed his arms helpless in the air. ‘What chance have I got?’

  ‘You wanted to see them.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said impatiently, bursting within himself, and recognizing that this was just what he had expected and what he needed. He smiled awkwardly, knowingly, still angered yet half-amused at his anger. His face was contorted as he shook his head from side to side, biting his lips, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  ‘You’re glad it’s happened,’ I said.

  ‘No. I could have done without it. It was what I expected, but I’d have been better off without all this disturbance. It rankles me now.’

  ‘You’re still unsure of yourself, at the bottom.’

  ‘I always will be when I’m like this,’ he pleaded. ‘How can I ever be sure that there’s not something other than just our faith in what we’ve done?’