The Sea, The Sea Part 24

I said, 't.i.tus is not my son, but I propose to adopt him.' My voice quavered with nervousness and the words sounded unconvincing, almost frivolous. Ben ignored them. Still staring at t.i.tus he made a violent throwing-away movement. t.i.tus winced.

Ben was the shortest man present, but physically the most formidable. His bull neck and big shoulders seemed to be bursting the old khaki s.h.i.+rt which was now too small for them. His black belt was pulled in tight under a slight pot-belly, but he looked in good condition. He glowed with sunburn, his short mousy hair stood up like fur, he had recently shaved. His hands hung by his sides and he kept waggling his fingers and rising slightly on his toes as if about to perform some physical feat. The hall was stuffy as I remembered it, but the smell was different, nastier. I noticed several bowls full of dead roses. The dog had now fallen silent.

I said, 'Did you read my letter?'

Ben paid no attention to me. He was now looking at James and James was looking at him. James was frowning thoughtfully.

Then he said, 'Staff-Sergeant Fitch.'

'Yes, that's right.'

'Royal Engineers.'

That's right/ 'You were the chap in that show in the Ardennes/ 'That's right.'

'You did well,' said James.

Ben's face hardened, perhaps to inhibit some show of emotion, even some fleeting gleam of gratification. 'You his cousin?'

'Yes.'

'Are you still serving?'

'Yes. Just retired actually.'

'Wish I'd stayed in.'

There was a moment's silence as if they were both thinking about the past and likely to break out into reminiscence. Then James said hastily, 'I'm sorry about this business now. Ier, it wasn't her fault at all, she's completely innocent, and nothing happened, I give you my word of honour.'

Ben said expressionlessly, 'OK.' He made a movement of his head and shoulders indicative of dismissal.

James turned to me, rather blandly, like a chairman tacitly asking a distinguished speaker if he has anything further to say. I did not respond to his look, but turned to go. Gilbert opened the door. Peregrine marched out, then Gilbert, then t.i.tus, then me, then James. The door closed softly behind us.

Before I reached the car I realized that I was still carrying the plastic bag containing Hartley's make-up and the stone which I had given her. I automatically turned back. James tried to catch hold of me, but I dodged him and walked steadily back up the path. It was an almost superst.i.tiously stringent necessity to leave that bag with Hartley, not to take it away, not to take it back to Shruff End to be a sort of unlucky token and collect the filth of demons. It only occurred to me afterwards that I could have left it on the doorstep. I rang the ding-dong bell and waited. The savage barking started up again. Ben shouted, 'Shut up, you devil!'

After a moment or two he opened the door. The expressionless mask was gone. He grimaced with hatred. I felt there was a kind of levity about what I was doing, and yet it had to be done. I was also aware of interrupting the next scene. The bedroom door was open.

I held out the bag. 'These are hers. Sorry I forgot to leave them.'

Ben seized the bag and hurled it away behind him into the hall where it b.u.mped and clattered. He thrust his grimacing snarling head out at me and I stepped back. 'Keep away or I'll kill you. And tell that vile brat to keep away too. I'll kill you!' I'll kill you!'

The door slammed with a violence which set the bell vibrating. The dog was now almost screaming. I came back down the path and crossed to the car, where Ben's words would not have been audible. Gilbert and t.i.tus were sitting in the back. The seat was covered with opaque white stones like huge pearls. 'What's this stuff?' I said.

'The windscreen broke, remember?' said James. 'Now let's go home. Peregrine?'

The car started, roared up the hill, turned, roared down the hill, going very fast. The air blew fiercely in through the open front window. No one spoke.

When we were getting near to the junction with the coast road t.i.tus said, 'Would you mind stopping? I'd like to walk from here.'

Peregrine stopped with an abruptness which sent us all flying forward. t.i.tus began to get out.

't.i.tus, you're not going back there?' I cried to him and grabbed at his s.h.i.+rt.

'No!' He slipped out, and said as he turned away, 'I'm going to be sick, if you want to know.' He started walking in the direction of the harbour. Peregrine set off again, driving violently. Gilbert said to James, 'What was that thing in the Ardennes that you were saying about?'

James was looking alert and rather pleased. The meeting with Ben seemed to have put him in a good mood. He said, 'It was an odd business. That chap Fitch was a prisoner of war in a camp in the Ardennes, he must have been captured in 1944. There weren't any officers in the camp, I suppose he was the senior NCO, anyway he was the leading figure. In May 1945 when the Germans were going to evacuate the camp before our lot arrived he staged a private war of his own. He managed to impose himself on everybody. He had a group of toughs among the prisoners, well everybody joined in, it was well organized, quite a cla.s.sic piece of planning, and they sabotaged the transport, I think they even n.o.bbled a train. They got hold of arms and started shooting up the Germans. It was rather a savage business, possibly some personal vendetta was involved. Anyway when our troops arrived the surviving Germans were the prisoners and young Fitch had got the entire camp under his control and was standing at the gate to welcome us in. It was a neat exercise of personal bravery and initiative. There was a bit of fuss about 'unnecessary brutality', but that soon blew over. He got a Military Medal.'

'Were you there?' said Gilbert.

'No, I was somewhere else, but it was my outfit that relieved the camp and someone told me about it. I remember seeing a picture of the chap, he hasn't changed. And I recalled his name, and it all somehow remained in my memory, it appealed to my imagination. He was a brave man. How odd coming across him like that!'

'A rather unattractive sort of courage,' I said.

'There was a rather unattractive sort of war on,' said James.

'The man's a killer.'

'Some people are better at killing than others, it needn't mean a vicious character. He behaved like an able soldier.'

We had reached the house. Peregrine sc.r.a.ped the car on a rock and it stopped with a jolt. We all got out. I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock. The day lay ahead.

I went into the house, pa.s.sed automatically through the kitchen and out onto the lawn. James, who had followed on my heels, was standing at the kitchen door looking at me. I said to him, 'Thank you for your help. Now you've finished your job here I expect you'll want to be off.'

He said, 'Well, if you don't mind, I think I'll stay till tomorrow.'

'Please yourself.'

I went away across the rocks in the direction of the tower, pa.s.sing over Minn's bridge. I found a place down on the edge of the water where I could see into Raven Bay. A hot wind was blowing in from the sea and there was a slightly menacing swell, but the atmosphere was less thundery. Perhaps the storms had pa.s.sed by.

My hand was hurting where it had been struck by Rosina's stone. A bruise was appearing. I found that I had been sweating profusely. The hot wind was drying my s.h.i.+rt and denim jacket, both of which had been sticking to my back. I pulled the jacket off and loosened the s.h.i.+rt. There was a haze over the bay, the water was pale blue, fringed by a pretty lace of breaking waves. The big round boulders looked hot, as if the stored-up heat which they were exuding were s.h.i.+mmering visibly. They had a solemn, almost religious look. The dark yellow seaweed stains upon them looked like hieroglyphs. Beyond the other arm of the bay the sea was spotted with purple. I sat with my feet almost within reach of the strongly rising and falling water which was spattering the yellow rocks with a quick-drying foam. I felt that I had made a fool of myself in the recent scene and felt sad to think that in relation to anything so awful I should look ridiculous.

I heard a soft footfall and saw a shadow and James came and sat down beside me. I paid no attention to him and we sat for a while in silence.

James started fingering around in the rocks, finding small stones and tossing them into the water. He said at last, 'Don't worry too much, I think she'll be all right, I'm sure she will.'

'Why?'

'My general a.s.sessment of the situation.'

'I see.'

'And also that odd episode.'

'You think Staff-Sergeant Fitch's respect for General Arrowby will be such?'

'Not exactly. But it's as if something pa.s.sed between us.'

'Military telepathy.'

'Sort of. I thinkit's hard to putsome vein of honour is touched'

'Oh rubbish,' I said. 'It's funny, James, but whenever you start talking soldiery you seem to me to become utterly stupid. Military vanity, I suppose.'

We were silent for a bit longer. I found a few stones myself and dropped them in, after examining each one to see if it was worth keeping. I imagined Ben would soon throw away that pretty stone in the plastic bag. Perhaps he would throw it at the dog. I felt sorry for that dog. James said, 'I hope you don't feel that I've influenced you in any way against your better judgment?'

'No.' I was not going to argue that point. Of course he had influenced me. But what was my judgment, let alone my better judgment?

'What are you going to do about t.i.tus?'

'What?'

'What are you going to do about t.i.tus?'

'I don't know. He'll probably clear off.'

'He won't if you hold on to him, but you'll have to hold. He says he wants to be an actor.'

'He told me that, oddly enough.'

'Can you get him into an acting school?'

'Maybe.'

't.i.tus will be an occupation for you.'

'Thanks for thinking about my occupations.'

'I suppose you'll leave this house now?'

'Why the h.e.l.l should I?'

'Well, wouldn't it be better?'

'This is my home. I like it here.'

'Uh-huh-'

We threw a few more stones.

'Can I go on talking, Charles?'

'Yes.'

'I've been thinkingAre you sure you don't mind?'

'Oh go on, what does it matter.'

'Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.'

'You think I'm fighting for a phantom Helen?'

'Yes.'

'She is real to me. More real than you are. How can you insult an unhappy suffering person by calling her a ghost?'

'I'm not calling her her a ghost. She is real, as human creatures are, but what reality she has is elsewhere. She does not coincide with your dream figure. You were not able to transform her. You must admit you tried and failed.' a ghost. She is real, as human creatures are, but what reality she has is elsewhere. She does not coincide with your dream figure. You were not able to transform her. You must admit you tried and failed.'

I said nothing to this. I had certainly tried and failed to do something. But what, and what did this failure prove?

'So having tried, can you not now set your mind at rest? Don't torment yourself any more with this business. All right, you had to try, but now it's over and I'm sure you've done her no lasting harm. Think of other things now. There's a crime in the Army called deliberately making oneself unfit for duty. Don't do that. Think about t.i.tus.'

'Why keep dragging t.i.tus in?'

'Sorry. But seriously, look at it this way. Your love for this girl, when she was a girl, was put by shock into a state of suspended animation. Now the shock of meeting her again has led you to re-enact all your old feelings for her. It's a mental charade, a necessary one perhaps, it has its own necessity, but not like what you think. Of course you can't get over it at once. But in a few weeks or a few months you'll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It's not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It's like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish. And you'll find you are free other, free other forever, and you can let the poor ghost go. What will remain will be ordinary obligations and ordinary interests. And you'll feel relief, you'll feel free. At present you're just obsessed, hypnotized.'

While James was speaking he was leaning down over the water and skimming some of the flatter stones so that they leapt upon the surface; only there was too much of a swell for them to jump very far. Watching the skimming stones I was filled with anguish because I remembered playing just that game with Hartley on an old pond near our house. She did it better than I did. I replied, 'What you say sounds clever but it's empty. Love makes nonsense of that sort of mean psychology. You seem unable to imagine that love can endure. But just that endurance belongs to its miraculous nature. Perhaps you've never loved anybody all that much.'

As I said this I recalled something that Toby Ellesmere had said to me in some context where I was wondering whether James was h.o.m.os.e.xual. Toby had told me that James had had a great affection for some soldier servant in India, a Nepalese sherpa, who had died somehow on a mountain. Of course one never knows about other people's loves, and I would certainly never know about James's. To cover my crude remark I went on, 'You seem to think the past is unreal, a pit full of ghosts. But to me the past is in some ways the most real thing of all, and loyalty to it the most important thing of all. It isn't just a case of sentimentality about an old flame. It's a principle of life, it's a project.'

'You mean you still believe in your idea after trying it, after having to admit that she wanted to go home and that she had better go home?'

'Yes. That's why I've got to stay here. I've got to wait. I've got to be at my post. She'll know know that I'll wait, that I'll be here. She has got her uncertainties too. She had to go back now because it was all happening too quickly. But after this she'll that I'll wait, that I'll be here. She has got her uncertainties too. She had to go back now because it was all happening too quickly. But after this she'll think, think, and she'll find the chain has been broken after all. She'll come to me here, sooner or later, I know she will. She came before. She will come again.' and she'll find the chain has been broken after all. She'll come to me here, sooner or later, I know she will. She came before. She will come again.'

'And if she doesn't come?'

'I'll stay forever, it's my duty, it's my post, I'll stay till the end. Or ratherI'll waitand thenI'll simply start the whole thing over again from the beginning.'

'You mean the rescue plan?'

'Yes. And do stop throwing those stones.'

'Sorry,' said James. 'We used to do that, remember, on that pond near Shaxton when you came over with Uncle Adam and Aunt Marian.'

'I've got to wait. She'll come to me here. She's part of me, it's not a caprice or a dream. When you've known someone from childhood, when you can't remember when they weren't there, that's not an illusion. She's woven into me. Don't you understand how one can be absolutely connected with somebody like that?'

'Yes,' said James. 'Well, I must go. I've got to go along with Peregrine to the garage and drive him back. Sec you at lunch. I suppose there will be lunch.'

There was lunch, though it was not a very cordial affair. We had fresh mackerel which Gilbert had procured from somewhere. He had also found some wild fennel. He cooked of course. No one ate much except t.i.tus. I was very relieved when he turned up, returned like a dog to prove where its home is. Yes, I would help him, I would cherish him, would make of him an occupation and a preoccupation; only at present we avoided each other's eyes. A kind of shame hung on us both. He felt ashamed of his parents, of his unhappy ageing mother, of his stupid brutish father. I felt ashamed of having failed to keep Hartley, of having been forced to let her go back, indeed to take her back, to that matrimonial h.e.l.l. Yes, I was forced to do it, I thought, somehow by James, and not only by James, but by Gilbert, by Peregrine, even by t.i.tus. If only I had been left alone I would have had faith and I would have succeeded, would have kept her. I had been demoralized by all these spectators.

Peregrine had recovered, or feigned to have recovered, his usual aggressive equanimity. He and Gilbert kept up some sort of chatter. Gilbert exuded the secret satisfaction of one who has come unscathed through a fascinating adventure which he looks forward to gossiping about in another context. James was gently abstracted, perhaps melancholy. t.i.tus was ashamed and resentful. I asked the other three when they would be going and expressed the wish that it might be soon, the show being over. There was general agreement that tomorrow would be departure day. Perry's car would be ready then. James would drive him to the garage. Gilbert rather reluctantly agreed to go too, though cheered by the prospect of bringing news of me to London. After that I would be alone with t.i.tus.

After lunch I made out, at his intelligent suggestion, a longish shopping list for Gilbert so that he could stock me up with food and drink while I still had a car available. He then went off again to the village. t.i.tus went to swim from the cliff. Peregrine, now lobster-coloured and s.h.i.+ning with suntan lotion, lay on the gra.s.s beside the tower. James settled in the bookroom on the floor, combing through my books and reading here and there. Gilbert came back with a loaded car and the report, which he had heard in the shop, that Freddie Arkwright had arrived at Amorne Farm for his holidays. Peregrine staggered back to the house with a blinding headache and went to lie down in the bookroom with the curtains pulled. James emerged onto the lawn and began taking the stones out of the trough and arranging them on the gra.s.s in a complicated circular design. The afternoon advanced, very hot, with renewed grumblings of distant thunder. The sea was like liquid jelly, rising and falling with a thick smooth dense movement. Then some time after t.i.tus returned from his swim it began to change its mood. A brisk wind started to blow. The smooth swell became more powerful, the waves higher and stronger. I could hear them roaring into the cauldron. There was a long line of puffy clouds low on the horizon, but the sun was descending through a blue celebration of cloudless light. Gilbert and t.i.tus were now over by the tower, sitting in the shadow which it cast upon the gra.s.s. I could hear them singing Eravamo tredici. Eravamo tredici. I had deliberately declared, for my maddened wounded mind, an interim. It was indeed clear that what had happened had been engineered against my will by James. If I had kept my nerve, if I had persevered, if I had only had the sense to take her right away at the start. Hartley would have abandoned herself to me. She would have given up, she would have given in, at first with the weak despair of one in whom the hope of happiness had simply been killed. It was my task and I had deliberately declared, for my maddened wounded mind, an interim. It was indeed clear that what had happened had been engineered against my will by James. If I had kept my nerve, if I had persevered, if I had only had the sense to take her right away at the start. Hartley would have abandoned herself to me. She would have given up, she would have given in, at first with the weak despair of one in whom the hope of happiness had simply been killed. It was my task and my my privilege to privilege to teach teach her the desire to live, and I would yet do so. I, and I only, could revive her; I was the destined prince. Perhaps in a way, I reflected, it was just as well to let her go back, this time, for a short period. My shock tactics would not after all have proved useless, she would have time to reflect, to compare two men and evolve a concept of a different future. The lessons I had tried to teach her would not be lost. A dose of Ben, after having been with me, after having had the seeds of liberty sown in her mind, might very well wake her up to the possibility, then the compelling desirability, of escape. A dose of Ben would make her concentrate at last. It would in fact be better thus, because she would make her own clear decision, not simply acquiesce in mine. If she could feel a little less frightened, a little less trapped, she would reflect and she would decide to come. My mistake had been to act so suddenly and so relentlessly. I ought never to have locked her up, I saw that now. I could easily have kept her, for a short time, by strong persuasions. Then I could have touched her reason. As it was she was too shocked to take it all in. I had given her the role of prisoner and victim, and this in itself had numbed her powers of reflection. Now at least, at 'home' in that horrible den, she would be able to her the desire to live, and I would yet do so. I, and I only, could revive her; I was the destined prince. Perhaps in a way, I reflected, it was just as well to let her go back, this time, for a short period. My shock tactics would not after all have proved useless, she would have time to reflect, to compare two men and evolve a concept of a different future. The lessons I had tried to teach her would not be lost. A dose of Ben, after having been with me, after having had the seeds of liberty sown in her mind, might very well wake her up to the possibility, then the compelling desirability, of escape. A dose of Ben would make her concentrate at last. It would in fact be better thus, because she would make her own clear decision, not simply acquiesce in mine. If she could feel a little less frightened, a little less trapped, she would reflect and she would decide to come. My mistake had been to act so suddenly and so relentlessly. I ought never to have locked her up, I saw that now. I could easily have kept her, for a short time, by strong persuasions. Then I could have touched her reason. As it was she was too shocked to take it all in. I had given her the role of prisoner and victim, and this in itself had numbed her powers of reflection. Now at least, at 'home' in that horrible den, she would be able to think. think. He could not always batter her mind and supervise her body. I would wait. She would come. I would not leave the house. She might come at any hour of the day or night. And, I thought, with a final twist, yes, and if she does not come I shall do what I said to James, I shall simply start the whole thing again from the beginning. He could not always batter her mind and supervise her body. I would wait. She would come. I would not leave the house. She might come at any hour of the day or night. And, I thought, with a final twist, yes, and if she does not come I shall do what I said to James, I shall simply start the whole thing again from the beginning.

Evening approached. t.i.tus and Gilbert came in to make tea, then went off in Gilbert's car to the Black Lion. Peregrine emerged to dose his headache with whisky, then retired again. James wandered off in search of more stones for his mandala or whatever it was. Thinking these thoughts about Hartley and feeling slightly less desperate because of them, I clambered a little way over the rocks in the village direction. I could see the spray from the increasingly wild waves thrown up from the sea's edge in a rainbow, and the droplets were reaching me in a fine rain. I slithered into a long cleft, a secret place I had discovered earlier, where the tall rocks made a deep V-shape. Part of the floor of the cleft was occupied by a narrow pool, the other part by a rivulet of pebbles. The smooth rocks were very hot and the warmth in the enclosed s.p.a.ce comforted my body. I sat down on the pebbles. I turned some of them over. They were damp underneath. I sat still and tried to silence my mind. A pebble came rolling down the rock into my rivulet and I looked at it idly. A moment or two later another pebble rolled down. Then another. I looked up. A head, framed by two clinging hands, gazed down on me from the crest above. A tendril or two of frizzy brown hair, tugged by the wind, had also come over the top of the rock. Two bright light-brown eyes peered short-sightedly down at me, half laughing, half afraid.

'Lizzie!'

Lizzie levered herself up onto the sharp rocky crest, got one brown leg, already grazed and bleeding slightly, over the top, then, impeded by the full skirt other blue dress, swung the other leg over, lost her balance and slid down the long smooth surface into the pool.