The Sea, The Sea Part 29

'My name is Peregrine.'

'But, Peregrine, why on earthdid you reallywhy?'

Lizzie moved, without surprise, sat down to watch. She evidently already knew.

'You ask why?' said Peregrine, without looking at me. 'Just think why, just think.'

'You meangood heavens, you mean Rosina?' Rosina?'

'Yes, oddly enough, I do. You deliberately smashed my marriage, you took away my wife whom I adored, you did it carefully, cold-bloodedly, you worked worked at it. Then when you had got her away from me you dropped her. You didn't even want her for yourself, you just wanted to steal her from me to satisfy the beastly impulses of your possessiveness and your jealousy! Then when they were satisfied, when my marriage was broken forever, you went jaunting off somewhere else. And what is more you expected me to tolerate this and to go on liking you! Why? Because you thought everybody always went on liking you whatever rotten things you did because you were wonderful wonderful Charles Arrowby.' at it. Then when you had got her away from me you dropped her. You didn't even want her for yourself, you just wanted to steal her from me to satisfy the beastly impulses of your possessiveness and your jealousy! Then when they were satisfied, when my marriage was broken forever, you went jaunting off somewhere else. And what is more you expected me to tolerate this and to go on liking you! Why? Because you thought everybody always went on liking you whatever rotten things you did because you were wonderful wonderful Charles Arrowby.'

'But, Peregrine, you yourself said said to me, more than once, that you were glad to be rid of the b.i.t.c.h ' to me, more than once, that you were glad to be rid of the b.i.t.c.h '

'OK, but why did you believe me? And don't use that foul language please. Of course everyone knows you regard women as trash. But what bugged me was that you wrecked my life and my happiness and you just didn't seem to care at all, you were so b.l.o.o.d.y perky.'

'I don't believe you were happy you just say so now'

'Oh for Christ's sake! You took her out of sheer spiteful jealousy. OK, I can be jealous too.'

'But you yourself encouraged me to feel it was all right! Why did you bother to pretend, and mislead me? You can't blame me nowIf you had looked more stricken I would have felt more guilty. But you were so nice to me, so friendlyyou always seemed so pleased to see me'

'I am an actor. And perhaps I was pleased to see you. We sometimes like to see people whom we hate and despise so that we can stir them up to further demonstrations of how odious they are.'

'So you've been waiting all these years for revenge!'

'No, not like that. I enjoyed leading you on and just looking at you and gloating and thinking how surprised you'd be if you knew what I really felt. You've been a bad dream to me all these years, you've been with me like a demon, like a cancer.'

'Oh my G.o.d. I'm sorry'

'If you imagine I want to hear you apologizing now' now'

'I may have behaved badly to you, but I didn't deserve to die for it.'

'No, all right, I admit it was an impulse and I was drunk. I just pushed you and walked on. I didn't really see what happened and I didn't care.'

'But you said you were non-violent, you said you never'

'OK, you were a special case. The last straw was seeing b.l.o.o.d.y Rosina suddenly sitting on top of that rock like a black witch. I thought you must still be carrying on with her, well obviously you are '

'I'm not.'

'I don't care'

'I wondered why you stopped talking about her. You were planning to kill me.'

'I don't care, I don't want to know, I don't believe anything you say, I think you're a worthless person. I just couldn't stand seeing her there, and the windscreen getting broken, I couldn't stand it, it was a shock, it made me feel mad, it made a sort of hole in me, and all the old stored-up hate came pouring out and all the green-eyed jealousy, as fresh as ever. I had to do something to you. I really just wanted to push you into the sea. I daresay I was pretty drunk. I didn't choose that spot, I didn't think it was that awful whirlpool or whatever you call it'

'Then you were lucky, weren't you. I might be dead.'

'Oh I don't care,' said Peregrine, 'I wish you were dead. I thought of calling you out, only then I thought you might kill me instead, because you drink less than I do. I suppose honour is satisfied now anyway, and I won't have to offer you any more drinks, thank G.o.d, and I won't even want to tell you what a four-letter man you are. You're an exploded myth. And you still think you're Genghis Khan! Laissez-moi Laissez-moi rire. rire. I can't think why I let you haunt me all these years, I suppose it was just your power and the endless spectacle of you doing well and flouris.h.i.+ng like the green bay tree. Now you're old and done for, you'll wither away like Prospero did when he went back to Milan, you'll get pathetic and senile, and kind girls like Lizzie will visit you to cheer you up. At least they will for a while. You never did anything for mankind, you never did a d.a.m.n thing for anybody except yourself. If Clement hadn't fancied you no one would ever have heard of you, your work wasn't any b.l.o.o.d.y good, it was just a pack of pretentious tricks, as everyone can see now that they aren't mesmerized any more, so the glitter's fading fast and you'll find yourself alone and you won't even be a monster in anybody's mind any more and they'll all heave a sigh of relief and feel sorry for you and forget you.' I can't think why I let you haunt me all these years, I suppose it was just your power and the endless spectacle of you doing well and flouris.h.i.+ng like the green bay tree. Now you're old and done for, you'll wither away like Prospero did when he went back to Milan, you'll get pathetic and senile, and kind girls like Lizzie will visit you to cheer you up. At least they will for a while. You never did anything for mankind, you never did a d.a.m.n thing for anybody except yourself. If Clement hadn't fancied you no one would ever have heard of you, your work wasn't any b.l.o.o.d.y good, it was just a pack of pretentious tricks, as everyone can see now that they aren't mesmerized any more, so the glitter's fading fast and you'll find yourself alone and you won't even be a monster in anybody's mind any more and they'll all heave a sigh of relief and feel sorry for you and forget you.'

There was a moment's silence.

I said, 'But if you're so pleased about it, why tell? You only had to keep quietor did you want me to know?'

'I don't care what you know or don't know. Your cousin got it out of me by one of his interrogation techniques. He said you thought it was Ben and you were working yourself up.'

'You pretend you always detested me, it isn't true. You aren't all that good an actor. You told me about your Uncle Peregrine.'

'I have no Uncle Peregrine.'

I felt totally confused. I said, 'But what about t.i.tus?'

'What do you mean?' said James.

'What happened to t.i.tus? Who killed t.i.tus? I meanI thoughtsurely Ben killed him?'

Lizzie answered this after a moment. She said, 'Charles, it was an accident, no one killed him.'

Peregrine got up. He said, 'Well, that's that, that's sorted that out, and I hope the General is satisfied. I'm going back to London. Goodbye Lizzie, nice to have seen you.' He marched out and I could hear him collecting his things. Then there was the sound of the Alfa Romeo backing violently onto the causeway, and then its diminis.h.i.+ng roar.

James had got up and was looking out of the window. Lizzie, soundlessly crying, was filling the kettle at the tap. She put it on the stove and turned the gas up.

I said to James, 'You said you didn't want to leave me behind here with a false notion in my head. Well, now it's gone, so there's nothing to detain you.'

James turned round. 'Won't you come to London?'

'No.'

'But what are you going to do about them?' them?'

'Nothing. It's over. It's over.' It's over.'

But of course that was not true.

That day and the next day pa.s.sed in a sick trance, a period of time which seemed like the peace of resignation and hopeless quiet mourning, but was really full of fear and venom. I pa.s.sionately wanted James to go, his appearance, his company, his obtrusive unseen presence irritated me into torments. Lizzie irritated me too, partly by her frequent tears, which she seemed unable to control, and partly by a silly beseeching sympathetic expression which she put on when I looked at her, and which made me suddenly see the picture which Peregrine had sketched of me as an ageing powerless ex-magician for whom people were sorry.

I could understand why Lizzie refused to go. She wanted to be in at the kill. She was waiting for the moment when I could stand no more and would turn to her helplessly to be seized and carried off. Why James wanted to hang around was less clear. He certainly believed what I told him, that I no longer regarded Ben as a murderer. He might suspect that I had not given up my idea of rescuing Hartley, but after all he could not go on watching me forever. It was quite plain that I was not proposing to return to London in his Bentley. A little tact, and he was not usually deficient in tact, might have prompted him now to leave me and Lizzie alone. He did not even seem to want to talk to me any more. It was as if he was staying on for some purpose of his own. I guessed that he was brooding on t.i.tus and somehow blaming himself, as I blamed myself, for not having attended more to what the boy was doing. At this time I avoided the rocks and the sea, but James was always out there, walking about on the cliff, standing on Minn's bridge, and climbing up to the tower, almost as if he were measuring the distances involved. On several afternoons Lizzie and I walked inland, past the place where in a previous existence I had intended to put my herb garden, into the country which I had never explored. The region just beyond the road was bog, full of outcrops of rock and gorse and little black pools. There was some sc.r.a.ppy heather and a lot of those tiny yellow plants that catch flies, and purple and white flowers that looked like miniature orchids. Two pairs of buzzards inhabited the blue air. After the bog there was ordinary farm land, sheep-scattered hillsides, distant mustard fields catching the sunlight with their huge patches of glowing yellow. There were many ruined stone cottages, roofless and full of willow-herb and wild buddleia and b.u.t.terflies, and we came on the ruin of a big house, with the box hedges of the formal garden grown into a forest and covered with rambler roses. I record these details, which I recall so clearly, because they are the very image of sorrow; things seen which might have given pleasure, but could not. I saw through a black veil of misery and remorse and in-decision and fear; and there was a feeling as if I carried a small leaden coffin in the place of my heart. Lizzie, walking with me, had wept her fill for t.i.tus, and was still often weeping, but now more privately and self-indulgently; with a woman's economy in grief, I could feel her tentacles clasping me. Lizzie was not going to perish, not for anyone, if she could help it. If I had fallen dead she would soon have been crying in someone else's arms. These are unkind words; but I felt a special localized bitterness against Lizzie then because I knew how temporary her affliction was, and how soon, if I required her sympathy, it could turn into a possessive triumph. Lizzie is one of those very sweet, very kind kittenish women whom men love for their sympathetic gentleness, but who have a truly relentless power of self-preservation. Well, why not? We spoke little as we walked and I could see Lizzie looking at me now and then and she was thinking to herself: it is a relief to him to walk with me thus in silence. My presence, my silence is healing him. With no one else could he quietly walk and walk like this. (This last belief was probably justified.) Of course guilt too had fed my rage. My responsibility for t.i.tus's death, which now so largely occupied my mind, amounted to this: I had never warned him about the sea. Why had I not done so? Out of vanity. Out of vanity. I recalled now very clearly that first day when t.i.tus and I had dived in off the cliff. I had wanted to show him that I too was strong and fearless. It would have spoilt the charm of that moment if I had said, 'It's rather dangerous' or 'It's not easy to get out' I recalled now very clearly that first day when t.i.tus and I had dived in off the cliff. I had wanted to show him that I too was strong and fearless. It would have spoilt the charm of that moment if I had said, 'It's rather dangerous' or 'It's not easy to get out'

or 'I don't think I'll swim here'. I had to dive in with him and conceal the difficulties I knew so well. I never stressed the impossibility of climbing out in other places. I never recommended the tower steps; in fact I had not renewed the rope there, and with a strong sea running the steps would be as dangerous as the cliff. I never, for t.i.tus, watched watched the sea. I acted out of vanity, and out of a silly vicarious pride in his youth and his strength, in the agility which I had seen him display upon the tower on the first day. Of course he always wanted to dive in. No young boy climbs cautiously into the sea if he can dive. I did not want to spoil my picture of t.i.tus or t.i.tus's picture of me by any mean prudence. I went over and over and over these things in my mind, thinking of what I might have done and what I should have done, just as James was perhaps doing as he paced it all out upon those rocks which I now could not bear to look upon. And my misery about t.i.tus, my sobbing grasping sense of the loss from my life of what might have become its greatest blessing was the more intense now that my obsessive belief about Ben had been taken away. It had indeed been a consolation, and Ben had carried my guilt. That madness was gone, but did not leave behind a saner or purer mourning. My burden of sin and despair was constant and had simply been redistributed. New aspects of grief were opened to me. I had killed Hartley's child, I had wantonly entered her life and taken away the sea. I acted out of vanity, and out of a silly vicarious pride in his youth and his strength, in the agility which I had seen him display upon the tower on the first day. Of course he always wanted to dive in. No young boy climbs cautiously into the sea if he can dive. I did not want to spoil my picture of t.i.tus or t.i.tus's picture of me by any mean prudence. I went over and over and over these things in my mind, thinking of what I might have done and what I should have done, just as James was perhaps doing as he paced it all out upon those rocks which I now could not bear to look upon. And my misery about t.i.tus, my sobbing grasping sense of the loss from my life of what might have become its greatest blessing was the more intense now that my obsessive belief about Ben had been taken away. It had indeed been a consolation, and Ben had carried my guilt. That madness was gone, but did not leave behind a saner or purer mourning. My burden of sin and despair was constant and had simply been redistributed. New aspects of grief were opened to me. I had killed Hartley's child, I had wantonly entered her life and taken away her her blessing, which was hers in a way that it could never be mine. I did not dare to imagine her sorrow and how it might affect her feelings about me. Would she now see blessing, which was hers in a way that it could never be mine. I did not dare to imagine her sorrow and how it might affect her feelings about me. Would she now see me me as a murderer? Sometimes I felt that, in an odd way, it would not as a murderer? Sometimes I felt that, in an odd way, it would not occur occur to her to blame me, she would not be capable of such a thought, of seeing me simply as a wanton wandering cause. And sometimes I felt that our grief for t.i.tus might actually, excluding Ben, draw us together. For the moment I could only wait. I even felt that it was now likely that she would give me a sign. And in thinking this I was, as it turned out, right. to her to blame me, she would not be capable of such a thought, of seeing me simply as a wanton wandering cause. And sometimes I felt that our grief for t.i.tus might actually, excluding Ben, draw us together. For the moment I could only wait. I even felt that it was now likely that she would give me a sign. And in thinking this I was, as it turned out, right.

And so, waiting, watching, brooding, mourning, Lizzie and I walked the countryside. And then we began to talk about the old days, about Wilfred and about Clement, and Lizzie said how jealous she had been of Clement even when I was no longer living with her. 'I always felt that, whatever happened, Clement owned you.' We talked about the theatre and how wonderful it was and how awful it was and how glad Lizzie was to be out of it. Lizzie asked me about Jeanne and I told her a little and regretted it because it clearly hurt her so much. Lizzie on these walks, sweating, puffing, wearing crumpled faded dresses, her face s.h.i.+ny and red with sunburn and with sudden tears, looked her age. She was a woman whose appearance varied immensely. She could still look childish, in the mysterious way that old and young can mingle in a woman's looks. But she had lost her radiance, or else my vision of her was dulled. She was faithful and sweet and she tried so hard to console me, always speaking of peripheral things, not of the centre. 'Of course Perry didn't hate you, he never did, he just said that. He loved you, he was devoted to you, he always spoke of you with such admiration.'

One afternoon we came back by a road which led unexpectedly past Amorne Farm, which I had usually tried to avoid. We pa.s.sed quickly by to a chorus of yapping collies, and I was just feeling relieved when suddenly the Black Lion man, Bob Arkwright, came round the corner out of a side lane. He approached us, with the quiet intent look of a dog who approaches silently, about to snarl and bite.

'That was a bad business, Mr Arrowby.'

'Yes.'

'I warned you about the sea, didn't I.'

'Yes.'

'He couldn't get out, that was it/ 'Perhaps.'

'I seen him, just the day before, I was up near the tower and I seen him trying and trying to get up that sheer rock near your house, and he kept falling back. It was mad crazy to swim with the waves like that. Then he managed to get up somehow, but he was dead beat. When he got up the top he just flopped. What must have happened he tired himself out and then the waves threw him against the rocks. That was what happened, I bet. He shouldn't have been let swim there. That sea's a killer, I told you, didn't I, didn't I?'

'Yes. It shouldn't have happened.' I moved on.

He called after me. 'My brother Freddie knows you. He knows you.'

I did not turn round. Lizzie and I were silent all the way home. I decided I would tell James to go tomorrow, and I would despatch Lizzie the following day. I could not cas.h.i.+er them together because I did not want James to give Lizzie a lift to London. I felt I no longer needed her, and I could certainly dispense with him, and it was beginning to be intolerable to have them as witnesses of what I increasingly felt to be the punis.h.i.+ng horror of my degradation.

I entered the house resolved to seek my cousin out and tell him to leave the next morning, when I heard a most extraordinary rhythmical shrieking sound. It took me a moment to realize that it was the telephone, whose presence I had forgotten. This was the first time that it had rung, and I immediately thought that it might be Hartley. Then of course I could not find the thing, could not remember which room it was in. I located it at last in the bookroom and ran to it with desperate hope. It was Rosina's voice.

'Charles. It's me.'

'h.e.l.lo.'

'I say, I'm sorry about that wretched boy.'

'Yes.'

'Very sorry. Well, what can one say? But listen, Charles, I want to ask you something.'

'What?'

'Is it true that Peregrine tried to kill you?'

'He pushed me into the sea. He wasn't trying to kill me.'

'But he pushed you into that awful hole where the sea chums about.'

'Yes.'

'Good heavens.'

'Where are you?'

'At the Raven Hotel. I've got a bit of news/ 'What?'

'You know that monster epic film of the Odyssey Odyssey that Fritzie Eitel is going to make?' that Fritzie Eitel is going to make?'

'Yes.'

'Well, he's offered me the part of Calypso P 'That should suit you.'

'Isn't it marvellous? I don't know when I've felt so delighted and so happy.'

'Good. Just leave me alone, will you, Rosina?'

'I am leaving you alone.' She rang off.

As I came out of the bookroom I could now hear Lizzie talking to James in the kitchen. The door was shut, but something about the tone of the conversation struck me as odd. I paused, then went and opened the kitchen door. James, looking at me over Lizzie's shoulder, said, 'Charles.'

Prophetic terror pounces quickly. My heart became fast, my mouth drv.

'Yes?' '

They came out into the hall. Lizzie was red-faced, frightened.

'Charles, Lizzie and I want to tell you something.'

Very fast does the human mind rush towards the most precise visions of disaster. I lived in two seconds through a long experience of mental torture. I said, 'I know what you are going to say.'

'You don't,' said James.

'You are going to say that you have become very attached to each other and feel that you must tell me so. OK.'

'No,' said James, 'Lizzie is attached to you, not to me. That is the point, and that is why I have got to tell you something which I ought to have told you long ago.'

'What?'

'Lizzie and I have known each other for a long time, only we decided not to tell you because you would be sure to be irrationally jealous. That is the matter in a nutsh.e.l.l.'

I stared at James. He looked as I had I think never seen him look in all his life. He looked not exactly guilty but somehow confused and at a loss. I turned round for a moment and opened the front door wide.

'You see' said Lizzie, near to tears.

'Let me do this,' said James.

'I don't think you need to say anything more/ I said, 'You are leaping to conclusions,' said James.

'What do you expect me to do?'

'Listen to the truth. I met Lizzie a long time ago at a party which you gave for a first night. I happened to be in London, I happened to come.'

'For once. I think I can even remember the occasion.'

'Lizzie remembered me simply because I was your cousin. Then at a later time, after you'd left her and when she was unhappy, she rang me up to ask if I knew your address in j.a.pan that was when you were working in Tokyo.'

'I wanted to write to you, I felt I had to,' said Lizzie in a choked voice. 'It was my idea, I pushed him into it'

'But you met each other,' I said, 'you didn't just talk on the telephone.'

'Yes, we did meet, but very very rarely, perhaps in all those years six times.'