The Sea, The Sea Part 35

'I knew they were going, I hoped I'd catch them.'

'They sold the house. They took their doggie with them. He'll have to go in quarantine of course.'

'When did they leave?'

She mentioned a date. The date was, I realized at once, very soon after I had seen them. So they had lied about the date of their departure.

'I've had a postcard,' said the proud woman. 'It came this morning. Would you like to see it?' She had brought it out with her to show me.

I saw, on one side, the Sydney Opera House. Upon the other in Hartley's hand: Just arrived, I think Just arrived, I think Sydney is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, we are so happy. Sydney is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, we are so happy. Ben and Hartley had both signed. Ben and Hartley had both signed.

'What a lovely card.' I gave it back to her.

'Yes, isn't it, but England's good enough for me. Are you a relative?'

'A cousin.'

'I thought you looked a bit like Mrs Fitch.'

'Too bad I missed them.'

'I'm afraid I don't know their address, but there it is, when people are gone they're gone, isn't it.'

'Well, thank you so much.'

'I expect they'll write to you.'

'I expect so. Well, good day.'

She returned to her house and I moved back to the path. The roses were already looking neglected, covered with dead flowers. I noticed an unusual stone lying half covered by the earth and I picked it up. It was the mottled pink stone with the white chequering which I had given to Hartley, and brought back in a plastic bag on that awful day. I put it in my pocket.

I walked round the side of the house into the back garden, and stood on the concrete terrace outside the picture window and peered in. The curtains had been left here too, and pulled across a little, but I could see between them into the empty room. The door was open into the hall and I could see the inside of the front door and a faded place on the wallpaper where the picture of the mediaeval knight had hung. I began to feel a frenzied desire to get into the house. Perhaps Hartley had left me a message, left at least some significant trace of her presence.

The back door was locked and the sitting room windows were securely closed, but a kitchen window moved a little. I fetched a wooden box from the otherwise empty garden shed and stood on it, as t.i.tus had stood in order to look through the hole in the fence. 'You stood on a box, didn't you.' 'Yes, I stood on a box.' I eased the window out and got my finger into the crack. Then the window came open, not having been properly latched on the inside, and I was able to swing my leg over. A moment later, panting with emotion, I was standing in the kitchen. A terrible quietness crept in the house. The kitchen was empty, not entirely clean, and a tap dripping. Little rolls of fluff moved around on the floor in the draught from the window. I opened the larder, where there was already a trace of mould on the shelves. I walked about the sitting room and went into the two bedrooms. There was nothing, not a handkerchief, not a pin, no memento of my love. I went into the bathroom and looked at the stain on the bath. Then at last I saw something of interest. Beyond the edge of the linoleum, where it ended against the wall, there was the tiniest line of white, I stooped and pulled. A letter had been hidden, thrust in under the linoleum. I drew it carefully out and looked at it. It was my last letter to Hartley and it was unopened. I inspected it for a moment or two, wondering if it could have been opened and then stuck itself up again as letters sometimes do. But no. It had never been opened at all.

I was about to pocket it but decided not to. I tore it across into four pieces, stuffed it well down into the lavatory pan and pulled the chain. I went back and secured the kitchen window, then let myself out of the front door. The woman next door watched disapprovingly and even opened her front window and stared after me down the hill.

When I had reached the bottom and turned to the right into the village street, I suddenly saw a familiar figure approaching me. I was aware that it was someone I knew and was not pleased to see, just before I recognized it as Freddie Arkwright. Escape was impossible. He had already seen me and was bearing down.

'Mr Arrowby!'

'Why, it's Freddie!'

'Oh Mr Arrowby, I'm so glad to see you, I've kept missing you! I knew you were here. I was down at Whitsun and I hoped I'd see you, what luck to meet you now!'

'Well, Freddie, it's been a long time. How are you, what are you up to?'

'Didn't Bob tell you? I'm an actor!'

'An actor? Good for you!'

'I always wanted to be. That's why I went after that job with you, but it was like a sort of romance, I didn't think it would ever come real. And I loved working for you, it was great, all about London, all over the place, we did whizz about, didn't we? Then when you went away, I thought 'Why not?' and then when I got my Equity card, and I wasn't so young either, somehow it always helped me that I'd worked for you, you always brought me luck, Mr Arrowby. You were so kind to me in those days, you encouraged me so much. 'Decide what you want and go for it, Fred, it's just a matter of will power!' I remember you saying that to me more than once/ I did not recall saying this nor did it sound like anything which anyone would say more than once, a.s.suming he had ever had the misfortune to say it at all, but I was glad that Freddie had such rosy memories. We walked down as far as the footpath which led to the coast road. 'My, those were good times, Mr Arrowby, Savoy, Connaught, Ritz, Carlton, you name it, we were there! The old Carlton's gone of course, but London's still the best city in the world, and I've seen a few now. Paris, Rome, Madrid, I been there on jobs. I was in a film in Dublin a while ago, did we drink!'

'What's your stage name?'

'Oh, I kept my name, Freddie Arkwright, it seemed to be me. Can't say I've ever had any great parts, but I've loved every moment. All along of you, you were so kind to me, you encouraged me so much, and then everyone was saying, 'Oh, you're a friend of Charles Arrowby, aren't you', well, I wasn't going to say no and it helped a packet. My, it's good to see you, Mr Arrowby, and you don't look a day older. Fancy your coming to live here, I came from here, you know, I was born at Amorne Farm, my uncle and auntie still live there. You're retired now, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'I can't imagine ever retiring from the theatre. 'No people like show people', you can say that again!

But you still come to London, maybe we could get together? I'd love you to meet my friend I live with, Melbourne Pavitt, ever heard of him? No? Well, you will. He's a stage designer.'

'I expect we'll meet again around here'

'Sorry, I've been talking my head off, why not let's go to the Black Lion and have drinks on the house?'

'No, I must hurry back, here's my turning. It's been very nice to see you, Freddie, and I'm glad you're doing so well.'

'I'll get my agent to send you some cuttings.'

'Do that, and the best of luck.'

'G.o.d bless you, Mr Arrowby, and thanks a million.'

I went away down the footpath, waving cordially. I might stride as a demon in the dreams of some, but in the mind of Freddie Arkwright I evidently figured, quite undeservedly, as a beneficent deity. When I reached the house it was not yet two o'clock. I tried a little cold jellied consomme straight out of the tin, but soon gave that up. I took two aspirins and went upstairs and lay down on my bed and fully expected, as one sometimes does in acute unhappiness and shock, to become quickly unconscious, but instead I drifted away into some sort of h.e.l.l.

If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bite.

I could not really think about Hartley, or not yet. The shock had been too great, or I may have been already surrept.i.tiously guarding myself against too much suffering. And it was too as if, with a blandness which belonged to her youth, almost with a gesture, she had stood aside. She was constantly present to me, as if she hummed in my consciousness, but I did not concentrate upon her. I had sometimes felt, in my final struggle with her, that I wanted to rest; and now, quite suddenly, she had made me idle. But into the gap created by the finality of her disappearance came t.i.tus, returning to me for his portion of my guilt and my grief.

The horrors of remorse abound in unfulfilled conditionals. I could not abate the proliferation of st.u.r.dy visions of happiness which knew not of their own futility. I would take t.i.tus to London, he would go to acting school, he would come bounding in to see me with his friends, I would take him for long wonderful holidays, I would love him and look after him. Why had I not seen at once at once that this, the possession of t.i.tus, my anxious fumbling responsible fatherhood of him, was somehow the point, the pure gift, that which the G.o.ds had really sent me, along with so much irrelevant packaging? That was what I should have grasped, that and not the chimera. I recalled Rosina's prophetic words about t.i.tus: he too will prove a dream child, he will fade away and vanish. Why had I not seized him and made a reality between us, given him my whole attention and taken him away from the ruthless unchilding sea? Of course Gilbert and the others would have laughed their cynical laughs, but they would have been wrong. The sacred relation of paternity can come into being, even as strangely as. that, and holy moral bonds would have made me t.i.tus's protector, his mentor, his servant, with no demands made for myself. Perhaps this was an ideal picture. I might have been tyrannical, I might have been jealous, but I can recognize an absolute when I see one and I would have kept faith with t.i.tus. But amid these thoughts as they rambled on there was always the picture, with its bright sea-light, of t.i.tus lying dead, limp, dripping, with his half-open eyes and the hare-scar upon his lip. that this, the possession of t.i.tus, my anxious fumbling responsible fatherhood of him, was somehow the point, the pure gift, that which the G.o.ds had really sent me, along with so much irrelevant packaging? That was what I should have grasped, that and not the chimera. I recalled Rosina's prophetic words about t.i.tus: he too will prove a dream child, he will fade away and vanish. Why had I not seized him and made a reality between us, given him my whole attention and taken him away from the ruthless unchilding sea? Of course Gilbert and the others would have laughed their cynical laughs, but they would have been wrong. The sacred relation of paternity can come into being, even as strangely as. that, and holy moral bonds would have made me t.i.tus's protector, his mentor, his servant, with no demands made for myself. Perhaps this was an ideal picture. I might have been tyrannical, I might have been jealous, but I can recognize an absolute when I see one and I would have kept faith with t.i.tus. But amid these thoughts as they rambled on there was always the picture, with its bright sea-light, of t.i.tus lying dead, limp, dripping, with his half-open eyes and the hare-scar upon his lip.

I experienced his eternal absence as something almost impossible to comprehend. He had been with me such a short time; and he had come to me as to his death, as to his executioner. By what strange path of accidents, alive with so many other possibilities, had he made his way to the base of that sheer rock where he had tried again and again to pull himself out of the moving teasing killing sea? I ought to have warned him, I ought never to have dived in with him on that first day; I had destroyed him because I so rejoiced in his youth and because I had to pretend to be young too. He died because he trusted me. My vanity destroyed him. It is a matter of causality. The payment for faults is automatic. I relaxed my hold and he lay dead. Such thoughts as these carried me at last into a wretched comatose slumber; and when I awoke I had forgotten that Hartley was gone and I started at once on my old activity of planning what I would do to get her back.

My watch had stopped again, but the sky had an evening look with a lot of orange clouds pierced by holes of very cold very pale blue. I went downstairs and made some tea and then began drinking wine. I began to think about Hartley but cautiously, as if trying out the thoughts to see whether they would drive me mad with pain. They had to be thought, I had to take it in. I had seen the empty house, the postcard from Sydney. I contemplated her, seeing her young bland face looking at me, now removed as if behind a gauze curtain. She quietly invited me to suffer. There was a great s.p.a.ce now, a great silent hall in which this suffering could take place. There was no urgency now, nothing to plan, nothing to achieve. What shall I do with it, I asked her, what shall I do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? Why did you come back, if you could not content me? What can I do now with the great useless machine of my love which has no wholesome work to do? I can do nothing for you any more, my darling. I wondered if I would be fated to live with this love, making of it a shrine which could not now be desecrated. Perhaps when I was living alone and being everyone's uncle like a celibate priest I would keep this fruitless love as my secret chapel. Could I then learn to love uselessly and unpossessively and would this prove to be the monastic mysticism which I had hoped to attain when I came away to the sea?

It began to grow dark and I lit the lamp. I closed the window to keep the moths out. It dawned on me with a vague wonderment that it had not at any point occurred to me to take a plane to Sydney. I could not remember whether Ben had said they would be living in Sydney, but Australia was not all that large and I had friends there who would be delighted to join a hunt for a girl. I could search, enquire, advertise. It would be an occupation. But it was somehow clear that I would not do so, I had given up. Follow her humbly at a distance, simply keep letting her know that I was still there ? How like a frightful ghost I might become then. No, I had given up and, as it now seemed, I had done so prophetically just before her awful final flight. Why, after that unspeakable tea party, had I simply sat around waiting, imagining she would ring up? Did I really think she would ring up? Did I really imagine that she would leap, at the last moment, down into my boat? Surely I must have known by then that she was incapable of leaping. And I thought, rolling my head to and fro between my hands in anguish, oh if only it could have worked somehow for us two. If only Hartley had been my sister, I could have looked after her so happily and cared for her so tenderly.

I could not decide to eat anything. I had no desire for food or any sense that I would ever want to eat again. I went upstairs at last feeling drunk and sick. The bead curtain was jangling in some sea wind which was getting in somehow. There was a small moon racing through ragged clouds and the speed of it made me feel giddy. Perhaps she had to love Ben, hers was a loving nature and she had no alternative, no other possible object. She had wanted to love t.i.tus but Ben had destroyed her love for t.i.tus and in doing so destroyed her. What I had seen was a sh.e.l.l, a husk, a dead woman, a dead thing. Yet this was just the thing which I had so dearly wished to inhabit, to reanimate, to cherish. I took three sleeping pills. As I was falling asleep I wondered, why did she keep the letter, even though she did not read it? Why did she put the stone in the garden where I would be sure to see it? Were these, after all, hopeful hopeful signs? signs?

I woke rather late the next morning and established from the telephone that it was nine-thirty. I had a headache. I went into the kitchen and fell over the hip bath which was still standing there half full of water. I managed to empty the bath, half over the slates and half onto the lawn, and to put it back under the stairs. I tried to eat some biscuits but they had become soft and curiously wet. There was no bread and no b.u.t.ter and no milk. In any case I was not hungry. I thought of going shopping but I was not sure what day it was. I thought I heard distant church bells so, it might be Sunday. In a rather abstract way I wondered if I should not go to London. However I had no particular motive for going there. There was no one I wanted to see and nothing I wanted to do.

I walked out to the road to look at the weather. It was warmer and more blue. I noticed some letters in Gilbert's clever basket. The strike or holiday or whatever it was was evidently over. Of course there was no letter from Hartley, but there was one from Lizzie. I took the letters into the little red room and sat at the table.

My dear, I am unhappy about our meeting. You were generous and sweet but I wish I had seen you alone. All that laughing was somehow awful. What were you really thinking? I feel I am somehow in the wrong, but you must put me in the right. Love me, Charles, love me enough. enough. Since your letter I have been reliving my love for you like an inoculation, not to be 'cured', never that, but so that I can love you properly at last, and not just be stupidly 'in love'. Love matters, not 'in love'. Let there be no more partings now, Charles, no more mean possessive pa.s.sions and scheming. Let there be peace between us now forever, we are no longer young. Please, my darling. Lizzie. Since your letter I have been reliving my love for you like an inoculation, not to be 'cured', never that, but so that I can love you properly at last, and not just be stupidly 'in love'. Love matters, not 'in love'. Let there be no more partings now, Charles, no more mean possessive pa.s.sions and scheming. Let there be peace between us now forever, we are no longer young. Please, my darling. Lizzie.

P.S. Come and see us soon in London.

What a touching letter, ending with an invitation from 'us'! And 'I am in the wrong but you must put me in the right.' Typical Lizzie. I opened another letter. It was from Rosemary Ashe.

Dearest Charles, This is just to bring you the sad news that Sidney and I have split up. He wants a divorce. We are being peaceful about it all for the sake of the children and they don't seem to mind too much. It's a younger actress of course, our occupational hazard that, and the transatlantic atmosphere which seems to have driven Sidney mad. Perhaps it's temporary, I haven't given up hope, only hoping is so painful. I'm coming home and I long to see you. May I visit you in your lovely peaceful house by the sea? That's just what I need.

Much love, Rosemary.

So much for the ideal marriage. I had better start polis.h.i.+ng up my celibate uncle role. I opened another letter and for some time could not think who it was from, even though I could easily read the signature, Angela G.o.dwin.

Dear Charles, Listen, it's me. And listen carefully. You don't have to put up with the old ones, why should you? Maybe you thought you couldn't get a young one? But you don't look your age, you know. You don't have to have old bags like Lizzie Scherer and Rosina Vamburgh, why should you when you can have ME? I do rather like Rosina, though, at least she's clever, and things are decenter at home since Pam went so don't think I regard you as an escape route, I don't! I've been thinking a lot these last months and I think I've changed a lot and come to terms with myself at last. I've been thinking about my ident.i.ty. I don't yet know what I'm going to do with my life, not not acting, so you needn't think I'm after that either! I'm good at maths and I think I may become a physicist, I'm doing the Cambridge exam in the autumn. Anyhow I shall jolly well be acting, so you needn't think I'm after that either! I'm good at maths and I think I may become a physicist, I'm doing the Cambridge exam in the autumn. Anyhow I shall jolly well be somebody. somebody. The reason for this letter? I have had an idea of genius. That night you came to see Peregrine I was (of course) listening at the door and I heard him say how you wanted a son, or maybe you said it, I forget, but anyway it stayed in my mind. Now comes the idea. The reason for this letter? I have had an idea of genius. That night you came to see Peregrine I was (of course) listening at the door and I heard him say how you wanted a son, or maybe you said it, I forget, but anyway it stayed in my mind. Now comes the idea. Why shouldn't I give you one? Why shouldn't I give you one? He could be yours, I wouldn't want to hog him. I mean I'd visit him and that. I don't see myself tied with a child just yet, we could have a nurse. Besides I shall be jolly busy at Cambridge. And of course I'm He could be yours, I wouldn't want to hog him. I mean I'd visit him and that. I don't see myself tied with a child just yet, we could have a nurse. Besides I shall be jolly busy at Cambridge. And of course I'm not not proposing marriage. I think I shall marry much later on or not at all. But why not simply proposing marriage. I think I shall marry much later on or not at all. But why not simply have what you want'. have what you want'. People don't enough, which is what is the matter with our civilization, I don't mean like people starving, but like not having the courage to grab their heart's desire even when it's in front of their noses. About me, I am seventeen, and in perfect health. I'm a virgin and I want someone special to take me over that border, People don't enough, which is what is the matter with our civilization, I don't mean like people starving, but like not having the courage to grab their heart's desire even when it's in front of their noses. About me, I am seventeen, and in perfect health. I'm a virgin and I want someone special to take me over that border, you you in fact. I enclose a photograph, and you can see how I have changed. What about it, Charles? I am serious. Not least in saying that I love you, and am if and when you want me yours, in fact. I enclose a photograph, and you can see how I have changed. What about it, Charles? I am serious. Not least in saying that I love you, and am if and when you want me yours, Angela G.o.dwin.

I pulled the photograph out of the envelope and inspected a coloured picture of a rather pretty intelligent-looking girl with large eyes and a bright tender diffident unformed face. I crumpled this missive up and thrust it into the soft ash of the woodfire. There were various other letters, but I felt I had had enough of letters for the moment.

I went out to see what the horrible sea was up to. It was calm and slippery, sliding in among the rocks like oil. I went as far as Minn's cauldron and stood on the bridge. The tide was going out and the cauldron was emptying in a whirling gus.h.i.+ng frenzy of hasty bubbling waters whose white flux was absorbed by the calmer sea beyond. I looked down. How deep it was, how steep and smooth the sides. Surely no power on earth could have got me out of that hole. Yet I had got out, I was alive, and poor swimming holidaying t.i.tus was dead. I went on over the rocks as far as the tower and climbed down to the steps. The sleek water was rising and falling, but not too violently, the tide was right, the iron banister reaching down as far as the waves. I felt in my body, as if scarcely yet in my mind, a flicker of life, the old familiar semi-s.e.xual twitch of fear, such as I used to feel on those high diving boards in California or before plunging into lethally cold waters off Ireland.

Trembling with emotion I tore my clothes off and walked into the sea. The cold shock, then the warmth, then the strong gentle lifting motion of the quiet waves reminded me terribly of happiness. I swam about feeling the loneliness of the sea and that particular sensation which I now identified as a sense of death which it seemed to have always carried into my heart. Not that I then wished to die or thought that I might drown. My strong limbs responded to the moving water, my breath came easily, the sky was blue above me and the sun was everywhere, and I watched the near horizon of the approaching waves, their tops a little whipped by the breeze, and they were strong and gentle. They toyed with me. I swam and floated until I began to feel cold; then I climbed out and returned naked to the house carrying my clothes.

The sea had restored my hunger and when it seemed to be lunch time I heated up the remains of the consomme and opened a tin of frankfurters and a tin of sauerkraut. I half decided to go to London tomorrow. I half thought of telephoning James who might after all still be around, and I got as far as looking up his number and writing it down on the pad beside the telephone. I half intended to ring up the taxi man to ask him to take me to the early train. Though the sun was warm, I was a bit chilled after the swim and I put on the white Irish jersey. I got out a suitcase and began to pack up a few clothes. I even went into the book room to find a book to read on the journey. It occurred to me that although my plan for my retirement had included a regime of reading I had not opened a book since I arrived at Shruff End. I turned the books over. James had inspected them, t.i.tus had slept on them. I needed something a bit lurid and absorbing. It was a moment even for p.o.r.nography, only I cannot really stand p.o.r.nography. I eventually chose The Wings of the Dove, The Wings of the Dove, another story of death and moral smash-up. The day seemed to be pa.s.sing, the evening was arriving, and I had not telephoned either James or the taxi man. I decided it was too late to decide to go early in the morning. I would ring the taxi man tomorrow and take the later train. What I would do when I got to London I did not consider. Arrange my flat, order curtains? Such things belonged to another world. Although the evening was warm I lit the fire for company in the little red room, thus consuming Rosemary's and Angle's letters and the photo of the intelligent diffident girl. I took my supper in to the fireside and sat for a while trying to start reading another story of death and moral smash-up. The day seemed to be pa.s.sing, the evening was arriving, and I had not telephoned either James or the taxi man. I decided it was too late to decide to go early in the morning. I would ring the taxi man tomorrow and take the later train. What I would do when I got to London I did not consider. Arrange my flat, order curtains? Such things belonged to another world. Although the evening was warm I lit the fire for company in the little red room, thus consuming Rosemary's and Angle's letters and the photo of the intelligent diffident girl. I took my supper in to the fireside and sat for a while trying to start reading The The Wings of the Dove, Wings of the Dove, but its marvellous magisterial beginning failed to grab me. It was still daylight and I could see without the lamp. I sat for a while with glazed eyes, listening to the stomp of the sea and the beating of my heart. I began to feel slightly sleepy or comatose. That swim had certainly done but its marvellous magisterial beginning failed to grab me. It was still daylight and I could see without the lamp. I sat for a while with glazed eyes, listening to the stomp of the sea and the beating of my heart. I began to feel slightly sleepy or comatose. That swim had certainly done something something to me. I thought about t.i.tus. Then I began to think about myself as a drowned man and I remembered how I had slept, on the night of my resurrection from Minn's cauldron, upon the floor in this room, in front of the glowing fire, wondering gratefully why I was still alive. And I seemed to see myself lying there, moving my limbs gently in the warmth to make certain that I was whole. My eyelids drooped a little and then I very clearly to me. I thought about t.i.tus. Then I began to think about myself as a drowned man and I remembered how I had slept, on the night of my resurrection from Minn's cauldron, upon the floor in this room, in front of the glowing fire, wondering gratefully why I was still alive. And I seemed to see myself lying there, moving my limbs gently in the warmth to make certain that I was whole. My eyelids drooped a little and then I very clearly saw saw something concerning which I was not afterwards able to say whether it was a hallucination or a memory image. It certainly presented itself to me, quite suddenly, as a memory. I had been vaguely, driftingly, thinking of that awful fall into the churning pit of water, my 'knowledge' of my death, the way the water showed green above me even in the dim light. Then I remembered that, just before my head cracked against the rock and the blackness came upon me, I had seen something else. I had seen a strange small head near to mine, terrible teeth, a black arched neck. something concerning which I was not afterwards able to say whether it was a hallucination or a memory image. It certainly presented itself to me, quite suddenly, as a memory. I had been vaguely, driftingly, thinking of that awful fall into the churning pit of water, my 'knowledge' of my death, the way the water showed green above me even in the dim light. Then I remembered that, just before my head cracked against the rock and the blackness came upon me, I had seen something else. I had seen a strange small head near to mine, terrible teeth, a black arched neck. The monstrous sea serpent had actually been in the cauldron with me. The monstrous sea serpent had actually been in the cauldron with me. I opened my eyes wide and, now panting and with a violently pounding heart, looked around me. All was as usual, the fire blazing, the scattering of unopened letters upon the table, my half-drunk gla.s.s of wine. I was sure I had not been asleep. I had simply I opened my eyes wide and, now panting and with a violently pounding heart, looked around me. All was as usual, the fire blazing, the scattering of unopened letters upon the table, my half-drunk gla.s.s of wine. I was sure I had not been asleep. I had simply remembered remembered something which I had for some reason totally forgotten. This was indeed the forgetting which the doctor had said I must expect, the result of the concussion, where memory traces are lost. But now I could recall the black coiling thing, very close, reared over me and quite unmistakable in the dim light, its head and neck for a moment outlined against the sky. I saw in memory its green luminous eyes. The sight had lasted for seconds, perhaps a second, but it had been clear and not to be doubted. Then after that second had come the blow on the head. But no, there was something else to remember, something else had happened just before I lost consciousness. But what, what? Trembling with excitement and fear I sat holding my head and tormenting my memory. There was something there waiting agonizingly to be remembered, something very important and extraordinary, waiting just outside my range of vision, waiting for me to grasp it, only I could not. I groaned aloud, I got up and walked into the kitchen and back, I drank a little more wine, I closed my eyes, I opened them. I watched my mind, as if hardly daring to touch it in case it should s.h.i.+ft or harden and destroy some perhaps momentary proximity. But the hidden thing would not come; and I had a terrified sense that if I did not catch it now it would disappear forever, sinking into the deep total darkness of the unconscious. Just now, for perhaps the last time, it heaved to touch the surface. After a while I gave up straining, though I still hoped that the final, the somehow essential, memory would suddenly come. I sat down again at the table and began thinking about the sea serpent and going back over my earlier theories concerning LSD. I tried to remember whether I had felt the coiling creature as well as seen it. I had a memory vision of the animal but none of my state of mind at the time, although I could remember my 'drowning' thoughts when I was under the wave. I thought of going out to inspect the cauldron in case this would help my memory, but now it was almost dark and I dared not. I felt frightened, then positively shaken by death fear. I tried to light the lamp but for some reason could not. I lit several candles, then went and locked the front door and the back door and returned to the little red room. something which I had for some reason totally forgotten. This was indeed the forgetting which the doctor had said I must expect, the result of the concussion, where memory traces are lost. But now I could recall the black coiling thing, very close, reared over me and quite unmistakable in the dim light, its head and neck for a moment outlined against the sky. I saw in memory its green luminous eyes. The sight had lasted for seconds, perhaps a second, but it had been clear and not to be doubted. Then after that second had come the blow on the head. But no, there was something else to remember, something else had happened just before I lost consciousness. But what, what? Trembling with excitement and fear I sat holding my head and tormenting my memory. There was something there waiting agonizingly to be remembered, something very important and extraordinary, waiting just outside my range of vision, waiting for me to grasp it, only I could not. I groaned aloud, I got up and walked into the kitchen and back, I drank a little more wine, I closed my eyes, I opened them. I watched my mind, as if hardly daring to touch it in case it should s.h.i.+ft or harden and destroy some perhaps momentary proximity. But the hidden thing would not come; and I had a terrified sense that if I did not catch it now it would disappear forever, sinking into the deep total darkness of the unconscious. Just now, for perhaps the last time, it heaved to touch the surface. After a while I gave up straining, though I still hoped that the final, the somehow essential, memory would suddenly come. I sat down again at the table and began thinking about the sea serpent and going back over my earlier theories concerning LSD. I tried to remember whether I had felt the coiling creature as well as seen it. I had a memory vision of the animal but none of my state of mind at the time, although I could remember my 'drowning' thoughts when I was under the wave. I thought of going out to inspect the cauldron in case this would help my memory, but now it was almost dark and I dared not. I felt frightened, then positively shaken by death fear. I tried to light the lamp but for some reason could not. I lit several candles, then went and locked the front door and the back door and returned to the little red room.

As I came back into the room I saw almost straight ahead of me, as if my eyes had suddenly been switched onto a new narrow wavelength, a crack in the white wooden panelling, just below the top where, a few feet from the ground, the panelling ended in a small ledge. There were quite a lot of cracks between the panels, some of them partially covered by the paint. This crack was quite short, about six inches long, and there was something in it: something white which stuck out a little way. Suddenly breathless, giddy with memory, I went across the room and pulled out a piece of paper. It was the piece of paper upon which, when I awoke in the night after being 'drowned', I had written down that very important thing which I was on no account to forget. Even as I held the paper in my hand I could not remember what it was that I had written, though I at once a.s.sumed that it had to do with the sea serpent. I unfolded the paper, and what I read was this.

I must write this down quickly as evidence, since I am beginning to forget it even as I write. James saved me. He somehow came down right into the water. He put his hands under my armpits and I felt myself coming up as if I were in a lift. I saw him against the sheer side of the rock leaning down to me, and then I rose up and he held me against his body and we came up together. But he was not standing on anything. One moment he was against the rock as if he were clinging onto it like a bat. Then he was simply standing on the water. And then Here the writing ended, trailing away into illegible scrawls. I sat at the table gasping and I read the thing through several times, and then the dark thing that had been touching the surface of my mind broke through and I found I could remember the scene. This memory was not like my memory of the serpent. It was like my memory of Lizzie singing or of t.i.tus lying dead, except that it was a memory of an impossibility.

I could now recall perfectly clearly what I had tried to express by saying that he was against the sheer rock 'like a bat' and that I came up 'as in a lift'. It was after the green wave had broken over me and I remember my head came above the surface and I was spewing water from my mouth and trying to shout. Then I saw James already half-way down the rock, sort of kneeling against the side of it, and coming down like some animal. The bat image was not quite right, he might have been more like a lizard, but the point was that he was not climbing down with footholds and handholds like a man, he was creeping down on the smooth surface like some sort of beast. I remember trying to reach out a hand towards him, but the water was in total control of my body and hurling me about like a cork. I had in any case swallowed so much I was nearly at the end of breathing and struggling. I particularly recall that James at that moment looked like a drowned man himself, soaked with water, the leaping sea streaming down from off his head. In so far as I had any thought then I seem to recapture a sense of: so James is drowning too. Only somehow this was not a despairing thought. Then James, as he crept right down into the churning whirlpool, detached himself from the rock like a caterpillar. There was an effect as of something sticky and adhesive deliberately unsticking itself. He did not take the hand which I was trying to reach out to him, but leaned down over me and got his hands under my armpits, as I described in the writing. I could now recall the feel feel of his hands as he touched me, and then the extraordinary sensation which I described as rising 'in a lift'. I could not remember being pulled or dragged up, there was no sense of effort. I rose up until my head was level with James's head and my body pressed against his body. I remember a sense of warmth, and also that it was at of his hands as he touched me, and then the extraordinary sensation which I described as rising 'in a lift'. I could not remember being pulled or dragged up, there was no sense of effort. I rose up until my head was level with James's head and my body pressed against his body. I remember a sense of warmth, and also that it was at that that moment that I lost consciousness. But then was I not knocked on the head, and did I not suffer from concussion? I touched the back of my head and felt a distinct and still rather tender b.u.mp there. Of course I could have knocked my head earlier without being made unconscious. And when did I see the serpent, if I saw the serpent? And did James see the serpent too? And why did my little piece of mnemonic writing contain no reference to the serpent? And what had I just been going to say when the writing ended? Of course if I struck my head on the rock just after seeing the serpent I could have already forgotten about it when I came to write, even though I could still remember James's rescue. And why had I then forgotten that too, and why should I suddenly remember it now? moment that I lost consciousness. But then was I not knocked on the head, and did I not suffer from concussion? I touched the back of my head and felt a distinct and still rather tender b.u.mp there. Of course I could have knocked my head earlier without being made unconscious. And when did I see the serpent, if I saw the serpent? And did James see the serpent too? And why did my little piece of mnemonic writing contain no reference to the serpent? And what had I just been going to say when the writing ended? Of course if I struck my head on the rock just after seeing the serpent I could have already forgotten about it when I came to write, even though I could still remember James's rescue. And why had I then forgotten that too, and why should I suddenly remember it now?

I leapt up in a state of the greatest excitement. My memory of James's exploit was certainly no hallucination. After all, how had had I got out of that churning death pit? Only today I had concluded, looking at it, that no human force could have raised me nor could the waves possibly have lifted me to the top of the rock. My cousin had rescued me by the exercise of those powers which he had so casually spoken of as I got out of that churning death pit? Only today I had concluded, looking at it, that no human force could have raised me nor could the waves possibly have lifted me to the top of the rock. My cousin had rescued me by the exercise of those powers which he had so casually spoken of as 'tricks'. I thought again about the story of the sherpa whom James had intended to preserve by such 'trickery'. Had I then doubted James's reference to 'increase of bodily heat by mental concentration'? I had scarcely reflected on the matter. The story could be seen in quite an ordinary light. Two men cling together for warmth in a tent, in a bag, in the snow, and one dies. What touched and interested me was that, whatever it was that James thought he was going to do, he had failed. As for the claim itself, it did not now seem to me too incredible that some weird eastern ascetic could learn to control his body temperature. But to creep down a sheer rock and stand upon, or (as I now recalled it) just below the surface of, raging waves, and raise a man weighing eleven stone upwards for a matter of sixteen to twenty feet simply by placing one's hands in his armpits: that was a rather different task for the credulity of a sceptical westerner. Yet I remembered it. And there was also the evidence of the writing. And something very odd had certainly happened.

I sat down again at my table, trying to breathe regularly, and at the idea that my cousin had used some strange power which he possessed to save my life I was suddenly filled with the most piercing pure and tender joy, as if the sky had opened and a stream of white light had descended. I felt like Danae. When, after my last talk with James, I had felt myself at the start of a new and more open relations.h.i.+p with him, that had been the merest prophetic glimmer of what I felt now. I also thought, in a curious ridiculous way, what fun fun! And I recalled James's saying, 'What larks we had!' And I wanted to thank him and in doing so to laugh.

I looked at my watch. It was only just after eleven o'clock, still not too late to telephone. I ran out to the book room, carrying a candle and choking and exclaiming with emotion. I dialled James's number. I had no idea what I was going to say to him. I thought, I must remember to ask him whether he saw the sea serpent. The telephone began to ring, and as it rang and rang my excitement turned to disappointment. Perhaps he had already gone to Tibet? Or was he perhaps simply out for the evening, dining at some club with some soldier? My G.o.d, how little I knew about his life. I decided to telephone him again in the morning, and then to get away to London.

I went back into the kitchen and unlocked and opened the back door. The cold fear which I had felt earlier had entirely gone. I went out onto the lawn. The house had been dark and cool, but there was plenty of light outside and the air was warmer. I decided to sleep out, and I went and collected some cus.h.i.+ons from the book room and brought blankets and a pillow down from upstairs. I climbed over to the place beside the sea where I had slept on the previous occasion and laid out my bed. Then I went back towards the house where the candles made a friendly glow in the window of the little red room. The sky, though dim and faded, was still light enough to prevent the stars, except for the evening star which shone out jagged and enormous. The low and sinking half moon was cheese-pale. I went into the little red room where the candles, as on an altar, flanked my wine gla.s.s and the almost empty bottle. I poured out the rest of the wine and sat and reflected. I tried to recall more things. I was sure that none of the others had noticed anything odd. Peregrine said he had pushed me and walked on. He was very drunk and may genuinely not have known exactly what happened. By the time there was a general alarm I was already lying on top of the rock with James trying to revive me. I had not questioned James properly because he had become ill immediately afterwards, he had had some sort of collapse and retired to bed. Why was he so exhausted? Because of what he had endured in rescuing me, the physical and mental energy which he had expended in that unimaginable descent. I recalled his words about 'those things that people do, they can be jolly tiring'. No wonder James was knocked out and seemed to have lost his grip. But then... 'I relaxed my hold on him, I lost my grip.' Whom had James been speaking of as I fell asleep that night, his sherpa or perhaps... t.i.tus? How was it that t.i.tus had come to me just then? Why had James so pointedly asked for t.i.tus's name? A name is a road. And why had t.i.tus said that he had seen James 'in a dream5 ? James had always been the finder of lost things. Had he stretched out some tentacle of his mind and found t.i.tus and brought him here and kept him him as it were under his care upon a binding thread, a thread of attention which was broken when James became so strangely ill after I had been lifted from the sea? James's reaction to t.i.tus's death had been 'it ought not to have happened', almost as if he felt that it was his own fault. But then if it was his fault it was as it were under his care upon a binding thread, a thread of attention which was broken when James became so strangely ill after I had been lifted from the sea? James's reaction to t.i.tus's death had been 'it ought not to have happened', almost as if he felt that it was his own fault. But then if it was his fault it was my my fault. There is a relentless causality of sin and in a way t.i.tus died because, all those years ago, I had taken Rosina away from Peregrine. And of course my vanity had killed t.i.tus just as James's vanity had killed the sherpa. In each case our weakness had destroyed the thing we loved. And now I remembered something else which James had said. White magic is black magic. A less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people, and demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards. Had one of these demons, with whose help James had saved me, taken advantage of James's collapse to seize t.i.tus and crash his young head against the rock? fault. There is a relentless causality of sin and in a way t.i.tus died because, all those years ago, I had taken Rosina away from Peregrine. And of course my vanity had killed t.i.tus just as James's vanity had killed the sherpa. In each case our weakness had destroyed the thing we loved. And now I remembered something else which James had said. White magic is black magic. A less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people, and demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards. Had one of these demons, with whose help James had saved me, taken advantage of James's collapse to seize t.i.tus and crash his young head against the rock?

These thoughts were so mad and their implications so hideously frightening that I decided I must stop thinking and try to sleep. I felt that in spite of everything, I should sleep well. I wanted most intensely to talk to James about all these things, or, supposing he had already left, to write to him. But how could I find his address, would he have an address? I really knew n.o.body who knew him except Toby Ellesmere, and Toby often seemed entirely mystified or ignorant about James's doings and his way of life. Could -I go to some army headquarters or to the Ministry of Defence and ask? Of course they would 'know nothing'. I had finished the wine and the fire had sunk into a pile of ash dully smudged with red. I sighed deeply as I thought of all the years I had wasted when James and I might have been friends, instead of just awkward embarra.s.sed relatives or something almost more like enemies. I reached out to the table and began pus.h.i.+ng the pile of unopened letters about to see if I recognized any of the writings. Of course there was nothing from James, I would have spotted that at once. There might be one from Sidney telling his side of the 'young actress' story. I noticed, because its appearance caught my eye, a letter with a London postmark addressed to Mr C. Arrowby, Mr C. Arrowby, in the hand of a writer who was clearly not quite at home with Roman letters. In a tired idle curiosity I drew it towards me and opened it. It was dated two days ago and it ran as follows: in the hand of a writer who was clearly not quite at home with Roman letters. In a tired idle curiosity I drew it towards me and opened it. It was dated two days ago and it ran as follows: Dear Mr Arrowby, I have to be the bearer of sad news, I am sorry. I cannot find you in the telephone. But you are at liberty to make telephone to me at the number given on the paper. My sad news is this, your cousin Mr James Arrowby has just died. I am his doctor.

He left me a note that you are his cousin and his heir and that I should myself inform you of his decease. So I do this. I want also to tell something to you alone. Mr Arrowby died in much quietness. He telephoned me to come to him and was already dead when I arrived, and he had left the door open. He was sitting in his chair smiling. I must tell you this. By an accident that is no accident I came to him as his doctor. I am Indian, I come from Dehra Dun. When I first met Mr Arrowby I at once recognized him as one who knows many things. Perhaps you will understand. I had some prophetic thought about him, and when I came to him I saw what had been. In northern India I have known such deaths, and I tell it to you so that you need not be sorry too much. Mr Arrowby died in happiness achieving all. I have written for cause of death on the certificate 'heart failure5, but it was not so. There are some who can freely choose their moment of death and without violence to the body can by simple will power die. It was so with him. I looked upon him with reverence and bowed before him. He has gone quietly and by the force of his own thought was consciousness extinguished. Thus it is good to go. Believe me, Sir, he was an enlightened one. I will be at your service at the telephone number. With obedient wishes, I am yours truly, P. R. Tsang.

I read the letter through twice and a terrible cold quietness fell upon me and I sat like a statue motionless for a long time. It did not occur to me to wonder if the strange letter was a hoax or a mistake. I had no doubt that James had gone. He had gone quietly; with just a little gentle pressure of his mind upon his body he had made the restless flickering consciousness cease forever. I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move. And I felt an odd new sensation which I had never known before and which it took me a little time to recognize as loneliness. Without James I was at last alone. How very much I had somehow relied upon his presence in the world, almost as if he had been my twin brother and not my cousin.

I saw from my watch that it was nearly midnight. I would indeed go to London tomorrow. And I wondered with helpless sad confusion what had happened, what had they done with him? Was James still sitting there in his chair, dead and smiling his inane smile?

I got up to go to bed and then remembered that I had made my couch out on the rocks. I decided to go to it. Outside the night was warm and had darkened just enough to show a scattering of stars and the faint smudgy arch of the Milky Way.

There was a diffused lightness in the sky however, and I recalled that it must be, give or take a day or two, midsummer. I was able to find my way not too dangerously over the rocks which I now knew so well, though at one point my foot slipped into a pool. The water in the pool was warm. I found my hard bed and lay on it in s.h.i.+rt and trousers, just taking off my shoes. I propped my head so that I could look at the horizon which was marked by a dark line and a silver line. The water lapped below me like ripples against a slowly moving boat.

Why had James gone, why had he decided to go now? Was there any immediate reason, such as I could understand, or was it all part of some big wheeling pattern of my cousin's existence of which I could perceive nothing? All sorts of crazy hypotheses kept coming into my head. Was it something to do with Lizzie? Impossible. Or with t.i.tus? Was he perhaps filled with remorse about t.i.tus, imagining himself responsible for that death? Here I even began to conjecture that James really had known t.i.tus earlier, was perhaps himself the mysterious person who had taught t.i.tus those little airs and graces and given him the copy of Dante's poems. But this was inconceivable, such a deception not to be seriously imagined. And as I lay there looking at the sky above the sea I saw a golden satellite begin its slow careful journey over the arch of the heavens, and it looked like a calm travelling soul. James had said he was going on a journey. Death was the journey. It was his last 'trick'.

No, I could not attach this 'casting off' to any ordinary or present cause. James's decision belonged to a different pattern of being, to some quite other history of spiritual adventure and misadventure. Whatever 'flaw' had led, as James saw it, to his sherpa's death belonged, it might be, to some more general condition. Religion is power, it must be, and yet that is its bane. The exercise of power is a dangerous delight. Perhaps James wanted simply to lay down the burden of a mysticism that had gone wrong, a spirituality which had somehow degenerated into magic. Had he been overwhelmed with disgust because he had had to use his 'power' to save my life, was that the last straw, and was it really all my fault after all?

Had I proved to be, in the end, a thankless burden and a dangerous attachment? Here, and sadly, I understood the possible meaning of James's last visit. James had come to make his peace with me, but it was for his sake, not for mine, in order to break a bond, not to perfect it. He knew it was our last talk, and that was why he was so relaxed, so open, so unprecedentedly frank and gentle. He came, not with any ordinary desire for reconciliation, but in order to rid himself of a last irritating preoccupation. Anxiety or guilt about his wretched cousin might cloud the conditions of the perfect departure upon which he had perhaps long been bent.

How did it go off, that severance, I wondered. Had he responded to the vision of 'all reality' which comes at the moment of death and by which one must instantly profit? Had he gone eagerly to that rendezvous and was he now, in what strange heaven of release, 'set free', whatever that might mean? Or else, aching and weak like the shade of Achilles, shut in some purgatory to expiate sins which I could not even imagine? Was he now wandering in a dark monster-ridden bardo, bardo, encountering simulacra of people he had once known and being frightened by demons? For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause. How did one get out encountering simulacra of people he had once known and being frightened by demons? For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause. How did one get out of bardo? of bardo? I could not remember what James had told me. Why had I never asked him to explain? Would he meet I could not remember what James had told me. Why had I never asked him to explain? Would he meet me me there, in the shape of some persistent horror, a foul phantom me, the creation of his mind? If so I prayed that when he achieved his liberation he might not forget me but come, in pity and in compa.s.sion, to know the truth. Whatever that might mean. there, in the shape of some persistent horror, a foul phantom me, the creation of his mind? If so I prayed that when he achieved his liberation he might not forget me but come, in pity and in compa.s.sion, to know the truth. Whatever that might mean.

As I lay there, listening to the soft slap of the sea, and thinking these sad and strange thoughts, more and more and more stars had gathered, obliterating the separateness of the Milky Way and filling up the whole sky. And far far away in that ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among those billions and billions of merging golden lights. And curtain after curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeons of my youth. And I saw into the vast soft interior of the universe which was slowly and gently turning itself inside out. I went to sleep, and in my sleep I seemed to hear a sound of singing.

I woke up and it was dawn. The billion billion stars had gone and the sky was a bland misty very light blue, a huge uniform over-arching cool yet muted brightness, the sun not yet risen. The rocks were clearly revealed, still indefinably colourless. The sea was utterly calm, glossy, grey, without even ripples, marked only by the thinnest palest line at the horizon. There was a complete yet somehow conscious silence, as if the travelling planet were noiselessly breathing. I remembered that James was dead. Who is one's first love? Who indeed.

I pulled myself up, knelt, and began to shake my blankets and my pillow which were wet with dew. Then I heard, odd and frightening in that total stillness, a sound coming from the water, a sudden and quite loud splas.h.i.+ng, as if something just below the rock were about to emerge, and crawl out perhaps onto the land. I had a moment of sheer fear as I turned and leaned towards the sea edge. Then I saw below me, their wet doggy faces looking curiously upward, four seals, swimming so close to the rock that I could almost have touched them. I looked down at their pointed noses only a few feet below, their dripping whiskers, their bright inquisitive round eyes, and the lithe and glossy grace of their wet backs. They curved and played a while, gulping and gurgling a little, looking up at me all the time. And as I watched their play I could not doubt that they were beneficent beings come to visit me and bless me.

Postscript:

LIFE GOES ON.

That no doubt is how the story ought to end, with the seals and the stars, explanation, resignation, reconciliation, everything picked up into some radiant bland ambiguous higher significance, in calm of mind, all pa.s.sion spent. However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of b.u.mping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally ill.u.s.trating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after; so I thought I might continue the tale a little longer in the form once again of a diary, though I suppose that, if this is a book, it will have to end, arbitrarily enough no doubt, in quite a short while. In particular I felt I ought to go on so as to describe James's funeral, although really James's funeral was such a non-event that there is practically nothing to describe. Then I felt too that I might take this opportunity to tie up a few loose ends, only of course loose ends can never be properly tied, one is always producing new ones. Time, like the sea, unties all knots. Judgments on people are never final, they emerge from summings up which at once suggest the need of a reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us. As I write this it is August, not the yellow Provencal August of the English imagination, but an ordinary cool London August with the wind beating down the Thames at the end of the street. For, yes, I am living in James's flat. From a legal point of view it is my flat, but of course it remains really James's. I dare not alter anything, I scarcely dare to move anything. The idols of 'superst.i.tion' surround me. I have ventured to put some of the odder 'fetishes' away in a cupboard, I hope they will not mind, and I took down the gla.s.s pendants in the hall because their tinkling disturbed my sleep. But the ornate wooden box with the captive demon inside is still perched on its bracket. (James never denied that there was a demon in it. He merely laughed when I asked him.) The innumerable Buddhas are still in their places, except for one that I gave to Toby Ellesmere because he seemed annoyed at not being mentioned in James's will. The will left everything to me and, should I predecease him, to the British Buddhist Society. I gave them a Buddha too.

Another peevish s.h.i.+fty letter from the house agent today. Shruff End is up for sale. I never spent another night there after the night of the stars when the seals came in the morning. While sorting out my belongings for removal I stayed at the Raven Hotel. I could see the tower from my bedroom but not the house. No one seems to want to buy the place, perhaps because of the dampness, perhaps for other reasons. The Arkwrights at Amorne Farm, who have the key, said they would get the roof mended, but according to the agent have not done so. Fortunately I do not need the money urgently since James's will has left me comfortably off.

I suppose I must describe James's funeral as I said I was going to. There was something curiously blank about it. I did not have to organize it, thank heaven. It was organized by a Colonel Blackthorn who appeared for this purpose and then vanished. When I got to London on the day after the doctor's letter I found Colonel Blackthorn and the doctor both actually in James's flat. The colonel explained that he had organized the funeral (a cremation) because they had been unable to get in touch with me, but that if I wished for something different... I did not. I tried to talk to the doctor but he faded away while Blackthorn was still explaining to me how to get to the crematorium. 'James' had already mercifully been removed to the 'chapel of rest'. I did not visit him.

The cremation took place two days later at one of those huge garden places in north London. There is something comfortlessly empty about a 'garden of remembrance' after the loquacious populated feeling of a graveyard. It was a stiff graceless business, rather hurried on by the staff, who kept us waiting outside while the previous 'customer' was disposed of. Doubtless the worthy colonel's despatch in booking our 'slot' had been a prudent one. He was there, also the doctor. Toby Ellesmere came and seemed genuinely upset. I had never reflected before (and have not since) upon the nature of his relation with James, but whatever it was I imagine it belonged to the remote past. James and Toby had not only been young soldiers together, they had been school boys together. Perhaps Toby had simply admired him at school; such bonds can be life-long. Four other well-dressed men in smart black suits turned up, I presume they were soldiers. They showed no signs of knowing who I was, and they were unknown to Toby, with whom I exchanged a few words; indeed no one except Toby talked to me at all. The business took minutes. There was no prayer of course, only a little soft listless music and then a standing in silence, which was broken by some official noisily opening the door at the back. I wished then that there could have been a proper ceremony of some sort. But any ritual I could have devised would probably have offended James's shade. I only wish I had had the wit to demand some decent music to see him off with. We went outside into the garden. Colonel Blackthorn shook hands with me. Everybody began to go away. Again I tried to speak to the doctor, but he said he was expected at the hospital