The Picturegoers

IT WAS HOT in the park. Almost too hot. Mark was carrying his jacket, and Clare regretted that she had not taken off her stockings and belt before coming out. But there was no question of turning back. Both of them, she felt, had simultaneously decided that they must be alone to talk—something that was impossible at home without arousing unwelcome curiosity. For some reason people did not seem to be able to accept the possibility of two people who were ‘going steady’ being in a state of temporary misunderstanding—the common condition of love; it had to be make or break, ‘very fond of each other’ or ‘broken it off’. So you had studiously to act out a charade of affection and natural ease until, like politicians, you had settled the issue in private, one way or the other. But the elaborate public pretence could cripple private honesty. Nearly two months had passed since the last crisis in their relationship—the night they had seen Bicycle Thieves—and still neither of them had had the courage to face its implications. Now they would have to.

A sudden sickness and fatigue swamped her, and she felt incapable of facing the long, painful inquest that would start in a few minutes—incapable of sustaining any longer the intolerable labour of love.

It was a dazzling Saturday afternoon, and the park was full of contented people: children stood knicker-deep in bliss, stroking the paddling-pool as if it were some great tame animal; attendant mothers soaked in the sun; lovers were prone and entranced on the grass. But to her the heat was oppressive, stifling.

They sat down on hard, knobbly ground, sparsely covered with grass, in the grudging shade of a withered tree. Mark took out a cigarette, and began to smoke. Clare stretched out flat, but he remained sitting upright, one arm locked behind him. It was not a position anyone could maintain comfortably for long, and it seemed to Clare that he was deliberately refraining from lying down beside her.

‘Mm,’ she grunted, closing her eyes against the glare. After a pause he said:

‘Courtney?’ How long was this fencing going to continue. She was impatient for the heavy swing of blunt, simple statements: ‘I’m sorry’—‘I was a bitch’—‘It was my fault’—‘I love you.’

Clare remained supine, her eyes closed, paralysed by an utter confusion, a sense of the inadequacy of any reaction. Not for a second did she doubt the truth of what he was saying, but to gain time she licked her dry lips and croaked:

Suddenly, like thunder following lightning after a breathless pause, it hit her; she turned over on to her stomach and wept bitterly.

He laid a hand on her shoulder, and she felt already in his touch the conscious, prudent reserve of the religious; remembering the sensitive fingers that had once tuned her body like a fine instrument, her soul howled with the sense of loss.

She felt she had been tactically outwitted, and she hated him for it. How to answer his question? He had never asked her to marry him, he had never even said directly and seriously ‘I love you’, he was not bound to her in any way explicitly. But he knew—surely he must know?

‘I know that we’ve become very attached to each other since I came to live with your family. But I don’t think things have gone so far between us that—’

‘Oh, you don’t, don’t you. You don’t think. That’s just the trouble—you don’t think—about other people’s feelings.’

‘I do, Clare. Of course I didn’t go and see Father Courtney without thinking hard about our relationship. And I mentioned it to him.’

‘I suppose it boils down to that … Look, I’m terribly sorry, Clare. I had no idea … I didn’t realize you cared so …’

She twisted over on to her side, and glared fiercely at him, knowing that this was what she shouldn’t do, that she was humiliating herself, that her face was red and puffy and ugly.

‘Then it must have been two other people that have been kissing on our front porch for the last nine months. It obviously wasn’t you and me.’

There was a hot silence. The sounds of summer—crickets, bees, the distant shouts of children—were like heavy objects being moved around in her head. She tossed restlessly under the heat, as if under too many blankets. ‘Hell is other people’ Mark had once quoted to her. No, Hell was things, when people fell out. She remembered another hot day, a baking play-ground, and the chafing of a rough wool habit. Things waited till your defences were down, and then turned on you, all together. If she had taken her stockings off, she felt she might have managed the situation with dignity, but as it was, racked by physical as well as emotional misery, she felt she might become insane at any moment.

Mark sat stolid and silent. She was torn between a desire to hurt him, by releasing the hate and resentment which had been steadily accumulating inside her ever since he had casually annexed her mind and body, and a craven reluctance to precipitate their separation. Reason told her that it would be less painful to remove the bandage with a sharp tug, even if it broke the skin, than to peel it off slowly. But she cherished even the pain that Mark caused her.

‘I don’t know how to answer that, Clare. I know that sometimes I used to say “I love you” in a light-hearted way … But I think you realized that I was never using the words seriously.’

‘But I felt less affection and respect for you when I said it then, than I do at this minute, when I can’t honestly say it. It was just part of the routine. Pretty despicable I know.’

‘But I can’t be true to the old evil in me, and be false to—whatever may be potentially good in me now!’ he cried. ‘Don’t you see that, Clare?’

The pain in his voice gave her a measure of satisfaction, but she didn’t answer. She knew the part for which she was cast was that of the self-sacrificing heroine, encouraging the man she loved in his spiritual aspirations; but she withheld the words of sympathy and understanding. There was a point where self-sacrifice became dishonesty and dishonour.

‘I realize now that I’ve hopelessly misunderstood you, Clare. I’d say I’d marry you tomorrow, but I know that it would be an insult, now you know the kind of worm I am.’

‘How would you know what I want? I want you, and I don’t care how humiliated I am in the process. D’you understand that? I despise you, and I despise myself for needing you, but I do need.’

‘Clare, you frighten me. What have I done to make you feel like this? I just don’t understand. I’m not worth it.’

‘I, I, I. What have I done? D’you know, I think you’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met.’

‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘You’ve got one foot in the seminary already. When do you go? Next week? I don’t suppose Father Courtney will want to expose you to the temptations of the World and the Flesh a day longer than necessary.’

‘He said I wasn’t ready. He said a lot of rather hard things, like you. Such as that I was trying to use the priesthood as an escape from my personal frustration, that I was dramatizing my own situation, that I was proud and vain, that my idea of Catholicism was up the creek. And so on. He said to go away and come back and see him in a year’s time.’

‘I did. Probably still do. But it’s no use running away from it. Must try and change it. No real hope of doing that of course. But I must make a gesture …’

‘Of course I do, Clare. That’s just the trouble. I like it too much. It’s too easy to be a good Catholic in your home. It’s no real test. But my own home …’

‘Not Blatcham, of course. That’s a kind of bourgeois Sodom and Gomorrah. But my parents perhaps. After all, Mother was a Catholic once … I don’t know.’ After a pause he continued: ‘I haven’t much real hope. But I feel a certain obligation to make amends. For just running away from what I didn’t like, instead of trying to change it. It’s a kind of disloyalty. I mean, I’ve often spoken to you about how I hated the loneliness of my childhood—how warm and rich I found your family life. Well, that’s true, of course, but after all, I would be a different person if I hadn’t had that sort of childhood. I am what I am, and I wouldn’t want to change my identity—nobody does when it comes down to it.’

Was that all then? Well good-bye, it’s been nice knowing you, I’ve enjoyed running my hands up and down your spine, it was so nice of you to give me my faith back, we must keep in touch, I do hope you have a nice life, cheerio.

‘Well I’m not going to. You don’t seem to realize that you have certain obligations to me, a certain loyalty owing to me. From the very first time you took me to the pictures, you started to change me, shape me in your own image, make me like you. Now I’m like you, you’re like I used to be. It’s like a see-saw: one side goes up, one side goes down. That’s me gone down I suppose. I suppose we were once dead level, but I don’t especially remember it. There must have been a time when we didn’t quarrel, when we were just content to be together. Wasn’t there?’

Damien mopped his brow, but decided not to remove his jacket, as he was wearing braces. He had been watching Clare and Underwood for some time, but without much of interest developing. When she threw herself down on the grass, he had expected Underwood to take advantage of the situation, but he sat upright and apart. There must be something wrong. They both looked very glum. Was she in trouble, like the Higgins girl? It wouldn’t surprise him.

The thought of this possibility gave him some pleasure, as he visualized the consternation of the Mallory household, their rude awakening to the snake in their bosom. He would enjoy taking charge of the situation, compelling Underwood to marry Clare, showing her that he could still be charitable in spite of the past.

But perhaps she was already as hardened as the little trollop in his own house. He smiled to think how accurate his suspicions had been in that direction. As he fingered the black, transparent things hung up to dry in the bathroom, he had scented sin. He had thought of Doreen’s absences every night, the front-door banging in the early hours of the morning, the whine of a car drawing away from beneath his window. And there was something about the girl, with her contemptuous mouth and lolling posture, something strong and indefinable, like a smell, the smell of a bitch on heat. He had begun to keep track of her movements, to eavesdrop and observe. Last night he had been rewarded by overhearing a quarrel between Doreen and her mother. Doreen was pregnant by her employer. His heart beat faster now, as he recalled the conversation. He heard again Doreen’s rapid, flat speech.

‘What d’you mean, you didn’t know? What d’you think we do till two in the morning—play tiddly-winks?’

‘I don’t know what your father would have done if he was alive. I’ve tried to be a good mother to you … What does he say?’

‘I’ve told you, Mum, his wife won’t divorce him. The old cow. We would have been married long before otherwise.’

‘Mum, are you mad? I went into this with my eyes open. And it was mostly my fault that this happened. If he wants to help—well and good. But I’m not going to turn against him just because of an accident. I’ll go away somewhere and have the baby. There are places you can go.’

Doreen had walked out into the dark hall suddenly, and seen him walking back up the passage away from the kitchen door. She had called up the hall:

Damien flushed at the memory, and shook himself out of his reverie. Mark and Clare were still in the same position. Something was definitely wrong. But there was no point in staying, as he couldn’t get near enough to overhear their conversation. The paint on the seat was hot to his palms as he pushed himself up. He began to stroll round the park, observing the lewd behaviour of the couples lying on the grass. It was a shocking sight to see innocent little children chasing a ball among their hot desires, burning like dangerous flowers in the grass, each couple shameless and oblivious, weaving around themselves a tight cocoon of lust and indifference to others. Damien donned his dark glasses. He deliberately left the path and picked his way through the sprawling limbs, his head erect, and eyes slanting in all directions. He felt himself to be a kind of recording angel; it seemed necessary that someone should see all this who was aware of its sinfulness, of its stench in the nostrils of God. With a thrill of triumph he spotted a youth’s hand under a girl’s skirt; but her low, appallingly pleased giggle hollowed out his solar plexus. He would never be unmoved by a woman’s lust.

Turning over, she looked up at Damien’s dog-face, and then sat up quickly, trying to repair or disguise the ravages to her appearance caused by the emotional racking she had just endured. She was rarely pleased to see Damien, but at that moment she could cheerfully have driven red-hot nails into his ugly wedge of a face.

‘Where is your usual escort?’ asked Damien, smiling and showing his crowded, carious teeth.

‘He—Mark you mean?—he had to go back. I like it here. I thought I’d stay for a while.’

He stood over her, his black suit and ugly, smiling face contributing to a vague impression of evil. But she had to sit there fighting to regain her composure.

‘You look flushed. Are you sure it’s wise to lie in this sun without a hat?’

‘It seems a long time since we had a chance to talk alone.’ His pale, piggy eyes scrutinized her.

‘Yes. I think so. You have been very much in Mark Underwood’s company, have you not? You will be thinking of a more permanent relationship soon, no doubt.’

His impertinence infuriated her. All the hell of the afternoon, and now this odious cousin of hers had to come poking his sharp nose into her private affairs.

‘If you don’t mind, Damien, I think that’s my business, and I wish you’d leave me alone.’

Help? What the hell does he mean, help? She watched his black, angular figure move at a sedate, clerical pace, across the grass. But her thoughts seemed to get lost in the heat. She was beginning to feel dizzy. Time to go home. Home? O God, no, not while Mark was there, and the others. Where then? The pictures? Yes, the pictures. It seemed, as her mother would have said, ‘a crime’ to waste a beautiful afternoon in a stuffy cinema, but she might be able to shed her troubles there for a few hours. And it might worry Mark if she didn’t come back till late. Perhaps he wouldn’t leave. That was unkind of course, but so what?

She sat up, and, taking out her compact, powdered her face lightly and combed her hair. She stood up, a little unsteadily, and smoothed her frock. Then she set off across the shimmering grass, towards the dank, smelly, but mercifully cool ‘Ladies’.

Emerging once more into the glare, she put a hand to her throbbing head, and decided that she must have a cup of tea. She found herself hurrying unnecessarily, weaving her way through the groups of people that drifted along the narrow paths, side-stepping the large and opulent prams that were moored to benches where smug mothers sat knitting and staring, dodging the children who chased each other in and out of the grown-ups’ legs. She forced herself to dawdle. She paused outside the wire cage of a tennis court. The sweaty exertions of the players, the movement of their pale, hairy legs, their breathless staccato shouts of ‘Oh, well played!’ and ‘Just out!’ occupied her for a few minutes. Then she moved on. Across the bumpy, threadbare putting-green, clots of people moved slowly from hole to hole, children eager and competitive, adults bored and tolerant. A group of Teddy-boys in full uniform emerged from the keeper’s hut, incongruously equipped with golf sticks and little white balls. A monumental granite drinking-fountain towered up, with battered, insanitary metal cups hanging from it by chains. A little boy stretched up, struggling to work the plunger. Clare stopped and held him up while he drank. When she thought he had had enough, she put him down, and he ran off without a word.

She had never done this before. She had never really been out alone. Before she met Mark she had very rarely gone out except to the school or church.

Mark. It wasn’t long before the pain of loss began to penetrate the anaesthetic of crowds, of other people’s activity. What was to happen, what would happen tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that—what on earth could fill the vacuum that yawned in front of her?

She had come to the refreshment hut, a crowded, sticky bee-hive. She stood in the queue for some minutes, till she was served by a sweating, grimy woman, who sprayed from a height a tray full of cups, and slapped the change down on a counter awash with various fluids. Clare levered the coins off the counter, and carried her cup out into the small enclosure, where she balanced it on an unsteady iron table, her feet cushioned by a carpet of litter. An unwholesome little boy, his face smeared by jam and snot, stared up at her, writhing slightly, with one hand between his legs, and one finger poked up his nose. Clare looked away. When she looked back, he had mercifully disappeared. She took three aspirins from her handbag and swallowed them, grimacing, with the last tepid mouthful of tea. Then she rose, and walked towards the park gates.

Yes, already the numbness of shock was fading, and she felt the first spasm of the enormous pain that awaited her, and she was frightened. Self-pity welled up in her. I’ll never be nice to anyone again, she vowed, like a child in a tearful rage. It’s trying to be nice to people that gets me into trouble—and it doesn’t help the people either. First Hilda, then Damien, then Mark. Hilda’s life was ruined—she was a complete neurotic. Damien was all queer and twisted because he had thought she liked him when she didn’t. And Mark—he would never make a priest. He would end up as another frustrated religious failure like herself and Damien. Religion had ruined him. Religion had ruined them all. Making them think there was nothing they couldn’t do with their own lives, and other people’s. Love thy neighbour as thyself. It was dangerous advice. Love was like a bus driven by a child: the more passengers, the more fatalities. Mark wouldn’t suffer too much though. He was lucky, he couldn’t really love. He came from a loveless home, where the emotions were sterilized to avoid infection. But her own home was a hot-bed for the emotions. The strain of living there in the weeks to come would be intolerable. You couldn’t be alone with your tragedy, you were expected to bring it into the living-room with you, as the others brought their newspapers, knitting, homework.

She increased her pace, anxious to get to the cinema quickly, to distract her mind from too clearly visualizing life without Mark. She stepped off the pavement, and a car with squealing brakes drove her back again, frightened and flustered. The driver yelled something at her as he passed, and the bystanders regarded her disapprovingly. She crossed the road, and continued walking a little unsteadily. Thank God the Palladium was just round the corner. It was a pity perhaps that the car had not knocked her down. She saw herself, wan and bravely smiling in the hospital bed, with Mark grave and repentant at the bedside … Oh, don’t be so stupid. Forget him.

She turned the corner and glanced up at the hoarding above the cinema’s portico, to see what was to be her fate for the next three hours. Just about the last thing she wanted to see—a noisy film all about Rock ’n Roll. Oh well, she couldn’t drag herself as far as the Rex. As she made for the doors she was suddenly halted by the realization that she had no money with her. She had spent her last sixpence on the tea. She had a cheque-book, but the banks were shut. Oh fool! What could she do? She couldn’t go home for money.

A noisy group of young people passed her as they turned into the cinema. They were singing, and one couple executed some jive steps on the pavement. The girl was wearing a tight, white sweater with ‘ROCK’ embroidered across her bosom. Clare moved on purposefully, as if it was necessary to disguise the fact that she had no money. But she had no purpose either. She was tired, hot, upset. She felt foul. She wanted to die. Or sit down, anyway. But where? To sit down in a café you had to buy a cup of tea. The park was too far away. She experienced for the first time the frightening inhospitality of city streets. You couldn’t just sit down in a street. There was only one place left to her.

Mrs Mallory stepped out of the doctor’s into the sunlight and bounded down the hill, scarcely able to contain her glee. For the first time in her life London—Brickley—seemed beautiful. The tall Victorian houses, propped against the side of the hill, the railway lines shimmering in the heat even the pungent odour of the Marmite factory, seemed transformed by her happiness. She beamed at two scruffy little girls who were pushing a doll’s pram, grotesquely shod in their mother’s high-heeled shoes. Lovingly, as if repeating one of the poems she had learnt as a girl, and never forgotten, she crooned to herself the doctor’s words, ‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs Mallory. Just a lump of surplus tissue.’

‘Probably a touch of heartburn which you associated with the lump because you were worried about it. Or may have been completely imaginary. How long has it been there?’

‘There you are. You’ve been worrying about it for years. Why didn’t you come and see me before?’

Why indeed? How glad she was that Tom had finally badgered her into going. And how glad he would be when she told him. It would be about seven o’clock when he got back from the cricket match with Patrick.

It would do Patrick good to get a bit of fresh air. He had been off form lately. He had probably been worrying about his vocation. But it was too soon to worry about that. He had asked if he could go to the seminary school at once, but he had seemed relieved when Tom advised against it. As Tom said, both Clare and Damien had tried their vocations too early in life. As he said, you ought to know what you were giving up before you gave it up.

She crossed Maple Road to get into the shade. It was very hot. Perhaps they would have a good summer this year. It was time they all had a holiday. The whole family together. Perhaps Mark would come with them. He was looking washed out after his exams, and Clare would like it.

She let herself into the house, and made herself a cup of tea. Everyone was out, and she was impatient for them all to come in. She was so happy she wanted to be especially nice to everybody. They would have salmon for tea, she decided. She went to the larder and opened two tins. She laid the table, but it was no use preparing the salad yet. She would go and clean Mark’s room.

It was a shambles as usual. Boys’ rooms always were. The desk was a chaos of open books—she never understood how he could read so many at once. She had difficulty in dusting the desk. An exercise book slithered towards the edge of the desk and she just managed to grasp one cover. The book flopped open, and a loose page fluttered to the floor. She recovered it and was about to slip it back into the book, when she realized that if she put it back in the wrong place, Mark might think she had been snooping. As she hesitated, she glanced at the loose page to see if it offered any clue to its rightful position in the book. What she saw made her read the whole page carefully. As she read her right hand strayed up to her left breast.

Mark wearily climbed the steps of number 89, and let himself in. The hall was deliciously cool and dark. He decided to go upstairs and pack. How on earth was he to explain his abrupt departure to the family?

She came out of the kitchen, looking oddly grave. Perhaps this would be the ideal opportunity; but he didn’t feel prepared.

They didn’t go into the kitchen, but into the front parlour which was rarely used on weekdays. It was the room that Mark liked least. Cheap, ugly furniture acquired a certain character when it was battered and well-used. Here it was in an artificial state of preservation. But what was all this about anyway? He began to feel rather uneasy as he sat down on one of the hard, rexine-covered arm-chairs. Mrs Mallory sat down on an upright, wooden chair.

‘You’ve become one of the family. You eat with us, go to church with us, though how you can … You take my daughter out …’

‘Yes, Mrs Mallory?’ This could only be leading up to one thing: when are you going to marry my daughter? He was surprised and annoyed by Mrs Mallory’s lack of tact. And what was that bit about church, anyway? She looked away from him, and went over to straighten a picture on the wall.

‘What I mean is, that what I have to say to you, I wouldn’t say if you hadn’t been one of the family. If you were just a lodger, coming and going in your own way, I’d say it was none of my business.’

She pulled a piece of folded paper from her overall pocket, and handed it to him.

‘I found this in your room, Mark. You must take my word for it that I saw it by accident. But I’m not ashamed of having read it. I call it filth, and I want an explanation.’

He unfolded the paper, and recognized it as a page from his note-book. It must have come loose after he had torn out his diary of Student Cross. He glanced at it. It comprised a number of jottings, recording odd thoughts about Clare early in their relationship:

‘Clare is still a respectable girl. You can always tell a respectable girl. Their bodies can be mapped out like butchers’ charts … Touch one of the forbidden areas—breast, rump or loin, and you encounter resistance …’

‘In the cold light of day it seems incredible that I toppled to my knees in so abject a manner. But it was the frustrated libido seeking spiritual orgasm … if I could have copulated with Clare, or merely stroked her breasts a bit …’

There were several other pieces, including the first stanza of the unfinished Ode On His Beloved’s Urination, but he didn’t bother to read it all. He folded the paper, and put it in his pocket.

He really didn’t. He could probably clear himself with Mrs Mallory if he really applied himself to it. She was a reasonable woman, and he knew that she liked him. He could explain that this had been written a long time ago, when he was quite a different person. He could even show her the diary of Student Cross, which had once, ironically, been attached to the offending page, to demonstrate the sincerity of his change of heart. But would this solve any problems? Any such explanation must inevitably end with a declaration of his honourable intentions towards Clare. God, what a situation!

Then suddenly, he came to a decision, and plunged on before he had time to reconsider it.

‘You have every reason to be. I’m sorry. Obviously I can’t stay here any longer. I’ll leave tonight.’

‘Yes. I’ll go and pack now. I don’t think it would do any good to go on talking.’ He rose, and moved towards the door.

He looked into her troubled eyes, and saw that the consequences of her act were beginning to dawn on her.

When Clare got to the church, Father Kipling was standing in the forecourt, looking about rather anxiously. His face registered relief when he saw her.

‘Clare! You’re the answer to my prayer. Would you mind very much witnessing a marriage? It won’t take long.’

She felt mildly perplexed, but too punch-drunk to care. Jilted, nearly run over, penniless, witness to a marriage of strangers—so what? All in a day’s hell. Mallory can take it.

‘I feel sorry for the couple,’ said Father Kipling confidentially, as he ushered her into the church. ‘She’s a foundling, and his people are opposed to the marriage, so there aren’t any guests. His aunt and uncle promised to be witnesses, but were dissuaded by his mother at the last moment. But they’re determined to go through with it. As he’s a non-Catholic it’s worse. They haven’t much money, and he’s in the Army. I hope they’re doing the right thing. I can’t remember having seen them in church before. Still, there’s nothing I can do. They’re both over twenty-one, and he’s signed all the papers.’

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour was a church that contrived to be acutely uncomfortable under all climatic conditions. Thus it was both dark and hot that afternoon: the tall buildings on either side causing the one, and the low ceiling and tightly shut windows the other.

Clare helped herself liberally to holy water at the entrance, but it was warm on her forehead. At the back of the church knelt Mrs Duffy, the school caretaker, saying her beads. In the front pew the couple sat waiting to be married. Father Kipling stooped and said a few words to them as he passed into the sacristy to vest, and they turned round and looked at Clare. She smiled, and the girl smiled back. The man looked grave and worried. How absolutely awful to be married in this way. The girl—it seemed sarcastic to call her the bride—was wearing a cheap costume in lilac that looked stiff and new. The man wore a rough, uncomfortable-looking uniform. His hair had been cropped cruelly short, and a piece of plaster covered a boil on his red, raw neck. She was kneeling; he sat stolidly, hands on knees.

Father Kipling emerged from the sacristy with a small, intrigued acolyte. He motioned them all up to the altar rails. With a twinge of horror, Clare realized that Mrs Duffy was her fellow-witness. She scuffed up to the altar in her carpet slippers, and stood next to Clare, with the ill-tempered, tight-lipped expression she always adopted when in church or in the presence of the clergy.

The service was curt and joyless. Clare had planned so often the details of her own wedding, so often pictured herself, radiant in a long, white dress with train, leaning on her father’s arm, advancing with a slow, fragile step down the aisle towards Mark, handsome and smiling in morning dress, while the organ pealed and the candles and flowers blazed, and the guests beamed and whispered in the crowded pews—that she felt a surge of pity for the girl who would have nothing to remember but this sordid little ceremony. The sentiment backfired at once with a sharp reminder of the hopelessness of her own dreams. However, it was true that there were other people as unfortunate as herself.

But were they, this pair? At least they would lie in each other’s arms that night … She grabbed her train of thought just in time and hauled it back. She forced herself to listen to the service, the man’s responses firm and gruff, the girl’s scarcely audible. Almost imperceptibly, they were married. Clare and Mrs Duffy followed them into the sacristy and signed their names as witnesses. As the couple left, Clare smiled and mumbled something about ‘Good luck’. The girl smiled back and murmured a reply; her husband didn’t smile, but he shook hands with Clare and Mrs Duffy, and gravely thanked them. They walked out into their new life, and Clare didn’t know whether to envy or pity them. It was strange that their paths had crossed at this crisis in all their lives. Would they ever cross again?

Mrs Duffy left at once, but Clare felt it would be more polite to linger for a while, rather than rush out after the couple, as if the wedding had been an annoying chore. Father Kipling seemed anxious to chat also.

‘It was lucky that you happened to drop by,’ he said, as he tugged off his surplice.

Father Kipling looked momentarily disconcerted, and a second later Clare remembered his sermon.

‘I—I didn’t feel very well—the heat I suppose—and I just wanted somewhere to sit down,’ she explained hurriedly, trying to smooth over her faux pas. ‘But I found that I hadn’t any money with me, so I came along here instead.’ That sounded worse than ever. She just couldn’t cope this afternoon.

‘Well, it was the good Lord who directed you to supply my need, no doubt,’ said Father Kipling, a trifle mechanically. He was in his shirt-sleeves now, and went over to the sink to wash his hands, rolling up his sleeves over thin, white clerical forearms, covered with black hairs. She had never seen him engaged in such mundane activity, and yet he did not seem to find her presence an embarrassment.

‘Do you go often to the cinema, Clare?’ he asked. ‘You can be quite candid,’ he added with a wry smile, as he perceived her hesitation. ‘I shan’t preach at you—my last sermon on the subject was pretty disastrous.’

‘I think there was a lot of truth in what you said, Father. It needed saying.’

‘It’s very kind of you to say so. The bishop didn’t share your view. I wonder—I’ve wondered for a long time—was I right, or was I wrong? I must have been wrong I suppose. The crusade was certainly a failure.’

He stooped over the sink, leaning heavily on locked arms, and staring at his hands, flattened against the bottom of the bowl. The sense of failure that haloed his bowed head made Clare conscious for the first time of his identity as a person. He had never been an impressive priest—dispensing sacraments, sermons and whist-drive announcements with the same patient ennui, like a weary shopkeeper who has forgotten why he ever started to sell. But now, at this moment, she understood his inadequacy in personal terms, realized what it meant to him not to be able to move people, not to be able to find the encouraging word, the inspiring slogan.

‘I had a very enlightening conversation about the whole subject with the young man who’s staying with you at the moment.’

‘Mark, Father?’ What malicious devil had turned the conversation in this direction?

‘Yes, young Underwood. He came to see me the other evening. I think he may have a vocation—that’s confidential, of course.’

‘I thought I’d tell you, because you could probably help him. I know what an important part your family has played in his return to the Faith.’

‘He’s got some rather unorthodox ideas mind you, but that’s all to the good when you’re young. It’s his university education you know—it tells, it tells. Now I went into a seminary straight from school. I don’t regret it, of course—I might never have been a priest otherwise—but I often think that that’s why I just don’t seem able to come to grips with the modern world.’ He reached for a towel. ‘It was just at the end of the First World War when I went into the seminary. I came out seven years later, and the whole world had changed. I don’t think I ever caught up with it. Do you know,’ he said, with a rather pathetic, confiding tone, like a patient describing embarrassing symptoms to a doctor, ‘I sometimes think that either I’m mad, or everyone else is. I switch on the radio, open a newspaper or a magazine, glance at an advertisement—it all seems like madness to me. Madness. Now Father Dalby over at All Souls, Bayditch—he organizes dances with this—what d’you call it—Rock and Roll?—for the young people of his parish on Sunday evenings. He says attendance at evening service has doubled as a result. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But he was a late vocation you see. He understands all these things. I can see Mark Underwood turning out like that. Remarkable young man you know. Remarkable.’

This was to be her special torture then: just when she had discovered what a selfish, callous, calculating person Mark was, everybody was going to try and sell him to her.

‘He told me some extraordinary facts. For instance, we were talking about the cinema, and he told me that the average Hollywood film reaches a larger public than the Holy Scriptures. Did you know that?’

‘I think I’ve heard Mark say it before, Father,’ she replied. Eleven times to be exact, she added savagely, under her breath.

‘His criticism of my sermon was that I had not gone far enough,’ continued Father Kipling. (Oh, Mark had cheek all right, criticizing the parish priest’s sermons to his face. Perhaps he would make a successful priest after all—he had the glibness, the assurance that this old man lacked—but not a holy priest.)

One by one the words and phrases with which Mark had bored her, were regurgitated by the credulous old priest … ‘exchange of values … living by proxy … the superlife … ultimately through television … substitute for living …’ She felt an irresistible urge to object, to protest.

‘I sometimes wonder whether Mark really knows as much about ordinary people as he likes to think. After all, there are lots of people for whom the cinema is just a place to go, to get away from the children for a few hours, to be together perhaps, for a courting couple. For an old-age pensioner, a warm place on a winter’s afternoon. They all know what real life is—only too well. They don’t confuse it with what they see on the screen. Take those two you just married, Father. It’s quite probable that they did most of their courting in the cinema. But they’re not turning their backs on life, are they?’

‘No, they’re not. Quite the contrary. They’re really brave I suppose. I wish I could help them somehow.’

She was surprised to find the newly-weds still in the church forecourt, until she saw a photographer packing up his equipment. She visualized the photo in its cheap frame, enshrined on the mantelpiece, the pathetic couple smiling determinedly out into the dingy bed-sitter, where nappies steamed in front of the fire, and the smell of fried food lay heavy on the air.

They seemed anxious and hesitant about leaving, as if uncertain of which direction to take. Clare had a nose for worry and unhappiness, and she scented it now. But this sense was always leading her into trouble—why get involved again?

Clare was about to decline, when she looked into the girl’s timid, pleading eyes, and realized with surprise that the invitation was genuine—that she was to represent, however inadequately, their ‘reception’.

‘Well, I would like a cup of tea. Are you sure you don’t want to be alone with your husband?’

‘No, you come along,’ said the man. He didn’t seem quite a man, standing stiff and awkward in his ill-fitting uniform. Neither did he seem quite a boy. He was obviously making a great effort to cope with a load of premature responsibility.

‘You see, I work in a cafeteria,’ confided the girl, as they moved off. ‘And I don’t really know any other places round here. Naturally I don’t want to go there.’ She clung to her husband’s arm, but seemed grateful for Clare’s company.

It was almost certainly the first wedding breakfast that particular Lyons’ teashop had provided. Recollecting that she had no money with her, Clare asked only for a cup of tea; but Len made her and Bridget sit down while he queued, and returned with a loaded tray. They had beans and bacon on toast, sugar-coated buns, ice-cream and tea. Clare ate bravely, anxious not to disappoint them.

‘Bridget tells me you’ve just began your National Service, Len,’ said Clare.

‘That’s if Sergeant Towser lets us go in time to catch the 4.15 from Richmond. Then I can get the 4.47 from Darlington. Gets into King’s Cross at two minutes past eleven. If I miss that, it’s the 5 o’clock from Richmond, and the 6.30 from Darlington, which doesn’t get into London till twenty past twelve. You can get the 4.29 from Richmond to York, which is supposed to connect with the 4.47, but it’s always late …’

He discussed the railway time-table earnestly for some minutes. It obviously dominated his life at the moment. A slender column of arrival and departure times was the only link between him and Bridget, and he counted his happiness in hours.

They talked about Len’s life in the Army for a while. Bridget was indignant and rebellious.

‘It’s disgusting, the huts they have to live in. Windows missing and doors off the hinges. It doesn’t sound fit for Pigs.’

‘Fit for sheep though,’ said Len, laconically. ‘The hut we moved into last week, we had to sweep the sheep-dirt out first. They had been living in it for years. Condemned, the huts were, in 1941.’

‘And once he woke up in the early morning, and saw a rat in the middle of the floor, looking at him. Ugh!’ Bridget shuddered.

‘It’s not the conditions I mind so much though,’ said Len, ‘it’s the officers and N.C.Os. The way they treat you. Like bits of dirt. “Go here, go there, do this, do that. Double!” And their stupid wisecracks. “Did you shave this morning? Well put a blade in the razor next time.” Blimey, the times I’ve heard that! And you can’t do a thing. Not a thing.’

‘Oh, don’t let’s talk about it, Len,’ said Bridget miserably. ‘It just reminds me that you’re going back on Tuesday.’

A glum silence descended on them. A limp, faded woman in a blue overall cleared away their dirty plates, and passed a damp rag over the table, which left small particles of food in its wake. Clare tried to start a new and more cheerful topic of conversation.

But she only seemed to uncover more and more misery and misfortune whichever way she turned. Gradually the appalling insecurity of their position was revealed to her, item by item: how Len had a widowed mother. How he had intended that they should live with her for a while, and how his mother had a grudge against Bridget, and the terrible row they had had the previous night, and how they didn’t know where they were going to live.

‘It was too late to postpone the wedding, I suppose?’ said Clare, thinking that in reason this was all they could have done.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Len emphatically. ‘I made up my mind that we were going to get married, and nothing was going to make me change my mind. I’m not sorry either.’

Bridget clasped his hand and smiled at him. ‘You see, we hadn’t intended to get married for a long time yet—there being so many drawbacks,’ she began.

‘I always meant that we should have a real start—a place of our own. And that Bridget shouldn’t have to go on working. But it didn’t work out that way. You see—I could never see Bridget home when we went out.’ He stopped, as though this explained everything.

‘Oh, nothing happened to me. I got away. He was only a rotten little Teddy-boy.’

‘I’ll break his neck if ever I get hold of him,’ said Len, looking fiercely round the teashop. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen him since, Bridget?’

‘I told you I haven’t. Don’t think about it, dear. It’s all over now. It can’t happen again, now we’re married. We’ve him to thank for being married I suppose.’

‘That’s why we got married see. As quick as we could. And that wasn’t quick enough for my liking.’

‘That was Father Kipling. He would insist that Len had Instructions. But he was very nice. He arranged for Len to have them at the camp.’

Clare admired their resolution, but could not understand the logic of their action. If Len was away in the Army for most of the time, Bridget would scarcely be any safer than before. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

‘No, I never go now. But I was brought up in a Catholic Home you see. I was an orphan. Len wanted us to get married in a Registry Office, but somehow, I wouldn’t have felt properly married. You know.’

‘I got nothing against religion—any religion,’ said Len. ‘I just wanted us to be married as soon as possible. He was very long-winded, that padre.’

‘I don’t know really. We were never out of church at the Home. It was one long church. And Sunday’s such a short day—I’m always so worn out.’

‘We’ll have to spend the night at our own places. Till we get something worked out,’ said Bridget.

‘Will you let me lend you five pounds, Len, and take a couple of days at Southend, or somewhere?’ asked Clare. ‘I could give you more, but you might worry about paying me back.’

‘Honestly, it’s the best thing, Bridget,’ said Clare. ‘After all, you’re only married once. You must get away, even if it’s only for a couple of days. While you’re away, I’ll make some inquiries. I think I may be able to help you. You see, the parish owns some property which is rented very cheaply to deserving people. Old Miss Mahoney had a little house in Tanner Road, but she had to go into hospital last week, and if she ever comes out, she’ll have to go into a home for old people. So the house might become vacant. And Father Kipling mentioned that he’d like to help you. So I’ll hold him to his word.’

‘It’s nothing wonderful, I assure you. It’s old and dirty, and I think it’s due to be condemned in ten years’ time.’

‘Well, I’m not promising anything. But I’ll do my best.’ She paused. ‘There’s one snag.’

‘Well … you realize that it doesn’t matter to me whether you go to church or not. But it would probably matter to Father Kipling.’

‘Oh that’s all right,’ said Bridget with relief. ‘I don’t mind going to church again if it means we get a house. I’d quite like to go, really.’

‘There aren’t any reasons, Len. Here, take the cheque.’ She sensed that he didn’t know what to do with it, and didn’t want to admit his ignorance. She explained.

When they parted outside the Lyons, Bridget reached up and kissed Clare lightly on the cheek. It reminded her of Hilda, and she felt a wave of panic, but fought it down.

‘See you on Monday evening then,’ she said, smiling. ‘Have a lovely week-end.’

As she walked back towards the Presbytery to interview Father Kipling, she did not feel unhappy any more. She didn’t feel happy either. What was the name of her feeling she did not know, but she was prepared to go on.

She passed the cinema again. There were queues outside now—a young and noisy crowd. They were singing and clapping to the rhythm. She couldn’t remember seeing such a cheerful crowd queuing for the cinema, and she took pleasure in their high spirits; but she was glad that she hadn’t gone to the pictures.

‘Just like the old days, sir,’ said Bill, as he staggered out on to the pavement with the long-disused queue signs—so long, in fact, that he had had to alter the prices.

‘Yes, Bill,’ replied Mr Berkley, surveying the crowd benevolently. ‘Just like the old days.’

It wasn’t really like the old days, but he was too pleased to quibble. All the week the receipts had been unusually high, but this evening he expected to break all records. And in the summer too. This Rock and Roll film had been a brainwave. The audiences were noisy but not, so far, violent. They enjoyed themselves immensely. That was the most refreshing thing about it.

Bill unleashed from the two-and-nine queue a score of eager young people. Mr Berkley beamed on their youth and vitality, their preposterous clothes and hair-cuts, as they surged past him. The audiences were mainly young, but the older people seemed to find the high spirits around them infectious, for they were grinning and smiling, amused, but not contemptuous. Cinema-goers took their pleasure so glumly as a rule, it was good to see smiling, eager faces, to hear a continual murmur of excitement and enjoyment in the auditorium. Audience participation: that was the really interesting aspect of the thing. The way they clapped their hands to the music, sang the words, and applauded rapturously after each number. It seemed to create that relationship, that tension between the audience and the performers which you got in a theatre, in a music-hall, but not usually in a cinema. He heard a muffled cheer from the auditorium, and glanced at his watch.

‘You’d better tell them that the last showing has just started, Bill,’ said Mr Brickley. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of any more getting in now. I’m going inside.’

Mr Berkley’s good spirits almost made him forget the Doreen affair. But the face of the new usherette he had just engaged to replace her rapped his conscience like a dentist’s probe on a decayed tooth. He thought of her on the night train to Newcastle (where he knew of a kindly, broadminded landlady who would see her through her trouble), and shuddered sympathetically. She had been a little brick, Doreen. When she told him calmly about the baby, he had genuinely wished that his wife would divorce him. She wouldn’t, of course, but the realization that he really wished she would, made him feel a little less guilty. Not so guiltless, however, that he did not plunge into the warm, lively auditorium with a fervent desire to avoid introspection for a while.

He stood at the back of the packed auditorium. There were people standing all along the back, and down the sides. He watched with interest a young girl in front of him in tight trousers. Her buttocks were twitching rhythmically to the music. On each alternate beat a hollow appeared in her left flank.

The mystery remained. It was, judged by normal standards, a poor film of ‘B’ feature quality, cheaply produced, unimaginatively directed, in most cases poorly acted by musicians playing themselves, in black and white, on a square screen. The plot was minimal and artificial. What was left? The music. This was what the audience wanted. Ideally, a series of filmed band-numbers would have suited them best. The pseudo-dramatic build-up for the band was an irritating formality: each switch from the stage or dancehall to a love-scene was greeted with groans. And they resented the cliché of representing the success of the band by a series of brief musical sequences alternating with shots of trains, because their clapping accompaniment was interrupted as soon as it began. He remembered vividly one particularly interesting example from the previous evening: at one point in the film the love interest was sorted out in the control-room of a broadcasting studio. Through the glass came faintly the sound of Rock Around The Clock. At once the audience had taken up the song, and drowned the dialogue. Now they were at it again:

Four o’clock, five o’clock, six o’clock rock,

Seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock rock,

Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock rock!

We’re gonna rock

Around

The clock

Tonight!

Mr Berkley found himself responding to the insistent beat. The beat was the only genuinely musical element in it, of course. Otherwise it was largely a stunt—the saxophonist acting like a contortionist while continuing to play, the bass-player straddling his instrument on the floor, as if he were raping it; and it was de rigueur for the pianist to stand at his instrument, and play with one hand, thus giving himself freedom for muscular improvisation.

The saxophonist began a solo. Mr Berkley glanced at the young man beside him. His eyes were closed; he had passed into the body of the instrumentalist; he swayed back, with knees slightly bent, and on his face seemed to flicker an expression of anxiety as to whether his frame could bear the strain of ecstasy. The saxophone was undoubtedly the true vox humana of instruments. The organ could not approach this strangled cry that came welling up from the bowels, from the primitive consciousness of life, of pain, of joy; the long, tortured note that slowly unwound your intestines to be twanged by the electric guitarist.

It was the constant enigma of modern civilization: how the cheap, the shoddy, the manufactured, still held an indestructible seed of truth and vitality, could still be a source of salvation. The way a Tin Pan Alley ballad, with its false sentiment and facile melody, could still seem piercingly lovely, and could still evoke genuine emotions; the way a Woolworth’s calendar could make someone see beauty; the way a plastic crucifix could inspire the rarest worship. This Rock and Roll was a manufactured music, with scarcely a shred of genuine folk content. In a year it would be dead, forgotten. The men who now promoted it would have found something new to replace it. In itself it was valueless. Yet in this cinema this evening it had awakened how many deadened souls to some kind of life?

As this last thought passed through his mind, Mr Berkley noticed a disturbance at the other side of the cinema. The band on the screen were playing See You Later Alligator, and some couples were jiving in the aisles. This is going a bit too far, he thought, as he hurried to the scene.

Harry’s legs ached. It didn’t look as though he was going to get a seat. He had walked a long way that day. He did a lot of walking now—walking and going to the pictures.

He took a packet of chewing gum out of his pocket, and peeled off the wrapping; it slipped out of his fingers, and fell over the barrier on to the seats below. A man looked up in annoyance.

He tapped his feet to the music. It’s got something, this Rock ’n Roll, he decided. He wanted to clap his hands to the music, but didn’t. There was a little blonde piece beside him; she couldn’t keep still, kept bouncing about every time the band played a number.

‘Oh dig that crazy sax!’ she shrilled. There was a ripple of laughter around them. Harry smiled. The place was getting noisy. People were getting up out of their seats and were jiving in the aisles. Harry wanted to take the little blonde piece and jive with her. But he didn’t.

‘No, I can’t. I don’t know how to do it,’ he stammered. But she wasn’t listening.

It didn’t really matter. He just swivelled around in the middle, while she danced. He champed on his gum in time to the music, and kept a poker-faced expression. She pushed him into the right positions. She jerked up his arm, and spun round under it. Her skirt rose to her thighs. She had good legs. The whole cinema seemed to be dancing now. There was a terrific din, everybody was singing and dancing. It was great. The lights went on, but the music and dancing continued. The blonde was good-looking in a cheeky sort of way. Her hard little breasts poked out under her sweater; they didn’t wobble, they clung to her twisting body. It was surprising how strong she was. She pulled him past her, and as he went he let his hand float out casually behind him, as he had seen it done, and was overjoyed to feel her small, damp hand fall solidly into his palm. He turned, and they laughed.

They broke and separated. The space between them seemed to be almost solid, you could see it had edges. They played around it for a while, keeping the rhythm of the music all the time, postponing the pleasure of contact. Together they swooped back. Harry grabbed her hand and jerked her back into his arms. Holding her small, hard waist, he spun her round. Harry laughed out loud.

Doreen hunched miserably over her film magazine in the corner of the compartment, as the train rumbled through the night towards the north. It was the longest journey she had ever made in her life, and she had never been farther north than Harringay Arena. She was being carried into strange, alien territory, grim and bleak, in and out of stations with unfamiliar names, where the porters shouted to each other in uncouth accents. It’s all your fault, you little bastard, she thought without malice, as she stroked her stomach under her new coat—bought that morning to cheer herself up. She didn’t particularly like the tent style, but there was the future to think of. Not that she had much of a future to look forward to. Ah well, no use moping. Things could be worse. Maurice had been quite decent, seemed quite upset to see her go, swore he would try and get a divorce, but the old cow would sooner die, you could tell from her photograph. Anyway, he had given her enough money to have the baby comfortably; and she had already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to have it adopted. She turned back to the magazine.

Hottest gossip-point round the Hollywood niteries is Amber Lush’s latest escort, beefcake boy Murl Crater. Murl (remember him in Sandstorm?) was the second husband of Barbara Baines, formerly married to Amber’s husband Bill Brix. Amber and Bill are separated at the moment. Asked if she was contemplating a divorce, Amber said: ‘Murl and I are just good friends. He’s so sincere, he helps me to work out my personal problems. Murl is a very rare person, but I’m not rushing into marriage again. I want to concentrate on being a good actress.’ Amber is said to have her eyes on the plum part of Beatrice in the screen version of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Doreen felt suddenly depressed again. She closed the magazine in disgust. These film-stars were worse than anybody. The man opposite her threw down his Reveille at the same moment, and their eyes met. He smiled at her.

‘Newcassle you mean,’ he said with a grin. ‘They won’t understand you up there if you say “Newcastle”.’

‘I know what y’mean,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Now my job’s up north, or I wouldn’t be on this train now. I’d be drinkin’ a pint of mild an’ bitter in the “Elephant and Castle”. Bloomin’ shame, they’re gerna knock it dahn.’

‘Pal-a-mine knows the man’ger of the Regal in Newcastle. ’E’ll fix you up …’

She wasn’t going to encourage him. He might be a real friend, or he might not. In any case she could always find out his real intentions by telling him she was pregnant. That was the quickest way of getting rid of wolves. She smiled secretly as she thought of it. The little bastard inside her was a kind of protection. She could look after herself. But there was no reason why she shouldn’t enjoy a bit of company for the rest of the journey.

‘You ought to go to the Empress Monday nights. They have Rock ev’ry Monday.’

She sat down on the low wall. There were little spots of cement all along the top, where the railings had been torn out in the war.

‘Ooh, my feet!’ She slipped off her right shoe, and wriggled her toes. It was a small, neat foot. Everything about her was small and neat.

‘I never enjoyed myself so much before.’ He laughed. ‘That old geyser rushing about all over the place, trying to stop people dancing.’

‘And when they stopped the film, and everybody made such a row they had to start it again.’

‘Well, I’ll have to go in,’ she said, standing up and slipping on her shoe. ‘G’night, Harry.’

Again the space between them seemed solid. But it was smaller. Harry bent over it and kissed her, nearly overbalancing.

For half an hour they had lain in each other’s arms in the creaking guest-house bed, too scared with happiness to move. Then Len began gently to stroke her tender body with his rough fingers. Now he was ready, and he covered her body with his own, and breached her body with his own. As they clung together in that unutterable pleasure, he felt that they were defying everything that had persecuted them. He disapproved of the casual obscenity of barrack-room conversation, but as he groped for words to express his triumphant passion, he found to his surprise that he could not say them to Bridget. They would sound to her like a string of incoherent obscenities:—the Army and—second stag on East Wing Guard and—Sergeant Towser who cancelled his last leave pass and—the troop train back to Catterick on Sunday night and—the cold walk from the station to the camp and—the platform where he kissed Bridget good-bye at the end of leave and—the street corner where he had to run for his bus and—the Teddy-boy who had attacked her and—all the people and all the regulations and all the time-tables and all the clocks that had tried for so long to stop them from having this.

Blatcham station never exuded sweetness and light at the best of times, but the last train from London pulled into an atmosphere of peculiarly depressing gloom and resentment: gloom of the fatigued and silent travellers, and resentment of the station staff, who evidently considered it a gross imposition that they were compelled to keep open the station until 11.20 for a handful of passengers returning from some nocturnal debauch in the metropolis. Most of the lights were already extinguished, and the doors of the station bolted, except for one small aperture through which the passengers stumbled into the street. Buses, of course, had ceased running hours ago, so Mark was forced to carry his bags to his home, a mile away. He had intended to leave them at the station, but the Left Luggage Office, he had just been reminded, closed at 9.30.

His bags were heavy, as he had brought everything away with him from Brickley. He didn’t want to have to go back there again—not until he was protected by the Dominican habit, anyway.

In the main street he paused for a rest. The lighted shop windows threw a bleak illumination on to the empty pavements. The arrangements of tins of soup, women’s hats and men’s shoes seemed exactly the same as a year ago. He sensed already the chill, deadly, bourgeois miasma that seemed to rise, choking and suffocating, from the streets of Blatcham. A sensitive soul walked into this town like a white missionary into a malarial swamp. But he was keenly aware that his own missionary life had begun inauspiciously, not to say unheroically.

It had not been pleasant to leave the Mallorys under a cloud. For, although Clare would never reveal the details of their relationship, and although Mrs Mallory would never tell anyone about their conversation of that afternoon, some hint of his disgrace would inevitably filter through to the other members of the family whom he loved: Mr Mallory, the twins, Patrick, Patricia …

But he was already a fallen idol in Patricia’s eyes, all because he had not been able to deny himself a sentimental gesture before leaving. When he had finished packing, he had tapped on her door, and she had looked up from her books, grateful for the interruption.

‘Pat, I’m going away. I can’t explain why, but it will probably be for good. I thought I’d like to give you a little memento.’ He handed to her a copy of A Portrait of The Artist As a Young Man.

For some reason this had been totally unexpected. Patricia had never once mentioned his relationship with Clare, and, absurdly, he had come to assume that it was a matter of indifference to her.

He writhed with embarrassment as he remembered the conversation, and cursed his lack of perception. He had smugly recognized in Patricia symptoms of what he was pleased to term an adolescent crush on himself. Because his own emotional life was selfish, he had assumed that Patricia’s was also, that she was too involved with her own feelings to trouble about Clare’s. And he had confided in Patricia with the subconscious desire of winning from her sympathy and condolence. Instead an unpredictable loyalty to Clare had arisen where he least expected it, to condemn him. Now he had the measure of Patricia’s disillusionment. How contemptible his flight must have appeared to her whom, not long before, he himself had urged not to try and solve her difficulties by running away.

He had found it difficult to resist the temptation to tell Patricia, at least, of his intention to become a Dominican, to go out with a bang instead of a whimper. But he had determined not to exonerate himself in the course of his conversation with Mrs Mallory, and he had held grimly to that resolution. It seemed the least he could do—to deny himself the dramatic gesture, to humiliate himself. It was a kind of expiation, the only kind that really hurt him.

He picked up his bags, and walked slowly down the High Street. As he walked he pondered dully on the crime he was trying to expiate, the murder of Clare’s happiness. But murder was not the right term. Call it euthanasia: for when love is not reciprocated, it festers. Though she did not know it, for Clare there had been no choice except between a swift or a lingering death.

But he felt keenly the odium of his position. No murder is as cold-blooded as euthanasia, which lacks even the passion of hate. The surgeon is isolated by his deed, his unnatural callousness lit by a cold clinical glare.

But these analogies—murder, euthanasia—were summoned up in order to generate a remorse he did not instinctively feel. One could not ignore the existence of situations in which it was necessary to act the part of the cad. That he himself happened to be a congenital cad only made the whole thing more difficult, not easier.

His mother was watching the weather forecast on television when he let himself into the house. She came out into the hall, surprised by the sound.

‘Mark! What a surprise! Why didn’t you phone?’ Your bed isn’t aired or anything …’

He followed her into the living-room. The Union Jack was fluttering on the television screen, and the National Anthem was booming out.

‘He went to bed early. He’s not been too well today. He went to a Masonic dinner last night, and it gave him indigestion.’

‘I stayed up to watch TV. Mark, there was a man who won three thousand pounds answering questions on Shakespeare. I wonder you don’t go in for it.’

It wasn’t going to be easy. He could see that already. It wasn’t going to be easy.

PART THREE